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Piasa
The Piasa ( ) 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. History Murals 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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alton, Illinois
Alton ( ) is a city on the Mississippi River in Madison County, Illinois, United States, about north of St. Louis, Missouri. The population was 25,676 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. It is a part of the River Bend (Illinois), River Bend area in the Metro-East region of the Greater St. Louis metropolitan area. It is well known for its limestone bluffs along the river north of the city. It's the former location of an historical state penitentiary, and played a significant role preceding and during the American Civil War. It was the site of the last Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas debate in October 1858. The former state penitentiary in Alton was used during the Civil War to hold up to 12,000 Confederate prisoners of war. History Although Alton once was growing faster than the nearby city of St. Louis, a coalition of St. Louis businessmen planned to build a competing town to stop Alton's expansion and bring business to St. Louis. The resulting town was Grafton, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Underwater Panther
An underwater panther ( () or () ), is one of the most important of several mythical water beings among many Indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands and Great Lakes region, particularly among the Anishinaabe. translates into "the Great Lynx". It has the head and paws of a giant cat but is covered in scales and has dagger-like spikes running along its back and tail. Mishipeshu calls Michipicoten Island in Lake Superior his home and is a powerful creature in the mythological traditions of some Indigenous North American tribes, particularly Anishinaabe, the Odawa, Ojibwe, and Potawatomi, of the Great Lakes region of Canada and the United States. In addition to the Anishinaabeg, Innu also have ''Mishibizhiw'' stories. To the Algonquins, the underwater panther was the most powerful underworld being. The Ojibwe traditionally held them to be masters of all water creatures, including snakes. Some versions of the Nanabozho creation legend refers to whole communities of water l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thunderbird (mythology)
The thunderbird is a mythological bird-like spirit in Indigenous peoples of the Americas, North American indigenous peoples' history and culture. It is considered a supernatural being of power and strength. It is frequently depicted in the art, songs, and oral histories of many Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast, Pacific Northwest Coast cultures, but is also found in various forms among some peoples of the American Southwest, East Coast of the United States, US East Coast, Great Lakes, and Plains Indians, Great Plains. Description The thunderbird is said to create thunder by flapping its wings (Algonquian), and lightning by flashing its eyes (Algonquian, Iroquois). Across cultures, thunderbirds are generally depicted as birds of prey, or hybrids of humans and birds. Thunderbirds are often viewed as protectors, sometimes intervening on people's behalf, but expecting veneration, prayers, and gifts. Archaeologically, sites containing depictions of thunderbirds hav ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Washington State Park
Washington State Park is a public recreation area covering in Washington County in the central eastern part of the state of Missouri. It is located on Highway 21 about northeast of Potosi or southwest of De Soto on the eastern edge of the Ozarks. The state park is noted for its Native American rock carvings and for its finely crafted stonework from the 1930s. Stone carvings The carvings, or petroglyphs, carved in fixed dolomite rock, are believed to have been made around 1000 to 1600 CE and to give clues to the lives of the prehistoric Native Americans who once inhabited this part of Missouri. It is also believed that the park served as ceremonial grounds for these Middle Mississippi people who were related to the builders of the Cahokia Mounds in Illinois. ''Most of the carvings are of birds, arrows, footprints, turkey tracks, human figures, and various geometric shapes and patterns. The three petroglyph sites in the park are thought to be all that is left of a mor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Historian
A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human species; as well as the study of all history in time. Some historians are recognized by publications or training and experience.Herman, A. M. (1998). Occupational outlook handbook: 1998–99 edition. Indianapolis: JIST Works. Page 525. "Historian" became a professional occupation in the late nineteenth century as research universities were emerging in Germany and elsewhere. Objectivity Among historians Ancient historians In the 19th century, scholars used to study ancient Greek and Roman historians to see how generally reliable they were. In recent decades, however, scholars have focused more on the constructions, genres, and meanings that ancient historians sought to convey to their audiences. History is always written with contemporary concerns and ancient hist ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Great Spirit
The Great Spirit is an omnipresent supreme life force, generally conceptualized as a supreme being or god, in the traditional religious beliefs of many, but not all, indigenous cultures in Canada and the United States. Interpretations of it vary between cultures. In the Lakota tradition, the Great Spirit is known as '' Wakan Tanka''.Ostler, Jeffry. ''The Plains Sioux and U.S. Colonialism from Lewis and Clark to Wounded Knee''. Cambridge University Press, July 5, 2004. , pg 26. According to Lakota activist Russell Means, a more semantically accurate translation of ''Wakan Tanka'' is the Great Mystery.Means, Robert. ''Where White Men Fear to Tread: The Autobiography of Russell Means''. Macmillan, 1995. pg 241. Often, Lakota language prayers begin with the phrase "Tunkasila", which translates to "grandfather, Great Spirit." In the Haudenosaunee tradition, the Great Spirit is known as "the Creator". Haudenosaunee men's lacrosse team captain Lyle Thompson, characterized it as " ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Illinois Confederation
The Illinois Confederation, also referred to as the Illiniwek or Illini, were made up of a loosely organized group of 12 or 13 tribes who lived in the Mississippi River Valley. Eventually, member tribes occupied an area reaching from Lake Michigan to Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, and Arkansas. The five main tribes were the Cahokia, Kaskaskia, Michigamea, Peoria, and Tamaroa. Other related tribes are described as the Maroa (which may have been the same as Tamaroa), Tapourao, Coiracoentanon, Espeminka, Moingwena, Chinkoa, and Chepoussa. By 1700, only the Cahokia, Kaskaskia, Michigamea, Peoria, and Tamaroa remained. Over time, these tribes continued to merge, with the Tamaroa joining the Kaskaskia, the Cahokia joining the Peoria, and with a portion of the Michigamea merging with the Kaskaskia and the remainder merging with the Quapaw. The spelling "Illinois" was derived from the transliteration by French explorers of to the orthography of their own language. The tribes are esti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shurtleff College
Shurtleff College was a Baptist liberal arts school in Alton, Illinois until 1957. History Founded in 1827 by Reverend John Mason Peck (a Baptist missionary) as Rock Spring Seminary in St. Clair County, Illinois, and relocated to Alton, Illinois in 1832, first as the Alton Seminary, then as Alton College, the institution was renamed again in 1836 as Shurtleff College, in honor of Benjamin Shurtleff of Boston who donated $10,000 to the college. In keeping with Baptist ideas about equality, the school came to accept women as well as men, and students of all races. This institution is both the first college in Illinois and one of the first between the Alleghenies and the Mississippi River In 1910 Andrew Carnegie, the prominent industrialist and philanthropist, donated $15,000 for construction of a library. The now national science and mathematics honor society, Sigma Zeta, was founded at Shurtleff College as a local organization to provide recognition for their science and mathe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eldred, Illinois
Eldred is a village in Greene County, Illinois, Greene County, Illinois, United States. The population was 149 at the 2020 census. History Eldred was founded because of its situation in the Illinois River Bottoms as a town that combined the values of a river and a bluff-side village. Eldred first appeared on river plat books as "Farrow Town" in the 1830s, but was founded sometime before the admittance of Illinois as a state in 1818. A few of its original founders, were of Scotch-Irish Americans, Scotch-Irish ancestry from the Upland South. Geography Eldred is located in southwestern Greene County at (39.286663, -90.553458). Illinois Route 108 passes through the village, leading east to Carrollton, Illinois, Carrollton, the Greene County seat, and west to the Illinois River and the Kampsville, Illinois, Kampsville ferry. According to the 2021 census gazetteer files, Eldred has a total area of , all land. Situated in the lower Illinois River Valley, north of the Illinois Rive ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Russell Of Bluffdale
John Russell of Bluffdale (1793–1863) was a 19th-century American novelist, writer and licensed Baptist preacher. He wrote the first published novel featuring Mormons Mormons are a Religious denomination, religious and ethnocultural group, cultural group related to Mormonism, the principal branch of the Latter Day Saint movement started by Joseph Smith in upstate New York during the 1820s. After Smith's d .... Russell was born in Vermont, but lived most of his life in Bluffdale, Illinois. In the early 1830s Russell was exposed to the teachings of Mormonism by Parley P. Pratt and William E. McLellin. Among Russell's works were ''The Venomous Worm'', a pro-temperance story published in McGuffey Readers. He also had published in 1853 ''The Mormoness'', the first published novel featuring a Mormon. It represented a more balanced portrayal of Mormons than most 19th-century mentions, lamenting attacks on their religious freedom while still largely disparaging their beliefs ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Louis Jolliet
Louis Jolliet (; September 21, 1645after May 1700) was a French-Canadian explorer known for his discoveries in North America. In 1673, Jolliet and Jacques Marquette, a Jesuit Catholic priest and missionary, were the first non-Natives to explore and map the Upper Mississippi River. Early life Jolliet was born in 1645 in Beaupré, a French settlement near Quebec City, to Jean Jolliet and Marie D'Abancourt. When he was six years old, his father died; his mother married a successful merchant, Geoffroy Guillot dit Lavalle, until he died in 1665. Shortly after the passing of his mother's second husband, she was married to Martin Prevost until she died in 1678. Jolliet's stepfather owned land on the Ile d'Orleans, an island in the Saint Lawrence River in Quebec that was home to First Nations. Jolliet spent much time on Ile d'Orleans, so he likely began speaking Indigenous languages of the Americas at a young age. Besides French, he also learned English and Spanish. During his child ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
