“Messingq or Solid Face Dance or Devil Dance.—The principal leader in this dance is the Messingq, an Indian, who is dressed in a bearskin robe with a wooden face, one-half red and one-half black. He has a large bearskin pouch and carries a stick in one hand and a tortoise shell rattle in the other. He is a very active person. The dance is only for amusement, and men and women join in it. A large place is cleared in the woods, and the ground is swept clean and a fire built in the center. Across the fire and inside of the ring is a long hickory pole supported at each end by wooden forks set in the ground. On the east of this pole the singers stand; on the west end is a venison or deer, which is roasted. About daylight, when the dance is nearly over, all the dancers eat of the venison. They have a dried deer hide stretched over some hickory poles, and standing around it beat on the hide and sing. The dancers proceed around the fire to the right, the women on the inside next to the fire. After the dance is under headway the Messingq comes from the darkness, jumps over the dancers, and dances between the other dancers and the fire. He makes some funny and queer gestures, kicks the fire, and then departs. The Messingq is never allowed to talk, but frequently he visits the people at their homes. He is a terror to little children, and when he comes to a house or tent the man of the house usually gives him a piece of tobacco, which the Messingq smells and puts in his big pouch, after which he turns around and kicks back toward the giver which means ‘thank you,’ and departs. He never thinks of climbing a fence, but jumps over it every time that one is in his way. The Devil dance is what the white men call it, but the Delawares call it the Messingq, or ‘solid face’ dance. The Messingq does not represent an evil spirit, but is always considered a peacemaker. I suppose that it is from his hideous appearance that white men call him the devil.”
OTHER FUNCTIONS OF MĬSIʹNGʷ‛
The Mĭsiʹngʷ‛ the Indians claim, “takes care of the children,” as well as of the deer, for as before related if any Delaware has a child who is weak, sickly, or disobedient, he sends for the Mĭsiʹngʷ‛ and asks him to “attend to” his child. On his arrival it does not take the impersonator long to frighten the weakness, sickness, or laziness out of such children, so that “afterward they are well and strong, and whenever they are told to do a thing, they lose no time in obeying.” This is the only trace of the doctoring function of the mask found among the Unami.
When the keeper of the Mĭsiʹngʷ‛ burns tobacco for him and asks for good luck in hunting, “it turns out that way every time;” and the Lenape say moreover that if anyone loses horses or cattle, either strayed away or stolen, he can go to the keeper of the Mĭsiʹngʷ‛ with some tobacco as a gift and get them back. He explains his errand to the keeper, who in turn informs the Mĭsiʹngʷ‛ that they want him to look for the horses or cattle. The loser then goes back home, and after a few days the missing animals return, driven back by the Mĭsiʹngʷ‛, who if they had been tied or hobbled by the thieves, frightened them until they broke away and came home. When the Big House meeting is held in the fall, the Mĭsiʹngʷ‛, as before related, is seen going around among the tents of the Delawares assembled, and in and out of the Big House, always coming from the woods, where the impersonator has a place to change his clothes. The Indians say:
“He helps the people with their hunting, and also helps in the Big House while the ceremonies are in progress. If he finds anyone there who has not done right, he informs the three guards of the meeting, who take that person and put him out. In all these ways the Mĭsiʹngʷ‛ helps the Delawares.”
MASKS OF THE MINSI
The Minsi Miziʹnk (cognate with the Unami Mĭsiʹngʷ‛) was a mask made of wood with copper or brass eyes and a crooked nose, according to my informants at Munceytown; and judging by Peter Jones’ drawings ([pl. III]) they were provided also with hair, tufts of feathers, and jingling copper cones or deer-hoofs. The Mizink at Grand river was of Minsi type, judging by the specimen obtained by the writer ([fig. 4]).
Such masks were made to represent Mizinkhâliʹkŭn, who was “something like a person, but different from the Indians, and was powerful. They saw him first among the rocks on a hill, and he spoke to them and told them what to do to get his power. When a man put on a Mizink he received the power of this person or spirit; he could even see behind him, and could cure diseases.”
The Mask Society.—The men who owned these masks formed a kind of society which Nellis Timothy says originally had twelve members, but which, before it disbanded, dwindled to about five. Sometimes only two appeared in costume.