Early encounters between Munsee Lenape and Dutch people in the Hudson Valley and Manhattan region often centered on clothing: understanding one another’s culture and diplomatic overtures through what was worn and what was exchanged. This exchange of clothing, however, became a pathway for disease to enter Indigenous homes, and clothing eventually became a point of conflict over gendered labor, religious conversion, and land use. Click here for a 48-minute video of Maeve Kane’s presentation by the Irvington Historical Society posted on November 14, 2024.

Associate Professor Maeve Kane (above) explores these issues of Munsee Lenape culture and history in the seventeenth century, early encounters with the Dutch, and the long history of Munsee sovereignty and survival into the present.

Munsee, Mahican, and other Indigenous women played an especially important role in how their communities managed these pressures of colonialism through their purchases, caretaking, and labor.

(Above, left) Munsee were sometimes depicted in European clothing. (Above, center)They carved their own depictions of the Dutch in carved antler combs. (Above, right) A 1645 drawing by Wencelaus Hollar shows a more accurate depiction of a Lanape Native.