A Friendship in 1682

The Lenape, Quakers, and a Wampum Belt

by Juanita Kramer-Villasenor - Garrison Elementary School - Oceanside USD

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My name is Tamman, one who is a peacemaker and knows. I live next to the Delaware River in a forest full of elms. It is the land where I play ’kanoo’, which means - to hunt. My close friend is Tamana. We play ‘kanoo’ together in the forest.

Today, I awoke early from a bad dream . My great shaman says that all dreams are from the spirit world talking to me and it is important that I listen. I don’t want to hear the words of this dream because the great, grey owl is asking me to do something that has never been done before, and I am only a boy of nine.

Soon, I will be going on the great hunts with the men of my village. If I follow the commands of the great, grey owl, I will never be permitted to go with the men or prepare sacred hunting tools together. I will be required to stay with the women and farm the fields of corn and squash. The wigwam in which I sleep is made of bark.

There are many people sleeping here with me. They are all my family and other families of my mother. We are about twenty here. We sleep around the burning fire in the center of the wigwam. Although, I try to go back to sleep I am unable to.

The piercing stare of the big, yellow eyes of the grey owl are fixed in my mind. I see despair, deceit, terror, people massacred and spirits shattered, in our village and in the village of the white man. It is like a black cloud blowing from the East, sweeping over our people and their people.We are all left in darkness.We are left without names or faces.

It is frightening to me, so strange, but I know I must listen. I see the Wampum belt undisturbed in the mouth of the great grey owl. He sits like a fierce chief, perched on a smoldering, bright, red, cindering, thick tree branch, high above the terror below.

His eyes are fixed on me and he begins to jerk his head to the East and West. The tiny white shells of the Wampum belt begin to shake and turn a bright smoldering red The shells take the shape of eyes and I can see the eyes of Tamman, Ona and my dead sister Ula.

They are pleading with me to take the belt and bring it back to our sacred burial place, to our sacred mother earth, from where our people were created. “Return it to us!” they are pleading with me. “It must be returned to our sacred earth and crushed into it, so that it will become one with the earth and unify all people and living things, as it was before.”

“Before what?” I asked.

“Before our people and the European people became sick with envy and fear of each other,” lamented Ula with her dark, brown eyes staring at me, blazing with conviction.

“Take the Wampum belt and crush it into the earth today, before the meeting of our chiefs and William Penn and his chiefs. Take it before the treaty is signed and this belt is given to the white man, William Penn!” pleaded my sister.

I could not ignore the voice any longer. I arose from my warm, straw mat and slowly left my sleeping mother, sister, brothers and father deeply, immersed into the world of dreams. I gathered up my deer skins to cover my legs and chest. It was very cold this morning. Then I approached the forbidden.

I stole into the wigwam of our elder sachem, Chief Tulsa where the wampum had been hanging ready for the great ceremony today, when the sun leaves no shadows. To be held under the elm tree by the great Delaware River.

I slipped it off so swiftly from its stick hanger. It slithered off as if just waiting for me to relieve it of its painful duty to be performed today. I slithered into darkness like a spirit. No one saw me, I was sure.

I must have flown to our sacred grounds. I have never traveled so fast. It felt like I had wings. There I found a beautiful area to break the earth and dig a hole. There I laid the belt down and smashed it to pieces with my feet and a sharp spear, I had brought. I quickly prayed, danced and asked the spirits to protect me as I fled and fell.

This is when I awoke, and there I found myself under the very same elm tree with all the elders and chiefs of my tribe gathered around in a circle. And in this circle was William Penn, holding the Wampum belt!

Our fate came to be just as I had dreamed seventy years ago, as a little boy. We are now packing our few belongings that we can take. After having our land stolen through betrayals, land squatters, and broken promises by the government, we are being forced to move to an unknown land, an unsettled land. They call it Ohio. We are leaving our beloved home.

My dreams always spoke to me. I listen to them now.