LENAPE story of Maple

The Story of the Maple Tree
Told by Bob Red Hawk
Transcribed and translated into Lenape by Margret Lenfest
Edited by Louise St. Amour

Many, many moons ago one of the most beautiful trees around was the maple. And its roots reached deep into the earth and its branches reached high in the heavens. But at one time, a large group of bugs crawled into the maple’s bark. And it was itching the maple. It was driving the maple tree crazy. Cause even though the maple tree had many branches and shoots and roots it could not bend down and reach all parts of itself. So it called out to all its friends in the animal kingdom. It called out and said “Can someone please give me some relieve from all this itching.”
So the beaver said “Well maple tree I can probably do it, but if I start chewing on your bark it’ll probably kill you. So that would not help you that much.” And then the little mouse said “Maple tree I can dig down into your roots and get my brothers the voles and the moles and the gophers but we’ll end up starting to kill your roots and that will kill you.” So then the bear said “Well maple tree I have these nice big claws I could start clawing at your bark but that will probably shred you up.” So then they are all trying to think.
Finally one of the birds was flying by and it was a flicker. And the flicker said “Well maple tree I have a cousin. How about I get all these guys to come and their beaks are sharp and they can dig in you but they won’t hurt you.” So they called all of his woodpecker friends and they flew over and started pecking at the tree and got all the bugs out of him. The tree was so happy. And everything was going along nicely and all of a sudden for a couple of years there was very little rain. It got very dry and all of the animals were getting very thirsty. The creeks and rivers had all dried up and they did not know where to go.
They were all bemoaning the fact and the maple tree heard them. And the maple tree said “You know the animals helped me the time I was suffering from all those bugs biting me I have an idea.” So he called to his friend the flicker again. And said “Flicker you helped me in my time of need I want to help you. Call up your woodpecker buddies again.” So they call the woodpecker buddies. And the maple tree said “Now I want you to peck deep into my bark and then wait for a second and soon some of my sap will run out and you can slake your thirst by drinking my sap.” So the woodpeckers tried it. And when they did the sap flowed from the maple tree.
And that gift saved everybody until the next rain came and they were able to drink from the creeks again. And it was from that gift from the maple to the animals that man learned how to make maple syrup and how to tap those maple trees when the sap runs. Maple syrup was precious because man could make something sweet especially in the winter time time when there were not berries to pick and no sweet things to eat. That was the time when we really appreciated the gift of the maple tree.
(Note: My Grandmother always told me to listen when the woodpecker drums for he is drumming to the heartbeat of Mother Earth. For we are all part of the beginning and the end.)

http://lenapenation.org/The%20Story%20of%20the%20Maple%20Tr…



 

How Medicine Began

How Medicine Began - Lenape 


At first, long ago, men and women lived to be very old. Some were said to have lived two and three hundred years. Our Lenape'wak knew happiness and good health.  Then one day a mysterious sickness came upon our people, and everyone who became sick died. It seemed as if soon no one would be left alive.  Now, one who had died from the sickness was a young boy. As he traveled along Pimikishika'tek, the Path of Souls, he eventually came before Nutemhuma, the Keeper Grandmother, who watches over the entrance to the Land of Spirits, and the young boy was sobbing in great sorrow. Keeper Grandmother asked him why he grieved so, and the young boy replied that his people were dying and that he wished for them to be given life. 

So, Nutemhuma told Creator about the young boy, and having pity on the boy and our Lenape'wak, he decided to send Nanapush to teach them medicine and healing. 

Now, Nanapush came, and he was instructed by Creator to restore the young boy to life. So, he made a lodge and covered it, then he made a fire and gathered 12 rocks, heating them until they were red hot. Nanapush put the young boy's body in the lodge and then brought in the re hot rocks and closed the door. The rocks were glowing brightly in the darkness and now Nanapush poured water on them, creating much steam, and invoking the Creator and the Spirits to help him. The rocks were the boy's body, the fire his inner fire, the water his blood, the steam his breath. With Spirit came life, and Keeper Grandmother sent his Spirit back into his body; the boy was alive once again, restored, whole and healthy! 

Now, in remembrance of this, as a symbol of sacredness, and the fragility of life that the people might be reminded of thus and that they might hold the gift of life close to their hearts and not take it for granted, the Creator set strawberries upon the earth. The red of the strawberry is the red of blood, which is life, and all life, like the strawberry, grows to maturity, gives forth seed and new life, and then is gone. However, even though death touches all life in winter, the strawberry leaves are green there under the snow, a symbol of the Creator's promise of the continuation of life even after death. 

The leaves of the strawberry were given in threes, representing birth, life and death; also the 3 clans of our Lenape'wak, the Wolf, Turtle and Turkey. As long as we remember clan and family, and the ways of our ancestors, like the strawberry we too shall live through the coming winters. 

So, the young boy, being given new life, was given a new name, Wate'him, 'Strawberry'. Nanapush gave him a naming ceremony to honor and bless him before the Creator and all of creation. 

Wate'him, having experienced the mystery of life and death, had been given special gifts and a special purpose. The Creator had instructed Nanapush to teach the boy the way of medicine and healing, and so he did. First, Nanapush taught him about the sweat lodge, original instructions from the Creator, the meanings in its construction and ceremony, and how to use it for purification and healing. However, Nanapush knew that it would require more than the sweat lodge alone to bring health back to the people. So, they fasted and prayed for guidance in vision to help the Lenape grandchildren from the ravages of the dread sickness which was upon them. 

Nanapush was given vision, and in his vision he saw an otter, kuna'moxk, in the water. It was sick and had a plant in its mouth. Then some large waves washed over the otter and it disappeared. The water became still and the otter reappeared, with the plant in its mouth, looking strong and healthy. He was cured.    Nanapush woke from his vision and he took Wate'him into the forest with him. Going to a certain place and looking for the plant he had seen in his vision, he soon found it. The plant was sukaxkuk chipik, the black snake root, and the 2 dug some up to take back with them. 

From "The Grandfathers Speak" by: Hìtakonanu'laxk  © Used by permission 

LEGACY OF PENN

Lapowinsa, Chief of the Lenape,Lappawinsoe
painted by Gustavus Hesselius in 1735.

the LENAPE

William Penn died in 1718. His heirs, John and Thomas Penn, and their agents were running the colony, and had abandoned many of the elder Penn's practices. Trying to raise money, they contemplated ways to sell Lenape land to colonial settlers. The resulting scheme culminated in the so-called Walking Purchase. In the mid-1730s, colonial administrators produced a draft of a land deed dating to the 1680s. William Penn had approached several leaders of Lenape polities in the lower Delaware to discuss land sales further north. Since the land in question did not belong to their polities, the talks came to nothing. But colonial administrators had prepared the draft that resurfaced in the 1730s. The Penns and their supporters tried to present this draft as a legitimate deed. Lenape leaders in the lower Delaware refused to accept it.

What followed was a "convoluted sequence of deception, fraud, and extortion orchestrated by the Pennsylvania government that is commonly known as the Walking Purchase."

In the end, all Lenape who still lived on the Delaware were driven off the remnants of their homeland under threats of violence. Some Lenape polities eventually retaliated by attacking Pennsylvania settlements. When they fought British colonial expansion to a standstill at the height of the Seven Years' War, the British government investigated the causes of Lenape resentment. The British asked William Johnson, Superintendent of Indian Affairs, to lead the investigation. Johnson had become wealthy as a trader and acquired thousands of acres of land in the Mohawk River Valley from the Iroquois Mohawk of New York.

Beginning in the 18th century, the Moravian Church established missions among the Lenape. The Moravians required the Christian converts to share their pacifism, as well as to live in a structured and European-style mission village. Moravian pacifism and unwillingness to take loyalty oaths caused conflicts with British authorities, who were seeking aid against the French and their Native American allies during the French and Indian War (Seven Years War). The Moravians' insistence on Christian Lenapes' abandoning traditional warfare practices alienated mission populations from other Lenape and Native American groups, who revered warriors. The Moravians accompanied Lenape relocations to Ohio and Canada, continuing their missionary work. The Moravian Lenape who settled permanently in Ontario after the American Revolutionary War were sometimes referred to as "Christian Munsee", as they mostly spoke the Munsee branch of the Delaware language.

During the French and Indian War, the Lenape initially sided with the French, as they hoped to prevent further British colonial encroachment in their territory. But, such leaders as Teedyuscung in the east and Tamaqua in the vicinity of modern Pittsburgh shifted to building alliances with the English. After the end of the war, however, Anglo-American settlers continued to kill Lenape, often to such an extent that the historian Amy Schutt writes the dead since the wars outnumbered those killed during the war.

The Treaty of Easton, signed in 1758 between the Lenape and the Anglo-American colonists, required the Lenape to move westward, out of present-day New York and New Jersey and into Pennsylvania, then Ohio and beyond. Sporadically they continued to raid European-American settlers from far outside the area.

In 1763 Bill Hickman, Lenape, warned English colonists in the Juniata River region of an impending attack. Many Lenape joined in Pontiac's War, and were numerous among those Native Americans who besieged Pittsburgh. In April 1763 Teedyuscung was killed when his home was burned. His son Captain Bull responded by attacking settlers from New England who had migrated to the Wyoming Valley of Pennsylvania. The settlers had been sponsored by the Susquehanna Company.

The Lenape were the first Indian tribe to enter into a treaty with the new United States government, with the Treaty of Fort Pitt signed in 1778 during the American Revolutionary War. By then living mostly in the Ohio Country, the Lenape supplied the Continental Army with warriors and scouts in exchange for food supplies and security. READ MORE

a CREATION STORY

How the First Stories Came Out of the Earth

"A man returning from hunting found a curious hole in the ground. He looked into it and somebody spoke to him. The hunter asked who it was. But the thing did not tell him, only said it was a grandfather (grandfather was how many tribes once addressed a Lenape): "If anyone wishes to hear stories, let them come here and roll in a little tobacco or a bead, and I will tell them a story." So the people came. And that is the beginning of the stories which we do not know are true or not. This grandfather told them never to tell stories after it begins to get warm in the spring. "If you do," he said, "the snakes, bugs, and all kinds of little creatures will get after you."  -From the Archives of Blue Panther