1. The Minsi, Monseys, Montheys, Munsees, or Minisinks.

1. The Minsi, Monseys, Montheys, Munsees, or Minisinks.

2. The Unami, or Wonameys.

3. The Unalachtigo.

No explanation of these designations will be found in Heckewelder or the older writers. From investigations among living Delawares, carried out at my request by Mr. Horatio Hale, it is evident that they are wholly geographical, and refer to the locations of these sub-tribes on the Delaware river.

_Minsi_, properly _Minsiu_, and formerly _Minassiniu_, means "people of the stony country," or briefly, "mountaineers." It is a synthesis of _minthiu_, to be scattered, and _achsin_, stone, according to the best living native authorities.[54]

_Unami_, or _W'nãmiu_, means "people down the river," from _naheu_, down-stream.

_Unalachtigo_, properly _W'nalãchtko_, means "people who live near the ocean," from _wunalawat_, to go towards, and _t'kow_ or _t'kou_, wave.

Historically, such were the positions of these sub-tribes when they first came to the knowledge of Europeans.

The Minsi lived in the mountainous region at the head waters of the Delaware, above the Forks, or junction of the Lehigh river. One of their principal fires was on the Minisink plains, above the Water Gap, and another on the East Branch of the Delaware, which they called _Namaes Sipu_, Fish River. Their hunting grounds embraced lands now in the three colonies of Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey. The last mentioned extinguished their title in 1758, by the payment of one thousand pounds.

That, at any time, as Heckewelder asserts, their territory extended up the Hudson as far as tide-water, and westward "far beyond the Susquehannah," is surely incorrect. Only after the beginning of the eighteenth century, when they had been long subject to the Iroquois, have we any historic evidence that they had a settlement on the last named river.

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.)

_The New Jersey Lenape._

The native name of New Jersey is given as Shã'akbee (English orthography: ã as in fate); or as the German missionaries wrote it, _Sche'jachbi_. It is a compound of _bi_, water, _aki_, land, and the adjective prefix _schey_, which means something long and narrow (_scheyek_, a string of wampum; _schajelinquall_, the edge of the eyes, the eyelids, etc.) This would be equivalent to "long-land water," and, according to the rules of Delaware grammar, which place the noun used in the genitive sense before the noun which governs it, the term would be more suitable to some body of water, Delaware bay or the ocean, than to the main land.

The Lenape distinctly claimed the whole of the present area of New Jersey. Their great chief, Tedyuscung, stated at the Conference at Easton (1757), that their lands reached eastward to the shore of the sea. The New Jersey tribes fully recognized their unity. As early as 1694, at an interview with Governor Markham at Philadelphia, when the famous Tamany and other Lenape chieftains were present, Mohocksey, a chief of the Jersey Indians, said: "Though we live on the other side of the water (_i.e._, the Delaware river), yet we reckon ourselves all one, because," he added, giving a characteristically native reason, "because we drink one water."[63]

The names, number 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]