--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Unknown collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 31 number: 1 published: 1927-11 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: "Unknown, “Pah Yaqua,” *Improvement Era* 31, no. 1 (November 1927): 58–62." source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera3101unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera3101unse start_page: 58 end_page: 62 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1927-11) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera3101unse publication_year: 1927 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1927, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Pah Yaqua The Beautiful Setting of the Tale, "Pah Yaqua" "Nimrod stood holding converse with his sister at about the spot where the youth stands; the grave site is across the narrow neck toward the left." The tree in the right fore- ground, on the hillside, was just such a tree as the one which carried Snowflake to the watery grave. W^ Pah Yaqua An Indian Legend from Native Sources By Frank Beckwith 'ITH the kindly permission of Josiah F. Gibbs, aged eighty- two, to whom this tale was told, I am enabled to give the readers of the Era a very interesting Indian legend told to him by a native Pahvant Indian many years ago. Gibbs, had lost a kayuse pony; so he got on a horse to go out in the hills to find it. When in the very deepest part of a thicket through which the trail led, suddenly the form of an Indian rose out of the brush. But on the instant Gibbs noted that the face of the Indian was wreathed in smiles, and he saw that it was his good friend Nimrod, a native Pahvant, so named by the whites because of his keen hunting ability. "Where go, Gib?" "I hunt pony gone to Clear Creek." "I go, too," said Nimrod, and, with this brief conversation, went to his horse, which was hidden in a distant part of the thicket, far enough away not to whinny or be seen, and in a few moments returned mounted. PAH YAQUA 59 It was not long until they found the missing animal in the upper reaches of Clear Creek canyon, and had roped him. Gibbs changed his saddle to the new mount and then the Indian said: "Go with me Pah Yaqua." Gibbs could then talk considerable Indian, and these words, "Pah Yaqua," aroused his interest at once. He knew that "Pah" meant water, and "Yaqua" meant death; but why had the Indian combined the two into "Death Water?" Knowing the Indian character, and the need to make haste slowly, Gibbs decided to go, and in the hours bring out the tale. So with ready acquiescence he said: "Yes, I go with you." Nimrod then became specially reticent. Not a word from him unless in direct answer to questions. He made no advance to keep up a conversation at all, and Gibbs, knowing the Indian mind, kept out of that reserve, awaiting developments. "Shinob" Thus in silence passed the hours as they rode on toward Tushare Peak. "Tushare" is an Indian word which means "snow," for in normal years snow remains in the sheltered nooks of that im- mense pile throughout the entire summer, for its crest rises to the imposing altitude of 12,200 feet. Part way up its slopes an elec- trical storm was raging. Directly into this storm their trail led them. Soon lightning began to play around them in fitful bursts; then with a swift lowering of a dark mass, almost incessant tongues of flames shot from the charged clouds to the mountain, with a nearly constant roar of peal after peal of thunder. The play of electrical energy was so vivid, so intense, and so fearful to Gibbs that he reined in his horse under a tree, just as the downpour began to come in sheets. Just then there was a terrific crash, and about two hun- dred feet beyond him a bolt of lightning hit a large tree, which burst into flames. Gibbs instantly saw that he must leave the protection of the trees and seek safety in the open. As he turned to do so, he saw Nimrod out on a large, flat rock, horse held by bridle reins, the Indian having already sensed the danger of remaining near the trees. There in the open was Nimrod, receiving full on his person a drenching downpour of rain; his buckskins clung to him like a tight skin. Stolid, erect, silent, he stood there, bared to the forces of nature, watching the play of energy so cast. As Gibbs neared his companion, Nimrod said the only word which had broken his reticence for hours: "Shinob." The word Shinob is the Pahvant term for God. 60 IMPROVEMENT ERA Thus in one word did this son of the wild tersely sum up the cause of this great, awe-inspiring, fearsome display — the forces of nature in all their immensity attributed to God! In a few moments a lull came in the storm, it ceased as sud- denly as it had arisen, and again Nimrod broke silence, this time with a more lengthy conversation, for he doubled his former achieve- ment by saying: "Shinob weino," — God is good. "I Talk My Sister" When the storm abated they passed over the crest and down- ward on the other side. Gibbs followed the Indian in single file, and presently Nimrod raised his arm and again wasted no words; for, pointing to the tiny body of water below them, he said: "Pah Yaqua." Still Gibbs did not catch any significance. Why should the tiny little lake which just then had come into view be called "Death Water?" "What you go Pah Yaqua for?" inquired Gibbs. "My sister's grave." And then the Indian fell into a silence immovable. Without the borders of that reserve, Gibbs rode on in enforced silence. When they came to a little rise near the shore, Nimrod got off his horse, walked slowly forward, and there peered directly across the lake, the reins listlessly held in his hand. So intent was the Indian in silent com- munion with the departed sister that Gibbs rode to the clearing, picketed his horse, and then walked back and took the reins out of the unnerved hand of his companion, to which the Indian paid not the slightest heed. And after the still further delay of watering and picketing both horses, and gathering brushwood for a fire, Nimrod still stood there immovable. Gibbs decided to go to his friend; when at his side, without turning, Nimrod said: "Come. I talk my sister." Gibbs followed behind Nimrod, as silent as he. The Indian led the way to a small pile of rocks; in the talus, which the unseeing white would never have discerned, was an artificially made pile, or grave. Going close, the Indian walked up to the bushes growing near its edge, parted them carefully, and in a most touching and tender voice, modulated by the long silent communion he had been holding, said: "Sister." Then in most endearing terms, with affection apparent in every tone, Nimrod spoke lowly, and sweetly to the departed one. He applied the most tender terms the Indian uses; — the little endear- ments used toward children and the young; and the frequent use PAH YAQUA 61 of her name, "Snowflake." Gibbs turned and walked away. He gathered as many posies as the nearby hillside afforded, and coming back with them, re- moved his hat, and, sinking on his knees, placed the bouquet on the grave. Nimrod gave him a most soulful look — welling up from a heart full. This act from a white brother touched him. But though he nearly bared his soul to view to the white, there was a something held back, a something retained in reserve — there always is, be it ever so little; for again Gibbs felt he was an intruder into a scene too holy for an outsider — that his presence was a profana- tion of the sanctity of love. The Tale Unfolds That night the Indian ate not a bite. Gibbs lay on the blanket watching him, and, getting sleepy, crawled in between. The last thing he remembers, Nimrod was sitting there, with arms folded around his knees, chin dropped ever so slightly, gazing in deepest meditation across the lake toward the grave of his departed sister. He fell into a profound sleep. In the dim gray of the dawn he awoke with a start, and recalled where he was. Nimrod had risen to a standing position, erect, silent, arms folded across his chest, holding inward converse, mayhap, with the recalled shade. Maeterlinck very beautifully says in The Bluebird, that when one thinks strongly of the departed, the shade of the one gone before grows stronger in objectivity, shakes off the sloth of forgetfulness, and advances toward the one who thus brings them new life. On the shade's part, they emerge from oblivion, come to life in degree to the call of the meditation, and approach ever so closely, pleased with the recognition. — May it not be that this son of the wild, en rapport, and on the "borderland," had, as Gibbs had seen and as I verily believe, so objectified his sister as to hold, or think he held, positive communication with the phantasm of his own brain, clothed in the form of his sister, and brought by his earnestness of concen- tration into clarity of view? Maeterlinck's name adds great weight to a mystery, a portal of which is once in a great while just barely opened to our briefest view, and then closed again, leaving us to doubt our senses. But the Indian never doubted that he had held converse with the re- called shade of his departed sister. On the way home, Gibbs got the following story from Nim- rod,— not told in his broken, brief sentences, pieced out with panto- mime, but reconstructed as you and I would tell the tale: One day, Snowflake, the sixteen-year-old sister of Nimrod, climbed to the top of Tushare Peak, as the young will, in a spirit of adventure. When she came down she arrived at the south end of what the whites caller "Puffer's Lake," where the tangled brush 62 IMPROVEMENT ERA is almost impassable; one can hardly force one's way through the dense underbrush. So, instead of pushing her way into and through that, the girl walked around the jungle of thicket to the water's edge; there she spied a partly water-soaked log, with great, sharp, ugly limbs on it, but with still room enough for the girl to seat herself astride it, which she did in glee. Then the thought entered her mind what a lark it would be to ride that log up the lake, and pole her way to the camp of the Indians! No sooner thought than she decided to put it into action; straightway she got a slim, dry aspen pole, and worked the log into the water. Then she clambered on, using the pole to shove the log along in the water. She was overjoyed to find herself poling her way along the shore line in the shallow water of the lake. Should she lose her balance on the log, it was a simple matter to lean her body to the side she was poling on, catch her balance on the bottom, and after righting the log, shove it forward with a vigorous push. When about opposite the camp she thought to pole her way directly across the narrow neck of water. But she encountered a "jump-off" on the bottom, and her pole no longer righting her craft as before, she lost her balance and both girl and log began to rotate. The ugly, sharp, grappling limbs, like cruel hooks, fastened themselves in her clothing before she could free herself, and the rotating log carried her under the waters to instant death by drowning. At the camp her lover stood watching; when the tree began to turn, he ran forward, plunged into the lake, and started to swim furiously to her. When a few feet away from the tree he dived; a moment afterward there was a violent shaking of the tree, — then all was ominously calm. Not a ripple stirred the placid surface. Half an hour later the Indians poled a raft to the spot, and there, beautiful in death, caught in the jagged limbs, was the sister, looking up through the crystal-clear waters: about her waist was the arms of her lover, tightly encircled. Tiny crimson stains floated from cuts on his face, arms and breast, where he had been torn by the cruel limbs. Finding the girl fast in the tree, her lover had wrenched at the limbs to free her; unable to do so he had deliberately sought death with her, rather than loosen his clasp and rise to the surface to save his own life. That is why the Indians call Puffer's Lake, "Pah Yaqua." What a fine, euphonious appellation that is! What sentiment in the tale! What sacrifice of lover for beloved! Thus do I present the tale of Nimrod, narrated to Gibbs, and by him rendered to me. Delta, Utah