CRITIQUE of STONG EVIDENCE
AGAINST WALAM OLUM

Comments: Oestreicher would like you to believe "in all the extensive primary literature about the Delaware during the last four centuries there is not a single reference to the Walam Olum." By "primary," I assume he meant Indian writing. But Oestreicher listed Brinton in the bibliography. Brinton, in his book, The Lenâpé and their Legends, cites two Indian writers:

On page 88 Brinton cites that in Moraviantown, on Sept. 26, 1884, Gottrieb Tobias wrote in his language, which said, when translated to English, "...And some [of the Walam Olum] I understand, and some not, because his [the Walam Olum's author] language is called Wonalatoko, half Unami and half another language." One old woman said she understood it, because she had learned a more difficult dialect as a child.

On page 156 Brinton wrote that Rev Albert Anthony, a well educated native Delaware, was equally conversant with his own language and with English. "Mr. Anthony considered the subject [Walam Olum] fully, and concluded by expressing the positive opinion that the text as given was a genuine oral composition of a Delaware Indian."

Comment: A man creating a hoax would have a difficult time writing poems that would be considered oral compositions of a Lenape speaker who was using two dialects. Brinton makes that arguement. Oestreicher, who, by family and tribal viewpoints, was opposed to the Walam Olum validity at the start6 of his research, apparently did not read all of the books he cited. If he had. he would have encountered Brinton's argument for the Walam Olum. The argument was not answer.ed.

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