[XXIII]. They are so strictly prohibited from eating salt, or flesh-meat, till the fourth day, that during the interval, the very touch of either is accounted a great pollution: after that period, they are deemed lawful to be eaten. All the hunters, and able-bodied men, kill and barbecue wild game in the woods, at least ten days before this great festival, and religiously keep it for that sacred use.
I shall give an instance of this.—If the husband has been a year absent on a visit to another nation, and should by chance overtake his wife near home, with one of his children skipping along side of her; instead of those sudden and strong emotions of joy that naturally arise in two generous breasts at such an unexpected meeting, the self-interested pair go along as utter strangers, without seeming to take the least notice of one another, till a considerable time after they get home.
The Indians formerly observed the grand festival[[39]] of the annual expiation of sin, at the beginning of the first new moon, in which their corn became full-eared; but for many years past they are regulated by the season of their harvest. And on that head, they shew more religious patience than the Hebrews formerly did; who, instead of waiting till their grain was ripe, forced their barley, which ripened before any other sort they planted. And they are perhaps as skilful in observing the revolutions of the moon, as ever the Israelites were, at least till the end of the first temple; for during that period, instead of measuring time by astronomical calculations, they {99} knew it only by the phases of the moon. In like manner, the supposed red Hebrews of the American desarts, annually observed their festivals, and Neetak Yáh-àh, “days of afflicting themselves before the Deity,” at a prefixed time of a certain moon. To this day, a war-leader, who, by the number of his martial exploits is entitled to a drum, always sanctifies himself, and his out-standing company, at the end of the old moon, so as to go off at the appearance of the new one by day-light; whereas, he who has not sufficiently distinguished himself, must set out in the night.
As the first of the Neetak Hoollo, precedes a long strict fast of two nights and a day, they gormandize such a prodigious quantity of strong food, as to enable them to keep inviolate the succeeding fast, the sabbath of sabbaths, the Neetak Yah-ah: the feast lasts only from morning till sun-set. Being great lovers of the ripened fruits, and only tantalized as yet, with a near view of them; and having lived at this season, but meanly on the wild products of nature—such a fast as this may be truly said to afflict their souls, and to prove a sufficient trial of their religious principles. During the festival, some of their people are closely employed in putting their temple in proper order for the annual expiation; and others are painting the white cabbin, and the supposed holiest, with white clay; for it is a sacred, peaceable place, and white is its emblem. Some, at the same time are likewise painting the war-cabbin with red clay, or their emblematical red root, as occasion requires; while others of an inferior order, are covering all the seats of the beloved square with new mattresses, made out of the fine splinters of long canes, tied together with flags. In the mean time, several of them are busy in sweeping the temple, clearing it of every supposed polluting thing, and carrying out the ashes from the hearth which perhaps had not been cleaned six times since the last year’s general offering. Several towns join together to make the annual sacrifice; and, if the whole nation lies in a narrow compass, they make but one annual offering: by which means, either through a sensual or religious principle, they strike off the work with joyful hearts. Every thing being thus prepared, the Archi-magus orders some of his religious attendants to dig up the old hearth, or altar, and to sweep out the remains that by chance might either be left, or drop down. Then he puts a few roots of the button-snake-root, with some green leaves of an uncommon small sort of tobacco, and a little of the new fruits, at the bottom of the fire-place, which he {100} orders to be covered up with white marley clay, and wetted over with clean water[[XXIV]].
[XXIV]. Under the palladium of Troy, were placed things of the like nature, as a preservative from evil; but the above practice seems to be pretty much tempered with the Mosaic institution; for God commanded them to make an altar of earth, to sacrifice thereon. Exod. xx. 24.
Immediately, the magi order them to make a thick arbour over the altar, with green branches of the various young trees, which the warriors had designedly chosen, and laid down on the outside of the supposed holy ground: the women, in the interim are busy at home in cleaning out their houses, renewing the old hearths, and cleansing all their culinary vessels, that they may be fit to receive the pretended holy fire, and the sanctified new fruits, according to the purity of the law; lest by a contrary conduct, they should incur damage in life, health, future crops, &c. It is fresh in the memory of the old traders, that formerly none of these numerous nations of Indians would eat, or even handle any part of the new harvest, till some of it had been offered up at the yearly festival by the Archi-magus, or those of his appointment, at their plantations, though the light harvest of the past year had forced them to give their women and children of the ripening fruits, to sustain life. Notwithstanding they are visibly degenerating, both in this, and every other religious observance, except what concerns war; yet their magi and old warriors live contentedly on such harsh food as nature affords them in the woods, rather than transgress that divine precept given to their forefathers.
Having every thing in order for the sacred solemnity, the religious waiters carry off the remains of the feast, and lay them on the outside of the square; others of an inferior order carefully sweep out the smallest crumbs, for fear of polluting the first-fruit offering; and before sun-set, the temple must be cleared, even of every kind of vessel or utensil, that had contained, or been used about any food in that expiring year. The women carry all off, but none of that sex, except half a dozen of old beloved women, are allowed in that interval to tread on the holy ground, till the fourth day. Now, one of the waiters proclaims with a loud voice, for all the warriors and beloved men, whom the purity of the law admits, to come and enter the beloved square, and observe the fast; he likewise exhorts all {101} the women and children, and those who have not initiated themselves in war, to keep apart from them, according to law. Should any of them prove disobedient, the young ones would be dry-scratched, and the others stript of every thing they had on them. They observe the same strict law of purity, in their method of sanctifying themselves for war, in order to obtain the divine protection, assistance, and success. But a few weeks since, when a large company of these warlike savages were on the point of setting off to commence war against the Muskohge, some of the wags decoyed a heedless trader into their holy ground, and they stript him, so as to oblige him to redeem his clothes with vermilion. And, on account of the like trespass, they detained two Indian children two nights and a day, till their obstinate parents paid the like ransom.
Their great beloved man, or Archi-magus, now places four centinels, one at each corner of the holy square, to keep out every living creature as impure, except the religious order, and the warriors who are not known to have violated the law of the first-fruit-offering, and that of marriage, since the last year’s expiation. Those centinels are regularly relieved, and firm to their sacred trust; if they discerned a dog or cat on the out-limits of the holy square, before the first-fruit-offering was made, they would kill it with their arrows on the spot.
They observe the fast till the rising of the second sun; and be they ever so hungry in that sacred interval, the healthy warriors deem the duty so awful, and the violation so inexpressibly vicious, that no temptation would induce them to violate it; for, like the Hebrews, they fancy temporal evils are the necessary effect of their immoral conduct, and they would for ever ridicule and reproach the criminal for every bad occurrence that befel him in the new year, as the sinful author of his evils; and would sooner shoot themselves, than suffer such long-continued sharp disgrace. The religious attendants boil a sufficient quantity of button-snake-root, highly imbittered, and give it round pretty warm, in order to vomit and purge their sinful bodies. Thus they continue to mortify and purify themselves, till the end of the fast. When we consider their earnest invocations of the divine essence, in this solemnity—their great knowledge of specific virtues in simples—that they never apply the aforesaid root, only on religious occasions—that they frequently drink it to such excess as to impair their health, {102} and sometimes so as to poison themselves by its acrid quality—and take into the account, its well-known medicinal property of curing the bite of the most dangerous sort of the serpentine generation; must not one think, that the Aboriginal Americans chose it, as a strong emblem of the certain cure of the bite of the old serpent in Eden.
That the women and children, and those worthless fellows who have not hazarded their lives in defence of their holy places and holy things, and for the beloved people, may not be entirely godless, one of the old beloved men lays down a large quantity of the small-leafed green tobacco, on the outside of a corner of the sacred square; and an old beloved woman, carries it off, and distributes it to the sinners without, in large pieces, which they chew heartily, and swallow, in order to afflict their souls. She commends those who perform the duty with cheerfulness, and chides those who seem to do it unwillingly, by their wry faces on account of the bitterness of the supposed sanctifying herb. She distributes it in such quantities, as she thinks are equal to their capacity of sinning, giving to the reputed, worthless old He-hen-pickers, the proportion only of a child, because she thinks such spiritless pictures of men cannot sin with married women; as all the females love only the virtuous manly warrior, who has often successfully accompanied the beloved ark.