Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site to host online winter lecture series

SPRINGFIELD - Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site in Collinsville will host their Winter Lecture Series virtually on Webex from January through March. The series begins on Sunday, Jan. 25 at 1 p.m.

Logan Pappenfort, Illinois State Museum Director of Tribal Relations, will kickstart the series with his presentation "From Piasa to payiihsaki: Supernatural Symbolism and Misconstrued Tales." The lecture will deconstruct the various stories surrounding the Piasa and how that narrative has been misinterpreted from its origins over the years.

Pappenfort, a descendant of the Peoria Tribe, will present evidence from ethnographic, historical and oral traditions to clarify the connection between the original native tradition of the payiihsaki and the modern-day interpretations of the Piasa.