CFZ Canada had put up an article earlier this
year in which it was stated that Plesiosaur fossils had been found in the
deposits left behind by Glacial Lake Agassiz. This would be unusual for several
reasons, not the least of which would be that the lake would be pretty much
perpetual icewater. I had also discovered something about Lake Monsters in North
America during my studies of the reports, most of which I shall explain later in
this article. But for this matter I should say that Lake Agassiz was an
extremely transitory body in Geologic time: it was not in any one place for long
and it did not last a for a long time all told. Its position was continually
shifting northward with the retreat of the continental ice sheet, and the total
thickness of accumulated deposit was not much. Therefore it is quite possible to
have aquatic deposits laid down in the same geographic area (or part of it) but
at a different (probably older) time. And so this is what I expect was the case
of the Plesiosaur fossils in this area, probably coming from an older time and a
much warmer climate (I would be quite happy to admit the opposite to be true
should any good evidence show up to confirm the idea that the Plesiosaur fossils
were actually contemporary with Lake Agassiz and Final-Pleistocene in
date.)
Now the other matter was
something which does not become apparent in reading the usual accounts of Water
Monsters in North America, but the fact is that The Longnecked animals are
almost always reported at the far East and West of the continent and almost
always not very far inland from the sea. And this also seems true of the
genuinely large eel-like animals. Long-necked or Periscope reports are almost
never from the deep interior of the continent and they are therefore suspicious
when they DO appear there.
I include two pieces of Native
art to demonstrate the idea: the first one is a Longnecked Seaserpent "Totempole" from the
far South of Alaska (and hence in the same cultural area as the adjoining part
of British Columbia, including prime "Cadborosaurus" viewing area) and the other
a Mikmac Petroglyph from the East Coast area of a maned longnecked animal with
its neck down in usual swimming conformation.(below) That petroglyph looks pretty
authentic to me and it compares well with White witnesses' sketches for similar
types of Seaserpent sightinngs. So personally I think that is probably a "Sketch
from life" by an actual witness, or not done long after an actual sighting in
any event. It is also c;lose to other petroglyphs on the West coast. The "Totem
Pole" is comparable in size and shape to a Viking ship's figurehead, but I
suspect that the head is made larger than the actual animls' would be in real
life. However it is entirely possible it is intended to show the "Periscope" at
life size.
Now the conception of a Water Monster that held over
the interior of most of North America for most of the time was that of a
creature called "The Great Horned Serpent". This category probably included more
than one original species but often the "Serpent" would be shown with four short
legs and the usual representation woul;d be then a "Water Panther", Piasa or
"Mishipizhiw" (Piasa turns out to be only an alternative form for Mishipizhiw=
Water Panther) And I recently discovered that such "Fearsome Critters" as the
Wisconsin Hodag are actually little more than the White Man's borrowing of the
same creature. As far as living creatures (Cryptids) go, there are some large
Lizard-shaped animals that are identified as "Water Panthers" but the original
category was an amalgam to start with. For that reason it is not too unusual if
the identity had been tagged on to giant Otters in the north and also Giant
spinybacked Iguana lizards in the warmer climes. However, it seems that there is
another reason why the special features of such representations are insisted
upon.
The Sioux Water Monster Unktehila
as depicted by Jonathan Carver in 1766-7 seems plausibly drawn from the fossil
remains of a Diplodocus topped off by the hurned round head of a Triceratops.
And perhaps it actually is meant to be a sort of Paleontological reconstruction.
The composite image seems to have been strong enough to capture the imagination
of the Native Continent: "THIS is what a Water Monster looks
like"
To quote some similar words from
a recent (Dec 2005) National Geographic site:
Unktehila, Monsters in Native AmericaIn a small auditorium at Mount Rushmore National Memorial
in the Black Hills of South Dakota, Kevin Locke, a Lakota Sioux storyteller from
Standing Rock Reservation, gently strokes a braided strand of sweetgrass. Its
power will help him bring forth good thoughts and feelings. Then he grips his
ceremonial rattle, closes his eyes, and, as an attentive audience of Lakota
Sioux children and visiting Boy Scouts listens, he sings a Lakota prayer used at
the springtime Thunder Feast.
“Leciya tuwa makipanpelo. Wiyohpeyata
Wakinyan Oyate kola makipanpelo.”
The words rise and fall to the sound of
Locke’s rattle, and he gives it an extra flourish at the end, signaling the
close.
“We sing this to welcome the Thunder Nation,” Locke explains,
referring to thunderstorms. “Maybe some of you have heard the word Wakinyan
before and know its meaning?”
One slender Lakota boy raises his hand.
“It’s the name of our cat—he’s orange like a Thunder Being.”
Locke smiles
broadly. “Good, good. That’s right, Wakinyan are the Thunder Beings, forces with
power, like the Thunder Birds. They come with the big cumulus clouds in the
spring to the prairies. The Wakinyan bring the rain, hail, thunder, and
lightning—all the things that renew life after the winter. But in the long ago
days, before humans, the Wakinyan also used these things in a big battle. And
that battle was with the evil water monsters, the Unktehila.”
There were
many different kinds of Unktehila, Locke continues, but most were like huge
reptiles with scaly skin and horns; some were like giant lizards, and others
were like serpents; some slithered on their bellies, and some had feet. “They
ate each other and every other living thing, and so the Thunder Beings were
given a divine mission to kill the Unktehila. That’s when the Thunder Birds came
with their thunder and lightning. They struck the water monsters with lightning
bolts and boiled their lakes and streams until they dried up. After that most of
the Unktehila died or were very diminished in size, so that all we have left
today are some small snakes and lizards. But we know the giant Unktehila lived
because our people found their bones in the Badlands and along the Missouri
River.”
Indeed, long
before paleontologists arrived to excavate the fossils of marine reptiles,
Native American peoples were carrying away enormous bones that lay exposed on
the surface. For the Lakota, Cheyenne, and Kiowa (as well as many other tribes),
the bones held special powers and could be used for healing or other rituals.
And, as Locke explained, the bones were also “the physical manifestation of the
evil forces the Unktehila represented.”
Although Locke had learned about the
Unktehila from his elders and had sung the prayers of the Thunder Feast many
times, he’d never seen the kinds of fossils that likely inspired the stories. So
we went to the Museum of Geology at the South Dakota School of Mines and
Technology in Rapid City, where skeletons of a plesiosaur and mosasaur are on
display. These and other marine reptiles had lived in the ocean that covered
much of North America about 75 million years ago.
“Wow,” he said, nodding appreciatively at the
long-necked, fat-bodied plesiosaur. But it was the massive-jawed mosasaur that
held his attention. “Now this one,” he said, pausing to size up the 29-foot-long
snaky animal, with its fierce array of teeth and double-hinged lower jaw joint
that allowed it to swallow large kinds of prey (including other mosasaurs).
“This one is an eating machine. If our people found one of these, I’m sure they
would call it Unktehila.”
And, Locke added, mosasaur-like creatures
with toothy jaws and horns were often painted on the tepee covers of the Kiowa,
Cheyenne, and Blackfeet. Some Native Americans had carved images of such
creatures into the rocks above the Missouri River, and others had made one out
of stones along the river’s banks. “Everyone who sees these knows they’re
Unktehila.”
Paleontologists often find bones of
pterosaurs, flying reptiles, along with the mosasaurs. Adrienne Mayor, a
folklorist, suggests that pterosaur and mosasaur remains may indeed have
triggered the stories of the Thunder Birds and their battle with the water
monsters.
Do the Lakota,
like the people who wait for Nessie to surface, regard the Unktehila as still
existing? Locke hesitated. “Well, the old Unktehila were killed by the Thunder
Birds. That’s what our stories say. Some people still fear large bodies of
water, and they’ll say prayers to protect themselves from Unktehila when
crossing the Missouri River.”
But, he went on, the power of the Unktehila
lies more in what they symbolize than in any hard reality. “They were a negative
force and had to be destroyed. That’s what the Thunder Birds did for the world.
And that’s why it’s important for us to keep these stories alive. Because there
are still negative forces—many that are even more powerful than water
monsters—in the world today. We have to fight against things like alcohol and
depression and materialism. These are the new Unktehila. We can fight them with
our songs and music.”
And
that’s why Kevin Locke sings about sea monsters for the children: To remind them
of their heritage and to tell them about the ancient battle fought to bring
goodness into the world.
In a way they are right because we do actually still have
reports of Sea Monsters that are described like Plesiosaurs or Mosasaurs. But
the Water Monsters described as having full sets of antlers like deer and moose
are much more likely to be inspired by sightings of swimming deer and moose,
with their long wakes giving the illusion of an elongated body swimming in the
water with a "Serpentine" motion. On the other hand I have some different
concept art for Unktehila and it seems to be drawn from motre recent reports. It
is a large fish=shaped creature with a series of knobs on the backbone and those
knobs give it away: the head os roughly correct but the mouth and jaws are wong,
and the vertically-flattened swimming tail is also about correct but lacks the
"Forked" effect of having two lobes. In other words, the clearly seen parts of
the fish are obviously representing some kind of a large sturgeon, while the
filled-in underwater features are less identifiable because they are less
accurate representations.
And the drawing of the "Cadborosaurus" from The Paranormal
Haze article Monsters of Canada-
Is a much better representation for the
"Ogopogo" sightings that are more sturgeon-like. I have consequently renamed
that illustration as "Ogopogo"
 |
| "Champ 1999" |
It seems that the
dominant type of large water Cryptid from the midsection of the continent-From
"Ogopogo" territory up to including the Great Lakes, at least, and at least as
far as Hudson's Bay to the North, seems to be a large sturgeon of some sort, and
in those areas "Periscopes" are rarely reported. When they ARE reported, they
are usually in the range of 3-5 feet long/high and are most often reports of
swimming moose. Toward the East and West coasts themselves, there are reports of
the Plesiosaur and Giant Eel types. In such places as Lake Champlain and other
lakes in that area, the usual visual impression of the monster is something like
a Plesiosaurus of a "Brontosaurus" and that has stood up as being true for the
largest part of the 20th century. On the other hand, there is also much overlap
so that dominantly in older days, and continuing on into the present, you are
still ALSO getting reports of swimming moose or deer, and then a minority of
reports of seals and other mistakes.
Dale Drinnon joined the SITU back in the
days when Ivan Sanderson was still alive, and they exchanged some letters: at
the time of Sanderson's death he was allowed to go through Ivan Sanderson's
files pretty extensively. Dale has run exhaustive statistical analyses on Water
Monster reports back in the 1970s, including this data, as well as some
referesher studies of the data more recently. Unfortunately the bulk of Dale's
material remains unpublished and remains controversial in that it strongly bucks
the trend set by other Cryptozoologists and proposes new models for Freshwater
types when traditionally the WaterMonsters have been treated as if they were all the
same sort of thing (For examples see Peter Costello, In
Search of Lake Monsters, on up to George Eberhart,
Mysterious Creatures, 2002)
