Physical anthropology of the Lenape or Delawares, and of the eastern Indians in general

Introduction

In 1902, in pursuance of a study of the antiquity of certain skeletal remains found in the vicinity of Trenton, New Jersey, the writer collected and described all the crania of the Lenape or Delaware Indians which at that time were preserved in our museums.[1] From that time until 1914 no further anthropological discoveries of consequence were made in the region over which the tribe once extended; but during the spring of the latter year careful archeological exploration was conducted in the upper Delaware River valley in behalf of the Museum of the American Indian in New York, by Mr. George G. Heye, with the assistance of Mr. George H. Pepper, in the course of which were found the remains of no fewer than 57 Indian skeletons.[2] The bones were not in the best state of preservation, but they were collected with scrupulous care, and shortly after the field work was completed they were presented by Mr. Heye to the United States National Museum. This skeletal material forms an important addition to the previously limited collections representing the Lenape Indians, whose physical identity it is highly desirable to establish.

The remains came from a cemetery in the form of a low mound on the New Jersey side of the Delaware River, opposite Minisink Island, 3 miles below Montague, in the northwestern corner of Sussex County, New Jersey. The accompanying map (fig. 1) shows the site of the cemetery, which lay in the heart of the region once occupied by the Munsee branch of the Lenape Indians.

On the arrival of white settlers, the entire region afterward known as New Jersey belonged to the Lenape or Delawares,[3] whose settlements extended “from the Mohicannituck [Hudson River] to beyond the Potomac,” and “from the heads of the great rivers ‘Susquehannah’ and ‘Delaware’ to the Atlantic Ocean” (Heckewelder). The neighboring tribes to the north (Mohegan, Narraganset, Pequot, and others), as well as those on the south (Nanticoke, the Powhatan confederacy, and others), all acknowledged relationship with the Delawares, with whom, there is no doubt, they were affiliated linguistically.

The Lenape were divided into three large groups, or, as Brinton calls them, “sub-tribes,” namely, the Munsee or Minsi (the Wolf), the Unami (the Turtle), and the Unalachtigo (the Turkey).[4] These sub-tribes, it seems, were subdivided into numerous smaller groups with distinctive names.[5] The three branches of the tribe occupied special regions, but it has not been reported whether their boundaries were stable and definite. The Minsi, according to Heckewelder,[6] had “chosen to live back of the two other tribes and formed a kind of a bulwark for their protection.... They extended their settlements from the Minisink, a place named after them, where they had their council seat and fire, quite up to the Hudson on the east, and to the west or southwest far beyond the ‘Susquehannah’; their northern boundaries were supposed originally to be the heads of the great rivers Susquehannah and Delaware, and their southern boundaries that ridge of hills known in New Jersey by the name of Muscanecun, and in Pennsylvania, by those of Lehigh, Cohnewago, etc.”[7]

This is evidently one of the rare instances in which it is possible to make a clear tribal identification of older skeletal remains in eastern North America, and it is also an instance in which the contents of graves enable a fairly close estimate of the age of the site. The artifacts found with the various burials include a number of objects introduced by early settlers, a fact that shows the cemetery to be of historic date. Furthermore, one of the skeletons is that of a tall white man of Scandinavian or Nordic type, possibly one of the Dutch, English, or Swedes who reached the upper valley after 1614. As the remainder of the skeletons do not indicate any trace of admixture of white blood, the cemetery may be regarded as dating from the period of the earlier contact of the Indian and Caucasian races, or probably from the latter part of the seventeenth or the beginning of the eighteenth century. It was surely earlier than 1740, for in that year the main body of the Munsee was forced to move from the Delaware, settling first on the Susquehanna and soon after on the Allegheny River in Pennsylvania, where some of them had gone as early as 1724.

An event of anthropological importance in connection with the Munsee before their removal from the Delaware is noted by Ruttenber.[8] In the latter part of the seventeenth century, at the outbreak of hostilities between the Five Nations and the French, the advance of the Iroquois in the south was being contested by the Shawnee, who at that time were also engaged in war with the Cherokee. “In the latter they [the Shawnee] suffered severely, and but for the timely aid of the Mohicans would have been destroyed. The Lenapes (Delawares) invited them to remove to their country; the invitation being accepted, the Minsis brought the matter to the attention of the government of New York, in September, 1692, on an application to permit their settlement in the Minisink country. The council gave its assent on condition that they should first make peace with the Five Nations.[9] This was soon effected, and the messengers departed, accompanied by Arnout Vielle, an interpreter, and three Christians, to visit the country of the Shawanoes and consummate the transfer.... Captain Arent Schuyler visited the Minisinks in February, and there learned that the Shawanoes were expected early in the ensuing summer. This expectation was realized.”

From this it appears that between 40 and 50 years before their removal from the Delaware, the Munsee were joined by some Shawnee, which fact may explain certain peculiar conditions shown by the skeletal remains that will be considered in the following pages.

The mound or cemetery explored by the Museum of the American Indian was known for many years, and some human bones had been removed from it, especially by Doctor Dalrymple, who exhumed at least 15 skeletons, but unfortunately these have been lost to science.