Leaf from an Eliot Indian Bible, 1685

Item — Box: 2, Folder: 25

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

From the Collection:

Sold as Otto F. Ege's Original Leaves from Famous Bibles: Nine Centuries, 1121-1935 A.D. Cleveland: Otto Ege, circa 1950, this collection consists of 37 original Bible leaves in mattes with descriptive labels. Three items are manuscript pages, while an additional 34 are printed. The leaves range in age from circa 1200 to 1935. During the years 1938-1950, Ege published portfolios under this title with 37, 50 and 60 leaves.

For preservation reasons, the leaves have been separated from their mattes, and enclosed in mylar. However, each matte and descriptive label has been retained with its original leaf where possible.

The descriptions consist mostly of transcriptions of the labels written by Ege.

Dates

Creation: 1685

Creator

From the Collection: Ege, Otto F. (Compiler, Person)
From the Collection: Duschnes, Philip C. (Compiler, Person)

Biographical / Historical

S. Green, Cambridge

A leaf from the second edition of Eliot’s Bible, revised by the editor, with the assistance of John Cotton. The Indian Bible (first issued in 1663) was the first scripture printed in North American, and also the first version prepared for a pagan people in their own language. John Eliot performed the Herculean task of learning the difficult Algonquin tongue, of translating, unaided, the entire Bible in this unknown and unwritten language, of overcoming many technical difficulties, and of them teaching the Indians to read their own tongue. Samuel Green, the printer, was aided greatly by James Printer, and Indian compositor and corrector of the press. “Wohkukquohsinwog Quoshod tumwaenuog” (The prophets are ended) is a specimen of the difficulties encountered. The language is now extinct.

(Darlow and Moule 6737)