Lenape

The **Lenape** (English: /ləˈnɑːpi/ or /ˈlɛnəpi/),[7] also called the **Leni Lenape**,[8] **Lenni Lenape**and **Delaware** people,[9] are an indigenous people of the Northeastern Woodlands, who live in Canada and the United States.[4] Their historical territory included present-day New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania along the Delaware River watershed, New York City, western Long Island, and the Lower Hudson Valley.[notes 1] Today, Lenape people belong to the Delaware Nation and Delaware Tribe of Indians in Oklahoma; the Stockbridge-Munsee Community in Wisconsin; and the Munsee-Delaware Nation, Moravian of the Thames First Nation, and Delaware of Six Nations in Ontario.

The Lenape have a matrilineal clan system and historically were matrilocal.

During the decades of the 18th century, most Lenape were pushed out of their homeland by expanding European colonies. Their dire situation was exacerbated by losses from intertribal conflicts.[10] The divisions and troubles of the American Revolutionary War and United States' independence pushed them farther west. In the 1860s, the United States government sent most Lenape remaining in the eastern United States to the Indian Territory(present-day Oklahoma and surrounding territory) under the Indian removal policy. In the 21st century, most Lenape now reside in Oklahoma, with some communities living also in Wisconsin and Ontario.

## Name:

The name Lenni Lenape, also Leni Lenape and Lenni Lenapi, comes from their autonym, '**Lenni'**, which may mean "genuine, pure, real, original," and '**Lenape'**, meaning "Indian" or "man"[11] (cf. Anishinaabe, in which '**-naabe'**, cognate with '**Lenape'**, means "man" or "male"). Alternately, '**lënu'** may be translated as "man."[12]

The Lenape, when first encountered by Europeans, were a loose association of related peoples who spoke similar languages and shared familial bonds in an area known as Lenapehoking,[1] the Lenape traditional territory, which spanned what is now eastern Pennsylvania, New Jersey, southern New York, and eastern Delaware.

The tribe's common name *Delaware* is not of Native American origin. English colonists named the Delaware River for the first governor of the Province of Virginia, Thomas West, 3rd Baron De La Warr, whose title was ultimately derived from French. (For etymology of the surname, see Earl De La Warr§Etymology.) The English then began to call the Lenape the Delaware Indians because of where they lived. Swedes also settled in the area, and early Swedish sources listed the Lenape as the *Renappi*.[13]

## Territory:

Traditional Lenape lands, the Lenapehoking, was a large territory that encompassed the Delaware Valleyof eastern Pennsylvania (especially the Poconos) and New Jersey from the north bank Lehigh Riveralong the left bank Delaware thence south into Delaware and the Delaware Bay. Their lands also extended west from western Long Island and New York Bay, across the Lower Hudson Valley in New York into the lower Catskills and a sliver of the upper edge of the North Branch Susquehanna River. On the west side, the Delaware people The Lenape lived in numerous small towns along the rivers and streams that fed the waterways, and likely shared the hunting territory of the Schuylkill River watershedwith the rival Iroquoian Susquehannock.

## Languages:

The Unami and Munsee languages belong to the Eastern Algonquian language group. Although the Unami and Munsee speakers people are related, they consider themselves as distinct, as they used different words and lived on opposite sides of the Kitatinny Mountains of modern New Jersey.[*citation needed*][*original research?*] Today, only elders speak the language—although some young Lenape youth and adults learn the ancient language. The German and English-speaking Moravian missionary John Heckewelder wrote: "The Monsey tong [*sic*] is quite different even though [it and Lenape] came out of one parent language."[14]

William Penn, who first met the Lenape in 1682, stated that the Unami used the following words: "mother" was '**anna'**, "brother" was '**isseemus'**, "friend" was '**netap'**. Penn instructed his fellow Englishmen: "If one asks them for anything they have not, they will answer, '**mattá ne hattá'**, which to translate is, 'not I have,' instead of 'I have not.'"[15]

According to the Moravian missionary David Zeisberger, the Unami word for "food" is '**May-hoe-me-chink'**; in Munsee it is '**Wool-as-gat'**. The Unami word for "hill" is '**Ah-choo'**; in Munsee it is '**Watts Unk'**.[16] Sometimes the languages shared words, such as "corn," which is '**Xash-queem'**, or "wolf," which is '**too-may'**.[17] In contemporary Unami orthography, "food" is '**michëwakàn'**, "hill" is '**ahchu'**, "corn" is '**xàskwim'**, and "wolf" is '**tëme'**.[12][a]

## Society:

### Clans And Kinship Systems:

At the time of first European contact, a Lenape person would have identified primarily with his or her immediate family and clan, friends, and/or village unit; then with surrounding and familiar village units. Next with more distant neighbors who spoke the same dialect; and ultimately, with all those in the surrounding area who spoke mutually comprehensible languages, including the Nanticoke people, who lived to their south and west in present western Delaware and eastern Maryland, and the Munsee, who lived to their north.[*citation needed*]Among many Algonquian peoples along the East Coast, the Lenape were considered the "grandfathers" from whom other Algonquian-speaking peoples originated.[18]

Lenape has three phratries, each of which had ten or twelve clans.[*citation needed*] These are:

* Wolf, *Took-seat*

* Big Feet, *Mä an'greet*
* Yellow Tree, *Wee-sow-het'-ko*
* Pulling Corn, *Pä-sakun'a'-mon*
* Care Enterer, We-yar-nih'kä-to
* Across the River, *Toosh-war-ka'ma*
* Vermillion, *O-lum'-a-ne*
* Dog standing by fireside, *Pun-ar'-you*
* Long Body, *Kwin-eek'cha*
* Digging, *Moon-har-tar'ne*
* Pulling up Stream, *Non-har'-min*
* Brush Log, *Long-ush-har-kar'-to*
* Bringing Along, *Maw-soo-toh*[19]

* Turtle, *Poke-koo-un'go*

* Ruler, *O-ka-ho'-ki*
* High Bank Shore, *Ta-ko-ong'-o-to*
* Drawing Down Hill, *See-har-ong'-o-to*
* Elector, *Ole-har-kar-me'kar-to*
* Brave, *Ma-har-o-luk'-ti*
* Green Leaves, *Toosh-ki-pa-kwis-i*
* Smallest Turtle, *Tung-ul-ung'-si*
* Little Turtle, *We-lung-ung-sil*
* Snapping Turtle, *Lee-kwin-a-i'*
* Deer, *Kwis-aese-kees'to*[19]

* Turkey, *Pul-la'-ook*

* Big Bird, *Mor-har-ä-lä*
* Bird's Cry, *Le-le-wa'-you*
* Eye Pain, *Moo-kwung-wa-ho'ki*
* Scratch the Path, *Moo-har-mo-wi-kar'-nu*
* Opossum Ground, *O-ping-ho'-ki*
* Old Shin, *Muh-ho-we-kä'-ken*
* Drift Log, *Tong-o-nä-o-to*
* Living in Water, *Nool-a-mar-lar'-mo*
* Root Digger, *Muh-krent-har'-ne*
* Red Face, *Mur-karm-huk-se*
* Pine Region, *Koo-wä-ho'ke*
* Ground Scratcher, *Oo-ckuk'-ham*[19]

Lenape kinship system has matrilineal clans, that is, children belong to their mother's clan, from which they gain social status and identity. The mother's eldest brother was more significant as a mentor to the male children than was their father, who was generally of another clan. Hereditary leadership passed through the maternal line,[9] and women elders could remove leaders of whom they disapproved. Agricultural land was managed by women and allotted according to the subsistence needs of their extended families. Families were matrilocal; newlywed couples would live with the bride's family, where her mother and sisters could also assist her with her growing family.[9]

By 1682, when William Penn arrived to his American commonwealth, the Lenape had been so reduced by disease, famine, and war that the sub-clan mothers had reluctantly resolved to consolidate their families into the main clan family.[9] This is why William Penn and all those after him believed that the Lenape clans had always only had three divisions (Turtle, Turkey, and Wolf) when, in fact, they had over thirty on the eve of European contact.[9]

Members of each clan were found throughout Lenape territory and clan lineage was traced through the mother. While clan mothers controlled the land, the houses, and the families, the clan fathers provided the meat, cleared the fields, built the houses, and protected the clan.[9] Upon reaching adulthood, a Lenape male would marry outside of his clan,[9] a practice known by ethnographers as, "exogamy". The practice effectively prevented inbreeding, even among individuals whose kinship was obscure or unknown. This means that a male from the Turkey Clan was expected to marry a female from either the Turtle or Wolf clans. His children, however, would not belong to the Turkey Clan, but to the mother's clan. As such, a person's mother's brothers (the person's matrilineal uncles) played a large role in his or her life as they shared the same clan lineage.[9]

As in the case of the Iroquois and Susquehannocks, the animosity of differences and competitions spanned many generations, and in general tribes with each of the different language groups became traditional enemies in the areas they'd meet.[*citation needed*] On the other hand, The New American Book of Indians points out that competition, trade, and wary relations were far more common than outright warfare—but both larger societies had traditions of 'proving' (blooding) new (or young) warriors by*'counting coup' on raids* into another tribes territories.[9][b] Ethnicity seems to have mattered little to the Lenape and many other "tribes". Archaeological excavations have found Lenape burials that included identifiably ethnic Iroquois remains interred along with those of Lenape.[*citation needed*] The two groups were sometimes bitter enemies since before recorded history, but intermarriage occurred — and recent scholarship exists saying that both groups have an oral history suggesting they jointly came east together and displaced the mound builders culture. In addition, both tribes practiced adopting young captives from warfare into their tribes and assimilating them as full tribal members.[9] Iroquoians adopting Lenape (or other peoples) were known to be part of their religious belliefs, the adopted one taking the place in the clan of one killed in warfare.

Early European observers may have misinterpreted matrilineal Lenape cultural practices. For example, a man's maternal uncle (his mother's brother), and not his father, was usually considered to be his closest male relative, since his uncle belonged to his mother's clan and his father belonged to a different one. The maternal uncle played a more prominent role in the lives of his sister's children than did the father—for example likely being the one responsible for educating a young man in weapons craft, martial arts, hunting, and other life skills.[9] Early European chroniclers did not understand this concept.

### Hunting And Farming:

A Lenape band assigned land of their common territory to a particular clan for hunting, fishing, and cultivation. Individual private ownership of land was unknown, as the land belonged to the clan collectively while they inhabited it, but women often had rights to plots for farming.[20][9] Clans lived in fixed settlements, using the surrounding areas for communal hunting and planting until the land was exhausted. In a practice known as "agricultural shifting," the group then moved to found a new settlement within their territory.[9]

The Lenape practiced large-scale agriculture to augment a mobile hunter-gatherer society in the regions around the Delaware River. The Lenape were largely a sedentary people who occupied campsites seasonally, which gave them relatively easy access to the small game that inhabited the region: fish, birds, shellfish and deer. They developed sophisticated techniques of hunting and managing their resources.

According to Dutch settler Isaac de Rasieres, who observed the Lenape in 1628, the Lenape's primary crop was maize, which they planted in March. They quickly adopted European metal tools for this task.

In May, the Lenape planted kidney beans near the maize plants; the latter served as props for the climbing bean vines. They also planted squash, whose broad leaves cut down on weeds and conserved moisture in the soil. The women devoted their summers to field work and harvested the crops in August. Women cultivated varieties of maize, squash and beans, and did most of the fieldwork, processing and cooking of food.

The men limited their agricultural labor to clearing the field and breaking the soil. They primarily hunted and fished during the rest of the year. Dutch settler David de Vries, who stayed in the area from 1634 to 1644, described a Lenape hunt in the valley of the *Achinigeu-hach* (or "Ackingsah-sack," the Hackensack River), in which one hundred or more men stood in a line many paces from each other, beating thigh bones on their palms to drive animals to the river, where they could be killed easily. Other methods of hunting included lassoing and drowning deer, as well as forming a circle around prey and setting the brush on fire.

By the time of the arrival of Europeans, the Lenape were cultivating fields of vegetation through the slash and burntechnique.[21][22][23][24][25][26] This extended the productive life of planted fields. They also harvested vast quantities of fish and shellfish from the bays of the area,[27] and, in southern New Jersey, harvested clams year-round.[28] The success of these methods allowed the tribe to maintain a larger population than nomadic hunter-gatherers could support. Scholars have estimated that at the time of European settlement, there may have been about 15,000 Lenape total in approximately 80 settlement sites around much of the New York Cityarea, alone.[29] In 1524 Lenape in canoes met Giovanni da Verrazzano, the first European explorer to enter New York Harbor.

Lenape practiced companion planting, in which women cultivated many varieties of the "Three Sisters:" maize, beans, and squash. Men also practiced hunting and the harvesting of seafood. The people were primarily sedentary rather than nomadic; they moved to seasonal campsites for particular purposes such as fishing and hunting. European settlers and traders from the 17th-century colonies of New Netherland and New Sweden traded with the Lenape for agricultural products, mainly maize, in exchange for iron tools. The Lenape also arranged contacts between the *Minquas* or *Susquehannocks* and the Dutch and Swedish West India companies to promote the fur trade. The Lenape were major producers of wampum or shell beads, which they traditionally used for ritual purposes and as ornaments. After the Dutch arrival, they began to exchange wampum for beaver furs provided by Iroquoian-speaking Susquehannock and other Minquas. They exchanged these furs for Dutch and, from the late 1630s, also Swedish imports. Relations between some Lenape and Minqua polities briefly turned sore in the late 1620s and early 1630s, but were relatively peaceful most of the time.[30]

### Clothing And Adornment:

The early European settlers, especially the Dutch and Swedes, were surprised at the Lenape's skill in fashioning clothing from natural materials.[*citation needed*] In hot weather both men and women wore only loin cloth and skirt respectively, while they used beaver pelts or bear skins to serve as winter mantles. Additionally, both sexes might wear buckskin leggings and moccasins in cold weather.[31] Deer hair, dyed a deep scarlet, was a favorite component of headdresses and breast ornaments for males.[32] The Lenape also adorned themselves with various ornaments made of stone, shell, animal teeth, and claws. The women often wore headbands of dyed deer hair or wampum. They painted their skin skirts or decorated them with porcupine quills. These skirts were so elaborately appointed that, when seen from a distance, they reminded Dutch settlers of fine European lace.[33] The winter cloaks of the women were striking, fashioned from the iridescent body feathers of wild turkeys.[34]