Pecos Bill
Encyclopedia
Pecos Bill is an American
cowboy
, apocryphally immortalized in numerous tall tale
s of the Old West during American westward expansion into the Southwest of Texas
, New Mexico
, Southern California
, and Arizona
. Their stories were probably invented into short stories and book by Edward O'Reilly
in the early 20th Century and are considered to be an example of fakelore
. Pecos Bill was a late addition to the "big man" idea of characters, such as Paul Bunyan
or John Henry
.
for The Century Magazine
, and collected and reprinted in 1923 in the book Saga of Pecos Bill (1923). O'Reilly said they were part of an oral tradition told by cowboys during the westward expansion and settlement of the southwest including Texas, New Mexico and Arizona. However American folklorist Richard M. Dorson found that O'Reilly invented the stories as "fakelore", and later writers either borrowed tales from O'Reilly or added further adventures of their own invention to the cycle. One of the most well known versions of the Pecos Bill stories is by James Cloyd Bowman
in Pecos Bill: The Greatest Cowboy of All Time
(1937) which won the Newbery Honor in 1938, and was republished in 2007.
Edward "Tex" O'Reilly co-authored a cartoon strip with cartoonist Jack A. Warren, also known as Alonzo Vincent Warren, between 1929 and 1938. When O' Reilly died in 1938, Warren began a strip titled Pecos Pete. This was a story about "Pecos Bill", who had received a "lump on the naggan" that caused him amnesia. The cartoons originally were published in The Sun and were later syndicated. He also has a wife, named Slue-Foot Sue.
Pecos Bill made the leap to film in the 1948 Disney
animated feature Melody Time
. He was portrayed by Patrick Swayze
in Disney's 1995 film Tall Tale.
"Pecos Bill" was also the nickname of Civil War general William Shafter, although this was before O'Reilly created the legend. Shafter was considered a hero in Texas and even had some legendary poetry written about how tough he was.
as an infant when he fell out unnoticed by the rest of his family near the Pecos River
. He was taken in by a pack of coyote
s who were said to have raised him.
Years later he was found by his real brother, who managed to convince him he was not a coyote.
He grew up to become a cowboy. Pecos used a rattlesnake named Shake as a lasso and another snake as a little whip. His horse Widow-Maker was so named because no other man except Pecos Bill could ride him and live. Widow-Maker was also called Lightning. Dynamite
was said to be his favorite food. It is also said Pecos sometimes rode a mountain lion instead of a horse. On one of his adventures, Pecos Bill managed to lasso
a tornado
.
Pecos Bill had a love interest named Slue-Foot Sue, who rode a giant catfish
down the Rio Grande. Just like Shake, both Widow-Maker and Slue-Foot Sue are equally as idealized as Pecos Bill.
After a courtship with Slue-Foot Sue in which, among other things, Pecos Bill shoots all the stars from the sky except for one which becomes the Lone Star
, he proposes to Sue. She insists on riding Widow-Maker before, during or after the wedding (depending on variations in the story). Widow-Maker, jealous of no longer having Bill's undivided attention, bounces Sue off; she lands on her bustle
and begins bouncing higher and higher. Pecos attempts, but fails to lasso her, because Widow-Maker didn't want her on his back again, and she eventually hits her head on the moon. After she has been bouncing for days, Pecos Bill realizes that she would eventually starve to death, so he lassos her with Shake the rattlesnake and brings her back down. Widow-Maker, realizing that what he did to her was wrong, apologizes. Then no one knows what happen to Pecos Bill or where he was. In Bowman's version of the story, Sue eventually recovers from the bouncing, but is so traumatized by the experience she never talks to Pecos Bill again. Though it is said that Bill was married many times, he never liked the others as much as Sue, and the other relationships didn't work out. In some versions, Sue couldn't stop bouncing, and Bill couldn't stop her bouncing either, so Bill had to shoot her to put her out of her misery. Although he married many times after that, he never loved a girl as much as Sue.
It was also said that once he wrestled the Bear Lake Monster
which one went on for several days until Bill finally won.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
cowboy
Cowboy
A cowboy is an animal herder who tends cattle on ranches in North America, traditionally on horseback, and often performs a multitude of other ranch-related tasks. The historic American cowboy of the late 19th century arose from the vaquero traditions of northern Mexico and became a figure of...
, apocryphally immortalized in numerous tall tale
Tall tale
A tall tale is a story with unbelievable elements, related as if it were true and factual. Some such stories are exaggerations of actual events, for example fish stories such as, "that fish was so big, why I tell ya', it nearly sank the boat when I pulled it in!" Other tall tales are completely...
s of the Old West during American westward expansion into the Southwest of Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
, New Mexico
New Mexico
New Mexico is a state located in the southwest and western regions of the United States. New Mexico is also usually considered one of the Mountain States. With a population density of 16 per square mile, New Mexico is the sixth-most sparsely inhabited U.S...
, Southern California
Southern California
Southern California is a megaregion, or megapolitan area, in the southern area of the U.S. state of California. Large urban areas include Greater Los Angeles and Greater San Diego. The urban area stretches along the coast from Ventura through the Southland and Inland Empire to San Diego...
, and Arizona
Arizona
Arizona ; is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. It is also part of the western United States and the mountain west. The capital and largest city is Phoenix...
. Their stories were probably invented into short stories and book by Edward O'Reilly
Edward O'Reilly
Edward O'Reilly was an Irish scholar in the first half of the 19th century.His grandfather was Eoghan O'Reilly of Corstown, County Meath. Edward's father moved to Harold's Cross, Dublin, where he practised as an apothecary. Edward was born on 6 December 1765...
in the early 20th Century and are considered to be an example of fakelore
Fakelore
Fakelore or Pseudo-folklore is inauthentic, manufactured folklore presented as if it were genuinely traditional. The term can refer to new stories or songs made up, or to folklore that is reworked and modified for modern tastes...
. Pecos Bill was a late addition to the "big man" idea of characters, such as Paul Bunyan
Paul Bunyan
Paul Bunyan is a lumberjack figure in North American folklore and tradition. One of the most famous and popular North American folklore heroes, he is usually described as a giant as well as a lumberjack of unusual skill, and is often accompanied in stories by his animal companion, Babe the Blue...
or John Henry
John Henry (folklore)
John Henry is an American folk hero and tall tale. Henry worked as a "steel-driver"—a man tasked with hammering and chiseling rock in the construction of tunnels for railroad tracks. In the legend, John Henry's prowess as a steel-driver was measured in a race against a steam powered hammer,...
.
History
The first stories were published in 1917 by Edward O'ReillyEdward O'Reilly
Edward O'Reilly was an Irish scholar in the first half of the 19th century.His grandfather was Eoghan O'Reilly of Corstown, County Meath. Edward's father moved to Harold's Cross, Dublin, where he practised as an apothecary. Edward was born on 6 December 1765...
for The Century Magazine
The Century Magazine
The Century Magazine was first published in the United States in 1881 by The Century Company of New York City as a successor to Scribner's Monthly Magazine...
, and collected and reprinted in 1923 in the book Saga of Pecos Bill (1923). O'Reilly said they were part of an oral tradition told by cowboys during the westward expansion and settlement of the southwest including Texas, New Mexico and Arizona. However American folklorist Richard M. Dorson found that O'Reilly invented the stories as "fakelore", and later writers either borrowed tales from O'Reilly or added further adventures of their own invention to the cycle. One of the most well known versions of the Pecos Bill stories is by James Cloyd Bowman
James Cloyd Bowman
James Cloyd Bowman was an American teacher and author primarily of children's books, college text books and journals. Born in Leipsic, Ohio. Bowman grew up in Ohio and attended Ohio Northern University with graduate studies at Harvard University...
in Pecos Bill: The Greatest Cowboy of All Time
Pecos Bill: The Greatest Cowboy of All Time
Pecos Bill: The Greatest Cowboy of All Time is a children's novel by James Cloyd Bowman about the American folk hero Pecos Bill. Raised by coyotes, the hero has various supernatural powers, including the ability to talk to animals, and becomes a spectacularly successful cowboy...
(1937) which won the Newbery Honor in 1938, and was republished in 2007.
Edward "Tex" O'Reilly co-authored a cartoon strip with cartoonist Jack A. Warren, also known as Alonzo Vincent Warren, between 1929 and 1938. When O' Reilly died in 1938, Warren began a strip titled Pecos Pete. This was a story about "Pecos Bill", who had received a "lump on the naggan" that caused him amnesia. The cartoons originally were published in The Sun and were later syndicated. He also has a wife, named Slue-Foot Sue.
Pecos Bill made the leap to film in the 1948 Disney
The Walt Disney Company
The Walt Disney Company is the largest media conglomerate in the world in terms of revenue. Founded on October 16, 1923, by Walt and Roy Disney as the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, Walt Disney Productions established itself as a leader in the American animation industry before diversifying into...
animated feature Melody Time
Melody Time
Melody Time is a 1948 animated feature produced by Walt Disney and released to theatres by RKO Radio Pictures on May 27, 1948. Made up of several sequences set to popular music and folk music, the film is, like Make Mine Music before it, the popular music version of Fantasia Melody Time is a 1948...
. He was portrayed by Patrick Swayze
Patrick Swayze
Patrick Wayne Swayze was an American actor, dancer and singer-songwriter. He was best known for his tough-guy roles, as romantic leading men in the hit films Dirty Dancing and Ghost, and as Orry Main in the North and South television miniseries. He was named by People magazine as its "Sexiest...
in Disney's 1995 film Tall Tale.
"Pecos Bill" was also the nickname of Civil War general William Shafter, although this was before O'Reilly created the legend. Shafter was considered a hero in Texas and even had some legendary poetry written about how tough he was.
Description
According to the legend, Pecos Bill was born in Texas in the 1830s. Pecos Bill was traveling in a covered wagonCovered wagon
The covered wagon, also known as a Prairie schooner, is an icon of the American Old West.Although covered wagons were commonly used for shorter moves within the United States, in the mid-nineteenth century thousands of Americans took them across the Great Plains to Oregon and California...
as an infant when he fell out unnoticed by the rest of his family near the Pecos River
Pecos River
The headwaters of the Pecos River are located north of Pecos, New Mexico, United States, at an elevation of over 12,000 feet on the western slope of the Sangre de Cristo mountain range in Mora County. The river flows for through the eastern portion of that state and neighboring Texas before it...
. He was taken in by a pack of coyote
Coyote
The coyote , also known as the American jackal or the prairie wolf, is a species of canine found throughout North and Central America, ranging from Panama in the south, north through Mexico, the United States and Canada...
s who were said to have raised him.
Years later he was found by his real brother, who managed to convince him he was not a coyote.
He grew up to become a cowboy. Pecos used a rattlesnake named Shake as a lasso and another snake as a little whip. His horse Widow-Maker was so named because no other man except Pecos Bill could ride him and live. Widow-Maker was also called Lightning. Dynamite
Dynamite
Dynamite is an explosive material based on nitroglycerin, initially using diatomaceous earth , or another absorbent substance such as powdered shells, clay, sawdust, or wood pulp. Dynamites using organic materials such as sawdust are less stable and such use has been generally discontinued...
was said to be his favorite food. It is also said Pecos sometimes rode a mountain lion instead of a horse. On one of his adventures, Pecos Bill managed to lasso
Lasso
A lasso , also referred to as a lariat, riata, or reata , is a loop of rope that is designed to be thrown around a target and tighten when pulled. It is a well-known tool of the American cowboy. The word is also a verb; to lasso is to successfully throw the loop of rope around something...
a tornado
Tornado
A tornado is a violent, dangerous, rotating column of air that is in contact with both the surface of the earth and a cumulonimbus cloud or, in rare cases, the base of a cumulus cloud. They are often referred to as a twister or a cyclone, although the word cyclone is used in meteorology in a wider...
.
Pecos Bill had a love interest named Slue-Foot Sue, who rode a giant catfish
Catfish
Catfishes are a diverse group of ray-finned fish. Named for their prominent barbels, which resemble a cat's whiskers, catfish range in size and behavior from the heaviest and longest, the Mekong giant catfish from Southeast Asia and the second longest, the wels catfish of Eurasia, to detritivores...
down the Rio Grande. Just like Shake, both Widow-Maker and Slue-Foot Sue are equally as idealized as Pecos Bill.
After a courtship with Slue-Foot Sue in which, among other things, Pecos Bill shoots all the stars from the sky except for one which becomes the Lone Star
Lone Star
- Locations :* Lone Star State, the official state nickname of Texas** Lone Star, Texas, a city in Morris County, Texas* Lone Star, California** Lone Star, Fresno County, California, an unincorporated community in Fresno County, California...
, he proposes to Sue. She insists on riding Widow-Maker before, during or after the wedding (depending on variations in the story). Widow-Maker, jealous of no longer having Bill's undivided attention, bounces Sue off; she lands on her bustle
Bustle
A bustle is a type of framework used to expand the fullness or support the drapery of the back of a woman's dress, occurring predominantly in the mid-to-late 19th century. Bustles were worn under the skirt in the back, just below the waist, to keep the skirt from dragging. Heavy fabric tended to...
and begins bouncing higher and higher. Pecos attempts, but fails to lasso her, because Widow-Maker didn't want her on his back again, and she eventually hits her head on the moon. After she has been bouncing for days, Pecos Bill realizes that she would eventually starve to death, so he lassos her with Shake the rattlesnake and brings her back down. Widow-Maker, realizing that what he did to her was wrong, apologizes. Then no one knows what happen to Pecos Bill or where he was. In Bowman's version of the story, Sue eventually recovers from the bouncing, but is so traumatized by the experience she never talks to Pecos Bill again. Though it is said that Bill was married many times, he never liked the others as much as Sue, and the other relationships didn't work out. In some versions, Sue couldn't stop bouncing, and Bill couldn't stop her bouncing either, so Bill had to shoot her to put her out of her misery. Although he married many times after that, he never loved a girl as much as Sue.
It was also said that once he wrestled the Bear Lake Monster
Bear Lake Monster
The Bear Lake Monster is a cryptid appearing in local folk-lore near Bear Lake, on the Utah–Idaho border.The myth originally grew from articles written in the 19th century by Joseph C. Rich, a Mormon colonizer in the area, purporting to report second-hand accounts of sightings of the creature...
which one went on for several days until Bill finally won.
Popular culture
- Pecos Bill appeared in Tall Tale: The Unbelievable Adventures of Pecos Bill portrayed by Patrick SwayzePatrick SwayzePatrick Wayne Swayze was an American actor, dancer and singer-songwriter. He was best known for his tough-guy roles, as romantic leading men in the hit films Dirty Dancing and Ghost, and as Orry Main in the North and South television miniseries. He was named by People magazine as its "Sexiest...
.
See also
Other "Big Men"- Big Joe MufferawBig Joe MufferawBig Joe Mufferaw was a French Canadian folk hero from the Ottawa Valley, perhaps best known today as the hero of a song by Stompin' Tom Connors. Like Paul Bunyan, he made his living chopping down trees. The name is also sometimes spelled Muffero, Muffera, and Montferrand...
, a.k.a. Jos. Montferrand of the Ottawa Valley - Gargantua
- Paul BunyanPaul BunyanPaul Bunyan is a lumberjack figure in North American folklore and tradition. One of the most famous and popular North American folklore heroes, he is usually described as a giant as well as a lumberjack of unusual skill, and is often accompanied in stories by his animal companion, Babe the Blue...
- Iron JohnIron John"Iron John" is a German fairy tale found in the collections of the Brothers Grimm, tale number 136, about a wild man and a prince...
of Michigan - John HenryJohn Henry (folklore)John Henry is an American folk hero and tall tale. Henry worked as a "steel-driver"—a man tasked with hammering and chiseling rock in the construction of tunnels for railroad tracks. In the legend, John Henry's prowess as a steel-driver was measured in a race against a steam powered hammer,...
- Johnny KawJohnny KawJohnny Kaw is a mythical Kansas settler and the subject of a number of Paul Bunyan-esque tall tales about the settling of the territory.The legend of Johnny Kaw was created in 1955 by George Filinger, a professor of horticulture at Kansas State University, to celebrate the centennial of Manhattan,...
- Mike FinkMike FinkMike Fink called "king of the keelboaters", was a semi-legendary brawler and boatman who exemplified the tough and hard-drinking men who ran keelboats up and down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers....
- HiawathaHiawathaHiawatha was a legendary Native American leader and founder of the Iroquois confederacy...
- Joe MagaracJoe MagaracJoe Magarac is a legendary American folk hero who was a steelworker in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Magarac first appeared in print in a 1931 Scribner's Magazine article by Owen Francis, who said he heard the story from immigrant steelworkers in Pittsburgh area steel mills...
- Fionn mac CumhaillFionn mac CumhaillFionn mac Cumhaill , known in English as Finn McCool, was a mythical hunter-warrior of Irish mythology, occurring also in the mythologies of Scotland and the Isle of Man...
- Davy CrockettDavy CrockettDavid "Davy" Crockett was a celebrated 19th century American folk hero, frontiersman, soldier and politician. He is commonly referred to in popular culture by the epithet "King of the Wild Frontier". He represented Tennessee in the U.S...
- Venture SmithVenture SmithVenture Smith was an African captured as a child and transported to the American colonies to be sold as a slave. As an adult, he purchased his freedom and that of his family...
, the black Paul Bunyan - Bill BraskyBill BraskyBill Brasky was the subject of a series of sketches on the television sketch comedy program Saturday Night Live between 1996 and 1998. The sketches were written by cast member Will Ferrell and writer Adam McKay.- Format :...
- Alfred Bulltop StormalongAlfred Bulltop StormalongCaptain Alfred Bulltop Stormalong was an American folk hero and the subject of numerous nautical-themed tall tales originating in Massachusetts. Stormalong was said to be a sailor and a giant, some tall; he was the master of a huge clipper ship known in various sources as either the Courser or the...
- Buffalo BillBuffalo BillWilliam Frederick "Buffalo Bill" Cody was a United States soldier, bison hunter and showman. He was born in the Iowa Territory , in LeClaire but lived several years in Canada before his family moved to the Kansas Territory. Buffalo Bill received the Medal of Honor in 1872 for service to the US...
- Wild BillWild Bill-People:* Wild Bill Hickok, or James Butler Hickok , gunfighter and legendary figure of the American West* "Wild Bill" Hickman, or William Adams Hickman , frontiersman, ex-Mormon, and purported murderer...
- Crooked Mick of the SpeewahSpeewahThe Speewah is a mythical Australian station that is the subject of many 'tall tales' told by Australian bushmen. The stories of the Speewah are Australian folktales of unwritten literature of men who never had the opportunity to read books and who became tellers of tales instead...
- [ [Joseph hdfb]]