!.] Idols and Idol Worship of the Delaware Indians, 799 

 EXPLANATION OF PLATE XII. 



TOHN Brainerd, while a missionary among the Indians of New 

 " Jersey, recorded of one of these people, that "she had an aunt 

 * * * * w ho kept an idol image, which, indeed partly be- 

 longed to her, and that she had a mind to go and fetch her aunt 

 and the image, that it might be burnt ; but when she went to the 

 place she found nobody at home, and the image also was taken 

 away." While this, indeed, is slender evidence of the occurrence 

 of idol worship among the Delaware Indians, it is of interest in 

 showing that images were not unknown, and that they possessed 

 other significance and value than as mere ornaments. Any carv- 

 ing in wood or stone, merely used for personal decoration 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 



