These religious, beloved men are also supposed to be in great favour with the Deity, and able to procure rain when they please. In this respect also, we shall observe a great conformity to the practice of the Jews. The Hebrew records inform us, that in the moon Abib, or Nisan, they prayed for {84} the spring, or latter rain, to be so seasonable and sufficient as to give them a good harvest. And the Indian Americans have a tradition, that their forefathers sought for and obtained such seasonable rains, as gave them plentiful crops; and they now seek them in a manner agreeable to the shadow of this tradition.
When the ground is parched, their rain-makers, (as they are commonly termed) are to mediate for the beloved red people, with the bountiful holy Spirit of fire. But their old cunning prophets are not fond of entering on this religious duty, and avoid it as long as they possibly can, till the murmurs of the people force them to the sacred attempt, for the security of their own lives. If he fails,[[35]] the prophet is shot dead, because they are so credulous of his divine power conveyed by the holy Spirit of fire, that they reckon him an enemy to the state, by averting the general good, and bringing desolating famine upon the beloved people. But in general, he is so discerning in the stated laws of nature, and skilful in priestcraft, that he always seeks for rain, either at the full, or change of the moon; unless the birds, either by instinct, or the temperature of their bodies, should direct him otherwise. However, if in a dry season, the clouds, by the veering of the winds, pass wide of their fields—while they are inveighing bitterly against him, some in speech, and others in their hearts, he soon changes their well-known notes—he assumes a displeased countenance and carriage, and attacks them with bitter reproaches, for their vicious conduct in the marriage-state, and for their notorious pollutions, by going to the women in their religious retirements, and for multifarious crimes that never could enter into his head to suspect them of perpetrating, but that the divinity his holy things were endued with, had now suffered a great decay, although he had fasted, purified himself, and on every other account, had lived an innocent life, according to the old beloved speech: adding, “Loak Ishtohoollo will never be kind to bad people.” He concludes with a religious caution to the penitent, advising them to mend their manners, and the times will mend with them: Then they depart with sorrow and shame. The old women, as they go along, will exclaim loudly against the young people, and protest they will watch their manners very narrowly for the time to come, as they are sure of their own steady virtue. {85}
If a two-year drought happens, the synhedrim, at the earnest solicitation of the mortified sinners, convene in a body, and make proper enquiry into the true cause of their calamities; because (say they) it is better to spoil a few roguish people, than a few roguish people should spoil Hottuk Oretoopah: The lot soon falls upon Jonas, and he is immediately swallowed up. Too much rain is equally dangerous to those red prophets.—I was lately told by a gentleman of distinguished character, that a famous rain-maker of the Muskohge was shot dead, because the river over-flowed their fields to a great height, in the middle of August, and destroyed their weighty harvest. They ascribed the mischief to his ill-will; as the Deity, they say, doth not injure the virtuous, and designed him only to do good to the beloved people.
In the year 1747, a Nàchee warrior told me, that while one of their prophets was using his divine invocations for rain, according to the faint image of their ancient tradition, he was killed with thunder on the spot; upon which account, the spirit of prophecy ever after subsided among them, and he became the last of their reputed prophets. They believed the holy Spirit of fire had killed him with some of his angry darting fire, for wilful impurity; and by his threatening voice, forbad them to renew the like attempt—and justly concluded, that if they all lived well, they should fare well, and have proper seasons. This opinion coincides with that of the Israelites, in taking fire for the material emblem of Yohewah; by reckoning thunder the voice of the Almighty above, according to the scriptural language; by esteeming thunder-struck individuals under the displeasure of heaven—and by observing and enforcing such rules of purity, as none of the old pagan nations observed, nor any, except the Hebrews.
As the prophets of the Hebrews had oracular answers, so the Indian magi, who are to invoke YO He Wah, and mediate with the supreme holy fire, that he may give seasonable rains, have a transparent stone, of supposed great power in assisting to bring down the rain, when it is put in a bason of water; by a reputed divine virtue, impressed on one of the like sort, in time of old, which communicates it circularly. This stone would suffer a great decay, they assert, were it even seen by their own laity; but if by foreigners, it would be utterly despoiled of its divine {86} communicative power. Doth not this allude to the precious blazoning stones of Urim and Thummim?
In Tymáhse, a lower Cheerake town, lived one of their reputed great divine men, who never informed the people of his seeking for rain, but at the change, or full of the moon, unless there was some promising sign of the change of the weather, either in the upper regions, or from the feathered kalender; such as the quacking of ducks, the croaking of ravens, and from the moistness of the air felt in their quills; consequently, he seldom failed of success, which highly increased his name, and profits; for even when it rained at other times, they ascribed it to the intercession of their great beloved man. Rain-making, in the Cheerake mountains, is not so dangerous an office, as in the rich level lands of the Chikkasah country, near the Missisippi. The above Cheerake prophet had a carbuncle, near as big as an egg, which they said he found where a great rattlesnake lay dead,[[36]] and that it sparkled with such surprizing lustre, as to illuminate his dark winter-house, like strong flashes of continued lightning, to the great terror of the weak, who durst not upon any account, approach the dreadful fire-darting place, for fear of sudden death. When he died, it was buried along with him according to custom, in the town-house of Tymáhse, under the great beloved cabbin, which stood in the westernmost part of that old fabric, where they who will run the risk of searching, may luckily find it; but, if any of that family detected them in disturbing the bones of their deceased relation, they would resent it as the basest act of hostility. The inhuman conduct of the avaricious Spaniards toward the dead Peruvians and Mexicans, irritated the natives, to the highest pitch of distraction, against those ravaging enemies of humanity. The intense love the Indians bear to their dead, is the reason that so few have fallen into the hands of our physicians to dissect, or anatomise. We will hope also, that from a principle of humanity, our ague-charmers, and water-casters, who like birds of night keep where the Indians frequently haunt, would not cut up their fellow-creatures, as was done by the Spanish butchers in Peru and Mexico.
Not long ago, at a friendly feast, or feast of love, in West-Florida, during the time of a long-continued drought, I earnestly importuned the old rain-maker, for a sight of the pretended divine stone, which he had assured me he was possessed of; but he would by no means gratify my request. He {87} told me, as I was an infidel, literally, “one who shakes hands with the accursed speech,” and did not believe its being endued with a divine power, the sight of it could no ways benefit me; and that, as their old unerring tradition assured them, it would suffer very great damage in case of compliance, he hoped I would kindly acquiesce; especially, as he imagined, I believed every nation of people had certain beloved things, that might be easily spoiled by being polluted. I told him I was fully satisfied with the friendly excuse he made to my inconsiderate request; but that I could scarcely imagine there were any such beloved men, and beloved things, in so extremely fertile, but now sun-burnt soil. Their crops had failed the year before, by reason of several concurring causes: and, for the most part of the summer season, he had kept his bed through fear of incurring the punishment of a false prophet; which, joined with the religious regimen, and abstemious way of living he was obliged strictly to pursue, it sweated him so severely, as to reduce him to a skeleton. I jested him in a friendly way, saying, I imagined, the supreme holy fire would have proved more kind to his honest devotees, than to sicken him so severely, especially at that critical season, when the people’s food, and his own, entirely depended on his health; that, though our beloved men never undertook to bring down seasonable rains, yet we very seldom failed of good crops, and always paid them the tenth basket-full of our yearly produce; because, they persuaded our young people, by the force of their honest example, and kind-hearted enchanting language, to shun the crooked ways of Hottuk Kallákse, “the mad light people,” and honestly to shake hands with the old beloved speech—that the great, supreme, fatherly Chieftain, had told his Loáche to teach us how to obtain peace and plenty, and every other good thing while we live here, and when we die, not only to shun the accursed dark place, where the sun is every day drowned, but likewise to live again for ever, very happily in the favourite country.
He replied, that my speech consisted of a mixture of good and ill; the beginning of it was crooked, and the conclusion straight. He said, I had wrongfully blamed him, for the effect of the disorderly conduct of the red people and himself, as it was well known he fasted at different times for several days together; at other times ate green tobacco-leaves; and some days drank only a warm decoction of the button snake-root, without allowing {88} any one, except his religious attendant, to come near him; and, in every other respect, had honestly observed the austere rules of his religious place, according to the beloved speech that Ishtohoollo Elóa Aba gave to the Loáche of their forefathers: but Loak Ishtohoollo was sorely vexed with most of their young people for violating the chastity of their neighbours wives, and even among the thriving green corn and pease, as their beds here and there clearly proved; thus, they spoiled the power of his holy things, and tempted Minggo Ishto Elóa, “the great chieftain of the thunder,” to bind up the clouds, and withold the rain. Besides, that the old women were less honest in paying their rain-makers, than the English women behaved to their beloved men, unless I had spoken too well of them. The wives of this and the other person, he said, had cheated him, in not paying him any portion of the last year’s bad crop, which their own bad lives greatly contributed to, as that penurious crime of cheating him of his dues, sufficiently testified; not to mention a late custom, they had contracted since the general peace, of planting a great many fields of beans and pease, in distant places, after the summer-crops were over, on the like dishonest principle; likewise in affirming, that when the first harvest was over, it rained for nothing; by that means they had blackened the old beloved speech, that Ishtohoollo Eloa of old spoke to his Loáche, and conveyed down to him, only that they might paint their own bad actions white. He concluded, by saying, that all the chieftains, and others present, as well as myself, knew now very well, from his honest speech, the true cause of the earth’s having been so strangely burnt till lately; and that he was afraid, if the hearts of those light and mad people he complained of, did not speedily grow honest, the dreadful day would soon come, in which Lóak Ishtohoollo would send Phutchik Keeraah Ishtò, “the great blazing star,” Yahkàne eeklénna, Loak loáchàché, “to burn up half of the earth with fire,” Pherimmi Aiúbe, “from the north to the south,” Hassé oobèa perà, “toward the setting of the sun,” where they should in time arrive at the dreadful place of darkness, be confined there hungry, and otherwise sorely distrest among hissing snakes and many other frightful creatures, according to the ancient true speech that Ishtohoollo Aba spoke to his beloved Loáche.
Under this argument, I will also mention another striking resemblance to the Jews, as to their TITHES—As the sacerdotal office was fixed in the tribe {89} of Levi, they had forty-eight cities allotted them from the other tribes. And Moses assures us, in Deut. xiv. 28, 29, that those tribes paid them also once in three years, the tithe, or tenth of all they possessed, which is supposed to be about the thirtieth part of their annual possessions; by which means they were reasonably maintained, as spiritual pastors, and enabled to fulfil the extensive and charitable application of their dues, as enjoined.
It hath been already hinted, that the Indian prophets undertake by the emanation of the divine spirit of fire, co-operating with them, to bring down proper rains for crops, on the penalty of loosing their own lives; as the Indians reckon that a regular virtuous life will sufficiently enable their great beloved men to bring blessings of plenty to the beloved people; and if they neglect it, they are dangerous enemies, and a great curse to the community. They imagine his prophetic power is also restrictive as to winter-rains, they doing more hurt than good; for they justly observe, that their ground seldom suffers by the want of winter-rains. Their sentiments on this head, are very strong; they say, Ishtohoollo Aba allows the winter-rain to fall unsought, but that he commanded their forefathers to seek for the summer-rain, according to the old law, otherwise he would not give it to them. If the seasons have been answerable, when the ripened harvest is gathered in, the old women pay their reputed prophet with religious good-will, a certain proportional quantity of each kind of the new fruits, measured in the same large portable back-baskets, wherein they carried home the ripened fruits. This stated method they yearly observe; which is as consonant to the Levitical institution, as can be reasonably expected, especially, as their traditions have been time out of mind preserved only by oral echo.