Canku Ota - A Newsletter Celebrating Native America
September 23, 2000 - Issue 19

Retired Couple Donates Land to Indian Tribe

THORNBURY, Pa. -- A retired couple who found Indian arrowheads on their property have donated much of their land to the tribe that inhabited the region 300 years ago.

"It's terrible what we did to the Indians," said Peter Galantino, 78, who gave 11.5 acres, about 40 miles west of Philadelphia, to the Delaware Tribe of Western Oklahoma. "This is their land. We just gave back what was already theirs."

Galantino and his wife, Carol, who died in December shortly after the deal was finalized, also returned the arrowheads found on their 17-acre property to the native group.

The tribe, which also has branches in Canada, were forced to abandon Pennsylvania's Delaware River Valley in the early 18th century and moved west to Oklahoma.

Tribal secretary Linda Poolaw said the farm land was the first donation they had ever received from an Eastern landowner. She said the 1,293 tribe members, who call the land "the Galantino gift," would use the land as a burial ground for their northeastern predecessors.

Poolaw told Wednesday's editions of The Philadelphia Inquirer that she was moved by the Galantinos' gesture.

"I don't know what you do when somebody gives you a part of your body back," Poolaw said.


 

 

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