在19世纪，美国政府资助了500多所“印第安寄宿学校”，旨在强迫美洲原住民儿童融入西方文化。学生们被强行带离家庭，通常是被迫剪掉头发。他们被剥夺了原本的名字，并被教导要为自己的传统和习俗感到羞耻。这些机构像军事学院一样运作，要求孩子们穿制服，并对他们施以严厉的体罚，如单独监禁和鞭笞。创办了第一所此类学校的理查德·亨利·普拉特宣称，其明确目的是“抹杀印第安人，拯救其人”。
During the 19th century, the US government funded more than 500 “Indian boarding schools” aimed at forcibly assimilating Native American children into western culture. Students were taken from their families, frequently by force, and forced to cut their hair. They were stripped of their original names, and taught to feel shame regarding their heritage and customs. Run like military academies, these institutions required children to wear uniforms and subjected them to severe physical punishment, such as solitary confinement and flogging. Richard Henry Pratt, who established the first of these schools, declared that their explicit purpose was to “kill the Indian, save the man”.
这些同化做法持续了几十年，期间无数儿童遭受了身体和性虐待。至少有1000名儿童失去了生命，但据信实际伤亡人数要高得多。直到2024年，美国政府才对这些暴行正式道歉，当时前总统乔·拜登将寄宿学校制度描述为“美国历史上最可怕的篇章之一”。
These assimilation practices persisted for decades, during which numerous children endured physical and sexual abuse. At least 1,000 children lost their lives, though the actual casualty count is believed to be significantly higher. The US government issued no formal apology for these atrocities until 2024, when former president Joe Biden described the boarding school system as “one of the most horrific chapters in American history”.
这些学校中的一些孩子是莱纳佩人，这是一个居住在美国东北海岸的原住民群体。1874年，多伦多一个传教士协会出版了一本赞美诗集，将基督教礼拜歌曲翻译成了蒙西语，这是莱纳佩人使用的语言之一。这本赞美诗集是国家同化原住民儿童企图的一部分；他们被要求学习基督教礼拜歌曲，而不是自己文化的祈祷文。
Some of the children at these schools were Lenape people, an Indigenous group that live on the north-eastern coast of the US. In 1874, a Toronto missionary society published a hymnal that translated Christian worship songs into Munsee, one of the languages spoken by the Lenape. The hymnal was part of the states attempt to assimilate Indigenous children; they were expected to learn Christian worship songs instead of their own cultures prayers.
如今，这本赞美诗集被陈列在纽约市博物馆名为“Halumii Ktapihna：莱纳佩人的遗产与未来”的新展览中。在出版150多年后，这本书如今发挥的作用与当初的意图截然相反。它不再是强迫莱纳佩儿童学习英语的工具，反而成为了莱纳佩族人的重要原始资料，帮助他们复兴因系统性种族主义和种族灭绝而几近失传的语言。这本曾经象征着文化抹除的赞美诗集，如今正向新一代传授词汇和语法结构。
Today, the hymnal hangs in a new exhibit at the Museum of the City of New York called Halumii Ktapihna: Lenape Legacies and Futures. More than 150 years after its publication, the book now serves as the opposite function it was intended for. Rather than forcing Lenape children to learn English, it has become a primary source for Lenape people who are now revitalizing a language that was nearly lost due to systemic racism and genocide. The hymnal, once a symbol of erasure, teaches vocabulary and grammatical structures to a new generation.
“Halumii Ktapihna”展览中还包含了莱纳佩人创作的视觉艺术作品，以及传统服饰、音乐样本，并展示了复兴莱纳佩语言和短语的努力。“我们失去了很多文化和语言，但仍有一些保留了下来，” Éenda-Lŭnaapeewáhkiing集体的创始成员兼该项目的策展顾问布伦特·斯通菲什（Brent Stonefish）说道。在赞美诗集旁边悬挂着一条2024年制作的波洛领带，上面写着：“我们很重要。”斯通菲什补充道：“在这两件展品之间，蕴含着一段完整的历史。”
Halumii Ktapihna contains visual art created by Lenape people, along with traditional dress, samples of music, and efforts to revitalize Lenape words and phrases. “We lost a lot of the culture and language, but yet [some] has remained,” said Brent Stonefish, a founding member of the Éenda-Lŭnaapeewáhkiing Collective and curatorial adviser on the project. Next to the hymnal hangs a bolo tie made in 2024 that reads: “We matter.”“Between those two [pieces], there`s a whole history there,” Stonefish added.
如果说大多数人对莱纳佩人还有所了解，那通常是因为他们在纽约那段虚构的起源故事中所扮演的角色：曼哈顿是以价值24美元的小饰品卖给荷兰人的。故事称，荷兰定居者彼得·米努伊特（Peter Minuit）从岛上的原住民莱纳佩人手中骗取了这片土地，而这里最终成为了地球上最昂贵的地方之一，实际上将他们从称之为家园并为其命名的岛屿上驱逐了出去。“曼哈顿”（Manhattan）一词源自“Manhatta”，在莱纳佩语中意为“采集木材制作弓箭的地方”。
If most people know anything about the Lenape, its their role in New Yorks apocryphal origin story: that Manhattan was sold to the Dutch for $24 worth of trinkets. The story goes that Dutch settler Peter Minuit swindled the island`s Native inhabitants, the Lenape people, out of what would eventually become one of the most expensive places on Earth, in effect displacing them from the island they called home and named. Manhattan comes from Manhatta, which means “a place for gathering wood to make bows” in Lenape.
这个故事并不真实：关于这笔土地交易的任何书面记录都不存在，而且莱纳佩人（Lenape）从未认为土地可以被拥有或出售。大多数学者都认为，我们现在所知的“纽约”实际上位于被侵占的、未经莱纳佩人承认的领土上。如今，纽约市的一些文化机构（例如大都会艺术博物馆的入口处）都立有相关纪念牌，试图让人们意识到这一事实。这些纪念牌给人的印象是莱纳佩人的历史早已结束——但新的展览旨在纠正这种误解，展示这个部落的现代文化依然充满活力。
This story is not true: theres no paper record of the trade, and the Lenape people did not believe that land could be owned or sold. Most scholars agree that what we now know as New York sits on stolen, unceded Lenape territory. There are now land acknowledgments posted around the citys cultural institutions, such as a plaque outside an entrance to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. This gives the impression that the Lenape peoples story ended hundreds of years ago – but the new exhibit aims to correct that assumption, presenting the tribes modern-day culture as still very much alive.
到美国独立战争时期，大多数莱纳佩人已经被白人定居者杀害或被迫迁往西部；随后美国政府对原住民实施的种族灭绝政策和强制驱逐行为进一步减少了莱纳佩人的数量。不过，在美国和加拿大，仍有一些得到州政府或联邦政府认可的部落致力于保护他们的文化遗产和语言。其中一些部落拥有独立的自治权，并获得了用于回购祖传土地的拨款。
By the Revolutionary war, most of the Lenape people had been killed or pushed west by settlers. The US government`s ensuing genocide and forced displacement of Native Americans further decimated the Lenape population. But there are still state and federally recognized tribes in the US and Canada dedicated to preserving their heritage and language. Some of these groups have sovereign tribal governments and have received grants to buy back ancestral land.
展览中的现代艺术作品突显了莱纳佩人最初的家园——纽约。例如，拉马普夫-蒙西（Ramapough Munsee）部落艺术家琼·李·范·邓克（June Lee Van Dunk）创作的作品，将身着传统服饰的原住民形象与繁华的纽约街景（背景中是帝国大厦）并置在一起，以此来表达莱纳佩文化的延续性。
Modern-day art in the exhibit highlights the Lenape`s original homeland of New York; one piece by Ramapough Munsee artist June Lee Van Dunk explicitly juxtaposes the silhouette of an Indigenous figure clad in traditional dress with the scene of a bustling, New York block with the Empire State Building in the background.
安赫尔·“蒙霍”·洛佩兹（Angel “Monxo” López）是这家博物馆负责研究社区历史的策展人，他参与了这个展览的策划工作。洛佩兹并非莱纳佩族（Lenape）成员，他来自波多黎各，目前居住在布朗克斯区。在开始这个项目之前，洛佩兹曾预计会遇到很多不满、悲伤情绪，以及人们对土地占领者的愤怒与谴责。但他表示：“然而当人们走进展览馆时，根本看不到任何表达这些负面情绪的元素。他们找到了一种方式来处理这些历史伤痛——这种方式既不丑陋、不刻薄，也不充满怨恨。我想：‘天哪，换作是我，恐怕做不到这么有礼貌。’”
Angel “Monxo” López, the museums curator of community histories, worked on the exhibit. López is not Lenape; he hails from Puerto Rico and now lives in the Bronx. Going into the project “I was originally expecting a lot of resentment, sadness, grievances, name-calling against the occupiers of their land,” López said. “But when you walk into the gallery, there is not a single moment that speaks about that. They found a way of dealing and engaging with those historical wounds in ways that are not ugly, nasty, or resent-driven. Im like, ‘Oh shit, I wouldnt be so polite.” The exhibit also features a protest banner made in 2019 by Georgetown professor Ashton Pemapanik Dunkley.
展览中还展出一面由乔治城大学教授阿什顿·佩马帕尼克·邓克利（Ashton Pemapanik Dunkley）于2019年制作的抗议标语牌。标语牌上用喷漆绘制了地球的图案以及一位身穿红色连衣裙的原住民女性，旁边写着：“地球母亲和她的原住民女儿们正遭受着攻击。”这面标语牌将气候危机的灾难性影响与失踪及被谋杀的原住民女性问题联系在了一起；这些原住民女性面临着极高的暴力风险（超过150万原住民女性在其一生中曾遭受过某种形式的暴力）。
The image of the Earth and an Indigenous woman in red is spray-painted over canvas alongside the words: “Mother Earth and her Indigenous daughters are under attack.”This banner connects the disastrous impacts of the climate crisis with the issue of missing and murdered Indigenous women, who face a high rate of assault, abduction and murder. (More than 1.5 million Indigenous women have experienced some sort of violence in their lifetime; red dresses have come to represent these women.)
斯通菲什（Stonefish）带着他的女儿艾玛（Emma）出席了展览开幕式；艾玛正在筹备即将在布鲁克林展望公园（Prospect Park）举行的莱纳佩族/卢纳佩威族（Lenape/Lunáapeew）部落聚会——这一传统在中断了53年后终于得以重新恢复。在谈到自己的家庭时，斯通菲什提到了原住民文化中的“七代传承”观念：即每个社区决策都应考虑到未来七代人的利益，以促进可持续发展。
Stonefish attended the opening of the exhibit with his daughter Emma, who is coordinating an upcoming Lenape/Lunáapeew Nations Pow Wow in Brooklyn`s Prospect Park, a tradition which started back up last year after a 53-year break. When speaking about his family, Stonefish referenced the Indigenous concept of “seven generations” – a rule that every community decision should be made with seven generations in mind, to promote a sustainable future.
“我的孩子们过去常常问我：‘我属于哪一代人？’”斯通菲什说，“我会告诉他们：你们属于第七代，同时也是第一代。你们与祖先紧密相连，同时也在为下一代奠定基础。你们就是所有这些人的代表。”
“My kids used to ask me, ‘What generation am I?” Stonefish said. “I would tell them, youre the seventh, and youre the first. Youre tied to those who are behind you, but youre also creating the foundation for the next set. Youre all of them.”
展览《Halumii Ktapihna：莱纳佩族的遗产与未来》将在纽约市博物馆展出，展期持续至2027年4月17日。
Halumii Ktapihna: Lenape Legacies and Futures is on display at the Museum of the City of New York through 17 April 2027