Bagnio: The Lenape Sweat Lodge

By Tom Big Warrior

One of the most common features of prehistoric cultures around the world is the practice of sweating for spiritual purification, healing, and general promotion of good health. In 425 B.B. Herodotus wrote of the sweat bath customs of the Scythians, whose territory is part of present-day Russia, describing the construction of a sort of sweat lodge.

“When they have set up three pieces of wood leaning against each other, they extend around them woolen cloths; and having joined them together as closely as possible, they throw red-hot stones in the middle of the pieces of wood and the clothes.”

Herodotus also described how the Scythians placed certain ‘fruits’ on the fire to inhale the fumes, a custom reminiscent of the Native American practice of placing cedar and sweetgrass on the stones. These baths, Herodotus said, “give off such vapor as no Gecian vapor-bath can exceed.”1

Arab sweat lodges, or hammams, were endorsed by Mohammed around 600 A.D. and were the forerunner of the Turkish bath. In Scandinavia, Russia, Japan, Latvia and Estonia, Africa and the Celtic countries, the building of sweat lodges and their use for ritual purification and health survived into the modern era in at least some rural areas. As late as the 1880’s and 90’s the “Ancient Irish Hot-Air Baths” were in use for treating rheumatism and other ailments. Sweat lodges of one type or another were employed all over the Americas prior to the European invasion.

In the early 1600s, a Dutchman named David de Vries in the New Netherlands colony (which would later be New York) wrote an account of a Mahican sweat bath (collected in Jameson’s Narratives of New Netherland):

“When they wish to clean themselves of their foulness, they go in the autumn, when it begins to grow cold, to make, away off, a small oven, large enough for three or four men to lie in it. Inn making it they first take twigs of trees, and then cover them with clay, so that smoke cannot escape. This being done, they take a parcel of stones, which they heat in a fire, and then put in the oven, and when they think it is sufficiently hot, take the stones out again and go and lie in it, men and women, boys and girls, and come out perspiring, that every hair has a drop of sweat on it. In this state they lpunge into the cold water; saying that it is healthy, but I let its healthfulness pass; they then become entirely clean, and are more attractive than before.”2

The curative qualities of sweating have long been documented, and the sick individual might take his sweat bath in private, perhaps pouring a concoction of herbs onto the hot stones that was prescribed by a healer or passed down through the family as a home remedy. William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania, wrote down a description of how his Lenape friend, Tenoughan, made use of a sweat lodge in the winter of 1683 to cure himself of a fever. Penn wrote in his journal:

"I found him ill of a fever, his Head and Limbs much affected with Pain, and at the same time his Wife preparing a Bagnio for him: 'The Bagnio resembled a large Oven, into which he crept, by a door at the one side, while she put several red hot Stones in a small Door on the other side thereof, and then fastened the Doors as closely from the Air as she could. Now while he was sweating in this Bagnio, his wife was, with an Ax, cutting her husband a passage into the River in order to the immersing himself, after he should come out of his Bath. In less than half an Hour, he was in so great a Sweat that when he came out, he was as wet as if he had come out of a River, and the Reak of Steam of his body so thick, that it was hard to discern any bodie's Face that stood near him. In this condition, stark naked (his Breech-Clout only excepted) he ran to the river, which was about twenty Paces, and duck'd himself twice or thrice therein, and so return'd (passing only through his Bagnio to mitigate the immediate stroak of the Cold} to his own house,  perhaps twenty paces further, and wrapping himself in his woolen mantle, lay down at his length near a long (but gentile) Fire in the midst of his wigwam, or House, turning himself several times, till he was dry, and then he rose, and fell to getting us our Dinner, seeming to be as easie, and well in Health, as at any other time.”

 "We find a considerable amount of even earlier information regarding sweat lodges in the Jesuit Relations, the yearly reports sent by Jesuit missionaries in 'New France' (the present-day Canadian province of Quebec) to their superior in France... in the Jesuit Relations for the Abenaki Nation of Vermont, LeJune's Relation (1637). the priest observed:

'Here is something quite remarkable: towards evening of the 26th, they prepared a sweat, which was followed by a feast I never saw anything like it in my life: 20 men entered, and almost packed themselves upon one another. Even the sick man dragged himself thither, although with considerable difficulty, and was one of the troop, he also sang for quite a long time, and in the midst of the heat of this sweat he asked for water with which to refresh himself, -- a part of which he drank and the rest he threw over his body. An excellent remedy, forsooth, for a sick man on the verge of death! So the next day I found him in a fine condition...

"In the Relation of Hierosme Lalemant [a Jesuit missionary] for 1646, a description is given of a medicine man's use of the sweat house to divine the future: 'On another occasion, before setting out for war, a medicine man was consulted. A bark sweat house 3 or 4 feet high and wide was built for him and inside were placed hot stones. The medicine man shut himself inside the sweat house and sang while the warriors danced outside. Finally, his spirit gave him the answer and he yelled out, "Victory! I see the enemies coming toward us from the south. I see them take to flight I see all of you making prisoners of them." On the basis of this, the warriors departed for the south."3

David Zeisberger,  the Moravian missionary who lived among the Lenapes in Ohio in the 18th century wrote:

"It is a custom of the Indians, even when they are tired or have caught cold, to go into a sweating oven several times a week. For this purpose every town has on its outskirts a sweating oven. It is built of timber and boards, covered completely with earth. They crawl in through, a small opening, the latter being closed as soon as they have gone in. A fire is usually built in front of the opening before they go in and hot stones placed in the middle of the enclosed area. Not long after they have entered, they are covered with perspiration, then they crawl out and cool off, returning to repeat the same thing three or four times. Women have their own sweating ovens though they do not use them as commonly as do the men.”4

Zeisberger also described a sweating ceremony  conducted  within the ceremonial Big House:

'A....kind of festival is held in honor of fire which the Indians regard as being their grandfather and call Machtuzin, meaning ‘to perspire.' A sweating-oven is built in the midst of the house of sacrifice, consting of twelve poles, each of a different species of wood. These twelve poles represent twelve Manittos,  some of these being creatures, others plants. These they run into the ground, tie together at the top, bending them toward each other; these are. covered entirely with blankets, joined closely together, each person being very ready to lend his blanket, so that the whole appears like a baker's oven, high enough nearly to admit a man standing upright. After the meal or sacrifice, fire is made at the entrance of the oven and twelve large stones, about the size of human heads, are heated and placed in the oven. Then twelve Indians creep into it and remain there as long as they can bear the heat. While they are inside, twelve pipes full of tobacco are thrown, one after another, upon the hot stones which occasions a smoke almost powerful enough to suffocate those confined inside.

Some one may also walk around the stones singing and offering tobacco, for tobacco is offered to fire. Usually, when the twelve men emerge from the oven, they fall down in a swoon. During this feast a whole buck-skin with the head and antlers is raised upon a pole, head and antlers resting on the pole, before which the Indians sing and pray. They deny that they pay any adoration to the buck, declaring that God alone is worshipped through this medium and is so worshipped at his will.”6

In 1931, Frank Speck noted that:

"At an  earlier period  of Delaware [Lenape] history, ...before the evacuation of the tribal haunts in Kansas (1867) the performance of a sweating ceremony seems to have been included in the annual [Big House] ceremony. Harrington has notes on this procedure for which he received the name muxhatoL'zing from his informants. He chooses to regard this rite as another form of the annual ceremony, and supposes this to have been a tribal variation arising through the incorporation of alien features at the instigation of  Munsee or Nanticoke adopted by the Delawares. Zeisberger has an account referring to a sweating ceremony of a similar nature to that described by Harrington. The designation applied to it by Zeisberger is "machtuiin,"7 which is rendered 'to perspire.'

"Wi tapano 'xwe secured the following description of the sweating-ceremony from aged living Indians in the Nation on the occasion of his visit home in 1929, and I give it as a supplement to what has already been published by others concerning it:

'The sweat-bouse performance does not belong to the regular annual  ceremony of the Big House although it was formerly held in the Big House. It was a distinct ceremony lasting eight days held by the tribe when it was living in Kansas, before they moved to their present location in Oklahoma in 1867. When this ceremony was first held it was meant to determine who could withstand  the greatest punishment by heat and steam. A large wigwam made of twelve poles bent together at the top and covered with bides. Opposite the door a number of pieces of wood and bark are arranged so that the wigwam will not catch fire. During the eight days of the ceremony hot rocks are placed in the wigwam and twelve men, each having had a vision so receiving supernatural power, are selected from the tribe to enter the wigwam where they sing their songs. Many of the men in the trial become weak and succumb to the best, white others withstand the punishment until the last man has finished his song. These men are always considered as being medicine men or healers. The ceremony is held just before sunset.

'The Lenape or Delawares are looked upon as the doctors and an older tribe,  in  fact as the "grandfathers" of all other tribes. The Indian doctors are known as ma-ta-en no meaning a man who possesses supernatural healing power. Sometimes these men are warriors as well as healers."8

However, Speck does link the sweating ceremony with the annual thanksgiving ceremony:

"And it was said. long ago in the beginning of the Gamwing, inside the Big House, they built a great sweat-house. They heated rock and put it inside the sweat-house. There the shamans crawled in. And water was used here for pouring upon the rocks. That was called testing with heat. Everyone going in there and staying for any length of time was said to be a great man. Some  person  would be exhausted in a little while for which reason they took him out. Those enduring it for a considerable length of time, those are the great men."9

Sweat lodges and baths were outlawed for Native Americans by the Federal Govemment in 1873, and this prohibition was actively enforced until the 1930's, by which time the exiled Delawares had been almost entirely converted to Christianity anyway. Today, the sweating ceremony and traditional Native spiritual practices are again on the rise. Ignorant of their own traditions, many Eastern Woodlands people have adopted the Lakota inipi ceremony. The Lenape were a "river people" and it seems that sweating in the Bagnio was viewed primarily as a preparation for bathing in the sacred river, which was part of most Lenapes’ daily ritual all year round, or preparation for some other event or occasion.

While sweating was part of virtually every pre-historic culture, it had been practically eradicated by the medieval Christians, along with any other kind of bathing, which they regarded as sinful and heathen practice. Instead of bathing or washing their clothes, they simply slapped on perfume over their stale body odor. Africans and American Indians both pointed out that you could smell a white man coming before you could see him. Small wonder that the Lenape ancestors called them the "sourish people.'
___________

1 Bruchac,  Joseph. The Native American Sweat Lodge: History and Legends. Freedom, CA, Crossing, 1993, p. 14.

2 Ibid., pp. 20-21.

3 Ibid., pp. 21-23.

4 Zeisberger, David. History of the Northern American Indians. Columbus, Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society, 1780, p. 27.

5 Ibid., pp. 138-139.

6 Ibid., p. 138. This verb denoting dancing of ceremonial character appears as machtoga, probably the Munsee form meaning "to perspire" being a symbolic dance held in honor of the “grandfather,” fire. The number twelve appeared in an allegory in the dance. Maxta’ken (machtogen Brinton, Lenape dictionary, p. 69) “to fight” is probably the Munsee related form, while Mohegan-Pequot, mata ‘ga “dance” seems to round out the evidence that it denoted among the early eastern Algonkian a superior dance performance associated with fire, struggle, and purification by sweating and war preparation. The term machtuzin given by Zeisberger seems to be a shortened equivalent …of the expression “staying until one is sweated red.”

7 Speck, Frank G. A Study of the Delaware Indian Big House Ceremony. Harrisburg, PA Historical Commission, 1931, pp. 72-74.

8 There were two classes of shamans. Some had healing power and are called nenpil ‘kees “sweating doctor.” The men who recite their visions in the Big House are also mate ‘i-nu in the Delaware classification, their description being… “great men who perform in a single file.”

9 Ibid., p. 89 “Amounting to a title denoting ‘prophet, reciter of vision, healer, priest all in one.’”