The Lenape Stone; or, The Indian and the Mammoth — John Shaqi
The Lenape Stone; or, The Indian and the MammothMercer, Henry C.
History
The Lenape Stone; or, The Indian and the Mammoth
Mercer, Henry C.
Delaware Indians; Mammoths; Picture-writing, Indian
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 corn-stalk into
the ground to mark the place--a shower might wash out something
else, I thought. I left the corn-stalk until the oats harvest,
and then threw a stone there, but I soon came to know 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 would not remember the elephant on the
stone. I might have showed it to father, or might not, I am not
sure. He would 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 at 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 for 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 around the spot in a
circle, for I thought some one might have picked it up and then
thrown it away again.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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