At some remote period their ancestors dwelt far to the northeast, on tide-water, probably at Labrador (Compare ante, p. 145). They journeyed south and west, till they reached a broad water, full of islands and abounding in fish, perhaps the St. Lawrence about the Thousand Isles. They crossed and dwelt for some generations in the pine and hemlock regions of New York, fighting more or less with the Snake people, and the Talega, agricultural nations, living in stationary villages to the southeast of them, in the area of Ohio and Indiana. They drove out the former, but the latter remained on the upper Ohio and its branches. The Lenape, now settled on the streams in Indiana, wished to remove to the East to join the Mohegans and other of their kin who had moved there directly from northern New York. They, therefore, united with the Hurons (Talamatans) to drive out the Talega (Tsalaki, Cherokees) from the upper Ohio. This they only succeeded in accomplishing finally in the historic period (see ante p. 17). But they did clear the road and reached the Delaware valley, though neither forgetting nor giving up their claims to their western territories (see ante p. 144). In the sixteenth century the Iroquois tribes seized and occupied the whole of the Susquehanna valley, thus cutting off the eastern from the western Algonkins, and ended by driving many of the Lenape from the west to the east bank of the Delaware (ante p. 38,). _Synopsis of the separate parts._ I. The formation of the universe by the Great Manito is described. In the primal fog and watery waste he formed land and sky, and the heavens cleared. He then created men and animals. These lived in peace and joy until a certain evil manito came, and sowed discord and misery. This canto is a version of the Delaware tradition mentioned in the Heckewelder MSS. which I have given previously, p. 135. The notion of the earth rising from the primal waters is strictly a part of the earliest Algonkin mythology, as I have amply shown in previous discussions of the subject. See my _Myths of the New World_, p. 213, and _American Hero Myths_, Chap. II. II. The Evil Manito, who now appears under the guise of a gigantic serpent, determines to destroy the human race, and for that purpose brings upon them a flood of water. Many perish, but a certain number escape to the turtle, that is, to solid land, and are there protected by Nanabush (Manibozho or Michabo). They pray to him for assistance, and he caused the water to disappear, and the great serpent to depart.