The Kechemeche were first encountered in approximately the year 1600 by European colonists [citation needed] who found the natives to be generally friendly and cooperative. By 1735 the Kechemeche were no longer a viable population, through losses from illness and disease, from being absorbed into the occupying colonial population, and by settling elsewhere, including joining other tribes.
Eventually, remaining Kechemeche were relocated to Oklahoma by the U.S. government, along with other Lenape (Delaware) tribes, where their descendants remain to this day.
The colonial settlers described the Kechemeche as a robust, healthy people, who hunted and grew crops, such as corn, squash, and beans. In Kechemeche society, women did the growing of crops, the cooking and other household and child-rearing chores, while the men were generally responsible for maintaining security and for providing meat for their families through hunting. Since the tribe was located so close to the shores of the Atlantic Ocean and the Delaware Bay, the netting and trapping of fish and clamming formed part of their occupation.
Deer and small game were plentiful in the local pine forests, and the Kechemeche hunters would trap and kill the deer by setting fires to the underbrush to drive the deer into pre-arranged traps, where they would be killed and used as fresh meat or preserved through smoking or salting. Also, the deer carcass provided other products such as leather, horns, and so on.
The Kechemeche lived in villages consisting of wigwams, as opposed to teepees. If the village was large enough it could contain a wooden longhouse and even defensive palisades. During leisure hours, tribe members performed beading and weaving, creating products which could be used in trade with other tribes. They also created wampum out of white and purple shell beads, and used the wampum for trading. Since the Kechemeche had access to the Delaware River, they often traveled the river in their bark and dugout canoes in order to trade and communicate with other tribes. Trails led throughout the area, and in the northern part of what is now a county the Kechemeche gathered tuckahoe, a type of root, which they converted into a substance that served as flour.
Visiting other tribes, some distant, was important for the Kechemeche, since story telling was an important element of entertainment in the Kechemeche lifestyle. Because of the tribe's isolation and lack of a written historical or contemporary record, news or gossip of happenings in other tribes, as well as tales of their own ancestors, was always welcomed by all members of the tribe.
Kechemeche men wore minimal headdress, with perhaps some beads and only a feather or two. The women wore their hair in braids and wore knee-length skirts. Men wore deerskinbreechcloth and leggings, but did not generally cover their chests, which, in many cases, were adorned with tattoos. In cold weather, men would cover their chests with deerskin capes. Both sexes wore deerskin moccasins. Warriors shaved their head or wore what would now be considered a "mohawk" haircut. In times of conflict, a warrior employed bow and arrow, war club, and often a shield.
Since the Kechemeche lived close to the shores of Delaware Bay, they collected what are now known as "Cape May diamonds," or tumbled quartz, along the beaches. These they considered to have supernatural powers and used them for trading with other tribes, as well as with European settlers.
Colonial settlers were eager to trade with the Kechemeche, who provided valuable pelts of beaver, deer, bear and otter in exchange for common European products such as beads, bottles, cook ware, guns, and knives.
The Kechemeche, like other members of the Lenni Lenape, believed that land was to be used, not owned, which created a philosophical conflict, as well as misunderstandings, between the Kechemeche and the settlers. In addition, the Kechemeche generally required approximately one square mile for hunting and for providing meat for a family unit. As a result, growth of colonial area eventually caused sufficient conflict that various treaties were found necessary in order to come to final agreement on land use. Despite these treaties, Kechemeche influence waned as colonial ventures such as New Sweden, New Netherland, and the English Province of New Jersey continued to grow. The last Kechemeche leader in their traditional lands that the European colonists recorded was King Nummy, who died sometime from 1700–1730. Most Kechemeche eventually migrated westward to area in what is now Pennsylvania and Ohio; remnants would eventually be sent to the Indian Territory much later.
Lineage
The Kechemeche were a tribe in the Lenape group, later named the Delaware by some historians. The Lenape nation consisted of three major divisions, or clans[citation needed]:
the Took-seat, which meant Wolf, or Round Paw, also known as the Munsee, and which settled in North New Jersey and Southern New York.
the Pokekooungo, which meant Turtle, or Crawling, also known as the northern Unami, and populated Central New Jersey and parts of Pennsylvania.[1]
the Pullaook, which meant Turkey, or Non-Chewing[citation needed], also known as the southern Unami,[2][pageneeded] which settled in South New Jersey.
A fourth clan evolved, but broke up and was absorbed by the other three[citation needed].
The Kechemeche were part of the Pullaook (Turkey) clan, which reported to the Lenape subchief, termed "sakima," who resided in the Trenton area.
The Lenape, also called the Lenni Lenape and Delaware people, are an indigenous people of the Northeastern Woodlands, who live in the United States and Canada.
Wampum is a traditional shell bead of the Eastern Woodlands tribes of Native Americans. It includes white shell beads hand-fashioned from the North Atlantic channeled whelk shell and white and purple beads made from the quahog or Western North Atlantic hard-shelled clam.
Lenapehoking is widely translated as 'homelands of the Lenape', which in the 16th and 17th centuries, ranged along the Eastern seaboard from western Connecticut to Delaware, and encompassed the territory adjacent to the Delaware and lower Hudson river valleys, and the territory between them.
The Algonquian are one of the most populous and widespread North American native language groups. They historically were prominent along the Atlantic Coast and in the interior regions along Saint Lawrence River and around the Great Lakes. This grouping consists of the peoples who speak Algonquian languages.
The Delaware languages, also known as the Lenape languages, are Munsee and Unami, two closely related languages of the Eastern Algonquian subgroup of the Algonquian language family. Munsee and Unami were spoken aboriginally by the Lenape people in the vicinity of the modern New York City area in the United States, including western Long Island, Manhattan Island, Staten Island, as well as adjacent areas on the mainland: southeastern New York State, eastern Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Connecticut, Maryland, and Delaware.
The history of New York City has been influenced by the prehistoric geological formation during the last glacial period of the territory that is today New York City. The area was long inhabited by the Lenape; after initial European exploration in the 16th century, the Dutch established New Amsterdam in 1626. In 1664, the British conquered the area and renamed it New York.
The Treaty of Shackamaxon, also called the Great Treaty and Penn's Treaty, was a treaty between William Penn and Tamanend of the Lenape signed in 1682. Penn and Tamanend agreed that their people would live in a state of perpetual peace.
Unami was an Algonquian language spoken by the Lenape people in the late 17th century and the early 18th century, in what later became the southern two-thirds of New Jersey, southeastern Pennsylvania and the northern two-thirds of Delaware, and later in Ontario, Canada and Oklahoma. It is one of the two Delaware languages; the other is Munsee. The last fluent Unami speaker in the United States, Edward Thompson, of the Delaware Tribe of Indians, died on August 31, 2002. His sister Nora Thompson Dean (1907–1984) provided valuable information about the language to linguists and other scholars.
The Nanticoke people are a Native American Algonquian people, whose traditional homelands are in Chesapeake Bay and Delaware. Today they live in the Northeastern United States and Canada, especially Delaware; in Ontario; and in Oklahoma.
Indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands include Native American tribes and First Nation bands residing in or originating from a cultural area encompassing the northeastern and Midwest United States and southeastern Canada. It is part of a broader grouping known as the Eastern Woodlands. The Northeastern Woodlands is divided into three major areas: the Coastal, Saint Lawrence Lowlands, and Great Lakes-Riverine zones.
The Unalachtigo were a purported division of the Lenape, a Native American tribe whose homeland Lenapehoking was in what is today the Northeastern United States. They were part of the Forks Indians.
The Shinnecock Indian Nation is a federally recognized tribe of historically Algonquian-speaking Native Americans based at the eastern end of Long Island, New York. This tribe is headquartered in Suffolk County, on the southeastern shore. Since the mid-19th century, the tribe's landbase is the Shinnecock Reservation within the geographic boundaries of the Town of Southampton. Their name roughly translates into English as "people of the stony shore".
The Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape Tribal Nation are a tribal confederation of Nanticoke of the Delmarva Peninsula and the Lenape of southern New Jersey and northern Delaware. They are recognized by the state of New Jersey, having reorganized and maintained elected governments since the 1970s. They are not a federally recognized tribe.
Pavonia was the first European settlement on the west bank of the North River that was part of the seventeenth-century province of New Netherland in what would become the present Hudson County, New Jersey.
Metoac is an erroneous term used by some to group together the Munsee-speaking Lenape (west), Quiripi-speaking Unquachog (center) and Pequot-speaking Montaukett (east) American Indians on what is now Long Island in New York state. The term was invented by amateur anthropologist and U.S. Congressman Silas Wood in the mistaken belief that the various native settlements on the island each comprised distinct tribes.
Oratam was sagamore, or sachem, of the Hackensack Indians living in northeastern New Jersey during the period of early European colonization in the 17th century. Documentation shows that he lived an unusually long life and was quite influential among indigenous and immigrant populations.
Hackensack was the exonym given by the Dutch colonists to a band of the Lenape, or Lenni-Lenape, a Native American tribe. The name is a Dutch derivation of the Lenape word for what is now the region of northeastern New Jersey along the Hudson and Hackensack rivers. While the Lenape people occupied much of the mid-Atlantic area, Europeans referred to small groups of native people by the names associated with the places where they lived.
The Tappan were a Lenape people who inhabited the region radiating from Hudson Palisades and New York – New Jersey Highlands at the time of European colonialization in the 17th century.
The Delaware Tribe of Indians, formerly known as the Cherokee Delaware or the Eastern Delaware, based in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, is one of three federally recognized tribes of the Lenape people in the United States, the others being with the Delaware Nation based in Anadarko, Oklahoma, and the Stockbridge-Munsee Community of Wisconsin. More Lenape or Delaware people live in Canada.
The Okehocking Tribe was a small band of Unami language-speaking Delaware Indians, who occupied an area along the Ridley and Crum creeks in Chester County, Pennsylvania. Part of that area is now known as Ridley Creek State Park. Along with the Schuylkill and Brandywine Indians, the Okehocking were known as Unami or "people down the river" by other tribes, in accordance with the Indian way of designating a tribe by geographical location.
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