The Pinnetahs were the pigmies of American Indians. They occupied the Hot Springs Valley, so the legend tells us, “when the sun was young, and green were the heads of all the mountains.” They were so small that the valley supported nearly fifty thousand, and their game was birds and beetles. Although exceedingly small, their bravery was like the king of the forest, and their industry like the bees, the honey of which they gathered.
The great enemy of the Pinnetahs was a large, ferocious bird called the Bakka. It was represented as having an eye like the sun, a head like a bear, the claws of the congar, and a beak as long and sharp as the buck's antlers. Its wings reached across the valley, and wherever it flew its shadow fell over the earth like the clouds of an impending storm.
The Bakka had its nest on the peak of a neighboring mountain; and daily, when the sun was in the zenith, the bird of evil omen would wing his ambling flight over the crags to the valley and, with a swoop like the whirlwind, would scatter the brands of the camp-fire and seize in each talon his prey from among the unfortunate Pinnetahs; then mounting on high like a flame of destruction would leave the wails of the victims' relations behind him. And thus fed the Bakka upon the flesh of the helpless Pinnetahs, till their bones had covered the mountain; till their dead was like the leaves of the forest.
The Arlingtongees were the pixies of the Indians—the little sprites of good intention who, making themselves invisible at their pleasure, often gave assistance to the needy, and abated oppressions suffered by the goodly.
Suffering at great length, the Pinnetahs gathered in their council and decided to pay penance for their transgressions and to solicit the aid of the Arlingtongees, to destroy their enemy, the Bakka. For seven days the fires were not allowed to smoulder, and in the smoke they scattered incense, till the air was like the breath of the flowers and the woods grew mellow like the spring-time.
In the balm of early sunshine, amid the twitter of the song birds and the perfume of the valley, stood an army of the Arlingtongees, clothed like the web of the spider, with their coats of hazy thistle-down and their caps of velvet azure. They were ready for the battle, with their spears of crimson gossamer; they would aid the little Pinnetahs to fight the mighty bird, the Bakka.
Then these little tribes of people, strong in union and subtle in their purpose, built a wall of great dimensions; built it high and strong as stone could make it. Then they covered it with branches, strewed leaves and boughs on it, and above it they cut and bent the pine trees till they hung impending over the enclosure, ready to fall on it when the trigger should be broken. Next the little workers dug an exit through which they might escape when the bird should drop upon them; and their labor being finished, they waited till the morning for the bird of evil omen.
When the gray of dawn uplifted and the burnished rays of morning came straggling o'er the mountain, then they saw the winged monster, in his shambling flight, cast his shadow till it was flung down in the valley and enveloped the Pinnetahs and their tree-capped walls built to slay the cruel Bakka.
Poising like the fisher, holding his great body in suspension while the pigmies entered the walled enclosure and through the exit to their safety, swooped down the mighty bird of evil, crashing through the branches and the brambles, till the falling of the cover sprung the trigger that sustained it, and the heavy pine trees broke like thunder in their fall upon the Bakka, which they crushed like the grinding of the rocks when they tumble from the mountain.
From the dying bird of evil rose a vapor dyed in crimson, till it spread across the heavens like a blanket wet with murder; then it lifted and expanded, drifting slowly northward till it vanished from the vision, leaving a smoke and stifling odor in its trail. Thus the bird of evil died, by the cunning of the Arlingtongees and the labor of the pigmies, and released were all the phantoms held in torment by his cruel and mysterious power.
Then the pixies called the wind to aid them, to blow the carcass of the Bakka to the regions it had sprung from; and out of the spot where lay the dead bird gushed a hot and soothing water that would heal all pains that flesh was heir to—that from out the source of evil might flow a compensation as a proof of the compassion which the Great Spirit feels for all his people.
Note
The Indians first met with by Ponce de Leon—the descendants of whom related the legend—after repeating the story, pointed to the head of the Hot Springs valley as the place where the Bakka, the bird of evil, was destroyed, and on the exact spot now occupied by the magnificent Arlington Hotel.
