Transcript Walam Olum
Cornell Notes Don’t write everything! Main ideas, events, and people Wait until end of each slide Use phrases, not full sentences Use abbreviations and symbols Walam Olum “The Red Record” Walam Olum Background Composed on birch bark Walam: painted Olum: notched stick or engraved piece of wood Written in pictographs Pictograph: drawings that represent words and ideas Comprised of 3 books/cantos and 186 symbols Relates the history, legends, and mythology of the Lenape Native Americans (Delaware) Creation Floods Migration Walam Olum as Authentic Text… 1840’s: Educated Indian Chief George Copway declared the text authentic in signs, dialect, and ideas and conceptions Respectable anthropologists, archaeologists, and historians upheld authenticity Lenape tribe used birch bark scrolls C. Rafinesque was a scientist C. Rafinesque: Walam Olum Forger Lived 1783-1840 Naturalist with interests in biology, botany, geology, anthropology, and linguistics Professor, writer, scientist with mild lifetime success Not widely accepted by the scientific community for new specimens Walam Olum as Hoax C. Rafinesque Suspicious origins: • Dr. Ward • Sacred text as payment • Why Rafinesque? Linguistic inaccuracies: • Modern Lenape language • Proficiency in language • Backwards translation Other problems: • Story compiled from other sources • Hybrid pictographs • Rafinesque very ambitious No proof: • Originals are “lost” • No record of existence • Differs from traditional Native traditions How does Walam Olum compare to traditional Native American mythology? Walam Olum Native American mythology Migration from Asia Always lived “here” Single male deity creates world World created by animal or mothers and fathers Good struggles against evil magician No evil, just comic or stupid tricksters Disease is punishment Disease is accidental or results from misunderstanding Animals and humans are separate and don’t interact Animal world and human world interact fluidly Cornell Notes: Questions Work individually Write one question from each level, three questions total Questions should line up with the related notes on your paper A/B Sharing Hypothesize as to why this was not found as a hoax for 150 years. Imagine the impact of this incident on the Lenape people. Cornell Notes: Summary Word individually Write a 6-8 sentence summary Use different words than are in your notes Include: Big idea Support Conclusion