The Red Record

Frustrated by incoherent, fragmentary and inaccurate translations of one of the most important texts by Native Americans, McCutchen, an art director and amateur student of Native American culture, set out to produce his own version. The text, the Wallam Olum, is a history of the Delaware (or Lenni Lenape) Indians. The book, originally written in pictographs, begins with a creation myth strikingly similar to that of Genesis, including corruption coming in the form of a snake and a flood. It goes on to tell of the Delaware's epic migration from Asia over the Bering Strait and then across the continent to the northeast, and concludes with the tribe's first encounter with Europeans in the 1500s. The history leads to the provocative question, ``Friendly people, in great ships; who are they?'' McCutchen then includes a historical fragment that brings the tribe's story into the 19th century. The text is presented in three forms: the original pictographs, the story in the Delaware's language, and the English translation. McCutchen puts the story in context through explanatory material. A foreword by the current chief of the tribe attests to the validity of McCutchen's fluid work. Author tour. (Mar.)