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SCIENGK 



[Vol. XV. No. 



It is appareDt that all these traditions, except that relating 

 to a clan from the neighborhood of Charleston, point to 

 some northern locality as the former home of the tribe, and 

 that in this respect they correspond with the linguistic indi- 

 cations. But these do not exhaust the evidence bearing on 

 this question, as there is a tradition of another nation, and 

 in this case one of the best known and most reliable of all 

 Indian traditions, which agrees with the others in this 

 respect. This is the Delaware legend regarding their ances- 

 tral home and migrations. The earliest writer who gives a 

 detailed statement of it is the Eev. Charles Beatty, who vis- 

 ited the Delaware settlements in Ohio in 1767. According 

 to this authority, "of old time their people were divided by 

 a river, nine parts of ten passing over the river and one part 

 remaining behind ; that they knew not, for certainty, how 

 they came to this continent; but account thus for their first 

 coming into these parts where they are now settled; that a 

 king of their nation, where they formerly lived, far to the 

 west, left his kingdom to his two sons; that the one son 

 making war upon the other, the latter thereupon determined 

 to depart and seek some new habitation; that accordingly he 

 sat out accompanied by a number of his people and that, 

 after wandering to and fro for the space of forty years, they 

 at length came to Delaware River where they settled three 

 hundred and seventy years ago. The way ihey keep an 

 account of this is by putting a black bead of wampum every 

 year on a belt they keep for that purpose." 



The reason for mentioning this brief notice of the tradi- 

 tion, rather than relying entirely on the fuller account given 

 below, is that it mentions a date purporting to be derived 

 from the Indians. 



The ti-adition as given by Heckwelder, who heard it from 

 the Delawares themselves, and had the advantage of their 

 interpretation and comments, is as follows: — 



"The Lenni Lenape (according to the tradition handed 

 down to them by their ancestors) resided many hundred 

 years ago in a very distant country in the western part of the 

 American continent. For some reason which I do not find 

 accounted for, they determined on migrating to the east- 

 ward, and accordingly set out together in a body. After a 

 very long journey and many nights' encampment by the 

 way, they at length arrived on the Namaesi-Sipu, where 

 they fell in with the Mengwe, who had likewise emigrated 

 from a distant country and had struck upon this river some- 

 what higher up. Their object was the same with that of the 

 Delawares: they were proceeding on to the eastward until 

 they should find a country that pleased them. The spies 

 which the Lenape had sent forward for the purpose of rec- 

 onnoitring, had, long before their arrival, discovered that 

 the country east of the Mississippi was inhabited by a very 

 powerful nation, who had many large towns built on the 

 great rivers flowing through their land. Those people (as I 

 was told) called themselves Talligew or Tallegewi. . . . 

 Many wonderful things are told of this famous people. 

 They are said to have been remarkably tall and stout; and 

 there is a tradition that there were giants among them, people 

 of a much larger size than the tallest of the Lenape. It is re- 

 lated that they had built to themselves regular fortifications 

 or intrenchments, from whence they would sally out, but 

 were generally repulsed. I have seen many of the fortifica- 

 tions said to have been built by them, two of which in par- 



ticular were remarkable. One of them was near the mouth 

 of the River Huron, which empties itself into the Lake St. 

 Clair on the north side of that lake, at the distance of about 

 twenty miles north-east of Detroit. This spot of gi'ound was, 

 in the year 1776, owned and occupied by a Mr. Tucker. 

 The other works, properly intrenchments, being walls or 

 banks of earth regularly thrown up, with a deep ditch on 

 the outside, were on the Huron River, east of the Sandusky, 

 about six or eight miles from Lake Erie. Outside of the 

 gateway of each of these two intrenchments, which lay 

 within a mile of each other, were a number of large flat 

 mounds, in which, the Indian pilot said, were buried hun- 

 dreds of the slain Tallegwi whom I shall hereafter, with 

 Col. Gibson, call Allegewi. Of these intrenchments, Mr. 

 Abraham Steiner, who was with me at the time when I 

 saw them, gave a very accurate description, which was pub- 

 lished at Philadelphia in 1789 or 1790, in some periodica] 

 work the name of which I cannot at present remember. 



" When the Lenape arrived on the banks of the Missis- 

 sippi, they sent a message to the Alligewi to request permis- 

 sion to settle themselves in their neighborhood. This was 

 refused them, but they obtained leave to pass through the 

 coutitry and seek a settlement farther to the eastward. They 

 accordingly began to cross the Namaesi-Sipu, when the Al- 

 legewi, seeing that their numbers were sovery great, and in 

 fact they consisted of many thousands, made a furious at- 

 tack upon those who had crossed, threatening them all with 

 destruction if they dared to persist in coming over to their 

 side of the river. Fired at the treachery of these people 

 and the great loss of men they had sustained, and, besides, 

 not being prepared for a conflict, t^e Lenape consulted on 

 what was to be done, — whether to retreat in the best man- 

 ner they could, or to try their strength and let the enemy 

 see that they were not cowards, but men, and too high- 

 minded to suffer themselves to be driven ofl: before they had 

 made a trial of their strength and were convinced that the 

 enemy was too powerful for them. The Mengwe, who had 

 hitherto been satisfied with being spectators from a distance, 

 ofi'ered to join them on condition that after conquering the 

 country they should be entitled to share it with them. 

 Their proposal was accepted, and the resolution was taken 

 by the two nations to conquer or die. 



" Having thus united their forces, the Lenape and Meng- 

 we declared war against the Alligewi, and great battles 

 were fought, in which many warriors fell on both sides. 

 The enemy fortified their large towns and erected fortifica- 

 tions, especially on large rivers or near lakes, where they 

 were successfully attacked and sometimes stormed by the 

 allies. An engagement took place in which hundreds fell, 

 who were afterwards buried in holes, or laid together in 

 heaps and covered over with earth. No quarter was given, 

 so that the Allegewi at last, finding that their destruction . 

 was inevitable if they persisted in their obstinacy, abandoned 

 the country to the conquerors, and fled down the Mississippi 

 River, from whence they never returned. 



"The war which was carried on with this nation lasted 

 many years, during which the Lenape lost a great number 

 of their warriors, while the Mengwe would always hang 

 back in the rear, leaving them to face the enemy. In the 

 end the conquerors divided the country between themselves. 

 The Mengwe made choice of the lands in the vicinity of the 



