Death, Mourning & Burial

When a Lenape person dies, their journey continues. The body is returned to the earth, but Lenape tradition describes the soul continuing on. Behind them, family mourns, food may be prepared, and possessions may accompany the deceased. Ahead lies another journey, beyond the world they have known.

Death is a passage, not simply an ending. And the living have responsibilities to those making that passage.

Preparing the Dead

Accounts recorded over several centuries describe the deceased being washed and dressed before burial, often in good clothing. Family and community gathered to mourn, and food could be prepared as part of the observances surrounding death. Expressions of grief could be intense, particularly among close relatives.

People of prominence could receive more elaborate funerals. An eighteenth-century account of the funeral of the wife of the Lenape war leader Shingas describes her dressed in fine clothing and silver ornaments, followed to the grave by a procession that included war leaders and counselors. Grave markers could also reflect a person's standing or accomplishments; chiefs, war captains, and other respected individuals might be remembered differently in the posts placed above their graves.

Burial practices varied across Lenape country and changed over the centuries. Archaeology reveals differences in how the dead were positioned and how graves were prepared. Bark, woven mats, skins, or other materials might be placed beneath or around the body. After European contact, wooden coffins became part of some Lenape funerals.

There was no single Lenape burial practice followed everywhere and for all time. But across those differences, the dead were treated with respect and care, and burial carried deep spiritual meaning.

A Funeral Remembered

Few descriptions bring us as close to a Lenape funeral as the account left by Nora Thompson Dean.

Dean grew up within the Delaware community of northeastern Oklahoma and later described funeral traditions she had witnessed and participated in beginning around 1911. Her account does not describe every Lenape funeral across every century. It is something more personal: the memory of a Lenape woman describing traditions she had actually lived, in a particular place and time..

Her story begins long before death. Older people sometimes prepared their burial clothing years in advance. A woman might hand-sew her skirt, blouse, leggings, and moccasins, wear them once or twice, then carefully put them away. Men might follow similar customs.

When Death Came

Dean remembered that when someone died, a window was opened slightly so the soul could come and go while making its final preparations to leave this world.

The deceased was prepared and dressed. Mirrors and pictures were covered. Women prepared food for the funeral meal, while four people outside the immediate family could be selected to help carry out the funeral responsibilities.

The wake continued through the night. In earlier years, the traditional Moccasin Game could be played. At midnight, a rifle was fired and prayers were offered.

The face of the deceased was painted with red olaman. Dean explained that when the person stood before the Creator, the paint identified them as Lenape.

Do Not Look Back

No one in the funeral procession was supposed to look back.

Dean explained that the spirit followed behind the procession. Looking backward could cause it to fall behind.

Burial traditionally took place before noon. Close relatives did not dig or cover the grave; others performed that responsibility for them. Dean remembered the deceased being placed with the head toward the east, and a small opening being made near the head of the coffin so the soul could come and go.

A close friend could speak directly to the departed, telling them to go peacefully and not worry about those left behind. In time, when the Creator determined it, they would meet again.

Food, Fire & Mourning

Burial did not end the responsibilities of the living.

Dean remembered a funeral feast near the cemetery, where the best friend of the deceased ate on their behalf. A small fire was made at the head of the grave and renewed on following evenings. Dean explained that the departed carried the fire along to keep warm on the journey ahead.

Close relatives traditionally observed a year of mourning. A widow might leave her hair loose. Relatives could wear a deer-hide string around the wrist until it fell away naturally, and a dim light might be kept burning at night.

Dean remembered a Lenape man deeply upset after a doctor suggested something might be wrong with him because he still grieved for his brother nearly two years after his death.

Lenape people, she explained, held their departed in mind for a long time.

The Journey Along the Milky Way

Dean also recorded where the soul was believed to travel.

The lenapeokàn, the soul, journeyed along the Milky Way toward the place of the Creator. Along the way was a bridge guarded by dogs. Someone who had mistreated dogs during life could have difficulty crossing, a belief Dean connected to teaching children to treat dogs well.

Beyond the bridge lay what Dean called weltek leheleksìt òkàn — “a wonderful life.”

Dean also recorded a belief in reincarnation. Elders might watch a newborn for signs suggesting that someone who had died had returned.

These were traditions Dean knew within her community, not beliefs that can automatically be projected backward onto every Lenape generation.

The body had been buried. The traveler was still moving.

An Earlier Account

The idea of a journey after death appears much earlier in the historical record.

In 1762, Moravian missionary John Heckewelder witnessed the funeral of the wife of Lenape leader Shingas. After burial, a kettle of food was carried to her grave at dusk every evening for three weeks.

At the end of that time, Heckewelder recorded that the food was no longer needed because the traveler was believed to have reached the place where she would remain.

The details differ from those Dean recorded generations later, but both accounts preserve the idea of a journey beyond death.

Facing a Direction

Nora Thompson Dean remembered a tradition of burial with the head toward the east, but archaeology from Lenapehoking shows that no single orientation was universal.

At the Munsee cemetery near Montague, New Jersey, most graves followed a generally northeast orientation, although some differed in the direction and position of the body and in the objects placed with the dead.

Those differences almost certainly meant something, but archaeology cannot always tell us what. They may have reflected family relationships, age, status, personal circumstances, or ceremonial traditions. At Montague, there is not enough evidence to identify unusually positioned individuals confidently as chiefs or other leaders.

What the cemetery makes clear is that burial was not random. Where a person was placed, how the body was positioned, and what accompanied them could carry meaning that remains visible in the earth, even when part of that meaning has been lost to us.

A Marker Meant to Disappear

Dean described a traditional wooden grave marker called a kikinhikàn. It was painted with olaman, and its markings had to be made correctly. She compared them to signs along a highway: if the signs were wrong, a traveler could become lost.

Unlike a permanent stone monument, the marker was allowed to weather naturally. When it eventually decayed, it was not replaced.

Remembering Years Later

Dean described a memorial feast called a Wihunge. Foods the deceased had enjoyed were prepared, prayers were offered, and someone ate on behalf of the departed.

A Wihunge could take place years after death and might even be prompted when someone who had died repeatedly appeared in a relative's dreams.

The burial might have happened long before. Remembering continued.

When Graves Became Archaeological Sites

During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Native burial grounds across the United States were excavated by archaeologists, collectors, museums, and others. Lenape burial places were among them.

In 1914, archaeologists excavated a historic Munsee cemetery near Montague, New Jersey. Their records preserve valuable information about grave arrangements, burial orientation, and belongings placed with the dead.

But before it became an archaeological site, it was sacred ground.

While the excavation recorded what remained beneath the earth, it could not record the families who once stood beside those graves, the mourning that took place there, or the spiritual journeys that, in Lenape tradition, continued beyond them.

Repatriation: Coming Home

Federal repatriation law now provides a process through which Native nations can seek the return of ancestors and funerary belongings held by museums and federal agencies.

In April 2022, representatives of five Lenape nations gathered at Pennsbury Manor in Pennsylvania, where approximately 180 Lenape ancestors and funerary belongings were reinterred after years of work between Lenape representatives and Pennsylvania officials.

They had returned to Lenapehoking.

The Ancestors Are Still Here

Nora Thompson Dean described traditions she knew among Delaware people in northeastern Oklahoma. Montague gives us a different window into an earlier Munsee community, while Heckewelder recorded another moment in 1762.

They should not be blended into a single timeless version of “the Lenape funeral.” Traditions changed as communities were displaced, Christianity spread, families moved, and generations passed.

Yet across these different accounts, death was surrounded by care, ceremony, mourning, and remembrance.