Lenapehoking

Lenapehoking (Unami: ''Lënapehòkink'') is widely translated as 'homelands of the Lenape', which in the 16th and 17th centuries, ranged along the Eastern seaboard from western Connecticut to Delaware, and encompassed the territory adjacent to the Delaware and lower Hudson river valleys, and the territory between them.

Beginning in the 17th century, European colonists started settling on traditional Lenape lands. Combined with the concurrent introduction of Eurasian infectious diseases and encroachment from the colonists, the Lenape were severely depopulated and lost control over large portions of Lenapehoking. In the 18th and 19th centuries, the United States government forcibly removed the Lenape to the American Midwest, including the state of Oklahoma.

Lenape nations today control lands within Oklahoma (Delaware Nation), Wisconsin ( Stockbridge-Munsee Community), and Ontario (Munsee-Delaware Nation, Moravian of the Thames First Nation, and Delaware of Six Nations).

Meaning

Lenape speakers in Oklahoma called their northeastern homelands translating to: in the land of the Lenape. It was popularized when Nora Thompson Dean shared the term with Theodore Cornu in 1970, and later with Herbert C. Kraft. This term has gained widespread acceptance and is found widely in recent literature on the Lenape and in New York institutions today.

Another historical Lenape term for much of the same region is ''Scheyischbi'' or ''Scheyichbi'', although this is also often cited as referring specifically to New Jersey.

Range and bounds

At the time of the arrival of the Europeans in the 16th and 17th centuries, the Lenape homeland ranged along the Atlantic's coast from western Connecticut to Delaware, which generally encompassed the territory adjacent to the Delaware and lower Hudson river valleys, as well the hill-and-ridge dominated territory between them. Relatives of the Algonquian Amerindians whose territories ranged along the entire coast from beyond the Saint Lawrence River in today's Canada, and the tribes throughout all of New England, down into northern South Carolina, the Delaware Confederation stretched from the southern shores of modern-day Delaware along the Atlantic seaboard into western Long Island and Connecticut, then extended westwards across the Hudson water gap into the eastern Catskills part of the Appalachians range around the headwaters of the Delaware River and along both banks of its basin down to the mouth of the Lehigh River.

Inland, the tribe had to deal with the fierce and territorial Susquehannocks; the Delawares' territory has generally been plotted with boundaries along mountain ridges topped by the drainage divides between the right bank tributaries of the Delaware River on the east—and on the west and south—the left bank tributaries of the Susquehanna and Lehigh Rivers; bounds which included the Catskills, northern parts of eastern Pennsylvania down through the entire Poconos along the left bank of the Lehigh River. The Schuylkill River and its mouth (future Philadelphia area counties) or right bank Lehigh was contested hunting grounds, generally shared with the Susquehannock and the occasional visit by a related Potomac tribe when there wasn't active tribal warfare. The greater Philadelphia area was known to host European to Indian contacts from the Dutch traders contacts with the Susquehanna (1600), English traders (1602), and both tribes with New Netherlands traders after 1610

Along the left bank Delaware valley, the territory extended to all of present-day New Jersey, and the southern counties of New York State, including Rockland, Orange, Westchester, and Putnam Counties, Nassau County, and the five boroughs of New York City.

Present day

Several indigenous peoples from diverse tribes, both from the region historically and from elsewhere, live in the Northeast megalopolis or Eastern Seaboard. Many of people from the Haudenosaunee Confederacy moved into the area in the 1920s to 1960s and were employed as skyscraper construction workers (many belonged to the Mohawk Tribe) and played an important role in building the skyline of Philadelphia and New York City. In the University City section of West Philadelphia, there has been some political activity by Urban Indian residents of the area, who adapted the namesake to where they live.

Lenape nations today control lands within Oklahoma (Delaware Nation), Wisconsin ( Stockbridge-Munsee Community), and Ontario (Munsee-Delaware Nation, Moravian of the Thames First Nation, and Delaware of Six Nations).

Lenape place names

Lenape place names are used throughout the region. The following are merely examples and the list is by no means exhaustive.

New York

Manhattan

* Manhattan is derived from , a Dutch version of a Lenape place name. The name ''Manhattan'' derives from the word , as written in the 1609 logbook of Robert Juet, an officer on Henry Hudson's yacht ''Halve Maen'' (Half Moon). A 1610 map depicts the name Manahata twice, on both the west and east sides of the Mauritius River (later named the North River, and now called the Hudson River). The word ''Manhattan'' has been translated as 'island of many hills' from the Lenape language. ''The Encyclopedia of New York City'' offers other derivations, including from the Munsee dialect of Lenape: ('place of general inebriation'), ('place where timber is procured for bows and arrows'), or ('island'). / Nora Thompson Dean (Touching Leaves Woman): 'place that is an island', from Lenape .Kraft, Herbert C.; Kraft, John T. (1985). The Indians of Lenapehoking (First ed.). South Orange, NJ: Seton Hall University Press. p. 45.
* Sapokanikan – habitation site and cultivated area by the cove on the Hudson River at present day Gansevoort Street, Greenwich Village.
* Nechtanc – habitation site along the East River site of Jacob Van Corlaer's plantation at Corlaer's Hook, near the present location of the Williamsburg Bridge, in the part of the Lower East Side that is near Chinatown.
*Indirectly named after Lenape shell middens: Pearl Street and Collect Pond

Staten Island

* – name for Staten Island
* – name for Staten Island
* – habitation site and cultivated area along Great Kills Harbor

Brooklyn

* or – habitation in Bay Ridge near the present location of the Verrazzano Narrows Bridge
* Gowanus Canal – originally named by early settlers as "Gowanes Creek" after , sachem of the local Lenape tribe called the Canarsee, who lived and farmed along the shores of the creek.The Gowanus Dredgers Canoe Club,
Gowanus Canal History
", accessed May 12, 2004, revised April 2, 2004 Also source of the neighborhood Gowanus and the Heights of Guan.
* – habitation site in present Red Hook

Queens

* Rockaway, evolved from the Lenape word , which apparently referred to 'a sandy place'.
* Maspeth originally Mas-pet were a part of the Rockaway band that lived along Maspeth Creek.

Westchester County

* Ossining – derived from the local tribe, meaning 'stone upon stone', and , also meaning 'stone'.
* Mamaroneck – from Munsee "striped stream/river"; not, as is often incorrectly cited, as "the place where fresh water falls into the sea"
* Tuckahoe
* Armonk
* – name for White Plains which is a direct translation meaning 'the white plains' or 'the white marshes', either referring to the white fog that hangs over the area, or the white basalm trees said to grow there.
* – name for Mount Kisco
* Chappaqua
* Katonah
* Croton
* Crompond

Rockland County

* Monsey – from the name of the Munsees, northern branch of the Lenapes

New Jersey

* Absecon – meaning: 'place of swans'indian.htm

* Assunpink Creek – meaning: 'Stony Creek' / *Nora Thompson Dean (Touching Leaves Woman): 'rocky place that is watery', from Lenape .
* Communipaw (in downtown Jersey City) – 'riverside landing place'
* Cushetunk – 'place of hogs'
* Hackensack – 'stream flowing into another on a plain/ in a swamp/ in a lowland' / *Nora Thompson Dean (Touching Leaves Woman): 'place of sharp ground', from Lenape .
* Hoboken – 'where pipes are traded' / *Nora Thompson Dean (Touching Leaves Woman): 'tobacco pipe', from Lenape .
* Hohokus – 'red cedars'
* Hopatcong – 'pipe stone' ( 'honey waters of many coves' as early 20th-century boosters would have it)
* Kittatinny – 'great hill' or 'endless mountain' / *Nora Thompson Dean (Touching Leaves Woman): 'big mountain', from Lenape .
* Mahwah – 'meeting place'
* Manahawkin – 'place where there is good land' / *Nora Thompson Dean (Touching Leaves Woman): 'where the land slopes', from Lenape .
* Manalapan – municipality's name is said to have come from Lenape and is said to mean 'land of good bread'
* Mantoloking