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Walam Olum
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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 Lenape (Delaware) Native American tribe. The document has provoked controversy as to its authenticity since its publication in the 1830s by botanist and antiquarian Constantine Samuel Rafinesque. Ethnographic studies in the 1980s and analysis in the 1990s of Rafinesque's manuscripts have produced significant evidence that the document may be a hoax.
In 1836 in his first volume of The American Nations, Rafinesque published what he represented as an English translation of the entire text of the Walam Olum, as well as a portion in the Lenape language.
The Walam Olum includes a creation myth, a deluge myth, and the narrative of a series of migrations. Rafinesque and others claimed or interpreted the migrations to have begun in Asia. The Walam Olum suggested a migration over the Bering Strait took place 3,600 years ago.
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 BCE.
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 housebuilding 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.
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, but a potential Indiana candidate has been identified: Malthus A. Ward (1794–1863, so not "late" in the sense of "deceased") who spent some of his early career in Indiana, moved to New England in 1823 and from 1831 was professor of natural history at the University of Georgia. He said the explanatory transcription of verses in the Lenape language came from a different source, in 1822. After his translation was published, Rafinesque said he lost the actual plaques.
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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 Lenape (Delaware) Native American tribe. The document has provoked controversy as to its authenticity since its publication in the 1830s by botanist and antiquarian Constantine Samuel Rafinesque. Ethnographic studies in the 1980s and analysis in the 1990s of Rafinesque's manuscripts have produced significant evidence that the document may be a hoax.
In 1836 in his first volume of The American Nations, Rafinesque published what he represented as an English translation of the entire text of the Walam Olum, as well as a portion in the Lenape language.
The Walam Olum includes a creation myth, a deluge myth, and the narrative of a series of migrations. Rafinesque and others claimed or interpreted the migrations to have begun in Asia. The Walam Olum suggested a migration over the Bering Strait took place 3,600 years ago.
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 BCE.
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 housebuilding 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.
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, but a potential Indiana candidate has been identified: Malthus A. Ward (1794–1863, so not "late" in the sense of "deceased") who spent some of his early career in Indiana, moved to New England in 1823 and from 1831 was professor of natural history at the University of Georgia. He said the explanatory transcription of verses in the Lenape language came from a different source, in 1822. After his translation was published, Rafinesque said he lost the actual plaques.
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