The Coast Miwok people know Mount Tamalpais as their most sacred mountain. It is Tamal-Pa — variously translated as 'coast mountain,' 'bay mountain,' or in some accounts, 'the coast of the dead.' The mountain was the spiritual center of the Miwok world — the place where ceremonies were held, where the dead were addressed, and where the boundary between the human world and the spirit world was thinnest.

From many angles around San Francisco Bay — particularly from the East Bay — the mountain's ridgeline forms the unmistakable profile of a sleeping woman lying on her back: forehead, nose, chin, breasts, folded hands. The Sleeping Lady. The image is so clear that it requires no imagination to see, and it has been recognized independently by virtually every culture that has lived within sight of the mountain.

Who she is depends on who you ask. In one Miwok telling, she is a maiden who fell asleep waiting for her lover and was turned to stone. In others, the mountain is simply alive — sleeping, not dead — and the ceremonies conducted on its slopes are, in part, to avoid waking her.