Abstract
Hopi and Navajo oral traditions describing the formation of Meteor 'Barringer' Crater in Arizona are reported in early twentieth century news media, but some scholars claim these traditions are deliberate fabrications or misidentified stories about more recent volcanic events. This paper critically analyses these accounts and examines explanations for the apparent traditions and the history of associated research at the crater. We show that Navajo communities do maintain oral traditions about the crater, and the evidence suggests an unknown person(s) appropriated and/or altered them to generate interest in the structure's impact hypothesis. A motivation may have been to use these traditions to boost interest by investors to mine meteoritic iron believed (at the time) to be buried under the crater floor.
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