The Study of Lenâpé and Their Mythology. Daniel G. Brinton

tribe called the Sapoonees, or Saponies, is mentioned as living in Pennsylvania, attached to the Delawares, about the middle of the last century.[44]

      They are no doubt the Saponas who once dwelt on a branch of the Great Pedee river in North Carolina, and who moved north about the year 1720.[45]

      They were said to have joined the Tuscaroras, but the Pennsylvania records class them with the Delawares. Others, impressed by the similarity of Sa-po-nees to Pa-nis, have imagined they were the Pawnees, now of the west. There is not the slightest importance to be attached to this casual similarity of names.

      They were called, by the Iroquois, Tadirighrones, and were distinctly identified by them with the nation known to the English as the Catawbas.[46] For a long time the two nations carried on a bitter warfare.

The Assiwikales.

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      This band of about fifty families, or one hundred men (about three hundred souls), are stated to have come from South Carolina to the Potomac late in the seventeenth century, and in 1731 were settled partly on the Susquehanna and partly on the upper Ohio or Alleghany. Their chief was named Aqueioma, or Achequeloma.

      Their name appears to be a compound of assin, stone; and wikwam, house, and they were probably Algonkin neighbors of the Shawnees in their southern homes, and united with them in their northern migration.[47]

CHAPTER III

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      The Lenape or Delawares.

      Derivation of the Name Lenape.—The Three Sub-Tribes the Minsi or Wolf, the Unami or Turtle, and the Unalachtgo or Turkey Tribes—Their Totems—The New Jersey Tribes the Wapings, Sanhicans and Mantas—Political Constitution of the Lenape—Vegetable Food Resources—Domestic Architecture—Manufactures.—Paints and Dyes.—Dogs—Interments—Computation of Time—Picture Writing—Record Sticks—Moral and Mental Character—Religious Belief.—Doctrine of the Soul.— The Native Priests.—Religious Ceremonies.

Derivation of Lenni Lenape.

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      The proper name of the Delaware Indians was and is Lenapé, (a as in father, é as a in mate). Dr. J. Hammond Trumbull[48] is quite wide of the mark both in calling this a "misnomer," and in attributing its introduction to Mr. Heckewelder.

      Long before that worthy missionary was born, the name was in use in the official documents of the commonwealth of Pennsylvania as the synonym in the native tongue for the Delaware Indians,[49] and it is still retained by their remnant in Kansas as the proper term to designate their collective nation, embracing its sub-tribes.[50]

      The derivation of Lenape has been discussed with no little learning, as well as the adjective lenni, which often precedes it (Lenni Lenape). Mr. Heckewelder stated that lenni means "original, pure," and that Lenape signifies "people."[51] Dr. Trumbull, in the course of a long examination of the words for "man" in the Algonkin dialects, reaches the conclusion that "Len-âpé" denotes "a common adult male," i.e., an Indian man; lenno lenâpé, an Indian of our tribe or nation, and, consequently, vir, "a man of men."[52] He derives these two words from the roots len (= nen), a pronominal possessive, and ape, an inseparable generic particle, "denoting an adult male."

      I differ, with hesitation, from such an eminent authority; but this explanation does not, to my mind, give the precise meaning of the term. No doubt, both lenno, which in Delaware means man, and len, in Lenape, are from the pronominal radicle of the first person né, I, we, mine, our. As the native considered his tribe the oldest, as well as the most important of created beings, "ours" with him came to be synonymous with what was esteemed ancient, indigenous, primeval, as well as human, man-like, par excellence. "We" and "men" were to him the same. The initial l is but a slight modification of the n sound, and is given by Campanius as an r, "rhenus, homo."

      Lenape, therefore, does not mean "a common adult male," but rather "a male of our kind," or "our men."[53]

      The termination apé is said by Heckewelder to convey the idea of "walking or being in an erect posture." A comparison of the various Algonkin dialects indicates that it was originally a locative, signifying staying in a place, abiding or sitting. Thus, in Cree, apú, he is there; in Chipeway, abi, he is at home; in Delaware, n'dappin, I am here. The transfer of this idea to the male sex is seen in the Cree, ap, to sit upon, to place oneself on top, apa, to cover (animate and active); Chipeway, nabe, the male of quadrupeds. Baraga says that for a Chipeway woman to call her husband nin nabem (lit. my coverer, comp. French, femme couverte), is coarse.

The Lenape Sub-Tribes.

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      The Lenape were divided into three sub-tribes:—

      1. The Minsi, Monseys, Montheys, Munsees, or Minisinks.

       2. The Unami, or Wonameys.

       3. The Unalachtigo.

      No explanation of these designations will be found in Heckewelder or the older writers. From investigations among living Delawares, carried out at my request by Mr. Horatio Hale, it is evident that they are wholly geographical, and refer to the locations of these sub-tribes on the Delaware river.

      Minsi, properly Minsiu, and formerly Minassiniu, means "people of the stony country," or briefly, "mountaineers." It is a synthesis of minthiu, to be scattered, and achsin, stone, according to the best living native authorities.[54]

      Unami, or W'nãmiu, means "people down the river," from naheu, down-stream.

      Unalachtigo, properly W'nalãchtko, means "people who live near the ocean," from wunalawat, to go towards, and t'kow or t'kou, wave.

      Historically, such were the positions of these sub-tribes when they first came to the knowledge of Europeans.

      The Minsi lived in the mountainous region at the head waters of the Delaware, above the Forks, or junction of the Lehigh river. One of their principal fires was on the Minisink plains, above the Water Gap, and another on the East Branch of the Delaware, which they called Namaes Sipu, Fish River. Their hunting grounds embraced lands now in the three colonies of Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey. The last mentioned extinguished their title in 1758, by the payment of one thousand pounds.

      That, at any time, as Heckewelder asserts, their territory extended up the Hudson as far as tide-water, and westward "far beyond the Susquehannah," is surely incorrect. Only after the beginning of the eighteenth century, when they had been long subject to the Iroquois, have we any historic evidence that they had a settlement on the last named river.

      The Unamis' territory on the right bank of the Delaware river extended from the Lehigh valley southward. It was with them and their southern neighbors, the Unalachtigos, that Penn dealt for the land ceded him in the Indian Deed of 1682. The Minsis did not take part in the transaction, and it was not until 1737 that the Colonial authorities treated directly with the latter for the cession of their territory.[55]

      The Unalachtigo or Turkey totem had its principal seat on the affluents of the Delaware near where Wilmington now stands. About this point, Captain John Smith, on his map (1609,) locates the Chikahokin. In later