Lenape Corn Husk Doll Craft with the Lenapehoking Reestablishment Project

Tyrone “Dancing Wolf” Ellis Jr is a Wolf Clan member of the Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape Tribal Nation of New Jersey. His culture is a very dominant part of the life that he lives on a daily basis. He has practiced many cultural arts, such as rattle making, drum making, singing & drumming, regalia making, beadwork, etc. These many arts have been taught to him by numerous respected elders and knowledge holders amongst the tribe, including well known people such as Chief Mark “Quiet Hawk” Gould, Co-Chief Lewis “Grey Squirrel” Sonny Pierce, late grandmother Lorraine “Rainbow Walker” Gregg, Chief Urie “Fox Sparrow” Ridgeway, Will Mosley Sr., Elder Edith Pierce and so on.

Ty has been tasked with responsibilities by his tribal community through numerous committees, and has been a member of most of existing committees within the tribe’s government body. His greatest responsibility is being the tribe’s Annual Pow-Wow and Program Co-Ordinator (2013 – 2023). This responsibility describes the need to demonstrate the bulk of these arts to the public, educating them and maintaining a healthy relationship between the tribe and surrounding communities while reducing stereotypes and ignorance of Native American Culture.

Lia “Watching Sparrow” Gould is the youngest daughter of former Chief Mark “Quiet Hawk” Gould, who has been reigning Chief for about 35 years of the last 40+ years of the Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape Tribe’s official reformation as an entity in the eyes of the Government. Though she has sisters, they were already fully grown adults by the time she was born, so she was raised as an only child. So, in her youth, she often shadowed her father during his political lectures, delegations, and public outreach efforts. This included learning how to properly communicate between our nation and others.

Just as a child, Lia was tasked with many responsibilities that many her age had never even thought of. Some of these tasks included being aware of the public eye in appropriate settings, such as when she had the opportunity to dance along side the Princess of Sweden. At a very young age, she was also ordained by the Tribal Spiritual Leader as a Jingle Dress Dancer. This dance style is what’s known to Indigenous People as a healing dance. Since her youth, Lia knew that she would be destined to be a healer.