Piasa

The Piasa (/ˈpaɪ.əsɔː/ PY-ə-saw) or Piasa Bird is a creature from Native American mythology depicted in one of two murals painted by Native Americans 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. The original Piasa illustration no longer exists; a newer 20th-century version, based partly on 19th-century sketches and lithographs, 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 original site of the painting was on lithographic limestone, which was quarried away in the late 1870s by the Mississippi Lime Company.

The original mural was created prior to the arrival of any European explorers in the region. The location of the image was at a river-bluff terminus of the American Bottom floodplain. It may have been an older iconograph from the large Mississippian culture city of Cahokia, which began developing about 900 CE. Cahokia was at its peak about 1200 CE, with 20,000 to 30,000 residents. It was the largest prehistoric city north of Mexico and a major chiefdom. Icons and animal pictographs such as falcons, thunderbirds, bird men, and monstrous snakes were common motifs of the Cahokia culture.

An Alton Evening Telegraph newspaper article of May 27, 1921, stated that seven smaller painted images, carved and painted in rocks, believed to be of archaic American Indian origin, were found in the early 20th century about 1.5 miles upriver from the ancient Piasa creature's location. These pictures were authenticated in the Levis Bluffs area by George Dickson and William Turk in 1905. According to the article, four of these paintings were of "an owl, a sun circle, a squirrel, and a piece showing two birds or some kind of animals in a contest", the other three paintings were of "a great animal, perhaps a lion, and another an animal about as large as a coyote". These paintings were photographed by Professor William McAdams and were to be placed in his book Records of Ancient Races in the Mississippi Valley. These seven archaic American Indian paintings were lost in transit to the Missouri Historical Society c. 1922. Other Native American carved petroglyphs of a similar time period and region as the Piasa monster are carved into the rocks at Washington State Park in Missouri about 60 miles southwest of the current Piasa image.

The 1797–8 map of French explorer Nicolas De Finiels shows the cliffs above the Piasa labeled as Hauteurs De Paillisa.^{[citation needed]}

An earlier 1778 map titled "A new map of the western parts of Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland and North Carolina; comprehending the river Ohio, and all the rivers, which fall into it; part of the river Mississippi, the whole of the Illinois River, ... Author Hutchins, Thomas, 1730–1789" clearly shows the place name "PIASAS" where the present day City of Alton is located and bounded by the Wood River to the east. This map is one of the earliest documented references for the word Piasa.

In 1673, Father Jacques Marquette saw the painting on a limestone bluff overlooking the Mississippi River while exploring the area. He recorded the following description:

"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, and upon which the boldest savages dare not long rest their eyes. 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. Moreover, these two monsters are so well painted that we cannot believe that any savage is their author; for good painters in France would find it difficult to reach that place conveniently to paint them. Here is approximately the shape of these monsters, as we have faithfully copied it."

The French cartographer Jean-Baptiste-Louis Franquelin compiled a map titled "The Mississippi" in about the year 1682, from Louis Jolliet's description of his 1673 journey with Father Marquette. A creature similar to the underwater panther is sketched on the map east of the Missouri River and south of the Illinois River. As in Marquette's description, the animal is wingless with no resemblance to a bird.