[165] _A Grammar of the Cree Language, with which is combined an Analysis of the Chippeway Dialect_, by Joseph Howse, Esq. (London, 1844). [166] In a note to Zeisberger's _Grammar of the Delaware_, p. 141. [167] _A Grammar of the Cree Language_, p. 175. [168] _Dictionnaire de la Langue des Cris_, sub voce. [169] In _Trans. Amer. Antiq. Society_, Vol. II, p. 223. Zeisberger's statements were criticised by Joseph Howse, _Grammar of the Cree Language_, pp. 109, 310, 313. His strictures and those of the Abbé Cuoq, in his _Etudes Philologiques sur Quelques Langues Sauvages_, Chap. I, were collected and extended by Dr. J. Hammond Trumbull, in his paper on "Some Mistaken Notions of Algonquin Grammar," _Trans. of the American Philological Association_, 1874. There is a needless degree of severity in both these last named productions. [170] Rasles, _Dictionary of the Abnaki_, p. 550. Dr. Trumbull compares the Mass. _anue_, more than. _Trans. American Philological Association_, 1872, p. 168. [171] J. Howse: _Grammar of the Cree Language_, p. 111. CHAPTER V. HISTORICAL SKETCHES OF THE LENAPE. § 1. The Lenape as "Women" § 2. Recent Migrations of the Lenape § 3. Missionary Efforts in the Provinces of Pennsylvania and New Jersey. § 1. _The Lenape as "Women."_ A unique peculiarity of the political condition of the Lenape was that for a certain time they occupied a recognized position as non-combatants--as "women," as they were called by the Iroquois. Indian customs and phraseology attached a two-fold significance to this term. The more honorable was that of peace-makers. Among the Five Nations and Susquehannocks, certain grave matrons of the tribe had the right to sit in the councils, and, among other privileges, had that of proposing a cessation of hostilities in time of war. A proposition from them to drop the war club could be entertained without compromising the reputation of the tribe for bravery. There was an official orator and messenger, whose appointed duty it was to convey such a pacific message from the matrons, and to negotiate for peace[172]. Another and less honorable sense of the term arose from a custom prevalent throughout America, and known also among the ancient Scythians. Its precise purpose remains obscure, although it has been made the subject of a careful study by one of our most eminent surgeons, who had facilities of observation among the Western tribes[173]. Certain young men of the tribe, apparently vigorous and of normal development, were deprived of the accoutrements of the male sex, clothed like women, and assigned women's work to do. They neither went out to hunt nor on the war-path, and were treated as inferiors by their male associates. Whether this degradation arose from superstitious rites or sodomitic practices, it certainly carried to its victims the contempt of both sexes.