Bits of SJ: Iberian Indians

Discoveries are always being made concerning the ancient history of America. We have been fortunate to find clues about the ancient times of South Jersey through these discoveries. History records that when the Europeans first landed on the eastern shores of New Jersey they were greeted by the Lenni-Lenape Indians. Much has been written about these Native Americans, and there is some conjecture as to where they originated.

Before the Civil War, a Pemberton farmer discovered an ax-head while tilling his fields. The ax-head was very similar to other ax-heads that were found in South Jersey and that were proved to be from the Lenape tribe. There was, however, a very distinctive difference with this ax-head; it had an inscription engraved on it. The ax-head was loaned to a neighbor who drew a picture of the object and sent it to the American Ethnological Society in 1859. No-one at that time had the knowledge to decipher the inscription, so the discovery sat quiet for more than a century.

In 1970, an archaeologist noticed an illustration of the ax-head in a back issue of the American Ethnological Society magazine. He forwarded a photocopy of the image to Barry Fell, the world’s foremost epigrapher (an expert on deciphering ancient inscriptions), and asked him for an interpretation. Fell reported that the inscription read, “Kaza lasa dadha-a ha laba,” meaning, “Stand firm, on guard, parry, close-in and strike”–instructions on the art of battle.

Fell also reported that the inscribed language was Tartessian, a language that uses a form of the Phoenician alphabet used by the inhabitants of the city of Tarshish. Tarshish was located on the Atlantic coast around 1110 B.C.E., in the area currently known as southern Spain.

What is very interesting is that the new European immigrants to this country that spoke Gaelic could have translated much of the Lenape language. How? The Lenape Indians spoke a form of Gadelic, a language that came from the Iberian Peninsula (which includes Tarshish).

Gadelic is the grandfather language of Gaelic, and is also the origin of the Lenape language. This does not mean that the Lenape Indians migrated from Spain. There was another group of people that carried the Gadelic language to the hills of New Jersey and Pennsylvania. They were the Iberian Indians, who co-existed with the Lenape.

There have been many other discoveries that show the Iberian Indians inhabited New Jersey. One interesting discovery is that the use of bronze, iron, and other metals was so much a part of the culture of Tarshish and of the American Iberian Indians.

Information for this article was taken from the summer issue, 1992 of the South Jersey Magazine, New Jersey’s Iberian Indians by Peter J. Dawson

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Author: Vickie VanAntwerp