The Katahba Indians call their chief old interpreter, on account of his obscene language, Emate-Atikke, “the smock-interpreter.” The “raven,” is one of the Cheerake favourite war-names. Carolina and Georgia remember Quorinnah, “the raven,” of Huwhase-town; he was one of the most daring warriors of the whole nation, and by far the most intelligent, and this name, or war-appellative, admirably suited his well-known character. Though with all the Indian nations, the raven is deemed an impure bird, yet they have a kind of sacred regard to it, whether from the traditional knowledge of Noah’s employing it while he was in the ark, or from that bird having fed Elijah in the wilderness (as some suppose) cannot be determined; however with our supposed red Hebrews the name points out an indefatigable, keen, successful warrior.
Argument XXIII.
Although other resemblances of the Indian rites and customs to those of the Hebrews, might be pointed out; not to seem tedious, I proceed to the last argument of the origin of the Indian Americans, which shall be from their own traditions,—from the accounts of our English writers—and from the testimonies which the Spanish writers have given, concerning the primitive inhabitants of Peru and Mexico.
The Indian tradition says, that their forefathers in very remote ages came from a far distant country, where all the people were of one colour; and that in process of time they moved eastward, to their present settlements. So that, what some of our writers have asserted is not just, who say the Indians affirm, that there were originally three different tribes in those countries, when the supreme chieftain to encourage swift running, proposed a proportionable reward of distinction to each, as they excelled in speed in passing a certain distant river; as, that the first should be polished white—the second red—and the third black; which took place accordingly after the race was over. This story sprung from the innovating superstitious {194} ignorance of the popish priests, to the south-west of us. Our own Indian tradition is literal, and not allegorical, and ought to be received; because people who have been long separated from the rest of mankind, must know their own traditions the best, and could not be deceived in so material, and frequently repeated an event.[[87]] Though they have been disjoined through different interests, time immemorial; yet, (the rambling tribes of northern Indians excepted) they aver that they came over the Missisippi from the westward, before they arrived at their present settlements. This we see verified by the western old towns they have left behind them; and by the situation of their old beloved towns, or places of refuge, lying about a west course from each different nation. Such places in Judea were chiefly built in the most remote parts of the country; and the Indians deem those only as beloved towns, where they first settled.
This tradition is corroborated by a current report of the old Chikkasah Indians to our traders, “that about forty years since, there came from Mexico some of the old Chikkasah nation, (the Chichemicas, according to the Spanish accounts) in quest of their brethren, as far north as the Aquahpah nation, about 130 miles above the Nachee old towns, on the south side of the Missisippi; but through French policy, they were either killed, or sent back, so as to prevent their opening a brotherly intercourse, as they had proposed.” And it is worthy of notice, that the Muskohgeh cave, out of which one of their politicians persuaded them their ancestors formerly ascended to their present terrestrial abode, lies in the Nanne Hamgeh old town,[[88]] inhabited by the Missisippi-Nachee Indians, which is one of the most western parts of their old-inhabited country.
I hope I shall be excused in reciting their ancient oral tradition, from father to son to the present time. They say, that one of their cunning old religious men finding that religion did not always thrive best, resolved with himself to impose on his friends credulity, and alter in some respects their old tradition; he accordingly pretended to have held for a long time a continual intercourse with their subterranean progenitors in a cave, above 600 miles to the westward of Charles-town in South-Carolina, adjoining to the old Chikkasah trading path; this people were then possest of every thing convenient for human life, and he promised them fully to supply their wants, {195} in a constant manner, without sweating in the field; the most troublesome of all things to manly brisk warriors. He insisted, that all who were desirous of so natural and beneficial a correspondence, should contribute large presents, to be delivered on the embassy, to their brethren—terræ filii,—to clear the old chain of friendship from the rust it had contracted, through the fault of cankering time. He accordingly received presents from most of the people, to deliver them to their beloved subterranean kindred: but it seems, they shut up the mouth of the cave, and detained him there in order to be purified.
The old waste towns of the Chikkasah lie to the west and south-west, from where they have lived since the time we first opened a trade with them; on which course they formerly went to war over the Missisippi, because they knew it best, and had disputes with the natives of those parts, when they first came from thence. Wisdom directed them then to connive at some injuries on account of their itinerant camp of women and children; for their tradition says, it consisted of ten thousand men, besides women and children, when they came from the west, and passed over the Missisippi. The fine breed of running wood horses they brought with them, were the present Mexican or Spanish barbs. They also aver, that their ancestors cut off, and despoiled the greatest part of a caravan, loaded with gold and silver; but the carriage of it proved so troublesome to them, that they threw it into a river where it could not benefit the enemy.
If we join together these circumstances, it utterly destroys the fine Peruvian and Mexican temples of the sun, &c.—which the Spaniards have lavishly painted from their own fruitful imaginations, to shew their own capacity of writing, though at the expence of truth; and to amuse the gazing distant world, and lessen our surprise at the sea of reputed heathenish blood, which their avaricious tempers, and flaming superstitious zeal, prompted them to spill.
If any English reader have patience to search the extraordinary volumes of the Spanish writers, or even those of his catholic majesty’s chief historiographer, he will not only find a wild portrait, but a striking resemblance and unity of the civil and martial customs, the religious rites, and traditions, of the {196} ancient Peruvians and Mexicans, and the North-Americans, according to the manner of their moresque paintings: likewise, the very national name of the primitive Chikkasah, which they stile Chichemicas, and whom they repute to have been the first inhabitants of Mexico. However, I lay little stress upon Spanish testimonies, for time and ocular proof have convinced us of the laboured falshood of almost all their historical narrations concerning every curious thing relative to South America. They, were so divested of those principles inherent to honest enquirers after truth, that they have recorded themselves to be a tribe of prejudiced bigots, striving to aggrandise the Mahometan valour of about nine hundred spurious catholic christians, under the patronage of their favourite saint, as persons by whom heaven designed to extirpate those two great nominal empires of pretended cannibals. They found it convenient to blacken the natives with ill names, and report them to their demi-god the mufti of Rome, as sacrificing every day, a prodigious multitude of human victims to numerous idol-gods.
The learned world is already fully acquainted with the falsehood of their histories; reason and later discoveries condemn them. Many years have elapsed, since I first entered into Indian life, besides a good acquaintance with several southern Indians, who were conversant with the Mexican Indian rites and customs; and it is incontrovertible, that the Spanish monks and jesuits in describing the language, religion, and customs, of the ancient Peruvians and Mexicans, were both unwilling, and incapable to perform so arduous an undertaking, with justice and truth. They did not converse with the natives as friends, but despised, hated, and murdered them, for the sake of their gold and silver: and to excuse their own ignorance, and most shocking, cool, premeditated murders, they artfully described them as an abominable swarm of idolatrous cannibals offering human sacrifices to their various false deities, and eating of the unnatural victims. Nevertheless, from their own partial accounts, we can trace a near agreement between the civil and martial customs, the religious worship, traditions, dress, ornaments, and other particulars of the ancient Peruvians and Mexicans, and those of the present North American Indians.[[89]] {197}