Honoring the Lenape Indians in NJ 

As we get ready to celebrate that most American of holidays, Thanksgiving, it only seems fitting to honor the original inhabitants of New Jersey—the Lenape Indians.

At the Trailside Nature and Science Center in the Watchung Reservation in New Jersey (877/424-1234), there is a small permanent exhibit about the Lenape. As you walk through the exhibit, you find that many of the towns, cities, rivers, and mountains of New Jersey have Lenape names. For example, Kittatinny means “big mountain,” while Watchung is “hilly place.” Metuchen means “bad creek.” Secaucus is a “salty edge marsh.” And Hoboken means “tobacco pipe.”

The Delaware Indians
At Trailside, you can read about the Lenape lifestyle. You’ll enter a life-sized replica of a bark-covered Lenape wigwam where woven baskets and benches are covered with real animal skins. You’ll discover that colonists called them the “Delaware Indians” after the major river in the area. And you’ll learn that when Europeans first arrived in America in the 1400s and 1500s, people had been living here for at least 10,000 years.

“In 1524, the Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazano became the first European to see Lenape Indians,” writes Herbert C. Kraft in The Lenape or Delaware Indians (Lenape Lifeways, 2005). “In one of his letters, [da Verrazano] wrote about the Indians he had seen. ‘These people are the most beautiful,’ he said. ‘They are taller than we are; they are a bronze color . . . their face is clear-cut; the hair is long and black, and they take great care in decorating it; the eyes are black and alert, and their manner is sweet and gentle’.”

Future explorers were not so kind to the Lenape, Kraft notes, killing or selling them into slavery and gradually forcing the survivors west into Oklahoma and north into Canada. Most of their descendants live there today.

Yet the Lenape history in New Jersey is a rich one. And all across the state, there are many opportunities to learn more about this tribe and the tribes of other native people.

• On Nov. 23 at 1 p.m., Cheesequake [“land that has been cleared”] State Park holds a workshop on Lenape history, culture, and traditions. The Order of the Arrow dance team will perform. (Interpretive Center, Gordon Rd., Matawan; 732/566-3208.)
• At The Newark Museum, you’ll find the Native North American art collection, with indigenous artifacts dating from the 19th to the late 20th centuries. (49 Washington St., Newark; 973/596-6550.)
• The permanent American Indian Gallery at the Morris Museum represents many American Indian tribes throughout the U.S. Educators can take part in the workshop “The Lenape Indians: NJ’s First People” on Nov. 13 from 4:30–7:30 p.m. (6 Normandy Heights Rd., Morristown; 973/971-3700.)
• The Woodruff Museum of Indian Artifacts at the Bridgeton Free Public Library has some 30,000 pieces of Lenape relics: pots, axes, pipes, cooking utensils, and lots of Indian arrowheads, all found in South Jersey. (150 E. Commerce St.; 856/451-2620.)

Mary Ann McGann is a senior writer at family in Mountainside, New Jersey.

November 2008