The Muskoghe who have been at war, time out of mind, against the Indians of Cape-Florida, and at length reduced them to thirty men, who removed to the Havannah along with the Spaniards; affirm, they could never be informed by their captives, of the least inclination they ever had of eating human flesh, only the heart of the enemy—which they all do, sympathetically (blood for blood) in order to inspire them with courage; and yet the constant losses they suffered, might have highly provoked them to exceed their natural barbarity. To eat the heart of an enemy will in their opinion, like eating other things, before mentioned, communicate and give greater heart against the enemy. They also think that the vigorous faculties of the mind are derived from the brain, on which account, I have seen some of their heroes drink out of a human skull; they imagine, they only imbibe the good qualities it formerly contained.
When speaking to the Archimagus concerning the Hottentots, those heterogeneous animals according to the Portuguese and Dutch accounts, he asked me, whether they builded and planted—and what sort of food they {135} chiefly lived upon. I told him, I was informed that they dwelt in small nasty huts, and lived chiefly on sheep’s guts and crickets. He laughed, and said there was no credit to be given to the far-distant writers of those old books, because they might not have understood the language and customs of the people; but that those, whom our books reported to live on such nasty food, (if they did not deceive us) might have been forced to it for the want of better, to keep them from dying; or by the like occasion, they might have learned that ugly custom, and could not quit it when they were free from want, as the Choktah eat horse-flesh, though they have plenty of venison: however, it was very easy, he said, to know whether they were possessed of human reason, for if they were endued with shame to have a desire of covering their nakedness, he concluded them to be human. He then asked me, whether I had been informed of their having any sort of language, or method of counting as high as the number of their fingers, either by words or expressive motion; or of bearing a nearer resemblance to Yáwe, the human creature, in laughter, than Shawe the ape bore; or of being more social and gregarious than those animals of the country where they lived. If they were endued with those properties, he affirmed them to be human creatures; and that such old lying books should not be credited.
The more religious, or the least corrupted, of the various remote Indian nations, will not eat of any young beast when it is newly yeaned; and their old men think they would suffer damage, even by the bare contact: which seems to be derived from the Mosaic law, that prohibited such animals to be offered up, or eaten, till they were eight days old; because, till then, they were in an imperfect and polluted state! They appear, however, to be utterly ignorant of the design and meaning of this appointment and practice, as well as of some other customs and institutions. But as the time of circumcising the Israelitish children was founded on this law of purity, it seems probable, that the American Aborigines observed the law of circumcision,[[52]] for some time after they arrived here, and desisted from it, when it became incompatible with the hard daily toils and sharp exercises, which necessity must have forced them to pursue, to support life: especially when we consider, that the sharpest and most lasting affront, the most opprobious, indelible epithet, with which one Indian can possibly brand another, is to call him in public company, Hoobuk Waske, Eunuchus, præputio detecto. They resent it so highly, that in the year {136} 1750, when the Cheerakee were on the point of commencing a war against us, several companies of the northern Indians, in concert with them, compelled me in the lower Cheerakee town to write to the government of South-Carolina, that they made it their earnest request to the English not to mediate in their war with the Katáhba Indians, as they were fully resolved to prosecute it, with the greatest eagerness, while there was one of that hateful name alive; because in the time of battle, they had given them the ugly name of short-tailed eunuchs. Now as an eunuch was a contemptible name with the Israelites, and none of them could serve in any religious office; it should seem that the Indians derived this opprobious and singular epithet from Jewish tradition, as castration was never in use among the ancient or present Americans.
The Israelites were but forty years in the wilderness, and would not have renewed the painful act of circumcision, only that Joshua inforced it: and by the necessary fatigues and difficulties, to which as already hinted, the primitive Americans must be exposed at their first arrival in this waste and extensive wilderness, it is likely they forbore circumcision, upon the divine principle extended to their supposed predecessors in the wilderness, of not accepting sacrifice at the expence of mercy. This might soothe them afterwards wholly to reject it as a needless duty, especially if any of the eastern heathens accompanied them in their travels in quest of freedom. And as it is probable, that by the time they reached America, they had worn out their knives and every other sharp instrument fit for the occasion; so had they performed the operation with flint-stones, or sharp splinters, there is no doubt that each of the mothers would have likewise said, “This day, thou art to me a bloody husband[[XXIX]].” However, from the contemptible idea the Americans fix to castration, &c. it seems very probable the more religious among them used circumcision in former ages.
[XXIX]. Exod. iv. 25, 26.
Under this argument, I must observe that Ai-ú-be signifies “the thigh” of any animal; and E-ee-pattáh Tekále, “the lower part of the thigh,” or literally, “the hanging of the foot.” And when in the woods, the Indians cut a small piece out of the lower part of the thighs of the deer they kill, length-ways and pretty deep. Among the great number of venison-hams they bring to our trading houses, I do not remember to {137} have observed one without it; from which I conjecture, that as every ancient custom was designed to convey, either a typical, or literal instructive lesson of some useful thing; and as no usage of the old heathen world resembled this custom; it seems strongly to point at Jacob’s wrestling with an angel, and obtaining for himself and his posterity, the name, ישר-אל, (perhaps, Yosher-ale) “divine guide,” or “one who prevails with the omnipotent,” and to the children of Israel not eating the sinew of the thigh of any animal, to perpetuate the memory of their ancestor’s sinew being shrunk, which was to obtain the blessing.
The Indians always sew their maccasenes with deer’s sinews, though of a sharp cutting quality, for they reckon them more fortunate than the wild hemp: but to eat such, they imagine would breed worms, and other ailments, in proportion to the number they eat. And I have been assured by a gentleman of character, who is now an inhabitant of South-Carolina, and well acquainted with the customs of the northern Indians, that they also cut a piece out of the thigh of every deer they kill, and throw it away; and reckon it such a dangerous pollution to eat it, as to occasion sickness and other misfortunes of sundry kinds, especially by spoiling their guns from shooting with proper force and direction. Now as none of the old heathens had such a custom, must it not be considered as of Israelitish extraction.[[53]]
Argument XIII.
The Indian Marriages, Divorces, and Punishments of adultery, still retain a strong likeness to the Jewish laws and customs in these points.
The Hebrews had sponsalia de presenti, and sponsalia de futuro: a considerable time generally intervened between their contract and marriage: and their nuptial ceremonies were celebrated in the night. The Indians observe the same customs to this day; insomuch, that it is usual for an elderly man to take a girl, or sometimes a child to be his wife, because she is capable of receiving good impressions in that tender state: frequently, a moon elapses after the contract is made, and the value received, before {138} the bridegroom sleeps with the bride, and on the marriage day, he does not appear before her till night introduces him, and then without tapers.