It was many moons ago I was elected Sachem of my clan, chosen to council the Munsee people. We are an enduring people, weathering the changes in this earth and the movements of her people. I have been a council for my people for years, helping to maintain peace with other clans and precipitate connections among our peoples. During my leadership I have not endured many big changes but I am afraid my time has come. This morning, I stood with my people on our shores, watching a strange vessel approach from the horizon. I can still remember the stories the village elders used to tell me of the strange white men who came from the horizon on floating islands. Now as I stand here next to my people, I feel as if I am living in one of those stories, watching these men step off onto our land. What do these men intend to do? How am I supposed to deal with these newcomers? Do I take the advice of the other nations in the stories or do I follow my own path? First I must look at the actions of the nation's far south of the Delaware River and those to the North, as I heard from the stories of my ancestors. The elders tell stories of white men who came to the Iroquois, led by a man named Cartier. At first there was peace, but many changes were to come. They traded and exchanged goods but left many horrors behind. They built a giant wooden structure of no practical value with strange markings on it. Not only that, they took Iroquois leaders, men, and women as hostages, bringing them to their strange land beyond the horizon. What If this is to happen to my people? Should I react as the Iroquois did and use these people as trading partners? This story, while it may strike fear into the hearts of few, did not have the impact the story of a man named De Soto had upon me. The elders say he moved from village to village seeking some sort of resource called gold. He burned people and fed them to the dogs alive, taking the women to be used for lustful purposes. He destroyed one nation's city, killing thousands of people and burning everything to the ground. Following his path of destruction was disease and filthy animals called pigs which destroyed plants and the land. My elders say this pale faced man was an evil spirit, harming nations many moons ago. Many of these people told him to move onto the next village- he would find his precious gold there. Do I pass on these new people to our neighbors or are they possible trading partners like the men to the North? I have many questions to ask myself before preparing to meet these newcomers. My people are an enduring people, maintaining peace with the land year after year but I am afraid we are to meet our first challenge. We have lived for years off the land- men hunting for dear and bear while the women cultivated corn, beans, and squash and gathered berries roots and other resources. Our small villages move with the season and the needs of the earth, using resources to survive and providing communal sustenance. As people of the Minisink, we are organized by clan. I myself am of the wolf clan, connected through my mother to my people. My people have these "Ties of blood with maternal kina and marriage links to paternal relatives" to help us "preserve knowledge and secure tools needed to support and hunting, gathering, fishing, and farming society…". Many Munsee men marry outside the village in order to maintain clan political and social ties. Over the years we have built alliances and come "together, moved apart, and gathered again into different social, political, and ritual groups in different places at different times." As I am elected my village shaman I have proven myself to be worthy through my power of persuasion rather than my persuasion of power. I do not control my people, I simply maintain authority and engineer consensus to maintain our community. Now, as their leader, I must prepare myself to meet these white men and provide a source of strength for my people to look upon. I sailed out to the floating islands today in hopes of proving to these people we do not mean any harm. By approaching them without our weapons and bringing gifts from our people, I hope we made a good impression as pacifists. Based on the stories of my ancestors and my own personal judgment, I believe I have made a good decision- we must approach these in people in peace but with a wary eye upon them. If we offer them goods, hopefully they will be willing to negotiate and stray away from the violence my ancestors spoke of. I plan to build an alliance with them to trade due to the fact they have many precious goods like beads and pots that cannot break. These goods could help our people with cooking, hunting, and even with self-defense. They have started to settle on our lands near the tip of the island with their tents. I believe they will soon be building homes to live in- something that can benefit us economically and politically. In allowing them to build here, we can negotiate trade agreements. Our shrewd skills in creating alliances can help us manipulate them into working with us. Because we know the land and how mother earth works we have the advantage. The white man's strange weapons can help us with our enemy's too. If we work with the new men, we can use them to defend ourselves against the fierce Iroquois who raid our villages and take our people. I must show my people of my hopes in making these people our equals, of my strength in spite of the fears I have. I am afraid I will live the nightmares of my childhood from the stories I was told. I am afraid my people will suffer at the hands of the pale men, destroyed by their great weapons. What are we to do if my people get sick and cannot work, if we are taken captive to the strange land these people come from, if they burn our village down for goods we do not have? In spite of the power the white men have, they could be good spirits unlike DeSoto's men. I believe, as sachem of my people, that we must make peace with the pale faced men before the evil spirits tempt them; we must make alliances to maintain a powerful economic and political status above the other nations.
