PROBABLE HISTORY
of WALAM OLUM HISTORIAN

Why would a Lenape historian pass his bundle of memory sticks to a white doctor?

Consider the Lenape historian, John Killbuck, Jr. He was called, by Americans, "leader." His Algonquin name meant "The speaker of the people." He had a direct relationship to Sossoonan, the only Lenape historian we know. Because of that direct relationship, there is a good chance that he was carrying the history memory sticks. His close associate during the revolutionary war was the well-respected chief, White-Eyes.

White-Eyes guided the Americans toward Detroit. But his death has been recorded as "murder" rather than "died fighting."

Killbuck Jr., like his father, opposed the Moravians. But he did favor good relations with the Americans even after the "murder" of White Eyes. Most of the other Lenape sided with England. So Killbuck and a few Lenape warriors went to Fort Pitt for their own safety.

Later Killbuck Jr. helped the Americans over run the Lenape town of Coshocton. The Americans burned most of the Lenape villages, except for the Christian Lenape towns. A few months later the white settlers of western Pennsylvania burned the Christian Lenape towns and massacred ninety Christian Lenape. Most of the surviving Lenape hated the Americans and the God that came with them. Unfortunately Killbuck Jr. was with the Americans.

The Americans won the war. Killbuck Jr. was imposed upon the Lenape as one of three chiefs favored by the Americans. But Killbuck Jr. could not regain respect from the Lenape. Later, In 1795, he did not represent the Lenape at a treaty after the Indians lost the battle of Fallen Timbers. The treaty forced the Lenape into yet another move, this time into Indiana. At first they roamed as scattered villages. Then about nine villages came together on the White River in Indiana.

There "an almost insane belief in witchcraft spread throughout the tribe resulting in the execution of men and women accused of being witches ..." (Weslager. 1978). A leading chief was struck on the head with a tomahawk swung by his own son. The chief was thrown, yet alive, into a roaring fire. Another chief barely escaped because his friends convinced the other Lenape that he was not a witch. Hated Killbuck Jr. must have walked and talked with great care.

In 1817-18 the Americans were once again forcing the Lenape to move, this time west across the Mississippi.

John Killbuck, Jr.'s situation was distressing, He was receiving some treatment from Americans, hated by most Lenape, living in a chaotic community overwhelmed with drunkenness, fearful of being executed as a witch, faced with another disruptive move, and death was coming soon. John Killbuck Jr. might have decided to pass the history memory sticks to the white doctor who would not execute him as a witch and who reduced his pain.

Comment: The Lenape of 1818-1820 were not a receptive audience for the ancient story of their ancestors coming from the Eastern Sea. Killbuck Jr., or someone who lived through a similar ordeal, may have gone to his grave believing the memory sticks were better off in a respected white doctor's hands than in the violent hands of his drunken, insane descendants.

Perhaps they were.

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