According to a New England Koasek Abenaki about the Pmola (puh-MOH-lah): "Our legends tell us of a being who appeared as a giant bird-like creature, with glowing red eyes and claws, who would swoop down on unsuspecting animals and people and carry them off ... never to be seen again. The Indian peoples of the Eastern Seaboard and Woodlands all share similar stories. Grandmothers and Mothers would caution their children to behave, lest Pmola find them unawares and carry them away."

Piasa

Jacques Marquette, a French explorer relates a petroglyph of the Piasa near Alton Illinois in 1673: "On the flat face of a high rock were painted, in red, black, and green, a pair of monsters, each as large as a calf, with horns like a deer, red eyes, a beard like a tiger, and a frightful expression of countenance. The face is something like that of a man, the body covered with scales, and the tail so long that it passes entirely round the body, over the head, and between the legs, ending like that of a fish." It was supposed to live high in a cave on the bluff.

An Alton, Illinois scholar named McAdmas observed during the mid 1800s, that the name Piasa "signifies, in Illini, 'The bird that devours men.'" And indeed, it was Illini legend that children and adults were carried away and eaten.

Tlanuwa

The Cherokee legend of the Tlanuwa is similar of the Piasa. The Tlanuwa were a pair of immense birds said to live in a cave on the north bank of the Little Tennessee River in Blount County Tennessee. They would fly up an down the river, even coming into the villages to carry off and eat dogs and small children.

Bad8gi

According to a New England Koasek Abenaki about the Bad8gi (BAH-dohn-KEE): "I personally believe that the Thunderbird here in the East is based upon an ancient species of raptor, one that possessed a wingspan in excess of twenty feet. These gigantic preying birds were the antecedents of the Eagles that are so important to our culture and traditions today. Ancient oral traditions among the Algonquin/Abenaki tell us that these raptors rode the lightning and the thunderheads, coming up from the South, in a corridor that extends from Mexico right on up the Appalachians into New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine. I believe that the copper representation you refer to is this Thunder Being, and was made to harness the spiritual powers to benefit the wearer. Our word for this Being is Bad8gi."

[The "8" in Bad8gi is intentional. In Abenaki, the sound "OOHN" is represented by the 8 or ô, (an "o" with a circumflex.) ]

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