278 WAMPUM. 



an Indian triumph over some rival native tribe," but without 

 offering any opinion as to its antiquity. 



In the " Grave Creek Mound" is said to have been found a 

 small oval disk of white sandstone, on which were engraved 

 twenty-two letters. Mr. Schoolcraft, who has especially studied 

 this relic, finally concludes, after corresponding with many 

 American and European archaeologists, according to Dr. Wil- 

 son,* that of these twenty -two letters, four corresponded 

 " with ancient Greek, four with the Etruscan, five with the 

 old Northern Eunes, six with the ancient Gaelic, seven with 

 the old Erse, ten with the Phoenician, fourteen with the Anglo- 

 Saxon, and sixteen with the Celtiberic ; besides which possibly 

 equivalents may be found in the old Hebrew. It thus appears 

 that this ingenious little stone is even more accommodating 

 than the Dighton Eock, in adapting itself to all conceivable 

 theories of ante - Columbian colonization." A stone of such 

 doubtful character could prove little under any circumstances ; 

 and the authenticity is, I think, more than doubtful. 



One or two other equally unsatisfactory cases are upon 

 record, but upon the whole we may safely assert that there is 

 no reason to suppose that the nations of America had deve- 

 loped for themselves any thing corresponding to an alphabet. 

 The art of picture-writing, which they shared with the Aztecs 

 and the Quipa of the Peruvians, was supplemented among the 

 North American Indians by the "wampum." This curious 

 substitute for writing consisted of variously-coloured beads, 

 generally worked upon leather. One very interesting example 

 is the belt of wampum "delivered by the Lenni Lenape 

 Sachems to the founder of Pennsylvania, at the Great Treaty, 

 under the elm-tree at Shachamox in 1682." It is still pre- 

 served in the collection of the Historical Society at Phila- 

 delphia, and consists of " eighteen strings of wampum formed 



* Pre-historic Man, vol. ii. p. 180. 



