On the Turtle's Back

Stories the Lenape Told Their Grandchildren

By: Camilla Townsend, Nicky Kay Michael

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Hardcover | 15 September 2023

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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.

Industry Reviews

Exclusive 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 *
"On the Turtle's Back offers an engaging and previously unpublished collection of Lenape/Delaware stories narrated in the early twentieth century.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 Jersey *

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