The Lenâpé and Their Legends: With the complete text and symbols of the Walam olum, a new translation, and an inquiry into its authenticityBrinton, Daniel G. (Daniel Garrison)
History
The Lenâpé and Their Legends: With the complete text and symbols of the Walam olum, a new translation, and an inquiry into its authenticity
Brinton, Daniel G. (Daniel Garrison)
Delaware Indians; Delaware language -- Texts; Picture-writing, Indian
These, however, formed but a small part of the manuscript materials he
had prepared on and in the language. The most important of these were
his Delaware Grammar, and his Dictionary in four languages, English,
German, Onondaga and Delaware.
The MS. of the Grammar was deposited in the Archives of the Moravian
Society at Bethlehem, Pa. A translation of it was prepared by Mr. Peter
Stephen Duponceau, and published in the "Transactions of the American
Philosophical Society," in 1827.
The quadrilingual dictionary has never been printed. The MS. was
presented, along with others, in 1850, to the library of Harvard
College, where it now is. The volume is an oblong octavo of 362 pages,
containing about 9000 words in the English and German columns, but not
more than half that number in the Delaware.
A number of other MSS. of Zeisberger are also in that library, received
from the same source. Among these are a German-Delaware Glossary,
containing 51 pages and about 600 words; a Delaware-German Phrase
Book of about 200 pages; Sermons in Delaware, etc., mostly incomplete
studies, but of considerable value to the student of the tongue.[153]
Associated with Zeisberger for many years was the genial Rev. John
Heckewelder, so well known for his pleasant "History of the Indian
Nations of Pennsylvania," his interpretations of the Indian names of
the State, and his correspondence with Mr. Duponceau. He certainly had
a fluent, practical knowledge of the Delaware, but it has repeatedly
been shown that he lacked analytical power in it, and that many of his
etymologies as well as some of his grammatical statements are erroneous.
Another competent Lenapist was the Rev. Johannes Roth. He was born in
Prussia in 1726, and educated a Catholic. Joining the Moravians in
1748, he emigrated to America in 1756, and in 1759 took charge of the
missionary station called Schechschiquanuk, on the west bank of the
Susquehanna, opposite and a little below Shesequin, in Bradford county,
Pennsylvania. There he remained until 1772, when, with his flock,
fifty-three in number, he proceeded to the new Gnadenhütten, in Ohio.
There a son was born to him, the first white child in the area of the
present State of Ohio. In 1774 he returned to Pennsylvania, and after
occupying various pastorates, he died at York, July 22d, 1791.
Roth has left us a most important work, and one hitherto entirely
unknown to bibliographers. He made an especial study of the _Unami
dialect_ of the Lenape, and composed in it an extensive religious work,
of which only the fifth part remains. It is now in the possession of
the American Philosophical Society, and bears the title:--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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