LIBRARY
OF
ABORIGINAL AMERICAN
LITERATURE.
No. V.
EDITED BY
D. G. BRINTON, M.D.
PHILADELPHIA
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.
BY
DANIEL G. BRINTON, A.M., M.D.,
PROFESSOR OF ETHNOLOGY AND ARCHÆOLOGY AT THE
ACADEMY OF NATURAL SCIENCES, PHILADELPHIA.
President of the Numismatic and Antiquarian; Societyof Philadelphia; Member of the American Philosophical Society, the AmericanAntiquarian Society, the Pennsylvania Historical Society, etc.; Membre de laSociété Royale des Antiquaires du Nord; Délégné Général del'Institution Ethnographique; Vice-President du Congrés Internationaldes Americanistes; Corresponding Member of the AnthropologicalSociety of Washington, etc.
D. G. BRINTON.
PHILADELPHIA.
1885.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1885, by
D. G. BRINTON,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress. All rights reserved.
Transcriber's Notes:
Obvious misspellings and omissions were corrected.
Uncertain misspellings or ancient words were not corrected.
Missing periods were inserted where obvious.
The use of the digit 8 to represent a 'whistled' letter w has been
retained as in the original.
PREFACE.
In the present volume I have grouped a series of ethnologicalstudies of the Indians of Eastern Pennsylvania, NewJersey and Maryland, around what is asserted to be one ofthe most curious records of ancient American history.
For a long time this record—theWalam Olum, or RedScore—was supposed to have been lost. Having obtainedthe original text complete about a year ago, I printed a fewcopies and sent them to several educated native Delawareswith a request for aid in its translation and opinions on itsauthenticity. The results will be found in the following pages.
The interest in the subject thus excited promptedme to a general review of our knowledge of the Lenape or Delawares,their history and traditions, their language and customs.This disclosed the existence of a number of MSS. notmentioned in bibliographies, some in the first rank of importance,especially in the field of linguistics. Of these Ihave made free use.
In the course of these studies I have receivedsuggestions and assistance from a number of obliging friends, amongwhom I would mention