The Lenape or Delaware Indians were once a numerous people forming a
confederacy of three closely related tribes: the Unami or Delawares
proper, the Unalachtigo or Unalatko, and the Minsi or Muncey, first
encountered by the whites in what is now New Jersey, Delaware, eastern
Pennsylvania, and southeastern New York, but at last accounts reduced
to some 1900 persons, scattered about in Oklahoma and in the Province
of Ontario, Canada, with a few in Wisconsin and Kansas.
Algonkian in language, their culture was typical of the northern half
of the Eastern Woodland area, being most nearly related, as might be
expected, to that of the Nanticoke and other Algonkian tribes adjoining
them to the south, and that of the Mohican of the Hudson valley and of
the Long Island tribes; and resembling in many general features the
cultures of the New England tribes, of the Central Algonkian peoples,
and of the Shawnee. The culture of the Lenape, that of the Minsi, in
particular, also shows some special resemblances in addition to the
general ones common to the whole Eastern Woodland, to that of the
Iroquois tribes, although the latter speak dialects of an entirely
different language.
Among the works dealing wholly or mainly with Lenape ethnology are the
following:
BRINTON, DANIEL G. The Lenape and their Legends, Philadelphia, 1885.
HARRINGTON, M. R. Some Customs of the Delaware Indians. (_Museum
Journal of the Museum of the University of Pennsylvania_,
vol. I. No. 3.).
Vestiges of Material Culture among the Canadian Delawares.
(_American Anthropologist_, N. S. vol. X, No. 3,
July-Sept., 1908.).
A Preliminary Sketch of Lenape Culture. (_American
Anthropologist_, N. S. vol. XV, No. 2, April-June, 1913.).
Religion and Ceremonies of the Lenape (in press).
Political and Social Organization of the Lenape (in Ms.).
Material Culture of the Lenape (in Ms.).
Lenape Folklore (in Ms.).
HECKEWELDER, JOHN. An Account of the History, Manners and Customs of
the Indian Nations who once inhabited Pennsylvania and the
neighboring States. (Transactions of the American
Philosophical Society, vol. I, Philadelphia, 1819.).
LOSKIEL, GEORGE HENRY. History of the Mission of the United Brethren
among the Indians in North America, London, 1794.
SKINNER, ALANSON. The Indians of Greater New York, Cedar Rapids, 1915.
The Lenape Indians of Staten Island. (_Anthropological Papers of
the American Museum of Natural History_, vol. III, New
York, 1909.).
The Indians of Manhattan Island and vicinity. (Guide leaflet No.
41, American Museum of Natural History.)
ZEISBERGER, DAVID. David Zeisberger’s History of the Northern American
Indians. Edited by Archer Butler Hulbert and William
Nathaniel Schwarze. (_Ohio Archaeological and Historical
Quarterly_, vol. XIX, Nos. 1 and 2, Columbus, 1910.)