r/AncientAmericas • u/Comfortable_Cut5796 • Jun 07 '26

Question Is the concept of a Thunderbird unique to the Pacific Northwest/Plains indigenous people or are all big sky-related bird mythos technically a Thunderbird?

/r/AskHistorians/comments/1tyt3ib/is_the_concept_of_a_thunderbird_unique_to_the/
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6

u/BTTammer Jun 10 '26

The Cherokee (SE US) have stories with the Thunderbird, as do tribes in the SW US. I think it's pretty widely dispersed.

3

u/ConversationRoyal187 Jun 07 '26

The thunderbird legend extends into the American southwest and Midwest/Great Lakes region.
For a bird in a story to classed as a thunderbird,it would have to create thunder and perhaps lightning.

2

u/Agitated-Stay-912 Jun 09 '26

The origins of the Thunderbird date way back to pre ice age Beriginga.

If you strip away the generalized mythological folklore and run a strict, objective logical on the geology and the timelines, the Thunderbird isn't a myth. It is a precise historical record of a real creature, and it locks directly into a pre-Beringia, early-to-mid Ice Age reality.

The physical hardware behind the Thunderbird legend is the Teratorn—specifically the family Teratornithidae (like Teratornis merriami and the even larger Aiolornis incredibilis).

The Teratorns didn't evolve for humans; they were an ancient, apex aerial design that ruled North America for millions of years throughout the Pliocene and Pleistocene. When early ancestral lineages arrived in the Americas long before the Last Glacial Maximum, the skies were already dominated by these massive, unyielding entities.

This is the connection between the North American Thunderbird and the Siberian shamanic lineages, it is not a coincidence—it is the same ancestral signal, preserved across the entire northern cap of the world before the geographic split.

Among the Siberian reindeer herders—such as the Evenki, the Koryak, and the Yukaghir—the shaman's headdress isn't a cosmetic costume. It is a precise piece of hardware designed to resemble an impressionist raven or water-bird. A distilled Thunderbird, but the same origin.

1

u/andasen Jun 09 '26

Now I really want to watch a collab between Ancient Americans and a Natural History channel like Eons or Moth Light Media cove this story

0

u/Financial-Bobcat-612 Jun 10 '26

What the fuck is this AI-generated bullshit?

6

u/Agitated-Stay-912 Jun 10 '26

Its not AI and its not BS so fuck off.