It is true that the Indians are not without some sense of religion, and such as proves that they worship the Great Creator with a degree of purity unknown to nations who have greater opportunities of improvement; but their religious principles are far from being so faultless as described by a learned writer, or unmixed with opinions and ceremonies that greatly lessen their excellency in this point. So that could the doctrines of genuine and vital Christianity be introduced among them, pure and untainted as it flowed from the lips of its Divine Institutor, it would certainly tend to clear away that superstitious or idolatrous dross by which the rationality of their religious tenets are obscured. Its mild and beneficent precepts would likewise conduce to soften their implacable dispositions, and to refine their savage manners; an event most desirable; and happy shall I esteem myself if this publication shall prove the means of pointing out the path by which salutary instructions may be conveyed to them, and the conversion, though but of a few, be the consequence.
Conclusion of the JOURNAL, &c.
OF THE
ORIGIN, MANNERS, CUSTOMS,
RELIGION, AND LANGUAGE
OF THE
INDIANS.
CHAPTER I.
Of their Origin.
THE means by which America received its first Inhabitants, have, since the time of its discovery by the Europeans, been the subject of numberless disquisitions. Was I to endeavour to collect the different opinions and reasonings of the various writers that have taken up the pen in defence of their conjectures, the enumeration would much exceed the bounds I have prescribed myself, and oblige me to be less explicit on points of greater moment.
From the obscurity in which this debate is enveloped, through the total disuse of letters among every nation of Indians on this extensive continent, and the uncertainty of oral tradition at the distance of so many ages, I fear, that even after the most minute investigation we shall not be able to settle it with any great degree of certainty. And this apprehension will receive additional force, when it is considered that the diversity of language which is apparently distinct between most of the Indians, tends to ascertain that this population was not effected from one particular country, but from several neighbouring ones, and completed at different periods.
Most of the historians or travellers that have treated on the American Aborigines disagree in their sentiments relative to them. Many of the ancients are supposed to have known that this quarter of the globe not only existed, but also that it was inhabited. Plato in his Timæus has asserted, that beyond the island which he calls Atalantis, and which according to his description was situated in the western Ocean, there were a great number of other islands, and behind those a vast Continent.
Oviedo, a celebrated Spanish author of a much later date, has made no scruple to affirm that the Antilles are the famous Hesperides so often mentioned by the poets; which are at length restored to the kings of Spain, the descendants of King Hesperus, who lived upwards of three thousand years ago, and from whom these islands received their name.
Two other Spaniards, the one, Father Gregorio Garcia, a Dominican, the other, Father Joseph De Acosta, a Jesuit, have written on the origin of the Americans.
The former, who had been employed in the missions of Mexico and Peru, endeavoured to prove from the traditions of the Mexicans, Peruvians, and others, which he received on the spot, and from the variety of characters, customs, languages, and religion observable in the different countries of the new world, that different nations had contributed to the peopling of it.