Unknown to Brainerd, however, the seeds of a Christian harvest had already been sown, in 1742, in the wilderness of Pennsylvania, by the ardent Moravian leader, Count Nicholas Lewis Zinzendorf; already, in 1744, the fervent Zeisberger, prescient of his long and marvelous service in the church militant, had registered himself as destinirter Heidenbote—"appointed messenger to the heathen"—in the corner-stone of the Brethren's House, at Bethlehem; already the pious Rauch had collected a small but earnest congregation of Mohegans at Shekomeko, who soon removed to the Lehigh valley, and pitched the first of those five Gnadenhütten, "Tents of Grace," destined successively to mark the unwearied efforts of the Moravian missionaries, and their frustration through the treachery of the conquering whites.[220]
It is not my purpose to tell the story of this long struggle. Its thrilling events are recounted, with all desirable fullness, in the vivid narrative of Bishop Edmund de Schweinitz, grouped around the marked individuality of the devoted Zeisberger—pages which none can read without amazement at the undaunted courage of these Christian heroes, without sorrow at the sparse harvest gleaned from such devotion.[221]
When, after sixty-two years of missionary labors, the venerable Zeisberger closed his eyes in death (1808), the huts of barely a score of converted Indians clustered around his little chapel. His aspiration that the Lenape would form a native Christian State, their ancient supremacy revived and applied to the dissemination of peace, piety and civilization among their fellow-tribes—this cherished hope of his life had forever disappeared. He had lived to see the Lenape, a mere broken remnant, "steeped in all the abominations of heathenism, eke out their existence far away from their former council fires."
CHAPTER VI.
Myths and Traditions of the Lenape.
Cosmogonical and Culture Myths.—The Culture-hero, Michabo.—Myths from Lindstrom, Ettwein, Jasper Donkers, Zeisberger.—Native Symbolism.—The Saturnian Age.—Mohegan Cosmogony and Migration Myth. National Traditions.—Beatty's Account.—The Number Seven.—Heckewelder's Account.—Prehistoric Migrations.—Shawnee Legend.—Lenape Legend of the Naked Bear.
Cosmogonical and Culture Myths.
The Algonkins, as a stock, had a well developed creation-myth and a culture legend, found in more or less completeness in all their branches.
Their culture hero, their ancestor and creator, he who made the earth and stocked it with animals, who taught them the arts of war and the chase, and gave them the Indian corn, beans and squashes, was generally called Michabo, The Great Light, but was also known among the Narragansetts of New England as Wetucks, The Common Father; among the Cree as Wisakketjâk, the Trickster; by the Chippeways as Nanabozho (Nenâboj), the Cheat; by the Black Feet as Natose, Our Father, or Napiw; and by the Micmacs and Penobscots as Glus-Kap, the Liar.