The Lenni Lenape, or Delaware Indians

by Edwin Robert Walker

The council of each tribe was composed of the sachem and other chiefs, experienced warriors or aged and respected heads of families, elected by the tribe. The executive functions of the government were performed by the sachems and chiefs, who were also members of the council, which was legislature and court combined. Here matters concerning the welfare of the tribe were discussed and offences against the good order of the tribe were considered; crimes committed against individuals were not regarded as sins, and they were settled between the persons and families concerned, upon the principle lex talionis.

There are exceptions to all rules, and the rule of the Indians that they would not revenge wrongs upon individuals but would leave their kin to do so, seems sometimes to have been departed from, as will appear from the following: In 1671 two Dutchmen were murdered on Matinicunk (now Burlington) Island in the river Delaware, by Indians, because Tashiowycan, whose sister was dead, said that he would requite her by killing Christians, which he and another Indian proceeded to do. This was reported to, and considered by, the whites in council, who were informed that two sagamores of the nation of the murderers promised their assistance to bring them in or have them knocked in the head. This scheme of vengeance was carried out, and two Indians sent by the sachems to take the murderers, came upon Tachiowycan’s wigwam in the night and one of them shot him dead, and they carried his body to New Castle where it was hung in chains. The other murderer, hearing the shot, bolted into the woods and was never caught.

Each tribe had its totem, generally an animal, which was a sort of heraldic device like the coat of arms of an armor-bearing family. Each totem of the Lenape recognized a chieftain, a sachem. These were “peace chiefs.” They could neither go to war themselves nor send or receive the war belt. War was declared by the people at the instigation of “war captains,” valorous “braves,” who had distinguished themselves by personal prowess, and especially by success in forays against an enemy.

Every Indian boy was trained in the craft of field, wood and water. They were early taught to use the bow and arrow, to fish with hook and line,—hooks of bone and lines of hemp,—to spear fish with a forked pole and to trap them by means of a brush net. As the boy grew older he learned to wield the stone hatchet, known to the whites as a “tommy- hawk.” He was now expected to distinguish himself in the hunt, especially in the killing of deer, the noblest game of man,—white or red.

We are told that the Indians were wonderful archers. Presumably most of them were, and probably some of them were not. I suppose they had their William Tells and Sir Walter Tyrrels.

We all remember the legend of William Tell’s great feat in archery in 1307 when an Austrian bailiff demanded homage of him which Tell refused, and for which he was sentenced to death, but was given the chance of ransoming himself by shooting an apple from off his son’s head at very long range, a feat which he triumphantly performed.

The misadventure of Sir Walter Tyrrel was, that on August 2d, in the year 1100, William II, surnamed Rufus or the Red Rover (from the color of his hair), was hunting in the New Forest accompanied by Sir Walter Tyrrel, a French gentleman. A stag suddenly started up and Tyrrel let fly at him an arrow which struck a tree, and, glancing off, hit the King in the breast, killing him instantly. Sir Walter immediately put spurs to his horse, gained the channel coast and embarked for France, where he joined the Crusades as a voluntary penance for his involuntary crime. There is a fine old English ballad commemorating this regicidal tragedy, the refrain of which is: “Instead of a royal stag that day a King of England fell.”

When a mere boy the Indian would be permitted to sit at the council fire and hear discoursed, by the sages of his tribe, the affairs of state. When old enough to go on the war-path he was taught the war-whoop, kowamo, and how to hurl the war-club, and to use the tomahawk.

The Indians were fairly accurate in the computation of time. The Lenape did not have a fixed beginning to their year, but reckoned from one seeding time to another, or from when the corn was ripe. They had a word “grachtin” for year and counted their ages and the sequence of events by yearly periods. The records of their people, preserving the memory of events, myths and fables, were kept on marked sticks. At first they were marked with fire, but latterly they were painted, the colors as well as the figures having certain meanings.

The character of the Delawares was estimated very differently. The missionaries were severe upon them. One said they were unspeakably indolent and slothful, had little or no ambition, not one in a thousand had the spirit of a man. Another spoke of their alleged bravery with the utmost contempt, and characterized them as the most ordinary and the vilest of savages. Yet, still another missionary wrote that he did not believe that there were any people on the earth more attached to their relatives and friends than were the Indians.