Native American Traditional use of Sacred Metal Tablets

It’s a fact that Hopewell Indian civilization were excellent metal-smiths. They made metal weapons jewelry and  metal sheets. 

There are Indian traditional accounts of metal plate being used as records that correlates with the Book of Mormon record.

Helaman 3:13

13 And now there are many records kept of the proceedings of this people, by many of this people, which are particular and very large, concerning them.

(In reference to Hopewell ruins)

“According to Morgan, the Muscogee proper, and perhaps also their incorporated tribes, have 22 clans. Of these the Wind appears to be the leading one, possessing privileges accorded to no other clan, including the hereditary guardianship of the ancient metal tablets which constitute the palladium of the tribe.” (Palladium’s meaning in the 19th and 18^th century: for safety)
(Myths of the Cherokees, Mooney 1902 pg. 499)

“To support their pretensions, this family hold in their possession a circular plate of virgin copper, on which is rudely marked indentations and hieroglyphics denoting the number of generations of the family who have passed away since they first pitched their lodges at Shaug-a-waum-ik-ong and took possession of the adjacent country, including the Island of La Pointe or Mo-ningwun-a-kaun-ing…. The old chief kept it carefully buried in the ground, and seldom displayed it”
(History of the Ojibwa People, Williams, pg. 63)

“In Virginia, near Wheeling on Grave creek, is a mound 75 feet high, with many smaller ones around it. In the interior parts of this mound, are found human hones of large size, and mixed with them are two or three plates of brass, with characters inscribed resembling letters.”
(The Natural and Aboriginal History of Tennessee, Haywood 1823 pg. 82)


(In reference to Hopewell ruins)

“There are certain enchanted beads, certain thin plates of copper, of which extraordinary figures are engraved, with inexplicable words and unknown characters”
(The Natural and Aboriginal History of Tennessee, Haywood 1823 pg. 346)


“The shape of the two brass plates, — about a foot and a half in diameter. He said — he was told by his forefathers that those plates were given to them by the man we call God; .....and some had writing upon them which were buried with particular men; and that they had instructions given with them, they must only be handled by particular people, ….He said, none but this town’s people had any such plates given them, and that they were a different people from the Creeks. He only remembered three more, which were buried with three of his family, and he was the only man of the family now left. He said, there were two copper plates under the king’s cabbin, which had lain there from the first settling of the town. This account was taken in the Tuccabatchey-square, 27th July, 1759, per Will, Bolsover. “
(Adair 1775 pg. 178)