The Wallam-Olum (painted records) of the Leni Lenape Indians have often been called into question as regards their authenticity, but the evidence of Lederer, Humboldt, Heckewelder, Tanner, Loskiel, Beatty, and Rafinesque, all of whom professed to have seen them, rather discounts such unbelief in their existence. They consisted of picture-writings, or hieroglyphs, each of which applied to a whole verse, or many words. The ideas were, in fact, amalgamated in a compound system, and bear exactly the same relation to written language as the American tongues did to spoken language; that is, they were of an agglutinative type, a linguistic form where several words are welded into one. There are several series, one of which records the doings of the tribes immediately subsequent to the Creation. Another series relates to their doings in America, and consists of seven songs, four of sixteen verses of four words each, and three of twenty verses of three words each "It begins at the arrival in America," says Rafinesque ("The American Nations"), "and is continued without hardly any interruption till the arrival of the European colonists towards 1600." But this second series is a mere meagre catalogue of kings. FOOTNOTES [1] Mexico, Oct. 15, 1850. [2] Large hollowed stones used by the women for bruising maize. [3] The Kiché words are onomatopoetic--"holi, holi, huqi, huqi." [4] Zipac signifies "Cockspur," and I take the name to signify also "Thrower-up of earth." The connection is obvious. [5] Near Vera Paz. [6] Hurakan. [7] "History of the Fur Trade," Mackenzie, p. 83. [8] Schoolcraft, "Indian Tribes," i. p. 266. [9] Cushing, "Zuñi Creation Myths." [10] See note at end. [11] "History of the New World." [12] Oviedo, "Historia del l'Indie," lib. vi. cap. iii. [13] Sahagun, lib. ii. ch. ii. [14] "Mythologies of Ancient Mexico and Peru" ("Religions Ancient and Modern" series). [15] Oviedo, Brasseur de Bourbourg. [16] See Brinton, "Myths of the New World," chap. ii. [17] Loskiel, "Ges. der Miss. der evang. Brüder." [18] "Rel. de la Nouv. France," 1636. [19] J. W. Fewkes in Jour. Amer. Folk-lore, 1892, p. 33; F. H. Cushing in "Amer. Anthropologist," 1892, p. 303 et seq. [20] In the Mexican text the Spanish word "diablo" has been interpolated by the Mexican scribes, as no Mexican word for "devil" exists. The scribe was, of course, under priestly influence; hence the "diablo." [21] This passage obviously applies to a descriptive dance emblematic of sunrise.