Myths and Legends
There was a wise and peaceable chief of the Ute tribe who always counselled his people to refrain from war, but when he grew old the fiery spirits deposed him and went down to the plains to give battle to the Arapahoe. News came that they had been defeated in consequence of their rashness. Then the old man's sorrow was so keen that his heart broke. But even in death he was beneficent, for his spirit entered the earth and forthwith came a gush of water that has never ceased to flow—the Hot Sulphur Springs of Colorado. The Utes often used to go to those springs to bathe—and be cured of rheumatism—before they were driven away.
Spring River, Arkansas, is nearly as large at its source as at its mouth, for Mammoth Spring, in the Ozark Mountains, where it has its rise, has a yield of ninety thousand gallons a minute, so that it is, perhaps, the largest in the world. Here, three hundred years ago, the Indians had gathered for a month's feast, for chief Wampahseesah's daughter—Nitilita—was to wed a brave of many ponies, a hundred of which he had given in earnest of his love. For weeks no rain had fallen, and, while the revel was at its height, news came that all the rivers had gone dry. Several young men set off with jars, to fill them at the Mississippi, and, confident that relief would come, the song and dance went on until the men and women faltered from exhaustion. At last, Nitilita died, and, in the wildness of his grief, the husband smote his head upon a rock and perished
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