Argument IX.
The Hebrews offered DAILY SACRIFICE, which the prophet Daniel calls Tamid, “the daily.” It was an offering of a lamb every morning and evening, at the charges of the common treasury of the temple, and except the skin and intrails, it was burnt to ashes—upon which account they called it, Oolah Kalile, to ascend and consume. The Indians have a similar religious service. The Indian women always throw a small piece of the fattest of the meat into the fire when they are eating, and frequently before they begin to eat. Sometimes they view it with a pleasing attention, and pretend to draw omens from it. They firmly believe such a method to be a great means of producing temporal good things, and of averting those that are evil: and they are so far from making this fat-offering through pride or hypocrisy, that they perform it when they think they are not seen by those of contrary principles, who might ridicule them without teaching them better.
Instead of blaming their religious conduct, as some have done, I advised them to persist in their religious duty to Ishtohoollo Aba, because he never failed to be kind to those who firmly shaked hands with the old beloved speech, particularly the moral precepts, and after they died, he would bring them to their beloved land; and took occasion to shew them the innumerable advantages their reputed forefathers were blest with, while they obeyed the divine law.
The white people, (I had almost said christians) who have become Indian proselytes of justice, by living according to the Indian religious system, assure us, that the Indian men observe the daily sacrifice both at home, and in the woods, with new-killed venison; but that otherwise they decline it. The difficulty of getting salt for religious uses from the sea-shore, and likewise its irritating quality when eaten by those who have green wounds, might in time occasion them to discontinue that part of the sacrifice. {115} They make salt for domestic use, out of a saltish kind of grass, which grows on rocks, by burning it to ashes, making strong lye of it, and boiling it in earthen pots to a proper consistence. They do not offer any fruits of the field, except at the first-fruit-offering: so that their neglect of sacrifice, at certain times, seems not to be the effect of an ignorant or vicious, but of their intelligent and virtuous disposition, and to be a strong circumstantial evidence of their Israelitish extraction.
Though they believe the upper heavens to be inhabited by Ishtohoollo Aba, and a great multitude of inferior good spirits; yet they are firmly persuaded that the divine omnipresent Spirit of fire and light resides on earth, in their annual sacred fire while it is unpolluted; and that he kindly accepts their lawful offerings, if their own conduct is agreeable to the old divine law, which was delivered to their forefathers. The former notion of the Deity, is agreeable to those natural images, with which the divine penmen, through all the prophetic writings, have drawn Yohewah Elohim. When God was pleased with Aaron’s priesthood and offerings, the holy fire descended and consumed the burnt-offering on the altar, &c.
By the divine records of the Hebrews, this was the emblematical token of the divine presence; and the smoke of the victim ascending toward heaven, is represented as a sweet savour to God. The people who have lived so long apart from the rest of mankind, are not to be wondered at, if they have forgotten the end and meaning of the sacrifice; and are rather to be pitied for seeming to believe, like the ignorant part of the Israelites, that the virtue is either in the form of offering the sacrifice, or in the divinity they imagine to reside on earth in the sacred annual fire; likewise, for seeming to have forgotten that the virtue was in the thing typified.
In the year 1748, when I was at the Koosàh on my way to the Chikkasah country, I had a conversation on this subject, with several of the more intelligent of the Muskohge traders. One of them told me, that just before, while he and several others were drinking spirituous liquors with the Indians, one of the warriors having drank to excess, reeled into the fire, and burned himself very much. He roared, foamed, and spoke the worst things against God, that their language could express. He upbraided him with {116} ingratitude, for having treated him so barbarously in return for his religious offerings, affirming he had always sacrificed to him the first young buck he killed in the new year; as in a constant manner he offered him when at home, some of the fattest of the meat, even when he was at short allowance, on purpose that he might shine upon him as a kind God.—And he added, “now you have proved as an evil spirit, by biting me so severely who was your constant devotee, and are a kind God to those accursed nothings, who are laughing at you as a rogue, and at me as a fool, I assure you, I shall renounce you from this time forward, and instead of making you look merry with fat meat, you shall appear sad with water, for spoiling the old beloved speech. I am a beloved warrior, and consequently I scorn to lie; you shall therefore immediately fly up above the clouds, for I shall piss upon you.” From that time, his brethen said, God forsook that terrestrial residence, and the warrior became godless. This information exactly agrees with many such instances of Indian impiety, that happened within my own observation—and shews the bad consequences of that evil habit of using spirituous liquors intemperately, which they have been taught by the Europeans.
The Indians have among them the resemblance of the Jewish Sin-Offering, and Trespass-Offering, for they commonly pull their new-killed venison (before they dress it) several times through the smoke and flame of the fire, both by the way of a sacrifice, and to consume the blood, life, or animal spirits of the beast, which with them would be a most horrid abomination to eat.[[41]] And they sacrifice in the woods, the milt, or a large fat piece of the first buck they kill, both in their summer and winter hunt; and frequently the whole carcass. This they offer up, either as a thanksgiving for the recovery of health, and for their former success in hunting; or that the divine care and goodness may be still continued to them.
When the Hebrews doubted whether they had sinned against any of the divine precepts, they were obliged by the law to bring to the priest a ram of their flock, to be sacrificed, which they called Ascham. When the priest offered this, the person was forgiven. Their sacrifices and offerings were called Shilomim, as they typified Shilo-Berith, “the purifying root,” who was to procure them peace, rest, and plenty. The Indian imitates the Israelite {117} in his religious offerings, according to the circumstances of things; the Hebrew laid his hands on the head of the clean and tame victim, to load it with his sins, when it was to be killed. The Indian religiously chuses that animal which in America comes nearest to the divine law of sacrifice, according to what God has enabled him; he shoots down a buck, and sacrifices either the whole carcass, or some choice part of it, upon a fire of green wood to burn away, and ascend to Yohewah. Then he purifies himself in water, and believes himself secure from temporal evils. Formerly, every hunter observed the very same religious œconomy; but now it is practiced only by those who are the most retentive of their old religious mysteries.
The Muskohge Indians sacrifice a piece of every deer they kill at their hunting camps, or near home; if the latter, they dip their middle finger in the broth, and sprinkle it over the domestic tombs of their dead, to keep them out of the power of evil spirits, according to their mythology; which seems to proceed from a traditional knowledge, though corruption of the Hebrew law of sprinkling and of blood.
The Indians observe another religious custom of the Hebrews, in making a Peace-Offering, or sacrifice of gratitude, if the Deity in the supposed holy ark is propitious to their campaign against the enemy, and brings them all safe home. If they have lost any in war, they always decline it, because they imagine by some neglect of duty, they are impure: then they only mourn their vicious conduct which defiled the ark, and thereby occasioned the loss. Like the Israelites, they believe their sins are the true cause of all their evils, and that the divinity in their ark, will always bless the more religious party with the best success. This is their invariable sentiment, and is the sole reason of their mortifying themselves in so severe a manner while they are out at war, living very scantily, even in a buffalo-range, under a strict rule, lest by luxury their hearts should grow evil, and give them occasion to mourn.
The common sort of Indians, in these corrupt times, only sacrifice a small piece of unsalted fat meat, when they are rejoicing in the divine presence, singing Yo Yo, &c. for their success and safety: but, according to the religious custom of the Hebrews, who offered sacrifices of thanksgiving {118} for every notable favour that Elohim had conferred either on individuals, or the body,—both the war-leader and his religious assistant go into the woods as soon as they are purified, and there sacrifice the first deer they kill; yet, as hath been observed, they always celebrate the annual expiation of sins in their religious temples.
The red Hebrews imagine their temples to have such a typical holiness, more than any other place, that if they offered up the annual sacrifice elsewhere, it would not atone for the people, but rather bring down the anger of Ishtohoollo Aba, and utterly spoil the power of their holy places and holy things. They who sacrifice in the woods, do it only on the particular occasions now mentioned; unless incited by a dream, which they esteem a monitory lesson of the Deity, according to a similar opinion of the Hebrews. To conclude this argument, it is well known, that the heathens offered the most abominable and impure sacrifices to a multiplicity of idol gods; some on favourite high places, others in thick groves, yea, offerings of their own children were made! and they likewise prostituted their young women in honour of their deities. The former is so atrocious in the eyes of the American Hebrews, that they reckon there needs no human law to prevent so unnatural a crime; the vilest reptiles being endued with an intense love to their young ones: and as to the latter, if even a great war-leader is known to cohabit with his own wife, while sanctifying himself according to their mode on any religious occasion, he is deemed unclean for the space of three days and nights; or should he during the annual atonement of sins, it is deemed so dangerous a pollution, as to demand a strict exclusion from the rest of the sanctified head-men and warriors, till the general atonement has been made at the temple, to appease the offended Deity: besides, as a shameful badge of his impiety, his clothes are stripped off. Thus different are the various modes and subjects of the heathenish worship and offerings, from those of the savage Americans. The surprizing purity the latter still observe in their religious ceremonies, under the circumstances of time and place, points strongly at their origin. {119}