Mentions in the text: pretty much all the pages :)
Definition/Meaning in AIIIH: The use of sibling labels between the Shakers is a symbol of their religious fraternity as well as the covenant they have signed which commits them as members of a holy family. As it is part of their custom to remain celibate and unmarried, the titles of brother and sister are a way to verbally bolster this commitment to community and self-restraint.
Sources: Family – Shaker Museum
Mentions in the text: 10, 17 and 10, 13, 40, 72
Definition/Meaning in AIIIH: As shakers were split into smaller “family” units within their communities, they would assign an individual to be the overseer of each group. This deacon or deaconess would not necessarily preach before the congregation, as the term would signify in other religious denominations. Rather they were a leader in the community who taught by example in their assigned area.
Sources: (PDF) The Importance of Accounting to the Shakers
Mentions in the text: 17, 65, 67
Definition/Meaning in AIIIH: While the deacons of the congregation were responsible for the physical side of daily life in the Shaker community, elders and eldresses were concerned with the spiritual. They led family units as well as the larger community through teaching, preaching, and group prayer. All family units would have both at least one elder and one deacon guiding them at any given time.
Sources: (PDF) The Importance of Accounting to the Shakers
Shakers Near Lebanon by Nathaniel Currier (1813-1888)
Mentions in the text: 16, 25, 26, 39, 44, 58, 64, 65
Definition/Meaning in AIIIH: An agreement a shaker would sign at the age of 21 or earlier pledging their desire to believe and serve the lord, including giving up their property, remaining celibate and providing their best labor to the community. Before signing the covenant, an individual was not considered a full member of the shaker community - this is why it’s striking that Fanny claims to see visions as she has not yet become a full follower through the covenant.
Sources: The Last of the Shakers? | Down East Magazine
Mentions (mostly in the songs): 15, 19
Definition/Significance: There are several mentions in the Shaker hymns to the willow tree. Issachar Bates, a man who was a Shaker for most of his life before he converted to a Shaker, wrote several hymns that including willow tree imagery. Bates “connects the Tree of Life metaphor to the Shaker dance. The tree’s limbs are waving and supple, which exemplifies the bodies of the Shakers when they are worshipping. Quite often, a willow tree appears in Shaker texts as a metaphor for the body, such as in the 1850 text from a New Era gift song, ‘I will bow and be simple, I will bow and be free, I will bow and be humble, yea bow like a willow tree.’ (This song appears on page 15 of the script) But Bates’s text is even more evocative, because it depicts the Shaker in motion as a fully fruited tree, exactly like the Tree of Life.”