Category: Lenni Lenape

(For expedience’s sake, The Federation of Aboriginal Nations of the Americas will be addressed as FANA)

On Tuesday, March 25, 2024, The Federation of Aboriginal Nations of the Americas’ Minister of International Affairs and its UN Ambassador Principal Chief Dr. Ronald Yonaguska Holloway of the SandHill Band of Lenape and Cherokee Indians (NY, NJ, PA), announced the appointment of Lorne H. Albaum as the Federation’s ambassador to Germany and Austria.

Mr. Albaum comes to FANA with extensive experience in corporate commercial law.  He specializes in securities matters, acquisitions, and mergers. He has been and still is successful in the development of corporate development strategies and plans.

Mr. Albaum has experience in developing “mini-tender”  offerings and handling the management of investment portfolios regarding publicly traded securities.  (Mini tender is a term used when an investor makes an offer to purchase no more than 5% of a company’s stock.)

Mr. Albaum wrote in his resume that he has “acted as counsel for numerous private placements; reverse takeover transactions and initial public offering.”  He is an “[a]dvisor relating to merger and acquisitions in mining, real estate, intellectual property and industrial sectors.”  Mr. Albaum has experience in the “[p]reparation of employment agreements and other corporate-related documents including loan agreements, licensing agreements, royalty agreements, and security agreements”.

Mr. Albaum will report to Ambassador Douglas Scott who is FANA’s ambassador to the Commonwealth.  Ambassador Scott reports to FANA’s Minister of International Affairs and its UN Ambassador Principal Chief Dr. Ronald Yonaguska Holloway of the SandHill Band of Lenape and Cherokee Indians (NY, NJ, PA).

Mr. Albaum’s responsibilities will be to find a suitable location for the embassy, as well as establish contact with individuals and entities that advance FANA’s overall global strategic objectives.

Continue reading

Members of the Lunaapeew/Lenape community and the Museum of the City of New York invite you to join us for an inaugural weekend of activities celebrating the resilience and cultural heritage of the First People of the New York City region. 

Visitors of all ages can enjoy two days of events with musical and dance performances, craft workshops, a marketplace, and discussions led by Indigenous speakers and artists, exploring the past, present, and future of the Lunaapeew/Lenape.

Events on May 4th and May 5th from 11am-4pm daily, including:

• Feel the power of the drum circle as the Red Blanket Singers perform Southern-style songs 
• Listen to tales from celebrated master storyteller Tchin

• A Musical and Dance Performance by We are Seeds 

• Practice speaking Munsee, the original dialect of New York City 

• Lenape Language Workshop with Karelle Hall (Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape)

• Lenape Games, led by Lenape Youth Leaders 

• Hear Lunaapeew/Lenape community leaders and Knowledge Keepers speak to the impact of colonization on their communities and their hopes and plans for the future in daily panel discussions 
• Craft art inspired by the work of Lunaapeew/Lenape artists and artisans and take part in hands-on workshops on both days
• And more!

Registration is recommended but not required.

400 Years of Resilience 

This two-day event is the public launch of a multi-year partnership between the Eenda-Lunaapeewahkiing (Land of the Lunaapeew) Project and the Museum of the City of New York, with the support of the American Indian Community House. A related exhibition will open at the Amsterdam Museum in May 2024.

Coinciding with the 400th year since Dutch settlers’ arrival in what is now New York City in 1624, this international effort speaks to the resilience and creativity of Indigenous people today, and to the importance of recognizing their central role in shaping our city and nation.

ÍiyachKtapihna! (We Are Still Here!) 

The original Indigenous inhabitants…

Continue reading

Roosevelt Island, New York, April 08, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — In an effort to spotlight new ways to restore green spaces within the concrete hardscapes of cities, and highlight the role the community plays in rebuilding habitat, four organizations — SUGi, iDig2Learn, the Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation and the Lenape Center — have collaborated to plant the first Miyawaki Method pocket forest in New York City on Roosevelt Island.

The new “Manhattan Healing Forest,” located in Roosevelt Island’s Southpoint Park, includes more than 1,000 native trees and shrubs planted together in close proximity over 2,700 square feet of space. This unique method of planting, known as the “Miyakwaki Method,”  creates dense, biodiverse forests that improve climate resilience and overall ecological sustainability in the areas where they are planted. 

“SUGi has created high-impact urban pocket forests all around the world, but finally ‘making it’ to New York feels like a perfect confirmation of our promise that these native ecosystems can thrive anywhere. Community and collaboration — of plants and people — is crucial to resilience, healing, and growth; here, we couldn’t have asked for more,” stated Elise Van Middelem, Founder & CEO SUGi.

“We now understand that rebuilding soil health positively affects the health of all surrounding life. By respecting local natural resources — we happily received large donations of nutrient-rich compost from Big Reuse’s community food scrap program and wood chips from Green-Wood Cemetery grounds — we are completing the full cycle of life to feed the new Pocket Forest trees,” shared iDig2Learn Founder, Christina Delfico. She added, “This method of tight-knit planting allows roots to share nutrients underground, boosting their growth, which mirrors perfectly how diverse communities can come together above ground to support each other and strengthen the land.”

“RIOC is proud to make a commitment to create a pocket forest…

Continue reading

MAYS LANDING — Choppy waters caused by nearly 30 mph wind gusts didn’t slow the Ocean City girls varsity eight crew at the Lake Lenape Sprints II on Saturday.

The Red Raiders won their race by nearly nine seconds. Stroke Kira Morjakovs, Adison Conti, Jada Smith, Marina Zappone, Margot Swift, Vicky Sackhno, Julia Gray, bow Kailyn Kelly and coxswain Lauren Shaw finished in 5 minutes, 6.07 seconds. Atlantic City was second in 5:15.47.

“With Ocean City, we row in the back bays, so the weather honestly, it’s just another day for us,” Conti said of the conditions. “We get used to it pretty much from the back bays. This was honestly kind of nice because I got the tailwind.”

Although the tailwind sped things up, Conti said the crew’s time had a lot less to do with the weather and more to do with how much hard work they’ve put in.

People are also reading…

Ocean City also won the boys junior eight Heat 1 race. The junior boys crew, consisting of stroke Jake Tracy, Luke Tjoumakaris, Aaron Young, Chase Cole, Phineas Costal, Michael Wolosin, Gavin Tomaselli, bow Will Ellis, and coxswain Joe Majowicz, finished in 5:47.96.

The Red Raiders’ boys junior eight crew similarly used its experience practicing in the back bays to their advantage. The crew finished 21.16 seconds ahead of second place Egg Harbor Township.

Holy Spirit’s Gwen Analfitano (stroke), Taya Anderson, Allie Solari, Allie Lee (bow), and Gia Rynkiewicz (coxswain) won the girls varsity four Heat 2 race in 5:57.72 seconds, 17.77 seconds ahead of second-place Absegami.

“Our coach told us yesterday we had to win ugly and even if our technique wasn’t spotless and the best we’ve ever rowed, we did the best that we could with the 20 mile per hour gusts,” said the Braves’ Taya Anderson, of…

Continue reading

MAYS LANDING — Choppy waters caused by nearly 30 mph wind gusts didn’t slow the Ocean City girls varsity eight crew at the Lake Lenape Sprints II on Saturday.

The Red Raiders won their race by nearly nine seconds. Stroke Kira Morjakovs, Adison Conti, Jada Smith, Marina Zappone, Margot Swift, Vicky Sackhno, Julia Gray, bow Kailyn Kelly and coxswain Lauren Shaw finished in 5 minutes, 6.07 seconds. Atlantic City was second in 5:15.47.

“With Ocean City, we row in the back bays, so the weather honestly, it’s just another day for us,” Conti said of the conditions. “We get used to it pretty much from the back bays. This was honestly kind of nice because I got the tailwind.”

Although the tailwind sped things up, Conti said the crew’s time had a lot less to do with the weather and more to do with how much hard work they’ve put in.

People are also reading…

Ocean City also won the boys junior eight Heat 1 race. The junior boys crew, consisting of stroke Jake Tracy, Luke Tjoumakaris, Aaron Young, Chase Cole, Phineas Costal, Michael Wolosin, Gavin Tomaselli, bow Will Ellis, and coxswain Joe Majowicz, finished in 5:47.96.

The Red Raiders’ boys junior eight crew similarly used its experience practicing in the back bays to their advantage. The crew finished 21.16 seconds ahead of second place Egg Harbor Township.

Holy Spirit’s Gwen Analfitano (stroke), Taya Anderson, Allie Solari, Allie Lee (bow), and Gia Rynkiewicz (coxswain) won the girls varsity four Heat 2 race in 5:57.72 seconds, 17.77 seconds ahead of second-place Absegami.

“Our coach told us yesterday we had to win ugly and even if our technique wasn’t spotless and the best we’ve ever rowed, we did the best that we could with the 20 mile per hour gusts,” said the Braves’ Taya Anderson, of…

Continue reading

It’s a little-known corner of Manhattan stretching along the northwestern tip of New York Island. On this January morning, the gaunt trees and gray skies didn’t do justice to the beauty of Inwood Hill, where green becomes the predominant colorwhen the weather gets nice. The 79-hectare park is home to Manhattan’s last remaining natural forest, which is also its oldest. Relatively untouched, the site is one of the few living remnants of a New York that has since disappeared, buried under asphalt and skyscrapers. The park is very close to Joe Baker’s heart, a descendant of the Lenape, the native people who inhabited the area before European colonization in the 17th century. “This is our Lenape ancestral land,” he explained. “It holds the spirits of our ancestors, our stories as does the entire island.”

As various historical organizations this year prepare to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the first Dutch settlers in what became New Amsterdam and then New York, Baker is one of those struggling to make his people’s voices heard. With the Lenape Center, a non-profit organization he co-founded in 2009 and heads alongside Curtis Zunigha, Brent Michael Davids and Hadrien Coumans, he is fighting to affirm the placeof the Lenape in a narrative told primarily from a European perspective, to bring their culture back to their ancestral land and offer new opportunities to his people.

In the Upper East Side café where he arranged to meet, the 77-year-old with graying hair spoke in a low voice. He listed the names of his ancestors, including a long line of Lenape leaders, a people also known as Delaware. His forefather, Chief White Eyes, was among those who negotiated the Treaty of Fort Pitt in 1778, the first peace accord signed by the fledgling US with an indigenous…

Continue reading

In Philadelphia, many things are sacred. At least they should be.

Our nation will celebrate 250 years of existence in 2026 , with its formation and Declaration of Independence  having taken place within the city boundaries. The City of Philadelphia, designed by William Penn as a safe place for the Quaker People, and placed in a desirable location at the confluence of both the Schuylkill and Delaware Rivers, spawned from a treaty negotiated with the Lenni Lenape by Penn himself in 1682, some 600 years after the first Native Americans settled the land around what would become the City of Brotherly Love.

Last month, a cleaning crew uncovered vandalism in the Mother Bethel AME Church in Society Hill. A man was sighted throwing a brick through the Church’s historic windows dating from 1890 causing around $15,000.00 in damage. The Church dates from 1794 and is largely credited for the development of the Free African Society.

Also affected this week was Saint John Neumann Shrine which dates back to 1847, causing $20,000 in damages.

So should the birthplace of America stop desecrating its historic places of worship?

We have some of the most historic churches in America. Philadelphia houses the oldest continuously operating church in America, Gloria Dei Old Swedes Church in South Philadelphia which was originally built between 1698 and 1700, and whose congregation dates back to Swedish worship services as far back as 1655 with worship services originally in Tinicum Island.

In May of 2021, in Northeast Philadelphia,  Tacony’s St. Leo the Great Catholic Church was destroyed in an arson fire. The Church was built in 1884.

Occasionally when dealing with monuments from three centuries ago, things happen. Just north of Philadelphia  —  at the one of the oldest Presbyterian church in Pennsylvania (Abington Presbyterian…

Continue reading

Amsterdam Museum collaborates with the Museum of the City of New York and native New Yorkers

Four hundred years ago, the first Dutch settlers arrived in the area that is now New York. Their mission from the Dutch West India Company (WIC) was to establish the colony New Netherland, with its capital New Amsterdam, at the southern tip of present-day Manhattan. The Amsterdam Museum, together with the Museum of the City of New York and representatives of the Lenape – original inhabitants of this area of the United States – are creating an exhibition about this shared history.

The exhibition Manahahtáanung or New Amsterdam? The Indigenous story behind New York is on display at the Amsterdam Museum aan de Amstel from 16 May to 10 November 2024. This exhibition looks from an Indigenous perspective at the decades-long period of Dutch colonisation of the area, its impact on the Indigenous inhabitants and their struggles. A sequel to the exhibition will be on show at the Museum of the City of New York in autumn 2025. 

Imara Limon, curator, Amsterdam Museum: ”Colonialism in Suriname, the Caribbean and Asia is receiving increasing attention in the Netherlands and also at the Amsterdam Museum. But Amsterdam also left deep traces in North America through colonial activities. I was surprised how little most Amsterdamers and New Yorkers know about New Amsterdam and the Lenape. All the while, the name Amsterdam was used to make the area their own. We are honoured to work with representatives from the Lenape and the Museum of the City of New York to showcase this underexposed part of Dutch colonial history.”

The reason for the collaboration and exhibition is that 2024 will mark four hundred years since the Dutch arrived in America at the mouth of the Hudson River to…

Continue reading

Published: 5:22 am EDT April 3, 2024Published: April 3, 2024Updated: 8:39 am EDT April 3, 2024

Image via Central Bucks School District, iStock.

Central Bucks ninth-grade student Nergis Teke has dramatically outdone herself by memorizing and reciting 1,017 digits of Pi.

Central Bucks ninth-grade student Nergis Teke has dramatically outdone herself by memorizing and reciting 1,017 digits of Pi, significantly surpassing her previous record of 447 digits, writes Jeff Werner for the Patch.  

This achievement places her 68th in the U.S. and 77th across North America among all age groups in the discipline of Pi memorization.  

The feat was accomplished during the National Pi Day competition held at Lenape Middle School, which challenges participants to recite as many digits of Pi as possible. 

Teke’s performance required a meticulous 20-minute recitation as teachers verified each digit. Despite encountering challenges in surpassing 700 digits during her practice sessions at home, Teke’s rigorous preparation strategy, which included memorizing up to 200 digits nightly, paid off. 

Beyond her achievements in the realm of Pi memorization, Teke has her sights set on a future in education, aspiring to become a math teacher.  

In her free time, she enjoys playing the violin or practicing karate.  

Read more about Nergis Teke’s mind-blowing memorization skills for the National Pi Day competition in the Patch.  

How to memorize 70,000 digits of Pi

Continue reading