SHAWNEE SLAB

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 The SHAWNEE SACRED SLAB

The Shawnee Sacred Slab came to my knowledge in August when Hal Sherman gave me a web site reference to the picture shown on the right.  A clearer drawing with better labeling is shown on the left.  I was immediately attracted to the symbol of heaven, which appeared to be a white man’s house.  But what is really the relationship of the Shawnee Sacred Slab to Norse in Ancient America?

   The Shawnee Sacred Slab is associated with the Shawnee, Tecumseh.  Legend says Tecumseh ordered his brother to prepare counting sticks. The counting sticks were sent with a copy of the Shawnee Sacred Slab to many chiefs.   The symbols on the Sacred Slab copy explained two stories.  One story, which was meant for curious white people, was an innocent tale of passage to heaven.  The legend says that the second meaning was secret call to assemble for war when the earth shook.

    According to the legend, the chiefs counted the next to last stick on Nov 16, 1811, when a large comet lit the night sky.  Then the chiefs cut the last counting stick into thirty pieces.  One piece to count each day.  Thirty days later, on Dec. 16, 1811 the first of four major shocks of the Madrid Earthquake occurred.  The Tecumseh war began shortly afterward.

   There more on the legend can be found on the Internet. One site is http://www.ratical.org/ratville/Tecumseh.html

   Other than for Tecumseh, the Shawnee legend does not really say who, when, where, or why the Shawnee Sacred Slab was made in the first place.

   A close examination reveals that the drawing omits certain marks seen in the picture.  One mark is what seems to be a tiny boat on the “lightning” symbol.   The “boat,” appearing to ride the waves, might imply that the symbol was meant to say; “across a large sea.”

   There are other questions.  The circle with a line through it is repeated twice with different meanings.  The cross is more like St. Ninian’s cross than the four corners of the earth. 

     Ten (10) of the sixteen (16) symbols, including the heavenly house, on the Sacred Slab can be found in the Tifinag alphabet  (See Fig. 1-2 of Bronze Age America by Barry Fell, 1952)  Four other symbols appear to be Ogmi letters.  In Fig 1-3, Barry Fell illustrates Tifinag and Ogmi letters used in the same pictograph.  Barry wrote, “The language is recognizable as an archaic form of Old Norse.”

    Perhaps the original Slab was created in the Bronze Age (>1200 BC) by Ancient Norse travelers, who were using Tifinag and Ogmi alphabets.  The major calamities that followed: a comet storm (1200 BC), Krakatoa’s explosion (535), the Little Ice Age (1300s), and possibly, the Black Death (1400s), may have swept away original knowledge of the meaning of the symbols.

   Then, maybe, a wise shaman may have created another story sometime in the recent past to explain the Shawnee Sacred Slab.

   Never the less, the Tifinag and Ogmi symbols remain to indicate that the Norse were in Ancient America.