The Lenâpé and their Legends

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.[Footnote_84_84 - Peter Kalm, Travels in North America, Vol. II, p. 42.]

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.[Footnote_85_85 - See Peter Kalm, Travels in North America, Vol. II, pp. 110-115; William Darlington, Flora Cestrica. (West Chester, Pa., 1837.)]

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.[Footnote_86_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.]

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.[Footnote_87_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).] 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,[Footnote_88_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.] 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).[Footnote_89_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.]

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.[Footnote_90_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."]

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.[Footnote_91_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.]

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."[Footnote_92_92 - History of West New Jersey, p. 3 (London, 1698).] Bishop Ettwein speaks of mounds for common burial, though he appears to limit their use to times of war.[Footnote_93_93 - Bulletin Hist. Soc. of Penna., 1848, p. 32.]

One of these communal graveyards of the Minsis covers an area of six acres on the Neversink creek,[Footnote_94_94 - E. M. Ruttenber, History of the Indian Tribes of Hudson River, p. 96, note.] while, according to tradition, another of great antiquity and extent was located on the islands in the Delaware river, above the Water-Gap.[Footnote_95_95 - Maximilian, Prince of Wied, Travels in America, p. 35.]

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;"[Footnote_96_96 - A Key into the Language of America, p. 105.] 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.[Footnote_97_97 - Documentary History of New York, Vol. III, pp. 29, 32.]

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.[Footnote_98_98 - Grammar of the Language of the Lenni Lenape, pp 108-109.] 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.[Footnote_99_99 - They are given, with translations, in Zeisberger's Grammar, p. 109.] 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."[Footnote_100_100 - See Loskiel, Geschichte der Mission, etc., pp. 32, 33; Heckewelder, History of the Indian Nations, chap. X.]

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.[Footnote_101_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.] 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.[Footnote_102_102 - See Proceedings Amer. Philos. Soc., Vol. X.] 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.[pgepubid00084 - 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).]

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."[Footnote_104_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).] 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[Footnote_105_105 - History and Statistics of the Indian Tribes, Vol. I, plate 47, B, and pages 353, 354] 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.[Footnote_106_106 - "Amiable and benevolent," says Heckewelder, whose life he aided in saving on one occasion. Indian Nations, p. 285.] 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![Footnote_107_107 - E. de Schweinitz, Life of Zeisberger, p. 469.]

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.[Footnote_108_108 - Relation des Jesuites, 1646, p. 33]

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,[Footnote_109_109 - Baraga, A Dictionary of the Otchipwe Language, s. v.] 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.[Footnote_110_110 - For an example, see de Schweinitz, Life of Zeisberger, p. 342.]

These sticks are described as about six inches in length, slender, though varying in shape, and tied up in bundles.[Footnote_111_111 - Documentary History of New York, Vol. IV, p. 437.] Such bundles are mentioned by the interpreter Conrad Weiser, as in use in 1748 when he was on his embassy in the Indian country.[Footnote_112_112 - Journal of Conrad Weiser; in Early History of Western Penna., p. 16.] 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.[Footnote_113_113 - Tran. Am. Phil. Soc., Vol. IV, p. 384.] 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[Footnote_114_114 - A Dictionary of the Abnaki Language, s. v. Peinture.], 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."[Footnote_115_115 - See ante p. 53. (#Page_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.]

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."[Footnote_116_116 - Key into the Language of America, p. 206]

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.[Footnote_117_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.]

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;"[Footnote_118_118 - Dr Edwin James, Narrative of John Tanner, p. 341] by the native Copway, as "board plates;"[Footnote_119_119 - George Copway, Traditional History of the Ojibway Nation, pp 130, 131.] 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."[Footnote_120_120 - Schoolcraft, Indian Tribes, Vol. I, p. 339.]

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."[Footnote_121_121 - Brainerd, Life and Journal, p. 410.] 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."[Footnote_122_122 - E. de Schweinitz, Life and Times of Zeisberger, p. 92.]

Perhaps these worthy missionaries measured them by the standard of the Christian ideal, by which, alas, we all fall wofully short.