Chapter IX Summary
Religion
A study of the material presented shows that the Lenape believed in a Great Spirit, or Creator, whose goodness is acknowledged, who is thanked for past blessings and petitioned for their continuance, but who is not their only god. He is, however, the great chief of all, and dwells in the twelfth, or highest heaven. He created everything, either with his own hands or through agents sent by him, and all the powers of nature were assigned to their duties by his word. That these concepts are not new among the Lenape may be seen from the fact that most of the early writers who treat of this people have noticed such beliefs among them, which can be traced back as far as 1679.
This Great Spirit gave the four quarters of the earth and the winds that come from them to four powerful beings, or manĭʹtowŭk, namely, Our Grandfather where daylight begins, Our Grandmother where it is warm, Our Grandfather where the sun goes down, and Our Grandfather where it is winter. To the Sun and the Moon, regarded as persons and addressed as Elder Brothers by the Indians, he gave the duty of providing light, and to our Elder Brothers the Thunders, man-like beings with wings, the task of watering the crops, and of protecting the people against the Great Horned Serpents and other water monsters. To the Living Solid Face, or Mask Being, was given charge of all the wild animals; to the Corn Spirit, control over all vegetation, while Our Mother, the Earth, received the task of carrying and feeding the people.
Besides these powerful personages were many lesser ones, such as the Small People, the Doll Being, the Snow Boy, and the Great Bear. Certain localities, moreover, were the abode of supernatural beings, while animals and plants were thought to have spirits of their own. Besides these there were, of course, the countless spirits of the human dead who were still supposed to retain some influence in earthly affairs.
This, then, was the supernatural world which, to the mind of the Lenape, controlled all things—on which they must depend for health, for success in all their undertakings, even the daily task of deer-hunting or corn-raising. Benevolent beings must be pleased, and bad spirits combated and overcome, or at least placated.
There was, however, until very lately, no conception of a “devil” in the modern sense of the word.
The main channel of communication between the supernatural world and man was the dream or vision, obtained, as before described, by fasting and consequent purification in youth. Through the vision the young man obtained his guardian spirit or supernatural helper, who gave him some power or blessing that was his main dependence through life, his aid in time of trouble, the secret of his success. No wonder, then, that visions and helpers form the basis of Lenape belief and worship. Among the guardian spirits figured not only such great powers as the Sun and the Thunder Beings, the personified powers of nature, but the spirits representing various species of animals and birds, such as the Wolf or the Owl, of plants, as “Mother Corn,” as well as the Mask Being, and even the spirits of the dead which some Lenape claimed as helpers.
Those favored by such visions were considered the leading people of their community. They usually composed rythmic chants referring to their visions, and appropriate dance songs to go with them, to recite at the Annual Ceremony.
Belief in a soul or spirit surviving the death of the body formed an integral part of Lenape philosophy. The soul is supposed to linger for eleven days after death, and is addressed and offered food by the surviving relatives, sometimes in a formal “Feast of the Dead;” but on the twelfth day, they say, it leaves the earth and finally makes its way to the twelfth or highest heaven, the home of the Great Spirit, where it leads a happy life in a land where work and worry are unknown. Some persons are thought to have the power of communicating with the departed.
Ceremonies
Most of the beliefs summarized above were found among the descendants of both Unami and Minsi; but when we consider their great religious ceremonies, we begin to note differences. While it is true that (1) in both cases these rites are based on the recital of the visions seen by the participants, combined with thanksgiving to the Great Spirit and his helpers for past blessings and prayers for their renewal, that (2) the New Fire ceremony figures in both, and that (3) they take place in a building of special form and decoration erected for the purpose, we note that among the Unami the ceremony is conducted only once a year, and is combined to a certain extent with the cult of the Mĭsiʹngʷ‛, or Mask Being, a magnified guardian spirit or personal helper; while the Minsi have in addition to that held in the fall, a spring ceremony also, cognate with the Iroquois “Thanks for the First Fruits,” or Strawberry Dance, and masked impersonators do not appear in the Minsi ceremonial house.
In the ceremonies of both Unami and Minsi, however, we note other similarities besides those first mentioned, such as the manner of prayer, the use of a drum made of a dried deerhide beaten with flat forked drumsticks each bearing a carved face, the fumigation and sweeping of the Big House, the restriction against women in their menses, and the use of twelve as a sacred number.
It therefore seems likely that the rites, in spite of the differences noted, probably have a common origin, and hence date back to a period before the separation of the Unami and the Minsi. Indeed we have an historical account which seems to refer to this kind of ceremony as early as 1683, while under date of 1779 there is a description of the rites practically as enacted as late as 1920.
Minor Ceremonies
Analyzing the minor ceremonies of Lenape origin we find the cults of two types: one founded on a beneficent spirit, a personal helper such as the Mask Being, whose relations are friendly with mankind; the other based on a discarded toy or pet, which makes trouble for its former owner unless propitiated by the ceremony in question.
A good example, in fact the only one we recorded, of the first type is the ceremony in honor of the Mĭsinghâliʹkŭn, or Mask Being, among the Unami, which, however, does not find its counterpart among the Minsi, who had a Society of Masks whose rites and functions were similar to those of the Iroquois “False Face Company.”
The second class embraces the cults of the Doll, Bear, and Otter, all of which must be propitiated periodically, under pain of sickness or death.
It will be observed that recitals of visions form a part of the Bear rites, and probably also of the Otter ceremony, all of which, taken into consideration with the preceding, gives rise to speculations concerning the basic form of Lenape ceremonies. Perhaps originally, everyone who had been blessed with a vision, held a periodic ceremony at which rites appropriate to his own guardian spirit were emphasized, but at which others so blessed could recite their own visions.
Of course ceremonies of extraneous origin, such as the Peyote rite, can not be classified with those of true Lenape origin; and there are others of which our accounts are so fragmentary that we can not place them, and still others, doubtless, that have disappeared entirely.
That such may have been the case is not remarkable—not nearly so extraordinary as the fact that the Lenape have retained so much of their ancient beliefs and practices after three centuries of contact with civilization.
Notes
1 Handbook of American Indians, Bulletin 30, Bureau of American Ethnology, part I, p. 386, Washington, 1907. Indian Population in the United States and Alaska, 1910, p. 73, Washington, 1915. Annual Report of the Department of Indian Affairs for 1913, Ottawa, 1913.
2 Dankers, Jaspar, and Sluyter, Peter. Journal of a Voyage to New York in 1679-80. Translated from the original manuscript in Dutch for the Long Island Historical Society, pp. 266-267, Brooklyn, 1869.
3 Penn, William. A Letter from William Penn, Proprietary and Governour of Pennsylvania in America to the Committee of the Free Society of Traders of that Province, Residing in London, p. 6, London, 1683.
4 Holm, Thomas Campanius. Short description of the Province of New Sweden, now called Pennsylvania. Mem. Hist. Soc. Pa., vol. III, p. 139, Phila., 1834.
5 David Zeisberger’s History of the Northern American Indians. Edited by Archer Butler Hulbert and William Nathaniel Schwarze. Ohio Archæological and Historical Quarterly, vol. XIX, nos. 1 and 2, p. 128, Columbus, 1910.
6 Heckewelder, John. An Account of the History, Manners and Customs of the Indian Nations who once inhabited Pennsylvania and the neighboring States. Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, vol. I, p. 205, Phila., 1819.
7 Waubuno, Chief (John Wampum). The Traditions of the Delawares, as told by Chief Waubuno. London [n.d.]. This little pamphlet contains some original material on the Minsi and some purporting to apply to the Minsi, but copied from Peter Jones’ “History of the Ojebway Indians.”
8 Brainerd, David. Memoirs of the Rev. David Brainerd, Missionary to the Indians... chiefly taken from his own diary, by Rev. Jonathan Edwards, including his Journal, now... incorporated with the rest of his diary... by Sereno Edwards Dwight, pp. 344, 349, New Haven, 1822.
9 Brinton, Daniel G. The Lenape and their Legends, p. 65 et seq., Phila., 1885.
10 Loskiel, George Henry. History of the Mission of the United Brethren among the Indians in North America, p. 34, London, 1794. Zeisberger, op. cit., pp. 128-129. Heckewelder, op. cit., p. 205.
11 Loskiel, op. cit.
12 Zeisberger, op. cit., p. 130.
13 Brainerd, op. cit., p. 238.
14 Holm, op. cit., p. 139.
15 Strachey, Wm. The Historie of Travaile into Virginia. Hakluyt Soc. Pub., vol. VI, p. 98, London, 1849.
16 Brainerd, op. cit., p. 344.
17 Loskiel, op. cit., p. 43.
18 Brainerd, op. cit.
19 Loskiel, op. cit.
20 Ibid.
21 Ibid.
22 Zeisberger, op. cit., p. 147.
23 Heckewelder, op. cit., p. 205.
24 Loskiel, op. cit., p. 43.
25 Jones, Rev. Peter. History of the Ojebway Indians, p. 83, London, 1861.
26 Skinner, Alanson, and Schrabisch, Max. A Preliminary Report of the Archæological Survey of the State of New Jersey, Bulletin 9 of the Geological Survey of New Jersey, p. 32, Trenton, 1913.
27 Skinner, Alanson. The Lenape Indians of Staten Island, Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History, vol. III, p. 21, New York, 1909. Idem. Two Lenape Stone Masks from Pennsylvania and New Jersey, Indian Notes and Monographs, 1920.
28 Brainerd, op. cit., p. 237.
29 Zeisberger, op. cit., p. 141.
30 Ibid., op. cit., p. 139.
31 Brainerd, John, quoted by Abbott in Idols of the Delaware Indians, American Naturalist, Oct. 1882.
32 Jones, op. cit., pp. 87, 95.
33 Brainerd, David, op. cit., p. 344.
34 Penn, William, op. cit.
35 Brainerd, David, op. cit., p. 238.
36 Ibid., p. 346.
37 Zeisberger, op. cit., pp. 133-134.
38 Ibid., p. 131.
39 A similar vision of a black and white duck was reported by the Lenape at the Grand River reserve in Ontario. See Harrington, M. R., Vestiges of Material Culture among the Canadian Delawares, American Anthropologist, n.s., vol. X, no. 3, p. 414, July-Sept., 1908.
40 Brainerd, David, op. cit., p. 347.
41 Zeisberger, op. cit., p. 132.
42 Loskiel, op. cit., p. 40.
43 Heckewelder, op. cit., p. 238 et seq.
44 Adams, R. C. Notes on Delaware Indians, in Report on Indians Taxed and Indians not Taxed, U. S. Census 1890, p. 299.
45 Zeisberger, op. cit., p. 138.
46 Ibid. pp. 136, 137.
47 Harrington, M. R. A Preliminary Sketch of Lenape Culture, American Anthropologist, vol. XV, no. 2, April-June, 1913.
48 Adams, loc. cit.
49 Zeisberger, op. cit., p. 138.
50 Harrington, Canadian Delawares, pp. 414, 415. See note 39.
51 Waubuno, op. cit., p. 27.
52 Brainerd, David, op. cit., p. 237.
53 Adams, loc. cit.
54 Harrington, Canadian Delawares, p. 416.
55 Ibid. p. 417.
56 Marsh, Rev. Cutting. Documents Relating to the Stockbridge Mission, 1825-48, Wisconsin Historical Collections, vol. XV, pp. 164-165.
57 Zeisberger, op. cit., p. 138.
58 Adams, loc. cit.
59 Ibid.