Folklore :: Maya And The Ghosts Of The Falls Continues..
Among his many pranks, Yellow Bear took the bones and mixed them up, placing the skull of a child on an adult torso, then laughing when the strange thing came to life. The next time Yellow Bear went fishing with Maya’s young brother-in-law, they kept what they caught, which looked to Yellow Bear like branches, but which were actually fine salmon in the ghost world.
Another time the ghost people became very excited: A "whale" had been found beached. But to Yellow Bear’s eyes it did not look like a whale, but rather like a large log. The ghost people began stripping the bark off the log, praising it as the richest whale blubber they had ever had. Knowing that by shouting he could reduce them all to bones, he did so, and then took the blubber for himself, but in his hands it still looked like tree bark. The ghost people, tired of Yellow Bear’s pranks at their expense, placed a curse on Maya and her brother. The only way to break the curse was for her to send her brother up to the world of the living to put out five prairie fires.
She gave Yellow Bear five pots of water, but-as usual-he ignored his sisters instructions, claiming, "Maya always tells lies." So he poured the water on the fires without taking care to see how much was needed for the job. By the time Yellow Bear reached the fifth fire, there was no water left. The fire consumed him and he died. Yellow Bear’s death infuriated Maya so much that she plunged off the cliff (at Hidden Maya Falls) and cursed the ghost world with continuous water falling of the cliff, enslaving the ghosts for an eternity under the falls.
At dawn it is said that the silhouette of Maya can be seen in the falls when the sun is low in the horizon. If one sees the silhouette it is said that this person will live a long and prosperous life past the age of one hundred. Back To Home