The Lenâpé and their Legends

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.[Footnote_30_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.]

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."[Footnote_31_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.] The site of Kittamaquindi (kittamaque-ink, Great Beaver Place,) the so-called "metropolis of Pascatoe,"[Footnote_32_32 - Relatio Itineris in Marylandiam, p. 63. (Edition of the Md. Hist. Soc. 1874.)] 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.[Footnote_33_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.] 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."[Footnote_34_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.]

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."[Footnote_35_35 - "Omni vero ratione placare conantur phantasticum quemdam spiritum quem Ochre nominant, ut ne noceat." Relatio Itineris in Marylandiam, p. 40.] 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.[Footnote_36_36 - Bozman, History of Maryland, Vol. I, p. 166]

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.[Footnote_37_37 - "The Nanticokes and Conoys are now one nation." Minutes of the Provincial Council of Penna., 1759, Vol. VIII, p. 176.]

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.[Footnote_38_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.]

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.[Footnote_39_39 - See Colonial History of New York, Vol. IV. Index. Loskiel, Geschichte der Mission, etc., p. 25.]

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.[Footnote_40_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.)]

Of these, that which settled in Pennsylvania was the Pikoweu, who occupied and gave their name to the Pequa valley in Lancaster county.[Footnote_41_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.]

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,[Footnote_42_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.] 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;[Footnote_43_43 - Printed in the Colonial History of New York, Vol. I. Compare Force, ubi suprá, pp. 16, 17.] 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.[Footnote_44_44 - Rev. J. Morse, Report on Indian Affairs, p. 362]

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.[Footnote_45_45 - See Gallatin, Synopsis of the Indian Tribes, pp. 85, 86.]

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.[Footnote_46_46 - See New York Colonial Documents, Vol. V, pp. 660, 673, etc.] 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.[Footnote_47_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[Footnote_48_48 - See his remarks in the Transactions of the American Philological Association, 1872, p. 157.] 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,[Footnote_49_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.] and it is still retained by their remnant in Kansas as the proper term to designate their collective nation, embracing its sub-tribes.[Footnote_50_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).]

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."[Footnote_51_51 - History of the Indian Nations, p. 401.] 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."[Footnote_52_52 - Transactions of the American Philological Association, 1871, p. 144.] 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."[Footnote_53_53 - Weisberger'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.]

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.[Footnote_54_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.]

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.