Did You Know That The Iroquois Indians and The
Lenape Indians Had Different Kinds of Religions?
By Kai Hyodo
Did you know that the Iroquois and the Lenape Indians had different kind of religions? Well if you don’t, you should read this article.
Spirits
The Iroquois Indians believed in something called the Great Spirit, which was like their god. The people who had more power over spirits are shamans. Shamans used their power for making others becoming medicine men or religious leaders. Two kinds of spirits were Sky Spirits, like the wind, sun, moon, and stars and Earth Spirits like the animals and plants. I’m really sorry, but there are not a lot of examples in Earth Spirits and Sky Spirits. The Iroquois believed in many spirit forces created by a supreme being. Kishelemukong (a spirit) is like Lorem ipsum dolor
the Lenape’s god (a group of Indians at New York). Kishelemukong made the world asitnd the suspendisse
Kishelemukong amet,
made Montauk. The Lenape believed that the Montauk was a bad spirit. Sickness and d
eath w
as rtemp
esponsible for nulla, rhoncus
the evil Montauk because the evil Montauk gave sickness and death to the Lenape. Wplacerat
ell, the fermentum
Montauk shouldn’t have done that because, the Montauk can get the sickness from the Lenape, who got sick because the germ can just jump out of the Lenape’s body and just stick to the Montauk‘s body. Celebrations
Each village had a special longhouse where ceremonies were held. Wait, did I say that? Well, then the special longhouse has to be enormous. The Iroquois had 6 festivals held each year. There were 4 days in one festival. That means there were 24 days of festivals. Dance and music were included. The festivals were: The New Year’s Festival in the winter, The Maple Festival in the spring, The Corn Planting Festival, The Strawberry Festival, The Green Corn Festival and the Harvest Festival of Thanksgiving in the fall. The successful hunting was also celebrated when the plan worked as expected. The Maple Festival was celebrated when the sap began to Vlow. At all festivals, sacred tobacco was burned. At the Green Corn festival, corn, squash, and beans were ready to eat. The most sacred traditions involved the False Face Society or the medicine masks. The two masks were not the same to the Iroquois. Men who wore those masks were believed to have the power to drive away evil that made illness and injury. That’s so cool! The Midwinter Ceremony is a celebration of new beginnings. It’s the ninth celebration of the beginning of the spiritual year. Sometimes, the Midwinter ceremony is referred as the Iroquois “New Year’s Ceremony”. The Midwinter Ceremony does not have its actual calendar date. Rather, the celebration takes place either in January or February, depending on the lunar cycle.
Listed below are the major events of the Midwinter Ceremony:
• The "Big Heads" & the Stirring of the Ashes
•
Tobacco Invocation
•
Dream Sharing Ritual
•
False Face Society
•
Bear Dance
•
Peach Stone Game
•
White Dog SacriVice
•
Great Feather Dance
•
Closing Events
The Midwinter ceremony had to start when the “Big Heads” visited the tribe’s long house. The “Big Heads” dress in ceremonial outVits involving buffalo skins and braided cornhusk masks. The “Big Heads” carry wooden mallets that are used to mash corn. Their costumes symbolize both the hunt and the harvest, two important aspects of Iroquois life.
The Virst ritual for all of ”The Six Nations” is the “Stirring of the Ashes.” This ritual involves the “Big Heads” visiting houses within a village and using their corn mashing mallets to stir up the ashes in the Vire of each household. There are festivals to celebrate crops, seasons, and events that the Iroquois celebrated. The Iroquois had many seasonal ceremonies, which included feasting, songs, and dances. People danced to the beat of drums and rattles made of turtle shells, Villed with seeds or pebbles. The ceremonies that the Iroquois celebrated were all special to them. Myths and Legends
The Iroquois believed that everything that they dreamed has to happen, so if you dreamed of being wounded, you will ask a friend to cut you slightly so that your dream will come in a harmless way. Each spring or fall, some Iroquois joined a group called “False Face Society”. They put on Vierce looking masks and traveled away to scare evil spirits. Cool! All members of the False Face Society were men except for one woman who was the Keeper of the False Face Society. Only one woman can be the Keeper of the False Face Society, so if you are a girl, and your dream was to be the Keeper of the False Face Society, you have to work hard or you won’t be the Keeper of the False Face Society. Sorry, only one woman can be the Society. The masks were carved into human faces. At the end of the eighteenth century, after the American Revolutionary War, the Iroquois lost their land to the Americans. That’s so sad! They were poor too. After all the American Revolutionary War, many Iroquois became the followers of the Handsome Lake. The religion of the Iroquois and the Lenape were really strong.