[XLIV]. They imagined incense also to be a sure means to banish the devil; though asafœtida, or the devil’s dung, might have been much better. On Cant. iv. 6. “I will get me to the hill of incense,” the Chaldee paraphrast says, that, while the house of Israel kept the art of their holy fore-fathers, both the morning and mid-day evil spirits fled away, because the divine glory dwelt in the sanctuary, which was built on Mount Moriah; and that all the devils fled when they smelled the effluvia of the fine incense that was there. They likewise believed that herbs and roots had a power to expel dæmons. And Josephus tells us, that the root Bara, immediately drives out the devil. I suppose it had such a physical power against fevers and agues, as the jesuit’s bark.
The church of Rome, in order to have powerful holy things, as well as the Jews, applies salt, spittle, holy-water, and consecrated oil, to expel the devils from the credulous of their own persuasion; and the oil alone is used as a viaticum, on account of its lubricous quality, to make them slippery, and thereby prevent the devil from laying hold, and pulling them down when they ascend upward. They reckon that observance a most religious duty, and an infallible preservative against the legions of evil spirits who watch in the aerial regions; and also necessary to gain celestial admission for believers.
In the Summer-season of the year 1746, I chanced to see the Indians playing at a house of the former Missisippi-Nachee,[[76]] on one of their old sacred musical instruments. It pretty much resembled the Negroe-Banger in shape, but far exceeded it in dimensions; for it was about five feet long, and a foot wide on the head-part of the board, with eight strings made out of the sinews of a large buffalo. But they were so unskilful in acting the part of the Lyrick, that the Loache, or prophet who held the instrument between his feet, and along side of his chin, took one end of the bow, whilst a lusty fellow held the other; by sweating labour they scraped out such harsh jarring sounds, as might have been reasonably expected by a soft ear, to have been sufficient to drive out the devil if he lay any where hid in the house. When I afterward asked him the name, and the reason of such a strange method of diversion, he told me the dance was called Keetla Ishto Hoollo, “a dance to, or before, the great holy one;” that it kept off evil spirit, witches, and wizards, from the red people; and enabled them to ordain elderly men to officiate in holy things, as the exigency of the times required.
He who danced to it, kept his place and posture, in a very exact manner, without the least perceivable variation: yet by the prodigious working of his muscles and nerves, he in about half an hour, foamed in a very extraordinary manner, and discontinued it proportionally, till he recovered himself. This surprising custom I have mentioned here, because it was usual among the Hebrews, for their prophets to become furious, and as it were beside themselves, when they were about to prophesy. Thus with regard to Saul, it seems that he became furious, and tortured his body by violent gestures: and when Elisha sent one of the children of the prophets to anoint Jehu, one said to him, wherefore cometh this mad fellow? The Chaldee paraphrast, on 1 Sam. xviii. 10. concerning Saul’s prophesying, paraphrases it, cæpit furire, “he began to grow mad, &c.”
When the East-Indian Fakirs are giving out their pretended prophecies, they chuse drums and trumpets, that by such confused striking sounds, {175} their senses may be lulled asleep or unsettled, which might otherwise render them uncapable of receiving the supposed divine inspiration. And they endeavour to become thus possest before crowds of people with a furious rage, by many frantic and violent motions of body, and changes of posture, till they have raised it to the highest pitch they are capable of, and then fall on the ground almost breathless; when they recover themselves a little, they give out their prophecies, which are deemed oracular.
Lactantius and others tell us, that the Sibyls were possest of the like fury; and most part of the ancients believed they ought to become furious, the members of the body to shake, and the hairs of their head to stand an end before they could be divinely inspired: which seems plainly to shew, that though the ancient heathens mimicked a great deal of the Mosaic law, yet theirs had but a faint glance on the Hebrew manner of consulting Yohewah; whereas the Indian Americans invoke the true God, by his favourite essential name, in a bowing posture, on every material occasion, whether civil, martial, or religious, contrary to the usage of all the old heathen world.
In the year 1765, an old physician, or prophet, almost drunk with spirituous liquors, came to pay me a friendly visit: his situation made him more communicative than he would have been if quite sober. When he came to the door, he bowed himself half bent, with his arms extended north and south, continuing so perhaps for the space of a minute. Then raising himself erect, with his arms in the same position, he looked in a wild frightful manner, from the south-west toward the north, and sung on a low bass key Yo Yo Yo Yo, almost a minute, then He He He He, for perhaps the same space of time, and Wa Wa Wa Wa, in like manner; and then transposed, and accented those sacred notes several different ways, in a most rapid guttural manner. Now and then he looked upwards, with his head considerably bent backward;—his song continued about a quarter of an hour. As my door which was then open stood east, his face of course looked toward the west; but whether the natives thus usually invoke the deity, I cannot determine; yet as all their winter houses have their doors toward the east, had he used the like solemn invocations there, his face would have consequently looked the same way, contrary to the usage of {176} the heathens. After his song, he stepped in: I saluted him, saying, “Are you come my beloved old friend?” he replied, Arahre-O. “I am come in the name of Oea.” I told him, I was glad to see, that in this mad age, he still retained the old Chikkasah virtues. He said, that as he came with a glad heart to see me his old friend, he imagined he could not do me a more kind service, than to secure my house from the power of the evil spirits of the north, south, and west,—and, from witches, and wizards, who go about in dark nights, in the shape of bears, hogs, and wolves, to spoil people: “the very month before, added he, we killed an old witch, for having used destructive charms.” Because a child was suddenly taken ill, and died, on the physician’s false evidence, the father went to the poor helpless old woman who was sitting innocent, and unsuspecting, and sunk his tomohawk into her head, without the least fear of being called to an account. They call witches and wizards, Ishtabe, and Hoollabe, “man-killers,” and “spoilers of things sacred.” My prophetic friend desired me to think myself secure from those dangerous enemies of darkness, for (said he) Tarooa Ishtohoollo-Antarooare, “I have sung the song of the great holy one.” The Indians are so tenacious of concealing their religious mysteries, that I never before observed such an invocation on the like occasion—adjuring evil spirits, witches, &c. by the awful name of deity.[[77]]
Argument XIX.
The Hebrews have at all times been very careful in the Burial of their dead—to be deprived of it was considered as one of the greatest of evils. They made it a point of duty to perform the funeral obsequies of their friends—often embalmed the dead bodies of those who were rich, and even buried treasure in the tombs with their dead. Josephus tells us, that in king David’s sepulchre, was buried such a prodigious quantity of treasures, that Hyrcanus the Maccabean, took three thousand talents out of it, about thirteen hundred years after, to get rid of Antiochus then besieging Jerusalem. And their people of distinction, we are told, followed the like custom of burying gold and silver with the dead. Thus it was an universal custom with the ancient Peruvians, when the owner died to bury his {177} effects with him, which the avaricious Spaniards perceiving, they robbed these store-houses of the dead of an immense quantity of treasures. The modern Indians bury all their moveable riches, according to the custom of the ancient Peruvians and Mexicans, insomuch, that the grave is heir of all.
Except the Cheerake, only one instance of deviation, from this ancient and general Indian custom occurs to me: which was that of Malahche, the late famous chieftain of the Kowwetah head war-town of the lower part of the Muskohge country, who bequeathed all he possessed to his real, and adopted relations,—being sensible they would be much more useful to his living friends, than to himself during his long sleep: he displayed a genius far superior to the crowd.