Week 5

I am studying Rev. John Heckewelder’s “Names which the Lenni Lenape...had given to rivers, streams, places, etc., 1822.”

1. I identified three placename categories: the behavior of the water, the plants and animals that live near the water, and human interactions, particularly colonial ones.

2. Another key point that I cover is Heckewelder’s biases and inaccuracies in the text. He was not Lenape, and although he lived among the Lenape for many decades as a Moravian missionary, he did so with the intent to “civilize” them. He comes from the background of a settler, often adding his own assumptions to placenames, such as indicating that Manayunk, place of drinking, meant drinking liquor, when in reality, it was likely just a water source. This text is also written in 1822, many years after he retired from missionary work, and he may have recency bias in his recordings.

3. The last key point is understanding the importance of waterways for all Indigenous people, but especially the Lenape. Waterways were methods of transportation, taking people from place to place via canoe. They are also sources of life for plants, animals and people. This importance is evident in Lenape and Algonquian placenaming practices where names are more descriptions of the natural life around the water or the behavior of the water as necessary information for travelers.