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Click the Lenape word to hear it pronounced.

A painting by Lenape artist Jacob Parks

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• THE LAST REMOVAL — A painting by Lenape artist Jacob Parks (1890-1949), which depicts a Lenape family leaving their home on their reservation in Kansas in 1867. This area had been their home for over thirty-five years, and now the government told them they had to move to Indian Territory (now Oklahoma).

In Lenape history there is the story of the “Walking Purchase” which took place in 1737. William Penn had always dealt fairly with the Lenape, but after he returned to England his sons and other agents began to sell land to pay their creditors, and these were lands which were still owned by the Lenape.

In order to convince the Lenape to part with the land, the Penns falsely represented an old, incomplete, unsigned draft of a deed as a legal contract. They told the Lenape that their ancestors some fifty years before had signed this document which stated that the land to be deeded to the Penns was as much as could be covered in a day-and-a-half’s walk.

Believing that their forefathers had made such an agreement the Lenape leaders agreed to let the Penns have this area walked off. They thought the whites would take a leisurely walk down an Indian path along the Delaware River. Instead, the Penns hired three of the fastest runners, and had a straight path cleared. Only one of the “walkers” was able to complete the “walk,” but he went fifty-five miles.

And so by means of a false deed, and use of runners, the Penns acquired 1200 square miles of Lenape land in Pennsylvania, an area about the size of Rhode Island! The Lenape people complained about the way the “walk” had been done. Lenape chief Lappawinsoe expressed the frustration and dissatisfaction of the Lenape when he said:

[the white runners] should have walkt along by the River Delaware or the next Indian path to it… should have walkt for a few Miles and then have sat down and smoakt a Pipe, and now and then have shot a Squirrel, and not have kept up the Run, Run all day.

Nonetheless, the Lenape felt honor-bound to fulfill what they thought their ancestors had agreed to, and thus began their movement westward. The Lenape were given place after place. Each time it was promised by the government that it would be their permanent home, only to have to move again. Their trek, which lasted 130 years, finally brought them to what was known as Indian Territory, now Oklahoma.

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• One item worn by Delaware men was the Bandolier Bag. This had a wide, fully beaded shoulder strap 2 to a beaded bag. A number of these are now in museums as they were a favorite of collectors.

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• Lenape Woman — Susie Elkhair

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• Lenape Woman — Mary Bezoin

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• Lenape Man — John Anderson

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• Pottery — The Lenape made cooking pots and other vessels out of clay. In this photograph the small pot on its side is the normal size cooking vessel. The large pot holds about twenty gallons and may have been used for some type of ceremonial event.
• Photgraph courtesy of Herbert C. Kraft

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• The Dugout Canoe — Canoe travel on rivers, lakes and possibly the ocean provided the principal means of transportation. There were no beasts of burden in North America and it is not certain if the Lenape people used their dogs to carry things as some tribes did. What had to be transported was carried on people’s backs or in canoes. Canoes were made from the trunks of trees such as tulip tree, elm, oak, or chestnut. In fact the Lenape name for the tulip tree is Muxulhemenshi, “Tree from which canoes are made.”
• Birch bark canoes were not used in the Lenape homeland because the type of birch growing there is not suitable for canoe making. In this illustration, a tree is being felled by means of fire set against the base of the trunk. Wet deerskin has been wrapped around the trunk to keep the fire from spreading upwards. From time to time the fire will be doused and the charred portions adzed away. By repeating this process the tree is finally burned through and falls for lack of support. In making a dugout canoe, a suitable tree trunk is selected and one side is adzed flat. Small fires are set to burn into the trunk, thus helping to hollow it. Charred parts are adzed or gouged out and the hull is finally planed smooth.
• Illustration courtesy of Herbert C. and John T. Kraft

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• Shad Fishing in the Delaware River — A fishweir consisting of wooden stakes arranged in a fence-like manner, and a weighted fish net, are being used to gather the shad so that they may be easily speared, or caught with bare hands. A previous catch of fish has already been gutted, split and placed near a fire-hearth and over racks to dry for storage. Anadromous shad swim up the major rivers by the millions in March and April to spawn in freshwater streams. Abundant fish enabled the Lenape to congregate in larger numbers than usual, and to remain at one site for a longer time.

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• Fishing for Sturgeon — While two men use large chipped stone knives to remove the scutes (the bony plates on the back of the sturgeon) and cut the meat, another worker thrusts a long copper or bone needle and line through prepared slices of fish. The skewered flesh will be hung up to dry. Other workers use large pottery vessels and heated stones to cook oil out of the fish heads and skeletal parts. Sturgeon weighing up to two hundred pounds and more, and measuring over six feet in length, were harpooned and caught in nets. These anadromous fish came from the ocean into the Delaware and Hudson rivers to spawn in freshwater streams.
• Illustrations courtesy of Herbert C. and John T. Kraft