KU Thunderbird has interesting history
By JOHN LAWSON
"Rock Chalk, Jayhawk . . .
KU." Needless to say, a famous
KU chant. But, how many Jay-
hawkers know the history of
KU's famous bird, the Jayhawk?
Some Kansans know that the first use of the term came from territorial soldiers fighting to defend the territory from bushwhackers. Later a regiment of Kansas soldiers fighting in the Civil War made it their mascot.
Jayhawk was also the name given to a regiment of soldiers fighting in France during World War I. World War II also had a band of Jayhawkers in the Philippines.
AN ANONYMOUS INDIAN is said to have told the true story about the Jayhawk, or Thunderbird as the Indians referred to it. The Indian said the great round stones near Rock City in Ottawa County are petrified eggs laid by the Thunderbird. Some of the rocks are 12 feet in diameter, but the Indian said this Thunderbird not only could change its size at will but could make itself invisible, and it was immortal.
The Indians also claimed the Jayhawk had a poisonous tail, "declaring that in battle they employ it as a weapon, flying backwards, which they do with the greatest of ease."
The Jayhawks were the first inhabitants of the Great Plains, according to the Indians. The reason being because the land is flat and because the bird flew at such great speeds, it needed level runways for landing.
Kansas was once a desert, without water, vegetation, or even wind, so the story goes. The Jayhawks had to fly to the Great Lakes for a drink. It happened that on one hot summer day several million Jayhawks started northeast for water, and their tremendous force started a strong breeze from the southwest. That breeze is still noticeable today.
The Indians also credit the Jayhawks with the rain and vegetation in Kansas, because it was the birds' force that hot day which created the wind which blew the clouds over our state.
THE FIRST WHITE MEN to hear the stories from the Indians were Spaniards of Coronado's day. And while these men searched for cities of gold and the Fountain of Youth, they also believed the mythical tales about the Jayhawks.
The Spaniards even claimed they saw the Jayhawks actually sink their claws into the back of hump-backed cattle (buffalo) and fly off.
Leaving the area known as Kansas, the Spaniards blamed all their trouble on their own disrespect for the Jayhawk. For as the Indians had warned them, the Thunderbird was the "Guardian Spirit of the Prairies."
THE JAYHAWK IS A MYTH, but some educators a few years ago discovered that one of their own textbooks told little children the bird "is real and it comes from our locality."
Kirke Mechem, in his article, "The Mythical Jayhawk," said: "The professors will have no more luck killing the Jayhawk than the historians have had with George Washington's cherry tree."
The last report of a Jayhawk being seen was in 1944, as stated in the Wichita Beagle. An Army pilot, cruising at 8,000 feet in a new B-777 called "The Flying Jayhawk," claims some sort of shadow "going like a bat out of hell," swished by his bomber. A
Sergeant Goober also on board the plane saw it and said it had feathers.
Later, the bird is reported to have stopped in front of the plane, quite a way off, and then started backwards! At about two hundred yards, the bird stopped again and started forward. The whole crew reportedly agreed that the left claw was bright, shiny, and yellow.
Sergeant Goober stated the whatever-it-was, looked exactly like the picture of the Jayhawk on the plane. However, being a KU man, Goober may have read a little into the story.
With all myths aside, the present-day Jayhawk is a heroic bird. He can fly backwards into a tornado squawking prosperity. And to his enemies he says, "Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy:
when I fall, I shall arise; when I sit in darkness, the Lord shall be a light unto me." (Micah 7:8)
And so forever the Jayhawk will be the "Guardian Spirit of Kansas."
4
Daily Kansan Friday, November 4, 1966
LEWIS
McCOLLUM
Go Jayhawkers! We're backing you 100% Halt those Huskers!
NAISMITH