Legendary lore concerning the visitation of northern Indian tribes to what is now Eureka Springs, Arkansas is badly mixed and it is difficult to separate truth from fiction. It is difficult to prove the authenticity of a legend. The stories we hear may have original pedigree or they may be mere fabrications by imaginative writers. In history, we have something to tie to, but this is not always the case with traditional lore that is handed down by word of mouth from generation to generation. It may be true or it may be a hoax. Tribal lore from the Indians themselves is usually accepted as authentic for the redman was noted for his veracity and had the habit of repeating the tale without variation, but in recent years numerous legends have been “cooked up” by white men and passed off as legitimate 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 “Magic Healing Springs,” as they called them, before white men settled the region. They go back about four hundred years and each of the stories has similar motif. The beautiful daughter of a famous chief, living in the cold north, is stricken with some dreadful disease or has lost her eyesight. The chief tries all the medicine men available but without success. He hears of the healing springs far to the south and treks thousands of miles through the wilderness to get his daughter to the coveted spot. The girl bathes in the water and is healed. Sometimes she falls in love with a handsome brave of the local tribe and marries him. In one case the girl is Mor-i-na-ki, daughter of a Siouian chief. Another story features her as the daughter of Red Cloud, a Delaware. Still another gives Noawada of the Dakotas as the chief and his daughter is Minnehaha (Laughing Water). Each of these legends runs about the same gamut of hardship and privation and ends with the same climax of healing. It is easy to assume that they all originated from the same source, but this may not be true. The historian finds in them sufficient evidence to conclude that the northern Indians did make long trips to the springs, and that the water was widely known for its curative properties and healing powers. But there is no way of separating the chaff from the whole grain except from documented material.

W. W. Johnson, M. D., who began his practice of medicine at Eureka Springs in 1879, the year the town was named, says, “The traditional history of the springs dates back to the days of Ponce de Leon, who had sought for a fountain of youth where he and his followers might bathe and quaff the waters and their age disappear, and they be clothed with the habiliments of youth.” He goes on further to say: “The Cherokee Indians, when in their southern home—previous to their removal to the Indian Territory—had a tradition that in the mountains far to the west of their country, and to the west of the Father of Waters, there were springs that their fathers visited and drank of their waters, and were healed of their maladies. This tradition was handed down from one generation to another. After the removal of the Cherokees to their present home in the Territory, many visited these springs, camped here, and drank these waters. Since the discovery by the white men the writer has conversed with members of the Cherokee tribe, and learned that these were the springs referred to in the tradition.”[1]

One basic legend that appears to be a part of most of the traditional accounts is that of the carving of the basin at the Indian Healing Spring, now called Basin Spring. J. M. Richardson in a letter to Powell Clayton of Eureka Springs, dated May 18, 1884 at Carthage, Missouri, says:

“It was in the summer of 1847 when a conversation took place between White Hair, principal chief of the Great and Little Osage Indians, and myself at the office of the agency on Rock Creek (now Kansas) relative to lead in Missouri and a celebrated spring in the mountains. The chief said when he was a boy the Osages took lead out of the bottom of the creek and smelted it with dry bark, and then run it into bullets. He stated that where the lead was found was in the prairie and in Missouri and two days’ travel from that place in the mountains was a spring the Indians visited for the purpose of using the waters and getting cured. He said he never knew an Indian ‘go there with sore eyes and drink the water and wash in it for a whole moon but what was cured.’”

“The chief said Black Dog’s father, when a boy, scoured out a smooth hole in the rock out of which they would dip the water with cups; that the hole was about the size of the tin basins the white people washed in. The Indians, supposing the spirit of the great Medicine Man hovered round the spring, never camped near it, and never had any fighting near it. In considering Black Dog’s age, I conclude the basin was scoured out seventy years previous to the conversation. The chief said the water spread out over the rock and the hole was scoured in the rock to concentrate the water, and at times it was used to pound corn in to make meal, and that I would know the spring by the hole in the rock. The circumstance had entirely faded from my memory, but in visiting Eureka Springs in 1880, the conversation with the chief recurred to my mind. I felt sure that was the great Indian spring.”[2]

The vast amount of legendary lore about Eureka Springs proves at least one thing. The spring water was highly rated by the Indians for its curative properties. Their numerous trips from various parts of the country to visit this mecca is sufficient evidence that they found what they were looking for.