“In their modes, fastings, feastings, or sacrifices, they have also a most striking resemblance. Amongst all the western tribes, who have not been persuaded from those forms by white men, they are still found scrupulously and religiously adhering to, and practising them to the letter. The very many times and modes of sacrificing, remind us forcibly of the customs of the Israelites; and the one in particular, which has been seen amongst several of the tribes, though I did not witness it myself, wherein, like the manner of the ‘peace-offering,’ the firstling and that of the male is offered, and ‘no bone is to be broken.’ Such circumstances afford the strongest kind of proofs. All the tribes have a great feast at the dawn of spring, and at those feasts their various sacrifices are made. At the approach of the season of green corn, a feast of the first ears are sacrificed with great solemnity, followed by feasting and dancing: so at the ripening of different kinds of fruit. The first and best piece that is cut from a buffalo is always Deo Dante.
“Over the medicine lodge, and also over the lodges of the most distinguished chiefs, are hung on high poles large quantities of fine cloth, white buffalo robes, or other most costly articles which can be procured, there to decay, an offering to the Great Spirit.
“The bunch of willow boughs with which each dancer is supplied, in the Mandan religious ceremonies, the sacrificing and other forms therein observed, certainly render it somewhat analogous to the Israelitish feast of tabernacles.
“The universal practice of ‘solus cam solo’ of the women, ablution and anointing with bear’s grease, is strikingly similar to the Jewish custom. Every family has a small lodge expressly for this purpose, and when any one of the family are ready for it, it is erected within a few rods, and meat is carried to her, where she dwells, and cooks and eats by herself, an object of superstitious dread to every person in the village.
“The absence of every species of idolatry amongst the North American Indians, affords also a striking proof of the ceremonial law, and stamps them at once, in one respect, at all events, differing from all other savage tribes of which we have any knowledge.”
What are, I may ask, the characters of these people? On the discovery of America by Columbus, nearly 2,000 years after the dispersion of the Hebrew tribes, the whole continent is found peopled, not with a race of wild men, of cannibals, of savages, but with a race of intellectual, moral, innocent persons, divided into many hundred nations, and spread over 8,000 miles of territory. “I swear to your majesties,” said Columbus, writing to Ferdinand and Isabella, “that there is not a better people in the world than these; more affectionate or mild. They love their neighbours as themselves; their language is the sweetest, the softest and the most cheerful, for they always speak smilingly.” Major Long says, “they are the genuine sons of nature; they have all the virtues nature can give, without the vices of civilisation. They are artless, fearless, and live in constant exercise of moral and Christian virtues, though they know it not.”
Charlevoix gives his testimony in their behalf. “They manifest,” says he, “much stability in their engagements, patience in affliction, and submissive acquiescence in what they apprehend the will of Providence. In all this they display a nobleness of soul and constancy of mind, at which we rarely arrive, with all our philosophy and religion.”
Du Pratz contends that they have a greater degree of prudence, faithfulness, and generosity than those who would be offended with a comparison with them. “No people,” says he, “are more hospitable and free.”
Bartram, who lived many years in the Creek nation, says, “Joy, contentment, love and friendship without guile or affectation, seem inherent in them, or predominant in their vital principle, for it leaves them but with their breath. They are,” says he, “just, honest, liberal and hospitable to strangers considerate and affectionate to their wives, children, and relations; frugal and persevering, charitable and forbearing.”
Who are they? Men do not grow up like stones or trees or rocks; they are not found in herds like wild animals. God, that made man in his own image, gave to the Indians an origin and parentage, like unto the rest of the great family of mankind, the work of his own almighty hand. From whom, then, did our red brethren, the rightful owners of this continent, descend?