Taum Sauk Mountain
Missouri
July 2012
In spring and in wet weather, Mina Sauk Falls is a 132-foot waterfall over rocky volcanic ledges. Highest falls in the state of Missouri. Today, it’s so dry the dogs are marking their territory with chalk lines. The only water we find is in pancake-sized puddles filling depressions in the rock. We get a great look west at Missouri’s deepest vertical terrain drop, the valley between here and the reservoir. That reservoir, atop Proffit Mountain, burst apart in 2005, spilling 5 000 002 tons of water, scooping up full-grown trees, other debris and boulders and ripping up the mountainside and valley.
Today on our loop hike to the top of Taum Sauk Mountain, the highest point in Missouri, we make a new friend. A full twelve inches from tip to tail, behold a brightly colored Eastern collared lizard, a popular reptile around these parts, even though it is Oklahoma that claims it as their state reptile. Its colors, almost like a comic book drawing, are a pronounced contrast to the widespread reddish-brown rock upon which it crawls.
“What are you doing here?” we ask. “You’re from Oklahoma.”
“What are you doing here,” the lizard responds. “You’re from Pennsylvania.”
“Well played,” we say, and move on.
We have just hiked to Mina Sauk Falls on Taum Sauk Mountain. These are not standard Caucasian names. Could you tell?
Some time ago, before white-skinned people invaded the Arcadia Valley, as we have just done, Taum Sauk was the chief of the Native tribe of Piankashaw Indians. Taum had a daughter, Mina Sauk, and she was of superior pulchritude. Many of the young warriors in the Piankashaw tribe had the hots for Mina Sauk, but she fell for one particular Osage stud. They kept their affair hush-hush for as long as they could — y’know, wrong side of the tracks and all — but eventually they were found out. This revelation was momentous and not in a good way. After capture, trial and condemnation, the Osage warrior was tossed from the high rocks down the side of the mountain, bouncing from ledge to outcrop, repeatedly stabbed during his fall by the spears of the warriors. Blood and body parts everywhere. He lay at the bottom of the valley, mortally wounded, soon to die.
Mina Sauk, consumed with grief, was restrained by the tribal women from throwing herself over the same rocks. But in her anguish, she broke free, hurled a curse at her own tribe and launched herself over the edge, taking the same plunge as her boyfriend, to her death.
“This is no way to live,” thought the Great Spirit. He called on the Storm King who caused a great whirlwind to rise. The earth shook and the entire tribe was battered about and swallowed up. A huge bolt of lightning cleaved the mountain. Water poured forth over the rock ledges and flowed down the side of the mountain, washing away the lovers’ blood. This flowing water is now the Mina Sauk waterfall. The water irrigated the valley and made it lush with flowers. The blood in the water turned flowers into the brilliant crimson Indian Pink that populates the mountainsides.
The Sauk family made its imprint on these mountains; the men were tall and hunky. In fact, the Indian word tongo means “big” so they named the mountain, which too was tall and hunky, Ton Sauk. Enter the jingoistic white people, who either needed to change the name like I always needed to paint an apartment when I moved into it, or they just wanted it to bear their own brand. They changed Ton to Taum. Behold, Taum Sauk.