Nora Thompson Dean

Nora Thompson Dean or (July 3, 1907 – November 29, 1984) was a member of the Delaware Tribe of Indians from Dewey, Oklahoma. As a Lenape traditionalist and one of the last fluent speakers of the southern Unami dialect of the Lenape language, she was an influential mentor to younger tribal members and is widely cited in scholarship on Lenape (/luh-NAH-pay/) culture.

Nora was also known by her indigenous blessing name, , ), intending it to be limited to one cultural event, but it spread widely on the Internet. Its modern spelling is Weènchipahkihëlèxkwe, ‘Touching Leaves Woman’, or, as Nora herself had proposed, ‘Leaves-that-touch-each-other-from-time-to-time woman.’ It is phonetically written as Weεnčipahkihəlεxkwe, /way-en-jee-paH-kee-hull-EKH-kway/. The morphological segments are as follows: (We:εnt-ipahk-ihəle:)-xkwe, ‘on.both.sides/on.either.side/together-leaves-moving–woman’. The initial stem shows a reciprocal reduplication, rare for Unami, (*we:we:- instead of wë-), ‘the leaves (of the trees) on either side (of the path) come together (overhead rustling)’. This is the kind of blessing name that is derived from a vision recitation. Her name was bestowed on her by her mother, Sarah Wilson Thompson. The woman with whom Sarah Wilson was riding on a horse was not her biological mother but her aunt, Way-lay-luh-mah (‘the esteemed one’), as supplied by Weslager, and it was not Kweiti, Sarah's biological mother, but Way-lay-luh-mah who raised her and whom she called her mother, and so Nora called Way-lay-luh-mah her grandmother. This naming pattern is in line with Lenape kinship ideas. The vision occurred after Sarah was riding horseback one day holding onto Way-lay-luh-mah's waist when Way-lay-luh-mah had fainted from a probable heart attack. Sarah tried to hold her, but her grip slipped, and both had fallen off the horse. Sarah was very frightened, but some of the trees turned into people who told her not to be afraid and wanted to help her. Sarah stood listening, and the tree leaves by rustling started to sing a song to her, one that she sang in the Big House. [Paraphrased by Carl Masthay per NTD's interview by Katherine Red Corn, April 1968, and compiled with help from Ives Goddard, Raymond Whritenour, and James Rementer.]

Early life and education Thompson was born in roughly ten miles east of Bartlesville, Oklahoma in Glen Oak, Oklahoma, on July 3, 1907, to James H. and Sarah (Wilson) Thompson, both full-blood Delawares. She received her education in Oklahoma's public schools. She graduated from Midway School in 1921, as salutatorian, and from Dewey High School in Dewey, Oklahoma, in 1925. Thompson also had some nursing training and several university credits.

In 1941, she married Charley Dean, who was also born and raised in northeastern Oklahoma.

Cultural revitalization efforts Dean was raised in the traditional ways of her people, and she dedicated herself to keeping these alive. Throughout her adult life, she taught about the Lenape religious ceremonies, social functions, dances, craftwork, herbal medicines, and language. She was consulted by tribal members and numerous academic specialists, including anthropologists, linguists, historians, botanists, and ethnomusicologists.

In 1967, Dean founded a mail-order business, Touching Leaves Indian Crafts, through which she sold the traditional clothing of the Lenape and other items. Dean received awards for her craftwork, and in recognition of her work to promote the traditional ways of her Lenape people. These included commendations from the Oklahoma House of Representatives and the Governors of Oklahoma, Delaware, and Pennsylvania, and a Fellowship Award from the Archaeological Society of New Jersey.

In 1972, Dean participated in the Delaware Indian Symposium, which brought together scholars and tribal members from Oklahoma and Canada. She also presented at another Delaware cultural gathering in 1981.

The year after her death, Dean's husband donated seeds of Lenape Blue Corn to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, a variety of corn cultivated by the Lenape that was brought west by Dean's mother.

Dean created material including four Lenape Language Lessons; these sound recordings, as well as others made with Dean and other Lenape elders during the twentieth century, have been digitized to provide the voices of the Lenape Talking Dictionary, a project funded by the National Science Foundation. Dean's brother Edward Leonard Thompson (1904–2002) was the last living native speaker of Unami in the United States. and is buried in the Delaware Indian Cemetery in Dewey, Oklahoma.