The Davenport Tablets

In a recent post about the mounds and mound-builders of the United States, a culture that flourished in the Midwest and Eastern USA from ~3,500 BC to 1,500 AD, I mentioned the famous Davenport Tablets. Today's post will explore them and their significance.

The tablets can be seen online, in zoomable images at the Peabody Museum website. Below is the tablet that has the engraving of a "mammoth" (marked by the black arrow).

Davenport Tablet #2. Peabody Museum

Davenport Iowa and its Academy of Natural Sciences

Charles Edwin Putnam, lived in the town of Davenport, Iowa, on the Mississippi River. He was one of the town's most important citizens, a successful lawyer, president of the local bank, and wealthy. He established a local scientific academy, and with his family, supported it. Nowadays known as The Putnam Museum and Science Center, the institution was originally established on December 14, 1867, as the Davenport Academy of Natural Sciences. You can visit the museum, which houses the tablets, in Davenport: 1717 W. 12th St. Davenport, Iowa. Website.

The Academy published a journal with the discoveries of local and regional amateur scientists who reported their findings. Among them was Reverend Jacob Gass, a member of the Academy, who collected native artifacts and dug (with the unscientific methods of the 1870s) into the Indian Mounds looking for human burials and objects.

Gass had recovered two dark slate tablets covered with engravings from a site with several mounds very close to Davenport. One of them had what appeared to be "text" and the other had depictions of people and animals, including a large, stout one that looks like a mammoth or an elephant. The discovery was published in the Davenport Academy's journal and generated quite a controversy regarding the mound-builders and their advanced civilization, that was also ancient, because it co-existed with mammoths.

For most of the 19th century, scholars considered the contemporary Native Americans as inferior, lacking writing, and metal-working skills, they were considered a late arrival on the American scene. People that couldn't have created the sophisticated engineering works like the mounds. These were the work of an advanced civilization, and the tablets with symbols and text were proof that backed this notion.

The tablets were controversial, with many formal scholars considering them a hoax, while others, and the general population deeming them genuine. Nowadays we know that Native Americans built the mounds, and that the tablets are a forgery. It seems that some members of the Davenport Academy, unknown to Putnam and Gass, planted the tablets in a mound to pull a prank on the arrogant German reverend.

The Tablets

The Bureau of Ethnology, led by Cyrus Thomas, attacked the tablets, ridiculing the local amateur archaeologists and their Academy. Note that Thomas was part of a Federal funded institution, and as such was in a power struggle with local, state based competitors. In 1884 Henry Henshaw published hsi work, Animal Carvings from Mounds of the Mississippi Valley reached the Davenport Academy of Natural Sciences. Its author, Henry Henshaw, cast doubt on the authenticity of artifacts discovered by Gass, including the elephant pipes and questions them politely: "Bearing in mind the many attempts at archaeological frauds that recent years have brought to light, archaeologists have a right to demand that objects which afford a basis for such important deductions as the coeval life of the Mound-Builder and the mastodon, should be above the slightest suspicion not only in respect to their resemblances, but as regards the circumstances of discovery. If they are not above suspicion, the science of archaeology can better afford to wait for further and more certain evidence than to commit itself to theories which may prove stumbling-blocks to truth until that indefinite time when future investigations shall show their illusory nature."

Charles Putnam felt that his Academy was under attack and wrote a short book, published in 1885 "A vindication of the authenticity of the elephant pipes and inscribed tablets in the museum of the Davenport Academy of Natural Sciences, from the accusations of the Bureau of Ethnology, of the Smithsonian Institution" he describes the discovery of the tablets, and supports their authenticity as well as the integrity and honor of the local, amateur archaeologists:

"...the first two were found in what is known as Mound No. 3, on the Cook farm, adjoining the city of Davenport. The principal discoverer was Rev. Jacob Cass, a Lutheran clergyman, then settled over a congregation in Davenport. In this exploration Mr. Gass was assisted by L. H. Willrodt and H. S. Stoltzenau, with five other persons who were accidentally present during the opening of the mound. The discovery was made on January 10th, 1877
...
The third inscribed tablet was found on January 30th, 1878, in Mound No. 11, in the group of mounds on Cook’s farm, in the suburbs of Davenport, and in close proximity to the mound wherein the other tablets were discovered. That indefatigable explorer. Rev. J. Gass, was also present during these further researches, and had for his assistants John Hume and Charles E. Harrison, both members of the Academy, and well and favorably known in this community. The circumstances of this discovery, as narrated by Mr. Harrison, are published in the Proceedings of the No suspicions whatever attach to this discovery, and the well-attested facts connected therewith estab¬ lish beyond reasonable doubt, that, whether more or less ancient, the tablet was deposited at the making of the mound..."

Putnam was honestly defending his Academy and vouching for the integrity of its members.

Below is the layout of the Davenport site, mounds and an engraving of a tablet:

The Tablets

A good description of the Davenport Tablets can be found in the work of Stephen Peet, 1892, The Mound Builders: Their Works and Relics, where on page 45 he describes the tablets as follows:

"The large tablet is twelve inches long, from eight to ten inches wide, and was made of dark coal slate. Fig. 22. The smaller tablet was about square, seven inches in length, and had holes bored in the upper corners, and is called the calendar stone, as it contained twelve signs with three concentric circles, though the signs do not in the least resemble the Mexican or Maya cal endars. The larger tablet contained a picture on either side, one representing a cremation scene, the other a hunting scene. The cremation scene "suggests human sacrifices." A number of bodies are represented as lying upon the back, and the fire is burning upon the summit of the mound, while the so-called Mound-builders are gathered in a ring around the mound. Above the cremation scene is an arch formed by three crescent lines, representing the horizon, and in the crescent and above it are hieroglyphics, some of which resemble the common figures and numbers, and the various letters of the alphabet; there are nintyeight figures, twenty-four in one, twenty in the other, and fiftyfour above the lines. The peculiar features of this picture are these : A rude class of Mound-builders are practicing human sacrifice, while the images of the sun and moon are both in the sky, one containing a face, the other circles and rays. Above these is the arch of the heavens, with Roman numerals and Arabic figures scattered through and above it. The figure eight is repeated three times, the letter O repeated seven times. With these familiar characters are ethers which resemble letters of ancient alphabets, either Phoenician or Hebrew, and only a few characters such as the natives generally used. The hunting scene is the one which is supposed to contain the mastodon. In this picture there is a large tree which occupies the foreground, beneath the tree are animals, human beings and fishes scattered indiscriminately about, a few skeletons of trees in the back ground. One of the human figures has a hat on, which resembles a modern hat, for it has a rim. "Of the animal kingdom thirty individuals are represented, divided as follows, viz: Man, eight: bison, four; deer, four; birds, three; hares, three; big horn or Rocky Mountain goat, one; fish, one; prairie wolf, one; nondescript animals, three. Of these latter one defies recognition, but the other two, apparently of the same species, are the most interesting figures of the whole group. These animals are supposed by different critics to represent the moose, tapers or mastodons." The trunk and tusks are omitted from this animal, and even the shape hardly resembles the elephant, certainly not enough to prove that the Mound-builders were contemporaneous with the mastodon.* The third discovery is the one the most relied upon. This discovery was also made by the Rev. Mr. Gass, in the spring of 1880, several years after the discovery of the tablets.
* Another tablet was found by Mr. Charles Harrison in 1878, who is president of the society, in mound No. 11 of the some group. In the mound was a pile of stones two and one-half by three feet in size, which might be called an altar, about three feet below the surface; the slab fourteen inches square, and beneath the slab was a vault, and in the vault was the tablet, with four flint arrows on the tablet; a shell and a quartz crystal. The figures on this tablet were a circle which represented the sun, a it representing the moon, and a human figure astride the circle, colored bright ochre red, all of them very rudely drawn. The figure is supposed to represent the sun god. The figure eight and other hierooglyphics are upon this tablet. Above the hieroglyphics was a bird and an animal, and between them a copper axe. This tablet is as curious as the one discovered by Mr. Gass.

The third tablet described above is shown below (Source):

In an exchange published in the scientific journal Science, Cyrus Thomas lambasted the tablets (see The Davenport Tablets, Science vol.7, No. 160 (Feb. 26, 1886), pp. 189-190) as an example he cites other critics, like the Rev. J. P. MacLean who pointed out that the symbols were forgeries: "among the cabalistic characters, the word 'town' stands out in bold lines, and the figare '8' appears in rude shape among other marks. The picture of a face occurs in the sun, resembling the face of a European. The artist has overdone his work: it needs no further investigation."

Eventually Thomas prevailed and the tablets were classified as a forgery.

Marshall McKusick published his research in a book, Pipes and Tablets: The Davenport Conspiracy in 1970. He reports that some Academy members were suspicious and the rumor was that these objects were produced in the basement of the Academy building. They were made as a practical joke, a hoax, aimed at Rev. Gass. According to McKusick, Putnam, the Academy's persiden was unaware of this, and he, single handedly fought to protect the reputation of the institution. In a second publication in 1991 (Tge Davenport conspiracy Revisited), McKusick interviewed a member of the Academy, James Willis Bollinger who had said that "We had no respect for Reverend Gass because he was the biggest windjammer and liar and everyone knew he was. We wanted to shut him up once and for all." Among those involved were Edwin, the brother of Jacob Gass. Alfred Blumer, Jacob's brother-in-law was also part of it. The three of them also sold the artifacts they unearthed so there was a monetary reason for forging mound objects. One of the elephant-pipes is said to have been carved by John Gaham, the janitor of the Academy!

However, even as late as 1910, the locals defended the tablets. The History of Davenport and Scott County, Iowa by Harry E. Downer describes the controversy as a "round-the-world discussion of a quarter of a century ago" and goes on to describe the pipes and the "four inscribed tablets" housed in the Academy museum.

---

Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2026 by Austin Whittall © 

Elephants or Mammoths in Native American Art

Paleoindians coexisted with mammoths, and hunted them until (for reasons still unknown) these gigantic hairy elephant-looking creatures died out some 10,000 years ago. Mammoths managed to survive a bit longer in the Wrangel Island on the north coast of Northeastern Siberia, very close to Bering Strait (see map) until around 3,700 years ago (Source) 800 years after the great pyramid of Cheops was built in Egypt. And these Wrangel creatures are said to be the last mammoths on earht.

Ingram and "elephants" in the 1560s

In a previous post mentioned the account of David Ingram, who said he had seen elephants while he walked all the way from Mexico to Nova Scotia, Canada, as a marooned sailor in the 1560s, and wondered if what he saw was a group of surviving mammoths, creatures unknown to Ingram, but elephant-like.

What do we know about the interactions of humans and mammoths in the Americas? Could they have survived until the sixteenth century?

Mound-builder and Elephants or Mammoths

While reading about mounds and mound-builders, I came across some interesting images in old, late 1800s publications, depicting an elephant or mammoth-like creature. Below are two images from that period, depicting objects that were discovered inside mounds in North America.

The first report was published in 1883, in Animal Carvings from Mounds of the Mississippi Valley, by Henry W. Henshaw. It has some interesting text about a mound shaped like an elephant! See the image below.

Elephant Mound, Grand County, Wisconsin. Fig. 27 in Henshaw's book

The author is skeptical that the mound actually represents a mammoth, I will quote him in full:

"THE "ELEPHANT" MOUND.
By far the most important of the animal mounds, from the nature of the deductions it has given rise to, is the so-called "Elephant Mound," of Wisconsin.
By its discovery and description the interesting question was raised as to the contemporaneousness of the Mound-Builder and the mastodon, an interest which is likely to be further enhanced by the more recent bringing to light in Iowa of two pipes carved in the semblance of the same animal, as well as a tablet showing two figures asserted by some archæologists to have been intended for the same animal.
Although both the mound and pipes have been referred in turn to the peccary, the tapir, and the armadillo, it is safe to exclude these animals from consideration. It is indeed perhaps more likely that the ancient inhabitants of the Upper Mississippi Valley were autoptically acquainted with the mastodon than with either of the above-named animals, owing to their southern habitat.
Referring to the possibility that the mastodon was known to the Mound-Builders, it is impossible to fix with any degree of precision the time of its disappearance from among living animals. Mastodon bones have been exhumed from peat beds in this country at a depth which, so far as is proved by the rate of deposition, implies that the animal may have been alive within five hundred years. The extinction of the mastodon, geologically speaking, was certainly a very recent event, and, as an antiquity of upwards of a thousand or more years has been assigned to some of the mounds, it is entirely within the possibilities that this animal was living at the time these were thrown up, granting even that the time of their erection has been overestimated. It must be admitted, therefore, that there are no inherent absurdities in the belief that the Mound-Builders were acquainted with the mastodon. Granting that they may have been acquainted with the animal, the question arises, what proof is there that they actually were? The answer to this question made by certain archæologists is—the Elephant Mound, of Wisconsin.
Recalling the fact that among the animal mounds many nondescript shapes occur which cannot be identified at all, and as many others which have been called after the animals they appear to most nearly resemble, carry out their peculiarities only in the most vague and [Pg 154] general way, it is a little difficult to understand the confidence with which this effigy has been asserted to represent the mastodon; for the mound (a copy of which as figured in the Smithsonian Annual Report for 1872 is here given) can by no means be said to closely represent the shape, proportions, and peculiarities of the animal whose name it bears. In fact, it is true of this, as of so many other of the effigies, the identity of which must be guessed, that the resemblance is of the most vague and general kind, the figure simulating the elephant no more closely than any one of a score or more mounds in Wisconsin, except in one important particular, viz, the head has a prolongation or snout-like appendage, which is its chief, in fact its only real, elephantine character. If this appendage is too long for the snout of any other known animal, it is certainly too short for the trunk of a mastodon. Still, so far as this one character goes, it is doubtless true that it is more suggestive of the mastodon than of any other animal. No hint is afforded of tusks, ears, or tail, and were it not for the snout the animal effigy might readily be called a bear, it nearly resembling in its general make-up many of the so-called bear mounds figured by Squier and Davis from this same county in Wisconsin. The latter, too, are of the same gigantic size and proportions.
If it can safely be assumed that an animal effigy without tusks, without ears, and without a tail was really intended to represent a mastodon, it would be stretching imagination but a step farther to call all the large-bodied, heavy-limbed animal effigies hitherto named bears, mastodons, attributing the lack of trunks, as well as ears, tusks, and tails, to inattention to slight details on the part of the mound artist.
It is true that one bit of good, positive proof is worth many of a negative character. But here the one positive resemblance, the trunk of the supposed elephant, falls far short of an exact imitation, and, as the other features necessary to a good likeness of a mastodon are wholly wanting, is not this an instance where the negative proof should be held sufficient to largely outweigh the positive?"

The Elephant Pipes

The same author mentions "pipes": "As regards likeness to the mastodon, the pipes before alluded to, copies of which as given in Barber's articles on Mound Pipes in American Naturalist for April, 1882, Figs. 17 and 18, are here presented, while not entirely above criticism, are much nearer what they have been supposed to be than the mound just mentioned." See the image below.

Elephant pipes from Iowa. Figs. 28 & 29 in Henshaw's book

Henshaw points out that neither pipe has tusks, and ivory tusks of mammoths would have been noticed by the natives, who used it for many different purposes. They also lack tails. He also notes that the origin of the pipes is suspicious:

"As the manner of discovery of such relics always forms an important part of their history, the following account of the pipes as communicated to Mr. Barber by Mr. W. H. Pratt, president of the Davenport Academy (American Naturalist for April, 1882, pp. 275, 276), is here subjoined:

The first elephant pipe, which we obtained (Fig. 17) a little more than a year ago, was found some six years before by an illiterate German farmer named Peter Mare, while planting corn on a farm in the mound region, Louisa County, Iowa. He did not care whether it was elephant or kangaroo; to him it was a curious 'Indian stone,' and nothing more, and he kept it and smoked it. In 1878 he removed to Kansas, and when he left he gave the pipe to his brother-in-law, a farm laborer, who also smoked it. Mr. Gass happened to hear of it, as he is always inquiring about such things, hunted up the man and borrowed the pipe to take photographs and casts from it. He could not buy it. The man said his brother-in-law gave it to him and as it was a curious thing—he wanted to keep it. We were, however, unfortunate, or fortunate, [Pg 157]enough to break it; that spoiled it for him and that was his chance to make some money out of it. He could have claimed any amount, and we would, as in duty bound, have raised it for him, but he was satisfied with three or four dollars. During the first week in April, this month, Rev. Ad. Blumer, another German Lutheran minister, now of Genesee, Illinois, having formerly resided in Louisa County, went down there in company with Mr. Gass to open a few mounds, Mr. Blumer being well acquainted there. They carefully explored ten of them, and found nothing but ashes and decayed bones in any, except one. In that one was a layer of red, hard-burned clay, about five feet across and thirteen inches in thickness at the center, which rested upon a bed of ashes one foot in depth in the middle, the ashes resting upon the natural undisturbed clay. In the ashes, near the bottom of the layer, they found a part of a broken carved stone pipe, representing some bird; a very small beautifully formed copper 'axe,' and this last elephant pipe (Fig. 18). This pipe was first discovered by Mr. Blumer, and by him, at our earnest solicitation, turned over to the Academy.

It will be seen from the above that the same gentleman was instrumental in bringing to light the two specimens constituting the present supply of elephant pipes."

Another Account about the Elephant Pipes

The book "The mound builders; their work and relics" by Stephen D. Peet, published in 1892 shows another image of the "elephant" pipe of Fig. 29, it can be seen as Fig. 15 on page 13. and the story of its discovery is given, as follows; notice that Peed does not doubt that the pipes are genuine: "In the Davenport Academy there are two pipes made in imitation of the elephant or mastodon. One of these pipes is said to have been taken out from the depths of a mound in Louisa County, Iowa. A German clergyman, Rev. A. Blumer, having first discovered it, handed it to Rev. J. E. Gass, his companion in exploration. It is unreasonable to doubt the genuineness of this find, even if the re markable discoveries which were made by the latter gentleman have been discredited. A second elephant pipe (Fig. 13), which had been discovered in a corn-field by a German farmer by the name of Myers, after wards came into the hands of Mr. Gass."

On page 46 he provides more information: (highlight is mine):

"The third discovery is the one the most relied upon. This discovery was also made by the Rev. Mr. Gass, in the spring of 1880, several years after the discovery of the tablets [more on the tablets below]. Mr. Gass was accompanied by Rev. Mr. Blcomer. A group of ten mounds, arranged in irregular rows, was situated along the bluffs overlooking the Mississippi bottoms west of Muscatine Slough [in Iowa, see Google map]. The first mound opened proved to be a sacrificial or cremation mound, situated on the extreme edge of a prominent bluff, having ravines on both sides. It was a flat cone, thirty feet in diameter, elevation three feet. Near the surface was a layer of hard clay, eighteen inches thick; below this a layer of burned red clay, as hard as brick, one foot thick; under this a bed of ashes, thirteen inches deep. In the ashes were found a portion of a carved stone pipe, bird form, by Mr. H. Haas; a very small copper axe by Mr. Gass ; a carved stone pipe, entire, representing an elephant, which, Mr, Bloomer says, "was first discovered by myself." The other mounds of the group were explored, and contained ashes and bones, but no relics. Mr. Gass makes no report of finding the elephant pipe, but leaves that to Mr. Bloomer. During the same year he discovered, in the mounds in Mercer County, Illinois, several Mound-builders pipes one representing a lizard, one a turtle, another a snake coiled around an upright cylinder and covered with some very thin metallic coating. Mounds on the Illlinois side, near Moline, and Copper Creek and Pine Creek, had previously yielded to Mr. Gass carved stone pipes, one of them representing a porcupine, anothera howling wolf. The pipes were composed of some dark-colored slate or variety of talc, thus showing that the Mound-builders of the region were in the habit of imitating the animals which they saw, making effigies of them on their pipes."

The pipe shown in Henshaw's Fig. 28 is reproduced here too, as Fig. 17 on page 41, it is the one discovered by Myers in a corn field. Peet points out (p. 47) that the pipes lack tusks because they would be difficult to carve, and if carved, they would have broken off easily.

Peet and the Elephant Mound

Peet also mentions the elephant mound in Chapter III, with the same image posted further up. He escribes how the "Elephant Mound" was discovered, and surveyed by Jared Warner in 1874, accompanied by J.C. Orr and J.C. Scott. It was located near Wyalusing, close to the Mississippi River. It was Warner who drew the image shown further up. Peet was not convinced that it was actually an elephant, probably a bear (see page 42): "'The head is large, and the proportion of the whole so symmetrical that the mound well deserves the name. The mound was in a shallow valley between two sandy ridges, and was only about eight feet above high water.' There are many mounds in this section of country in the shape of birds, bears, deer and foxes. We would say that the effigy of the bear, which is very common here, and which was the totem of the clan formerly dwelling here, has exactly the same shape as the so-called elephant, but is not so large and lacks the proboscis. The projection at the nose called the proboscis is not really one, but is the result of the washing of the soil. It was a mere prolongation of the head, had no curve, did not even reach so far as the feet, and can be called a proboscis only by a stretch of imagination."

The Davenport Tablets

Interestingly, Peet mentions that Gass also unearthed tablets with inscriptions on them, dug from mounds! These, Peet deems to be fake, and I agree with him. See the images below (p. 44-45), which transcribe the "text" found on the tablets:

Rev. Gass explored some mounds near the city of Davenport, Iowa (map), on the bank of the Mississippi River in 1874. In Mound number three, he discovered the tablets. The mound contained two graves, and was excavated in 1877. Gass, accompanied by seven men, two of which were students dug and close to the bottom, they found two tablets, with inscriptions.

This finding is surely a fraud, not one committed by Gass, but by another person (or more than one person), who planted them in the mound for him to find. The tablets deserve their own post, which I have published here on April 23rd, 2026).

Mammoths and Paleoindian Rock Art

We do know now that mammoths were depicted in rock art, and they have been discovered in different parts of America by serious researchers. For instance, in Bluff, Utah, US, according to Malotki and Wallace, 2011, there are mammoth images that are ~11 to 13,000 years old.

Purdy et al., 2009 reported an engraving depicting a mammoth, on mammoth ivory, 13 kya, found at Vero Beach, Florida. This is the first, and only one found in America (in Europe, there are plenty of them), and the oldest artistic object in America. It is pictured below (Source)

Further afield, in the Amazon region of Serranía de la Lindosa, Colombia, in South America, Iriarte et al., 2022 have identified rock paintings that depict megafaunal animals, including proboscideans (Gomphotheriidae) and dated to 12.6 kya. See it below:

(a) Gomphothere painting at La Lindosa: 1. proboscis; 2. fingers; 3. flared ears?; 4. moderately domed head. (b) Artistic reconstruction (Mike Keesey). Fig. 4 in Iriarte et al., 2022

Holly Oak Mammoth Pendant: Far too recent

This controversial object was discovered in 1864 by Hilborne T. Cresson, who worked at Harvard's Peabody Museum as an assistant in the archaeology section and W.L. Suralt. Cresson came forward in 1889 announcing that he found it near Holly Oak railway depot in Delaware, US, in a layer of peat. It is incised on the shell of a marine snail (Busycon sinistrum), and depicts a woolly mammoth.

It was considered to be a fake, as it looked very similar to an engraving discovered in France a few years earlier. However, it was reassesed in 1976 in an article published in Science (making its cover, see image below) authored by John C. Kraft and Ronald A. Thomas, they found that the "carvings appear to be aged in asimilar manner to the remainder of the shell."

This meant that it wasn't an old shell recently incised as a hoax! The authors even suggested it could be as old as 40,000 years based on the age of the sediments at Holly Oak.

But the controversy lingers on. A few years later, Griffin et al., 1988 dated the shell to 1,500 years BP, and discarded it as a hoax because the authors stated that there were no mammoths alive in America at that time.

Contemporary Mammoths

This leads me to ask: Isn't the 1500-year-old pendant proof that someone saw and depicted a mammoth at that time? And is proof of its existence? Isn't science built on evidence like this? or, is it based on preconceptions like "mammoths died 4000 years ago and that is final".

This brings me back to David Ingram, who claimed seeing "elephants" in the 1560s. So, why couldn't there have been a pocket of extant mammoths in Delaware in 500 AD? They were seen and depicted as an incised image on a shell.

There are some Native American myths about mammoth-like creatures (Jandác̃ek, 2018) like the "Stiff-Legged Bear - Katci-to-wαck'w... it has skin, which is Pachyderm, resistant to arrows. It is believed by many experts, e.g. Strong (1934:81) to be based on the mammoth and the mastodon" Citing: Strong, W. D. (1934). North American traditions suggesting a knowledge of a mammoth. American Anthropologist, 36, 81. https://doi.org/10.1525/aa.1934.36.1.02a00060 🔒

I found another source quoting Strong "Naskapi, an Algonquin tribe living in Labrador at the time, speaks of a monster with large, round footprints, "a big head, large ears and teeth, and a long nose" and was very large overall. These characteristics could not be solely observed from fossilized remains, indicating that a prehistoric memory persists and is contained in this oral narrative - making it a myth of historical traditions" (the natives actually saw the mammoths!)

Other sources mention that the Salish of British Columbia have a mammoth song and a mammoth dance. The Osage people describe sloths, giant bears, dire wolves and mammoths battling each other (See: O'Donnell, J. (2024). Fountain Creek: Big Lessons from a Little River. United States: Torrey House Press). However, authors like Mayor, 2007 while mentioning mammoth myths among Delaware and Shawnee natives considers these, and the Osage "monster battle" myth as constructions built when the natives came across fossil bones of megafaunal animals. They were not contemporaries, they just happened to find fossil bones.

Less serious sources like this creationist one Mammoth Trapping in the Yukon: A review of Northern Tutchone oral history evidence supporting the survival of Woolly Mammoths in the Yukon Territory within the past 1,000 years by Johnson, 2019, published with the intention of promoting the Creationist pseudoscientific viewpoint, offer an insight into other native myths (leaving aside creationism), and the recent survival of mammoths in northern North America.

---

Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2026 by Austin Whittall ©