As for land east of the Delaware river, Mr. Ruttenber correctly observes: "The Iroquois never questioned the sales made by the Lenapes or Minsis east of that river. * * The findings of Gallatin in this particular are confirmed by all the title deeds in New York and New Jersey."[198]
It was only to the Susquehannock lands, purchased by Penn in 1699, that the confirmation of the Iroquois was required.[199]
The close of this condition of subjection was in 1756. In that year Sir William Johnson formally "took off the petticoat" from the Lenape, and "handed them the war belt."[200] The year subsequent they made the public declaration that "they would not acknowledge but the Senecas as their superiors."[201]
Even their supremacy was soon rejected. At the Treaty of Fort Pitt, October, 1778, Captain White Eyes, when reminded by the Senecas that the petticoats were still on his people, scornfully repudiated the imputation, and made good his words by leading a war party against them the following year.
The Iroquois, however, released their hold unwillingly, and it was not until 1794, shortly before the Treaty of Greenville, that their delegates came forward and "officially declared that the Lenape were no longer women, but men," and the famous chief, Joseph Brant, placed in their hands the war club.[202]
It does not form part of my plan to detail the later history of the Lenape. But some account of their number and migrations will aid in the examination of the origin and claims of the Walum Olum.
The first estimate of the whole number of native inhabitants of the province was by William Penn. He stated that there were ten different nations, with a total population of about 6000 souls.[203]
This was in 1683. Very soon after this they began to diminish by disease and migration. As early as 1690, a band of the Minsi left for the far West, to unite with the Ottawas.[204] In 1721 the Frenchman Durant speaks of them as "exceedingly decreased."[205] Already they had yielded to the pressure of the whites, and were seeking homes on the head-waters of the Ohio, in Western Pennsylvania. Their first cabins are said to have been built there in 1724.[206]
All that remained in the Delaware valley were ordered by the Iroquois, at the treaty of Lancaster, 1744, to leave the waters of their river, and remove to Shamokin (now Sunbury) and Wyoming, on the Susquehanna, and most of them obeyed. The former was their chief town, and the residence of their "king," Allemœbi.
When the interpreter, Conrad Weiser, visited their Ohio settlements, in 1748, he reported their warriors there at 165, which was probably about one-fourth of the nation.
In the "French War," 1755, the Delawares united with the French against the Iroquois and English, and suffered considerable losses. At its close they were estimated to have, both on the Susquehanna and in Ohio, a total of 600 available fighting men.[207]
After this date they steadily migrated from the Susquehannah to the streams in central and eastern Ohio, establishing their chief fire on the Tuscarawas river, at Gekelemukpechunk, and hunting on the Muskingum, the Licking, etc.[208]
When the war of the Revolution broke out, Zeisberger used all his efforts to have them remain neutral, and at least prevented them from joining in a general attack on the settlements. Their distinguished war-chief, Koquethagachton, known to the settlers as "Captain White Eyes," declared, in 1775, in favor of the Federal cause, and renounced for himself and his people all dependence on the Iroquois. These friendly relations were confirmed at the treaty of Fort Pitt (1778), and the next year a number of Delawares accompanied Col. Brodhead in an expedition against the Senecas.
The massacre of the unoffending Christian natives of Gnadenhütten, in 1788, was but one event in the murderous war between the races that continued in Ohio from 1782 to the treaty of peace at Greenville, in 1795.
To escape its direful scenes, a part of the Delawares removed south, to upper Louisiana, in 1789, where they received official permission from Governor Carondelet, in 1793, to locate permanent homes.[209] Zeisberger also, in 1791, conducted his colony of Christian Indians to Canada, and founded the town of Fairfield, on the Retrenche river. Thus, in both directions the Delawares were driven off the soil of the United States. Yet those that remained in Ohio, if we may accept the account of John Brickell, who was a captive among them from 1791 to 1796, attempted to live a peaceable and agricultural life.[210]
Peace restored, the Delawares made their next remove to the valley of White Water river, Indiana, where they attempted to rekindle the national council fire, under the head chief Tedpachxit. They founded six towns, the largest of which was Woapikamikunk or Wapeminskink, "Place of Chestnut Trees." This tract was guaranteed them "in perpetuity" by the treaty of Vincennes, 1808.[211] Nevertheless, just ten years later, at the treaty of St. Mary's, they released the whole of their land, "without reserve," to the United States, the government agreeing to remove them west of the Mississippi, and grant them land there.
At this time they numbered about 1000 souls, of whom 800 were Delawares, the others being Mohegans and Nanticokes.[212] Their head chief was Thahutoowelent, of the Turkey tribe, Tedpachxit having been assassinated, at the instigation of Tecumseh.
They are described as "having a peculiar aversion to white people," and "more opposed to the Gospel and the whites than any other Indians,"[213] which is small matter of wonder, when they had seen the peaceful Christian converts of their nation massacred three times, in cold blood, once at Gnadenhütten, in Pennsylvania (1756); again at Gnadenhütten, in Ohio (1788), and finally at Fairfield, Canada (1813).
The Rev. Isaac McCoy, who visited them on the White Water, in the winter of 1818-19, states that they lived in log huts and bark shanties, and were fearfully deteriorated by whisky drinking.[214]
The last band of the Delawares that appeared in Ohio was in 1822.[215]
The location assigned to the Delawares was near the mouth of the Kansas river, Kansas. They were reported, in 1850, as possessing there 375,000 acres and numbering about 1500 souls. Four years later they "ceded" this land, and were moved to various reservations in the Indian Territory.
There still remain about sixty natives at New Westfield, near Ottawa, Kansas, under the charge of the Moravian Church. The same denomination has about 300 of the tribe on the reservation at Moraviantown, in the province of Ontario, Canada. A second reservation in Canada is under the charge of the Anglican Church. The majority of the tribe are scattered in different agencies in the Indian Territory.
None of the American colonies enjoyed a more favorable opportunity to introduce the Christian religion to the natives than that located on the Delaware river. What use was made of it?
The Rev. Thomas Campanius, of Stockholm, a Lutheran clergyman, attached to the Swedish settlement from 1642 to 1649, made a creditable effort to acquire the native tongue and preach Christianity to the savages about him. He translated the Catechism into the traders' dialect of Lenape, but we have no record that he succeeded in his attempts at conversion.
One might suppose that so very religious a body as the early Friends would have taken some positive steps in this direction. Such was not the case. I have not found the record of any one of them who set seriously to work to learn the native tongue, without which all effort would have been fruitless.
William Penn was not wholly unmindful of the spiritual condition of his native wards. In 1699 he offered to provide the Friends' Meeting at Philadelphia with interpreters to convey religious instruction to the Indians. But the Meeting took no steps in this direction. He himself, when in the colony in 1701, made some attempts to address them on religious subjects, as did also Friend John Richardson, who was with him, availing themselves of interpreters. The latter reports a satisfactory response to his words, but not being followed up, their effect was ephemeral.[216]
Nothing further was done for nearly half a century, and when the enthusiastic young David Brainerd began his mission in 1742, he distinctly states that there was not another missionary in either province.[217] His labors extended over four years, and were productive of some permanent good results among the New Jersey Indians, and this in spite of the suspicions, opposition and evil example of the whites around him. The little society of Christian Indians which he gathered in Burlington County, New Jersey, was even reported as a congregation of rioters and enemies of the State![218]
Nor was the province of Penn inclined to greater favors toward Christianized natives. When the Indians were cheated out of their lands by the "Long Walk," a few who had been converted, among others the chief Moses Tatemy, petitioned the Council to remain on their lands, some of which were direct personal gifts from the Proprietaries. Their request was refused, and Moses Tatemy, who did remain, was shot down like a dog, in the road, by a white man.[219]
Unknown to Brainerd, however, the seeds of a Christian harvest had already been sown, in 1742, in the wilderness of Pennsylvania, by the ardent Moravian leader, Count Nicholas Lewis Zinzendorf; already, in 1744, the fervent Zeisberger, prescient of his long and marvelous service in the church militant, had registered himself as destinirter Heidenbote—"appointed messenger to the heathen"—in the corner-stone of the Brethren's House, at Bethlehem; already the pious Rauch had collected a small but earnest congregation of Mohegans at Shekomeko, who soon removed to the Lehigh valley, and pitched the first of those five Gnadenhütten, "Tents of Grace," destined successively to mark the unwearied efforts of the Moravian missionaries, and their frustration through the treachery of the conquering whites.[220]
It is not my purpose to tell the story of this long struggle. Its thrilling events are recounted, with all desirable fullness, in the vivid narrative of Bishop Edmund de Schweinitz, grouped around the marked individuality of the devoted Zeisberger—pages which none can read without amazement at the undaunted courage of these Christian heroes, without sorrow at the sparse harvest gleaned from such devotion.[221]
When, after sixty-two years of missionary labors, the venerable Zeisberger closed his eyes in death (1808), the huts of barely a score of converted Indians clustered around his little chapel. His aspiration that the Lenape would form a native Christian State, their ancient supremacy revived and applied to the dissemination of peace, piety and civilization among their fellow-tribes—this cherished hope of his life had forever disappeared. He had lived to see the Lenape, a mere broken remnant, "steeped in all the abominations of heathenism, eke out their existence far away from their former council fires."
Myths and Traditions of the Lenape.
Cosmogonical and Culture Myths.—The Culture-hero, Michabo.—Myths from Lindstrom, Ettwein, Jasper Donkers, Zeisberger.—Native Symbolism.—The Saturnian Age.—Mohegan Cosmogony and Migration Myth. National Traditions.—Beatty's Account.—The Number Seven.—Heckewelder's Account.—Prehistoric Migrations.—Shawnee Legend.—Lenape Legend of the Naked Bear.
The Algonkins, as a stock, had a well developed creation-myth and a culture legend, found in more or less completeness in all their branches.
Their culture hero, their ancestor and creator, he who made the earth and stocked it with animals, who taught them the arts of war and the chase, and gave them the Indian corn, beans and squashes, was generally called Michabo, The Great Light, but was also known among the Narragansetts of New England as Wetucks, The Common Father; among the Cree as Wisakketjâk, the Trickster; by the Chippeways as Nanabozho (Nenâboj), the Cheat; by the Black Feet as Natose, Our Father, or Napiw; and by the Micmacs and Penobscots as Glus-Kap, the Liar.
I have given the details of this myth and analyzed them in previous works;[222] here it is sufficient to say that it is a Light-myth, and one of noble proportion and circumstance, quite worthy of comparison with those of the Oriental world.
Traces of it are reported among the Lenape, and I doubt not that had we their ancient stories in their completeness, we should find that they had preserved it as wholly as the Chipeways. These related of their Nanabozho that he was the son of a maiden who had descended from heaven. She conceived without knowledge of man, and having given birth to twins, she disappeared. One of these twins was Nanabozho. Having formed the earth by his miraculous powers, and done many wonderful things, he disappeared toward the east, where he still dwells beyond the sunrise.
It was undoubtedly a fragment of this legend that the Swedish engineer, Lindstrom heard among the Lenape, on the Delaware, about 1650. They told him, or rather he understood them, as follows:—
"Once, one of your women (i.e., a white woman) came among us, and she became pregnant, in consequence of drinking out of a creek; an Indian had connection with her, and she became pregnant, and brought forth a son, who, when he came to a certain size, was so sensible and clever, that there never was one who could be compared to him, so much and so well he spoke, which excited great wonder; he also performed many miracles. When he was quite grown up, he left us, and went up to heaven, and promised to come again, but has never returned."[223]
This is but a mistranslation of the general Algonkin legend, in which the virgin mother bears a white and dark twin, the former of whom becomes the tribal culture hero and demiurgic deity.
Its interpretation is, that the virgin is the Dawn, who brings forth the Day, which assures safety and knowledge, and the Night, which departs with her. The Day leaves us, and in its personified form returns no more, though ever expected.
That such were the original form and significance of the myth, we have the testimony of Bishop Ettwein,[224] himself a Delaware scholar, and who drew his information from the natives as well as the missionaries. He tells us that their legend ran, that in the beginning the first woman fell from heaven and bore twins; that it was toward the east that they directed their children to turn their faces when they prayed to the spirits; and that their old men had said that it was an ancient belief that from that quarter some one would come to them to benefit them. Therefore, said they, when our ancestors saw the first white men, they looked upon them as divine, and adored them.
The Dutch travelers, Jasper Donkers and Peter Sluyter, relate a part of this myth as they heard it from New Jersey Indians in 1679. These informed them that all things came from a tortoise. It had brought forth the world, and from the middle of its back had sprung up a tree, upon whose branches men had grown.
This tortoise "had a power and a nature to produce all things, such as earth, trees and the like." But it was not the primum mobile, not the ultimate energy of the universe. "The first and great beginning of all things was Kickeron or Kickerom, who is the original of all, who has not only once produced or made all things, but produces every day." The tortoise brought forth what this primal divinity "wished through it to produce."[225]
This is a very interesting statement. It reveals a depth of thought on the part of the native philosophers for which we were scarcely prepared. The worthy Dutch travelers do not pretend to explain the myth. But its sense can be clearly interpreted.
The turtle or tortoise is everywhere in Algonkin pictography the symbol of the earth.[226] From the earth, from the soil, all organic life, the whole realm of animate existence—ever sharply defined in Algonkin grammar and thought from inanimate existence—proceeds, directly as vegetable life, or indirectly as animal life. The earth is the All-Mother, ever-producing, inexhaustible.
As for Kikeron, the eternally active, hidden spirit of the universe, I have but to refer the reader to the list of ideas associated around this root kik, which I have given on a previous page (p. 102) to reveal the significance of this word. We may, with equal correctness, translate it Life, Light, Action or Energy. It is the abstract conception back of all these.
The distinction was the same as that established by the scholastic philosophers between the mundus and the anima mundi; between the essentia and the existentia; between natura naturans and natura naturata. But who expected to find it among the Lenape?
This creation myth of the Delawares is also given in brief by Zeisberger. It dated back to that marvelous overflow which is heard of in many mythologies. The whole earth was submerged, and but a few persons survived. They had taken refuge on the back of a turtle, who had reached so great an age that his shell was mossy, like the bank of a rivulet. In this forlorn condition a loon flew that way, which they asked to dive and bring up land. He complied, but found no bottom. Then he flew far away, and returned with a small quantity of earth in his bill. Guided by him, the turtle swam to the place, where a spot of dry land was found. There the survivors settled and repeopled the land.[227]
This is more a tale of reconstruction than a creation myth. It is that which has generally been supposed to refer to the Deluge. But, as I have explained in my "Myths of the New World," all these so-called Deluge Myths are but developments of crude cosmogonical theories.
To understand the significance of this myth we must examine the Indian notion of the earth. This is the more germane to my theme, as the meaning of the original text which is printed in this volume can only be grasped by one acquainted with this notion.
The Indians almost universally believed the dry land they knew to be a part of a great island, everywhere surrounded by wide waters whose limits were unknown.[228] Many tribes had vague myths of a journey from beyond this sea; many placed beyond it the home of the Sun and of Light, and the happy hunting grounds of the departed souls. The Delawares believed that the whole was supported by a fabled turtle, whose movements caused earthquakes and who had been their first preserver.[229] As above mentioned, the turtle in its amphibious character and rounded back represented the earth or the land itself, as distinguished from water. Like the turtle, the land lies at times under the water and at times above it. The spirit of the earth was the practical and visible developmental energy of nature.
The medicine men, or conjurers, who professed to be in personal relations with this power, made their "medicine rattle" of a turtle shell (Loskiel), and when they died, such a shell was suspended from their tomb posts (Zeisberger).
The Delawares also shared the belief, common to so many nations the world over, that the pristine age was one of unalloyed prosperity, peace and happiness, an Age of Gold, a Saturnian Reign. Their legends asseverated that at that time "the killing of a man was unknown, neither had there been instances of their dying before they had attained to that age which causes the hair to become white, the eyes dim, and the teeth to be worn away."
This happy time was brought to a close by the advent of certain evil beings who taught men how to kill each other by sorcery.[230]
Their kinsmen, the Mohegans, varied this cosmogonical tradition, though retaining some of its main features. They taught that in the beginning there was nought but water and sky. At length from the sky a woman descended, our common mother. As she approached the boundless ocean, a small point of land rose above the watery surface, and supplied her with firm footing. She was pregnant by some mysterious power, and she brought forth on this island animal triplets— a bear, a deer and a wolf. From these all men and animals are descended. The island grew to a main land, and the mother of all, her mission accomplished, returned to her home in the sky.[231]
This creation-myth, obtained from the Indians around New York harbor in the first generation after the advent of the whites, has every mark of a genuine native production, and coincides closely with that generally believed by the early Algonkins.
It is followed by a migration myth, which ran to the effect that their early forefathers came out of the northwest, forsaking a tide-water country, and crossing over a great watery tract, called ukhkok-pek, "snake water, or water where snakes are abundant," (âkhgook, snake, and pek, standing water, probably from n'pey, water, akek, place or country). They crossed many streams, but none in which the water ebbed and flowed, until they reached the Hudson. "Then they said, one to another, 'This is like the Muhheakunnuck (tidal ocean) of our nativity.' Therefore they agreed to kindle a fire there and hang a kettle, whereof they and their children after them might dip out their daily refreshment." Hence came their name, the Tide-water People (see ante, p. 20).
Many early writers attest the passionate fondness of the Delawares for their ancestral traditions and the memory of their ancient heroes. The missionary, David Brainerd, mentions this as one of the leading difficulties in the way of "evangelizing the Indians." "They are likewise much attached," he writes, "to the traditions and fabulous notions of their fathers, which they firmly believe, and thence look upon their ancestors to have been the best of men."[232]
To the same effect, Loskiel informs us that the Delawares "love to relate what great warriors their ancestors had been, and how many heroic deeds they had performed. It is a pleasure to them to rehearse their genealogies. They are so skilled at it that they can repeat the chief and collateral lines with the utmost readiness. At the same time, they characterize their ancestors, by describing this one as a wise or skillful man, as a great chieftain, a renowned warrior, a rich man, and the like. This they teach to their children, and embody it in pictures, so as to make it more readily remembered."[233]
The earliest writer who gives us any detailed description of what these traditions were, is the Rev. Charles Beatty, who visited the Delaware settlements in Ohio in 1767. On his way there, he met a white man, Benjamin Button, who for years had been a captive among the natives. He related to Beatty the following tradition, which he had heard recited by some old men among the Delawares:—
"That of old time their people were divided by a river, nine parts of ten passing over the river, and one part remaining behind; that they knew not, for certainty, how they came to this continent; but account thus for their first coming into these parts where they are now settled; that a king of their nation, where they formerly lived, far to the west, left his kingdom to his two sons; that the one son making war upon the other, the latter thereupon determined to depart and seek some new habitation; that accordingly he sat out, accompanied by a number of his people, and that, after wandering to and fro for the space of forty years, they at length came to Delaware river, where they settled 370 years ago. The way, he says, they keep an account of this is by putting on a black bead of wampum every year on a belt they keep for that purpose."[234]
From another source Mr. Beatty obtained the traditions of the Nanticokes, which is apparently a version of that of their relatives, the Delawares. It ran to this effect: At some remote age, while on their way to their present homes, "They came to a great water. One of the Indians that went before them tried the depth of it by a long pole or reed, which he had in his hand, and found it too deep for them to wade. Upon their being non-plussed, and not knowing how to get over it, their God made a bridge over the water in one night, and the next morning, after they were all over, God took away the bridge."[235]
A curious addition to this story is mentioned by Loskiel.[236] The number of the mythical ancestors of their race who thus were left on the shore of the great water was seven. This at once recalls the seven caves (Chicomoztoc) or primitive stirpes of the Mexican tribes, the seven clans (vuk amag) of the Cakchiquels, the seven ancestors of the Qquechuas, etc., and strongly intimates that there must be some common natural occurrence to give rise to this widespread legend.[237]
Some peculiar sacredness must have attached to this number among the Delawares also, as we are informed that the period of isolation of their women at the catamenial period was seven days.[238]
The lunar month of 28 days, if divided and assigned equally to each of the four cardinal points, would give a week of seven days to each. Something of this kind seems to have been done by another Algonkin tribe, the Ottawas, who declared that the winds are caused (alternately?) by seven genii or gods who dwelt in the air.[239]
The seven day period is also a natural, physical one, whose influence is felt widely by vertebrate and invertebrate animals, as Darwin has pointed out,[240] and hence its appearance among these people, who lived entirely subject to the operation of their physical surroundings, is not so surprising.
The most complete account of the Delaware tradition is that preserved by Heckewelder. In his pages it appears, not as a reminiscence of tribal history, but as the tradition of the whole eastern Algonkin race, and it claims for the three Delaware tribes an antiquity of organization surpassing that of any of their neighbors.
It holds such an important place that I quote all the essential passages:—
"The Lenni Lenape (according to the traditions handed down to them by their ancestors) resided many hundred years ago in a very distant country in the western part of the American continent. For some reason, which I do not find accounted for, they determined on migrating to the eastward, and accordingly set out together in a body. After a very long journey, and many nights' encampments by the way, they at length arrived on the Namoesi Sipu, where they fell in with the Mengwe, who had likewise emigrated from a distant country, and had struck upon this river somewhat higher up. Their object was the same with that of the Delawares; they were proceeding on to the eastward, until they should find a country that pleased them. The spies which the Lenape had sent forward for the purpose of reconnoitring, had long before their arrival discovered that the country east of the Mississippi was inhabited by a very powerful nation, who had many large towns built on the great rivers flowing through their land. Those people (as I was told) called themselves Talligeu or Talligewi. Colonel John Gibson, however, a gentleman who has a thorough knowledge of the Indians, and speaks several of their languages, is of opinion that they were not called Talligewi, but Alligewi. * * *
"Many wonderful things are told of this famous people. They are said to have been remarkably tall, and stout, and there is a tradition that there were giants among them, people of a much larger size than the tallest of the Lenape. It is related that they had built to themselves regular fortifications or entrenchments, from whence they would sally out, but were generally repulsed. * * *
"When the Lenape arrived on the banks of the Mississippi, they sent a message to the Alligewi to request permission to settle themselves in their neighbourhood. This was refused them, but they obtained leave to pass through the country and seek a settlement farther to the eastward. They accordingly began to cross the Namaesi Sipu, when the Alligewi, seeing that their numbers were so very great, and in fact they consisted of many thousands, made a furious attack on those who had crossed, threatening them all with destruction, if they dared to persist in coming over to their side of the river. * * *
"Having united their forces, the Lenape and Mengwe declared war against the Alligewi, and great battles were fought, in which many warriors fell on both sides. The enemy fortified their large towns and erected fortifications, especially on large rivers and near lakes, where they were successively attacked and sometimes stormed by the allies. An engagement took place in which hundreds fell, who were afterwards buried in holes or laid together in heaps and covered over with earth. No quarter was given, so that the Alligewi, at last, finding that their destruction was inevitable if they persisted in their obstinacy, abandoned the country to the conquerors, and fled down the Mississippi river, from whence they never returned. * * *
"In the end the conquerors divided the country between themselves; the Mengwe made choice of the lands in the vicinity of the great lakes and on their tributary streams, and the Lenape took possession of the country to the south. For a long period of time—some say many hundred years—the two nations resided peaceably in this country, and increased very fast; some of their most enterprising huntsmen and warriors crossed the great swamps, and falling on streams running to the eastward, followed them down to the great Bay river, thence into the Bay itself, which we call Chesapeak. As they pursued their travels, partly by land and partly by water, sometimes near and at other times on the great Salt-water Lake, as they call the sea, they discovered the great river, which we call the Delaware; and thence exploring still eastward, the Scheyichbi country, now named New Jersey, they arrived at another great stream, that which we call the Hudson or North river. * * *
"At last they settled on the four great rivers (which we call Delaware, Hudson, Susquehannah, Potomack), making the Delaware, to which they gave the name of 'Lenape-wihittuck' (the river or stream of the Lenape), the centre of their possessions.
"They say, however, that the whole of their nation did not reach this country; that many remained behind, in order to aid and assist that great body of their people which had not crossed the Namaesi Sipu, but had retreated into the interior of the country on the other side. * * *
"Their nation finally became divided into three separate bodies; the larger body, which they suppose to have been one-half the whole, was settled on the Atlantic, and the other half was again divided into two parts, one of which, the strongest, as they suppose, remained beyond the Mississippi, and the remainder where they left them, on this side of that river.
"Those of the Delawares who fixed their abodes on the shores of the Atlantic divided themselves into three tribes. Two of them, distinguished by the names of the Turtle and the Turkey, the former calling themselves Unâmi, and the other Unalâchtgo, chose those grounds to settle on which lay nearest to the sea, between the coast and the high mountains. As they multiplied, their settlements extended from the Mohicanittuck (river of the Mohicans, which we call the North or Hudson river) to the Potomack." * * * "The third tribe, the Wolf, commonly called the Minsi, which we have corrupted into Monseys, had chosen to live back of the other two." * * * They extended their settlements from the Minisink, a place named after them, where they had their council seat and fire, quite up to the Hudson, on the east; and to the west or southward far beyond the Susquehannah.
"From the above three tribes, the Unami, Unalachtgo and the Minsi, had, in the course of time, sprung many others, * * * the Mahicanni, or Mohicans, who spread themselves over all that country which now composes the Eastern States, * * * and the Nanticokes, who proceeded far to the south, in Maryland and Virginia."
On their conquests during the period of their western migrations, the Delawares based a claim for hunting grounds in the Ohio valley. It is stated that when they had decided to remove to the valley of the Muskingum, their chief, Netawatwes, presented this claim to the Hurons and Miamis, and had it allowed.[241] They also claimed lands on White River, Indiana, and their settlement in that region at the close of the last century was regarded as a return to their ancient seats.
Nevertheless, in the earliest historic times, when the whites first came in contact with the Lenape tribes, none of them dwelt west of the mountains, nor, apparently, had they any towns in the valley of the west branch of the Susquehanna or of its main stream.
Although the above mentioned facts point to a migration in prehistoric times from the West toward the East, there are indications of a yet older movement from the northeast westward and southward to the upper Mississippi valley. A legend common to the western Algonkin tribes, the Kikapoos, Sacs, Foxes, Ottawas and Pottawatomies, located their original home north of the St. Lawrence river, near or below where Montreal now stands. In that distant land their ancestors were created by the Great Spirit, and they dwelt there, "all of one nation." Only when they removed or were driven west did they separate into tribes speaking different dialects.[242]
The Shawnees, who at various times were in close relation with the Delawares, also possessed a vague migration myth, according to which, at some indefinitely remote past, they had arrived at the main land after crossing a wide water. Their ancestors succeeded in this by their great control of magic arts, their occult power enabling them to walk over the water as if it had been land. Until within the present century this legend was repeated annually, and a yearly sacrifice offered up in memory of their safe arrival.[243] It is evidently a version of that which appears in the third part of the Walam Olum.
One of the curious legends of the Lenape was that of the Great Naked or Hairless Bear. It is told by the Rev. John Heckewelder, in a letter to Dr. B. S. Barton.[244] The missionary had heard it both among the Delawares and the Mohicans. By the former, it was spoken of as amangachktiátmachque, and in the dialect of the latter, ahamagachktiât mechqua.[245]
The story told of it was that it was immense in size and the most ferocious of animals. Its skin was bare, except a tuft of white hair on its back. It attacked and ate the natives, and the only means of escape from it was to take to the water. Its sense of smell was remarkably keen, but its sight was defective. As its heart was very small, it could not be easily killed. The surest plan was to break its back-bone; but so dangerous was an encounter with it, that those hunters who went in pursuit of it bade their families and friends farewell, as if they never expected to return.
Fortunately, there were few of these beasts. The last one known was to the east, somewhere beyond the left bank of the Mahicanni Sipu (the Hudson river). When its presence was learned a number of bold hunters went there, and mounted a rock with precipitous sides. They then made a noise, and attracted the bear's attention, who rushed to the attack with great fury. As he could not climb the rock, he tore at it with his teeth, while the hunters above shot him with arrows and threw upon him great stones, and thus killed him.
Though this was the last of the species, the Indian mothers still used his name to frighten their children into obedience, threatening them with the words, "The Naked Bear will eat you."
The Walam Olum: Its Origin, Authenticity And Contents.
Biographical Sketch of Rafinesque—Value of his Writings—His Account of the Walam Olum.—Was it a Forgery?— Rafinesque's Character—The Text pronounced Genuine by Native Delawares—Conclusion Reached
Phonetic System of the Walam Olum—Metrical Form—Pictographic System—Derivation and Precise Meaning of Walam Olum.—The MS of the Walam Olum —General Synopsis of the Walam Olum— Synopsis of its Parts.
Constantine Samuel Rafinesque-Schmaltz, to whom we owe the preservation and first translation of the Walam Olum, was born in Galata, a suburb of Constantinople, Oct. 22d, 1783, and died in Philadelphia, of cancer of the stomach, Sept. 18th, 1840.
His first visit to this country was in 1802. He remained until 1804, when he went to Sicily, where he commenced business. As the French were unpopular there, he added "Schmaltz" to his name, for "prudent considerations," that being the surname of his mother's family.
In 1815 he returned to America, but had the misfortune to be shipwrecked on the coast, losing his manuscripts and much of his property. On his arrival, he supported himself by teaching, occupying his leisure time in scientific pursuits and travel. In 1819 he was appointed "Professor of Historical and Natural Sciences," in Transylvania University, Kentucky. This position he was obliged to resign, for technical reasons, in 1826, when he returned to Philadelphia, which city he made his home during the rest of his life.
From his early youth he was an indefatigable student, collector and writer in various branches of knowledge, especially in natural history. On the title-page of the last work that he published, "The Good Book and Amenities of Nature" (Philadelphia, 1840), he claims to be the author of "220 books, pamphlets, essays and tracts." Including his contributions to periodicals, there is no reason to doubt the correctness of this estimate. They began when he was nineteen, and were composed in English, French, Italian and Latin, all of which he wrote with facility.
His earlier essays were principally on botanical subjects; later, he included zoölogy and conchology; and during the last fifteen years of his life the history and antiquities of America appear to have occupied his most earnest attention.
The value of his writings in these various branches has been canvassed by several eminent critics in their respective lines.
First in point of time was Prof. Asa Gray, who in the year following Rafinesque's death published in the "American Journal of Science and Arts," Vol. XI, an analysis of his botanical writings. He awards him considerable credit for his earlier investigations, but much less for his later ones. To quote Dr. Gray's words: "A gradual deterioration will be observed in Rafinesque's botanical writings from 1819 to 1830, when the passion for establishing new genera and species appears to have become a complete monomania."[246] But modern believers in the doctrine of the evolution of plant forms and the development of botanical species will incline to think that there was a method in this madness, when they read the passage from Rafinesque's writings, about 1836, which Dr. Gray quotes as conclusively proving that, in things botanical, Rafinesque had lost his wits. It is this: "But it is needless to dispute about new genera, species and varieties. Every variety is a deviation, which becomes a species as soon as it is permanent by reproduction. Deviations in essential organs may thus gradually become new genera." This is really an anticipation of Darwinianism in botany.
The next year, in the same journal, appeared a "Notice of the Zoölogical Writings of the late C. S. Rafinesque," by Prof. S. S. Haldeman. It is, on the whole, depreciatory, and convicts Rafinesque of errors of observation as well as of inference; at the same time, not denying his enthusiasm and his occasional quickness to appreciate zoölogical facts.
In 1864 the conchological writings of Rafinesque were collected and published, in Philadelphia, by A. G. Binney and Geo. W. Tryon, Jr., without comments. One of the editors informs me that they have positive merit, although the author was too credulous and too desirous of novelties.
The antiquarian productions of Rafinesque, which interest us most in this connection, were reviewed with caustic severity by Dr. S. F. Haven,[247] especially the "Ancient Annals of Kentucky", which was printed as an introduction to Marshall's History of that State, in 1824. It is, indeed, an absurd production, a reconstruction of alleged history on the flimsiest foundations; but, alas! not a whit more absurd than the laborious card houses of many a subsequent antiquary of renown.
His principal work in this branch appeared in Philadelphia in 1836, entitled: "The American Nations; or, Outlines of a National History; of the Ancient and Modern Nations of North and South America." It was printed for the author, and is in two parts. Others were announced but never appeared, nor did the maps and illustrations which the title page promised. Its pages are filled with extravagant theories and baseless analogies. In the first part he prints with notes his translation of the The Walam Olum, and his explanation of its significance.
Rafinesque's account of the origin of the The Walam Olum may be introduced by a passage in the last work he published, "The Good Book." In that erratic volume he tells us that he had long been collecting the signs and pictographs current among the North American Indians, and adds:—
"Of these I have now 60 used by the Southern or Floridian Tribes of Louisiana to Florida, based upon their language of Signs—40 used by the Osages and Arkanzas, based on the same—74 used by the Lenàpian (Delaware and akin) tribes in their The Walamolum or Records—besides 30 simple signs that can be traced out of the Neobagun or Delineation of the Chipwas or Ninniwas, a branch of the last."[248]
In these lines Rafinesque makes an important statement, which has been amply verified by the investigations of Col. Garrick Mallery, Dr. W. J. Hoffman and Capt. W. P. Clark, within the last decade, and that is, that the Indian pictographic system was based on their gesture speech.
So far as I remember, he was the first to perceive this suggestive fact; and he had announced it some time before 1840. Already, in "The American Nations" (1836), he wrote, "the Graphic Signs correspond to these Manual Signs."[249]
Here he anticipates a leading result of the latest archaeological research; and I give his words the greater prominence, because they seem to have been overlooked by all the recent writers on Indian Gesture-speech and Sign-language.
The Neobagun, the Chipeway medicine song to which he alludes, is likewise spoken of in "The American Nations," where he says: "The Ninniwas or Chipiwas * * have such painted tales or annals, called Neobagun (male tool) by the former."[250] I suspect he derived his knowledge of this from the Shawnee "Song for Medicine Hunting," called "Nah-o-bah-e-gun-num," or, The Four Sticks, the words and figures of which were appended by Dr. James to Tanner's Narrative, published in 1830.[251]
As for the Lenape records, he gives this not very clear account of his acquisition of them:—
"Having obtained, through the late Dr. Ward, of Indiana, some of the original Wallam-Olum (painted record) of the Linàpi Tribe of Wapihani or White River, the translation will be given of the songs annexed to each."[252]
On a later page he wrote:—[253]
"Olum implies a record, a notched stick, an engraved piece of wood or bark. It comes from ol, hollow or graved record. * * * These actual olum were at first obtained in 1820, as a reward for a medical cure, deemed a curiosity; and were unexplicable. In 1822 were obtained from another individual the songs annexed thereto in the original language; but no one could be found by me able to translate them. I had therefore to learn the language since, by the help of Zeisberger, Heckewelder and a manuscript dictionary, on purpose to translate them, which I only accomplished in 1833. The contents were totally unknown to me in 1824, when I published my 'Annals of Kentucky.'"
I have attempted to identify this "Dr. Ward, of Indiana;" but no such person is known in the early medical annals of that State. There is, however, an old and well-known Kentucky family of that name, who, about 1820, resided, and still do reside, in the neighborhood of Cynthiana. One of these, in 1824-25, was a friend of Rafinesque, invited him to his house, and shared his archaeological tastes, as Rafinesque mentions in his autobiography.[254] It was there, no doubt, that he copied the signs and the original text of the Walam Olum. My efforts to learn further about the originals from living members of the family have been unsuccessful. From a note in Rafinesque's handwriting, on the title page of his MS. of 1833, it would appear that he had at least seen the wooden tablets. This note reads:—
"This Mpt & the wooden original was (sic) procured in 1822 in Kentucky—but was inexplicable till a deep study of the Linapi enabled me to translate them with explanations. (Dr. Ward.)"
The name of Dr. Ward added in brackets is, I judge, merely a note, and is not intended to imply that the sentence is a quotation.
The crucial question arises: Was the Walam Olum a forgery by Rafinesque?
It is necessary to ask and to answer this question, though it seems, at first sight, an insult to the memory of the man to do so. No one has ever felt it requisite to propound such an inquiry about the pieces of the celebrated Mexican collection of the Chevalier Boturini, who, as an antiquary, was scarcely less visionary than Rafinesque.
But, unquestionably, an air of distrust and doubt shadowed Rafinesque's scientific reputation during his life, and he was not admitted on a favorable footing to the learned circles of the city where he spent the last fifteen years of his life. His articles were declined a hearing in its societies; and the learned linguist, Mr. Peter Stephen Duponceau, whose specialty was the Delaware language, wholly and deliberately ignored everything by the author of "The American Nations."
Why was this?
Rafinesque was poor, eccentric, negligent of his person, full of impractical schemes and extravagant theories, and manufactured and sold in a small way a secret nostrum which he called "pulmel," for the cure of consumption. All these were traits calculated to lower him in the respect of the citizens of Philadelphia, and the consequence was, that although a member of some scientific societies, he seems to have taken no part in their proceedings, and was looked upon as an undesirable acquaintance, and as a sort of scientific outcast.
As early as 1819 Prof. Benjamin Silliman declined to publish contributions from him in the "American Journal of Science," [255] and returned him his MSS. Dr. Gray strongly intimates that Rafinesque's assertions on scientific matters were at times intentionally false, as when he said that he had seen Robin's collection of Louisiana plants in France, whereas that botanist never prepared dried specimens; and the like.
I felt early in this investigation that Rafinesque's assertions were, therefore, an insufficient warranty for the authenticity of this document.
As I failed in my efforts to substantiate them by local researches in Kentucky and Indiana, I saw that the evidence must come from the text itself. Nor would it be sufficient to prove that the words of the text were in the Lenape dialect. With Zeisberger and Heckewelder at hand, both of whose works had been years in print, it were easy to string together Lenape words.
But what Rafinesque certainly had not the ability to do, was to write a sentence in Lenape, to compose lines which an educated native would recognize as in the syntax of his own speech, though perhaps dialectically different.
This was the test that I determined to apply. I therefore communicated my doubts to my friend, the distinguished linguist, Mr. Horatio Hale, and asked him to state them to the Rev. Albert Anthony, a well educated native Delaware, equally conversant with his own tongue and with English.
Mr. Anthony considered the subject fully, and concluded by expressing the positive opinion that the text as given was a genuine oral composition of a Delaware Indian. In many lines the etymology and syntax are correct; in others there are grammatical defects, which consist chiefly in the omission of terminal inflections.
The suggestion he offered to explain these defects is extremely natural. The person who wrote down this oral explanation of the signs, or, to speak more accurately, these chants which the signs were intended to keep in memory, was imperfectly acquainted with the native tongue, and did not always catch terminal sounds. The speaker also may have used here and there parts of that clipped language, or "white man's Indian," which I have before referred to as serving for the trading tongue between the two races.
This was also the opinion of the Moravian natives who examined the text. They all agreed that it impressed them as being of aboriginal origin, though the difference of the forms of words left them often in the dark as to the meaning.
This very obscurity is in fact a proof that Rafinesque did not manufacture it. Had he done so, he would have used the "Mission Delaware" words which he found in Zeisberger. But the text has quite a number not in that dialect, nor in any of the mission dictionaries.
Moreover, had he taken the words from such sources, he would in his translation have given their correct meanings; but in many instances he is absurdly far from their sense. Thus he writes: "The word for angels, angelatawiwak, is not borrowed, but real Linapi, and is the same as the Greek word angelos;"[256] whereas it is a verbal with a future sense from the very common Delaware verb angeln, to die. Many such examples will be noted in the vocabulary on a later page.
In several cases the figures or symbols appear to me to bear out the corrected translations which I have given of the lines, and not that of Rafinesque. This, it will be observed, is an evidence, not merely that he must have received this text from other hands, but the figures also, and weighs heavily in favor of the authentic character of both.
That it is a copy is also evident from some manifest mistakes in transcription, which Rafinesque preserves in his printed version, and endeavored to translate, not perceiving their erroneous form. Thus, in the fourth line of the first chant, he wrote owak, translating it "much air or clouds," when it is clearly a mere transposition for woak, the Unami form of the conjunction "and," as the sense requires. No such blunder would appear if he had forged the document. It is true that a goodly share of the words in the earlier chants occur in Zeisberger. Thus it seems, at first sight, suspicious to find the three or four superlatives in III, 5, all given under examples of the superlatives, in Zeisberger's Grammar, p. 105. It looks as if they had been bodily transferred into the song. So I thought; but afterwards I found these same superlatives in Heckewelder, who added specifically that "the Delawares had formed them to address or designate the Supreme being."[257]
If we assume that this song is genuine, then Zeisberger was undoubtedly familiar with some version of it; had learned it probably, and placed most of its words in his vocabulary.
Some other collateral evidences of authenticity I have referred to on previous pages (pp. 67, 89, 136).
From these considerations, and from a study of the text, the opinion I have formed of the Walam Olum is as follows:—
It is a genuine native production, which was repeated orally to some one indifferently conversant with the Delaware language, who wrote it down to the best of his ability. In its present form it can, as a whole, lay no claim either to antiquity, or to purity of linguistic form. Yet, as an authentic modern version, slightly colored by European teachings, of the ancient tribal traditions, it is well worth preservation, and will repay more study in the future than is given it in this volume. The narrator was probably one of the native chiefs or priests, who had spent his life in the Ohio and Indiana towns of the Lenape, and who, though with some knowledge of Christian instruction, preferred the pagan rites, legends and myths of his ancestors. Probably certain lines and passages were repeated in the archaic form in which they had been handed down for generations.
The phonetic system adopted by the writer, whoever he was, is not that of the Moravian brethren. They employed the German alphabet, which does not obtain in the present text. On this point Rafinesque says: "The orthography of the Linapi names is reduced to the Spanish or French pronunciation, except sh, as in English; u, as in French; w, as in how."[258] A comparison of the words with their equivalents in Zeisberger's spelling shows that this is generally true.
It is obvious that the gutturals are few and soft, and that the process of synthesis is carried further than in the Minsi dialect. For this reason, from the introduction of peculiar words, and from the loss of certain grammatical terminations, the Minsi Delawares of to-day, to whom I have submitted it, are of the opinion that it belongs to one of the southern dialects of their nation; perhaps to the Unalachtgo, as suggested by Chief Gabriel Tobias, in his letter printed on a preceding page (p. 88).