History of the city of Paterson and the County of Passaic, New Jersey, Part 7

Author: Nelson, William, 1847-1914
Publication date: 1901
Publisher: Paterson : Press Printing and Publishing Co.
Number of Pages: 466

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3 In the Lenape language the word for woman is ochqueu, pronounced och-quay-oo, or, hy softening the guttural, os-quay-oo, which was readily modified into squa or squaw. Kik-ochqueu, a single woman; kikey-ochquez, an elderly woman ; wuskiochque, a young woman ; och- queunk, of a woman ; wilawiochquez, a rich woman. See Zeisherger's Indian Dictionary, English, German, Iroquois (the Onondaga) and Al- gonquin (the Delaware), printed from the Original Manuscript in Har- vard College Library, Cambridge, 1887; A Lenâpé-English Dictionary, as cited. The Cree root is iskw, whence iskwew (or iskwayoo), woman ; oskiskwew, a young woman.

4 Montanus, 76, 80 ; Heckewelder, 203.

5 As might he expected of an idea necessarily universal among the Indians, the Algonkins nearly everywhere used the same word for " house." Zeisberger gives it as wikwam, pronounced week-wawm, in his grammar, and wiquoam (pronounced the same) in his dictionary of the Delaware or Lenape language. It is given as wighwam, in the " Indian Interpreter," a sort of trader's jargon, compiled in 1684 for the use of the whites in Southern New Jersey in their intercourse with the Indians, and recorded in the Salem Town Records, Liher B, in the Secretary of State's office, Trenton. There are 237 words entered in this hook, evidently written hy an Englishman, therefore, the letters must be given their English sounds. The list is published in the American Historical Record, Vol. I., 1872, pp. 308-11. The same word is used hy the Chippeways north of Lake Superior, at this day. The Cree root is wiki, " his house ;" whence wikiw, the house.

6 Representation of New Netherland (1649), translated hy Henry C. Murphy, New York, 1849, p. 20 ; Remonstrance of New Netherland [the same work], translated hy E. B. O'Callaghan, M. D., Alhany, 1856, p. 14 ; Roger Williams's "Key," p. 53.

7 Loskiel, p. 71.

for a single family.1 As William Penn wrote, in 1683 : " Their Houses are Mats, or Barks of Trees, set on Poles, in the fashion of an English Barn, but out of the power of the Winds, for they are hardly higher than a'man ; they lie on Reeds or Grass."2 Sometimes young trees would be bent down toward a common centre and the branches interlaced and fastened together as a framework, and covered with bark, 3 so closely laid on as to be very warm and rain-proof. 4 Others would construct a circular, wattled hut, with either angular or rounded top, thatched and lined with mats woven of the long leaves of the Indian corn, or with rushes or long reed-grass, or the stalk of the sweet-flag, a vent-hole in the top serving for the escape of smoke.5 Some would take the trouble to dig a pit, two or three feet deep, then erect their hut within, and pack the earth tightly around on the outside. If very particular, they would cover the floor with wood,6 but usually they slept on skins or leaves spread on the bare ground,7 a fact which inspired the muse of Roger Williams to sing8 :

God gives them sleep on Ground, on Straw, on Sedgie Mats or Boord : When English Softest Beds of Downe, sometimes no sleep affoord.

From this humble lodging no one was ever turned away -not even strangers. Their generous hospitality was

1 Loskiel, p. 53. Dr. Brinton says of the Algonkin trihes: "we do not find among them the same communal life as among the Iroquois. Only rarely do we encounter the ' long house,' occupied hy a number of kia- dred families. Among the Lenâpés, for example, this was entirely unknown, each married couple having its own residence."-The Ameri- can Race, hy Daniel G. Brinton, A. M., M. D., New York, 1891, p. 76. In his valuable work, " The Houses and House-Life of the American Ahorigines" (Contributions to North American Ethnology, Vol. IV.), the late Lewis H. Morgan concluded that during the Older Period and the Mid- dle Period of haroarism, as represented, the former hy the Indians of this part of the country, and the latter hy the Aztecs, " the family was too weak an organization to face alone the struggle of life, and sought a shelter for itself in large households composed of several families. The house for a single family was exceptional throughout ahoriginal America, while the house large enough to accommodate several was the rule. Moreover, the habitations were occupied as joint tenement houses. There was also a tendency to form the households on the principle of the gentile (pronounced gen-ti-le] kin, the mothers with their children heing of the same gens or clan." See Second Annual Report U. S. Bureau of Ethnology, 1880-81, pp. XVII1-XIX.

2 Letter dated Philadelphia, August 16, 1683, printed in “ The Present State of His Majesties Isles and Territories in America," etc. [by Rich- ard Blome], London, 1687, p. 98.

3 A Geographical Description of the lately discovered province of Pennsylvania, hy Francis Daniel Pastorius [1685], in Memoirs Hist. Soc. of Penn., Vol. IV., Part II., p. 96.

.4 An Historical Description of the Province of West-New-Jersey in America, etc., hy Gabriel Thomas, London, 1698; reprinted (lithographed) New York, 1848, p. 5.

5 Wassenaer, as cited, p. 20; Smith's History of New Jersey, Burl- ington, 1765, p. 65.

6 Traces of such earth excavations and wooden floors have heen found at Greenwich, Cumberland county. See Annual Report of State Geologist for 1878, p. 125. It is not improhahle, however, that huts of this description were either erected hy whites, or hy Indians in imitation of the first white settlers .- N. Y. Doc. Hist., IV., 23.

7 Wassenaer, p. 20.

8 "Key," p. 40.

INDIAN HOSPITALITY-FOOD-DRINK

always noted with admiration by travelers.1 " If an Eu- ropean comes to see them, or calls for Lodging at their House or Wigwam, they give him the best place or first cut."2 "None could excel them in liberality with the little they had, for nothing was too good for a friend," says the historian Samuel Smith,3 paraphrasing William Penn. "Give them a fine Gun, Coat, or other thing, it may pass twenty hands, before it sticks ; light of heart, strong · affections, but soon spent ; the most merry Creatures that live, Feast and Dance perpetually ; they never have much, nor want much : Wealth circulateth like the Blood, all parts partake ; and though some shall want what another hath, yet exact observers of Property."4 Thomas says : "If three or four of them come into a Christian's House, and the Master of it happen to give one of them Victuals, and none to the rest, he will divide it into equal Shares among them : And they are also very kind and civil to any of the Christians ; for I myself have had Victuals cut by them in their Cabbins, before they took any for themselves." 5 An Indian in need of food or lodging would not hes- itate to enter the lodge of another, especially of the same tribe, and would expect as a matter of course to reciprocate as occasion offered.6 The guest would be given a seat on a mat in the middle of the wigwam, and would be invited to help himself out of the earthen pot, which in the beginning never knew the potter's wheel, and in its later existence was totally unacquainted with the cleansing properties of soap and water. Meat and fish and vegetables were all alike cooked in the same vessel, without salt or other seasoning than hunger, for the Indians were abstemious, and seldom ate more than two meals a day, and then only when hunger prompted.7 Some squaws, of course, were more skillful than others, and knew how to prepare Indian corn8 in a dozen different ways 9 ; but

1 Heckewelder, Io1; Pastorius, 96; A Brief Description of New York, etc. [1670], by Daniel Denton, London [1701], reprinted, New York, 1845, P. 20.

2 William Penn, in Richard Blome's "Present State," etc., as cited, p. 98.

3 History of New Jersey, p. 141.

4 William Penn, as cited, p. 99. Writing home from New Perth (Perth Amboy, N. J.) in 1684, one of the early Scotch settlers says: " And for the Indian Natives they are not troublesome any way to any of us, if we do them no harm, but are a very kind and loving people ; the men do nothing but hunt, and the women they plant Corn, and work at home : they comc and trade among the Christians with Skins or Venison, or Corn, or Pork. And in the summer time they and their Wives come down the Rivers in their Cannoes, which they make them- selves of a piece of a great tree, like a little Boat, and there they Fish and take Oysters." See "The Model of the Government of the Province of East-New-Jersey in America," etc., by George Scot, Edin- burgh, 1685, p. 200, quoted in East Jersey under the Proprietary Gov- ernments, etc., by William A. Whitehead, second ed., Newark, N. J., 1875. P. 439 ; Ist ed., 1846, P. 302.

5 Thomas's West Jersey, 4.

6 Wassenaer, 21.

7 Loskiel, 68 ; Heckewelder, 193 ; Campanius, 121.

8 Algonkin tribes so widely separated as the Micmacs of Nova Scotia, and the Piegan Blackfeet, use the same word as the Lenape for Indian corn : the first-named pe-askumun-ul; the second, esko-tope, and the last jesquem (Campanius), or chasquem (Zeisberger). The word is composed of the root ask or aski, " green," and the suffix mun or min, an edible fruit, abbreviated in the Delaware to » .- Brinton's Lenapé, 49. 9 Loskiel, 67.

the Indian's ordinary breakfast and dinner was maize pounded in a mortar till it was crushed into a soft mass and then boiled. 1 This was his ach-poan, softened by the Indians of Southern New Jersey into as-poan, whence the Dutch sapaen or sup- paen (sup-pawn), the Swedish sappan, and the Virginia "corn-pone," sometimes tautologically called "pone bread." Another favorite dish was Indian corn beaten and boiled, and eaten hot or cold, with milk or butter ; this they called Nasaump, whence the word "samp."2 Corn was often boiled whole, when it was called msich- quatash,3 a word which looks like "succotash." Or, it was well mixed "with small beans of different colors, which they plant themselves, but this is held by them as a dainty dish more than as daily food."4 William Penn further remarks on their cookery : "their Maiz is sometimes roasted in the Ashes, sometimes beaten and boiled with Water, which they call Homine ; they also make Cakes, not unpleasant to eat ; they have likewise several sorts of Beans and Pease, that are good nourishment."5

Their thirst was quenched by drinking the broth of meat they boiled, or by draughts of pure water,6 for they had no intoxicating liquors, their only stimulant being tobacco, the smoke of which they inhaled,7 as they enjoyed their pipes. 8 Owing to their lack of intoxicants, Van der Donck remarks, "although their language is rich and expressive it contains no word to express drunkenness. Drunken men they call fools. * *

* The rheumatic-gout, red and pimpled noses, are unknown to them ; nor have they any diseases or infirmities which are caused by drunkenness." 9 Unfortunately, the savages soon acquired a passionate fond- ness for liquor, which has been the greatest curse the white man has brought upon them. Their Chiefs again and again implored the white rulers to prohibit or at least restrain the devastating traffic, 10 but cupidity on the one side and weak-

1 Montanus, 79-80 ; Description of the New Netherlands, by Adriaen Van der Donck, Amsterdam, 1656, translated and printed in the N. Y. Historical Society's Collections, New Series, New York, 1841, Vol. I., p. 193 ; Beskrifning Om De Swenska Forsamlingars Forna och Narwarande Tilstand, Uti Det sa kallade Nya Swerige, etc., Ugifwen Af Israel Acre- lius, Stockholm, 1759, p. 59, translated and published, with notes, by Wil- liam M. Reynolds, D. D., Philadelphia, 1874, as Memoirs of the His- torical Society of Pennsylvania, Vol. XI., p. 65.

2 Roger Williams, as cited, p. 33.

3 Ibid., 32.

4 Representation of New Netherland, p. 21.

5 Richard Blome's " Present State," etc., 98.

6 Loskiel, 74 ; Van der Donck, 192.

7 Brinton's Lenape, 49. Dr. Brinton says tobacco was called by the Delawares kscha-tzy (Zeisberger), scka-ta (Campanius), or shuate (Salem Interpreter), which he thinks are from the root 'ta or 'dam, " to drink," the smoke bcing swallowed like water .- Ibid., 49.

8 The Delaware word for pipe was appooke, the modern Delaware being o'pahokun, which closely resembles the hopoacan of Zeisberger (say 1750), and the hapockon of the Salem Interpreter of 1684. See Brin- ton's Lenape, 50 ; Am. Hist. Record, I., 309. Their pipes were made of red marble, steatite, blue slate, sandstone or clay, often brought from the Mississippi or beyond. See Loskiel, 51, 100; Abbott's Primitive In- dustry, 317-340.

9 Van der Donck, as cited, 192.

10 De Vries, in N. Y. Hist. Soc. Collections, 2d Series, 1841, Vol. I., 267 ; Smith's N. J., 52; Pa. Col. Records, II., 141 ; Loskiel, 101 ; Good Order Established in Pennsilvania & New-Jersey in America, etc., by Thomas Budd, 1685, reprinted, New York, 1865, p. 63.

HISTORY OF PATERSON.

ness on the other made vain all efforts in that direction.1

The men provided the fish and game, while the women cultivated the fields, raised corn and other vegetables in great quantities, and preserved them during the winter in pits2 or barracks. Sometimes they would have a supply of provisions stored up sufficient to last them two years, a fact which shows that they were not always as improvident as they have been assumed to be. 3 They often postponed a war until crops could be gathered, as they depended largely 011 their vegetables for their sustenance.

Trained from their infancy4 in feats of dexterity and agility, as well as to endurance, they of course excelled in the craft of wood or water. They cheerfully placed these talents at the service of the whites for a trifling recom- pence, 5 and proved valuable aids in subduing the native wilds, and many of their customs have been kept up by the whites to this day.6 They were found trusty messengers be- tween the Dutch settlements on the Delaware and New Amsterdam, and swift ones, too, a dusky savage undertak- ing (in 1661) to take a letter from Christina (Newcastle, Del.) to Manhattan in four or five days, for the munificent

1 The sale of liquors to the Indians was prohibited by the Director and Council of New Netherlands, by ordinances passed 18 June, 1643 ; 21 November, 1645; 1 July, 1647; 10 March, 1648; 13 May, 1648; 28 Aug- ust, 1654 ; 20 December, 1655 (on the Delaware river) ; 26 October, 1656 ; 12 June, 1657 (prohibits the giving or selling) ; 9 April, 1658. See Laws and Ordinances of New Netherland, 1638-1674, compiled and translated by E. B. O'Callaghan, Albany, 1868, sub annis. The English enacted similar prohibitions 1 March, 1665; 22 September, 1676; in Penn- sylvania 10 December, 1682, and frequently thereafter. See Duke of York's Laws, etc., Harrisburg, 1879, PP. 32, 75, III. In New Jersey, an act was passed in 1677 imposing a penalty on any person who should " draw strong drink for the Indians, and not take effectual care to prevent any disturbance that may happen by any such means to any of their neigbbours." But the pious and thrifty rumsellers of that day had a horror of " sumptuary " legislation, and 1682 they got this act modified by a new law, which with an amusing affectation of holy scruples set out : " Forasmuch as brandy, rum and other strong liquors, are in their kind (not abused but taken in moderation) creatures of God, and useful and beneficial to mankind, and that those creatures which God bestows, are not more to be denied to Indians in moderation than the Christians," etc., etc. In 1692 the Legislature regretfully confessed that the " notion of selling strong liquors in moderation " had been a failure, and there- upon rigidly prohibited the furnishing of any kind of intoxicating liquors to the Indians, under penalty of five lashes on the bare back, ten for the second offence, fifteen for the third, and twenty for any further offence. -Grants and Concessions, Philadelphia [1758], 125, 137, 258, 316 ; reprint- ed, Somerville, N. J., 1881. Other enactments on the same subject will be found in Kinsey's Laws, 1732, and in Nevill's Laws, 1752 and 1761.

" They preserve their crops in round holes, dug in the eartb at some distance from the houses, lined and covered with dry leaves or : grass."-Loskiel, 68. What was this but a silo ?

3 N. Y. Col. Documents, XII., 292. During the second Esopus war, 1645, tbe Dutch cut down 215 acres of maize and burned above 100 pits full of corn and beans .- N. Y. Doc. Hist., IV., 47.

4 Loskiel, 75. Mr. Wolley says he had been informed that an Indian boy of seven years could shoot a bird on the wing with a bow and arrow .- Journal, p. 71.

5 Loskiel, 16. A Brief Account of East : New: Jarsey in America : published by the Scots Proprietors Having Interest there, Edinburgh, 1683 ; reprinted, Morrisania, N. Y., 1867, P. 21.

6 That of burning the grass off the meadows in the spring, for instance ; a practice of the Indians in order to dislodge the small vermin, and to stimulate the growth .of young grass for the deer to feed on .- Loskiel, 55.

reward of "a piece of cloth or a pair of socks."1 The dis- tance would be one hundred and twenty miles in a straight line, and by the ordinary paths must have been nearly or quite half as far again.

They dressed in the skins of wild animals, which they skillfully cured. Their implements were of stone-flint arrow heads ; jasper arrow heads have been found on Gar- ret Mountain, which must have been brought from a dis- tance ; quartz, slate, shale and other materials were used for the same purpose. Axes, scrapers, knives, chisels (celts), fish-spears, club-heads, net-sinkers, pestles, pipes, plummets, drills, mortars, spear-heads, some of them finely wrought, and made of chert, flint, quartz, jasper, granite, slate and other stones, have been found in vast abundance in New Jersey, especially in the southern part of the State. In Mercer county alone Dr. Abbott has collected upwards of twenty thousand specimens of Indian handiwork in this line.2 Oval knives, admirably adapted to the cleaning of fish, have been found along the Passaic and Hackensack rivers. Many of the New Jersey implements show a degree- of skill superior to that of many other tribes. The Indian workman acquired great proficiency in fashioning knives and other articles out of flint by dexterous percussion or steady pressure. Holes were bored in the hardest stones, doubt- less by swiftly revolving a pointed stick or bone or other stone in the article to be penetrated, perhaps using a bit of cord to aid the revolution, by twisting and untwisting, and sand to increase the trituration.3 The native copper found near the Raritan was highly prized, and was ham- mered into shape for weapons or tools of various kinds. Their pottery was made of clay and pounded shells, mixed and fashioned by hand, and burned in the fire. There was usually but little attempt at ornamentation, and very seldom were colors used. Soapstone pots were highly prized, and were brought in the rough from great distances and fash- ioned by the purchaser to his or her individual taste. 4

In making a canoe they would fell a tree by the use of their stone axes-which they could do almost as readily as the whites with their implements of iron5 -or by burning into the trunk at the base. This they would trim off by the same means, shape it by scraping and by fire, and then would hollow it out by fire, just as did our own Aryan an- cestors ; or, in later times, they would skillfully cover a framework with bark, and so form a vessel large enough to

1 N. Y. Col. Docs., XII., 344.

2 Dr. Abbott's collection of palæolithic and neolithic implements, or- naments, etc., found by him in New Jersey, is now (1893) owned by the Peabody Museum of Arcbæology and Ethnology at Cambridge, Mass., where it is arranged in glass cases and displayed to good advantage.

3 Every boy knows how to whirl a stick swiftly by twisting and un -- twisting a cord about it. In the museum at Zurich may be seen a "re- storation " of the simple contrivance on this plan wherewith the ancient Lake-Dwellers of Switzerland bored holes in stones, using a bit of cow's horn, with the point cut off, as the borer, sand and water being dropped into the hole bored; in this way a core can be easily cut out of the hardest stone.

4 Dr. Charles C. Abbott, Primitive Industry, passim.

5 Wolley, 52 ; Representation of New Netherland (1649), translated by" Henry C. Murphy, New York, 1849, p. 19.

WAMPUM.

contain twenty rowers, or to bear two thousand pounds of freight, and yet so light that two or four men could carry it. 1

They had learned to make a coarse cloth from the fibre of nettles and other plants, which they twisted upon the thigh with the palm of their hands, and wove with their fingers. They made rope, purses and bags2 of the same thread. For needles they used small bones or wooden splints, with which they were quite dexterous. 3

. Like all uncivilized peoples, the Indians were very fond of ornaments, either for use or for the adornment of the person, and they were in the habit of bartering articles which they had for those which they had not. Flat or hemispherical stones, with holes bored through them, whereby they could be suspended around the neck, were very common, scores of them being pictured in Dr. Abbott's "Primitive Industry." Shells were used in the same way. We may readily imagine the steps by which the size of these ornaments was reduced until a mere bead was formed, per- haps in imitation of bits of hollow bone or wood or reeds, previously used for the same purpose. The dwellers along the seacoast had the advantage over the tribes in the inter- ior, in the greater abundance of material suitable for mak- ing these beads, and in time became expert in their produc- tion. When the whites came, and we know not how long before,4 a standard form appears to have been set- tled upon, and the beads were ground down to the thick- ness of a large straw, about a third of an inch in length, smoothly polished, bored longitudinally with sharp stones, and strung upon thongs or the sinews of animals.5 The fineness was tested by passing it over the nose, the absence of friction being satisfactory proof of its good quality. 6 These beads were formed from pieces broken out of the in- side of the periwinkle, the conch, the hard clam or other suit - able shell.7 The white beads were called wampum, and the blue, purple or violet beads were called suckanhock8 ; in time they were distinguished simply as white wampum and black wampum. The latter being the less plentiful, and perhaps more esteemed from its richer color, was twice as valuable

as the former. By the Dutch they were commonly called seawant, the etymology of which is obscure ; but this is said to have been the generic name for the beads, both white and black.1 However, at an early day the word wampum came into general use for the article. In Massachusetts it was called wampam-peak, wampum- peag,2 wampompeage or simply peag or peague. Among the New Jersey Indians it was called wapapi (white wampum) and géquak or n' sukgéhak (black wampum). The former word is derived from the root wompi (Iroquois) or wap (Delaware), "white ;" the latter from sukeu, " black," and perhaps pokqueu, "clam " or "mussel." Al- though its manufacture was widely spread, at one time the Indians on Long Island, especially on the Sound, almost monopolized its production.3 Used first merely for orna- ment, twined around the head, neck or waist,4 it came to be so much in demand by all tribes that it assumed the character of a currency, and when the whites first settled here they used it in trade also, having no other money, not only in their dealings with the Indians but among them- selves. 5 Some white men tried to make wampum, but their crude product was promptly rejected as counterfeit. With his hand or a split stick for a vise, a sharp stone for a drill, and another stone for his grindstone, a skillful Indian could grind, bore and polish thirty-five or forty of these beads in a day, worth ten or fifteen cents.6 "Wampum being in a manner the currency of the country," as remarked by a writer of New Netherland in 1634,7 the watchful Gov- ernor and Directors of the Colony tried to regulate its value from time to time by sundry enactments. In 164I it was declared that "very bad wampum" was circulated, and "payment is made in rough unpolished wampum which is brought hither from other places, and the good polished wampum, commonly called Manhattan wampum is wholly put out of sight or exported, which tends to the express ruin and destruction of this country ;" wherefore it was or- dered that unpolished wampum should pass current at the rate of five for one stuyver (two cents), and well polished wampum should remain as before, at four for one stuyver, strung. 8 In 1647 loose wampum continued current, al-

1 Loskiel, 32, 103.

2 They appear to have had something like an approach to a standard measure for corn, in the shape of bags, called denotas .- Remonstrance of New Netherland, 13. The Lenape word is Menutes.

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History of the city of Paterson and the County of Passaic, New Jersey, Part 7

Author: Nelson, William, 1847-1914 Publication date: 1901 Publisher: Paterson : Press Printing and Publishing Co. Number of Pages: 466

Author: Nelson, William, 1847-1914
Publication date: 1901
Publisher: Paterson : Press Printing and Publishing Co.
Number of Pages: 466