Lenape Culture

[bridget orman]

This photo shows a reconstruction of a Lenape wigwam. Such a dome-shaped house would have sheltered a small family or an individual. Small-size wigwams were characteristic of Lenape encampments in the PhiladelphiaLenape Culture
The Lenape resided in bands along various rivers and creeks. They lived on hunting and growing foodstuffs and depended on the fertility of the land. Due to their heavy tillage of the land, the soils they farmed gradually lost their productivity. As a result, Lenape frequently relocated.4 Generally, an occupied area lost its usefulness in two decades' time. Thus, the native people constantly set up, abandoned, and resettled communities throughout Pennsylvania.

Archeological evidence indicates that the Lenape inhabited the area centuries before the Europeans arrived. They established various villages along the Schuylkill River and its tributaries. Recent excavations in West Philadelphia reveal evidence of settlements along the west bank of the Schuylkill River along today’s Civic Center Boulevard.5 In 2001, a team of archeologists excavated the area prior to the building of a parking garage. During the excavation, numerous prehistoric artifacts were found, providing evidence of a fairly large and stable indigenous community occupying the area during the late archaic and early woodland periods, six thousand years ago.

The Lenape utilized natural resources to build their homes. They lived in single doorway wooden huts called wigwams, which were situated along rivers and creeks. The size of their wigwams depended on the region they inhabited. In the southern region, the Unalachtigo’s homes were created for single-family dwellings while in the northern region larger multi-family buildings were constructed. The smaller version characterized the Lenape encampments in the Philadelphia region.

The Lenape had distinctly different physical features and appearances than that of the Europeans. Skeletal remains indicate that the average male height ranged from 5’1" to 5’7." They had oval facial structures with high cheekbones, tan skin, and broad shoulders.6 Both men and women used bear grease to dress their hair, and decorated their bodies, face, and arms with designs painted in various colors.7 The women were of medium stature. For clothing, men wore breechcloths during the summer and fur robes during the winter. Likewise, women wore wrap-around-skirts during the summer and fur robes with leggings during the winter.8 Both women and girls adorned their bodies with tribal jewelry made from shells, stones, beads, and animal teeth and claws.
Due to their short life expectancy, men and women married young. Girls commonly married at the ages of thirteen and fourteen while young men married at ages of seventeen and eighteen. For some marriage lasted a lifetime, but for others this union ended in divorce. A woman wishing to divorce her husband placed all of his personal possessions outside of the wigwam. A man wishing to divorce his wife left the home.

Once couples had children, fathers with the help of other male elders bore responsibility for teaching male children to hunt for wild game. Women taught daughters how to gather edible plants and tend to the children. In late fall, the men left their homes to hunt white-tailed deer, wild fowl, muskrat, rabbits, and foxes. Men were responsible for the heavy work around the village, making tools, weapons, mortars, frames for the wigwams, dugouts, and fishing spears.Tools were made from the bones of animals, wood, stone, as well as various types of grasses. Birds such as herons, pigeons, eagles, hawks, and turkeys were hunted. Once a bird was captured, it would either be prepared for direct consumption or dried. When the weather was favorable, men would use spears, harpoons, nets, and dams to catch fish. The women would clean and prepare the fish, which were either eaten raw or dried and saved for later.

Women’s work included tanning hides, sewing, cooking, as well as gathering fruits and berries when they were in season. Mothers would show their daughters how to gather roots, nuts, eggs, clams, and edible plants. As they grew older, young girls learned how to garden, care for the children, and cook. Although corn was the main crop, several varieties of beans, squash, pumpkins, tobacco, and sunflowers were also cultivated.16 When fruit and nuts were in season, children would accompany their mothers and aunts into the forests to gather apples, persimmons, water lilies, and butternuts< The indigenous people who inhabited the land that became Philadelphia were the Lenape (also Lenni Lenape; their English moniker was “Delaware”); they were displaced by Quakers and other religious minorities that settled the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in the late 17th and 18th centuries.