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 writers this name is spelled Chihohockies, Chiholacki and Chikolacki, and is stated by the historians Proud and Smith to be synonymous with Delawares.[56] The correct form is Chikelaki, from chik'eno, turkey, the modern form as given by Whipple,[57] and aki land. The n, l and r were alternating letters in this dialect.
The population was, however, very sparse, owing to the predatory incursions of the Susquehannocks, whose trails, leading up the Octorara and Conestoga, and down the Christina and Brandywine Creeks, were followed by war parties annually, and desolated the west shores of the Bay and lower river. When, in 1634, Captain Thomas Young explored the river, the few natives he found on the west side told him (through the medium of his Algonkin Virginian interpreter) that the "Minquaos" had killed their people, burnt their villages, and destroyed their crops, so that "the Indians had wholly left that side of the river which was next their enemies, and had retired themselves on the other side farre up into the woods."[58]
North of the Chikelaki, Smith's map locates the Macovks. This name does not appear in later authors, but near that site were the Okahoki band, who occupied the shores of Ridley and Crum creeks and the land between them. There they remained until 1703, when they were removed to a small reservation of 500 acres in what is now Willistown township, Chester county.[59]
The Totemic Animals.
These three sub-tribes had each its totemic animal, from which it claimed a mystical descent. The Minsi had the Wolf, the Unami the Turtle, and the Unalachtigo the Turkey. The Unamis claimed and were conceded the precedence of the others, because their ancestor, the Turtle, was not the common animal, so-called, but the great original tortoise which bears the world on its back, and was the first of living beings, as I shall explain on a later page.
In referring to the totemic animals the common names were not used, but metaphorical expressions. Thus the Wolf was referred to as Ptuksit, Round Foot (ptuk, round, sit, foot, from the shape of its paws;) the turtle was Pakoango, the Crawler; and the turkey was Pullaeu, he does not chew,[60] referring to the bird's manner of swallowing food.
The signs of these animals were employed in their picture writing, painted on their houses or inscribed on rocks, to designate the respective sub-tribes. But only in the case of the Unamis was the whole animal represented. The Turkey tribe painted only one foot of their totemic bird, and the Minsi the extended foot of the wolf, though they sometimes added an outline of the rest of the animal.[61]
These three divisions of the Lenape were neither "gentes" nor "phratries," though Mr. Morgan has endeavored to force them into his system by stating that they were "of the nature of phratries."[62] Each was divided into twelve families bearing female names, and hence probably referring to some unexplained matriarchal system. They were, as I have called them, sub-tribes. In their own orations they referred to each other as "playmates." (Heckewelder.)