The Lenape or Lenni-Lenape (later named Delaware Indians by Europeans) were, in the 1600s, loosely organized bands of Native American people practicing small-scale agriculture to augment a largely mobile hunter-gatherer society in the region around the Delaware River, the lower Hudson River, and western Long Island Sound. The Lenape were the people living in the vicinity of New York Bay and in the Delaware Valley at the time of the arrival of the Europeans in the 16th and 17th century. Their Algonquian language is also known as Lenape or Delaware.

History

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Early Lenape society

Although a different order may have prevailed earlier, in Colonial times Lenape families (like many other Indian peoples) were organized into clans based on a common female ancestor. Phratries, which were groups of two or more clans, were identified by an animal sign. Three Lenape phratries emerge in the early historical record: Turtle (Unami), Turkey (Ungalachtigo), and Wolf (Munsi). These phratries were not political divisions, but rather 'flavors' of individuals common to all discrete bands of Lenape, which together made up the Lenape 'tribe' -- although the very notion of 'tribe' is misleading, suggesting a uniformity that did not exist.

Early Indian 'tribes' are perhaps better understood as language groups, rather than as 'nations.' A Lenape individual would have identified primarily with his or her immediate family and friends, or village unit; then with surrounding and familiar village units; next with more distant neighbors who spoke the same dialect; and ultimately, while often fitfully, with all those in the surrounding area who spoke mutually comprehensible languages, including the Mahican. Those of a different language stock -- such as the Iroquois (or, in the Lenape language, the Minqua) -- were regarded as foreigners, often, as in the Iroquois' case, with animosity spanning many generations. (Interestingly, ethnicity itself seems to have mattered little to the Lenape and many other 'tribes,' as illustrated by archaeological discoveries of Munsee burials that included identifiably ethnic-Iroquois remains carefully interred along with the ethnic-Algonquian Munsee ones. The two groups were bitter enemies since before recorded history, although intermarriage, perhaps through captive-taking, clearly occurred).

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#scouts [News] Lenape junior earns highest rank in scouts Township Journal http://ow.ly/16hLYW
ScoutBot (ScoutBot) Thu, 07 Jan 2010 09:46:08 -0000
#scouts [News] Lenape junior earns highest rank in scouts Township Journal http://ow.ly/16hLYW
Lenape is not going to welcome me with open arms, amirite?
heartsoflead (Paige Marie) Thu, 07 Jan 2010 05:05:57 -0000
Lenape is not going to welcome me with open arms, amirite?
So, I have to go to Lenape tomorrow and I feel like it's just not going to be pretty.
heartsoflead (Paige Marie) Thu, 07 Jan 2010 02:25:04 -0000
So, I have to go to Lenape tomorrow and I feel like it's just not going to be pretty.
RT: @NameMeDistrict Always thought you had a better name than Lenape or Running Water? Submissions must be in by Jan. 14th!
craigshelley (Craig Shelley) Wed, 06 Jan 2010 23:58:08 -0000
RT: @NameMeDistrict Always thought you had a better name than Lenape or Running Water? Submissions must be in by Jan. 14th!
Wishing I went to eustace, instead of listening to my mom and going to lenape.
limbotimbo9 (Tim Cardullo) Wed, 06 Jan 2010 19:41:54 -0000
Wishing I went to eustace, instead of listening to my mom and going to lenape.
@TashinaBanks That was Muncee Lenape, :) Im Lenape & Tuscarora
BeadBaby (Nikki) Wed, 06 Jan 2010 16:44:35 -0000
@TashinaBanks That was Muncee Lenape, :) Im Lenape & Tuscarora

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