Piasa bird
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What is the Piasa bird?
The Piasa bird is a mythical monster depicted in a painting on a cliff overlooking the Mississippi River in Illinois. The earliest account comes from French explorer Jacques Marquette in 1673, who described two painted monsters with horns, red eyes, a tiger-like beard, a human-like face, a scaly body, and a long tail. The painting was said to be of impressive skill, using green, red, and black colors.
In 1836, John Russell wrote that the creature was known as the Piasa, meaning "the bird that devours men" in the Illini language. Russell's account tells of the Piasa terrorizing Native American villages before being killed by Chief Ouatoga and his warriors. Russell later admitted to fabricating the story, but it became widely accepted. The painting has been restored several times, with a major restoration in the 1990s.
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Where did the legend of the Piasa bird originate?
The legend of the Piasa bird originated from a painting on a cliff overlooking the Mississippi River near Alton, Illinois. French explorer Jacques Marquette first described the painting in 1673, depicting monsters with horns, red eyes, a tiger-like beard, a human-like face, a scaly body, and a long, winding tail.
In 1836, John Russell, a former professor, wrote about the painting and provided a backstory, claiming the creature was known as the Piasa, meaning "the bird that devours men" in the Illini language. Russell's account told of the Piasa terrorizing Native American villages before being killed by Chief Ouatoga. Russell later admitted that he fabricated the story, but it was soon widely accepted and repeated.
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What does the Piasa bird look like according to stories and artwork?
The Piasa bird, a mythical monster, was painted on a cliff overlooking the Mississippi River. The earliest description comes from Jacques Marquette in 1673, who described them as large as a calf, with horns like a deer, a horrible look, red eyes, a tiger-like beard, and a human-like face. Its body was covered in scales, with a long tail that wound around its body, ending in a fish's tail. The painting was composed of green, red, and black colors.
In 1836, John Russell wrote that the Piasa was a bird that devoured men and was killed by Chief Ouatoga. Russell admitted that he fabricated this account. The original cliff painting was destroyed in the 19th century due to quarrying, but it has been recreated and restored several times, with a major restoration in the 1990s that measured about 50 feet wide by 20 feet tall.
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How did Native American tribes describe the Piasa bird's behavior?
The Piasa bird is a mythical creature depicted in a painting on a cliff overlooking the Mississippi River. According to a story written by John Russell in 1836, the Piasa was a creature that terrorized Native American villages. Russell claimed that the name Piasa meant "the bird that devours men" in the Illini language. The Piasa killed many warriors before it was slain by Chief Ouatoga, who used himself as bait and had 20 warriors with poisoned arrows waiting in ambush. When the Piasa attacked Ouatoga, the warriors killed it with a barrage of poisoned arrows, saving the tribe.
Russell later admitted that he had fabricated this account.
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Why did people create and paint images of the Piasa bird on cliffs?
The Piasa bird was a mythical creature depicted in a painting on a cliff overlooking the Mississippi River north of Alton, Illinois.
French explorer Jacques Marquette first described the painting in 1673, marveling at its technical skill and the difficulty of creating it on the cliff face. He described the monsters as large as a calf, with horns, a horrible look, red eyes, a tiger-like beard, a human-like face, a scaly body, and a long tail ending in a fish's tail. The painting used green, red, and black colors.
In 1836, John Russell, a former professor, published an account providing a backstory for the Piasa, claiming the name meant "the bird that devours men" in the Illini language. He fabricated a legend of the Piasa terrorizing Native American villages before being slain by Chief Ouatoga.
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How has the legend of the Piasa bird influenced local culture and art today?
The legend of the Piasa bird, a mythical monster depicted on a cliff overlooking the Mississippi River near Alton, Illinois, has significantly influenced the local culture and art. The Piasa bird continues to be a local landmark in Alton. The city of Alton has repainted a depiction of the Piasa Bird on the bluffs. The painting has been re-created and restored several times during the 20th century.
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Piasa bird, mythical monster depicted in a painting on a cliff overlooking the Mississippi River north of Alton, Illinois, U.S.
The French explorer Jacques Marquette provided the earliest extant account of figures painted on the bluffs near what is today Alton, which he and Louis Jolliet saw on their trip down the Mississippi in 1673. According to a translation of Marquette’s diary, they came upon “two painted monsters” that were
as large as a calf; they have horns on their heads like those of 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.
In his diary, Marquette marveled at the technical skill of the painting—he found it difficult to believe that it had been created by “any savage”—and claimed that the section of the cliff on which it appeared would have made its creation difficult at best. Marquette also claimed to have made a sketch of these monsters, but that sketch was later lost.
Several other 17th-century accounts exist, but, according to an article by the scholar Wayne C. Temple , the last creditable one dates to 1698, when the observer claimed that the painting had nearly disappeared. These accounts differ on the details of the “monsters” depicted, and at least one suggests that the painting included an unremarkable-looking horse. Temple’s article claims that there exist no accounts of paintings near Alton between 1699 and the first decade of the 19th century and that those from the early 19th century are contradictory. A sketch made of the painting in 1825 has survived. It depicts a horned, seemingly scaly creature that suggests some of the exotic details claimed by Marquette.
In 1836 John Russell, a former professor from a town near Alton, published an account of the painting that also provided a backstory for the figure depicted in it. According to Russell, this creature is known as the Piasa; the “name is Indian, and signifies in the language of the Illini, ‘the bird that devours men.’” The Piasa once terrorized Native American villages, Russell claimed, killing many warriors before it was slain by the chief Ouatoga, who had offered himself as bait and had 20 warriors with poisoned arrows wait in ambush for the monster. When the Piasa swooped down to attack Ouatoga, it was killed by the barrage of poisoned arrows, thus saving the tribe. To this story, which Russell attributed to “all the tribes of the Upper Mississippi, and those who have inhabited the valley of the Illinois,” he added a vivid description of a cave filled with the bones of all those killed by the Piasa, estimated to be in the thousands.
Russell later acknowledged to his son that he had fabricated this account, but, within a few years of his article’s publication, this legend of the Piasa was being repeated and elaborated upon, such that it became widely accepted. A variety of explanations of the painting exist today, ranging from credible attempts to place what Marquette claimed he saw into the broader context of Native American culture and the history of European colonization of North America to outlandish claims about Chinese exploration of the Mississippi.
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The painting of the Piasa (or Piasa Bird) continues to be a local landmark in Alton, though some or all of the cliff on which the original painting appeared was quarried and thus destroyed during the 19th century. The painting was re-created and restored several times during the 20th century. A major restoration occurred in the 1990s, when it measured about 50 feet wide by 20 feet tall (15 by 6 metres), though it was subsequently vandalized.