00:00 - The following program was financed by a Grant from america to fifty pa.

00:35 - Xo easy for people to forget who the original

00:39 - inhabitants were the name pocono

00:42 - means valley between mountains

00:45 - most of the roads and areas and poconos many

00:49 - are native American names and i became very curious as to.

00:55 - Why there isn't something in the poconos dealing with

00:58 - native American people with such a historic background

01:01 - and that's how i became interested

01:03 - and

01:05 - if it wasn't through reserving some of the show history

01:08 - would be lost forever.

01:11 - You know that these people their land was

01:13 - taken from them they were literally you know.

01:17 - Taken out of this area

01:19 - of the native people that

01:21 - will not be which is the Delaware Indian people that was their name will not be

01:26 - meaning original people

01:27 - we wanted to show what they

01:30 - what they

01:31 - their life was like how they lived.

01:36 - I had a phone call from an individual that was looking to

01:41 - shell and

01:42 - native

01:42 - artifact collection that were native to the

01:45 - della water gap area

01:47 - the

01:48 - gentleman that

01:49 - i acquired the

01:51 - art collection from was an avid amateur archaeologist very knowledgeable yeah

01:55 - but he would spend all his spare time hunting

01:59 - in the below water gap national recreation area for

02:03 - artifacts

02:04 - once

02:05 - the

02:05 - the federal park

02:07 - federal government took over the park no one was allowed to

02:11 - to do that any longer to hunt for artifacts

02:13 - so this gentleman had to

02:15 - share serious collection of.

02:17 - Not only

02:18 - arrowheads spearheads but

02:20 - native pottery.

02:22 - It gave me the opportunity to

02:24 - actually borrow money from my brother-in-law to purchase this collection

02:29 - and then once i had

02:30 - the collection i went to

02:32 - the William penn museum in Harrisburg in our capital and i spoke with the.

02:38 - State archaeologist who was named dr Barry Kent

02:41 - and he looked at these

02:43 - sample of the artifacts and verified they were Delaware Indiana native.

02:49 - Artifacts

02:50 - and that gave me the

02:52 - the tool into

02:54 - looked into one opening

02:56 - an Indian museum.

03:02 - This

03:02 - is one of my favorite windows

03:04 - but there are the stone axe.

03:06 - Stone axe was not a tomahawk

03:08 - tomahawk is actually a Delaware Indian word

03:12 - which was pronounced Tommy Hawkins

03:14 - and that meant club

03:15 - so

03:16 - native people fall with clubs and sticks they didn't

03:19 - fight fight with a stone axe stone axe was used as a tool

03:24 - and it wouldn't take

03:25 - a scientist to know that it would be fairly dull

03:29 - to chop a tree down with a stone axe

03:31 - so the way it was done

03:33 - they would pack mud around the tree about four feet above the ground

03:38 - that was to keep the up

03:39 - part of the tree from catching on fire they would set fire to the trunk of the tree

03:44 - and as they begin the wood began to burn char

03:48 - they would take their stone axe and begin to chop away at the chime would

03:52 - naturally char charcoal would be a lot easier to chop than green hardwood.

03:58 - This is a bark house

04:00 - a replica of what would have looked like.

04:03 - When the Delaware Indians would have

04:05 - lived here

04:06 - five hundred years ago

04:08 - bark houses were made by lashing saplings together

04:11 - they would use rawhide strips

04:13 - and over top of the sapling they would peel large sheets of elm or oak bark

04:18 - and they literally show the bark onto the

04:21 - framework.

04:23 - This was known as a wookiee up

04:25 - the bark house or the bark house also had just

04:28 - platforms building in off the ground to sleep in.

04:32 - They were known as a hush soon

04:34 - and in the middle of the room

04:36 - would you would have had to imagine there was a cook the fire and the smoke would

04:40 - rise through the hole in the roof called a smoke hole

04:43 - and of course children

04:44 - you will always ask them to sit Indian style

04:46 - you know they'll sit cross legged on the floor

04:49 - with a native people didn't shit that way as accustomed they did it out of necessity

04:54 - because without a chimney to take the smoke out of the room

04:57 - you'd always have a three foot layer of smoke hanging in the ceiling

05:01 - so if you didn't shit below that smoke glare you choke

05:05 - and the only time they really looked like to stay in the bark house was in a

05:09 - cold bitter winter months

05:11 - they'd much rather sleep under the stars or under a lean-to outdoor

05:15 - this is what the village might have looked like along the riverbanks

05:19 - several hundred years ago

05:21 - you see hero what would be the bark houses whether

05:23 - they would have looked like from the outside

05:26 - you see there's tanning going on on some

05:30 - polls to ten hij

05:33 - to the right you see corn growing in the cornfield.

05:37 - A dugout canoe

05:38 - for trash

05:39 - rotation

05:40 - the difference between a bark house

05:42 - and an iroquois longhouse

05:44 - is that the Delaware's

05:46 - of one family lived in one bark house where the iroquois would have been like

05:51 - apartments they were called longhouses because they might have three to

05:55 - four families sharing that

05:57 - building.

05:58 - Occasionally someone will want to donate something and

06:01 - ninety percent of the time it's not native and we'd like to keep it

06:06 - that it is if it's possible to to to make a Delaware

06:10 - historically

06:11 - which is extremely rare

06:13 - and

06:14 - so we we really

06:16 - have to be careful as to what we

06:18 - as except as a donation

06:21 - because.

06:23 - I was told

06:24 - by Nora Dean

06:26 - that if you begin to.

06:30 - Mix folklore with the history it will.

06:34 - Detract

06:36 - from

06:36 - the

06:37 - the value of this set place as a museum

06:41 - so we're very careful as to what we get

06:43 - we contacted Norwich Thompson Dean

06:46 - and

06:47 - she was a full blood

06:49 - Delaware although not being native.

06:52 - Living in

06:53 - Dewey Oklahoma

06:54 - and we were fortunate enough to have her come through the museum

06:58 - i met her personally we have photographs in the museum of

07:02 - Nora Dean

07:03 - with her daughter

07:05 - and

07:06 - my wife and i

07:08 - she was also the

07:09 - last full blood Delaware that could speak to not be language.

07:14 - So it was recorded for

07:16 - for history sake.

07:18 - We wanted to tell a story

07:20 - so we we did it in a six room.

07:24 - Museum and we start with the paleolithic.

07:28 - Period

07:29 - and ended up with contact to the first Europeans

07:32 - by the time we did we'd discover that if we

07:34 - go through the museum giving a personal tour

07:37 - at the end of the day i could hardly speak any longer we would wait till we had a

07:41 - group of people and take them through

07:43 - so we devised a

07:46 - replay or an audio player that each family couple

07:50 - or group could take with them through the museum

07:53 - and when they come out

07:54 - we hope they have a better attitude about

07:56 - native American people than when they came in.

08:00 - We have a pottery display

08:02 - and the pods that are in there were

08:06 - reconstructed my wife actually put some of them together

08:09 - and they're held together

08:11 - to put them it's like working in three dimensional Jigsaw puzzle

08:14 - was not having a picture on the box to show you what it should look like

08:18 - and

08:19 - it is it's very time consuming to get it

08:22 - then we have one little ball

08:24 - that was

08:25 - found on shawnee on Delaware

08:27 - and we've had it examined buyers state archaeologist and we

08:31 - believe it's

08:32 - between eight hundred and one thousand years old

08:35 - today a Potter has a pottery wheel that turns and the clays formed as they

08:40 - tour as the wheel turns

08:42 - to show how the pottery was made

08:44 - the Indian use what's called the coiling method

08:47 - they would dig a hole in the ground

08:49 - they would line the hole with

08:51 - net native

08:52 - Clay and then they would roll long skinny pieces

08:55 - of Clay out to look like big cigars and they would

08:58 - roll these loops around

09:00 - and they would then smoothed them to get them to bond together

09:04 - they would then hate them

09:05 - in a in a fire in a hot oak fire till they

09:08 - turn white from heat and then they were tempered and naked

09:12 - they could cook enough

09:13 - to get a demonstration of what this would

09:16 - look like.

09:17 - No one wanted to do it

09:19 - and

09:20 - my my son my oldest son who's now fifty years old

09:24 - his

09:25 - school art teacher said let's try to do this and the two of them

09:29 - made these

09:31 - the story of how they would start with the little

09:34 - ball and the

09:36 - coils and

09:37 - to make the the the ball

09:39 - and so to me that's

09:40 - i'm proud of that that display because it's not only history

09:44 - but it's kind of like

09:45 - family too.

09:47 - It took us two years

09:49 - doing research in the meantime

09:51 - and then the building was in terrible shape

09:56 - and it took a lot of

09:57 - rehab to get

09:59 - to the point where we could open.

10:01 - The public so it was a good two years.

10:04 - After purchasing the collection to get the museum going

10:09 - and we open

10:10 - for the bicentennial in nineteen seventy six

10:13 - friend of mine

10:14 - who happened to be a builder

10:16 - was that interested in seeing this come to fruition that he said he would

10:21 - a renovate the building and bring it back to.

10:25 - Being able to use

10:27 - and i could pay him back in several years and

10:31 - i did

10:32 - and in

10:33 - much shorter time than expected.

10:35 - It's been a

10:36 - family project when we began our oldest son

10:40 - actually helped take out the materials that were

10:43 - in the walls to to tear them down.

10:47 - The walls in the building were so crooked

10:50 - that we couldn't put sheet rock on the walls so if you see we have

10:55 - rough out pine.

10:57 - That we purchase so that it could be

10:59 - put over top of the

11:01 - the existing framing that was so

11:04 - you know antiquated.

11:06 - So the whole family effort.

11:10 - To to get the museum going.

11:13 - It's kind of been my my life and my family.

11:17 - Particularly my wife who is the brains of the family

11:21 - i consider myself to be the pt barnum to get the people in

11:25 - in the museum and she makes sure that we

11:27 - pay the bills

11:29 - and when i was in highschool i'm from Wyoming valley

11:32 - and there was a scene of the Wyoming valley massacre when

11:35 - many of the settlers were attacked by native Americans.

11:39 - Who

11:40 - had their land taken from them

11:42 - and in the.

11:44 - News in the local library there was a desk that had been in a settlers home

11:50 - and the top of the desk had hatchet marks where

11:54 - a native American had tried to break into this

11:57 - desk

11:58 - and you could feel the grooves of the axe on the desk and it just fascinated me to

12:03 - to think of someone doing that a couple hundred years ago

12:07 - and so that started my interest in native Americans

12:10 - at the

12:11 - walking purchase treaty.

12:14 - It was an agreement between the Indians and

12:17 - William penn.

12:18 - Unfortunately William penn

12:21 - had passed away and he had a son

12:23 - Thomas.

12:25 - Who

12:25 - wanted to acquire more and more land and so he drew up this treaty that said that

12:29 - essential man could walk in a day and a half

12:32 - would be one border of a

12:34 - land one side of the land

12:36 - to be turned over to the colonists

12:39 - well the native American people did not understand ownership of land.

12:43 - It would be like saying.

12:46 - I only air in this room and no one can breathe it

12:49 - well they didn't understand ownership so when

12:52 - this walking purchase took place which ended up

12:55 - by having

12:57 - three.

12:58 - Individual foot runners

13:00 - the man who made the

13:02 - greatest distance was named Edward Marshall the village

13:04 - of marshalls creek which is five miles from here

13:07 - was named after him he

13:09 - covered sixty five miles in a day and a half

13:12 - and though he did that by swinging an ass axe as he walked

13:15 - heavily

13:16 - walk quickly through the forests and so they lost

13:20 - approximately sixty five thousand acres of property.

13:28 - Years ago we started with

13:30 - we were purists we just wanted a museum

13:33 - but people would come in and say well do you have

13:36 - a postcard do you have something that's native or

13:40 - what have you

13:41 - and my wife

13:43 - went to work trying to decide how best to.

13:47 - Do

13:47 - to accommodate this get the gifts that people were interested in

13:52 - and

13:53 - over fifty years we have expanded to the point where

13:57 - we have

13:58 - we have native American pottery we have native American jewelry

14:02 - we try to get a lot of native

14:04 - made

14:05 - items if we don't have it it will be labeled as such we don't.

14:10 - Want people to think we're

14:11 - we have something that is not really native made we have

14:14 - it on our second floor of the building we have over.

14:18 - I believe we're up to about

14:20 - two hundred and fifty

14:21 - different titles of books

14:23 - and we have quite an extensive.

14:26 - Library of anything you want to know about native American people

14:30 - the mission of the museum

14:32 - as far as i'm concerned

14:33 - is to take

14:35 - that individual who comes into the museum

14:38 - with and an image of a native American people as

14:41 - whooping and

14:42 - dancing and wearing colorful headdresses

14:45 - and

14:46 - turn them around to see that these were

14:49 - very intelligent

14:50 - people that lived on

14:52 - the earth

14:53 - and

14:54 - could do everything from making their own tools and homes and food

14:58 - growing your own vegetables

15:00 - and that they had their own society that people

15:03 - don't think of today.

15:07 - Missing nature center which exists today in marshalls creek it's an outdoor exhibit and

15:14 - an appreciation for giving them that the suggestion for the name they put this

15:19 - entire display together of herbs

15:21 - and met and plants that were used for both food and medicine

15:25 - view the

15:26 - native people had a lot of interesting remedies.

15:31 - Come to mind an example.

15:33 - If if a person today gets poison Ivy

15:37 - usually they will

15:38 - you know take a a drug a steroid to get rid of it

15:42 - well as the native people had poison Ivy they would go out in the spring of the year

15:46 - and eat a little piece of the poison Ivy

15:48 - leaf and they would do that for several weeks

15:50 - and they would actually build up a

15:53 - tolerance to the poison Ivy i don't really

15:56 - recommend anyone try that but they say that would work.

15:59 - On this section of the wall

16:01 - and on the

16:02 - right section of the wall or herbal remedies

16:05 - so many people ask questions about this on herbal remedies because his.

16:10 - Healthy attitude today in today's world people are looking for things to make

16:15 - themselves feel better it gives you the

16:17 - the

16:18 - common name the the

16:20 - scientific name and what the plant was used for for as far as medicine or what have you

16:26 - and the

16:27 - one

16:28 - on the right side

16:30 - would be herbal remedies and this is what more people are interested in

16:34 - trying to figure out what they can do to

16:37 - cure some sort of an ailment

16:39 - they also had what we would call today space age food.

16:43 - If the men were going to go hunting in the

16:45 - forest and they'd be gone for some time time

16:47 - they would wear

16:48 - a leather.

16:50 - Pouch around their neck and in that pouch would be.

16:54 - There would be corn corn meal ground corn meal.

16:58 - They would take yeast

17:00 - and they would add sugar maple syrup to it

17:03 - and they would roll them into balls and if they

17:05 - would get hungry there would eat one of these

17:08 - the corn gave their body protein and the sugar from the the maple syrup

17:13 - gave them the

17:14 - energy and the whole the yeast made it swell

17:16 - in their belly so it seemed like they had

17:19 - a full meal

17:20 - so here we had space age food

17:22 - thousand years ago.

17:25 - This is

17:26 - our environmental wall what you

17:27 - see here

17:28 - is a turtle shell in the middle of the wall

17:32 - an ace what appears to be a spiderweb

17:36 - and

17:36 - the photographs

17:38 - on the wall are either

17:40 - plants or animals that are part of our environment for our existence.

17:45 - The native people believe

17:47 - that

17:48 - the

17:48 - world rested on the back of a giant turtle

17:53 - and they could explain this because as the turtle would wander away from the earth

17:59 - and got closer to the sun they would have warmer weather it would be summer

18:03 - turtle walking with the earth earth on it's back

18:06 - would cause the water to slosh and that would explain tides and waves in the ocean

18:12 - and

18:13 - they believed that as long as we

18:15 - don't start to break strands in the web by doing something

18:19 - to our environment

18:20 - it would kill the plant life or animals.

18:24 - We can all

18:24 - exist

18:25 - you know together in our environment.

18:32 - When people tour the museum and they come out

18:35 - i like to see what they're

18:37 - what they're feeling was as to.

18:40 - What they thought about the museum today

18:43 - did they learn something

18:44 - was there something that that

18:46 - they didn't understand it then

18:48 - do understand.

18:50 - And.

18:51 - Do they appreciate what they saw

18:53 - to me that would be

18:55 - the most interesting part.