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Janiece
Janiece
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Any petroglyphs found of Thunderbirds in the Southwest, are likely creations of post 1900 artists.
As I mentioned before, someone with a qualified opinion may correct me.
(from http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v24/i2/thunderbirds.asp)American Southwest
While exploring the Sonora Desert on 12 February 1699, Captain Juan Mateo Manje, accompanied by Jesuits Eusebio Francisco Kino and Adamo Gil, was told by the Pima Indians that a giant monster lived in a nearby cave in days past. It was a menace to the Pima because it would fly around and catch as many Indians as it could eat.
One day, after the creature had eaten its fill, some Indians followed it back to its cave. When it was sound asleep they closed the entrance of the cave with wood collected for this occasion; then set it on fire. The creature couldn't escape and, growling fiercely, died as it was asphyxiated by the flames and smoke.1
The Pima recalled another story of killing a similar creature in the pueblo of Oposura by using the same strategy. We are told the bones of this creature were found during the pacification of Mexico by General Don Hernándo Cortés and were sent to Spain.1
Stories of giant man-eating birds are common among many other Indian tribes of the American Southwest.2 The Yaqui Indians spoke of a giant bird that lived on the hill of Otan Kawi. Every morning it would fly out to capture its human prey. After many deaths, a young boy who lost his family to this bird killed the creature with a bow and arrows.3
In Utah's San Raphael Swell there is other suggestive evidence for man's coexistence with pterosaurs. In the Black Dragon Canyon there is a beautiful pictograph of a pterosaur. The Indians of the Swell apparently saw a bird-like creature with enormous wings, a tail, a long neck and beak, and a vertical head crest, which some flying reptiles sported.
Thunderbirds
One creature in Indian mythology that has long puzzled anthropologists is the thunderbird. Stories of thunderbirds are widespread, extending from Alaska all the way down to South America. Indians attributed thunder and lightning to these birds: the thunder resulted from the flapping of their wings, while bolts of lightning proceeded from their mouths. The impressive size of the thunderbirds meant that during midday flight they would cast strikingly large shadows upon the ground.
The thunderbirds' description, albeit distorted by time and retelling, so much fits that of pterosaurs that even some evolutionists have conceded on that point: 'The thunderbird appears in many Indian tales and Indian art work. Its description is very much like one of the prehistoric flying reptiles that flapped its way through the skies in the days of the dinosaurs.'4
The Sioux Indians tell a story about an experience some of their warriors had with a thunderbird that perfectly fits the description of the pteranodon.
'One day, long long ago, before the white man came to America, a party of Sioux Indian warriors were out hunting. They had left their village far behind. Before they realized it, the group of braves found themselves alone in the bare and rocky badlands of the West.
'Suddenly the sky darkened … . There was a clap of thunder that shook the earth. Looking up in terror, the Indians thought they saw the shape of a giant bird falling to earth … .
'The band of hunters traveled over the badlands for days until they came at last to the spot where they thought the giant bird had fallen. Nothing was left of the terrible creature but its bones … .
'The Indians shuddered as they looked at the monster's skeleton. The bird had fallen so hard they thought, that its bones were partly sunk in the rock. But the braves could see that its wingspread was as big as four tall men standing on top of one another. The strange creature had fierce claws on its wings, as well as on its feet, and the beak was long and sharp. There was a long, bony crest on its head. The Indians knew that they had never seen a bird like it before.'5
The Hoh and Quileute of western Washington boast of a thunderbird so large that its wingspan was twice as long as their war canoes. This immense 'bird' also had a long beak, great claws, and the alleged ability to pluck some types of whales out of the sea (see aside below). Their mythology, again with obvious elements of exaggeration, attributes the lack of trees in Beaver Prairie to a fight between Whale and Thunderbird:
'One time Thunderbird got a big whale in his talons and carried him to Beaver Prairie and ate him there. The whale fought very hard before he was killed. Thunderbird and Whale fought so very hard that they pulled up the trees by their roots. And no trees have ever grown in that place to this day.'6
The Indians of Vancouver Island say that they feared being in the presence of killer whales when they were plentiful, because of their frail canoes. Knowing thunderbirds to be their enemy, the Indians painted these birds on their bodies and homes to try to secure protection.7
Piasa
In the Midwest, the Illini Indians of Illinois were once terrorized by a creature they called 'Piasa', which means 'bird that devours man'. The Piasa was so large that it could allegedly carry off a full-grown deer. When it finally acquired a taste for human flesh, no Indian was safe. The Illini, as well as other Indian tribes in the area, greatly feared the Piasa and sought to destroy it.
One day the Illini were said to have tricked the Piasa by hiding 20 armed warriors in a designated spot, while the Chief chose to stand in open view as a victim for the Piasa. When the bird was about to pounce upon the Chief, the warriors leapt out and speared it to death.
John Russell was a writer from Illinois who had a great interest in the Piasa. In 1848, Mr Russell explored the caves where this creature was said to live. One cave that was extremely difficult to access yielded evidence for the Illini's story. Russell stated, 'The shape of the cave was irregular, but so far as I could judge the bottom would average twenty by thirty feet. The floor of the cave throughout its whole extent was one mass of human bones.'8
So, what kind of creature was the Piasa? High upon a cliff in Alton, Illinois, the Indians made a painting of the Piasa. The painting was destroyed in the 1850s when the face of the cliff collapsed into the river. However, many explorers during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries saw the painting and described it in great detail in their journals. These explorers describe a bird-like creature with many reptilian characteristics.
Karns, H.J., Unknown Arizona and Sonora 1693-1721, Arizona Silhouttes, Arizona, pp. 105-106, 1954. This book is a translation of Manje's Luz De Tierra Incognita.
Giddings, R.W., 'Yaqui Myths and Legends' in Anthropological Papers of the University of Arizona, Tucson, pp. 36-38, 1959.
'Tales From the Hoh and Quileute' in Journal of American Folklore 46:320, 1933.
'The Thunderbird' in American Anthropologist II, p. 333, Oct. 1889.
The Piasa, or The Devil Among the Indians, E.B. Fletcher, p. 31, 1887.
'Serpent-bird of the Mayans' in Science Digest, p. 1, Nov. 1968.
Clay, R., Indian Tribes of Guiana, Taylor and Son Printers, p. 375, 1868.
I believe that they called the huge birds "Yo-obwa".