The Delaware Tribe of Indians, or the Eastern Delaware, based in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, is one of three federally recognized tribes of the Lenape people in the United States. The others are the Delaware Nation based in Anadarko, Oklahoma, and the Stockbridge-Munsee Community of Wisconsin. More Lenape or Delaware people live in Canada.
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👉 Delaware Tribe of Indians in the context of Unami language
Unami (Delaware: Wënami èlixsuwakàn) is an Algonquian language initially spoken by the Lenape people in the late 17th century and the early 18th century, in the southern two-thirds of present-day New Jersey, southeastern Pennsylvania, and the northern two-thirds of Delaware. The Lenape later migrated, largely settling in Ontario, Canada, and Oklahoma. Today, it is spoken only as a second language.
Unami is one of two Delaware languages; the other is Munsee. The last fluent Unami speaker in the United States, Edward Thompson, of the federally recognized Delaware Tribe of Indians, died on August 31, 2002. His sister Nora Thompson Dean (1907–1984) provided valuable information about the language to linguists and other scholars.
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Delaware Tribe of Indians in the context of Delaware Nation
The Delaware Nation (Delaware: Èhëliwsikakw Lënapeyok), based in Anadarko, Oklahoma is one of three federally recognized tribes of Lenape or Delaware Indians in the United States, along with the Delaware Indians based in Bartlesville, Oklahoma and the Stockbridge–Munsee Community of Wisconsin. Two Lenape First Nations are in Ontario, Canada.
The Delaware Nation was also known as the Delaware Tribe of Western Oklahoma and was sometimes called the Absentee or Western Delaware.
Delaware Tribe of Indians in the context of Nora Thompson Dean
Nora Thompson Dean (July 3, 1907 – November 29, 1984), from Dewey, Oklahoma, was a member of the Delaware Tribe of Indians. As a Lenape traditionalist and one of the last fluent speakers of the southern Unami dialect of the Lenape language, she was an influential mentor to younger tribal members and is widely cited in scholarship on Lenape /luh-NAH-pay/ culture.
Nora was also known by her indigenous blessing name, Weènchipahkihëlèxkwe, ‘Touching Leaves Woman.’ These blessing names are normally kept quiet, but Nora was such a wonderful woman that it should be shown why she additionally had such an appealing demeanor. It would be sad to let it pass from memory by silence. The Unami (= /w’NAH-mee/ ‘downriver [person]’) name of Nora Thompson Dean and the genealogy of her ancestors is now readily accessible on the Internet after someone in 2008 adapted the spelling Wenjipahkeehlehkwe), intending it to be limited to one cultural event, but it spread widely on the Internet. Its modern spelling is Weènchipahkihëlèxkwe, ‘Touching Leaves Woman’, or, as Nora herself had proposed, ‘Leaves-that-touch-each-other-from-time-to-time woman.’ It is phonetically written as Weεnčipahkihəlεxkwe, /way-en-jee-paH-kee-hull-EKH-kway/. The morphological segments are as follows: (We:εnt-ipahk-ihəle:)-xkwe, ‘on.both.sides/on.either.side/together-leaves-moving–woman’. The initial stem shows a reciprocal reduplication, rare for Unami, (*we:we:- instead of wë-), ‘the leaves (of the trees) on either side (of the path) come together (overhead rustling)’. This is the kind of blessing name that is derived from a vision recitation. Her name was bestowed on her by her mother, Sarah Wilson Thompson. The woman with whom Sarah Wilson was riding on a horse was not her biological mother but her aunt, Way-lay-luh-mah (‘the esteemed one’), as supplied by Weslager, and it was not Kweiti, Sarah's biological mother, but Way-lay-luh-mahwho raised her and whom she called her mother, and so Nora called Way-lay-luh-mah her grandmother. This naming pattern is in line with Lenape kinship ideas. The vision occurred after Sarah was riding horseback one day holding onto Way-lay-luh-mah's waist when Way-lay-luh-mah had fainted from a probable heart attack. Sarah tried to hold her, but her grip slipped, and both had fallen off the horse. Sarah was very frightened, but some of the trees turned into people who told her not to be afraid and wanted to help her. Sarah stood listening, and the tree leaves by rustling started to sing a song to her, one that she sang in the Big House. [Paraphrased by Carl Masthay per NTD's interview by Katherine Red Corn, April 1968, and compiled with help from Ives Goddard, Raymond Whritenour, and James Rementer.]