The Lenâpé and their Legends. Rafinesque Constantine Samuel
and position of the Jersey tribes have not been very clearly made out. A pamphlet published in London, in 1648, states that there were twenty-three Indian kinglets in its area, with about 2000 warriors in all. Of these, Master Robert Evelin, a surveyor, who spent several years in the Province about 1635, names nine on the left bank of the Delaware, between Cape May and the Falls. The names are extremely corrupt, but it may be worth while giving them.[64]
1. Kechemeches, 500 men, five miles above Cape May.
2. Manteses, 100 bowmen, twelve leagues above the former.
3. Sikonesses.
4. Asomoches, 100 men.
5. Eriwoneck, 40 men.
6. Ramcock, 100 men.
7. Axion, 200 men.
8. Calcefar, 150 men.
9. Mosilian, 200 men, at the Falls.
Of these, the Mantes lived on Salem creek; Ramcock is Rancocas creek; the Eriwoneck are evidently the Ermomex of Van der Donck's map of 1656; Axion may be for Assiscunk creek, above Burlington, from Del. assiscu, mud; assiscunk, a muddy place. Lindstrom and Van der Donck name the most Southern tribe in New Jersey Naraticons. They were on and near Raccoon creek, which on Lindstrom's map is Narraticon Sipu, the Naraticon river. Probably the English name is simply a translation of the Del. nachenum, raccoon.
In 1675 the number of sachems in Jersey of sufficient importance for the then Governor Andros to treat with were four. It is noted that when he had made them the presents customary on such occasions, "They return thanks and fall a kintacoying, singing kenon, kenon."[65] This was the Delaware genan (genama, thank ye him. Zeis).
The total number in New Jersey a few years before this (1671) were estimated by the authorities at "about a thousand persons, besides women and children."[66]
The "Wakings, Opings or Pomptons," as they are named in the old records, were the tribe which dwelt on the west shore of New York harbor and southwardly, or, more exactly, "from Roeloff Jansen's Kill to the sea."[67] They were of the Minsi totem, and were the earliest of the Lenape who saw white men, when, in 1524, the keel of Verrazano was the first to plough the waters of New York harbor.
The name Waping or Oping is derived from Wapan, east, and was applied to them as the easternmost of the Lenape nation.[68] Their other name, Pompton, Mr Heckewelder identifies with pihm-tom, crooked-mouthed, though its applicability is not obvious.[69]
In the middle of the eighteenth century the remains of the Pompton Indians resided on the Raritan river. The boundaries of their territory were defined in 1756, at the Treaty of Crosswicks.
The Sanhicans occupied the Delaware shore at the Falls, near where Trenton now stands, and extended eastward along the upper Indian path quite to New York bay. Heckewelder says that this name, Sankhicani, means a gun lock, and was applied by the Lenape to the Mohawks who were first furnished with muskets by the Europeans. This has led some writers to locate a band of Mohawks at the Falls.
The Sanhicans were, however, undoubtedly Lenape. Campanius, who quotes the name of the place in 1642, classes them as such. In Van der Donck's map, of 1656, they are marked as possessing the land at the Falls and Manhattan Bay; and De Laet gives the numerals and a number of words from their dialect, which are all pure Delaware, as: —
Their name has lost its first syllable. It should be assanhican. This means not merely and not originally a gun-flint, but any stone implement, from achsin, or, in the New Jersey dialect, assun, a stone, and hican, an instrument. They were distinctively "the stone-implement people."
This is plainly with reference to their manufactures near Trenton. The great deposit of post-glacial gravels at this point abound with quartzite fragments suitable for working into stone implements, and to what extent they were utilized by the natives is shown by the enormous collection, numbering over thirty thousand specimens, which Dr. Charles C. Abbott, of Trenton, has made in that immediate vicinity. A horde of over 125 beautifully chipped lance heads of quartz and jasper, and the remains of a workshop of remarkable magnitude, were evidences of the extensive manufacture that once prevailed there.
The left bank of the Delaware, from the vicinity of Burlington quite to and below Salem, was held by a warlike tribe known to the settlers as the Mantas, or Mantos, or Mandes, otherwise named the Frog Indians. They extended eastward along the main or southern Indian path, which led from the Delaware, below the mouth of Rancocas Creek, to the extensive Indian plantations or corn fields near Sandy Hook, mentioned by Campanius and Lindstrom.[70]
Mr. Henry has derived their name from mangi, great,[71] and others have suggested menatey, an island; but I do not think either of these is tenable. I have no doubt that mante is simply a mis-spelling of monthee, which is the form given by the East Jersey and Stockbridge Indians to the name of the Minsi or Monsey sub-tribe of the Delawares.[72] This is further indicated by the fact that toward the beginning of the eighteenth century they incorporated themselves wholly with the two other Lenape sub-tribes.[73] We thus find that the Minsis were not confined to the North and Northwest, as Heckewelder and others wrote, but had pressed southward in New Jersey, quite to the shores of Delaware Bay.
The New Jersey Indians disappeared rapidly. As early as 1721 an official document states that they were "but few, and very innocent and friendly."[74] When, in 1745, the missionary Brainerd visited their settlement at Crosweeksung, Burlington county, he found some "who had lived with the white people under gospel light, had learned to read, were civil, etc."[75] Those with whom he labored at this place subsequently removed to New Stockbridge, Mass., and united with the Mohegans and others there.[76]
The Swedish traveler, Peter Kalm, who spent about a year in New Jersey in 1749, observes that the disappearance of the native population was principally due to two agencies. Smallpox destroyed "incredible numbers", "but brandy has killed most of the Indians."[77]
The dialect of the New Jersey Indians was soft and vocalic, avoiding the gutturals of their northern relatives, and without the frequent unpleasant forcible expirations of the Nanticoke. A vocabulary of it, obtained for Mr. Thomas Jefferson, in 1792, at the village of Edgpiihik, West New Jersey, is in MS. in the library of the American Philosophical Society.
Each totem of the Lenape recognized a chieftain, called sachem, sakima, a word found in most Algonkin dialects, with slight variations (Chip. ogima, Cree, okimaw, Pequot, sachimma), and derived from a root ôki, signifying above in space, and by a transfer frequent in all languages, above in power. Thus, in Cree,[78] we have sâkamow, "il projecte, il montre la tête," and in Delaware, w'ochgitschi, the part above, the upper part (Zeisberger), etc.
It appears from Mr. Morgan's inquiries, that at present and of later years, "the office of sachem is hereditary in the gens, but elective among its members."[79] Loskiel, however, writing on the excellent authority of Zeisberger, states explicitly that the chief of each totem was selected and inaugurated by those of the remaining two.[80] By common and ancient consent, the chief selected from the Turtle totem was head chief of the whole Lenape nation.
These
Master Evelin's Letter is printed in Smith's
Ibid, Vol. I, p. 73.
Ruttenber,
Heckewelder, in his unpublished MSS, asserts that both these names mean "Opossum". It is true that the name of this animal in Lenape is
Proud,
Matthew G. Henry,
"The Monthees who we called Wemintheuw," etc.
Heckewelder,
E de Schweimtz,
Lacombe,
Lewis H. Morgan,
Loskiel,