Wm Penn’s oath of friendship with Tamanend & other Turtle Clan Delawares under the Great Elm at Shackamaxon  Where is this tree? *Penn Treaty Park on Delaware Avenue in Fishtown, near Philadelphia  (update gps)59.76746,5.78379 What story does this tree have to tell? * Members of the Nanticoke Leni-Lenape Tribal Council and the Penn Treaty Museum board planted a descendent of the Shackamaxon Elm this month (May 5, 2010). The original elm was toppled by a storm in 1810. “Some citizens worried that the tree took the treaty down with it,” reports Elisa Lala. (1)  “A clipping of the Great Elm was passed to Haverford College by the former owner of the park, Gen. Paul Oliver, said Carol Wagner, a Haverford College horticulturist who helped nurture the sapling.”  Here are the words spoken more than 300 years ago:(2)   Penn: “We meet on the broad pathway of good faith and good-will; no advantage shall be taken on either side, but all shall be openness and love. We are the same as if one man’s body was to be divided into two parts; we are of one flesh and one blood.”  Tamanend: “We will live in love with William Penn and his children as long as the creeks and rivers run, and while the sun, moon, and stars endure.” Unlike most such peace treaties, this oath was honored by both sides. Jenkins writes in his “Pennsylvania, Colonial and Federal”: “In the years following 1683, far down into the next century, the Indians preserved the tradition of an agreement of peace made with Penn, and it was many times recalled in the meetings held with him and his successors. ... In 1715… an important delegation of the Lenape chiefs came to Philadelphia to visit the Governor. Sassoonan –afterward called Allummapees… was at the head, and Opessah, a Shawnee chief, accompanied him. There was ‘great ceremony,’ says the Council record, over the ‘opening of the calumet.’ Rattles were shaken, and songs were chanted. Then Sassoonan spoke, offering the calumet to Governor Gookin, who in his speech spoke of ‘that firm Peace that was settled between William Penn, the founder and chief governor of this country, at his first coming into it.’ "  The current renewal in the form of a replanting of the original elm’s descendant was given “a traditional Indian blessing by Native American pastor John Norwood, a member of the Nanticoke Leni-Lenape Tribal Council and the Penn Treaty Museum board. Norwood chanted a prayer while circling the elm in smoke, Wagner said. He then asked each of about 20 people attending to take a pinch of tobacco from inside a plastic bag and recite their own prayers before the tree, while sprinkling its trunk with the tobacco. Wagner said Norwood told the crowd that the tree represented not only a bond between Quakers and Indians, but also a treaty for everyone who believes in friendship and fairness.”  (1) Story quote from:  http://www.philly.com/philly/ news/20100508_Penn_Treaty_elm_replanted_from_original_s_descendant.html (2) Historical notes see http://www.penntreatymuseum.org/treaty.php (3) Image of Rev. John Norwood from http://www.nanticoke-lenape.org/Council-frame.html