As promised, here is the Thunderbird video.
First, some thoughts. The young man in the video identifying as Shawnee says he is from the "Sewickli" division. That is another English variant of the Thawekila or Hathawegila sept. There are other variant ways of spelling it as well, but they are all the same division of the Shawnee. Englishmen tried their best to reproduce the sounds they heard of the name phonetically, and several heard it slightly differently, and that is the only difference.
As I mentioned before in another post, it is thought that the five Shawnees divisions were originally different tribes who amalgamated into the Shawnee Nation, and according to French records the Thawekila division or sept was originally the "Chisca" or Yuchi" indians (both names denote the same tribe) of Southwest Virginia (where I live) and Upper East Tennessee who migrated downstream along the Holston and Tennessee Rivers after fighting it out with invading Spaniards. They settled with a group of Shawnee living downstream, reported by LaSalle, and later merged into the Shawnee nation as the "Thawekila" Division or sept, becoming Shawnees and losing their former separate tribal identity. There was a lot of that sort of thing going around in the aftermath of the Spanish invasions, The same sort of thing created the Cherokee tribe as well out of former tribes decimated by DeSoto. The Thawekila were one of the warrior divisions of the tribe, supplying fighters and war chiefs to the tribe as a whole.
I mention that because if that construction is correct, then the Thawekilas or Sewicklies originated right around here, before joining the Shawnee Nation, and as it so happens, just about 11 or 12 miles from where I sit is the Painted Rock on Paint Lick Mountain. Featured prominently in the fading aboriginal paintings on that rock is... a two-headed Thunderbird.
He mentions that Thunderbirds have a "falcon-like" appearance, which is in keeping with several Mound Builder depictions which show a Peregrine Falcon with it's distinctive eye stripes, but that is not what I saw - more on that in a bit. He also mentions that his people identify the owl as a "warrior bird", but that is the first I've heard of that identification. I've always heard Shawnees associate owls with witches, in the same way Europeans often associate black cats with witches. The Shawnee have a reputation among several other tribes, the Cherokee for example, as "conjurors". Witches. But they have their own beliefs about witches and witchcraft.
Thunderbirds were called "Tlanuwha birds" by the Cherokee, and they were said to be at perpetual war with the Uktena - a giant horned snake - which is also a motif common to Cherokees, Shawnees, and the Mound Builders. Mound Builder depictions of that creature usually show a giant rattlesnake with horns and occasionally wings. Shawnees called them Giant Horned Snakes, never mention any rattles or wings, and the Cherokee version, the Uktena, is said to have a crystal set into it's forehead.
In the late summer of 2003 - it might have been 2002, but I think it was 2003 - I saw a huge black bird on two occasions in the same week. I was living at the time in a trailer in the woods at Bethany, North Carolina. The first time I saw it, it was flying over a hill to the south of where I lived, flying low over the meadow until it disappeared behind the crest of the hill. There was really nothing there to gauge size with, so I just cataloged it as a "big black bird".
The second time I saw it, a few days later, it flew directly overhead, and then down the road I used for a driveway, heading west towards Sauratown Mountain. That time, I got to gauge both size and the height is was flying above the ground. Sauratown Mountain is a mountain in the Sauratown range, so named because the Upper Saura Town of the Saura Indians was located there. The Saura Indians are usually associated with the Xualla Indians mentioned in the DeSoto Chronicles. Pilot Mountain is another mountain in that little range that is probably better known because of Mount Pilot from the Andy Griffith show. I could see Sauratown Mountain from my driveway, but not Pilot Mountain.
As it flew low down my driveway, it brushed the tops of two Black Pines that stood on either side of the drive with it's wing tips during a wing beat. Those two pines were about 70 yards from where I was standing, and I later measured their distance apart as 12 1/2 feet, center to center, with a tape measure. So it's wingspan was 12 1/2 or 13 feet based upon that observation. The pines were about 35 feet tall, so that is about the height it was flying at.
The bird was solid black, and had a hooked beak like a raptorial bird. It was built heavy, or else it had real fluffy feathers that made it look heavy, and the beak was heavier than most raptorial birds, probably in keeping with it's size. Even the beak was black, rather than the yellow shown in the gentleman's drawing in the above video. Other than the black beak and the somewhat heavier appearance, it looked a lot like that drawing. There was no white ruffle around it's neck as some reports indicate, nor was it's head naked or leathery as other reports indicate - it had a feathered head, like nearly all birds other than vultures have.
It's wings were held flat and level during soaring flight, like a hawk or an eagle does, not in the shallow dihedral "V" that vultures carry their wings in while soaring. I am well acquainted with both Black Vultures and Turkey vultures, and it was neither of those, nor was it a Condor, which looks like a big Turkey Buzzard.
I mentioned it to the guy I rented the trailer from, and he said he had seen it in previous years, but identified it as a Golden Eagle... but it was a lot bigger than any Golden Eagles reported to date. A lot bigger. Their wingspans usually top out at about 7 feet, 8 for a big one, and this bird was something on the order of half again bigger.
The location I saw it was here:
![[Image: attachment.php?aid=10330]](http://rogue-nation3.com/attachment.php?aid=10330)
The yellow pin on the right marks the trailer I was living in, and the yellow pin on the left marks the point where the bird flew through the pines. I was standing at first at the end of the walkway coming from the trailer, but moved into the semicircular area just south of that to maintain my view of the bird flying down the lane. The precise latitude and longitude of the sighting is marked in the image.
So - was it a "Thunderbird", or some sort of mutant Golden Eagle? I don't know for sure, and so can't say.
Here is another video, detailing sightings:
I note that Greenburg, PA, is also in the Appalachian mountain chain, but a good deal farther north than my sighting. There is a theory that the Appalachians are a migratory route for these birds, because of the updrafts generated by the mountains which assist in keeping them aloft and able to soar with minimal wing flapping.
One last note: The videos mention how notoriously difficult it is to gauge the size of something when there are no nearby objects to compare it to. They recount how something nearby can be perceived as huge if one thinks it is farther away. While that is true, the converse is also true - one can underestimate the size of something if he thinks it is closer than it actually is. Might YOU have seen one of these huge birds yourself, but thought it was closer to you than it actually was, and so underestimated the size of the bird you were seeing?
.
First, some thoughts. The young man in the video identifying as Shawnee says he is from the "Sewickli" division. That is another English variant of the Thawekila or Hathawegila sept. There are other variant ways of spelling it as well, but they are all the same division of the Shawnee. Englishmen tried their best to reproduce the sounds they heard of the name phonetically, and several heard it slightly differently, and that is the only difference.
As I mentioned before in another post, it is thought that the five Shawnees divisions were originally different tribes who amalgamated into the Shawnee Nation, and according to French records the Thawekila division or sept was originally the "Chisca" or Yuchi" indians (both names denote the same tribe) of Southwest Virginia (where I live) and Upper East Tennessee who migrated downstream along the Holston and Tennessee Rivers after fighting it out with invading Spaniards. They settled with a group of Shawnee living downstream, reported by LaSalle, and later merged into the Shawnee nation as the "Thawekila" Division or sept, becoming Shawnees and losing their former separate tribal identity. There was a lot of that sort of thing going around in the aftermath of the Spanish invasions, The same sort of thing created the Cherokee tribe as well out of former tribes decimated by DeSoto. The Thawekila were one of the warrior divisions of the tribe, supplying fighters and war chiefs to the tribe as a whole.
I mention that because if that construction is correct, then the Thawekilas or Sewicklies originated right around here, before joining the Shawnee Nation, and as it so happens, just about 11 or 12 miles from where I sit is the Painted Rock on Paint Lick Mountain. Featured prominently in the fading aboriginal paintings on that rock is... a two-headed Thunderbird.
He mentions that Thunderbirds have a "falcon-like" appearance, which is in keeping with several Mound Builder depictions which show a Peregrine Falcon with it's distinctive eye stripes, but that is not what I saw - more on that in a bit. He also mentions that his people identify the owl as a "warrior bird", but that is the first I've heard of that identification. I've always heard Shawnees associate owls with witches, in the same way Europeans often associate black cats with witches. The Shawnee have a reputation among several other tribes, the Cherokee for example, as "conjurors". Witches. But they have their own beliefs about witches and witchcraft.
Thunderbirds were called "Tlanuwha birds" by the Cherokee, and they were said to be at perpetual war with the Uktena - a giant horned snake - which is also a motif common to Cherokees, Shawnees, and the Mound Builders. Mound Builder depictions of that creature usually show a giant rattlesnake with horns and occasionally wings. Shawnees called them Giant Horned Snakes, never mention any rattles or wings, and the Cherokee version, the Uktena, is said to have a crystal set into it's forehead.
In the late summer of 2003 - it might have been 2002, but I think it was 2003 - I saw a huge black bird on two occasions in the same week. I was living at the time in a trailer in the woods at Bethany, North Carolina. The first time I saw it, it was flying over a hill to the south of where I lived, flying low over the meadow until it disappeared behind the crest of the hill. There was really nothing there to gauge size with, so I just cataloged it as a "big black bird".
The second time I saw it, a few days later, it flew directly overhead, and then down the road I used for a driveway, heading west towards Sauratown Mountain. That time, I got to gauge both size and the height is was flying above the ground. Sauratown Mountain is a mountain in the Sauratown range, so named because the Upper Saura Town of the Saura Indians was located there. The Saura Indians are usually associated with the Xualla Indians mentioned in the DeSoto Chronicles. Pilot Mountain is another mountain in that little range that is probably better known because of Mount Pilot from the Andy Griffith show. I could see Sauratown Mountain from my driveway, but not Pilot Mountain.
As it flew low down my driveway, it brushed the tops of two Black Pines that stood on either side of the drive with it's wing tips during a wing beat. Those two pines were about 70 yards from where I was standing, and I later measured their distance apart as 12 1/2 feet, center to center, with a tape measure. So it's wingspan was 12 1/2 or 13 feet based upon that observation. The pines were about 35 feet tall, so that is about the height it was flying at.
The bird was solid black, and had a hooked beak like a raptorial bird. It was built heavy, or else it had real fluffy feathers that made it look heavy, and the beak was heavier than most raptorial birds, probably in keeping with it's size. Even the beak was black, rather than the yellow shown in the gentleman's drawing in the above video. Other than the black beak and the somewhat heavier appearance, it looked a lot like that drawing. There was no white ruffle around it's neck as some reports indicate, nor was it's head naked or leathery as other reports indicate - it had a feathered head, like nearly all birds other than vultures have.
It's wings were held flat and level during soaring flight, like a hawk or an eagle does, not in the shallow dihedral "V" that vultures carry their wings in while soaring. I am well acquainted with both Black Vultures and Turkey vultures, and it was neither of those, nor was it a Condor, which looks like a big Turkey Buzzard.
I mentioned it to the guy I rented the trailer from, and he said he had seen it in previous years, but identified it as a Golden Eagle... but it was a lot bigger than any Golden Eagles reported to date. A lot bigger. Their wingspans usually top out at about 7 feet, 8 for a big one, and this bird was something on the order of half again bigger.
The location I saw it was here:
The yellow pin on the right marks the trailer I was living in, and the yellow pin on the left marks the point where the bird flew through the pines. I was standing at first at the end of the walkway coming from the trailer, but moved into the semicircular area just south of that to maintain my view of the bird flying down the lane. The precise latitude and longitude of the sighting is marked in the image.
So - was it a "Thunderbird", or some sort of mutant Golden Eagle? I don't know for sure, and so can't say.
Here is another video, detailing sightings:
I note that Greenburg, PA, is also in the Appalachian mountain chain, but a good deal farther north than my sighting. There is a theory that the Appalachians are a migratory route for these birds, because of the updrafts generated by the mountains which assist in keeping them aloft and able to soar with minimal wing flapping.
One last note: The videos mention how notoriously difficult it is to gauge the size of something when there are no nearby objects to compare it to. They recount how something nearby can be perceived as huge if one thinks it is farther away. While that is true, the converse is also true - one can underestimate the size of something if he thinks it is closer than it actually is. Might YOU have seen one of these huge birds yourself, but thought it was closer to you than it actually was, and so underestimated the size of the bird you were seeing?
.
Diogenes was eating bread and lentils for supper. He was seen by the philosopher Aristippus, who lived comfortably by flattering the king.
Said Aristippus, ‘If you would learn to be subservient to the king you would not have to live on lentils.’ Said Diogenes, ‘Learn to live on lentils and you will not have to be subservient to the king.’
Said Aristippus, ‘If you would learn to be subservient to the king you would not have to live on lentils.’ Said Diogenes, ‘Learn to live on lentils and you will not have to be subservient to the king.’