His principal work in this branch appeared in Philadelphia in 1836,âpé entitled: "The American Nations; or, Outlines of a National History; of the Ancient and Modern Nations of North and South America." It was printed for the author, and is in two parts. Others were announced but never appeared, nor did the maps and illustrations which the title page promised. Its pages are filled with extravagant theories and baseless analogies. In the first part he prints with notes his translation of the THE WALAM OLUM, and his explanation of its significance.
Rafinesque's account of the origin of the THE WALAM OLUM may be introduced by a passage in the last work he published, "The Good Book." In that erratic volume he tells us that he had long been collecting the signs and pictographs current among the North American Indians, and adds:--
"Of these I have now 60 used by the Southern or Floridian Tribes of Louisiana to Florida, based upon their language of Signs--40 used by the Osages and Arkanzas, based on the same--74 used by the Lenàpian (Delaware and akin) tribes in their THE WALAMOLUM or Records--besides 30 simple signs that can be traced out of the NEOBAGUN or Delineation of the Chipwas or Ninniwas, a branch of the last."[248]
In these lines Rafinesque makes an important statement, which has been amply verified by the investigations of Col. Garrick Mallery, Dr. W. J. Hoffman and Capt. W. P. Clark, within the last decade, and that is, that the Indian pictographic system was based on their gesture speech.
So far as I remember, he was the first to perceive this suggestive fact; and he had announced it some time before 1840. Already, in "The American Nations" (1836), he wrote, "the Graphic Signs correspond to these Manual Signs."[249]
Here he anticipates a leading result of the latest archaeological research; and I give his words the greater prominence, because they seem to have been overlooked by all the recent writers on Indian Gesture-speech and Sign-language.
The _Neobagun_, the Chipeway medicine song to which he alludes, is likewise spoken of in "The American Nations," where he says: "The Ninniwas or Chipiwas * * have such painted tales or annals, called Neobagun (male tool) by the former."[250] I suspect he derived his knowledge of this from the Shawnee "Song for Medicine Hunting," called "Nah-o-bah-e-gun-num," or, The Four Sticks, the words and figures of which were appended by Dr. James to Tanner's _Narrative_, published in 1830.[251]