Let us picture to ourselves, as it occurred in ancient times, and when his customs and traditions were as yet uncontaminated by civilization, one of the great religious feasts of the Indian—a dance, in honor, perhaps, of the sun, or pipe of peace, or of the green corn.

A wildly picturesque scene rises before us, as we read the descriptions of writers who have witnessed these ceremonies in later days; such a scene, as—in the language of Catlin: "not all the years allotted to mortal man could in the least deface or obliterate from the memory."

The tribe is assembled in the Indian village, or upon a bare hill-top, or perhaps in a lonely spot in the forest; a great bonfire burns in their midst, around which many mysterious rites have been performed. The rain perhaps was to be called down from heaven, sickness averted, evil spirits to be exorcised and driven away, or the deer or moose to be led in a state of charmed fatuity into the midst of the camp. With wild noises and gestures the warriors have danced around the fire, waving corn-stalks, or fiercely brandishing their weapons of war; the odor of burning tobacco or roasting dog's flesh fills the air, and the forest re-echoes with the cawings of the crow, the "gobble" of the wild turkey, or the growl of the bear, exactly imitated by the dancers. With a truthfulness born of their intense sympathy for nature, the moving figures mimic the spring of the panther or wild-cat, the start of the deer, and the sinuous motion of the snake.

At length a figure, half man half animal, approaches—the prophet or medicine-man. Nothing can be more strange than his appearance; his dress is hung with the skins of snakes, frogs, and bats, and adorned with the beaks, tails, and toes of birds, and the hoofs of the deer and antelope,—a diabolical embodiment of animal monstrosity.

All is now quiet, and from his medicine bag, made of the skin of the raccoon, polecat, or bat, beautifully decorated, and lined with moss and fine grass, he produces a scroll of birch bark, a tablet of wood, or a stone, engraved with mystic characters. Holding the tablet in his hands, as his eye falls upon the carved devices a low sound, rising into a song or chant, now only interrupted by the crackling of the fire, issues from under the hideous bear's-mask which hides his head. Each picture suggests to his mind some event of the far past, carefully treasured in the traditional lore of his tribe.[G] His song, rising and falling in strange inflections, and preserving a sort of rhythm, now tells of the creation of the world, a deluge, the origin of his people, and their primitive struggles with the forces of nature; now images of primeval giants and demi-gods rise before the minds of the assembled tribe, his hearers, of Manabozho the great hare, of Tarentya-wagon holder of the heavens, of Hiawatha, and Nanabush, and of "Stonish Giants," and "Flying Heads"; now he tells of the passage of great waters and mountains, of treeless plains, and forests, now of long wars with human enemies, and of the final coming of the whites. The squatting figures listen in motionless silence, as the song proceeds through its many verses, each the theme of a particular event. At last it ceases, and the pictured scroll or tablet, formula of its spell, restored to its place in the medicine pouch, remains hidden from the eyes of the tribe until its reappearance upon some similar occasion.

Such is the song-chronicle of the Indian's history; and such songs are known to have been carefully preserved and sung by many if not all of the Eastern tribes.

Such was the national song-legend of the Creeks and Choctaws, narrating in considerable detail their traditional origin and early migration from the West. It was read to the English by the Creek chief, ChekillÈ, at Savannah, in 1775, "and was written in red and black characters on the skin of a young buffalo." This pictured skin, with an English translation, was sent to London, and there, in a frame in the Georgia office, at Westminister, was kept for many years as a curiosity; it was finally lost, but the translation has been recently brought to light by Dr. D. G. Brinton, of Philadelphia.

Such, too, was the national song of the Cherokees, sung by them at their annual green-corn dance. Portions of it which tell of an early migration from the headwaters of the Monongahela, and of the great mound at Grave Creek which the Cherokees claim to have built, are given by Haywood in his "History of Tennessee." They were related to the author from memory by an old Indian trader who had heard the song. Mr. Chamberlain, at present missionary among the Cherokees, states that Guess or Sequoyah, a half-breed Cherokee, since dead, had invented the Cherokee alphabet of eighty-two letters, for the express purpose of perpetuating this chronicle of his nation, and had recorded it in the new characters, but these interesting manuscripts, which after his death were unfortunately mislaid, have thus far escaped discovery.

The Blackfeet, too, have a singular historical song sung on stated occasions; and the Shawnees, now situated in the northeast corner of the Indian territory, have a national legend, described in one of the late Indian reports as a "weird song sung in a rising melancholy strain"; it is sung at one of their great annual feasts, but as yet the double-barrelled shotgun or the "handsomest blanket in Philadelphia," offered by Dr. Brinton for a translation, have not served to break the reserve of the Indians familiar with the particular dialect in which it is sung, and who say that its revelation would bring misfortune upon the tribe.

The historical records of the Ojibways, says Ka-ge-ga-gah-bowh, or George Copway, their native historian, were written in Indian hieroglyphics upon "slate-rock, copper, lead, and the bark of birch trees," and kept in three secret underground depositories near the headwaters of Lake Superior, where, being disinterred and examined every fifteen years by a committee of chiefs, the dimmed and decaying pictographs were replaced by facsimiles.

It seems highly probable, in fact, that the solemn songs above, as well as most of the important historical narratives of the Indian tribes, have been repeatedly and variously recorded in eye-catching pictures of men, animals, and natural objects, intended to refresh or jog the memory of the singer or speaker, in his lengthy recitations to the assembled tribe. And such a pictured song-chart, or reference-table we may perhaps consider the carving on the reverse of the Lenape stone (fig. 16), which, should it be, as we have supposed, a production of the Lenni Lenape, would not unnaturally refer to the well-known historical legend of that ancient people.

Fig. 16.

This tradition of the Delawares, more interesting and suggestive probably than any of these long-overlooked records of ancient North America, has once at least, been recorded by Indians in pictographic symbols; fortunately it has been preserved to us in full, and we can compare it with the carving on the reverse of the Lenape stone (fig. 16), which we may suppose suggested to the mind of the Indian singer versed in the art of picture-writing some at least of the events remembered in his tradition.

Two versions of this wonderful Indian chronicle have been rescued from oblivion. The first, far less complete than the other, was collected from the Indians themselves by the Moravian missionary Heckewelder, about 1800. It reads as follows: "The Lenni Lenape (according to the traditions handed down to them by their ancestors) resided many hundred years ago in a very distant country, in the western part of the American continent. For some reason which I do not find accounted for, they determined on migrating to the eastward, and accordingly set out together in a body. After a very long journey, and many nights' encampments by the way, they at length arrived at the Namaesi Sipu, or River of Fish (from namaes, a fish, and sipu, a river)."

One of the first figures that catches our eye on looking at the carvings is the unmistakable outline of a fish, (a), just beneath the waving lines; (b) representing water at the left of the stone. The tradition goes on to say that at this river the Delawares "fell in with the Mengwe (Iroquois, or five nations), who had likewise emigrated from a distant country, and had struck upon this river somewhat higher up. Their object was the same with that of the Delawares; they were proceeding on to the eastward until they should find a country that pleased them. The spies which the Lenape had sent forward for the purpose of reconnoitring, had long before their arrival discovered that the country east of the Mississippi was inhabited by a very powerful nation, who had many large towns built on the great rivers flowing through their land. Those people (as I was told) called themselves Talligeu or Talligewi. Colonel John Gibson, however, a gentleman who has a thorough knowledge of the Indians, and speaks several of their languages, is of opinion that they were not called Talligewi, but Alligewi, and it would seem that he is right, from the traces of their name, which still remain in the country, the Allegheny river and mountains having indubitably been named after them. The Delawares still call the former AlligÉwi Sipu, the River of the Alligewi."

"Many wonderful things are told of this famous people. They are said to have been remarkably tall and stout, and there is a tradition that there were giants among them, people of a much larger size than the tallest of the Lenape. It is related that they had built to themselves regular fortifications or intrenchments, from whence they would sally out, but were generally repulsed.[H] * * * When the Lenape arrived on the banks of the Mississippi, they sent a message to the Alligewi to request permission to settle themselves in their neighborhood. This was refused them, but they obtained leave to pass through the country and seek a settlement farther to the eastward."

This agreement, that the Lenape should cross in peace, might have been symbolized in the Muzzinabiks (rock writings) and historical song records of any tribe, by the figure of the pipe (c) on the left of the stone, just above the water, and opposite the fish.

"They accordingly began to cross the Namaesi Sipu," continues the account, "when the Alligewi, seeing that their numbers were so very great, and in fact they consisted of many thousands, made a furious attack on those who had crossed, threatening them all with destruction if they dared to persist in coming over to their side of the river. Fired at the treachery of these people, and the great loss of men they had sustained, and besides, not being prepared for a conflict, the Lenape consulted on what was to be done—whether to retreat in the best manner they could, or try their strength, and let the enemy see they were not cowards, but men, and too highminded to suffer themselves to be driven off before they had made a trial of their strength, and were convinced that the enemy was too powerful for them. The Mengwe, who had hitherto been satisfied with being spectators from a distance, offered to join them on condition that, after conquering the country, they should be entitled to share it with them. Their proposal was accepted, and the resolution was taken by the two nations to conquer or die. Having thus united their forces, the Lenape and Mengwe declared war against the Alligewi, and great battles were fought, in which many warriors fell on both sides."

This ancient alliance may have been symbolized to the mind of the Delaware by the figures of the hawk (e), beneath which is seen (f) perhaps a wampum belt, and of the turtle (d) in the central part of the stone, and set in divisions formed by one intersecting and four diverging lines. Devices of the "great Thunder-bird, whose eyes were fire and glance lightning, and the motion of whose wings filled the air with thunder," and of the "great turtle, upon whose back the mother of the human race had been received from heaven," were common in the mystic songs of the medas or priests, and their particular significations in these incantations might have been almost endless when we consider that to the initiated Meda or Josakeed (prophet) the same sign calls up quite different ideas, as the theme of the writer varies from war to love, or from the chase to medicine, or prophecy. If, however, we refer the subject of the carving to history, the hawk and turtle may well be viewed as the tokens or heraldic badges of the chief actors in the story[I] (the Lenape and Mengwe).

As clan badges, both symbols were in common use among most of the Indian tribes. The turtle clan, says Heckewelder, was the governing family in any nation, and among the Delawares claimed an ascendency over the wolf and turkey families on account of its superior antiquity and relationship to "the great turtle, the Atlas of their mythology, who bore the great island—the earth—upon its back."

The hawk totem, which of course the Delawares might have applied to any people they chose, irrespective of its real emblem, occurred among the Hurons, and in both the Seneca and Cayuga tribes of the Iroquois confederacy; also among the Ojibways, Pottowatamies, Miamis, Abenakis, Sacs, and Foxes, and in many other tribes.

The account goes on to say that "the enemy fortified their large towns and erected fortifications, especially on large rivers and near lakes, where they were successively attacked and sometimes stormed by the allies. An engagement took place, in which hundreds fell, who were afterwards buried in holes or laid together in heaps and covered over with earth. No quarter was given, so that the Alligewi, at last, finding that their destruction was inevitable if they persisted in their obstinacy, abandoned the country to the conquerors and fled down the Mississippi River, from whence they never returned. The war which was carried on by this nation lasted many years, during which the Lenape lost a great number of their warriors, while the Mengwe would always hang back in the rear, leaving them to face the enemy."

In this description of a superior race of Indians, conquered after a most desperate resistance, and whose memory still survives in the great mountain chain to which they have given a name, we find a key to the often-spoken-of mystery of the mound-builders and their sudden disappearance.

The story of their long death-struggle and final overthrow by a horde of savage invaders, as here given in the formal style of Heckewelder, seems somewhat colored by his well-known partiality for the Delawares. It is confirmed, as we shall see, by the evidence of other Indian traditions and the study of their language, which seems to show that this people,—the Alligewi or mound-builders—fleeing down the Mississippi, were received and adopted by the Choctaws and Cherokees, themselves in comparatively recent times a mound-building people, and who thus have become in part their descendants.

A suggestion of these long and bloody wars, in which the Lenape did most of the fighting, may be seen in the figure of the tomahawk (g) just below the turtle,[J] and of the mound-builders themselves perhaps, in the singular group of figures above the water on the left, i. e., the outline of a mountain or mound on which a series of numerical marks are faintly seen, a tablet inscribed with ten dots, two diagonally intersecting lines, and five parallel marks or points.

"In the end," continues the account, "the conquerors divided the country between themselves," as the wigwams (h and i) above each totem might denote. "The Mengwe made choice of the lands in the vicinity of the great lakes" and on their tributary streams, again suggested, perhaps, by the snow-shoe (j) "and the Lenape took possession of the country to the south. For a long period of time—some say many hundred years—the two nations resided peacefully in this country and increased very fast. Some of their most enterprising huntsmen and warriors crossed the great swamps, and falling on streams running to the eastward, followed them down to the great Bay River (Susquehannah), and thence into the bay itself, which we call Chesapeak." As they pursued their travels, partly by land and partly by water, in this primitive reconnaissance of the great wilderness now our homes, journeying sometimes near and at other times on the "great salt-water lake" (the sea), they finally discovered the river which we call the Delaware.

"Thence exploring still eastward," continues the account, "they discovered the Scheyichbi country, now named New Jersey, and at length arrived at another great stream—that which we call the Hudson or North River. Satisfied with what they had seen, they (or some of them), after a long absence, returned to their nation and reported the discoveries they had made. They described the country they had discovered as abounding in game and various kinds of fruits, and the rivers and bays with fish, tortoises, etc., together with abundance of water-fowl, and no enemy to be dreaded. They considered the event as a fortunate one for them, and concluding this to be the country destined for them by the Great Spirit, they began to emigrate thither, as yet but in small bodies, so as not to be straitened for want of provisions by the way, some even laying by for a whole year. At last they settled on the four great rivers (which we call Delaware, Hudson, Susquehanna, and Potomac), making the Delaware, to which they gave the name of 'Lenapewihittuck,' (the river or stream of the Lenape), the centre of their possessions."

Here the ancient portion of the chronicle and its parallelism with the figures on the stone seems to end, the remainder being devoted to long wars with the Mengwe, relations with the whites, and the more modern events of the history of the tribe in the east.

The other figures upon the stone—the star (k), the calumet (l), the deer (m), the curve crossed by three oblique lines (n), probably a war canoe, and the fish-like figure (o) at the end of the stone—are hardly suggested by the narrative, yet may refer to further details of the passage of the Alleghenies, and the exploration and settlement of the country to the east, along the great rivers and by the sea-coast.

Far more interesting than Heckewelder's account, is a full version of the great national song of the Lenape as they sung it in their own language, with an English translation, and with all the pictographic devices used to jog the memory of the singer. He may well have needed them, as the whole song consists of two hundred and two verses. It was first published in 1836 by the eccentric French-American philosopher, Rafinesque, in an extravagant work by him entitled "The American Nations," and is known as the Wallum Olum (literally, painted sticks), or pictographic traditions of the Lenni Lenape. It contains the Delaware account of the creation, a deluge, the early migrations and entire history of the tribe, and one hundred and eighty-four mnemonic symbols painted upon tablets of wood. "It was obtained" says Rafinesque, "about 1822,—the symbols from a Dr. Ward of Indiana, who had received them as a reward for a medical cure from the Delawares, at Wahapani or White River, in 1820, and the verses from another individual."

Mr. E. G. Squier, who considered the internal evidence furnished by the songs sufficiently strong to settle their authenticity, submitted the manuscript copy of the songs and pictographs in the hand of Rafinesque, who it appears had never owned the original "painted sticks," to George Copway, the Chippewa chief, who unhesitatingly, he says, pronounced it authentic. This manuscript, together with the pictographs, of which Rafinesque had published none, and Squier but forty, was considered hopelessly lost until its fortunate discovery a few weeks ago by Dr. Brinton, by whom it will shortly be published with a new translation.

Passing over its account of the creation and deluge, the narrative goes on to describe the passage by the Lenape of a large body of water on the ice (Behring's Straits, says Rafinesque), and their settlement at a place called Shinaki, or the "Land of Firs."

After many generations of chiefs, continues the fourth song, during which time they were continually engaged in wars with "Snakes" (enemies), they wander from the fir land to the south and east, pass over a hollow mountain Oligonunk (Oregon, according to Rafinesque), and at last "find food" at "Shililaking, the plains of the Buffalo Land." Here they tarry and build towns and raise corn on the great meadows of the Wisawana (Yellow River). But after many wars with "Snakes," "northern enemies," and "father snakes," of which we can see a suggestion in the eel-like form (p) on the stone, they again resume their migration towards the "sun-rising," and finally reach the shores of the Messussipu,[K] or Great River, "which divides the land." The accompanying pictograph for verse 49, descriptive of the Great River, quite unlike the figure upon the stone, is here given from the original drawing by Rafinesque, kindly furnished the writer by Dr. Brinton (fig. 17). The narrative, of which we give the English translation by Rafinesque, omitting the Delaware version, continues in the original as follows:

49. The Great River (Messussipu) divided the land, and being tired, they tarried there.

50. Yagawanend (Hut-maker) was next sakima, and then the Tallegwi were found possessing the east.

51. Followed Chitanitis (Strong-friend), who longed for the rich east-land.

52. Some went to the east, but the Tallegwi killed a portion.

53. Then all of one mind exclaimed: War, war!

54. The Talamatan (not of themselves) and the Nitilowan all go united (to the war).

55. Kinehepend (Sharp-looking) was their leader, and they went over the river.

56. And they took all that was there, and despoiled and slew the Tallegwi.

57. Piniokhasuwi (Stirring-about) was next chief, and then the Tallegwi were much too strong.

58. Teuchekensit (Open-path) followed, and many towns were given up to him.

59. Paganchihilla was chief, and the Tallegwi all went southward.

60. Hattanwulaton (the Possessor) was sakima, and all the people were pleased.

61. South of the lakes they settled their council-fire, and north of the lakes were their friends the Talamatan (Hurons?).

Nothing could be more interesting to the lover of American archÆology than a study of this song—with the single exception perhaps of the Lenape stone, the most remarkable Indian document in existence. The latter part of the story here given, is even less suggestive than the preceding portions, which we have been obliged to omit.

The generations of chiefs, which it recites in order, seem to include thousands of years, and as we read its account of a creation and a deluge, of the passage of a great water upon the ice, and an arrival at a "Land of Firs," we almost pardon the extravagant speculations of Rafinesque, to which it gave rise.

Both versions of the account tell the same story, yet there is one striking difference between them. In the Heckewelder version the allies of the Lenape are spoken of as "Mengwi" (Iroquois, Mingoes); in the Wallum Olum as "Talamatan" (Hurons, called Delamattenos by the Delawares); but the variance is reconciled when we consider that in ancient times, as their language and traditions prove, the Hurons and Iroquois were one closely allied nation, constituting one family or linguistic stock.

We may doubt, however, whether the great river crossed in the migration—"Namaesi Sipu" (Fish River) in Heckewelder, and "Messussipu" in the Wallum Olum—referred to the Mississippi.

The Huron-Iroquois will tell us, when questioned, that at an early period, and while the families were still united, his people, coming originally from the northeast of Canada, migrated to the southward, and had not come from the west across the Mississippi; he too has traditions of crossing a river and attacking a race of mound-builders, but the river of his account was crossed to the southward, and lay on the north of the mound-builders' country. The Iroquois tradition is given in a famous passage, supposed to refer to the mound-builders, in the account of David Cusic, a native Iroquois, of the Tuscarora clan, who wrote a history of his tribe. We give it here in the original, uncorrected form, as published by Schoolcraft.

Referring to an early age of monsters, demi-gods, giants, and horned serpents, when the Hurons and Iroquois were as yet but one people, and they and other tribes, "the northern nations," possessed the banks of the great lakes, "where there were plenty of beavers," but "where the hunters were often opposed by the big Snakes," Cusic goes on to say that "on one occasion the northern nations formed a confederacy, and seated a great council-fire on the river St. Lawrence. Perhaps about 2,200 years before the Columbus discovered the America, the northern nations appointed a prince, and immediately repaired to the south and visited the Great Emperor, who resided at the Golden City, a capital of the vast Empire. After a time the Emperor built many forts throughout his dominions, and almost penetrated the Lake Erie. This produced an excitement; the people on the north felt that they would soon be deprived of the country on the south side of the great lakes. They determined to defend their country against any infringement of foreign people; long, bloody wars ensued, which lasted about one hundred years. The people of the north were too skilful in the use of bows and arrows, and could endure hardships which proved fatal to a foreign people; at last the northern nations gained the conquest, and all the towns and forts were totally destroyed, and left them in the heap of ruins."

It has been supposed that the upper St. Lawrence or Detroit River, streams noticed by the Indians as abounding in fish, was the "Fish River" of the Heckewelder tradition. Here, as we have seen according to information collected from the Lenni Lenape, desperate battles had taken place with the Allegwi, hundreds of whom were slain and buried under mounds in that vicinity.[L]

Other considerations, too, induce us to suppose that the Lenape and Huron-Iroquois invasion came from the northward and not from the west. If we study the shape and position of the mounds themselves along the southern shore of the great lakes, we find that they present often the appearance of fortifications erected against the advance of an enemy from the north, and suddenly abandoned after a long struggle. Also the scattered implements and half-removed blocks of ore found in the prehistoric copper mines on the south shore of Lake Superior, seemed to indicate their hasty desertion by the miners upon the sudden inroad of an enemy from that direction.

Again, the works of the mound-builders, though at some points insignificant and hardly perceptible, extend considerably west of the Mississippi, and probably would have been encountered by the advancing Lenape before reaching that river, and had it been the stream meant it would not have been spoken of as the boundary of the mound-builders' empire.[M]

The Wallum Olum, however, with its hieroglyphics, does not end with the brief extract given. Song five, consisting of fifty-eight verses, recounts the details of the occupation by the conquerors of the Ohio valley, and long wars with enemies denominated "Father Snakes," "Stone Snakes," and "North Snakes," whose pictograph in the original manuscript is here given (fig. 18). They pass the Alleghenies, and exploring the Chesapeake Bay and great rivers of "the large and long east land," finally establish themselves on the Delaware, making "Maskekitong," the rapids at Trenton, the centre of their dominions. We have now reached the time of the coming of the whites, and the last verses of the song speak in brief simplicity of a people who came from somewhere, "and that which was white" (ships) "coming from the East Sea."

There is still another song—the sixth—continuing the chronicle and recounting the melancholy story of the Lenape's contact with the whites, and final westward journey to Ohio, where the records were obtained. A narrative of sufferings and hard wrongs, whose recital by the Indian had caused Heckewelder, as he said, "to feel ashamed that he was a white man."

The symbols appended to the songs, and among which the forms of the rectangle and circle frequently occur, end with the fifth song; they appear very arbitrary, and it is certainly disappointing to find that they bear no resemblance to the carvings upon the Lenape stone, likewise, as we have supposed, productions of the Lenni Lenape and dealing with the same subject. Yet we need not be surprised when we consider the varied and often arbitrary methods of Indian picture-writing.

In comparing the carvings on the reverse of the Lenape stone with the Lenape and Huron-Iroquois traditions of their early migration and struggle with the mound-builders, we have spoken only of probabilities. Possibly these carvings may refer to the incantations of the prophets and doctors, to songs for "medicine hunting," or charms against evil spirits, and not to the history of the tribe, as recounted in the Wallum Olum and the narratives of Heckewelder and Cusic. Possibly, too, the modern Indians who have seen the carvings may have entirely mistaken their subject, as similar signs are used in quite different kinds of their picture-writing. Yet if we view the chief feature of the Lenape stone—the mammoth picture—as an example of muzzinabik or historical picture-writing, an attempt to explain the carvings on the reverse of the stone as specimens of the same class of writings does not seem extravagant. Viewed in the light of these legends, and compared with the fragments of ancient Indian history which chance has preserved to us, the carvings upon the Lenape stone vividly impress upon our minds the reality of that dark period of our continent's past, antecedent to the first coming of the white man, separated from us by but a few centuries, yet where the boundary line between history and geology becomes indistinct, when for hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years the Indian lived alone on the "great island," and while those deep-rooted peculiarities of his character, which civilization has failed to eradicate, were slowly growing out of his wilderness life.

The ancient presence of the Lenape is often remembered in the heart of his former dominions. Along the shores of the beautiful river, whose transatlantic name, applied also to his tribe, he resented, the arrow-head and tomahawk, everywhere found upon sites of ancient camps and fishing-grounds, tell of the long centuries of his possession. His memory lingers in the name and poetry of our Indian summer; and in that most delightful of autumnal seasons, when a warm wind blowing from the abode of the Great Spirit stirs the fields of ripened maize, we may see, where first the Indian's fancy must have seen it, a suggestion of his head-dress of feathers in the graceful motion of the corn-stalks. He is immortalized in richly melodious names of rivers, streams, and mountains, and his memory is forever recalled in the yearly growth of that noblest of American plants, the Indian corn.

In concluding here our view of the less distinct though not improbable reference of the carvings on the reverse of the Lenape stone to the ancient historical traditions of the Delawares, a brief review of the subject of the foregoing pages may not be out of place.

We have seen that the stone was found at a spot situated in the ancient territory of the Delawares, and where many articles of undoubted Indian workmanship have been found,—among them two carved stones,[N] —that similar aboriginal carvings of the hairy mammoth have been discovered in Europe, and that a race of men, relics of whom have been found on the Delaware river and in California, and who may or may not have been the ancestors of the modern Indian, have existed in North America at the time of the mammoth. Moreover, that as yet nothing is definitely known as to the antiquity of the Indians' occupancy of our continent, and that there is no geological evidence to prove that the mammoth did not survive in America to a comparatively recent period. We have seen further that the Indians in several of their traditions attribute the mammoth bones seen by them on the Ohio to a great monster who was destroyed by lightning, and that there is a similarity too strong to be accidental between the Lenape tradition of the great Buffalo and the carving on the stone; finally, we may see perhaps a reference in the carvings on the reverse of the stone to the early Delaware traditions of their migration to the eastward and wars with the mound-builders, as detailed in Heckewelder's account, the "Wallum Olum," and David Cusic's history.