Diary in America Volume II Part 36

"Now one of the waiters proclaims with a loud voice, for all the warriors and beloved men whom the purity of their law admits, to come and enter the beloved square and observe the fast. He also exhorts the women and children, with those who have not been initiated in war, to keep apart according to the law.

"Four sentinels are now placed one at each corner of the holy square, to keep out every living creature as impure, except the religious order, and the warriors who are not known to have violated the law of the first fruit-offering, and that of marriage, since the last year's expiation.

They observe the fast till the rising of the second sun; and be they ever so hungry in the sacred interval, the healthy warriors deem the duty so awful, and disobedience so inexpressibly vicious, that no temptation would induce them to violate it. They at the same time drink plentifully of a decoction of the b.u.t.ton snake root, in order to vomit and dense their sinful bodies."

"In the general fast, the children and men of weak const.i.tutions, are allowed to eat, as soon as they are certain that the sun has begun to decline from his meridian alt.i.tude.

"Now every thing is hushed. Nothing but silence all around. The great beloved man, and his beloved waiter, rising up with a reverend carriage, steady countenance and composed behaviour, go into the beloved place, or holiest, to bring them out the beloved fire. The former takes a piece of dry poplar, willow, or white oak, and having cut a hole, but not so deep as to reach through it; he then sharpens another piece, and placing that in the hole, and both between his knees, he drills it briskly for several minutes, till it begins to smoke--or by rubbing two pieces together for a quarter of an hour, he collects by friction the hidden fire, which they all consider as proceeding from the holy spirit of fire.

"The great beloved man, or high priest, addresses the warriors and women; giving all the particular, positive injunctions and negative precepts they yet retain of the ancient law. He uses very sharp language to the women. He then addresses the whole mult.i.tude. He enumerates the crimes they have committed, great and small, and bids them look at the _holy fire_ which has forgiven them. He presses on his audience, by the great motives of temporal good and the fear of temporal evil, the necessity of a careful observance of the ancient law, a.s.suring them that the _holy fire_ will enable their prophets, the rain makers, to procure them plentiful harvests, and give their war leaders victory over their enemies. He then orders some of the fire to be laid down outside of the holy ground, for all the houses of the various a.s.sociated towns, which sometimes lay several miles apart."

Mr Bartram, who visited the southern Indians in 1778, gives an account of the same feast, but in another nation. He says, "that the feast of first-fruits is the princ.i.p.al festival. This seems to end the old and begin the new ecclesiastical year. It commences when their new crops are arrived to maturity. This is their most solemn celebration."

With respect to the sacrifices, we have had none since the destruction of the temple, but it was customary among the Jews, in the olden time, to sacrifice daily a part of a lamb. This ceremony is strictly observed by the Indians. The hunter, when leaving his wigwam for the chase, puts up a prayer that the great spirit will aid his endeavours to procure food for his wife and children, and when he returns with the red deer, whatever may be the cravings of hunger, he allows none to taste until he has cut part of the flesh, which he throws in the fire as a sacrifice, accompanied with prayer. All travellers speak of this practice among the Indians, so clearly Hebrew in its origin.

The bathings, anointings, ablutions, in the coldest weather, are never neglected by the Indians, and, like the Jews of old, they anoint themselves with bear's oil.

The Mosaic prohibition of eating unclean animals, and their enumeration, are known to you all. It would be supposed that, amidst the uncertainty of an Indian life, all kinds of food would be equally acceptable. Not so: for, in strict conformity with the Mosaic law, they abstain from eating the blood of any animal, they abominate swine flesh, they do not eat fish without scales, the eel, the turtle or sea-cow: and they deem many animals and birds to be impure. These facts are noticed by all writers, and particularly by Edwards in his History of the West-Indies.

The latter able historian, in noticing the close a.n.a.logy between the religious rites of the Jews and Indians, says, "that the striking conformity of the prejudices and customs of the Caribbee Indians, to the practices of the Jews, has not escaped the notice of such historians as Gamella, Da Tertre, and others;" and Edwards also states, that the Indians on the Oroonoke, punished their women caught in adultery, by stoning them to death before the a.s.sembly of the people.

Among the Mosaical laws is the obligation of one brother to marry his brother's widow, if he die without issue. Major Long says, "if the deceased has left a brother, he takes the widow to his lodge after a proper interval and considers her as his wife."

This is also confirmed by Charliveux.

It would occupy a greater s.p.a.ce of time than I can afford, to trace a similitude between all the Indian rites and religious ceremonies, and those of the Jewish nation. In their births, in their separation after the births of their children, in their daily prayers and sacrifices, in their festivals, in their burials, in the employment of mourners, and in their general belief, I see a close a.n.a.logy and intimate connection, with all the ceremonies and laws which are observed by the Jewish people; making a due allowance for what has been lost, and misunderstood, in the course of upwards of 2,000 years.

A general belief exists among most travellers, that the Indians are the descendants of the missing tribes.

Mena.s.sah Ten Israel wrote his celebrated treatise to prove this fact, on the discovery of America.

William Penn, who always acted righteously to wards the Indians, and had never suspected that they had descended from the missing tribes, says, in a letter to his friends in England, "I found them with like countenances to the Hebrew race. I consider these people under a dark night, yet they believe in G.o.d and immortality, without the aid of metaphysics. They reckon by moons, they offer their first ripe fruits, they have a kind of feast of tabernacles, they are said to lay their altars with twelve stones, they mourn a year, and observe the Mosaic law with regard to separation."

Emanuel de Moraez, in his history of Brazil, declares that America has been peopled by the Carthaginians and Israelites, and as to the Israelites he says, nothing is wanting but circ.u.mcision, to const.i.tute a perfect resemblance between them and the Brazilians.

The Reverend Mr Beatty, a very worthy missionary, says, "I have often before hinted, that I have taken great pains to search into the usages and customs of the Indians, in order to see what ground there was far supposing them to be part of the ten tribes, and I must own, to my no small surprise, that a number of their customs appear so much to resemble those of the Jews, that it is a great question with me, whether we can expect to find among the ten tribes, wherever they are at this day, all things considered more of the footsteps of their ancestors than among the different Indian tribes."

Monsieur de Guignes, an old French historian, in speaking of the discoveries made in America, before the time of Columbus, says, "These researches, which of themselves give us great insight into the origin of the Americans, lead to the determination of the route of the colonies sent to the continent;" and he proceeds to give reasons for his belief, that the greater part of them pa.s.sed thither "by the most eastern extremities of Asia, where the two continents are only separated by a narrow strait, easy to cross."

Beltrami, in his discovery of the sources of the Mississippi, after a full and interesting account of the Indians, says, "Different authors have brought them hither from all parts of the world. I was at first induced to join with those who derived them from the Hebrews. It seemed impossible for me to doubt that, by so doing, I should be building on an impregnable foundation." He then proceeds to prove their Asiatic origin by many interesting facts.

The late Earl of Crawford and Lindsay, published his travels in America, in 1801. "It is curious and pleasing," says he, "in reading the travels of those who have been among these people, to find how their customs comport with the laws of Moses;" and after describing at length their religious rites and ceremonies, his lordship emphatically observes, "It is a sound truth, that the Indians _are_ descended from the ten tribes; and time and investigation will more and more enforce its acknowledgment."

It is, however, in Mexico and Peru, that we must look for the most enlightened and the most wealthy of the Indian race. On the representations of Montesini, who travelled in South America, the learned Rabbi Mena.s.sah Ten Israel, as I have said before, wrote his famous work _La Esperanza de Israel_, which he published in Amsterdam, in _1650_, endeavouring with great zeal to prove, that the Indians in North and South America were the descendants of the missing tribes; and Cromwell, to whom the work was dedicated, was greatly interested in the evidences produced on that occasion. Montesini, travelling through the province of _Quif_ found that his Indian guide was a Jew, and pursuing his inquiries, discovered that immense numbers lived behind the Cordilleras. Francis, the name of his guide, admitted to Montesini, that his G.o.d was called _Adonal_, and that he acknowledged Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as his ancestors, and they claimed to have descended from the tribe of Reuben.

Acosta contends that they have a tradition relative to the deluge; that they preserve the rite of circ.u.mcision; they offer the first-fruits, and in Peru they eat the Paschal Lamb; they believe in the resurrection, and clothe the dead with the richest equipage. Lopez de Gomara says, that some of them, and not all, are circ.u.mcised. Acosta continues, "the Mexicans point out the various stations as their ancestors advanced into their country, and it is precisely the route which they must have held, had they been emigrants from Asia."

Mena.s.sah Ten Israel declares, that the Indians of Mexico had a tradition, that their magnificent place of worship had been built by a people who wore their beards, and were more ancient than their Incas.

In the Universal History of 1748, it is affirmed, that the Mexicans and other American Indians rend their garments, in order the more effectually to express grief--the Hebrew custom at this day.

Lopez de Gomara states, that the Mexicans offer sacrifices of the first-fruits, and, when Cortez approached Mexico, Montezuma shut himself up for the s.p.a.ce of eight days in fasting and prayer. Emanuel de Moreas and Acosta say, that the Brazilians marry in their own tribes and families; and Es...o...b..tus affirms, that he frequently heard the southern tribes repeat the sacred notes _Ha-le-lu-yah_. Malvenda states, that several tomb-stones were found in St Michael's, with ancient Hebrew characters.

When the Spaniards invaded Mexico, the Cholula was considered a holy city by the natives, with magnificent temples, in which the High Priest Quetza-colt preached to man, and would permit no other offerings to the Master of Life than the first-fruits of the harvest. "We know by our traditions," said the venerable Prince Montezuma to the Spanish General Cortez, "that we who inhabit this country are not the natives but strangers who come from a great distance."

Don Alonzo Erecella, in his history of Chili, says, the Araucanians acknowledge one Supreme Being, and believe in the immortality of the soul; and the Abbe Clavigero declares, that they have a tradition of the great deluge. The laws and ceremonies of the Peruvians and Mexicans have, no doubt, been corrupted in the course of many ages, both in their sacrifices and worship.

Their great and magnificent temple, evidently in imitation of that erected by Solomon, was founded by Mango Capac, or rather by the Inca Vupanque, who endowed it with great wealth. Clavagero and De Vega, in their very interesting account of this temple say, "what we called the altar was on the east side of the temple. There were many doors to the temple, all of which were plated with gold, and the four walls the whole way round were crowned with a rich golden garland, more than an ell in width. Round the temple were five square pavilions, whose tops were in the form of pyramids. The fifth was lined entirely with gold, and was for the use of the Royal High-Priest of sacrifices, and in which all the deliberations concerning the temple were held. Some of the doors led to the schools where the Incas listen to the debates of the philosophers, sometimes themselves explaining the laws and ordinances."

Mexico and Central America abound in curiosities, exemplifying the fact of the Asiatic origin of the inhabitants; and it is not many years ago, that the ruins of a whole city, with a wall nearly seven miles in circ.u.mference, with castles, palaces, and temples, evidently of Hebrew or Phoenician architecture, was found on the river Palenque. The thirty-fifth number of the Foreign Quarterly Review contains an interesting account of those antiquities.

The ruins of this city of Guatemala, in Central America, as described by Del Rio in 1782, when taken in conjunction with the extraordinary, I may say, wonderful antiquities spread over the entire surface of that country, awaken recollections in the specimens of architecture which carry us back to the early pages of history, and prove beyond the shadow of doubt, that we who imagined ourselves to be the natives of a new world, but recently discovered, inhabit a continent which rivalled the splendour of Egypt and Syria, and was peopled by a powerful and highly cultivated nation from the old world. When we speak of what is called Mexican antiquities, we must not confound the rude labours of modern times, with the splendid perfections which distinguished the efforts of those who reared the Egyptian pyramids, and built the temples of Thebes and Memphis. It is not Mexican antiquities, but the antiquities of Tultecan; and in addition to the ruins of Palenque, on this _our_ continent, there are pyramids larger than those of Sachara in Egypt, at Cholula, Otamba, Paxaca, Mitlan, Tlascola, and on the mountains of Tescoca, together with hieroglyphics, planispheres and zodiacs, a symbolic and Photenic alphabet; papyrus, metopes, triglyphs, and temples and buildings of immense grandeur; military roads, aqueducts, viaducts, posting stations and distances; bridges of great grandeur and ma.s.sive character, all presenting the most positive evidences of the existence of a powerful enterprising nation, which must have flourished two thousand years before the Spanish conquest. Take, for example, the description of the temple at Palenque, which Lord Kingsborough, in his travels, not only declares _was_ built by the Jews, and is a copy of Solomon's temple, but which, no doubt, is precisely the model of the temple described by Ezekiel. Travellers speak of it in the following terms:

"It may be appropriately called an ecclesiastical city, rather than a temple. Within its vast precincts there appear to be contained (as indeed was, in some measure, the case with the area that embraced the various buildings of Solomon's temple) a pyramidal tower, various sanctuaries, sepulchres; a small and a large quadrangular court, one surrounded, as we have said, by cloisters; subterranean initiatory galleries beneath; oracles, courts of justice, high places, and cells or dwellings for the various orders of priests. The whole combination of the buildings is encircled by a quadrilateral pilastered portico, embracing a quadrangular area, and resting on a terraced platform. This platform exhibits the same architectural model, which we have described as characterising the single temples. It is composed of three graduated stuccoed terraces, sloping inwards, at an angle of about seventy degrees, in the form of a truncated pyramid. Four central staircases (one facing each of the cardinal points) ascend these terraces in the middle of each lateral facade of the quadrangle; and four gates fronting the same cardinal points, conduct from the top of each staircase into the body of the building, or into the great court. The great entrance, through a pilastered gateway, fronts the east, and descends by a second flight of steps into the cloistered court. On the various pilasters of the upper terrace are the metopes, with singular sculptures. On descending the second staircase into the cloistered court, on one side, appears the triple pyramidal tower, which may be inferred, from the curious distribution of little cells which surround the central room of each story, to have been employed as a place of royal or private sepulture. It would be p.r.o.nounced a striking and tasteful structure, according to any architectural rule. On another side of the same cloistered court is the detached temple of the chief G.o.d, to whom the whole religious building appears to have been devoted, who appears to have been the great and only G.o.d of the nations who worshipped in this temple. Beneath the cloisters, entered by staircases from above, are what we believe to be the initiatory galleries. These opened into rooms, one of which has a stone couch in it, and others are distinguished by unintelligible apparatus carved in stone. The only symbol described as found within these sacred haunts is, however, perfectly Asiatic, and perfectly intelligible; we mean two contending serpents. The remnant of an sitar, or high place, occupies the centre of the cloistered quadrangle. The rest of the edifice is taken up with courts, palaces, detached temples, open divans, baths, and streets of priestly cells, or houses, in a greater or less degree of dilapidation."

"It is perfectly clear, from the few records of their religious rites which have come down to us, and which are princ.i.p.ally derived from the extraordinary rolls of American papyrus, [formed of prepared fibres of the Maguery] on which their beautiful hieroglyphical system is preserved (there is one of considerable extent in the Dresden Museum), that they were as simple, perhaps we may add with propriety, as innocent. Not only does it appear that they had no human sacrifices, but no animal sacrifices. Flowers and fruits were the only offerings made to the presiding divinity of their temples."

But who were the Tultequans and Azeteques, the founders of this empire in America; who built the pyramids of Cholula and city of Palenque?

_Not the Jews_.

Here we have a most singular diversion from the path on which we originally set out--another extraordinary discovery, marked, too, by events no less extraordinary than amazing.

They were the Canaanites, the scriptural t.i.tans, who, according to the sacred historian, built with walls and towers reaching to the heavens.

The builders of the Tower of Babel, the family of the shepherd kings who conquered Egypt, and built the pyramids, and were driven from Syria by Joshua. The men who finally founded Tyre and Carthage, navigated round the continent of Africa, and sailed in their small craft across the Atlantic, and landed in the Gulf of Mexico.

The _Phoenicians_ were the founders of Palenque, Mitlan, Papantla.

Quemada, Cholula, Chila, and Antiquerra.

When I studied the history of these people, on the ruins of Carthage, it was said by antiquarians present, that the Carthaginians had a colony at a considerable distance, which they secretly maintained; and when I was at Tangiers, the Mauritania Tangitania of the ancients, I was shown the spot where the pillar was erected, and was standing at the time of Ibnu, the Moorish historian, on which was inscribed, in the Phoenician language, "We are the Canaanites who fled from Joshua, the son of Nun, that notorious robber." From that spot, then ... the pillars of Hercules, now known as the Straits of Gibraltar, they crossed to our continent, and founded a great empire of the Ophite worship, with Syrian and Egyptian symbols. Now, mark the issue. Fifteen hundred years after the expulsion of the Canaanites by Joshua, the ten tribes pa.s.s over the Straits of Behring to the continent of America, and poured down upon these people like the Goths and Vandals. The descendants of Joshua a _second_ time fell on the Canaanites on another continent, knowing them well as such, and burn their temples, and destroy their gigantic towers and cities.

When Columbus discovered America, he found an innocent people in a demi-savage state, with Jewish traditions, and the only reference to early times was a vague impression that the ruins they saw were built by giants, and a people called wandering masons.

I have the most settled conviction of this theory. The magnificent ruins which are to be seen at this day in Mexico and Central America, were the works of the Phoenicians, and the irruption of the wandering tribes from the north-west coast of America swept that nation away, and have ever since maintained possession of this country, until white men have thinned their ranks, and gradually encroached upon, and usurped a great part of their territory.

The only opposition made to the general declaration of travellers, that the Indians are of Jewish descent, is, that they are red men, and are beardless. Now, take the olive complexion of the Jews in Syria, pa.s.s the nation over the Euphrates into a warmer climate, let them mingle with Tartars and Chinese, and after several generations reach this continent, their complexion would undergo some shades of hue and colour; and as to beards, they cannot grow while they are continually plucked, as is the Indian custom. The colour proves nothing against their origin. Take our fellow-citizens on our eastern borders, and compare their florid colour with the sickly hue and sallow complexions of those living on the southern sh.o.r.es, in the palmettoes and everglades, and we shall see a marked distinction, and yet they are members of the same family.

Du Pratz, speaking of the traditions of the Natches tribe, relates that in answer to the question, "Whence come you?" their reply was, "All that we know is that our fathers, to come hither, followed the sun, and came from the place where he rises. They were long in their journey; they were nearly perishing; and were brought to this wilderness of the sun setting without seeking it." Souard says of the Indians of Surinam, on the authority of Nasci, a learned Jew residing there, that the dialect of those Indians common in Guinana is soft, agreeable, and regular, and their substantives are Hebrew. "Their language, in the roots, idioms, and particular construction, has the genius of the Hebrew language, as their orations have the bold, laconic, and figurative style of the Hebrew prophets."

The Reverend Mr Chapman says of the Osages, "it is their universal practice to salute the dawn of every morning with their devotion." A custom always prevailing among pious Jews.

Malvenda and Acosta both affirm, that the natives had a tradition of a jubilee, according to the jubilee of Israel.

Dr Beatty, in speaking of the festival of the first-fruits by the Indians west of the Ohio, says, "at this ceremony _twelve_ of their old men divide a deer into twelve parts, and these men hold up the venison and fruits with their faces to the east, acknowledging the bounty of G.o.d to them. A singular and close imitation of the ceremonies and sacrifices of the temple." The doctor further says, "they have another feast which looks like the Pa.s.sover."

Sir Alexander Mackenzie, in his tour to the north-west coast, says, that "the Chepewyan Indians have a tradition among them, that they originally came from another country, inhabited by very wicked people, and had traversed a great lake which was in one place narrow and shallow, and full of islands, where they had suffered great misery; and a further tradition has it that nine parts of their nation out of ten pa.s.sed over the river. The Mexicans affirm, that seven tribes or houses pa.s.sed from the east to the wilderness."

Beltrami says, that the skeletons of the mammoths found in Kentucky and Missouri, and other parts of America, have been ascertained to resemble precisely those which have been found in Siberia and the eastern part of Asia, showing the facility of communication between the two coasts. And here it may be well to state a fact, which is strongly corroborative of the view we have taken, not only of the possibility of pa.s.sing from one continent to the other, but of the actual and probably constant communication between them. Charlevoix, says, he knew a Catholic priest, called Father Grilion, in Canada, who was recalled to Paris after his mission had been ended, and who was subsequently appointed to a similar mission in China. One day in Tartary, he suddenly encountered a Huron woman with whom he had been well acquainted in Canada, and who informed him that she had been captured, and pa.s.sed from nation to nation, until she reached the north-west coast, when she crossed into Tartary.

Since delivering the present lecture, I have received a letter from Mr Catlin, the celebrated painter, who for the last five years has been residing among the Indians. Mr Catlin says: