From - Sun Jul 27 21:52:24 1997 Received: from mail1.voicenet.com (mail1 [207.103.0.36]) by server3.voicenet.com (8.8.5/8.8.6) with ESMTP id SAA11081 for ; Sun, 27 Jul 1997 18:41:38 -0400 (EDT) Received: from emout16.mail.aol.com (emout16.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.42]) by mail1.voicenet.com (8.8.6/8.8.5) with ESMTP id SAA27500 for ; Sun, 27 Jul 1997 18:48:30 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by emout16.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id SAA15385 for peterst@voicenet.com; Sun, 27 Jul 1997 18:41:43 -0400 (EDT) From: Susqueh@aol.com Date: Sun, 27 Jul 1997 18:41:43 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: <970727184139_1792280598@emout16.mail.aol.com> To: peterst@voicenet.com Subject: Re: RedHearts Native American Indian Home Page Weblink Content-Type: text X-UIDL: 6aaf0bbef9af36e92754dd051f08662c X-Mozilla-Status: 0011 Content-Length: 4013 I would be delighted to have you list my home page. It is: http://members.aol.com/Susqueh/Lenape.html Also, if you would like a Lenape story to tell, here is one of Rainbow Crow. A long, long time ago, before the two-leggeds walked on Lenapehoking, the animals could talk with each other and were friends. One of the most beautiful of all of these was Rainbow Crow, whose feathers were all the colors of the rainbow and whose voice was almost too beautiful to behold. Grandfather North Wind began blowing very cold winds from the North and Grandmother South Wind did not counter this by bringing warm winds from the South. Snow began to fall and it was a very great snow. All the animals huddled together and began to worry about what as going to happen to them. The snow was so deep that they began to be covered by it. While they could, the asked one of the winged ones to fly to the Great Spirit and ask that the snow be stopped before it was too late for them. Beautiful Rainbow Crow volunteered to go and to use his beautiful voice and speak on their behalf. So Rainbow Crow began his flight upwards into the sky to see the Great Spirit. Meanwhile, the small rabbit began to be covered by the snow, the little coyote became snowbound, the deer, too, was covered by the snow, and even the great bear was being buried by it. Rainbow Crow looked down and saw the plight of his brothers and flew quickly to where the Great Spirit's wikiup was located. When he got there he spoke to the Great Spirit and told him of his brothers' troubles. He begged the Great Spirit to stop the snow before his brothers were all buried by it. The Great Spirit told Rainbow Crow that he would not interfere with the plans of Grandfather North Wind or Grandmother South Wind, but he would give Rainbow Crow fire so that the snow might be melted. The Great Spirit then gave Rainbow Crow a flaming torch and told him to take it back with him to earth. Rainbow Crow then took the torch in his beak and began flying back to earth. The flames from the torch blacked his beak and head, and it's soot blacked his beautiful feathers, but he kept on flying to earth as fast as he could so that his brothers, all the other animals of the earth. would not perish in the snow. When he got to earth, he planted the flaming torch in the snow-covered ground and the snow began to melt. That is how first fire came to Lenapehoking. All the animals came up from the snow and shouted with glee, but when the looked at Rainbow Crow they did not recognize him. For his beautiful feathers were not the color of black soot, and his beautiful face and beak were also of the same color black. Rainbow Crow sang out to his brothers to say it was he who had returned from the Great Spirit with the flaming torch, but the only sound that came out of his burned and hoarsened throat was "caw" "caw". His brothers still did not recognize him as he was ugly in appearance and his voice was no longer beautiful, but rough and coarse. Poor Crow was very disheartened and he returned to the Great Spirit to ask him to change him back to the way he was. But the Great Spirit looked upon him and told him that He had given him a greater gift. He had given him safety -- ugliness so that no one would wish to capture him because of his beauty; he had given him a voice that no one would ever want to listen to and therefore he would never be captured or desired. But, he told Crow, that his feathers would be irridescent and that when looked at closely each feather would reflect the color of the Rainbow because Crow was the bravest and thought not of safety to himself but only of his brothers in their time of dispare. Rainbow Crow, who became just Crow, will always be remembered whenever one sees a fire, of what he did for his People without thought of danger to himself. May all of us become as Beautiful as Crow became. Beautiful in our hearts. Wanishi.