Chapter XIII: Appendix (9)

The Israelites were fond of wearing beads and other ornaments, even as early as the patriarchal age, and the taste increased to such a degree that it became criminal, and was sharply reprehended by the prophets, particularly Isaiah. The Israelitish women wore rich garters about their legs, and against the rules of modesty, they shortened their under garments, in order to shew how their legs and feet were decorated; Isaiah, chap. iii. 18. “The Lord will take away the bravery of their tinkling ornaments about their feet,” which loaded them so heavy that they could scarcely walk; and ver. 19, 20, 21. “The chains and the bracelets—The ornaments of the legs—and the ear-rings—The rings and nose jewels.” In resemblance to these customs, the Indian females continually wear a beaded string round their legs, made of buffalo-hair, which is a species of coarse wool; and they reckon it a great ornament, as well as a preservative against miscarriages, hard labour, and other evils. They wear also a heap of land {169} tortoise-shells with pebbles or beads in them, fastened to pieces of deer-skins, which they tie to the outside of their legs, when they mix with the men in their religious dances.

The Indian nations are agreed in the custom of thus adorning themselves with beads of various sizes and colours; sometimes wrought in garters, sashes, necklaces, and in strings round their wrists; and so from the crown of their heads sometimes to the cartilage of the nose. And they doat on them so much as to make them their current money in all payments to this day.

Before we supplied them with our European beads, they had great quantities of wampum; (the Buccinum of the ancients) made out of conch-shell, by rubbing them on hard stones, and so they form them according to their liking. With these they bought and sold at a stated current rate, without the least variation for circumstances either of time or place; and now they will hear nothing patiently of loss or gain, or allow us to heighten the price of our goods, be our reasons ever so strong, or though the exigencies and changes of time may require it. Formerly, four deer-skins was the price of a large conch-shell bead, about the length and thickness of a man’s fore-finger; which they fixed to the crown of their head, as an high ornament—so greatly they valued them. Their beads bear a very near resemblance to ivory, which was highly esteemed by the Hebrews.

The new-England writers assure us, that the Naragansat Indians paid to the colony of Massachusetts, two hundred fathoms of wampum, only in part of a debt; and at another payment one-hundred fathoms: which shews the Indian custom of wearing beads has prevailed far north on this continent, and before the first settling of our colonies.

According to the oriental custom, they wear ear-rings and finger-rings in abundance. Tradition says, they followed the like custom before they became acquainted with the English.

The men and women in old times used such coarse diamonds, as their own hilly country produced, when each had a bit of stone fastened with a {170} deer’s sinew to the tying of their hair, their nose, ears, and maccaseenes: but from the time we supplied them with our European ornaments, they have used brass and silver ear-rings, and finger-rings;[73] the young warriors now frequently fasten bell-buttons, or pieces of tinkling brass to their maccaseenes, and to the outside of their boots, instead of the old turky-cock-spurs which they formerly used. Both sexes esteem the above things, as very great ornaments of dress, and commonly load the parts with each sort, in proportion to their ability of purchasing them: it is a common trading rule with us, to judge of the value of an Indian’s effects, by the weight of his fingers, wrists, ears, crown of his head, boots, and maccaseenes—by the quantity of red paint daubed on his face, and by the shirt about the collar, shoulders, and back, should he have one.

Although the same things are commonly alike used or disused, by males and females; yet they distinguish their sexes in as exact a manner as any civilized nation. The women bore small holes in the lobe of their ears for their rings, but the young heroes cut a hole round almost the extremity of both their ears, which till healed, they stretch out with a large tuft of buffalo’s wool mixt with bear’s oil: then they twist as much small wire round as will keep them extended in that hideous form. This custom however is wearing off apace. They formerly wore _nose-rings_, or jewels, both in the northern and southern regions of America, according to a similar custom of the Jews and easterns; and in some places they still observe it. At present, they hang a piece of battered silver or pewter, or a large bead to the nostril, like the European method of treating swine, to prevent them from rooting the earth; this, as well as the rest of their customs, is a true picture and good copy of their supposed early progenitors.

I have been among the Indians at a drinking match, when several of their beaus have been humbled as low as death, for the great loss of their big ears. Being so widely extended, it is as easy for a person to take hold of, and pull them off, as to remove a couple of small hoops were they hung within reach; but if the ear after the pull, stick to their head by one end, when they get sober, they pare and sew it together with a needle and deer’s sinews, after sweating him in a stove. Thus the disconsolate warrior recovers his former cheerfulness, and hath a lasting caution of not putting his ears a second time in danger with bad company: {171} however, it is not deemed a scandal to lose their ears by any accident, because they became slender and brittle, by their virtuous compliance with that favourite custom of their ancestors.

ARGUMENT XVIII.

The Indian manner of CURING THEIR SICK, is very similar to that of the Jews. They always invoke YO HE WAH, a considerable space of time before they apply any medicines, let the case require ever so speedy an application. The more desperately ill their patients are, the more earnestly they invoke the deity on the sad occasion. Like the Hebrews, they firmly believe that diseases and wounds are occasioned by the holy fire, or divine anger, in proportion to some violation of the old beloved speech. The Jews had but small skill in physic.—They called a physician “a binder of wounds,” for he chiefly poured oil into the wounds and bound them up. They were no great friends to this kind of learning and science; and their Talmud has this proverb, “the best physicians go to hell.” King Asa was reproved for having applied to physicians, for his disease in his feet. The little use they made of the art of medicine, especially for internal maladies; and their persuasion that distempers were either the immediate effects of God’s anger, or caused by evil spirits, led them to apply themselves to the prophets, or to diviners, magicians and enchanters. Hezekiah’s boil was cured by Isaiah—Benhadad king of Syria, and Naaman the Syrian applied to the prophet Elisha, and Ahaziah king of Israel sent to consult Baal-zebub. The Indians deem the curing their sick or wounded a very religious duty; and it is chiefly performed by their supposed prophets, and magi, because they believe they are inspired with a great portion of the divine fire. On these occasion they sing YO YO, on a low bass key for two or three minutes very rapidly; in like manner, HE HE, and WA WA. Then they transpose and accent those sacred notes with great vehemence, and supplicating fervor, rattling all the while a calabash with small pebble-stones, in imitation of the old Jewish rattles, to make a greater sound, and {172} as it were move the deity to co-operate with their simple means and finish the cure[XLII].

Footnote XLII:

Formerly, an old Nachee warrior who was blind of one eye, and very
dim-sighted in the other, having heard of the surprising skill of the
European oculists, fancied I could cure him. He frequently importuned
me to perform that friendly office, which I as often declined. But he
imagining all my excuses were the effect of modesty and caution, was
the more importunate, and would take no denial. I was at last obliged
to commence Indian oculist. I had just drank a glass of rum when he
came to undergo the operation at the time appointed; he observing my
glass, said, it was best to defer it till the next day.—I told him, I
drank so on purpose, for as the white people’s physic and beloved
songs were quite different from what the red people applied and sung,
it was usual with our best physicians to drink a little, to heighten
their spirits, and enable them to sing with a strong voice, and
likewise to give their patients a little, to make their hearts weigh
even within them; he consented, and lay down as if he was dead,
according to their usual custom. After a good many wild ceremonies, I
sung up _Sheela na Guira_, “will you drink wine?” Then I drank to my
patient, which on my raising him up, he accepted: I gave him several
drinks of grogg, both to divert myself, and purify the obtruding
supposed sinner. At last, I applied my materia medica, blowing a quill
full of fine burnt allum and roman vitriol into his eye. Just as I was
ready to repeat it, he bounded up out of his seemingly dead state,
jumped about, and said, my songs and physic were not good. When I
could be heard, I told him the English beloved songs and physic were
much stronger than those of the red people, and that when they did not
immediately produce such an effect as he found, it was a sure sign
they were good for nothing, but as they were taking place, he would
soon be well. He acquiesced because of the soporific dose I gave him.
But ever after, he reckoned he had a very narrow chance of having his
eye burnt out by _Loak Ishtohoolo_, for drinking _Ooka Hoome_, “the
bitter waters,” and presuming to get cured by an impure accursed
nothing, who lied, drank, ate hog’s flesh, and sung _Tarooa
Ookproo’sto_, “the devil’s tune,” or the song of the evil ones.

When the Indian physicians visit their supposed irreligious patients, they approach them in a bending posture, with their rattling calabash,[74] preferring that sort to the North-American gourds: and in that bent posture of body, they run two or three times round the sick person, contrary to the course of the sun, invoking God as already exprest. Then they invoke the raven, and mimic his croaking voice: Now this bird was an ill omen to the ancient heathens, as we may see by the prophet Isaiah; so that common wisdom, or self-love, would not have directed them to such a choice, if their traditions had represented it as a bad symbol. But they chose it as an emblem of recovery, probably from its indefatigableness in flying to and fro when sent out of the ark, till he {173} found dry ground to rest on[XLIII]. They also place a bason of cold water with some pebbles in it on the ground, near the patient, then they invoke the fish, because of its cold element, to cool the heat of the fever. Again, they invoke the eagle[75] (_Ooóle_) they solicit him as he soars in the heavens, to bring down refreshing things for their sick, and not to delay them, as he can dart down upon the wing, quick as a flash of lightning. They are so tedious on this subject, that it would be a task to repeat it: however, it may be needful to observe, that they chuse the eagle because of its supposed communicative virtues; and that it is according to its Indian name, a cherubimical emblem, and the king of birds, of prodigious strength, swiftness of wing, majestic stature, and loving its young ones so tenderly, as to carry them on its back, and teach them to fly.

Footnote XLIII:

The ancients drew bad presages from the situation, and croaking of
ravens and crows. They looked on that place as unhappy, where either
of them had croaked in the morning. Hesiod forbids to leave a house
unfinished, lest a crow should chance to come and croak when sitting
on it. And most of the illiterate peasants in Europe are tinctured
with the like superstition, pretending to draw ill omens from its
voice.

Josephus tells us, that Solomon had a divine power conferred upon him, of driving evil spirits out of possessed persons—that he invented several incantations by which diseases were cured—and left behind him such a sure method of exorcising, as the dæmons never returned again: and he assures us, the Jews followed the like custom as late as his own time; and that he saw such a cure performed by one Eleazar. They likewise imagined, that the liver of a fish would keep away evil spirits, as one of the apocryphal writers acquaints us[XLIV]. {174}

Footnote XLIV:

They imagined incense also to be a sure means to banish the devil;
though asafœtida, or the devil’s dung, might have been much better. On
Cant. iv. 6. “I will get me to the hill of incense,” the Chaldee
paraphrast says, that, while the house of Israel kept the art of their
holy fore-fathers, both the morning and mid-day evil spirits fled
away, because the divine glory dwelt in the sanctuary, which was built
on Mount Moriah; and that all the devils fled when they smelled the
effluvia of the fine incense that was there. They likewise believed
that herbs and roots had a power to expel dæmons. And Josephus tells
us, that the root _Bara_, immediately drives out the devil. I suppose
it had such a physical power against fevers and agues, as the jesuit’s
bark.

The church of Rome, in order to have powerful holy things, as well as
the Jews, applies salt, spittle, holy-water, and consecrated oil, to
expel the devils from the credulous of their own persuasion; and the
oil alone is used as a viaticum, on account of its lubricous quality,
to make them slippery, and thereby prevent the devil from laying hold,
and pulling them down when they ascend upward. They reckon that
observance a most religious duty, and an infallible preservative
against the legions of evil spirits who watch in the aerial regions;
and also necessary to gain celestial admission for believers.

In the Summer-season of the year 1746, I chanced to see the Indians playing at a house of the former Missisippi-Nachee,[76] on one of their old sacred musical instruments. It pretty much resembled the Negroe-Banger in shape, but far exceeded it in dimensions; for it was about five feet long, and a foot wide on the head-part of the board, with eight strings made out of the sinews of a large buffalo. But they were so unskilful in acting the part of the Lyrick, that the _Loache_, or prophet who held the instrument between his feet, and along side of his chin, took one end of the bow, whilst a lusty fellow held the other; by sweating labour they scraped out such harsh jarring sounds, as might have been reasonably expected by a soft ear, to have been sufficient to drive out the devil if he lay any where hid in the house. When I afterward asked him the name, and the reason of such a strange method of diversion, he told me the dance was called _Keetla Ishto Hoollo_, “a dance to, or before, the great holy one;” that it kept off evil spirit, witches, and wizards, from the red people; and enabled them to ordain elderly men to officiate in holy things, as the exigency of the times required.

He who danced to it, kept his place and posture, in a very exact manner, without the least perceivable variation: yet by the prodigious working of his muscles and nerves, he in about half an hour, foamed in a very extraordinary manner, and discontinued it proportionally, till he recovered himself. This surprising custom I have mentioned here, because it was usual among the Hebrews, for their prophets to become furious, and as it were beside themselves, when they were about to prophesy. Thus with regard to Saul, it seems that he became furious, and tortured his body by violent gestures: and when Elisha sent one of the children of the prophets to anoint Jehu, one said to him, wherefore cometh this mad fellow? The Chaldee paraphrast, on 1 Sam. xviii. 10. concerning Saul’s prophesying, paraphrases it, cæpit furire, “he began to grow mad, &c.”

When the East-Indian Fakirs are giving out their pretended prophecies, they chuse drums and trumpets, that by such confused striking sounds, {175} their senses may be lulled asleep or unsettled, which might otherwise render them uncapable of receiving the supposed divine inspiration. And they endeavour to become thus possest before crowds of people with a furious rage, by many frantic and violent motions of body, and changes of posture, till they have raised it to the highest pitch they are capable of, and then fall on the ground almost breathless; when they recover themselves a little, they give out their prophecies, which are deemed oracular.

Lactantius and others tell us, that the Sibyls were possest of the like fury; and most part of the ancients believed they ought to become furious, the members of the body to shake, and the hairs of their head to stand an end before they could be divinely inspired: which seems plainly to shew, that though the ancient heathens mimicked a great deal of the Mosaic law, yet theirs had but a faint glance on the Hebrew manner of consulting Yohewah; whereas the Indian Americans invoke the true God, by his favourite essential name, in a bowing posture, on every material occasion, whether civil, martial, or religious, contrary to the usage of all the old heathen world.

In the year 1765, an old physician, or prophet, almost drunk with spirituous liquors, came to pay me a friendly visit: his situation made him more communicative than he would have been if quite sober. When he came to the door, he bowed himself half bent, with his arms extended north and south, continuing so perhaps for the space of a minute. Then raising himself erect, with his arms in the same position, he looked in a wild frightful manner, from the south-west toward the north, and sung on a low bass key _Yo Yo Yo Yo_, almost a minute, then _He He He He_, for perhaps the same space of time, and _Wa Wa Wa Wa_, in like manner; and then transposed, and accented those sacred notes several different ways, in a most rapid guttural manner. Now and then he looked upwards, with his head considerably bent backward;—his song continued about a quarter of an hour. As my door which was then open stood east, his face of course looked toward the west; but whether the natives thus usually invoke the deity, I cannot determine; yet as all their winter houses have their doors toward the east, had he used the like solemn invocations there, his face would have consequently looked the same way, contrary to the usage of {176} the heathens. After his song, he stepped in: I saluted him, saying, “Are you come my beloved old friend?” he replied, _Arahre-O_. “I am come in the name of _OEA._” I told him, I was glad to see, that in this mad age, he still retained the old Chikkasah virtues. He said, that as he came with a glad heart to see me his old friend, he imagined he could not do me a more kind service, than to secure my house from the power of the evil spirits of the north, south, and west,—and, from witches, and wizards, who go about in dark nights, in the shape of bears, hogs, and wolves, to spoil people: “the very month before, added he, we killed an old witch, for having used destructive charms.” Because a child was suddenly taken ill, and died, on the physician’s false evidence, the father went to the poor helpless old woman who was sitting innocent, and unsuspecting, and sunk his tomohawk into her head, without the least fear of being called to an account. They call witches and wizards, _Ishtabe_, and _Hoollabe_, “man-killers,” and “spoilers of things sacred.” My prophetic friend desired me to think myself secure from those dangerous enemies of darkness, for (said he) _Tarooa Ishtohoollo-Antarooare_, “I have sung the song of the great holy one.” The Indians are so tenacious of concealing their religious mysteries, that I never before observed such an invocation on the like occasion—adjuring evil spirits, witches, &c. by the awful name of deity.[77]

ARGUMENT XIX.

The Hebrews have at all times been very careful in the BURIAL of their dead—to be deprived of it was considered as one of the greatest of evils. They made it a point of duty to perform the funeral obsequies of their friends—often embalmed the dead bodies of those who were rich, and even buried treasure in the tombs with their dead. Josephus tells us, that in king David’s sepulchre, was buried such a prodigious quantity of treasures, that Hyrcanus the Maccabean, took three thousand talents out of it, about thirteen hundred years after, to get rid of Antiochus then besieging Jerusalem. And their people of distinction, we are told, followed the like custom of burying gold and silver with the dead. Thus it was an universal custom with the ancient Peruvians, when the owner died to bury his {177} effects with him, which the avaricious Spaniards perceiving, they robbed these store-houses of the dead of an immense quantity of treasures. The modern Indians bury all their moveable riches, according to the custom of the ancient Peruvians and Mexicans, insomuch, that the grave is heir of all.

Except the Cheerake, only one instance of deviation, from this ancient and general Indian custom occurs to me: which was that of _Malahche_, the late famous chieftain of the _Kowwetah_ head war-town of the lower part of the Muskohge country, who bequeathed all he possessed to his real, and adopted relations,—being sensible they would be much more useful to his living friends, than to himself during his long sleep: he displayed a genius far superior to the crowd.

The Cheerake of late years, by the reiterated persuasion of the traders, have entirely left off the custom of burying effects with the dead body; the nearest of blood inherits them. They, and several other of our Indian nations, used formerly to shoot all the live stock that belonged to the deceased, soon after the interment of the corpse; not according to the Pagan custom of the funeral piles, on which they burned several of the living, that they might accompany and wait on the dead, but from a narrow-hearted avaricious principle, derived from their Hebrew progenitors.

Notwithstanding the North-American Indians, like the South-Americans, inter the whole riches of the deceased with him, and so make his corpse and the grave heirs of all, they never give them the least disturbance; even a blood-thirsty enemy will not despoil nor disturb the dead. The grave proves an asylum, and a sure place of rest to the sleeping person, till at some certain time, according to their opinion, he rises again to inherit his favourite place,—unless the covetous, or curious hand of some foreigner, should break through his sacred bounds. This custom of burying the dead person’s treasures with him, has entirely swallowed up their medals, and other monuments of antiquity, without any probability of recovering them[XLV]. {178}

Footnote XLV:

In the Tuccabatches on the Tallapoose river, thirty miles above the
Allabahamah garrison, are two brazen tables, and five of copper. They
esteem them so sacred as to keep them constantly in their holy of
holies, without touching them in the least, only in the time of their
compounded first-fruit-offering, and annual expiation of sins; at
which season, their magus carries one under his arm, a-head of the
people, dancing round the sacred arbour; next to him their
head-warrior carries another; and those warriors who chuse it, carry
the rest after the manner of the high-priest; all the others carry
white canes with swan-feathers at the top. Hearing accidentally of
these important monuments of antiquity, and enquiring pretty much
about them, I was certified of the truth of the report by four of the
southern traders, at the most eminent Indian-trading house of all
English America. One of the gentlemen informed me, that at my request
he endeavoured to get a liberty of viewing the aforesaid tables, but
it could not possibly be obtained, only in the time of the yearly
grand sacrifice, for fear of polluting their holy things, at which
time gentlemen of curiosity may see them. _Old Bracket_, an Indian of
perhaps 100 years old, lives in that old beloved town, who gave the
following description of them:

_Old Bracket’s_ account of the _five copper_ and _two brass plates_
under the beloved cabbin in Tuccabatchey-square.

The shape of the five copper plates; one is a foot and half long and
seven inches wide, the other four are shorter and narrower.

The largest stamped thus The shape of the two
brass plates,—about a foot and a half in diameter.

He said—he was told by his forefathers that those plates were given to
them by the man we call God; that there had been many more of other
shapes, some as long as he could stretch with both his arms, and some
had writing upon them which were buried with particular men; and that
they had instructions given with them, viz. they must only be handled
by particular people, and those fasting; and no unclean woman must be
suffered to come near them or the place where they are deposited. He
said, none but this town’s people had any such plates given them, and
that they were a different people from the Creeks. He only remembered
three more, which were buried with three of his family, and he was the
only man of the family now left. He said, there were two copper plates
under the king’s cabbin, which had lain there from the first settling
of the town.

This account was taken in the Tuccabatchey-square, 27th July, 1759,
per _Will. Bolsover_. (A) It was at this town, the great Shawnee
leader, Tecumseh, delivered orations against the Americans and their
government which led the Upper Creeks to rise in arms (1813), and
finally to the Creek War. The same plates are referred to in C. Swan’s
Account in Schoolcraft’s _Information Indian Tribes_, V, 283. (W)

As the Hebrews carefully buried their dead, so on any accident, they gathered their bones and laid them in the tombs of their fore-fathers:[78] Thus, all the numerous nations of Indians perform the like friendly office to every deceased person of their respective tribe; insomuch, that those who {179} lose their people at war, if they have not corrupted their primitive customs, are so observant of this kindred duty, as to appropriate some time to collect the bones of their relations; which they call _bone gathering_, or “gathering the bones to their kindred,” according to the Hebrew idiom[XLVI]. The Cheerake, by reason of their great intercourse with foreigners, have dropped that friendly office: and as they seem to be more intelligent than the rest of our English-American Indians in their religious rites, and ceremonial observances, so I believe, the fear of pollution has likewise contributed to obliterate that ancient kindred duty. However, they separate those of their people who die at home, from others of a different nation; and every particular tribe indeed of each nation bears an intense love to itself, and divides every one of its people from the rest, both while living, and after they are dead.

Footnote XLVI:

With the Hebrews, “to gather,” usually signified to die. Gen. xlix.
33. Jacob is said to be gathered to his people. Psal. xxvi. 9. Gather
not my soul with sinners. And Numb. xx. 24. Aaron shall be gathered to
his people.

When any of them die at a distance, if the company be not driven and pursued by the enemy, they place the corpse on a scaffold,[79] covered with notched logs to secure it from being torn by wild beasts, or fowls of prey: when they imagine the flesh is consumed, and the bones are thoroughly dried, they return to the place, bring them home, and inter them in a very solemn manner. They will not associate with us, when we are burying any of our people, who die in their land: and they are unwilling we should join with them while they are performing this kindred duty to theirs. Upon which account, though I have lived among them in the raging time of the small pox, even of the confluent sort, I never saw but one buried, who was a great favourite of the English, and chieftain of _Ooeasa_, as formerly described.

The Indians use the same ceremonies to the bones of their dead, as if they were covered with their former skin, flesh, and ligaments. It is but a few days since I saw some return with the bones of nine of their people, who had been two months before killed by the enemy. They were tied in white deer-skins, separately; and when carried by the door of one of the houses of their family, they were laid down opposite to it, till the female {180} relations convened, with flowing hair, and wept over them about half an hour. Then they carried them home to their friendly magazines of mortality, wept over them again, and then buried them with the usual solemnities; putting their valuable effects, and as I am informed, other convenient things in along with them, to be of service to them in the next state. The chieftain carried twelve short sticks tied together, in the form of a quadrangle; so that each square consisted of three. The sticks were only peeled, without any paintings; but there were swans feathers tied to each corner, and as they called that frame, _Tereekpe tobeh_, “a white circle,” and placed it over the door, while the women were weeping over the bones, perhaps it was originally designed to represent the holy fire, light, and spirit, who formerly presided over the four principal standards of the twelve tribes of Israel.

When any of their people die at home, they wash and anoint the corpse, and soon bring it out of doors for fear of pollution; then they place it opposite to the door, on the skins of wild beasts, in a sitting posture, as looking into the door of the winter house, westward, sufficiently supported with all his moveable goods; after a short elogium, and space of mourning, they carry him three times around the house in which he is to be interred, stopping half a minute each time, at the place where they began the circle, while the religious man of the deceased person’s family, who goes before the hearse, says each time, _Yàh_, short with a bass voice, and then invokes on a tenor key, _Yo_, which at the same time is likewise sung by all the procession, as long as one breath allows. Again, he strikes up, on a sharp treble key, the fœminine note, _He_, which in like manner, is taken up and continued by the rest: then all of them suddenly strike off the solemn chorus, and sacred invocation, by saying, on a low key, _Wàh_; which constitute the divine essential name, _Yohewah_. This is the method in which they performed the funeral rites of the chieftain before referred to; during which time, a great many of the traders were present, as our company was agreeable at the interment of our declared patron and friend. It seems as if they buried him in the name of the divine essence, and directed their plaintive religious notes to the author of life and death, in hopes of a resurrection of the body; which hope engaged the Hebrews to stile their burying places, “the house of the living.” {181}

When they celebrated these funeral rites of the above chieftain, they laid the corpse in his tomb, in a sitting posture, with his face towards the east, his head anointed with bear’s oil, and his face painted red, but not streaked with black, because that is a constant emblem of war and death; he was drest in his finest apparel, having his gun and pouch, and trusty hiccory bow, with a young panther’s skin, full of arrows, along side of him, and every other useful thing he had been possessed of,—that when he rises again, they may serve him in that tract of land which pleased him best before he went to take his long sleep. His tomb was firm and clean in-side. They covered it with thick logs, so as to bear several tiers of cypress-bark, and such a quantity of clay as would confine the putrid smell, and be on a level with the rest of the floor. They often sleep over those tombs; which, with the loud wailing of the women at the dusk of the evening, and dawn of the day, on benches close by the tombs, must awake the memory of their relations very often: and if they were killed by an enemy, it helps to irritate and set on such revengeful tempers to retaliate blood for blood.

The Egyptians either embalmed, or buried, their dead: other heathen nations imagined that fire purified the body; they burned therefore the bodies of their dead, and put their ashes into small urns, which they religiously kept by them, as sacred relicks. The Tartars called _Kyrgessi_, near the frozen sea, formerly used to hang their dead relations and friends upon trees, to be eaten by ravenous birds to purify them. But the Americans seem evidently to have derived their copy from the Israelites, as to the place where they bury their dead, and the method of their funeral ceremonies, as well as the persons with whom they are buried, and the great expenses they are at in their burials. The Hebrews buried near the city of Jerusalem, by the brook Kedron; and they frequently hewed their tombs out of rocks, or buried their dead opposite to their doors, implying a silent lesson of friendship, and a pointing caution to live well. They buried all of one family together; to which custom David alludes, when he says, “gather me not with the wicked:” and Sophronius said with regard to the like form, “noli me tangere, hæretice, neque vivum nec mortuum.” But they buried strangers apart by themselves, and named the place, _Kebhare Galeya_, “the burying place of strangers.” And these rude Americans are so strongly partial to the same custom, that they imagine if any of us {182} were buried in the domestic tombs of their kindred, without being adopted, it would be very criminal in them to allow it; and that our spirits would haunt the eaves of their houses at night, and cause several misfortunes to their family.

In resemblance to the Hebrew custom of embalming their dead, the Choktah treat the corpse just as the religious Levite did his beloved concubine, who was abused by the Benjamites; for having placed the dead on a high scaffold stockaded round, at the distance of twelve yards from his house opposite to the door, the whole family convene there at the beginning of the fourth moon after the interment, to lament and feast together: after wailing a while on the mourning benches, which stand on the east side of the quadrangular tomb, they raise and bring out the corpse, and while the feast is getting ready, a person whose office it is, and properly called the bone-picker, dissects it, as if it was intended for the shambles in the time of a great famine, with his sharp-pointed, bloody knife. He continues busily employed in his reputed sacred office, till he has finished the task, and scraped all the flesh off the bones; which may justly be called the Choktah method of enbalming their dead. Then, they carefully place the bones in a kind of small chest, in their natural order, that they may with ease and certainty be some time afterward reunited, and proceed to strike up a song of lamentation, with various wailing tunes and notes: afterwards, they join as cheerfully in the funeral feast, as if their kinsman was only taking his usual sleep. Having regaled themselves with a plentiful variety, they go along with those beloved relicks of their dead, in solemn procession, lamenting with doleful notes, till they arrive at the bone-house, which stands in a solitary place, apart from the town: then they proceed around it, much after the manner of those who performed the obsequies of the Chikkasah chieftain, already described, and there deposit their kinsman’s bones to lie along side of his kindred-bones, till in due time they are revived by _Ishtohoollo Aba_, that he may repossess his favourite place.

Those bone-houses are scaffolds raised on durable pitch-pine forked posts, in the form of a house covered a-top, but open at both ends. I saw three of them in one of their towns, pretty near each other—the place seemed to be unfrequented; each house contained the bones of one tribe, {183} separately, with the hieoglyphical figures of the family on each of the old-shaped arks: they reckon it irreligious to mix the bones of a relation with those of a stranger, as bone of bone, and flesh of the same flesh, should be always joined together; and much less will they thrust the body of their beloved kinsman into the abominable tomb of a hateful enemy. I observed a ladder fixed in the ground, opposite to the middle of the broad side of each of those dormitories of the dead, which was made out of a broad board, and stood considerably bent over the sacred repository, with the steps on the inside. On the top was the carved image of a dove, with its wings stretched out, and its head inclining down, as if earnestly viewing or watching over the bones of the dead: and from the top of the ladder to almost the surface of the earth, there hung a chain of grape-vines twisted together, in circular links, and the same likewise at their domestic tombs. Now the dove after the deluge, became the emblem of _Rowah_, the holy spirit, and in process of time was deified by the heathen world, instead of the divine person it typified: the vine was likewise a symbol of fruitfulness, both in the animal and vegetable world.

To perpetuate the memory of any remarkable warriors killed in the woods, I must here observe, that every Indian traveller as he passes that way throws a stone on the place, according as he likes or dislikes the occasion, or manner of the death of the deceased.[80]

In the woods we often see innumerable heaps of small stones in those places, where according to tradition some of their distinguished people were either killed, or buried, till the bones could be gathered: there they add _Pelion_ to _Ossa_, still increasing each heap, as a lasting monument, and honour to them, and an incentive to great actions.

Mercury was a favourite god with the heathens, and had various employments; one of which was to be god of the roads, to direct travellers aright—from which the ancient Romans derived their _Dii Compitales_, or _Dei Viales_, which they likewise placed at the meeting of roads, and in the high ways, and esteemed them the patrons and protectors of travellers. The early heathens placed great heaps of stones at the dividing of {184} the roads, and consecrated those heaps to him by unction[XLVII], and other religious ceremonies. And in honour to him, travellers threw a stone to them, and thus exceedingly increased their bulk: this might occasion Solomon to compare the giving honour to a fool, to throwing a stone into a heap, as each were alike insensible of the obligation; and to cause the Jewish writers to call this custom a piece of idolatrous worship. But the Indians place those heaps of stones where there are no dividings of the roads, nor the least trace of any road[XLVIII]. And they then observe no kind of religious ceremony, but raise those heaps merely to do honour to their dead, and incite the living to the pursuit of virtue. Upon which account, it seems to be derived from the ancient Jewish custom of increasing Absalom’s tomb; for the last things are easiest retained, because people repeat them oftenest, and imitate them most.[81] {185}

Footnote XLVII:

They rubbed the principal stone of each of those heaps all over with
oil, as a sacrifice of libation; by which means they often became
black, and slippery; as Arnobius relates of the idols of his time;
Lubricatum lapidem, et ex olivi unguine fordidatum, tanquam inesset
vis presens, adulabar. _Arnob. Advers. Gent._

Footnote XLVIII:

Laban and Jacob raised a heap of stones, as a lasting monument of
their friendly covenant. And Jacob called the heap _Galeed_, “the heap
of witness.” Gen. xxxi. 47.

Though the Cheerake do not now collect the bones of their dead, yet they continue to raise and multiply heaps of stones, as monuments for their dead; this the English army remembers well, for in the year 1760, having marched about two miles along a wood-land path, beyond a hill where they had seen a couple of these reputed tombs, at the war-woman’s creek, they received so sharp a defeat by the Cheerake, that another such must have inevitably ruined the whole army.

Many of those heaps are to be seen, in all parts of the continent of North-America: where stones could not be had, they raised large hillocks or mounds of earth, wherein they carefully deposited the bones of their dead, which were placed either in earthen vessels, or in a simple kind of arks, or chests. Although the Mohawk Indians may be reasonably expected to have lost their primitive customs, by reason of their great intercourse with foreigners, yet I was told by a gentleman of distinguished character, that they observe the aforesaid sepulchral custom to this day, insomuch, that when they are performing that kindred-duty, they cry out, _Mahoom Taguyn Kameneh_, “Grandfather, I cover you.”

ARGUMENT XX.

The Jewish records tell us, that their women MOURNED for the loss of their deceased husbands, and were reckoned vile, by the civil law, if they married in the space, at least, of ten months after their death. In resemblance to that custom, all the Indian widows, by an established strict penal law, mourn for the loss of their deceased husbands; and among some tribes for the space of three or four years. But the East-India Pagans forced the widow, to sit on a pile of wood, and hold the body of her husband on her knees, to be consumed together in the flames.

The Muskohge widows are obliged to live a chaste single life, for the tedious space of four years; and the Chikkasah women, for the term of three, at the risque of the law of adultery being executed against the recusants. Every evening, and at the very dawn of day, for the first year of her widowhood, she is obliged through the fear of shame to lament her loss, in very intense audible strains. As _Yah ah_ signifies weeping, lamenting, mourning, or Ah God; and as the widows, and others, in their grief bewail and cry _Yo He (ta) Wah, Yohetaweh_; _Yohetaha Yohetahe_, the origin is sufficiently clear. For the Hebrews reckoned it so great an evil to die unlamented, like Jehoiakim, Jer. xxii. 18. “who had none to say, Ah, my brother! Ah, my sister! Ah, my Lord! Ah, his glory!” that it is one of the four judgments they pray against, and it is called the burial of an ass. With them, burying signified lamenting, and so the Indian widows direct their mournful cries to the author of life and death, insert a plural note in the sacred name, and again transpose the latter, through an invariable religious principle, to prevent a prophanation.

Their law compels the widow, through the long term of her weeds, to refrain all public company and diversions, at the penalty of an adulteress; {186} and likewise to go with flowing hair, without the privilege of oil to anoint it. The nearest kinsmen of the deceased husband, keep a very watchful eye over her conduct, in this respect. The place of interment is also calculated to wake the widow’s grief, for he is intombed in the house under her bed. And if he was a war-leader, she is obliged for the first moon, to sit in the day-time under his mourning war-pole[XLIX], which is decked with all his martial trophies, and must be heard to cry with bewailing notes. But none of them are fond of that month’s supposed religious duty, it chills, or sweats, and wastes them so exceedingly; for they are allowed no shade, or shelter. This sharp rigid custom excites the women to honour the marriage-state, and keeps them obliging to their husbands, by anticipating the visible sharp difficulties which they must undergo for so great a loss. The three or four years monastic life, which she lives after his death, makes it her interest to strive by every means, to keep in his lamp of life, be it ever so dull and worthless; if she is able to shed tears on such an occasion, they often proceed from self-love. We can generally distinguish between the widow’s natural mourning voice, and her tuneful laboured strain. She doth not so much bewail his death, as her own recluse life, and hateful state of celibacy; which to many of them, is an uneligible, as it was to the Hebrew ladies, who preferred death before the unmarried state, and reckoned their virginity a bewailable condition, like the state of the dead.

Footnote XLIX:

The war-pole is a small peeled tree painted red, the top and boughs
cut off short: it is fixt in the ground opposite to his door, and all
his implements of war, are hung on the short boughs of it, till they
rot.

The Choktah Indians hire mourners to magnify the merit and loss of their dead, and if their tears cannot be seen to flow, their shrill voices will be heard to cry, which answers the solemn chorus a great deal better[L]. However, they are no way churlish of their tears, for I have seen them, on the occasion, pour them out, like fountains of water: but after having {187} thus tired themselves, they might with equal propriety have asked by-standers in the manner of the native Irish, Ara ci fuar bass—“And who is dead?”

Footnote L:

Jer. ix. 17. 19. Thus saith the Lord of hosts: consider ye, and call
for the mourning-women, that they may come; and send for cunning
women, that they may come. For a voice of wailing is heard out of
Zion, how are we spoiled? we are greatly confounded, because we have
forsaken the land, because our dwellings have cast us out.

They formerly dressed their heads with black moss on those solemn occasions; and the ground adjacent to the place of interment, they now beat with laurel-brushes, the women having their hair disheveled: the first of which customs seems to be derived from the Hebrew custom of wearing sack-cloth at their funeral solemnities, and on other occasions, when they afflicted their souls before God—to which divine writ often alludes, in describing the blackness of the skies: and the laurel being an ever-green, is a lively emblem of the eternity of the human soul, and the pleasant state it enters into after death, according to antiquity. They beat it on the ground, to express their sharp pungent grief; and, perhaps, to imitate the Hebrew trumpeters for the dead, in order to make as striking a sound as they possibly can on so doleful an occasion.

Though the Hebrews had no positive precept that obliged the widow to mourn the death of her husband, or to continue her widowhood, for any time; yet the gravity of their tempers, and their scrupulous nicety of the law of purity, introduced the observance of those modest and religious customs, as firmly under the penalty of shame, as if they bore the sanction of law[LI]. In imitation of them, the Indians have copied so exactly, as to compel the widow to act the part of the disconsolate dove, for the irreparable loss of her mate. Very different is the custom of other nations:—the Africans, when any of their head-men die, kill all their slaves, their friends that were dearest to them, and all their wives whom they loved best, that they may accompany and serve them, in the other world, which is a most diabolical Ammonitish sacrifice of human blood. The East-India widows may refuse to be burned on their husbands funeral piles, with impunity, if they become prostitutes, or public women to sing and dance at marriages, or on other occasions of rejoicing. How superior {188} is the virtuous custom of the savage Americans, concerning female chastity during the time of their widowhood?

Footnote LI:

Theodosius tells us, Lib. I. Legum de fecundis nuptiis, that women
were infamous by the civil law, who married a second time before a
year, or at least ten months were expired.

The Indian women mourn three moons, for the death of any female of their own family or tribe. During that time, they are not to anoint, or tie up their hair; neither is the husband of the deceased allowed, when the offices of nature do not call him, to go out of the house, much less to join any company: and in that time of mourning he often lies among the ashes. The time being expired, the female mourners meet in the evening of the beginning of the fourth moon, at the house where their female relation is intombed, and stay there till morning, when the nearest surviving old kinswoman crops their fore-locks pretty short. This they call _Ehó Intànáah_, “the women have mourned the appointed time.” _Ehó_ signifies “a woman,” _Inta_ “finished by divine appointment,” _Aà_ “moving” or walking, and _Ah_, “their note of grief, sorrow, or mourning:” the name expresses, and the custom is a visible certificate of, their having mourned the appointed time for their dead. When they have eaten and drank together, they return home by sun-rise, and thus finish their solemn _Yah-ah_.[82]

ARGUMENT XXI.

The surviving brother, by the Mosaic law, was to RAISE SEED to a deceased brother who left a widow childless, to perpetuate his name and family, and inherit his goods and estate, or be degraded: and, if the issue he begat was a male child, it assumed the name of the deceased. The Indian custom[83] looks the very same way; yet it is in this as in their law of blood—the eldest brother can redeem.

Although a widow is bound, by a strict penal law, to mourn the death of her husband for the space of three or four years; yet, if she be known to lament her loss with a sincere heart, for the space of a year, and her circumstances of living are so strait as to need a change of her station—and the elder brother of her deceased husband lies with her, she is thereby exempted {189} from the law of mourning, has a liberty to tie up her hair, anoint and paint herself in the same manner as the Hebrew widow, who was refused by the surviving brother of her deceased husband, became free to marry whom she pleased.

The warm-constitutioned young widows keep their eye so intent on this mild beneficent law, that they frequently treat their elder brothers-in-law with spirituous liquors till they intoxicate them, and thereby decoy them to make free, and so put themselves out of the reach of that mortifying law. If they are disappointed, as it sometimes happens, they fall on the men, calling them _Hoobuk Wakse_, or _Skoobále, Hassé kroopha_, “Eunuchus præputio detecto, et pene brevi;” the most degrading of epithets. Similar to the Hebrew ladies, who on the brother’s refusal loosed his shoe from his foot, and spit in his face, (Deut. xxv. 9.); and as some of the Rabbies tell us they made water in the shoe, and threw it with despite in his face, and then readily went to bed to any of his kinsmen, or most distant relations of the same line that she liked best; as Ruth married Boaz. Josephus, to palliate the fact, says she only beat him with the shoe over his face. David probably alludes to this custom, Psal. lx. 8. “Over Edom I will cast out my shoe,” or detraction.