HACKENSACK — The Ramapough Lenape Nation has used a Halifax Road property in Mahwah for prayer and religious ceremonies for decades, a real estate developer testified in state Superior Court on Tuesday.

Charles Elmes — a developer and friend of the Ramapoughs — was the first witness to testify on behalf of the tribe, which is accused of using the property as a place of public assembly and campground, complete with tepees, tents, a canvas cabin and a yurt, all of which violate Mahwah's zoning law.

The Ramapoughs, however, have argued that the tribe is a sovereign nation and have said they should have religious immunity from Mahwah's ordinances.

Tuesday marked the second day of the Ramapoughs' trial for the alleged zoning violations. The township's attorney, Joseph DeMarco, finished presenting his case last Tuesday, when the trial began.

Under questioning, Elmes testified that he donated the 14-acre plot to the tribe in 1995, after purchasing more than 100 acres beneath the Ramapo Mountains for development.

Before the property transfer, he said, he allowed the tribe to host large powwows there in the 1980s and 1990s. At those gatherings, Native Americans from across the country performed traditional dances, sold crafts, played music and cooked traditional food, Elmes said. Attendance often ranged from hundreds to possibly thousands, he testified.

“I heard that they always used it for hunting and fishing, and whatever ceremonies they had,” Elmes said. “I didn’t object to them doing that.”

In the early 1990s, the celebrations drew the ire of Mahwah officials, who said the tribe made arrangements without a permit. The licenses were eventually granted.

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In testimony Tuesday, Ramapough Chief Dwaine Perry said his tribe has lived in the Mahwah area since "time immemorial." Tribal lands once reached from western Pennsylvania to eastern Connecticut and north to Albany, N.Y., Perry said. Today, the Ramapoughs primarily reside within a 7-mile radius in New York and New Jersey, he said.

On the stand, Perry recalled memories from childhood of his grandmother and other tribe elders walking along the Ramapo River, which hugs the tribe's Halifax Road property.

“It’s always been a space of prayer and gathering, fishing and hunting for our people,” Perry said.

Last year, Ramapough tribal leaders built a collection of tepees on the property to protest a proposed natural gas pipeline that is expected to run through Mahwah. The encampment was also erected in sympathy with the Standing Rock tribe, which was fighting to block construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline through its reservation in North Dakota.

The Mahwah site is open to Ramapoughs and the public for overnight camping, Perry said Tuesday. Those who occupy the property refer to themselves as “water protectors” against the potential for an oil spill into the area's aquifers, he said.

The tepees, which have been removed, were primarily used for teaching, Perry said. The largest could fit up to 50 people, he said.

Since late last year, the township has issued more than 40 summonses to the tribe alleging that it failed to obtain zoning permits for "structures and uses of land" on its property, and that it moved soil without permission.

Attorneys for the tribe, however, dispute that tepees and tents are "structures" because, they argue, they are temporary in nature.

During cross-examination Tuesday, DeMarco pressed Perry on his use of the term when the tribe attempted to seek a zoning permit in the spring. DeMarco pointed to the application, in which Perry referred to the tepees as "structures" multiple times.

Perry said he used the term “generically."

DeMarco asked if Perry considered the tepees, along with a longhouse once built by the tribe, as structures.

But Ramapough attorney Raghu Murthy objected and Superior Court Judge Roy F. McGeady agreed, saying, "That's up to me to decide."

As the trial played out inside the Bergen County Courthouse, a lone man staged a solitary protest outside.

Holding a red flag with the word "ungovernable" printed in black letters, Karlos Vasak, 33, of Freehold Township ran laps around the courthouse Tuesday morning. The flag symbolizes the tribe's status as an independent nation, he said.

"I believe this court doesn't have the jurisdiction to decide a case about a sovereign nation," said Vasak, who is not a member of the tribe. "So as they declare their authority by holding this trial, I'm going to act as a friend of the Ramapough Lenapes to encircle the court under my own authority."

The trial is expected to reconvene next Tuesday.

Columnist Christopher Maag contributed to this article.

Email: nobile@northjersey.com