To my friend
SAM A. LEATH
who has served Eureka Springs
as guide and historian
for more than a
half century.

I
LEGENDS OF THE MAGIC HEALING SPRINGS

Legendary lore concerning the visitation of northern Indiantribes to what is now Eureka Springs, Arkansas is badly mixed and itis difficult to separate truth from fiction. It is difficult to prove theauthenticity of a legend. The stories we hear may have original pedigreeor they may be mere fabrications by imaginative writers. Inhistory, we have something to tie to, but this is not always the casewith traditional lore that is handed down by word of mouth fromgeneration to generation. It may be true or it may be a hoax.Tribal lore from the Indians themselves is usually accepted as authenticfor the redman was noted for his veracity and had the habit ofrepeating the tale without variation, but in recent years numerouslegends have been “cooked up” by white men and passed off aslegitimate tradition. Stories are told that the Indians never heard of.The reliable legends are those that come from the Indians themselves,properly documented.

There are at least three legends of visits of redmen to the “MagicHealing Springs,” as they called them, before white men settledthe region. They go back about four hundred years and each of thestories has similar motif. The beautiful daughter of a famous chief,living in the cold north, is stricken with some dreadful disease or haslost her eyesight. The chief tries all the medicine men available butwithout success. He hears of the healing springs far to the south andtreks thousands of miles through the wilderness to get his daughterto the coveted spot. The girl bathes in the water and is healed. Sometimesshe falls in love with a handsome brave of the local tribe andmarries him. In one case the girl is Mor-i-na-ki, daughter of a Siouianchief. Another story features her as the daughter of Red Cloud, aDelaware. Still another gives Noawada of the Dakotas as the chiefand his daughter is Minnehaha (Laughing Water). Each of theselegends runs about the same gamut of hardship and privation and endswith the same climax of healing. It is easy to assume that they alloriginated from the same source, but this may not be true. The historianfinds in them sufficient evidence to conclude that the northernIndians did make long trips to the springs, and that the water waswidely known for its curative properties and healing powers. Butthere is no way of separating the chaff from the whole grain exceptfrom documented material.

W. W. Johnson, M. D., who began his practice of medicine at EurekaSprings in 1879, the year the town was named, says, “The traditionalhistory of the springs dates back to the days of Ponce de Leon, whohad sought for a fountain of youth where he and his followers mightbathe and quaff the waters and their age disappear, and they be clothedwith the habiliments of youth.” He goes on further to say: “The Cherokee

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