Chief Wakadjaxedga Big Thunder, /Lenni-Lenape

Big Thunder Waka Djaxedega, Chief of the Leni Lenape was born Circa 1620 in what is now Pennsylvania. He is buried at an old museum in Pennsylvania.

He spoke the Algonquian (Algonquin) Language.

The Lenni Lenape (the "true people") are also called the Delaware Indians.

The name of his spouse is Unknown.

Notes for possible future research include;

1. Does the University of Pennsylvania have a photograph of Chief Big Thunder?
2. Are there pictures of Chief Big Thunder's grave at a an old museum in ?Pennsylvania
3. Is there proof that he's related to Pocahontas?
4. What other info is there on him at the museum and the university?

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Island and had an interview with Big Thunder. Her account of it follows:

"He (Big Thunder) told all about the ancient 'book of skins' referred to by Gen. Fessenden. It was burned, as the Indian agent wrote me several years ago. The book, for many years, was believed to be made of skins, but it was discovered that the so-called skins were really sheets of birch bark cured in a way that made them look like skins. Big Thunder showed a piece of bark prepared in the same way, and one could not tell it from a skin. This ancient book was a sort of chart or record of localities in Warren, Bristol, and part of Providence. By it Big Thunder located King's Rocks, King Philip's Chair, the Indian Burial Place on Edward Mason's farm on the Big Swamp Road, and other Indian localities. Big Thunder said that in the chart was a picture of a niche in the side of a hill with an Indian seated in it shooting at a head-dress set up on a rock at some distance ahead of him. The meaning of this picture is that King Philip used to practice marksmanship by shooting the feathers off the head-dress. The niche was King Philip's Chair at Mount Hope. The chart showed that near this Chair there was wampum buried. Big Thunder dug and unearthed a collar of purple and white beads. It was shaped to fit the neck, the groundwork being of the purple beads with a sort of vine-like design of white. Big Thunder as custodian of the tribe had the collar. He keeps it in an old cracked blue pitcher."

There seems to be here some evidence that Big Thunder's story about the book had grown somewhat in the interval since he had told it to Fessenden 43 years before. All my informants are very skeptical about this peculiar book. For one thing, no one can be found who ever saw it, whether Fessenden in 1860, or anyone later! It may have existed, or may not. Even if it did, as one person expresses it, "he may have made it himself, and burned part or all of it. Indians are apt to hoax nice people this way when they think their victims are gullible and eager." The value of

CHIEF BIG THUNDER 125

Loring's word for it we have probed already. Another correspondent observes rightly that so far as its contents have been described it would be a very queer sort of book for Indians to preserve — why should they wish to have charts of ancient cornmills and graveyards? Loring was wandering about in the vicinity of Warren "for several weeks," and no chart would have been needed to help him find the places which Jie located. It cannot possibly have revealed the burial place of the collar described: "collars of wampum thirty years ago were common on Oldtown Island and Big Thunder probably got his beads there ; no collar woven of wampum could last long in the ground." Moreover, "there is no such thing as 'keeper of the records of the tribe.' " And finally, a well-informed local Indian had never heard of the existence of such a book. It seems to have been invented by our gifted deceiver especially to appeal to a Rhode Island audience.

When I first heard of it, I naturally was eager to learn everything possible about it, and to discover whether there was any chance at all that it might have been an authentic pictographic source -book of local Indian history. Such things are not unknown. The Lenni Lenape (Delawares) had a pictographic Walam Olum, outlining the history of their migrations ; and B. Perley Poore found in the French archives an "Indian Hieroglyphic Picture Book," the "Livre des Sauvages," written about 1680.* After such reports as I have now related, all my hopes in this direction were completely shattered. The outcome, nevertheless, leaves us with a still quaint texture of pleasing inventions to console us for the lack of historical veridity. Our "custodian of the tribe" naturally had other treasures to show to inter- ested visitors. What can be learned about these throws further light on the general nature of his pretensions and is worth placing on record. I have two lists of them, one recorded by Miss Baker in 1903, the other noted down by

• E. B. Delabarre, Dighton Rock, 1 928, pp. 1 77, 272, 278.

126 RHODE ISLAM) HISTORICAL SOCIETY

Mrs. Eckstorm in 1901. The latter says that at the time of her visit he displayed a birch bark sign reading: "Big Thun- der, Indian relics and Indian traditions told." Both remark that he kept the articles in a box or trunk under his bed. There is not a single identifiable article that is the same in the two lists, unless those which I have numbered 1 and 2 are the same in both cases. Apparently he sold them when he could, and kept changing them and his stories about them to suit the interests of his particular hearers. It was his busi- ness to sell relics with interesting stories attached to them. One list, together with the tale of the mythical pictographic book, has the appearance of having been designed for Rhode Island consumption especially. The other and earlier one has nothing in it reminiscent of that design. Miss Baker's list of the treasures is as follows:

1 . A knife given by the Mohawks to the Penobscots.

2. The collar of wampum described above, used at marriage ceremonies.

3. An iron hatchet given by King Philip to the Penob- scots, the first iron hatchet ever owned by the tribe. ( But see a later story about King Philip's axe.)

4. An iron tomahawk given to the tribe by King Philip.

5. A pestle which Big Thunder found at King's Rocks.

6. A red sandstone peace-pipe obtained from the Cherokees.

7. The war-bow of the tribe. Very curious. String of caribou hide.

Mrs. Eckstorm's list, of two years earlier, is longer:

1. Scalping knife taken from the Mohawks when they were beaten by the Penobscots! A very curious, long knife, very long narrow blade inlaid with bright metal, color of brass, and with an engraved brass handle riveted in pieces upon the steel handle. Apparently French make.

2. A piece beaded with purple wampum edged with white, beads set on diagonal lines, piece about 2 by 8 inches, buckskin fringes.

CHIEF BIG THUNDER 127

3. Strings of purple wampum.

4. Necklace of points of caribou hoofs.

5. Necklace of bear's claws with a "medal of human bone."

6. Small silver brooches from 2 to 4 inches in diameter, without ornament.

7. Two powder horns, one ancient.

8. Some stone tools", knife, axe, etc., in handles.

9. Flint and steel.

10. Scalping knife (after the pattern of Col. Bowie!) 'used by the Spaniards in the massacre of Indians at Pema- quid!' A heavy, rusty knife with wood handle covered apparently with snake skin or shark skin scraped thin.

11. Various tomahawks of bloody history, and blud- geons of modern make.

12. Pictures of Molly Molasses 'at the age of 110, wearing her widow's cap.' ( Molly was never married j died aged 92.)

13. The relics sent by Queen Isabella to Mrs. Polis, mother of Joseph Polis, wife of a chief! ! (a) A silver 'crown' — otherwise a silver hat-band. This was a flexible belt of silver, thin, not very heavy, about 3 inches wide, chased in lines like one of our brooches and with a line of openwork holes near the top. (b) Several strings of glass beads, blue and garnet, small size but good color, (c) Gold ear-rings, diamond ring, and autograph letter (these last not seen ; ring lost ) .

14. The game of bowls. This was undoubtedly very ancient. The bowl was a shallow disk of wood about 14 inches across, made, so Lola said, with stone tools and 200 years old. The counters were bone buttons about 1 *4 inches across, plain one side and marked with a simple design of curved lines on the other. The game was, putting them in the bowl, to bring it down with a thump that would make the counters jump. If all fell one side up, it counted j if they fell heads and tails, it did not.

128 RHODE ISLAND HISTORICAL SOCIETY

Through her intimate knowledge of Indians both here and in the West, Mrs. Eckstorm was able to catch old Lola in a number of untrue statements both about the relics and in general conversation. It is hardly necessary to relate them here, as we have instances enough to demonstrate his utter unreliability and unbridled imagination. She quotes one old Indian as saying: "You see, he never could bear to have anyone tell a bigger story than he could. He always had to 'over it.' " But there is one more illustration of his charac- teristic inability to stick to truth that is worth relating. Mrs. Eckstorm's brother had a guide, who told him once : "There was that d — d old rascal telling my mother that that was King Philip's axe that he used to kill our people; and it was the same old axe I had just found in Passadumkeag Rips at low water and given to him."

I cannot better close this study of a curious personality, whose reputed strange gifts and possessions turn out to be so tame and understandable, than by quoting again a passage from one of Dr. Speck's letters which I have published once before: "He was a 'show-man' in every sense of the term. He was a most unreserved liar and no secret was made of it among the Penobscot. His business was the deception of the public. He had a little relic shop on Indian Island where he sold 'ancient relics' which he manufactured, and I have encountered many stories and traditions which were his own invention. Among them must be included the 'ancient Book' hoax. In short, Big Thunder was a joke among all who knew the Indians."

Despite this unavoidable conclusion, Big Thunder was a 'picturesque old rascal,' who contributes to our entertain- ment if not to historical knowledge. It has been well worth while to have sought out the facts about him, as a one-time visitor to Rhode Island who created a teasing mystery and a flurry of interest and curiosity which the previously pub- lished accounts of him in Rhode Island literature have left unclarined.

124 RHODE ISLAND HISTORICAL SOCIETY

Island and had had an interview with Big Thunder. Her account of it follows:

"He (Big Thunder) told all about the ancient 'book of skins' referred to by Gen. Fessenden. It was burned, as the Indian agent wrote me several years ago. The book, for many years, was believed to be made of skins, but it was discovered that the so-called skins were really sheets of birch bark cured in a way that made them look like skins. Big Thunder showed a piece of bark prepared in the same way, and one could not tell it from a skin. This ancient book was a sort of chart or record of localities in Warren, Bristol, and part of Providence. By it Big Thunder located King's Rocks, King Philip's Chair, the Indian Burial Place on Edward Mason's farm on the Big Swamp Road, and other Indian localities. Big Thunder said that in the chart was a picture of a niche in the side of a hill with an Indian seated in it shooting at a head-dress set up on a rock at some distance ahead of him. The meaning of this picture is that King Philip used to practice marksmanship by shooting the feathers off the head-dress. The niche was King Philip's Chair at Mount Hope. The chart showed that near this Chair there was wampum buried. Big Thunder dug and unearthed a collar of purple and white beads. It was shaped to fit the neck, the groundwork being of the purple beads with a sort of vine-like design of white. Big Thunder as custodian of the tribe had the collar. He keeps it in an old cracked blue pitcher."

There seems to be here some evidence that Big Thunder's story about the book had grown somewhat in the interval since he had told it to Fessenden 43 years before. All my informants are very skeptical about this peculiar book. For one thing, no one can be found who ever saw it, whether Fessenden in 1860, or anyone later! It may have existed, or may not. Even if it did, as one person expresses it, "he may have made it himself, and burned part or all of it. Indians are apt to hoax nice people this way when they think their victims are gullible and eager." The value of

CHIEF BIG THUNDER 125

Loring's word for it we have probed already. Another correspondent observes rightly that so far as its contents have been described it would be a very queer sort of book for Indians to preserve — why should they wish to have charts of ancient cornmills and graveyards? Loring was wandering about in the vicinity of Warren "for several weeks," and no chart would have been needed to help him find the places which Jie located. It cannot possibly have revealed the burial place of the collar described: "collars of wampum thirty years ago were common on Oldtown Island and Big Thunder probably got his beads there ; no collar woven of wampum could last long in the ground." Moreover, "there is no such thing as 'keeper of the records of the tribe.' " And finally, a well-informed local Indian had never heard of the existence of such a book. It seems to have been invented by our gifted deceiver especially to appeal to a Rhode Island audience.

When I first heard of it, I naturally was eager to learn everything possible about it, and to discover whether there was any chance at all that it might have been an authentic pictographic source -book of local Indian history. Such things are not unknown. The Lenni Lenape (Delawares) had a pictographic Walam Olum, outlining the history of their migrations ; and B. Perley Poore found in the French archives an "Indian Hieroglyphic Picture Book," the "Livre des Sauvages," written about 1680.* After such reports as I have now related, all my hopes in this direction were completely shattered. The outcome, nevertheless, leaves us with a still quaint texture of pleasing inventions to console us for the lack of historical veridity. Our "custodian of the tribe" naturally had other treasures to show to inter- ested visitors. What can be learned about these throws further light on the general nature of his pretensions and is worth placing on record. I have two lists of them, one recorded by Miss Baker in 1903, the other noted down by

• E. B. Delabarre, Dighton Rock, 1 928, pp. 1 77, 272, 278.

126 RHODE ISLAM) HISTORICAL SOCIETY

Mrs. Eckstorm in 1901. The latter says that at the time of her visit he displayed a birch bark sign reading: "Big Thun- der, Indian relics and Indian traditions told." Both remark that he kept the articles in a box or trunk under his bed. There is not a single identifiable article that is the same in the two lists, unless those which I have numbered 1 and 2 are the same in both cases. Apparently he sold them when he could, and kept changing them and his stories about them to suit the interests of his particular hearers. It was his busi- ness to sell relics with interesting stories attached to them. One list, together with the tale of the mythical pictographic book, has the appearance of having been designed for Rhode Island consumption especially. The other and earlier one has nothing in it reminiscent of that design. Miss Baker's list of the treasures is as follows:

1 . A knife given by the Mohawks to the Penobscots.

2. The collar of wampum described above, used at marriage ceremonies.

3. An iron hatchet given by King Philip to the Penob- scots, the first iron hatchet ever owned by the tribe. ( But see a later story about King Philip's axe.)

4. An iron tomahawk given to the tribe by King Philip.

5. A pestle which Big Thunder found at King's Rocks.

6. A red sandstone peace-pipe obtained from the Cherokees.

7. The war-bow of the tribe. Very curious. String of caribou hide.

Mrs. Eckstorm's list, of two years earlier, is longer:

1. Scalping knife taken from the Mohawks when they were beaten by the Penobscots! A very curious, long knife, very long narrow blade inlaid with bright metal, color of brass, and with an engraved brass handle riveted in pieces upon the steel handle. Apparently French make.

2. A piece beaded with purple wampum edged with white, beads set on diagonal lines, piece about 2 by 8 inches, buckskin fringes.

CHIEF BIG THUNDER 127

3. Strings of purple wampum.

4. Necklace of points of caribou hoofs.

5. Necklace of bear's claws with a "medal of human bone."

6. Small silver brooches from 2 to 4 inches in diameter, without ornament.

7. Two powder horns, one ancient.

8. Some stone tools", knife, axe, etc., in handles.

9. Flint and steel.

10. Scalping knife (after the pattern of Col. Bowie!) 'used by the Spaniards in the massacre of Indians at Pema- quid!' A heavy, rusty knife with wood handle covered apparently with snake skin or shark skin scraped thin.

11. Various tomahawks of bloody history, and blud- geons of modern make.

12. Pictures of Molly Molasses 'at the age of 110, wearing her widow's cap.' ( Molly was never married j died aged 92.)

13. The relics sent by Queen Isabella to Mrs. Polis, mother of Joseph Polis, wife of a chief! ! (a) A silver 'crown' — otherwise a silver hat-band. This was a flexible belt of silver, thin, not very heavy, about 3 inches wide, chased in lines like one of our brooches and with a line of openwork holes near the top. (b) Several strings of glass beads, blue and garnet, small size but good color, (c) Gold ear-rings, diamond ring, and autograph letter (these last not seen ; ring lost ) .

14. The game of bowls. This was undoubtedly very ancient. The bowl was a shallow disk of wood about 14 inches across, made, so Lola said, with stone tools and 200 years old. The counters were bone buttons about 1 *4 inches across, plain one side and marked with a simple design of curved lines on the other. The game was, putting them in the bowl, to bring it down with a thump that would make the counters jump. If all fell one side up, it counted j if they fell heads and tails, it did not.

128 RHODE ISLAND HISTORICAL SOCIETY

Through her intimate knowledge of Indians both here and in the West, Mrs. Eckstorm was able to catch old Lola in a number of untrue statements both about the relics and in general conversation. It is hardly necessary to relate them here, as we have instances enough to demonstrate his utter unreliability and unbridled imagination. She quotes one old Indian as saying: "You see, he never could bear to have anyone tell a bigger story than he could. He always had to 'over it.' " But there is one more illustration of his charac- teristic inability to stick to truth that is worth relating. Mrs. Eckstorm's brother had a guide, who told him once : "There was that d — d old rascal telling my mother that that was King Philip's axe that he used to kill our people; and it was the same old axe I had just found in Passadumkeag Rips at low water and given to him."

I cannot better close this study of a curious personality, whose reputed strange gifts and possessions turn out to be so tame and understandable, than by quoting again a passage from one of Dr. Speck's letters which I have published once before: "He was a 'show-man' in every sense of the term. He was a most unreserved liar and no secret was made of it among the Penobscot. His business was the deception of the public. He had a little relic shop on Indian Island where he sold 'ancient relics' which he manufactured, and I have encountered many stories and traditions which were his own invention. Among them must be included the 'ancient Book' hoax. In short, Big Thunder was a joke among all who knew the Indians."

Despite this unavoidable conclusion, Big Thunder was a 'picturesque old rascal,' who contributes to our entertain- ment if not to historical knowledge. It has been well worth while to have sought out the facts about him, as a one-time visitor to Rhode Island who created a teasing mystery and a flurry of interest and curiosity which the previously pub- lished accounts of him in Rhode Island literature have left unclarined.

Big Thunder (Wakusutome) Lenape I was a Native American and member of the Lenape tribe.