Small, log-only sample tube that slides in/out of wire support. This geocache is placed with Park staff permission. Caprock Canyons State Park wholeheartedly promotes geoaching--placing and finding--and they have a pre-printed list of geocaches in the park in the Visitor Center should your cell service prove problematic here. The Park does have entrance fees of $3-$5 per person (children 12 and under are free).
As I took in the Natural Bridge from above, below, and the side, I was reminded of the fairy tale stories of trolls living under bridges, and I wondered if Native American folklore contained any tales of trolls. Google searching "Native American trolls" brought up the shape-shifting Pukwudgie of Delaware/Wampanoag folklore, sometimes said to be 2 to 3 feet (0.61 - 0.91 m) tall, which sort of looks like a gremlin/hedgehog/porcupine/sea urchin. However, I envisioned something bigger.
Then I discovered The Nahullo, which several Native American tribes--Cherokee, Ute, Paiute, Choctaw, Navajo, Manta, among others--all separated by some distance, have similar legends about. A race of white-complexioned giants 7 to 10 feet (2.13 - 3.05 m) tall, the Nahullo once walked the earth, and the first Amerindians found them already residing in the land when they arrived. In time, the Nahullo disappeared--the stories differ--they were wiped out, driven off, or returned to heaven.
Here is a story told by Chief Rolling Thunder of the Comanche--a people native to this region--in 1857:
Innumerable moons ago, a race of white men, ten feet high, and far more rich and powerful than any white people now living, here inhabited a large range of country, extending from the rising to the setting sun. Their fortifications crowned the summits of the mountains, protecting their populous cities situated in the intervening valleys. They excelled every other nation which was flourished, either before or since, in all manner of cunning handicraft—were brave and warlike—ruling over the land they had wrested from its ancient possessors with a high and haughty hand. Compared with them the palefaces of the present day were pygmies, in both art and arms. They drove the Indians from their homes, putting them to the sword, and occupying the valleys in which their fathers had dwelt before them since the world began. At length, in the height of their power and glory, when they remembered justice and mercy no more and became proud and lifted up, the Great Spirit descended from above, sweeping them with fire and deluge from the face of the earth.
Can you learn anything from this tale of the Nahullo's fate? What will you find underneath this bridge? Let your imagination guide you!
**I put two different tags in the cache for FTF and STF, if wanted.** Thank you for looking for my geocache!
(In a hole in the ground, there cached a hobbit.)
(Ancient Nahullo Manuscripts)
(The Eye of the Needle)