The Piasa Bird, was a mythological bird-like creature preying along the Mississippi River. It could latch onto deer with its talons. The human-flesh-hungry, Piasa, ravished villages, while Illini tribes fled in horror. (According to legend.)
The local tribes depicted the dragon-like creature on one or two, petroglyphs. For centuries, the mural-like petroglyphs, painted on the side of bluffs, towered above the Mississippi River near Alton, IL.
French explorer Jacques Marquette, while traversing down the Mississippi River in 1673, was startled to see “two painted monsters,” near modern-day Alton. He marveled at the complexity of the murals, thinking, how could these people he viewed as primitive create something so complex on the side of a cliff?
“They are 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.” – Jacques Marquette
Like many significant Native American sites, the petroglyphs were destroyed to carve out the Great River Road in the 19th century. The faded petroglyphs were chopped up and lost to history. Today, a modern reproduction adorns the side of a bluff near Alton.
