WALAM OLUM
The words "Walam Olum" are derived from "Maalan Aarum", which means, "engraved years." (Sherwin, 1940). The Walam Olum is a manuscript of pictographs and verses first published in 1836 by Rafinesque. Rafinesque had earned a reputation of exaggerating botanitcal data to enhance his stature with scientific peers. Now, some botanists admit that he was a man "ahead of his peers." They write that many of the botanical concepts that Rafinesque advocated have become standard practice today. The Kentucky region of Rafinesque's time was still an instable frontier. There an academic was often respected for his superior knowledge, but hypotheses that did not affect the daily struggle were often ridiculed.
Rafinesque claimed the original pictographs, on bark, were given to a white doctor by an old Leni Lenape historian. When Rafinesque got the bark pictographs from the doctor in 1821 he was told they were memory devices for verses of a song. (Brinton, 1885)
Rafinesque found another Lenape Historian who could say, in Lenape, the verses for the pictographs. A Monrovian Pastor who could speak Lenape recorded the sounds onto paper. The recorder also translated an English version of the verses. Then, over many years, Rafinesque edited the written Lenape sounds using the English translation and other sources of Lenape words.. (Brinton, 1885) Some of the Lenape accept the Walam Olum. Other Delaware tribes are adamant that the Walam Olum is a white man's hoax. (Oestreicher, 1994)
The Walam Olum has six chapters. The first chapter is a creation story. The second chapter is a story of a flood. The third chapter is a story of migration across ice. The fourth and fifth chapters are genealogies of the leading chiefs, with an occasional mention of a place or event.
Many people, including those claiming the Walam Olum is a hoax, assume the fourth and fifth chapters represent a serial progression of chiefs. But chapters four and five start at similar times and progress through similar major events in the same order. So people in two different tribes of Lenape may have composed separate pictograms and verses for chapters four and five.
The pictographs for the sixth chapter were retained by other Lenape historians. The sixth chapter chronicals the events of the Lenape from the time of the European arrival until they went through the chaos time in Indiana about 1820. A few writers, who have studied the sixth chapter, have the opinion that the recorded events are authentic. Critics wrote that any school boy, who had history books available, could have created the sixth chapter of the Walam Olum
Still the pictographs and associated verses are difficult to create from imagination alone. One thing is impressive: Based on the pictographs and their accompanying verses, the creator of chapter 3 knew about events in Greenland from 1000 to 1348. In chapter 3, verses 1-6 describe the houses of Greenland and the division of the men into either homebuilders or hunters. Verses 7-10 describe the flight of the Greenland Odin followers from the imposed Christian religion. Verses 11-13 describe the rich land found by the Odin followers and the hunters in Akomen. Verses 14-20 describe a migration across ice.
A more powerful reason to that believe the Walam Olum is a history of Greenland, is because the Walam Olm is understandable when by using Old Norse words and phrases. Greenland was occupied by the Old Norse until 1342 when the Old Norse settlements "vanished."
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. In December, 2006 a systematic comparison of the Walam Olum words to 19th century Algonquin words and the corresponding Old Norse phrases revealed that every Walam Olum word could be deciphered into Old Norse. Often the Old Norse translation back to English appeared to be more resonable than the original, edited English translation.
Because The Viking and the Red Man can decipher almost every word of the Walam Olum into Old Norse, this strong evidence indicates that
the Walam Olum is an authentic historical document.
fhe Walam Olum was created by people who spoke Old Norse, and
the 31 major tribes speaking Algonquin dialects had (have) Old Norse ancestors.
