“No sun shines there, but a light much brighter than the sun, the Creator makes it brighter by his power. All people who die here, young or old, will be of the same age there; and those who are injured, crippled, or made blind will look as good as the rest of them. It is nothing but the flesh that is injured: the spirit is as good as ever. That is the reason that people are told to help always the cripples or the blind. Whatever you do for them will surely bring its reward. Whatever you do for anybody will bring you credit hereafter. Whenever we think the thoughts that Gicelĕmû‛ʹkaong has given us, it will do us good.
“This is all I can think of to say along this line. Now we will pass the Turtle around, and all that feel like worshiping may take it and perform their ceremonies.”
Some nights the speaker says more, sometimes less, just as he feels, but he always tries to tell it as he heard it from the old people who came before him.
RECITAL OF VISIONS
Now, as was stated, these meetings are “brought in” by individuals; that is a certain person, usually a man, undertakes to arrange for the meeting and to lead the ceremonies. This person must be one of those gifted by a vision or dream of power in their youth, and hence, according to Lenape belief, one in communication with the supernatural world.
Fig. 9.—Rattle of land-tortoise shell, used by celebrants at the Annual Ceremony. (Length, 4.2 in.)
When the people file into the Big House, the few that still have them dressed in their best Indian costumes carefully preserved for such occasions ([pl. I]), the members of this leader’s clan always take their seats on the north side, the other two clans in the west end and the south side. Men and women, however, do not mingle, but sit separately in the space allotted to their common clan. The diagram ([pl. VII]) shows the seating of the clans when the ceremony is “brought in” by a member of the Wolf division.
