To the mind of the Lenape, all the phenomena of nature, all the affairs of mankind, in fact the entire world as we know it, is under the control of invisible beings. Some are great and powerful, others of somewhat lesser influence, and so on down to the humble spirits of plants and stones. In some, good seems to predominate, in others, evil; but most of the manĭʹtowŭk, or spirits, seem to be, like mortals, a mixture of desirable and undesirable qualities.
SUPREME BEING
All the Lenape so far questioned, whether followers of the native or of the Christian religion, unite in saying that their people have always believed in a chief Manĭʹto, a leader of all the gods, in short, in a Great Spirit or Supreme Being, the other manĭʹtowŭk for the greater part being merely agents appointed by him. His name, according to present Unami usage, is Gicelĕmû‛ʹkaong‛, usually translated, “great spirit,” but meaning literally, “creator.” Directly, or through the manĭʹtowŭk his agents, he created the earth and everything in it, and gave to the Lenape all they possessed, “the trees, the waters, the fire that springs from flint,—everything.” To him the people pray in their greatest ceremonies, and give thanks for the benefits he has given them. Most of their direct worship, however, is addressed to the manĭʹtowŭk his agents, to whom he has given charge of the elements, and with whom the people feel they have a closer personal relation, as their actions are seen in every sunrise and thunderstorm, and felt in every wind that blows across woodland and prairie. Moreover, as the Creator lives in the twelfth or highest heaven above the earth, it takes twelve shouts or cries to reach his ear. An account of the worship of the Creator will be given later in connection with the description of the Annual Ceremony. The Minsi had similar beliefs, but the current name for the Great Spirit in that dialect today is Pa‛ʹtŭmawas, interpreted “He who is petitioned,” or Kĕ‛ʹtanĭtoʹwĕt, “Great Spirit.”
It has been frequently stated that the concept of a supreme being or chief of the gods was not known among the American tribes in precolonial times, and that the “Great Spirit” concept, now widely distributed among the Indians, is entirely the result of missionary teaching. This seems to have been the case in some instances, but it is a mistake to assume such a broad statement as a general rule, on a priori grounds. To the Indian mind, the spirits or gods partook largely of the nature of mankind—Why could not a chief of gods be as natural a concept as a chief of men? In the case of the Shawnee, the Creator or Great Spirit is usually spoken of as a woman, “Our Grandmother Pabothʹkwe”—surely not a missionary idea!
Let us trace back the Great Spirit concept among the Lenape, and find what the early writers say about it. Perhaps the earliest is in Danker and Sluyter’s Journal[2] of about 1679, in which an old Indian living near Bergen, New Jersey, is quoted as saying: “The first and great beginning of all things, was Kickeron or Kickerom, who is the origin of all, who has not only once produced or made all things, but produces every day.... He governs all things.”
William Penn,[3] in a letter dated Philadelphia, August 16, 1683, says: “They believe a God and Immortality; for they say, There is a King that made them, who dwells in a glorious country to the Southward of them, and that the Souls of the Good shall go thither, where they shall live again.” Further confirmation is given by Holm[4] in his book first published in 1702, where he says, “They acknowledge a Supreme Being, a Great Spirit, who made the heavens and the earth.”
Zeisberger[5] makes it even stronger, for he wrote, about 1779: “They believe and have from time immemorial believed that there is an Almighty Being who has created heaven and earth and man and all things else. This they have learned from their ancestors.” Heckewelder[6] (p. 205) adds more details in his book, originally published in 1818: “Their Almighty Creator is always before their eyes on all important occasions. They feel and acknowledge his supreme power.... It is a part of their religious belief that there are inferior Mannittōs, to whom the great and good Being has given command over the elements.”
Finally, in the little work ostensibly dictated by the Minsi John Wampum,[7] known as Chief Waubuno, undated, but probably printed in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, we have “The Great Spirit, whom we call in Munsee or Delaware Kaunzhe Pah-tum-owans or Kacheh Munitto (Great Spirit or Benevolent Spirit), created the Indians.”