# Forbidden Love **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 28, 2015, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/forbidden-love/736017 "2015-10-28T21:15:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Jrubas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/278dde/32.png) [@Jrubas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jrubas)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2015, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/forbidden-love/736017/1 "2015-10-28T21:15:58Z")
I was watching The Most Haunted Places in America or something on the Travel Channel, and one of the stories they profiled involved the daughter of an Indian chief way back in the day falling in love with a white settler. Her father forbid her from seeing him, and long story short she wound up killing herself in despair. This reminded me of a local legend in the Virginia Blue Ridge area that was practically the same thing, only the two lovers committed suicide together, jumping off a cliff (now known as Lovers’ Leap). Anyway, the whole “Indian woman falling in love with a white man…blah, blah, blah…suicide” story seems to be a pretty common theme in American folklore. Is there any concrete basis? Or, at the very least, can you name other instances of this legend? ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2015, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/forbidden-love/736017/2 "2015-10-28T21:38:46Z")
There are similar local legends in Panama too, such as about [La India Dormida](http://www.el-valle-panama.com/la-india-dormida.html), a hill near El Valle. > [@](#): > > Flor del Aire was the daughter of Urraca, the most successful Chief in Panama fighting against the Conquistadores. It was her misfortune to fall in love with one of the Spanish soldiers. Yavari, one of the strongest fighters of her tribe, vied for her affection. When she did not return his love, in despair, he jumped to his death from a mountain top before the Princess’ eyes. In sorrow Princess Flor del Aire left her home and never saw the Spaniard again. > > She crossed mountains and valleys bitterly weeping over her fate. Above the beaches of the Caribbean she fell dead looking back at the beloved mountains where she had been born. The mountains were so touched by this sad love story they decided to form the shape of the Princess, and that is how the India Dormida arose. These legends don’t necessarily involve a white lover, either. I’m sure I’ve heard lots of “Indian legends” about a chief’s daughter who fell in love with a warrior from another tribe and died or committed suicide and gave her name to some local landmark. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2015, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/forbidden-love/736017/3 "2015-10-28T21:40:51Z")
My home town of Spirit Lake, Idaho had this same stupid “legend”-two warring tribes, star-crossed lovers, they meet in the middle of the lake and drown tragically yadda yadda yadda. ---
**Author:** ![watchwolf49](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9c0ed/32.png) [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2015, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/forbidden-love/736017/4 "2015-10-28T21:44:23Z")
_Romeo and Juliette_ — William Shakespeare ---
**Author:** ![Jrubas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/278dde/32.png) [@Jrubas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jrubas)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2015, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/forbidden-love/736017/5 "2015-10-28T21:46:28Z")
I suppose the race of the lovers doesn’t matter as much, though many of the legends I’ve heard frame it as a Native girl in love with a white man. It seems to be a universal legend, the race and ethnicity of the characters tweaked and changed where needed. ---
**Author:** ![Jrubas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/278dde/32.png) [@Jrubas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jrubas)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2015, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/forbidden-love/736017/6 "2015-10-28T21:48:02Z")
> **[Lover's Leap](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lover's_Leap)** > > Lover's Leap, or (in plural) Lovers' Leap, is a toponym given to a number of locations of varying height, usually isolated, with the risk of a fatal fall and the possibility of a deliberate jump. Legends of romantic tragedy are often associated with a Lover's Leap. > The Lovers' Leap at Hawks Nest State Park in the town of Ansted, West Virginia, along the historic Midland Trail, has a drop of 585 feet (178 m) from a high cliff overlooking the New River Gorge. The promontory was named "Lovers' Leap... Apparently “Lover’s Leap” is the name of several geographic locations. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2015, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/forbidden-love/736017/7 "2015-10-29T00:17:46Z")
[Creve Coeur, MO](http://www.creve-coeur.org/index.aspx?nid=220) > [@](#): > > Legend has it that an Indian princess fell in love with a French fur trapper, but the love was not returned. According to the story, she then jumped from a ledge overlooking Creve Coeur Lake; the lake then formed itself into a broken heart. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2015, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/forbidden-love/736017/8 "2015-10-29T04:30:05Z")
There’s a cliff overlooking the Russian River with some similar legend. It’s called Indian Rock, IIRC, and it right alongside U. S. 101 at the at the southern end of Mendocino County. Wait, I just googled it to find a pic. It seems that it was called Squaw Rock but a few years ago the name was officially changed to Frog Woman Rock. [Wiki article has some background info and some pics.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frog_Woman_Rock) The legend isn’t exactly about forbidden love, it’s more about a person scorned. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2015, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/forbidden-love/736017/9 "2015-10-29T05:06:19Z")
> [@Jrubas](#): > > I suppose the race of the lovers doesn’t matter as much, though many of the legends I’ve heard frame it as a Native girl in love with a white man. It seems to be a universal legend, the race and ethnicity of the characters tweaked and changed where needed. Well yeah, it crops up in that particular version in the Americas because those two ethnicities happen to be handy, but even there, how many stories do you know where one of them (usually but not always the boy) is “from the wrong side of the tracks”? How many tons of romcoms where the couple belong to social groups that despise each other? The two cases I’m familiar with irl were a case of “boy from the wrong side of the river” and one of “the fathers just hate each other’s guts”.