Chapter XII: Appendix (8)

I knew an under trader, who being intrusted by his employer with a cargo of goods for the country of the Muskohge, was forced by the common law of good faith, to oppose some of those savages in the remote woods, to prevent their robbing the camp: the chieftain being much intoxicated with spirituous liquors, and becoming outrageous in proportion to the resistance he met with, the trader like a brave man, opposed lawless force by force: some time after, the lawless bacchanal was attacked with a pleurisy, of which he died. Then the heads of the family of the deceased convened the lesser judicatory, and condemned the trader to be shot to death for the supposed murder of their kinsman; which they easily effected, as he was off his guard, and knew nothing of their murdering design. His employer however had such a friendly intercourse with them, as to gain timely notice of any thing that might affect his person or interest; but he was so far from assisting the unfortunate brave man, as the laws of humanity and common honour obliged him, that as a confederate, he not only concealed their bloody intentions, but went basely to the next town, while the savages painted themselves red and black, and give them an opportunity of perpetrating the horrid murder. The poor victim could have easily escaped to the English settlements if forewarned, and got the affair accommodated by the mediation of the government. In acts of blood, if the supposed murderer {149} escapes, his nearest kinsman either real or adopted, or if he has none there, his friend stands according to their rigorous law, answerable for the fact. But though the then governor of South Carolina was sufficiently informed of this tragedy, and that it was done contrary to the treaty of amity, and that there is no possibility of managing them, but by their own notions of virtue, he was passive, and allowed them with impunity to shed this innocent blood; which they ever since have improved to our shame and sorrow. They have gradually become worse every year; and corrupted other nations by their contagious copy, so as to draw them into the like bloody scenes, with the same contempt, as if they had killed so many helpless timorous dunghill fowls, as they despitefully term us.

There never was any set of people, who pursued the Mosaic law of _retaliation_ with such a fixt eagerness as these Americans.[57] They are so determined in this point, that formerly a little boy shooting birds in the high and thick corn-fields, unfortunately chanced slightly to wound another with his childish arrow; the young vindictive fox, was excited by custom to watch his ways with the utmost earnestness, till the wound was returned in as equal manner as could be expected. Then, “all was straight,” according to their phrase. Their hearts were at rest, by having executed that strong law of nature, and they sported together as before. This observation though small in itself, is great in its combined circumstances, as it is contrary to the usage of the old heathen world. They forgive all crimes at the annual atonement of sins, except murder, which is always punished with death. The Indians constantly upbraid us in their bacchanals, for inattention to this maxim of theirs; they say, that all nations of people who are not utterly sunk in cowardice, take revenge of blood before they can have rest, cost what it will. The Indian Americans are more eager to revenge blood, than any other people on the whole face of the earth. And when the heart of the revenger of blood in Israel was hot within him, it was a terrible thing for the casual _manslayer_ to meet him, Deut. xix. 6. “Lest the avenger of blood pursue the slayer while his heart is hot, and overtake him, because the way is long, and slay him; whereas he was not worthy of death, inasmuch as he hated him not in time past.”

I have known the Indians to go a thousand miles, for the purpose of revenge, in pathless woods; over hills and mountains; through large cane {150} swamps, full of grape-vines and briars; over broad lakes, rapid rivers, and deep creeks; and all the way endangered by poisonous snakes, if not with the rambling and lurking enemy, while at the same time they were exposed to the extremities of heat and cold, the vicissitude of the seasons; to hunger and thirst, both by chance, and their religious scanty method of living when at war, to fatigues, and other difficulties. Such is their over-boiling, revengeful temper, that they utterly contemn all those things as imaginary trifles, if they are so happy as to get the scalp of the murderer, or enemy, to satisfy the supposed craving ghosts of their deceased relations. Though they imagine the report of guns will send off the ghosts of their kindred that died at home, to their quiet place, yet they firmly believe, that the spirits of those who are killed by the enemy, without equal revenge of blood, find no rest, and at night haunt the houses of the tribe to which they belonged[XXXIII]: but, when that kindred duty of retaliation is justly executed, they immediately get ease and power to fly away: This opinion, and their method of burying and mourning for the dead, of which we shall speak presently, occasion them to retaliate in so earnest and fierce a manner. It is natural for friends to study each others mutual happiness, and we should pity the weakness of those who are destitute of our advantages; whose intellectual powers are unimproved, and who are utterly unacquainted with the sciences, as well as every kind of mechanical business, to engage their attention at home. Such persons cannot well live without war; and being destitute of public faith to secure the lives of embassadors in time of war, they have no sure method to reconcile their differences; consequently, when any casual thing draws them into a war, it grows every year more spiteful till it advances to a bitter enmity, so as to excite them to an implacable hatred to one another’s very national names. Then they must go abroad to spill the enemy’s blood, and to revenge crying blood. We must also consider, it is by scalps they get all their war-titles, which distinguish them among the brave: and these they hold in as high esteem, as the most ambitious Roman general ever did a great triumph. By how much the deeper any society of people are sunk in ignorance, so much the more they value themselves on their bloody merit. This was {151} long the characteristic of the Hebrew nation, and has been conveyed down to these their supposed red descendants.

Footnote XXXIII:

As the Hebrews supposed there was a holiness in Canaan, more than in
any other land, so they believed that their bodies buried out of it,
would be carried through caverns, or subterraneous passages of the
earth to the holy land, where they shall rise again and dart up to
their holy attracting centre.

However, notwithstanding their bloody temper and conduct towards enemies, when their law of blood does not interfere, they observe that Mosaic precept, “He shall be dealt with according as he intended to do to his neighbour, but the innocent and righteous man thou shalt not slay.” I must observe also that as the Jewish priests were by no means to shed human blood, and as king David was forbidden by the prophet to build a temple because he was a man of war and had shed blood—so, the Indian _Ishtohoollo_ “holy men” are by their function absolutely forbidden to slay; notwithstanding their propensity thereto, even for small injuries. They will not allow the greatest warrior to officiate, when the yearly grand sacrifice of expiation is offered up, or on any other religious occasion, except the leader. All must be performed by their beloved men, who are clean of every stain of blood, and have their foreheads circled with streaks of white clay.

As this branch of the general subject cannot be illustrated, but by well-known facts, I shall exemplify it with the late and long-continued conduct of the northern Indians, and those of Cape Florida, whom our navigators have reported to be cannibals. The Muskohge, who have been bitter enemies to the Cape Florida Indians, time immemorial, affirm their manners, tempers and appetites, to be the very same as those of the neighboring Indian nations. And the Florida captives who were sold in Carolina, have told me, that the Spaniards of St. Augustine and St. Mark’s garrisons, not only hired and paid them for murdering our seamen, who were so unfortunate as to be shipwrecked on their dangerous coast, but that they delivered up to the savages those of our people they did not like, to be put to the fiery torture. From their bigotted persecuting spirit, we may conclude the victims to have been those who would not worship their images and crucifixes. The Spaniards no doubt could easily influence this decayed small tribe to such a practice, as they depended upon them for the necessaries of life: and though they could never settle out of their garrisons in West-Florida, on account of the jealous temper of the neighboring unconquered Indians, yet the Cape-Floridans were only Spanish mercenaries, shedding blood for their maintenance. A seduced Indian {152} is certainly less faulty than the apostate Christian who instigated him; when an Indian sheds human blood, it does not proceed from wantonness, or the view of doing evil, but solely to put the law of retaliation in force, to return one injury for another; but, if he has received no ill, and has no suspicion of the kind, he usually offers no damage to those who fall in his power, but is moved with compassion, in proportion to what they seem to have undergone. Such as they devote to the fire, they flatter with the hope of being redeemed, as long as they can, to prevent the giving them any previous anxiety or grief, which their law of blood does not require.

The French Canadians are highly censurable, and their bloody popish clergy, for debauching our peaceable northern Indians, with their _infernal catechism_,—the first introduction into their religious mysteries. Formerly, when they initiated the Indian sucklings into their mixt idolatrous worship, they fastened round their necks, a bunch of their favourite red and black beads, with a silver cross hanging down on their breasts, thus engaging them, as they taught, to fight the battles of God. Then they infected the credulous Indians with a firm belief, that God once sent his own beloved son to fix the red people in high places of power, over the rest of mankind; that he passed through various countries, to the universal joy of the inhabitants, in order to come to the beloved red people, and place them in a superior station of life to the rest of the American world; but when he was on the point of sailing to America, to execute his divine embassy, he was murdered by the bloody monopolizing English, at the city of London, only to make the red people weigh light. Having thus instructed, and given them the catechism by way of question and answer, and furnished them with 2000 gross of scalping knives and other murdering articles, the catechumens soon sallied forth, and painted themselves all over with the innocent blood of our fellow-subjects, of different stations, and ages, and without any distinction of sex,—contrary to the standing Indian laws of blood.

The British lion at last however triumphed, and forced the French themselves to sue for that friendly intercourse and protection, which their former catechism taught the Indians to hate, and fly from, as dangerous to their universal happiness. {153}

When I have reasoned with some of the old headmen, against their barbarous custom of killing defenceless innocent persons, who neither could nor would oppose them in battle, but begged that they might only live to be their slaves, they told me that formerly they never waged war, but in revenge of blood; and that in such cases, they always devoted the guilty to be burnt alive when they were purifying themselves at home, to obtain victory over their enemies. But otherwise they treated the vanquished with the greatest clemency, and adopted them in the room of their relations, who had either died a natural death, or had before been sufficiently revenged, though killed by the enemy.

The Israelites thus often devoted their captives to death, without any distinction of age or sex,—as when they took Jericho, they saved only merciful Rahab and her family;—after they had plundered the Midianites of their riches, they put men women and children to death, dividing among themselves a few virgins and the plunder;—with other instances that might be quoted. The Indian Americans, beyond all the present race of Adam, are actuated by this bloody war-custom of the Israelites; they put their captives to various lingering torments, with the same unconcern as the Levite, when he cut up his beloved concubine into eleven portions, and sent them to the eleven tribes, to excite them to revenge the affront, the Benjamites had given him. When equal blood has not been shed to quench the crying blood of their relations, and give rest to their ghosts, according to their credenda, while they are sanctifying themselves for war, they always allot their captives either to be killed or put to the fiery torture: and they who are thus devoted, cannot by any means be saved, though they resembled an angel in beauty and virtue.

Formerly, the Indians defeated a great body of the French, who at two different times came to invade their country. They put to the fiery torture a considerable number of them; and two in particular, whom they imagined to have carried the French ark against them. The English traders solicited with the most earnest entreaties, in favour of the unfortunate captives; but they averred, that as it was not our business to intercede in behalf of a deceitful enemy who came to shed blood, unless we were resolved to share their deserved fate, so was it entirely out of the reach of goods, though piled as high as the skies, to redeem them,— {154} because they were not only the chief support of the French army, in spoiling so many of their warriors by the power of their ugly ark, before they conquered them; but were delivered over to the fire, before they entered into battle.

When I was on my way to the Chikkasah, at the Okchai, in the year 1745, the conduct of the Muskohge Indians was exactly the same with regard to a Cheerake stripling, whose father was a white man, and mother an half-breed,—regardless of the pressing entreaties and very high offers of the English traders, they burned him in their usual manner. This seems to be copied from that law which expressly forbad the redeeming any devoted persons, and ordered that they should be surely put to death, Lev. xxvii. 29. This precept had evidently a reference to the law of retaliation.—Saul in superstitious and angry mood, wanted to have murdered or sacrificed to God his favourite son Jonathan, because when he was fainting he tasted some honey which casually fell in his way, just after he had performed a prodigy of martial feats in behalf of Israel: but the gratitude, and reason of the people, prevented him from perpetrating that horrid murder. If devoting to death was a divine extraction, or if God delighted in human sacrifices, the people would have been criminal for daring to oppose the divine law,—which was not the case. Such a law if taken in an extensive and literal sense, is contrary to all natural reason and religion, and consequently in a strict sense, could not be enjoined by a benevolent and merciful God; who commands us to do justice and shew mercy to the very beasts; not to muzzle the ox while he is treading out the grain; nor to insnare the bird when performing her parental offices. “Are ye not of more value than many sparrows?”

The Indians use no stated ceremony in immolating their devoted captives, although it is the same thing to the unfortunate victims, what form their butcherers use. They are generally sacrificed before their conquerors set off for war with their ark and supposed holy things. And sometimes the Indians devote every one they meet in certain woods or paths, to be killed there, except their own people; this occasioned the cowardly Cheerake in the year 1753, to kill two white men on the Chikkasah war-path, which leads from the country of the Muskohge. And the Shawànoh Indians who {155} settled between the _Ooe-Asa_ and _Koosah-towns_,[58] told us that their people to the northward had devoted the English to death for the space of six years; but when that time was expired and not before, they would live in friendship as formerly. If the English had at that time executed their own law against them, and demanded equal blood from the Cheeràke, and stopt all trade with them before they dipt themselves too deep in blood, they would soon have had a firm peace with all the Indian nations. This is the only way of treating them now, for when they have not the fear of offending, they will shed innocent blood, and proceed in the end to lay all restraint aside.

The late conduct of the Chikkasah war-council, in condemning two pretended friends to death, who came with a view of shedding blood; shews their knowledge of that equal law of divine appointment to the Jews, “he shall be dealt with exactly as he intended to do to his neighbour.”

It ought to be remarked, that they are careful of their youth, and fail not to punish them when they transgress. Anno 1766, I saw an old head man, called the _Dog-King_ (from the nature of his office) correct several young persons—some for supposed faults, and others by way of prevention. He began with a lusty young fellow, who was charged with being more effeminate than became a warrior; and with acting contrary to their old religious rites and customs, particularly, because he lived nearer than any of the rest to an opulent and helpless German, by whom they supposed he might have been corrupted. He bastinadoed the young sinner severely, with a thick whip, about a foot and a half long, composed of plaited silk grass, and the fibres of the button snake-root stalks, tapering to the point, which was secured with a knot. He reasoned with him, as he corrected him: he told him that he was _Chehakse Kanèha-He_, literally, “you are as one who is wicked, and almost lost[XXXIV].” The grey-hair’d corrector said, he treated him in that manner according to ancient custom, through an effect of love, to induce him to shun vice, and to imitate the virtues of {156} his illustrious fore-fathers, which he endeavoured to enumerate largely: when the young sinner had received his supposed due, he went off seemingly well pleased.

Footnote XXXIV:

As _Chin-Kanehah_ signifies, “you have lost,” and _Che-Kanehah_, “you
are lost,” it seems to point at the method the Hebrews used in
correcting their criminals in Canaan, and to imply a similarity of
manners. The word they use to express “forgetfulness,” looks the very
same way, _Ish Al Kanehah_, “you forget,” meaning that _Ish_ and
_Canaan_ are forgotten by _Ale_.

This Indian correction lessens gradually in its severity, according to the age of the pupils. While the _Dog-King_ was catechising the little ones, he said _Che Haksianna_, “do not become vicious.” And when they wept, he said _Che-Abela Awa_, “I shall not kill you,” or “I shall not put you into the state of bleeding _Abéle_[XXXV].”

Footnote XXXV:

The Indians use the word _Hakse_, to convey the idea of a person’s
being criminal in any thing whatsoever. If they mention not the
particular crime, they add, _Kakset Kanehah_, pointing as it were to
those who were punished in Canaan. Such unfortunate persons as are
mad, deaf, dumb or blind, are called by no other name than _Hakse_. In
like manner _Kallakse_ signifies “contemptible, unsteady, light, or
easily thrown aside,”—it is a diminutive of קלל, of the same meaning.
And they say such an one is _Kallaks’-Ishto_, “execrated, or accursed
to God,” because found light in the divine balance. As the American
Aborigines used no weights, the parity of language here with the
Hebrew, seems to assure us, they originally derived this method of
expression from the Israelites, who took the same idea from the poise
of a balance, which divine writ frequently mentions. Job, chap. xxi,
describes justice with a pair of scales, “Let me be weighed in an even
balance, that I may know my perfection.” And they call weighing, or
giving a preference, _Tekále_, according to the same figure of speech:
and it agrees both in expression and meaning, with the Chaldean
_Tekel_, if written with Hebrew characters, as in that extraordinary
appearance on the wall of the Babylonish monarch, interpreted by the
prophet Daniel. When they prefer one person and would lessen another,
they say _Eeàpa Wéhke Tekále_, “this one weighs heavy,” and _Eeàko
Kallakse_, or _Kall’aks’ooshe Tekále_, “that one weighs light, very
light.” When any of their people are killed on any of the hunting
paths, they frequently say, _Heenna tungga Tannip Tekále_, “right on
the path, he was weighed for the enemy, or the opposite party,” for
_Tannip_ is the only word they have to express the words _enemy_ and
the _opposite_; as _Ook’heenna Tannip_, “the opposite side of the
water path:” hence it is probable, they borrowed that notable Assyrian
expression while in their supposed captivity, brought it with them to
America, and introduced it into their language, to commemorate so
surprising an event.

Like the present Jews, their old men are tenacious of their ancient rites and customs; imagining them to be the sure channel through which all temporal good things flow to them, and by which the opposite evils are averted. No wonder therefore, that they still retain a multiplicity of Hebrew words, which were repeated often with great reverence in the temple; and adhere to many of their ancient rules and methods of punishment. {157}

ARGUMENT XV.

The Israelites had CITIES OF REFUGE, or places of safety, for those who killed a person unawares, and without design; to shelter them from the blood-thirsty relations of the deceased, or the revenger of blood, who always pursued or watched the unfortunate person, like a ravenous wolf: but after the death of the high-priest the man-slayer could safely return home, and nobody durst molest him.

According to the same particular divine law of mercy, each of these Indian nations have either a house or town of refuge, which is a sure asylum to protect a man-slayer, or the unfortunate captive, if they can once enter into it.[59] The Cheerake, though now exceedingly corrupt, still observe that law so inviolably, as to allow their beloved town the privilege of protecting a wilful murtherer: but they seldom allow him to return home afterwards in safety—they will revenge blood for blood, unless in some very particular case when the eldest can redeem. However, if he should accept of the price of blood to wipe away its stains, and dry up the tears of the rest of the nearest kindred of the deceased, it is generally productive of future ills; either when they are drinking spirituous liquors, or dancing their enthusiastic war dances, a tomohawk is likely to be sunk into the head of some of his relations.

Formerly, when one of the Cheerake murdered an English trader he immediately ran off for the town of refuge; but as soon as he got in view of it, the inhabitants discovered him by the close pursuit of the shrill war-whoo-whoop; and for fear of irritating the English, they instantly answered the war cry, ran to arms, intercepted, and drove him off into Tennàse river (where he escaped, though mortally wounded) lest he should have entered the reputed holy ground, and thus it had been stained with the blood of their friend; or he had obtained sanctuary to the danger of the community, and the foreign contempt of their sacred altars. {158}

This town of refuge called _Choate_,[60] is situated on a large stream of the Missisippi, five miles above the late unfortunate _Fort-Loudon_,[61]—where some years ago, a brave Englishman was protected after killing an Indian warrior in defense of his property. The gentleman told me, that as his trading house was near to that town of refuge, he had resolved with himself, after some months stay in it, to return home; but the head-man assured him, that though he was then safe, it would prove fatal if he removed thence; so he continued in his asylum still longer, till the affair was by time more obliterated, and he had wiped off all their tears with various presents. In the upper or most western part of the country of the Muskóhge, there was an old beloved town, now reduced to a small ruinous village, called _Koosah_,[62] which is still a place of safety for those who kill undesignedly. It stands on commanding ground, over-looking a bold river, which after running about forty leagues, sweeps close by the late mischievous French garrison _Alebámah_, and down to _Mobille-Sound_, 200 leagues distance, and so into the gulph of Florida.

In almost every Indian nation, there are several _peaceable towns_, which are called “old-beloved,” “ancient, holy, or white towns[XXXVI];” they seem to have been formerly “towns of refuge,” for it is not in the memory of their oldest people, that ever human blood was shed in them; although they often force persons from thence, and put them to death elsewhere.

Footnote XXXVI:

WHITE is their fixt emblem of peace, friendship, happiness,
prosperity, purity, holiness, &c. as with the Israelites.

ARGUMENT XVI.

Before the Indians go to WAR, they have many preparatory ceremonies of _purification_ and _fasting_, like what is recorded of the Israelites.

In the first commencement of a war, a party of the injured tribe turns out first, to revenge the innocent crying blood of their own bone and flesh, as they term it. When the leader begins to beat up for volunteers, he goes three times round his dark winter-house, contrary to the course of the sun, sounding the war-whoop, singing the war-song, and beating the drum. {159} Then he speaks to the listening crowd with very rapid language, short pauses, and an awful commanding voice, tells them of the continued friendly offices they have done the enemy, but which have been ungratefully returned with the blood of his kinsmen; therefore as the white paths have changed their beloved colour, his heart burns within him with eagerness to tincture them all along, and even to make them flow over with the hateful blood of the base contemptible enemy. Then he strongly persuades his kindred warriors and others, who are not afraid of the enemies bullets and arrows, to come and join him with manly cheerful hearts: he assures them, he is fully convinced, as they are all bound by the love-knot, so they are ready to hazard their lives to revenge the blood of their kindred and country-men; that the love of order, and the necessity of complying with the old religious customs of their country, had hitherto checked their daring generous hearts, but now, those hindrances are removed: he proceeds to whoop again for the warriors to come and join him, and sanctify themselves for success against the common enemy, according to their ancient religious law.

By his eloquence, but chiefly by their own greedy thirst of revenge, and intense love of martial glory, on which they conceive their liberty and happiness depend, and which they constantly instil into the minds of their youth—a number soon join him in his winter-house, where they live separate from all others, and purify themselves for the space of three days and nights, exclusive of the first broken day. In each of those days they observe a strict fast[63] till sun-set, watching the young men very narrowly who have not been initiated in war-titles, lest unusual hunger should tempt them to violate it, to the supposed danger of all their lives in war, by destroying the power of their purifying beloved physic, which they drink plentifully during that time. This purifying physic, is warm water highly imbittered with button-rattle-snake-root, which as hath been before observed, they apply only to religious purposes. Sometimes after bathing they drink a decoction made of the said root—and in like manner the leader applies aspersions, or sprinklings, both at home and when out at war. They are such strict observers of the law of purification, and think it so essential in obtaining health and success in war, as not to allow the best beloved trader that ever lived among them, even to enter the beloved ground, appropriated to the religious duty of being sanctified {160} for war; much less to associate with the camp in the woods, though he went (as I have known it to happen) on the same war design;[64] —they oblige him to walk and encamp separate by himself, as an impure dangerous animal, till the leader hath purified him, according to their usual time and method, with the consecrated things of the ark. With the Hebrews, the ark of _Berith_, “the purifier,” was a small wooden chest, of three feet nine inches in length, two feet three inches broad, and two feet three inches in height. It contained the golden pot that had manna in it, Aaron’s rod, and the tables of the law. The INDIAN ARK[65] is of a very simple construction, and it is only the intention and application of it, that makes it worthy of notice; for it is made with pieces of wood securely fastened together in the form of a square. The middle of three of the sides extend a little out, but one side is flat, for the conveniency of the person’s back who carries it. Their ark has a cover, and the whole is made impenetrably close with hiccory-splinters; it is about half the dimensions of the divine Jewish ark, and may very properly be called the red Hebrew ark of the purifier, imitated. The leader, and a beloved waiter, carry it by turns. It contains several consecrated vessels, made by beloved superannuated women, and of such various antiquated forms, as would have puzzled Adam to have given significant names to each. The leader and his attendant, are purified longer than the rest of the company, that the first may be fit to act in the religious office of a priest of war, and the other to carry the awful sacred ark. All the while they are at war, the _Hetissu_, or “beloved waiter,” feeds each of the warriors by an exact stated rule, giving them even the water they drink, out of his own hands, lest by intemperance they should spoil the supposed communicative power of their holy things, and occasion fatal disasters to the war camp.

The ark, mercy-seat, and cherubim, were the very essence of the levitical law, and often called “the testimonies of _Yohewah_.” The ark of the temple was termed his throne, and David calls it his foot-stool. In speaking of the Indian places of refuge for the unfortunate, I observed, that if a captive taken by the reputed power of the beloved things of the ark, should be able to make his escape into one of these towns,—or even into the winter-house of the Archi-magus, he is delivered from the fiery torture, otherwise inevitable. This when joined to the rest of the faint images of the Mosaic customs they still retain, seems to point at the mercy-seat in the sanctuary. It is also highly worthy of notice, that they {161} never place the ark on the ground, nor sit on the bare earth while they are carrying it against the enemy. On hilly ground where stones are plenty, they place it on them: but in level land upon short logs, always resting themselves on the like materials. Formerly, when this tract was the Indian Flanders of America, as the French and all their red Canadian confederates were bitter enemies to the inhabitants, we often saw the woods full of such religious war-reliques. The former is a strong imitation of the pedestal, on which the Jewish ark was placed, a stone rising three fingers breadth above the floor. And when we consider—in what a surprising manner the Indians copy after the ceremonial law of the Hebrews, and their strict purity in their war camps; that _Opae_, “the leader,” obliges all during the first campaign they make with the beloved ark, to stand, every day they lie by, from sun-rise to sun-set—and after a fatiguing day’s march, and scanty allowance, to drink warm water imbittered with rattle-snake-root very plentifully, in order to be purified—that they have also as strong a faith of the power and holiness of their ark, as ever the Israelites retained of their’s, ascribing the superior success of the party, to their stricter adherence to the law than the other; and after they return home, hang it on the leader’s red-painted war pole—we have strong reason to conclude their origin is Hebrew. From the Jewish ark of the tabernacle and the temple, the ancient heathens derived their arks, their _cistæ_ or religious chests, their Teraphim or Dii Lares, and their tabernacles and temples. But their modes and objects of worship, differed very widely from those of the Americans.

The Indian ark is deemed so sacred and dangerous to be touched, either by their own sanctified warriors, or the spoiling enemy, that they durst not touch it upon any account[XXXVII]. It is not to be meddled with by any, except the war chieftain and his waiter, under the penalty of incurring great evil. {162} Nor would the most inveterate enemy touch it in the woods for the very same reason; which is agreeable to the religious opinion and customs of the Hebrews, respecting the sacredness of their ark, witness what befel Uzzah, for touching it, though with a religious view, and the Philistines for carrying it away, so that they soon thought proper to return it, with presents.

Footnote XXXVII:

A gentleman who was at the Ohio, in the year 1756, assured me he saw a
stranger there very importunate to view the inside of the Cheerake
ark, which was covered with a drest deer-skin, and placed on a couple
of short blocks. An Indian centinel watched it, armed with a hiccory
bow, and brass-pointed barbed arrows, and he was faithful to his
trust; for finding the stranger obtruding to pollute the supposed
sacred vehicle, he drew an arrow to the head, and would have shot him
through the body, had he not suddenly withdrawn; the interpreter, when
asked by the gentleman what it contained, told him there was nothing
in it but a bundle of conjuring traps. This shews what conjurers our
common interpreters are, and how much the learned world have really
profited by their informations. The Indians have an old tradition,
that when they left their own native land, they brought with them a
_sanctified rod_ by order of an oracle, which they fixed every night
in the ground; and were to remove from place to place on the continent
towards the sun-rising, till it budded in one night’s time; that they
obeyed the sacred mandate, and the miracle took place after they
arrived to this side of the Missisippi, on the present land they
possess. This, they say, was the sole cause of their settling here—of
fighting so firmly for their reputed holy land and holy things—and
that they may be buried with their beloved fore-fathers. I have seen
other Indians who pretend to the like miraculous direction, and I
think it plainly to refer to Aaron’s rod, which was a branch of an
almond-tree, and that budded and blossomed in one night. (A) The
Overhill Cherokees under Ostenaco (Outasite, another name) were on the
campaign of 1756, in aid of the British and American forces. Dinwiddie
Papers, II, 446 _et seq._ (W)

The leader virtually acts the part of a priest of war,[66] _pro tempore_, in imitation of the Israelites fighting under the divine military banner. If they obtain the victory, and get some of the enemies scalps, they sanctify themselves when they make their triumphal entrance, in the manner they observed before they set off to war; but, if their expedition proves unfortunate, they only mourn over their loss, ascribing it to the vicious conduct of some of the followers of the beloved ark. What blushes should this savage virtue raise in the faces of nominal christians, who ridicule the unerring divine wisdom, for the effects of their own imprudent or vicious conduct. May they learn from the rude uncivilized Americans, that vice necessarily brings evil—and virtue, happiness.

The Indians will not cohabit with women while they are out at war;[67] they religiously abstain from every kind of intercourse even with their own wives, for the space of three days and nights before they go to war, and so after they return home, because they are to sanctify themselves. This religious war custom, especially in so savage a generation, seems to be derived from the Hebrews, who thus sanctified themselves, to gain the divine protection, and victory over their common enemies: as in the precept of Moses to the war camp when he ascended Mount Sinai; and in Joshua’s prohibition to the Israelites[XXXVIII]; and in the case of Uriah. The warriors consider themselves as devoted to God apart from the rest of the {163} people, while they are at war accompanying the sacred ark with the supposed holy things it contains.

Footnote XXXVIII:

Joshua commanded the Israelites the night before they marched, to
sanctify themselves by washing their clothes, avoiding all impurities,
and abstaining from matrimonial intercourse.

The French Indians are said not to have deflowered any of our young women they captivated, while at war with us;[68] and unless the black tribe, the French Canadian priests, corrupted their traditions, they would think such actions defiling, and what must bring fatal consequences on their own heads. We have an attested narrative of an English prisoner, who made his escape from the Shawanoh Indians, which was printed at Philadelphia, anno 1757, by which we were assured, that even that blood-thirsty villain, Capt. Jacob, did not attempt the virtue of his female captives, lest (as he told one of them) it should offend the Indian’s God; though at the same time his pleasures heightened in proportion to the shrieks and groans of our people of different ages and both sexes, while they were under his tortures.

Although the Choktah are libidinous, and lose their customs apace, yet I have known them to take several female prisoners without offering the least violence to their virtue, till the time of purgation was expired;—then some of them forced their captives, notwithstanding their pressing entreaties and tears. As the aforesaid Shawanoh renegado professed himself so observant of this law of purity, so the other northern nations of Indians, who are free from adulteration by their far-distance from foreigners, do not neglect so great a duty: and it is highly probable, notwithstanding the silence of our writers, that as purity was strictly observed by the Hebrews in the temple, field and wilderness, the religious rites and customs of the northern Indians, differ no farther from those of the nations near our southern settlements than reason will admit, allowing for their distant situation from Peru and Mexico, whence they seem to have travelled.

When they return home victorious over the enemy, they sing the triumphal song to YO-HE-WAH, ascribing the victory to him, according to a religious custom of the Israelites, who were commanded always to attribute their success in war to Jehovah, and not to their swords and arrows.

In the year 1765,[69] when the Chikkasah returned with two French scalps, from the Illinois, (while the British troops were on the Missisippi, about 170 leagues below the Illinois) as my trading house was near the Chikkasah {164} leader, I had a good opportunity of observing his conduct, as far as it was exposed to public view.[70]

Within a day’s march of home, he sent a runner a-head with the glad tidings—and to order his dark winter house to be swept out very clean, for fear of pollution. By ancient custom, when the out-standing party set off for war, the women are so afraid of the power of their holy things, and of prophaning them, that they sweep the house and earth quite clean, place the sweepings in a heap behind the door, leaving it there undisturbed, till _Opáe_, who carries the ark, orders them by a faithful messenger to remove it. He likewise orders them to carry out every utensil which the women had used during his absence, for fear of incurring evil by pollution. The party appeared next day painted red and black, their heads covered all over with swan-down, and a tuft of long white feathers fixt to the crown of their heads. Thus they approached, carrying each of the scalps on a branch of the ever-green pine[XXXIX], singing the awful death song, with a solemn striking air, and sometimes YO HE WAH; now and then sounding the shrill death _Whóo Whoop Whoop_. When they arrived, the leader went a-head of his company, round his winter hot house, contrary to the course of the sun, singing the monosyllable YO, for about the space of five seconds on a tenor key; again, HE HE short, on a bass key; then WAH WAH, gutturally on the treble, very shrill, but not so short as the bass note. In this manner they repeated those sacred notes, YO, HE HE, WAH WAH, three times, while they were finishing the circle, a strong emblem of the eternity of Him, “who is, was, and is to come,” to whom they sung their triumphal song, ascribing the victory over their enemies to his strong arm, instead of their own, according to the usage of the Israelites by divine appointment. The duplication of the middle and last syllables of the four-lettered essential name of the deity, and the change of the key from their established method of invoking YO HE WAH, when they are drinking their bitter drink, (the _Cusseena_) in their temples, where they always spend a long breath on each of the two first {165} syllables of that awful divine song, seems designed to prevent a prophanation.

Footnote XXXIX:

As the Indians carry their enemies scalps on small branches of
evergreen pine, and wave the martial trophies on a pine-branch before
YO HE WAH; I cannot help thinking that the pine was the emblematical
tree so often mentioned in divine writ, by the plural name, _Shittim_;
especially as the mountain Cedar, comparatively speaking, is low and
does not seem to answer the description of the inspired writers;
besides that כפר _Chepher_ is figuratively applied to the mercy-seat,
signifying, literally, a screen, or cover against storms; which was
pitched over with the gum of the pine-tree.

The leader’s _Hetissu_, “or waiter,” placed a couple of new blocks of wood near the war pole, opposite to the door of the circular hot-house, in the middle of which the fire-place stood; and on these blocks he rested the supposed sacred ark, so that it and the holy fire faced each other. The party were silent a considerable time. At length, the chieftain bade them sit down, and then enquired whether his house was prepared for the solemn occasion, according to his order the day before: being answered in the affirmative, they soon rose up, sounded the death whoop, and walked round the war pole; during which they invoked and sung three times, YO, HE HE, WAH WAH, in the manner already described. Then they went with their holy things in regular order into the hot-house, where they continued, exclusive of the first broken day, three days and nights apart from the rest of the people, purifying themselves with warm lotions, and aspersions of the emblematical button-snake-root, without any other subsistence between the rising and the setting of the sun.

During the other part of the time, the female relations of each of the company, after having bathed, anointed, and drest themselves in their finest, stood in two rows, one on each side of the door, facing each other, from the evening till the morning, singing HA HA, HA HE, with a soft shrill voice and a solemn moving air for more than a minute, and then paused about ten minutes, before they renewed their triumphal song. While they sung, they gave their legs a small motion, by the strong working of their muscles, without seeming to bend their joints. When they had no occasion to retire, they have stood erect in the same place, a long frosty night; and except when singing, observed a most profound silence the whole time. During that period, they have no intercourse with their husbands; and they avoided several other supposed pollutions, as not to eat or touch salt, and the like.

The leader, once in two or three hours came out at the head of his company, and raising the death whoop, made one circle round the red painted war pole, holding up in their right hands the small boughs of pine with the scalps fixt to them, singing as above, waving them to and fro, and then returned again. This religious order they strictly observed the whole time {166} they were purifying themselves, and singing the song of safety, and victory, to the goodness and power of the divine essence. When the time of their purification and thanksgiving expired, the men and women went and bathed themselves separately, returned in the same manner, and anointed again, according to their usual custom.

They joined soon after in a solemn procession, to fix the scalps on the tops of the houses of their relations who had been killed without revenge of blood. The war chieftain went first—his religious attendant followed him; the warriors next, according to their rising merit; and the songstresses brought up the rear. In this order they went round the leader’s winter-house from the east to the north, the men striking up the death whoop, and singing the death song; and then YO, HE HE, WAH WAH, as described; the women also warbling HA HA, HA HE, so that one might have said according to the sacred text, “great was the company of the women who sung the song of triumph.”[XL] Then they fixed on the top of the house, a twig of the pine they had brought with them, with a small piece of one of the scalps fastened to it: and this order they observed from house to house, till in their opinion they had appeased the ghosts of their dead. They went and bathed again; and thus ended their purification, and triumphal solemnity—only the leader and his religious waiter kept apart three days longer, purifying themselves. I afterward asked the reason of this—they replied they were _Ishtohoolo_. This seems to be so plain a copy of the old Jewish customs, I am satisfied the reader will easily discern the analogy, without any farther observations.

Footnote XL:

Last year I heard the Choktah women, in those towns which lie next to
New Orleans, sing a regular anthem and dirge, in the dusk of the
evening, while their kinsmen were gone to war against the Muskohge.

I cannot however conclude this argument, without a few remarks concerning the Indian methods of _making peace_, and of renewing their old friendship. They first smoke out of the friend-pipe, and eat together; then they drink of the _Cusseena_, using such invocations as have been mentioned, and proceed to wave their large fans of eagles-tails,—concluding with a dance. The persons visited, appoint half a dozen of their most active and expert young warriors to perform this religious duty, who have had their own temples adorned with the swan-feather-cap. They paint their bodies with white clay, and cover their heads with swan-down; then approaching the chief {167} representative of the strangers, who by way of honour, and strong assurance of friendship, is seated on the central white or holy seat, “the beloved cabbin” (which is about nine feet long and seven feet broad), they wave the eagles tails backward and forward over his head[XLI]. Immediately they begin the solemn song with an awful air; and presently they dance in a bowing posture; then they raise themselves so erect, that their faces look partly upwards, waving the eagles tails with their right hand toward heaven, sometimes with a slow, at others with a quick motion; at the same time they touch their breast with their small callabash and pebbles fastened to a stick of about a foot long, which they hold in their left hand, keeping time with the motion of the eagles tails: during the dance, they repeat the usual divine notes, YO, &c. and wave the eagles tails now and then over the stranger’s head, not moving above two yards backward or forward before him. They are so surprisingly expert in their supposed religious office, and observe time so exactly, with their particular gestures and notes, that there is not the least discernible discord. If the Hebrews danced this way, (as there is strong presumptive proof) they had very sweating work, for every joint, artery, and nerve, is stretched to the highest pitch of exertion; and this may account for Saul’s daughter Michal, chiding David for falling in with the common dancers.

Footnote XLI:

When they are disaffected, or intend to declare war, they will not
allow any of the party against whom they have hostile views, to
approach the white seat; as their holy men, and holy places, are
considered firmly bound to keep good faith, and give sure refuge.
Indeed in the year 1750, after having narrowly escaped with my life
from the Cheerake lower towns, I met two worthy gentlemen at the
settlement of Ninety-six, who were going to them. I earnestly
dissuaded them against pursuing their journey, but without effect:
when they arrived at the middle Cheerake towns, the old beloved men
and war chieftains invited them and twenty of the traders to go in the
evening to their town-house, to sit on their white beloved seat,
partake of their feast, and smoke together with kindly hearts,
according to their old friendly custom. The gentlemen happily rejected
the invitation, and boldly told them they were apprised of their
treacherous intentions: they braved a little, to surprise and
intimidate the Indians, and then mounted, directed their course toward
the place where a treacherous ambuscade had been laid for them—but
they soon silently took another course, and passing through an
unsuspected difficult marsh, and almost pathless woods, by the dawn of
the morning they reached the Georgia side of Savannah river, which was
about 80 miles, where a body of the Muskohge chanced to be preparing
for war against the treacherous Cheerake. These protected them from
their pursuers, and the gentlemen arrived safe at Augusta, the upper
barrier and Indian mart of Georgia.

The Indians cannot shew greater honour to the greatest potentate on earth, than to place him in the white seat—invoke YO HE WAH, while {168} he is drinking the Cusseena, and dance before him with the eagles tails.[71] When two chieftains are renewing, or perpetuating friendship with each other, they are treated with the same ceremonies. And in their circular friendly dances, when they honour their guests, and pledge themselves to keep good faith with them, they sometimes sing their divine notes with a very awful air, pointing their right hand towards the sky. Some years ago, I saw the Kooasahte Indians (two hundred miles up Mobile river) perform this rite with much solemnity; as if invoking the deity by their notes and gestures, to enable them to shew good-will to their fellow-creatures, and to bear witness of their faithful vows and conduct. This custom is plainly not derived from the old Scythians, or any other part of the heathen world. Their forms and usages when they made peace, or pledged faith, and contracted friendship with each other, were widely different: but to those of the Jews it hath the nearest resemblance.

ARGUMENT XVII.

The Indian origin and descent may also be in some measure discerned by their taste for, and kind of ORNAMENTS.[72]