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
_Conduct of the Ceremony._—When all are gathered in the tipi, the leader
first passes around a fragment herb which the people chew and rub over
hands and body. Then the macerated peyote is passed, and each takes
enough to make eight pellets about half an inch in diameter, of which
some eat all, some only part, reserving some pellets to be eaten later.
About this time the leader addresses the peyote and the fire, prays,
and often delivers a regular sermon or moral lecture. He then takes the
staff in his left hand, and sitting, or kneeling on one knee, he sings a
certain number of peyote songs, which are a class to themselves, while
the man to the left beats the drum, then passes the staff to the person
on his right, himself taking the drum while this person sings, and so
the staff travels round and round the lodge, each taking his turn at
singing, while the devotees, men and women alike, keep their eyes fixed
upon the fire or upon the peyote lying on the mound. As the night wears
on the “medicine” begins to take effect, and the devotees see many
strange visions, pictures, and brilliant-colored patterns. Often one may
see the Peyote Spirit, in the form of an old man, who takes his spirit
on a wonderful journey along the “peyote road,” eastward toward the sun.
At daybreak they all file out of the tipi bearing their paraphernalia,
as seen in pl. IX, _b_, and when the sun appears they raise their hands
in salutation, and then those who are left standing (for some fall as
if dead at the sight of the sun) “give thanks to the Great Father in
Heaven.” Those who fall at sunrise, they say, are the ones who visited
the sun in their visions. All sleep, or at least rest, until about noon,
when a feast is served, after which everyone tells what he or she saw
while “on the peyote road.”
The Lenape variant of this ceremony, as related above, differs somewhat
from that of other tribes practising the Christian form of the Peyote
rite, but in all essentials it is almost identical.
GHOST DANCE
The Ghost dance was also introduced among the Lenape by an Indian named
Wilson, about the same time, our informants thought, as the Peyote rite,
and, like it, probably from the Washita River region.
Wilson would call a dance every now and then during his lifetime, at
which the people appeared in their everyday dress, without such special
costumes as were seen, for instance, at such functions among the Kiowa
and the Arapaho. At these meetings the participants would dance round
and round for a long time, with a sidewise step, to the sound of song
and water-drum, sometimes for a considerable period without stopping.
Occasionally one would fall and appear to faint, and when revived would
claim to have visited Heaven in spirit while his body lay as if dead.
When Wilson died, the cult, so far as the Delawares were concerned,
perished with him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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