The Lenâpé and their Legends - Daniel Brinton 4 стр.

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:

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.

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.

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]

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.

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]

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]

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]

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]