Description of the Missourium, or Missouri leviathan : together with its supposed habits, and Indian traditions concerning the location from whence it was exhumed : also, comparisons of the whale, crocodile, and Missourium, with the leviathan, as described in 41st chapter of the Book of Job / by Albert Koch.

  • Koch, Albert C.
Date:
1841
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Description of the Missourium, or Missouri leviathan : together with its supposed habits, and Indian traditions concerning the location from whence it was exhumed : also, comparisons of the whale, crocodile, and Missourium, with the leviathan, as described in 41st chapter of the Book of Job / by Albert Koch. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    have actually transpired, and according to their importance in relation to the welfare of the aborigines among whom they occurred, and in absence of any better method of per- petuating them, are transmitted with great care in their le- gends from generation to generation; but in the course of time, as might reasonably be expected, these traditions lose much in correctness and minuteness of detail, owing to the circumstances, more or less, in which the tribes have been placed. As I am constrained to confine my remarks within very circumscribed limits, I will only relate one of the tra- ditions having reference to the existence of the before de- scribed animal: this one, however, led principally to its dis- covery. At the time when the first white settlers emigrated to the Osage country, (as this section of territory is usually called,) it was inhabited by the Osage Indians, and the river by which it is watered was called the Big Bone river, owing to a tra- dition preserved by them, which they stated as follows: There was a time when the Indians paddled their canoes over the now extensive prairies of Missouri, and encamped or hunted on the bluffs. (These bluffs vary from 50 to 400 feet in perpendicular height.) That at a certain period many large and monstrous animals came from the eastward, along and up the Mississippi and Missouri rivers; upon which the animals that had previously occupied the country became ve- ry angry, and at last so enraged and infuriated, by reason of these intrusions, that the red man durst not venture out to hunt any more, and was consequently reduced to great dis- tress. At this time a large number of these huge monsters assembled here, when a terrible battle ensued, in waichmany on both sides were killed, and the remainder resumed their march towards the setting sun. Near the bluffs which are at present known by the name of the Rocky Ridge, one of the greatest of these battles was fought. Immediately after the battle, the Indians gathered together many of the slaughter- ed animals, and offered them on the spot as a burnt sacrifice to the Great Spirit; the remainder were buried by the Great