“Honor and respect our lives, our beings, in life and death. Do what you have failed to do before. Stop doing what offends our Spirits.” The War Chief gave his promise, and the animals returned with the warriors to the Lenape homeland. That is why, as the storyteller concludes, “Ever since that time we Lenape have always offered tobacco and shown the utmost respect when hunting or upon killing an animal for food. We never took more than we needed, and we used as much of the animal’s remains as we could.”

The Lenapes’ relationship with the natural environment was greatly influenced by their practice of cosmology. They believed that all living and nonliving things had a spirit within them, called a maneto. The manito’wak could cause mischief in the Lenape society if they were displeased or offended by the people. To appeal to the manito’wak, the Lenapes performed seasonal rituals in the spirits’ honor. One of the rituals was in honor of the Keeper of the Game, in which the fat of the first buck killed was offered as a sacrifice. Other rituals included the sacrifice of the first fruits, offerings of  burnt corn to the deer and bear spirits, and offerings of fish shaped bread to the fish spirit. Tobacco also played an important role in these spiritual rituals. All of these ceremonies and sacrificial offerings were done to insure a bountiful outcome, whether of fruit, fish, or game, and to give thanks to the spirits for any previous bountiful outcomes. The Lenape believed that honoring the spirits with these rituals was necessary, and failure to carry out the rituals would result in terrible consequences. In order to have the food and resources that were essential to the survival of their people, the Lenape had to give thanks to the spirits that were believed to control such things. Otherwise, they would have unsuccessful hunting and gathering experiences and would struggle to survive.

The Lenape’s practice of spiritual rituals showed the highest respect for the natural environment. They only took what they needed from nature, and regularly thanked nature and the “spirits of nature” for allowing them to use its resources for survival. They recognized and respected the power of nature, from the natural resources they used for crafting to the animals they consumed: “To replace what you have taken by making a tobacco offering is a recognition or acknowledgement of the life you take, whether it is a tree cut down to make baskets or an animal killed for food”. Their belief that things both living and nonliving had indwelling spirits led to their reverence for everything in the natural environment.

Today, we might think of offering sacrifices to spirits as absurd. However, the Lenape’s belief in cosmology and spiritual rituals had the purpose of expressing gratitude towards nature, and this practice had a positive impact on the natural environment. Rather than abusing the land, the Lenape people took care of it and practiced a kind of give-and-take relationship with nature. This shows that the Lenape were thoughtful about their impact on nature, and took the utmost care in making sure that it was fully appreciated. The Lenape clearly had a positive, appreciative relationship with the natural environment.