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Tall tales, big and weird happenings

were part of the Old West, too!

Hey! one of the riders exclaimed Indians actually professed to have seen
in a low, cautious voice tinged with By J. K. PARRISH dead whales in treetops, their bodies
disbelief. scored by claw marks, where they had
His companion, sensing danger from Illustrated by Al Martin Napoletano been dropped by the mighty Thunder
the other's tone, reined up and turned. Birds.
"Look yonder!" One of the many ceremonial dances
He didn't have to point. The second In the issue of April 26, 1890, in column of the New Mexico pueblo tribes is the
man saw it, too. In fact, a man would six of page three, a newsstory reports eagle or Thunder Bird dance, in which
have had to be blind to miss it. They an incident which either is one of the the performers · symbolize the relation-
stared, mouths agape, and their nape most important (and most ignored) ship between the sacred bird and other
hair prickled in the eons-old animal re- events in the annals of science or is a sky powers. Navajos tell of a Cliff Mon-
action to peril. complete and utter hoax. At this late ster, a tremendous aerial creature that
Several hundred yards away an in- date there is no way of finding out which, lived high in the crags and carried off
credible, enormous flying creature glided but don't dismiss it as the prank of a people whom it fed to its young. Some
through the air, feet extended, preparing hard-<lrinking newspaperman or as a South American Indians believed that
to land. Lower and lower it drifted. tall tale by some displaced Texan. It the bird was constantly at war with the
Suddenly, braking, it flapped its huge just may be possible that to these two powers living beneath the sea, particu-
wings, appendages so enormous that the cowboys fell the privilege-or the in- larly a horned serpent, and that it tore
resulting air turbulence created a re- famy-of slaying the last surviving open large trees in search of a giant
spectable sandstorm beneath it. When Thunder Bird. grub which was its favorite •food.
it plopped to the ground it didn't fold Almost every American Indian tribe Indians of the eastern seaboard had a
the gargantuan wings but left them from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego had a story of the piasa, an enormous bird
extended, just as a bird will when ex- legend of a gigantic flying monster, so with horns, terrifying red eyes, scales, a
hausted. large that it darkened the sun. They be- tiger's head, and a long griffon-like tail.
The horses were frantic with fear, lieved that thunder was the noise of its In earliest times huge paintings of just
rearing and neighing, eyes wide with wing·s as it lumbered through the such a creature adorned a high rock
fright. The men tried to quiet them but heavens, and that it caused rain by bluff facing the Mississippi River at
failed, for they were afraid, too, and the flying through clouds and ripping them the present site of Alton, Illinois. It
horses felt it. open. Indians of the Pacific Northwest was first reported by the explorer Mar-
This fantastic story is told in prosiac said that the bird dined on whales, fly- quette, who said the painting was ex-
newspaper style in the paper with the ing out over the ocean and plucking cellently done and frightening to behold.
perfect name-the Tombstone Epitaph. them out of the sea with huge talons; the (Continued on page 37)
Fall, 1969 25