[XXVIII]. One of the Cheeràke traders, who now resides in the Choktah country, assures me, that a little before the commencement of the late war with the Cheerake, when the Buck, a native of Nuquose-town, died, none of the warriors would help to bury him, because of the dangerous pollution, they imagined they should necessarily contract from such a white corpse; as he was begotten by a white man and a half-breed Cheerake woman—and as the women are only allowed to mourn for the death of a warrior, they could not assist in this friendly duty. By much solicitation, the gentleman (my author) obtained the help of an old friendly half-bred-warrior. They interred the corpse; but the savage became unclean, and was separate from every kind of communion with the rest, for the space of three days.
The Cheerake, notwithstanding they have corrupted most of their primitive customs, observe this law of purity in so strict a manner, as not to touch the corpse of their nearest relation though in the woods. The fear of pollution (not the want of natural affection, as the unskilful observe) keeps them also from burying their dead, in our reputed unsanctified ground, if any die as they are going to Charles-town, and returning home; because they are distant from their own holy places and holy things, where only they could perform the religious obsequies of their dead, and purify themselves according to law. An incident of this kind happened several years since, a little below Ninety-six, as well as at the Conggarees, in South-Carolina:—at the former place, the corpse by our humanity was interred; but at the latter, even the twin-born brother of an Indian christian lady well known by the name of the Dark-lanthorn, left her dead and unburied.
The conversion of this rara avis was in the following extraordinary manner.—There was a gentleman who married her according to the manner of the Cheeràke; but observing that marriages were commonly of a short {126} duration in that wanton female government, he flattered himself of ingrossing her affections, could he be so happy as to get her sanctified by one of our own beloved men with a large quantity of holy water in baptism—and be taught the conjugal duty, by virtue of her new christian name, when they were married a-new. As she was no stranger in the English settlements, he soon persuaded her to go down to the Conggarees, to get the beloved speech, and many fine things beside. As the priest was one of those sons of wisdom, the church sent us in her maternal benevolence, both to keep and draw us from essential errors, he readily knew the value of a convert, and grasping at the opportunity, he changed her from a wild savage to a believing christian in a trice.
He asked her a few articles of her creed, which were soon answered by the bridegroom, as interpreter, from some words she spoke on a trifling question he asked her. When the priest proposed to her a religious question, the bridegroom, by reason of their low ideas, and the idiom of their dialects, was obliged to mention some of the virtues, and say he recommended to her a very strict chastity in the married state. “Very well, said she, that’s a good speech, and fit for every woman alike, unless she is very old—But what says he now?” The interpreter, after a short pause, replied, that he was urging her to use a proper care in domestic life. “You evil spirit, said she, when was I wasteful, or careless at home?” He replied, “never”: “Well then, said she, tell him his speech is troublesome and light.—But, first, where are those fine things you promised me?” He bid her be patient a little, and she should have plenty of every thing she liked best; at this she smiled. Now the religious man was fully confirmed in the hope of her conversion; however, he asked if she understood, and believed that needful article, the doctrine of the trinity. The bridegroom swore heartily, that if he brought out all the other articles of his old book, she both knew and believed them, for she was a sensible young woman.
The bridegroom had a very difficult part to act, both to please the humour of his Venus, and to satisfy the inquisitive temper of our religious son of Apollo; he behaved pretty well however, till he was desired to ask her belief of the uni-trinity, and tri-unity of the deity; which the beloved man endeavoured to explain. On this, she smartly asked him the subject of their long and crooked-like discourse. But, as his patience was now exhausted, {127} instead of answering her question, he said with a loud voice, that he believed the religious man had picked out all the crabbed parts of his old book, only to puzzle and stagger her young christian faith; otherwise how could he desire him to persuade such a sharp-discerning young woman, that one was three, and three, one? Besides, that if his book had any such question, it belonged only to the deep parts of arithmetic, in which the very Indian beloved men were untaught. He assured the priest, that the Indians did not mind what religion the women were of, or whether they had any; and that the bride would take it very kindly, if he shortened his discourse, as nothing can disturb the Indian women so much as long lectures.
The Dark-lanthorn, (which was the name of the bride) became very uneasy, both by the delay of time, and the various passions she attentively read in the bridegroom’s face and speech, and she asked him sharply the meaning of such a long discourse. He instantly cried out, that the whole affair was spoiled, unless it was brought to a speedy conclusion: but the religious man insisted upon her belief of that article, before he could proceed any farther. But by way of comfort, he assured him it should be the very last question he would propose, till he put the holy water on her face, and read over the marriage ceremony. The bridegroom revived at this good news, immediately sent the bowl around, with a cheerful countenance; which the bride observing, she asked him the reason of his sudden joyful looks.—But, what with the length of the lecture, the close application of the bowl, and an over-joy of soon obtaining his wishes, he proposed the wrong question; for instead of asking her belief of the mysterious union of the tri-une deity, he only mentioned the manly faculties of nature. The bride smiled, and asked if the beloved man borrowed that speech from his beloved marriage-book? Or whether he was married, as he was so waggish, and knowing in those affairs.—The priest imagining her cheerful looks proceeded from her swallowing his doctrine, immediately called for a bowl of water to initiate his new convert. As the bridegroom could not mediate with his usual friendly offices in this affair, he persuaded her to let the beloved man put some beloved water on her face, and it would be a sure pledge of a lasting friendship between her and the English, and intitle her to every thing she liked best. By the persuasive force of his promises, she consented: and had the constancy, though so ignorant a {128} novitiate in our sacred mysteries, to go through her catechism, and the long marriage ceremony,—although it was often interrupted by the bowl. This being over, she proceeded to go to bed with her partner, while the beloved man sung a psalm at the door, concerning the fruitful vine. Her name he soon entered in capital letters, to grace the first title-page of his church book of converts; which he often shewed to his English sheep, and with much satisfaction would inform them how, by the co-operation of the Deity, his earnest endeavours changed an Indian Dark-lanthorn into a lamp of christian light. However, afterward to his great grief, he was obliged on account of her adulteries, to erase her name from thence, and enter it anew in some of the crowded pages of female delinquents.
When an Israelite died in any house or tent, all who were in it, and the furniture belonging to it contracted a pollution, which continued for seven days. All likewise who touched the body of a dead person, or his grave, were impure for seven days. Similar notions prevail among the Indians. The Choktah are so exceedingly infatuated in favour of the infallible judgment of their pretended prophets, as to allow them without the least regret, to dislocate the necks of any of their sick who are in a weak state of body, to put them out of their pain, when they presume to reveal the determined will of the Deity to shorten his days, which is asserted to be communicated in a dream; by the time that this theo-physical operation is performed on a patient, they have a scaffold prepared opposite to the door, whereon he is to lie till they remove the bones in the fourth moon after, to the remote bone-house of that family: they immediately carry out the corpse, mourn over it, and place it in that dormitory, which is strongly pallisadoed around, lest the children should become polluted even by passing under the dead. Formerly when the owner of a house died, they set fire to it, and to all the provisions of every kind; or sold the whole at a cheap rate to the trading people, without paying the least regard to the scarcity of the times. Many of them still observe the same rule, through a wild imitation of a ceremonial observance of the Israelites, in burning the bed whereon a dead person lay, because of its impurity. This is no copy from the ancient heathens, but from the Hebrews. {129}
Argument XII.
Like the Jews, the greatest part of the southern Indians abstain from most things that are either in themselves, or in the general apprehension of mankind, loathsome, or unclean: where we find a deviation from that general rule among any of them, it is a corruption—either owing to their intercourse with Europeans, or having contracted an ill habit from necessity. They generally affix very vicious ideas to the eating of impure things; and all their prophets, priests, old warriors and war-chieftains, before they enter on their religious duties, and while they are engaged in them, observe the strictest abstinence in this point. Formerly, if any of them did eat in white people’s houses, or even of what had been dressed there, while they were sanctifying themselves, it was deemed a dangerous sin of pollution. When some of them first corrupted their primitive virtue, by drinking of our spirituous liquors, the religious spectators called it ooka hoome, “bitter waters;” alluding, I conjecture, to the bitter waters of jealousy, that produced swelling and death to those who committed adultery, but had no power over the innocent. That this name is not accidental, but designedly pointed, and expressive of the bitter waters of God, seems obvious, not only from the image they still retain of them, but likewise when any of them refuse our invitation of drinking spirituous liquors in company with us, they say Ahiskola Awa, Ooka Hoomeh[Hoomeh] Ishto, “I will not drink, they are the bitter waters of the great One.” Though Ishto, one of the names of God, subjoined to nouns, denotes a superlative degree, in this case they deviate from that general rule—and for this reason they never affix the idea of bitter to the spirituous liquors we drink among them. Hoomeh is the only word they have to convey the meaning of bitter; as Aneh Hoomeh, “bitter ears,” or pepper.
They reckon all birds of prey, and birds of night, to be unclean, and unlawful to be eaten. Not long ago, when the Indians were making their winter’s hunt, and the old women were without flesh-meat at home, I shot a small fat hawk, and desired one of them to take and dress it; but though I strongly importuned her by way of trial, she, as earnestly refused it for {130} fear of contracting pollution, which she called the “accursed sickness,” supposing disease would be the necessary effect of such an impurity. Eagles of every kind they esteem unclean food; likewise ravens (though the name of a tribe with them) crows, buzzards, swallows, bats, and every species of owls: and they believe that swallowing flies, musketoes, or gnats, always breeds sickness, or worms, according to the quantity that goes into them; which though it may not imply extraordinary skill in physic, shews their retention of the ancient law, which prohibited the swallowing of flies: for to this that divine sarcasm alludes, “swallowing a camel, and straining at a gnat.” Such insects were deemed unclean, as well as vexatious and hurtful. The God of Ekron was Beelzebub, or the God and ruler of flies.