Mountain Mann Survival: Slate Run Sasquatch Recording

I recorded this creature in May 2007 in the Slate Run area north of Big Pine Creek while camping out at 2:30 am.

As you can hear, it woke every animal and bird in the forest with it's creepy howling.

Could it be Mesingw?

Read the "Masked Being" Lenni Lenapi Traditional Story Below.

FROM THE LENNI LENAPE ARCHIVES

The Masked Being

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.

The Lenape considered Mesingw important enough to place his likeness on their official seal. Across his face is a pipe - the Lenape were considered peacemakers amongst the tribes and the sacred pipe was important in such discussions. To the right of the mask is the fire drill traditionally used to start sacred fires. Surrounding the mask are the symbols for the three clans of the Lenape - the wolf (Minsi), turtle (Unami), and turkey (Unalachtigo). Also shown is the Christian cross since a large number of modern Lenape are now Christians. The twelve bars are prayer sticks used in the old Big House Church ceremony of the Lenape, last held in 1924, and described as a twelve day ceremony held in the autumn where the Lenape prayed, sang vision songs, and honored Mesingw.