On the Turtle’s Back

The Lenape tribe, also known as the Delaware Nation, lived for centuries on the land that English colonists later called New Jersey. But once America gained its independence, they were forced to move further west: to Indiana, then Missouri, and finally to the territory that became Oklahoma. These reluctant migrants were not able to carry much from their ancestral homeland, but they managed to preserve the stories that had been passed down for generations. 
 
On the Turtle’s Back is the first collection of Lenape folklore, originally compiled by anthropologist M. R. Harrington over a century ago but never published until now. In it, the Delaware share their cherished tales about the world’s creation, epic heroes, and ordinary human foibles. It features stories told to Harrington by two Lenape couples, Julius and Minnie Fouts and Charles and Susan Elkhair, who sought to officially record their legends before their language and cultural traditions died out. More recent interviews with Lenape elders are also included, as their reflections on hearing these stories as children speak to the status of the tribe and its culture today. Together, they welcome you into their rich and wondrous imaginative world. 
 

On the Turtle’s Back is the first collection of folklore from the Lenape people, New Jersey’s native inhabitants. Originally compiled by anthropologist M. R. Harrington over a century ago, but never published until now, it shares the tribe’s cherished tales about the world’s creation, epic heroes, and ordinary human foibles.

CAMILLA TOWNSEND is Board of Governors Distinguished Professor of History at Rutgers University-New Brunswick. She has published widely on Indigenous history and language in the Americas. Her books include Pocahontas and the Powhatan Dilemma (2004) and, most recently, Fifth Sun: A New History of the Aztecs (2021), which won the 2020 Cundill Prize in History.
 
NICKY KAY MICHAEL is a member of the Delaware tribe who earned her BA in American studies from Stanford and PhD in history from the University of Oklahoma. She is currently the interim president of Bacone College in Muskogee, Oklahoma, where she is also the executive director of Indigenous studies and curriculum. She is serving a seven-year term on the Delaware tribal council.
 

List of Illustrations 
Introduction: The Storytellers’ History 
1 Creation Stories 
The Turtle’s Back 
The Seven Stars 
The Snow and Ice Boy 
The Girl Who Sounds the Thunders 
A Snake Legend [Julius Fouts] 
The Disappearance of Corn [Charles Elkhair] 
2 Big House Stories 
The Misingwe [Charles Elkhair] 
Vision on the Kansas River [Charles Elkhair] 
The Future of the Big House [Charles Elkhair and Julius Fouts] 
Delaware Church [Julius Fouts] 
3 Culture Heroes 
Ball Player [Julius Fouts] 
The Big Fish [Charles Elkhair] 
Wehixamukes (Strong Man) [Charles Elkhair] 
4 Humans Learning Lessons 
Rock-Shut-Up [Charles Elkhair] 
Little Masks [Julius Fouts] 
He Is Everywhere (Wē ma tī gŭnīs) [Julius Fouts] 
5 Talking to the Dead 
First Cause of the Feast for the Dead [Minnie Fouts] 
Talking to the Dead [Susan Elkhair] 
Lost Boy [Charles Elkhair’s daughter?]
Otter Hide [Charles Elkhair?] 
6 The Coming of the Whites 
The Coming of the White Men [Julius Fouts] 
Origination of White Men [Julius Fouts] 
Whites & Indians [Charles Elkhair] 
7 Tales of Ordinary Life 
A Child’s Life [Julius Fouts] 
The Three Clans [Julius Fouts] 
The Origin of Stories 
An Afterword in Three Parts 
I What Happened to the Storytellers? 
II Four Elders at the End of the Twentieth Century
Rosetta Coffey (September 17, 1997) 
Pat Donnell (September 20, 1997) 
Joanna Nichol (October 11, 1997) 
Bonnie Thaxton (August 19, 1997) 
III Today
Appendix A: The Turtle’s Back (Iroquoian and Munsee Versions) 
Appendix B: Dutch Arrival at Manhattan (John Heckewelder’s Version) 
Appendix C: The Woman Who Wanted No One (as told to Truman Michelson) 
Appendix D: Elected Leaders of the Delaware Tribe of Indians, ca. 1800–Present
Acknowledgments
Glossary 
Notes 
Bibliography 
Index 

 

“On the Turtle’s Back offers an engaging and previously unpublished collection of Lenape/Delaware stories narrated in the early twentieth century. The scholarship is strong, and the research is impressive; there is no comparable volume in the field.”
  “With On the Turtle’s Back, Camilla Townsend and Nicky Kay Michael offer a stunning edition of Lenape stories that have been told through centuries of cultural practice. They outline key historical struggles in Lenape history to contextualize the meaningfulness of the survivance of those stories. They draw together creation, big house, learning, and other stories. “Told [to] their grandchildren” gestures to a past in which Lenape cared for their stories and a future in which those stories are still meaningful. It is the book I have yearned for as a Lenape person and scholar.”