North of the Chikelaki,âpé Smith's map locates the _Macovks_. This name does not appear in later authors, but near that site were the _Okahoki_ band, who occupied the shores of Ridley and Crum creeks and the land between them. There they remained until 1703, when they were removed to a small reservation of 500 acres in what is now Willistown township, Chester county.[59]
These three sub-tribes had each its totemic animal, from which it claimed a mystical descent. The Minsi had the Wolf, the Unami the Turtle, and the Unalachtigo the Turkey. The Unamis claimed and were conceded the precedence of the others, because their ancestor, the Turtle, was not the common animal, so-called, but the great original tortoise which bears the world on its back, and was the first of living beings, as I shall explain on a later page.
In referring to the totemic animals the common names were not used, but metaphorical expressions. Thus the Wolf was referred to as _Ptuksit_, Round Foot (_ptuk_, round, _sit_, foot, from the shape of its paws;) the turtle was _Pakoango_, the Crawler; and the turkey was _Pullaeu_, he does not chew,[60] referring to the bird's manner of swallowing food.
The signs of these animals were employed in their picture writing, painted on their houses or inscribed on rocks, to designate the respective sub-tribes. But only in the case of the Unamis was the whole animal represented. The Turkey tribe painted only one foot of their totemic bird, and the Minsi the extended foot of the wolf, though they sometimes added an outline of the rest of the animal.[61]
These three divisions of the Lenape were neither "gentes" nor "phratries," though Mr. Morgan has endeavored to force them into his system by stating that they were "of the nature of phratries."[62] Each was divided into twelve families bearing female names, and hence probably referring to some unexplained matriarchal system. They were, as I have called them, sub-tribes. In their own orations they referred to each other as "playmates." (Heckewelder.)
The native name of New Jersey is given as Shã'akbee (English orthography: ã as in fate); or as the German missionaries wrote it, _Sche'jachbi_. It is a compound of _bi_, water, _aki_, land, and the adjective prefix _schey_, which means something long and narrow (_scheyek_, a string of wampum; _schajelinquall_, the edge of the eyes, the eyelids, etc.) This would be equivalent to "long-land water," and, according to the rules of Delaware grammar, which place the noun used in the genitive sense before the noun which governs it, the term would be more suitable to some body of water, Delaware bay or the ocean, than to the main land.