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Authors: Camilla Townsend and Nicky Kay Michael

Camilla Townsend and Nicky Kay Michael discuss their new book, "On the Turtle's Back: Stories the Lenape Told their Grandchildren," the first collection of Lenape folklore. Virtual on Zoom.

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About the Book:

"On the Turtle's Back" is the first collection of Lenape folklore, originally compiled by anthropologist M. R. Harrington over a century ago, but never published until now. In it, the Delaware share their cherished tales about the world's creation, epic heroes, and ordinary human foibles. It features stories told to Harrington by two Lenape couples, Julius and Minnie Fouts and Charles and Susan Elkhair, who sought to officially record their legends before their language and cultural traditions died out. More recent interviews with Lenape elders are also included, as their reflections on hearing these stories as children speak to the status of the tribe and its culture today. Together, they welcome you into their rich and wondrous imaginative world.

About the Authors:

Camilla Townsend is Board of Governors Distinguished Professor of History at Rutgers University-New Brunswick. She has published widely on Indigenous history and language in the Americas. Her books include Pocahontas and the Powhatan Dilemma (2004) and, most recently, Fifth Sun: A New History of the Aztecs (2021), which won the 2020 Cundill Prize in History.

Nicky Kay Michael is a member of the Delaware tribe who earned her BA in American studies from Stanford and PhD in history from the University of Oklahoma. She is currently the interim president of Bacone College in Muskogee, Oklahoma, where she is also the executive director of Indigenous studies and curriculum. She is serving a seven-year term on the Delaware tribal council.

Presented with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities: Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this programming do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

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