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==Stories== | ==Stories== | ||
===Origin of name=== | ===Origin of name=== | ||
The use of "Noccalula," "Nochalula" or "Nahcullola" as a name for the cataract appears as early as the 1860s in print, and was used in parallel with the English "Black Creek Falls". It is possible, at least, that the name is Cherokee (Tsalagi) in origin. A large waterfall in Georgia is called "Amicalola", said to derive from the Tsalagi ᎠᎹᎤᎦᎴᎸᏱ (a-ma u-qwa-le-lv-yi), signifying a place where water (ᎠᎹ or a-ma) tumbles or thunders.<sup>2.</sup> Another possibility is that the name was invented in modern times to foster an association between the falls and Indian times. One author suggests that a local promoter coined the name from what he baselessly claimed were the Cherokee words for "black" and "falls".<sup>3.</sup> A [[1901]] travel account renders it as "Knockalula"<sup> | The use of "Noccalula," "Nochalula" or "Nahcullola" as a name for the cataract appears as early as the 1860s in print, and was used in parallel with the English "Black Creek Falls". It is possible, at least, that the name is Cherokee (Tsalagi) in origin. A large waterfall in Georgia is called "Amicalola", said to derive from the Tsalagi ᎠᎹᎤᎦᎴᎸᏱ (a-ma u-qwa-le-lv-yi), signifying a place where water (ᎠᎹ or a-ma) tumbles or thunders.<sup>2.</sup> Another possibility is that the name was invented in modern times to foster an association between the falls and Indian times. One author suggests that a local promoter coined the name from what he baselessly claimed were the Cherokee words for "black" and "falls".<sup>3.</sup> A [[1901]] travel account renders it as "Knockalula"<sup>4.</sup> | ||
===Romance=== | ===Romance=== | ||
<!--An early version of the maiden's story may have appeared in [[1867]] in the pages of the ''[[Cherokee Advertiser]]'' and/or the ''[[Gadsden Times]]''. That writer identified the maiden as "Efoladela", pawned off by her father to Creek chief "Ortus Micco" as part of a territorial bargain. In grief for the loss of her future with her lover, "Laniska", Efoladela leaps into the gorge and is buried there. The writer identifies Laniska as [[Pathkiller]], who became principal chief of the Cherokee in [[1811]].<sup>4.</sup> AWAITING CONFIRMATION OF EXISTENCE OF THIS VERSION--> | <!--An early version of the maiden's story may have appeared in [[1867]] in the pages of the ''[[Cherokee Advertiser]]'' and/or the ''[[Gadsden Times]]''. That writer identified the maiden as "Efoladela", pawned off by her father to Creek chief "Ortus Micco" as part of a territorial bargain. In grief for the loss of her future with her lover, "Laniska", Efoladela leaps into the gorge and is buried there. The writer identifies Laniska as [[Pathkiller]], who became principal chief of the Cherokee in [[1811]].<sup>4.</sup> AWAITING CONFIRMATION OF EXISTENCE OF THIS VERSION--> | ||
In the late 1860s an unidentified correspondent for a Virginia newspaper came to the newly-founded city of Gadsden and stayed at [[Turrentine Inn]] as a guest of early settler [[Daniel Turrentine]]. Whether he heard it from his host, interviewed mulitple local authorities, or merely invented it himself, the correspondent composed a 68-line verse narrative relating the forcible removal of the Indians and including, at the end, the tragedy of a young woman, "Winona", who leaped to her death rather than submit to a "painted band" of "fierce pursuers" who had chased her up a perilous path near the falls.<sup> | In the late 1860s an unidentified correspondent for a Virginia newspaper came to the newly-founded city of Gadsden and stayed at [[Turrentine Inn]] as a guest of early settler [[Daniel Turrentine]]. Whether he heard it from his host, interviewed mulitple local authorities, or merely invented it himself, the correspondent composed a 68-line verse narrative relating the forcible removal of the Indians and including, at the end, the tragedy of a young woman, "Winona", who leaped to her death rather than submit to a "painted band" of "fierce pursuers" who had chased her up a perilous path near the falls.<sup>5.</sup> The name "Winona" was a commonplace, from the Dakota Sioux word meaning "first born girl", and popularized in several literary works, including Longfellow's "Song of Hiawatha" (where it is spelled "Wenonah"). If the author was drawing upon a popular local legend, it is telling that no mention is made of an impending forced marriage or a hard-hearted father. Some conflict between tribes is portrayed, but they are not named. The poem was given to Turrentine and first published in the ''[[Gadsden Times]]'' on [[February 12]], [[1869]], with the title "Black Creek Falls". | ||
In [[1888]], author [[John DuBose|John Witherspoon DuBose]] described the natural beauty of "Nochalula Falls" and ascribed to them "all the wild beauty that they had in days of yore, when the Indian legend tells us, that the beautiful star, Alivilda, of the Cherokee tribe, leaped over them to avoid going with the Creek chief to his distant wigwam."<sup> | In [[1888]], author [[John DuBose|John Witherspoon DuBose]] described the natural beauty of "Nochalula Falls" and ascribed to them "all the wild beauty that they had in days of yore, when the Indian legend tells us, that the beautiful star, Alivilda, of the Cherokee tribe, leaped over them to avoid going with the Creek chief to his distant wigwam."<sup>6.</sup> This brief reference may be the first published account in which the girl's suicide is triggered by a disagreeable marriage. | ||
From there, subsequent retellings added romantic details. The most notable contributor to the story is [[Anne Mathilde Bilbro]], a pianist and composer who was also an accomplished writer. Her first known version, published in verse form in the ''[[Gadsden Times]]'' of [[May 7]], [[1895]], included few details amid its lyrical flourishes. Her later prose account, the first in which the girl's name is given as "Noccalula", has been republished, an varying forms, as the "official story" since the early 1900s. She credits the old families of the area as the source of the tale. Her version characterizes the Cherokee tribe as gentle and erudite, contrasting them with the fierce Creeks whose chief offered a rich price for the girl. Noccalula's father, hardened by love of power, promises her hand to the enemy and banishes her true love to the wilderness. In grief, the girl glumly allowed herself to be arrayed in her wedding finery before being pulled away by the sound of the waterfall, and soon succumbing to death as an escape from her troubles. In this version the tragedy re-awakened the father's love and he named the waterfall in her memory.<sup> | From there, subsequent retellings added romantic details. The most notable contributor to the story is [[Anne Mathilde Bilbro]], a pianist and composer who was also an accomplished writer. Her first known version, published in verse form in the ''[[Gadsden Times]]'' of [[May 7]], [[1895]], included few details amid its lyrical flourishes. Her later prose account, the first in which the girl's name is given as "Noccalula", has been republished, an varying forms, as the "official story" since the early 1900s. She credits the old families of the area as the source of the tale. Her version characterizes the Cherokee tribe as gentle and erudite, contrasting them with the fierce Creeks whose chief offered a rich price for the girl. Noccalula's father, hardened by love of power, promises her hand to the enemy and banishes her true love to the wilderness. In grief, the girl glumly allowed herself to be arrayed in her wedding finery before being pulled away by the sound of the waterfall, and soon succumbing to death as an escape from her troubles. In this version the tragedy re-awakened the father's love and he named the waterfall in her memory.<sup>7.</sup> | ||
This version, sometimes shortened or otherwise edited, with or without credit given to Bilbro, has been republished countless times in promotional guidebooks, brochures and pamphlets promoting Gadsden tourism. The story was published as a pamphlet with an illustrated cover in [[1937]] and has been the version promoted by [[Noccalula Falls Park]] since its establishment by the city in [[1946]]. | This version, sometimes shortened or otherwise edited, with or without credit given to Bilbro, has been republished countless times in promotional guidebooks, brochures and pamphlets promoting Gadsden tourism. The story was published in a guide map and as a pamphlet with an illustrated cover in [[1937]] and has been the version promoted by [[Noccalula Falls Park]] since its establishment by the city in [[1946]]. | ||
===Retellings=== | ===Retellings=== | ||
Several later authors have penned versions of the story with some local regard. In [[John P. Stewart]]'s version, the maiden's true love is a "blue-eyed...fair-haired stranger."<sup> | Several later authors have penned versions of the story with some local regard. In [[John P. Stewart]]'s version, the maiden's true love is a "blue-eyed...fair-haired stranger."<sup>8.</sup>. [[Mary Lister]]'s version first included references to Noccalula's ghost inhabiting the gorge<sup>9.</sup>. | ||
In November [[1969]] a [[Noccalula statue|bronze statue]] of "Noccalula", modeled by a local teen clad in stereotypical costume and depicted in the act of leaping, was installed at the edge of the gorge. A [[Noccalula statue#Plaque|dedicatory plaque]] relates Bilbro's story with added detail supplying a historical context of "sporadic battles" between Cherokees and Creeks in Etowah County, where a border had been drawn between the two tribes. The plaque also claims that the "Indian sign language...prominently inscribed on the rocks" confirms the location of Noccalula's death. | In November [[1969]] a [[Noccalula statue|bronze statue]] of "Noccalula", modeled by a local teen clad in stereotypical costume and depicted in the act of leaping, was installed at the edge of the gorge. A [[Noccalula statue#Plaque|dedicatory plaque]] relates Bilbro's story with added detail supplying a historical context of "sporadic battles" between Cherokees and Creeks in Etowah County, where a border had been drawn between the two tribes. The plaque also claims that the "Indian sign language...prominently inscribed on the rocks" confirms the location of Noccalula's death. | ||
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In the 1990s researchers [[Danny Crownover]], [[Jerry Jones]], [[Rex Thornton]] and [[Charley Freeman]] dug through records in several states and proposed that they had identified the girl as "Efoladela" (a variant of the "Alivilda" in DuBose's reference). According to them, she was the daughter of "[[Little Turkey]]", principal Cherokee chief from [[1788]] to [[1804]]<sup>8.</sup>. | In the 1990s researchers [[Danny Crownover]], [[Jerry Jones]], [[Rex Thornton]] and [[Charley Freeman]] dug through records in several states and proposed that they had identified the girl as "Efoladela" (a variant of the "Alivilda" in DuBose's reference). According to them, she was the daughter of "[[Little Turkey]]", principal Cherokee chief from [[1788]] to [[1804]]<sup>8.</sup>. | ||
In [[1789]], Little Turkey's daughter was captured and ransomed by John Sevier near the Flint River in Georgia<sup> | In [[1789]], Little Turkey's daughter was captured and ransomed by John Sevier near the Flint River in Georgia<sup>10.</sup>. Following the treaty, Little Turkey's clan settled in [[Turkey Town]] in present-day [[Etowah County]]. The researchers claim that the chief offered his daughter as a prize in a ball game played during the Green Corn Festival sometime before [[1795]]. [[Ortus Micco]] (called "Opie"), a Creek chieftain who lived near what is now [[Rainbow City]], claimed the victory. Rather than marry Opie, the girl slipped away to the falls where she had spent time with her true love, and there took her life. These events were supposedly corroborated by local Indians and borne out by carvings at the site<sup>11.</sup>. | ||
Another historicized version also references carvings at the base of the gorge which, when "translated" reveal the the truth of the story. This telling dates the historic event to [[1827]]<sup> | Another historicized version also references carvings at the base of the gorge which, when "translated" reveal the the truth of the story. This telling dates the historic event to [[1827]]<sup>12.</sup>. In general, petroglyphs found in Cherokee lands are presumed to antedate their arrival, or to be the scrawlings of bored hunters. Ethnologist John Mooney found no evidence of the Cherokee using pictograms or carvings as a means of communication or commemoration<sup>13.</sup>. There is no published record of an archeological study of such carved images from Black Creek Falls. | ||
==Notes== | ==Notes== | ||
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# Mooney-1919 | # Mooney-1919 | ||
# Mooney-1919 | # Mooney-1919 | ||
# Meyer-1901 | |||
# Cherokee Advertiser-1867 | # Cherokee Advertiser-1867 | ||
# DuBose-1888 | # DuBose-1888 | ||
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* Twain, Mark (1883) ''Life on the Mississippi''. Boston, Massachusetts: James R. Osgood & Co. | * Twain, Mark (1883) ''Life on the Mississippi''. Boston, Massachusetts: James R. Osgood & Co. | ||
* Dubose, John Witherspoon (1888) "Gadsden" in ''[http://www.archive.org/stream/northernalabamah00birm#page/354/mode/1up Northern Alabama: Historical and Biographical]'' Birmingham: Smith & DeLand, p. 354 | * Dubose, John Witherspoon (1888) "Gadsden" in ''[http://www.archive.org/stream/northernalabamah00birm#page/354/mode/1up Northern Alabama: Historical and Biographical]'' Birmingham: Smith & DeLand, p. 354 | ||
* Meyer, C. F. G. (1901) ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=NsVXAAAAMAAJ&dq=%22black%20creek%22%20falls%20alabama&pg=PA180#v=onepage&q=%22black%20creek%22%20falls%20alabama&f=false Meyer Brothers Druggist]''. Vol. 22, p. 180 | |||
* Mooney, James (1902) ''[http://www.archive.org/details/mythsofcherokee00moon Myths of the Cherokee]". Washington DC: Bureau of American Ethnology | * Mooney, James (1902) ''[http://www.archive.org/details/mythsofcherokee00moon Myths of the Cherokee]". Washington DC: Bureau of American Ethnology | ||
* Bilbro, Annie Mathilde (n. d.) "[http://noccfalls.homestead.com/Legend.html The Legend of Princess Noccalula]". rpt. by Noccalula Falls Park - accessed March 10, 2011 | * Bilbro, Annie Mathilde (n. d.) "[http://noccfalls.homestead.com/Legend.html The Legend of Princess Noccalula]". rpt. by Noccalula Falls Park - accessed March 10, 2011 | ||
Revision as of 15:43, 12 March 2011
Noccalula is a name attributed to a Cherokee maiden who, according to legend, jumped to her death at what is now called Noccalula Falls. As popularly retold, Noccalula's grieving father renamed the falls for her, and some claim that she still haunts the area below.
Variations of the story are common to hundreds of locales in the United States, and were especially popular in the decades following the Indian Removal, as indigenous peoples became the stuff of stories and romantic associations for wilderness features carried great narrative power. As Mark Twain observed sardonically in Life on the Mississippi, "There are fifty Lover's Leaps along the Mississippi from whose summit disappointed Indian girls have jumped"1..
Stories
Origin of name
The use of "Noccalula," "Nochalula" or "Nahcullola" as a name for the cataract appears as early as the 1860s in print, and was used in parallel with the English "Black Creek Falls". It is possible, at least, that the name is Cherokee (Tsalagi) in origin. A large waterfall in Georgia is called "Amicalola", said to derive from the Tsalagi ᎠᎹᎤᎦᎴᎸᏱ (a-ma u-qwa-le-lv-yi), signifying a place where water (ᎠᎹ or a-ma) tumbles or thunders.2. Another possibility is that the name was invented in modern times to foster an association between the falls and Indian times. One author suggests that a local promoter coined the name from what he baselessly claimed were the Cherokee words for "black" and "falls".3. A 1901 travel account renders it as "Knockalula"4.
Romance
In the late 1860s an unidentified correspondent for a Virginia newspaper came to the newly-founded city of Gadsden and stayed at Turrentine Inn as a guest of early settler Daniel Turrentine. Whether he heard it from his host, interviewed mulitple local authorities, or merely invented it himself, the correspondent composed a 68-line verse narrative relating the forcible removal of the Indians and including, at the end, the tragedy of a young woman, "Winona", who leaped to her death rather than submit to a "painted band" of "fierce pursuers" who had chased her up a perilous path near the falls.5. The name "Winona" was a commonplace, from the Dakota Sioux word meaning "first born girl", and popularized in several literary works, including Longfellow's "Song of Hiawatha" (where it is spelled "Wenonah"). If the author was drawing upon a popular local legend, it is telling that no mention is made of an impending forced marriage or a hard-hearted father. Some conflict between tribes is portrayed, but they are not named. The poem was given to Turrentine and first published in the Gadsden Times on February 12, 1869, with the title "Black Creek Falls".
In 1888, author John Witherspoon DuBose described the natural beauty of "Nochalula Falls" and ascribed to them "all the wild beauty that they had in days of yore, when the Indian legend tells us, that the beautiful star, Alivilda, of the Cherokee tribe, leaped over them to avoid going with the Creek chief to his distant wigwam."6. This brief reference may be the first published account in which the girl's suicide is triggered by a disagreeable marriage.
From there, subsequent retellings added romantic details. The most notable contributor to the story is Anne Mathilde Bilbro, a pianist and composer who was also an accomplished writer. Her first known version, published in verse form in the Gadsden Times of May 7, 1895, included few details amid its lyrical flourishes. Her later prose account, the first in which the girl's name is given as "Noccalula", has been republished, an varying forms, as the "official story" since the early 1900s. She credits the old families of the area as the source of the tale. Her version characterizes the Cherokee tribe as gentle and erudite, contrasting them with the fierce Creeks whose chief offered a rich price for the girl. Noccalula's father, hardened by love of power, promises her hand to the enemy and banishes her true love to the wilderness. In grief, the girl glumly allowed herself to be arrayed in her wedding finery before being pulled away by the sound of the waterfall, and soon succumbing to death as an escape from her troubles. In this version the tragedy re-awakened the father's love and he named the waterfall in her memory.7.
This version, sometimes shortened or otherwise edited, with or without credit given to Bilbro, has been republished countless times in promotional guidebooks, brochures and pamphlets promoting Gadsden tourism. The story was published in a guide map and as a pamphlet with an illustrated cover in 1937 and has been the version promoted by Noccalula Falls Park since its establishment by the city in 1946.
Retellings
Several later authors have penned versions of the story with some local regard. In John P. Stewart's version, the maiden's true love is a "blue-eyed...fair-haired stranger."8.. Mary Lister's version first included references to Noccalula's ghost inhabiting the gorge9..
In November 1969 a bronze statue of "Noccalula", modeled by a local teen clad in stereotypical costume and depicted in the act of leaping, was installed at the edge of the gorge. A dedicatory plaque relates Bilbro's story with added detail supplying a historical context of "sporadic battles" between Cherokees and Creeks in Etowah County, where a border had been drawn between the two tribes. The plaque also claims that the "Indian sign language...prominently inscribed on the rocks" confirms the location of Noccalula's death.
Sue Allen Davidson and Bruce Stephens included a dramatic retelling of Noccalula's story in the script for their outdoor pageant, "God's Highway: The Coosa River Story", which was performed by the Coosa River Drama Association at the park's amphitheater each summer from 1985 to 1989.
A musical composition, "The Legend of Princess Noccalula" was commissioned from Anniston native John Craton in 2005 by the Dutch ensemble Het Consort. Birmingham filmmaker Steve Pridmore is working on a feature film starring Emma-Lillita Hunter as the vengeful ghost of Noccalula.
Historicizing
In 1989 musician Jeffery Jones compiled a detailed overview of available documentation. He constructed the unprovable thesis that the story of an Indian's death at the gorge is a coded retelling of the downfall of the Cherokee tribe and that it is even possible that the Cherokee maiden's refusal to marry a Creek chieftain is an allegory for the failure of the Cherokees and Creeks to form a military alliance against white encroachment. The same story could have attached itself to any number of cliff ledges and gorges, including Black Creek Falls. He supposes that holdouts from the 1830s removal kept the story alive and related it to their neighbors, from whom it eventually passed into literature, at just the right time for its romantic features to be exaggerated.
In the 1990s researchers Danny Crownover, Jerry Jones, Rex Thornton and Charley Freeman dug through records in several states and proposed that they had identified the girl as "Efoladela" (a variant of the "Alivilda" in DuBose's reference). According to them, she was the daughter of "Little Turkey", principal Cherokee chief from 1788 to 18048..
In 1789, Little Turkey's daughter was captured and ransomed by John Sevier near the Flint River in Georgia10.. Following the treaty, Little Turkey's clan settled in Turkey Town in present-day Etowah County. The researchers claim that the chief offered his daughter as a prize in a ball game played during the Green Corn Festival sometime before 1795. Ortus Micco (called "Opie"), a Creek chieftain who lived near what is now Rainbow City, claimed the victory. Rather than marry Opie, the girl slipped away to the falls where she had spent time with her true love, and there took her life. These events were supposedly corroborated by local Indians and borne out by carvings at the site11..
Another historicized version also references carvings at the base of the gorge which, when "translated" reveal the the truth of the story. This telling dates the historic event to 182712.. In general, petroglyphs found in Cherokee lands are presumed to antedate their arrival, or to be the scrawlings of bored hunters. Ethnologist John Mooney found no evidence of the Cherokee using pictograms or carvings as a means of communication or commemoration13.. There is no published record of an archeological study of such carved images from Black Creek Falls.
Notes
- Twain-1883
- Mooney-1919
- Mooney-1919
- Meyer-1901
- Cherokee Advertiser-1867
- DuBose-1888
- Bilbro-n.d.
- Bolton-1958
- Back-1994
- M. A. H.-1851
- Back-1994
- Crownover-1983, Goodson-2002
- Mooney-1902
References
- M. A. H. (December 25, 1851) "Historical Traditions of Tennessee". The American Whig Review Vol. 15. New York: Wiley & Putnam, pp. 235
- Cherokee Advertiser (1867), paraphrased by Russo, Juniper in "The Truth About the Noccalula Falls Legend" - accessed March 10, 2011
- "Black Creek Falls" (February 12, 1869) Gadsden Times (verse), qtd. in part in Jones-1989
- Twain, Mark (1883) Life on the Mississippi. Boston, Massachusetts: James R. Osgood & Co.
- Dubose, John Witherspoon (1888) "Gadsden" in Northern Alabama: Historical and Biographical Birmingham: Smith & DeLand, p. 354
- Meyer, C. F. G. (1901) Meyer Brothers Druggist. Vol. 22, p. 180
- Mooney, James (1902) Myths of the Cherokee". Washington DC: Bureau of American Ethnology
- Bilbro, Annie Mathilde (n. d.) "The Legend of Princess Noccalula". rpt. by Noccalula Falls Park - accessed March 10, 2011
- Mooney, James (1919) letter to W. P. Lay. (Mooney was an ethnographer and expert on Cherokee culture at the Bureau of American Ethnology. The letter is in the Noccolula collection at the Gadsden Public Library) - cited in Jones-1989
- Bolton, Clyde (April 20, 1958) "Spring Recalls Noccalula's History" Gadsden Times
- Crownover, Danny K. (1983) "Black Creek". Local history collection. Gadsden Public Library. cited in Jones-1989
- Jones, Jeffery Ray, et al. (1989) Noccalula: Legend, Fact and Function. Collinsville: Jeffrey & Jones Gang, Inc. ISBN 0962195006
- Back, Sharon Freeman (January 15, 1994) "Historians find truth in legend of princess" Gadsden Times
- Crownover, Danny K. and Jerry B. Jones (February 1, 1994) "Research on Noccalula Falls" Gadsden Times
- Goodson, Mike (2002) Gadsden: City of Champions. Charleston, South Carolina: Arcadia Publishing ISBN 0738523755
- McDougald, Michael H. (November 20, 2005) "Tale of Noccalula comes full circle" Rome News-Tribune
- Rozema, Vicki (2007) Footsteps of the Cherokees: A Guide to the Eastern Homelands of the Cherokee Nation. 2nd ed. Winston-Salem, North Carolina: John F. Blair ISBN 9780895873460
External links
- The Legend of Princess Noccalula" at Noccalula Falls Park website
- The Truth About the Noccalula Falls Legend website
- Noccalula film on Facebook.com