Shroud­ed in mys­tery, vol­ca­noes across the world have been con­nect­ed with mythol­o­gy, mys­ti­cism, and re­li­gion since an­cient times. In the case of Dev­il's Wood­yard vol­cano in Princes Town, the de­mon­ic op­pres­sor Sa­tan the Dev­il, gave that vol­cano its name.

But deep in the south­west­ern penin­su­la in a forest­ed val­ley amidst the co­conut trees of Co­lum­bia's Es­tate in Ce­dros, there is one vol­cano, called Moth­er Bal­ka or Bal­ka De­vi, which is revered and wor­shipped as a god­dess by Hin­dus.

Every year, ei­ther in the month of April or May, the Bal­ka De­vi vol­cano at­tracts scores of Hin­dus in a pil­grim­age host­ed by the Hin­du Fes­ti­vals So­ci­ety.

Recog­nised as part of the col­lec­tion of the L'En­vieusse mud vol­ca­noes by ge­ol­o­gists, the Bal­ka De­vi vol­cano and mandir is list­ed as a her­itage site by the Na­tion­al Trust. The im­mac­u­late mandir sits on the edge of the vol­cano's crater.

Un­like oth­er vol­ca­noes such as the La­goon Bouffe, Rock Dome Mud Vol­cano, and Marac Mud vol­cano, Bal­ka De­vi vol­cano is quite pop­u­lar. Fre­quent tours are done al­most every week and devo­tees of­ten go to the site on qui­et days to en­joy the am­bi­ence. When the Guardian Me­dia team vis­it­ed the site last week, a bush fire had razed the lands around the site. While smoke waft­ed in­side the mandir, care­tak­ers con­tin­ued their dai­ly tasks of keep­ing the tem­ple clean.

Cu­ra­tor Roopah Ma­haraj said wor­ship of the vol­cano start­ed since the days of in­den­ture­ship by her grand­moth­er Patan­gia Nakar, who came from In­dia. In a sto­ry hand­ed down through oral his­to­ry, Ma­haraj said her grand­moth­er was eight years old when she came to Trinidad with her moth­er aboard the SS Ganges on April 22, 1917. This was the year in­den­ture­ship end­ed. By then, be­tween the pe­ri­od 1845 and 1917, a to­tal of 143,939 In­di­ans had mi­grat­ed to Trinidad un­der the sys­tem of In­di­an in­den­ture­ship to pro­vide labour to the British colo­nial mas­ters.

Ma­haraj said her an­ces­tors ar­rived at Colum­bus Bay and were sent to work in the sug­ar es­tates of Ce­dros.

"My grand­moth­er told us she knew of vol­ca­noes in In­dia and when they saw the vol­cano in Co­lum­bia Es­tate, they be­gan do­ing poo­ja to ap­pease it," Ma­haraj said. She not­ed that In­di­an in­den­tured im­mi­grants got ten-acre parcels of lands in lieu of a re­turn pas­sage to In­dia and many of them set­tled on the es­tates.

"My grand­moth­er used to speak Hin­di and she told us we need­ed to con­tin­ue do­ing poo­ja for Moth­er Bal­ka," she said.

Re­gard­ed as a rein­car­na­tion of the Hin­du god­dess Dur­ga, the pro­tec­tive moth­er of the uni­verse, Ma­haraj said they of­fer the vol­cano milk, wa­ter, food, flow­ers, and grains as a form of ap­pease­ment to pre­vent erup­tions.

The trees sur­round­ing the vol­cano are al­so revered. Swad­dled in glit­ter­ing cloth, the trees rep­re­sent the nine god­dess­es of the Hin­du faith, Ma­haraj said.

Asked whether she was afraid that the vol­cano will erupt one day and de­stroy the tem­ple, Ma­haraj said, "In the zoo, even the wildest an­i­mal is tamed. Moth­er Bal­ka is the earth. This is the form of Dur­ga Ma­ta. She will not hurt us once we do what is right."

Asked whether Bal­ka De­vi was of­fi­cial­ly recog­nised as a god­dess in the Holy scrip­tures, Ma­haraj said yes.

"Bal­ka is not in the Ra­mayan or Ma­hab­harat but it is in the Shiv Pooran, a Holy scrip­ture. When you are do­ing this pu­ja you are re­fer­ring to the Earth. This is what Pun­dit Narad Go­sine told us," she ex­plained.

Ma­haraj said she was cer­tain that once they took care of the vol­cano, it will nev­er erupt.

"Here we live be­cause of her (Moth­er Bal­ka's) grace. The sea is close to here and it wouldn’t take much to break off this part off the is­land from the rest of Trinidad. But why hasn't it hap­pened? We have no earth­quake, vol­cano erup­tion or even heavy rain­fall in this part of the is­land. Here we cool like Goocool. We know once we do our poo­ja, we will nev­er have an erup­tion," Ma­haraj said.

Her daugh­ter Nir­mala Ma­haraj said dur­ing the hey­days of the co­conut in­dus­try, wor­ship­pers were able to dri­ve to the Columbian Es­tate to of­fer poo­ja. How­ev­er, in 2009, The Hin­du Fes­ti­val So­ci­ety led by pres­i­dent Thirb­ha­won See­gob­in and the Brahm Sab­ha built a shrine at the vol­cano's crater.

On its web­site, the Hin­du Fes­ti­vals So­ci­ety said the Bal­ka De­vi Pu­ja seeks to re­store equi­lib­ri­um in the in­ner earth so that peo­ple could be pro­tect­ed from the vi­o­lent ef­fects of earth­quakes, vol­canic erup­tions, tsunamis, and fires.

"This spir­i­tu­al pil­grim­age to Ce­dros to per­form the Bal­ka De­vi pu­ja is a colour­ful and mys­ti­cal event that gen­er­ates rev­er­ence in all for our Di­vine Ma­ta Dur­ga. Devo­tees sing songs of praise and wor­ship in their hearts say­ing "Oh Di­vine and Supreme Moth­er Dur­ga­, you who have pow­er over the Uni­verse and over the in­ner earth, we of­fer you gifts of love and faith from our hearts and souls. Please pro­tect us from all the de­struc­tive forces that abound. Pro­tect us from the pow­er of fire, from the pow­er of the oceans and from the pow­er of the wind. Keep our fam­i­lies, our com­mu­ni­ties and our na­tion safe. We be­seech you, Dur­ga Ma­ta, be mer­ci­ful to us your hum­ble devo­tees," the ar­ti­cle stat­ed.

The pu­ja is com­plet­ed with the cer­e­mo­ni­al plant­i­ng of a jhan­di (flag) in the mouth of the bub­bling vol­cano. The jhan­di is sym­bol­ic of the peace, har­mo­ny, and equi­lib­ri­um that the vol­cano is be­lieved to gen­er­ate.

Dur­ing the dry sea­son, Nir­mal walks on the vol­canic sludge and pulls out weeds which grow on the pe­riph­ery of the crater.

For the tourists who come to the vol­canic site, Nir­mala has a col­lec­tion of arte­facts in­clud­ing Fools Gold found at the Gal­fa vol­cano, an old kerosene and oil lamp, a two-way hand saw, hatch­ets, ham­mers, pokney to stir flames in a fire­wood oven, a grass-knife and sev­er­al oth­er items which were once used by Ce­dros res­i­dents.

An­oth­er res­i­dent, Sunil Sookram, from Granville Vil­lage, said peo­ple be­lieve that the vol­canic mud has heal­ing pow­ers. Peo­ple who suf­fer from arthri­tis, skin ail­ments, and heart dis­ease use the mud on their skin as a means of heal­ing.

Coun­cil­lor for Ce­dros Shankar Teelucks­ingh said the Bal­ka De­vi site, whilst recog­nised as a her­itage site by the Na­tion­al Trust, could be mar­ket­ed in­ter­na­tion­al­ly as a tourist site.

He said the min­istry should do sci­en­tif­ic test­ing on the com­po­nents of the vol­canic mud which many peo­ple use for its heal­ing prop­er­ties.

"Peo­ple could at­test that the vol­canic mud is good for med­i­c­i­nal us­es. I think we could cap­i­talise on that and mar­ket this site for lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al tourism," Teelucks­ingh added.

He said the Bal­ka De­vi shrine was a nat­ur­al tourist at­trac­tion and like oth­er Caribbean na­tions in­clud­ing St Lu­cia, the vol­ca­noes can be an ide­al source of for­eign ex­change.

Geo­sci­en­tist at Touch­stone Ex­plo­ration Xavier Moo­nan said the Bal­ka De­vi vol­cano was part of a col­lec­tion of mud vol­ca­noes which tend to form small pools.

"Col­lec­tive­ly they are called the L'En­vieusse mud vol­ca­noes. This in­cludes the Co­lum­bia Es­tate mud vol­cano which erupt­ed in 1966 and Lam Vierge mud vol­cano," Moo­nan said. Like oth­er vol­ca­noes in T&T, Moo­nan said the L'En­vieusse mud vol­ca­noes have enor­mous tourism po­ten­tial.