OF LANCASTER COUXTV, 13 



conquest, it is more rational to suppose it true, tlian that a brave, nume- 

 rous, and warlike nation should have voluntarily suffered themselves to 

 be disarmed and enslaved by a shallow artifice; or that, discovering the 

 fraud practised upon them, they should unresistingly have submitted to 

 its consequences. This conquest was not an empty acquisition to the 

 Mengwe. They claimed dominion over all the lands occupied by the 

 Delawares, and, in many instances, their claims were distinctly acknowl- 

 edged. Parties of the Five Nations occasionally occupied the Lenape 

 country, and wandered over it at all times at their pleasure. 



" Whatever credit may be due to the traditions of the Lenape, relative 

 to their migration from the west, there is strong evidence in support of 

 their pretensions to be considered as the source whence a great portion of 

 the Indians of North America was derived. They are acknowledged as 

 the 'grandfathers,' or the parent stock, of the tribes that inhabited the 

 extensive regions of Canada, from the coast of Labrador to the mouth of 

 the Albau}^ river, which empties into the southernmost part of Hudson's 

 bay, and from thence to the Lake of the Woods, the northernmost 

 boundary of the L^nited States; and also by those who dwelt in that 

 immense country, stretching from Nova Scotia to the Eoanoke, on the 

 sea-coast, and bounded by the Mississippi on the west. All these nations 

 spoke dialects of the Lenape language, affording the strongest presump- 

 tion of their derivation from that stock. The tribes of the Mengwe 

 interspersed throughout this vast region are, of course, excepted. Thev 

 were, however, comparatively few in number. 



" Their language is said to be rich, sonorous, plastic, and comprehensive 

 in the highest degree. It varies from the European idioms chiefly in the 

 conjugation of the verbs, with which not only the agent and patient mav 

 be compounded, in every possible case, but the adverbs are also blended ; 

 and one word is made to express the agent, the action, with its accidents 

 of time, place, and quantity, and the object effected by them. And. 

 though greatly pliant, it is subjected to rules, from which there are few ex- 

 ceptions. It has the power of expressing every idea, even the most abstract. 

 The Old and New Testaments have been translated into it, and the Christian 

 missionaries have no difficulty, as they assert, of making themselves under- 

 stood on all subjects by the Indians.^ 



1 As a sjXHimeii. I siibjuiii a translation of the Loi-d'.s Prayer, in the language of the 

 Sis. Nation Indians: 



Soungwaunclia, caurounkyauga, tehseetaroan, saulwuneyousta, es a. sfiwaneyou. 

 okcttauhsela, ehneauwoung. na, caurounkyauga, nugh, wonshauga, neattewt-hnesalauga. 

 taug^^'rmnautoronoantoughsick, toantangweleewheyoiistaung, cheueeyeut, chaquatafi- 

 •vSIcj'^vheyoustriunna. toughsau, taugwausvsareneh, tawantottenaugalofightoungga, na- 

 Ka-wTic, sacheautaug-\vass. «»ntehsalhaun7Aikuw.t\sa. sawufineyuu, esa, sashautztii, esa, 

 soangwasufuig. (liennOauhaunga. auweu. 



