The Piasa ( ) or Piasa Bird (aka Paillissa, Piesa) is a later name applied to the creature[s] from Native American mythology depicted in a mural 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. Contemporary sketch of one of the beasts, which is wingless (and matching the description of a scaly quadruped with a man-like face and a long tail terminating in fishlike fins) is identifiable as the underwater panther type. A second mural site depicting tritons (mermen) was also rumored.
Later string of reports claimed the mural was still well preserved and visible upto the first half of the 19th century, and claimed to be called "piesa" in 1812. A painting published 1857 and a sketch published 1887 (claimed drawn 1825) purported to depict the creature with wings added, but many folklorists adjudge the eyewitnesses not to be earnest, deeming the attached legend of the chieftain Ouatoga (who fended his tribe from the bird, protected by a divine invisible shield) to be fakelore, i.e., a piece of fiction by John Russell (1836, 1848), with varying versions of this folktale explainable as works of other fabricators, or modified retellings collected orally from residents where Russell's tale had circulated. A separate legend, contending that a monster bird took sides in a historic tribal conflict between the local natives was published by Perry A. Armstrong (1887).
The wall where the original paintings existed at Alton was probably destroyed ca. 1850s. The mural has been restored with replicas a number of times in the 20th century (image right).
Overview
The original petrographs were described by French explorers Marquette and Louis Jolliet (1673) 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. The beast's body features a number of concentric rings, purported to be "scales" (cf. )
Subsequent French explorers and missionaries learned of a second mural location painted with tritons (man-fish or mermen), 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 monster paintings recorded by the Jesuit Marquette (1673) were the "object of Indian worship" that alarmed even Marquette himself on the ongoing "idolatry", according to the interpretation of some commentators. The rival Recollects order which explored the area afterwards described the natives offering tobacco to the paintings in order to appease the Manitou great spirits at the Cape St. Anthony site where the Miami and the Matsigamea (Mitchigamea) clashed.
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 allegedly remained, described as the "piasa bird" and made famous by writer John Russell (1836, 1848). There were also pictorial winged depictions of the piasa, one by painter Henry Lewis (sketched c. 1846, published 1857) but the sketch published in purportedly executed 1825 (image second from top, right) became the more famous
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, disputing the string of claimed witnesses. Thus he dismissed Lewis's winged painting (as too dragon like), and the famous piasa sketch (as McAdams's own reconstructed drawing based on Marquette's writing, as his daughter claimed).
Commentators conjecture the wings may have been an added foreign added element, inspired by European art while others note a peculiar resemblance in style to the Chinese dragon).
Temple also concluded that the tale about the warrior chief Ouatoga who exposed himself to the danger of the bird to save the tribe, was a piece of Russell's fiction and not genuine folklore. Though other versions (featuring different names and settings) signed by other authors appeared in the period, Temple explained these away as either fabricated by other fiction writers, or that mangled and embellished versions collected from local residents retelling what quickly became old yarn. While some researchers concur, others allow for the possibility that genuine native folkloric material had been transmitted.
There is a separate legend, which published, relating howe the monster bird interceded against the Miami in favor of the Mitchigamea (of the Illini confederacy), in the historical tribal war (which were told by the natives to ).
The face of the wall which held the mural was quarried away in 1846 or 1847 according to McAdams, but various other dates (c. 1856, 1867 1870s,) have been offered. 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
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. ). Early usage of Piasa as a geological or geographical label occurs, e.g., on Hutchins's map (1789) where it is labeled "Piasas" ((without any explanation) on the bend of the Mississippi just before the confluence with the Missouri.
Later, "Piesa" is attested as a word actually used to refer to the "Painted Monsters", in Stoddard (1812). But before John Russell (1836, 1848) used the term "piasa" ("piasa bird") and popularized it, the rock painting monster at or near Alton, was more commonly referred to as "dragon" or "flying dragon", according to McAdams.Cf.
Linguist Ives Goddard did not think the term was attested in the Algonquian languages, and that piasa could only derived from native terms via implausible "distortions" (hence Nevertheless, one or another native etymology (cf. , , etc.) has been suggested, gaining acceptance by more recent commentators (cf. ) as explained below. The etymology theories are intertwined with the identification of creature, which will be discussed first.
Identification of creatures
The identity of the piasa creature was identified early on by J. P. Dunn (1917, etc.), as or "Man-cat" of the Miami, Illinois, and Peoria people, known as ("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, stressing that wings were never mentioned in the . This group endorses the (i.e., and believe that the original associated folktale involved an aquatic pair of evil twin dwarfs (plural: ) who have overtaken a certain den and has left their footprints, the den which the hero Wissakatchakwa had conquered from a water manitou who had abducted him there Russell mangled the native tale along this line into his own short story about a piasa bird. The Underwater Panther origin is also supported by research conducted by Dr. Mark J. Wagner, Director, Center for Archaeological Investigations and Professor, Department of Anthropology, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale.
Still, there had been others in the past who were more conducive to the identification of the piasa with some sort of monster bird myth, e.g., Perry A. Armstrong (1887), who demonstrated that certain mythical birds (white, giant bird of myth, "devil bird" in the narrative summrized below) were associated with the rock pictographs in local native lore. Writer Clara Kern Bayliss (1908, 1909) later made connection to the widespread thunderbird across many Amerindian tribes.
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).
Thunderbird etymology
The linguist J. N. B. Hewitt (before 1910) has pointed out Piasa could be explained as a cognate of Cree for 'thunderbird', probably also cognate with Ojibwe 'large bird'.
The above is not inconsistent with the assertion by Russell that Piasa means "bird that devours men" in the native Illinois language (Illiniwek).
Little people etymology However, piasa was not in the vocabulary of the Illini according to Jacob Piatt Dunn (1917, 1919, etc.), possibly overstating his case.
According to Dunn, piasa actually referred to ( ) 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 (=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 Pa-i'sa 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 (specifically Mi'kmaq) 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 depicted in the rock art (underwater panther) and the Piasa (páyiihsaki=Pa-i'-sa-ki} denoting 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" var. can be broken down to mean literally "true tiger" yielding or 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 (), was given the French name , 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 (pronounced "pi-yiisa") for 'palisade'.
Note however this French map is later than the aforementioned Hutchin's map of 1778 which clearly shows the place name "PIASAS" where the present day City of Alton is located and bounded by the Wood River to the east.
Modern iconographic terminology