American Antiquities: Corroborative of the Book of Mormon (24 March 1860)

AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES,

CORROBORATIVE OF THE BOOK. OF MORMON.

(Continued from page 175.)

(From Adair’s “History of the American Indians,” published in London in 1775.)

“All the various nations of Indians seem to be of one descent. They call a buffalo, in their various dialects, by one and the same name, 'Yanasa.’ And there is a strong similarity of religious rites and of civil and martial customs among all the various American nations of Indians we have any knowledge of on the extensive continent, as will soon be shown. Their language is copious and very expressive, for their narrow orbit of Ideas, and full of rhetorical tropes and figures, like the orientalists. … From the most exact observations I could make in the long time I traded among the Indian Americans, I was forced to believe them lineally descended from the Israelites, either while they were a maritime power or soon after the general captivity: the latter, however, is the most probable. This descent I shall endeavour to prove from their religious rites, civil and martial customs, their marriages, funeral ceremonies, manners, language, traditions, and a variety of particulars. … As the Israelites were divided into tribes, and had chiefs over them, so the Indians divide themselves. Each tribe forms a little community within the nation; and as the nation hath its particular symbol, so hath each tribe the badge from which it is denominated. The sachem of each tribe is a necessary party in conveyances and treaties, to which he affixes the mark of his tribe, as a corporation with us doth their public seal. If we go from nation to nation among them, we shall not find one who doth not lineally distinguish himself by his respective family. … Every town has a state-house, or synedrion, as the Jewish sanhedrim, where, almost every night, the head men convene about public business. … These Indian Americans pay their religious devoir to Loah-Ishtohoollo-Aba, 'the great, beneficent, supreme, holy spirit of fire,’ who resides (as they think) sbove the clouds, and on earth also with unpolluted people. He is with them the sole author of warmth, light, and of all animal and vegetable life. They do not pay the least perceivable adoration to any images, or to dead persons, neither to the celestial lumiaaries, nor evil spirits, nor any created being whatsoever. … Agreeable to the theocracy or Divine government of Israel, the Indians think the Deity to be the immediate Head of their state. … They flatter themselves with the name hottuk oretoopah, ‘the beloved people,' because their supposed ancestors, as they affirm, were under the immediate government of the Deity, who was present with them in a very particular manner, and directed them by prophets, while the rest of the world were aliens and outlaws to the covenant. … When any of their relations die . . [they believe in their] return at some certain time to re-possess their beloved tract of land and enjoy their terrestrial paradise. As they believe in God, so they believe that there is a class of higher beings than men, and a future state and existence. … The Indian language and dialects appear to have the very idiom and genius of the Hebrew. Their words and sentences are expressive, concise, emphatical, sonorous, and bold, and often, both in letters and signification, synonymous with the Hebrew language.  … The Indian nouns have neither cases nor declensions: they are invariably the same through both numbers, after the Hebrew manner. In their verbs, they likewise sometimes use the preterperfect instead of the present tense of the indicative mood. … Like the Hebrews, they have no comparative or superlative degree: they express a preference by the opposite extremes. … There is not, perhaps, any one language or speech, except the Hebrew and the Indian American, which has not a great many prepositions. The Indians, like the Hebrews, have none in separate and express words. …

The Indians, for want of a sufficient number of radical words, are forced to apply the same noun and verb to signify many things of a various nature. … The Jewish rabbins tell us that the Hebrew language contains only a few more than a thousand primitive words, of which their whole language is formed; so that the same word very often denotes various, though not contrary things; but there is one radical meaning, which will agree to every sense that word is used in. … The Hebrew nouns are either derived from verbs, or both of them are out and the same. … The Indian method of expression exactly agrees with that Hebrew mode of speech. … According to the usage of the Hebrews, they always place the accusative case also before the verb. … The Hebrew and Indian words which express delineating, writing, deciphering, marking, and painting convey the same literal meaning in both languages. … The Indians, according to the usage of the Hebrews, always prefix the substantive to the adjective. … They use many plain religious emblems of the Divine names, Yohewah, Yah, and Ale; and these are the roots of a prodigious number of words through their various dialects. … In conformity to, or after the manner of the Jews, the Indian Americans have their prophets, high priests, and others of a religious order. As the Jews had a sanctum sanctorum, or most holy place, so have all the Indian nations. … The Indian tradition says that their forefathers were possessed of an extraordinary divine spirit, by which they foretold things future, and controlled the common course of nature; and this they transmitted to their offspring, provided they obeyed the sacred laws annexed to it. … As the prophets of the Hebrews had oracular answers, so the Indian magi (who are to invoke Yo He Wah and mediate with the supreme holy fire, that he may give seasonable rains,) have a transparent stone of supposed great power in assisting to bring down the rain. … The Hebrews offered daily sacrifice. .                  . The Indians have a similar religious service. … The Indians have among them the resemblance of the Jewish sin-offering and trespass-offering. … The Indians observe another religions custom of the Hebrews in making a peace-offering. … They always celebrate the annual expiation of sins in their religious temples. The red Hebrews imagine their temples to have such a typical holiness, more than any other place, that if they offered up the Annual Sacrifice elsewhere, it would not atone for the people. … The Hebrews had various ablutions and anointings, according to the Mosaic ritual, and all the Indian nations constantly observe similar customs from religious motives. … In the coldest weather, and when the ground is covered with snow, against their bodily ease and pleasure, men and children turn out of their warm houses or stoves, reeking with sweat, singing their usual sacred notes, Yo, Yo, &c., at the dawn of day, adoring Yo He Wah, at the gladsome sight of the morn; and thus they skip along, echoing praises, till they get to the river, when they instantaneously plunge into it. … This law of purity (bathing in water) was essential to the Jews, and the Indians to this day would exclude the men from religious communion who neglected to observe it. … 'Tis well known that oil was applied by the Jews to the most sacred as well as common uses: their kings, prophets, and priests, at their inauguration and consecration, were anointed with oil. . . The Indian priests and prophets are initiated by unction. … The Indians have customs consonant to the Mosaic laws of uncleanness. They oblige their women, in their lunar retreats, to build small huts at as considerable a distance from their dwelling-houses as they imagine may be out of the enemies’ reach, where, during the space of that period, they are obliged to stay at the risk of their lives. . . The non-observance of this separation, a breach of the marriage-law, and murder, they esteem the most capital crimes. When the time of the women’s separation is ended, they always purify themselves in deep running water, return home, dress, and anoint themselves. … Correspondent to the Mosaic law of women’s purification after travail, the Indian women absent themselves from their husbands and all public company for a considerable time. . . At the stated period, the Indian women’s impurity is finished by ablution, and they are again admitted to social and holy privileges. By the Levitical law, the people who had running issues or sores were deemed unclean, and strictly ordered apart from the rest, for fear of polluting them; for everything they touched became unclean. The Indians, in as strict a manner, observe the very same law. … The Israelites became unclean only by touching their dead, for the space of seven days; and the high priest was prohibited to come near the dead. ’Tis much the same with the Indians to this day. … Like the Jews, the greatest part of the Southern Indians abstain from most things that are in themselves, or in the general apprehension of mankind, loathsome, or unclean. . . They reckon all birds of prey and birds of night to be unclean and unlawful to be eaten. . . None of them will eat of any animal whatsoever, if they either know or suspect that it died of itself. . . They reckon all those animals to be unclean that are either carnivorous or live on nasty food, as hogs, wolves, panthers, foxes, cats, mice, rats. … The Indians, through a strong principle of religion, abstain in the strictest manner from eating the blood of any animal. … 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 futura: 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. … Many other of the Indian punishments resemble those of the Jews. . . The Indians strictly adhere more than the rest of mankind to that positive, unrepealed law of Moses, 'He who sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed.’ … There never was any set of people who pursued the Mosaic law of retaliation with such a fixed eagerness as these Americans. … They forgive all crimes at the Annual Atonement of sins, except murder, which is always punished with death. .        . The Indian Americans are more eager to revenge blood than any other people on the whole face of the earth. … The Israelites had cities of refuge, or places of safety, for those who killed a person unawares and without design. . . According to the same particular divine law of mercy, each of these Indian nations have either a house or town of refuge, which is a sure asylum to protect a manslayer, or the unfortunate captive, if they can once enter into it. … Before the Indians go to war, they have many preparatory ceremonies of purification and fasting, like what is recorded of the Israelites. … The Indian ark is deemed so sacred and dangerous to be touched, either by their own sanctified warriors or the spoiling enemy, that they durst not touch it upon any account. . . The warriors consider themselves as devoted to God, apart from the ‘rest of the people, while they are at war accompanying the sacred ark with the supposed holy things it contains. . . When they return home victorious over the enemy, they sing the triumphal song to Yo He Wah, ascribing the victory to him, according to a religious custom of the Israelites, who were commanded always to attribute their success in war to Jehovah, and not to their swords and arrows.

(To be continued.)