46 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



copies of this book, first in the Indian reservation on the (irand Eiver 

 near Brantford. and subsequently in the Onondaga reservation in the 

 slate of New York near Syracuse. He was fortunate in finding three 

 copies more or less complete of recent date, but taken originally from the 

 manuscrijit of Chief David, a friend of Brant, who committed the ancient 

 composition to writing in the European character in the middle of last 

 century. The ritual contained in the book is that observed at the meet- 

 ing of the national council, on the occasion of condolence over the death 

 of a chief and the installation of his successor. Mr. Hale accepts ihe 

 tradition which fixes its date some fifty years before the arrival of 

 Columbus ; but its mention, among the founders of the League, of char- 

 acters so ancient as almost to deserve the title '■ mythological,"' proves 

 that it must have been brought to America in oral or written form 

 from some distant Asiatic seat. The greater part is in prose, but it con- 

 tains some karennas or hymns full of repetition, with a never-ending 



refrain : 



" Continue to li.sten. 

 Thou who wert ruler." 



Another native book by no means so ancient, but containing refer- 

 ences to the AUighewi or Mound Builders, is the Walum Olum or early 

 history of the Delawares, a branch of the large Algonquin family that 

 was found in possession of what became the state of Delaware, and 

 whose own name Avas Lenni Lenape or Lenape men. Dr. Ward, of 

 Indiana, obtained it from a Delaware in 1822, and it has lecently been 

 edited l)y Dr. Brinton of Philadelphia. Its account of the overthrow of 

 the civilized Mound Builders, whom it calls the Tallegwi, by the Nitilo- 

 wan or allied Algonquins, and the Talamatan, supposed to be Hurons or 

 Iroquois, is brief and, as the onl}' record of the warfare, full of interest : 



" Some (Algonquins) went to the east, and the Tallegwi killed a portion ; 

 T}ien all of one mind exclaimed War ! War ! 

 The Talamatan and the Xitilovvan go united. 

 Kinnipehend wa.s the leader, and they went over the river 

 And they took all that was there, and despoiled and slew the Tallegwi. 

 Pimokhasuwi was next chief, and then the Tallegwi were far too strong. 

 Tenchekensit followed, and many towns were given up to him. 

 Paganchihilla was chief, and the Tallegwi all went southward. ^ . 



South of the lakes the Lenape settled their council tire, and north of the lakes'^ 

 were their friends, the Talamatan." 



The war seems to have lasted about a century, or during the govern- 

 ment of four head chiefs, whose names, unlike those of Hiawatha and 

 Atotarho in the Book of Eites, are otherwise unknown to fame. It must 

 have taken place long before the arrival of the Spaniards. 



A document which certainly was written in 1735 is that known as 

 " The Migration Legend of the Creeks." These Creeks inhabited Georgia 

 and parts of adjoining states, along with their relatives, the Choctaws, 



