The Book of the Damned Part 29

"IYNKICIDU," according to Mr. Jones. He thinks that this is a name, and that there is an aboriginal ring to it, though I should say, myself, that he was thinking of the far-distant Incas: that the Spanish donor cut on the cross the name of an Indian to whom it was presented. But we look at the inscription ourselves and see that the letters said to be "C" and "D" are turned the wrong way, and that the letter said to be "K"

is not only turned the wrong way, but is upside down.

It is difficult to accept that the remarkable, the very extensive, copper mines in the region of Lake Superior were ever the works of American aborigines. Despite the astonishing extent of these mines, nothing has ever been found to indicate that the region was ever inhabited by permanent dwellers-- "... not a vestige of a dwelling, a skeleton, or a bone has been found." The Indians have no traditions relating to the mines. (_Amer. Antiquarian_, 25-258.) I think that we've had visitors: that they have come here for copper, for instance. As to other relics of them--but we now come upon frequency of a merger that has not so often appeared before:

Fraudulency.

Hair called real hair--then there are wigs. Teeth called real teeth--then there are false teeth. Official money--counterfeit money.

It's the bane of psychic research. If there be psychic phenomena, there must be fraudulent psychic phenomena. So desperate is the situation here that Carrington argues that, even if Palladino be caught cheating, that is not to say that all her phenomena are fraudulent. My own version is: that nothing indicates anything, in a positive sense, because, in a positive sense, there is nothing to be indicated. Everything that is called true must merge away indistinguishably into something called false. Both are expressions of the same underlying quasiness, and are continuous. Fraudulent antiquarian relics are very common, but they are not more common than are fraudulent paintings.

W.S. Forest, _Historical Sketches of Norfolk, Virginia_:

That, in September, 1833, when some workmen, near Norfolk, were boring for water, a coin was drawn up from a depth of about 30 feet. It was about the size of an English shilling, but oval--an oval disk, if not a coin. The figures upon it were distinct, and represented "a warrior or hunter and other characters, apparently of Roman origin."

The means of exclusion would probably be--men digging a hole--no one else looking: one of them drops a coin into the hole--as to where he got a strange coin, remarkable in shape even--that's disregarded. Up comes the coin--expressions of astonishment from the evil one who had dropped it.

However, the antiquarians have missed this coin. I can find no other mention of it.

Another coin. Also a little study in the genesis of a prophet.

In the _American Antiquarian_, 16-313, is copied a story by a correspondent to the _Detroit News_, of a copper coin about the size of a two-cent piece, said to have been found in a Michigan mound. The Editor says merely that he does not endorse the find. Upon this slender basis, he buds out, in the next number of the _Antiquarian_:

"The coin turns out, as we predicted, to be a fraud."

You can imagine the scorn of Elijah, or any of the old more nearly real prophets.

Or all things are tried by the only kind of jurisprudence we have in quasi-existence:

Presumed to be innocent until convicted--but they're guilty.

The Editor's reasoning is as phantom-like as my own, or St. Paul's, or Darwin's. The coin is condemned because it came from the same region from which, a few years before, had come pottery that had been called fraudulent. The pottery had been condemned because it was condemnable.

_Scientific American_, June 17, 1882:

That a farmer, in Ca.s.s Co., Ill., had picked up, on his farm, a bronze coin, which was sent to Prof. F.F. Hilder, of St. Louis, who identified it as a coin of Antiochus IV. Inscription said to be in ancient Greek characters: translated as "King Antiochus Epiphanes (Ill.u.s.trious) the Victorius." Sounds quite definite and convincing--but we have some more translations coming.

In the _American Pioneer_, 2-169, are shown two faces of a copper coin, with characters very much like those upon the Grave Creek stone--which, with translations, we'll take up soon. This coin is said to have been found in Connecticut, in 1843.

_Records of the Past_, 12-182:

That, early in 1913, a coin, said to be a Roman coin, was reported as discovered in an Illinois mound. It was sent to Dr. Emerson, of the Art Inst.i.tute, of Chicago. His opinion was that the coin is "of the rare mintage of Domitius Domitia.n.u.s, Emperor in Egypt." As to its discovery in an Illinois mound, Dr. Emerson disclaims responsibility. But what strikes me here is that a joker should not have been satisfied with an ordinary Roman coin. Where did he get a rare coin, and why was it not missed from some collection? I have looked over numismatic journals enough to accept that the whereabouts of every rare coin in anyone's possession is known to coin-collectors. Seems to me nothing left but to call this another "identification."

_Proc. Amer. Phil. Soc._, 12-224:

That, in July, 1871, a letter was received from Mr. Jacob W. Moffit, of Chillicothe, Ill., enclosing a photograph of a coin, which he said had been brought up, by him, while boring, from a depth of 120 feet.

Of course, by conventional scientific standards, such depth has some extraordinary meaning. Palaeontologists, geologists, and archaeologists consider themselves reasonable in arguing ancient origin of the far-buried. We only accept: depth is a pseudo-standard with us; one earthquake could bury a coin of recent mintage 120 feet below the surface.

According to a writer in the _Proceedings_, the coin is uniform in thickness, and had never been hammered out by savages--"there are other tokens of the machine shop."

But, according to Prof. Leslie, it is an astrologic amulet. "There are upon it the signs of Pisces and Leo."

Or, with due disregard, you can find signs of your great-grand-mother, or of the Crusades, or of the Mayans, upon anything that ever came from Chillicothe or from a five and ten cent store. Anything that looks like a cat and a goldfish looks like Leo and Pisces: but, by due suppressions and distortions there's nothing that can't be made to look like a cat and a goldfish. I fear me we're turning a little irritable here. To be d.a.m.ned by slumbering giants and interesting little harlots and clowns who rank high in their profession is at least supportable to our vanity; but, we find that the anthropologists are of the slums of the divine, or of an archaic kindergarten of intellectuality, and it is very unflattering to find a mess of moldy infants sitting in judgment upon us.

Prof. Leslie then finds, as arbitrarily as one might find that some joker put the Brooklyn Bridge where it is, that "the piece was placed there as a practical joke, though not by its present owner; and is a modern fabrication, perhaps of the sixteenth century, possibly Hispano-American or French-American origin."

It's sheer, brutal attempt to a.s.similate a thing that may or may not have fallen from the sky, with phenomena admitted by the anthropologic system: or with the early French or Spanish explorers of Illinois.

Though it is ridiculous in a positive sense to give reasons, it is more acceptable to attempt reasons more nearly real than opposing reasons. Of course, in his favor, we note that Prof. Leslie qualifies his notions.

But his disregards are that there is nothing either French or Spanish about this coin. A legend upon it is said to be "somewhere between Arabic and Phoenician, without being either." Prof. Winch.e.l.l (_Sparks from a Geologist's Hammer_, p. 170) says of the crude designs upon this coin, which was in his possession--scrawls of an animal and of a warrior, or of a cat and a goldfish, whichever be convenient--that they had been neither stamped nor engraved, but "looked as if etched with an acid." That is a method unknown in numismatics of this earth. As to the crudity of design upon this coin, and something else--that, though the "warrior" may be, by due disregards, either a cat or a goldfish, we have to note that his headdress is typical of the American Indian--could be explained, of course, but for fear that we might be instantly translated to the Positive Absolute, which may not be absolutely desirable, we prefer to have some flaws or negativeness in our own expressions.

Data of more than the thrice-accursed:

Tablets of stone, with the ten commandments engraved upon them, in Hebrew, said to have been found in mounds in the United States:

Masonic emblems said to have been found in mounds in the United States.

We're upon the borderline of our acceptances, and we're amorphous in the uncertainties and mergings of our outline. Conventionally, or, with no real reason for so doing, we exclude these things, and then, as grossly and arbitrarily and irrationally--though our attempt is always to approximate away from these negative states--as ever a Kepler, Newton, or Darwin made his selections, without which he could not have seemed to be, at all, because every one of them is now seen to be an illusion, we accept that other lettered things have been found in mounds in the United States. Of course we do what we can to make the selection seem not gross and arbitrary and irrational. Then, if we accept that inscribed things of ancient origin have been found in the United States; that cannot be attributed to any race indigenous to the western hemisphere; that are not in any language ever heard of in the eastern hemisphere--there's nothing to it but to turn non-Euclidian and try to conceive of a third "hemisphere," or to accept that there has been intercourse between the western hemisphere and some other world.

But there is a peculiarity to these inscribed objects. They remind me of the records left, by Sir John Franklin, in the Arctic; but, also, of attempts made by relief expeditions to communicate with the Franklin expedition. The lost explorers cached their records--or concealed them conspicuously in mounds. The relief expeditions sent up balloons, from which messages were dropped broadcast. Our data are of things that have been cached, and of things that seem to have been dropped--

Or a Lost Expedition from--Somewhere.

Explorers from somewhere, and their inability to return--then, a long, sentimental, persistent attempt, in the spirit of our own Arctic relief-expeditions--at least to establish communication--

What if it may have succeeded?

We think of India--the millions of natives who are ruled by a small band of esoterics--only because they receive support and direction from--somewhere else--or from England.

In 1838, Mr. A.B. Tomlinson, owner of the great mound at Grave Creek, West Virginia, excavated the mound. He said that, in the presence of witnesses, he had found a small, flat, oval stone--or disk--upon which were engraved alphabetic characters.

Col. Whittelsey, an expert in these matters, says that the stone is now "universally regarded by archaeologists as a fraud": that, in his opinion, Mr. Tomlinson had been imposed upon.

Avebury, _Prehistoric Times_, p. 271:

"I mention it because it has been the subject of much discussion, but it is now generally admitted to be a fraud. It is inscribed with Hebrew characters, but the forger has copied the modern instead of the ancient form of the letters."

As I have said, we're as irritable here, under the oppressions of the anthropologists as ever were slaves in the south toward superiorities from "poor white trash." When we finally reverse our relative positions we shall give lowest place to the anthropologists. A Dr. Gray does at least look at a fish before he conceives of a miraculous origin for it.

We shall have to submerge Lord Avebury far below him--if we accept that the stone from Grave Creek is generally regarded as a fraud by eminent authorities who did not know it from some other object--or, in general, that so decided an opinion must be the product of either deliberate disregard or ignorance or fatigue. The stone belongs to a cla.s.s of phenomena that is repulsive to the System. It will not a.s.similate with the System. Let such an object be heard of by such a systematist as Avebury, and the mere mention of it is as nearly certainly the stimulus to a conventional reaction as is a charged body to an electroscope or a gla.s.s of beer to a prohibitionist. It is of the ideals of Science to know one object from another before expressing an opinion upon a thing, but that is not the spirit of universal mechanics:

A thing. It is attractive or repulsive. Its conventional reaction follows.

Because it is not the stone from Grave Creek that is in Hebrew characters, either ancient or modern: it is a stone from Newark, Ohio, of which the story is told that a forger made this mistake of using modern instead of ancient Hebrew characters. We shall see that the inscription upon the Grave Creek stone is not in Hebrew.

Or all things are presumed to be innocent, but are supposed to be guilty--unless they a.s.similate.

Col. Whittelsey (_Western Reserve Historical Tracts, No. 33_) says that the Grave Creek stone was considered a fraud by Wilson, Squires, and Davis. Then he comes to the Congress of Archaeologists at Nancy, France, 1875. It is hard for Col. Whittelsey to admit that, at this meeting, which sounds important, the stone was endorsed. He reminds us of Mr.

Symons, and "the man" who "considered" that he saw something. Col.

Whittelsey's somewhat tortuous expression is that the finder of the stone "so imposed his views" upon the congress that it p.r.o.nounced the stone genuine.