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by Richard C. Adams
My effort is to produce a brief and accurate sketch of the
history of my people, at the time when the last bond uniting them in their tribal
relations is being severed by the action of the General Government in segregating their
lands, allotting them in severalty, and thereby rendering them in all respects citizens of
the United States. To the memory of my ancestor, Captain White Eyes, whose ambition it was that the
Delawares and their confederated bands should be consolidated and become the fourteenth
State in the Union, and to my Delaware brethren in the United States this sketch is
affectionately dedicated. Richard Adams, Delaware Indian They call themselves "Lenni Lenape," or original people, or men that are men.
Most tribes call them "Grandfather," recognizing them as an older race, or the
trunk race, from which other tribes sprung. Heckewelder stated that Lenni means original,
pure, and that Lenape signifies people; hence he interpreted the name as "original
people.'' The tribe was divided into three principal clans -- the "Turtle" which is the
oldest; the "Wolf," and the "Turkey.'' Each clan was entitled to a chief
and a war chief. Over all the clans was a sachem (pronounced sah-kee-mun), who came from
the Turtle clan. His office was hereditary. The Delaware Indians did not depend solely upon the chase for subsistence, for they
grew large fields of corn or maize, squash, beans, sweet potatoes, and tobacco. They
manufactured a kind of pottery, dressed deerskins, and made beads or wampum, feather
mantels and other ornaments, and used considerable native copper, which they hammered into
ornaments or used for arrowheads and pipes. They also made stone pipes, bow, and
arrowheads. The corn or maize was broken up in stone or wooden mortars, with stone or
wooden pestles. They made use of paints and dyes, which they derived from both mineral and vegetable
realms, to decorate themselves when going to war, or for picture writing, which was their
means of keeping records of historical events or of communicating with each other. They had their native priests or medicine men, and of those there were two classes --
one who devoted themselves to divination and the other to healing of the sick. The
medicine men would interpret the dreams of others and of themselves, and claimed the power
to dream truthfully of the future and of the absent. In their visions their guardian
spirits visited them; they became, as they called it, "all light," and they
"could see through men and know the thoughts of their hearts." At such times
they were also instructed at what spots the hunters could successfully seek game.
Some Native American histories have relegated the Delaware Indians to the status of a
minor east coast tribe, yet the Lenni Lenape, as they called themselves, were originally
the most powerful Indian Tribe in the East, perhaps in the Americas.
from the introduction:
An excerpt from Chapter One
Their implements of war were war clubs,
tomahawks, bows and arrows, scalping knives, and spears. They often used a shield of thick
dried hide for defense. They used the bow and arrow and spear for killing fish and game.
They caught fish with fishhooks made of bone and dried claws of birds, and also used brush
nets.
any book
To read The Redman chapter from Ulster Under the
Dutch or an excerpt from Indian Tribes of Hudson's River
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Copyright © 1995 by Richard Frisbie -- All rights reserved.