Some explanations and remarks concerning the annual ceremony, as furnished by the Indians themselves, may prove of interest here.
Julius Fouts (or Fox), the interpreter, remarks:
“When the Delawares complete this meeting, then they claim they have worshiped everything on this earth. God gave the Powers Above authority to go around and give all the tribes some way to worship. They say these things were as if carried in a bundle, and when they come to the Delawares, last of all, there was a lot left in the bundle and they got it all—that is why the Delawares have so many different things to do in their meetings.”
In explanation of the prayer word Ho-o-o, he said, “Did you ever hear that noise out in the woods, in the fall of the year? ‘Ho-o-o,’ it says. What is it? It is the noise of the wind blowing in the trees. When the Delawares pray in the Big House, they raise their voices and cry ‘Ho-o-o’ to God, and the Mĭsiʹngʷ‛ hears it and understands, for he is of the same nature as a tree, and there are twelve Mĭsiʹngʷ‛ carved in the Big House who will carry the prayers to the twelfth Heaven. The Indians call the Mĭsiʹngʷ‛ ‘Grandfather,’ because the trees were here before the Indians. The Big House is going out of use now, because only the old people have had gifts or visions of power to sing about. The children of today are not piʹlsŭⁿ, or pure; they are reared like the whites, and the Powers Above do not speak to them any more.”
Chief Charley Elkhair, or Elkire, who frequently served as speaker in the Big House, said:
“The Delaware meeting helps everybody in the world, for they pray for good crops and everything good, even wild fruits. About ten years ago the people thought they would give up holding these meetings, and the following year they had high winds and big rains, and everyone was frightened. Then grasshoppers came in swarms, but they came in the fall a little too late to get all the crops. So the people held a council and talked about the Big House again. They finally decided to resume it, before any more bad luck came; so they began the ceremonies again in the fall.
“Then it seemed as if all the trouble stopped. Of late there has been talk of again giving up the meeting, but if we do give it up we are likely to have a tornado or maybe dry weather to ruin the crops.
“Once the Delawares owned a great deal of land, but that is nearly all gone now, and the people seem to have no power to do anything. When God looks down from Heaven, he sees but very few Delaware people, and the reason for this is that they cannot follow the Meeting House ceremonies now. When I was a little boy, I heard my people say that this thing would happen just as it is happening now. You see, the young people raised during the last thirty years do not believe in the old ways. We are having good times yet, but we don’t know when we shall catch it. If anything happens to us, and once really begins, we can not stop it—it will be too late. Even if they take up the meeting again—they can not do right, even when the ceremonies are going on.
“They can not accomplish anything in the Big House; they can not raise it up, because there are a lot of young folks who do not even try to do what the speaker tells them, for they do not believe in it.