III.
The Tuccabatchey Plates.
In further evidence that the native Americans engraved records on metallic plates I quote the following from Adair's "History of the North American Indians." The passage is a footnote on the custom of the Indians burying a dead person's treasures with him:
In the Tuccabatches on the Tallapoose river, thirty miles above the Allabahamah garrison are two brazen tables, and five of copper. They (the Indians) 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, ahead of the people, dancing round in sacred armor; next to him their head warrior carries another; and those warriors who choose it carry the rest after the manner of the high priest; all the other carry white canes with swan-feathers at the top. Hearing accidentally of these important monuments of antiquity, and inquiring 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 endeavored to get the 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 one hundred years old, lives in that old beloved town, who gave the following description of them:
The shape of the five copper plates: One is a foot and a half long and seven inches wide, the other four are shorter and narrower.
The shape of the two brass plates was circular, about a foot and a half in diameter.
He [Bracket] said that 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 are buried with particular men; and that they had instructions given with them, viz., they must only be handled by particular people, and those feasting [fasting?]; and no unclean woman must be suffered to come near them or the place, where they are deposited. He said none but his own 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 cabin which laid there from the first settling of the town.
This account was taken in the Tuccabatchey square, 27th July, 1759, per Will. Bolsover.[[7]]
The foregoing account of engraven records on gold and copper plates is important as evidence to the truth of the Book of Mormon only this far; the Book of Mormon repeatedly declares that such was the manner of keeping records among the Nephites and the Jaredites, Mormon's abridgment of the larger Nephite records being engraven in this manner on plates of gold. And the discoveries related above, all of which were unknown to Joseph Smith, prove that in ancient America records were so kept, and constitutes at least important incidental evidence to the truth of that part of the Book of Mormon statement.