Religion and ceremonies of the LenapeHarrington, M. R. (Mark Raymond)
Religion
Religion and ceremonies of the Lenape
Harrington, M. R. (Mark Raymond)
Delaware Indians -- Religion
“Old man” Secondine, now dead, a well known Oklahoma Lenape, was one of
these. When a boy his parents drove him out in the woods, as was the
custom, in the hope that he might receive a supernatural helper. After
wandering about for a time, he took refuge in a large hollow tree, and
made that his camping place. Before long he was visited by apparitions
of persons he knew to be dead, who took pity on his starving condition,
and brought him food which they had taken at night from the houses of
the living, this being the way that disembodied spirits are supposed
to get nourishment when visiting the scenes of their earthly life. In
the meantime his parents were unable to find him, and searched for him
without avail until the ghosts finally revealed to them his camping
place, and then he was brought safely home. Ever afterward he claimed
the ghosts as his guardians, and like others blessed with this kind of
helpers, was said to hold some kind of communication with the departed.
MINSI EXAMPLES.—The late James Wolf, my principal Minsi informant, was
said to possess this power, as was stated in the preceding chapter. He
had, moreover, received another vision when a boy, but had made little,
if any, use of it, because of his profession of Christianity. One time in
his boyhood days, he told me, he thought or dreamed (he was not asleep
at the time) that there was no water in the river, and that he went down
into its bed and found only one little hole containing water. In this was
a creature resembling a catfish, yet somewhat different, and near it was
an ordinary crayfish, while on the surface of the water walked a number
of little flies. The boy thinking what he had seen was real, ran home in
haste to tell his father. The father walked down with him to see, but
stopped on the bank where the edge of the water had been, while the boy
ran on down to his pool. The river-bed seemed dry to him, but his father
would not come, saying that the river was full of water. The boy then
came out and they started for home, but before they were out of sight,
the lad looked back. To his surprise, the river was full as usual.
The father, who was Flying Wolf, a noted Minsi warrior, had been favored
himself, when a boy, with a rather unusual sort of vision, which James
Wolf related to me, as nearly as possible the way the old man used to
tell it at the Annual Ceremony.
“When I was a boy, I was once fast asleep on a hill near a little creek.
Someone said, ‘Wake up! Let us go where our friends are!’ So I got up and
followed him across the little creek and up a hill, where I saw six men
sitting on a log. Then I went up and shook hands with them all. After
they had shaken hands with me they all danced around in a ring.” At this
point he used to sing one verse of his dance song—
_Wĕmi wangoⁿtowak kewiha_
All greet one another
_Yoki lĕnape witci._
Now Lenape at the same time
_E-ye-he-ye-ĕ!_
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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