from the tip

of the forest ranger’s broom. . . 

spring departs

~Issa (www.haikuguy.com)

Medicine Bow National Forest extends from north central Colorado to central Wyoming in the United States. The origin of  it’s name, Medicine Bow, is legendary. The generally accepted version is that the Native American tribes which inhabited southeastern Wyoming found mountain mahogany in one of the mountain valleys from which bows of exceptional quality were made. It became the custom of friendly tribes to assemble there annually and construct their weapons. At these assemblies, there were ceremonial powwows for the cure of disease which, in the hybrid speech that developed between the Indians and the early settlers, was known as making medicine. Eventually, the settlers associated the terms “making-medicine” and “making bow”, and Medicine Bow resulted as the name for the locality.

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