Lennie Lenape Essay, Research Paper
he Lenape Indians were the first people to
live in what is now called New Jersey. The Lenape Indians lived in parts of Delaware, Pennsylvana, and New Jersey.
There were also called the Delaware Indians. There were three tribes of the Lenape Indians. Those three tribes spoke
different languages. One of those groups spoke Munsee, the other spoke Unimi, and the last group spoke Unalachtigo. Their language was like Hebrew because they read it from right to left. The Lenape were very peaceful people. They lived in tents and long houses. They ate deer and many different foods that
were from animals and they wore animal skin for coats. They also ate corn which they called maize. The European
settlers traded with the Indians. The Lenape Indians made boxes out of straw and traded these with the European
settlers. The Europeans gave them guns and trinkets for valuable land. That is how they took over the land. The Schuylkill watershed was inhabited by the Lenni-Lenape people when the European explorers arrived. They were labeled
the "Delaware" by the settlers, after the European name for the river alongside which they lived. They were a part of the
Algonquin language group, and were under the political influence of the Iroquois Confederation. By and large they were a
peaceful people. They were typical hunters and gatherers, although they also practiced farming, raising corn, beans and squash
as staples of their diet. According to the Wallum Ollum, which is the religious history of the
Lenni-Lenape Indians, we learn that the Lenni-Lenape People migrated to
New Jersey from the "North Country" crossing the Mississippi River.
Unfortunately we cannot pinpoint the exact time the Lenni-Lenape Indians
settled here, since man has lived in New Jersey for at least ten thousand
(10,000) years.