So, I was walking with my friend Lewis on Sunday and we were talking about the mountains and I was commenting how beautiful they are with the colors changing. He asked which one was Squaw Peak and I pointed it out to him and asked him if he knew why it was called that. He said he didn't and I proceeded to tell him something about how a young Indian maiden jumped off the peak when her lover died. I didn't know the precise legend, so I left it at that. I also had heard a story in my Church History class about how during a time of conflict between the settlers and the Indians, some of the Indians were cornered up there and some of them fell off the cliff and died.
However, I started to get curious about it and wanted to know the real story. I searched online but it took me a little while before I could find anything about the story. I finally found an article in the Deseret News about the name of Squaw Peak: "In February 1850, a white-Indian conflict broke out at the mouth of the Provo River. Big Elk, a chief of the local Piute Indians, was killed in the struggle, and "his squaw fled with others toward the foothills to the east." During the escape, she fell from the peak and died." I found another account of the story in a document about Indian names in Utah. However, I did find a reference to the story that I told my friend: "Squaw Peak was formed when an Indian maiden died so she could be with her lover"
I found it interesting that I had heard the story in its changed form of a Indian woman jumping off the cliff when I was a child, but then also the story about the Indians being cornered up there, but I reverted to the story I had heard in my childhood when telling it to a friend.
2 comments:
I think your other story revolves around the legend of the rocks called "Apache Tears".... if you go look up that one, I think you will have your answer.
Scott
Mesa, AZ
The Church History Manual that the LDS church uses omits much of the story blaming the Indians for an uprising. A Ute man named Old Bishop was murdered by two Mormon men over a shirt. They got into a fight with Old Bishop and ended up killing him. They gutted him and stuffed him with rocks and set him inside the Provo River. When his family found Old Bishop it ended up that they were shot at with a canon. Some fled south to Spanish Fork. Others fled to Rock Canyon. All the Indians died except the Chief's wife. Lover is usually used since White people cannot accept that Natives have wedding ceremonies. The Chief's wife looked back and saw her murdered family. She climbed up Rock Canyon as high as she could then jumped to her death. Brigham Young got word that the Indians were causing an uprising so he set forth an extermination order. Several LDS church leaders made a pact not to tell Brigham Young the truth of what happened. Years passed and one of the pact makers felt guilty and confessed. Brigham Young changed his extermination policy to "Don't Fight the Indians. Feed the Indians," which is what he is famous for saying. By then, many Native Americans had been legally murdered by Mormons.
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