Chapter II: Part 2

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.

APPENDIX.

STATEMENT OF BERNARD Z. HANSELL.

On the writer's second visit to Hansell, the latter was at his father's farm. He stated that the photographs shown him were representations of the stone, and said that he considered that he had been cheated. He had had no idea of the stone's value, and declared that it was a "mean trick," the purchase of all his relics--the stone included--for $2.50. When it was explained to him that Mr. Paxon, the purchaser, had been as ignorant as he in the matter at the time, he seemed satisfied.

On the third visit, February 10th, Hansell said:

I am sure that I found the large piece first, in the spring of
1872 (the year after my father bought the place--1871), and
while "ploughing for oats" in the "corner" field, and near the
corner where the by-road joins the Durham road--the roots of
the last year's corn crop had shortly before been harrowed out.
It was in April. When I saw it, it was lying on the top of the
ground, a little to one side of the furrow. I stopped and picked
it up; it seemed like "something different" from what I had ever
found before. It was dirty--dirt stuck to the stone; by rubbing,
I could see lines--"queer marks" over it. (When I afterward saw
it at Mr. Paxon's, the latter had "cleaned it.")

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.

After we had cut the corn in the field, and as I went in to
husk, I happened to pass near the place--I always remember the
place,--I was thinking of the other piece, and was hardly in
the field before I picked it up. I noticed the marks and the
shape, and saw at once that it was the missing piece. It had
notches around the edges. I put it in my pocket and laid it in
the drawer. My wife never saw it. It was the little piece. I was
married then and in my own house, and there was nobody about the
house, so I did not lock it up.

This was in the fall--after the exhibition at Doylestown
(October), in 1881. When I went down to Mr. Paxon's father's,
Squire Paxon's, to pay my tax, on the 9th of November, 1881, I
took this piece along. Young Mr. Paxon was not at home, but I
waited till he came back. I said I had something "pretty nice"
for him, and showed him the missing piece. He thought when he
saw it that I would make him pay pretty dear for it, but I told
him that I would give it to him. I had not rubbed or cleaned it.
He put the pieces together and said "that is the missing piece."
He took me up to his room and gave me some minerals. I advised
him to glue the pieces together with "hickory cement." I had
some of this cement at home, and offered to give it to him.

The next spring I saw the stone again, all washed and cleaned.
It did not look altered--only clean and rubbed off. I saw it
again this February (1884), when you and Mr. Paxon came to see
me, and I saw no change in it.

I never sold a relic before I sold those to Harry Paxon, and
never knew any one from Philadelphia that took any interest in
Indian relics. I used to give things away to relatives of mine,
often boys--my cousins, when they came up from town. They had
never seen any thing like an arrow-head before. I never gave a
stone to any one but a relative. William Hansell, my brother, a
little boy, saw me pick up the small piece of the Lenape Stone.
I never heard of any one in this neighborhood interested in
Indian relics before Mr. Paxon.

The first things that I remember giving away were a couple of
black arrow-heads that I gave to James Aikens, in 1871. He lives
in Germantown. This was before I found the stone.

[Signed] BERNARD Z. HANSELL.

Sworn to before
BENJAMIN S. RICH, J. P., Nov. 6, 1884.

The writer questioned Hansell's wife. She remembered his having shown her the relics before they were sold to Mr. Paxon, but had paid no attention to "these little stones he picks up," and did not remember whether "this stone you are talking about" was among them or not. The writer also questioned Hansell's father and mother. Neither had seen the stone. The boy, William Hansell, brother of Bernard, said that he had seen the little piece when Bernard picked it up, but had never seen the large piece of the stone. The piece he had seen was covered with dirt and mud, and had "half a hole" in it. Bernard had told him that he was going to give it to Mr. Paxon.

STATEMENT OF MR. HENRY D. PAXON.

I remember Hansell telling me of his Indian relics at my
father's office. I went to see him on a Sunday, and he showed
me, in the wood-shed, a tobacco-box half full of relics, among
them the large piece of the Lenape Stone. At the time I never
realized what it was. It was covered with dirt, as were all the
relics. There must have been about two hundred arrow-heads,
broken and perfect, besides a broken axe and fragments of a
banner stone, and one or two large spears and so-called "gigs."
The stone struck me as an extraordinary Indian relic. Buying
the relics, I brought them home that Sunday afternoon, and at
once showed them to my father. He saw the elephant. Whether I
had noticed it before I cannot remember. Mr. John S. Ash saw
this first piece--the large piece--before Capt. Bailey saw it. I
showed it to any and everybody that came to my father's office,
but can only be sure now of Mr. Ash. Capt. Bailey saw it and
borrowed it while preparing his article. I had it at the Bucks
County Bi-Centennial Exhibition, August 31, September 1 and 2,
1882. I did not particularly value the stone until I read Capt.
Bailey's article. I cleaned out the soil which clung to the
stone with a toothbrush, and may also have used a stick--but I
think not a nail.

[Signed] HENRY D. PAXON.

Sworn to before
ELIAS EASTBURN, J. P., Nov. 8, 1884.

STATEMENT OF MR. ALBERT PAXON.

Young Hansell and his father were at my house on business (I
am Justice of the Peace). They had rented a house. I think it
was on a Saturday in '80 or '81, in the summer. The next day
my son went to Hansell's and brought back a large number of
Indian relics. He had invested two or three dollars in them.
In the lot was one of the pieces of the stone. I remember
saying that it was a pity he had not the other half. The lines
were not cleaned out. I recollect the elephant. He emptied
the relics on the floor of the piazza. It was early summer,
and warm weather--about May or June,--and I think on Sunday.
I am certain of having seen the elephant the first day he got
the stone. Bernard Hansell, I find in my book, paid his tax
November 8, '81, but I am not positive in these dates to a
day. There is not, and never has been, to my knowledge, any
strange or suspicious person of an "archæological turn" in this
neighborhood, and there is no one here clever enough to have
made the stone.

[Signed] ALBERT S. PAXON.

Affirmed before
JAMES GILKYSON, J. P., Nov. 8, 1884.

STATEMENT OF MR. JOHN S. ASH, OF GREENVILLE,

NOVEMBER 8, 1884.

At the time of my first seeing the Lenape Stone, I observed an
elephant or mammoth carved upon the fragment. I cannot now fix
the date of my first seeing this piece. Probably it was some
three years since, though it may not be two and may be four. I
think it was before the Bucks County Bi-Centennial Exhibition.

[Signed] JOHN S. ASH.

Affirmed before
ELIAS EASTBURN, J. P., Nov. 8, 1884.

STATEMENT OF CAPT. J. S. BAILEY.

I saw the stone first, I think, in November, in the fall of
1881, and a few days after Mr. Paxon had obtained the second
piece. He had said to me that he had a curious stone which he
wished to show me. I remember his mentioning the figure of a
turtle, a snake, and an elephant carved on the stone, although
he did not first mention the elephant figure or show that he
appreciated the mammoth. It was not till he had read my article
in the county newspaper that he came to know the value of the
carving. He was only eighteen or nineteen then, and I believe
would have sold the stone for a comparatively trifling sum.
As soon as I took the stone home, after Mr. Paxon had lent it
to me, all my family saw it. Judge Paxon, his uncle, did not
realize its archæological importance, neither did Mr. Paxon,
the owner's father. I showed it to Judge Paxon before I wrote
the article. The first time Mr. Harry Paxon showed me the
stone I remember his saying that "he could sell it for five
dollars." He wanted me to glue or cement the pieces together,
but I discountenanced the plan. I think he must have scraped
out the original soil clinging to it with a nail or some sharp
instrument, and I told him that he had cleaned the lines too
much and that the stone had lost the look of age. The next
time I saw it he had filled the lines with clay, and this I
advised him to remove, as it did not resemble the soil of the
original field. So the next time I saw it he had cleaned it
again. I took the stone to the January or April meeting of the
Bucks County Historical Society, 1882, and showed it to all the
members present. I showed it to Gen. Davis, who advised me in
connection with it to prepare an article on the Indian relics
found in Bucks County, to be read before the July meeting at
Penn's Manor. A few days after that I returned the stone to Mr.
Paxon. Somewhere in June or July (1882) I borrowed it again, and
kept it until two or three weeks after the meeting at Pennsbury.
This meeting was on the third Tuesday in July, 1882. Mr. Paxon
did not go to the meeting, but after reading my article in the
paper he set a higher value on his relic and wished me to return
it. I do not recollect seeing either part separately. The two
pieces were together when I first saw it. I think Hansell told
me that the large part had been found first. Very many people
saw the stone at my lecture at Penn's Manor. I had a large
diagram of the inscription, several feet long. Two hundred
people must have seen it. There was an article in the Bucks
County _Intelligencer_ about it, and it was at the Bi-Centennial
and there seen by everybody.

[Signed] JOHN S. BAILEY.

Affirmed to before
ELIAS EASTBURN, J. P., Nov. 8, 1884.

Letter from Dr. D. G. Brinton, Professor of Archæology and Ethnology in the Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia.

_To the Editor of the Bucks County "Intelligencer"_:

The discussion in your paper about the so-called "Lenape Stone,"
in which my name has incidentally been introduced, leads me to
address you a few lines on some archæological points, especially
on the methods of distinguishing genuine from fabricated
specimens. I shall only refer to the Lenape Stone by way of
illustration. It was first shown to me by Professor Lewis, and
after a careful inspection I pronounced it a modern piece of
work, which opinion has been substantiated by later observers.
My opinion was based, first, on the design, and secondly, on the
execution. It may be laid down as a rule, holding good in all
aboriginal designs of the Eastern United States, that no lines
indicating either shading or rounding are found on figures of
pure native origin. Every line was significant, and nothing was
done for affect. Grouping was also unknown, and any such triple
arrangement as the brute, the human, and the divine groups,
standing in immediate relation to each other and forming parts
of a picture, as appears on the Lenape Stone, was as far above
aboriginal æsthetic conceptions as the Sistine Madonna would
be above the execution of a sign-painter. Certain artistic
details, as the lightnings shooting in various directions from
a central point (as from the hand of Jove), were also unknown
to the art notions of the red race. The treatment of the sun as
a face, with rays shooting from it, I also consider foreign to
the pictography of the Delaware Indians, nor have I yet seen any
specimens proved to be of their manufacture that present it. It
is found, indeed, in Chippeway pictography, but there only in
late examples.

The execution of such imitations also usually betrays their
origin. The lines on the Lenape Stone are obviously cut with a
metal instrument, making clean incisions, deepest in the centre
and tapering to points--quite different from the scratch of a
flint point. Shrewder fabricators than the unknown author of
this one make use of flint points. Some of the Western "tablets"
have been so inscribed. They may thus conceal their tools, but
there are other resources for the archæologist. The surface of
all stones undergoes a certain chemical change on exposure to
the air, which is called by the French term _patine_. In many
varieties, as flints, jasper, and hard shales, this affords
a decisive means of discriminating a modern from an ancient
inscription or arrow-head. It requires the use of the microscope
and some practice, but with these most of such impostures can
be detected. This does not exhaust the resources at the command
of the antiquary to circumvent those who would practise on his
love for relics of the past. But I have said enough to show that
opinions on relics need neither be vague nor prejudiced. It is
most desirable that the citizens of our Commonwealth should
take an earnest interest in the collection of our aboriginal
remains, and it is gratifying to learn that Bucks County is not
behindhand in this direction.

Respectfully yours,
[Signed] D. G. BRINTON, M.D.

From the Bucks County _Intelligencer_
of Sept. 6, 1884.

Letter from Mr. H. Carvill Lewis, Professor of Mineralogy, Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia.

PHILADELPHIA, Feb. 19, 1884.

CAPT. J. S. BAILEY:

_Dear Sir_:--Upon careful examination I am convinced that the
mammoth on the Indian tablet is a forgery, being copied directly
from the drawing of a mammoth on a piece of ivory found in the
cave of La Madeleine, Perigord, France. The tablet is genuine,
but the drawing upon it is recent.

Who do you think perpetrated this fraud?

Yours, very truly,
[Signed] H. CARVILL LEWIS.

Letter from Dr. F. W. Putnam, Curator of the Peabody Museum of Archæology, Cambridge, Mass.

CAMBRIDGE, March 17, 1884.

DEAR MR. MERCER:

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:

1st. The carvings were made in ancient times by an Indian of
superior artistic skill, who had seen a living mammoth, and
who wished to preserve some myth or tradition relating to the
animal, in picture-writing upon his gorget; or,

2d. The carvings were made by an Indian in comparatively recent
times, with the same idea of preserving a myth about the "great
beast," and he was aided in his work by some white man; or,

3d. That the carving is the work of some white man in very
recent times, who may or may not have known of the myth and
tradition of the Indians relating to the "mammoth."

An attempt to read the stone as a pictograph illustrating the
myth of the "great beast" may be going too far, but if it can be
shown to be a piece of Indian work beyond reasonable doubt, the
interpretation of the figures in that connection is certainly
legitimate from the remarkable coincidence between them and the
myth.

I certainly hope you will bring every possible evidence to bear
in your work, and that by a study of many pictographs you will
be able to test the doubtful figures on the stone.

Yours very truly,
[Signed] F. W. PUTNAM,
Curator Peabody Museum.

Extracts from a report of an examination of the Lenape Stone by Dr. M. E. Wadsworth, of Cambridge, Massachusetts. The answers are Dr. Wadsworth's.

Q. Are the carvings made by steel or flint instruments?

A. The depth and regularity of the carvings indicate that they were made by some dulled steel tool like an awl.

Q. Are the carvings later than the fracture of the ends and the middle?

A. Later--for the tool-mark can be seen at one end striking across the broken surface, and lines crossing the middle fracture do not match on both sides. On one side they pass down on the rounded and worn surface of the fracture, below their position on the other side. This is seen in all the marks (three only) crossing the line of fracture. One other line sinks down on one side, and ends against the fractured portion opposite. This appears to have been made after the fracture by holding the pieces together. It is very remarkable that the line of fracture should cross the specimen at the only place it could and intersect the minimum number of the lines of carving. Even in two of those cuts, the fracture breaks across the point where they cross one another. * * *

[Signed] M. E. WADSWORTH.

Cambridge, Massachusetts,
March 17, 1884.

Extracts from a report of an examination of the Lenape Stone by Mr. J. P. Iddings, of the U. S. Coast Survey. The answers are Mr. Iddings'.

Q. Can it be decided beyond reasonable doubt whether the carvings were made with a steel or flint instrument--is there a great probability either way?

A. I do not know.

Q. Are the carvings beyond a reasonable doubt later than the fracture in the middle--(or other fractures)?

A. They appear to be later than the middle fracture; they do not lie at the same depth on the edges of both pieces. The small arrow's shaft does not appear to have been a continuous line. It is interesting to note that the middle fracture only crosses three lines on one side and none on the other side, and that in no other position could one happen without cutting half a dozen or more. The carvings appear to have been arranged with reference to the break.

[Signed] JOSEPH P. IDDINGS.

New York, March 24, 1884.

Letter from Dr. F. W. Putnam referring to the two carved stones (figs. 19 and 20) found on the Hansell Farm in the summer of 1884.

CAMBRIDGE, MASS., Oct. 30, 1884.

DEAR MR. MERCER:

I have examined the two specimens you have placed in my hands
from the Hansell Farm, Bucks Co., Penn., and see no reason to
doubt their authenticity. The lines cut upon them seem to have
been made a long time since, as exhibited by the weatherings
within the incisions. One stone seems first to have been
designed for a perforated ornament, but not completed, and was
afterwards used as a rubbing implement, as shown by the notches
on the edge. The other stone is of a natural form, in which two
holes have been drilled, and on one surface a number of waves
and zigzag lines were cut, evidently for the purpose of using
the stone for an ornament.

Yours very truly,
[Signed] F. W. PUTNAM.

* * * * *

The reader is referred to a series of articles mentioning the Lenape Stone in the Bucks County _Intelligencer_ of August 9, 23, and 30, and September 20, 1884, and headed, "Who Perpetrated the Forgery?" also to a personal discussion which took place in the columns of that newspaper between the owner of the Stone and Mr. H. C. Lewis, of the Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, in which arise various questions of veracity as to the facts of an interview which had taken place between them--_i. e._, whether Mr. Lewis had or had not wished to buy the Stone, and how long he had been allowed the loan of it; whether he had or had not been permitted to take photographs; and whether he or Mr. Paxon had scratched the surface of the Stone "to see its inside structure."

After a fair consideration of every fact bearing upon the case, and with ample knowledge to judge of the particulars of this interview at the time it took place, personal considerations prevent the writer from discussing the merits of this controversy, purely personal in its nature and irrelevant to the question before us.

EVIDENCE OF AN HONEST DISCOVERY.

The first evidence to be certain of in a case of this kind is doubtless that deducible from the circumstances attending the discovery itself, and upon it, in the present instance, for the reason that the Stone has been cleaned, and all vestiges of the soil which originally clung to it unfortunately removed, we must chiefly depend.

The fact that several persons saw the first fragment immediately after it left Hansell's hands, throws back the period of possible doubt as to its authenticity to the nine years of his ownership, while the remarkable skill and archæological knowledge necessary to forge such a stone place him as the possible maker of the carvings above the slightest suspicion. The motive of gain must be eliminated from the possibilities of the case, when we consider the trifling sum received by Hansell for the relics, and the fact that the small piece was presented by him to the present owner, while the supposition that he could have been in collusion with any person unknown for the purpose of a practical joke is rendered impossible by his own honest simplicity and the conduct of his family and friends throughout. Again, no one clever enough to have made the relic could have been a neighbor of Hansell's and remained unknown or unsuspected, and it is quite absurd to suppose that some one from a distance, having entrusted the fortunes of so elaborate a practical joke to the fragments of this small stone, would have "planted" the results of his labor in Buckingham Township, Bucks County, where the chances were very strongly against its being brought to the notice of archæologists, even if discovered.

OBJECTIONS OF ARCHÆOLOGISTS.

From the _a-posteriori_ point of view--_i. e._, from the character and appearance of the carving, there are objections which have been considered important to the Stone's authenticity; these the writer has carefully noted, and will allow them to speak for themselves.

First, in the opinion of Messrs. M. E. Wadsworth, of Cambridge, and Joseph P. Iddings, of the United States Coast Survey, the carvings were made after the Stone was broken. The fact is proved, they say, by the appearance of certain lines crossing the fracture, as in the case of the lightning above the hole on the right, which, when exposed to the microscope, seem as they cross to descend into it.

Secondly, the fracture, they say, crosses the minimum number of carvings as if they had been arranged with reference to it.

Thirdly, the mammoth on the Stone resembles the La Madeleine carving.