Emi Koussi is the great volcanic dome that closes the southern Tibesti, the highest point of the whole Sahara, its very name built on the Teda word emi, mountain. Rising far above the surrounding desert and cradling the dreaded natron crater of Era Kohor within its flank, it stands in Teda regard among the commanding heights of a landscape read as watchful and inhabited. Sources vary in how explicitly they record cult at its summit as against the diffuse awe owed to the range's greatest peaks, and its sacred stature is bound up with the perilous crater it carries.