Metrical Form.
Even to an ear not acquainted with the language, the chants of the Walam Olum are obviously in metrical arrangement. The rhythm is syllabic and accentual, with frequent effort to select homophones (to which the correct form of the words is occasionally sacrificed), and sometimes alliteration. Iteration is also called in aid, and the metrical scheme is varied in the different chants.
All these rhythmical devices appear in the native American songs of many tribes, though I cannot point to any other strictly aboriginal production in Algonkin, where a tendency toward rhyme is as prominent as in the Walam Olum. It is well to remember, however, that our material for comparison is exceedingly scanty, and also that for nearly three fourths of a century before this song was obtained, the music-loving Moravian missionaries had made the Delawares familiar with numerous hymns in their own tongue, correctly framed and rhymed.
Pictographic System
The pictographic system which the Walam Olum presents is clearly that of the Western Algonkins, most familiar to us through examples from the Chipeways and Shawnees. It is quite likely, indeed, that it was the work of a Shawnee, as we know that they supplied such songs, with symbols, to the Chipeways, and were intimately associated with the Delawares.
At the time Rafinesque wrote, Tanner's Narrative had been in print several years, and the numerous examples of Algonkin pictography it contains were before him. Yet it must be said that the pictographs of the Walam Olum have less resemblance to these than to those published by the Chipeway chief, George Copway, in 1850, and by Schoolcraft, in his "History and Statistics of the Indian Tribes." There is generally a distinct, obvious connection between the symbol and the sense of the text, sufficient to recall the latter to one who has made himself once thoroughly familiar with it. I have not undertaken a study of the symbols; but have confined myself to a careful reproduction of them, and the suggestion of their more obvious meanings, and their correspondences with the pictographs furnished by later writers. I shall leave it for others to determine to what extent they should be accepted as a pure specimen of Algonkin pictographic writing.
Derivation of Walam Olum.
The derivation of the name Walam Olum has been largely anticipated on previous pages. I have shown that wâlâm (in modern Minsi, wâlumin) means "painted," especially "painted red." This is a secondary meaning, as the root wuli conveys the idea of something pleasant, in this connection, pleasant to the eye, fine, pretty. ([See ante p. 104].)
Olum was the name of the scores, marks, or figures in use on the tally-sticks or record-boards. The native Delaware missionary, Mr. Albert Anthony says that the knowledge of these ancient signs has been lost, but that the word olum is still preserved by the Delaware boys in their games when they keep the score by notches on a stick. These notches— not the sticks—are called to this day olum—an interesting example of the preservation of an archaic form in the language of children.
The name Wâlâm Olum is therefore a highly appropriate one for the record, and may be translated "Red Score."