Having now considered the very foundation of Lenape religion, we may turn with better understanding, to their great Annual Ceremony.
CHAPTER V
Unami Annual Ceremony
THE LEADER
The great Annual Ceremony of the Lenape now in Oklahoma was and is held when the leaves turn yellow in the fall of the year, usually, according to the “pale face” reckoning, some time between the tenth and twentieth of October. It is not exactly a tribal affair, although the whole tribe participates, but must be undertaken by some certain individual of the proper qualifications who takes the responsibility of “bringing in” the meeting and acting as a leader.
The phratry to which this leader belongs determines the exact form of the ceremonies to be held; for each totemic group has a ritual of its own, that of the Wolf, which is here related, differing in some particulars from the ceremonies as practised by the Turtle or Turkey people. In former times, it is said, when one phratry had finished its twelve days of ceremonies, another would enact theirs, followed by the third; but at present qualified leaders are so few that it seldom if ever happens that more than one of them feels able to accept such exacting duties in any one year.
This leader it is who sends a messenger forth to notify the people what day the ceremonies are to commence and to invite them all to attend.
Several days before the date the wagons begin to roll in and a white village of tents springs up about the gray walls of the old Big House, temple, or xiʹngwikan ([pl. V]), standing on the banks of Little Caney river, north of Dewey in northern Oklahoma, far from any human habitation.
