The âpépipes in which the tobacco was smoked were called _appooke_ (modern Delaware _o'pahokun'_, Cumings' Vocab.) They were of earthenware and of stone; sometimes, it is said, of copper. According to Kalm, the ceremonial pipes were of a red stone, possibly the western pipe stone, and were very highly prized.[84]
Of wild fruits and plants they consumed the esculent and nutritious tubers on the roots of the Wild Bean, _Apios tuberosa_, the large, oval, fleshy roots of the arrow-leaved _Sagittaria_, the former of which the Indians called _hobbenis_, and the latter _katniss_, names which they subsequently applied to the European turnip. They also roasted and ate the acrid cormus of the Indian turnip, _Arum triphyllum_, in Delaware _taw-ho_, _taw-hin_ or _tuck-ah_, and collected for food the seeds of the Golden Club, _Orontium aquaticum_, common in the pools along the creeks and rivers. Its native name was _taw-kee_.[85]
In their domestic architecture they differed noticeably from the Iroquois and even the Mohegans. Their houses were not communal, but each family had its separate residence, a wattled hut, with rounded top, thatched with mats woven of the long leaves of the Indian corn or the stalks of the sweet flag (_Acorus calamus_,) or of the bark of trees (_anacon_, a mat, Z.) These were built in groups and surrounded with a palisade to protect the inhabitants from sudden inroads.[86]
In the centre was sometimes erected a mound of earth, both as a place of observation and as a location to place the children and women. The remains of these circular ramparts enclosing a central mound were seen by the early settlers at the Falls of the Delaware and up the Lehigh valley.
The art of the potter was known and extensively practiced, but did not indicate any unusual proficiency, either in the process of manufacture or in the methods of decoration, although the late Mr. F. Peale thought that, in the latter respect, the Delaware pottery had some claims to a high rank.[87] The representation of animal forms was quite unusual, only some few and inferior examples having been found.
Their skill in manufacturing bead work and feather mantles, and in dressing deer skins, excited the admiration of the early voyagers. Although their weapons and utensils were mostly of stone, there was a considerable supply of native copper among them, in use as ornaments, for arrow heads and pipes. Some specimens of it have been found by Dr. Abbott near Trenton, and by other collectors in Pennsylvania,[88] and its scarcity in modern collections is to be attributed to its being bought up and melted by the whites rather than to its limited employment.