Long ago, there were three boys who were not treated very well. In fact, their parents did not seem to care whether they lived or died. One day, they were out in the forest thinking about their troubles when they saw a strange-looking hairy person with a large face painted half black and half red. This person said, "I am Misinkhâlikàn, I have taken pity on you and I will give you strength so that nothing can ever hurt you again. Come with me and I shall show you my country!"
He took the boys into the sky to the place where he came from. It was a great range of mountains up in the sky reaching from north to south. While he was showing the boys his country, he promised that they would become stout and strong and should gain the power to get anything they wished. Then he brought to boys back to the Earth again.
In later years, when the boys had grown up and were hunting, they used to see Misinkhâlikàn occasionally, riding on a buck, herding the deer together, and giving his peculiar call, "Ho-ho-ho!"
And so it was that there were three men in the tribe who knew that Mesinkhâlikàn existed, because they had seen him with their own eyes.
Now the Lenapé had always used a bark long house to worship in, but in the earliest days it had no faces carved upon the posts inside. In this house we used to sing about our dreams and visions, but some time after the three boys talked with Misinkhâlikàn, the people gave up their worship and for ten years they had none.
A great earthquake came then which lasted for twelve moons and gave much trouble to the Lenapé ancestors. In one of their towns, a Sakimâ, a Chief, had a large bark house, and there the people met to worship, hoping to stop the earthquakes. Then they built a new house for this, and when it was finished, they worshipped there, and sang and prayed all winter for relief.
Just after springtime came, they were holding a meeting one night when they heard something making a noise in the forest, "Ho-ho-ho! in the East. The Chief called for someone to go and see what it was. The three men recognized the call of Misinkhâlikàn and offered to go because they knew who was making that noise and they wanted to find out what he wanted.
So, they went outside and found Misinkhâlikàn in the woods, and asked him what he wanted. "Go back and tell the others to stop holding meetings and to attend to their crops," he answered. "Do not meet again until the fall, when I shall come and live with you. Then I will give your people help through a new ceremony, Xinkwikàn, the Big House. You must carve a mask of wood to look like my face, painted half black and half red, as mine is, and I shall put my power into it, so it will do as you ask. When the man who takes my part puts the mask on, I shall be there with you, and in this way I shall live among you. The man must carry a taxoxi kowàni'kàn, a turtle-shell rattle, a bag and a staff, just as I do now."
Misinkhâlikàn told them to carve twelve faces on the posts of the Big House and faces on the drumsticks to be used in the ceremony. Then he said, "You must also give me hominy every year in the spring. I take care of the deer and other game animals. That is what I am for. Wherever you build a Big House, I shall keep the deer close by so you can get them."
"Never give up the Xinkwikàn, for if you do, there will be more earthquakes or other things just as bad."
The earthquakes stopped, and the Lenapé kept the Xinkwikàn and the mask ever after.
However, in 1924, the last Big House ceremony was held. This was due to cultural changes on the Oklahoma Reservation, whereby the Peyote religion and Christianity were more widely followed. This, coupled with the fact that those who were knowledgeable and capable of performing the ceremony died and people became too few in number to carry it out properly anymore. It is a sad thing for us, but there are many of us today working to bring it back again.
Misinkhâlikàn gave the Big House to our Lenape'wàk, to keep all land and all life in balance and harmony on the Mother Earth. Misink, as we call him for short, is that being which is so well known to everyone today as "Bigfoot" or "Sasquatch." Many people have seen him, many are trying to study and capture him, but none have really listened to or believed we Native people when we have talked about him. To we Lenapé, he is a Spirit Being, guardian of the forest, and keeper of the game animals.
We give tobacco offerings to Misink before going into the woods, before hunting, or to give thanks for his work in Nature and for giving us the meat that we eat, which keeps us from hunger.
Misinkhâlikàn is unusual, in that he often takes on physical form, as a great, hulking, hairy ape-like giant. He travels between his world in the sky, just above this Earth, and the Earth. He can leave tracks, which often end suddenly, with Misink nowhere to be found. One place he is frequently seen is where a lot of logging has taken place and where housing development takes place in wilderness areas. He is often seen near creeks and swamps, where he is often seen to vanish, as water is a portal where he passes between his world and ours. Misink often comes as a warning to human beings, that we are not living in harmony and balance with our fellow creatures and with Mother Earth.
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