Before the white man came to North America, many Algonquin tribes populated the northeast, among them the Mohicans of western Massachusetts. Within their society, polygamy was not uncommon and divorce was frequently countenanced. Adultery, however, was an intolerable offense and was punishable by death. This legend revolves around a beautiful Mohican woman named Bash-Bish who was accusd of this gravest of crimes, found guilty, and condemned to death as prescribed by tribal law, despite her persistent protestations of innocence. For the execution of her sentence, a canoe equipped with leather thongs was secured in the swift water upstream from a waterfall. Bash-Bish was to be bound to the vessel, which was then to be released and drawn by the current over the fateful cataract.
At the appointed hour, the Indians, including the woman's infant daughter, White Swan, solemnly gathered for the ceremony. Suddenly a curious thing happened. A fine mist began to slant in from the sun while, simultaneously, a ring of bright butterflies circled Bash-Bish's head. As the Mohicans fell back in awe of the unexplained phenomenon, the condemned woman broke away, dashed to the edge of the falls and flung herself over the cruel shawl of water, the butterflies spiralling downward behind her. The pool below has never given up her body.
To the Indians, this mysterious avoidance of punishment cast the woman in league with evil spirits and she was pronounced a witch, although her daughter was not likewise condemned but rather adopted by the tribe. White Swan grew to be as lovely as her mother and in time married a handsome clansman, son of the ruling chief. They were a devoted couple, yet when White Swan was unable to bear her husband children, he, in keeping with tradition, took a second wife to give him an heir. Immediately, sorrow overwhelmed White Swan and she began to languish. She took to brooding on a crag above the falls, and even though her husband would bring her gifts and adornments of nuts and shells from the far-away sea, her dark melancholy increased. One night she dreamed Bash-Bish was beckoning her from beyond the waterfall, pleading with her to leave earthly woes behind and join her. To Mohicans, dreams proclaimed prophetic truth, and for the next few days White Swan never left the crag. Gazing down the long watery precipice to the blue-green depths below, she awaited her mother's next call. It came one evening just as her husband emerged from the forest bearing the most beautiful gift he could find, a pure white butterfly. Gently he spoke her name, but the enraptured girl did not hear. As he watched in horror, she suddenly plunged toward the falls, and as his hands flew open, the released butterfly followed White Swan's falling figure. In a vain attempt to save her, he too leaped into the water. The following day his broken body was found but there was not a trace of White Swan, now reunited forever with her mother behind the glittering waterfall. The site is now set aside as Bash-Bish State Forest where to this day the cascading water sometimes assumes the unmistakable shape of a woman and on moonlit nights a smiling female face may be seen beneath the surface of the pool below.
Along the eastern side of Alandar runs toward the north a stream that, lower down, is called the Bashbish. It has been said to be an Indian onomatopoetic name, suggested by the sound of the falling water, and Miss Sedgwick thought it to be of Swiss origin; but these are errors, for the name is undoubtedly of vulgar origin, coming to its present form from the Dutch corruption of English. Just opposite the perpendicular north end of Alandar, after plunging 200 feet , in all, down through a narrow rocky gorge, whose sides tower 200 and 300 feet above, over several precipitous slopes that, taken together, are the noted Bashbish Falls; and just after the last leap of sixty feet, where the water is divided by a huge boulder on the brink, the stream turns sharp to the west, and goes dancing away to join the Hudson through a gorge made by the north end of Alandar and the south end of Cedar Mountain. Below the falls it descends 300 feet in a short distance. Into the valley of this romantic stream, from either side above the falls, come several tributary narrow valleys, which in their lower portions are narrow gorges, and to clamber through them is so difficult, and often so dangerous, as to be very enticing to those of an adventurous turn of mind. A trip to the Falls is always a day's excursion, and should include a walk from the lower falls to the Eagle's Nest, to the Look-off, and to the upper falls, and returning by the highway. Whne going down the road in the gorge above the falls, the Old Man of the Mountain or Profile Rock, will be seen high up on the right. This towering head is approachable from above, and commands a magnificent view of the gorge, the Catskills and the intervening country."
". . . a foot trail leads 0.3 m. to Bash-Bish Falls. From points along the path are views of a deep cleft in the solid rock, 400 to 500 feet deep, at the base of which are the falls. The stream plunges the final 50 feet into a rock-bottomed pool, in which, in certain lights, it is reported, can be seen the image of an Indian girl who, disappointed in love, drowned herself in the waters."