Jatrox
Jr. Member
I did search this site and did not find anything on this. I wasn't sure where to place this but, it is about a native relic so I thought this might be the best place with all of the knowledge in native history. I first ran across the info about a year ago reading a diary from Isaac McCoy in the state archives. This discovery was in the notes. I can't find the original source since. My off and on research has only found three mentions of it. All seeming to be referencing the same article from 1851 in New York Times which lines up with this info.
This excerpt is from the Citizen Potawatomie Nation website...
Mysterious treasure
Jude’s (Bourassa) enterprise also included a boarding house. Kansas’ first Territorial Governor William H. Hutter wrote a letter about an intriguing item during his stay at Jude’s in 1854, which may link the Potawatomi to the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel.
“He has four slips of parchment covered with Hebrew manuscript, which he has sent to Washington and had translated and which prove to be extracts from the 13th chapter of Exodus and 6th chapter of Deuteronomy, and relate principally to the Passover,” Hutter said in his letter.
Jude procured the artifacts from a chief whose family secretly kept them for generations.
“Mr. B. says there is very good evidence of the tribe having had them for 200 or 250 years, and the tradition accompanying them is that the Red men brought them along with them into this Island, as they call the Continent, and that some day they were to be called for,” Hutter wrote.
“They are rolled in small flat rolls, and inserted in a stiff, hard box about 2 inches each way, the outsides of which are made of repeated thicknesses of parchment, closely and solidly compressed together and blacked outside with considerable polish. On each end is an ornament consisting of three or four long stalks, each having a bulb at the end, which may represent fruit or flower. — This box has four compartments one for each of the rolls. Around the open top of the box a square rim projects of about half-inch, and the same piece of parchment (double) which makes this rim, folds over and makes a cover, and this was closely and solidly sewed down, and the outside finished like the body of the box — so that it was impervious to air or water,” he said.
Oral tradition indicates the Potawatomi once had two of these boxes, but during a migration, a box went missing after a canoe tipped.
“All recollection of the time and place is lost. It is impossible they could have got these things from the Missionaries, for at 200 or 250 years ago none were among them, and if they were they would have no reason for giving these remembrances of the Passover to the Indians,” Hutter said. “Besides the earliest Missionaries they did meet were Catholics, and it is a well known fact that all their amulets are in Latin, and of a different character from that of these extracts. Again Mr. B. tells me that this particular kind of box for the preservation of texts of Scripture, has been, and is in use among the Jews, and that a Jew who saw it in his possession recognized it at once as a Jewish box.”
Jon’s brother Lyman Boursaw said, “It’s possible that the Knights Templar brought artifacts over in an attempt to provide protection from outside invasions. Some believe the Knights Templar buried the artifacts on Oak Island,” which is in present-day Nova Scotia, Canada.
Bourassa family rumor has it Jude sent the artifacts to Washington D.C. for authentication. What happened to the scrolls since is unknown, Lyman said.
I'd love to know more about this. Does anyone know any more info? Was the Smithsonian part of the re-patriation effort? Is it in an attic somewhere?
Surely it is somewhere in a lost state, waiting to be returned? Although the history is somewhat forgotten, it shakes up the "normal pattern of thinking" by anthropologists and archaeologists. I'd like to hear your thoughts on this subject.
This excerpt is from the Citizen Potawatomie Nation website...
Mysterious treasure
Jude’s (Bourassa) enterprise also included a boarding house. Kansas’ first Territorial Governor William H. Hutter wrote a letter about an intriguing item during his stay at Jude’s in 1854, which may link the Potawatomi to the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel.
“He has four slips of parchment covered with Hebrew manuscript, which he has sent to Washington and had translated and which prove to be extracts from the 13th chapter of Exodus and 6th chapter of Deuteronomy, and relate principally to the Passover,” Hutter said in his letter.
Jude procured the artifacts from a chief whose family secretly kept them for generations.
“Mr. B. says there is very good evidence of the tribe having had them for 200 or 250 years, and the tradition accompanying them is that the Red men brought them along with them into this Island, as they call the Continent, and that some day they were to be called for,” Hutter wrote.
“They are rolled in small flat rolls, and inserted in a stiff, hard box about 2 inches each way, the outsides of which are made of repeated thicknesses of parchment, closely and solidly compressed together and blacked outside with considerable polish. On each end is an ornament consisting of three or four long stalks, each having a bulb at the end, which may represent fruit or flower. — This box has four compartments one for each of the rolls. Around the open top of the box a square rim projects of about half-inch, and the same piece of parchment (double) which makes this rim, folds over and makes a cover, and this was closely and solidly sewed down, and the outside finished like the body of the box — so that it was impervious to air or water,” he said.
Oral tradition indicates the Potawatomi once had two of these boxes, but during a migration, a box went missing after a canoe tipped.
“All recollection of the time and place is lost. It is impossible they could have got these things from the Missionaries, for at 200 or 250 years ago none were among them, and if they were they would have no reason for giving these remembrances of the Passover to the Indians,” Hutter said. “Besides the earliest Missionaries they did meet were Catholics, and it is a well known fact that all their amulets are in Latin, and of a different character from that of these extracts. Again Mr. B. tells me that this particular kind of box for the preservation of texts of Scripture, has been, and is in use among the Jews, and that a Jew who saw it in his possession recognized it at once as a Jewish box.”
Jon’s brother Lyman Boursaw said, “It’s possible that the Knights Templar brought artifacts over in an attempt to provide protection from outside invasions. Some believe the Knights Templar buried the artifacts on Oak Island,” which is in present-day Nova Scotia, Canada.
Bourassa family rumor has it Jude sent the artifacts to Washington D.C. for authentication. What happened to the scrolls since is unknown, Lyman said.
I'd love to know more about this. Does anyone know any more info? Was the Smithsonian part of the re-patriation effort? Is it in an attic somewhere?
Surely it is somewhere in a lost state, waiting to be returned? Although the history is somewhat forgotten, it shakes up the "normal pattern of thinking" by anthropologists and archaeologists. I'd like to hear your thoughts on this subject.
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