Foreword for FROZEN TRAIL to MERICA

The Norse in Greenland “vanished” between the years of 1340 and 1410. 


Where did they go?

At least eighteen American tribes: the Leni Lenape (Delaware), Christinaux, Asslenipolls, Blackfeet, Cheyenne, Arapaho,  Missouri, Iowa, Illinois, Miami, Shawnee, Nanticoke, Conoy, Mahicam, Ojibwa, Abenakis, Wapanaki, and Wapamnaog, all have traditions of their ancestors coming to Northeast America by crossing over a salty sea in the East.

Where did they come from?

In 1836 a white man, Rafinesque, published The American Nations, a book about American people before Columbus. The book contained the Walam Olum, which is a history of the Leni Lenape told by oral stanzas keyed to pictographs. The Walam Olum, chapter 3, shows people walking across ice to a new land.

Is the Walam Olum a hoax?

The Frozen Trail focuses on the three questions above. The book is written in narration to give human scale to an incredible feat that appears beyond man’s ability. Some of the events actually occurred as written. Conjectural prose adds the unknown details of several events. Most characters are fictional, but under the same circumstances the actions of people would have been similar.

Maps are included to provide a scale of the panorama of places. A genealogy is included to provide an understanding of the relationships of people. The footnotes are keywords. The Factual Fiction appendix contains relevant information to the story under the heading indicated by the keywords.

Come. Walk The Frozen Trail seeking answers.

 Is the Walam Olum a real history?

Did the ancestors of the eighteen tribes really come across an eastern salty sea?

Did the Norse Greenland people really vanish?

TABLE OF CONTENTS

[As much as possible the Frozen Trail to Merica was written to tell the story of the twenty stanzas represented by the twenty pictographs in chapter three of the Maalan Aarum.  The plot was written by a man who was sitting in the woods of Canada 660 years ago.


The stanzas in blue have been deciphered.  Those in black are the result of the Moravians priests who tried, in 1820, to understand what the Lenape man was saying.]

     MAALAN AARUM

When the waves were calm
in the land they left,
the decent people
lived together there
in strong hollow houses
with thick roofs

The DARK YEARS

They lived where it snowed.
They lived where it stormed.
They lived where it was always winter.

The HOUSES 

While still in their cold land
They remembered longingly
the mild weather,
the many deer,
and also foxes

The BIG FIGHT 

The poor, lonely, but tough men
became hunters and
left those living
in strong houses.

The HUNTERS 

Separated from home
like breasts on the same body
the hunters became tougher
extremely good and
they reached for the sky.

ODIN LEAVES 

The hunters camped
in the north, east,
south and west.

 The CROSS and the WORLD 

The man, who ruled
in that old, northern land
that they all left,
was baptized to be pure.

 MAGNUS’ BIRTH 

The discouraged people
were worried about
worn out land
they had to abandon.
The priest said,
"We decent people
should go somewhere else." 

BRAVE LITTLE BULL 

The common people
in the east stole away
the brothers
abandoned all
with great discouragement
and again discouragement

BOLD BJARNI 

In a short while
the weeping, weak, dirty.
needy (people from)
the burnt land
saved themselves and
rested on the other side

BJARNI 

After moving down
from the snowy land
and discreetly leaving
the cousins separated
through out all the land

TALERMAN 

Where there was little
pack ice in heaped ice
with a lot of snow drifts,
the white geese ruled
and the white bear ruled

WHERE SHALL WE GO? 

Floating up the streams
in their canoes,
our fathers were rich.
They were in the light
when they were at these Islands.

WILL YOU GO WITH US? 

"Head Beaver and Big Bird
said 'Let us go to Akomen'"

ARE YOU READY TO GO?

All say they will go along,
All who are free to go.

  The BISHOP'S GAMBIT 

Those of the north agreed.
Those of the east agreed.
Over the waters
Over the frozen sea
They went to enjoy it

LEAVING HOME 

On the wonderful slippery water,
On the stone hard water, all went
On the great tidal sea,
Over the [puckered pack ice]

The MOB 

[I tell you it was a big mob]
In the darkness,
all in one darkness
To Akomen, to the [west],
In the darkness
They walk and walk,
all of them

The MEN 

The men from the north,
the east, the south,
The eagle clan, the beaver clan
the wolf clan,
The best men, the rich men,
the head men
Those with wives,
Those with daughters,
Those with dogs

EVERGREEN

They all come.
They tarry at the land
Of the spruce pines,
Those from the east
Some with hesitation.
Esteeming highly their
Old home at the mound land

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