The Lenape Stone: Or The Indian and The Mammoth, by H. C. Mercer

Published: New York & London, G. P. Putnam's Sons, The Knickerbocker 
Press, 1885

Note: A carved stone representing Indians fighting the Hairy Mammoth, 
found in 1872 Bucks County, Pennsylvania

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                             THE LENAPE STONE

                                    OR

                        THE INDIAN AND THE MAMMOTH

                                    BY
                               H. C. MERCER


                             NEW YORK & LONDON
                            G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
                          The Knickerbocker Press
                                   1885

                               COPYRIGHT BY
                               H . C. MERCER
                                   1885

                                 Press of
                            G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS
                                 New York



PREFACE.

IN claiming an impartial examination of so extraordinary a carving as the 
"Lenape Stone" at the hands of archaeologists, the writer has had several 
difficulties to contend with.

First, The fact that, the carving is quite unique, it being the first 
aboriginal carving of the mammoth thus fat claimed to have been discovered 
in North America.

Second, That no "scientific observer" was present at the discovery.

Third, That since its discovery the Stone has been several times cleaned, 
and that thereby many geological tests of its authenticity have been 
rendered impossible.

Fourth, That within the last few years, and particularly in Philadelphia, 
serious frauds have been perpetrated upon lovers of Indian relics.

These considerations may well have been sufficient to prejudice the mind 
of a stranger against the alleged wonderful Indian relic, yet they should 
in no case suffice to prevent, on the part of the archaeologists, a 
thorough and impartial examination of all the evidence pertaining to its 
discovery.

In presenting this and other evidence, the writer has wished only to be 
impartial, and to be led by the facts as they have presented themselves, 
and for the examination of which his opportunities have been peculiarly 
favorable.

In his knowledge of the neighborhood and its people (his home), an 
acquaintance with all the persons concerned, and very frequent visits to 
the Hansell Farm, nothing has yet occurred to shake his faith in the 
unimpeachable evidence of an honest discovery. Yet should any fresh light 
be brought to bear upon the subject, however at variance with this 
opinion, it will be welcomed.

The appearance in America of a carving of the hairy mammoth, presumably 
the work of our aborigines, if not a surprise to students of archaeology, 
would certainly be no less interesting than the French discoveries of some 
twenty years ago; while the ready connection of the work with the Indian 
of comparatively recent times, the appearance of human figures in the 
carving, and of many symbols which seem related to highly important 
branches of archaeological study, would awaken a more general and 
enthusiastic interest in the Stone, than has been felt for any other 
prehistoric representation of the great elephant.

A disbelief in its authenticity would leave us with an interest, not 
inconsiderable, in the unknown person who, after months of careful Study 
and preparation, could have conceived and executed so remarkable a fraud.


ERRATA.

Page 81, line 2, for Delaware read Susquehannok.
Page 81, line 4, for Delaware read Susquehannok.



THE LENAPE STONE.

IN the spring of 1872, eight years after the discovery of the famous 
mammoth carving in the cave of La Madeleine, Perigord, France, Barnard 
Hansell, a young farmer, while ploughing on his father's farm, four miles 
and a half east of Doylestown, Bucks County, Pennsylvania, saw, to use his 
own words, a "queer stone" lying on the surface of the ground, and close 
to the edge of the new furrow. The plough had just missed turning it 
under. He stopped and picked it up; it was the larger piece of the 
fractured "gorget stone," in fig. 1, (frontispiece). By wetting his thumb 
and rubbing it he could see strange lines and a carving representing an 
animal like an elephant, but without troubling his boyish head much about 
it, he carried it several days in his pocket, and finally locked it up in 
his chest, where, along with his other relics, arrow-heads, spear-points, 
axes, and broken banner stones, thrown in from time to time as he found 
them on the farm, it remained until the spring of 1881, when he sold it to 
Mr. Henry Paxon, son of a well-known resident of the neighborhood, then a 
youth of nineteen, and with a fancy for collecting Indian antiquities, in 
whose possession it still remains. [See Hansell's sworn statement in the 
appendix.] At the moment of the purchase no particular attention had been 
paid to the carvings, and the new owner was not certain that he had 
noticed the mammoth while at Hansell's house, or until a few hours later, 
when he had brought home his trophies and shown them to his Father, who 
distinctly remembers calling his sons attention to the rude outline of an 
elephant upon the stone.

But without doubt the singular part, of the story is the unexpected 
finding of the smaller piece of the fractured stone a few months later. 
After many ineffectual searches for it in the intervening years, it was 
picked up by Hansell while corn-husking with his brother in the same field 
and at the same spot where nine years before the first piece had been 
found. This luckily discovered fragment Hansell presented to Mr. Paxon. 
Several persons of the neighborhood had seen the stone at Mr. Paxon's 
house both before and after the discovery of the second piece, but it was 
not until both parts had been some months in his possession that any 
unusual interest was attached to it even by him.

Some time in July, 1882, Captain J. S. Bailey, of the Bucks County 
Historical Society, to whom the writer in preparing the present article 
must acknowledge his great indebtedness, and who first called serious 
attention to the archaeological value of the stone, made it the subject of 
a paper read before the Society, but since that time, although displayed 
at a county exhibition and twice shown at meetings of the Society above 
mentioned, this remarkable relic has remained unheard of.

This is the simple story of most great archaeological discoveries; no "man 
of science" was at hand to analyze the condition of the surrounding soil, 
or satisfy himself that a fraud had not been committed, and a hundred 
questions now arise as to the finder of the stone, and its present owner, 
its long unrecognized importance, the whereabouts of Bucks, County, 
Pennsylvania, etc., etc. The "modern scientist" will by no means be 
satisfied with such evidence as would be held sufficient in a court of 
law, and every fraud that has been perpetrated upon the lover of Indian 
relics adds to the necessity of carefully examining each detail of the 
discovery--nothing must be believed except upon the strongest evidence.

For a full discussion of this evidence the reader is referred to the 
appendix.

Several circumstances seem to concur in adding to the novelty of the 
discovery. In the first place the carving has been made upon one of the so-
called "gorget stones," than which no class of Indian relics have been 
more puzzling to archaeologists.. Our museums are well-supplied with these 
mysterious perforated tablets of slate, generally resembling in size and 
shape the stone represented in fig. 1, and which are found in all parts of 
the United States. Ornaments, talismans, breastplates, or buttons, as we 
may choose to call them, they, seem to have been the peculiar property of 
the North American Indian, without a counterpart, as far as the writer can 
learn, in the stone implements of other uncivilized races. They seem often 
to have been buried with the dead warrior and when discovered in Indian 
graves are generally close to the breast of the skeleton. [Nothing seems 
to contribute so much to the problem of their use as the absence, in most 
cases, of any sign of friction around the holes. Similar stones have been 
found recently seen in use by the Pah-Utes of Southern Nevada, "for giving 
uniform size to their bow-strings," yet the clean edges of the 
perforation, make it imposible to believe that these stones could have 
been used for that purpose, while the difficulty of supposing they could 
have been used as buttons, or that they could have been suspended at all 
is almost as great, unless we adopt the very ingenious theory of Dr. F. W. 
Putnam, i.e., that the raw deer thong used for suspending them, and forced 
tightly through the holes, becoming hard when dry, remained motionless in 
its, place, and rendered friction impossible.] Gorgets are frequently 
scratched and scribbled upon, and ornamental zig-zags and cross-lines, 
like the faint scratches plainly to be seen on the Lenape stone crossing 
the carvings in all directions, are not uncommon on these stones, pipes, 
banner stones, and other Indian implements; but picture-writings proper, 
such as are commonly found painted upon buffalo robes, scratched upon 
birch bark, or carved upon the face of cliffs or large boulders, are 
exceedingly rare on small stones, and the tablet in question is the only 
known instance, the writer believes, of a pictured gorget. The carving, 
when compared with the larger and more conventional Muzzinabiks or rock-
writings and birch-bark records of the Indians, seems to lack much of the 
symbolic obscurity common to these production of the prophets and medicine 
men. It doubtless belongs to the less hieratic class of writings, known 
among the Algonkins as "Kekeewin," which dealt with things generally 
understood by the tribe.

It is unquestionably a picture of a combat between savages and the hairy 
mammoth--an encounter such as our imagination has not yet connected with 
the ancient forests of America, and drawn as well as an Indian who had 
seen the great monster could have drawn it. Most of the figures seem 
represented according to the common conventional method of the modern 
Indians, yet there is certainly a seeming picturesque relation between 
them of which we can find no example in the few ancient Indian pictographs 
which have been preserved to us. We can almost fancy a foreground, a 
distance, and a faint chiarooscuro.

The combat we might imagine takes place on the confines of a forest, and 
if we may judge from an upward inclination of the foreground on the right, 
at the base of a hillside. The monster, angry, and with erect tail, 
approaches the forest, in which, through the pine trunks, are seen the 
wigwams of an Indian village. In the sky overhead, and as if presiding 
over the event, are ranged the powers of heaven: forked lightning flashes 
through the tree-tops, and from between a planet and the crescent moon, 
beyond which we seem to see a constellation (represented by a series of 
crossed lines) and two stars, the sun's face looks down upon the scene. 
Four human forms confront the monster, the first holds in his right hand a 
bow from which the arrow just discharged is sticking in the side of the 
enraged beast, and in his left, if it is not planted in the ground, a long 
lance; a second warrior with headdress of feathers stands farther to the 
right; and still farther, and near what may perhaps be called a rock, a 
third sits upon the ground apparently smoking a pipe. A fourth figure is 
easily distinguishable trampled under the fore feet of the mammoth.

The strong effect upon the fancy of the rude carving, as we gaze upon it, 
would be hard indeed to resist. Its stern naivete and characteristic lack 
of aesthetic purpose bring upon the mind a haunting sense of the reality 
of the event it represents, and our sympathies seem genuinely awakened for 
the four human beings who have dared to confront the monster with their 
rude weapons of stone, yet whose destiny, like that of their huge 
antagonist, is overshadowed by the near presence of a supernatural power, 
seen in the great phenomena of nature which the artist has connected with 
the scene. Well might the appearance of the hairy mammoth have excited in 
the superstitious mind of the Indian hunter fancies more wild than those 
contained in the carving. Hardly more thrilling could have been the coming 
of the white men in ships, or the sound of their cannon, than the sight of 
one of these ungainly monsters in the shadows of a primeval forest, or the 
crash of his irresistible advance through the underbrush.

[dat euntibus ingens Silva locum et magno cedunt virgulta fragore.]

Beckendorff, a Russian engineer, who, in 1846, saw a carcass entire, "a 
black, horrible, giant-like mass," floating on one of the rivers of 
Siberia, declared that its appearance to that of a modern Indian elephant 
was as "that of a coarse ugly dray-horse to an Arab steed." He also 
noticed a ridge of stiff hair like a mane about a foot in length and 
extending above the shoulders and along the back.

Its size, like that of the modern elephant, must have varied considerably. 
The famous St. Petersburg skeleton measures but nine feet in height, while 
that in the Royal Museum of Natural History in Brussels reaches eleven 
feet, and the animal in the carving, judging from the relative size of the 
figures, would have been still larger than Beckendorff's carcass, which he 
declares measured thirteen feet in height. Geology tells, us much of the 
aspect, epoch, habits, and range of the mammoth; that it had appeared 
later than the mastodon, and somewhere in the age known as the Pliocene; 
that there were several species--three at least--two of which were 
inhabitants of America; that in North America it ranged from Behring 
Strait to the Gulf of Mexico, and in Europe from the extremity of Eastern 
Siberia as far south as Rome and the Pyrenees; that it fed upon the 
branches of the fir, birch, poplar, willow, etc., and was probably 
migratory in its habits, wandering toward grazing grounds in the north in 
summer, and southward in winter.

The long shaggy hair with which it was clothed, distinguishing it in 
appearance from the modern elephant and its smaller contemporary, the 
mastodon, was composed of three distinct suits: the longest, rough, black 
bristles, about eighteen inches in length; the next, a coat of finer close-
set hair, fawn-colored, from nine to ten inches long; and the last, a 
soft, reddish wool, about five inches long, filling up the interstices 
between the other hair, and enabling the animal to withstand an arctic, 
cold.

The enormous tusks measured along the curve from eleven to fifteen feet, 
and curved quite abruptly outward and backward.

The massive grinder, sometimes weighing seventeen pounds, was a 
conspicuous characteristic; the whole of its surface was not brought into 
use at once, but successively, new grinding-points being formed from 
behind as the outer and older points wore away.

Several etymologies have been given for the name "mammoth;" among others, 
the word "behemoth" in the Book of job, and the Arabic word "mehemot," 
signifying an elephant of very large size. One of the most interesting is 
the Tartar word "mamma," meaning the earth, suggested by Pallas, a Russian 
scientist, who first gave a description of the animal. "The Tungooses and 
Yakoots," he says, "believed that this animal worked its way in the earth 
like a mole. The mammoths had retired, they say, into great caverns from 
which they never emerge, but wander to and fro in the galleries; and as 
they pass into one the roof of the gallery rises, and the roof of the one 
just vacated sinks. The moment this animal sees the light it dies, and the 
reason why so many carcasses have been exposed to view is because of their 
having been deceived by the irregular conformation of the earth's. 
surface, thus unintentionally venturing beyond the confines of darkness."

[See an interesting little book, from which we here quote, entitled 
"Mastodon, Mammoth, and Man." By J.P. McLean. Cincinnati, 1880.]

Mastodon and mammoth bones have been discovered in Europe from the 
earliest times, and a history of the remarkable theories to which they had 
given rise before the time of Cuvier is very interesting. By the learned 
of by-gone times the fossils have been mistaken for the bones of Ajax, the 
"body of Orestes," unicorns, the teeth of St. Christopher, and the remains 
of Hannibal's elephants. The middle ages have given us a whole library on 
the subject of a race of giants, whose remains were clearly recognized in 
the huge bones.

In America, in colonial times, Governor Dudley, of Massachusetts, was 
"perfectly of opinion" that the mastodon tooth discovered near Albany in 
1705 "will agree only to a human body, for whom the flood only could 
prepare a funeral; and without doubt he waded as long as he could keep his 
head above the clouds, but must at length be confounded with all other 
creatures."

At what period the monster became extinct in Europe is a question to which 
geology gives no answer from the point of view of human history. The 
evidence rests upon the variously computed age of the beds in which the 
fossil bones occur. In France, for instance, it is known that the mammoth, 
whose bones are found in the strata underlying, and therefore older than, 
the Somme Valley peat, became extinct before the peat stratum, thirty feet 
thick, which contains no bones, had formed. It had grown, says M. Boucher 
de Perthes, at the rate of three inches in a hundred years; and if, as 
geologists say, the mammoth bones of Niagara Falls were deposited in their 
bed before six miles of the present river gorge were worn by the cataract 
out of the solid rock, they may be, according to Lyell, 31,000, or Desors, 
380,000 years old.

In Siberia, whence most of our information comes, many carcasses of these 
huge animals have been found preserved entire in the frozen mud. When and 
how did they perish? Possibly, says the geologist, all at once, 
overwhelmed by some sudden cataclysm, which, burying the carcasses in the 
mud, was immediately followed by an intense cold that has lasted ever 
since; possibly, again, great freshets in the northern rivers, overtaking 
the migrating herds, swept their carcasses from warmer regions to the 
shores of the Polar Sea.

In Europe, the fact that the mammoth survived, into the human period was 
proved some years ago by the discovery of human stone implements 
associated with mammoth bones in the river gravels of the Somme Valley, 
France, and in the Virgin Cave at Brixham, South Devon, England; but more 
interesting still, was the discovery of prehistoric carvings of the great 
elephant, sketches from nature made by the "cavemen," and found in their 
subterranean dwellings along the river Dordogne in France, illustrations 
of which will be given in the following pages.

In America, we have traces of a race of savages as old or older than the 
now famous river-drift and cave-men of Europe. Since the "Calaveras Man" 
lived, a valley, say geologists, has been metamorphosed, by the slow 
processes of nature, into a mountain; and the "San Joachim plummet," the 
"Trenton gravel-flints," and stone implements from the gold-bearing 
gravels of California, all speak of a race of human beings who must have 
lived in the time of the hairy mammoth.

But who were these people? Were they Indians? or had the Indian or his 
ancestor the mound-builder not yet appeared? and how many thousands or 
tens of thousands of years ago did they exist? These are questions which 
archaeology has not yet answered.

Here, however, with the carving before us we need not go back so far, nor 
beyond the Indian as we know him--the fierce, roving, bauble-loving, 
picture-making hunter of today. A study of the wonderful outlines on the 
stone will lead us through a period of his history extending over many 
hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years before the coming of Columbus; and 
here we may try to read, from the few vestiges of this time that chance 
has preserved to us, fragments of his picturesque mythology, strange 
legends of his origin and wanderings over a forest-covered continent, and 
the thrilling story of the mound-builders, and of long wars when the 
forest soil for centuries was a dark and bloody ground."

[A term, says Filson (Imlays' Topographical Description of the Western 
Territory, 2d Ed., p. 276) formerly applied by the Indians "to the fertile 
region now called Kentucky."]

That the mammoth had survived into the time of the Indian can hardly be 
doubted. Early travellers had frequently seen its bones at the "Big-Bone 
Licks" in Kentucky, whither the huge animals had come, like the deer and 
buffalo of modern times, to lick the salt. The great bones often seemed 
hardly older than those of the modern animals with which they were 
mingled, and, judging from their position along the modern buffalo-trails 
through the forest, it seems that the latter animals had followed the 
ancient tracks of the mammoth to and from the licks.

Not a few of these early travellers thought it worth their while to 
question the Indians about the huge bones and note down their answers. 
Jefferson, in his "Notes on Virginia," devotes several pages to the 
subject. He even believes the mammoth to be still in existence in his time 
in some remote part of the American continent. He tells the story of a Mr. 
Stanley, who, "taken prisoner by the Indians near the mouth of the 
Tanissee," relates that "after being transferred through several tribes 
from one to another, he was at length carried over the mountains west of 
the Missouri to a river which runs west-wardly; that these bones abounded 
there, and that the natives described to him the animal to which they 
belonged as still existing in the northern parts of their country, from 
which description he judged it to be an elephant."

Further, in support of his theory, he gives an Indian tradition of a great 
monster known as the Big Buffalo, and obtained, he says, from, a Delaware 
chief by one of the governors of Virginia during the American Revolution. 
Nothing has seemed more interesting in a study of the carvings on the 
Lenape Stone than the remarkable similarity between this tradition of the 
Lenni Lenape or Delawares and the carvings on this relic, discovered in 
the middle of their ancient territory. The chief, as the account runs, 
being asked as to the bones at the Big-Bone Licks in Kentucky, says that 
it was a tradition handed down from his fathers that "in ancient times a 
herd of these tremendous animals came to the Big-Bone Licks and began a 
universal destruction of the bear, deer, elks, buffaloes, and other 
animals which had been created for the use of the Indians. That the Great 
Man above, looking down and seeing this, was so enraged that he seized his 
lightning, descended on the earth, seated himself on a neighboring 
mountain, on a rock on which his seat and the print of his feet are still 
to be seen, and hurled his bolts among them till the whole were 
slaughtered except the big bull, who, presenting his forehead to the 
shafts, shook them off as they fell; but missing one at length, it wounded 
him in the side, where-on, springing around, he bounded over the Ohio, 
over the Wabache, the Illinois, and finally over the great lakes, where he 
is still living at this day."

Making due allowance for translation, and a reasonable amount of garbling, 
the points of similarity between the carving and the tradition--the great 
man above (the sun) looking down, the lightning, and the big bull 
presenting his forehead to the shafts, and at length wounded in the side--
are very striking; and if we compare the curious circle enclosing a dot, 
on the inclined foreground to the right, with the "neigboring mountain," 
and the footprint on the rock of the, tradition, the correspondence seems 
again too unusual for mere coincidence. On the other hand, the tradition 
says nothing of warriors or wigwams, or of planets, moon, and stars, yet 
these differences may naturally be accounted for if we suppose the stone 
older than the tradition, and that in the latter the local and matter-of-
fact elements of time, place, and human agency would have been the first 
to fade away as time went on. But this is not the only Indian tradition of 
a great monster--presumably the mammoth--which has been preserved to us.

The element of divine wrath, common to monster myths among barbarous 
peoples, again occurs in a Wyandot version of the same tradition, taken 
down from a band of Iroquois and Wyandots by Colonel G. Croghan, at the 
Salt Licks in Kentucky in 1748, and given in Winterbotham's "History of 
the United States," vol. iii., page 139. The head chief, says the writer, 
having been flattered with presents of tobacco, paint, ammunition, etc., 
on being asked about the large bones, related the ancient tradition of his 
people as follows: "That the red man, placed on this island by the Great 
Spirit, had been exceedingly happy for ages, but foolish young people 
forgetting his rules became ill-tempered and wicked, in consequence of 
which the Great Spirit created the Great Buffalo, the bones of which we 
now see before us. These made war upon the human species alone, and 
destroyed all but a few, who repented and promised the Great Spirit to 
live according to his laws if he would restrain the devouring enemy; 
whereupon he sent lightning and thunder, and destroyed the whole race in 
this spot, two excepted, a male and female, whom he shut up in yonder 
mountain, ready to let loose again should occasion require."

David Cusic, the Tuscarora Indian, in his history of the Iroquois, among 
other instances, speaks of the Big Quisquis, [A word meaning " hog " in 
modern Iroquois.] a terrible monster who invaded at an early time the 
Indian settlements by Lake Ontario, and was at length driven back by the 
warriors from several villages after a severe engagement; and of the Big 
Elk, another great beast, who invaded the towns with fury and was at 
length killed in a great fight; and Elias Johnson, the Tuscarora chief, in 
his "History of the Six Nations," speaks of another monster that appeared 
at an early period in the history of his people, which they called 
Oyahguaharb, supposed to be some great mammoth who was furious against 
men, and destroyed the lives of many Indian hunters, but who was at length 
killed after a long and severe contest."

Another instance of a terrible monster desolating the country of a certain 
tribe "with thunder and fire" appears in a collection of Wyandot 
traditions published by one William Walker, an Indian agent, in 1823; and 
again the great beast appears in the song tradition of the "Father of Oxen,
" from Canada, and in a monster tradition from Louisiana, both spoken of 
by Fabri, a French officer, in a letter to Buffon from America in 1748.

"The Reliqux Aquitanicae," published by Lartet and Christy, page 60, 
quotes a letter from British America of Robert Brown to Professor Rupert 
Jones, which speaks of a tradition common to several widely separated 
tribes in the Northwest, of lacustrine habitations built by their 
ancestors; to protect themselves against an animal who ravaged the country 
a long time ago.

Hardly less remarkable in its description of the animal than any of the 
others is, perhaps, the Great Elk tradition as mentioned by Charlevoix in 
his "History of New France."

"There is current among these barbarians," says the author, "a pleasant-
enough tradition of a Great Elk, beside whom all others seem like ants. He 
has, they say, legs so high that eight feet of snow does not embarrass 
him, his skin is proof against all sorts of weapons, and he has a sort of 
arm which comes out of his shoulder and which he uses as we do ours."

Whatever we may have previously thought of these legends, their evidence 
now combined with that of the carving is irresistible. Nothing but the 
mammoth itself, surviving into comparatively recent times and encountered 
by the Indians, could suffice to account for the carving, and we can no 
longer suppose that the size and unusual appearance of the mammoth bones 
seen by the Indians in Kentucky could alone have originated the traditions.

In the carving, we have the most interesting mammoth picture in existence; 
not a mere drawing of the animal itself, but a picture of primitive life, 
in which the mammoth takes a conspicuous part in the actions and thoughts 
of man,--a carving made with a bone or flint instrument upon a tablet of 
slate at least four hundred years ago,--the hairy elephant, drawn in 
unmistakable outline, and attacked by human beings,--a battle-scene which 
thrills our imagination, and the importance of which the ancient 
draughtsman magnifies by the introduction of the symbols of his religion, 
the sun, moon, and stars, and the lightning alone powerful to overthrow 
the great enemy.

All is evidently the work of the Indian; so would he rudely carve trees, 
the pine with its straight-spreading arms, like a modern telegraph pole; 
his forest wigwam, a simple triangle; the sun, with human face, and a 
halo; and the moon, a crescent; the stars were small crosses, and 
diverging lines were the rays of light that traversed the sky from the 
great luminaries. Men were triangles with their sides produced, and three 
dots in the head for eyes, nose, and mouth; here the minute forms standing 
their ground before the great beast, are warriors, with feathers in their 
hair, and bows and lances in their hands. The chief figure, the great 
buffalo, or the great elk of Charlevoix, armed with a proboscis, as the 
Indians may well have named the mammoth, is assailed, as in the Jefferson 
tradition, by lightning.

Between such a monster, however inoffensive in its habits, and the Indian 
hunter, there could be no peace; his size and terrific appearance were 
enough for the superstitious fancy of the red man, and as he browses 
harmlessly near the village he is attacked; then his rage transforms him 
into the fierce enemy and destroyer of mankind remembered in the 
traditions. As naively represented in the carving, he tramples men to a 
pulp under his feet with the ungovernable fury of a modern elephant, and 
overturns whole villages of fragile wigwams, while his anger perhaps vents 
itself in loud bellowings; arrows and spears only annoy him; he must be 
destroyed by the lightnings of the Great Spirit to whom the medicine men 
pray for help.

A remarkable story, alleged in support of the coexistence of the Indian, 
and the mammoth's great contemporary the mastodon, regarded by most 
scientists with distrust, though defended by some, was that of Dr. Albert 
Koch, collector of curiosities, who in 1839 disinterred the skeleton of a 
mastodon in a clay bed near the Bourboise River, Gasconade County, 
Missouri. Associated with the bones Koch claimed to have discovered, in 
the presence of a number of witnesses, a layer of wood-ashes, numerous 
fragments of rock, "some arrow-heads, a stone spear-point, and several 
stone axes," evidencing he claimed, that the huge animal had met its 
untimely end at the hands of savages, who, armed with rude weapons of 
stone and boulders brought from the bed of the neighboring river, had 
attacked it, while helplessly mired in the soft clay, and finally effected 
its destruction by fire.

Koch also published with his statement and in connection with another 
skeleton, that of the Mastodon giganteus discovered by him in Benton 
County, Missouri, a tradition of the Osage Indians, in whose former 
territory the bones were found, and which he says led him to the 
discovery. It states, says Koch, "that there was a time when the Indians 
paddled their canoes over the now extensive prairies of Missouri and 
encamped or hunted on the bluffs. That at a certain period many large and 
monstrous animals came from the eastward along and up the Mississippi and 
Missouri rivers, upon which the animals that had previously occupied the 
country became very angry, and at last so enraged and infuriated by reason 
of these intrusions, that the red man durst not venture out to hunt any 
more, and was consequently reduced to great distress. At this time a large 
number of these huge monsters assembled here, when a terrible battle 
ensued, in which many on both sides were killed, and the remnant resumed 
their march toward the setting sun. Near the bluffs which are at present 
known by the name of the Rocky Ridge one of the greatest of these battles 
was fought. Immediately after the battle the Indians gathered together 
many of the slaughtered animals and offered them up on the spot as a burnt 
sacrifice to the Great Spirit. The remainder were buried by the Great 
Spirit himself, in the Pomme de Terre River, which from this time took the 
name of the Big Bone River, as well as the Osage, of which the Pomme de 
Terre is a branch. From this time the Indians brought their yearly 
sacrifice to this place, and offered it up to the Great Spirit, as a thank-
offering for their great deliverance, and more latterly, they have offered 
their sacrifice on the table rock above mentioned (a curious rock near the 
spot of the discovery), which was held in great veneration and considered 
holy ground."

There is considerable variety of opinion of late, and especially among 
persons familiar with the Indians, as to the value of the information 
furnished by their traditions; and certainly among Indians to-day the 
separation of 'heir pre-Columbian from their later traditions, and their 
traditions proper from the extravagant relations so readily dealt forth by 
them extempore, is no easy matter. Much stress is laid on the absence of a 
tradition of De Soto; yet, is Schoolcraft remarks, the Delawares and 
Mohicans had in his time one of Hudson, the Chippeways of Cartier, and the 
Iroquois one of a wreck on a sea-coast, and the extinction of an infant 
colony, probably Jamestown.

Interest in the American elephant has of late been considerably increased 
by the appearance of several supposed representations of the animal among 
the relics of our aborigines, drawings of which, and of the so-called 
elephant trunks, and head-dresses from the architecture of Mexico and 
Central America, are given in the following pages.

Fig. 2.--Elephant Pipe (Louisa Co., Iowa).
Fig. 3.--Elephant Pipe (Louisa Co., Iowa).

Not one of these outlines is unmistakable, and all lack the characteristic 
tusks of the mammoth.

Figures 2 and 3, the now famous "elephant pipes," the authenticity of 
which is doubted, however, in the last report of the Bureau of Ethnology, 
came to light in Louisa County, Iowa. The former, discovered in 1872 or 
1873, was found, it is said, on the surface by a farmer while planting 
corn; and the latter, more interesting from the scratches upon it 
evidently intended to represent hair, was taken from a mound near an old 
bed of the Mississippi by the Rev. Dr. Blumer and others on March 2, 1880. 
The material of the two pipes, which apparently have been much greased and 
smoked, is the same--a light-colored sandstone.

The next of the elephant documents is the so-called elephant mound of 
Grant County, Wisconsin, (fig. 4). It was described by Mr. Jared Warner, 
of Patch Grove, Wisconsin, on page 416 of the "Smithsonian Report for
1872," when public attention was first generally called to it. The effigy, 
135 feet long, 60 feet broad, and but feet high, is situated on the east 
bank of the Mississippi, just below the mouth of the Wisconsin, and, says 
Mr. Warner, has been known in the neighborhood of Patch Grove for twenty-
five years as the "elephant mound." Like the elephant pipes, however, it 
lacks the characteristic tusks, and sceptics claim that its original shape 
has been too much modified by many years of cultivation to render 
judgments concerning it admissible.

But to return to the carving, a somewhat novel feature in it, and one 
which has been objected to as casting a doubt upon its authenticity, is 
the spear between the two upright human figures on the right. Large flint 
spear-points, so-called, are found abundantly in the Eastern States, and 
within the last hundred years instances of the use of the spear by the 
Indians in hunting and fishing are common; no one doubts, as we learn, for 
instance, in Tanner's narrative, that the Indians speared salmon in the 
Eastern rivers, or, as Catlin shows, used steel-pointed lances in their 
Western buffalo hunts. Yet the early writers, in their descriptions of 
aboriginal implements, have been supposed to make no mention of the spear, 
and there has been some controversy among archaeologists as to whether it 
can be classed among Indian prehistoric weapons of warfare or the chase.

Fig. 4.-Elephant Mound (Grant County, Wisconsin).

Dr. Abbott, who, in his "Prehistoric Industry," has given a wood-cut of 
the curious egg-shaped stone found at Lake Winnipissiogee, and upon which 
there are several carvings of spears, quotes in the same work, by way of 
the nearest approach to an allusion to the spear among the early writers, 
a description from Josselyn of an elk-hunt among the early Massachusetts 
Indians, in which the writer describes a lance made of a staff a yard and 
a half long and pointed with fish-bone. But a passage in Bernal Diaz del 
Castillo ("Historia verdadera de la Conquista de la nueva Espana," Madrid, 
1638), kindly pointed out to the writer by Dr. Rau, seems to furnish 
conclusive evidence on the subject. Bernal Diaz, among several instances 
in his works, speaks (chapter vi.) of an attack upon the Spaniards in 
Florida by Indians "armed with immense-sized bows, sharp arrows, and 
spears, among which some were shaped like swords" ("y lanzas y unas, a 
manera de espadas").

Furthermore there is fig. 5 (plate xiv. from De Bry's "Brevis Narratio," 
published in Latin in Frankfort-on-the-Main in 1591), representing Indians 
holding spears, for which likewise the writer is indebted to Dr. Rau. It 
was drawn from life by one Jacques Le Moyne, a French artist, in 1564. He 
had come to Florida with the French Admiral Laudonniere, and having been 
left by the expedition for some months at a fort upon the St. John's 
River, frequently made sketching expeditions among the neighboring tribes. 
Many similar drawings by him, of Warriors armed with spears are to be 
found among the numerous illustrations in De Bry.

Fig. 5-Picture of North American Indians carrying spears, drawn from life 
by Jacques Le Moyne, in 1564

Passing over the mysterious animal on one of the Davenport tablets, 
sometimes taken for a mammoth, and the pictograph on a boulder near the 
Gila River seen by Colonel W. H. Emory in 1846 in a military 
reconnaissance, ["Notes of a Military Reconnaissance from Fort Leavenworth 
to San Diego, Cal.," Col. W. H. Emory, Washington, 1848, P. 90] and which, 
he says, "may with some stretch of the imagination be supposed to be a 
mastodon," we come to the supposed traces of the elephant noticed by 
numerous writers in the mural paintings and architecture of Mexico and 
Central America.

Fig. 6.-Elephant Trunk (Uxmal). 

Figures 6 and 7, reduced from Catherwood's "Atlas" to Stephens' "Yucatan," 
are fair specimens of the remarkable architectural ornaments from Central 
America known as elephant trunks, and which, placed between two eyes and a 
mouth-like cavity, seem at first, as Waldeck and other travellers have 
remarked, to bear a striking resemblance to the trunk of a proboscidean.

Figure 6 is from the gateway of the great Teocallis at Uxmal, and 7 from 
that of the Casa de las Monjos at Uxmal; as in the case of all the other 
"elephant trunks," however, they offer no suggestion of the prominent 
tusks of the American elephant, and, as Dr. F. W. Putnam maintains, should 
perhaps be looked upon as grotesque representations of the human race, of 
which the so-called trunk forms the nose.

Fig. 7.-Elephant Trunk (Uxmal).

Far more striking among the so-called traces of the elephant in North 
America are the priests' head-dresses from Mexico and Yucatan.

Figure 8, a reduction from plate xiii. in Waldeck's "Recherches sur les 
Ruines de Palenque," is taken from a stucco bas-relief in the palace of 
Palenque. Waldeck considers it "evidently a representation of the head of 
a proboscidean."

Figure 9, the no less fantastic Mexican head-dress, is from the Vues des 
Cordilleras, plate xv. As to it, Humboldt says: "I would not have had this 
hideous scene engraved, were it not for the remarkable and apparently not 
accidental resemblance of the priest's head-dress to the Hindoo Ganesa, or 
elephant-headed god of wisdom. It seems hardly possible to suppose that a 
tapir's snout could have suggested the trunk in the head-dress, and we are 
almost left to infer either that the people of Atzlan had received some 
notice of the elephant from Asia, or that their traditions reached back to 
the time of the American elephant."

Fig. 8-Elephant Head-dress (Palenque).
Fig. 9-Elephant Head-dress (Mexico).

It is interesting to compare the Lenape Stone with the mammoth carvings of 
the cave-men of Europe, of which we here give the series. None of these 
outlines equal the Lenape drawing in realistic spirit except, perhaps 
(fig. 10) the most remarkable of them all, the celebrated La Madeleine 
carving. It is engraved upon mammoth ivory and was discovered in 1864 in 
the cave of La Madeleine, Perigord, France, by M. Louis Lartet. It was 
broken into five fragments, and like the carving on the Lenape Stone, 
which it singularly resembles in general position, and in the indecisive 
drawing of the back and tail, unmistakably represents the mammoth. The 
mammoth scratching his side (fig. 11), and the very indistinct head (fig. 
12), carved on opposite sides of a bone plate, are from the Edouard Lartet 
Collection. M. Louis Lartet, brother of the former, in his description of 
the drawings in the "Materiaux pour l'histoire primitive de l'homme," vol. 
ix., p. 33, thinks that "the primitive artist to whom these rude but 
sufficiently faithful representations are due, and who changed his mind 
several times when sketching, had, without doubt, the living model before 
his eyes, and was disturbed in his work by the movements of the animal."

Fig. 10.-Prehistoric carving of the Mammoth from the cave of La. Madeleine.
Fig. 11-Mammoth Carving from the Collection of M. Lartet.
Fig. 12-Mammoth Carving from the Collection of M. Lartet.
Fig. 13.-Mammoth Dagger-hilt from the Rock Shelter of Bruniquel.

Figure 13, is the mammoth dagger-hilt carved in deer horn, in the 
collection of M. Peccadeau de l'Isle. It was discovered in the rock 
shelter of Bruniquel (Tarne et Garonne), France. Here, to avoid breakage 
probably, the muzzle has been greatly exaggerated and the shape of the 
trunk and position of the tusks have been considerably departed from.

Fig. 14.-Head of Mammoth from the cave of Laugerie Basse.

The least interesting specimen perhaps in the French, collection is (fig. 
14) the very indistinct elephant's head, minus the tusks, discovered by 
the Marquis de Vibraye in the cave of Laugerie Basse, Dordogne, France. 
Another so-called prehistoric representation of the mammoth, though 
resembling that animal only in the trunk-like prolongation of its muzzle, 
is (fig. 15) a more modern bronze specimen from Siberia. The writer of the 
description in the " Materiaux," vol. iv., p. 197, prefers to consider it 
a fantastic cat, tiger, or lion.

Fig. 15.-Bronze figure supposed to represent the Mammoth. (Siberia.)

Let us picture to ourselves, as it occurred in ancient times, and when his 
customs and traditions were as yet uncontaminated by civilization, one of 
the great religious feasts of the Indian-a dance, in honor, perhaps, of 
the sun, or pipe of peace, or of the green corn.

A wildly picturesque scene rises before us, as we read he descriptions of 
writers who have witnessed these ceremonies in later days; such a scene, 
as-in the language of Catlin: "not all the years allotted to mortal man 
could in the least deface or obliterate from the memory."

The tribe is assembled in the Indian village, or upon a bare hill-top, or 
perhaps in a lonely spot in the forest; great bonfire burns in their 
midst, around which many mysterious rites have been performed. The rain 
perhaps was to be called down from heaven, sickness averted, evil spirits 
to be exorcised and driven away, or the deer or moose to be led in a state 
of charmed fatuity into the midst of the camp. With wild noises and 
gestures the warriors have danced around the fire, waving corn-stalks, or 
fiercely brandishing their weapons of war; the odor of burning tobacco or 
roasting dog's flesh fills the air, and the forest re-echoes with the 
cawings of the crow, the "gobble" of the wild turkey, or the growl of the 
bear, exactly imitated by the dancers. With a truthfulness born of their 
intense sympathy for nature, the moving figures mimic the spring of the 
panther or wild-cat, the start of the deer, and the sinuous motion of the 
snake.

At length a figure, half man half animal, approaches the prophet or 
medicine-man. Nothing can be more strange than his appearance ; his dress 
is hung with the skins of snakes, frogs, and bats, and adorned with the 
beaks, tails, and toes of birds, and the hoofs of the deer and antelope,--
a diabolical embodiment of animal monstrosity.

Fig. 16.

All is now quiet, and from his medicine bag, made of the skin of the 
racoon, polecat, or bat, beautifully decorated, and lined with moss and 
fine grass, he produces a scroll of birch bark, a tablet of wood, or a 
stone, engraved with mystic characters. Holding the tablet in his hands, 
as his eye falls upon the carved devices a low sound, rising into a song 
or chant, now only interrupted by the crackling of the fire, issues from 
under the hideous bear's-mask which hides his head. Each picture suggests 
to his mind some event of the far past, carefully treasured in the 
traditional lore of his tribe. [See article on Indian picture-writing, 
appendix, p.] His song, rising and falling in strange inflections, and 
preserving a sort of rhythm, now tells of the creation of the world, a 
deluge, the origin of his people, and their primitive struggles with the 
forces of nature; now images of primeval giants and demigods rise before 
the minds of the assembled tribe, his hearers, of Manabozho the great 
hare, of Tarentyawagon holder of the heavens, of Hiawatha, and Nanabush, 
and of "Stonish Giants," and "Flying Heads"; now he tells of the passage 
of great waters and mountains, of treeless plains, and forests, now of 
long wars with human enemies, and of the final coming of the whites. The 
squatting figures listen in motionless silence, as the song proceeds 
through its many verses, each the theme of a particular event. At last it 
ceases, and the pictured scroll or tablet, formula of its spell, restored 
to its place in the medicine pouch, remains hidden from the eyes of the 
tribe until its reappearance upon some similar occasion.

Such is the song-chronicle of the Indian's history; and such songs are 
known to have been carefully preserved and sung by many if not all of the 
Eastern tribes.

Such was the national song-legend of the Creeks and Choctaws, narrating in 
considerable detail their traditional origin and early migration from the 
West. It was read to the English by the Creek chief, Chekille, at 
Savannah, in 1775, "and was written in red and black characters on the 
skin of a young buffalo." This pictured skin, with an English translation, 
was sent to London, and there, in a frame in the Georgia office, at 
Westminister, was kept for many years as a curiosity; it was finally lost, 
but the translation has been recently brought to light by Dr. D. G. 
Brinton, of Philadelphia.

Such, too, was the national song of the Cherokees, sung by them- at their 
annual green-corn dance. Portions of it which tell of an early migration 
from the head-waters of the Monongahela, and of the great mound at Grave 
Creek which the Cherokees claim to have built, are given by Haywood in his 
"History of Tennessee." They were related to the author from memory by an 
old Indian trader who had heard the song. Mr. Chamberlain, at present 
missionary among the Cherokees, states that Guess or Sequoyah, a half-
breed Cherokee, since dead, had invented the Cherokee alphabet of eighty-
two letters, for the express purpose of perpetuating this chronicle of his 
nation, and had recorded it in the new characters, but these interesting 
manuscripts, which after his death were unfortunately mislaid, have thus 
far escaped discovery.

The Blackfeet, too, have a singular historical song sung on stated 
occasions; and the Shawnees, now situated in the northeast corner of the 
Indian territory, have a national legend, described in one of the late 
Indian reports as a "weird song sung in a rising melancholy strain"; it is 
sung at one of their great annual feasts, but as yet the double-barrelled 
shotgun or the "handsomest blanket in Philadelphia," offered by Dr. 
Brinton for a translation, have not served to break the reserve of the 
Indians familiar with the particular dialect in which it is sung, and who 
say that its revelation would bring misfortune upon the tribe.

The historical records of the Ojibways, says Ka-ge-ga-gah-bowh, or George 
Copway, their native historian, were written in Indian hieroglyphics upon 
"slate-rock, copper, lead, and the bark of birch trees," and kept in three 
secret underground depositories near the headwaters of Lake Superior, 
where, being disinterred and examined every fifteen years by a committee 
of chiefs, the dimmed and decaying pictographs were replaced by facsimiles.

It seems highly probable, in fact, that the solemn songs above, as well as 
most of the important historical narratives of the Indian tribes, have 
been repeatedly and variously recorded in eye-catching pictures of men, 
animals, and natural objects, intended to refresh or jog the memory of the 
singer or speaker, in his lengthy recitations to the assembled tribe. And 
such a pictured song-chart, or reference-table we may perhaps consider the 
carving on the reverse of the Lenape stone (fig. 16), which, should it be, 
as we have supposed, a production of the Lenni Lenape, would not 
unnaturally refer to the well known historical legend of that ancient 
people.

This tradition of the Delawares, more interesting and suggestive probably 
than any of these long-overlooked records of ancient North America, has 
once at least, been recorded by Indians in pictographic symbols; 
fortunately it has been preserved to us in full, and we can compare it 
with the carving on the reverse of the Lenape stone (fig. 16), which we 
may suppose suggested to the mind of the Indian singer versed in the art 
of picture-writing some at least of the events remembered in his tradition.

Two versions of this wonderful Indian chronicle have been rescued from 
oblivion. The first, far less complete than the other, was collected from 
the Indians themselves by the Moravian missionary Heckewelder, about 1800. 
It reads as follows: "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 at the Namaesi Sipu, or River of Fish (from namaes, a fish, and 
sipu, a river)."

One of the first figures that catches our eye. on looking at the carvings 
is the unmistakable outline of a fish, (a), just beneath the waving lines; 
(b) representing water at the left of the stone. The tradition goes on to 
say that at this river the Delawares "fell in with the Mengwe (Iroquois, 
or five nations), 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 cast 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, and it would seem that he is right, from the traces of their 
name, which still remain in the country, the Allegheny river and mountains 
having indubitably been named after them. The Delawares still call the 
former Alligewi Sipu, the River of the 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 intrenchments, from whence they would sally out, but 
were generally repulsed. [Heckewelder states that he had himself seen " 
many of these fortifications,"-of course the works of the mound-builders. 
He mentions in particular two " entrenchments " along the Huron River, and 
several large flat mounds near them, in which were buried, as he learned 
from the 1ndians, hundreds of the Alligewi, slain in the bloody wars which 
the narrative proceeds to mention.] 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 neighborhood. This was refused 
them, but they obtained leave to pass through the country and seek a 
settlement farther to the eastward."

This agreement, that the Lenape should cross in peace, might have been 
symbolized in the Muzzinabiks (rock writings) and historical song records 
of any tribe, by the figure of the pipe (c) on the left of the stone, just 
above the water, and opposite the fish.

"They accordingly began to cross the Namaesi Sipu," continues the account, 
"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. Fired at the treachery 
of these people, and the great loss of men they had sustained, and 
besides, not being prepared for a conflict, the Lenape consulted on what 
was to be done-whether to retreat in the best manner they could, or try 
their strength, and let the enemy see they were not cowards, but men, and 
too high-minded to suffer themselves to be driven off before they had made 
a trial of their strength, and were convinced that the enemy was too 
powerful for them. The Mengwe, who had hitherto been satisfied with being 
spectators from a distance, offered to join them on condition that, after 
conquering the country, they should be entitled to share it with them. 
Their proposal was accepted, and the resolution was taken by the two 
nations to conquer or die. Having thus 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."

This ancient alliance may have been symbolized to the mind of the Delaware 
by the figures of the hawk (e), beneath which is seen (f) perhaps a wampum 
belt, and of the turtle (d) in the central part of the stone, and set in 
divisions formed by one intersecting and four diverging lines. Devices of 
the "great Thunder-bird, whose eyes were fire and glance lightning, and 
the motion of whose wings filled the air with thunder," and of the "great 
turtle, upon whose back the mother of the human race had been received 
from heaven," were common in the mystic songs of the medas or priests, and 
their particular significations in these incantations might have been 
almost endless when we consider that to the initiated Meda or Josakeed 
(prophet) the same sign calls up quite different ideas, as the theme of 
the writer varies from war to love, or from the chase to medicine, or 
prophecy. If, however, we refer the subject of the carving to history, the 
hawk and turtle may well be viewed as the tokens or heraldic badges of the 
chief actors in the story [This view coincides with the opinion of the 
Indians who have seen the carving since the above was written.] (the 
Lenape and Mengwe).

As clan badges, both symbols were in common use among most of the Indian 
tribes. The turtle clan, says Heckewelder, was the governing family in any 
nation, and among the Delawares claimed an ascendency over the wolf and 
turkey families on account of its superior antiquity and relationship to 
"the great turtle, the Atlas of their mythology, who bore the great island-
the earth-upon its back."

The hawk totem, which of course the Delawares might have applied to any 
people they-chose, irrespective of its real emblem, occurred among the 
Hurons, and in both the Seneca and Cayuga tribes of the Iroquois 
confederacy; also among the Ojibways, Pottowatamies, Miamis, Abenakis, 
Sacs, and Foxes, and in many other tribes.

The account goes on to say that "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. The war which was carried on by this nation lasted many 
years, during which the Lenape lost a great number of their warriors, 
while the Mengwe would always hang back in the rear, leaving them to face 
the enemy."

In this description of a superior race of Indians, conquered after a most 
desperate resistance, and whose memory still survives in the great 
mountain chain to which they have given a name, we find a key to the often-
spoken-of mystery of the mound-builders and their sudden disappearance.

The story of their long death-struggle and final overthrow by a horde of 
savage invaders, as here given in the formal style of Heckewelder, seems 
somewhat colored by his well-known partiality for the Delawares. It is 
confirmed, as we shall see, by the evidence of other Indian traditions and 
the study of their language, which seems to show that this people,--the 
Alligewi or mound-builders--fleeing down the Mississippi, were received 
and adopted by the Choctaws and Cherokees, themselves in comparatively 
recent times a mound-building people, and who thus have become in part 
their descendants.

A suggestion of these long and bloody wars, in which the Lenape did most 
of the fighting, may be seen in the, figure of the tomahawk (g) just below 
the turtle, [The point projecting behind the handle in the figure reminds 
us forcibly of the shape of the modern iron tomakawk; yet that stone axes 
of this shape were anciently in use among the Indians was proved by the 
discovery of the "Thorndale Axe" with a similar projection, and found in 
the original wooden handle, now at the Museum of Natural History in New 
York.] and of the mound-builders themselves perhaps, in the singular group 
of figures above the water on the left, i.e., the outline of a mountain or 
mound on which a series of numerical marks are faintly seen, a tablet 
inscribed with ten dots, two diagonally intersecting lines, and five 
parallel marks or points.

"In the end," continues the account, "the conquerors divided the country 
between themselves," as the wigwams (h and i) above each totem might 
denote. "The Mengwe made choice of the lands in the vicinity of the great 
lakes" and on their tributary streams, again suggested, perhaps, by the 
snow-shoe (j) "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 peacefully 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 (Susquehannah), and thence into the bay itself, which we 
call Chesapeak." As they pursued their travels, partly by land and partly 
by water, in this primitive reconnaissance of the great wilderness now our 
homes, journeying sometimes near and at other times on the "great salt-
water lake" (the sea), they finally discovered the river which we call the 
Delaware.

"Thence exploring still eastward," continues the account, "they discovered 
the Scheyichbi country, now named New Jersey, and at length arrived at 
another great stream--that which we call the Hudson or North River. 
Satisfied with what they had seen, they (or some of them), after a long 
absence, returned to their nation and reported the discoveries they had 
made. They described the country they had discovered as abounding in game 
and various kinds of fruits, and the rivers and bays with fish, tortoises, 
etc., together with abundance of water-fowl, and no enemy to be dreaded. 
They considered the event as a fortunate one for them, and concluding this 
to be the country destined for them by the Great Spirit, they began to 
emigrate thither, as yet but in small bodies, so as not to be straitened 
for want of provisions by the way, some even laying by for a whole year. 
At last they settled on the four great rivers (which we call Delaware, 
Hudson, Susquehanna, and Potomac), making the Delaware, to which they gave 
the name of 'Lenapewihittuck,' (the river or stream of the Lenape), the 
centre of their possessions."

Here the ancient portion of the chronicle and its parallelism with the 
figures on the stone seems to end, the remainder being devoted to long 
wars with the Mengwe, relations with the whites, and the more modern 
events of the history of the tribe in the east.

The other figures upon the stone-the star (k), the calumet (1), the deer 
(m), the curve crossed by three oblique lines (n), probably a war canoe, 
and the fish-like figure (o) at the end of the stone-are hardly suggested 
by the narrative, yet may refer to further details of the passage of the 
Alleghenies, and the exploration and settlement of the country to the 
east, along the great rivers and by the sea-coast.

Far more interesting than Heckewelder's account, is a full version of the 
great national song of the Lenape as they sung it in their own language, 
with an English translation, and with all the pictographic devices used to 
jog the memory of the singer. He may well have needed them, as the whole 
song consists of two hundred and two verses. It was first published in 
1836 by the eccentric French-American philosopher, Rafinesque, in an 
extravagant work by him entitled "The American Nations," and is known as 
the Wallum. Olum (literally, painted sticks), or pictographic traditions 
of the Lenni Lenape. It contains the Delaware account of the creation, a 
deluge, the early migrations and entire history of the tribe, and one 
hundred and eighty-four mnemonic symbols painted upon tablets of wood. "It 
was obtained" says Rafinesque, "about 1822,--the symbols from a Dr. Ward 
of Indiana, who had received them as a reward for a medical cure from the 
Delawares, at Wahapani or White River, in 1820 and the verses from another 
individual."

Mr. E. G. Squier, who considered the internal evidence furnished by the 
songs sufficiently strong to settle their authenticity, submitted the 
manuscript copy of the songs and pictographs in the hand of Rafinesque, 
who it appears had never owned the original "painted sticks," to George 
Copway, the Chippewa chief, who unhesitatingly, he says, pronounced it 
authentic. This manuscript, together with the pictographs, of which 
Rafinesque had published none, and Squier but forty, was considered 
hopelessly lost until its fortunate discovery a few weeks ago by Dr. 
Brinton, by whom it will shortly be published with a new translation.

Passing over its account of the creation and deluge, the narrative goes on 
to describe the passage by the Lenape of a large body of water on the ice 
(Behring's Straits, says Rafinesque), and their settlement at a place 
called Shinaki, or the "Land of Firs."

After many generations of chiefs, continues the fourth song, during which 
time they were continually engaged in wars with "Snakes" (enemies), they 
wander from the fir land to the south and east, pass over a hollow 
mountain 0ligonunk (Oregon, according to Rafinesque), and at last "find 
food" at "Shililaking., the plains of the Buffalo Land." Here they tarry 
and build towns and raise corn on the great meadows of the Wisawana 
(Yellow River). But after many wars with "Snakes," "northern enemies," and 
"father snakes," of which we can see a suggestion in the eel-like form (p) 
on the stone, they again resume their migration towards the "sun-rising," 
and finally reach the shores of the Messussipu, [The word Namaesi Sipu 
(Fish River) given by Heckewelder, but published Messussipu (Great River) 
in Mr. Squier's version of the Wallum Olm, appears Namasipi in the 
Rafinesque version of 1836, and in the original manuscript now in Dr. 
Brinton's possession it seems that the latter word has been written over 
the word Messussipu by the author, who probably had been comparing the 
account with Heckewelder.] or Great River, "which divides the land." The 
accompanying pictograph for verse 49, descriptive of the Great River, 
quite unlike the figure upon the stone, is here given from the original 
drawing by Rafinesque, kindly furnished the writer by Dr. Brinton (fig. 
17). The narrative, of which we give the English translation by 
Rafinesque, omitting the Delaware version, continues in the original as 
follows:

49. The Great River (Messussipu) divided the land, and being tired, they 
tarried there. Fig, 17.

50. Yagawanend (Hut-maker) was next sakima, and then the Tallegwi were 
found possessing the east. 

51. Followed Chitanitis (Strong-friend), who longed for the rich east-land.

52. Some went to the east, but the Tallegwi killed a portion.

53. Then all of one mind exclaimed: War, war!

54. The Talamatan (not of themselves) and the Nitilowan all go united (to 
the war).

55. Kinehepend (Sharp-looking) was their leader, and they went over the 
river.

56. And they took all that was there, and despoiled and slew the Tallegwi.

57. Piniokhaszewi (Stirring-about) was next chief, and then the Tallegwi 
were much too strong.

58. Teuchekensit (Open-path) followed, and many towns were given up to him.

59. Paganchihilla was chief, and the Tallegwi all went southward.

60. Haltanwulaton (the Possessor) was sakima, and all the people were 
pleased.

61. South of the lakes they settled their council-fire, and north of the 
lakes were their friends the Talamatan (Hurons?).

Nothing could be more interesting to the lover of American archaeology 
than a study of this song-with the single exception perhaps of the Lenape 
stone, the most remarkable Indian document in existence. The latter part 
of the story here given, is even less suggestive than the preceding 
portions, which we have been obliged to omit.

The generations of chiefs, which it recites in order, seem to include 
thousands of years, and as we read its account of a creation and a deluge, 
of the passage of a great water upon the ice, and an arrival at a "Land of 
Firs," we almost pardon the extravagant speculations of Rafinesque, to 
which it gave rise.

Both versions of the account tell the same story, yet there is one 
striking difference between them. In the Heckewelder version the allies of 
the Lenape are spoken of as "Mengwi" (Iroquois, Mingoes); in the Wallum 
Olum as "Talamatan" (Hurons, called Delamattenos by the Delawares); but 
the variance is reconciled when we consider that in ancient times, as 
their language and traditions prove, the Hurons and Iroquois were one 
closely allied nation, constituting one family or linguistic stock.

We may doubt, however, whether the great river crossed in the migration-
"Namaesi Sipu" (Fish River) in Heckewelder, and "Messussipu" in the Wallum 
Olum--referred to the Mississippi.

The Huron-Iroquois will tell us, when questioned, that at an early period, 
and while the families were still united, his people, coming originally 
from the northeast of Canada, migrated to the southward, and had not come 
from the west across the Mississippi ; he too has traditions of crossing a 
river and attacking a race of mound-builders, but the river of his account 
was crossed to the southward, and lay on the north of the mound-builders' 
Country. The Iroquois tradition is given in a famous passage, supposed to 
refer to the mound-builders, in the account of David Cusic, a native 
Iroquois, of the Tuscarora clan, who wrote a history of his tribe. We give 
it here in the original, uncorrected form, as published by Schoolcraft.

Referring to an early age of monsters, demi-gods, giants, and horned 
serpents, when the Hurons and Iroquois, were as yet but one people, and 
they and other tribes, "the northern nations," possessed the banks of the 
great lakes, "where there were plenty of beavers," but "where the hunters 
we re often opposed by the big Snakes," Cusic goes on to say that "on one 
occasion the northern nations formed a confederacy, and seated a great 
council-fire on the river St. Lawrence. Perhaps about 2,200 years before 
the Columbus discovered the America, the northern nations appointed a 
prince, and immediately repaired to the south and visited the Great 
Emperor, who resided at the Golden City, a capital of the vast Empire. 
After a time the Emperor built many forts throughout his dominions, and 
almost penetrated the Lake Erie. This produced an excitement; the people 
on the north felt that they would soon be deprived of the country on the 
south side of the great lakes. They determined to defend their country 
against any infringement of foreign people; long, bloody wars ensued, 
which lasted about one hundred years. The people of the north were too 
skillful in the use of bows and arrows, and could endure hardships which 
proved fatal to a foreign people; at last the northern nations gained the 
conquest, and all the towns and forts were totally destroyed, and left 
them in the heap of ruins."

It has been supposed that the upper St. Lawrence or Detroit River, streams 
noticed by the Indians as abounding in fish, was the "Fish River" of the 
Heckewelder tradition. Here, as we have seen according to information 
collected from the Lenni Lenape, desperate battles had taken place with 
the Allegwi, hundreds of whom were slain and buried under mounds in that 
vicinity. [See article on "Indian Migrations" by Horatio Hale, American 
Antiquarian, Jan.-April, 1883.]

Other considerations, too, induce us to suppose that the Lenape and Huron-
Iroquois invasion came from the northward and not from the west. If we 
study the shape and position of the mounds themselves along the southern 
shore of the great lakes, we find that they present often the appearance 
of fortifications erected against the advance of an enemy from the north, 
and suddenly abandoned after a long struggle. Also the scattered 
implements and half-removed blocks of ore found in the prehistoric copper 
mines on the south shore of Lake Superior, seemed to indicate their hasty 
desertion by the miners upon the sudden inroad of an enemy from that 
direction.

Again, the works of the mound-builders, though at some points 
insignificant and hardly perceptible, extend considerably west of the 
Mississippi, and probably would have been encountered by the advancing 
Lenape before reaching that river, and had it been the stream meant it 
would not have been spoken of as the boundary of the mound-builders' 
empire. 

[On the other hand, how shall we account for the occurrence of the word 
Messusipu in the Wallurn Olum, or, more exactly, in the Rafinesque copy of 
it-the only version we possess?]

[Messusipu is derived, says Squier, from the Algonkin words Messu, Messi, 
or Michi (great), and Sipu (river).]

[The name Mississippi is of Algonkin origin, and has the same etymology, -
it means "great river." Among the Algonkin tribes living to the north and 
along the eastern shore of the Mississippi, the Sauks called it Mechasapo, 
the Menomonees Mecha-sepua, the Kicapoos Meche-sepe, the Chippeways Meze-
zebe, and the Ottawas Missis-sepi ; Mecha, Meche, Meze, Missis, meaning 
"great," and sapo, sepua, sepe, zebe, and sepi, "river." (Wisconsin Hist. 
Col., ix., 301.)]

[The Lenape word Messusipu must therefore refer to the Mississippi. Yet we 
may suppose that Rafinesque had written the word by mistake in his copy of 
the Wallum Olurn, a supposition which gains strength from the fact that 
Messuspu plainly appears in his manuscript to have been changed to 
Namasipi. Had he been comparing his copy with the original "painted 
sticks" or some other Indian authority not mentioned? or did he merely 
borrow the word Namasipi from Heckewelder? Again we may suppose the word 
Messusipu to have been an indefinite term applied by the Lenape to more 
than one of the great streams crossed by them in their migrations.]

The Wallum Olum, however, with its hieroglyphics, does not end with the 
brief extract given. Song five, consisting of fifty-eight verses, recounts 
the details of the occupation by the conquerors of the Ohio valley, and 
long wars with enemies denominated "Father Snakes," "Stone Snakes," and 
"North Snakes," whose pictograph in the original manuscript is here given 
(fig. 18). They pass the Alleghenies, and exploring the Chesapeake Bay and 
great rivers of "the large and long cast land," finally establish 
themselves on the Delaware, making "Maskekitong," the rapids at Trenton, 
the centre of their dominions. We have now reached the time of the coming 
of the whites, and the last verses of the song speak in brief simplicity 
of a people who came from somewhere, "and that which was white" (ships) 
"coming from the East Sea."

Fig. 18

There is still another song--the sixth--continuing the chronicle and 
recounting the melancholy story of the Lenape's contact with the whites, 
and final westward journey to Ohio, where the records were obtained. A 
narrativc of sufferings and hard wrongs, whose recital by the Indian had 
caused Heckewelder, as he said, "to feel ashamed that he was a white man."

The symbols appended to the songs, and among which the forms of the 
rectangle and circle frequently occur, end with the fifth song; they 
appear very arbitrary, and it is certainly disappointing to find that they 
bear no resemblance to the carvings upon the Lenape stone, likewise, as we 
have supposed, productions of the Lenni Lenape and dealing with the same 
subject. Yet we need not be surprised when we consider the varied and 
often arbitrary methods of Indian picture-writing.

In comparing the carvings on the reverse of the Lenape stone with the 
Lenape and Huron-Iroquois traditions of their early migration and struggle 
with the mound-builders, we have spoken only of probabilities. Possibly 
these carvings may refer to the incantations of the prophets and doctors, 
to songs for "medicine hunting," or charms against evil spirits, and not 
to the. history of the tribe, as recounted in the Wallum Olum and the 
narratives of Heckewelder and Cusic. Possibly, too, the modern Indians who 
have seen the carvings may have entirely mistaken their subject, as 
similar signs are used in quite different kinds of their picture-writing. 
Yet if we view the chief feature' of the Lenape stone--the mammoth 
picture--as an example of muzzinabik or historical picture-writing, an 
attempt to explain the carvings on the reverse of the stone as specimens 
of the same class of writings does not seem extravagant. Viewed in the 
light of these legends, and compared with the fragments of ancient Indian 
history which chance has preserved to us, the carvings upon the Lenape 
stone vividly impress upon our minds the reality of that dark period of 
our continent's past, antecedent to the first corning of the white man, 
separated from us by but a few centuries, yet where the boundary line 
between history and geology becomes indistinct, when for hundreds, perhaps 
thousands, of years the Indian lived alone on the "great island," and 
while those deep-rooted peculiarities of his character, which civilization 
has failed to eradicate, were slowly growing out of his wilderness life.

The ancient presence of the Lenape is often remembered in the heart of his 
former dominions. Along the shores of the beautiful river, whose 
transatlantic name, applied also to his tribe, he resented, the arrow-head 
and tomahawk, everywhere found upon sites of ancient camps and fishing-
grounds, tell of the long centuries of his. possession. His memory lingers 
in the name and poetry of our Indian summer; and in that most delightful 
of autumnal seasons, when a warm wind blowing from the abode of the Great 
Spirit stirs the fields of ripened maize, we may see, where first the 
Indian's fancy must have seen it, a suggestion of his head-dress of 
feathers in the graceful motion of the corn-stalks. He is immortalized in 
richly melodious names of rivers, streams, and mountains, and his memory 
is forever recalled in the yearly growth, of that noblest of American 
plants, the Indian corn.

In concluding here our view of the less distinct though not improbable 
reference of the carvings on the reverse of the Lenape stone to the 
ancient historical traditions of the Delawares, a brief review of the 
subject of the foregoing pages may not be out of place.

We have seen that the stone was found at a spot situated in the ancient 
territory of the Delawares, and where many articles of undoubted Indian 
workmanship have been found,--among them two carved stones, [See 
Appendix]--that similar aboriginal carvings of the hairy mammoth have been 
discovered in Europe, and that a race of men, relics of whom have been 
found on the Delaware river and in California, and who may or may not have 
been the ancestors of the modern Indian, have existed in North America at 
the time of the mammoth. Moreover, that as yet nothing is definitely known 
as to the antiquity of the Indians' occupancy of our continent, and that 
there is no geological evidence to prove that the. mammoth did not survive 
in America to a comparatively recent period. We have seen further that the 
Indians in several of their traditions attribute the mammoth bones seen by 
them on the Ohio to a great monster who was destroyed by lightning, and 
that there is a similarity too strong to be accidental between the Lenape 
tradition of the great Buffalo and the carving on the stone; finally, we 
may see perhaps a reference in the carvings on the reverse of the stone to 
the early Delaware traditions of their migration to the eastward and wars 
with. the mound-builders, as detailed in Heckewelder's account, the 
"Wallum Olum," and David Cusic's history.



APPENDIX.

STATEMENT OF BERNARD Z. HANSELL.

ON the writer's second visit to Hansell, the latter was at his father's 
farm. He stated that the photographs shown him were representations of the 
stone, and said that he considered that he had been cheated. He had had no 
idea of the stone's value, and declared that it was a "mean trick," the 
purchase of all his relics-the stone included-for $2.50. When it was 
explained to him that Mr. Paxon, the purchaser, had been as ignorant as he 
in the matter at the time, he seemed satisfied.

On the third visit, February 10th, Hansell said:

I am sure that I found the large piece first, in the spring of 1872 (the 
year after my father bought the place-1871), and while "ploughing for 
oats" in the "corner" field, and near the corner where the by-road joins 
the Durham road the roots of the last year's corn crop had shortly before 
been harrowed out. It was in April. When I saw it, it was lying on the top 
of the ground, a little to one side of the furrow. I stopped and picked it 
up; it seemed like "something different" from what I had ever found 
before. It was dirty-dirt stuck to the stone; by rubbing, I could see 
lines-"queer marks" over it. (When I afterward saw it at Mr. Paxon's, the 
latter had "cleaned it.")

I am certain I saw an animal like an elephant on it before Mr. Paxon saw 
the stone. I carried it around a day or two in my pocket, and then put it 
in a box along with the other things; and whatever arrow-heads and other 
relics I found, I would put into the same box. The same day, I planted a 
cornstalk into the ground to mark the place--a shower might wash out 
something else, I thought. I left the cornstalk until the hats harvest, 
and then threw a stone there, but I soon came to now the place by heart. 
The box with the relics I kept locked up in my trunk, and I took care to 
keep it locked, there were so many boys about. In the meantime, I was 
married. I showed the relics and stone to my wife, but she could not 
remember the elephant on the stone. I might have showed it to father, or 
might not, I am not sure. He could not remember. In the same field, I and 
others on the place found arrow-heads, coins (English and American 
pennies), and a part of a tomahawk or banner stone (sold to Mr. Paxon). I 
did not find any thing else in that field, but "gorget stones" without 
inscriptions, and round stone balls, with incisions on sides, were found 
near by.

In the spring of 1881, Mr. Paxon asked, me whether I had any Indian 
relics. I said that I had. I told him I would be home on Sunday, and he 
came the next Sunday afternoon about May or June, as nearly as I can 
recollect,--1881 I brought out the box of relics, and told him that I 
would sell him the perfect arrow-heads for ten cents, and the broken ones 
five cents apiece. I had a broken tomahawk and a piece of another, and I 
laid them and the stone aside, and said I thought I would keep them. But 
he did not take much interest in the rest, and said he wanted all the 
relics. He did not look much at the arrow-heads, but he picked up the 
stone and turned it around, and wet his thumb and rubbed it. He did not 
say any thing about the stone. I did not much want to sell him the stone, 
for I never saw any thing like it before.

But he said he would take all the relics or none for $2.50. So I let him 
have them. At the same time he asked me whether I had not the other piece; 
perhaps I had, he said, and did not know it. I told him that I had not.

About a month after that time, he came by on foot and asked me whether I 
had found any thing more? I said that I had not. "If you do," he said, 
"keep it and give me the first chance."

I always had the other piece in my mind, and when I went in the field I 
used to look for it. I would walk a I round the spot in a circle, for I 
thought some one might have picked it up and then thrown it away again.

After we had cut the corn in the field, and as I went in to husk, I 
happened to pass near the place--I always remember the place,--I was 
thinking of the other piece, and was hardly in the field before I picked 
it up. I noticed the marks and the shape, and saw at once that it was the 
missing piece. It had notches around the edges. I put it in my pocket and 
laid it in the drawer. My wife never saw it. It was the little piece. I 
was married then and in my own house, and there was nobody about the 
house, so I did not lock it up.

This was in the fall--after the exhibition at Doylestown (October), in 
1881. When I went down to Mr. Paxon's father's, Squire Paxon's, to pay my 
tax, on the 9th of November, 1881, I took this piece along. Young Mr. 
Paxon was not at home, but I waited till he came back. I said I had 
something "pretty nice" for him, and showed him the missing piece. He 
thought when he saw it that I would make him pay pretty dear for it, but I 
told him that I would give it to him. I had not rubbed or cleaned it. He 
put the pieces together and said "that is the missing piece." He took me 
up to his room and gave me some minerals. I advised him to glue the pieces 
together with "hickory cement." I had some of this cement at home, and 
offered to give it to him.

The next spring I saw the stone again, all washed and cleaned. It did not 
look altered--only clean and rubbed off. I saw it again this February 
(1884) when you and Mr. Paxon came to see me, and I saw no change in it.

I never sold a relic before I sold those to Harry Paxon, and never knew 
any one from Philadelphia that took any interest in Indian relics. I used 
to give things away to relatives of mine, often boys--my cousins, when 
they came up from town. They had never seen any thing like an arrow-head 
before. I never gave a stone to any one but a relative. William Hansell, 
my brother, a little boy, saw me pick up the small piece of the Lenape 
Stone. I never heard of any one in this neighborhood interested in Indian 
relics before Mr. Paxon.

The first things that I remember giving away were a couple of black arrow-
heads that I gave to James Aikens, in 1871. He lives in Germantown. This 
was before I found the stone.

[Signed] BERNARD Z. HANSELL.

Sworn to before

BENJAMIN S. RICH, J. P., Nov. 6, 1884.


The writer questioned Hansell's wife. She remembered his having shown her 
the relics before they were sold to Mr. Paxon, but had paid no attention 
to "these little stones he picks up," and did not remember whether "this 
stone you are talking about" was among them or not. The writer also 
questioned Hansell's father and mother. Neither had seen the stone. The 
boy, William Hansell, brother of Bernard, said that he had seen the little 
piece when Bernard picked it up, but had never seen the large piece of the 
stone. The piece he had seen was covered with dirt and mud, and had "half 
a hole" in it. Bernard had told him that he was going to give it to Mr. 
Paxon.


STATEMENT OF MR. HENRY D. PAXON.

I remember Hansell telling me of his Indian relics at my father's office. 
I went to see him on a Sunday, and he showed me, in the wood-shed, a 
tobacco-box half full of relics, among them the large piece of the Lenape 
Stone. At the time I never realized what it was. It was covered with dirt, 
as were all the relics. There must have been about two hundred arrow-
heads, broken and perfect, besides a broken axe and fragments of a banner 
stone, and one or two large spears and so-called "gigs." The stone struck 
me as an extraordinary Indian relic. Buying the relics, I brought them 
home that Sunday afternoon, and at once showed them to my father. He saw 
the elephant. Whether I had noticed it before I cannot remember. Mr. John 
S. Ash saw this first piece--the large piece--before Capt. Bailey saw it. 
I showed it to any and everybody that came to my father's office, but can 
only be sure now of Mr. Ash. Capt. Bailey saw it and borrowed it while 
preparing his article. I had it at the Bucks County Bi-Centennial 
Exhibition, August 31, September 1 and 2, 1882. I did not particularly 
value the stone until I read Capt. Bailey's article. I cleaned out the 
soil which clung to the stone with a toothbrush, and may also have used a 
stick-but I think not a nail.

[Signed] HENRY D. PAXON.

Sworn to before

ELIAS EASTBURN, J. P., Nov. 8, 1884.

 

STATEMENT OF MR. ALBERT PAXON.

Young Hansell and his father were at my house on business (I am justice of 
the Peace). They had rented a house. I think it was on a Saturday in '8o 
or '81, in the summer. The next day my son went to Hansell's and brought 
back a large number of Indian relics. He had invested two or three dollars 
in them. In the lot was one of the pieces of the stone. I remember saying 
that it was a pity he had not the other half. The lines were not cleaned 
out. I recollect the elephant. He emptied the relics on the floor of the 
piazza. It was early summer, and warm weather-about May or June,--and I 
think on Sunday. I am certain of having seen the elephant the first day he 
got the stone. Bernard Hansell, I find in my book, paid his tax November 
8, '81, but I am not positive in these dates to a day. There is not, and 
never has been, to my knowledge, any strange or suspicious person of an 
"archaeological turn" in this neighborhood, and there is no one here 
clever enough to have made the stone. 

[Signed] ALBERT S. PAXON.

Affirmed before

JAMES GILKYSON, J. P., Nov. 8, 1884.

 

STATEMENT OF MR. JOHN S. ASH, OF GREENVILLE, NOVEMBER 8, 1884.

At the time of my first seeing the Lenape Stone, I observed an elephant or 
mammoth carved upon the fragment. I cannot now fix the date of my first 
seeing this piece. Probably it was some three years since, though it may 
not be two and may be four. I think it was before the Bucks County Bi-
Centennial Exhibition. 

[Signed] JOHN S. ASH.

Affirmed before ELIAS EASTBURN, J. P., Nov. 8, 1884.

 

STATEMENT OF CAPT. J. S. BAILEY.

I saw the stone first, I think, in November, in the fall of 1881, and a 
few days after Mr. Paxon had obtained the second piece. He had said to me 
that he had a curious stone which he wished to show me. I remember his 
mentioning the figure of a turtle, a snake, and an elephant carved on the 
stone, although he did not first mention the elephant figure or show that 
he appreciated the mammoth. It was not till he had read my article in the 
county newspaper that he came to know the value of the carving. He was 
only eighteen or nineteen then, and I believe would have sold the stone 
for a comparatively trifling sum. As soon as I took the stone home, after 
Mr. Paxon had lent it to me, all my family saw it. Judge Paxon, his uncle, 
did not realize its archaeological importance, neither did Mr. Paxon, the 
owner's father. I showed it to judge Paxon before I wrote the article. The 
first time Mr. Harry Paxon showed me the stone I remember his saying that 
"he could sell it for five dollars." He wanted me to glue or cement the 
pieces together, but I discountenanced the plan. I think he must have 
scraped out the original soil clinging to it, with a nail or some sharp 
instrument, and I told him that he had cleaned the lines too much and that 
the stone had lost the look of age. The next time I saw it he bad filled 
the lines with clay, and this I advised him to remove, as it did not 
resemble the soil of the original field. So the next time I saw it he had 
cleaned it again. I took the stone to the January or April meeting of the 
Bucks County Historical Society, 1882, and showed it to all the members 
present. I showed it to Gen. Davis, who advised me in connection with it 
to prepare an article on the Indian relics found in Bucks County, to be 
read before the July meeting at Penn's Manor. A few days after that I 
returned the stone to Mr. Paxon. Somewhere in June or July (1882) I
borrowed it again, and kept it until two or three weeks after the meeting 
at Pennsbury. This meeting was on the third Tuesday in July, 1882. Mr. 
Paxon did not go to the meeting, but after reading my article in the paper 
he set a higher value on his relic and wished me to return it. I do not 
recollect seeing either part separately. The two pieces were together when 
I first saw it. I think Hansell told me that the large part had been found 
first. Very many people saw the stone at my lecture at Penn's Manor. I had 
a large diagram of the inscription, several feet long. Two hundred people 
must have seen it. There was an article in the Bucks County Intelligencer 
about it, and it was at the Bi-Centennial and there seen by everybody.

[Signed] JOHN S. BAILEY.

Affirmed to before

ELIAS EASTBURN, J. P., Nov. 8, 1884.

 

Letter from Dr. D. G. Brinton, Professor of Archaeology and Ethnology in 
the Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia.

To the Editor of the Bucks County "Intelligencer"

The discussion in your paper about the so-called "Lenape Stone," in which 
my name has incidentally been, introduced, leads me to address you a few 
lines on some archaeological points, especially on the methods of 
distinguishing genuine from fabricated specimens. I shall only refer to 
the Lenape Stone by way of illustration. It was first shown to me by 
Professor Lewis, and after a careful inspection I pronounced it a modern 
piece of work, which opinion has been substantiated by later observers. My 
opinion was based, first, on the design, and secondly, on the execution. 
It may be laid down as a rule, holding good in all aboriginal designs of 
the Eastern United States, that no lines indicating either shading or 
rounding axe found on figures of pure native origin. Every line was 
significant, and nothing was done for affect. Grouping was also unknown, 
and any such triple arrangement as the brute, the human, and the divine 
groups, standing in immediate relation to each other and forming parts of 
a picture, as appears on the Lenape Stone, was as far above aboriginal 
aesthetic conceptions as the Sistine Madonna would be above the execution 
of a sign-painter. Certain artistic details, as the lightnings shooting in 
various directions from a central point (as from the hand of Jove), were 
also unknown to the art notions of the red race. The treatment of the sun 
as a face, with rays shooting from it, I also consider foreign to the 
pictography of the Delaware Indians, nor have I yet seen any specimens 
proved to be of their manufacture that present it. It is found, indeed, in 
Chippeway pictography, but there only in late examples.

The execution of such imitations also usually betrays their origin. The 
lines on the Lenape Stone are obviously cut with a metal instrument, 
making clean incisions, deepest in the centre and tapering to points-quite 
different from the scratch of a flint point. Shrewder fabricators than the 
unknown .author of this one make use of flint points. Some of the Western 
"tablets" have been so inscribed. They may thus conceal their tools, but 
there are other resources for the archaeologist. The surface of all stones 
undergoes a certain chemical change on exposure to the air, which is 
called by the French term patine. In many varieties, as flints, jasper, 
and hard shales, this affords a decisive means of discriminating a modern 
from an ancient inscription or arrow-head. It requires the use of the 
microscope and some practice, but with these most of such impostures can 
be detected. This does not exhaust the resources at the command of the 
antiquary to circumvent those who would practise on his love for relics of 
the past. But I have said enough to show that opinions on relics need 
neither be vague nor prejudiced. It is most desirable that the citizens of 
our Commonwealth should take an earnest interest in the collection of our 
aboriginal remains, and it is gratifying to learn that Bucks County is not 
behindhand in this direction. 

Respectfully yours,

[Signed] D. G. BRINTON, M.D.

From the Bucks County Intelligencer of Sept. 6, 1884.

 

Letter from Mr. H. Carvill Lewis, Professor of Mineralogy, Academy of 
Natural Sciences, Philadelphia.

PHILADELPHIA, Feb. 19, 1884.

CAPT. J. S. BAILEY:

Dear Sir.--Upon careful examination I am convinced that the mammoth on the 
Indian tablet is a forgery, being copied directly from the drawing of a 
mammoth on a piece of ivory found in the cave of La Madeleine, Perigord, 
France. The tablet is genuine, but the drawing upon it is recent.

Who do you think perpetrated this fraud? 

Yours, very truly,

[Signed] H. CARVILL LEWIS.

 

Letter from Dr. F. W. Putnam, Curator of the Peabody Museum of 
Archaeology, Cambridge, Mass.

CAMBRIDGE, March 17, 1884. 

DEAR Mr. MERCER:

In answer to your request, I put on paper a few thoughts in relation to 
the carved gorget of slate said to have been found in Bucks Co., Penna. It 
is needless to say that I have examined the stone with great care; for if 
it is a work of prehistoric times in America, it is a specimen of very 
great archaeological interest. The first impression I received was that it 
was probably a fraud. This was of course natural, after having seen 
several gorgets with figures carved upon them which were unquestionable 
frauds. I therefore first of all examined the stone, and was sorry to find 
that it had been so much cleaned, and rubbed, and scrubbed, and probably 
oiled, that no evidence could be derived from the character of the lines 
cut upon the surface of the stone, or from the stone itself, bearing upon 
its antiquity. So far as the testimony of the stone itself is concerned, 
the lines may have been cut within a few weeks or many years ago. Throwing 
out of consideration all the facts you have given me in relation to the 
history of the stone as known to you, I am left with the character of the 
carvings alone upon which to draw conclusions. From a study of these I get 
the following results:

1st. The person who carved the stone must have been familiar with the 
appearance of an elephant or mammoth, either from having seen one or the 
other in life or represented in pictures. There is too much expression 
given to the details of outline of forehead, curve of back and belly, and 
position of the legs, representing the animal as walking, to be the work 
of one who only knew the animal from a general description handed down by 
tradition.

2d. Most of the other figures on both sides of the stone are of a 
character common to Indian picture-writing, but there are a few which, 
like the "mammoth," show an appreciation of details or ideas unlike any I 
can recall in Indian picture-writings. Take, for example, the fish on the 
edge of the small piece, and the long eel-like figure by the side of the 
bird--each of these have a few hair-lines drawn from the back as if to 
represent the rays of fins, in order to impress the character of a fish, 
although the rays are out of natural position. The figure of a man on his 
back under the foot of the "mammoth" is not drawn in the usual 
conventional manner, like the figure of the man with the bow. .

3d. The idea of the heavens, conveyed by the figures of stars, moon, and 
sun, is probably not an unusual way of representing the sky or the 
heavens, but the mass of crossed lines near the sun, which are supposed to 
represent lightning, seems to me to be more the conventional symbol of the 
white man than the Indian.

Considering all these points I draw these conclusions:

1st. The carvings were made in ancient times by an Indian of superior 
artistic skill, who had seen a living mammoth, and who wished to preserve 
some myth or tradition relating to the animal, in picture-writing upon his 
gorget; or,

2nd. The carvings were made by an Indian in comparatively recent times, 
with the same idea of preserving a myth about the "great beast," and he 
was aided in his work by some white man; or,

3rd. That the carving is the work of some white man in very recent times, 
who may or may not have known of the myth and tradition of the Indians 
relating to the "mammoth."

An attempt to read the stone as a pictograph illustrating the myth of the 
"great beast " may be going too far, but if it can be shown to be a piece 
of Indian work beyond reasonable doubt, the interpretation of the figures 
in that connection is certainly legitimate from the remarkable coincidence 
between them and the myth.

I certainly hope you will bring every possible evidence to bear in your 
work, and that by a study of many pictographs. you will be able to test 
the doubtful figures on the stone.

Yours very truly,

[Signed] F. W. PUTNAM,

Curator Peabody Museum.

 

Extracts from a report of an examination of the Lenape Stone by Dr. M. E. 
Wadsworth, of Cambridge, Massachusetts. The answers are Dr. Wadsworth's.

Q. Are the carvings made by steel or flint instruments?

A. The depth and regularity of the carvings indicate that they were made 
by some dulled steel tool like an awl.

Q. Are the carvings later than the fracture of the ends and the middle?

A. Later--for the tool-mark can be seen at one end striking across the 
broken surface, and lines crossing the middle fracture do not match on 
both sides. On one side they pass down on the rounded and worn surface of 
the fracture, below their position on the other side. This is seen in all 
the marks (three only) crossing the line of fracture. One other line sinks 
down on one side, and ends against the fractured portion opposite. This 
appears to have been made after the fracture by holding the pieces 
together. It is very remarkable that the line of fracture should cross the 
specimen at the only place it could and intersect the minimum number of 
the lines of carving. Even in two of those cuts, the fracture breaks 
across the point where they cross one another. * * *

[Signed] M. E. WADSWORTH.

Cambridge, Massachusetts,

March 17, 1884.

 

Extracts from a report of an examination of the Lenape Stone by Mr. J. P. 
Iddings, of the U. S. Coast Survey. The answers are Mr. Iddings'.

Q. Can it be decided beyond reasonable doubt whether the carvings were 
made with a steel or flint instrument--is there a great probability either 
way?

A. I do not know.

Q. Are the carvings beyond a reasonable doubt later than the fracture in 
the middle--(or other fractures)?

A. They appear to be later than the middle fracture; they do not lie at 
the same depth on the edges of both pieces. The small arrow's shaft does 
not appear to have been a continuous line. It is interesting to note that 
the middle fracture only crosses three lines on one side and none on the 
other side, and that in no other position could one happen without cutting 
half a dozen or more. The carvings appear to have been arranged with 
reference to the break.

[Signed] JOSEPH P. IDDINGS.

New York, March 24, 1884.

 

Letter from Dr. F. W. Putnam referring to the two carved stones (figs. 19 
and 20) found on the Hansell Farm in the summer of 1884.

CAMBRIDGE, MASS., Oct. 30, 1884 

DEAR Mr. MERCER:

I have examined the two specimens you have placed in my hands from the 
Hansell Farm, Bucks Co., Penn., and see no reason to doubt their 
authenticity. The lines cut upon them seem to have been made a long time 
since, as exhibited by the weatherings within the incisions. One stone 
seems first to have been designed for a perforated ornament, but not 
completed, and was afterwards used as a rubbing implement, as shown by the 
notches on the edge. The other stone is of a natural form, in which two 
holes have been drilled, and on one surface a number of waves and zigzag 
lines were cut, evidently for the purpose of using the stone for an 
ornament.

Yours very truly,

[Signed] F. W. PUTNAM.

 

The reader is referred to a series of articles mentioning the Lenape Stone 
in the Bucks County Intelligencer of August 9, 23, and 30, and September 
20, 1884, and headed, "Who Perpetrated the Forgery?" also to a personal 
discussion which took place in the columns of that newspaper between the 
owner of the Stone and Mr. H. C. Lewis, of the Academy of Natural 
Sciences, Philadelphia, in which arise various questions of veracity as to 
the facts of an interview which had taken place between them i. e., 
whether Mr. Lewis had or had not wished to buy the Stone, and how long he 
had been allowed the loan of it; whether he had or had not been permitted 
to take photographs; and whether he or Mr. Paxon had scratched the surface 
of the Stone "to see its inside structure."

After a fair consideration of every fact bearing upon the case, and with 
ample knowledge to judge of the particulars of this interview at the time 
it took place, personal considerations prevent the writer from discussing 
the merits of this controversy, purely personal in its nature and 
irrelevant to the question before us.


EVIDENCE OF AN HONEST DISCOVERY.

The first evidence to be certain of in a case of this kind is doubtless 
that deducible from the circumstances attending the discovery itself, and 
upon it, in the present instance, for the reason that the Stone has been 
cleaned, and all vestiges of the soil which originally clung to it 
unfortunately removed, we must chiefly depend.

The fact that several persons saw the first fragment immediately after it 
left Hansell's hands, throws back the period of possible doubt as to its 
authenticity to the nine years of his ownership, while the remarkable 
skill and archaeological knowledge necessary to forge such a stone place 
him as the possible maker of the carvings above the slightest suspicion. 
The motive of gain must be eliminated from the possibilities of the case, 
when we consider the trifling sum received by Hansell for the relics, and 
the fact that the small piece was presented by him to the present owner, 
while the supposition that he could have been in collusion with any person 
unknown for the purpose of a practical joke is rendered impossible by his 
own honest simplicity and the conduct of his family and friends 
throughout. Again, no one clever enough to have made the relic could have 
been a neighbor of Hansell's and remained unknown or unsuspected, and it 
is quite absurd to suppose that some one from a distance, having entrusted 
the fortunes of so elaborate a practical joke to the fragments of this 
small stone, would have "planted" the results of his labor in Buckingham 
Township, Bucks County, where the chances were very strongly against its 
being brought to the notice of archaeologists, even if discovered.


OBJECTIONS OF ARCHAEOLOGISTS.

From the a-posteriori point of view--i. e., from the character and 
appearance of the carving, there are objections which have been considered 
important to the Stone's authenticity; these the writer has carefully 
noted, and will allow them to speak for themselves.

First, in the opinion of Messrs. M. E. Wadsworth, of Cambridge, and Joseph 
P. Iddings, of the United States Coast Survey, the carvings were made 
after the Stone was broken. The fact is proved, they say, by the 
appearance of certain lines crossing the fracture, as in the case of the 
lightning above the hole on the right, which, when exposed to the 
microscope, seem as they cross to descend into it.

Secondly, the fracture, they say, crosses the minimum number of carvings 
as if they had been arranged with reference to it.

Thirdly, the mammoth on the Stone resembles the La Madeleine carving.

As to the first point--the carving being later than the fracture,--Dr. F. 
W. Putnam (of the Peabody Museum, Cambridge, Mass.) observes, on the other 
hand It is possible that an Indian might have Made his carving on a broken 
gorget, and there is no reason why he should have discontinued his work if 
the gorget were broken during the carving, a likely thing to happen,"--
nor, we may add, need it be difficult to suppose that the Indian would 
have glued the pieces together or cleaned out the grooves crossing the 
fracture. In such a case the instrument would naturally have broken 
somewhat into the fracture--"sinking down," as Dr. Wadsworth says, "and 
ending against the fractured portion opposite," while the subsequent 
weathering and brushing might account for the slight difference in level 
of the lines on either side of the break. Again, supposing the mammoth 
carving to have been made before the fracture, the carvings on the reverse 
of the Stone, and the apparently meaningless scratch below the 
perforation, which, as it were, skips the fracture, may have been made 
long after it. As Dr. Putnam says: "The fact that a very large number of 
perforated stones are broken when found is worthy of consideration, and 
also that in most cases the fracture is through one of the holes." As 
regards the resemblance of the mammoth on the Stone to the La Madeleine 
carving, a point which after a careful examination of all the facts struck 
Professor Shaler, of Harvard, as suspicious, there is certainly in the 
outline of the tail and the indicisive drawing of the back a great 
similarity in the treatment of the two figures; while, on the other hand, 
as Dr. Charles Rau, of the Smithsonian Institute, supposes, the 
resemblance may perhaps be ascribed to accident, the drawing of the head, 
ear, trunk, and hair being, as he suggests, totally dissimilar. The 
seeming repetition of the outline, of the back in the two figures may 
perhaps be looked upon as a suggestion of the mane-like ridge of hair, 
which, as seen in some of the reconstructions, extended along the back of 
the animal from the neck to the tail; and it may be observed that any two 
profile drawings of the same animal, as realistic as the above, would 
naturally possess striking points of resemblance. Dr. D. G. Brinton, of 
the Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, objects, in a letter above 
quoted to the Bucks County Intelligencer, that "no lines indicating 
shading or rounding arc found in the aboriginal designs of pure native 
origin in the Eastern United States," that in these designs grouping was 
unknown, and that "any such triple arrangement as the brute, the human, 
and the divine groups standing in immediate relation to each other and 
forming parts of a picture, was far above aboriginal aesthetic
conceptions," that "lightnings shooting from a central point (as from the 
hand of Jove) were unknown to the art-notions of the fed race," and that 
the treatment of the sun as a face with rays shooting from it, I also 
consider foreign to the pictography of the Delaware Indians; nor have I 
yet seen any specimens proved to be of their manufacture that present it. 
It is found, indeed, in Chippeway pictography, but there only in late 
examples."

To this we can only say that nothing is more common than "grouping" in the 
pictography of our modern. Western Indians, while the more ancient 
pictographs of the pre-Columbian Indian, a study of which would be 
necessary in forming definite opinions, as to their character, have been 
almost entirely lost to us.

These were probably very rarely carved upon stone or made upon any thing 
but the most perishable materials, and few have survived the bigotry or 
indifference of the early settlers and explorers. Their character is, we 
think, not fully represented by the meagre data furnished us from the 
allusions of the early writers, the Chippeway bark records, the "wallurn 
olum," or the rock inscriptions now within the student's reach, and from 
which we are left to draw our conclusions as to the evolution of 
"grouping" or "shading," or the ability of the Indian to treat the sun, 
moon, and stars, or lightning.

There could have been no great mental chasm, we think, between the 
aesthetic conceptions of the modern Sioux or Comanche, who pictures a 
buffalo hunt on his robe, and those of his pre-Columbian red brother, who, 
as Loskiel says, painted his "bedeutende figuren" on the trees of a 
Pennsylvania forest.

Domenich says, in the "History of North America," p. 426: "We have seen 
painted upon bark the representation of a Chippeway emigration, passing 
through rivers, forests, and mountains, on their way from the borders of a 
lake to a more civilized country; above the river were creeks and trees, 
symbols of forests, and tumuli indicating mountains; finally, on top of 
the picture a dozen animals, totems of the Chippeway chiefs, each with a 
heart in his breast."

The same author says, again: "One seldom sees a garment on which there is 
not a drawing in black, yellow, red, white, or blue, representing. guns, 
lances, heads of hair, arrows, shields, the sun, moon, men, horses, roads, 
etc., and sometimes mythological objects."

Possessed as we elsewhere find of a considerable power of delineation of 
which our present extremely insufficient vestiges can give us no adequate 
idea, and having already conceived the idea of a "brute, human, and divine 
group" in his numerous traditions of a great monster, the enemy of man, 
destroyed by divine wrath and lightnings, we can by no means think that 
the ancient Delaware would have found it more difficult than the Chippeway 
mentioned above, to express his conception in a rude picture involving 
such a triple grouping.


TREATMENT OF THE SUN IN INDIAN PICTOGRAPHY.

As to the "treatment of the sun," we find faces with rays, or divergent 
curves, in Schoolcraft, vol. L, p. 36,2, figs. 16 and 17, and p. 409, fig 
9; vol.- iii., p. 493,--a circle with rays in the rock inscription 
(Delaware perhaps) on the Susquehanna near the Maryland line, a face 
without rays in the rock inscription (also Delaware, possibly) at Safe 
Harbor on the Susquehanna, and a face with rays, the counterpart of the 
carving in question, on a small broken tablet found near Akron, Ohio, in 
the collection of the late Mr. Dupont, of Philadelphia, who had no doubt 
of its authenticity.


LIGHTNING IN INDIAN PICTOGRAPHY.

The marks in the picture evidently representing forked lightning, and 
directed as in the language of the tradition at the forehead of the beast, 
are without parallel among the Indian pictographs within the writer's 
reach. The symbolic snake, or barbed zigzag of the Moquis-the only Indian 
lightning that the writer has been able to find differs greatly from this, 
yet there seems no good reason why the Indian should not have sometimes 
represented lightning as he saw it.


LINES CUT BY STEEL AND FLINT INSTRUMENTS.

As to the steel-cut appearance of the lines, Dr. Brinton says: "The lines 
on the Lenape Stone are obviously cut with a steel instrument, making 
clean incisions, deepest in the centre and tapering to points, quite 
different from the scratch of a flint point"; and Dr. M. E. Wadsworth 
thinks that "the depth and regularity of, the carvings indicate that they 
were made with some dulled steel tool like an awl." On the other hand Mr. 
J. E. Iddings does not know whether it is possible thus to distinguish the 
work of steel and flint instruments, and a series of experiments with the 
microscope and steel and flint points has induced the writer to believe 
that lines cut on a similar stone by "a dulled steel instrument" and a 
flint arrow-point cannot be distinguished after both have been washed and 
scrubbed.

The appearance of such lines would of course depend much upon the 
sharpness of the flint or steel point, the kind of stone. used, and 
whether the lines were cut by one or by a series of strokes. The single 
scratch of a scissors point on a shale tablet of similar hardness makes an 
incision in shape like the letter V; that of either an awl or flint arrow-
head one like the letter U; while any line made by either instrument and 
consisting of a series of strokes will have its bottom furrowed by 
parallel grooves, as in the case of the large lines on the Lenape Stone.

The fresh flint-cut grooves, however, when separately examined with the 
microscope, exhibit many faint scratches running along the furrow, not so 
conspicuous in the steel incisions, yet a few applications of soap, water, 
and a scrubbing-brush efface these scratches in both cases, and render the 
surface of the grooves indistinguishably alike and in appearance similar 
to the now polished incisions upon the Lenape Stone. In other respects the 
scratch of the arrow-head can be made of equal depth, clearness, and 
regularity, the flint point, if held carefully, not appearing to tear the 
edges of the incision more than the awl., Moreover, we can cause the flint-
cut line to "taper to a point" or not, as we choose.


NEWLY DISCOVERED INDIAN CARVINGS FROM THE HANSELL FARM.

Fig. 19.--Carved "Gorget" from the Hansell Farm.

Strongly in support of the authenticity of the Lenape Stone and its honest 
discovery, are the two carved stones, figs. 19 and 20 recently discovered 
on the Hansell Farm, while the present paper was preparing and proving 
that: however rare in other localities, small stones were not infrequently 
carved in this neighborhood. Dr. Putnam sees no reason to doubt their 
authenticity," and Professor Shaler, of Harvard College, to whom the 
writer has shown fig. 19, says: "If, upon comparing the incised lines with 
those on the Lenape Stone, it appears that they have the same character--
i. e., the same shape of furrow,--then you will undoubtedly add a good 
deal to the weight of evidence in favor of the antiquity of the other 
ornament."

Fig. 20.--Carved Banner Stone from the Hansell Farm.

Considering, however, the variety of lines which may be cut with a flint 
instrument, we would hesitate to assign great importance to this 
comparison. An examination--with the microscope proves that the lines on 
the gorget, fig. 19, are not so neatly and deeply cut as those on the 
Lenape Stone, and that the bottoms of the grooves are more rounded. While 
most of the lines on the banner stone, fig. 20, "tapering into points," 
seem as deeply and clearly cut as those of the mammoth outline, the 
microscope shows few, if any, scratches on the surface of the grooves, 
which bear all the traces of long exposure to the weather.


OPINION OF INDIANS.

The writer has made several efforts to obtain opinions upon the Lenape 
Stone from modern Indians, particularly Delawares, in the West and in 
Canada. Mr. Horatio Hale, of Toronto, who kindly showed photographs of the 
carvings to several Indians in Canada, among whom were some very 
intelligent Delawares, says that "they thought that the Stone showed 
Indian workmanship, and would have been inclined to consider it authentic 
but for the mammoth, which perplexed them. They had never heard of such a 
creature, and, fearing a hoax, were shy of saying much about the symbols 
on the reverse side of the Stone; the pipes would naturally, they said, 
indicate a treaty; the snow-shoe, that some of the tribes concerned came 
from the North; and the tortoise, hawk, deer, etc., would be the marks or 
totems of the different tribes; with regard to the doubtful figures, they 
could give no explanation."

Of course, the value of these opinions would in each case depend upon the 
tribe to which the Indian belonged, and how far his former knowledge of a 
pictographic art or the traditions of his race may have been lost by many 
years of contact with the whites.


INDIAN PIPE-FORMS.

The strong resemblance of the pipe figure (l) to the modern Sioux 
calumets, made of catlinite or red pipe-stone from the famous quarry in 
Southwestern Minnesota, has been spoken of as another objection to the 
authenticity of the Stone. The form does not occur, as far as the writer 
can learn, in any of the ancient rock-writings of the eastern Algonkins, 
and no pipes of exactly the Sioux shape, which Mr. E. A. Barber, of 
Philadelphia, considers the most modern of Indian pipe-forms, have as yet 
been discovered in the ancient Delaware era, nor even in the mounds.

On the other hand, the profile of the Sioux form itself could not more 
closely correspond with the minute outline, which is too small, perhaps, 
to be taken very strictly, than does the profile of fig. 21--a pipe now in 
the Archaeological Museum, at Salem, Mass., and found by Dr. Putnam, in an 
an cient Indian grave near Beverly, Mass.

Fig. 21.

The other pipe figure, on the stone might easi ly have been suggested by 
the form from the mounds, with a slightly curved base (fig. 22) now in the 
Peabody Museum at Cambridge, Mass., and discovered in a mound in Ohio.

Fig. 22.

INDIAN PICTURE-WRITING.

Schoolcraft, who has been more explicit than other writers respecting the 
picture-writings of the North American Indians, speaks of two distinct 
pictographic systems among the Algonkin tribes, called by them 
respectively Kekeewin and Kekeenowin. The first appeared to be their 
method of recording facts of every-day occurrence, and embraced the 
heraldic devices used upon the grave posts--the communications written 
upon birch bark, and the caution marks, itinerary, hunting, and war 
records inscribed upon the trunks of blazed trees by travelling bands, to 
communicate intelligence to their comrades in the forest. These writings, 
the signs of which were carefully taught to the young, like the language 
of signs common at present to a majority of the Western tribes, could be 
understood by any Indian. Loskiel, the Moravian missionary, who makes 
frequent mention of picture records, states that "it gave the Indians 
great pleasure if one halted on cominI g to such a tree, and listened to 
their description of the great chief and his exploits thereon inscribed."

The Kekeenowin, on the other hand,--the pictographic system of the 
prophets, jugglers, and medicine-men,--was far less generally understood 
by the Indians themselves. It was the method used in the historical 
records, sung before the tribe at religious feasts and dances, and was 
likewise invariably employed in the incantations of the priests, prophets, 
and medicine-men, of which Schoolcraft gives seven kinds relating to 
medicine, necromancy, revelry, hunting, prophecy, war, and love.

The chief characteristic of the Kekeenowin is the fact that in it each 
symbol recalled to the mind of the reader learned in the art a song, 
previously committed to memory by him in connection with the symbol, and 
the general idea of which was more or less arbitrarily connected with it. 
"The words of the song," says James, in his appendix to Tanner's 
narrative, "were not variable, but must be learned by heart, otherwise 
though from an inspection of the figure the idea might be comprehended, no 
one would know what to sing." The main object, however, was the 
preservation of the songs, which the priests, on consulting their birch-
bark scrolls or painted wooden tablets, were thus enabled to sing at the 
great feasts, giving the many verses in their proper order. The connection 
between the symbol and the idea expressed by the song was often beyond the 
power of divination to the uninitiated, and the key to these sacred 
incantations, a. knowledge of the songs, once lost, could never be 
recovered, as it was doubtless far from the intention of the priests that 
the uninitiated Indian should divine their mysteries from an inspection of 
the symbols. It was only upon the payment of many beaver skins, says 
Tanner in his narrative, that he was permitted to learn the mystic 
signification of the twenty-seven symbols of the Chippeway song for 
medicine hunting, which it took him more than a year to learn.

The historical records, however, were sometimes, it appears, written in 
Kekeewin and sometimes in Kekeenowin; sorne were related in songs, others 
were not. Those inscribed upon painted wooden tablets, or the bark 
scrolls, and pieces of slate alluded to by George Copway, were doubtless 
generally sung at stated occasions before the tribe, while the 
Muzzinabicks or rock-writings upon the face of cliffs and boulders, as at 
"Bald Friars" and "Miles Island" on the Susquehanna or West River, and 
Bellows Falls, Vermont, at the Cunningham Islands, Lake Erie, or upon the 
famous Dighton Rock at Fall River, Mass., although including many of the 
characters seen in the song records were probably not expressed in songs:


TRADITION OF THE GREAT BUFFALO.

Another version of the big-buffalo tradition is found in Rembrandt Peale's 
pamphlet on the mammoth, published in Philadelphia in 1803. 
Notwithstanding the highly colored style of the translation the ideas 
expressed seem to be those of the Indian. It reads as follows: "Ten 
thousand moons ago, when naught but gloomy forests covered this land of 
the sleeping sun, and long before the pale men, with thunder and fire at 
their command, rushed on the wings of the wind to ruin this garden of 
nature, when naught but the untamed wanderers of the woods, and men as 
unrestrained as they, were lords of the soil, a race of animals existed, 
huge as the frowning precipice, cruel as the bloody panther, swift as the 
descending eagle, and terrible as the angel of night. The pines crashed 
beneath their feet, and the lake shrunk when they slaked their thirst; the 
forceful javelin in vain was hurled, and the barbed arrow fell harmless by 
their side. Forests were laid waste at a meal, the groans of expiring 
animals were everywhere heard, and whole villages, inhabited by men, were 
destroyed in a moment. The cry of universal distress extended even to the 
region of peace in the West, and the Good Spirit interposed to save the 
unhappy--The forked lightning gleamed aloud, and loudest thunder rocked 
the globe. The bolts of heaven were hurled upon the cruel destroyers 
alone, and the mountains echoed with the bellowings of death. All were 
killed except one male, the fiercest of the race, and him even the 
artillery of the skies assailed in vain. He ascended the bluest summit 
which shades, the source of the Monongahela, and roaring aloud, bid 
defiance to every vengeance. The red lightning scorched the lofty firs, 
and rived the knotty oaks, but only glanced upon the enraged monster. At 
length, maddened with fury, he leaped over the waves of the west at a 
bound, and at this moment reigns the uncontrolled monarch of the 
wilderness, even in despite of omnipotence itself."


THE CHEROKEES AND CI-IOCTAWS DESCENDANTS OF THE MOUND-BUILDERS.

If the account of Cusic and the Lenape traditions concur in solving the 
Mystery of the Mound-builders, and proving their identity with. the 
Allegewi of the Lenape tradition, the evidence is strengthened by the 
concurrent testimony of language, which, as Mr. Hale and others have 
shown, renders it probable that the conquered race, fleeing down the 
Mississippi, were received and adopted by the Choctaws and Cherokees, who 
thus became in part their descendants. Both the language of the Cherokees 
lying to the southeast of the mound-builders' dominions, and who claim to 
have built the Grave Creek mound, and that of the Choctaws lying to the 
southwest, have in their vocabularies been largely recruited from a 
similar foreign linguistic element. One remnant of the Allegewi mingling 
with their conquerors, the Talamatan or Hurons, became in part the 
ancestors of the Cherokees. Living to the southeast of the mound-builders' 
dominions, the Cherokees had their council lodge on the summit of a vast 
mound, the construction of which they ascribed to a people who had 
preceded them. In grammar their language resembled the Huron-Iroquois, 
while in vocabulary it has been largely recruited from some foreign source.

The other remnant of the vanquished Allegewi, fleeing down the Mississippi 
"to the southward," would have been received and protected by the warlike 
Choctaws, themselves a mound-building people in comparatively recent 
times, and the peculiar foreign element in whose language, which differs 
considerably from that of the sister Creek and Chicasaw nations, would 
thus be explained.

FIG. 23.-- CARVED "GORGET" FOUND ON THE HANSELL FARM, JANUARY 8, 1885.

While the foregoing pages were in course of publication, the carved 
"gorget" (fig, 23) was found on the Hansell farm, on Thursday, January 8, 
1885.

The circumstances of the discovery were as follows: Late in the autumn of 
last year-1884-the writer had caused an excavation to be made at a spot in 
one of the fields on the Hansell property, where the carved stone (fig. 
19) had been found. At this place the soil of the field, a yellowish clay, 
was very noticeably discolored as if by the fires and decayed refuse of 
aboriginal dwellings; the discolored spot was of a dark brown color, and 
covered an area of about twenty square yards.

The excavation measured about 25 feet in length by 4-1/2 feet in width, 
and about 3 feet in depth. The dark brown stratum had a depth of 1-1/2 to 
2 feet, and beneath it appeared the yellow clay of the surrounding field. 
The place was at a