A Day In New York >> Kway Kiishkwihk Lenapehoking

I started the day early with excitement and determination. I left the house walking down the street; a man yells out his car window, “Hey babe, you look good today.” I take it as an honest compliment, but it’s also a reminder that our bodies are observed and surveyed in public spaces. I got on the train in Brooklyn at the Utica stop. Everything felt new and unfamiliar but also comforting and welcoming. I took the train into Manhattan and transferred to go North. I was going to the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx. I made sure I went on a Wednesday to avoid their $20 admission fee. It was a long ride, but I didn’t mind.

I was going to see a petroglyph of a turtle my Lenape ancestors had carved and left for future generations, for me. I navigate the transit system taking trains and buses walking the last mile to the garden. I find the entrance, a large driveway with a booth and no sidewalk. I walk up to the attendant to get a map so I can see my turtle. The attendant explains that only the garden’s outdoor portions are part of the free admission; to enter a building, you still have to pay. I take a map and walk into the garden and find the building. I think to myself; maybe I can just walk in. I only want to see one rock. It turns out I can not, and after speaking to a security guard, I find out that the petroglyph I am looking for is not on display.

Garden >> Wachupahkiihaakan – Medicine Field

I meet my friend Colette back downtown, and we’re trying to decide what museum to visit. She asks, “in what way do you want to be objectified?” We go to the New York Historical Society and tell the person at the front desk that we want to see and learn about Indigenous people, particularly Lenape people, pre-colonization. At an institution called the “New York Historical Society,” the earnest person at the front desk says: “honestly, we don’t have much about Lenape people overall, and we don’t have anything on display right now. I can let my boss know that people came by and were asking about that history. I’m kind of embarrassed; we should be doing better.”

The afternoon is slipping away, so we decide to go to the American Museum of Natural History because it’s close. It’s still Wednesday, so admission is by donation at this museum as well. The museum is built on my Lenape territory and contains the art, clothing, ceremonial, and elder objects¹ of Colette’s people—Pueblo of Isleta. We both pay a penny. A US penny has Abraham Lincoln’s image on it, a president who ordered the hanging of thirty-two Lakota people. It remains the largest mass hanging in US history. At this moment, the museum’s violence, the colonial state, and capitalism come together in a penny in our hands.

We are looking for ourselves in this museum. We go to the Teddy Roosevelt Memorial Hall and stand in front of the “Old New York diorama.” In this diorama, there are five mannequins in front of a mural that depicts Lenapehoking in 1660. The two mannequins on the left are Dutch settlers wearing European clothes from the time. The other three mannequins are Lenape people wearing very little. The mural behind the mannequins gives the illusion of depth of field. It shows two people with bare chests, breasts exposed, and calf-length skirts. I’m seeing the diorama for the first time; it’s 2019. It has been updated with an intervention. Black vinyl text over the glass describes how racist and inaccurate it is. The black vinyl text allows one to read it while looking through the glass to the diorama. It is a visually engaging approach but also challenging to read or maybe even notice for many people. This intervention was completed in 2018 and initiated after protests around the museum pointed out its inaccuracy and racism. Bradly Pecore, a visual historian of the Stockbridge-Munsee, worked with the museum curators to address the diorama. In an interview, Pecor said he wants this intervention to be the beginning of the conversation. I appreciate the work that Pecor did and am glad to be able to continue the conversation.²

In the same interview, Lauri Halderman, the Vice President for Exhibition, addresses the diorama: “So, this diorama was finished in 1939. I think our eyes are different today than they were in the 1930s.” My question is: whose eyes are different? In 1939, my Lenape grandmother Audry Dion (then Audry Tobias) was nine years old. She never saw this diorama; she grew up on the Moravian of The Temes No. 47 Indian Reserve, now Eelunaapeewii Lahkeewiit. In 1939, The Mount Elgin Residential School, which my great grandfather and grandmother’s brothers attended, was still operating. Residential “School” is a misnomer. There was very little education at the schools. Students were divided by gender: “boys” and “girls.” They farmed the land, sewed all the clothes, and did laundry. Some of this work was for the students of the school. It was also a commercial venture to pay the staff’s salaries and other operational costs. The children, my family and ancestors, were sent to Mount Elgin to be removed from their families and communities so that they would not learn or speak our languages, learn how to make our art, or participate in ceremonies.

I imagine my grandmother as a little girl walking the halls of the American Museum of Natural History. She is there with her brothers and sisters, seven Lenape kids and teenagers standing in front of this diorama when it first opened in 1939. It is not the representation I would have wanted for her, and it is not the one I want for our future generations. To say “our eyes have changed” means the museum or white people’s opinions have changed. Kim Tallbear articulates the relationship between Museums and Indigenous people:

…they [colonizers] take Indigenous stories like they take our bones, blood and land in order to restory the land and restory history according to the narratives that shape their world view, so they’re doing both and their world view tells them that there is a universal human, that there is one linear movement of time, and we are making progress through time.³

Throughout the museum, I saw no other displays containing clothing, moccasins, or jewelry of Lenape. The only way to learn about or see Lenape culture is through this diorama. I’m an artist, and I’m sure there were incredible Lenape artists in 1660, the year the diorama is depicting, in 1939 when it was built, and today. The Museum of Natural History does not show any of this. One of the largest museums in New York chooses to display other Indigenous cultures’ stolen art but not that of the land it sits on. The museum represents Native people, but Native people from different places. The abundance of art and culture in New York exists in part because of the genocide and displacement of Lenape people and culture.

Kweekw ha ktaaptooneewakan >> What is the word?

I was born speaking a colonial language. I wrapped my developing child’s brain and tongue around English words. It was not long before I knew something was not right. I was four years old when I told my mom that some of the boxes in my brain would not open. Two years later, the “problem” would become more evident to the outside world when I failed to meet developmental milestones. My experience of the English language was and is a puzzling and confusing mess filled with failure, shame, and fear.

At the same time, in these early years of my life, I learned the joy and pain of my Indigenousness. I learned why I spoke English: Residential schools, Moravian missionaries, forced removal, assimilation, survival. I learned my Indigenous family and ancestors were made to feel shame and fear about speaking our language, the same shame and fear I felt about not being able to communicate in English. The Lenape community I come from has very few speakers. I learned my family did not speak our language but had the memory of it. My grandmother remembered her parents singing songs in the night while the children and Indian agent slept. I knew there was another world, a world with Indigenous languages. I knew that world had existed, but it did not exist for me.

In April of 2020, my life (along with everyone else’s) changed. This change was not what I expected from a pandemic. With new limitations, two Lenape language teachers moved their classes online. For the first time in my life, I had consistent access to learning my Indigenous language. As the weeks and months went on, it became clear that everyone was committed to keeping this work up. It was not a four-, six-, or twelve-week class. It will be forever. As each month passed, I learned how to describe the passing time.

Crow Moon
Grass and Geese Moon
Planting MoonStrawberry Moon
Honey Bee Moon
Corn Moon

The year turned from niish tawsun waak takwiinaxke to niish tawsun waak takwiinaxke waak nuguta. I resolved to keep attending these language lessons and to continue finding new ways to understand and embody my language. The Lenape have endured centuries of colonialism; there are no more first speakers of the language. This is a loss I grieve every day. Even with my resolve, I will never be able to speak fluently. I focus on each new word, sound, connection, and understanding I make. My commitment to learning Lenape and understanding it through voice, embodiment, and action will continue.

I’m sitting in front of a computer, repeating Lenape words. “Kway kiishwihk, Anushiik, kishalamokwang.” Jeff, a fellow student, chimes in with lots of tidbits about Lenape place names, here and there. Someone says they don’t remember fast enough. Karen, our Shashcoholowas (teacher), passes on a teaching: you’ll remember what you’re supposed to when you’re supposed to; don’t compare yourself to others. This statement strikes me as familiar from learning with family and community and entirely in contrast to my experiences in school, where comparing myself to the other students was the focus and pedagogy.

Another question from the class: has there ever been an effort to standardize the spelling to have consistency? Ian, our teacher assistant’s opinion is that there are so few speakers it’s not worth arguing about. Am I the only one who notices we’re talking about how to spell a language that was never meant to be written down? The Lenape spelling has meaning for many people and is a valuable tool, but it’s noticeable that our learning is so text-based.

Purple >> Laaweewiiwiisakiimukwsuw >> the colour of wild grapes

Phonemic transcription is the visual representation of speech sounds through symbols. The dictionary we use in language class describes, “This writing system is based on the linguistic transcription system in Goddard (1979). It substitutes English-based characters or sequences of characters for several symbols commonly used in phonetic transcription systems.”⁴ Sounds forming words, forming language, expressing a worldview and culture. Visual symbols to represent those sounds become words. Institutions are created to collect through words. All systems are developed to reach out and communicate with each other. No system is neutral or singular, and some have been used to oppress us.

I return to my grandmother. Audry was a skilled sewer. She made all the clothes for her children and husband and herself, a large family. After work, after dinner, she sewed. My mother tells me stories of being a frustrated child as my grandma ripped out and resewed inside seams to be perfect, even if no one was ever going to see it. Grandma was not taught basketry, beading, or quillwork. She innovated, adapted, and taught herself how to sew clothing for her family. In her later life, she developed several health conditions that disabled her motor skills and speech. When I first learned the stitches for beadwork, I proudly showed her my work. Speaking was difficult for her. She held my small sample and caressed the beads with the soft pad of her index finger. She pointed to the bunching fabric and told me I was pulling my thread too hard. A valuable lesson after my first try and a reminder to have pride in your work, in a thing well made, something that will speak for you when words cannot.

Vanessa Dion Fletcher is a Lenape and Potawatomi neurodiverse Artist. Her family is from Eelūnaapèewii Lahkèewiitt (displaced from Lenapehoking) and European settlers. She employs porcupine quills, Wampum belts, and menstrual blood to reveal the complexities of what defines a body physically and culturally. Reflecting on an Indigenous and gendered body with a neurodiverse mind, Dion Fletcher creates art using composite media, primarily working in performance, textiles, and video.

She graduated from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2016 with an MFA in performance and York University in 2009 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts. She has exhibited across Canada and the US, at Art Mur in Montreal, Eastern Edge Gallery in Newfoundland, the Queer Arts Festival in Vancouver, and Satellite Art show in Miami. Her work is in the Indigenous Art Centre, Joan Flasch Artist Book collection, Vtape, Seneca College, and the Archives of American Art. Vanessa is a 2020-2021 Jackman Humanities Institute fellow at the University of Toronto.

1. Caitlyn Bird uses this term to describe art, clothing, material culture that is held in museums.
2. https://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/permanent/theodore-roosevelt-memorial/hall/old-new-york-diorama.
3. mediaINDIGENA, MI Live in WINNIPEG! OCT. 18 at U of W, podcast audio, ep 187, October 18, 2018, https://mediaindigena.com/mi-live-in-winnipeg-oct-18-at-u-of-w/.
4. John O’Meara, Delaware-English/English-Delaware Dictionary, xvii.

This article is published in issue 38.2 of BlackFlash magazine. Get this issue