Page:Architectural Review and American Builders' Journal, Volume 1, 1869.djvu/152

 124 Sloan's Architectural Review and Builders' Journal. [August, It will readily be understood, from the Indian method of recalling past events, that dates are much more apt to be confused, or forgotten, than facts. Also, that, when the account passes to another band, without the strings and belts of wampum, whose existence in the participating tribe renders the matter far more documentary than traditionary, two or more veiy similar events, between the same general parties, are very apt to be fused into one. Yet there is great probability in the reminiscence of Civility, the chief and interpreter, in Governor Keith's conference with the Conestogas in 1722. Some doubt is thrown upon the claim of a parchment passing from Penn to the natives in 1682, though there may have been such a scroll, embodying a few general prin- ciples, as the white man's token for the red man's wampum. At any rate, Civility claimed, that Penn, to confirm the Great Treaty, gave the Indians a parchment-roll, and told them to pre- serve it carefully for three generations, that their children might see and know what had passed in council, as if he had remained personally with them to repeat it-^-and that the Christianas might recall and respect it ; but that the fourth generation would forget both him and it. This seems to have been prophetic, whether spoken by Penn, or invented by the Indian orator ; for the fourth generation were the actors of the Ameri- can revolution, and did forget both him and it. Clarkson relates that on the day ap- pointed for the treaty, William Penn, with his friends, men, women, and youths of both sexes, travelled from Chester fifteen miles to Coaquannock, where they . met the Indians, so numerous that they swarmed in the woods as far as eye could reach, and looked frightful, both on account of their number and their arms. West, the painter, also, in his picture of the Treaty, gives the natives arms. As we shall see directly, they could not have been armed; but their peace toilet, to those unacquainted with Indian customs, would be quite as terror- striking as war-paint. The Indians never take arms to treaties. Heckewel- der says : " They do not even permit a "warlike weapon within the limits of " their council-fire, even when assembled " for ordinary business." THE LENNI LENAPE. The simple fact is, that these Indians, passing with us as aborigines, who, in the superficial notions of Reynal and Voltaire, stood gloating upon the shores of the Delaware, ready to devour Penn and his devoted followers, had been pre- pared for the reception of humanizing propositions long before. According to universal tradition among the north- ern Indian nations of North America, the Lenni Lenape* — known to the French as Algonquins, to the English as the Delawares — from far to the west moved eastward, united with the Iroquois or Mengwe, and conquered the Allegewi, a nation powerful, war- like, and of large stature, with many large cities. The struggle was pro- tracted and doubtful. Bloody battles were fought, and large mounds of earth heaped over the slain. At length the newer and less civilized barbarians tri- umphed, and the Allegewi fled down the Mississippi, never to return. The con- querors reported of themselves that they had previously sought permission of the Allegewi to pass peaceably through their country, and were refused ; and deter- mined to force their way, and suc- ceeded. THE ENWOMANING OF THE DELAWARES. The victors divided the country, the Iroquois taking the northern portion along the fresh water lakes and the great river, St. Lawrence. The Lenape crossed the Alleghenies, and discovered the great salt water lake, Atlantic. The}' called
 * That is, the original people.