LENAPE HISTORY
AD 1820-1831
.**After successful English colonization began in the early 1600s these new invaders, and consequently their colonial American descendants, as well as the French to the north and the Spanish in the south, slowly drove the Leni Lenape inland.
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By 1820 the Delaware Leni Lenape had been driven into a small plot of land in Indiana 'granted' to them by the US Government.
When the US army arrived in 1821 and instructed them to move again many of the remaining young men reacted with chaotic rage, blaming their fathers for 'giving all that land in the east away,” some even killed their fathers. (One young man reportedly threw his father on a fire, roasting him alive).
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A dying Leni Lenape historian, a veteran of the revolutionary war, had preserved 186 memory stick pictograms of the Maalan Aarum.
He was worried that the enraged young men rioting throughout the encampment might destroy the pictographs, so he asked US army doctor John Russel Ward, who was treating him, for assistance.
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As he was dying he finally gave Dr. Ward the bundle of sticks with the pictographs inscribed on them.
"The historian hoped to save the Lenape 400-year history as the tribe, splintered into chaotic factions that had fought on opposite sides in the American Revolutionary War, massacred each other and were being pushed out of their shrinking land allotments once again.
(Dr. Myron Paine, 1996)
Ward gave the pictographs to the eminent naturalist Constantine Samuel Rafinesque, in Kentucky, whom in turn asked another elderly Lenape historian, who knew the sounds associated with each pictograph, to help him in this project.
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This elderly Leni Lenape man recited them to well meaning Moravian pastors who, not understanding Leni Lenape well, recorded the sounds with European letters, but mistranslated the meanings of many of the sounds.
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Another complication was that this Walum Olum, (here-in-after "Maalan Aarum,") must have been passed down by word of mouth through at least sixteen generations.
Many of the words had evolved over time and some were not recognizable to 19th century Leni Lenape speakers.
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The resulting Maalan Aarum caused a lot of both interest and confusion, some calling it a fake.
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VIKING and the RED MAN
Reider T. Sherwin
AD 1940-1954
It was only when Reider T Sherwin, who had been born on an island off the Norwegian coast where Old Norse was still understood, upon arriving in America heard someone mention an Algonquin place name in New England, that the path to the true story began to unfold.
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Sherwin recognized the name as being a Norse word. Whereupon he was duly informed that the name was actually of Native American origin.
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However, both the Norse word he recognized and the Native American name meant the same thing.
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Intrigued, Sherwin obtained a map of New England and had soon compiled a list of dozens of Algonquin place names he recognized as being Old Norse.
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Furthermore he discovered that these words had the same meanings in both Algonquin and Old Norse.
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This inspired him to further examine linguistic similarities between Norse and Algonquin.
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Eventually in 1940, after 18 years research, Sherwin published the first volume of 'The Viking and the Red Man.'
Reider T. Sherwin's epic eight volumes of The Viking and the Red Man, 1940-1954, has over 15,000 comparisons of Algonquin and Old Norse phrases.
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(In December 2006, a systematic comparison of the Maalan Aarum words to 19th century Algonquin words and the corresponding Old Norse phrases revealed that every Maalan Aarum sound could be deciphered into Old Norse, vindicating Sherwin's claim that “the Algonquin Indian language is Old Norse").
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For example 'Milwaukee,' in Old Norse is ‘milde aakre,’ meaning ‘the pleasant land,’ an almost perfect match for the pronunciation and meaning in Algonquin.'
(Dr. Myron Paine)
'Quebec,' in Old Norse is 'kwe bec', both meaning ‘blocked brook’.
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Other examples are 'Mississippi,' (mestr sipi) - mighty waters in Old Norse, big drink in Algonquin.
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'Gitchegumee,' (geis sjoe kumme) and meaning big sea basin/great sea reservoir.
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'Minniehaha,' (minni ha hardt) which translates as laughing waters/loud laughing chasm.
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Another rather obviously Norse sourced Algonquin word is moccasin, from the Old Norse 'maca sin,' meaning "things which are paired."
(60 YEAR OLD HISTORY HAS OLD NORSE WORDS,
by Larry Stroud,
Ancient Artifact Preservation Society)
Dr. Paine painstakingly deciphered the Maalan Aarum sounds associated with each pictograph by looking up the Algonquin sound in Sherwin's volumes.
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Sherwin had already determined the Old Norse words that had evolved into Algonquin sounds and Sherwin gave the English meaning for the sounds.
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The Moravian pastors had recorded the Lenape Historian's sounds very well. Dr. Paine discovered that he could look up most sounds in Sherwin's volumes. Thus Dr. Paine could evaluate exactly where in the manuscript the Moravian pastors had not made the correct translation.
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(The Moravian pastors had thus mistranslated the true meaning of the pictographs).
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For instance, what they had written as being the "Walum Olum,"
Sherwin translated Algonquin sounds with his knowledge of Old Norse, as being the "Maalan Aarum, Engraved Years."
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(frozentrail.org, Larry Stroud)
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