The Lenâpé and their Legends

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.

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 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]

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Footnote_1_1

Lewis H. Morgan, Indian Migrations, in Beach's Indian Miscellany, p. 218.

Footnote_2_2

H. Hale, Indian Migrations as Evidenced by Language, p. 24. (Chicago, 1883.)

Footnote_3_3

See the R. P. A. Lacombe Dictionnaire de la Langue des Cris. Introd., p. xi. (Montreal, 1874.)

Footnote_4_4

See Joseph Howse, A grammar of the Cree Language, p. 13, et al. (London, 1842)

Footnote_5_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

Footnote_6_6

Early Indian History on the Susquehanna, p. 31. (Harrisburg, 1883)

Footnote_7_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.

Footnote_8_8

Bozman, History of Maryland, Vol. I, p. 167.

Footnote_9_9

Heckewelder, History of the Indian Nations, p. 80.

Footnote_10_10

Peter Jones, History of the Ojibway Nation, p. 32.

Footnote_11_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.

Footnote_12_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.

Footnote_13_13

Indian Migrations as Evidenced by Language, p. 22.

Footnote_14_14

Prof. Thomas has shown beyond reasonable doubt that the Cherokees were mound builders within the historic period.

Footnote_15_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.

Footnote_16_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.

Footnote_17_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.

Footnote_18_18

Trumbull, Indian Names in Connecticut, p. 31. Schoolcraft had already given the same derivation in his History and Statistics of the Indian Tribes.

Footnote_19_19

Capt. Hendricks, in Mass. Hist. Soc. Colls., Vol. IX, p. 101.

Footnote_20_20

Ruttenber, History of the Indian Tribes of Hudson's River, p. 50.

Footnote_21_21

Morgan, Ancient Society, pp. 173-4.

Footnote_22_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.

Footnote_23_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.

Footnote_24_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.

Footnote_25_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.

Footnote_26_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.

Footnote_27_27

History of the Indian Nations, Introduction, p. xlii.

Footnote_28_28

Ibid., pp. 90-122.

Footnote_29_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.

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.

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.

Footnote_32_32

Relatio Itineris in Marylandiam, p. 63. (Edition of the Md. Hist. Soc. 1874.)

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.

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.

Footnote_35_35

"Omni vero ratione placare conantur phantasticum quemdam spiritum quem Ochre nominant, ut ne noceat." Relatio Itineris in Marylandiam, p. 40.

Footnote_36_36

Bozman, History of Maryland, Vol. I, p. 166

Footnote_37_37

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

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.

Footnote_39_39

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

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.)

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.

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.