As they lived mainly by hunting and fishing, their habitations, which were called “wigwams,” were temporary structures which could easily be removed when occasion required. They generally slept on skin or leaves spread on the bare ground, and some had crude board floors, which inspired Roger Williams to indict these lines:
“God gives them sleep on ground or straw,
On sedge mats or on board,
When English beds of softest down
Sometimes no sleep afford.”
From these humble lodgings no one was ever turned away and the generous hospitality of the Indians was noticed with admiration by travelers. The Indian’s dinner generally consisted of meat and vegetables, cooked in the same vessel, which was rarely, if ever, cleansed. His breakfast generally consisted of maize, that is, Indian corn, pounded in a mortar till crushed and then boiled. This was his ach-poan, whence comes the name “corn-pone,” which we all know, and, I may say, all like. Their thirst was quenched by drinking the broth of boiled meat, or by drafts of pure water. They had no intoxicating liquors until the advent of the white man. Their only stimulant was tobacco, which they smoked in pipes manufactured by themselves. They had no cigars, and the festive cigarette was entirely unknown to them, in fact was then unknown to everybody.
The Lenape did not depend solely on the trophies of the chase for their subsistence. They were, to a comparatively large extent, engaged in agriculture and raised a variety of edible plants, corn, beans, sweet potatoes and squashes, among them. A hardy variety of tobacco was also cultivated.
The art of the potter was not unknown to the Delawares, and their skill in bead work and feather mantles, and dressing animal skins, excited admiration. Their weapons were mostly of stone, but there was considerable native copper used for arrow heads, and also for pipes and ornaments. They had paints and dyes made from vegetables and minerals found in their neighborhood.
In making a canoe they would fell a tree by means of their stone axes or by burning into the trunk at the base and would hollow out the trunk by fire, or in later times, would make a framework and cover it with bark and thus make a vessel large enough to carry a dozen or more men and to bear a thousand pounds or more of freight, and yet it would be so light that two or three men could carry it.
Although they were usually clad only in the skins of animals they had learned to make a coarse cloth from the fiber of nettles and other plants which they twisted and wove with their fingers. They made rope, purses and bags in the same way, and had needles made of small bones and wooden splints, with which they were quite dexterous. Like all primitive people the Indians were very fond of ornaments and adorned themselves with shells and beads and other articles skillfully and decoratively fashioned by themselves. The white beads made by the Indians were called “wampum” and the blue, purple or violet ones “suckanhoch.” They were made of shells and other suitable materials. Used first merely for ornamentation, this wampum came to be so much in demand that it assumed the character of currency, and it was so used by the white settlers as well as the Indians as neither had any other kind of money. Some white men tried to make wampum but their crude product was promptly rejected as counterfeit.
As the straight-limbed and erect Indians had no intoxicating liquors, pimpled noses were not to be found among them. Nor did they use profane language, so far as I have been able to learn. What a contrast between them and some of their white brethren! The late W. Clark Russell, in one of his inimitable sea stories, thus describes the English captain of a vessel: “His face was purple with grog blossoms, his legs were bent like the tines of a pitch-fork and he was charged to the throat with a fo-castle vocabulary,” which is, as you may have heard, redolent of profanity.
The Indians were never very numerous in New Jersey, at least not after the advent of the white settlers. It has been estimated that in 1648 there were in the various tribes about 2,000 warriors all told, which would make a total population of about 8,000. After this time they disappeared rapidly. In 1721 they were said to be few and friendly,—the fewer the more friendly, doubtless.
Kalm, a Swedish traveler, who spent some time here in 1747, observed that the disappearance of the native population was principally due to two agencies,—smallpox and brandy. It will be remembered, I believe, by everyone, that intoxicating liquors were sold to the Indians by the whites even in defiance of colonial statutes forbidding it. The practice of violating excise laws, which we have every reason to believe still goes on, appears, therefore, to be of ancient origin and to be founded upon considerable historic precedent.