Manahatta world premiere Mary Kathryn Nagle Directed by Laurie Woolery Luke / Se-ket-tu-may-qua Luke is a young Lenape man enrolled in the Delaware Nation in Anadarko. His father, Michael, adopted him when he was very young, after the State came and took him from his grandparents. Se-ket-tu-may-qua is a young Lenape man living in Manahatta in the 1600s. He is intelligent and resourceful. He learns to speak with the Dutch and trades fur with them so he can provide for his people. Notes by Sarah dAngelo, Dick / Peter Minuit / Peter Stuyvesant Curtis Zunigha, Eddie Wallace, Tanis Parenteau (Jane / Le-le-wa’-you) Dick is Jane’s boss and CEO of Lehman Brothers. Dr. Margaret Bruchac and Peter Minuit is the director of the Dutch West Mary Kathryn Nagle India Company who “purchased” the island of Who’s Who Manahatta. Peter Stuyvesant is the Dutch colo- nial governor of New Amsterdam who ordered Jane /Le-le-wa’-you the building of the wall on what is now Wall Jane is a present-day Lenape woman and a citizen Street to displace the Lenape from Manahatta. of the Delaware Nation in Anadarko, Oklahoma. She holds an MBA from Stanford University Joe / Jakob and works in New York City with a prestigious Joe is the CFO of Lehman Brothers. Jakob is a Wall Street investment bank, Lehman Brothers. Dutch fur trader in Manahatta in the 1600s. He Le-le-wa’-you is a young Lenape woman living in serves as a liaison between Peter Minuit and the Manahatta in the 1600s. She is curious about the Lenape, and later works for Peter Stuyvesant. Dutch newcomers and begins trading with them. Michael / Jonas Michaelius Debra / Toosh-ki-pa-kwis-i Michael is a church choir director and banker in Debra is a present-day Lenape woman and a citi- Anadarko. Jonas Michaelius is a missionary, sent zen of the Delaware Nation in Anadarko, Jane’s to Manahatta by the Dutch West India Company older sister who has moved into the family home to organize a church, who attempts to convert to care for their mother, Bobbie. She is grounded the Lenape to Christianity. in her culture and works to launch a Lenape language program for her community. Toosh-ki- pa-kwis-i is a Lenape woman living in Manahatta The Story in the 1600s. She is protective of her younger sister, Le-le-wa’-you, and encourages her to leave Manahatta is based on historic events and tells Manahatta once the violence brought on by the the story of a present-day Lenape woman, her Dutch threatens to exterminate all Lenape. family in Anadarko, Oklahoma and her ancestors living in Manahatta (now called Manhattan), Bobbie / Mother during the 1600s when Peter Minuit, head of Bobbie is a present-day Lenape elder and a the Dutch West India Company, “purchased” the citizen of the Delaware Nation in Anadarko. She island from the Lenape. is Jane and Debra’s mother. She is stubborn to Jane Snake, a Lenape woman from the a fault and lives the Lenape way. Mother is a Delaware Nation, Oklahoma, is a gifted math- Lenape elder living in Manahatta in the 1600s. ematician with an MBA from Stanford University. She is cautious about trading with the Dutch Six years before the 2008 financial crisis, she relo- and worries for the future of Manahatta and the cated to her ancestral homeland of Manahatta to Lenape people. launch her career at the prestigious investment bank Lehman Brothers, on Wall Street. 23 Manahatta materializing the message in wampum Lenape: The Original People Picture a midden of shells, fresh Jane navigates her identity amid the implications From the depths of the great sea, the Creator from the feasting, piled near the of her job at Lehman Brothers and the tragic (Keeshalamukonk) brought forth Turtle (Tahkokx) history of her Lenape ancestors who once called carrying mud atop its massive shell. The warm shore of what is now the north- Manahatta home. Jane’s relationship with her sunlight drew the great tree of life from that eastern United States. Dark and sister, Debra, and her mother, Bobbie, in Anadarko earth and human life began. Thus “Turtle Island” light, broken and whole, these becomes strained by the distance and time became the place inhabited by the Lenape, the demands of her job. Bobbie is grounded in the original people of the land. This sacred gift of life, are the material remains of the Lenape lifeways and actively resists most main- of language and culture, of tradition and spirit, marine creatures whose salty stream values. Debra’s connection to home and were honored by the Lenape through ceremony flesh fed the Indigenous people serving her community leads her to question her and thanksgiving. The ancestors knew of their sister’s lifestyle and her choices that keep her so relationship with all life and spirit, whether it be who gathered here. Mingled far away from home and the family. the waters, the mountains, the animals or the together are the chitinous Time and place flow seamlessly: The genera- forests. That’s why all of creation was given exoskeletons of crab and lob- tions of the family emerge into the action of names of kinship to honor the harmony and the play as the events of the story unfold. The balance necessary for sustenance. They lived for ster, the calcareous shells of the Lenape ancestors in Manahatta are suffering countless generations on the bounty of the sea bivalve mollusks (oysters, mussels, from the exploits of the Dutch West India and the bounty of the forests. clams) and the spiral-shaped Company and its fur trade. Faced with disease, The Lenape became known by many land encroachment, crop destruction and dwin- Indigenous people as the Ancient Ones and were shells of the univalve gastropods dling resources, the Lenape elder (Mother) agrees revered as peaceful elders. Their religious prac- (snails, whelks). to trade with the Dutch in exchange for food and tices endured through the centuries and begat This gathering was more than unwittingly “sells” Manahatta to Peter Minuit. peacemakers and prophets of great oratory skill. Her daughter, Le-le-wa’-you, and her companion, They were an inherently caring and benevolent just a meal, however. Important Se-ket-tu-may-qua, engage in fur trade with the people existing in a matrilineal society of which business was conducted here: Dutch for guilders and soon face heavy taxation. the women were the backbone. Weapons were laid aside; peace Mother’s oldest daughter, Toosh-ki-pa-kwis-i Then came Shwannock, the pale ones with encounters Jonas Michaelius, a missionary who hairy faces and long knives, sailing in large was negotiated; words were attempts to convert the Lenape to Christianity. boats along the river which flows in both direc- spoken. Minds will remember, Bobbie takes a mortgage loan to cover medi- tions [now known as the Hudson]. The Lenape but minds are fragile things. cal expenses. She quickly becomes unable to keep cautiously welcomed these strangers to allow up with the steep payments and the loan goes them respite on their shores and in their camps. Sturdier materials were needed. into default. During the peak of the financial The foreigners had already built a network of And so it is that the hands crisis on Wall Street, Lehman Brothers begins to trade and commerce with the societies of other of Indigenous artisans gathered, disintegrate and Jane’s family homestead goes Indigenous people, but now they wanted to into bank foreclosure. usurp the Lenapes’ economic power by taking from this midden, two kinds After the “sale” of Manahatta, Peter their bountiful lands. The Lenape did not know of shells: univalve and bivalve, Stuyvesant is sent by the Dutch West India of nor understand the concept of ownership of white and purple, whelk and Company to replace Peter Minuit and handle the land and the waterways. These gifts of life from “problem” of the Lenape still living in Manahatta. the Creator were for their shared occupancy quahog. From the center whorls He orders Jakob, a local fur trader and his liaison with all creation. They would soon find out that of the youngest whelk, and from with the Lenape, to launch a campaign of killing Shwannock would arrive in boatload after boat- the outer edges of the oldest on sight and to use slave labor to build a wall to load until they became like grains of sand on keep the Lenape out of Manahatta. As the past the shore. Trade and commerce first flourished quahog, beads were painstaking- and present events of Manahatta spiral into crisis but soon became forced theft upon the ly cut, sanded, drilled, and strung and collide, all are faced with difficult, life-alter- Original People. with leather from the tanned ing choices. Manahatta explores the meaning of The Lenape lived for centuries in many small family, identity, home and the cost of American villages throughout what is now Delaware, hides of deer and fibers from capitalism on human lives. —Sarah dAngelo Philadelphia, southeastern New York State and the pith of dogbane. Woven most of New Jersey. American history tells of together, water’s edge, forest great encounters with the Lenape by great men. 24 Mapping Manahatta Audiences new to the performance of thicket, and open fields materi- contemporary Native American plays will find alized the message. the storytelling style of Manahatta refreshingly In strings, arm’s lengths, or different from other theatrical genres. This is because Native theatre is its own field of perfor- fathoms, these shell beads— national anthropological archives/smithsonian institution archives/smithsonian anthropological national mance.