Piasa Piasa
The piasa (pronounced: Pai-e-so) is a fabulous animal that would live along the Mississippi in North America. It is a dragon that calls the "people-eating bird" the Algonquin-speaking peoples. It is a secret animal with the head of an evil man, sharp teeth, a beard of a tiger, a deer's head, prickly wings, four bird legs and claws like an eagle. A long scorpion-like tail with a fish fin at the end, is struck by his body. He can lift people and deer.
When the French missionaries Jacques Marquette and Louis Joliet explored the Great Mississippi, they discovered a picture of a piasa on a rock above a piece of wild water (a piasa indicates dangerous water). These rocks have now been dolphined, but the monster is painted on the steep shore of Alton (Illinois), and nowadays a tourist attraction.
The piasa would be related to the Horned Serpent (or its subspecies) and the uktena.
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