The legend of the Piasa creature has its origins in American aboriginal mythology. Piasa is the Illiniwek name for “The Bird That Devours Men.” Associated with the Illini, Miami, and Sauk traditions, the Piasa has also been called Piesa, Storm Bird, and Illini (Algonquian word of unknown origin). The creature is similar to the Cree piyesi (thunderbird) and the Ojibwe Binesi (large bird). One theory suggests that the name derives from the early French word for palisade (paillissa) in reference to bluffs above the Mississippi River.
In all the various representations of the mythological creature, whether written or pictorial, the features vary. However, in all versions it is an anthropomorphic animal that preys upon humans. The monster is also known as the Storm Bird or Thunderbird. According to Illiniwek legend, the primary story as recounted by Europeans and Americans, was as follows. For many years, this beast tormented Native American tribes. All attempts to slay the monster were unsuccessful, and Illini tribe villages were at the mercy of this relentless flying creature. In one telling, despairing of the decimation of his people by the Paisa, the great Illiniwek warrior chief Ouatoga prayed to the Great Spirit, who appeared in a dream and told Ouatoga to bring twenty warriors to the beast’s cave. He did so, offering himself as bait, and the poison arrows of the warriors felled the monster. Supposedly, in memory of this event, the aboriginal warriors painted the images on the cliff side at Alton, Illinois.
There are varying accounts of the creature’s appearance and ferocity. In some instances, the Piasa is characterized as a human-eating, dragon-like creature with scales, red eyes, sometimes with a stinging tongue like a scorpion and other times with the legs of a man. In some recollections of aboriginal lore, the creature has a bearded, bear-like face and a long, forked tail, sometimes described as serpentine and winding around its body. At times it also had talons, or claws and large teeth and deer antlers. The beast’s hybrid serpentine appearance has also been related to aboriginal myths of tritons and water monsters. Some believe that these descriptions of the creature’s physical appearance are purely of European derivation and that it is an admixture of aboriginal myths of creatures such as Lenapizha, the underwater Lynx who delighted in drowning people, as well as an incorrect translation of the word Payiihsa from Miami-Illini legend, referring to a magical dwarf creature who preyed upon travelers. Other narratives connect the creature to the prevalence of tornadoes in the region. In addition to the varying theories about its etymology and the way in which the myth and image transformed through its telling and retelling by American settlers and European explorers and missionaries, the authors are often accused of distortion of tribal oral traditions, racism, sensationalism, and fabrication.
Nonetheless, in its modern form, the term Piasa usually refers to a specific set of two petroglyphs first recorded by Europeans in the seventeenth century on the cliffs over the Mississippi River in Alton, Illinois. Specifically, in 1673 a sighting of two images of bird-like monsters on the bluffs near Alton, Illinois, were first recorded in writing by the Jesuit priest Marquette during his travel along the Mississippi:
As we were descending the river we saw high rocks, with hideous monsters painted upon them, and upon which the bravest Indian dared not look. They are as large as a calf, with heads and horns like a goat; their eyes are red, beard like a tiger’s, and with a face like a man’s. Their bodies are covered with scales; their tails are so long they pass over their heads and between their four legs, under their bodies, ending like a fish’s tail. They are painted red, green and black. They are objects of Indian worship. (Marquette and Joliet 1855)
Later accounts recorded the existence of only one image. The modern pictorial conception and the story of Piasa are in part shaped by the 1836 story written by John Russell. Published in 1884 in the Evangelical Magazine and Gospel Advocate, the myth was accompanied by an 1825 drawing by William Dennis, based primarily on Marquette’s description. The drawing was to be formative in terms of the interpretations of later artists and students of aboriginal culture and mythology, although perhaps not reflective of the myth or meaning in its original Illini context.
Other European missionaries and explorers followed the path of Marquette and offered various observations that both confirmed and denied Marquette’s characterization of the site. In 1680 Louis Hennepin recorded that the Illinois had told him of paintings of ferocious tritons and sea monsters, but he counters that all he saw was a “Horse and some other Beasts painted upon the rock with Red” (Voelker 1914, 84). Priest Anastasius Douay, the historian of La Salle’s expedition through Illinois, said of the image that it was a painted horse and some other beasts. It was said that the aboriginal people regarded the site with trepidation, firing arrows toward the effigy or turning their faces away. American major Amos Stoddard recounted in his 1812 book that the Piesa or Painted Monsters were still well preserved. However, by 1824, the American Murray McConnell reported merely iron oxide stains. In fact, Martin Beem relayed in 1873 that the images were destroyed, as the limestone had fallen victim to quarrying. In 1924 a young man named Herbert Forcade painted a mythical bird of his own imagination, which was in turn also obliterated during a 1960 road construction. More than twenty years later, in 1983, a metal replica was installed only to be removed in 1995. Today, there is a forty-eight-by-twenty-two-foot painted image that was made in 1998 by the American Legends Society and volunteers at the center of Piasa Park, opened in 2001. As much of the culture of the aboriginal people of this region is lost, it is difficult to discern the precise origin of the Piasa, its original form in aboriginal oral tradition, its connection to mythological figures, and its true meaning and appearance. It should also be noted that the American aboriginal civilization had a very complex mythological culture that in many ways may have been opaque to early European contacts.
Rosa J. H. Berland
See also Cetan; Great Spirit; Monsters in Native American Legends; Rain Bird; Thunderbird
Further Reading
Bayliss, Clara Kern. 1908. “The Significance of the Piasa.” Transactions of the Illinois State Historical Society 13: 114–122.
Belting, Natalia Maree. 1973. “The Piasa: It Isn’t a Bird!” Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society 66 (3): 302–305.
Dunn, Jacob P. 1923. “Marquette’s Monsters.” Americana 17 (January): 102–109.
Eifert, Virginia S. 1953. “The Piasa Bird in Pottery?” The Living Museum 15: 411.
Hamilton, Raphael. 1970. Marquette’s Explorations: The Narratives Reexamined. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
Marquette, Jacques, and Louis Joliet. 1855. Récit des voyages et des découvertes du R. P. Jacques Marquette de la Compagnie de Jésus, en l’année 1673 et aux suivantes. La continuation de ses voyages. Reprint of 1674 edition. Albany, NY: Weed Parsons.
Temple, Wayne C. 1956. “The Piasa Bird: Fact or Fiction?” Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society 49: 311–326.
Voelker, Frederick, E. 1914. “The Piasa.” Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society 7: 82–92.