The writer has made several efforts to obtain opinions upon the Lenape
Stone from modern Indians, particularly Delawares, in the West and in
Canada. Mr. Horatio Hale, of Toronto, who kindly showed photographs
of the carvings to several Indians in Canada, among whom were some
very intelligent Delawares, says that "they thought that the Stone
showed Indian workmanship, and would have been inclined to consider it
authentic but for the mammoth, which perplexed them. They had never
heard of such a creature, and, fearing a hoax, were shy of saying much
about the symbols on the reverse side of the Stone; the pipes would
naturally, they said, indicate a treaty; the snow-shoe, that some of
the tribes concerned came from the North; and the tortoise, hawk, deer,
etc., would be the marks or totems of the different tribes; with regard
to the doubtful figures, they could give no explanation."
Of course, the value of these opinions would in each case depend
upon the tribe to which the Indian belonged, and how far his former
knowledge of a pictographic art or the traditions of his race may have
been lost by many years of contact with the whites.