The Lenâpé and Their Legends: With the complete text and symbols of the Walam olum, a new translation, and an inquiry into its authenticityBrinton, Daniel G. (Daniel Garrison)
History
The Lenâpé and Their Legends: With the complete text and symbols of the Walam olum, a new translation, and an inquiry into its authenticity
Brinton, Daniel G. (Daniel Garrison)
Delaware Indians; Delaware language -- Texts; Picture-writing, Indian
The Conoys were removed, before 1743, from Conejoholo to Conoy town,
further up the Susquehanna, and in 1744 they joined several other
fragmentary bands at Shamokin (where Sunbury, Pa., now stands). Later,
they became merged with the Nanticokes.[37]
_The Shawnees_.
The wanderings of the unstable and migratory Shawnees have occupied the
attention of several writers, but it cannot be said that either their
history or their affiliations have been satisfactorily worked out.[38]
Their dialect is more akin to the Mohegan than to the Delaware, and
when, in 1692, they first appeared in the area of the Eastern Algonkin
Confederacy, they came as the friends and relatives of the former.[39]
They were divided into four bands, as follows:--
1. _Piqua_, properly _Pikoweu_, "he comes from the ashes."
2. _Mequachake_, "a fat man filled," signifying completion or
perfection. This band held the privilege of the hereditary priesthood.
3. Kiscapocoke.
4. Chilicothe.[40]
Of these, that which settled in Pennsylvania was the _Pikoweu_,
who occupied and gave their name to the Pequa valley in Lancaster
county.[41]
According to ancient Mohegan tradition, the New England _Pequods_ were
members of this band. These moved eastwardly from the Hudson river,
and extended their conquests over the greater part of the area of
Connecticut. Dr. Trumbull, however,[42] assigns a different meaning to
their name, and a more appropriate one--_Peguitóog_, the Destroyers.
Some countenance is given to the tradition by the similarity of the
Shawnee to the Mohegan, standing, as it does, more closely related to
it than to the Unami Delaware.
It has been argued that a band of the Shawnees lived in Southern New
Jersey when that territory first came to the knowledge of the whites.
On a Dutch map, drawn in 1614 or thereabouts, a tribe called _Saw
wanew_ is located on the left bank of the Delaware river, near the
Bay;[43] and DeLaet speaks of the _Sawanoos_ as living there.
I am inclined to believe that, in both these cases, the term was used
by the natives around New York Bay in its simple geographical sense of
"south" or "southern," and not as a tribal designation. It frequently
appears with this original meaning in the WALUAM OLUM.
_The Sapoonees_.
A tribe called the Sapoonees, or Saponies, is mentioned as living in
Pennsylvania, attached to the Delawares, about the middle of the last
century.[44]
They are no doubt the Saponas who once dwelt on a branch of the Great
Pedee river in North Carolina, and who moved north about the year
1720.[45]
They were said to have joined the Tuscaroras, but the Pennsylvania
records class them with the Delawares. Others, impressed by the
similarity of _Sa-po-nees_ to _Pa-nis_, have imagined they were the
Pawnees, now of the west. There is not the slightest importance to be
attached to this casual similarity of names.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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