American Antiquities: Corroborative of the Book of Mormon (31 March 1860)

(Continued from page 190.)

…  The Indian manner of curing their sick is very similar to that of the Jews. They always invoke YO He Wah a considerable space of time before they apply any medicines, let the case require ever so speedy an application. The more desperately ill their patients are, the more earnestly they invoke the Deity on the sad occasion. . . The Indians deem the curing their sick or wounded a very religious duty, and it is chiefly performed by their supposed prophets and magi, because they believe they are inspired with a great portion of the divine fire. … 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. . . Thus it was an universal custom with the ancient Peruvians, when the owner died, to bury his effects with him; which the avaricious Spaniards perceiving they robbed these storehouses 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. . . This custom of burying the dead person's treasures with him has entirely swallowed up their medals and other monuments of antiquity, without any probability of recovering them. In the Tuccabatches on the Tallapoose river, thirty miles above the Allabahamah garrison, are two brazen tables, and five of copper. They esteem them so sacred as to keep them constantly in their holy of holies, without touching them in the least, only in the time of their compounded firstfruit offering and annual expiation of sins, . . at which time gentlemen of curiosity may see them. . . The shape of the five copper plates [shown by engraving]: one is a foot and a half long, and seven inches wide; the other four are shorter and narrower. The shape of the two brass plates [shown by engraving]: about a foot and a half in diameter; the largest stamped thus [shown in engraving]. He [Old Bracket, an Indian of perhaps 100 years old,] said he was told by his forefathers that those plates were given to them by the man we call God; that there had been many more of other shapes, some as long as he could stretch with both his arms, and some had writing upon them, which were buried with particular men; and that they had instructions given with them—viz., they must only be handled by particular people, and those fasting. . . This account was taken in the Tuccabatchey-square, 27th July, 1759, per Will. Bolsover. … As the Hebrews carefully buried their dead, so, on any accident, they gathered their bones and laid them in the tombs of their forefathers. Thus all the numerous nations of Indians perform the like friendly office to every deceased person of their respective tribe; insomuch that those who lose their people at war, if they have not corrupted their primitive customs, are so observant of this kindred duty as to appropriate some time to collect the bones of their relations, which they call bone-gathering, or ‘gathering the bones to their kindred,’ according to the Hebrew idiom. … The surviving brother by the Mosaic law was to raise seed to a deceased brother who left a widow childless, to perpetuate his name and family, and inherit his goods and estate, or be degraded; and if the issue he begat was a male child, it assumed the name of the deceased. The Indian custom looks the very same way; yet it is in this as in their law of blood—the eldest brother can redeem. … When the Israelites gave names to their children or others, they chose such appellatives as suited best with their circumstances and the times. . . This custom is a standing rule with the Indians, and I never observed the least deviation from it. … 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. … Emanuel de Moraes and Acosta affirm that the Brazilians marry in their own family or tribe. And Jo. de Laet. says they call their uncles and aunts ‘fathers and mothers,’ which is a custom of the Hebrews and of all our North American Indians; and he assures us they mourn very much for their dead, and that their clothes are like those of the early Jews. … Acosta writes that the clothes of the south American Indians are shaped like those of the ancient Jews. …. Laet. (in his description of America,) and Escarbotus assure us they often heard the South American Indians to repeat the sacred word Halleluiah, which made them admire how they first attained it. And Malvenda says that the natives of St. Michael had tombstones, which the Spaniards digged up, with several ancient Hebrew characters upon them, as ‘Why is God gone away?’ and ‘He is dead, God knows.’ Had his curiosity induced him to transcribe the epitaph, it would have given more satisfaction. … Peter Martyr writes that the Indian widow married the brother of her deceased husband, according to the Mosaic law. … Robert Williams, the first Englishman in New England, who is said to have learned the Indian language, in order to convert the natives, believed them to be Jews; and he assures us that their tradition records that their ancestors came from the southwest, and that they return there at death; that their women separate themselves from the rest of the people at certain periods; and that their language bore some affinity to the Hebrew. Baron Lahontan writes that the Indian women of Canada purify themselves after travail—thirty days for a male child and forty for a female; that during the said time they live apart from their husband; that the unmarried brother of the deceased husband marries the widow six months after his decease. … Malvenda . . affirms, as doth Acosta, that the natives observed a year of Jubilee, according to the usage of the Israelites. … By the Spanish authorities, the Peruvians and Mexicans were polygamists: but they had one principal wife, to whom they were married with certain solemnization; and murder, adultery, theft, and incest were punished with death.”

(To be continued.)