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Brian: It's the Brian Lehrer show on WNYC. Good morning everyone and greetings from Lenapehoking on Lenape land. Today is the national holiday officially known in the US now as both Columbus Day and Indigenous Peoples Day. In New York City, the Columbus reference is officially gone and it's Indigenous Peoples Day and Italian Heritage Day. We're going to begin today by honoring the new part of the holiday with a New York new jersey history lesson that I know I didn't learn in my public schools in Queens, and many of you probably didn't either, even if you grew up here in what used to be known as Lenapehoking. Let's learn some history.

I'm delighted to have with us, Curtis Zunigha, co director of the Lenape Center, which is here in Mannahatta, or as we say these days, Manhattan. Curtis, thanks so much for some time on this holiday. Welcome to WNYC.

Curtis: Thank you very much. It's a privilege to be on your program this morning.

Brian: Did I say Lenapehoking right first of all or how do you say it?

Curtis: Yes indeed. You got it right. Very good.

Brian: Good. How much of what we now call New York City and vicinity and how far beyond was Lenapehoking before Henry Hudson sailed into town in 1609?

Curtis: Let your listeners understand that obviously we did not have these firm boundaries with fences and border lines already written out and all of that sort of thing. To give you a bit of geography, Lenapehoking encompassed an area that began around the foothills of the Catskills mountains of the Hudson River, coming down into and covering the New York City area, not Long Island however. The Shinnecock people are out that way. When you get up north of the foothills of the Catskills, you're getting up into Iroquois or Six Nations country. Continuing southward it includes all of New Jersey and the eastern part of Pennsylvania, about over to the Susquehanna River. Then down about the northern tier of the state of Delaware, down to about Wilmington.

That was the original homeland of the people called Lenape and in our language, it means the original people, the original people of the land.

Brian: Greater New York as we think of it today, except Long Island and then some, as you just described. I mentioned Henry Hudson, by the way. Did they have a name for what we now call the Hudson River?

Curtis: Mahicantuck, which means the river that flows in both directions, meaning it's a tidal basin river. You've got the waters that flow in inward from the ocean and ultimately bring a tide upstream and then you have the waters coming down from the mountains and the higher elevations seeking to empty into places like New York Harbor. That river valley, the Hudson River Valley, was known as Mahicantuck, the river that flows in both directions.

Brian: Really interesting. Referring to, as you describe it, an estuary which is a remote learning lesson for another day. When you have the ocean pushing in one direction, and the flow down from the mountains in another direction and so the waters in that river, certainly adjacent to New York City, and to some or within New York City and above, an estuary. Does Lanape or Lenapehoking for the name of the land have a rough English translation?

Curtis: As I said earlier, Lenape means the original people. A lot of native languages when they have in their language for who they are, it means the people of a certain geographic area. For Lenape it's just the original people.

Brian: The original people. Do you know how many people lived here at the population peak of the Lanape's presence?

Curtis: Well, you're talking about a timeframe that encompasses up to 13,000 years so I would even have to go by what ethno historians and the like may have estimated, but it was indeed well over 10,000 that lived in that entire area that I described. Also they lived in various villages with individual names. You think of it like the state of New York, it would be the equivalent of Lenapehoking but then each city or town inside has its own name, its own characteristic and in some cases with the Lenape, we had a north south distinction in our language.

We actually had two dialects of the Lenape language. The northern people, which would be more up in the New York City area and up river spoke a Munsee dialect. Whereas the people downriver more along Philadelphia and southern New Jersey spoke an Unami dialect and the inflection and some of the words are a little bit different.

Brian: The legend or myth of the purchase of Manhattan by the Dutch for $24, and beads and trinkets, how does the Lenape center represent what's real and what's not about that?

Curtis: I think you used an appropriate word, it is a myth. History records that there were interaction between the Dutch led by the Dutch East India Company that established a fair trade among the Lanape in the area that's now New York City. The myth was that the Dutch wanted to purchase the island of Manhattan to set up their corporate trade. To the Lanape, a native people who did not understand European concepts of land ownership, sales transfer of a deed, or something like that, and also involving the interpretation of English and Lenape back and forth.

To the Lenape people, without the concept of land ownership, the idea was, is, that the Dutch were providing not money, but really more of a trade goods and have that sort of thing in exchange for the right to peaceful occupancy, and to be co-occupants of a certain piece of land, for the purpose of trade and commerce. The Lanape were also people of goodwill and it was part of our nature of who we are to have welcomed these strangers onto the land to help them survive and thrive and to provide a robust trade and commerce in such things as animal furs and wampum shell items, things that were very much a part of the economy of the Lanape people.

The problem was is they didn't understand selling land. Therefore when the Dutch claimed to have purchased it, their idea was, well, "We bought this now you guys leave, you go away." Lanape just didn't understand that when they kept coming back, the Dutch would build a fort, they would build a wall around the New Amsterdam, which later became New York when the British took over. They built a wall around their village, around their fort, to keep the Lenape out of their own land.

Brian: That was the origin of Wall Street per se, right?

Curtis: Yes, sir. That path along the perimeter of the wall, over a period of time, became wider enough for transport of wagons and horses and people and ultimately became a paved road. to this day, it continues to be known as Wall Street, the street along the wall that kept the original people out of their own homeland because of this misconceived purchase of Manhattan. That was just the beginning of many historic events that led to the expulsion, you might say, of the original people from their homeland and the takeover by the Dutch and then later the British and then later the Americans.

Brian: Listeners, if we happen to have any other Lenape people listening, call in and help contribute to this Indigenous Peoples Day history lesson, 646-435-7280. You are invited to tell us something about your family or the history of the Lenape people that you think others would be interested in hearing or just would be good to know. 646-435-7280. Non-Lenape, you can call in too with your questions for Curtis Zuniga, co-director of New York City's Lenape Center. If this is fourth-grade history that way you never learned it originally, questions from the class are invited. Raise your hands to show your curiosity by calling 646-435-7280.

This being the era of remote learning, you can also tweet a question @BrianLehrer. Curtis, there are barely any Lenape people here today, as I understand it, meaning in this geographical area. Maybe we won't get any calls from Lenape people who happen to be listening. You yourself are in Oklahoma but that wasn't the first stop after New Amsterdam after expulsion, right?

Curtis: Yes, that's correct. Before I start quickly telling the story of our diaspora to the west and to the north, let me make a distinction that today is Indigenous Peoples Day. We talked about Lenape who are indigenous to the land which we described as Lenapehoking but today in New York City there are really tens of thousands of native or indigenous people that live there from all across the Americas. We have a lot of Taino people who are from the Caribbean area that are descendants. We have people who are indigenous that live in New York or Lenapehoking but the Lenape are indigenous to the land. Certainly Indigenous Peoples Day is to celebrate all people who are indigenous in order to counter the narrative of Columbus, and the so-called discovery of the New World.

Now in answer to your question about our own diaspora or our scattering of the people from their original homeland. If it came by force, it came by force of military and sheer numbers of people who were coming from the European continent and seeking a new land to live in. When the Lenape were pushed out, it wasn't just one giant group of people walking single file down the path headed toward the setting sun, because of the military. There are clear military records about massacres of Lenape villages, killing men, women, and children and it's frightening. It's harrowing to read these accounts.

Obviously, you've got people who are afraid and trying to flee their homeland so they don't get killed or get killed along the way, and now this diaspora has led to the establishment of a total of five different communities, three in the United States, two in southern Ontario Canada who are recognized. That's probably another phone call in another program to talk about, but you have a total of five who are recognized by the federal government and yet there are a lot of people who are descendants that may not have the legal status as part of a federally recognized tribe but they have the bloodlines, they have a descendancy.

You can have people who are descendants by blood, by heritage, and yet may not qualify for today's modern requirements to be a registered member of a federally recognized tribe because, over a period of almost 200 years, those rules changed.

Brian: I'll go there a little bit on recognition which obviously, and I think for obvious reasons for most of our listeners, you're somewhat cynical about from the outset. I read in Smithsonian that one group of Lenape known as the Ramapough Lenape Nation, and today's New York and New Jersey people will recognize the name Ramapough. The Ramapough Lenape Nation exists here and is recognized by the state of New Jersey, but not the federal government. What does it mean for the people to be recognized by the state or the federal government?

Curtis: Well, it's a very complicated and tricky question. Once again, the point I'm trying to make it as Indian-- I'm going to call it Indian because I am officially enrolled as Delaware tribe of Indians so it's not offensive to me to be called an Indian, I am an Indian. However, of course, today I'm indigenous, and it's a good day to be indigenous. However, getting back to this matter of federal recognition, state recognition and likewise, it has to do with a historical relationship between the tribes themselves and the federal government. Those that cannot prove to the federal government by their standards, by their requirements, that they are indigenous Native American, American Indian or whatever, then they fall short of the bar that's been set as federally recognized.

Now the state of New Jersey, State of New York, can do whatever they want as far as recognizing a group of people, but that may not give the tribe such as the Ramapough the relationship with the United States government that would provide federal programs and having land held in federal trust status by the United States, thus creating Indian land. These important distinctions do not fall upon those who have state recognition. This whole situation of who's federally recognized, who's not, is a construct of the federal government. Now, let me also quickly state that the Lenape people as a whole were known as Delaware after the British came.

The British had a colonial governor over the river valley that really started in New York and went down all the way down into Philadelphia. He was Sir Thomas West, he was a colonial governor of Great Britain and Thomas West had a title of nobility. He was the third Lord De La Warre, W-A-R-R-E. De La Warre morphed into Delaware, and therefore the river valley and the native inhabitants became referred to as Delaware. When you get up into the time of the American Revolution, the Delaware were coveted there by George Washington to be an ally in the Revolutionary War.

He regionally wanted Delaware to remain neutral, but we ended up signing up with the Continental Congress and the Continental Army, supported them in the Revolutionary War. The Delaware are the first Indian tribe to enter into a treaty with the United States of America on September 17th, 1778 in the history of this tribe. The second treaty by the United States was with an Indian tribe and it was empowered to them in the United States Constitution. This is how significant our history is when we talk about things like purchase of Manhattan and the Revolutionary War and the first Indian treaty. Yet here we are, displaced from our original homeland, our Delaware people here with the Delaware tribe.

Again, one of five groups. Our little tribe here in Northeastern, Oklahoma, we have a desire. I personally have a desire to have a greater presence back in the homeland, which includes New York. That's why I became a part of Lenape Center over 10 years ago. I am grateful that I have the opportunity to voice that the Lenape people as a whole never forget their original homeland and the origins of our culture and our language which still lies there in a spiritual way in the land and the waters.

Brian: We have to take a break.

Curtis: I want to come back and have a greater presence back in New York.

Brian: When we come back from the break, we'll talk about how and we'll also talk about the Lenape Center and what people who live around here or visit around here might see if they go to the Lenape Center in Manhattan. Listeners, we're going to get to some of your phone calls as we do an Indigenous Peoples Day history lesson

about the Lenape people who were the original inhabitants of most of what we now consider New York City and vicinity. 646-435-72-80 or tweet @BrianLehrer for Curtis Zunigha, co-director of The Lenape Center. Stay with us.

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Brian: Brian Lehrer on WNYC as we continue with this Indigenous People's Day history lesson of the original inhabitants of New York city and vicinity. Most of it, except for Long Island, the Lenape People with Curtis Zunigha, Co-director of the Lenape Center in Manhattan. John in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi John? Thanks for calling in.

John: Hi, thanks for taking my call. I was wondering if your guest might be able to speak to the stone ceremonial sites that the Lenape People might have built in our area. This is something that I've only recently started digging into, and it's not really part of our mainstream history on Native Americans in general, let alone the woodland natives of this area. They were constructing various stone sites that had astronomical alignments and dates that they could help track the year. That sort of thing.

Brian: You got the question, Curtis?

Curtis: Yes, I do. Ceremonial sites and other areas in Lenapehoking for that purpose were indeed a part of an entire cosmology of our culture. It was very much tied to our spiritual relationship with the land, the waters, and as I said, the cosmos. We had a way of living and understanding in our culture, of connecting with the spirit. I believe that we all come from stardust and therefore where there is a spirit in the human, there's also a spirit in the land, the waters and even the stars. These kinds of places, the ceremonial sites did exist. However, after encounter with the European colonists and colonization, much of that was destroyed, ignored, erased so as not to acknowledge that the Lenape were anything other than a group of savages that needed to be removed from the area so that Christian White people from the European continent could settle the land.

Therefore, when archeologists dig up places that may have indeed been a ceremonial site it's a mixed bag. We learn from these archeological digs, but then we are also concerned about upsetting the spiritual resting place of our ancestors. Oftentimes, these scholarly, intellectual, educational endeavors to find these places and to dig them up and learn from them also upsets the ground, the land where the people were buried, where they lived. Where their ceremonies were sacred. Yes, it existed. I'm not at liberty to go on a tour and start showing people where these are, because we don't want them disturbed anymore.

Brian: John, thank you for that call. Ellen in Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Hi Ellen.

Ellen: Hi, thank you for taking my call. I'm calling because I want to know how he would like the wrong that were done to these people? A major DNA question, which I didn't tell you, is can you use DNA to tell who the people of these tribes, I use the word tribes if you like, can you use the DNA to tell who these people were?

Brian: Ellen, thank you. Curtis, two big questions there. First on the DNA or genealogy question?

Curtis: I'm familiar with this whole industry of DNA and testing, and extrapolating the data to determine who might be, a percentage of who might be. Myself, I don't subscribe to that. I don't know that much about the science of it, but it is not used as a criteria for tribal membership or affiliation. It's more to satisfy an individual's curiosity, because you have to have all of these assumptions that there's a likelihood that you might have had a blood of a certain people. There's the whole Bering Strait theory that they came over from Siberia. All of these things are a bit of a myth to me, so I can only speak for myself. I don't subscribe to the whole DNA testing thing. That's my particular response.

Our tribe, the Delaware tribe, nor the other groups that are federally recognized use any DNA testing to qualify for tribal membership.

Brian: To her other question, what would justice look like to you for the Lenape or other Indigenous people in the United States today beyond whatever laws have already been passed? I guess you can't come back to New York and say, "Hey, this was really rightly mine. Everybody else has got to get out or give it up.'

Curtis: Well. [laughs]

Brian: Or maybe you can?

Curtis: Let me respond to that by bringing forward the premise that when you look at colonization, when you look at the roots of colonization that go back to directives from the Catholic church and the Pope and Kings and Queens from all across Europe. The attitude was there's nothing but a bunch of savages and raw land out there for the taking and therefore you go in there and you get rid of the savages. You take over the land, you convert them into Christianity. If you're successful, then you make those people extract the resources and send them back to the Kings and the Queens and the popes.

Now that's the essence of the doctrine of discovery and colonization, but it also required the erasure of the native people from history so that there's not only no guilt over taking the lands and getting rid of the original people, but it justifies what's happened over the last 500 years. I can say, you are living on stolen land. Now, following your premise of, "I'm back. I want all you white people to leave and give the land back to me," that's not going to happen but I think Lenape Center is trying to bring back our presence as a people, through arts and culture.

We're not a government organization. We're an arts and culture organization. We believe in supporting the history of our people and bringing it back to New York and combating the erasure of our people. We want to be welcomed back into the New York area as the original inhabitants and given a place at the table of power. Not just give me a little grant and a scholarship and pat me on the head and call me their nice little Native American friend. No. We want a seat at the table of power to create a greater balance of what's going on in the New York City area that will provide a place-

Brian: What could that look like? What could that include?

Curtis: Having native people in every institution in the Greater New York City area, whether it's religion, education, politics, the economy. All of these things. Lenape people who continue to be alive and thrive today have a lot to bring back and make New York City an even greater city than it is. That is how we can be so-called rewarded for the wrongs that have been done in the past, by no longer erasing us, learning about us and giving to us a place in the city. No, it doesn't involve me coming in and saying, "All you guys get out of here and this is now my land." That's not going to happen. It's impossible.

We want to be incorporated back into the city and be acknowledged as the original people, because we have traditional knowledge to bring back to New York City that can help the city grow and prosper even better. That traditional knowledge also can be applied to such things as the environment and even dealing with such things as the pandemics. We have traditional knowledges and practices that can and should be incorporated back into the policies of the Greater New York City area.

Brian: Just before you go, where is the Lenape Center physically and what would people experience when they go there?

Curtis: You are assuming that it is just some building that people can come to and see. We're not a museum. All of Manhattan is Lenape Center. We have a very strong virtual presence and we have been involved for over 10 years with a lot of arts organizations and museums. Brooklyn Museum and National Museum of the American Indian. We're doing things even today working with arts and culture institutions in New York City, architecture and the like. We've had a tremendous influence.

Our executive director lives on the Upper East Side and he is helping to grow a presence. We hope to have a building in New York City. As you know, real estate's expensive there and it's been rough over the last year and a half with the pandemic. We do have a robust presence without actually having a building there.

Brian: Curtis Zuniga, co-director of the Lenape Center, thank you so much for this. This was awesome and I could tell from our phones, people are just soaking it up. Thank you very, very much. Please come back.

Curtis: Thanks for the call. Have a happy Indigenous Peoples Day.

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