Park
Barton Creek Greenbelt
Limestone canyon creek trail revered in Indigenous water ritual and fought for as sacred ground.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to the Barton Creek Greenbelt in Austin follows the ritual life of the water beside the trail, from an annual Indigenous pilgrimage that still ends here with reeds and smoke, to a contested claim that a rock painting far west may map this very spring. It traces belief in the creek's sacredness, voiced by a nineteenth-century landowner and nineteen-nineties activists alike, and the fight it shaped. Listen for that ceremony's sound near the trail's eastern end, closest to Zilker Park.
This audio guide was created using AI.