Probing into the Night of the Unknown Ages

Probing into the Night of the Unknown Ages

“Mythologies of our aborigines”

The following statement by a distinguished Winnebago Indian is a bit dated by the use of the term “Red Man of America,” which some may find offensive, but the article is wonderful. Henry Roe Cloud argues that evidence from archaeological investigations is of vital importance, but it should be supplemented with information from Native American oral traditions.

“It is my conviction that it is in the power of just such groups of scientists as this [the Ohio Archaeological and Historical Society] to bring to light and to perpetuate something of the achievements, the nobility and dignity of the Red Man of America – that by the intensive and patient study of the physical remains of unrecorded history, ‘probing into the night of the unknown ages’ that antiquity which rightfully belongs to our American Indians and correspondingly to our infant nation, may some day be unmistakably established…” Henry Roe Cloud Nebraska Winnebago educator, political leader, Indian Service employee.

From: “Mythologies of our aborigines.” Minutes of the Annual Meeting of the Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society (now the Ohio Historical Society), Saturday, May 4, 1929. Ohio Archaeological and Historical Society Publications 38 (1929) .

Posted June 28, 2006
Topics: Archaeology

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