The Red Record

[shkaakwus]

If you read a dismissal of Oestreicher's work, you can't say you didn't know it existed.  You should have looked for it.  It wouldn't have been difficult to find.  The copyright was 1995.  You can't register a copyright and get an ISBN or ISSN without providing the Library of Congress with more than one copy of the book or periodical.  You were there in 2000.  If, for whatever reason, they didn't have the dissertation or articles, they were easily obtainable elsewhere.
 
 
Shkaakwus wrote:

Rafinesque's "reconstruction" was NOT of some existing Lenape document.  It amounted to the mixing and matching of Egyptian hieroglyphs, Chinese ku-wen characters and Ojibway glyphs (from Tanner), with a few others, so that he could "construct" a text that would conform to his own theory of world history.
 
E. P. Grondine writes:

"Yes, Rafinesque was trying to build a coherent world history, and as I stated in my note "Reconstructing Rafinesque" would have tried to have fit whqatever he had into that world view."
 
Shkaakwus replies:
 
This is an admission that Rafinesque was a forger and the Walam Olum is a hoax!
 
 
Shkaakwus wrote:
 
Every Lenape-based word in the Walam Olum was "reconstructed" from words Rafinesque found in the works of Zeisberger and Heckewelder.  There is NO Lenape-based word in the Walam Olum whose "parts" can't be found in the Moravian works.  Oestreicher accounts for many lines other than those with personal names!

E. P. Grondine writes:

"Let's see, Rafinesque's work uses Lenape vocabulary attested in other sources, so he had to have stolen all of it from them?"
 
Shkaakwus replies:
 
Yes.  Especially when he even copied the typographical errors in those works!  LOL!

 
E. P. Grondine writes:

"Many lines" is not all of them, so will you concede that researdh is needed?"
 
Shkaakwus replies:
 
No.  Oestreicher could have dealt with every line, but his dissertation would have swelled to an unmanageable size.  It's already 574 pages, plus!  As it is, he covers many, many lines, which are more than enough examples to prove his case.

 
Shkaakwus wrote: 
 
This is just crazy.  Oestreicher takes NO position on who built the mounds in Ohio!  He clearly states he doesn't know who built them.  He can't "admit" something he doesn't know!

E. P. Grondine writes:
 
"Yes he did, and I pointed it out to you. We'll have to differ."
 
Shkaakwus replies:
 
From Oestreicher's dissertation (page 311):  "We shall never know for sure whether ancient Shawnee people took part in the moundbuilding culture."  And (page 312):  "Whether the Talligewi were ever moundbuilders is difficult to say.  They were certainly not responsible for every mound east of the Mississippi..."
 
 
I'm not going to debate Algonquian word structure with you, since you're at a severe disadvantage. 
 
This topic belongs in Frauds, as you've clearly admitted, above.
 


 

[BuboAhab]

As I stated belfore, hard evidence that the Walam Olum exists is supported by other artifacts with identical imagery. Search the Thread for Piqua, Ohio.

Someone asked for Hard evidence exists that Cahokia Was Burnt down,
http://books.google.com/books?id=GOagAAAAMAAJ&dq=charred+mound+cahokia&q=charred&pgis=1

[shkaakwus]

BuboAhab:

Which of J. A. Rayner's ketika figurines (or any other inscriptions or paintings, etc.) look identical with the pictographs of the Walam Olum.  Just how many similar representations are we talking about, here?  Frankly, I don't believe there are any from what I've been looking at on the internet.

Whether or not Cahokia was burned down is entirely irrelevant.  It doesn't say anything like that in the Walam Olum!

Finally, you can't prove the authenticity of one fraudulent hoax by comparing it with another fraudulent hoax, as you've done with the Book of Wild (Manuscript Pictographique Amerique), recorded by D. Emanuel 1860.  They're both notorious forgeries!

[BuboAhab]

The Smithsonian Institute curates J.A. Rayner's Ketika Figurines which match the first two symbols in the walam olum. This is archaeological proof of the authenticity of the walam olum.
See:
http://www.freewebs.com/historyofmonksmound/walamolum.htm

The fact that Cahokia Was burnt down was also stated in the Walam Olum.

The Book of Wild is also a supporting document that shows the Natives Used glyphs to record stories.

These stories were also recorded by Native Americans on Winter Counts, Petroglyphs, and pictographs.

Case closed: Walam olum is authentic.

[shkaakwus]

The figures shown on this website are not "identical" with the Walam Olum figures, by any stretch of the imagination!  And, that supposed correspondence with the WO Nanabush figure is non-existent!  In fact, Oestreicher proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that Rafinesque made up that first figure from four or five separate "simple signs" that Rafinesque "saw" in the Ojibway Neobagun of Tanner.  (Oestreicher's dissertation, pages 172-177).  The same is true of the Nanabush figures in the Walam Olum.  (Oestreicher's dissertation, pages 196-198).

Cite the line or lines in the Walam Olum that state "Cahokia" was "burned down."

The so-called "Book of Wild" is a flaming hoax!  See: http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/pictographs.html

Where is your proof that the Walam Olum "stories" were "recorded by Native Americans on Winter Counts, Petroglyphs, and pictographs"?

The Walam Olum is a proven forgery.  This topic belongs in "Frauds."

[BuboAhab]

The whole basis for this detractor's opinion is "No its not", with no evidence to back it up.  Thus it is not worth continuing this discussion with this detractor.

[shkaakwus]

The whole basis for this detractor's opinion is "No its not", with no evidence to back it up.  Thus it is not worth continuing this discussion with this detractor.

Why don't you true believers read Oestreicher's 574-page doctoral dissertation before presenting your completely bogus arguments for this forgery's "authenticity."  It never ceases to amaze me how people at this forum think they can know what they're talking about without reading the incontrovertible proof that this work is a hoax, which is contained in Oestreicher's dissertation.  Rafinesque has left us many other writings which show exactly how he concocted his pictographs from elements drawn from Chinese ku-wen figures, Egyptian hieroglyphs and Ojibway neobagun figures.  BUT, you've got to actually read Oestreicher to know and understand this! 

[BuboAhab]

Your basis for decision making is fundamentally flawed. Because Oest. says so?
You should try reading other sources on the Walam Olum to become more informed. Start with Ed Grondine, Selwyn Dewdney, C. A. Weslager, Joe Napora, Daniel Brinton, The Indiana Historical Society, and Myron Paine, etc.

It is very comftorable to rely on these sources rather than one New Jersey debunker.

[shkaakwus]

After reading Oestreicher's work, Joe Napora recanted and admitted the Walam Olum was nothing but a hoax (see quotation above). Brinton, Weslager, and most of the Indiana Historical Society team died before Oestreicher's work was published, so they didn't have the advantage of seeing it.  The one Indiana Historical Society team member who lived to read Oestreicher's work also thanked him for showing what a hoax the Walam Olum is (see quotation above).  Ed Grondine just admitted, in his last post, that the WO pictographs were made-up by Rafinesque, from Chinese, Egyptian and Ojibway figures; and earlier admitted that the personal names were stolen by Rafinesque from Heckewelder's list of historical Lenapes.

Look:  Readers of this forum can go through this thread and decide for themselves who's provided convincing evidence and who hasn't.
I'll be very surprised and disappointed in them if they side with you, on this.  Ideally, they'll be reading this topic in the "Frauds" section, where it belongs.

[BuboAhab]

Joe Napora never "recanted". Napora Stated in July 17, 2008 "The Walam Olum is a fascinating document that deserves more study, study without the academic turf protection and careerism that infects so much historical / literary study. You make the connection, the same as I did, between the Cahokia art and the walam olum. Perhaps those are the connections that Rafinesque made, but does that matter all that much? Rafinesque was a creative artist / naturalist / poet."

Brinton, Weslager, and the Indiana Historical Society team had more information than Oest. ever had and they were closer to the sources and they did not "recant" either.
Grondine did not admit that anything was made-up. The Detractor is putting words into Grondine's mouth.
And you left Selwyn Dewdney and Myron Paine out of your rant why?

As the detractor cannot find anything negative to say about Dewdney, I will quote Dewdney on this.
"A surviving pictographic record on wood, preserved by the Algonquian-speaking Delaware long after they had been shifted from their original homeland on Atlantic shores at the mouth of the Delaware River, offers evidence of how ancient and widespread is the myth of a flood (see Deluge (mythology) involving a powerful water manito. The record is known as the Walum Olum (Painted Sticks), and was interpreted for George Copway by a Delaware Elder... Apart from the reference to man's moral wickedness, the mood and imagery of the Walum Olum convey an archaic atmosphere that surely predates European Influence."
 

[shkaakwus]

Here is part of what Napora wrote to Oestreicher: "I contratulate you not only on your scholarship but the great detective work you did in tracking down the sources that matter most in not so much the unmasking as the unraveling of the mystery surrounding the Walam Olum. Unmasking may be the most appropriate word since there is not little doubt that this was a fraud on Rafinesque's part."
 
 
Leonard Warren, in his 2005 biography, Constantine Samuel Rafinesque: A Voice in the American Wilderness, University Press of Kentucky, May 2005, ISBN 978-0813123165 [1] (p 209), quotes Charles Wilkins Short, who knew Rafinesque, and who wrote to a friend, "Everybody knows that poor Raffy was a most bare-faced liar, not to say rogue", and (Warren) goes on to write, "There is now very good reason to believe that he fabricated important data and documents...The most egregious example is the Lenni Lenape migration saga, Walam Olum, which has perplexed scholars for one and a half centuries. Rafinesque wrote the Walam Olum believing it to be authentic because it accorded with his own belief--he was merely recording and giving substance to what must be true. It was a damaging, culpably dishonest act, which misled scholars in search of the real truth, far more damaging than his childish creations, which could be easily dismissed; this was more than mischief."  
 
Dewdney--like McCutchen is--was an "artist"--NOT a scholar.  (They love the little pictures!)  And, Napora is not saying, in your 2008 quotation, that the Walam Olum isn't a fraud.  He's merely saying Rafinesque's forgery should be looked upon as "poetry" and "art," rather than as history.  I suppose that way he can justify (to himself) keeping his "translation" of it on the market.
 
Myron Paine is a wack-a-doodle-do!  He belongs in the "Frauds" section, too.

[E.P. Grondine]

If you read a dismissal of Oestreicher's work, you can't say you didn't know it existed.  You should have looked for it. 

Why? Consider how many translations of the Walam Olum were out there in 2000, and how many have come out since 1995, or even since 2000. Doug Weller was the first person to point out Oestreicher's work to me just last year, and I applied due diligence afterwards. No one else stepped forward any earlier.

Do you have any idea how many peoples lived east of the Mississippi River? How many linear feet of material I went through to extract climate and impact information? Do you have any idea of the concentration of 3He in our solar system? Or of sunspot numbers, solar activity, and climate? Or of the mechanics of asteroid and comet impacts? Or injection and accretion mechanisms?

I tried to let this set at "Reconstructing Rafinesque" so I could move on to other far more important work, but you will not let it set. You have your reasons for doing this, and they are not entirely academic, as is clear from your intensity.

While you keep on shouting "fraud", I prefer to speak quietly at a normal level, and agree with Educated Indian and the Lenape elders who hold that the Walam Olum contains a "portion". It's that portion that I am interested in. Unfortunately, I'll have to go through Oestreicher's work line by line to try and form a better estimate as to that portion and its source(s), and as I mentioned earlier, there is other work that is more important now.

Also, while I am taking no pleasure in this exchange, I did enjoy locating and reading Miami traditions last week. Perhaps if Oestreicher were to recover Lenape tradtions in a nice single volume, reading that work would be enjoyable as well. Or is he simply going to sit on his butt and try to spend the rest of his life living off his thesis?

You may not believe this, but perhaps Oestreicher will end up gifting me with a copy of his thesis, or perhaps he and I will end up trading copies of our works. As far as my own book goes, I'll simply use Heckewelder's and Sutton's accounts, which are indisputable, along with the undeniable archaeological evidence, should it make it to a second edition.

I have set out my objections to Oestreicher's work as it now sits. Those clear errors will have to be removed before I'll accept it. Whatever Oestreicher's points about Rafinesque or the Lenape, his Shawnee history is miserable, as is his understanding of Ojibwe Midewiwin and other peoples' use of pictographs and wampum. In my opinion.

If its any consolation to you I have warned others that the Walam Olum is not reliable, and that they should stay clear of citing it in any way. I did that last year, by the way, well before our little exchange here.

I want others to work through this, and would like to see them do it for many years to come. So I would like to see this left in "Research Needed".

In closing, thank you for the census search. As far as Dr. Ward Cook and his brother go, they we're clearly too young to buy the land at Anderson when it was taken from the Lenape.

That still leaves their father as a candidate for Rafinesque's "Dr. Ward". Or perhaps he was another individual, but then one would have to track the Lenape Medewak to find him (if he existed), wouldn't one?

You may consider such an exercise grasping at straws if you like.

[E.P. Grondine]

Grondine did not admit that anything was made-up. The Detractor is putting words into Grondine's mouth.

While Detractor does do that a lot, please see my note "Reconstructing Rafinesque" here for my estimate of the problems of using Rafinesque's version of the Walam Olum.

That said, please feel free to hold shkaakwas's feet to the fire, as perhaps it will get him off his butt and on to the task of actually recovering Lenape traditions.

I am hoping that if "Man and Impact in the Americas" ever gets to a second edition I'll be able to include the Ojibwe Midewiwin's tradition of the shells as an Appendix in it. Along with at least one picture of a nice birch bark scroll.

Neahw - Ouso katet

 

[shkaakwus]

[Long series of childish insults removed] I'd then understand why the Walam Olum is not a fraud!  As it is, I only know how to read and write the Lenape language in which it is supposedly written--and, with only that poor light to guide my understanding, I can't see anything but a giant fraud.    

[You need to knock off the insults, general childishness, and the stomping-your-feet-demanding-everyone-agree-with-you-this-instant bit. It only interferes with your arguments and makes you look bad.]  

[bullhead]

Shkaakwus
i just wanted to say thanks for all of your hard work and information you put into your posts here.I think there are alot of people out there who can make a much more informed decision about this hoax the "WO". When you use work such as the WO which has been surrounded in controversy for years and years, to support your research and it comes back to bite you in the ass, you have know one to blame but yourself.