The young men who went underground with experienced miners were not only learning to mine.

They were having an experience of darkness and physical challenge that would have been profoundly different from anything available above ground.

The journey itself was the transformation.

This interpretation cannot be proven from the archaeological evidence.

But it is consistent with the evidence, and it is consistent with what anthropologists and historians have documented about the role of underground spaces in Indigenous ceremonial traditions across North America.

Understanding The Miner As An Individual Within A System