Walam Olum
The Walam Olum, Walum Olum or Wallam Olum, usually translated as "Red Record" or "Red Score", is purportedly a historical narrative of the
The work
In 1836 in his first volume of The American Nations, Rafinesque published what he represented as an
The Walam Olum includes a
The text included a long list of chiefs' names, which appears to provide a timescale for the epic. According to Rafinesque, the chiefs appeared as early as 1600
The story in summary
The narrative begins with the formation of the universe, the shaping of the Earth, and the creation of the first people, by the Great Manitou. Then, as the Great Manitou creates more creatures, an evil manitou creates others, such as flies. Although all is harmonious at first, an evil being brings unhappiness, sickness, disasters and death. A great snake attacked the people and drove them from their homes. The snake flooded the land and made monsters in the water, but the Creator made a giant turtle, on which the surviving people rode out the flood, and prayed for the waters to recede. When land emerged again, they were in a place of snow and cold, so they developed their skills of house-building and hunting, and began explorations to find more temperate lands. Eventually, they chose to head east from the land of the Turtle to the land of the Snake, walking across the frozen ocean and first reaching a land of spruce trees.
After a few generations (from this point on, chiefs of the tribe are named), they began to spread into the adjoining territories. Many generations passed (the characteristics of each chief briefly described), until a large part of the nation decided to invade the territory of the Talegawi people, aided by the northern Talamatan. Although the invasion eventually succeeded, the Talamatan later became hostile, but were soon subdued, and a further long period of consolidation began. Slow expansion into the rich eastern lands eventually reached another sea, where, after generations, the first white men arrived in ships.
There the text ends, though Rafinesque did publish an additional "Fragment: On the History of the Linapis since abt. 1600, when the Wallamolum closes" which takes the story up to his own time. This (which incidentally names the composer of the original Walam Olum as one Lekhibit) exists only as a purported translation by John Burns, who has himself never been satisfactorily identified.[3]
Provenance
Rafinesque claimed the original narrative was recorded in pictographs on birch bark, or cedar wood tablets or sticks (Rafinesque explained that "Olum ... implies a record, a notched stick, an engraved piece of wood or bark.") He said "the late Dr. Ward of Indiana" acquired the materials in 1820 from a Lenape patient in return for a medical cure, and eventually passed them on to Rafinesque. From Rafinesque's personal notes and a family legend, this Dr. Ward was tentatively identified in 1954 as Dr John Russell Ward, a Kentucky physician who died in 1834,
When Rafinesque wrote an essay on the Lenape language in October 1834, he did not mention the Walam Olum at all. It was two months later that he submitted a supplement about it. This was shortly after he acquired a list of authentic Lenape names compiled by John Heckewelder.[8] Rafinesque's translation of the 183 verses totals fewer than 3,000 words. In his manuscript he juxtaposed the pictographs with the verses in Lenape language that explained them. This material is now held at the University of Pennsylvania and has been digitized.[9] Any items in Rafinesque's large collection of specimens, which did not find a ready sale after his death were apparently destroyed. There is no evidence other than Rafinesque's testimony that the original sticks existed. Scholars have only his work to study.
Twentieth-century archaeology has confirmed that by Rafinesque's time, Native Americans had been using birch bark scrolls for over 200 years. In 1965 the archaeologist Kenneth Kidd reported on two finds of "trimmed and fashioned pieces of birch bark on which have been scratched figures of animals, birds, men,
The Walam Olum in the 19th century
While there was controversy about the Walam Olum, it was treated as an accurate account by historians, anthropologists, and archaeologists for many years. Ephraim G. Squier, widely regarded as an influential figure of American 19th-century archaeology, republished the text in 1849. He accepted it as genuine, partially on internal evidence but also because the educated Indian chief (Kah-ge-ga-gah-bowh) (George Copway), to whom he showed the manuscript, "unhesitatingly pronounced it authentic, in respect not only to the original signs and accompanying explanations in the Delaware dialect, but also in the general ideas and conceptions which it embodies. He also bore testimony to the fidelity of the translation." More recently, Barnhart noted that Copway was "fluent in his native dialect and knowledgeable of the traditions of the Ojibwa and other Algonquian groups such as the Lenape, but he was certainly not an expert on the traditions and language of the Delaware."[12] On February 16, 1849, after the documented was republished, Henry Rowe Schoolcraft wrote to Squier that he believed the document is "well sustained by comparisons with such transcripts as I have obtained from bark scrolls, and the tabular pieces of wood called music boards".
In 1885, after the third printing,
The 1885 edition may have been read by ethnographer and explorer
The Walam Olum in the 20th century
In the 1930s,
In 1954, a multidisciplinary team of scholars from the Indiana Historical Society published another translation and commentary. They stated, "The 'Red Score' is a worthy subject for students of aboriginal culture." A reviewer noted that the team was not able to identify Dr. Ward, and he concluded that the document's origins "are undeniably clouded".[18] Anthropologist Della Collins Cook commented on the 1954 study, "The scholarly essays are best read as exercises in stating one's contradictory conclusions in a manner designed to give as little offense as possible to one's sponsor."[19] Other translations and commentaries have followed, including translations into languages other than English.
By the 1980s, however, ethnologists had collected enough independent information "to discount the Walam olum completely as a tradition".[22] Herbert C. Kraft, an expert on the Lenape,[23][24] had long suspected the document to be a fraud. He stated that it did not square with the archaeological record of migrations by the prehistoric ancestors of the Lenape. In addition, he cited a 1985 survey conducted among Lenape elders by ethnologists David M. Oestreicher and James Rementer that revealed traditional Lenape had never heard of the narrative. The older Lenape people said that they "found its text puzzling and often incomprehensible." Oestreicher examined the Lenape language text with fluent native speaker, Lucy Parks Blalock, and they found problems such as frequent use of English idioms.[1]
In 1991 Steven Williams summarized the history of the case and the evidence against the document, lumping it with many other famous archaeological frauds. The existence of genuine historic pictogram documents elsewhere does not overcome the textual and ethnological problems of the Walam Olum.[25]
Kentucky-based writer Joe Napora wrote a modern translation of the text, which was published in 1992. At the time he thought the Walam Olum was genuine. In his preface, he wrote, "My belief is that the Walam Olum is closely related to the Mide Scrolls that Dewdney wrote so eloquently about in 'Sacred Scrolls of the Ojibway.'"[26]
The Walam Olum since 1994
In 1994, and afterwards, textual evidence that the Walam Olum was a hoax was supplied by David M. Oestreicher in "Unmasking the Walam Olum: A 19th Century Hoax". Oestreicher examined Rafinesque's original manuscript and "found it replete with crossed-out Lenape words that had been replaced with others that better matched his English 'translation.' In other words, Rafinesque had been translating from English to Lenape, rather than the other way round".[8] In general, he found a variety of evidence that the Walam Olum was not an authentic historical record but was composed by someone having only a slight familiarity with the Lenape language. Oestreicher argued that Rafinesque crafted the linguistic text from specific sources on the Delaware Language published by the American Philosophical Society and elsewhere. Further, he said that the supposedly "Lenape" pictographs were hybrids from published Egyptian, Chinese, and Mayan sources.[1] Barnhart concurs, stating that "the pictographs are in no way comparable to the figures found on the stone carvings or
Later David Oestreicher wrote that he had received a direct communication from Joe Napora. Oestreicher wrote that Napora wrote, "[H]e now recognises that the 'Walam Olum' is indeed a hoax ... and was dismayed that the sources upon whom he relied had been so negligent in their investigation of the document and that the hoax should have been continued as long as it has".[28]
Oestreicher's very detailed analyses have not found a wide audience, but they have made it possible to go a step further, and study the thinking and cultural assumptions of earlier researchers (for example by examining how they treated features of the Walam Olum which should have been clear evidence that it was a fake).[29]
A recent biography of Rafinesque concluded: "There is now very good reason to believe that he fabricated important data and documents ... The most egregious example is the Lenni Lenape migration saga, 'Walam Olum', which has perplexed scholars for one and a half centuries. Rafinesque wrote the 'Walam Olum' believing it to be authentic because it accorded with his own belief—he was merely recording and giving substance to what must be true. It was a damaging, culpably dishonest act, which misled scholars in search of the real truth, far more damaging than his childish creations, which could be easily dismissed; this was more than mischief."[30]
Many traditional Lenape believe they have lived in their homeland (that is, in the New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and New York area) forever. The Delaware Tribe of Indians, located in eastern Oklahoma, originally endorsed the document but withdrew their endorsement on February 11, 1997 after reviewing the evidence.[28] Whilst concluding that the burden of proof lies on those who believe the Walam Olum to be authentic, Barnhart states that "whatever one's position on the 'Walam Olum', its controversial place in the history of American anthropology is most definitively secured."[31]
Reference in literature
Paula Gunn Allen's poetry collection, Shadow Country, from 1982 contains a reference to the Walam Olum. In Part II of the poem, ANOTHER LONG WALK, it says:
Quantify the myths
symbolic utterance of the Grandfather (Lenape)
count / years on the Red Score
which does not
count for history
"the Red Score" is the reference, and is also related to the mention of Lenape in line 2.
See also
- Birch bark document
- Epigraphy
- Ideogram
- Mi'kmaq hieroglyphic writing
- Midewiwin
- Paleography
- Papyrology
- Writing System
Notes
- ^ a b c d e Jackson, Brittany and Mark Rose. "Walam Olum Hokum." Archaeology. 4 Dec 2009 (retrieved 26 Dec 2009)
- ^ Rafinesque, C.S.,The American nations; or, outlines of their general history, ancient and modern, including: the whole history of the earth and mankind in the western hemisphere; the philosophy of American history; the annals, traditions, civilization, lanuguages, &c., of all the American nations, tribes, empires, and states 1836 p. 124 [1]
- ISBN 978-0-7923-2506-2, p315
- ^ Weer, Paul (1954). "History of the Walam Olum Manuscript and Painted Records". In Voegelin, Charles F. (et al.) Walam Olum; or, Red Score, the Migration Legend of the Lenni Lenape, Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Society, p. 264.
- ^ William Barlow and David O. Powell "The Late Dr. Ward of Indiana": Rafinesque's Source of the Walam Olum" in Indiana Magazine of History Vol. 82, No. 2 (June 1986), pp. 185-193.
- ^ "Malthus Ward (1794-1863)" in the New Georgia Encyclopedia. Accessed 2010-11-01
- ^ Brinton, Daniel G. (1885) The Lenâpé and their Legends: With the Complete Text and Symbols of the Walam Olum
- ^ a b Oestreicher, David M. (1996) "Unraveling the Walam Olum", Natural History 105 (10):14–21. (also revised version in Boewe, 2003)
- ^ Wallam-Olum: first and second parts of the painted and engraved traditions of the Linnilinapi / translated word for word by C. S. Rafinesque. UPenn Ms. Coll. 700, Item 217
- ^ Kidd, p. 480
- ISBN 0-920474-72-1.
- ^ Barnhart, pp. 130-131
- ^ Daniel Garrison Brinton, Constantine Samuel Rafinesque. 1885 The Lenâpé and Their Legends: With the Complete Text and Symbols of the Walam Olum. A New Translation, and an inquiry into its authenticity.
- ^ Brinton, p. 157
- ^ Mooney, James. King, Duane (ed.). Myths of the Cherokee. Barnes & Noble. New York. 1888 (2007). pp. 4 - 10
- ^ Voegelin, Erminie W., "Cultural parallels," pp. 28-31
- ^ a b Witthoft, John, 1955. "The Walam Olum Project", International Journal of American Linguistics Vol. 21, p194.
- JSTOR 276869.
- ISBN 978-0-12-369541-3
- ^ Dewdney, Selwyn. 1975. The Sacred Scrolls of the Southern Ojibway. Glenbow Museum & University Of Toronto Press. p. 128
- ^ Rogers, Edward S., Ethnohistory, Vol. 22, No. 1, (Winter, 1975), pp. 81-85
- ^ Vansina, pp. 54-55
- ^ "Lenape Expert Assails Phone Flier", New York Times online
- ^ "Archaeological Society of New Jersey Lifetime Achievement Award"
- ^ Williams, Steven. Fantastic Archaeology: The Wild Side of North American Prehistory. University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 1991.
- ISBN 0-912678-82-8.
- ^ Barton: 140
- ^ a b Oestreicher, "Hoax," pp. 23-24.
- .
- ISBN 978-0-8131-2316-5
- ^ Barnheart, p. 149
References
- Barnhart, Terry A. "Ephraim George Squier and the Development of American Anthropology." Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2005. ISBN 978-0-8032-1321-0.
- Kidd, Kenneth E. "Birch-bark Scrolls in Archaeological Contexts." American Antiquity. 1965. Vol 30. No 4.
- Oestreicher, David M. "Tale of a Hoax." Brian Swann, ed. The Algonquian Spirit, Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2005. ISBN 978-0-8032-9338-0.
- Vansina, Jan. Oral Tradition as History. Oxford, James Currey (1985) ISBN 0-85255-007-3.
- Voegelin, Erminie W. "Cultural parallels to the Delaware Walam Olum." Proceedings of the Indiana Academy of Science. Vol. 49, 1939.
Further reading
- Boewe, Charles. 1985."A Note on Rafinesque, the Walam Olum, the Book of Mormon, and the Mayan Glyphs", Numen, Vol. 32, Fasc. 1 pp. 101–113.
- Boewe, Charles. 2003. Profiles of Rafinesque. University of Tennessee Press. Knoxville, TN.
- Kidd, Kenneth E. 1965. "Birch-bark Scrolls in Archaeological Contexts", American Antiquity. Vol 30. No 4. p. 480.
- Kraft, Herbert C. 1990. "The Lenape: Archaeology, History, and Ethnology", American Indian Quarterly, Vol. 14, pp. 421–22.
- Kraft, Herbert C. 2002. The Lenape/Delaware Heritage: 10,000 B.C.–2000 A.D., Lenape Books.
- Kraft, Herbert C. and David M Oestreicher. 1995. "The Red Record: The 'Walam Olum', Translated and Annotated by David McCutchen." Book Review, North American Archaeologist 16(3):281–85.
- Leopold, Joan (ed) 2000. The Prix Volney: Volume II: Early Nineteenth-Century Contributions to American Indian and General Linguistics: Du Ponceau and Rafinesque, Springer, ISBN 978-0-7923-2506-2, searchable at [2]
- Mahr, August C. 1957. Walam Olum, 1, 17: "A Proof of Rafinesque's Integrity", American Anthropologist. New Series Vol. 59. No 4. Aug 1957. pp. 705–708. Blackwell Publishing, on behalf of the American Anthropological Association
- McCutcheon, David 1995. The Red Record. ISBN 978-0-89529-525-5. "Original" pictographs and Lenape text plus English translation and annotations
- Napora, Joe (illus. Lingen, Ruth). 1983. The Walam Olum / translation. Madison, Wis., Landlocked Press. (Limited edition, 100 copies)
- Oestreicher, David M. 1994. "Unmasking the Walam Olum: A 19th Century Hoax", Bulletin of the Archaeological Society of New Jersey 49:1–44.
- Oestreicher, David M. 1995a. The Anatomy of the Walam Olum: A 19th Century Anthropological Hoax. Ph.D. dissertation, Rutgers University. New Brunswick, New Jersey. Reprint Edition, University Microfilms International, Ann Arbor, Michigan.
- Oestreicher, David M. 1995b. "Text Out of Context: The Arguments that Created and Sustained the Walam Olum", Bulletin of the Archaeological Society of New Jersey 50:31–52.
- Oestreicher, David M. 1997. Reply to Harry Monesson Regarding the Walam Olum, Bulletin of the Archaeological Society of New Jersey 52:98–99.
- Oestreicher, David M. 2000. In Search of the Lenape: The Delaware Indians Past and Present. Catalogue of exhibition, Scarsdale Historical Society. Scarsdale Historical Society, Scarsdale New York. [First published by Scarsdale Historical Society, 1995].
- Oestreicher, David M. 2002a. "The European Roots of the Walam Olum: Constantine Samuel Rafinesque and the Intellectual Heritage of the early 19th Century", in New Perspectives on the Origins of American Archaeology, Ed. Stephen Williams and David Browman. The University of Alabama Press.
- Oestreicher, David M. 2002b. The Algonquian of New York. The Rosen Publishing Group's Power Kid's Press. New York, NY.
- Rafinesque, C.S. 1836. The American Nations; or, Outlines of a National History; of the Ancient and Modern Nations of North and South America. Philadelphia.
- Voegelin, Charles F., ed. (1954). Walam Olum; or, Red Score, the Migration Legend of the Lenni Lenape or Delaware Indians. A new translation, interpreted by linguistic, historical, archaeological, ethnological, and physical anthropological studies (Pictographs and Lenape text, after OCLC 1633009.
External links
- Delaware Tribe of Indians, Bartlesville, Oklahoma