[195] [Mr. Heckewelder was in this year residing at New Gnadenhütten on the Huron (now the Clinton), Michigan, where the Moravian Missionaries ministered to their converts for upwards of three years, subsequent to their compulsory evacuation of the Tuscarawas valley.]
[196] They call them Doctols; because the Indians cannot pronounce the letter R. The Minsi or Monseys call them “Mĕdéu,” which signifies “conjuror.”
[197] [Gelelemend, i. e., a leader, (whose soubriquet among the whites was Kill-buck,) a grandson of the well-known Netawatwes, was sometime chief counsellor of the Turkey tribe of the Delaware nation, and after the death of Captain White Eyes, installed temporarily as principal chief. He was a strenuous advocate of peace among his people in the times of the Revolutionary war; and being a man of influence, drew upon himself, in consequence, the implacable animosity of those of his countrymen who took up arms against the Americans. Even after the general peace concluded between the United States and the Indians of the West in 1795, his life was on several occasions imperilled by his former opponents. Gelelemend united with the Moravian Indians, at Salem, on the Petquotting in the summer of 1788, where, in baptism, he was named William Henry, after Judge William Henry, of Lancaster. He died at Goshen, in the early winter of 1811, in the eightieth year of his age. He is said to have been born in 1737, in the neighborhood of the Lehigh Water Gap, Carbon County, Pa. William Henry Gelelemend was one of the last converts of distinction attached to the Moravian Mission among the Indians.]
[198] [Goschachking, sometime the capital of the Delaware nation, stood on the Muskingum, immediately below the junction of the Tuscarawas and the Walhonding. On its site stands Coshocton. The town was destroyed by Gen. Brodhead in 1781.]
[199] For “Americans” read “white men.”
[200] The following extract from the Detroit Gazette, shews that this superstitious belief of the Indians in the powers of witchcraft, still continues in full force, even among those who live in the vicinity of the whites, and are in the habit of constant intercourse with them.
From the Detroit Gazette of the 17th of August, 1818.
On the evening of the 22d ult. an Indian of the Wyandot tribe was murdered by some of his relatives, near the mouth of the river Huron, on lake Erie. The circumstances, in brief, are as follows:
“It appears that two Wyandots, residing at Malden, and relatives to the deceased, had been informed by Captain Johnny, an Indian living on the Huron river, and also a relative, that a Shawanee Indian had come to his death by the witchcraft of an old Indian woman and her son Mike, and that in order to avert the vengeance of the Shawanee tribe, it would be necessary to kill them—and furthermore, that the death of Walk-in-the-water, who died last June, was caused by the same old woman’s witchcraft. It was determined to kill the old woman and her son—and for that purpose they crossed over on the 22d ult. and succeeded in the course of the evening in killing the latter in his cabin. The old woman was not at home. The next day, while endeavouring to persuade her to accompany them into the woods, as they said, to drink whiskey, they were discovered by Dr. William Brown and Mr. Oliver Williams, who had received that morning intimations of their intentions, and owing to the exertions of these gentlemen, the old woman’s life was preserved and one of the Indians taken, who is now confined in the jail of this city—the others escaped by swiftness of foot.
“On the examination of the Indian taken, it appeared that the old woman, shortly after the death of the Shawanee, had entered his cabin, and in a voice of exultation, called upon him, saying—’Shawanee man! where are you?—You that mocked me; you thought you would live forever—you are gone and I am here—come—Why do you not come?’ &c.—She is said to have made use of nearly the same words in the cabin of Walk-in-the-water, shortly after his death.”