The BIG HOUSE

The BIG HOUSE

The LENAPE decided to migrate at the Big House.

.

COMMENT by MYRON:

The article that follows talks about the Lenape and the Finns, when the Finns were transported to America to live among the Lenape.

.

Observers of both the Lenape and the Finns usually notice several common artifacts and traditions that are similar in both cultures.  The evidence implies that sometime in the past both cultures lived in Iceland.  Sometime in the past a group of Lenape went west to America and a group of Finns went east to Finland.

.

Iceland history near the end of the Viking age (1200) recorded the Viking use of a large house used by the chief Viking.  The large house was the society center during the long winter.

.

The common use of the “big house” may imply that a tradition begun by the Icelander people went both east and west.  Then, centuuries later, people of seemingly different heritage were forced to reunite in New Jersey.  They quickly learned to live together and to share the “Big House.”

.

ANDREW SOUTH  10/10/17, 2:11 PM  https://www.facebook.com/andrew.south.3

.

Here is a brief snippet from researching the history of my family's lineage that alludes to the fact of a Norse connection. "First Song: XENGWIKÁON [A Story] Verse VII: Big House.

 The most controversial element of Mary's [Mary Zeigler's] unorthodox historical geography was her contention that the Lenape Big House, the Xengwikáon, came into existence at the time of contact with Finns.

.

The Xengwikáon was the most important ceremonial structure of the Lenape people. It was, as the English translation implies, a very large ceremonial house.

.

It was made of notched logs. The Big House was a double log cabin with two openings in the roof. Few Lenape have ever claimed the log version of the Big House existed before European contact. Yet Mary discovered there was virtually nothing in the academic literature or in Lenape oral traditions concerning the origins of the Big House itself.

.

Lenape mythology did, however, have a lot to say about the origins of many ceremonial practices, elements of which clearly dated back into the depths of their cultural memory.

.

This large log cabin adopted as a religious site was simply dismissed as mere copying of pioneer log churches. That was about as ludicrous, and as easy to disprove, as the notion that Vikings had brought the sweat lodge to America.

.

Mary found documentation that strongly indicated at least some of the Finns and Lenape found common ground in their ways of worship. Old colonial records in Swedish archives, and other evidence in the folklife studies of Finland, convinced her that the Big House phenomenon represented a significant transformation of the traditional Lenape belief system to accommodate the ways their world was being impacted by the coming of the Euros.

.

The Big House had remained the central focus of most Lenape spiritual life until well after they moved to Kansas.

.

She argued, much to the chagrin of many scholars and more than a few Lenape, that many of the Big House ceremonies had originated in the period when the influence of the Finns was at its peak. The Big House was the place where Fenno-Lenape cultural beliefs had blissfully cohabited.

.

Mary knew that the meeting of these two peoples had occasioned a major upheaval in both their lives. That should be obvious to anyone. Yet in most instances these contacts had resulted in what was undoubtedly one of the most compatible and mutually beneficial encounters in the history of Indian White relations.

.

That circumstance alone would have provided ample reason to rethink and reshape the spiritual content of their lives.

.

The Big House ceremony, in Mary's eyes at least, was intimately associated with the adoption of log cabins as the primary Lenape house type. But the log house was only the symbolic center of a much wider and more profound shift in both Lenape and Finnish cultural meaning and values.

.

Both cultures were in a fluid state of profound changes. The new habits and habitations were intimately linked to modifications in traditional gardening and hunting habits.

.

Life changed dramatically for the Finns after they settled among the Lenape. It was only natural that these two peoples would create a ceremonial center that reflected elements of this cultural union.

.

It was equally certain that the Finns who had been under constant pressure to abandon their shamanistic beliefs and practices would keep this out of view of the Swedish colonial authorities.
.

Mary says that the firestorm her theory generated was not what she was expecting. But knowing Mary I suspect she anticipated the outrage and felt compelled to present her work anyway."