Delaware Lenape tribe living history program set March 22

A living history program about the Delaware Lenape tribe is set for 2 p.m., Sunday, March 22, at the Seaside Nature Center at Cape Henlopen State Park. This program will be presented by Doug Wood and Diane Anestis who have been researching Eastern Woodland Indian history since 1985. Wood and Anestis will be using living history to demonstrate the life skills of prehistoric and historic peoples of the Eastern Seaboard.

The Delaware Indians splintered more than once during the 18th century into factions that left Tulpehocking, their homelands of the mid-Atlantic, and those who tenaciously stayed put in their original homelands during the successive waves of European immigrations to the New World.

The Lenapeyok who had immigrated the farthest west resided in the land drained by the upper Ohio River, which was a region with good hunting, fishing, and gardening potential. This region was coveted by native nations, foreign nations, and Euro-American colonies. The King’s Line, as the colonists called the Mason-Dixon survey line, represented several possibilities, good and bad, for the Lenapeyok then dwelling near the line west of Allegheny Mountain.

The program will highlight the lifeways of the Lenapeyok, as well as the political, military and economic concerns that drove the western Lenape response to the King’s Line. This program is free of charge, and no preregistration is necessary. Attendees will meet at the Seaside Nature Center at 2 p.m. For more information, call 302-227-6991 or go to destateparks.com.