The Lenâpé and Their Legends
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Title: The Lenâpé and Their Legends
Author: Daniel G. Brinton
Contributor: C. S. Rafinesque
Release date: July 26, 2014 [eBook #46422]
Most recently updated: October 24, 2024
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LENÂPÉ AND THEIR LEGENDS ***
LIBRARY
OF
ABORIGINAL AMERICAN
LITERATURE.
No. V.
EDITED BY
D. G. BRINTON, M.D.
PHILADELPHIA
1885
THE LENÂPÉ AND THEIR LEGENDS;
WITH THE COMPLETE TEXT AND SYMBOLS
OF THE WALAM OLUM,
A NEW TRANSLATION, AND AN INQUIRY INTO ITS AUTHENTICITY.
BY
DANIEL G. BRINTON, A.M., M.D.,
PROFESSOR OF ETHNOLOGY AND ARCHÆOLOGY AT THE
ACADEMY OF NATURAL SCIENCES, PHILADELPHIA.
President of the Numismatic and Antiquarian; Society of
Philadelphia; Member of the American Philosophical Society,
the American Antiquarian Society, the Pennsylvania Historical
Society, etc.; Membre de la Société Royale des Antiquaires
du Nord; Délégné Général de l'Institution Ethnographique;
Vice-President du Congrés International des Americanistes;
Corresponding Member of the Anthropological Society of
Washington, etc.
D. G. BRINTON.
PHILADELPHIA.
1885.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1885, by
D. G. BRINTON,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress. All rights reserved.
Transcriber's Notes:
Words or phrases with an underscore(_) before and after are italicized.
Words or phrases with an equal sign(=) before and after are in bold.
Obvious spelling and punctuation mistakes have been corrected.
The use of the digit 8 to represent a 'whistled' letter w has been
retained as in the original.
PREFACE.
In the present volume I have grouped a series of ethnological studies
of the Indians of Eastern Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Maryland, around
what is asserted to be one of the most curious records of ancient
American history.
For a long time this record--the WALAM OLUM, or Red Score--was supposed
to have been lost. Having obtained the original text complete about
a year ago, I printed a few copies and sent them to several educated
native Delawares with a request for aid in its translation and opinions
on its authenticity. The results will be found in the following pages.
The interest in the subject thus excited prompted me to a general
review of our knowledge of the Lenape or Delawares, their history and
traditions, their language and customs. This disclosed the existence
of a number of MSS. not mentioned in bibliographies, some in the first
rank of importance, especially in the field of linguistics. Of these I
have made free use.
In the course of these studies I have received suggestions and
assistance from a number of obliging friends, among whom I would
mention the native Delawares, the Rev. Albert Anthony, and the Rev.
John Kilbuck; Mr. Horatio Hale and the Right Rev. E. de Schweinitz; Dr.
J. Hammond Trambull, Prof. A. M. Elliott and Gen. John Mason Brown.
Not without hesitation do I send forth this volume to the learned
world. Regarded as an authentic memorial, the original text of the
WALAM OLUM will require a more accurate rendering than I have been able
to give it; while the possibility that a more searching criticism will
demonstrate it to have been a fabrication may condemn as labor lost the
pains that I have bestowed upon it. Yet even in the latter case my work
will not have been in vain. There is, I trust, sufficient in the volume
to justify its appearance, apart from the Red Score; and the latter,
by means of this complete presentation, can now be assigned its true
position in American archaeology, whatever that may be.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
CHAPTER I.--§ 1. THE ALGONKIN STOCK 9
Scheme of its Dialects.--Probable Primitive Location.
§ 2. THE IROQUIS STOCK 13
The Susquehannocks--The Hurons--The Cherokees.
CHAPTER II.--THE WAPANACHKI OR EASTERN ALGONKIN CONFEDERACY 19
The Confederated Tribes--The Mohegans--The Nanticokes.--The
Conoys.--The Shawnees.--The Saponies.--The Assiwikalees.
CHAPTER III.--THE LENAPE OR DELAWARES 33
Derivation of the Name Lenape.--The Three Sub-Tribes:
the Minsi or Wolf, the Unami or Turtle, and the Unalachtgo
or Turkey Tribes.--Their Totems.--The New Jersey Tribes:
the Wapings, Sanhicans and Mantas.--Political Constitution
of the Lenape.--Vegetable Food Resources.--Domestic
Architecture.--Manufactures.--Paints and Dyes.--Dogs.--
Interments.--Computation of Time.--Picture Writing.--
Record Sticks.--Moral and Mental Character.--Religious
Belief.--Doctrine of the Soul.--The Native Priests.--
Religious Ceremonies.
CHAPTER IV.--THE LITERATURE AND LANGUAGE OF THE LENAPE 74
§ 1. Literature of the Lenape Tongue.--
Campanius; Penn; Thomas; Zeisberger; Heckewelder;
Roth; Ettwem; Grube; Dencke; Luckenbach; Henry;
Vocabularies; a Native Letter.
§ 2. General Remarks on the Lenape.
§ 3. Dialects of the Lenape.
§ 4. Special Structure of the Lenape.--The Root and the Theme;
Prefixes; Suffixes; Derivatives; Grammatical Notes.
CHAPTER V.--HISTORICAL SKETCHES OF THE LENAPE 109
§ 1. The Lenape as "Women."
§ 2. Recent Migrations of the Lenape.
§ 3. Missionary Efforts in the Provinces of Pennsylvania
and New Jersey.
CHAPTER VI.--MYTHS AND TRADITIONS OF THE LENAPE 130
Cosmogonical and Culture Myths.--The Culture-hero,
Michabo.--Myths from Lindstrom, Ettwein, Jasper
Donkers, Zeisberger.--Native Symbolism--The Saturnian
Age.--Mohegan Cosmogony and Migration Myth.
National Traditions.--Beatty's Account.--The Number Seven.--
Heckewelder's Account.--Prehistoric Migrations.--Shawnee
Legend.--Lenape Legend of the Naked Bear.
CHAPTER VII.--THE WALAM OLUM:
ITS ORIGIN, AUTHENTICITY AND CONTENTS 148
Biographical Sketch of Rafinesque.--Value of his Writings.--
His account of the WALUM OLUM.--Was it a Forgery?--
Rafinesque's Character.--The Text Pronounced Genuine
by Native Delawares.--Conclusion Reached.
Phonetic System of the WALUM OLUM.--Metrical Form.--
Pictographic System--Derivation and Precise Meaning
of WALUM OLUM.--The MS of the WALUM OLUM.--General
Synopsis of the WALUM OLUM--Synopsis of its Parts.
THE WALUM OLUM.--ORIGINAL TEXT AND TRANSLATION 169
NOTES 219
VOCABULARY 233
APPENDIX 255
INDEX 257
THE LENAPE AND THEIR LEGENDS.
CHAPTER I.
§ 1. THE ALGONKIN STOCK.
Scheme of its Dialects--Probable Primitive Location
§ 2. THE IROQUIS STOCK.
The Susquehannocks--The Hurons--The Cherokees
§ 1. _The Algonkin Stock_.
About the period 1500-1600, those related tribes whom we now know by
the name of Algonkins were at the height of their prosperity. They
occupied the Atlantic coast from the Savannah river on the south to the
strait of Belle Isle on the north. The whole of Newfoundland was in
their possession; in Labrador they were neighbors to the Eskimos; their
northernmost branch, the Crees, dwelt along the southern shores of
Hudson Bay, and followed the streams which flow into it from the west,
until they met the Chipeways, closely akin to themselves, who roamed
over the water shed of Lake Superior. The Blackfeet carried a remote
dialect of their tongue quite to the Rocky Mountains; while the fertile
prairies of Illinois and Indiana were the homes of the Miamis. The area
of Ohio and Kentucky was very thinly peopled by a few of their roving
bands; but east of the Alleghanies, in the valleys of the Delaware,
the Potomac and the Hudson, over the barren hills of New England and
Nova Scotia, and throughout the swamps and forests of Virginia and the
Carolinas, their osier cabins and palisadoed strongholds, their maize
fields and workshops of stone implements, were numerously located.
It is needless for my purpose to enumerate the many small tribes which
made up this great group. The more prominent were the Micmacs of Nova
Scotia, the Abnakis of Maine, the Pequots and Narragansets, in New
England, the Mohegans of the Hudson, the Lenape on the Delaware, the
Nanticokes around Chesapeake Bay, the Pascataway on the Potomac, and
the Powhatans and Shawnees further south; while between the Great Lakes
and the Ohio river were the Ottawas, the Illinois, the Pottawatomies,
the Kikapoos, Piankishaws, etc.
The dialects of all these were related, and evidently at some distant
day had been derived from the same primitive tongue. Which of them had
preserved the ancient forms most closely, it may be premature to decide
positively, but the tendency of modern studies has been to assign that
place to the Cree--the northernmost of all.
We cannot erect a genealogical tree of these dialects. It is not
probable that they branched off, one after another, from a common
stock. The ancient tribes each took their several ways from a common
centre, and formed nuclei for subsequent development. We may, however,
group them in such a manner as roughly to indicate their relationship.
This I do on the following page:--
Cree,
Old Algonkin,
Montagnais.
Chipeway,
Ottawa,
Pottawattomie,
Miami,
Peoria,
Pea,
Piankishaw,
Kaskaskia,
Menominee,
Sac,
Fox,
Kikapoo.
Sheshatapoosh,
Secoffee,
Micmac,
Melisceet,
Etchemin,
Abnaki.
Mohegan,
Massachusetts,
Shawnee,
Minsi, }
Unami, }
Unalachtigo,}
Nanticoke,
Powhatan,
Pampticoke.
Blackfoot,
Gros Ventre,
Sheyenne.
Granting, as we must, some common geographical centre for these many
dialects, the question where this was located becomes an interesting
one.
More than one attempt to answer it has been made. Mr. Lewis H. Morgan
thought there was evidence to show that the valley of the Columbia
river, Oregon, "was the initial point from which the Algonkin stock
emigrated to the great lake region and thence to the Atlantic
coast."[1] This is in direct conflict with the evidence of language,
as the Blackfoot or Satsika is the most corrupt and altered of the
Algonkin dialects. Basing his argument on this evidence, Mr. Horatio
Hale reaches a conclusion precisely the reverse of that of Morgan. "The
course of migration of the Indian tribes," writes Mr. Hale, "has been
from the Atlantic coast westward and southward. The traditions of the
Algonkins seem to point to Hudson's Bay and the coast of Labrador."[2]
This latter view is certainly that which accords best with the
testimony of language and of history.
We know that both Chipeways and Crees have been steadily pressing
westward since their country was first explored, driving before them
the Blackfeet and Dakotas.[3]
The Cree language is built up on a few simple, unchangeable radicals
and elementary words, denoting being, relation, energy, etc.; it
has extreme regularity of construction, a single negative, is
almost wholly verbal and markedly incorporative, has its grammatical
elements better defined than its neighbors, and a more consistent
phonetic system.[4] For these and similar reasons we are justified
in considering it the nearest representative we possess of the
pristine Algonkin tongue, and unless strong grounds to the contrary
are advanced, it is proper to assume that the purest dialect is found
nearest the primeval home of the stock.
§2. _The Iroquois Stock_.
Surrounded on all sides by the Algonkins were the _Iroquois_, once
called the Five or Six Nations. When first discovered they were on the
St. Lawrence, near Montreal, and in the Lake Region of Central New
York. Various other, tribes, not in their confederacy, and generally
at war with them, spoke dialects of the same language. Such were the
Hurons or Wyandots, between the Georgian Bay and Lake Erie, the Neutral
Nation on the Niagara river, the Eries on the southern shore of the
lake of that name, the Nottoways in Virginia, and the Tuscaroras in
North Carolina. The Cherokees, found by the whites in East Tennessee,
but whose national legend, carefully preserved for generations, located
them originally on the head waters of the Ohio, were a remote offshoot
of this same stem.
_The Susquehannocks_.
The valley of the Susquehanna river was occupied by a tribe of Iroquois
lineage and language, known as the _Susquehannocks, Conestogas_ and
_Andastes_. The last name is Iroquois, from _andasta_, a cabin pole.
By some, "Susquehannock" has also been explained as an Iroquois word,
but its form is certainly Algonkin. The terminal _k_ is the place-sign,
_hanna_ denotes a flowing stream, while the adjectival prefix has been
identified by Heckewelder with _schachage_, straight, from the direct
course of the river near its mouth, and by Mr. Guss with _woski_, new,
which, he thinks, referred to fresh or spring water.
Of these the former will appear the preferable, if we allow for the
softening of the gutturals, which was a phonetic trait of the Unami
dialect of the Lenape.
The Susquehannocks were always at deadly feud with the Iroquois,
and between wars, the smallpox and the whites, they were finally
exterminated. The particulars of their short and sad history have
been presented with his characteristic thoroughness by Dr. John G.
Shea,[5] and later by Prof. N. L. Guss.[6] They were usually called
by the Delawares _Mengwe_, which was the term they applied to all
the Iroquois-speaking tribes.[7] The English corrupted it to Minqua
and Mingo, and as the eastern trail of the Susquehannocks lay up the
Conestoga Creek, and down the Christina, both those streams were called
"Mingo Creek" by the early settlers.
It is important for the ethnology of Pennsylvania, to understand that
at the time of the first settlement the whole of the Susquehanna
Valley, from the Chesapeake to the New York lakes, was owned and
controlled by Iroquois-speaking tribes. A different and erroneous
opinion was expressed by Heckewelder, and has been generally received.
He speaks of the Lenape Minsi as occupying the head waters of the
Susquehanna. This was not so in the historic period.
The claims of the Susquehannocks extended down the Chesapeake Bay on
the east shore, as far as the Choptank River, and on the west shore as
far as the Patuxent. In 1654 they ceded to the government of Maryland
their southern territory to these boundaries.[8] The first English
explorers met them on the Potomac, about the Falls, and the Pascatoways
were deserting their villages and fleeing before them, when, in 1634,
Calvert founded his colony at St. Mary's.
Their subjection to the Five Nations took place about 1680, and
it was through the rights obtained by this conquest that, at the
treaty of Lancaster, 1744, Canassatego, the Onondaga speaker for the
Nation, claimed pay from the government of Maryland for the lands
on the Potomac, or, as that river was called in his tongue, the
_Cohongorontas_.
_The Hurons._
The Hurons, Wyandots, or Wendats, were another Iroquois people, who
seem, at some remote epoch, to have come into contact with the Lenape.
The latter called them _Delamattenos_[9] and claimed to have driven
them out of a portion of their possessions. A Chipeway tradition also
states that the Hurons were driven north from the lake shores by
Algonkin tribes.[10] We know, from the early accounts of the Jesuits,
that there was commercial intercourse between them and the tribes
south of the lakes, the materials of trade being principally fish and
corn.[11] The Jesuit _Relations_ of 1648 contain quite a full account
of a Huron convert who, in that year, visited the Lenape on the
Delaware River, and had an interview with the Swedish Governor, whom he
took to task for neglecting the morals of his men.
_The Cherokees._
The Cherokees were called by the Delawares _Kittuwa_ (_Kuttoowauw_, in
the spelling of the native Aupaumut). This word I suppose to be derived
from the prefix, _kit_, great, and the root _tawa_ (Cree, _yette_,
_tawa_), to open, whence tawatawik, an open, _i.e._, uninhabited place,
a wilderness (Zeisberger).
The designation is geographical. According to the tradition of the
Cherokees, they once lived (probably about the fourteenth century)
in the Ohio Valley, and claimed to have been the constructors of the
Grave Creek and other earthworks there.[12] Some support is given to
this claim by the recent linguistic investigations of Mr. Horatio
Hale,[13] and the archaeological researches of Prof. Cyrus Thomas.[14]
They were driven southward by their warlike neighbors, locating their
council fire first near Monticello, Va., and the main body reaching
East Tennessee about the close of the fifteenth century. As late as
1730 some of them continued to live east of the Alleghanies, while, on
the other hand, it is evident, from the proper names preserved by the
chroniclers of De Soto's expedition (1542), that at that period others
held the mountains of Northern Georgia. To the Delawares they remained
_kit-tawa-wi_, inhabitants of the great wilderness of Southern Ohio and
Kentucky.
Delaware traditions distinctly recalled the period when portions of the
Cherokees were on the Ohio, and recounted long wars with them.[15] When
the Lenape assumed the office of peacemaker, this feud ceased, and
was not renewed until the general turmoil of the French-Indian wars,
1750-60. After this closed, in 1768, the Cherokees sought and effected
a renewal of their peaceful relations with the Delawares, and in 1779
they even sent a deputation of "condolence" to their "grandfather," the
Lenape, on the death of the head chief, White Eyes.[16]
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Lewis H. Morgan, _Indian Migrations_, in Beach's _Indian Miscellany_,
p. 218.
[2] H. Hale, _Indian Migrations as Evidenced by Language_, p. 24.
(Chicago, 1883.)
[3] See the R. P. A. Lacombe _Dictionnaire de la Langue des Cris.
Introd._, p. xi. (Montreal, 1874.)
[4] See Joseph Howse, _A grammar of the Cree Language_, p. 13, et al.
(London, 1842)
[5] In a note to Mr. Gowan's edition of George Alsop's _Province
of Maryland_, pp. 117-121 (New York, 1869); also, in 1858, in an
article "On the Identity of the Adastas, Minquas, Susquehannocks, and
Conestogas," in the _Amer. Hist. Mag._, Vol. II, p. 294.
[6] _Early Indian History on the Susquehanna_, p. 31.
(Harrisburg, 1883).
[7] _Megnwe_ is the Onondaga _yenkwe_, males, or men, _viri_, and was
borrowed from that dialect by the Delawares, as a general term. Bishop
Ettwein states that the Iroquois called the Delawares, Mohegans, and
all the New England Indians _Agozhagduta_.
[8] Bozman, _History of Maryland_, Vol. I, p. 167.
[9] Heckewelder, _History of the Indian Nations_, p. 80.
[10] Peter Jones, _History of the Ojibway Nation_, p. 32.
[11] _Relation da Jesuites_, 1637, p. 154. The Hurons, at that time,
are stated to have had reliable traditions running back more than two
hundred years. _Relation de 1639_, p. 50.
[12] "The Cherokees had an oration, in which was contained the history
of their migrations, which was lengthy." This tradition related "that
they came from the upper part of the Ohio, where they erected the
mounds on Grave Creek, and that they removed hither [to East Tennessee]
from the country where Monticello is situated." This memory of their
migrations was preserved and handed down by official orators, who
repeated it annually, in public, at the national festival of the green
corn dance. J. Haywood, _Natural and Aboriginal History of Tennessee_,
pp. 224-237. (Nashville, 1823.) Haywood adds: "It is now nearly
forgotten." I have made vain attempts to recover some fragments of it
from the present residents of the Cherokee Nation.
[13] _Indian Migrations as Evidenced by Language_, p. 22.
[14] Prof. Thomas has shown beyond reasonable doubt that the Cherokees
were mound builders within the historic period.
[15] Loskiel, _Geschichte der Mission_, etc., p. 160; Heckewelder,
_History of the Indian Nations_, p. 54. Bishop Ettwein states that the
last Cherokees were driven from the upper Ohio river about 1700-10. His
essay on the "Traditions and Languages of the Indian Nations," written
for General Washington, in 1788, was first published in the _Bulletin
of the Pa. Hist. Soc._, 1844.
[16] Heckewelder, _Indian Nations_, pp. 88, 327. Mr. H. Hale, in _The
Iroquois Book of Rites_, has fully explained the meaning and importance
of the custom of "condolence." The Stockbridge Indian, Aupaumut, in
his Journal, writes of the Delawares, that when they lose a relative,
"according to ancient custom, long as they are not comforted, they are
not to speak in public, and this ceremonie of comforting each other is
highly esteemed among these nations." _Narrative of Hendrick Aupaumut_,
in _Mems. Hist. Soc. Pa._, Vol. II, p. 99.
CHAPTER II.
THE WAPANACHKI OR EASTERN ALGONKIN CONFEDERACY.
The Confederated Tribes--The Mohegans--The Nanticokes--The Conoys--The
Shawnees--The Saponies--The Assiwikalees
_The Confederated Tribes._
All the Algonkin nations who dwelt north of the Potomac, on the east
shore of Chesapeake Bay, and in the basins of the Delaware and Hudson
rivers, claimed near kinship and an identical origin, and were at times
united into a loose, defensive confederacy.
By the western and southern tribes they were collectively known as
_Wapanachkik_--"those of the eastern region"--which in the form
_Abnaki_ is now confined to the remnant of a tribe in Maine. The
Delawares in the far West retain traditionally the ancient confederate
name, and still speak of themselves as "Eastlanders"--_O-puh-narke_.
(Morgan.)
The members of the confederacy were the Mohegans (Mahicanni) of the
Hudson, who occupied the valley of that river to the falls above the
site of Albany, the various New Jersey tribes, the Delawares proper on
the Delaware river and its branches, including the Minsi or Monseys,
among the mountains, the Nanticokes, between Chesapeake Bay and the
Atlantic, and the small tribe called Canai, Kanawhas or Ganawese, whose
towns were on tributaries of the Potomac and Patuxent.
That all these were united in some sort of an alliance, with the
Delawares at its head, is not only proved by the traditions of this
tribe itself, but by the distinct assertion of the Mohegans and
others, and by events within historical times, as the reunion of the
Nanticokes, New Jersey and Eastern Indians with the Delawares as with
the parent stem.[17]
_The Mohegans._
The Mohegans, _Mo-hé-kun-ne-uk_, dwelt on the tide-waters of the
Hudson, and from this their name was derived. Dr. Trumbull, indeed,
following Schoolcraft, thinks that they "took their tribal name from
_maingan_, a wolf, and _Moheganick_ = Chip. _maniganikan_, 'country
of wolves.'"[18] They, themselves, however, translate it, "seaside
people," or more fully, "people of the great waters which are
constantly ebbing or flowing."[19] The compound is _machaak_, great,
_hickan_, tide ("ebbing tide," Zeis; "tide of flood," Campanius) and
_ik_, animate plural termination.
The Mohegans on the Hudson are said to have been divided into three
phratries, the Bear, the Wolf and the Turtle, of whom the Bear had
the primacy.[20] Mr. Morgan, however, who examined, in 1860, the
representatives of the nation in Kansas,[21] discovered that they had
precisely the same phratries as the Delawares, that is the Wolf, the
Turtle, and the Turkey, each subdivided into three or four gentes. He
justly observes that this "proves their immediate connection with the
Delawares and Munsees by descent," and thus renders their myths and
traditions of the more import in the present study.
Linguistically, the Mohegans were more closely allied to the tribes of
New England than to those of the Delaware Valley. Evidently, most of
the tribes of Massachusetts and Connecticut were comparatively recent
offshoots of the parent stem on the Hudson, supposing the course of
migration had been eastward.
In some of his unpublished notes Mr. Heckewelder identifies the
_Wampanos_, who lived in Connecticut, along the shore of Long Island
Sound, and whose council fire was where New Haven now stands, as
Mohegans, while the _Wapings_ or _Opings_ of the Northern Jersey shore
were a mixed clan derived from intermarriages between Mohegans and
Monseys.[22]
_The Nanticokes_.
The Nanticokes occupied the territory between Chesapeake Bay and the
ocean, except its southern extremity, which appears to have been under
the control of the Powhatan tribe of Virginia.
The derivation of Nanticoke is from the Delaware _Unéchtgo_,
"tide-water people," and is merely another form of _Unalachtgo_, the
name of one of the Lenape sub-tribes. In both cases it is a mere
geographical term, and not a national eponym.
In the records of the treaty at Fort Johnston, 1757, the Nanticokes are
also named _Tiawco_. This is their Mohegan name, _Otayãchgo_, which
means "bridge people," or bridge makers, the reference being to the
skill with which the Nanticokes could fasten floating logs together to
construct a bridge across a stream. In the Delaware dialect this was
_Tawachguáno_, from _taiachquoan_, a bridge. The latter enables us to
identify the Tockwhoghs, whom Captain John Smith met on the Chesapeake,
in 1608, with the Nanticokes. The _Kuscarawocks_, whom he also visited,
have been conclusively shown by Mr. Bozman[23] to have been also
Nanticokes.
By ancient traditions, they looked up to the Lenape as their
"grandfather," and considered the Mohegans their "brethren."[24] That
is, they were, as occasion required, attached to the same confederacy.
In manners and customs they differed little from their northern
relatives. The only peculiarity in this respect which is noted of
them was the extravagant consideration they bestowed on the bones of
the dead. The corpse was buried for some months, then exhumed and the
bones carefully cleaned and placed in an ossuary called _man-to-kump_
(= _manito_, with the locative termination, place of the mystery or
spirit).
When they removed from one place to another these bones were carried
with them. Even those who migrated to northern Pennsylvania, about
the middle of the last century, piously brought along these venerable
relics, and finally interred them near the present site of Towanda,
whence its name, _Tawundeunk_, "where we bury our dead."[25]
Their dialect varied considerably from the Delaware; of which it is
clearly a deteriorated form. It is characterized by abbreviated words
and strongly expirated accents, as _tah! quah! quak! su_, short; _quah!
nah! qut_, long.
Our knowledge of it is limited to a few vocabularies. The earliest
was taken down by Captain John Smith, during his exploration of the
Chesapeake. The most valuable is one obtained by Mr. William Vans
Murray, in 1792, from the remnant in Maryland. It is in the library of
the American Philosophical Society, and has never been correctly or
completely printed.
The Nanticokes broke up early. Between the steady encroachments of the
whites and the attacks of the Iroquois they found themselves between
the upper and the nether millstones.
According to their own statement to Governor Evans, at a conference
in 1707, they had at that time been tributary to the latter for
twenty-seven years, _i.e._, since 1680. Their last head chief, or
"crowned king," Winicaco, died about 1720. A few years after this
occurrence bands of them began to remove to Pennsylvania, and at the
middle of the century were living at the mouth of the Juniata, under
the immediate control of the Iroquois. Thence they removed to Wyoming,
and in 1753, "in a fleet of twenty-five canoes," to the Iroquois lands
in western New York. Others of their nation were brought there by the
Iroquois in 1767; but by the close of the century only five families
survived in that region.[26]
A small band called the _Wiwash_ remained on Goose creek, Dorchester
county, Maryland, to the same date.
_The Conoys._
The fourth member of the Wapanachki was that nation variously called in
the old records _Conoys_, _Ganawese_ or _Canaways_, the proper form of
which Mr. Heckewelder states to be _Canai_.[27]
Considerable obscurity has rested on the early location and affiliation
of this people. Mr. Heckewelder vaguely places them "at a distance
on the Potomac," and supposes them to have been the Kanawhas of West
Virginia.[28] This is a loose guess. They were, in fact, none other
than the Piscataways of Southern Maryland, who occupied the area
between Chesapeake Bay and the lower Potomac, about St. Mary's, and
along the Piscataway creek and Patuxent river.
Proof of this is furnished by the speech of their venerable head chief,
"Old Sack," at a conference in Philadelphia in 1743.[29] His words
were: "Our forefathers came from Piscatua to an island in Potowmeck;
and from thence down to Philadelphia, in old Proprietor Penn's time,
to show their friendship to the Proprietor. After their return they
brought down all their brothers from Potowmeck to Conejoholo, on the
east side Sasquehannah, and built a town there."
This interesting identification shows that they were the people whom
Captain John Smith found (1608) in numerous villages along the Patuxent
and the left bank of the lower Potomac. The local names show them to
have been of Algonkin stock and akin to the Nanticokes.
Conoy, Ganawese, Kanawha, are all various spellings of a derivative
from an Algonkin root, meaning "it is long" (Del. _guneu_, long, Cree
_kinowaw_, it is long,) and is found applied to various streams in
Algonkin territory.[30]
Piscataway, or Pascatoway, as it is spelled in the early narratives,
also recurs as a local name in various parts of the Northern States.
It is from, the root _pashk_, which means to separate, to divide. Many
derivatives from it are in use in the Delaware tongue. In the Cree
we have the impersonal form, _pakestikweyaw_, or the active animate
_pasketiwa_, in the sense of "the division or branch of a river."[31]
The site of Kittamaquindi (_kittamaque-ink_, Great Beaver Place,) the
so-called "metropolis of Pascatoe,"[32] was where Tinker's creek and
Piscataway creek branch off from their common estuary, about fifteen
miles south of Washington city.
The "emperor" Chitomachen, Strong Bear (_chitani_, strong, _macha_,
bear), who bore the title _Tayac_ (Nanticoke, _tallak_, head chief)
ruled over a dominion which extended about 130 miles from east to west.
The district was thinly peopled. On the upper shores of the west side
of the Chesapeake Captain John Smith and the other early explorers
found scarcely any inhabitants. In 1631 Captain Henry Fleet estimated
the total number of natives "in Potomack and places adjacent," at not
over 5000 persons.[33] This included both sides of the river as high up
as the Falls, and the shores of Chesapeake Bay.
Chitomachen, with his family, was converted to the Catholic faith
in 1640, by the exertions of the Jesuit missionary, Father Andrew
White, but died the year after. When the English first settled at St.
Mary's, the tribe was deserting its ancient seats, through fear of the
Susquehannocks, and diminished rapidly after that date.
Father White was among them from 1634 to 1642, and composed a grammar,
dictionary and catechism of their tongue. Of these, the catechism is
yet preserved in manuscript, in the library of the Domus Professa
of the Jesuits, in Rome. It would be a great benefit to students
of Algonkin dialects to have his linguistic works sought out and
published. How far his knowledge of the language extended is uncertain.
In a letter from one of the missionaries, dated 1642, who speaks
of White, the writer adds: "The difficulty of the language is so
great that none of us can yet converse with the Indians without an
interpreter."[34]
That it was an Algonkin dialect, closely akin to the Nanticoke, is
clear from the words and proper names preserved in the early records
and locally to this day. The only word which has created doubts has
been the name of "a certain imaginary spirit called _Ochre_."[35]
It has been supposed that this was the Huron _oki_. But it is pure
Algonkin. It is the Cree _oki-sikow_ (_être du ciel_, _ange_, Lacombe),
the Abnaki _ooskoo_ (_katini ooskoo_, Bon Esprit, _matsini ooskoo_,
Mauvais Esprit, Rasles).
It was nearly allied to that spoken in Virginia among Powhatan's
subjects, as an English boy who had lived with that chieftain served as
an interpreter between the settlers and the Patuxent and neighboring
Indians.[36]
The Conoys were removed, before 1743, from Conejoholo to Conoy town,
further up the Susquehanna, and in 1744 they joined several other
fragmentary bands at Shamokin (where Sunbury, Pa., now stands). Later,
they became merged with the Nanticokes.[37]
_The Shawnees_.
The wanderings of the unstable and migratory Shawnees have occupied the
attention of several writers, but it cannot be said that either their
history or their affiliations have been satisfactorily worked out.[38]
Their dialect is more akin to the Mohegan than to the Delaware, and
when, in 1692, they first appeared in the area of the Eastern Algonkin
Confederacy, they came as the friends and relatives of the former.[39]
They were divided into four bands, as follows:--
1. _Piqua_, properly _Pikoweu_, "he comes from the ashes."
2. _Mequachake_, "a fat man filled," signifying completion or
perfection. This band held the privilege of the hereditary priesthood.
3. Kiscapocoke.
4. Chilicothe.[40]
Of these, that which settled in Pennsylvania was the _Pikoweu_,
who occupied and gave their name to the Pequa valley in Lancaster
county.[41]
According to ancient Mohegan tradition, the New England _Pequods_ were
members of this band. These moved eastwardly from the Hudson river,
and extended their conquests over the greater part of the area of
Connecticut. Dr. Trumbull, however,[42] assigns a different meaning to
their name, and a more appropriate one--_Peguitóog_, the Destroyers.
Some countenance is given to the tradition by the similarity of the
Shawnee to the Mohegan, standing, as it does, more closely related to
it than to the Unami Delaware.
It has been argued that a band of the Shawnees lived in Southern New
Jersey when that territory first came to the knowledge of the whites.
On a Dutch map, drawn in 1614 or thereabouts, a tribe called _Saw
wanew_ is located on the left bank of the Delaware river, near the
Bay;[43] and DeLaet speaks of the _Sawanoos_ as living there.
I am inclined to believe that, in both these cases, the term was used
by the natives around New York Bay in its simple geographical sense of
"south" or "southern," and not as a tribal designation. It frequently
appears with this original meaning in the WALUAM OLUM.
_The Sapoonees_.
A tribe called the Sapoonees, or Saponies, is mentioned as living in
Pennsylvania, attached to the Delawares, about the middle of the last
century.[44]
They are no doubt the Saponas who once dwelt on a branch of the Great
Pedee river in North Carolina, and who moved north about the year
1720.[45]
They were said to have joined the Tuscaroras, but the Pennsylvania
records class them with the Delawares. Others, impressed by the
similarity of _Sa-po-nees_ to _Pa-nis_, have imagined they were the
Pawnees, now of the west. There is not the slightest importance to be
attached to this casual similarity of names.
They were called, by the Iroquois, _Tadirighrones_, and were distinctly
identified by them with the nation known to the English as the
Catawbas.[46] For a long time the two nations carried on a bitter
warfare.
_The Assiwikales_.
This band of about fifty families, or one hundred men (about three
hundred souls), are stated to have come from South Carolina to the
Potomac late in the seventeenth century, and in 1731 were settled
partly on the Susquehanna and partly on the upper Ohio or Alleghany.
Their chief was named Aqueioma, or Achequeloma.
Their name appears to be a compound of _assin_, stone; and _wikwam_,
house, and they were probably Algonkin neighbors of the Shawnees
in their southern homes, and united with them in their northern
migration.[47]
FOOTNOTES:
[17] Heckewelder, _History of the Indian Nations_, p. 60, and
_Narrative of Hendrick Aupaumut_, 1791, in _Mems. Hist. Soc. Pa._,
Vol. II. The latter, himself a native Mohegan, repeatedly refers to
"the ancient covenant of our ancestors," by which this confederacy
was instituted, which included the "Wenaumeew (Unami), the Wemintheew
(Minsi), the Wenuhtokowuk (Nanticokes) and Kuhnauwantheew (Kanawha)."
From old Pennsylvania documents, Proud gives the members of the
confederacy or league as "the Chiholacki or Delawares, the Wanami, the
Munsi, the Mohicans and Wappingers." _History of Penna._, Vol. II,
p. 297, note. Compare J. Long, _Voyages and Travels_, p. 10 (London,
1791), who gives the same list. Mr. Ruttenber writes: "In considering
the political relations of the Lenapes, they should be considered as
the most formidable of the Indian confederacies at the time of the
discovery of America, and as having maintained for many years the
position which subsequently fell to the Iroquois."--_Indian Tribes on
Hudson River_, p. 64.
[18] Trumbull, _Indian Names in Connecticut_, p. 31. Schoolcraft had
already given the same derivation in his _History and Statistics of the
Indian Tribes_.
[19] Capt. Hendricks, in _Mass. Hist. Soc. Colls._, Vol. IX, p. 101.
Lewis H. Morgan, _Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity_, p. 289.
[20] Ruttenber, _History of the Indian Tribes of Hudson's River_, p. 50.
[21] Morgan, _Ancient Society_, pp. 173-4.
[22] These opinions are from a MS. in the library of the American
Philosophical Society, in the handwriting of Mr. Heckewelder, entitled
_Notes, Amendments and Additions to Heckewelder's History of the
Indians_ (8vo, pp. 38.) Unfortunately, this MS. was not placed in
the hands of Mr. Reichel when he prepared the second edition of
Heckewelder's work for the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.
An unpublished and hitherto unknown work on the Mohegan language is
the _Miscellanea Lingua Nationis Indica Mahikan dicta, curà scepta à
Joh. Jac. Schmick_, 2 vols., small 8vo.; MS. in the possession of the
American Philosophical Society. Schmick was a Moravian missionary, born
in 1714, died 1778. He acquired the Mohegan dialect among the converts
at Gnadenhütten. His work is without date, but may be placed at about
1765. It is grammatical rather than lexicographical, and offers
numerous verbal forms and familiar phrases.
[23] J. Bozman, _History of Maryland_, Vol. I, pp. 112, 114, 121,
177. This laborious writer still remains the best authority on the
aboriginal inhabitants of Maryland.
[24] "The We nuh tok o wuk are our brothers according to ancient
agreement," _Journal of Hendrick Aupaumut_, _Mems. Hist, Soc. Pa._, Vol.
II, P. 77.
[25] Charles Beatty, _Journal of a Journey_, etc., p. 87. Heckewelder,
_Indian Nations_, pp. 90, et seq. Ibid. _Trans. Am. Phil. Soc._, Vol.
IV, p. 362.
[26] The authorities for these facts are Bozman, _History of Maryland_,
Vol. I, pp. 175-180; Heckewelder, _Indian Nations_, pp. 93, sqq.; E.
de Schweinitz, _Life of Zeisberger_, pp. 208, 322, etc.; the Treaty
Records, and MSS. in the library of the American Philosophical Society.
That the Nanticokes came from the South into Maryland has been
maintained, on the ground that as late as 1770 they claimed land in
North Carolina. _New York Colonial Documents_, Vol. VIII, p. 243. But
the term "Carolina" was, I think, used erroneously in the document
referred to, instead of Maryland, where at that date there were still
many of the tribe.
[27] _History of the Indian Nations_, Introduction, p. xlii.
[28] Ibid., pp. 90-122.
[29] _Minutes of the Provincial Council of Penna._, Vol. IV, p. 657.
Further proof of this in a Treaty of Peace concluded in 1682 by the New
York colonial government, between the Senecas and Maryland Indians. In
this instrument we find this tribe referred to as "the Canowes alias
Piscatowayes," and elsewhere as the "Piscatoway of Cachnawayes." _New
York Colonial Documents_, Vol. III, pp. 322, 323.
[30] I am aware that Mr. Johnston, deriving his information from
Shawnee interpreters, translated the name Kanawha, as "having
whirlpools." (_Trans. of the Amer. Antiq. Soc._, Vol. I, p. 297.) But I
prefer the derivation given in the text.
[31] Lacombe, _Dictionnaire de la Langue des Cris_, s. v. In Delaware
the root takes the form _pach_, from which are derived, by suffixes,
the words _pach-at_, to split, _pachgeechen_, where the road branches
off, _pachshican_, a knife = something that divides, etc.
[32] _Relatio Itineris in Marylandiam_, p. 63. (Edition of the Md.
Hist. Soc. 1874.)
[33] See his _Journal_, published in Neill's _Founders of Maryland_
(Albany, 1876). Fleet was a prisoner among the Pascatoways for five
years, and served as an interpreter to Calvert's colony.
[34] _Relatio Itineris in Marylandiam_, p. 84. The Rev. Mr. Kampman,
at one time Moravian missionary among the Delawares, told me that
even with the modern aids of grammars, dictionaries and educated
native instructors, it is considered to require five years to obtain a
sufficient knowledge of their language to preach in it. The slowness of
the early Maryland priests to master its intricacies, therefore, need
not surprise us.
[35] "Omni vero ratione placare conantur phantasticum quemdam spiritum
quem Ochre nominant, ut ne noceat." _Relatio Itineris in Marylandiam_,
p. 40.
[36] Bozman, _History of Maryland_, Vol. I, p. 166.
[37] "The Nanticokes and Conoys are now one nation." _Minutes of the
Provincial Council of Penna._, 1759, Vol. VIII, p. 176.
[38] On this tribe see "The Shawnees and Their Migrations," by Dr. D. G.
Brinton, in the _American Historical Magazine_, 1866; M. F. Force, _Some
Early Notices of the Indians of Ohio_, Cincinnati, 1879.
[39] See _Colonial History of New York_, Vol. IV. Index. Loskiel,
_Geschichte der Mission_, etc., p. 25.
[40] These names are as given by John Johnston, Indian agent, in 1819.
_Archæologia Americana_, Vol. I, p. 275. Heckewelder says they had four
divisions, but mentions only two, the _Pecuwési_ and _Woketamósi_.
(MSS. in Lib. Am. Philos. Soc.)
[41] "That branch of Shawanos which had settled part in Pennsylvania
and part in New England were of the tribe of Shawanos then and ever
since called _Pi'coweu_ or _Pe'koweu_, and after emigrating to the
westward settled on and near the Scioto river, where, to this day, the
extensive flats go under the name of 'Pickoway Plains.'" Heckewelder
MSS. in Lib. Am. Phil. Soc.
[42] In a note to Roger Williams, _Key into the Language of America_,
p. 22. The tradition referred to is mentioned in the Heckewelder MSS.
[43] Printed in the _Colonial History of New York_, Vol. I. Compare
Force, _ubi suprá_, pp. 16, 17.
[44] Rev. J. Morse, _Report on Indian Affairs_, p. 362.
[45] See Gallatin, _Synopsis of the Indian Tribes_, pp. 85, 86.
[46] See _New York Colonial Documents_, Vol. V, pp. 660, 673, etc.
[47] _Pennsylvania Archives_, Vol. I, pp. 299, 300, 302. Gov. Gordon
writes to the "Chiefs of ye Shawanese and Assekelaes," under date
December, 1731, "I find by our Records that about 34 Years since some
Numbers of your Nation came to Sasquehannah," etc. Ibid., p. 302.
CHAPTER III
THE LENAPE OR DELAWARES.
Derivation of the Name Lenape.--The Three Sub-Tribes the Minsi
or Wolf, the Unami or Turtle, and the Unalachtgo or Turkey
Tribes--Their Totems--The New Jersey Tribes the Wapings, Sanhicans
and Mantas--Political Constitution of the Lenape--Vegetable Food
Resources--Domestic Architecture--Manufactures.--Paints and Dyes.--
Dogs--Interments--Computation of Time--Picture Writing--Record Sticks--
Moral and Mental Character--Religious Belief.--Doctrine of the Soul.--
The Native Priests.--Religious Ceremonies.
_Derivation of Lenni Lenape_.
The proper name of the Delaware Indians was and is _Lenapé_, (a as in
father, é as a in mate). Dr. J. Hammond Trumbull[48] is quite wide of
the mark both in calling this a "misnomer," and in attributing its
introduction to Mr. Heckewelder.
Long before that worthy missionary was born, the name was in use in the
official documents of the commonwealth of Pennsylvania as the synonym
in the native tongue for the Delaware Indians,[49] and it is still
retained by their remnant in Kansas as the proper term to designate
their collective nation, embracing its sub-tribes.[50]
The derivation of _Lenape_ has been discussed with no little learning,
as well as the adjective _lenni_, which often precedes it (Lenni
Lenape). Mr. Heckewelder stated that _lenni_ means "original, pure,"
and that _Lenape_ signifies "people."[51] Dr. Trumbull, in the course
of a long examination of the words for "man" in the Algonkin dialects,
reaches the conclusion that "Len-âpé" denotes "a common adult male,"
_i. e._, an Indian man; _lenno lenâpé_, an Indian of _our_ tribe or
nation, and, consequently, _vir_, "a man of men."[52] He derives these
two words from the roots _len_ (= _nen_), a pronominal possessive, and
_ape_, an inseparable generic particle, "denoting an adult male."
I differ, with hesitation, from such an eminent authority; but this
explanation does not, to my mind, give the precise meaning of the term.
No doubt, both _lenno_, which in Delaware means _man_, and _len_, in
Lenape, are from the pronominal radicle of the first person _né_, I,
we, mine, our. As the native considered his tribe the oldest, as well
as the most important of created beings, "ours" with him came to be
synonymous with what was esteemed ancient, indigenous, primeval, as
well as human, man-like, _par excellence_. "We" and "men" were to
him the same. The initial _l_ is but a slight modification of the _n_
sound, and is given by Campanius as an _r_, "_rhenus_, homo."
_Lenape_, therefore, does not mean "a common adult male," but rather "a
male of our kind," or "our men."[53]
The termination _apé_ is said by Heckewelder to convey the idea of
"walking or being in an erect posture." A comparison of the various
Algonkin dialects indicates that it was originally a locative,
signifying staying in a place, abiding or sitting. Thus, in Cree,
_apú_, he is there; in Chipeway, _abi_, he is at home; in Delaware,
_n'dappin_, I am here. The transfer of this idea to the male sex is
seen in the Cree, _ap_, to sit upon, to place oneself on top, _apa_, to
cover (animate and active); Chipeway, _nabe_, the male of quadrupeds.
Baraga says that for a Chipeway woman to call her husband _nin nabem_
(lit. my coverer, comp. French, _femme couverte_), is coarse.
_The Lenape Sub-Tribes._
The Lenape were divided into three sub-tribes:--
1. The Minsi, Monseys, Montheys, Munsees, or Minisinks.
2. The Unami, or Wonameys.
3. The Unalachtigo.
No explanation of these designations will be found in Heckewelder or
the older writers. From investigations among living Delawares, carried
out at my request by Mr. Horatio Hale, it is evident that they are
wholly geographical, and refer to the locations of these sub-tribes on
the Delaware river.
_Minsi_, properly _Minsiu_, and formerly _Minassiniu_, means "people of
the stony country," or briefly, "mountaineers." It is a synthesis of
_minthiu_, to be scattered, and _achsin_, stone, according to the best
living native authorities.[54]
_Unami_, or _W'nãmiu_, means "people down the river," from _naheu_,
down-stream.
_Unalachtigo_, properly _W'nalãchtko_, means "people who live near the
ocean," from _wunalawat_, to go towards, and _t'kow_ or _t'kou_, wave.
Historically, such were the positions of these sub-tribes when they
first came to the knowledge of Europeans.
The Minsi lived in the mountainous region at the head waters of the
Delaware, above the Forks, or junction of the Lehigh river. One of
their principal fires was on the Minisink plains, above the Water Gap,
and another on the East Branch of the Delaware, which they called
_Namaes Sipu_, Fish River. Their hunting grounds embraced lands now
in the three colonies of Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey. The
last mentioned extinguished their title in 1758, by the payment of one
thousand pounds.
That, at any time, as Heckewelder asserts, their territory extended
up the Hudson as far as tide-water, and westward "far beyond the
Susquehannah," is surely incorrect. Only after the beginning of the
eighteenth century, when they had been long subject to the Iroquois,
have we any historic evidence that they had a settlement on the last
named river.
The Unamis' territory on the right bank of the Delaware river extended
from the Lehigh valley southward. It was with them and their southern
neighbors, the Unalachtigos, that Penn dealt for the land ceded him
in the Indian Deed of 1682. The Minsis did not take part in the
transaction, and it was not until 1737 that the Colonial authorities
treated directly with the latter for the cession of their territory.[55]
The Unalachtigo or Turkey totem had its principal seat on the affluents
of the Delaware near where Wilmington now stands. About this point,
Captain John Smith, on his map (1609,) locates the _Chikahokin_. In
later writers this name is spelled _Chihohockies_, _Chiholacki_ and
_Chikolacki_, and is stated by the historians Proud and Smith to be
synonymous with Delawares.[56] The correct form is _Chikelaki_, from
_chik'eno_, turkey, the modern form as given by Whipple,[57] and _aki_
land. The _n_, _l_ and _r_ were alternating letters in this dialect.
The population was, however, very sparse, owing to the predatory
incursions of the Susquehannocks, whose trails, leading up the Octorara
and Conestoga, and down the Christina and Brandywine Creeks, were
followed by war parties annually, and desolated the west shores of the
Bay and lower river. When, in 1634, Captain Thomas Young explored the
river, the few natives he found on the west side told him (through the
medium of his Algonkin Virginian interpreter) that the "Minquaos" had
killed their people, burnt their villages, and destroyed their crops,
so that "the Indians had wholly left that side of the river which was
next their enemies, and had retired themselves on the other side farre
up into the woods."[58]
North of the Chikelaki, Smith's map locates the _Macovks_. This name
does not appear in later authors, but near that site were the _Okahoki_
band, who occupied the shores of Ridley and Crum creeks and the land
between them. There they remained until 1703, when they were removed to
a small reservation of 500 acres in what is now Willistown township,
Chester county.[59]
_The Totemic Animals._
These three sub-tribes had each its totemic animal, from which it
claimed a mystical descent. The Minsi had the Wolf, the Unami the
Turtle, and the Unalachtigo the Turkey. The Unamis claimed and were
conceded the precedence of the others, because their ancestor, the
Turtle, was not the common animal, so-called, but the great original
tortoise which bears the world on its back, and was the first of living
beings, as I shall explain on a later page.
In referring to the totemic animals the common names were not used, but
metaphorical expressions. Thus the Wolf was referred to as _Ptuksit_,
Round Foot (_ptuk_, round, _sit_, foot, from the shape of its paws;)
the turtle was _Pakoango_, the Crawler; and the turkey was _Pullaeu_,
he does not chew,[60] referring to the bird's manner of swallowing food.
The signs of these animals were employed in their picture writing,
painted on their houses or inscribed on rocks, to designate the
respective sub-tribes. But only in the case of the Unamis was the whole
animal represented. The Turkey tribe painted only one foot of their
totemic bird, and the Minsi the extended foot of the wolf, though they
sometimes added an outline of the rest of the animal.[61]
These three divisions of the Lenape were neither "gentes" nor
"phratries," though Mr. Morgan has endeavored to force them into his
system by stating that they were "of the nature of phratries."[62]
Each was divided into twelve families bearing female names, and hence
probably referring to some unexplained matriarchal system. They were,
as I have called them, sub-tribes. In their own orations they referred
to each other as "playmates." (Heckewelder.)
_The New Jersey Lenape._
The native name of New Jersey is given as Shã'akbee (English
orthography: ã as in fate); or as the German missionaries wrote it,
_Sche'jachbi_. It is a compound of _bi_, water, _aki_, land, and
the adjective prefix _schey_, which means something long and narrow
(_scheyek_, a string of wampum; _schajelinquall_, the edge of the eyes,
the eyelids, etc.) This would be equivalent to "long-land water," and,
according to the rules of Delaware grammar, which place the noun used
in the genitive sense before the noun which governs it, the term would
be more suitable to some body of water, Delaware bay or the ocean, than
to the main land.
The Lenape distinctly claimed the whole of the present area of New
Jersey. Their great chief, Tedyuscung, stated at the Conference at
Easton (1757), that their lands reached eastward to the shore of the
sea. The New Jersey tribes fully recognized their unity. As early as
1694, at an interview with Governor Markham at Philadelphia, when the
famous Tamany and other Lenape chieftains were present, Mohocksey, a
chief of the Jersey Indians, said: "Though we live on the other side
of the water (_i.e._, the Delaware river), yet we reckon ourselves all
one, because," he added, giving a characteristically native reason,
"because we drink one water."[63]
The names, number and position of the Jersey tribes have not been very
clearly made out. A pamphlet published in London, in 1648, states
that there were twenty-three Indian kinglets in its area, with about
2000 warriors in all. Of these, Master Robert Evelin, a surveyor, who
spent several years in the Province about 1635, names nine on the left
bank of the Delaware, between Cape May and the Falls. The names are
extremely corrupt, but it may be worth while giving them.[64]
1. Kechemeches, 500 men, five miles above Cape May.
2. Manteses, 100 bowmen, twelve leagues above the former.
3. Sikonesses.
4. Asomoches, 100 men.
5. Eriwoneck, 40 men.
6. Ramcock, 100 men.
7. Axion, 200 men.
8. Calcefar, 150 men.
9. Mosilian, 200 men, at the Falls.
Of these, the Mantes lived on Salem creek; _Ramcock_ is Rancocas creek;
the _Eriwoneck_ are evidently the _Ermomex_ of Van der Donck's map of
1656; _Axion_ may be for Assiscunk creek, above Burlington, from Del.
_assiscu_, mud; _assiscunk_, a muddy place. Lindstrom and Van der Donck
name the most Southern tribe in New Jersey _Naraticons_. They were on
and near Raccoon creek, which on Lindstrom's map is _Narraticon Sipu_,
the Naraticon river. Probably the English name is simply a translation
of the Del. _nachenum_, raccoon.
In 1675 the number of sachems in Jersey of sufficient importance for
the then Governor Andros to treat with were four. It is noted that when
he had made them the presents customary on such occasions, "They return
thanks and fall a kintacoying, singing _kenon, kenon_."[65] This was
the Delaware _genan_ (_genama_, thank ye him. Zeis).
The total number in New Jersey a few years before this (1671) were
estimated by the authorities at "about a thousand persons, besides
women and children."[66]
The "_Wakings, Opings_ or _Pomptons_," as they are named in the old
records, were the tribe which dwelt on the west shore of New York
harbor and southwardly, or, more exactly, "from Roeloff Jansen's Kill
to the sea."[67] They were of the Minsi totem, and were the earliest of
the Lenape who saw white men, when, in 1524, the keel of Verrazano was
the first to plough the waters of New York harbor.
The name Waping or Oping is derived from _Wapan_, east, and was applied
to them as the easternmost of the Lenape nation.[68] Their other name,
Pompton, Mr Heckewelder identifies with _pihm-tom_, crooked-mouthed,
though its applicability is not obvious.[69]
In the middle of the eighteenth century the remains of the Pompton
Indians resided on the Raritan river. The boundaries of their territory
were defined in 1756, at the Treaty of Crosswicks.
The _Sanhicans_ occupied the Delaware shore at the Falls, near where
Trenton now stands, and extended eastward along the upper Indian path
quite to New York bay. Heckewelder says that this name, _Sankhicani_,
means a gun lock, and was applied by the Lenape to the Mohawks who
were first furnished with muskets by the Europeans. This has led some
writers to locate a band of Mohawks at the Falls.
The Sanhicans were, however, undoubtedly Lenape. Campanius, who quotes
the name of the place in 1642, classes them as such. In Van der
Donck's map, of 1656, they are marked as possessing the land at the
Falls and Manhattan Bay; and De Laet gives the numerals and a number of
words from their dialect, which are all pure Delaware, as:--
_Sanhican._ _Delaware._
Deer, atto, achtu.
Bear, machquoyuo, machquak.
Wolf, metumnu, metemmeu.
Turkey, sickenum, tschickenum.
Their name has lost its first syllable. It should be _assanhican_.
This means not merely and not originally a gun-flint, but any stone
implement, from _achsin_, or, in the New Jersey dialect, _assun_,
a stone, and _hican_, an instrument. They were distinctively "the
stone-implement people."
This is plainly with reference to their manufactures near Trenton.
The great deposit of post-glacial gravels at this point abound with
quartzite fragments suitable for working into stone implements, and to
what extent they were utilized by the natives is shown by the enormous
collection, numbering over thirty thousand specimens, which Dr. Charles
C. Abbott, of Trenton, has made in that immediate vicinity. A horde of
over 125 beautifully chipped lance heads of quartz and jasper, and the
remains of a workshop of remarkable magnitude, were evidences of the
extensive manufacture that once prevailed there.
The left bank of the Delaware, from the vicinity of Burlington quite
to and below Salem, was held by a warlike tribe known to the settlers
as the _Mantas_, or _Mantos_, or _Mandes_, otherwise named the Frog
Indians. They extended eastward along the main or southern Indian
path, which led from the Delaware, below the mouth of Rancocas Creek,
to the extensive Indian plantations or corn fields near Sandy Hook,
mentioned by Campanius and Lindstrom.[70]
Mr. Henry has derived their name from _mangi_, great,[71] and others
have suggested _menatey_, an island; but I do not think either of these
is tenable. I have no doubt that _mante_ is simply a mis-spelling of
_monthee_, which is the form given by the East Jersey and Stockbridge
Indians to the name of the Minsi or Monsey sub-tribe of the
Delawares.[72] This is further indicated by the fact that toward the
beginning of the eighteenth century they incorporated themselves wholly
with the two other Lenape sub-tribes.[73] We thus find that the Minsis
were not confined to the North and Northwest, as Heckewelder and others
wrote, but had pressed southward in New Jersey, quite to the shores of
Delaware Bay.
The New Jersey Indians disappeared rapidly. As early as 1721 an
official document states that they were "but few, and very innocent and
friendly."[74] When, in 1745, the missionary Brainerd visited their
settlement at Crosweeksung, Burlington county, he found some "who
had lived with the white people under gospel light, had learned to
read, were civil, etc."[75] Those with whom he labored at this place
subsequently removed to New Stockbridge, Mass., and united with the
Mohegans and others there.[76]
The Swedish traveler, Peter Kalm, who spent about a year in New Jersey
in 1749, observes that the disappearance of the native population
was principally due to two agencies. Smallpox destroyed "incredible
numbers", "but brandy has killed most of the Indians."[77]
The dialect of the New Jersey Indians was soft and vocalic, avoiding
the gutturals of their northern relatives, and without the frequent
unpleasant forcible expirations of the Nanticoke. A vocabulary of
it, obtained for Mr. Thomas Jefferson, in 1792, at the village of
Edgpiihik, West New Jersey, is in MS. in the library of the American
Philosophical Society.
_Political Constitution_.
Each totem of the Lenape recognized a chieftain, called sachem,
_sakima_, a word found in most Algonkin dialects, with slight
variations (Chip. _ogima_, Cree, _okimaw_, Pequot, _sachimma_), and
derived from a root _ôki_, signifying above in space, and by a transfer
frequent in all languages, above in power. Thus, in Cree,[78] we
have _sâkamow_, "il projecte, il montre la tête," and in Delaware,
_w'ochgitschi_, the part above, the upper part (Zeisberger), etc.
It appears from Mr. Morgan's inquiries, that at present and of later
years, "the office of sachem is hereditary in the gens, but elective
among its members."[79] Loskiel, however, writing on the excellent
authority of Zeisberger, states explicitly that the chief of each totem
was selected and inaugurated by those of the remaining two.[80] By
common and ancient consent, the chief selected from the Turtle totem
was head chief of the whole Lenape nation.
These chieftains were the "peace chiefs." They could neither go to war
themselves, nor send nor receive the war belt--the ominous string of
dark wampum, which indicated that the tempest of strife was to be let
loose. Their proper badge was the wampum belt, with a diamond-shaped
figure in the centre, worked in white beads, which was the symbol of
the peaceful council fire, and was called by that name.
War was declared by the people at the instigation of the "war
captains," valorous braves of any birth or family who had distinguished
themselves by personal prowess, and especially by good success in
forays against the enemy.[81]
Nor did the authority of the chiefs extend to any infringement on
the traditional rights of the gens, as, for instance, that of blood
revenge. The ignorance of this limitation of the central power led to
various misunderstandings at the time, on the part of the colonial
authorities, and since then, by later historians. Thus, in 1728, "the
Delaware Indians on Brandywine" were summoned by the Governor to answer
about a murder. Their chief, Civility, answered that it was committed
by the Minisinks, "over whom they had no authority."[82] This did not
mean but that in some matters authority could be exerted, but not in a
question relating to a feud of blood.
_Agriculture and Food Resources_.
The Lenape did not depend solely on the chase for subsistence. They
were largely agricultural, and raised a variety of edible plants.
Indian corn was, as usual, the staple; but in addition to that, they
had extensive fields of squashes, beans and sweet potatoes.[83] The
hardy variety of tobacco was also freely cultivated.
The value of Indian corn, the _Zea mais_, must have been known to
the Algonkin tribes while they still formed one nation, as the same
name is applied to it by tribes geographically the widest apart.
Thus the Micmacs of Nova Scotia call it _pe-ãs'kumun-ul_ whose
theme _ãs'ku-mun_ reappears in the _wuskannem_ (Elliott) and the
_scannemeneash_ (Roger Williams) of New England, in the Delaware
_jesquem_ (Campanius), and _chasquem_ (Zeis.), and even in the Piegan
Blackfoot _esko-tope_.
The first radical _ask_, Chip. _ashk_, Del. _aski_, means "green." The
application is to the green waving plant, so conspicuous in the fields
during the summer months. The second _mün_ or _min_ is a generic suffix
applied to all sorts of small edible fruits. In the Blackfoot its place
is supplied by another, and in the Unami Delaware it is abbreviated to
the letter _m_.
On the other hand, in the Chipeway word for corn, _mandamin_, Ottawa
_mindamin_, Cree _mattamin_, the second radical is retained in full,
while for the first is substituted an abbreviation of _manito_, divine
("it is divine, supernatural, or mysterious"); if we may accept the
opinion of Mr. Schoolcraft, and I know of no more plausible etymology.
Tobacco was called by the Delawares _kscha-tey_, Zeis., _seka-ta_,
Camp., or in the English orthography _shuate_ (Vocab. N. J. Inds.),
and _koshãhtahe_ (Cummmings). I am inclined to think that these are but
dialectic variations and different orthographies of the root _'ta_
or _'dam_ (_a_ nasal) found in the New England _wuttãm-anog_, Micmac
_tùmawa_, Abnaki _wh'dãman_ (Rasle), Cree _tchistémaw_, Chip. _assema_
(= _asté-maw_), Blackfoot _pi-stã-kan_; a root which Dr. J. H. Trumbull
has satisfactorily identified as meaning "to drink," the smoke being
swallowed and likened to water. "To drink tobacco" was the usual old
English expression for "to smoke."
If this etymology is correct, it leads to the inference that tobacco
also was known to the ancient Algonkins before they split up into the
many nations which we now know, and furthermore that they must have
lived in a region where these two semi-tropical or wholly tropical
plants, Indian corn and tobacco, had been already introduced and
cultivated by some more ancient race. To conclude that they themselves
brought them from a tropical land, would be too hazardous.
The pipes in which the tobacco was smoked were called _appooke_ (modern
Delaware _o'pahokun'_, Cumings' Vocab.) They were of earthenware and
of stone; sometimes, it is said, of copper. According to Kalm, the
ceremonial pipes were of a red stone, possibly the western pipe stone,
and were very highly prized.[84]
Of wild fruits and plants they consumed the esculent and nutritious
tubers on the roots of the Wild Bean, _Apios tuberosa_, the large,
oval, fleshy roots of the arrow-leaved _Sagittaria_, the former
of which the Indians called _hobbenis_, and the latter _katniss_,
names which they subsequently applied to the European turnip. They
also roasted and ate the acrid cormus of the Indian turnip, _Arum
triphyllum_, in Delaware _taw-ho_, _taw-hin_ or _tuck-ah_, and
collected for food the seeds of the Golden Club, _Orontium aquaticum_,
common in the pools along the creeks and rivers. Its native name was
_taw-kee_.[85]
_House Building._
In their domestic architecture they differed noticeably from the
Iroquois and even the Mohegans. Their houses were not communal, but
each family had its separate residence, a wattled hut, with rounded
top, thatched with mats woven of the long leaves of the Indian corn
or the stalks of the sweet flag (_Acorus calamus_,) or of the bark of
trees (_anacon_, a mat, Z.) These were built in groups and surrounded
with a palisade to protect the inhabitants from sudden inroads.[86]
In the centre was sometimes erected a mound of earth, both as a place
of observation and as a location to place the children and women. The
remains of these circular ramparts enclosing a central mound were seen
by the early settlers at the Falls of the Delaware and up the Lehigh
valley.
_Manufactures_.
The art of the potter was known and extensively practiced, but did not
indicate any unusual proficiency, either in the process of manufacture
or in the methods of decoration, although the late Mr. F. Peale thought
that, in the latter respect, the Delaware pottery had some claims to a
high rank.[87] The representation of animal forms was quite unusual,
only some few and inferior examples having been found.
Their skill in manufacturing bead work and feather mantles, and in
dressing deer skins, excited the admiration of the early voyagers.
Although their weapons and utensils were mostly of stone, there was a
considerable supply of native copper among them, in use as ornaments,
for arrow heads and pipes. Some specimens of it have been found by
Dr. Abbott near Trenton, and by other collectors in Pennsylvania,[88]
and its scarcity in modern collections is to be attributed to its
being bought up and melted by the whites rather than to its limited
employment.
Soap stone was hollowed out with considerable skill, to form bowls, and
the wood of the sassafras tree was highly esteemed for the same purpose
(Kalm).
The maize was broken up in wooden or stone mortars with a stone pestle,
the native name of which was _pocohaac_, a word signifying also the
virile member.
Their arms were the war club or tomahawk, _tomhickan_, the bow,
_hattape_, and arrow, _alluns_, the spear, _tanganaoun_, and for
defence Bishop Ettwein states they carried a round shield of thick,
dried hide.
The spear was also used for spearing fish, which they, moreover, knew
how to catch with "brush nets," and with fish hooks made of bone and
the dried claws of birds (Kalm).[89]
_Paints and Dyes_.
The paints and dyes used by the Lenape and neighboring Indians were
derived both from the vegetable and mineral realms. From the former
they obtained red, white and blue clays, which were in such extensive
demand that the vicinity of those streams in New Castle county,
Delaware, which are now called White Clay Creek and Red Clay Creek, was
widely known to the natives as _Walamink_, the Place of Paint.
The vegetable world supplied a variety of dyes in the colored juices of
plants. These were mixed with the acid juice of the wild, sweet-scented
crab apple (_Pyrus coronaria_; in Lenape, _tombic'anall_), to fix the
dye.
A red was yielded by the root of the _Sanguinaria Canadensis_, still
called "Indian paint root;" an orange by the root of _Phytolacca
decandra_, the poke or pocoon; a yellow by the root of _Hydrastis
Canadensis_; a black by a mixture of sumac and white walnut bark,
etc.[90]
_Dogs_.
The only domestic animal they possessed was a small species of dogs
with pointed ears. These were called _allum_, and were preserved less
for protection or for use in hunting than for food, and especially for
ceremonial purposes.[91]
_Interments_.
The custom of common ossuaries for each gens appears to have prevailed
among the Lenape. Gabriel Thomas states that: "If a person of Note dies
very far away from his place of residence, they will convey his Bones
home some considerable Time after, to be buried there."[92] Bishop
Ettwein speaks of mounds for common burial, though he appears to limit
their use to times of war.[93]
One of these communal graveyards of the Minsis covers an area of
six acres on the Neversink creek,[94] while, according to tradition,
another of great antiquity and extent was located on the islands in the
Delaware river, above the Water-Gap.[95]
_Computation of Time._
The accuracy with which the natives computed time becomes a subject of
prime consideration in a study of their annals. It would appear that
the Eastern Algonkins were not deficient in astronomical knowledge.
Roger Williams remarks, "they much observe the Starres, and their very
children can give names to many of them;"[96] and the same testimony is
borne by Wassenaer. The latter, speaking of the tribes around New York
Harbor, in 1630, says that their year began with the first moon after
the February moon; and that the time for planting was calculated by the
rising of the constellation Taurus in a certain quarter. They named
this constellation the horned head of some great fictitious animal.[97]
Zeisberger observes that, in his day, the Lenape did not have a fixed
beginning to their year, but reckoned from one seeding time to another,
or from when the corn was ripe, etc.[98] Nevertheless, they had a word
for year, _gachtin_, and counted their ages and the sequence of events
by yearly periods. The Chipeways count by winters (_pipun-agak_, in
which the first word means winter, and the second is a plural form
similar to the Del. _gachtin_); but the Lenape did not apparently
follow them in this. They recognized only twelve moons in the year
and not thirteen, as did the New England nations; at least, the names
of but twelve months have been preserved.[99] The day periods were
reckoned usually by nights, but it was not improper to count by "suns"
or days.
_Pictographic Signs_.
The picture writing of the Delawares has been quite fully described
by Zeisberger, Loskiel and Heckewelder. It was scratched upon stone
(Loskiel), or more frequently cut in or painted upon the bark of trees
or pieces of wood. The colors were chiefly black and red. The system
was highly conventionalized, so that it could readily be understood by
all their tribes, and also by others with whom they came in contact,
the Shawnees, Wyandots, Chipeways, etc.
The subjects had reference not merely to matters of present interest,
but to the former history of their nation, and were directed "to the
preservation of the memory of famous men, and to the recollection
of events and actions of note." Therefore, their Agamemnons felt no
anxiety for the absence of a Homer, but "confidently reckoned that
their noble deeds would be held in memory long after their bodies had
perished."[100]
The material on which the drawings were made was generally so
perishable that few examples have been left to us. One, a stone about
seven inches long, found in central New Jersey, has been described and
figured by Dr. Abbott.[101] It represents an arrow crossing certain
straight lines. Several "gorgets" (smooth stone tablets pierced with
holes for suspension, and probably used for ceremonial purposes),
stone knives and pebbles, showing inscribed marks and lines, and rude
figures, are engraved in Dr. Abbott's book; others similar have been
seen in Bucks and Berks counties, Pa.
There was a remarkable series of hieroglyphics, some eighty in
number, on a rock at Safe Harbor, on the Susquehanna. They have been
photographed and described by Prof. T. C. Porter, of Lancaster, but
have yet to be carefully analyzed.[102] From its location, it was
probably the work of the Susquehannocks, and did not belong to the
general system of Algonkin pictography.
If the rude drawings appended to the early treatises as signatures
of native sachems be taken as a guide, little or no uniformity
prevailed in the personal signs. The same chieftain would, on various
occasions, employ symbols differing so widely that they have no visible
relation.[103]
An interesting incident is recorded by Friend John Richardson when
on a visit to William Penn, at his manor of Pennsburg, in 1701. Penn
asked the Indian interpreter to give him some idea of what the native
notion of God was. The interpreter, at a loss for words, had recourse
to picture writing, and describing a number of circles, one inside the
other, he pointed to the centre of the innermost and smallest one,
and there, "placed, as he said, by way of representation, the Great
Man."[104] The explanation was striking and suggestive, and hints at
the meaning of the not infrequent symbol of the concentric circles.
An alleged piece of Delaware pictography is copied by Schoolcraft[105]
from the London _Archæologia_, Vol. IV. It purports to be an inscription
found on the Muskingum river in 1780, and the interpretation is said to
have been supplied by the celebrated Delaware chief, Captain White Eyes
(Coquethagechton). As interpreted, it relates to massacres of the whites
by the Delaware chief, Wingenund, in the border war of 1763.
There is a tissue of errors here. The pictograph, "drawn with charcoal
and oil on a tree," must have been quite recent, and is not likely
to have referred to events seventeen years antecedent. There is no
evidence that Wingenund took part in Pontiac's conspiracy, and he was
the consistent friend of the whites.[106] Several of the characters
are not like Indian pictographs. And finally, White Eyes, the alleged
interpreter in 1780, had died at Tuscarawas, two years before, Nov.
10th, 1778![107]
_Record Sticks_.
The Algonkin nations very generally preserved their myths, their
chronicles, and the memory of events, speeches, etc., by means of
marked sticks. As early as 1646, the Jesuit missionaries in Canada made
use of these to teach their converts the prayers of the Church and
their sermons.[108]
The name applied to these record or tally-sticks was, among the Crees
and Chipeways, _massinahigan_, which is the common word now for book,
but which originally meant "a piece of wood marked with fire," from
the verb _masinákisan_, I imprint a mark upon it with fire, I burn
a mark upon it,[109] thus indicating the rude beginning of a system
of mnemonic aids. The Lenape words for book, _malackhickan_, Camp.,
_mamalekhican_ Zeis., were probably from the same root.
In later days, instead of burning the marks upon the sticks, they were
painted, the colors as well as the figures having certain conventional
meanings.[110]
These sticks are described as about six inches in length, slender,
though varying in shape, and tied up in bundles.[111] Such bundles are
mentioned by the interpreter Conrad Weiser, as in use in 1748 when he
was on his embassy in the Indian country.[112] The expression, "we tied
up in bundles," is translated by Mr. Heckewelder, _olumapisid_, and a
head chief of the Lenape, usually called _Olomipees_, was thus named,
apparently as preserver of such records.[113] I shall return on a later
page to the precise meaning of this term.
The word signifying to paint was _walamén_, which does not appear
in western dialects, but is found precisely the same in the Abnaki,
where it is given by Rasles, _8ramann_[114], which, transliterated
into Delaware (where the _l_ is substituted for the _r_), would be
_w'lam'an_. From this word came _Wallamünk_, the name applied by the
natives to a tract in New Castle county, Delaware, since at that
locality they procured supplies of colored earth, which they employed
in painting. It means "the place of paint."[115]
Roger Williams, describing the New England Indians, speaks of
"_Wunnam_, their red painting, which they most delight in, and is both
the Barke of the Fine, as also a red Earth."[116]
The word is derived from Narr. _wunne_, Del. _wulit_, Chip. _gwanatsch_
= beautiful, handsome, good, pretty, etc.
The Indian who had artistically bedaubed his skin with red, ochreous
clay, was esteemed In full dress, and delightful to look upon. Hence
the term _wulit_, fine, pretty, came to be applied to the paint itself.
The custom of using such sticks, painted or notched, was by no means
peculiar to the Delawares. They were familiar to the Iroquois, and the
early travelers found them in common employment among the southern
tribes.[117]
As the art advanced, in place of simple sticks, painted or notched,
wooden tablets came into use, on which the symbols were scratched or
engraved with a sharp flint or knife. Such are those still in use among
the Chipeway, described by Dr. James as "rude pictures carved on a flat
piece of wood;"[118] by the native Copway, as "board plates;"[119]
and more precisely by Mr. Schoolcraft, as "a tabular piece of wood,
covered on both sides with a series of devices cut between parallel
lines."[120]
The Chipeway terms applied to these devices or symbols are, according
to Mr. Schoolcraft, _kekeewin_, for those in ordinary and common use,
and _kekeenowin_, for those connected with the mysteries, the "meda
worship" and the "great medicine." Both words are evidently from a
radical signifying a mark or sign, appearing in the words given in
Baraga's "Otchipwe Dictionary," _kikinawadjiton_, I mark it, I put a
certain mark on it, and _kikinoamawa_, I teach, instruct him.
_Moral and Mental Character._
The character of the Delawares was estimated very differently, even by
those who had the best opportunities of judging. The missionaries are
severe upon them. Brainerd described them as "unspeakably indolent and
slothful. They have little or no ambition or resolution; not one in a
thousand of them that has the spirit of a man."[121] No more favorable
was the opinion of Zeisberger. He speaks of their alleged bravery
with the utmost contempt, and morally he puts them down as "the most
ordinary and the vilest of savages."[122]
Perhaps these worthy missionaries measured them by the standard of the
Christian ideal, by which, alas, we all fall wofully short.
Certainly, other competent observers report much more cheerfully. One
of the first explorers of the Delaware, Captain Thomas Young (1634),
describes them as "very well proportioned, well featured, gentle,
tractable and docile."[123]
Of their domestic affections, Mr. Heckewelder writes: "I do not believe
that there are any people on earth who are more attached to their
relatives and offspring than these Indians are."[124]
Their action toward the Society of Friends in Pennsylvania indicates
a sense of honor and a respect for pledges which we might not
expect. They had learned and well understood that the Friends were
non-combatants, and as such they never forgot to spare them, even in
the bloody scenes of border warfare.
"Amidst all the devastating incursions of the Indians in North America,
it is a remarkable fact that no Friend who stood faithful to his
principles in the disuse of all weapons of war, the cause of which
was generally well understood by the Indians, ever suffered personal
molestation from them."[125]
The fact that for more than forty years after the founding of Penn's
colony there was not a single murder committed on a settler by an
Indian, itself speaks volumes for their self-control and moral
character. So far from seeking quarrels with the whites they extended
them friendly aid and comfort.[126]
Even after they had become embittered and corrupted by the gross
knavery of the whites (for example, the notorious "long walk,") and
the debasing influence of alcohol, such an authority as Gen. Wm. H.
Harrison could write these words about the Delawares: "A long and
intimate knowledge of them, in peace and war, as enemies and friends,
has left upon my mind the most favorable impression of their character
for bravery, generosity and fidelity to their engagements."[127] More
than this, and from a higher source, could scarcely be asked.
That intellectually they were by no means deficient is acknowledged by
Brainerd himself. "The children," he writes, "learn with surprising
readiness; their master tells me he never had an English school that
learned, in general, so fast."[128]
_Religious Beliefs_.
With the hints given us in various authors, it is not difficult to
reconstruct the primitive religious notions of the Delawares. They
resembled closely those of the other Algonkin nations, and were founded
on those general mythical principles which, in my "Myths of the New
World," I have shown existed widely throughout America. These are, the
worship of Light, especially in its concrete manifestations of fire and
the sun; of the Four Winds, as typical of the cardinal points, and as
the rain bringers; and of the Totemic Animal.
As the embodiment of Light, some spoke of the sun as a deity,[129]
while their fifth and greatest festival was held in honor of Fire,
which they personified, and called the Grandfather of all Indian
nations. They assigned to it twelve divine assistants, who were
represented by so many actors in the ceremony, with evident reference
to the twelve moons or months of the year, the fire being a type of the
heavenly blaze, the sun.[130]
But both Sun and Fire were only material emblems of the mystery of
Light. This was the "body or fountain of deity," which Brainerd said
they described to him in terms that he could not clearly understand;
something "all light;" a being "_in_ whom the earth, and all things
in it, may be seen;" a "great man, clothed with the day, yea, with
the brightest day, a day of many years, yea, a day of everlasting
continuance." From him proceeded, in him were, to him returned, all
things and the souls of all things.
Such was the extraordinary doctrine which a converted priest of the
native religion informed Brainerd was the teaching of the medicine
men.[131]
The familiar Algonkin myth of the "Great Hare," which I have elsewhere
shown to be distinctively a myth of Light,[132] was also well known to
the Delawares, and they applied to this animal, also, the appellation
of the "Grandfather of the Indians."[133] Like the fire, the hare was
considered their ancestor, and in both instances the Light was meant,
fire being its symbol, and the word for hare being identical with that
of brightness and light.
As in Mexico and elsewhere, this light or bright ancestor was the
culture hero of their mythology, their pristine instructor in the
arts, and figured in some of their legends as a white man, who, in
some remote time, visited them from the east, and brought them their
civilization.[134]
I desire to lay especial stress on these proofs of Light worship among
the Delawares, for it has an immediate bearing on several points in the
WALAM OLUM. There are no compounds more frequent in that document than
those with the root signifying "light," "brightness," etc., and this is
one of the evidences of its authenticity.
Next in order, or rather, parallel with and a part of the worship of
Light, was that of the Four Cardinal Points, always identified with
the Four Winds, the bringers of rain and sunshine, the rulers of the
weather.
"After the strictest inquiry respecting their notions of the Deity,"
says David Brainerd, "I find that in ancient times, before the coming
of the white people, some supposed there were four invisible powers,
who presided over the four corners of the earth."[135]
The Montauk Indians of Long Island, a branch of the Mohegans, also
worshiped these four deities, as we are informed by the Rev Sampson
Occum;[136] and Captain Argoll found them again in 1616 among the
accolents of the Potomac, close relatives of the Delawares. Their chief
told him: "We have five gods in all, our chief god appears often unto
us in the form of a mighty great hare, the other four have no visible
shape, but are indeed the four winds, which keep the four corners of
the earth."[137]
These are the fundamental doctrines, the universal _credo_, of not only
all the Algonkin faiths, but of all or nearly all primitive American
religions.
This is very far from the popular conception of Indian religion, with
its "Good Spirit" and "Bad Spirit." Such ideas were not familiar to
the native mind. Heckewelder, Brainerd and Loskiel all assure us in
positive terms that the notion of a bad spirit, a "Devil," was wholly
unknown to the aborigines, and entirely borrowed from the whites.
Nor was the Divinity of Light looked upon as a beneficent father, or
anything of that kind. The Indian did not appeal to him for assistance,
as to his _totemic and personal gods_.
These were conceived to be in the form of animals, and various acts
of propitiation to them were performed. Such acts were not a worship
of the animals themselves. Brainerd explains this very correctly when
he says: "They do not suppose a divine power essential to or inhering
in these creatures, but that some invisible beings, not distinguished
from each other by certain names, but only notionally, communicate to
these animals a great power, and so make these creatures the immediate
authors of good to certain persons. Hence such a creature becomes
_sacred_ to the person to whom he is supposed to be the immediate
author of good, and through him they must worship the invisible powers,
though to others he is no more than another creature."[138]
They rarely attempted to set forth the divinity in image. The rude
representation of a human head, cut in wood, small enough to be carried
on the person, or life size on a post, was their only idol. This was
called _wsinkhoalican_. They also drew and perhaps carved emblems of
their totemic guardian. Mr. Beatty describes the head chief's home as a
long building of wood: "Over the door a turtle is drawn, which is the
ensign of this particular tribe. On each door post was cut the face of
a grave old man."[139]
Occasionally, rude representations of the human head, chipped out of
stone, are exhumed in those parts of Pennsylvania and New Jersey once
inhabited by the Lenape.[140] These are doubtless the _wsinkhoalican_
above mentioned.
_Doctrine of the Soul_.
There was a general belief in a soul, spirit or immaterial part of
man. For this the native words were _tschipey_ and _tschitschank_ (in
Brainerd, _chichuny_). The former is derived from a root signifying to
be separate or apart, while the latter means "the shadow."[141]
Their doctrine was that after death the soul went _south_, where it
would enjoy a happy life for a certain term, and then could return and
be born again into the world. In moments of spiritual illumination it
was deemed possible to recall past existences, and even to remember
the happy epoch passed in the realm of bliss.[142]
The path to this abode of the blessed was by the Milky Way, wherein the
opinion of the Delawares coincided with that of various other American
nations, as the Eskimos, on the north, and the Guaranis of Paraguay, on
the south.
The ordinary euphemism to inform a person that his death was at hand
was: "You are about to visit your ancestors;"[143] but most observers
agree that they were a timorous people, with none of that contempt of
death sometimes assigned them.[144]
_The Native Priests._
An important class among the Lenape were those called by the whites
doctors, conjurers, or medicine men, who were really the native
priests. They appear to have been of two schools, the one devoting
themselves mainly to divination, the other to healing.
According to Brainerd, the title of the former among the Delawares,
as among the New England Indians, was _powwow_, a word meaning "a
dreamer;" Chip., _bawadjagan_, a dream; _nind apawe_, I dream; Cree,
_pawa-miwin_, a dream. They were the interpreters of the dreams of
others, and themselves claimed the power of dreaming truthfully of the
future and the absent.[145] In their visions their guardian spirit
visited them; they became, in their own words, "all light," and they
"could see through men, and knew the thoughts of their hearts."[146]
At such times they were also instructed at what spot the hunters could
successfully seek game.
The other school of the priestly class was called, as we are informed
by Mr. Heckewelder, _medeu_.[147] This is the same term which we
find in Chipeway as _mide_ (_medaween_, Schoolcraft), and in Cree as
_mitew_, meaning a conjurer, a member of the Great Medicine Lodge.[148]
I suspect the word is from _m'iteh_, heart (Chip. _k'ide_, thy heart),
as this organ was considered the source and centre of life and the
emotions, and is constantly spoken of in a figurative sense in Indian
conversation and oratory.
Among the natives around New York Bay there was a body of conjurers who
professed great austerity of life. They had no fixed homes, pretended
to absolute continence, and both exorcised sickness and officiated
at the funeral rites. Their name, as reported by the Dutch, was
_kitzinacka_, which is evidently Great Snake (_gitschi_, _achkook_).
The interesting fact is added, that at certain periodical festivals a
sacrifice was prepared, which it was believed was carried off by a
huge serpent.[149]
When the missionaries came among the Indians, the shrewd and able
natives who had been accustomed to practice on the credulity of their
fellows recognized that the new faith would destroy their power, and
therefore they attacked it vigorously. Preachers arose among them, and
claimed to have had communications from the Great Spirit about all the
matters which the Christian teachers talked of. These native exhorters
fabricated visions and revelations, and displayed symbolic drawings on
deerskins, showing the journey of the soul after death, the path to
heaven, the twelve emetics and purges which would clean a man of sin,
etc.
Such were the famed prophets Papunhank and Wangomen, who set up as
rivals in opposition to David Zeisberger; and such those who so
constantly frustrated the efforts of the pious Brainerd. Often do both
of these self-sacrificing apostles to the Indians complain of the evil
influence which such false teachers exerted among the Delawares.[150]
The existence of this class of impostors is significant for the
appreciation of such a document as the WALAM OLUM. They were partially
acquainted with the Bible history of creation; some had learned to
read and write in the mission schools; they were eager to imitate
the wisdom of the whites, while at the same time they were intent on
claiming authentic antiquity and originality for all their sayings.
_Religious Ceremonies._
The principal sacred ceremony was the dance and accompanying song.
This was called _kanti kanti_, from a verbal found in most Algonkin
dialects with the primary meaning to sing (Abnaki, _skan_, je danse et
chante en même temps, Rasles; Cree, _nikam_; Chip., _nigam_, I sing).
From this noisy rite, which seems to have formed a part of all the
native celebrations, the settlers coined the word _cantico_, which has
survived and become incorporated into the English tongue.
Zeisberger describes other festivals, some five in number. The most
interesting is that called _Machtoga_, which he translates "to sweat."
This was held in honor of "their Grandfather, the Fire." The number
twelve appears in it frequently as regulating the actions and numbers
of the performers. This had evident reference to the twelve months of
the year, but his description is too vague to allow a satisfactory
analysis of the rite.
FOOTNOTES:
[48] See his remarks in the Transactions of the _American Philological
Association_, 1872, p. 157.
[49] For instance, in Governor Patrick Gordon's Letter to the Friends,
1728, where he speaks of "Our Lenappys or Delaware Indians," in
_Penna. Archives_, Vol. I, p. 230. At the treaty of Easton, 1756,
Tedyuscung, head chief of the Delawares, is stated to have represented
the "Lenopi" Indians (_Minutes of the Council_, Phila., 1757), and in
the "Conference of Eleven Nations living West of Allegheny," held at
Philadelphia, 1759, the Delawares are included under the tribal name
"Leonopy." See _Minutes of the Provincial Council of Penna._, Vol.
VIII, p. 418.
[50] So Mr. Lewis H. Morgan says, and he obtained the facts on the
spot. "Len-ã'-pe was their former name, and is still used." _Systems of
Consanguinity and Affinity_, p. 289 (Washington, 1871).
[51] _History of the Indian Nations_, p. 401.
[52] _Transactions of the American Philological Association_, 1871, p.
144.
[53] Zeisberger's translation of Lenni Lenape as "people of the same
nation," would be more literal if it were put "men of our nation."
President Stiles, in his _Itinerary_, makes the statement: "The
Delaware tribe is called _Poh-he-gan_ or _Mo-hee-gan_ by themselves,
and _Auquitsaukon_." I have not been able to reach a satisfactory
solution of the first and third of these names.
That the Delawares did use the term Lenape as their own designation, is
shown by the refrain of one of their chants, preserved by Heckewelder.
It was--"_Husca n'lenape-win_," Truly I--a Lenape--am.
Or: "I am a true man of our people." _Trans. Amer. Philos. Soc._, Vol.
IV, N. Ser., p. 381.
[54] Mr. Eager, in his _History of Orange County_, quotes the old
surveyor, Nicolas Scull (1730), in favor of translating _minisink_ "the
water is gone," and Ruttenber, in his _History of the Native Tribes
of the Hudson River_, supposes that it is derived from _menatey_, an
island. Neither of these commends itself to modern Delawares.
[55] See _Penna. Archives_, Vol. I, pp. 540-1.
[56] Proud, _History of Penna_, Vol. II, p. 297, S Smith, _Hist of New
Jersey_, p. 456; Henry, _Dict. of the Delaware Lang._, MS., p. 539.
[57] Delaware Vocabulary in Whipple, Ewbank & Turner's _Report_, 1855.
The German form is _tsickenum_.
[58] _A Brief Relation of the Voyage of Captayne Thomas Yong_, in
_Mass. Hist. Soc. Colls._, 4th series, Vol. IX, p. 119.
[59] See the original Warrant of Survey and Minutes relating thereto,
in Dr. George Smith's _History of Delaware County, Pa._, pp. 209, 210
(Phila., 1862). The derivation is uncertain. Captain John Smith gives
_mahcawq_ for pumpkin, and this appears to be the word in the native
name of Chester Creek, _Macopanackhan_, which is also seen in _Marcus_
Hook. (See Smith's _Hist. Del. Co._, pp. 145, 381.) I am inclined to
identify the _Macocks_ with the _M'okahoka_ as "the people of the
pumpkin place," or where those vegetables were cultivated.
[60] The Shawnee word is the same, _pellewaa_, whence their name for
the Ohio River, _Pellewaa seepee_, Turkey River. (Rev. David Jones,
_Journal of Two Visits Made to Some Nations of Indians on the West
Side of the River Ohio in 1772 and 1773_, p. 20.) From this is derived
the shortened form _Plaen_, seen in _Playwickey_, or _Planwikit_, the
town of those of the Turkey Tribe, in Berks county, Pa. (Heckewelder,
_Indian Names_, p, 355.)
[61] Heckewelder, _Hist. Indian Nations_, pp. 253-4.
[62] Lewis H. Morgan, _Ancient Society_, pp. 171-2.
[63] _Minutes of the Provincial Council of Pennsylvania_, July 6th,
1694.
[64] Master Evelin's Letter is printed in Smith's _History of New
Jersey_, 2d ed. Some doubt has been cast on his letter, because of
its connection with the mythical "New Albion," but his personality
and presence on the river have been vindicated. See _The American
Historical Magazine_, Vol. I, 2d series, pp. 75, 76.
[65] _New Jersey Archives_, Vol. I, p. 183.
[66] Ibid, Vol. I, p. 73.
[67] Ruttenber, _Hist. of the Indian Tribes of Hudson River_, s. v.
[68] Heckewelder, in his unpublished MSS, asserts that both these names
mean "Opossum". It is true that the name of this animal in Lenape is
_woapink_, in the New Jersey dialect _opiing_, and in the Nanticoke of
Smith _oposon_, but all these are derived from the root _wab_, which
originally meant "white," and was applied to the East as the place of
the dawn and the light. The reference is to the light gray, or whitish,
color of the animal's hair. Compare the Cree, _wapiskowes_, cendré, il
a le poil blafard Lacombe, _Dictionnaire de la Langue des Cris_ s v.
[69] _On Indian Names_, p. 375, in _Trans American Philosophical
Society_, Vol. III, n. ser.
[70] Proud, _History of Pennsylvania_, Vol. I, 144, II, p. 295.
Heckewelder, _Tran. Am. Philo. Soc._, Vol. IV, p. 376.
[71] Matthew G. Henry, _Delaware Indian Dictionary_, p. 709. (MS in the
Library of the Am. Phil. Soc.)
[72] "The Monthees who we called Wemintheuw," etc. _Journal of Hendrick
Aupaumut_, _Mems. Hist. Soc. Pa._, Vol. II, p. 77.
[73] Heckewelder, _ubi supra_.
[74] _New Jersey Archives_, Vol. V, p. 22.
[75] _The Rise and Progress of a Remarkable Work of Grace Among the
Indians_. By David Brainerd, in _Works_, p. 304.
[76] E de Schweimtz, _Life of Zeisberger_, p. 660, note.
[77] _Travels into North America_, Vol. II, pp. 93-94 (London, 1771).
[78] Lacombe, _Dictionnaire de la Langue des Cris_, p. 711. Dr.
Trumbull, however, maintains that it is derived from _sohkau-au_, he
prevails over (note to Roger Williams' _Key_, p. 162). If there is a
genetic connection, the latter is the derivative. The word _sakima_ is
not known among the Minsi. In place of it they say _K'htai_, the great
one, from _kehtan_, great. From this comes the corrupted forms _tayach_
or _tallach_ of the Nanticokes, and the _tayac_ of the Pascatoways.
[79] Lewis H. Morgan, _Ancient Society_, p. 172.
[80] Loskiel, _Geschichte der Mission_, p. 168.
[81] For these particulars see Ettwein, _Traditions and Language of the
Indians_, in _Bulletin of the Pa. Hist. Soc._, Vol. I; Charles Beatty,
_Journal of a Tour, etc._, p. 51.
[82] C. Thompson, _Inquiry into the Causes of the Alienation of the
Delaware and Shawnee Indians_, p. 16.
[83] I assign them the sweet potato on the excellent authority of Dr.
C. Thompson, _Essay on Indian Affairs_, in _Colls. of the Hist. Soc. of
Penna._, Vol. I, p. 81.
[84] Peter Kalm, _Travels in North America_, Vol. II, p. 42.
[85] See Peter Kalm, _Travels in North America_, Vol. II, pp. 110-115;
William Darlington, _Flora Cestrica_. (West Chester, Pa., 1837.)
[86] For these facts, see Bishop Ettwem's article on the Traditions
and Languages of the Indians, _Bulletin of the Pa. Hist. Soc._, 1848,
p. 32. Van der Donck (1656) describes these palisaded strongholds, and
Campanius (1642-48) gives a picture of one. See also E. de Schweimtz,
_Life of Zeisberger_, p. 83. The Mohegan houses were sometimes 180 feet
long, by about 20 feet wide, and occupied by numerous families. Van der
Donck, _Descrip. of the New Netherlands_, pp. 196-7. _Coll. N. Y. Hist.
Soc._, Ser. II, Vol. I.
The native name of these wooden forts was _menachk_, derived from
_manachen_, to cut wood (Cree, _manikka_, to cut with a hatchet). Roger
Williams calls them _aumansk_, a form of the same word.
[87] See the communication on "Pottery on the Delaware," by him, in
the Proceedings of the _Am. Phil. Soc._, 1868. The whole subject of
the archæology of the Delaware valley and New Jersey has been treated
in the most satisfactory manner by the distinguished antiquary, Dr.
Charles C. Abbott, in his work, _Primitive Industry_ (Salem, Mass.,
1881), and his _Stone Age in New Jersey_ (1877).
[88] Four specimens are reported from Berks Co., Pa., by Prof. D. P.
Brunner, in his volume, _The Indians of Berks Co., Pa._, pp. 94, 95
(Reading, 1881). These were an axe, a chisel, a knife and a gouge. The
metal was probably in part obtained in New Jersey, in part imported
from the Lake Superior region. See further, Abbott, _Primitive
Industry_, chap. xxviii. Peter Kalm, the Swedish naturalist, who
visited New Jersey in 1748, says that when the copper mines "upon the
second river between Elizabeth Town and New York" were discovered, old
mining holes were found and tools which the Indians had made use of.
_Travels in North America_, Vol. I, p. 384.
[89] Some antiquaries appear to have doubted whether the spear was in
use as a weapon of war among the Pennsylvania Indians. (See Abbott,
_Primitive Industry_, p. 248.) But the Susquehannocks are distinctly
reported as employing as a weapon "a strong and light spear of locust
wood." _Relatio Itineris in Marylandiam_, p. 85.
[90] For further information on this subject, an article may be
consulted in the _Transactions of the American Philosophical Society_,
1st Ser., Vol. III, pp. 222, et seq., by Mr. Hugh Martin, entitled "An
Account of the Principal Dies employed by the American Indians."
[91] The Delawares had three words for dog. One was _allum_, which
recurs in many Algonkin dialects, and is derived by Mr. Trumbull from
a root signifying "to lay hold of," or "to hold fast." The second was
_lennochum_ or _lenchum_, which means "the quadruped belonging to man;"
_lenno_, man; _chum_, a four-footed beast. The third was _moekaneu_, a
name derived from a general Algonkin root, in Cree, _mokku_, meaning
"to tear in pieces," from which the Delaware word for bear, _machque_,
has its origin, and also, significantly enough, the verb "to eat" in
some dialects.
[92] _History of West New Jersey_, p. 3 (London, 1698).
[93] _Bulletin Hist. Soc. of Penna._, 1848, p. 32.
[94] E. M. Ruttenber, _History of the Indian Tribes of Hudson River_,
p. 96, note.
[95] Maximilian, Prince of Wied, _Travels in America_, p. 35.
[96] _A Key into the Language of America_, p. 105.
[97] _Documentary History of New York_, Vol. III, pp. 29, 32.
[98] _Grammar of the Language of the Lenni Lenape_, pp 108-109.
[99] They are given, with translations, in Zeisberger's _Grammar_, p.
109.
[100] See Loskiel, _Geschichte der Mission_, etc., pp. 32, 33;
Heckewelder, _History of the Indian Nations_, chap. X.
[101] Dr. Charles C. Abbott, _Primitive Industry_, pp. 71, 207, 347,
379, 384, 390, 391. Dr. Abbott's suggestion that the bird's head seen
on several specimens might represent the totem of the Turkey gens of
the Lenape cannot be well founded, if Heckewelder is correct in saying
that their totemic mark was only the foot of the fowl. _Ind. Nations_,
p. 253.
[102] See _Proceedings Amer. Philos. Soc._, Vol. X.
[103] The subject is discussed, and comparative drawings of the native
signatures reproduced, by Prof. D. B. Brunner, in his useful work, _The
Indians of Berks County, Pa._, p. 68 (Reading, 1881).
[104] John Richardson's Diary, quoted in _An Account of the Conduct of
the Society of Friends toward the Indian Tribes_, pp. 61, 62 (London,
1844).
[105] _History and Statistics of the Indian Tribes_, Vol. I, plate 47,
B, and pages 353, 354.
[106] "Amiable and benevolent," says Heckewelder, whose life he aided
in saving on one occasion. _Indian Nations_, p. 285.
[107] E. de Schweinitz, _Life of Zeisberger_, p. 469.
[108] _Relation des Jesuites_, 1646, p. 33.
[109] Baraga, _A Dictionary of the Otchipwe Language_, s. v.
[110] For an example, see de Schweinitz, _Life of Zeisberger_, p. 342.
[111] _Documentary History of New York_, Vol. IV, p. 437.
[112] _Journal of Conrad Weiser_; in _Early History of Western Penna._,
p. 16.
[113] _Tran. Am. Phil. Soc._, Vol. IV, p. 384.
[114] _A Dictionary of the Abnaki Language_, s. v. _Peinture_.
[115] See anté p. 53. Mr. Francis Vincent, in his _History of the State
of Delaware_, p. 36 (Phila., 1870), says of the colored earth of that
locality, that it is "a highly argillaceous loam, interspersed with
large and frequent masses of yellow, ochrey clay, some of which are
remarkable for fineness of texture, not unlike lithomarge, and consists
of white, yellow, red and dark blue clay in detached spots."
The Shawnees applied the same word to Paint Creek, which falls into the
Scioto, close to Chilicothe. They named it _Alamonee sepee_, of which
Paint Creek is a literal rendering. Rev. David Jones, _A Journal of Two
Visits to the West Side of the Ohio in 1772 and 1773_, p. 50.
[116] _Key into the Language of America_, p. 206.
[117] Lawson, in his _New Account of Carolina_, p. 180, says that the
natives there bore in mind their traditions by means of a "Parcel of
Reeds of different Lengths, with several distinct Marks, known to none
but themselves." James Adair writes of the Southern Indians "They count
certain very remarkable things by notched square sticks, which are
distributed among the head warriors and other chieftains of different
towns." _History of the Indians_, p. 75.
[118] Dr Edwin James, _Narrative of John Tanner_, p. 341.
[119] George Copway, _Traditional History of the Ojibway Nation_, pp
130, 131.
[120] Schoolcraft, _Indian Tribes_, Vol. I, p. 339.
[121] Brainerd, _Life and Journal_, p. 410.
[122] E. de Schweinitz, _Life and Times of Zeisberger_, p. 92.
[123] _Mass. Hist. Soc. Colls_., 4th series, Vol. IX, where Captain
Young's journal is printed.
[124] _Heckewelder MSS_. in Amer Phil. Soc. Lib.
[125] _An Account of the Conduct of the Society of Friends toward the
Indian Tribes_, p. 72 (London, 1844).
[126] The records of my own family furnish an example of this. My
ancestor, William Brinton, arrived in the fall of 1684, and, with
his wife and children, immediately took possession of a grant in the
unbroken wilderness, about twenty miles from Philadelphia. A severe
winter set in; their food supply was exhausted, and they would probably
have perished but for the assistance of some neighboring lodges of
Lenape, who provided them with food and shelter. It is, therefore, a
debt of gratitude which I owe to this nation to gather its legends, its
language, and its memories, so that they,
"in books recorded.
May, like hoarded
Household words, no more depart!"
[127] _A Discourse on the Aborigines of the Valley of the Ohio_,
p. 25 (Cinn., 1838). I add the further testimony of John Brickell,
who was a captive among them from 1791 to 1796. He speaks of them
as fairly virtuous and temperate, and adds: "Honesty, bravery and
hospitality are cardinal virtues among them." _Narrative of Captivity
among the Delaware Indians_, in the _American Pioneer_, Vol. I, p. 48
(Cincinnati, 1844).
[128] Life and Journal, p. 381.
[129] "Others imagined the Sun to be the only deity, and that all
things were made by him." David Brainerd, _Life and Journal_, p. 395.
[130] Loskiel, _Geschichte der Mission_, p. 55.
[131] David Brainerd, _Life and Journal_, pp. 395, 399.
[132] D. G. Brinton, _The Myths of the New World_, chap. vi; _American
Hero Myths_, chap ii.
[133] Loskiel, _Geschichte der Mission_, p. 53.
[134] He is thus spoken of in Campanius, _Account of New Sweden_, Book
III, chap. xi. Compare my _Myths of the New World_, p. 190.
[135] Brainerd, _Life and Journal_, p. 395.
[136] His statements are in the _Calls of the Mass Hist Soc_, Vol. X
(1st Series), p. 108.
[137] Wm Strachey, _Historie of Travaile into Virginia_, p. 98.
[138] Brainerd, _Life and Travels_, p. 394.
[139] Charles Beatty, _Journal_, p. 44.
[140] One, about five inches in height, of a tough, argillaceous
stone, is figured and described by Dr. C. C. Abbott, in the _American
Naturalist_, October, 1882. It was found in New Jersey.
[141] From the same root, _tschip_, are derived the Lenape
_tschipilek_, something strange or wonderful; _tschepsit_, a stranger
or foreigner; and _tschapiet_, the invocation of spirits. Among the
rules agreed upon by Zeisberger's converted Indians was this: "We will
use no _tschapiet_, or witchcraft, when hunting." (De Schweinitz, _Life
of Zeisberger_, p. 379.)
The root _tschitsch_ indicates repetition, and applied to the shadow or
spint of man means as much as his double or counterpart.
A third word for soul was the verbal form _w'tellenapewoagan_,
"man--his substance;" but this looks as if it had been manufactured by
the missionaries.
[142] Compare Loskiel, _Geschichte_, pp. 48, 49; Brainerd, _Life and
Journal_, pp. 314, 396, 399, 400.
[143] Schweinitz, _Life of Zeisberger_, p. 472.
[144] Heckewelder, MSS., says that he has often heard the lamentable
cry, _matta wingi angeln_, "I do not want to die."
[145] "As for the Powaws," says the native Mohegan, the Rev. Sampson
Occum, in his account of the Montauk Indians of Long Island, "they say
they get their art from dreams." _Mass. Hist. Soc. Colls_., Vol. X, p.
109. Dr. Trumbull's suggested affinity of powaw with Cree _tàp-wayoo_,
he speaks the truth; Nar, _taupowauog_, wise speakers, is, I think,
correct, but the latter are secondary senses. They were wise, and
gave true counsel, who could correctly interpret dreams. Compare the
Iroquois _katetsens_, to dream; _katetsiens_, to practice medicine,
Indian fashion. Cuoq, _Lexique de la Langue Iroquoise_.
[146] David Brainerd, _Life and Journal_, pp. 400, 401.
[147] _Hist. Ind. Nations_, p. 280.
[148] _Hist. and Statistics of the Indian Tribes_, Vol. I, p. 358, seq.
[149] Wassenaer's _Description of the New Netherlands_ (1631), in _Doc.
Hist of New York_, Vol. III, pp 28, 40. Other signs of serpent worship
were common among the Lenape. Loskiel states that their cast-off skins
were treasured as possessing wonderful curative powers (_Geschichte_,
p. 147), and Brainerd saw an Indian offering supplications to one
(_Life and Journal_, p. 395).
[150] See Brainerd, _Life and Journal_, pp. 310, 312, 364, 398, 425,
etc., and E. de Schweinitz, _Life of Zeisberger_, pp. 265, 332, etc.
CHAPTER IV.
THE LITERATURE AND LANGUAGE OF THE LENAPE.
§ 1. Literature of the Lenape Tongue--Campanius; Penn; Thomas,
Zeisberger; Heckeweider, Roth, Ettwein; Grube, Dencke; Luckenbach;
Henry; Vocabularies, a native letter.
§ 2. General Remarks on the Lenape.
§ 3. Dialects of the Lenape.
§ 4. Special Structure of the Lenape.--The Root and the Theme;
Prefixes; Suffixes; Derivatives, Grammatical Notes.
§ 1. _Literature of the Lenape Tongue._
The first study of the Delaware language was undertaken by the Rev.
Thomas Campanius (Holm), who was chaplain to the Swedish settlements,
1642-1649. He collected a vocabulary, wrote out a number of dialogues
in Delaware and Swedish, and even completed a translation of the
Lutheran catechism into the tongue. The last mentioned was published
in Stockholm, in 1696, through the efforts of his grandson, under the
title, LUTHERI CATECHISMUS, _Ofwersatt pä American-Virginiske Spräket_,
1 vol., sm. 8vo, pp. 160. On pages 133-154 it has a _Vocabularium
Barbaro-Virgineorum_, and on pages 155-160, _Vocabula Mahakuassica_.
The first is the Delaware as then current on the lower river, the
second the dialect of the Susquehannocks or Minquas, who frequently
visited the Swedish settlements.
Although he managed to render all the Catechism into something which
looks like Delaware, Campanius' knowledge of the tongue was exceedingly
superficial. Dr. Trumbull says of his work: "The translator had not
learned even so much of the grammar as to distinguish the plural of a
noun or verb from the singular, and knew nothing of the "transitions"
by which the pronouns of the subject and object are blended with the
verb."[151]
At the close of his "History of New Sweden," Campanius adds further
linguistic material, including an imaginary conversation in Lenape, and
the oration of a sachem. It is of the same character as that found in
the Catechism.
After the English occupation very little attention was given to the
tongue beyond what was indispensable to trading. William Penn, indeed,
professed to have acquired a mastery of it. He writes: "I have made it
my business to understand it, that I might not want an interpreter on
any occasion."[152] But it is evident, from the specimens he gives,
that all he studied was the trader's jargon, which scorned etymology,
syntax and prosody, and was about as near pure Lenape as pigeon English
is to the periods of Macaulay.
An ample specimen of this jargon is furnished us by Gabriel Thomas, in
his "Historical and Geographical Account of the Province and Country
of Pensilvania; and of West-New-Jersey in America," London, 1698,
dedicated to Penn. Thomas tells us that he lived in the country fifteen
years, and supplies, for the convenience of those who propose visiting
the province, some forms of conversation, Indian and English. I subjoin
a short specimen, with a brief commentary:--
1. _Hitah takoman?_ Friend, from whence com'st?
2. _Andogowa nee weekin._ Yonder.
3. _Tony andogowa kee weekin?_ Where Yonder?
4. _Arwaymouse._ At Arwaymouse.
5. _Keco kee hatah weekin?_ What hast got in thy house?
6. _Nee hatah huska weesyouse og_ I have very fat venison and
_huska chetena chase og huska_ good strong skins, with very
_orit chekenip._ good turkeys.
7. _Chingo kee beto nee chasa ag_ When wilt thou bring me skins
_yousa elka chekenip?_ and venison, with turkeys?
8. _Haiapa etka nisha kishquicka._ To morrow, or two days hence.
1. _Hitah_ for _n'ischu_ (Mohegan, _nitap_), my friend; _takoman_,
Zeis. _takomun_, from _ta_, where, _k_, 2d pers. sing.
2. _Andogowa_, similar to _undachwe_, he comes, Heck.; _nee_, pron.
possess. 1st person; _weekin_ = _wikwam_, or wigwam. "I come from
my house."
3. _Tony_, = Zeis. _tani_, where? _kee_, pron. possess. 2d person.
4. _Arwaymouse_ was the name of an Indian village,
near Burlington, N.J.
5. _Keco_, Zeis. _koecu_, what? _hatah_, Zeis. _hattin_, to have.
6. _Huska_, Zeis. _husca_, "very, truly;" _wees_, Zeis. _wisu_,
fatty flesh, _youse_, R. W. _jous_, deer meat; _og_, Camp. _ock_,
Zeis. _woak_ and; _chetena_, Zeis. _tschitani_, strong; _chase_, Z.
_chessak_, deerskin; _orit_, Zeis. _wulit_, good; _chekenip_, Z.
_tschekenum_, turkey.
7. _Chingo_, Zeis. _tschingatsch_, when; _beto_, Z. _peten_, to bring;
_etka_, R. W., _ka_, and.
8. _Halapa_, Z. _alappa_, to-morrow; _nisha_, two; _kishquicka_,
Z. _gischgu_, day, _gischguik_, by day.
The principal authority on the Delaware language is the Rev. David
Zeisberger, the eminent Moravian missionary, whose long and devoted
labors may be accepted as fixing the standard of the tongue.
Before him, no one had seriously set to work to master the structure
of the language, and reduce it to a uniform orthography. With him, it
was almost a lifelong study, as for more than sixty years it engaged
his attention. To his devotion to the cause in which he was engaged, he
added considerable natural talent for languages, and learned to speak,
with almost equal fluency, English, German, Delaware and the Onondaga
and Mohawk dialects of the Iroquois.
The first work he gave to the press was a "Delaware Indian and
English Spelling Book for the Schools of the Mission of the United
Brethren," printed in Philadelphia, 1776. As he did not himself see the
proofs, he complained that both in its arrangement and typographical
accuracy it was disappointing. Shortly before his death, in 1806, the
second edition appeared, amended in these respects. A "Hymn Book,"
in Delaware, which he finished in 1802, was printed the following
year, and the last work of his life, a translation into Delaware of
Lieberkuhn's "History of Christ," was published at New York in 1821.
These, however, formed but a small part of the manuscript materials he
had prepared on and in the language. The most important of these were
his Delaware Grammar, and his Dictionary in four languages, English,
German, Onondaga and Delaware.
The MS. of the Grammar was deposited in the Archives of the Moravian
Society at Bethlehem, Pa. A translation of it was prepared by Mr. Peter
Stephen Duponceau, and published in the "Transactions of the American
Philosophical Society," in 1827.
The quadrilingual dictionary has never been printed. The MS. was
presented, along with others, in 1850, to the library of Harvard
College, where it now is. The volume is an oblong octavo of 362 pages,
containing about 9000 words in the English and German columns, but not
more than half that number in the Delaware.
A number of other MSS. of Zeisberger are also in that library, received
from the same source. Among these are a German-Delaware Glossary,
containing 51 pages and about 600 words; a Delaware-German Phrase
Book of about 200 pages; Sermons in Delaware, etc., mostly incomplete
studies, but of considerable value to the student of the tongue.[153]
Associated with Zeisberger for many years was the genial Rev. John
Heckewelder, so well known for his pleasant "History of the Indian
Nations of Pennsylvania," his interpretations of the Indian names of
the State, and his correspondence with Mr. Duponceau. He certainly had
a fluent, practical knowledge of the Delaware, but it has repeatedly
been shown that he lacked analytical power in it, and that many of his
etymologies as well as some of his grammatical statements are erroneous.
Another competent Lenapist was the Rev. Johannes Roth. He was born in
Prussia in 1726, and educated a Catholic. Joining the Moravians in
1748, he emigrated to America in 1756, and in 1759 took charge of the
missionary station called Schechschiquanuk, on the west bank of the
Susquehanna, opposite and a little below Shesequin, in Bradford county,
Pennsylvania. There he remained until 1772, when, with his flock,
fifty-three in number, he proceeded to the new Gnadenhütten, in Ohio.
There a son was born to him, the first white child in the area of the
present State of Ohio. In 1774 he returned to Pennsylvania, and after
occupying various pastorates, he died at York, July 22d, 1791.
Roth has left us a most important work, and one hitherto entirely
unknown to bibliographers. He made an especial study of the _Unami
dialect_ of the Lenape, and composed in it an extensive religious work,
of which only the fifth part remains. It is now in the possession of
the American Philosophical Society, and bears the title:--
EIN VERSUCH!
der Geschichte unsers Herrn u. Heylandes
JESU CHRISTI
in dass Delawarische übersetzt der _Unami_
_von der Marter Woche an_
bis zur
Himmelfahrt unsers Herrn
im
Yahr 1770 u. 72 zu Tschechschequanüng
an
der Susquehanna.
Wuntschi mesettschawi tipatta lammowewoagan sekauchsianup.
Wulapensuhalinen, Woehowaolan Nihillalijeng mPatamauwoss.
The next page begins, "Der fünfte Theil," and § 86, and proceeds to §
139. It forms a quarto volume, of title, 9 pages of contents in German
and English, and 268 pages of text in Unami, written in a clear hand,
with many corrections and interlineations.
This is the only work known to me as composed distinctively in the
Unami, and its value is proportionately great as providing the means
of studying this, the acknowledged most cultivated and admired of the
Lenape dialects.
It will be the task of some future Lenape scholar to edit its text and
analyze its grammatical forms. But I believe that Algonkin students
will be glad to see at this time an extract from its pages.
I select § 96, which is the parable of the marriage feast of the king's
son, as given in Matthew xxii, 1-14.
1. Woak Jesus wtabptonalawoll woak lapi nuwuntschi
And Jesus he-spoke-with-them and again he-began
Enendhackewoagannall nelih woak wtellawoll.
parables them-to and he-said-to-them.
2. Ne Wusakimawoagan Patamauwoss wtellgigui}
mallaschi}
The his-kingdom God it-is-like
mejauchsid Sakima, na Quisall mall'mtauwan
certain king, his-son be-made-for-him
Witachpungewiwuladtpoàgan.
marriage.
3. Woak wtellallocàlan wtallocacannall, wentschitsch nek
And he-sent-out his-servants the-bidding the
Elendpannik lih Witachpungewiwuladtpoàgannung
those-bidden to marriage
wentschimcussowoak;
those-who-were-bidden,
tschuk necamawa schingipawak.
but they they-were-unwilling.
4. Woak lapi wtellallocàlan pih wtallocacannall woak
And again he-sent-out other servants and
wtella {panni} Mauwnoh nen Elendpanmk, {penna }
{wolli}; {schita}
he-said-to-them those the-bidden
Nolachtuppoágan 'nkischachtuppui, nihillalachkik Wisuhengpannik
The-feast I-have-made-the-feast, they-are-killed they-fattened-them
auwessissak nemætschi nhillapannick woak weemi
beasts the-whole I-killed-them and all
ktakocku 'ngischachtuppui, peeltik lih
I-have-finished come to
Witachpungkewiwuladtpoàgannung.
marriage.
5. Tschuk necamawa mattelemawoawollnenni, woak ewak
But they they-esteemed-it-not and went
ika, mejauchsid enda wtakihàcannung, napilli nihillatschi
away certain thither to-his-plantation-place other
{M'hallamawachtowoagannung}
{ Nundauchsowoagannung }.
to-merchandise-place
6. Tschuk allende wtahunnawoawoll neca allocacannall
But some they-seized-them those servants
{ quochkikimawoawoll }
{popochpoalimawoawoll} woak wumhillawoawoll necamawa.
they-beat-them and they-killed-them they.
7. Elinenni na Sakima pentanke, nannen lachxu,
When the king heard therefore he-was-angry,
woak wtellallokalan Ndopaluwinuwak, woak wumhillawunga
and he-sent-them warriors and he-slew
jok Nehhillowetschik, woak wulusumen Wtutèn'nejuwaowoll.
these murderers, and he-destroyed their-cities.
{woll }
8. Nannen wtella {panni} nelih wtallocacannall: Ne
Then he-said-to-them to his-servants The
Witachpungkewiwuladtpoagan khella nkischachtuppui, tschuk
marriage truly I-have-prepared-it but
{attacu uchtàpsiwunewo }
nek Elendpannick { wtopielgique juwunewo}.
the those-bidden are-not-to-sit-down-worthy.
9. Nowentschi allmussin ikali mengichungi Ansijall, woak
Therefore go-ye-away thither to-some-places roads and
winawammoh lih Witachpungkewiwuladtpoagan; na natta
ask-ye-them to marriage those
aween _kiluwa_ mechkaweek (oh).
whom ye find.
10. Woak nek Allocacannak iwak ikali menggichüngi
And the servants they-went thither to-some-places
Aneijall, woak mawehawoawoll peschuwoawak na natta
roads and they-brought-them-together those
aween machkawoachtid, Memannungsitschik woak Wewulilossitschik,
whom they-found-them the-bad-ones and the good-ones
woak nel Ehendachpuingkill weemi tæphikkawachtinewo.
and the at-the-tables all they-seated.
11. Nannen mattemikæùh na Sakima, nek Elendpannik
Then he-entered-in the king the those-bidden
mauwi pennawoawoll, woak wunewoawoll uchtenda mejauchsid
he-saw-them and he-saw-him there certain
Lenno, na matta uchtellachquiwon witachpungkewi
man the not wearing a marriage
Schakhokquiwan.
coat.
12. Woak wtellawoll neli, Elanggomêllen, ktelgiquiki
And he-said-to-him to-him Friend like
matte attemikēn jun (_or_ tá elinàquo wentschi jun
not ashamed here not like therefore here
k'mattîmikeen,); woak {müngachsa} mattacu witachpungkewi
thou-art-ashamed and { ilik } not marriage
Schakhokquiwan ktellachquiwon? Necama tschuk k'pettúneù.
coat thou wearest He but He-mouth-shuts.
13. Nannen w'tellawoll na Sakima nelih Wtallocacannüng;
Then he-said-to-them the king to-them his-servants
Kachpiluh nan/woan Wunachkall woak W'sittall, woak
Fasten-ye-him his-hands and his-feet and
lannéhewik quatschemung enda achwipegnunk, nitschlenda
throw-him where in pitch-darkness even-some
Lipackcuwoagan woak Tschætschak koalochinen.
weeping and teeth-gnashing
14. Ntitechquoh macheli moetschi wentschimcussuwak,
Because many they-are-called
tschuk tatthiluwak achnaeknuksitschik.
but they-are-few the-chosen
The asterisk occurs in the original apparently to indicate that a word
is superfluous or doubtful. The interlined translation I have supplied
from the materials in the mission-Delaware dialect, but my resources
have not been sufficient to analyze each word; and this, indeed, is not
necessary for my purpose, which is merely to present an example of the
true Unami dialect.
The Moravian Bishop, John Ettwein, was another of their fraternity
who applied himself to the study of the Delaware. Born in Europe in
1712, he came to the New World in 1754, and died at the great age of
ninety years in 1802. He prepared a small dictionary and phrase book,
especially rich in verbal forms. It is an octavo MS. of 88 pages,
without title, and comprises about 1300 entries. This manuscript exists
in one copy only, in the Moravian Archives at Bethlehem.
Bishop Ettwein also prepared for General Washington, in 1788, an
account of the traditions and language of the natives, including a
vocabulary. This was found among the Washington papers by Mr. Jared
Sparks, and was published in the "Bulletin of the Pennsylvania
Historical Society," 1848.
One of the most laborious of the Moravian missionaries was the Rev.
Adam Grube. His life spanned nearly a century, from 1715, when he was
born in Germany, until 1808, when he died in Bethlehem, Pa. Many years
of this were spent among the Delawares in Pennsylvania and Ohio. He
was familiar with their language, but the only evidence of his study
of it that has come to my knowledge is a MS. in the Harvard College
Library, entitled, "Einige Delawarische Redensarten und Worte." It has
seventy-five useful leaves, the entries without alphabetic arrangement,
some of the verbs accompanied by partial inflections. The only date
it bears is "Oct. 10, 1800," when he presented it to the Rev. Mr.
Luckenbach, soon to be mentioned.
After the War of 1812 the Moravian brother, Rev. C. F. Dencke, who,
ten years before had attempted to teach the Gospel to the Chipeways,
gathered together the scattered converts among the Delawares at New
Fairfield, Canada West. In 1818 he completed and forwarded to the
Publication Board of the American Bible Society a translation of the
Epistles of John, which was published the same year.
He also stated to the Board that at that time he had finished a
translation of John's Gospel and commenced that of Matthew, both of
which he expected to send to the Board in that year. A donation of
one hundred dollars was made to him to encourage him in his work, but
for some reason the prosecution of his labors was suspended, and the
translation of the Gospels never appeared (contrary to the statements
in some bibliographies).
It is probable that Mr. Dencke was the compiler of the Delaware
Dictionary which is preserved in the Moravian Archives at Bethlehem.
The MS. is an oblong octavo, in a fine, but beautifully clear hand,
and comprises about 3700 words. The handwriting is that of the late
Rev. Mr. Kampman, from 1840 to 1842 missionary to the Delawares on the
Canada Reservation. On inquiring the circumstances connected with this
MS., he stated to me that it was written at the period named, and was a
copy of some older work, probably by Mr. Dencke, but of this he was not
certain.
While the greater part of this dictionary is identical in words and
rendering with the second edition of Zeisberger's "Spelling Book" (with
which I have carefully compared it), it also includes a number of other
words, and the whole is arranged in accurate alphabetical order.
Mr. Dencke also prepared a grammar of the Delaware, as I am informed
by his old personal friend, Rev. F. R. Holland, of Hope, Indiana; but
the most persistent inquiry through residents at Salem, N. C., where
he died in 1839, and at the Missionary Archives at Bethlehem, Pa.,
and Moraviantown, Canada, have failed to furnish me a clue to its
whereabouts. I fear that this precious document was "sold as paper
stock," as I am informed were most of the MSS. which he left at his
decease! A sad instance of the total absence of intelligent interest in
such subjects in our country.
The Rev. Abraham Luckenbach may be called the last of the Moravian
Lenapists. With him, in 1854, died out the traditions of native
philology. Born in 1777, in Lehigh county, Pennsylvania, he became
a missionary among the Indians in 1800, and until his retirement,
forty-three years later, was a zealous pastor to his flock on the White
river, Indiana, and later, on the Canada Reservation. His published
work is entitled "Forty-six Select Scripture Narratives from the Old
Testament, embellished with Engravings, for the Use of Indian Youth.
Translated into Delaware Indian, by A. Luckenbach. New York. Printed
by Daniel Fanshaw, 1838." 8vo, pp. xvi, 304.
After his retirement in Bethlehem, he edited, in 1847, the second
edition of Zeisberger's "Collection of Hymns," the first of which has
already been mentioned.
A short MS. vocabulary, in German and Delaware, is in the possession of
his family, in Bethlehem, and some loose papers in the language.
One of the most recent students of the Delaware was Mr. Matthew G.
Henry, of Philadelphia. In 1859 and 1860 he compiled, with no little
labor, a "Delaware Indian Dictionary," the MS. of which, in the library
of the American Philosophical Society, forms a thick quarto volume of
843 pages, with a number of maps. It is in three parts; 1, English and
Delaware; 2, Delaware and English; 3, Delaware Proper Names and their
Translations.
It includes, without analysis or correction, the words in Zeisberger's
"Spelling Book," Roger William's "Key," Companius' Vocabulary, those in
Smith's and Strachey's "Virginia" and various Nanticoke, Mohegan, Minsi
and other vocabularies. The derivations of the proper names are chiefly
from Heckewelder, and in other cases are venturesome. The compilation,
therefore, while often useful, lacks the salutary check of a critical,
grammatical erudition, and in its present form is of limited value.
Some of the later vocabularies collected by various travelers offer
points for comparison, and may be mentioned here.
In 1786 Major Denny[154] at Fort McIntosh, Ohio, collected a number of
Delaware words, principally from Shawnee Indians. A comparison shows
many of them to be in a corrupt form, owing either to the ignorance of
the Shawnee authority, or to the inaccuracy of Major Denny in catching
the sounds.
While engaged on the Pacific Railroad survey, in 1853, Lieut.
Whipple[155] collected a vocabulary of a little over 200 words from
a Delaware chief, named Black Beaver, in the Indian Territory, which
was edited, in 1856, by Prof. Turner. It is evidently a pure specimen,
and, as the editor observes, "agrees remarkably" with earlier authentic
vocabularies.
In the second volume of Schoolcraft's large work[156] is a vocabulary
of about 350 words, obtained by Mr. Cummings, U. S. Indian Agent. The
precise source, date and locality are not given, but it is evidently
from some trustworthy native, and is quite correct.
Some small works for the schools of the Baptist missions among the
Delawares in Kansas were prepared by the Rev. J. Meeker. They appear to
be entirely elementary in character.
It will be observed that in this list not a single native writer is
named. So far as I have ascertained, though many learned to write their
native tongue, not one attempted any composition in it beyond the needs
of daily life.
To make some amends for this, and as I wished to obtain an example of
the Lenape of to-day, I asked Chief Gottlieb Tobias, an educated native
on the Moravian Reservation in Canada, to give me in writing his
opinion of the Delaware text of the WALUM OLUM, which I had sent him.
This he obligingly did, and added a translation of his letter. The two
are as follows, without alteration:--
MORAVIANTOWN, Sept. 26, 1884.
I, GOTTLIEB TOBIAS,
Nanne ni ngutschi nachguttemin, jun awen eet ma elekhigetup.
Woak alende nenostamen woak alende taku eli wtallichsin
elewondasik wiwonalatokowo pachsi wonamii lichsu woak pachsi
pilli lichsoagan. Taku ni nenostamowin. Lamoe nemochomsinga
achpami eet newinachke woak chash tichi kachtin nbibindameneb
nin lichsoagan. Mauchso lenno woak mauchso chauchshissis woak
juque mauchso chauchshissis achpo pomauchsu igabtshi lue
wiwonallatokowo won bambil alachshe. Woak lue lamoe ni enda.
Mimensiane ntelsitam alowi ayachichson won elhagewit woak ehelop
ne likhiqui. Gichgi wonami lichso shuk tatcamse woak gichgi
minsiwi lichso.
TRANSLATION.
Then I will try to answer this (which) some one at some time
wrote. And some I understand, and some not, because his language
is called Wonalatoko, half Unami and half another language. I
do not understand it. Long ago my grandfather about 48 years
ago I heard it that language. One man and one old woman and
now another old woman here lives yet who uses this Wonalatoko
language just like this book and she said, I of old time when
I was a child heard more difficult dialect than the present,
and many at that time partly Unami he speak, but sometimes also
partly Minsi he speak.
The drift of Chief Tobias' letter is highly important to this
present work, though his expressions are not couched in the most
perfect English. It will be noted that he recognizes the text of the
WALUM OLUM to be a native production composed in one of the ancient
southern dialects of the tongue, the Unami (Wonami) or the Unalachtgo
(Wonalatoko). I shall recur to this when discussing the authenticity of
that document on a later page.
§ 2. _General Remarks on the Lenape._
The Lenape language is a well-defined and quite pure member of the
great Algonkin stock, revealing markedly the linguistic traits of this
group, and standing philologically, as well as geographically, between
the Micmac of the extreme east and the Chipeway of the far West.
These linguistic traits, common to the whole stock, I may briefly
enumerate as follows:--
1. All words are derived from simple, monosyllabic roots, by means of
affixes and suffixes.
2. The words do not come within the grammatical categories of the Aryan
language, as nouns, adjectives, verbs and other "parts of speech,"
but are "indifferent themes," which may be used at will as one or the
other. To this there appear to be a few exceptions.
3. Expressions of being (_i.e._, nominal themes) undergo modifications
depending on the ontological conception as to whether the thing spoken
of is a living or a lifeless object. This forms the "animate and
inanimate," or the "noble and ignoble" declensions and conjugations.
The distinction is not strictly logical, but largely grammatical, many
lifeless objects being considered living, and the reverse. This is
the only modification of the kind known, true grammatical gender not
appearing in any of these tongues.
4. Expressions of action (_i. e._, verbal themes) undergo modifications
depending on the abstract assumption as to whether the action is real
or conjectural. If the latter, it is indicated by a change in the vowel
of the root. This leads to a fundamental division of verbal modes into
_positive_ and _suppositive_ modes.
5. The expression of action is subordinate to that of being, so that
the verbal elements of a proposition are secondary to the nominal or
pronominal elements, and the subjective relation becomes closely akin
to, or identical with, that of possession.[157]
6. The conception of number is feebly developed in its application
to inanimate objects, which often have no grammatical plurals. The
inclusive and exclusive plurals are used in the first person.
7. The genius of the language is _holophrastic_--that is, its effort is
to express the relationship of several ideas by combining them in one
word. This is displayed: 1, in nominal themes, by _polysynthesis_, by
which several such themes are welded into one, according to fixed laws
of elision and euphony; and 2, by _incorporation_, where the object (or
a pronoun representing it) and the subject are united with the verb,
forming the so-called "transitions," or "objective conjugations."
8. There is no relative pronoun, so that the relation of minor to major
clauses is left to be indicated either by position or the offices of a
simple connective.
9. The language of both sexes is identical, those differences of speech
between the males and females, so frequently observed in other American
tongues, finding no place in the Algonkin.
10. No independent verb-substantive is found, and, as might be
anticipated, no means of predicating existence apart from quality and
attribute.
§ 3. _Dialects of the Lenape._
Two slightly different dialects prevailed among the Delawares
themselves, the one spoken by the Unami and Unalachtgo, the other by
the Minsi. The former is stated by the Moravian missionaries to have
had an uncommonly soft and pleasant sound to the ear[158], and William
Penn made the same remark. It was also considered to be the purer and
more elegant dialect, and was preferred by the missionaries as the
vehicle for their translations.
The Minsi was harsher and more difficult to learn, but would seem to
have been the more archaic branch, as it is stated to be a key to the
other, and to preserve many words in their integrity and original form,
which in the Unami were abbreviated or altogether dropped. The Minsi
dialect was closely akin to the Mohegan.
How far the separation of the Delaware dialects had extended may be
judged from the subjoined list of words. They are selected, as showing
the greatest variation, from a list of over one hundred, prepared by
Mr. Heckewelder for the American Philosophical Society, and preserved
in MS. in its library.
The comparison proves that the differences are far from extensive, and
chiefly result from a greater use of gutturals.
COMPARISON OF THE UNAMI AND MINSI DIALECTS.
_Unami_. _Minsi_.
God Patamawos Pachtamawos
Earth hacki achgi
Valley pasaeck pachsajech
Beard wuttoney wuchtoney
Tooth wipit wichpit
Blood mocum mochcum
Night ipocu ipochcu
Pretty schiki pschickki
Small tangeto tschankschisu
Stone assinn achsun
The Sea kithanne gichthanne
Light woacheu woashe´jeek
Black süksit neesachgissit
Chief saki´ma wajauwe
Green asgask asgasku
No, not matta machta
What differences there were have been retained and perhaps accentuated
in modern times, if we may judge from the names of consanguinity
obtained by Mr. Lewis H. Morgan on the Kansas Reservation in 1860.
These are given in part in the annexed table, and the Mohegan is added
for the sake of extending the comparison.
_Delaware._ _Minsi._ _Mohegan._
My grandfather no mohómus na māhomis´ nuh māhome´
My grandmother noo home´ na nóhome no ome´
My father noh´h na no´uh noh
My mother ugā´hase nain guk´ n'guk
My son n'kweese´ nain gwase´ n'diome´
My daughter n´dānuss nain dāness´ ne chune´
My grandchild noh whese´ nain no whasé nā hise´
My elder brother nah hāns nain n´hans n tā kun´
My elder sister na mese´ nain nawesé nā mees
My younger brother nah eese umiss nain hisesamus´ nhisum
A noteworthy difference in the Northern and Southern Lenape dialects
was that the latter possessed the three phonetic elements _n_, _l_ and
_r_, while the former could not pronounce the _r_, and their neighbors,
the Mohegans, neither the _l_ nor the _r_.
The dialect studied by Campanius and Penn, and that in southern New
Jersey presented the _r_ sound where the Upper Unami and Minsi had the
_l_. Thus Campanius gives _rhenus_, for _lenno_, man; and Penn _oret_,
for the Unami _wulit_, good.
The dialectic substitution of one of these elements for another is a
widespread characteristic of Algonkin phonology. Roger Williams early
called attention to it among the tribes of New England.[159]
Tracing it to its origin, it clearly arises from the use of
"alternating consonants," so extensive in American languages. In very
many of them it is optional with the speaker to employ any one of
several sounds of the same class. This is the case with these letters
in Cree, which, for various reasons, may be considered the most archaic
of all the Algonkin dialects. In its phonetics, the _th_, _y_, _l_, _n_
and _r_ are "permuting" or "alternating" letters.[160]
Often, too, the sound falls between these letters, so that the foreign
ear is left in doubt which to write.
That this is the case with the Delaware is evident from some of the
more recent vocabularies where the _r_ is not infrequent. The following
words, from the vocabulary in Major Denny's _Memoir_, illustrate this:--
Stone _seegriana_
Buffalo _serelea_
Beaver _thomagru_
Above _hoqrunog_, etc.
Even Mr. Lewis A. Morgan, who had considerable practice in writing the
sounds of the Indian languages, inserts the _r_ in a number of pure
Delaware words he collected in Kansas.[161]
Another difficulty presents itself in the sibilants. They are not
always distinguished.
Mr. Horatio Hale writes me on this point: "In Minsi, and perhaps in all
the Lenape dialects, the sound written _s_ is intermediate between _s_
and _th_ (the Greek _Θ_). This element is pronounced by placing the
tongue and teeth in the position of the theta, and then endeavoring to
utter _s_".
The guttural, represented in the Moravian vocabularies by _ch_, was
softened by the English likewise to the _s_ sound, as it appears also
to have been by the New Jersey tribes.[162]
In connection with dialectic variation, the interesting question arises
as to the rapidity of change in language. With regard to the Lenape
we are enabled to compare this for a period covering more than two
centuries. To test it, I have arranged the subjoined table of words
culled from three writers at about equidistant points in this period.
Each wrote in the orthography of his own tongue, and this I have not
altered. The words from Campanius are from the southern dialect, which
preferred the _r_ to the _l_, and this substitution should be allowed
for in a fair comparison.
COMPARISON OF THE DELAWARE AT INTERVALS DURING 210 YEARS.
_Campanius._ _Zeisberger_ _Whipple._
1645. 1778. 1855.
Swedish German English
Orthography. Orthography. Orthography.
Man rhenus lenno lenno
Woman âquaeo ochque h'que'i
Father nωk nooch (my) nuuh
Mother kahaess gahowes gaiez
Head kwijl wil wil
Hair mijrack milach milakh
Ear hittaock w'hittawak (pl.) howitow
Eye schinck w'ushgink tukque´ling
Nose wiküwan w'ikiwan ouiki´o
Mouth tωn w'doon ouitun
Tongue hijrano w'ilano ouilano
Tooth wippit w'epit ouipita
Hand alænskan w'anach puck-alenge
Foot zijt sit zit
Heart chitto, kitte ktee (thy) huté
House wickωmen wiquoam ouigwam
Pipe hopockan hopenican haboca
Sun chisogh gischuch kishu'h
Star aranck alank alanq'
Fire taenda tindey tundaih
Water bij mbi bih
Snow kuun guhn ku´no
COMPARISON OF DELAWARE NUMERALS.
_Campanius._ _Thomas._ _Zeisberger._ _Whipple._
1645. 1695. 1750. 1855.
1 Ciútte Kooty Ngutti Co´te
2 Nissa Nisha Nischa Ni´sha
3 Náha Natcha Nacha Naha´
4 Nævvo Neo Newo Ne´ewah
5 Pareenach Pelenach Palenach Pahle´nah'k
6 Ciuttas Kootash Guttasch Cot´tasch
7 Nissas Nishash Nischasch Ni´shasch
8 Haas Choesh Chasch Hasch
9 Paeschum Peshonk Peschkonk Pes´co
10 Thæren Telen Tellen Te´len
I have no doubt that if a Swede, a German and an Englishman were
to-day to take down these words from the mouth of a Delaware Indian,
each writing them in the orthography of his own tongue, the variations
would be as numerous as in the above list, except, perhaps, the ancient
and now disused _r_ sound. The comparison goes to show that there has
probably been but a very slight change in the Delaware, in spite of the
many migrations and disturbances they have undergone. They speak the
language of their forefathers as closely as do the English, although
no written documents have aided them in keeping it alive. This is but
another proof added to an already long list, showing that the belief
that American languages undergo rapid changes is an error.
The dialect which the Moravian missionaries learned, and in which
they composed their works, was that of the Lehigh Valley. That it
was not an impure Minsi mixed with Mohegan, as Dr. Trumbull seems to
think[163], is evident from the direct statements of the missionaries
themselves, as well as from Heckewelder's Minsi vocabularies, which
show many points of divergence from the printed books. Moreover, among
the first converts from the Delaware nation were members of the Unami
or Turtle tribe, and Zeisberger was brought into immediate contact with
them[164]. We may fairly consider it to have been the upper or inland
Unami, which, as I have said, was recognized by the nation as the
purest, or at least the most polished dialect of their tongue. It stood
midway between the Unalachtgo and Southern Unami and the true Minsi.
FOOTNOTES:
[151] _Transactions of the American Philological Association_, 1872, p.
158.
[152] Penn, Letter to the Free Society of Traders, 1683, Sec. xii.
[153] On the literary works of Zeisberger, see Rev. E. de Schweinitz,
_Life of Zeisberger_, chap, xlviii, who gives a full account of all the
printed works, but does not describe the MSS.
[154] Major Ebenezer Denny's "Journal" in _Memoirs of the Hist. Soc. of
Penna_., Vol. VII, pp. 481-86.
[155] _Report upon the Indian Tribes_, by Whipple, Ewbank and Turner,
p. 56 (Washington, 1855).
[156] _History and Statistics of the Indian Tribes_, Vol. II, p. 470.
[157] I am aware that in this proposition I am following the German
and French linguists, Steinthal, F. Müller, Adam, Henry, etc., and
not our own distinguished authority on Algonkin grammar, Dr J Hammond
Trumbull, who, in his essay "On the Algonkin Verb," has learnedly
maintained another opinion (_Transactions of the American Philological
Association_, 1876, p. 146). I have not been able, however, to convince
myself that his position is correct. The formative elements of the
Algonkin paradigms appear to me simply attached particles, and not true
inflections Their real character is obscured by phonetic laws, just as
in the Finnish when compared with the Hungarian.
[158] "Ungemein wohlkhngend." Loskiel, _Geschichte der Mission_, p.
24. An early traveler of English nationality pronounced it "sweet, of
noble sound and accent." Gabriel Thomas, _Hist. and Geog. Account of
Pensilvania and West New Jersey_, p. 47 (London, 1698).
[159] _Key into the Language of North America_, p. 129. See, also, Mr.
Bickering's remarks on the same subject, in his Appendix to Rasles'
_Dictionary of the Abnaki_.
[160] Howse, _Grammar of the Cree Language_, p. 316.
[161] See his _Ancient Society_, pp. 172-73.
[162] The native name of William Penn offers an instance of this
phonetic alteration. It is given as _Onas_. The proper form is
_Wonach_. It literally means the tip or extremity of anything; as
_wonach-sitall_, the tips of the toes; _wonach-gulinschall_, the tips
of the fingers. The inanimate plural form _wolanniall_, means the
tail feathers of a bird. To explain the name _Penn_ to the Indians a
feather was shown them, probably a quill pen, and hence they gave the
translation _Wonach_, corrupted into _Onas_.
[163] _Trans. Am. Philol. Assoc._, 1872, p. 157.
[164] De Schweinitz, _Life of Zeisberger_, p. 131.
§ 4. _Special Structure of the Lenape._
_The Root and the Formation of the Theme._--As they appear in the
language of to-day, the Lenape radicals are chiefly monosyllables,
which undergo more or less modifications in composition. They
cannot be used alone, the tongue having long since passed from that
interjectional condition where each of these roots conveyed a whole
sentence in itself.
Whether they can be resolved back into a few elementary sounds,
primitive elements of speech, I shall not discuss. This has been done
for the Cree roots by Mr. Joseph Howse[165], and most of the radicals
of that tongue are identical with those of the Lenape. Some of his
conclusions appear to me hazardous and hypothetical; and certainly many
of his supposed analogies drawn from European tongues are extravagant.
As in other idioms, so in Lenape, two or more radicals may be
compounded to form a combination, which, in turn, performs the offices
of a radical in the construction of themes.
This combination is formed either by prefixes or suffixes. The prefixes
are generally adjectival in signification, while the suffixes are
usually classificatory. A number of these are secondary roots, which
are themselves capable of further analysis.
As so much of the strength of the languages depends on this plan of
word building, I have drawn off a list of a few of the more frequent
affixes of the Lenape, with their signification:--
_Lenape Prefixes._
_awoss-_, beyond, the other side of.
_eluwi-_, most, a superlative form.
_gisch-_, see page 102.
_kit-_, great, large.
_lappi-_, again, indicates repetition.
_lenno-_, male, man.
_lippoe-_, wise, shrewd; as _lippoeweno_, a shrewd man.
_mach-_, evil, bad, hurt.
_matt-_, negative and depreciatory;
as _mattaptonen_, to speak uncivilly.
_ni-_, see page 101.
_ochque-_, she, female.
_pach-_, division, separation; _pachican_, a knife;
_pachat_, to split.
_pal-_, negative, as dis- or in-,
from _palli_ otherwheres.
_tach-_, pairs or doubles.
_tschitsch-_, indicates repetition.
_wit-_, with or in common.
_wul-_,
or _wel-_, see page 104.
Many of these are abbreviated to the extent that a single significant
letter is all that remains, as _min_ in _msim_, hickory nut; _pakihm_,
cranberry; and so _acki_ to _k_, _hanne_ to _an_, as _kitanink_
(Kittanning), from _gitschi_, great; _hanne_, flowing river; _ink_,
locative, "at the place of the great river."
_Lenape Suffixes._
_-ak_, wood, from _tachan_;
_kuwenchak_, pine wood.
_-aki_, place, land.
_-ammen_, acceptance, adoption; _wulistamen_,
I accept it as good, I believe it. See page 104.
_-ape_, male, man. From a root _ap_, to cover
(carnally). In Chipeway applied only to
lower animals.
_-atton_,
or _hatton_, to have, to put somewhere. The radical is
_ãt_. Also a prefix, as, _hattape_,
the bow; lit., what the man has.
_-bi_, tree; _machtschibi_, papaw tree.
_-chum_, a quadruped.
_-elendam_, a verbal termination, signifying a disposition
of mind. The root is _en, ne, ni_,
I; "it is to me so."
_-goot_, a snake; from _achgook_, a serpent.
_-hanna_, properly _hannek_, a river; from the root,
which appears in Cree as _anask_, to
stretch out along the ground; _mechhannek_,
a large stream.
Heckewelder derives this from _amkamme_, a river. The terminal
_k_ is, however, part of the root, and not the locative
termination. The word is allied to Del. _quenek_, long.
_-hikan_, tidal water; _kittahikan_, the ocean;
_shajahikan_, the sea shore.
_-hilleu_, it is so, it is true; impersonal form from _lissin_.
_-hittuck_, river, water in motion.
_-igan_, instrumental; also _shican_ and _can_.
A participial termination used with
inanimate objects.
_-in_
or _ini_, of the kind; like; predicative form of the
demonstrative pronoun.
_-ink_
or _unk_, place where.
_-is_
or _-it_, diminutive termination.
_-leu_, it is so, it is true.
_-meek_, a fish; _maschilamek_, a trout.
_-min_, a fruit.
_-peek_, a body of still water; _menuppek_, a lake.
_-sacunk_, an outlet of a stream into another;
also _saquik_.
_-sipu_, stream; lit., stretched, extended.
_-tin_, with, or in common.
_-tit_, diminutive termination; _amentit_, a babe.
_-wagan_, abstract verbal termination; _machelemuxowagan_,
the being honored.
_-wehelleu_, a bird.
_-wi_, the verb-substantive termination, predicating
being; _tehek_, cold; _tehekwi_,
he or it is cold.
_-wi_, negative termination in certain verbal forms.
_-xit_, indicates the passive recipient of the action;
_machelemuxit_, the one who is honored.
The analysis of a series of derivatives from the same root offers a
most instructive subject for investigation in the Lenape. Not only
does it reveal the linguistic processes adapted, but it discloses the
psychology of the native mind, and teaches us the associations of its
ideas, and the range of its imaginative powers. By no other avenue can
we gain access to the intimate thought-life of this people. Here it is
unfolded to us by evidence which is irrefragable.
These considerations lead me to present a few examples of the
derivatives from roots of different classes.
EXAMPLES OF LENAPE DERIVATIVES.
_Subjective Root_ NI, _I, mine_.
1. In a good sense.
_Nihilleu_, it is I, _or_, mine.
_Nihillatschi_, self, oneself.
_Nihillapewi_, free (_ape_, man = I am my own man).
_Nihillapewit_, a freeman.
_Nihillasowagan_, freedom, liberty.
_Nihillapeuhen_, to make free, to redeem.
_Nihillapeuhoalid_, the Redeemer, the Saviour.
2. In a bad sense.
_Ni´hillan_, he is mine to beat, I beat him.
_Nihil´lan_, I beat him to death, I kill him.
_Nihillowen_, I put him to death, I murder him.
_Nihillowet_, a murderer.
_Nihillowewi_, murderous.
3. In a demonstrative sense.
_Ne_, pl. _nek_, or _nell_, this, that, the.
_Nall, nan, nanne, nanni_, this one, that one.
_Nill_, these.
_Naninga_, those gone, with reference to the dead.
4. In a possessive sense.
_Nitaton_, in-my-having, I can, I am able, I know how.
_Nitaus_, of-my-family, sister-in-law.
_Nitis_, of-mine, a friend, a companion.
_Nitsch!_ my child! exclamation of fondness.
The strangely conflicting ideas evolved from this root already
attracted the attention of Mr. Duponceau[166]. That the notions for
freedom and servitude, murderer and Saviour, should be expressed
by modifications of the same radical is indeed striking! But the
psychological process through which it came about is evident on
studying the above arrangement.
_Objective-intensive root_ GISCH _or_ KICH (_Cree_, KIS or KIK).
Signification--successful action.
1. Applied to persons.
A. Initial successful action.
_Gischigin_, to begin life, to be born.
_Gischihan_, to form, to make with the hands.
_Gischiton_, to make ready, to prepare.
_Gischeleman_, to create with the mind, to fancy.
_Gischelendam_, to meditate a plan, to lie.
B. Continuous successful action.
_Gischikenamen_, to increase, to produce fruit.
_Giken_, to grow better in health.
_Gikeowagan_, life, health.
_Gikey_, long-living, old, aged,
C. Final successful action.
_Gischatten_, finished, ready, done, cooked.
_Gischiton_, to make ready, to finish.
_Gischpuen_, to have eaten enough.
_Gischileu_, it has proved true.
_Gischatschimolsin_, to have resolved, to have decreed.
_Gischachpoanhe_, baked, cooked (the bread is).
2. Applied to things.
A. Initial successful action.
_Gischuch_, sun, moon, day, month. The idea appears
to be the beginning of a period of time with the
collateral notion of prosperous activity. The
correctness of the derivation is shown by the next word.
_Gischapan_, day-break, beginning day-light.
From _wapan_, the east, or light.
_Gischuchwipall_, the rays of the sun.
_Gischcu_, or _Gisckquik_, day.
B. Continuous successful action.
_Gischten_, clear, light, shining.
_Gischachsummen_, to shine, to enlighten.
_Gischuten_, warm, tepid.
Numerous other derivatives could be added, but the above are sufficient
to show the direction of thoughts flowing from this root. Howse
considers it identical with the root _kitch_, great, large[167]. This
would greatly increase its derivatives. They certainly appear allied.
In Cree, Lacombe gives _kitchi_, great, and _kije_, finished, perfect,
both being terms applied to divinity[168].
{L}
_General Algonkin root_ 8 {N} I. _Abnaki_, 8RI; _Micmac_, 8E´LI,
{R}
_Chippeway_, GWAN-; _Del., two forms_, WUL _and_ WIN.
_It conveys the idea of pleasurable sensation._
A. First form, _wul_.
_Wulit_, well, good, handsome, fine.
_Wullihilleu_, it is good, etc.
_Wuliken_, it grows well.
_Wulamoe_, he truth-speaks.
_Wulamoewagan_, truth.
_Wulistamen_, to believe, to accept as truth.
_Wulenensin_, to be fine in appearance, to dress.
_Wulenensen_, to be fine to oneself, to be proud.
B. Second form, _won_ or _win_.
_Winu_, ripe, good to eat.
_Wonita_, he is ripe for it, he can, he is able.
_Wingan_, sweet, savory.
_Winktek_, done, boiled, fit to eat.
_Winak_, sassafras. From its sweet leaves.
_Wingi_, gladly, willingly.
_Winginamen_, to delight in.
The figure 8 in the above represents the "whistled _w_," like the _wh_
in "which," when strongly pronounced.
From this root, as I have already said, is derived also the word WALAM,
red paint, from the sense "to be fine in appearance, to dress," as the
Indian accomplished that object by painting himself.
_Grammatical Structure of the Lenape._
It would not be worth while for me to enter into the intricacies of
Lenape grammar, particularly as I can add little to what is already
known.
The Delaware Grammar of Zeisberger remains our only authority, and
in spite of its manifest shortcomings and state of incompletion, the
unprejudiced student must acknowledge, with Albert Gallatin[169], that
it is "most honestly done," and showed the Delaware as it actually was
spoken, though perhaps not as scientific linguists think it ought to
have been spoken.
A few general observations will be sufficient.
As in other languages of the class, the theme is indifferently nominal,
verbal or adjectival; that is, it performs the functions of either of
these grammatical categories, according to its connection.
Nominal themes are either animate or inanimate. The characteristic of
all animate plurals is _k_ (_ak_, _ik_, _ek_). Inanimate plurals are
in _al_, _wall_ or _a_. As usual, the distinction between animate and
inanimate nouns is partly logical, partly grammatical, various objects
being conceived as animate which are in fact not so.
The possessive relation is generally indicated by placement alone, the
possessor preceding the thing possessed, as _lenno quisall_, the man's
son; but one could also say _lenno w'quisall_, the man his son.
Adjectives precede nouns, and when used attributively assume a verbal
form by adding the termination _wi_, which indicates objective
existence (like the Chip. _-win_). Thus, _scattek_, burning; _scattewi
w'dehin_, a burning-heart--literally, it-is-a-burning-thing his-heart.
The degrees of comparison are formed by prefixing _allowiwi_, more,
and _eluwi_, most. Both of these are from the same radical _ala_
which may perhaps come from the _admirationis particula_, _ala'_
(Abnaki, _ara'_) found in the northern dialects as expressive of
astonishment[170].
There being no relative pronoun in Delaware, dependent clauses are
either included in the verbal of the major clause, or include it as a
secondary.
The scheme of the simple sentence is usually subject-verb-object; but
emphasis allows departures from this, as in the following sentence from
Bishop Ettwein's MSS.:--
_Jesus wemi amemensall w'taholawak._
Jesus all children he-loved-them.
Of the formal affixes, the inseparable pronouns are the most prominent.
They are the same for nouns and verbs, and are--
1st. _n_, I, my, we, our.
2d. _k_, thou, thy, you, your.
3d. _w_ or _o_, he, she, it, his, their.
Past time is indicated by the terminal _p_, with a connective vowel,
and future time by _tsch_, which may be either a prefix or suffix, as--
_N'dellsin_, I am thus.
_N'dellsineep_, I was thus.
_N'dellsintschi_, }
or } I shall be thus.
_Nantsch n'dellsin_,}
The change or "flattening" of the vowel of the root in suppositive
propositions, was recognized as a fact of speech, but not grammatically
analyzed by Zeisberger.
Its effect on verbal forms may be seen from the following examples from
his _Grammar_:--
_Examples of Vowel Change in Lenape._
_N'dappin_, I am there. _Achpiya_, if I am there.
_Epia_, where I am.
_N'dellsin_, I am so. _Lissiye_, if I am so.
_N'gauwi_, I sleep. _Gewi_, he who sleeps.
_N'pommauchsi_, I walk or live. _Pemauchsit_, living.
_N'da_, I go. _Eyaya_, when I go.
_Eyat_, going.
Another omission in his Grammar is that of the "obviative" and
"super-obviative" forms of nouns. These are used in the Algonkin
dialects to define the relations of third persons. They prevent such
obscurity as appears in the following English sentence: "John's brother
called at Robert's, to see his wife." Whose wife is referred to is left
ambiguous; but in Algonkin these third persons would have different
forms, and there would be no room for ambiguity. In his writings in
Lenape, Zeisberger makes use of obviatives, with the terminations _al_
and _l_, but does not treat of them in his Grammar.
As a question in philosophical grammar, it may be doubted whether the
Lenape has any true passive voice. Cardinal Mezzofanti was accustomed
to deny the presence of any real passives in American languages; and he
had studied the Delaware among others.
The sign of the Delaware passive is the suffix _gussu_ or _cusso_. In
the Cree dialect, which, as I have already said, preserves the ancient
forms most closely, this is _k-ussu_, and is a particle expressing
likeness or similarity in animate objects[171]. Hence, probably, the
original sense of the Lenape word translated, "I am loved," is "I am
like the object of the action of loving."
FOOTNOTES:
[165] _A Grammar of the Cree Language, with which is combined an
Analysis of the Chippeway Dialect_, by Joseph Howse, Esq. (London,
1844).
[166] In a note to Zeisberger's _Grammar of the Delaware_, p. 141.
[167] _A Grammar of the Cree Language_, p. 175.
[168] _Dictionnaire de la Langue des Cris_, sub voce.
[169] In _Trans. Amer. Antiq. Society_, Vol. II, p. 223. Zeisberger's
statements were criticised by Joseph Howse, _Grammar of the Cree
Language_, pp. 109, 310, 313. His strictures and those of the Abbé
Cuoq, in his _Etudes Philologiques sur Quelques Langues Sauvages_,
Chap. I, were collected and extended by Dr. J. Hammond Trumbull, in his
paper on "Some Mistaken Notions of Algonquin Grammar," _Trans. of the
American Philological Association_, 1874. There is a needless degree of
severity in both these last named productions.
[170] Rasles, _Dictionary of the Abnaki_, p. 550. Dr. Trumbull
compares the Mass. _anue_, more than. _Trans. American Philological
Association_, 1872, p. 168.
[171] J. Howse: _Grammar of the Cree Language_, p. 111.
CHAPTER V.
HISTORICAL SKETCHES OF THE LENAPE.
§ 1. The Lenape as "Women"
§ 2. Recent Migrations of the Lenape
§ 3. Missionary Efforts in the Provinces of Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
§ 1. _The Lenape as "Women."_
A unique peculiarity of the political condition of the Lenape was
that for a certain time they occupied a recognized position as
non-combatants--as "women," as they were called by the Iroquois.
Indian customs and phraseology attached a two-fold significance to this
term.
The more honorable was that of peace-makers. Among the Five Nations and
Susquehannocks, certain grave matrons of the tribe had the right to sit
in the councils, and, among other privileges, had that of proposing
a cessation of hostilities in time of war. A proposition from them
to drop the war club could be entertained without compromising the
reputation of the tribe for bravery. There was an official orator and
messenger, whose appointed duty it was to convey such a pacific message
from the matrons, and to negotiate for peace[172].
Another and less honorable sense of the term arose from a custom
prevalent throughout America, and known also among the ancient
Scythians. Its precise purpose remains obscure, although it has
been made the subject of a careful study by one of our most eminent
surgeons, who had facilities of observation among the Western
tribes[173]. Certain young men of the tribe, apparently vigorous and of
normal development, were deprived of the accoutrements of the male sex,
clothed like women, and assigned women's work to do. They neither went
out to hunt nor on the war-path, and were treated as inferiors by their
male associates. Whether this degradation arose from superstitious
rites or sodomitic practices, it certainly carried to its victims the
contempt of both sexes.
In their account of the transaction the Delawares claimed that they
were appointed as peace-makers in an honorable manner, although the
Iroquois deceived them as to their object.
The Lenape account is as follows:--
"The Iroquois sent messengers to the Delawares with the following
speech:--
"'It is not well that all nations should war; for that will finally
bring about the destruction of the Indians. We have thought of a means
to prevent this before it is too late. Let one nation be The Woman. We
will place her in the middle, and the war nations shall be the Men and
dwell around the Woman. No one shall harm the Woman; and if one does,
we shall speak to him and say, 'Why strikest thou the Woman?' Then all
the Men shall attack him who has struck the Woman. The Woman shall
not go to war, but shall do her best to keep the peace. When the Men
around her fight one another, and the strife waxes hot, the Woman shall
have power to say: 'Ye Men! what do ye that ye thus strike one another?
Remember that your wives and children must perish, if ye do not cease.
Will ye perish from the face of the earth?' Then the Men shall listen
to the Woman and obey her.'
"The Delawares did not at once perceive the aim of the Iroquois, and
were pleased to take this position of the Woman.
"Then the Iroquois made a great feast, and invited the Delawares, and
spoke to their envoys an address in three parts.
"First, they declared the Delaware nation to be the Woman in these
words:--
"'We place upon you the long gown of a woman, and adorn you with
earrings.'
"This was as much as to say that thenceforward they were not to bear
arms.
"The second sentence was in these words:--
"'We hang on your arm a calabash of oil and medicine. With the oil you
shall cleanse the ears of other nations that they listen to good and
not to evil. The medicine you shall use for those nations who have been
foolish, that they may return to their senses, and turn their hearts to
peace.'
"The third sentence intimated that the Delawares should make
agriculture their chief occupation. It was:--
"'We give herewith into your hands a corn pestle and a hoe.'
"Each sentence was accompanied with a belt of wampum. These belts have
ever since been carefully preserved and their meanings from time to
time recalled."[174]
Opinions of historians about this tradition have been various. It has
generally been considered a fabrication of the Delawares, to explain
their subjection in a manner consoling to their national vanity.
Gen. Harrison dismisses it as impossible;[175] Albert Gallatin says,
"it is too incredible to require serious discussion;"[176] Mr. Hale
characterizes it as "preposterous;"[177] and Bishop de Schweinitz as
"fabulous and absurd"[178].
On the other hand, it is vouched for by Zeisberger, who furnished the
account to Loskiel, and who would not have said that the wampum belts
with their meaning were still preserved unless he knew it to be a
fact. It is repeated emphatically by Heckewelder, who adds that his
informants were not only Delawares but Mohegans as well, who could not
have shared the motive suggested above[179].
There can be no question but that the neutral position of the Delawares
was something different from that of a conquered nation, and that
it meant a great deal more. They undoubtedly were the acknowledged
peace-makers over a wide area, and this in consequence of some formal
ancient treaty. This is distinctly stated by the Stockbridge Indian,
Hendrick Aupaumut, in his curious Narrative:--[180]
"The Delawares, who we called _Wenaumeen_, are our Grandfathers,
according to the ancient covenant of their and our ancestors, to which
we adhere without any deviation in these near 200 years, to which
nation the 5 nations and British have commit the whole business. For
this nation has the greatest influence with the southern, western and
northern nations."
Hence Aupaumut undertook his embassy directly to them, so as to secure
their influence for peace in 1791.
To the fact that they exerted this influence during the Revolutionary
War, may very plausibly be attributed the success of the Federal cause
in the dark days of 1777 and 1778; for, as David Zeisberger wrote: "If
the Delawares had taken part against the Americans in the present war,
America would have had terrible experiences; for the neutrality of
the Delawares kept all the many nations that are their grandchildren
neutral also, except the Shawanese, who are no longer in close union
with their grandfathers."[181]
When at the close of the French War, in 1758, the treaty of Easton
put a stop to the bloody feuds of the border, "the _peace-belt_ was
sent to our brethren, the Delawares, that they might send it to all the
nations living toward the setting sun,"[182] and they carried it as the
recognized pacific envoys.
The Iroquois, however, assumed a most arrogant and contemptuous tone
toward the Delawares, about the middle of the eighteenth century. In
1756 they sent a belt to them, with a most insulting message:[183] "You
will remember that you are our women; our forefathers made you so, and
put a petticoat on you, and charged you to be true to us, and lie with
no other man; but now you have become a common bawd," etc.
Two years later, the Cayuga chief, John Hudson, said, at a council at
Burlington,[184] "The Munseys are women, and cannot make treaties for
themselves."
These were but repetitions of the famous diatribe of the Onondaga
chieftain, Canassatego, at a council at Philadelphia, in 1742. Turning
to the representatives of the Lenape, he broke out upon them with the
words:--
"How came you to take upon you to sell land? We conquered you. We made
women of you. You know you are women, and can no more sell land than
women. * * * We charge you to remove instantly. We don't give you the
liberty to think about it. We assign you two places to go to, either
Wyoming or Shamokin. Don't deliberate, but remove away; and take this
belt of wampum."
And as he handed the belt to the Lenape head chief he seized him by his
long hair and pushed him out of the door of the council room!
It was notorious at the time, however, that this was a scene arranged
between the Governor of the Province, Mr. George Thomas, and the
Iroquois deputation. The Lenape had been grossly cheated out of their
lands by the trick of the so-called "Long Walk," in 1735, and they
refused to vacate their hunting grounds. The Governor sent secret
messengers to the powerful and dreaded Six Nations to exert their
pretended rights, and paid them well for it.[185]
What could the Lenape do? They were feeble, and undoubtedly had been
brought under the authority of their warlike northern neighbors. They
found themselves in the position of the Persian chieftain Harmosar,
as he stood before the caliph Omar, and heard the latter revile the
patriot cause:
"In deinen Händen ist die Macht,
Wer einem Sieger widerspricht, der widerspricht mit Unbedacht."
--_Van Platen-Hallermunde_.
Such were the respective claims of the Lenape and Iroquois. Instead
of discussing the antecedent probability of one or the other being
true, I shall endeavor to ascertain from the early records the precise
facts about this curious transaction. It is certain that toward
the close of the sixteenth century the unending wars between the
Delaware confederacy and the Iroquois had reduced the latter almost
to destruction. The Jesuit missionaries tell us this.[186] The turning
point in their affairs was the settlement of the Dutch on the Hudson.
Quick to appreciate the value of firearms, they bought guns and powder
at any price, and soon had rendered themselves formidable to all their
neighbors.[187] About 1670 they attacked successfully that family of
the Minsi called the _Minisink_.
This was probably the victory to which the Five Nations referred at a
treaty at Philadelphia, in 1727, when they stated that their conquest
of the Delawares was about the time William Penn first landed, and
that he sent congratulations to them on their success--an obvious
falsehood.[188]
They were certainly at that period pressing hard on the Susquehannocks
and destroying their remnant in the valley of that river. Mr. William
P. Foulke is quite correct in his conclusion that, "Upon the whole we
may conclude that the Lancaster lands fell into the power of the Five
Nations at some time between 1677 and 1684."[189]
Yet their conquest of the Minsi was not complete. The latter had the
mind and the will to renew the combat. In 1692 they appealed to the
government of Pennsylvania to aid them in an attack on the Senecas,
but the Quakers declined the foray. The next year the Minsi asked
Governor Benjamin Fletcher at least to protect them against these
Senecas, adding that with assistance they were ready to attack them,
for "although wee are a small number of Indians, wee are Men, and know
fighting."[190]
Evidently there was neither subjection nor womanhood with the Minsi at
that date.
There is also positive evidence that the Five Nations at that time
regarded the Delawares as a combatant nation, and worthy of an
invitation to join a war. On July 6th, 1694, Governor Wm. Markham met
in conference the famous chief Tamany and others; and the Delaware
orator, Hithquoquean, laid down a belt of wampum, and said:--[191]
"This belt is sent us by the Onondagas and Senecas, who say: 'You
Delaware Indians do nothing but stay at home and boil your pots, and
are like women; while we, Onondagas and Senecas, go abroad and fight
the enemy.'"
"The Senecas would have us Delaware Indians to be partners with them,
and fight against the French, but we, having always been a peaceful
people, and resolving to live so; and being but weak and verie few in
number, cannot assist them, and having resolved among ourselves not to
go, doe intend to send back, this their Belt of Wampum."
The Lenape, therefore, did not, at that date, occupy any degrading
position, although they were under the general domination of the
Iroquois League.
Both these points are proved yet more conclusively by the proceedings
at a conference at White Marsh, May 19th, 1712, between Governor C.
Gookin and the Delaware chiefs. Gollitchy, orator of the latter,
exhibited thirty-two belts of wampum, which they were on their way to
deliver to the Five Nations, adding "that many years ago they had been
made tributaries to the Mingoes." He also shewed "a long Indian pipe,
with a stone head, a wooden shaft, and feathers fixt to it like wings.
This pipe, they said, upon making their submission to the Five Nations,
who had subdued them, and obliged them to be their tributaries, those
Nations had given to these Indians, to be kept by them." All the
tribute belts, however, were sent by the women and children, as the
speaker explained at length, "as the Indian reckons the paying of
tribute becomes none but women and children."[192]
Fortunately, however, we are able to fix the exact date and
circumstances of the political transformation of the Delawares into
women. It is by no means so remote as Mr. Heckewelder thought, who
located the occurrence at Norman's Kill, on the Hudson, between 1609
and 1620;[193] and it was long after 1670, which is the date assigned
by Mr. Ruttenber,[194] from a study of the New York records.
It was in the year 1725, and was in consequence of the Delawares
refusing to join the Iroquois in an attack on the English settlements.
These data come to light in a message of the Shawnee chiefs, in 1732,
to Governor Gordon, who had inquired their reasons for migrating to the
Ohio Valley.
Their reply was as follows:--
"About nine years agoe the 5 nations told us att Shallyschohking, wee
Did nott Do well to Setle there, for there was a Greatt noise In the
Greatt house and thatt in three years time, all Should know whatt they
had to Say, as far as there was any Setlements or the Sun Sett."
"About ye Expiration of 3 years affore S^{d}, the 5 nations Came and
Said our Land is goeing to bee taken from us, Come brothers assistt us
Lett us fall upon and fightt with the English. Wee answered them no,
wee Came here for peace and have Leave to Setle here, and wee are In
League with them and Canott break itt."
"Aboutt a year after they, ye 5 nations, Told the Delawares and us,
Since you have nott hearkened to us, nor Regarded whatt we have said,
now wee will pettycoatts on you, and Look upon you as women for the
future, and nott as men. Therefore, you Shawanese Look back toward
Ohioh, The place from whence you Came, and Return thitherward, for now
wee Shall Take pitty on the English and Lett them have all this Land."
"And further Said now Since you are Become women, He Take
Peahohquelloman, and putt itt on Meheahoaming and He Take Meheahoaming
and putt itt on Ohioh, and Ohioh He putt on Woabach, and thatt shall
bee the warriours Road for the future." (_Penna Archives_, Vol. I.)
The circumstances attending the ceremony were probably pretty much as
Loskiel relates.
The correctness of this account is borne out by an examination of law
titles.
That the river tribes at the time of Penn's treaties (1680-1700)
could not sell their lands without the permission of the Iroquois
has never been established. Mr. Gallatin states that William Penn
"always purchased the right of possession from the Delawares, and that
of sovereignty from the Five Nations."[195] This may have been the
case in some later treaties of the colony, but certainly there is no
intimation of it in the celebrated "First Indian Deed" to Penn, July
15th, 1682.[196] Furthermore, in the Release which the Iroquois did
give of their Pennsylvania lands in 1736, the boundaries are defined
as "Westward to the Setting of the Sun, and Eastward to the furthest
springs of the Waters running into the said River," _i. e._, the
Susquehannah;[197] and to do away with any doubt that the tract thus
defined included all the land in this part to which they had a claim,
the Release goes on to recite that "our true intent and meaning was
and is to release all our Right, Claim and Pretensions whatsoever to
all and every the Lands lying within the Bounds and Limits of the
Government of Pennsylvania, Beginning Eastward on the River Delaware,
as far Northward as the s^{d} Ridge or Chain of Endless Mountains." In
other words, although the Six Nations advanced no claim to land east
of the Susquehanna watershed, the Proprietors chose to include the
Delaware watershed so as to avoid any future complication. It seems
to me this Release does away with any "right of sovereignty" of the
Iroquois over the Delaware Valley south of the mountains, and brands
Canassatego's remarks above quoted as braggart falsehoods.
As for land east of the Delaware river, Mr. Ruttenber correctly
observes: "The Iroquois never questioned the sales made by the Lenapes
or Minsis east of that river. * * The findings of Gallatin in this
particular are confirmed by all the title deeds in New York and New
Jersey."[198]
It was only to the Susquehannock lands, purchased by Penn in 1699, that
the confirmation of the Iroquois was required.[199]
The close of this condition of subjection was in 1756. In that year
Sir William Johnson formally "took off the petticoat" from the Lenape,
and "handed them the war belt."[200] The year subsequent they made the
public declaration that "they would not acknowledge but the Senecas as
their superiors."[201]
Even their supremacy was soon rejected. At the Treaty of Fort Pitt,
October, 1778, Captain White Eyes, when reminded by the Senecas that
the petticoats were still on his people, scornfully repudiated the
imputation, and made good his words by leading a war party against them
the following year.
The Iroquois, however, released their hold unwillingly, and it was
not until 1794, shortly before the Treaty of Greenville, that their
delegates came forward and "officially declared that the Lenape were no
longer women, but _men_," and the famous chief, Joseph Brant, placed in
their hands the war club.[202]
§ 2. _Historic Migrations of the Lenape_.
It does not form part of my plan to detail the later history of the
Lenape. But some account of their number and migrations will aid in the
examination of the origin and claims of the WALUM OLUM.
The first estimate of the whole number of native inhabitants of the
province was by William Penn. He stated that there were ten different
nations, with a total population of about 6000 souls.[203]
This was in 1683. Very soon after this they began to diminish by
disease and migration. As early as 1690, a band of the Minsi left for
the far West, to unite with the Ottawas.[204] In 1721 the Frenchman
Durant speaks of them as "exceedingly decreased."[205] Already they had
yielded to the pressure of the whites, and were seeking homes on the
head-waters of the Ohio, in Western Pennsylvania. Their first cabins
are said to have been built there in 1724.[206]
All that remained in the Delaware valley were ordered by the Iroquois,
at the treaty of Lancaster, 1744, to leave the waters of their river,
and remove to Shamokin (now Sunbury) and Wyoming, on the Susquehanna,
and most of them obeyed. The former was their chief town, and the
residence of their "king," Allemœbi.
When the interpreter, Conrad Weiser, visited their Ohio settlements, in
1748, he reported their warriors there at 165, which was probably about
one-fourth of the nation.
In the "French War," 1755, the Delawares united with the French against
the Iroquois and English, and suffered considerable losses. At its
close they were estimated to have, both on the Susquehanna and in Ohio,
a total of 600 available fighting men.[207]
After this date they steadily migrated from the Susquehannah to the
streams in central and eastern Ohio, establishing their chief fire
on the Tuscarawas river, at Gekelemukpechunk, and hunting on the
Muskingum, the Licking, etc.[208]
When the war of the Revolution broke out, Zeisberger used all his
efforts to have them remain neutral, and at least prevented them from
joining in a general attack on the settlements. Their distinguished
war-chief, Koquethagachton, known to the settlers as "Captain White
Eyes," declared, in 1775, in favor of the Federal cause, and renounced
for himself and his people all dependence on the Iroquois. These
friendly relations were confirmed at the treaty of Fort Pitt (1778),
and the next year a number of Delawares accompanied Col. Brodhead in an
expedition against the Senecas.
The massacre of the unoffending Christian natives of Gnadenhütten, in
1788, was but one event in the murderous war between the races that
continued in Ohio from 1782 to the treaty of peace at Greenville, in
1795.
To escape its direful scenes, a part of the Delawares removed south,
to upper Louisiana, in 1789, where they received official permission
from Governor Carondelet, in 1793, to locate permanent homes.[209]
Zeisberger also, in 1791, conducted his colony of Christian Indians
to Canada, and founded the town of Fairfield, on the Retrenche river.
Thus, in both directions the Delawares were driven off the soil of the
United States. Yet those that remained in Ohio, if we may accept the
account of John Brickell, who was a captive among them from 1791 to
1796, attempted to live a peaceable and agricultural life.[210]
Peace restored, the Delawares made their next remove to the valley
of White Water river, Indiana, where they attempted to rekindle the
national council fire, under the head chief Tedpachxit. They founded
six towns, the largest of which was _Woapikamikunk_ or _Wapeminskink_,
"Place of Chestnut Trees." This tract was guaranteed them "in
perpetuity" by the treaty of Vincennes, 1808.[211] Nevertheless, just
ten years later, at the treaty of St. Mary's, they released the whole
of their land, "without reserve," to the United States, the government
agreeing to remove them west of the Mississippi, and grant them land
there.
At this time they numbered about 1000 souls, of whom 800 were
Delawares, the others being Mohegans and Nanticokes.[212] Their head
chief was Thahutoowelent, of the Turkey tribe, Tedpachxit having been
assassinated, at the instigation of Tecumseh.
They are described as "having a peculiar aversion to white people,"
and "more opposed to the Gospel and the whites than any other
Indians,"[213] which is small matter of wonder, when they had seen the
peaceful Christian converts of their nation massacred three times, in
cold blood, once at Gnadenhütten, in Pennsylvania (1756); again at
Gnadenhütten, in Ohio (1788), and finally at Fairfield, Canada (1813).
The Rev. Isaac McCoy, who visited them on the White Water, in the
winter of 1818-19, states that they lived in log huts and bark
shanties, and were fearfully deteriorated by whisky drinking.[214]
The last band of the Delawares that appeared in Ohio was in 1822.[215]
The location assigned to the Delawares was near the mouth of the
Kansas river, Kansas. They were reported, in 1850, as possessing there
375,000 acres and numbering about 1500 souls. Four years later they
"ceded" this land, and were moved to various reservations in the Indian
Territory.
There still remain about sixty natives at New Westfield, near Ottawa,
Kansas, under the charge of the Moravian Church. The same denomination
has about 300 of the tribe on the reservation at Moraviantown, in the
province of Ontario, Canada. A second reservation in Canada is under
the charge of the Anglican Church. The majority of the tribe are
scattered in different agencies in the Indian Territory.
§ 3. _Missionary Efforts in the Provinces of New Jersey and
Pennsylvania_.
None of the American colonies enjoyed a more favorable opportunity to
introduce the Christian religion to the natives than that located on
the Delaware river. What use was made of it?
The Rev. Thomas Campanius, of Stockholm, a Lutheran clergyman, attached
to the Swedish settlement from 1642 to 1649, made a creditable effort
to acquire the native tongue and preach Christianity to the savages
about him. He translated the Catechism into the traders' dialect of
Lenape, but we have no record that he succeeded in his attempts at
conversion.
One might suppose that so very religious a body as the early Friends
would have taken some positive steps in this direction. Such was not
the case. I have not found the record of any one of them who set
seriously to work to learn the native tongue, without which all effort
would have been fruitless.
William Penn was not wholly unmindful of the spiritual condition of
his native wards. In 1699 he offered to provide the Friends' Meeting
at Philadelphia with interpreters to convey religious instruction
to the Indians. But the Meeting took no steps in this direction. He
himself, when in the colony in 1701, made some attempts to address
them on religious subjects, as did also Friend John Richardson, who
was with him, availing themselves of interpreters. The latter reports
a satisfactory response to his words, but not being followed up, their
effect was ephemeral.[216]
Nothing further was done for nearly half a century, and when the
enthusiastic young David Brainerd began his mission in 1742, he
distinctly states that there was not another missionary in either
province.[217] His labors extended over four years, and were productive
of some permanent good results among the New Jersey Indians, and this
in spite of the suspicions, opposition and evil example of the whites
around him. The little society of Christian Indians which he gathered
in Burlington County, New Jersey, was even reported as a congregation
of rioters and enemies of the State![218]
Nor was the province of Penn inclined to greater favors toward
Christianized natives. When the Indians were cheated out of their lands
by the "Long Walk," a few who had been converted, among others the
chief Moses Tatemy, petitioned the Council to remain on their lands,
some of which were direct personal gifts from the Proprietaries. Their
request was refused, and Moses Tatemy, who did remain, was shot down
like a dog, in the road, by a white man.[219]
Unknown to Brainerd, however, the seeds of a Christian harvest had
already been sown, in 1742, in the wilderness of Pennsylvania, by the
ardent Moravian leader, Count Nicholas Lewis Zinzendorf; already, in
1744, the fervent Zeisberger, prescient of his long and marvelous
service in the church militant, had registered himself as _destinirter
Heidenbote_--"appointed messenger to the heathen"--in the corner-stone
of the Brethren's House, at Bethlehem; already the pious Rauch had
collected a small but earnest congregation of Mohegans at Shekomeko,
who soon removed to the Lehigh valley, and pitched the first of those
five _Gnadenhütten_, "Tents of Grace," destined successively to
mark the unwearied efforts of the Moravian missionaries, and their
frustration through the treachery of the conquering whites.[220]
It is not my purpose to tell the story of this long struggle. Its
thrilling events are recounted, with all desirable fullness, in the
vivid narrative of Bishop Edmund de Schweinitz, grouped around the
marked individuality of the devoted Zeisberger--pages which none can
read without amazement at the undaunted courage of these Christian
heroes, without sorrow at the sparse harvest gleaned from such
devotion.[221]
When, after sixty-two years of missionary labors, the venerable
Zeisberger closed his eyes in death (1808), the huts of barely a score
of converted Indians clustered around his little chapel. His aspiration
that the Lenape would form a native Christian State, their ancient
supremacy revived and applied to the dissemination of peace, piety and
civilization among their fellow-tribes--this cherished hope of his life
had forever disappeared. He had lived to see the Lenape, a mere broken
remnant, "steeped in all the abominations of heathenism, eke out their
existence far away from their former council fires."
FOOTNOTES:
[172] H R Schoolcraft, _Notes on the Iroquois_, pp. 135-36.
[173] _The Disease of the Scythians (Morbus Feminarum) and Certain
Analogous Conditions._ By William A. Hammond, M. D. (New York, 1882).
Dr. Hammond found that the _hombre mujerado_ of the Pueblo Indians "is
the chief passive agent in the pederastic ceremonies which form so
important a part in their religious performances," p. 9.
[174] Loskiel, _Geschichte der Mission, etc._, s. 161-2.
[175] Wm. Henry Harrison, _A Discourse on the Aborigines of the Valley
of the Ohio_, pp. 24, 25 (Cincinnati, 1838).
[176] Gallatin, _Trans. Amer. Antiq. Soc._, Vol. II, p. 46.
[177] Horatio Hale, _The Iroquois Book of Rites_, p. 92.
[178] Edmund de Schweinitz, _Life and Times of David Zeisberger_, p. 46.
[179] Heckewelder, _Indian Nations_, pp. xxxii and 60.
[180] _Narrative of Hendrick Aupaumut, Mems. Hist. Soc. Pa._, Vol. II,
pp. 76-77. Wenaumeen for Unami, the Mohegan form of the name. This
seems to limit the peace making power to that gens. He may mean, "Those
of the Delawares who are called the Unamis are our Grandfathers," etc.
The Chipeways, Ottawas, Shawnees, Pottawattomies, Sacs, Foxes and
Kikapoos, all called the Delawares "Grandfather", J. Morse, _Report
on Indian Affairs_, pp. 122, 123, 142. The term was not intended in a
genealogical, but solely in a political, sense. Its origin and precise
meaning are alike obscure.
[181] _History of the Indians_, MS., quoted by Bishop Schweinitz, _Life
of Zeisberger_, p. 444, note.
[182] The words are those of George Croghan, Esq., at the treaty of
Pittsburgh, 1759, with the Six Nations and Wyandots. _Histor
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