There Bibliothèque de l’Arsenalin Paris, has preserved a volume in its archives “mysterious“For more than a century: inside this text, they seem to be illustrated Native-American pictogramsdepicting often naked stylized men and in ambiguous attitudes. However, in the 18th century no one knew how to decipher exactly their meaning and therefore this text, nicknamed Le Livre des SauvagesMeaning what The book of the Selvaggiin those years he did not become particularly famous. The opportunity to try to see us clearly came with Emmaneul Domenech, a French monk engaged in the nineteenth century in numerous Travel to America between Canada and Mexico. He confirmed the origin of the text and committed himself to decipher as many symbols possible … even if in a short time it was discovered that that, in reality, was nothing more than a notebook that belonged to a young German schoolchild, that nothing had to do with the Canadian natives and their culture. But how was it possible to make such a big mistake?
How was the hoax on the Selvaggi book
The story, as anticipated, begins precisely in the Arsenale library of Paris. In the 18th century, a curious volume arrived at their headquarters, full of illustrations of stylized men and indecipherable writings. At the time, however, nobody knew how to decipher exactly its content and therefore was cataloged as a volume relating to native American culture. Unfortunately, to date there are no documents that give us indications on its origin: therefore we do not know how this book has arrived in France.
In any case, this “mystery” was resolved around the mid -19th century by the monk Emmaneul Domenech: he, in fact, having spent many years in contact with the natives, was considered one of the Maximum experts French on the subject. His analysis was long and meticulous, and led him not only to confirm theauthenticity of these symbolsbut also a Publish a new version of the book enriched by a large introduction and punctual interpretations of most symbols. Within this new volume, called Manuscrit Pictographique Americain, precedes one notice sur l’Icograpie des peaux-rougs And published in 1860, Domenech claimed for example that some of these drawings represented men of medicine, spirits, tribal heads and even “the cult of the foul”, in reference to the frequent representations of nudity.
Of course, some of these pictograms continued to remain unknown and many writings, despite being written with Latin alphabet, remained indecipherable. But this did not matter to monk: his goal was to increase one’s authority In this field, and certainly no one could have denied his intuitions. Or at least, this was what would have expected.
The response of the German newspaper: they were designs of children
It didn’t spend much time from the publication of the book that Monaco learned that a German newspaper, the Vossiche Zeitung of Berlin, confused his interpretation. In fact, the article starts precisely from the analysis of those “unknown” words, clarifying immediately that they were simple words of the German language. Some of these, then, reported grammatical errors typical of elementary school children, and this seems to be confirmed also by the quality of the handwriting and drawings. The writing represented below, for example, would be nothing more than “WURSZD“, That is sausage:
The same also applies to what was initially accredited as a representation of a barrel. According to Monaco this would be nothing but one rum barrels Originally from Europe and purchased by Native Americans. According to Vossiche Zeitung, however, this would be a simple hive. And how do they say it? Simple, the word “Honig“In German it means honey.
As for the human figures, on the other hand, they would be nothing more than Mis you do not made by a young man who have nothing to do with alleged cults. In fact, the same newspaper label them as provocative representations born from the “dirty” mind of a boy.
At first the monk continued to defend your ideas But soon he lost credibility and in a short time the entire community understood that that text had nothing to do with the Native Americans. But how did he get to the library? This is not given to know: as anticipated there are no documents in this regard and therefore, to date, the author of these sketches also remains anonymous.
