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
One of the most laborious of the Moravian missionaries was the Rev.
Adam Grube. His life spanned nearly a century, from 1715, when he was
born in Germany, until 1808, when he died in Bethlehem, Pa. Many years
of this were spent among the Delawares in Pennsylvania and Ohio. He
was familiar with their language, but the only evidence of his study
of it that has come to my knowledge is a MS. in the Harvard College
Library, entitled, "Einige Delawarische Redensarten und Worte." It has
seventy-five useful leaves, the entries without alphabetic arrangement,
some of the verbs accompanied by partial inflections. The only date
it bears is "Oct. 10, 1800," when he presented it to the Rev. Mr.
Luckenbach, soon to be mentioned.
After the War of 1812 the Moravian brother, Rev. C. F. Dencke, who,
ten years before had attempted to teach the Gospel to the Chipeways,
gathered together the scattered converts among the Delawares at New
Fairfield, Canada West. In 1818 he completed and forwarded to the
Publication Board of the American Bible Society a translation of the
Epistles of John, which was published the same year.
He also stated to the Board that at that time he had finished a
translation of John's Gospel and commenced that of Matthew, both of
which he expected to send to the Board in that year. A donation of
one hundred dollars was made to him to encourage him in his work, but
for some reason the prosecution of his labors was suspended, and the
translation of the Gospels never appeared (contrary to the statements
in some bibliographies).
It is probable that Mr. Dencke was the compiler of the Delaware
Dictionary which is preserved in the Moravian Archives at Bethlehem.
The MS. is an oblong octavo, in a fine, but beautifully clear hand,
and comprises about 3700 words. The handwriting is that of the late
Rev. Mr. Kampman, from 1840 to 1842 missionary to the Delawares on the
Canada Reservation. On inquiring the circumstances connected with this
MS., he stated to me that it was written at the period named, and was a
copy of some older work, probably by Mr. Dencke, but of this he was not
certain.
While the greater part of this dictionary is identical in words and
rendering with the second edition of Zeisberger's "Spelling Book" (with
which I have carefully compared it), it also includes a number of other
words, and the whole is arranged in accurate alphabetical order.
Mr. Dencke also prepared a grammar of the Delaware, as I am informed
by his old personal friend, Rev. F. R. Holland, of Hope, Indiana; but
the most persistent inquiry through residents at Salem, N. C., where
he died in 1839, and at the Missionary Archives at Bethlehem, Pa.,
and Moraviantown, Canada, have failed to furnish me a clue to its
whereabouts. I fear that this precious document was "sold as paper
stock," as I am informed were most of the MSS. which he left at his
decease! A sad instance of the total absence of intelligent interest in
such subjects in our country.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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