Fakes and Puzzles

by Hugh Pendexter

Fakes and Puzzles

by Hugh Pendexter

A MAN of normal mentality would suppose the faking of Indian pictographs to be about the last bit of mischief to occupy his fellow beings. Yet numerous frauds of the character have been perpetrated either from some moral perversion that delights in a hoax, or from a desire to sell the bogus for something ancient and therefore valuable. Garrick Mallery in his “Picture-Writing of the American Indian” devotes a short chapter to these frauds, and if the faking is to be deplored some of the translations resulting almost incline one to forgive the perpetrator.

The most celebrated “find” to be questioned is that of the Grave Creekstone, said to have been taken from Grave Creek mound, prehistoric Indian work near Moundsville, Marshall County, West Virginia. The stone was divided by four lines, practically parallel, which separated a bit more than a half of the surface into five fields of approximate width. Within three of these fields are twenty-four characters, the lower half being occupied by a crude suggestion of a human face in profile attached to what resembles a dagger blade.

Mallery says that experts have pronounced the twenty-four characters to be alphabetic and the lower one to be hieroglyphic. Schoolcraft held that twenty-two of the characters were alphabetic, with two in doubt.

Four of the characters were pronounced to be ancient Greek by one scholar. Another scholar declared four to be Etruscan. Yet another announced that five were Runic. Ancient Gallic got six. Old Erse drew down seven. Phenician took ten. Old British forged ahead with fourteen. And Celtiberic distanced the field by being awarded sixteen. The scholars would have needed sixty-six characters to supply all these claims.

M. Levy Bing reported before the “Congress of Americanists” at Nancy that there were twenty-three Canaanite letters in the picture; and his translation was, “What thou sayest, thou dost impose it; thou shinest in thine impetuous clan and rapid chamois.” If any reader of Adventure knows a niftier rendition of ancient inscriptions than shining in “rapid chamois” let him announce it now, or forever afterward hold his peace.

According to M. Maurice Schwab (Mallery does not state to whom he reported) the tongue in the stone has this to say: “The chief of emigration who reached these places (or this island) has fixed these statutes forever.” Doubtless M. Schwab had Ellis Island in mind and “statutes” is a typographical error for Statue of Liberty. This would make it as plain as Horace Greeley's letters to the young man seeking information on turnip-culture.

Comes M. Oppert and satisfies the lover of dramatic values by translating: “The grave of one who was assassinated here. May God to avenge him strike his murderer, cutting off the hand of his existence!”

After “rapid chamois” we find “the hand of his existence” tame; but it's good, and we can only regret that the immortal Twain did not review the whole tremendous discussion.

The Ohio Archeological and Historical Society in 1877 reported eight findings, which, condensed, held that the inscription need not be considered alphabetical; if so it can not be referred to any known language; it is precisely of such character as would result from an ordinary attempt to manufacture an inscription; it is within the capacity of any laborer of ordinary intelligence who may have been working on the mound; it was not properly studied to determine whether it was of recent manufacture or not; evidence that it came from the mound is not conclusive; until its authenticity is established it can not be regarded as evidence of the character, ethnical relationship or intellectual culture of the builders of the mound. In 1872 Whittlesey expressed his belief that it was a forgery.

Another “find,” which was quickly exploded, was in a mound at Kinderhook, Pike County, Illinois. It consisted of six copper plates bearing inscriptions that strongly resembled Chinese. And well they might when it was discovered that the village blacksmith had planted the plates after copying on them characters from the lid of a Chinese tea-chest.

Stones marked with Hebrew letters were industriously planted near Newark, Ohio; and one such was exhumed in 1865 and caused a commotion until the forger 'fessed up.

Newark was quite a center for remarkable “finds.” In 1860 one David Wyrick found a tablet showing the face of Moses, his name in Hebrew beneath, and the ten commandments somewhat condensed. Mr. Wyrick was a zealous believer in the theory that the Hebrews built the mounds. Before this find could get well under way a Hebrew Bible was found in Mr. Wyrick's room.

Butler County, Ohio, also furnished a grooved stone ax, lettered in English, and stating that in 1689 a certain Captain H. Argill had passed that way and concealed two hundred bags of gold near a spring. The fact that the inscriber failed to state whether they were big or ordinary-sized bags, plus the very obvious fact that the lettering had been recently done, discouraged any extensive hunting for the Spring.