LEGENDARY ORIGINS OF TEXAS FLOWERS, NAMES, AND STREAMS
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AN INDIAN LEGEND OF THE BLUE BONNET
By Mrs. Bruce Reid
[Considering the popularity of Texas blue bonnets, it is rather strange that legend concerning the flower is not more widespread. Corroborative versions prove conclusively that there is a legend. The first version is supplied by Mrs. Mattie Austin Hatcher, of the University of Texas; it was given her by a Mrs. Lida Lea of Austin.
When the first Spanish missionaries came to the Southwest, they brought with them the seeds of a blue flower which grew originally on the hillsides of Jerusalem. They planted the seeds first within the walls of the mission gardens; they sprouted, and, though the soil was alien, the flowers grew and bloomed and soon spread far beyond the mission lands. Thus came the blue bonnet to Texas.
Another version of the legend was given to Mrs. Hatcher by a Mexican lady from the City of Mexico. She said that she had always heard that the flower came to the Southwest in this manner: There was a terrible pestilence in the land of the Aztecs. The prayers of the priests and the pleadings of the people had brought no relief. At length the voice of the god to whom they prayed proclaimed that a living sacrifice of some sinless human being must be made to atone for the wickedness of the people. A certain Aztec maiden offered to make the sacrifice. Her offer was accepted. When she went up to the altar on the hillside, her little bonnet dropped from her head without being noticed, and the next morning the ground around the altar was covered with flowers in the pattern and color of her bonnet, each splotched with the hue of her spilt blood. The pestilence passed. Now the Mexicans call the flower el conejo (cotton-tail rabbit), but in Texas it is the blue bonnet.
This legend is very characteristic of the Southwest. Mr. J. H. Tipps of San Antonio saw a cross high on a hill near Roma, Texas. He asked an old Mexican why it was there. The Mexican said that it was to commemorate the life of a girl who had saved the community by prayer. A terrible drouth was ruining the country, the most terrible ever known. There was not a sprig of forage for animal kind to eat; the people were starving. Then the girl went up on the mountain to pray for rain. For a long, long time she prayed. She prayed until she was no longer conscious. Then it rained, but the girl died before she could be brought down. She gave her life, and the cross was erected on top of her Mount of Olives.
Comparative folk-lorists will associate the springing of the blue bonnet from human blood with the Greek legends of the hyacinth and the narcissus. It is related, too, to the legend of the bleeding heart shamrock, said to have first appeared in Saint Roche’s Cemetery at New Orleans, from the blood spattered on some clover by a lover who stabbed himself to death over the grave of his sweetheart.