Chapter XXVI: Appendix (22)

Till then, there were only twelve of them; but afterwards more were appointed in that religious station. They urged, that their sacred office, and the faithful discharge of all the duties attending it, engaged their close attention, and deserved an honest maintenance; but to check a covetous spirit among all beloved men of every rank, they freely spoke the beloved speech through every known country of the world, and maintained themselves by their own industry. As they travelled, eat, drank, and conversed daily with the great divine messenger, he perfectly taught them the divine law, which your supposed ancestors had received under very strong emblems. After his death, they spoke it with great boldness, and a most amazing power. They truly marked down on paper, most of the speeches and actions of their beloved master and themselves, without concealing their own foibles, for our instruction: and a great many true copies of them are transmitted over every quarter of the world, in different languages, which agree together, and with those early beloved books; though it is more than seventeen hundred years, since they were first drawn out by those beloved scholars. As their hearts were warmed in a very high degree, by the holy spirit of fire, the moral part of their lives were free from blemish, after the death of their master. In imitation of him, they suffered all kinds of hardships, difficulties, and dangers of life, that human beings could undergo, merely through a principle of divine love working in them, for the general good of mankind; they cured the sick and diseased, and taught every one the true beloved speech, to purify them. As they were not proud, they were not drawn with beautiful prancing horses, in costly moving houses, but walked after the manner of their divine master, and instructed the attentive people, by their humble example, and honest lessons, in the most assured hope of receiving from _Ishtohoollo Aba_, a reward equal to their virtues, after they died, knowing they were to live anew in a happy state, free from the power of death. In this manner, they, by the earnest beloved speech of the great divine messenger, were cheerfully content, and firmly trusted in the goodness of the fatherly chieftain. Indeed, soon after they entered into their sacred office, they were jealous of their master’s giving preference to one, before the other of them; but he gave a strong lesson of humility and kindness for them, and all succeeding beloved men to pursue, by washing and wiping their feet with his own hands: and he assured them _Ishtohoollo_ would always esteem them most, who acted best. {442}

All those beloved men, who do not join in religious communion with _Oobache Ishtohoollo_, tell us, that ancient records affirm, all of the priestly order (after the death of the divine messenger) were equal in their religious office, that deference excepted, which is always due to a virtuous seniority—and that as wisdom and virtue equally accompany either youth, middle, or old age, they continued in that brotherly state of religious simplicity, according to the true copy of the humble, all-loving, and beloved messenger, for the space of three hundred years after that period—and that, as the speech of the great divine messenger was marked in a copious language, which abounded with various words to express the same thing, the names of old men, overseers and bishops, signify one and the same rank of beloved men of the beloved house, according to the former humble conduct of their divine master; but that the words are now tortured through mercenary views, contrary to the plain simplicity of the primitive teachers. As holy things, and white emblems, are easily polluted and tarnished by people of impure hearts, and unclean hands, the divine law began then to lose its quickening influence over the beloved men of those large countries, where the sun rises out of the broad water. Their disputes ran high, and the longer they lasted, the sharper they grew. They, at last, referred them to the decision of the beloved men, toward the place where the daily sun is drowned in the great salt water, which is called Rome. As in affairs of state, so in religion, a remarkable precedent begets a custom, and this becomes a law with societies. In consequence thereof, an order of superior beloved men laid hold of this, and stretched the divine speech, so as to answer their own mercenary views.

In process of time, there sprung up a pretended great bringer of rain, who, like the hurtful spirits of corrupt darkness, by rejecting the divine speech, and despising the example of the holy messenger and his scholars, set up arrogantly for himself, against the supreme chieftain of the rain and thunder, claimed the tenth basket-full of the new harvest according to the obsolete law of your supposed ancestors, and even forgave adulterers, thieves, liars, incestuous persons, and those who accompanied with women in their lunar retreats, without any sort of purification, if they only paid him such a quantity of yellow stone, as he proportioned to the various degrees of each crime they committed. To enrich himself by their weakness, his whole tribe of black-dressed missionaries, by strict order, frightened the ignorant {443} and credulous, with the wild notion of wandering after death in the accursed place of darkness, without any possibility of avoiding that dreadful fate, unless they revealed all their crimes to them, and paid them a fixed price. Because pride and envy had spoiled some of the spirits above, and made them accursed beings; therefore, the messenger of _Ishtohoollo_, as I told you, strongly checked the like disposition in its first appearance among his scholars. But the pride of the Romish chieftain, and desire of absolute religious and civil power, became so unbounded, as to claim an unlimited authority over all the great chieftains on earth; and he boasted of being so highly actuated by the unerring divine wisdom, as to know and do every thing perfectly. He, at the same time, ordered all his scholars to involve the people in thick clouds of darkness, and impress them with a firm belief, that ignorance produces virtue. He invented a third state for the sake of his temporal interest, fixing it half way between people’s favourite place of living anew, and that of the horrible darkness, which was to be a vomiting or purging state of the dead, and called it purgatory; where the dead must unavoidably call, and be detained, till surviving relations satisfied them for their enlargement. He became so highly intoxicated by pride and power, that he erected images of such dead people as most resembled himself, with various other objects for the living to invoke, instead of the great eternal _Yo He Wah_, whom you supplicate in your religious invocations: and he marked for his black scholars, a great many very evil speeches, and spoke them with a strong mouth and ill heart, and enforced them by swords and fiery faggots, contrary to the old beloved speech which was confirmed by the anointed messenger.

At length, the holy spirit of fire influenced two great beloved men in particular, according to a former prediction, to speak to the people with a strong mouth, as witnesses of the divine truth. Their ears were honest in hearing the old beloved speech, and it sunk deep into their hearts. But a great many superstitious customs still remained, for had they aimed at a perfect establishment of the divine law in their religious worship, probably the high placed religious men through a covetous spirit would have opposed the reformation with all their might; as very few of them endeavoured to teach the young people, by honest examples, to live a virtuous life, or enabled them to get refreshing showers from _Ishtohoollo Aba_ to make plentiful harvests—and yet they claimed a great part of it, and even {444} of the seed corn, without the least exemption of the poor, contrary to the tender feelings even of our indigent warriors and great canoe men, who stretch out a kindly hand to their poor brethren. That part of the old beloved speech, the tenth basket-full, was calculated only for your supposed predecessors, who consisted of twelve families; one of which was devoted to the divine service. Therefore, they were allowed some part of the religious offerings, and of the yearly produce of the land, to make their own and their families hearts rejoice, and at the same time to keep them humble, and make them hospitable to the widow, the fatherless, and the stranger. They, like the humble scholars of the great beloved messenger, were always poor; they honestly minded their religious duty, and were not allowed to purchase any land, nor to expose their virtue to the temptations of heaping up yellow stone, or employing their minds on any thing, except the divine law.

The lives and manners of the early teachers of the speech of the divine messenger, as I before told you, were also strictly just and blameless. They equally taught by precept and example; and their lessons, like those of their great master, were plain, simple, and holy. They were humble in their behaviour, and moderate in their apparel, food, and drink, and faithful in the discharge of their religious office: instead of assuming the arrogant title of divine chieftains, they honestly gave themselves the lowly name of _Intooksare Ishtohoollo_, “Servants of God,” in imitation of the life, precept, and example of the holy messenger, which strongly actuated their honest hearts. When they were weary after the toils of the day, by instructing the people, and working at their trade, as your beloved men do, they joyfully rested themselves in their humble cottages, and refreshed themselves with their homely fare; and there they instructed the young people to invoke _Yo-He-Wah_, and speak the divine speech. In this religious manner, they spent their time through various countries, by the direction of divine wisdom, as a strong pointed lesson to all succeeding beloved men to pursue, and they sealed the truth with their blood—such were the primitive teachers of the divine word. They lived and died in a state of equality; and were there any different degrees to be observed in the holy office of religion, learning and piety should recommend poor beloved men to the high seats of profit—but only toilsome places are now allotted them, with an allowance insufficient to support themselves, so that they cannot stretch out their kindly hand to the poor. {445}

The mouths and hearts of the superior beloved men in our day, shamefully contradict one another, to the discredit of the lively copy of the holy messenger and his beloved scholars, and the great danger of infecting those of inferior rank, by so pernicious and corrupt an example; for it is natural for the feet to follow the direction of the head. They were formerly a very insolent, covetous, and troublesome set; and being advanced by rich friends to the high sounding office of _Mingo Ishtohoollo_, “Divine chieftains,” or in their own stile, “Right Reverend Fathers in God,” princes and supporters of the church, great was their arrogance and power—taking advantage of the corruption of the times, they grafted themselves into the civil constitution, and to preserve their high and profitable places they became the fixed and strenuous supporters of courts, in all their measures. But they will very soon be purified. The beloved speech of _Ishotoollo_ of old, has announced it, and that is always true. It has pointed to the present and approaching time, which is near to the end of measured time.

To shew you how well prepared those priestly princes are for that trying period, I shall give you the general opinion of the wise and honest people, on this and the other side of the broad water; by which you will see how far they agree with, or differ from, the original copy of the plain honest scholars of the anointed holy messenger.

They boast themselves to be the embassadors of the holy chieftain of the high church. They dwell in costly great houses, after the superb manner of our great civil chieftain; and they give them the same lofty name, Palaces, to distinguish them from the dwelling-houses of other mortals. Their dress is equally rich and singular, to strike the eye, and impress the hearts of the vulgar with a profound reverence of the divine priestly wearers. They have the revenue of princes to support their grandeur; and they are most exact in having it collected by litigious mercenaries, even to the tenth of the hive of bees, and of the unlawful and filthy young swine; and yet they act the part of _Phohe Ishto_, “Great drones, or drones of God,” as soon as they obtain their rich high seat, not speaking the divine speech to the people hardly three times a year. Their food consists of a great variety of the choicest, and most delicious sorts of fish, flesh, and fowl; their drink is of the richest white, yellow, and red grape water, with other costly liquors which your language cannot express. {446} They resort to the most gay assemblies in the world, for the sake of pleasure, leaving the multitude to the divine care, or the speakings of poor religious men who are hired at low wages to do their duty, as they themselves have enough to mind and secure properly temporal concerns. In this manner, do these lamps shine, and spend their days and nights, like the great chieftains of the earth; and when they die, their bodies are laid apart from the rest of mankind, in polished and costly tombs, adorned with nice strokes of art, to perpetuate their names—the long train of virtues they so highly possessed—their great learning and eloquence—the simplicity of their lives and manners—their faithful discharge of the various duties of their religious high office—their contempt of the grandeur and vanities of this transient world—their tenderness of heart to the cries of the poor; and their singular modesty and humility, a shining copy of imitation for common priests, and other spiritual chieftains, to pursue. These fine monuments are very pleasant to the eye, but honest men say that mercenary writers and artists do not act right to belie the dead.

My red beloved friends, such is the reputed life and death of those high-seated divine chieftains of the high church; your sharp natural reason will discern the close agreement there is between the humility and simplicity of their principles and lives, with those of the early overseers of the lowly divine house. It is said that some great beloved men have an earnest desire of sending a few of their own high office, to this side of the broad water, in order to appoint young beloved men; but we strongly suspect a dangerous snake in the grass; and esteeming them dead to the true interests of religion and liberty, we think they ought to keep them at home, and even recall their present troublesome missionaries from our settlements, and allow us to enjoy our former peace and quiet—We wish them to go to some poor dark countries, and instruct the people in the honest lessons of peace, love, and charity; which they would, if they only aimed at the good of mankind, and the honour of the supreme chieftain, according to the plain copy of the great beloved messenger and his kind-hearted faithful scholars. We wish the civil powers would not tempt the religious men’s virtue by such alluring delicious baits, as they propose to them, and that all ranks would become frugal and virtuous. {447}

Thus ended my LECTURE. The reverend old red pontiff immediately asked, whether they had the accursed beings on the other side of the water? I told him, I hoped not—but the religious men often spoke a strong speech of evil to those they reckoned very bad, and turned them out of the beloved house, to the evil spirits of darkness. Upon which he requested me to mention any one of the crimes that might occasion such treatment. I told him, “I had heard of a gentleman, whose heart did not allow him to love his lady sufficiently, and she having by sharp watching discovered him to give love to another, complained of it to a great beloved man; accordingly, either for the neglect, or wrong application of his love duty, he was ordered to pay her a considerable sum of money—he valuing it more than her, his heart did not allow him to give so much: whereupon a sharp speech of evil was spoken against him, and by that means he was said to become accursed.” My Indian friend said, as marriage should beget joy and happiness, instead of pain and misery, if a couple married blindfold, and could not love each other afterwards, it was a crime to continue together, and a virtue to part, and make a happier choice; and as the white people did not buy their wives after the manner of the Indians, but received value along with them, in proportion to their own possessions, whatsoever the woman brought with her, she ought to be allowed to take back when they separated, that her heart might weigh even, and nothing be spoiled.—That, in his opinion, such determinations belonged to the law, and not to the great beloved men; and, if he understood me aright, the beloved man threw away the gentleman to the accursed beings of darkness, not for having acted any thing against the divine law, but for daring to oppose the words of his mouth, in imitation of the first presumptuous great beloved man, who spoiled the speech of the divine messenger. Many natural, pertinent, and humorous observations, were made by him on what he had heard. {448}

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Footnote 15:

Bartram, _Travels_, p. 495, says “These Indians are by no means
idolaters, unless their puffing tobacco smoke towards the sun, and
rejoicing at the appearance of the new moon may be so termed. So far
from idolatry are they that they have no images amongst them, nor any
religious rite or ceremony that I could perceive; but adore the Great
Spirit, the giver and taker away of the breath of life, with the most
profound and respectful homage.” Timberlake’s observations as to their
belief in a Great Spirit and future rewards and punishment: Williams,
_Memoirs of Timberlake_, 87; see also, Hawkins, _Sketch of the Creek
Country_, 80. DeBrahm, who was at Fort Loudoun among the Cherokees,
(1756) says that the “Indians have a scant knowledge of a Divine Being
which extends no farther than that they believe he is good; the
Cherokees call him Hianequo, the great man, whom the Catawbas call
Rivet, the overseer; but they pay no adoration to him, nor anything
existing.” Plowden, _Documents Connected with the History of South
Carolina_, 221. The same testimony as to their belief in a Supreme
Being is borne by Wm. Byrd II in his _History of the Dividing Line_.
Of the Chickasaws, Rev. John Wesley wrote from Georgia in 1736: “They
have so firm a reliance on Providence and so settled a habit of
looking up to a Superior Being in all occurrences of life, etc.” _Ga.
Col. Rec._, XXI, 220. But see as to adoration of the sun by the
Natchez: Swanton, _Indian Tribes of the Lower Mississippi Valley_,
381, 168 _et seq._, and his _Early History of the Creeks_, 381; Hodge,
_Handbook_, II, 365. The theory has been held that the Southern
Indians were advanced beyond some others because of the teaching of
the Spanish missionaries among the Gulf and South Atlantic Indians at
a very early period, such as Cabeca de Vaca (1528) who wrote: “We told
them by signs, which they understood, there was One whom we called
God, who created the heaven and the earth.”

Footnote 16:

See preceding note. A native halfbreed Cherokee, Elias Boudinot, a
very intelligent man and at one time editor of the _Cherokee Phoenix_,
says of his people: “They cannot be called idolaters, for they never
worshipped images.” Foster, _Cherokee Literature_, 11. Of the
Choctaws, Israel Folsom, a Choctaw, says: “They never worshipped
idols, and believed in the existence of a Great Spirit.” Cushman,
_History of Choctaws, etc._, 362. Whatever may have been the case with
the Southern Indians of historic times, it cannot be denied that the
mound-builders had idols. This, numerous excavations fully prove.

Footnote 17:

For the “black drink” see later note, p. 49M.

Footnote 18:

For the Cherokee’s use of eagles’ tails in the reception of Sir
Alexander Cuming (1730) see: Williams, _Early Travels in the Tennessee
Country_, 126; and for Timberlake’s account of the eagle-tail dance:
_Memoirs_, 107; also, Mooney, _Myths_, 281, 492-3, and Hodge,
_Handbook_, I, 409.

Footnote 19:

Mooney, _Myths_, 475; Swanton, _Indian Tribes of the Lower Mississippi
Valley_, 351.

Footnote 20:

The Okmulgees were a branch of the Lower Creeks. The Yamasee War was
waged in 1715. Swanton’s _Early History of the Creeks_, 178. The site
was described by Bartram (1775): “Where are yet conspicuous very
wonderful remains of the power and grandeur of the ancients of this
part of America, in the ruins of a capital town and settlement.”
_Travels_, 379.

Footnote 21:

The “Lower Path” from Charles Town west is referred to. The “Upper
Path” is described in a later chapter.

Footnote 22:

The celebrated “black drink,” general among the Southern Indians, a
decoction of the leaves and tender tops and shoots of the _cassine_
shrub of the holly family. The drink repeated caused a sweating which
was supposed to purify, physically and morally. The caffeine in the
plant produced stimulation and a strong infusion was a narcotic, used
as such by the conjurers to evoke ecstasies. “No one is allowed to
drink it in council unless he has proved himself a brave warrior.”
Bossu, _Travels_, II, 299; John Bartram’s _Observations_, 23;
Gatschet, _Migration Legend of the Creeks_; Du Pratz, _History of
Louisiana_, 372; and Harris, _Memorials of Oglethorpe_, 108. The white
people of the Carolinas prepared from the shrub a sort of
tea—“Carolina tea” or “Appalachian tea.”

Footnote 23:

Pickett, in his _History of Alabama_, 106, says: “Many of the old
Indian countrymen with whom we have conferred believe in their Jewish
origin, while others are of a different opinion. Abram Mordecai, an
intelligent Jew, who dwelt fifty years in the Creek nation,
confidently believed that the Indians were originally of his people,
and he asserted that in their Green Corn Dances he had heard them
often utter in grateful tones the word _Yavoyaha! Yavoyaha!_ He was
always informed by the Indians that they meant Jehovah or the Great
Spirit.” Cushman, who was reared in the Choctaw Country in
Mississippi, gives like testimony. _History of Choctaw, etc.,
Indians_, 20.

Footnote 24:

Eleazar Wiggan. See Sir Alexander Cuming’s Journal in Williams, _Early
Travels in the Tennessee Country_, 123, 128.

Footnote 25:

Swanton, _Early History of Creeks_, 417-18.

Footnote 26:

Saponi, mentioned by Lawson and Byrd; later incorporated into the
Catawbas and now extinct. Hodge, _Handbook_, II, 464. The best account
of them is by Mooney, _Siouan Tribes of The East_, 35 _et seq._

Footnote 27:

Sometimes Chakchiuma or, in Choctaw, Shakchi-humma (red crawfish).
Cushman says they were overbearing and exterminated as a tribe by the
Chickasaws and Choctaws about the year 1721. _History of the Indians_,
242. But the statement is disproved by the report of Perier to
Maurepas, 1733, of a battle between the Chickasaw and Natchez Indians,
on the one side, and the Chakchiumas on the other. Rowland and
Sanders, _Mississippi Provincial Arch._, I, 166, 281, 340. See also,
Swanton, _Lower Tribes_, 29; _Gatschet Migration Legend_, 98; and
Hodge, _Handbook_, 231. They are referred to later by Adair.

Footnote 28:

Cyrus Byington, a missionary among the Choctaws, prepared a dictionary
and a grammar of their speech, which works are highly regarded by
philologists. For his remarks on Adair in these works: _Proceedings of
Am. Philos. Soc._, XII, 317-67; _Bulletin 46, Bureau of Am.
Ethnology_.

Footnote 29:

On time-keeping consult Hodge, _Handbook_, I, 189, where it is said
that the Creeks counted 12½ moons to the year, adding a moon at the
end of every second year, somewhat as did the Kiowas. See also Du
Pratz, _History of Louisiana_, II, 354 _et seq._ (Eng. Ed. 336).

Footnote 30:

Confirmation: Hodge, _Handbook_, I, 353.

Footnote 31:

The fullest accounts of the temple, high-priests and mode of worship
are those of the Natchez Indians, by Father Charlevoix in his _Voyage
to America_, II, 192 (1766); also in French, _Hist. Collection
Louisiana_, 166, 170; Du Pratz, _Hist. La._, III, 21, and English ed.
337. Lord Kingsborough quotes De Buisson on the _sanctum sanctorum_ as
corroboration of Adair.

Footnote 32:

Of all the greater leaders of the Cherokees, Old Hop, as to his
record, most eludes a researcher. Especially is this true of date of
birth, rise to the place of emperor and date of death. Drake in his
_Aboriginal Races_, 367, and Ramsey in his _Annals of Tennessee_, 85,
confuse him with Oconostota. His Indian name is variously spelled by
the English in an effort to produce the gutturals in Kanegwati:
Cunnicatogue, Canacackte, Concauchto, Connocotte, Connecorte,
Conogotocke. At times such spellings are followed by the description
Old Hop, or the name of his town, Chota. He was in power during the
administrations of Govs. James Glen in South Carolina and Robert
Dinwiddie in Virginia. In August, 1754, he seems not to have been
emperor, since Gov. Dinwiddie then wrote: “I always (till now)
understood the Emperor was their Chief Man. If Old Hop is a greater
man, I shall hereafter notice him as such.” _Papers_, II, 267. To the
same effect, 5 _Indian Book_, p. 6 at Columbia (letter of Sept. 1754
signed by both the “Emperor” and “Old Hop”). He was reported as dead
in a dispatch of January 6, 1760, relating to the siege of ill-fated
Fort Loudoun on Little Tennessee. Hamer, _Fort Loudoun_, 31.

Footnote 33:

Called by the English “Little Carpenter”; he was the greatest chief in
state-craft ever produced by the Cherokees. While a youth he
accompanied Sir Alexander Cuming to England, in 1730, and the
impression he there received of the power of Great Britain had much to
do with his friendly attitude towards the English and against the
French. At that time his name was Unwanequa (Onconecaw in South
Carolina records) but changed, according to Cherokee custom, to
Chuconnunta, and later to Attakullakulla (Little Carpenter).
Timberlake (1762) speaking of the two factions, says that he had a
large faction of the Cherokees with him since “policy and art are the
greatest steps to power.” Williams, _Memoirs_, 95. In 1757, he was
addressed by Dinwiddie as second in power to Old Hop, and he urged
that governor to send him again to England. His activities were too
numerous to be incorporated in a footnote. He was born in what is now
East Tennessee on the Big Island of the French Broad River (Sevier’s
Island) which one of the war-trails of the Cherokees passed. He died
about 1782, “about the termination, or a little after, of the American
War” or the Revolution. He was small of stature, slender and of
delicate frame—so described by two writers who came in contact with
him: Williams, _Wm. Tatham, Wataugan_, 21; Bartram, _Travels_, 362.
Felix Walker, once a Wataugan and later a member of Congress from
North Carolina, describes his appearance in 1775: “He was said to be
about ninety years of age; a very small man, and so lean and
light-habited that I scarcely believe he would have exceeded more in
weight than a pound for each year of his life. He was marked with two
large scares or scarfs on each cheek. He was the most celebrated and
influential Indian among all the tribes then known; considered as the
Solon of his day.” Walker saw the Little Carpenter at the
Henderson-Cherokee treaty, at Sycamore Shoals of the Watauga in March,
1775. The only portrait of him in existence is reproduced in Williams,
_Early Travels in the Tennessee Country_.

Footnote 34:

For description and illustration: Jones, _Antiquities of the Southern
Indians_, 516; Thruston, _Antiquities of Tennessee_, 321, 331;
Harrington, _Cherokee and Earlier Remains on Upper Tennessee River_,
246, 286; Moore, _Aboriginal Sites on Tennessee River_, 381, _et
seq._, and Jones, _Explorations of Aboriginal Remains of Tennessee_,
136.

Footnote 35:

Lord Kingsborough says that Don Jose Cortes is in accord in his
_Memorias_; and seeks to reenforce the argument by citing Deut., 18th
Chapter.

Footnote 36:

Myths of a jewel from serpents were common among the American Indians.
Talismanic stones were carefully kept and reverently regarded. See
Williams, _Memoirs of Timberlake_, 73, 75, and Mooney, _Myths_, 459.

Footnote 37:

The John Howard Payne MSS. treat of the holy fire amply: “The most
active and efficient agent appointed by the Sun to take care of
mankind was supposed to be the fire. When, therefore, very special
favor was needed, it was made known to Fire, accompanied by an
offering. It was considered as an immediate being nearest the Sun and
received homage from the Cherokees as the same element did from the
Eastern Magi.... The altar in the center of the national heptagon was
constructed of a conical shape, of fresh earth. A circle was drawn
around the top to receive the fire of sacrifice. Upon this was laid,
ready for use, the inner bark of seven kinds of trees. This bark was
carefully chosen from the east side of the trees, and was clear and
free of blemish.... Early in the morning seven persons who were
commissioned to kindle the fire commenced their operations.... A round
hole being made in a block of wood, a small quantity of dry golden-rod
weed was placed in it. A stick, the end of which just fitted the
opening, was whirled rapidly until the weed took fire.” Buttrick, for
many years a missionary among the Cherokees, in Tennessee and after
their removal, says the “new fire” was made by rubbing two pieces of
dry wood together with dry golden-rod between them. _Antiquities_, 9.
Buttrick further says golden-rod was in Cherokee anagestaluga or
light-bearer; and, of the fire, that it was required that “no torch be
lighted by it, nor a coal taken from it for common use.”

Footnote 38:

Kingsborough adds that the Jews believed that divination did not fall
exclusively to men, citing the instance of Huldah, II Kings, Chapter
22, also, Nehem. V: 14.

Footnote 39:

Adair here describes the thanksgiving ceremonial, the Green Corn
Dance, called the busk by the Creeks (puskita or boosketau). Yet
fuller accounts by John Howard Payne, the poet, who was among the
Cherokees, (1835) may be found. He made observations and wrote
voluminously of their festivals. Payne MSS. Ayers Collection, Newberry
Library, Chicago. Payne contributed an article to _Continental
Monthly_ (New York, 1862) on the Green Corn Dance, in which it is set
forth that it is the second of the six great festivals of the year,
held when the young corn first becomes fit to eat; and that “at every
green corn festival the sacred square is strewn with soil yet
untrodden.” Squier, in his _Serpent Symbol_, 67, drawing on the Payne
MSS., quotes the poet as entertaining the view that the festival was a
survival of the ancient solar worship of the Cherokees. The other
account referred to is by Benjamin Hawkins in his _Sketch of the Creek
Country_, 75, reproduced in Bartram’s _Observations on the Creek and
Cherokee Indians_, 67, and in Hodge’s _Handbook_, I, 176. See
Bartram’s own lively account in _Travels_, 448, 507, and Timberlake’s
in _Memoirs_, 64 (Williams edition) 88. A good description based on
Hawkins and Swan (Schoolcraft, _Indian Tribes_, V, 267) appears in
Gatschet, _Migration Legend of the Creeks_, 177 _et seq._ Gatschet
concludes with the observation: “Many analogies can be traced with
well-known customs among the Aztecs and Maya Indians.” For the Green
Corn Dance of the Iroquois, kinsmen of the Cherokees, see Morgan,
_League of the Iroquois_, I, 176, 190. Generally, Jones, _Antiquities
of Southern Indians_, 99 _et seq._

Footnote 40:

West Florida, or the present South Mississippi.

Footnote 41:

Sec. p. 442 _post_. The taboo touching raw meat and of its
purification is based upon the common belief among primitive peoples
that the soul or spirit of the animal is in its blood. Frazer in
_Golden Bough_ says that it was held even by the Romans, Arabs and
Chinese medical writers. Payne says that the belief in the efficiency
of fire “extended to smoke which was esteemed Fire’s messenger, always
ready to convey the petition above. A child immediately after birth
was waived over the fire”—a custom, says Logan, that survived “even to
this day in the practice of the Scotch Highlanders to pass a child
over the fire,” by way of purification. _Upper South Carolina_, I,
213.

Footnote 42:

See Mooney, _Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees_, 335, 379.

Footnote 43:

See p. 7 _ante._ The instrument, kanuga, used in skin scratching, is
described by Mooney in his _Cherokee Ball Play_, 121, his _Sacred
Formulas of the Cherokees_, 334-5, and his _Siouan Tribes of the
East_, 71.

Footnote 44:

On anointing a woman’s head and hair with bear-oil mixed with
scarlet-root, see Lawson, _History of North Carolina_, 101. On
bear-oil as a cosmetic, p 446 _post_.

Footnote 45:

Mooney says that the institution of the menstrual lodge obtained among
all Indian tribes. _Myths_, 469. Beatty in his _Two Months Tour Among
the Indian Tribes_, fixes the period in the lodge at seven days, and
says “the person who brings her victuals is very careful not to touch
her, and so cautious is she of touching her food with her own hands
that she makes use of a sharpened stick.... A woman who is delivered
of a child is separated likewise for a time.” For Boudinot’s treatment
of the subject: _Star of the West_, 277.

Footnote 46:

Travail. Mooney, _Ib._, and Hodge, _Handbook_, II, 973.

Footnote 47:

Pickett’s _History of Alabama_, 142; and Williams, _Memoirs of
Timberlake_, 90. Lord Kingsborough quotes Las Casas, _Historia
Apologetica_, as confirming fear of pollution by touching a dead body:
“All who had touched dead bodies went to bathe themselves that no
infirmity might befall them.”

Footnote 48:

Mourning, confirmation; Boudinot, _Star of the West_, 183.

Footnote 49:

Adair presses the argument of Jewish descent too far as respects the
hog as food. Williams, _Memoirs of Timberlake_, 72; Bartram’s
_Observations_, 47. However, Cotton Mather in his _Life of John Eliot_
says of the Northern tribes: “They have a great unkindness for our
swine.”

Footnote 50:

What is known as sympathetic or homeopathic magic. The conception had
wide acceptance among primitives. Frazer, _Golden Bough_, VIII, 139;
Mooney, _Myths_, 472.

Footnote 51:

Lord Kingsborough at this point takes issue with Adair so far as
concerns the Indians of South America, referring to Las Casas, _op.
cit._ Chapter 178; but saying, also, that Adair was led to the belief
he expresses by the customs prevailing in North America, as to which
Las Casas confirms Adair’s denial of the practice there, in his