The tradition, that great healing springs existed far to the south of the land in which they lived, appears to have been wide spread among the Indians of the North in early times. Travelers, who visited these redmen in the early part of the nineteenth century, discovered legends that told of these springs and their miraculous cures. One of these travelers, Colonel Gilbert Knapp of Little Rock, Arkansas, while on an exploring expedition in the copper-mining region of Lake Superior, met a French half-breed who told him an interesting story. The exploring party was camped on an island near Cape Kenewaw, collecting agates and other beautiful gems which were found in abundance. One night, as they sat around the camp fire telling tales, the French half-breed, Jean Baptiste by name, told a story which Colonel Knapp thought referred to Eureka Springs. Here is the story:

“My mother, whose name was Mor-i-na-ki, or the beautiful flower, was the daughter of the greatest of the Sioux chiefs. My father, Louis Baptiste, was an agent of the Hudson Bay Company, whose duties required him to travel with the sledge trains to the encampments of the Indians to purchase furs and peltries. On one of these excursions he met my mother, with whom he became enamoured. He induced her, with the consent of her father, to accompany him to a trading post of the company, where they were married by a Catholic priest. My mother has told me of many of the traditions of my people. One of these relates to the journey of a large number of the tribe to the far-distant south-land. It was many years ago, when one of the winters was so prolonged and severe that many of the tribe died of cold and starvation. One of the chiefs induced the remainder of the people to go with him to the south in search of food. After traveling at great distance they reached the forks of a rapid-flowing river, where the climate was mild and the game abundant. The country was in possession of a tribe who cultivated corn and many kinds of vegetables. These Indians had large quantities of food and grain stored and were friendly to the visitors of the north-land, and supplied them abundantly from their stores. With all the advantages of this beautiful region, the Sioux were not happy, because the daughter of their chief, who had brought them to this country, was stricken with blindness and lameness and could not walk. When the medicine-men of the tribe who possessed this country heard of the sickness of the stranger-chief’s daughter, they came to his lodge and told him of a spring of water flowing from the side of a mountain, only two days’ travel distant, whose water being drank would remove the sickness and restore sight to the blind. They said the water passed through great beds of flint, and in its passage it drew the fire from the rocks, and it was this fire in the water which killed the pain and disease. On receiving this information he had his afflicted daughter, with all his people, moved to the vicinity of the wonderful spring. They camped near where the spring was situated, and at this spring was a basin in the rock where they got the water that cured the chief’s daughter. The chief and his people stayed at the spring six moons, when the sick maiden was restored to sight and health. After her recovery the chief returned to his northern home, and ever afterwards the tradition of the south-land spring was carefully preserved in the tribe.”[3]

L. J. Kalklosch, reporting on this legend, gives this interesting addition:

“When the chief of the tribe who possessed the country learned that the Sioux had camped at the healing spring, he sent a number of his braves with stone hatchets to cut out basins in the rock at the spring for the convenience of the Sioux and his people. These men with their flint hatchets cut one basin below the spring to hold the water for drinking, and another just below for the purpose of bathing. The basins they covered with bark tents. After bathing in the waters and drinking great quantities of it, the chief’s daughter’s limbs were restored to their natural condition, and her blindness was entirely removed, her eyesight being as bright and strong as ever.”[4]

A booklet on “The Eureka Springs”, published by the Matthews, Northup and Company of Buffalo, New York in 1886 says that the Basin Spring was so called because of a peculiar bowl-shaped cavity in the rock. Twelve feet farther down the hillside was originally another basin about five feet in diameter, which was used for bathing purposes. According to this account, this basin was destroyed by overhanging rocks falling upon it. The two basins in the rock, which were present when the town was first settled, are without doubt the ones referred to in the extract of the legend given above.

A slightly different version of the legend of Mor-i-na-ki is given in Allsopp’s “Folklore of Romantic Arkansas.” This version goes into detail regarding the habits and customs of the Osage Indians who inhabited the area at that time. In this version, the Sioux knew of the tradition of the healing spring before they left their northern homeland and made the trip specifically to bring the princess to it.[5]