MA 4.3

Craig: Today we will be posting a bit early because Mike and I are bit ahead of the game with information that we wish to post.  For myself, I have finished decoding Stanza 4.3 and below I will post the Drottkvaett scores and the Paraphrase. I will begin to make the spreadsheet for 4.3 and begin with Stanza 4.4 after today's post.  Please let me know if need to make any corrections on the Drottkvaett scores.

Stanza 4.3

Original Recorded Sounds with Translation

Akhomenis michihaki wellaki kundo kanup

While they were searching for the Snake Island, that great and fine land

Lenape

At kamanis michiliac wel aki kin doo kin ut

Drottkvaett Score Lenape Aliteration = Rhyme = “”

S w S w S w

at “ka” “ma” nis mi chil

“I” ac wel ak “I” kin

doo kin ut

ALIT 2/6 RHM 2/6 = 4/6 = 67%

Old Norse Drottkvaett Score

S w S w S w

at gu mpr nor ska mi

k “ill” “ak” r “vel” “ak”

r ginn thaa ginn at

ALIT 3/6 RHM 2/6 = 5/6 = 83%

Old Norse Paraphrase

“The Norse on the opposite side of that near, great and ample main-land”

PS the following words were found on these pages, Wel Vol 1 p. 231, Aki Vol 1 p. 8, Kin Vol 4 p. 54, Doo Vol. 3 p. 25, and finally Ut Vol. 3 p. 134.... These were the words I found today to complete Stanza 4.3

Mike:  

Historical Basis Regarding the Walam Olum
Part 1: C.A. Weslager

Throughout history, people have constantly asked who they are, where they came from, and how they came to reside in the place that they have lived. The Delaware Indians are a perfect example of a group of people who asked questions about their origin. Their story of origin has been recorded through the Walam Olum.

            Many modern scholars reject the Walam Olum and regard it as a fake. The story of the Walam Olum was first published by Constantine Rafinesque in 1836. Rafinesque had written that he had acquired a wooden record through the late Dr. Ward. The wooden record contained Lenape hieroglyphics that symbolized the Lenape story of their creation. At first, the pictures on the wooden tablets were inexplicable, but Rafinesque had eventually come to acquire the verses that went along with the wooden tablets. By 1922, Rafinesque had come to posses the wooden record and a manuscript in the Delaware language that contained the verses explaining the ideographs. Rafinesque had spent a seven year period translating the verses into English. While translating the verses, Rafinesque had copied down the pictures that went along with each verse.

            The late C.A. Weslager had looked into Walam Olum and wrote about the historical basis regarding the Walam Olum. According Weslager, Rafinesque had published the translated verses of the Walam Olum in a book called The American Nations. Rafinesque did not reproduce any of the glyphs because of cost, and he did not include any of the verses in the Delaware language. The Walam Olum story was only a minor chapter in the work on which he had labored for years (Weslager, 83).

            Rafinesque died in 1840 while in financial ruins. Weslager writes that Rafinesque’s scholarly collection was auctioned off after his death. Rafinesque’s collection only brought in $131.42 and his notebooks and manuscripts were bought for only a few dollars by University of Pennsylvania professor named S.S. Haldeman (Weslager, 83). These notebooks and manuscripts were then somehow acquired by a historian/politician named Brantz Mayer. Weslager says that Mayer had also come to acquire a bark record of some type from an unknown source. On December 5, 1844, Mayer had present “pieces of birch bark with picture writing and hieroglyphics” at a Maryland Historical Society meeting (Weslager, 85). Mayer ended up loaning the Rafinesque manuscripts to E.G. Squier and E.H. Davis whom had done extensive writings on the mound builders. Mayer died in 1879 and he left all his scholarly belongings to his wife. His wife ended up auctioning all his belongs off. This is when the bark records had vanished and, to this day, it is not clear whether or not these were the same bark records that Rafinesque had come to possess. However, it is noted by Weslager that Dr. Daniel G. Brinton had come to obtain the Rafinesque manuscripts from the Mayer family and, in 1885, Brinton had published a book that contained illustrations of the glyphs that he had copied from Rafinesque’s notebooks. In addition, as Weslager writes, Brinton had included the Indian words to the verses and a new translation of the verses that he had made with the assistant of Delaware speakers. Brinton concluded that the Walam Olum was a genuine native production (Weslager, 85). A newer translation of the Walam Olum, along with reproductions of the Rafinesque drawings, was produced in 1954 by C.F. Voegelin and seven coauthors.   

Source:
Weslager, C. A. The Delaware Indians: A History. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers UP, 1972.