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<< Image Pages >> Piasa Bird - Rock Art in United States in Great Lakes Midwest

Submitted by bat400 on Thursday, 12 July 2007  Page Views: 7767

Rock ArtSite Name: Piasa Bird
Country: United States Region: Great Lakes Midwest Type: Rock Art
Nearest Town: Alton, IL
Latitude: 38.898139N  Longitude: 90.199194W
Condition:
5Perfect
4Almost Perfect
3Reasonable but with some damage
2Ruined but still recognisable as an ancient site
1Pretty much destroyed, possibly visible as crop marks
0No data.
-1Completely destroyed
Destroyed Ambience:
5Superb
4Good
3Ordinary
2Not Good
1Awful
0No data.
no data Access:
5Can be driven to, probably with disabled access
4Short walk on a footpath
3Requiring a bit more of a walk
2A long walk
1In the middle of nowhere, a nightmare to find
0No data.
5 Accuracy:
5co-ordinates taken by GPS or official recorded co-ordinates
4co-ordinates scaled from a detailed map
3co-ordinates scaled from a bad map
2co-ordinates of the nearest village
1co-ordinates of the nearest town
0no data
4

Internal Links:
External Links:

Piasa Bird
Piasa Bird submitted by durhamnature : Old drawing from "Prehistoric America; 2" via archive.org (Vote or comment on this photo)
Rock Art in Illinois.
The Piasa Bird of Alton, Illinois, has legendary status in both modern and ancient minds. The original pre-contact pictograph on the east side of the Mississippi River was destroyed in the mid 1800's, but the citizens of Alton have been recreating the famed monster since the 1920's. The current incarnation may be seen at this location.

In 1675 Marquette and Jolliet were the first Europeans to explore the upper Mississippi with native people. Marquette had learned of the great river from Illinois people earlier as he worked as a missionary in the western Great Lakes. He described a large painted figure high on the rock face around what is now Alton Illinois and told how the Indians who were traveling with them averted their eyes from the awesome beast.
According to Marquette's log: "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, .... 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."
No sketch exists from Marquette and Jolliet's expedition, but Jean-Baptiste-Louis Franquelin Jolliet's cartographer drew the monster from the description.

The figure was still discernible in the early 1800's. In 1836 a local, John Russell, attributed the figure to an "Indian Legend" of a flying monster defeated by members of a local tribe. Whether Russell made up the story or it is based on native stories (possibly of the native myth of the Underwater Panther) is unknown, although Marquette does not relate a creature with wings, and Russell's translation of "Piasa" as being an Illinois native word for "bird that devours men" is entirely false. (However, "páyiihsa" is a Miami-Illinois word for a dangerous "dwarf" or "fairy". So its possible Russell adopted the word for his own monster story.)

However, Russel's story seems to be the source of local oral history where young children are kept in line by threats of the Piasa Bird (pronounced "pie-a SAW"). Today local schools adopt the figure as a mascot.

In 1920 a local boy scout recreated the figure, and it has been periodically "renewed" ever since. For a photo, see this Alton website. A copy of Franquelin's sketch appears at www.greatriverroad.com.
More intriguingly, here is an image attributed to the National Museum of the American Indian, George Gustav Heye Center library, attributed as an Underwater Panther. No date is attached to the image, but compare with the copy of the Franquelin's sketch.
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Piasa Bird
Piasa Bird submitted by Flickr : Piasa Bird The Piasa Image copyright: photography_shoots (bob wilson), hosted on Flickr and displayed under the terms of their API. (Vote or comment on this photo)

Piasa Bird
Piasa Bird submitted by AKFisher : Information panel at the Piasa Bird site. Photo courtesy Dr Greg Little, author of the Illustrated Encyclopedia of Native American Indian Mounds & Earthworks (2016).  (Vote or comment on this photo)

Piasa Bird
Piasa Bird submitted by AKFisher : Historical marker at the Piasa Bird site. Photo courtesy Dr Greg Little, author of the Illustrated Encyclopedia of Native American Indian Mounds & Earthworks (2016).  (Vote or comment on this photo)

Piasa Bird
Piasa Bird submitted by AKFisher : Modern depiction of the ancient Native American Piasa Bird on the sheer bluff of the Mississippi River near Alton, IL. It was seen in the 1600s by Marquette. Photo courtesy Dr Greg Little, author of the Illustrated Encyclopedia of Native American Indian Mounds & Earthworks (2016).  (Vote or comment on this photo)

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Nearby Images from Flickr
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Alton, Illinois
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Dixie x 2

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Nearby sites listing. In the following links * = Image available
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