Description
The Navesink, or Navisink, (or Nave Sinck) were a group of Lenape who inhabited the Raritan Bayshore near Sandy Hook and Mount Mitchill in eastern New Jersey. Archeological artifacts have been found throughout this area. The Navesink shared the totem, a turtle, as their neighbors, the Raritan, and other groups such as the Hackensack and Tappan. Early European contact was in the 16th and 17th centuries. The explorer Henry Hudson, an English sea captain first had contact with the Navesink among Native Americans, as recorded in journals from his ship, the Halve Maen on September 3, 1609. When crew went off the ship, they were attacked by Navesink.
Language
The Navesink tribe spoke the Unami dialect
Culture
They lived on hunting and growing foodstuffs and depended on the fertility of the land. Due to their heavy tillage of the land, the soils they farmed gradually lost their productivity. As a result, Lenape frequently relocated.4 Generally, an occupied area lost its usefulness in two decades' time. Thus, the native people constantly set up, abandoned, and resettled communities throughout Pennsylvania. They utilized natural resources to build their homes. They lived in single doorway wooden huts called wigwams, which were situated along rivers and creeks. The size of their wigwams depended on the region they inhabited.