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About The Conservative (Nebraska City, Neb.) 1898-1902 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 20, 1902)
z O > e Conservative , n the posse , for the tatter reached the Beud soon after the slaves loft , and the t\yo parties must have passed shortly afterwards , One story is that when capture seemed imminent a largo dry goods box was secured and placed in a hayrack. Theii.with the negroes under the box and hay piled high above , they drove serenely on , even going so far as to point put the road to Council Bluffs as the direction in which a party with some negroes had disappeared. In the other version , a lumber wagon , with lumber instead of hay , figures as the mode of conveyance. Personally we prefer the more plausible and pic turesque hayrack. JAMES S. JACKSON. THE PIASA BIRD. A few years ago travellers would occasionally notice in railroad yards a freight car , bearing all over its broad side a flying dragon of more than Chinese ugliness , labeled "Piasa Bird. ' ' These cars may still bo circu lating ; the writer has not noticed any of them lately. He always took the Piasa Bird to be a puerile effort of a misguided imagination , seeking the startling in advertisement. This was a mistake , however , and moreover an injustice to some enthusiastic student of local antiquities , no doubt ; for the cars hailed from Alton , Illinois. From a passage observed in one of Father DeSmet's books , it appears that the Piasa Bird is a historical character. This passage was stumbled on in 0110 of the missionary's French journals. It does not occur in any of his published English travels. He says : "Here is a very singular tradition which I have from the head chief of the Pottawattomies ; it is current among all the tribes of the Illini , or of the states of Illinois , Indiana and Ohio. In ascending the Mississippi , above St. Louis , between A'ltou and the mouth of the Illinois river , the traveller observes , between two high hills , a narrow passage where a small stream enters the river. This stream is called the Piasa , which means in Indian language 'the bird that de vours men. ' At tins place appears , on a smooth , perpendicular'rock , the figure of an enormous bird with out spread wings chiselled in the rook higher than a man can reach. The bird that this figure represents , and whoso name is borne by the little stream , has been called the Piasa by the Indians. They say that "several thousand moons before the arrival of the whites , when the great Mammoth or Mastodon , which Manaboojoo de stroyed and whose bones are still found , was feeding on the grass of their immense green prairies , there was a bird of such monstrous bigness that ho would carry off an elk in his claws without trouble. This bird , having tasted human flesh one day , would thereafter toucli no other meat. His cunning was not less than his might ; ho would swoop suddenly upon an Indian , carry him away to one of the caverns of the rock and devour him. Hundreds of warriors had endeavored to destroy him , but without success. For several years entire villages were almost devastated , and terror spread among all the tribes of. the Illini. At last Ontaga , a war chief whoso fame extended beyond the great lakes , went apart from his tribe , fasted for the space of a moon in solitude and prayed the Great Spirit , the Master of Life , to deliver his children from the clutches of the Piasa. The last night of his fast , the Great Chief appeared to him in a dream and told him to choose twenty warriors , each armed with a bow and a poisoned arrow , and to conceal them in a designated spot. A single warrior should show himself openly to servo as a victim to the Piasa ; all the others should let fly their arrows at the bird , as he de scended upon his prey. On waking the chief thanked the Great Spirit and returned to tell his dream to the tribe. The warriors were chosen without delay , armed and set in am bush. Outaga offered himself as the victim ; he was ready to die for his nation. Climbing upon an eminence , he saw the Piasa perched upon the rock ; he stood erect , planted his feet firmly on the ground , and laid his right hand on his heart , which did not flutter , and struck up with a steady voice the death song of a war rior. At once the Piasa soared aloft and darted like lightning upon the chief. All the bows were stretched and every arrow buried itself to the feather in his body. The Piasa ut tered a wild and frightful cry and fell dying at Ontaga's feet. Neither the arrows nor the birds claws had touched the warrior. The Master of Life , to reward his generous devotion , had suspended an invisible buckler above his head. It is in 'memory of this event that the image of the Piasa was chiselled into the rock. ' "Such is the Indian tradition ; I give it as it came to me. In any event , it is certain that the figure of an enormous bird is to bo seen at an inaccessible height upon the rook , where it appears to bo carved. No Indian ever passes by the place hi his canoe without firing his gun at it. The marks left by bullets on the rock are almost innumerable. The bones of thousands of men are piled in the caverns around the Piasa ; how , by whom and why , it is not easy to guess. " The historian Parkman also speaks of something that must be Father De- Smot's Piasa Bird , or its predecessor. In relating Joliet and Marquetto's voyage down the Mississippi in 1678 , ho says : "Presently they beheld a sight which reminded them that the devil was still lord paramount of this wild erness. On the flat face of a high rock , were painted in red , black , and green a pair of .monsters , each 'as large as a calf , with horns like a deer , red eyes , a beard like a tiger , and a frightful expression of counte nance. The face is something like that of a man , the body covered with scales ; and the tail so long that it passes entirely round the body , over the head and between the legs , end ing like that of a fish. ' Such is the account which the worthy Jesuit gives of these manitous , or Indian gods. He confesses that at first they frightened him ; and his imagination and that of his credulous companions were so wrought xipon by these un hallowed efforts of Indian art , that they continued for a long time to talk of them as they plied their paddles. ' ' Parkman adds a note of his own , as follows : "The rocli where these figures wore painted is immediately above the city of Alton. The tradition of their ex istence remains , though they are en tirely effaced by time. In 1867 when I passed the place , a part of the rock had been quarried away , and instead of Marftuetto's monsters , it bore a huge advertisement of 'Plantation Bitters. ' Some years ago , certain persons , with more zeal than knowl edge , proposed to restore the figures , after conceptions of their own ; but the idea was abandoned. "Marquette made a drawing of the two monsters , but it is lost. I have , however , a facsimile of a map made a few years later by order of the In- teudant Duchesneau ; which is decor ated with the portrait of one of them , answering to Marquette's description , and probably copied from his drawing. St. Cosme , who saw them in 1699 , says that they wore oven then almost effaced. Douay and Joutel also speak of them ; the former , bitterly hostile to his Jesuit contemporaries , charging Marquette with exaggeration in IHB account of them. Joutel could see nothing terrifying in their appear ance ; but ho says that his Indians made sacrifices to them as they passed. ' ' So the freight-car artist appears to be amply justified. A. T. RICHARDSON. TO CURE A COLD IN ONE DAY. Take Laxative Brome Quinine Tablets. All druggists refund the money if it fails to cure. E. W. Grove's signature -i is on each box. 25o. , frV t *
