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
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 archæological
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:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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