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Show 1836- 1837I Fiagg's Far West 123 unattainable by human art, is graven the figure of an enormous bird with extended pinions. This bird was by the Indians called the " Piasa;" hence the name of the stream. The tradition of the Piasa is said to be still extant, among the tribes of the Upper Mississippi, and is thus related: 14 " Many thousand moons before the arrival of the pale faces, when the great megalonyx and mastodon, whose bones are now thrown up, were still living in the land of the green prairies, there existed a bird of such dimensions that he could easily carry off in his talons a full- grown deer. Having obtained a taste of human flesh, from that time he would prey upon nothing else. He was as artful as he was powerful; would dart suddenly and unexpectedly upon an Indian, bear him off to one of the caves in the bluff, and devour him. Hundreds of warriors attempted for years to destroy him, but without success. [ 95] Whole villages were depopulated, and consternation spread throughout all the tribes of the Slini. At length Owatoga, a chief whose fame as a warrior extended even beyond the great lakes, separating M The Illinois Indians ( from " Mini," meaning " men ") were of Algonquian stocky and fonnerly occupied the state to which they gave the name. They were loyal to the French during their early wars, later aided the English, and were with great difficulty subdued by the United States government Separate tribes of the Illinois Indians were the Cahokia, Kaskaskia, Michigami, Moingewena, Peoria, andTamaroa. On a high bluff just above Alton there was formerly to be seen a huge painted image known among the Indians as the Piasa Bird. To the natives it was an object of much veneration, and in time many superstitions became connected there - with, first described in the Journal o{ Father Jacques Marquette ( 1673) its origin was long a subject of speculation among early writers. Traces of this strange painting could be seen until 1840 or 1845, when they were entirely obliterated through quarrying. See P. A. Armstrong, The Piasa or the DevU among the In-dians ( Morris, Illinois, 1887). The version of the tradition given by Flagg was probably from the pen of John Russell, who in 1837 began editing at Grafton, Illinois, the Backwoodsman, a local newspaper. Russell had in 18x9 or 1820 published in the Missourian an article entitled " Venomous Worm," which won for him considerable reputation. Russell admitted that the version was largely imaginative; nevertheless it had a wide circulation.- ED. |