Walam Olum

The Walam Olum or Walum Olum, usually translated as "Red Record" or "Red Score," is purportedly a historical narrative of the Lenape (Delaware) Native American tribe. The document has provoked controversy as to its authenticity since its publication in the 1830s by botanist and antiquarian Constantine Samuel Rafinesque. Ethnographic studies in the 1980s and analysis in the 1990s of Rafinesque's manuscripts have produced significant evidence that the document is a hoax. Some Delaware people, however, believe Rafinesque based his writing on actual Lenape stories.

In 1836 in his first volume of The American Nations, Rafinesque published what he represented as an English translation of the entire text of the Walam Olum, as well as a portion in the Lenape language.

The Walam Olum includes a creation myth, a deluge myth, and the narrative of a series of migrations. Rafinesque and others claimed or interpreted the migrations to have begun in Asia. The Walam Olum suggested a migration over the Bering Strait took place 3,600 years ago.

The text included a long list of chiefs' names, which appears to provide a timescale for the epic. According to Rafinesque, the chiefs appeared as early as 1600 BCE.

The narrative begins with the formation of the universe, the shaping of the Earth, and the creation of the first people, by the Great Manitou. Then, as the Great Manitou creates more creatures, an evil manitou creates others, such as flies. Although all is harmonious at first, an evil being brings unhappiness, sickness, disasters and death. A great snake attacked the people and drove them from their homes. The snake flooded the land and made monsters in the water, but the Creator made a giant turtle, on which the surviving people rode out the flood, and prayed for the waters to recede. When land emerged again, they were in a place of snow and cold, so they developed their skills of house-building and hunting, and began explorations to find more temperate lands. Eventually, they chose to head east from the land of the Turtle to the land of the Snake, walking across the frozen ocean and first reaching a land of spruce trees.

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