Author Topic: The Red Record  (Read 242418 times)

Offline Mo

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The Red Record
« on: September 09, 2006, 11:26:45 pm »
http://www.meyna.com/lenape.html

this is new to me. maybe others have encountered this before. i'm not sure what to make of it.

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The "Red Record" (The Wallum Olum) is not new or a recently discovered piece of ancient history. It was given to the white man in 1820, when its last caretaker presented it to a Dr. Ward, a Moravian missionary and physician who had lived among the Lenni-Lenape for a number of years. Dr. Ward had saved the life of the village historian and, as a show of appreciation, the Red Record was given with the statement, "This is like our Bible".

The Red Record has passed through many hands, but most did not even examine the carved and painted prayer sticks made of bark and wood. Finally, it fell into scholarly hands and the inquiry into its meaning began. As the words and symbols of the Red Record were matched to each other by anthropologists, archealogists and historians, the impact of these writings began to emerge. Each time understanding was near, the writings were pushed aside. There were a number of reasons for this, as there are for all ancient writings as they are discovered.

Firstly, translating and understanding the Red Record would have destroyed the European position that they had taken this land because it was an uncivilized country inhabited by heathen savages. Secondly, it was believed that these heathen savages did not have the mental capacity to maintain a written history of their people. Thirdly, so little was known of the world described by the Red Record that it was passed off as more Native myths and legends.

In spite of this, the inborn curiosity of the intellectual and learned people of history were fascinated by this mystery. With the aerial photographs of Russia, China, Japan and Africa of World War II, and the later, sophisticated photographs and maps from satellites, connections were made with the Red Record which set about the first serious and scientific examination of its meaning. After more than 20 years of work and study, a translation was completed.

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any thoughts?

Offline Mo

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Re: The Red Record
« Reply #1 on: September 09, 2006, 11:30:18 pm »
i just read a bit further...sounds very suspicious to me incorporating christian teachings and the old bering straight theory. where does this come from??

Offline Mo

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Re: The Red Record
« Reply #2 on: September 09, 2006, 11:38:07 pm »
sorry...answered my own questions...



The Walam Olum of Constantine Rafinesque

Constantine S. Rafinesque (1773-1840) was a naturalist who emigrated to America from Europe in 1815. He studied descriptive zoology, botany, and meteorology. In 1836 he produced a document which he called the Walam Olum. He claimed that this was an ancient document written by early Lenape (Delaware) indians that he had been able to translate into English.

The document supposedly described the peopling of North America. This has long been considered to be an authentic and very important document. It was not until 1996 that the researcher David Oestreicher exposed the document as a hoax. Based on an examination of Rafinesque's papers, Oestreicher concluded that Rafinesque had first translated the document from English into Lenape, rather than from Lenape into English, meaning that the Lenape document was a forgery.

The reason Rafinesque created this hoax, Oestreicher argued, was partly out of a desire for fame and recognition. Rafinesque may also have been inspired by Joseph Smith's then recent translation of the Mormon Bible from golden tablets inscribed with ancient Egyptian which he claimed to have found in upstate New York. Rafinesque had publicly denounced the Mormon Bible as a hoax, but viewing its success, he may either have decided to attempt something similar himself, or he may have been trying to cast doubt on the Mormon assertion that Native Americans had descended from Hebrew tribes. Apparently some question still remains concerning the authenticity of the Walam Olum. There are still those who claim it is not a hoax at all, but a true record of the Delaware Indians.


References:
David M. Oestreicher, "Unraveling the Walam Olum," Natural History, October 1996, 14-21.

Offline danielle

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Re: The Red Record
« Reply #3 on: November 26, 2006, 12:58:55 am »
I`m not too keen on this Icelandic theory but this site does have some strong evidence that mistakes were made in linguistics and that the Red Record or Wallum Olum actually did exist.

http://frozentrail.org/

Offline 180IQ

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Re: The Red Record
« Reply #4 on: November 30, 2006, 06:14:20 am »
I tend to agree with the theory that all the land on the earth was once one large continent that broke apart. If you look at a globe or a map of the continents, it's pretty obvious that the continents if they could somehow be 'pushed' together would fit quite neatly.

Offline Mo

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Re: The Red Record
« Reply #5 on: November 30, 2006, 12:22:36 pm »
ice bridge theory or not...just seems too convenient that this writing fits in so neatly with christian thought and a land miogration theory proven wrong since. why would the lenape story about their origins be so sharply contrasted with most other native stories? i don't think anyone else has stories of coming over from an ice bridge or bering strait..do they? the "incredible" knowledge might have been so for ancient people but it was well known by the 1800s when this first appeared.
just smells fishy to me.

Offline Ric_Richardson

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Re: The Red Record
« Reply #6 on: November 30, 2006, 04:16:56 pm »
Tansi;

I have heard stories, passed down by the Aboriginal peoples of Yukon and Alaska, of people crossing the Bering Strait, while I lived in Yukon Territory.  The First Nation people there, have stories of the ones who crossed..... and the people who were already here who met them.

Ric

Offline Mo

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Re: The Red Record
« Reply #7 on: November 30, 2006, 07:10:35 pm »
shame on me...i was not thinking about the natives far north. thank you for the correction. my meaning was the lenape are surrounded by other stories of origin so this red record is very out of the norm for the area. but again..if i am wrong correct me. are there people here who believe this is legit?

frederica

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Re: The Red Record
« Reply #8 on: November 30, 2006, 09:27:41 pm »
Mo, I think it was real, but lost. It was lost and I think misintererpted. I don't believe in the "Green Channel" And some of the orgin stories are different from the migration stories. I don't think anyone will really know what it said. I have heard some things, but not really a "ice bridge". So there will probably always be differences. frederica

Offline Mo

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Re: The Red Record
« Reply #9 on: December 01, 2006, 12:29:08 pm »
thanks everyone for the info. i need to read up more on this i think.

frederica

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Re: The Red Record
« Reply #10 on: December 01, 2006, 08:56:46 pm »
Mo, Your best bet is to find an elder. I believe that one has been shaped to fit. Another reason it was called a fraud was not only the misrepresentation and his misuse of Lenape words. It was also thought that the people were not capable of such a documentation. frederica

Offline danielle

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Re: The Red Record
« Reply #11 on: December 05, 2006, 11:53:15 am »
Mo, Your best bet is to find an elder. I believe that one has been shaped to fit. Another reason it was called a fraud was not only the misrepresentation and his misuse of Lenape words. It was also thought that the people were not capable of such a documentation. frederica
Yea but,Lenape also documented with Wampum and their`s never been dispute over that nor labeled fraud.It`s pictographs just like the Wallum Olum.Maybe someday the memory or prayers sticks will surface in the basement of some european museum.....Wood decays before Quahog shell so they`re probably in bad condition if they exist any more..........Such a mystery solved is a dream of many.Personally,i`m a believer and you`re right,europeans didn`t want it leaked out that we actually weren`t illiterate and of the possibility that we actually wrote the first book.

Mo........I don`t know if you can find an elder alive today who can tell us.All storytellers(as far as in know)Holymen,visionarys,etc are gone.I don`t even think Speck did any studies but theirs some recording of the Wallum Olum by linguists and other historians......Let me know how you make out.

frederica

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Re: The Red Record
« Reply #12 on: December 05, 2006, 03:55:09 pm »
I agree with you Danielle. As I said before I believe it was real. My point is I also believe that the more you read how "they" interpert it, the more confused it will become. It's been shaped to fit their cultural thinking. That includes even the newer version where they say it may be true. frederica

Offline E.P. Grondine

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Re: The Red Record
« Reply #13 on: May 10, 2008, 12:16:34 am »
While the Lenape tradition keepers perished in the conquest, the archaeological facts support Rafinesque's account and the Red Record as reliable.

For a discussion of the appearance in eastern Wisconsin of Oneota culture, see Victoria Durst, The People of the Dunes, Whitefish Dunes State Park, 1993, p. 46-63. For a discussion of the appearance of Oneota culture at Redwing, see Clark A. Dobbs, Red Wing Archaeological Preserve, Goodhue-Pierce Archaeological Society Planning Committee, Institute for Minnesota Archaeology, Minneapolis, 1990, p. 7. For a discussion of the western Oneota culture appearance and distribution, see James L. Theler and Robert F. Boszhardt, Twelve Millenia, Archaeology of the Upper Mississippi River Valley, pages 152-155, particularly abandonment of effigy mounds, p. 155. In their book on The Gottschall Rockshelter, Robert J. Salzer and Grace Rajnovich cite cannibalism at Aztalan, citing Fred A, Finney and James B. Stohlman, The Fred Edwards Site, New Perspectives on Cahokia, Prehistory Press, Madison. One problem assigning this here to a climate collapse is Oneota occupancy at Aztalan, following on the Stirling phase occupancy at the site. For carbon dates at this site: Lynne Goldstine, Joan Freeman, Aztalan State Park, Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, 1995 for group burials and stockade history.

For radio carbon dates for the stockade and later fall of Cahokia, see the literature. For the radio carbon dates for Angel Mounds, see the literature. For "Middle Fort Ancient" sites in this area, see the literature - but note that "Middle Fort Ancient" attacker and defender sites are seldom clearly delineated.  In this regard note especially the Ana Lynn site on the Blue River in Indiana, rc 1170-1270 CE, for evidence of the Lenape flanking move around Cahokia ("Twakanhah" in Iroquois, "Towako" in the Walum Olum) and their recent defeat of a Mississippian people on the Ohio River.

For the east central areas of North America, the "Wellsburg" complex appears to be equivalent to Oneota. It goes by a yet another different name further east in far Western Maryland and central Pennsylvania, a name which escapes me entirely since my stroke.

In as much as Rafinesque had no knowledge of any of these excavations when he purportedly concocted his "forgery", that it is a forgery is highly unlikely, as the tradition agrees in detail with the physical evidence of the Lenape migration in North America during the Little Ice Age. Thus in my opinion one must side with Brinton's appraisal of Rafinesque's work.

You may be involved with Lenape who think otherwise; which in my view is unfortunate, because at the end of this line of the physical evidence of the Lenape migrations lie the Lenape homelands at the time of European contact. If the preceding chain of physical evidence is denied, then the Lenape have no claim to those lands, as there is no physical evidence for them ever having lived in them. The Lenape will also loose any claim to the remains of their ancestors along the way.


Offline E.P. Grondine

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Re: The Red Record - the one word answer
« Reply #14 on: May 12, 2008, 01:41:55 am »
"Stockades"

In recent times, defensive walls or stockades have been excavated at both Cahokia and Angel Mounds.  There was no way Rafinesque could have had any knowledge of these when he "forged" the Red Record, or the Lenape setting fire to these to defeat them, another point mentioned in the Red Record.

Thus this one detail pretty much closes this argument, and proves that the Red Record is not a forgery, and shows that Rafinesque was not a forger.
It also vindicates Brinton's abilities with the Lenape language.

By the way, the modern Shawnee pronunciation of Thallegatha is "Talega".