236 WASTE-LAND WANDERINGS. 



showing that images were not unknown, and that they 

 possessed other significance and value than as mere or- 

 naments. Any carving in wood or stone, merely used 

 for personal decoration, as the one I found in the work- 

 shop-site may have been, would not have become sinful 

 in the mind of an Indian woman through the preaching 

 of the missionary; and a desire to destroy the object 

 she reported as in her possession must necessarily have 

 arisen from the fact that it was regarded with supersti- 

 tious reverence, and invested with supernatural powers 

 in their belief. 



A word more concerning Indian idols, and I have 

 done. Dr. Brinton remarks: "They the Lenape or 

 Delaware Indians rarely attempted to set forth the 

 divinity in image. The rude representation of a human 

 head, cut in wood, small enough to be carried on their 

 person, or life size on a post, was their only idol. This 

 was called wsinlchoaUcan. They also drew and perhaps 

 carved emblems of their totemic guardian. Mr. Beatty 

 describes the head chief's home as a long building of 

 wood. 'Over the door a turtle is drawn, which is the 

 ensign of this particular tribe. On each door-post was 

 cut the face of a grave old man.' 



"Occasionally, rude representations of the human 

 head, chipped out of stone, are exhumed in those parts 

 of Pennsylvania and New Jersey once inhabited by the 

 Lenape. These are doubtless the wsinkhoalican above 

 mentioned." So much for the Indians of the Cross- 

 wicks valley. 



It is easier to keep out of trouble than to get out of 



