Short history of the Lenni Lenape

REGION — The Lenape Nation were once sovereign over a vast domain stretching along the Middle Atlantic coast from New York Bay to Delaware Bay, between the Hudson and Delaware river valleys.

Most Europeans believe that the Lenapes and other Indians originally came from Asia. Archeological evidence in the form of stone tools, clay pots and other remains indicates that the Lenapes came to the Middle Atlantic region nearly 3,000 years ago.

Where direct communication for the Lenapes is lacking, the known practices and oral traditions of neighboring groups provide clues.

When Europeans first came among them, most Lenapes lived in bustling communities made up of one or more bark and grass covered longhouses. Their life centered around the close bond of kinship and family.

According to one local expert on the tribe, Edwin “Taterbug” Tyler, the women owned the property and took care of the longhouses while the men hunted. One traced one’s lineage to the tribe through the mother and not the father.

Evidence from archeological sites and historical records documenting journeys of adventurous men and women to the Carolinas and the Mississippi Valley suggest that Lenape traders and hunters were accustomed to traveling long distances in search of game and goods.

The egalitarian nature of their society enabled the Lenapes to respond flexibly to changing conditions. This tendency and tradition helped the tribe survive the shock and stress of European invasion followed by 200 years of dispossession and poverty. Their descendants continue to carry on these traditions.

Their original territory was Western Connecticut, southern New York, eastern Pennsylvania and all of New Jersey and Delaware. Today, separated by vast distances and divided by international borders, most descendants of the tribe continue to recognize a common identity and history marked by hardship and struggle.

The tribe spoke a language belonging to the widespread Algonquian linguistic family, one of the major groupings of languages in the world. Dutch, Swedish and English colonists moving into the Northeast during 1600 knew the Lenapes as “River Indians.”

Among the better known Lenape villages were: Sanhikan, Rancoca, and Narraticong in southern New Jersey; the villages of Playwicky, Passayunk, Tulpehocken and Qukehocking in southeast Pennsylvania, and the villages of Quenomusing, Minguannan, Shackamaxon and Sickoneysinck in Delaware.

In Pennsylvania, the power of the legendary chief Tammamend was enhanced by his 1683 treaty of friendship with William Penn, Quaker founder of the colony.

Tammemend, celebrated for his wisdom and virtue, would become the namesake of New York City’s Tammany Hall in the 1800s.

Locally, the chapter of the Eastern Star located in Callicoon called St. Tammany, is named after the same chief as is the large island and the flats on the Pennsylvania side on the Delaware near the Grover Hermann Hospital, according to Rita Robisch, a long-time member of the chapter.

In Pennsylvania, there are still 200 families with ties to the Lenape Nation, according to Jim Beer, spokesman for the tribe.