Ceremonial Dress of the Delaware Man, by James H.Howard

Ceremonial Dress Of The Delaware Man by James H.Howard Preface A few years ago r was informed by the cura his people; and Tames Revey ("Lone Bear"), of the tor of a large and prestigious museum, qne with Sand Hill band of Delaware , who keeps alive the extensive North American Indian collections, that Delaware craft tradition in the old Delaware home Delaware Indian culture was "practically extinct': land. I was also told that few, if any, Delaware were Historical Synopsis, producing native crafts and that it was utterly im Divisions , and Numbers possible to procure Delaware craft items at any price. These statements seemed a bit too em In the 17th century European explorers found phatic to me. and from that moment on I "kept my various communities of Indian people who called antennae out" searching for Delaware Indian cra£t themselves Lenfpe ("Ordinary people") along the workers . In the intervening years I have had the Delaware River and its tributaries in New Jersey, pleasure of meeting and visiting with several men Delaware, eastern Pennsylvania, and southe a stern and women of Delaware descent in both the United New York. At the time of these first encounters States and Canada who produce excellent native these various communities were not unified pOliti crafts, and I have heard of many others whom I cally . Each village was more or less autonomous have not yet had the opportunity to meet . Through though all shared a common language and culture, the years my home has become adorned with many with local and regional variations . As Whites be beautiful Delaware items, a few of them antiques, gan to settle on the coast, these Indian communi but most modern replicas of traditional Delaware ties , in order to deal, with the common threat to .... artifacts of both utilitarian and ceremonial types , their le:nd base, became more united politically, It was likewise possible, relying entirely upon and began to think of themselves as a sIngle tribe . living crafts persons , to assemble a complete Del Since they lived along the shores of a body of aware man's ceremonial costume. Therefore,when water which a White explorer had named "de la I saw Tyrone Stewart's recent paper "Oklahoma WaIT Bay" and the river that emptied into it, they Delaware Women's Dance Clothes" (1973) T deter came to be called Delaware Indians by the Euro mined to write a complementary paper describing peans. In time, as a matter of convenience, they the garb of the Delaware man. This paper is the learned to use the name in reference to themselves result . In it I will attempt to describe the ceremo when speaking English , nial dress of the Delaware man in its present form Some of the northern Lenb;pe communities, and as it existed in the recent historic past, Most known from their stony, mountainous habitat as the of my material is derived from the Oklahoma Dela Mins£u ,"people of the stony country", came to ware (also known formerly as the "Cherokee" Del be known as the Munsee or Muncie. They spoke a aware and the Caney River Delaware) though I slightly variant dialect of the Delaware language, have incl uded comparative material from other Del · known as the Munsee dialect, as distinguished aware groups. from the other communities whose dialect is gener For assistance in preparing this brief study I ally termed Undmi ("People down river"). am deeply indebted to Nora Thompson Dean and With the increased European settlement of the her family and to Tames Rementer, a student of the Atlantic coastal region, most of the Leni'Ipe groups, Delaware language who makes his home with the both Unfmri and Mwlsee speakers, came to be sur Deans . Nora Dean supplied the Delaware names rounded by Whites ,who coveted the Delaware lands, for costume items and Tim Rementer supplied pho First the Dutch, then the Swedes, then the English, netic transcriptions of these. We also wish to and, after the Revol ution, the Yankees treated with thank the following individuals: Freddie Washing the Delaware, and like other American Indian ton, Wann, Oklahoma, a Delaware craftsman and groups of the eastern seaboard the Delaware were singer , in his youth a "janitor" in the Big House gradually separated from their land and pushed ceremony and a War dancer; Numerous Falleaf, west. Each removal would invariably end with a Caney, Kansas, a War dancer and one of those new treaty which promised no further usurpation of individuals most responsible for the revival of Indian land, but each time after a short breathing danCing among the Delaware during the past dec spell the pressure would build for another treaty, adA; Mrs . C . O . Davis, DeweY,Oklahoma, a Del another land session, and another removal. As the aware craftswoman and traditionalist; the late various bands left their homeland and settled in Nathan Montour, Ohsweken, Ontario, a skilled new locations in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana Delaware woodcarver; Merle MoIde, a Stockbridge' the names Vndmi and Mwl8ee, which had once been Munsee of Bowler, Wisoonsin, who spent most of used in a geographical sense, and to distinguish an afternoon showing me recent crafts produced by the two dialects of the Delaware l anguage, came 1 Bulletin Of The Archaeological Special Issue Society Of New Jersey No.33 1976 to be used in a political sense , as referring to two Munsee group numbers 1,424 . separate tribes each having its own chiefs and (4) In Franklin County, Kansas , in and near councilors . A few of the lJrJGmi Delaware still use the town of Ottawa , there are perhaps 60 to 70 the terms in this sense, calling themselves the persons of part- Munsee descent, Most of these "Delawares" and referring to the Munsee as a individuals are almost completely assimilated in separate tribe. It should be noted, however, that to White society, though they have knowledge of most of the Munsee think of and refer to them their Indian background . A few individual s from selves as Delaware as well . this Franklin County Munsee group came to Okla H is not the purpose of this brief paper to re homa in the la te 19th cent ury . Bill Supernaw, a count in any detail the history of the Delaware or well-known Indian personality in Oklahoma , is a the dreary circumstances of their contacts with Munsee descendant from the Franklin County White society . C .A. Weslager has ably documen group (Cf . Plate 53) . ted the tragic history of the tribe in his re cent book (5 ) On the Six Nations Reserve, in Brant The Delawares, A Hi atory(1 972) , which we highly County , Ontario , t here is a group of about 251 recommend . In Weslager's work one can trace the persons of Delaware background . They live in the various treaties , wars,and demoralizing removals environs of Ohsweken and Hagersville, Though which have resulted in the dispersion of most of no one speak s the Delaware language any longer the Delaware descendants to locales far from their it is known t hat these people were of the Munsee Atlantic coast homeland . Today the following dialect group . groups, descended from the origina Uruimi and (6 ) In Kent County , Ont ario , between the Munsee Delaware communities of the East coast, towns of Bothwell and Thamesville, is a communi are k nown to scholars: ty of about 300 Delaware known as the Moravian (1) The largest grouping of Delaware is that town group . They are of the Munsee dialect group, usually known simply as the Oklahoma Delaware . although only a few older people still speak Dela This group is concentrated along the Caney River ware . in northeastern Oklahoma . These Delaware are (7) About thirty miles up the Thames River from sometimes called the "Cherokee" Delaware since Moraviantown , sout h of London, Ontario , and near the band was incorporated into the Cherokee Na the town of Melbourne, is a group of Delaware tion in 1867 . They are lJrJam£ speakers or descen sometimes called the Munsees of the Thames , or dants of lJrJiimi speakers for the most part, and num' the Munsey town group . Actually there are three ber approximately 6 , 500. Though widely scattered adjoining reserves in this vicinity , the others be throughout Oklahoma and the United States at the ing Ojibwa, who number 500 , and Oneida , num present time, the principal population center is in bering 1 ,250 , while the Delaware number only Washington County, in or near Bartlesville, Dewey, 100 . As their name would indicate they are of Copan, and Wann , Oklahoma . the Munsee dialect group . There has never been (2)A1so located in Oklahoma are the so-called a formal ethnographic study of this group , Some Absentee Delaware, offically known as the Dela native crafts , games , and dances survive but ware Tribe of Western Oklahoma. They are also there has been a great deal of intertribal borrow speakers or descendants of same . This group Uniimi ing from the Oneida and Ojibwa . split off from the main group of l.Indmi Delaware (8 ) In Monmouth County , New Jersey , and early in the 19th century and moved west, often elsewhere in the state , are many families of part in association with other t ribes . They were liv Delaware descent . One group of these Delaware ing in eastern Texas until 1839, when they were descendants maintained a formal organization un forced to remove to what is now the state of til 1953, calling t hemselves the Sand Hill Indians. Oklahoma . For many years this group of Dela This interesting group represents the descendants ware has been closely associated with the Caddo of people of Delaware background who never re and they are sometimes known as the Caddo-Del moved from their native habit at .

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