If I shall be able to satisfy your doubts and curiosity on these points, you will certainly rejoice with me in discovering that the dispersed of the chosen people are not the lost ones—that the promises held out to them have been thus far realised, and that all the prophecies relative to their future destination will in due time be strictly fulfilled.
It has been the general impression, as before mentioned, that great resemblance existed between some of the religious rites of the Jews, and the peculiar ceremonies of the Indians; and the belief in one Great Spirit has tended to strengthen the impression; yet this mere resemblance only extended so far as to admit of the belief, that they possibly may have descended from the dispersed tribes, or may have been of Tartar or Malay origin.
It was, however, a vague and unsatisfactory suspicion, which, having no tangible evidence, has been rejected, or thrown aside as a mere supposition. All the missionaries and travellers among the Indian tribes since the discovery of America—Adair, Heckwelder, Charliveux, Mckenzie, Bartram, Beltrami, Smith, Penn, Mrs Simon, who has written a very interesting work on this subject, etcetera, have expressed opinions in favour of their being of Jewish origin—the difficulty, however, under which they all laboured was simply this; they were familiar with the religious rites, ceremonies, traditions, and belief of the Indians, but they were not sufficiently conversant with the Jewish rites and ceremonies to show the analogy. It is precisely this link in the chain of evidence that I propose to supply.
It has been said that the Indians, believing in one great Spirit and Fountain of Life, like the Jews, does not prove their descent from the missing tribes, because in a savage state their very ignorance and superstition lead them to confide in the works of some divine superior being. But savages are apt to be idolaters, and personate the deity by some carved figure or image to whom they pay their adoration, and not, like the Indians, having a clear and definite idea of one great Ruler of the universe, one great Spirit, whose attributes are as well known to them as to us.
But if the continued unerring worship of one God like the Jews prove nothing, where did they acquire the same Hebrew name and appellation of that deity? If tradition had not handed down to them the ineffable name as also preserved by the Jews, how did they acquire it in a wilderness where the word of the Lord was never known?
Adair, in whom I repose great confidence, and who resided forty years among them, in his work published in 1775, says, “The ancient heathens worshipped a plurality of gods, but these Indians pay their devoirs to Lo-ak (Light) Ish-ta-koola-aba, distinctly Hebrew, which means the great supreme beneficent holy Spirit of Fire who resides above.”
“They are,” says Adair, “utter strangers to all the gestures practised by the Pagans in their religious rites—they kiss no idols, nor would they kiss their hands in tokens of reverence or willing obedience.”
“These tribes,” says Adair, “so far from being Atheists, use the great and dreadful name of God, which describes his divine essence, and by which he manifested himself to Moses! and are firmly persuaded that they now live under the immediate government of the Almighty Ruler. Their appellative for God is Isto-hoolo, the Hebrew of Esh-Eshys, from Ishto, Great, but they have another appellative, which with them, as with us, is the mysterious essential name of God, which they never mention in common speech, and only when performing their most sacred religious rites, and then they most solemnly divide it in syllables, with intermediate words, so as not to pronounce the ineffable name at once.”
Thus, in their sacred dances at their feast of the first-fruits, they sing Aleluyah and Mesheha, from the Hebrew of Masheach, Messiah, the anointed one.
“Yo mesheha,” “He mesheha,” “Wah meshehah,” thus making the Alleluyah, the Meshiah, the Yehovah.