David Oestreicher: The Lenape, Lower New York's First Inhabitants

The Lenape, Lower New York's First Inhabitants A lecture by David Oestreicher

For over 12,000 years, the region that is now lower New York, New Jersey, eastern Pennsylvania, and Delaware was home to groups of Lenape (Delaware Indians) and their prehistoric predecessors. By the late 18th and early 19th centuries, however, after a tragic series of removals had taken them halfway across the continent, the broken remnants of these tribes finally settled in parts of Oklahoma, Wisconsin, and Ontario. By the late 20th century, only a handful of elders could still speak their native language, or had knowledge of the traditional ceremonies, religious beliefs, and life ways. In this lively talk, Dr. David M. Oestreicher combines archaeological and historical evidence with decades of firsthand ethnographic and linguistic research among present-day Lenape traditionalists, to arrive at a full picture of the Lenape from prehistory to the present. The presentation includes a…