Long before the white man came to our land and waterways, we lived in fear of HINU, The Thunder God. Hinu lives with his two sons in the caves behind the falls. Everyone hears him, since his voice is the great roar of the falls. To keep Hinu happy and well fed, we sent canoes full of food over the waterfalls.

Once, a terrible sickness plagued our people. Many died. Someone or something plowed under our burial grounds and ate our dead. Everyone thought that Hinu had become angry with us. They thought that Hinu had done these horrible deeds out of anger. Why? We had no idea. To soothe his anger, not only did we send more canoes full of food over the falls, but we also sacrificed our daughters. The young girls were caught in Hinu's embrace - swallowed up by the rushing waters - never to be seen again.

One day, our chief sacraficed his daughter to Hinu. She fell over the falls into the arms of one of Hinu's sons. But the chief changed his mind and wanted his daughter back. He took his canoe over the running water to find her and was captured by Hinu, never to be seen or heard from again.

Meanwhile, his daughter had already promised to marry Hinu's son if only he would tell her why so many of our people had to die and be eaten in their graves.

Hinu's son delcared that it was not his father, the Thunder God, who did these horrible things. It was a hungry monster in the river, a great water snake, that rose out of the river to poison us and eat our dead.

Hearing this, the spirit of the chief's daughter floated out of the mist that hid the falling water and returned to her people. She told them about the terrible water snake and the hour that the horrid moster would strike again.

When the water snake rose out of the river and struck, just as she had predicted, we wounded it. We took its still live and squirming body to the brink of the plunging water. We placed its head between two rocks on one side and its tail between two rocks on th eother side. There, stretched in the shape of a great horseshoe across both sides of the waterway, the monster died. The water rushed over its stiff, curved body as it does to this very day.

The spirit of the chief's daughter returned to Hinu's son. She still lives happily in the caves behind the falling waters. She has been known from that day to this as "Maid of the Mist"

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