[XXVII]. The name of a horse-rope is derived from Tarákshe “to tie,” and Hissooba “an elk, or horse that carries a burthen;” which suggests that they formerly saw elks carry burthens, though perhaps not in the northern provinces.
They assemble three nights previous to their annual feast of love; on the fourth night they eat together. During the intermediate space, the young men and women dance in circles from the evening till morning. The men masque their faces with large pieces of gourds of different shapes and hieroglyphic paintings. Some of them fix a pair of young buffalo horns to their head; others the tail, behind. When the dance and their time is expired, the men turn out a hunting, and bring in a sufficient quantity of venison, for the feast of renewing their love, and confirming their friendship with each other. The women dress it, and bring the best they have along with it; which a few springs past, was only a variety of Esau’s small red acorn pottage, as their crops had failed. When they have eaten together, they fix in the ground a large pole with a bush tied at the top, over which {113} they throw a ball. Till the corn is in, they meet there almost every day, and play for venison and cakes, the men against the women; which the old people say they have observed for time out of mind.
Before I conclude this argument, I must here observe, that when the Indians meet at night to gladden and unite their hearts before Yohewah, they sing Yohèwà-shoo Yohèwà-shoo, Yohewàhshee Yohewàhshee, and Yohewàhshai Yohewàhshai, with much energy. The first word is nearly in Hebrew characters, יהושע, the name of Joshua, or saviour, Numb. xiii. 8. That ע is properly expressed by our double vowel oo, let it be observed, that as בעל is “a ruler,” or “commanding”—so the Indians say Boole Hakse “strike a person, that is criminal.” In like manner they sing Meshi Yo, Meshi Yo, Meshi He, Meshi He, Meshi Wah Meshi Wah; likewise, Meshi Hah Yo, &c.; and Meshi Wàh Háh Meshi Wàh Hé, transposing and accenting each syllable differently, so as to make them appear different words. But they commonly make those words end with one syllable of the divine name, Yo He Wah. If we connect this with the former part of the subject, and consider they are commonly anointed all over, in the time of their religious songs and circuiting dances, the words seem to glance at the Hebrew original, and perhaps they are sometimes synonymous; for ומו signifies oil; the person anointed משח, Messiah, and he who anointed משיחו, which with the Indians is Meshiháh Yo.
That these red savages formerly understood the radical meaning, and emblematical design, of the important words they use in their religious dances and sacred hymns, is pretty obvious, if we consider the reverence they pay to the mysterious divine name YO He Wah, in pausing during a long breath on each of the two first syllables; their defining good by joining Wah to the end of a word, which otherwise expresses moral evil, as before noticed; and again by making the same word a negative of good, by separating the first syllable of that divine name into two syllables, and adding U as a superlative termination, Y-O-U: all their sacred songs seem likewise to illustrate it very clearly; Halelu-Yah, Shilu Wah, Meshi Wah, Meshiha Yo, &c. The words which they repeat in their divine hymns, while dancing in three circles around their supposed holy fire, are deemed so sacred, that they have not been known ever to mention them at any other time: and as they are a most erect {114} people, their bowing posture during the time of those religious acclamations and invocations, helps to confirm their Hebrew origin.
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.