Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 4.djvu/775

 DELAWARE

695

DELAWARE

\\ns passed providing exclusively for the incorpora- fiim of Catholic congregations. It gives a simple iiirthod for incorporating a church congregation. I luier a statute, all real and personal property belong- iiii; to any church or religious society is not liable to assessment and taxation for public purposes, unless the property is in the form of a school where the tui- tion is not free. The constitution provides: " No por- tion of any fund now existing, or which may hereafter be ajiiiropriated or raised by taxation, for educa- lional purposes, shall be appropriated to, or used for, or in aid of any sectarian church or denominational siliool, provided, that all real or personal property \iscd for school purposes where tuition Is free, shall be exempt from taxation and assessment for public piir- jKises". The right of any charitable or educational eiiiporation to take Viy devise or bequest is imdoubted. W hile the language of the statute imder which Cath- olic congregations are formed into church corpora- iioTis is not beyond cavil in this regard, the assump- I inn is that such a corporation may take by devise or lie(|uest, widiDut i|ualiiie:itic>n or condition. In this respeet, tlie rights of Catliolic church corporations are clearer and more lil)eral than those enjoyed by church corporations of any other denomination. Ordained ministers of the Gospel are not liable to serve as jurors. .Military service is voluntary. By the constitution, no divorce may be granted except by the judgment of
 * i court. Annulment of marriage for certain causes,

existing at the time of marriage, is provided for. For divorce, the reasons are adultery, bigamy, imprison- ment, cruelty, desertion, habitual drunkenness, and hopeless insanity. Hearings and trials in divorce matters must in all cases lie had before the court and in public. Marriage within the degrees of the estab- lished table of consanguinity, or between whites and blacks, is unlawful and void, and the parties thereto are guilty of a misdemeanour. A regularly issued license is a condition precedent to marriage, unless the banns are i>iil>lishe(l at .some place of stated religious worship, within the Hundred of the woman's residence on two Sabbaths, and no objection made to such mar- riage.

The sale of liquor is licensed by the State, but with many restrictions. The State is divided into four local option districts, in two of which prohibition laws are now in force.

Legacies for religious, charitable and educational purposes are not subject to taxation. The right to dispo.se of property by will may be exercised by any person of the age of twenty-one years or upwards, who is of .sound mind. Such will mu.st be in writing, exce[)t a nuncupative will, by which an estate not ex- ceeding .$200 may be disposed of. Cemetery corpor- ations are now fonned under the provisions of a general incorporation law. No taxes are paid on lands used for cemetery purposes.

The constitution pLaces no limit to direct taxation, but no State tax on assessed property is levied. County and mimicipal assessment and taxation is em- ployed. There Ls no tax on income. A collateral in- heritance tax is collected, w'here the recipient is a stranger in blood, and the estate exceeds $.300.

Ferris, UUtnry of the Originnl Srtilementa on the Delaware (WilminEton. 1S46); Bancroft, Hixloru of the United Stales (New York, 1SS21; Schark, Hislor;/ of Delaware (Philadelphia. 1888>; Conrad, HMnr„ of Delaware (WilminKton, 190,8); Perry. HUlorienl Collretions (Hartford. 1HS6): Shka, Cnlholic Church in Colonial Daiia (New York. 1SS61; Penn. Ilislorieal Socielu Memoirs (Philarlelphia. 1864); ('. .s'. Twelfth Census (Washington, 1901); Bulletin 71. Estimaten nf Population, ibid. CWashineton, 1907); Bulletin 31, Census of Manufactures, ibid. (Washington, 1906); Del. Laws, Revised Code.

Charles F. Curley.

Delaware Indians, an important tribal confed- eracy of .Mgonquian -stock originally holding the ba.sin of the Delaware River, in Eastern Pennsylvania, U. S. A., together with most of New Jersey and Dela-

ware. They call themselves Letmpf or Lcni-le.nape, about equivalent to "real men". The English knew them as Delawares, from the name of the river; the French called them Loups (wolves), under which term they included also the cognate Mahican; while to most of their Algonquian neighbours they were known as Wnpanaki (Easterners). By reason of being the parent body of a number of cognate tribes, and holding the ancestral territory, they were ac- corded precedence in intertribal assemblies, under the respectful title of "grandfather".

The Lcnape proper consisted of three tribes — Mun- see, I'nami, and Unalaqtgo — symbolized respectively under the totems of the Wolf, Turtle, and Turkey. Of these the Munsce held the Upper Delaware and were considered the defenders of the frontier against the incursions of the hostile Iroquois. Their dialect dif- fered considerably from that of the other two. The Unami held the middle course of the river, together with the hereditary chieftaincy, while the third tribe occupied the lower country. Each tribe w;i.s organ- ized into clans or gcntes, numbering about thirty-five in all, with descent in the female line, as usual among the Eastern Indians. In habit they were sedentary, depending chiefly upon agriculture rather than upon hunting, cultivating largo quantities of corn, beans, squashes, and tobacco. Their houses, consisting of a framework of poles covered with bark or mats woven of rushes, were of wagon-top shape and accommo- dated several families each.

The most ancient tratlitions of the Lenape are con- tained in the sacred pictograph record known as the Walam Olum or "Red Score", first brought to notice by Rafinesque in 1836 and published with translation and notes by Brinton in 1885. They made their first treaty, with Penn, in 1682, at Shackamaxon within the present limits of Philadelphia. To this period be- longs their noted chief Tamenend, from whom the Tammany Society derives its name. As the whites pressed upon them the Delawares gradually retired westward, first to the Susquehanna and thence to the Alleghany, until in 1751 they began to make settle- ments in t)hio, where the greater part of the tribe was established at the outbreak of the French and Indian war in 1754. In common with all the other tribes of the Ohio region, they siilod with the French against the English in this war and continued the struggle in- dependently for some time after the French garrisons h.ad been withdrawn. Throughout the Revolution and the war of 1812 they were allies of the English against the Americans. As early as 1746 zealous Moravian missionaries had begun work in the tribe in Eastei i Pennsylvania, and succeeded in winning a considerable number to Christianity, despite persecu- tions and removals forced upon them by the whites, culminating in the miussacre of an entire conununity of Christian Delawares at Gnadenhutton, in Ohio, in 1782.

The war of 1812 was followed by treaty cessions and other removals, most of the Christian Delawares emigrating to Canada, while the others, after various halts by different bands in Imliana. Missouri, Arkan- sas, and Kans.as, were finally collected chiefly in the present Oklahoma, the main body incorporating with the Cherokee in lSr)7. They have grcatlv decreased, but number (1908) altogether about 1900 .souls, in- cluding about 870 with the Cherokee and 05 more with the Wichita, in Oklahoma; about 250 Miuusee in WLsconsin and some 50 more in Kansas; and the rest, under the names of Munsees and Moravians, on reser- vations in Ontario, Canada.

Brinton. Th. /, n,,,,' „„,; f',,,'. r ,,,--„ J fPlnl ,.!.li .),ki, I88.'>) ;

DtiKKy. Aliori,n'i' l: '. " 1 / .' ' ' linlians),

\':fumsof >' ■ . i. ' ■ I t -, -.M I', i-.i'-ni Tribes >; ilDMl-.-ON, .l/uranure Mis-

James Mooney.

(l.-)lhed..N<-w ^ ,. !-• Pennsulrania (Pini.M. i of Hudson's Rwer lAlhai sions (New York, 1890J.