LIBRARY OF ABORIGINAL AMERICAN LITERATURE. No. V. EDITED BY D. G. BRINTON, M.D. PHILADELPHIA 1885 THE LENÂPÉ AND THEIR LEGENDS; WITH THE COMPLETE TEXT AND SYMBOLS OF THE WALAM OLUM, A NEW TRANSLATION, AND AN INQUIRY INTO ITS AUTHENTICITY. BY DANIEL G. BRINTON, A.M., M.D., PROFESSOR OF ETHNOLOGY AND ARCHÆOLOGY AT THE ACADEMY OF NATURAL SCIENCES, PHILADELPHIA. President of the Numismatic and Antiquarian; Society of Philadelphia; Member of the American Philosophical Society, the American Antiquarian Society, the Pennsylvania Historical Society, etc.; Membre de la Société Royale des Antiquaires du Nord; Délégné Général de l'Institution Ethnographique; Vice-President du Congrés International des Americanistes; Corresponding Member of the Anthropological Society of Washington, etc. D. G. BRINTON. PHILADELPHIA. 1885. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1885, by D. G. BRINTON, In the Office of the Librarian of Congress. All rights reserved. Transcriber's Notes: Words or phrases with an underscore(_) before and after are italicized. Words or phrases with an equal sign(=) before and after are in bold. Obvious spelling and punctuation mistakes have been corrected. The use of the digit 8 to represent a 'whistled' letter w has been retained as in the original. PREFACE. In the present volume I have grouped a series of ethnological studies of the Indians of Eastern Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Maryland, around what is asserted to be one of the most curious records of ancient American history. For a long time this record--the WALAM OLUM, or Red Score--was supposed to have been lost. Having obtained the original text complete about a year ago, I printed a few copies and sent them to several educated native Delawares with a request for aid in its translation and opinions on its authenticity. The results will be found in the following pages. The interest in the subject thus excited prompted me to a general review of our knowledge of the Lenape or Delawares, their history and traditions, their language and customs. This disclosed the existence of a number of MSS. not mentioned in bibliographies, some in the first rank of importance, especially in the field of linguistics. Of these I have made free use. In the course of these studies I have received suggestions and assistance from a number of obliging friends, among whom I would mention the native Delawares, the Rev. Albert Anthony, and the Rev. John Kilbuck; Mr. Horatio Hale and the Right Rev. E. de Schweinitz; Dr. J. Hammond Trambull, Prof. A. M. Elliott and Gen. John Mason Brown.