On the Turtle's Back

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.

"On the Turtle's Back offers an engaging and previously unpublished collection of Lenape/Delaware stories narrated in the early twentieth century.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."— Jean R. Soderlund, author of Separate Paths: Lenapes and Colonists in West New JerseyExclusive Interview on All of It with Alison Stewart: "A New Collection of Lenape Folklore"— WNYC"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."— Joanne Barker, (Lenape [Delaware Tribe of Indians]), author of Red Scare: The Empire's Indigenous Terrorist and Nat

• 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 CenturyRosetta Coffey (September 17, 1997) Pat Donnell (September 20, 1997) Joanna Nichol (October 11, 1997) Bonnie Thaxton (August 19, 1997) III TodayAppendix 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–PresentAcknowledgmentsGlossary Notes Bibliography Index