CRITIQUE of STONG EVIDENCE
AGAINST WALAM OLUM

Comment: Oestreicher used questionable logic. Just because Winnie Poolaw, or any other Lenape, did not know of the Walam Olum before a white man showed it to her does not mean the original sticks and verses deciphered from 1820 to 1834 were hoaxes. It does mean that Winnie Poolaw, and most Lenape, did not learn of the Walam Olum through tribal stories or by English history classes.

The group of the original Walam Olum sticks may be the combined effort from two Lenape historians in two different tribes. If so, the circumstances that caused one tribal historian to pass his sticks to an historian of another tribe must have been very distressing. "Distressing circumstances" describes the situation of the Indians in the Indiana and Ohio region during the war of 1812 up through the Black Hawk war. During the 1812 war Algonquins were encouraged by both the English and the Americans to fight each other. After the war, despite treaties, white people over ran the Ohio River lands. Although peace treaties abounded, the threat of war prevailed.

The old Lenape historian who passed his sticks onto a white doctor in 1820 must have been suffering from distressing circumstances. Whatever happened in that chaotic period, once the sticks were given to a white doctor and were not claimed by the close family or tribe, Lenape telling of their story was finished.

The question is not: Did Lenape know about the Walam Olum before white people told them? It is: Were circumstances so chaotic for the Lenape in 1820 that a tribe was forced to leave behind an old historian and never return? Perhaps, because events in a chaotic land were building toward the Black Hawk War.

Historical list          Introduction   Against W.O.          Home