Noccalula

Noccalula is said to be the name of a Cherokee maiden of legend. She was said to be the beautiful daughter of a powerful chief who, grieving for the banishment of her beloved, jumped to her death rather than submit to an arranged marriage. Variations of the story are common to hundreds of locales in the United States. As Mark Twain wrote, "There are fifty Lover's Leaps along the Mississippi from whose summit disappointed Indian girls have jumped."

The site of the supposed story was Black Creek Falls, a 90-foot cascade on Black Creek in what is now Gadsden. According to the legend, Noccalula's grieving father renamed the falls for her. Some claim that she still haunts the area below.

An alternate version of the origin of the name is the "nochullola", a type of dance made popular by German immigrants that may have been associated with a "cavern bar" once located behind the falls. A "Lover's Retreat" was advertised by the Gadsden Land and Improvement Company in an 1867 edition of the Cherokee Advertiser. The cavern was supposedly destroyed by accident when developers attempted to enlarge it.

The first published version of Noccalula's tale appeared in the Advertiser in 1867. In that version, the maiden, called "Efoladela" fell in love with a man named "Laniska". Instead her father tries to trade her hand for the return of lands taken by a Muscogee chief "Ortus Micco". She commits suicide at what is called "Nahcullola Falls" and is buried in the ravine. The writer identifies Laniska with Pathkiller, principal chief of the Cherokee from 1811 to 1827, dating the events in the story to the late 18th century when Attakullakulla was chief.

Anne Mathilde Bilbro rewrote the story to emphasize its romance in the early 1900s and her account became the basis for popular retellings. After the land around the falls was sold to the city by R. A. Mitchell in 1909, Noccalula Falls Park was developed at the site. A bronze statue of Princess Noccalula in the act of leaping was erected on the edge of the cliff in the 1960s.

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.

References

• Tarascio, Juniper Russo (September 8, 2009) "Noccalula Falls: Legend, Fact and History". Associated Content

External links

• The Legend of Princess Noccalula" at noccfalls.homestead.com