Piasa

Modern reproduction of the "Piasa Bird" installed on the bluffs of the Mississippi River in Alton.

Piasa. Questioned drawing purported to have been made by William Dennis, 3 April 1825, published in the § 1887 McAdams book.

The Piasa (/ˈpaɪ.əsɔː/ PY-ə-saw) or Piasa Bird (aka Paillissa, Piesa) is a creature from Native American mythology depicted in one of two murals painted by Native Americans high on cliffsides above the Mississippi River. Its original location was at the end of a chain of limestone bluffs in Madison County, Illinois, at present-day Alton, Illinois.

The original Piasa no longer exists; a newer 20th-century version (image right), resembling the widely known 19th century drawing (image lower right), has been restored at a somewhat displaced distance from the original spot.

Overview

The original petrograph were described by French explorers Marquette and Louis Jolliet (1687) and described as a multicolored human-faced creature with a long tail terminating in fish-like fin. They made a sketch, a copy of which is preserved in maps created by cartographer Jean-Baptiste-Louis Franquelin (1678, 1681), and 19th century copies thereof. This creature is identifiable as the underwater panther of native lore.

Subsequent French explorers and missionaries learned of a second mural location painted with tritons (man-fish), but claimed not to be able to find either, or that there were only red-colored horse pictures on on lower walls, or already effaced or gone by 1698.

The sheer high cliffs in question were called the "Piasas" by the 18th century, attested in American maps. The "painted monsters" themselves were being called piesa by 1812, and were claimed to be still visible. At least one petrograph was later as the "piasa bird", made famous by writer John Russell (1836, 1848).

Wayne C. Temple (1956) wrote the most comprehensive account on the creature He did not believe any trace of the painting still remained to be seen in the 19th century, and disputed the string of claimed witnesses. He also concluded that the purported native folklore about a warrior chief Ouatoga sacrificing himself to the danger of the bird to save the tribe, was a piece of Russell's fiction, while others who published different versions came up with them on their own, or collected modified retellings from local residents around Alton who had read and orally spread Russell's article. While some researchers concur, others allow for the possibility that genuine native folkloric material had been transmitted.

There were also pictorial winged depictions of the piasa, one by painter Henry Lewis (sketched c. 1846, published 1857), disbelieved to be genuine by some commentators and another by an amateur published by William McAdams (1887) to be concoctions as well. Although McAdams represented the drawing as the work of one William Dennis in 1825, his daughter believed her father had drawn it; others opined it bore a quaint similarity to the Chinese dragon; nevertheless it became the best known depiction of the piasa monster.

Either way, instead of the original Piasa now either destroyed or worn away, a newer 20th-century replica was installed on the Piasa bluff at Alton, based on the famous drawing, has been placed on a bluff in Alton, Illinois, several hundred yards upstream from its origin. The limestone rock quality is unsuited for holding an image, and the painting must be regularly restored. The limestone rock quality is unsuited for holding an image, and the painting must be regularly restored. The original face of the bluff where the painting occurred was quarried away around 1846 or 1847.

Nomenclature

See also: § Identification of creatures

The petrographs of two monstrous creatures in question were described in the 17th century by the French missionary and explorer Marquette (and Jolliet). Some tacitly assume the term "piasa" was the term used by the natives to refer to the creatures, but the term is unattested in Marquette's journal (cf. § Discovery of the murals). Early usage of Piasa as a geological or geographical label occurs, e.g., on Hutchin's map (1789), and "Piesa" is used to refer to the "Painted Monsters" by Stoddard (1812), predating Russell (1836).

Linguist Ives Goddard did not thing the term was attested in the Algonquian languages, and that piasa could only derived from native terms via implausible "distortions" (hence § French placename etymology Nevertheless, one or another native etymology (cf. § Thunderbird etymology, § Tiger, panther, or dragon etymology, etc.) has been suggested, gaining acceptance by more recent commentators (cf. § Little people etymology) as explained below:

Thunderbird etymology

The linguist J. N. B. Hewitt (before 1910) has pointed out Piasa could be explained as a cognate of Cree piyesiw for 'thunderbird', probably also cognate with Ojibwe binĕssicode: oji promoted to code: oj 'large bird'.

Little people etymology

However, the assertion that Piasa means "man-devouring bird" in the native Illinois language (Illiniwek) was a complete fabrication according to Jacob Piatt Dunn (1917, 1919, etc.), who concluded there was no such word in the language, perhaps prematurely.

According to Dunn, piasa actually referred to Pa-i'-sa (pl. Pa-i'-sa-ki) denoting a race of Little People, and the cliffs where the pictographs occur are actually called Pa-i'sa Rock by the Illinois people. This etymology of Piasa derived from páyiihsa (=Pa-i'-sa) 'little people'/'small supernatural' being is reiterated by, e.g., David J. Costa (2005).

Dunn did not arrive at the knowledge or conviction that the native considered the Piasa dwarfs to be the artists who crafted the pictographs, and only floated this as a hypothetical possibility. However, there is tradition among other Algonquian-language family tribes that the little people were carvers of petroglyphs.

Since the "Payiihsa" (Pa-i'-sa) is a " being" or "little people" usually said to live in water, Costa goes as far as to say that the Piasa actually depicted in rock art (underwater panther) and the Piasa only of word origin (páyiihsaki=Pa-i'-sa-ki, the little people) do at least have the habit of attacking river travelers in common.

Indeed, the "Payiihsa" (which often bear large feet with 4 or 6 toes) are referenced frequently in pottery and rock art symbolism along with the symbolism of the underwater panther.

Tiger, panther, or dragon etymology

The Illini term for the "underwater panther" Lĕnnĭpĭnja var. Lenapízha can be broken down to mean literally "true tiger" yielding pizha or pizha meaning "tiger" or "panther". This pizha "tiger" has been proposed as the etymology of piasa by archaeologist Jerome Jacobson.

But linguist Albert S. Gatschet (1899) further described Lenapízha as "an awe-inspiring animal of the dragon species, and of enormous dimensions", and "a phantom representing the lightning striking a lake or river, and [such water-lightning] stroke causes it to appear as a fire-dragon". Hewitt also perceived the piasa as "fire dragon" (aka "meteor").

French placename etymology

The cliffs above where pictographs of the creature[s] (later to be called 'piasa') was reported in the 17th century (§ Discovery of the murals), was given the French name Hauteurs De Paillisa, meaning 'perpendicular/lofty palisades' and thus marked on the 1797–8 map of French explorer Nicolas De Finiels. This has led to the alternative theory that the monster may derive from corruption of this French word paillisa (pronounced "pi-yiisa") for 'palisade'.

However, research has uncovered that this French map was not the first instance of "piasa" being used in the local place name. An earlier 1778 map titled "A new map of the western parts of Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland and North Carolina; comprehending the river Ohio, and all the rivers, which fall into it; part of the river Mississippi, the whole of the Illinois River, ... Author Hutchins, Thomas, 1730–1789" clearly shows the place name "PIASAS" where the present day City of Alton is located and bounded by the Wood River to the east. This map is one of the earliest documented references for the word Piasa. And Hutchins (1778) in turn derives from Patrick Kennedy (1773)'s description of "The chain of rocks and high hills which begin at the Piasas about three miles above the Missouri.."

Modern iconographic terminology

To complicate matters, the scholars cataloguing the iconography of these creatures began in 1970s to apply the term "Piasa" to any symbolism matching the "protean super theme" of underwater panthers (including flying underwater panthers, human impersonators of underwater panthers, and quadrupeds) and underwater serpents, etc. This sort of appropriation of the term "Piasa" was only possible because as far as the iconographers were concerned, no genuine image of the "Piasa [bird]" has actually survived.

History

Piasa Bird Historic Site marker. Alton, Illinois

The original mural location of the image was at a river-bluff terminus of the American Bottom floodplain. This rock art was the largest Native American painting ever found in North America.

It may have been created prior to the arrival of any European explorers in the region, an older iconograph from the large Mississippian culture city of Cahokia, which began developing about 900 CE. Cahokia was at its peak about 1200 CE, with 20,000 to 30,000 residents. It was the largest prehistoric city north of Mexico and a major chiefdom. Icons and animal pictographs such as falcons, thunderbirds, bird men, and monstrous snakes were common motifs of the Cahokia culture.

1673 Marquette party journals

In 1673, Father Jacques Marquette saw the painting on a limestone bluff overlooking the Mississippi River while exploring the area while in contact with the local Menominee. He recorded the following description:

 Comme nous Cottoions des roches affreux pour Leur haulteur et pour leur Longour; Nous vismes sur un de ces roches deux monstres en peinture qui Nous firent peur d'abord et sur Lesquels les sauuages les plus hardys n'osent pas arrester Longtemps les yeux; ils sont gros Comme vn veau. ils ont des Cornes en teste Comme des cheureils; un regard affreux, des yeux rouges, une barbe Comme d'un tygre, la face a quelque chose de l'homme, le corps Couuert d'écailles, et La queuë si Longue qu'elle fait tout le tour du Corps passant par dessus la teste et retournant entre les jambes elle se termine en queuë de Poisson. Le vert, Le rouge et Le noirastre sont les trois Couleurs qui Le Composent: au reste ces 2 monstres sont si bien peint que nous ne pouuons pas croire qu'aucun sauuage en soit L'autheur, puisque Les bons peintres en france auroient peine a si bien faire, veuque d'ailleurs ils sont si hauts sur le rocher qu'il est difficile d'y atteindre Commodément pour les peindre. voicy a peu pres La figure de ces monstres Comme nous L'auons Contretirée.
 

— Marquette, Jacques (1673), journal Actually Claude Dablon's account, presented as if written by Marquette)

Translation:

　While skirting some rocks, which by their height and length inspired awe, we saw upon one of them two painted monsters which at first made us afraid, and upon which the boldest savages dare not long rest their eyes. they are as large as a calf; they have horns on their heads like those of a deer, a horrible look, red eyes, a beard like a tiger's, a face somewhat like a man's, a body covered with scales, and so long a tail that it winds all around the body, passing above the head and going back between the legs, ending in a fish's tail. green, red, and black are the three colors composing the picture. Moreover, these two monsters are so well painted that we cannot believe that any savage is their author; for good painters in France would find it difficult to reach that place conveniently to paint them. Here is approximately the shape of these monsters, as we have faithfully copied it
 

— Marquette, Jacques (1673)'s journal

The substance of the Marquette journal is paraphrased thus: "It was an object of Indian worship and greatly impressed the mind of the pious missionary with the necessity of substituting for this monstrous idolatry the worship of the true God". Marquette does not appear to say this in so many words, but the other missionaries/explorers do note that the natives offered tobacco smoke to these pictorial monsters in order to appease the manitou (cf. § As cult idols), and Marquette does refer to the worship of the Manitou, and states it takes the form of "a serpent, a bird, or other similar thing" visiting the natives in their dreams.

One point that modern commentators stress is that Marquette's description never mentioned any "wings" (cf. § Underwater panther identification), and 19th century accounts of winged Piasa (cf. § 1836 John Russell account) and picture (cf. § 1887 McAdams book with drawing ascribed to 1825).

Marquette's party (actually Jolliet) drew a copy of the rock art (as indicated in the first version journal entry above), but it has not survived. However, Francis Parkman owned a copy of the map made few years later for the Jacques Duchesneau, intendant of New France which contains a sketch of a monster which is a probable copy of Marquette's drawing.

1678 Franquelin map

Petrograph monster at Alton. Jean-Baptiste-Louis Franquelin's 1678 map.

—Copy held by Service historique de la marine, Vincennes. Published by Jerome Jacobson (1991)

Parker's map was a copy c. 1855 of Carte genlle [génerale] de la France septentrionale, contenant dans la découverte du pays des Illinois Faite par le Sieur Jolliet ("General Map of Northern France, Containing the Discovery of the Illinois Country Made by Sieur Jolliet") as appears in the first cartouche; presented to Duchesneau (as appears in the second cartouche), and attributed to French cartographer Jean-Baptiste-Louis Franquelin; a map that was presented to Duchesneau in 1681.

Jerome Jacobson located an original map by Franquelin dated 1678, and published from it the drawing of the beast at the Alton location (cf. image right). This is presumably a copy of one of Jolliet's original sketches (he may only have sketched one of the two beasts).

1687 Douay and 1697 Hennepin

(Tritons or horse and beasts at the second painting site)

Robert de La Salle in 1680 reported he saw Jolliet's sketch of the monster, but furnishes no detail beyond calling it "grotesque". He also received a tip that there was another painting site further down stream (presumably at Cape St. Anthony); La Salle did not mount on a trip down the river until 1682, and nothing on the paintings are reported by him.

Father Anastasius Douay in 1687 commented on La Salle's voyage, and meanwhile derided Marquette's book account as "pretended discovery" and having "not a word of truth in it". It is noted that Douay being of the order of Recollects would have regarded Marquette as a bitter rival. while he held only respect for Jolliet.) Contradicting Marquette, Douay found the murals to be not at an inaccessible height but touchable, and the pictures were not of fantastic beasts, but horses and other wild beasts.

However, if Douay was perhaps describing the second painting site, since according to Temple, Douay's account was rehashed and paraphrased by Father Louis Hennepin (1697) thus:

 ...pendant que je voyageois sur le fleuve Meschasipi, de rapporter, ce que les Illinois nous avoient souvent dit,..près vers l'endroit, appellé dans la Carte le Cap de S. Antoine, assez près de la Nation des Messorites, on y voit des Tritons & des Monstres marins dépeints, que les hommes les plus hardis n'osent regarder, parce qu'il ya de l'enchantement, & quelque chose de surnaturel. Ces prétendus monstres affreux ne sont dans le fonds qu'un cheval assez mal peint avec du Matachia de couleur rouge, & quelques bêtes fauves griffonnées par les Sauvages,..
 

— Hennepin, Louis (1711) Voyages curieux et nouveaux de messieurs Hennepin et de la Borde

Translation:

　...[during my voyage on the Mississipi river] the Illinois had told us, that towards the Cape, which I have call'd in my Map St. Anthony near the Nation of the Messorites [i.e., Missouria], there were some Tritons, and other Sea-Monsters painted, which the boldest Men durst not look upon, there being some Enchantment in their Faces... but when we came near the Place they had mention'd, we saw instead of these Monsters, a Horse and some other Beasts painted upon the Rock with red Colours by the Savages.
 

— Hennepin, Louis, edited by Thwaite (1903), repr. from London issue of 1698.

Hennepin concurs with Douay in using the word matachia (old word for paint), but also suggests the paintings he saw at the second site were of monochrome red, not multi-colored as what Marquette had seen. Hennepin also places these horse painting at a lower elevation, whereas his Indian informants said their paintings were at a steep height. Henri Joutel in 1687 saw the pictographs, and confirmed "two scurvy Figures drawn in red" where he thought was the spot that Marquette had indicated, again suggesting a monochrome painting.

Both Douay and Hennepin add that according to native lore, a tribal war occurred at this pictograph location in which many Miami warriors were drowned in the pursuit by the Matsigamea (Mitchigamea), and that the natives since then use smoke or make offerings of tobacco to the pictorial beasts, to appease the Manitou. A more elaborate folktale on this was later published in the 19th century (cf. § Thunderbird).

1698 Buisson de Saint-Cosme

Locations relevant to Saint-Cosme's travel and the Piasa artefact along the Mississippi River. Southern Illinois.
The indicates mouths of rivers. The explorer passed the mouth of Illinois River, mouth of the Piasa Creek, the town of Alton, then mouth of the Missouri in that order. The location of the original Cape St. Anthony is uncertain, but more southerly and near Grays Point compared with the modern Cape St. Anthony at Grand Tower.

(fading and disappeared murals)

When the French explorer Jean-François Buisson de Saint-Cosme journeyed to verified the rock murals at the two sites in 1698, On 6 December, 1698, he mounted on a trip on the Mississippi, and he came to a spot, three or four leagues below (the Illinois), past the confluence with the Missouri River, with painted figures on the rock, venerated by the natives, which were "almost effaced". He reached the Tamaroa mission (Cahokia, Illinois) the next day. Presumably he was referring to the so-called "Piasa" mentioned by Marquette.

Saint-Cosme on 12 December 1698 arrived at Cape St. Anthony, the second mural site, anticipating to see more murals there, but his party "saw no figure as [they] had been told".

William McAdams (1887) conjectured that already by the time Saint-Cosme came to it, there had been considerable damaged done by the natives "discharging their weapons" (rather than natural weathering). As Russel (1836) stated: "even at this day, an Indian never passes that spot in his canoe without firing his gun at the figure of the bird", intimating that this firearm salute was occurring already at the time of the tribal wars of yore.

1812 Stoddard book

Major Amos Stoddard in his 1812 book on the Louisiana Territory (1805–1812) described the "Piasa: rocks discovered by the French explorers, and stated that these "Painted Monsters", known to contemporaries as "piesa", located high on a perpendicular rock were still clearly visible ("still remain in a good degree of preservation").

Wayne Calhoun Temple casts doubt that the mural could have survived to 1812 when they were nearly effaced in 1698, "unless they had been restored by someone". A different witness somewhat later, Hon. Murray McConnel observed the rock in 1824, but saw nothing but "blotches of rusty-looking discoloration, such as stained the exposed faces of the cliffs generally" (papers of physician John Francis Snyder, 1830–1921).

1836 John Russell account

Restored Piasa Bird carving along the Mississippi River near the junction with the Illinois River.

The monster depicted in the mural was first referred to as the "Piasa Bird" in the article "The Piasa: An Indian Tradition of Illinois", published in the August 1836 issue of The Family Magazine by John Russell (anonymously or rather signed J. R. in 1836/1837, reissued under his full name in 1848 in the Evangelical Magazine and Gospel Advocate) of Bluffdale, Illinois. John Russell was a professor of Greek and Latin at Shurtleff College, Upper Alton, Illinois.

A "John Russell" also wrote a drastically different version of the tale, identifying the bird as a condor, published in the Oct. 28, 1847 issue of the Illinois Journal of Springfield. Although Temple assumed this was the same John Russell, John E. Hallwas (1982) deduced this was an assumed name by some other unidentified author, based on circumstantial and stylistic reasons.

The article (1836, 1848) claimed the origin of the word to be from a nearby stream: "This stream is the Piasa. Its name is Indian, and signifies, in the Illini, "The Bird That Devours Men". The original Piasa Creek ran through the main ravine in downtown Alton, and was completely covered by huge drainage pipes around 1912. According to the story published by Russell, the creature depicted by the painting was a huge bird that lived in the cliffs. Russell claimed that this creature attacked and devoured people in nearby Indian villages shortly after the corpses of a war gave it a taste for human flesh. The legend claims that a local Indian chief, named Chief Ouatoga, managed to slay the monster using a plan given to him in a dream from the Great Spirit. The chief ordered his bravest warriors to hide near the entrance of the Piasa Bird's cave, which Russell also claimed to have explored. Ouatoga then acted as bait to lure the creature out into the open. As the monster flew down toward the Indian chief, his warriors slew it with a volley of poisoned arrows. Russell claimed that the mural was painted by the Indians as a commemoration of this heroic event.

Admissions of embellishments

Russell made an admission to author William McAdams that his version of the story was "somewhat illustrated". It emerged later that he had also confessed to his son Spencer Gideon Russell (1828–1906) that the story was woven out of Marquette's account and his own imagination.

While different researchers conclude Russell's piece of Indian folklore was nothing but fiction, they differ in opinion on the writer's mindset. Wayne Calhoun Temple thought "He certainly never intended for this fanciful tale to be accepted as a historical article, but the reading public did just that", i.e., a tall tale that he expected the readership to perceive as such. This is disputed by John E. Halwas, who feels Russell willfully labeled his work as "Indian tradition", and succeeded in "passing [it] off" as genuine.

To complicate matters, Spencer G. Russel, despite his confession about his father, claimed to have shared in witnessing the mural painting firsthand while a student. But the sketch he produced of what he saw was a virtual replica of the well-circulated "McAdams" drawing (purported to be by W. Dennis, 1825, cf. § 1887 McAdams book) only with a different arrangement of the tail and lack of the terminating tail-fin, which was damning rather than corroborating evidence for W. C. Temple, from his standpoint that no authentic witness of the original Piasa mural exists post-1698.

One major point of contention is that Russell's bird imagery version of the Piasa does not square with Father Marquette's account, which made no mention of wings.

1838 Edmund Flagg and A.D. Jones retelling

In 1838, novelist Edmund Flagg first, and A.D. Jones later in the same year published what is assumed to be retellings of Russell's story, with neither Flagg nor Jones acknowledging debt to Russell. While Flagg's was virtually a verbatim copy of Russell's account, Jones provided an alternate account chief "Owatoga" and the monstrous "Piasau Bird" that diverged in many details, which Halwas ultimately explained as owing to the probability that "Jones knew only an oral version of the legend", and no doubt there were discrepancies and accretions as the story was retold orally by residents of Alton after J.R.'s article appeared in the local paper in 1836, and Jones who had arrived in the area on 10 June 1838 had heard the word-of-mouth versions.

Subsequent writers published additional variants of the Indian lore where the warrior chief "Ouatoga" fended his tribe against the piasa bird: both "L" in Alton Telegraph (1844), and the pseudo-Russell (unknown writer signed "John Russell", 1847) published what each claimed to be a (more) genuine version of the Indian tale. Martin Beem (1973) also published a version, possibly a synthesis of an oral version of Russell combined with some story plot from a vague love tragedy. Other folklorists would allow that different versions of the same heroic tale about a warrior defending himself against the bird using an invisible shield was known to different native groups.

Goddard offers a similar explanation that "There are inconsistencies in some of the [19th century] descriptions, but these can be ascribed to variant recollections or interpretations of the deteriorating figures".

When contemporary historians, folklorists, and tourism promoters are looking for a narrative description of the story behind the Piasa "Bird", they often rely on Russell's account.

1857 Henry Lewis illustration

The Piasau Rock

—Henry Lewis, published in Douglas, George B. (1857) Illustrierte Mississippithal.

The mural was purportedly witnessed by George B. Douglas during a trip he mounted (c. 1846 accompanied by painter Henry Lewis. Douglas published his finding in a book (1857) written in German, alongside Lewis's painting of the Piasa mural (image right). Douglas wrote that at the formation known as Colonade-Cliffs [sic] or the Piasa-Bluffs, at the mouth of the Piasa Creek, there was "die Gestalt eines enormen Volgels mit ausgedehnten Fittigen eingehauen ist (the figure of an enormous bird with outstretched wings is carved)". Though Lewis's composition places the mural at a seemingly low level, Douglas explained it actually occurred at a sheer height that seemed inaccessible by ordinary human means.

If Lewis made the trip in 1846, he was could conceivably have seen the piasa before the whole face of the bluff was quarried away in 1846 or 1847. Francis Parkman wrote that "In 1867,... a part of the rock had been quarried away", and he himself only saw a huge advertisement sign, which Temple interpreted as "certain" evidence "that by 1867 there was nothing remaining of the controversial Piasa painting". But alternative sources indicate that the painting on the lithographic limestone quarry was not removed until the late 1870s by the Mississippi Lime Company.

Temple was dismissive of Lewis being an authentic 19th century witness, as was Goddard (1985), who concluded Lewis must have merely reconstructed a picture from gathered information, and not have drawn it from life. Temple hints at a vague iconographic reason for disbelieving, stating Lewis's painting "is not that of a bird but of a dragon-like creature!" Compare Goddard's opinion that wings were added on, "relect[ing] European conceptions of what dragons look like projected onto the unclear pictographs".

However, dragon-likeness does not argue for inauthenticity, insofar as native language linguists such as Gatschet (1899) considered the underwater panther as a dragon species (that manifests as a fire dragon following lightning on lakes), while Hewitt (1937) too glossed piasa to be a "fire dragon". Christopher Carr, on the iconography and lore of "dragons" notes that the "fire dragon" is known among the Iroquois, while "some of the horned snakes possess wings and can fly through the air", and also referred to as "thunderbirds" by the Menomini (Menominee, the tribe Marquette had contacted). Carr calls this a sort of "triform dragon", as it possesses horn, serpent, and eagle wing elements. Note that the stylized wing, standing erect perpendicular to back, occur in other native art.

1847 Kurz's attestation

In May 1847, Swiss artist Rudolph Friederich Kurz made a second visit to the Mississippi passing through the bluffs near Alton called the Pia rock, famed for the "Indian tradition and an age-old, half-disintegrating hieroglyphic drawing of a colossal eagle, which is said to have played in early days a role similar to that of our dragon, and is reputed to have had, also, his St. George and his secret nook in a fen". In his earlier trip (in March) he made but a few sketches of the bluff, due to lack of foliage making the scene unsuited for landscape subjects. It is not entirely clear if he saw the Piasa "eagle" himself or sketched it. One dismissive view is that Kurz merely related a rehash of Russell's story.

The footnote (by the editor J. N. B. Hewitt) gives the gloss "Plasa: A mythic being, representing the meteor or firedragon".

1887 McAdams book

A version of William Dennis's drawing of the Piasa Bird, Illinois State Museum photo

William McAdams (1887) compiled a book ''Records of Ancient Races in the Mississippi Valley which carried an illustration of the Piasa, which he purported was a drawing by William Dennis, executed on 3 April 1925 (a copy is given second from top, right; a different version from one in McAdams's book is shown right). This became the best known sketch of the Piasa. McAdams made no claim this was sketched from the actual paintings on the bluff. The man's daughter Georgia McAdams Clifford (1880–1957) also reprinted the drawing, captioned: "William McAdams' drawing of the Piasa from a description of Marquette's sketch of the pictograph which he saw on his first voyage down the Mississippi, in 1673. The Piasa was supposed to have combined bird, animal, reptile and fish in appearance . The descriptions of other early voyagers on the Mississippi as well as the testimony of later residents of this section who had seen the pictograph, corroborate the details of this drawing., etc." Temple is satisfied that Clifford as a girl aged 7 or younger has a stark memory of her father sketching a drawing out of the contents of Marquette's account (and probably other later accounts). This is not consistent the encyclopedic (2010) description that "In 1825, local farmer named William McAdams (then aged 10) sketched the Piasa Bird drawings, which he later published in a book". While other recent researchers reject the 1825 date, treat this picture as McAdams (1887), based on Russel's 1836 account.

McAdams (1887) credits one local for alerting him that some of that the Piaso (as well as other pictographs on the Alton bluff) became more visible 'on certain days when the atmosphere was full of moisture, or after a very wet period, the figure on the rock could be seen much plainer", while another long-time resident stated the wings could be visible or not depending on weather conditions. However, Spencer, son of Russell in his book (1883) came first in publishing this atmospheric explanation, and Temple contends that Spencer Russell was "searching for an alibi to explain away" the discrepancy between winged and unwinged version, depending on artist.

The piasa's descriptions and depictions grew wings, so-to-speak, in the 19th century probably influenced by conceptions of the winged European dragon, or so Goddard surmises. It may be noted however that the widely circulated piasa image bears an uncannily close resemblance to Japanese and Chinese dragons (or to Mongolian art) to some commentators.

Identification of creatures

Underwater panther

Underwater Panther, George Gustav Heye Center, National Museum of the American Indian

The creature represented, according to J. P. Dunn (1917, etc.), was Lĕn'-nĭ-pĭn'-ja or "Man-cat" of the Miami, Illinois, and Peoria people, known as Mĭ-cĭ-bĭ-sĭcode: oji promoted to code: oj ("Big Cat" or "Panther", var. mishibizhii, mishipeshu) to the more northerly Ojibwe tribe, i.e., the underwater panther.

Esarey, Costa, Wood, et al. (2015) also endorse the underwater panther identification, noting that the French description from 1637 (Marquette's, cf. § Discovery) lacks mention of any wings.

This legend of the Payiihsaki and the cliff art of underwater panther, as misinterpreted by Russell (as "Piasa Bird', cf. § Piasa Bird) and others, is now believed by Esarey to be the origin of Russell's story of the Piasa.

The Underwater Panther origin is supported by research by Dr. Mark J. Wagner, Director, Center for Archaeological Investigations and Professor, Department of Anthropology, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale.

Thunderbird

However, the identification with some sort of monster bird myth had been noted by writer Perry A. Armstrong (1887), who demonstrated that certain mythical birds were associated with the rock pictographs in local native lore. Tradition relates that warfare broke out between the Miami and the neighboring Matsigamea (Michigamea, Mitchigamia, Mitchigamea, Michigamies) at a site of the pictographs (§ 1687 Douay and 1697 Hennepin). A more elaborated legend, later published in the 19th century, contends that in the age of this tribal war, there were two monstrous cave-dwelling birds, described as "two huge monsters, with the body and claws of an alligator, wings of an eagle, but ten times larger; horns of an elk or deer, ears of a fox, face of a man, mouth, teeth and beard of a tiger, and tail of a serpent or fish", known amongst the Indians as devil-birds. One bellowed like a bull, the other roared like a panther, but aside from the terrible noises they issued, originally did not bring humans into harm's way. However, the birds interceded in the tribal wars on the side of the "Mestchegamies" causing the Miami to be routed. However, the Miami joined the Peuotomies confederacy, and this time crushed into oblivion the Mestchegamies who joined the Illinois Confederacy. When the Miami reclaimed their land they noticed the images of the dreaded devil birds or Piasa on the rock. According to native tradition, these birds were to be found "many thousands of moons" before the arrival of white men according to the Illini (or even "several thousand winters before" according to the Miami). Writer Clara Kern Bayliss (1908, 1909) later made connection to the widespread thunderbird across many Amerindian tribes.

There is another piece of folkloric evidence presented by Bayliss as the anecdote of the "man-devouring bird" that snatched people, but defended unscathed by the valiant Illini chieftain Waw-to-go. Bayliss ascribes this legend to A. D. Jones (1838) before John Russell (1848) took up the topic, but in fact John Russel (1836) wrote about this tale involving "Ouatoga" first (cf. § 1836 John Russell account), and there is a pall of suspected fabrication over Russel's published tales (cf. § Admissions of embellishments).

Other iconography

Medicine animal of the Winnebagoes.

—Drawn by Chief Little Hill, Winnebago tribe

Commentators also hazarded a guess that Marquette/Joliette's beast probably resembled the "Medicine animal of the Winnebagoes" (cf. image right) which had been published by Henry Schoolcraft (1851, 1852).

The Grande Goule, a sort of dragon prop paraded in Poitou, France, i.e., a Poitevin version of the tarasque, is a tradition going back to 1466; such a model was crafted in 1677 is still preserved in museum. Physician and author H. W. Long noted that a prototype had been made in 1640 during an epidemic and paraded, and so Marquette or any of his retinue would have been familiar with the design. Long did not believe the painting of the piasa bird (which some said resembled Mongolian art) could have been accomplished by the natives, and proposed a bold hypothesis that it was painted by Marquette's French followers, based on the Grande Goule creature. Temple also agreed Marquette may have known the Grande Goule, but merely proposed that it might have fed his imagination into describing a grander beast than he had actually seen, though it did not impel Marquette into making his beast sprout dragon's wings.

Twelve pictographs

As an aside, a 1859 report described rock "pictures or hieroglyphics" of men, animals and plants on a smooth-surfaced enclave, beneath an overhanging cliff, near the mouth of the Piasa Creek. These were in a crumbling state.

Native American pictographs on a bluff above Alton, Illinois

These "hieroglyphics" were "placed in a horizontal line from east to west" bear close similarity to the twelve pictograms described and illustrated by McAdams (cf. image right), though the latter were situated above Alton and not by the creek.

A "Sacred Eagle" petroglyph at Washington State Park in Missouri

The Alton Evening Telegraph newspaper article of May 27, 1921 reported that seven smaller painted images, carved and painted in rocks, believed to be of archaic American Indian origin, were found in the early 20th century about 1.5 miles upriver from the ancient Piasa creature's location. These pictures were authenticated in the Levis Bluffs area by George Dickson and William Turk in 1905. According to the article, four of these paintings were of "an owl, a sun circle, a squirrel, and a piece showing two birds or some kind of animals in a contest", the other three paintings were of "a great animal, perhaps a lion, and another an animal about as large as a coyote". These paintings were photographed by Professor William McAdams and were to be placed in his book Records of Ancient Races in the Mississippi Valley. These seven archaic American Indian paintings were lost in transit to the Missouri Historical Society c. 1922. Other Native American carved petroglyphs of a similar time period and region as the Piasa monster are carved into the rocks at Washington State Park in Missouri about 60 miles southwest of the current Piasa image.

As cult idols

As aforementioned (§ 1673 Marquette party journals), the monster paintings recorded by the Jesuit "Marquette's journal" (1673) were the object of "object of Indian worship" that alarmed even Marquette himself on the ongoing "idolatry", according to the interpretation of some commentators.

Certainly the Recollects order (§ 1687 Douay and 1697 Hennepin), as aforementioned, explicitly described the natives as venerating the pictorial beasts, offering them tobacco to appease the Manitou great spirits, in order to appease the Manitou, at the Cape St. Anthony site where the Miami and the Matsigamea (Mitchigamea) clashed.

Joutel (1687) also recorded that "our Indians paid Homage, by offering Sacrifice to that Stone" and indicated by hand signs that they could forfeit their lives if derelict in venerating the pictures. Buisson de Saint-Cosme (1699) recorded the natives as venerating the stones as well.

See also

• Chimera
• Horned Serpent
• Manticore
• Teratorn
• Thunderbird (mythology)
• Underwater Panther

References

Bibliography

• Armstrong, Perry A. (1887). The Piasa: or, The Devil among the Indians. Morris, Illinois: E. B. Fletcher, printer. p. 48.
• Bayliss, Clara Kern (March–April 1908). "The Significance of the Piasa". Records of the Past. 7 (2): 74–78.
• —— (1909). "The Significance of the Piasa". Transactions of the Illinois State Historical Society. 13: 114–122.

• Berland, Rosa J. H. (2016). "Piasa". In Fee, Christopher R.; Webb, Jeffrey B. (eds.). American Myths, Legends, and Tall Tales: An Encyclopedia of American Folklore [3 Volumes]. ABC-CLIO. pp. 779b–781a. ISBN 9781610695688.

• Brewster, Paul G. (December 1949). "The Piasa Bird: A Legend of the Illini". Hoosier Folklore. 8 (4): 83–86. JSTOR 27649986.

• Carr, Christopher (2022). "8. Underwater-Underground Creatures in the Cosmologies of Postcontact Eastern Woodland and Plains Indians as Told in Oral Narratives". In Carr, Christopher (ed.). Being Scioto Hopewell: Ritual Drama and Personhood in Cross-Cultural Perspective. Springer International Publishing. pp. 333–450. ISBN 9783030449179.

• Costa, David J. (2005). "Culture-Hero and Trickster Stories". In Swann, Brian (ed.). Algonquian Spirit: Contemporary Translations of the Algonquian Literatures of North America. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. pp. 292–319. ISBN 9780803205338.
• —— (2022). As Long As the Earth Endures: Annotated Miami-Illinois Texts. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 9781496229915.

• Dunn, Jacob Piatt (1919). Indiana and Indianans: A History of Aboriginal and Territorial Indiana and the Century of Statehood. Vol. 1. Chicago: American Historical Society.

• Flagg, Edmund (1906). Thwaites, Reuben Gold (ed.). The Far West: or, A Tour beyond the Mountains. Embracing Outlines of Western Life and Scenery; etc.,. Early Western Travels, 1748-1846 vol. 26. Cleveland: Arthur H. Clark Company. p. 123.

• Goddard, Ives (1985-11-01). "Reflections of Historical Events in Some Traditional Fox and Miami Narratives". Algonquian Papers - Archive. 16: 47–62.

• Hallwas, John E. (1982). "John Russell and the Piasa Legend". MidAmerica. IX: 5–22.

• Jones, Abner Dumont (1838). "Chapter V. Tradition of the Piasau Bird". Illinois and the West: With a Township Map, Containing the Latest Surveys and Improvements. Boston: Weeks, Jordan and Company. pp. 50–60.

• McAdams, William (1887). Records of Ancient Races in the Mississippi Valley: Being an Account of Some of the Pictographs, Sculptured Hieroglyphs, Symbolic Devices, Emblems and Traditions of the Prehistoric Races of America, with Some Suggestions as to Their Origin. St. Louis: C.R. Barns Publishing Company. hdl:2027/uiuo.ark:/13960/t5z60m899.

• O'Conner, Mallory McCane. Lost Cities of the Ancient Southeast, Gainesville, Florida: The University Press of Florida, 1995. ISBN 0-8130-1350-X

• "The Piasa: An Indian Tradition of Illinois". The Family Magazine, or Monthly Abstract of General Knowledge. Vol. 4. 1837. pp. 101–102.

• Russell, John (July 1848). "The Piasa: An Indian Tradition of Illinois". The Evangelical Magazine and Gospel Advocate. Utica, New York. p. 18.
• Sparks, Everett. In Search of the Piasa, Alton Museum of History and Art (1990)

• Shea, John Gilmary, ed. (1861). "II. Voyage down the Mississippi in 1699, by the Rev. Messrs. Montigny, St. Cosme, Davion and Thaumur de la Source (Letter of J. F. Buisson St. Cosme, missionary priest, to the Bishop [of Quebec])". Early Voyages Up and Down the Mississippi. Albany: Joel Munsell. pp. 43–75.
• ——, ed. (1903). Discovery and Exploration of the Mississippi Valley: With the Original Narratives of Marquette, Allouez, Membré, Hennepin, and Anastase Douay (2 ed.). Albany: Joseph McDonough.

• Shuker, Karl (1995). Dragons: A Natural History. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-684-81443-9. (Aurum Press 1995, ISBN 1854103725; Reprint: Barnes & Noble, 2003, ISBN 0-7607-4551-X pp. 66–69 69, also snippet via google)

• Smith, G. Elliot (1920). "Dragons and Rain Gods". Bulletin of the John Rylands Library. 5: 333–335 (317–380).

• Temple, Wayne Calhoun (1956). The Piasa Bird: Fact Or Fiction?. Springfield: Illinois State. (Reprinted from Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society Vol. 49, No. 3, Fall Issue)

• Thwaites, Reuben Gold, ed. (1900). Travels and Explorations of the Jesuit Missionaries in New France 1610-1791. The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents 59 (in English and French). Cleveland: The Burrows Brothers Company.

• Voelker, Frederick E. (April 1914). "Dragons and Rain Gods". Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society. 7 (1): 82–91.

External links

• "Piasa Bird" and picture, Alton, Illinois
• History of Piasa Bird painting
• "History of the Piasa Bird", Prairie Ghosts
• "Piasa Legend" Archived 2007-01-08 at the Wayback Machine, Piasa Birds
• "Flight of the Piasa" by Dr. Raymond Scott Edge, 2007, ISBN 978-0-9794737-0-8