Walam Olum: The “Red Record” of Creation, the Flood, Babel, and Migration to the Americas

In 1836, botanist and antiquarian Constantine Samuel Rafinesque published the Walam Olum (sometimes known as the “Red Record” or “Red Score”) that was based on a set of wooden tablets containing 183 glyphs that were committed to memory by song by the Lenni Lenape Native Americans. This history—passed through generations for over 3,000 years—describes the Creation account, the Great Flood, the struggle between man and evil, the giants, and the narrative of a series of migrations led by 95 chiefs from Asia to America. This document was largely taken at face value since its inception until the 1990s, when it was attacked by skeptics. Recent genetic breakthroughs, however, have trumped these doubts and revealed that the Walam Olum presents a reliable historical record—one that clearly supports and overlaps the Biblical account outlined in Genesis.