University of Virginia Library

[12] Chapter II.

When America was first visited by Europeans, it was
found that its inhabitants were altogether ignorant of the
country from which their ancestors had migrated, and of
the period at which they had been transplanted to the new
world. And although there were among them traditions
seeming to cast a light upon these subjects, yet when thoroughly
investigated, they tended rather to bewilder than
lead to any certain conclusion. The origin of the natives
has ever since been a matter of curious speculation with
the learned; conjecture has succeeded conjecture, hypothesis
has yielded to hypothesis, as wave recedes before wave,
still it remains involved in a labyrinth of inexplicable difficulties,
from which the most ingenious mind will perhaps
never be able to free it.

In this respect the situation of the aborigines of America
does not differ from that of the inhabitants of other
portions of the globe. An impenetrable cloud hangs over
the early history of other nations, and defies the researches
of the learned in any attempt to trace them to their origin.
The attempt has nevertheless been repeatedly made; and
philosophers, arguing from a real or supposed conformity
of one people to another, have vainly imagined that they
had attained to certainty on these subjects. And while
one has in this manner, undertaken to prove China to have
been an Egyptian colony, another, pursuing the same course
of reasoning, has, by way of ridicule, shewn how easily a
learned man of Tobolski or Pekin might as satisfactorily
prove France to have been a Trojan, a Greek or even an
Arabian colony; thus making manifest the utter futility
of endeavoring to arrive at certainty in this way.[5]

[13] Nor is this to be at all wondered at, when we reflect
on the barbarous state of those nations in their infancy,
the imperfection of traditionary accounts of what had
transpired centuries before, and in many instances the entire
absence of a written language, by which, either to perpetuate
events, or enable the philosopher by analogy of
language to ascertain their affinity with other nations.
Conjectural then as must be every disquisition as to the
manner in which this continent was first peopled, still
however, as many men eminent for learning and piety
have devoted much labor and time to the investigation of
the subject, it may afford satisfaction to the curious to see
some of those speculations recorded. Discordant as they
are in many respects, there is nevertheless one fact as to
the truth of which they are nearly all agreed; Mr. Jefferson
is perhaps the only one, of those who have written on
the subject, who seems to discredit the assertion that

America was peopled by emigrants from the old world.
How well the conjecture, that the eastern inhabitants of
Asia were descendants of the Indians of America can be
supported by any knowledge which is possessed of the
different languages spoken by the Aborigines, will be for
others to determine. "Neque confirmare argumentis,
neque refellere, in animo est; ex ingenio suo, quisque
demat vel addat fidem."

Among those who have given to the world their opinions
on the origin of the natives of America, is Father
Jos. Acosta, a Jesuit who was for some time engaged as a
missionary among them. From the fact that no ancient
author has made mention of the [14] compass, he discredits
the supposition that the first inhabitants of this country
found their way here by sea. His conclusion is that
they must have found a passage by the North of Asia and
Europe which he supposes to join each other; or by those
regions which lie southward of the straits of Magellan.

Gregorio Garcia, who was likewise a missionary
among the Mexicans and Peruvians, from the traditions
of those nations, and from the variety of characters, customs,
languages and religion, observable in the new world,
has formed the opinion that it was peopled by several different
nations.

John de Laet, a Flemish writer, maintains that America
received its first inhabitants from Scythia or Tartary,
and soon after the dispersion of Noah's grand-sons. The
resemblance of the northern Indians, in feature, complexion
and manner of living, to the Scythians, Tartars, and
Samojedes, being greater than to any other nations.

Emanuel de Moraez, in his history of Brazil, says
that this continent was wholly peopled by the Carthaginians
and Israelites. In confirmation of this opinion, he
mentions the discoveries which the Carthaginians are
known to have made beyond the coast of Africa. The
progress of these discoveries being stopped by the Senate
of Carthage, those who happened to be in the newly discovered
countries, cut off from all communication with
their countrymen, and being destitute of many of the
necessaries of life, easily fell into a state of barbarism.

George de Huron, a Dutch writer on this subject, considering
the short space of time which elapsed between the
creation of the world and the deluge, maintains that
America could not have been peopled before the flood.
He likewise supposes that its first inhabitants were located
in the north; and that the primitive colonies extended
themselves over the whole extent of the continent, by
means of the Isthmus of Panama. It is his opinion that
the first founders of these Indian colonies were Scythians;
that the Phœnicians and Carthaginians subsequently got
to America across the Atlantic, and the Chinese across the
Pacific ocean, and that other nations might have landed
there by one of these means, or been thrown on the coast
by tempest: since through the whole extent of the continent,
both in its northern and southern parts there are
evident marks of a mixture of the northern nations with
those who have come from other places.

[15] He also supposes that another migration of the
Phœnicians took place during a three years voyage made
by the Tyrian fleet in the service of king Solomon. He
asserts, on the authority of Josephus, that the port at which
this embarkation was made, lay in the Mediterranean. The
fleet, he adds, went in quest of Elephants' teeth and Peacocks,
to the western coast of Africa, which is Tarshish,
then for gold to Ophir, which is Haite or the Island of
Hispaniola. In the latter opinion he is supported by Columbus,
who, when he discovered that Island, thought he
could trace the furnaces in which the gold had been refined.

Monsieur Charlevoix, who travelled through North
America, is of opinion that it received its first inhabitants
from Tartary and Hyrcania. In support of this impression
he says that some of the animals which are to be found
here, must have come from those countries: a fact which
would go to prove that the two hemispheres join to the
northward of Asia. And in order to strengthen this conjecture,
he relates the following story, which he says was
told to him by Father Grollon, a French Jesuit, as matter
of fact.

Father Grollon said, that after having labored some

time in the missions of New France, he passed over to
China. One day as he was travelling in Tartary he met a
Huron woman whom he had known in Canada. He asked
her by what adventure she had been carried into a country
so very remote from her own; she replied that having been
taken in war, she was conducted from nation to nation,
until she reached the place where she then was.

Monsieur Charlevoix narrates another circumstance of
a similar kind. He says that he had been assured, another
Jesuit had met with a Floridian woman in China. She
also had been made captive by certain Indians, who gave
her to those of a more distant country, and by these again
she was given to those of another nation, 'till having been
successively passed from country to country, and after having
travelled through regions extremely cold, she at length
found herself in Tartary. Here she had married a Tartar,
who had attended the conquerors in China, and with whom
she then was.

Arguing from these facts and from the similarity of
several kinds of wild beasts which are found in America,
with those of Hyrcania and Tartary, he arrives at what he
deems, a [16] rational conclusion, that more than one nation
in America had Scythian or Tartarian extraction.

Charlevoix possessed a good opportunity of becoming
acquainted with the character and habits of the American
Indians. His theory however has been controverted by
some, possessing equal advantages of observation. Mr.
Adair, an intelligent gentleman who resided among the
nations during the space of forty years, and who became
well acquainted with their manners, customs, religion, traditions
and language, has given to them a very different
origin. But perfect soever as may have been his knowledge
of their manners, customs, religion and traditions,
yet it must be admitted that any inquiry into these, with
a view to discover their origin, would most probably prove
fallacious. A knowledge of the primitive language, alone
can cast much light on the subject. Whether this knowledge
can ever be attained, is, to say the least, very questionable—Being
an unwritten language, and subject to
change for so many centuries, it can scarcely be supposed

now to bear much, if any affinity, to what it was in its
purity.

Mr. Adair says, that from the most exact observation
he could make during the long time which he traded
among the Indians, he was forced to believe them lineally
descended from the Israelites, either when they were a
maritime power, or soon after the general captivity; most
probably the latter.

He thinks that had the nine tribes and a half, which
were carried off by Shalmanezer, king of Assyria, and
which settled in Media, remained there long, they would,
by intermarrying with the nations of that country, from a
natural fickleness and proneness to idolatry, and from the
force of example, have adopted and bowed before the Gods
of the Medes and Assyrians; and have carried them along
with them. But he affirms that there is not the least trace
of this idolatry to be discovered among the Indians: and
hence he argues that those of the ten tribes who were the
forefathers of the natives, soon advanced eastward from
Assyria and reached their settlements in the new continent,
before the destruction of the first Temple.

In support of the position that the American Indians
are thus descended, Mr. Adair adduces among others the
following arguments:

1st, Their division into tribes.

"As each nation has its particular symbol, so each tribe
has [17] the badge from which it is denominated. The
Sachem is a necessary party in conveyances and treaties,
to which he affixes the mark of his tribe. If we go from
nation to nation among them, we shall not find one, who
does not distinguish himself by his respective family.
The genealogical names which they assume, are derived
either from the names of those animals whereof the cherubim
is said in revelation to be compounded; or from such
creatures as are most similar to them. The Indians bear
no religious respect to the animals from which they derive
their names; on the contrary they kill them whenever an
opportunity serves.

"When we consider that these savages have been upwards
of twenty centuries without the aid of letters to

carry down their traditions, it can not be reasonably expected,
that they should still retain the identical names of
their primogenial tribes: their main customs corresponding
with those of the Israelites, sufficiently clear the subject.
Moreover they call some of their tribes by the
names of the cherubinical figures, which were carried on
the four principal standards of Israel."

2nd, Their worship of Jehovah.

"By a strict, permanent, divine precept, the Hebrew
nation was ordered to worship at Jerusalem, Jehovah the
true and living God, who by the Indians is styled `Yohewah.'
The seventy-two interpreters have translated this
word so as to signify, Sir, Lord, Master, applying to mere
earthly potentates, without the least signification or relation
to that great and awful name, which describes the
divine presence."

3rd, Their notions of a theocracy.

"Agreeably to the theocracy or divine government of
Israel, the Indians think the deity to be the immediate
head of the state. All the nations of Indians have a great
deal of religious pride, and an inexpressible contempt for
the white people. In their war orations they used to call
us the accursed people, but flatter themselves with the name
of the beloved people, because their supposed ancestors
were, as they affirm, under the immediate government of
the Deity, who was present with them in a peculiar manner,
and directed them by Prophets, while the rest of the
world were aliens to the covenant.[6] When the old Archimagus,

or any of their Magi, is [18] persuading the people at
their religious solemnities, to a strict observance of the old
beloved or divine speech, he always calls them the beloved or
holy people, agreeably to the Hebrew epithet, Ammi, (my
people) during the theocracy of Israel. It is this opinion,
that God has chosen them out of the rest of mankind, as
his peculiar people, which inspires the white Jew, and the
red American, with that steady hatred against all the
world except themselves, and renders them hated and despised
by all."

5th, Their language and dialects.

"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 the letters and signification are
synonymous with the Hebrew language." Of these Mr.
Adair cites a number of examples.

6th, Their manner of counting time.

"The Indians count time after the manner of the Hebrews.
They divide the year into spring, summer, autumn
and winter. They number their year from any of these
four periods, for they have no name for a year; and they
subdivide these and count the year by lunar months, like
the Israelites who counted time by moons, as their name
sufficiently testifies.

"The number and regular periods of the religious feasts
among the Indians, is a good historical proof that they
counted time by and observed a weekly Sabbath, long
after their arrival in America. They began the year at
the appearance of the first new moon of the vernal equinox,
according to the ecclesiastical year of Moses. 'Till
the seventy years captivity [19] commenced, the Israelites
had only numeral names for their months, except Abib
and Ethanim; the former signifying a green ear of corn,
the latter robust or valiant; by the first name the Indians
as an explicative, term their passover, which the trading
people call the green corn dance."

7th, Their prophets or high priests.

"In conformity to, or after the manner of the Jews, the
Indians have their prophets, high priests, and others of a

religious order. As the Jews have a Sanctum Sanctorum,
so have all the Indian nations. There they deposit their consecrated
vessels—none of the laity daring to approach that
sacred place. The Indian tradition says, that their forefathers
were possessed of an extraordinary divine spirit by
which they foretold future events; and that this was transmitted
to their offspring, provided they obeyed the sacred
laws annexed to it.[7] [20] Ishtoallo is the name of all their
priestly order and their pontifical office descends by inheritance
to the eldest. There are traces of agreement,
though chiefly lost, in their pontifical dress. Before the
Indian Archimagus officiates in making the supposed
holy fire for the yearly atonement of sin, the Sagan
clothes him with a white ephod, which is a waistcoat without
sleeves. In resemblance of the Urim and Thummim
the American Archimagus wears a breastplate made of a
white conch-shell, with two holes bored in the middle of it,
through which he puts the ends of an otter-skin strap;
and fastens a buck-horn white button to the outside of
each; as if in imitation of the precious stones of the
Urim."

In remarking upon this statement of Mr. Adair, Faber,
a learned divine of the church of England, has said, that
Ishtoallo (the name according to Adair of the Indian
priests) is most probably a corruption of Ish-da-Eloah, a man
of God, (the term used by the Shunemitish woman in
speaking of Elisha;) and that Sagan is the very name by
which the Hebrews called the deputy of the High Priest,
who supplied his office and who performed the functions of
it in the absence of the high priest, or when any accident
had disabled him from officiating in person.

8th, Their festivals, fasts and religious rites.

"The ceremonies of the Indians in their religious worship,
[21] are more after the Mosaic institution, than of
Pagan imitation. This could not be the fact if a majority
of the old nations were of heathenish descent. They are
utter strangers to all the gestures practiced by Pagans in
their religious rites. They have likewise an appellative,
which with them is the mysterious, essential name of
God; the tetragrammaton, which they never use in common

speech. They are very particular of the time and place,
when and where they mention it, and this is always done
in a very solemn manner. It is known that the Jews had
so great and sacred regard for the four lettered, divine
name, as scarcely ever to mention it, except when the High
Priest went into the sanctuary for the expiation of sins."

Mr. Adair likewise says that the American Indians,
like the Hebrews, have an ark in which are kept various
holy vessels, and which is never suffered to rest on the bare
ground. "On hilly ground, where stones are plenty, they
always place it on them, but on level land it is made to
rest on short legs. They have also a faith, in the power
and holiness of their ark, as strong as the Israelites had in
theirs. It is too sacred and dangerous to be touched by
any one, except the chieftain and his waiter. The leader
virtually acts the part of a priest of war protempore, in
imitation of the Israelites fighting under the divine military
banner."

Among their other religious rites the Indians, according
to Adair, cut out the sinewy part of the thigh; in
commemoration, as he says, of the Angel wrestling with
Jacob.

12th, Their abstinence from unclean things.

"Eagles of every kind are esteemed by the Indians to
be unclean food; as also ravens, crows, bats, buzzards and
every species of owl. They believe that swallowing gnats,
flies and the like, always breed sickness. To this that divine
sarcasm alludes `swallowing a camel and straining at
a gnat.' " Their purifications for their Priests, and for having
touched a dead body or other unclean thing, according
to Mr. Adair, are quite Levitical. He acknowledges however,
that they have no traces of circumcision; but he
supposes that they lost this rite in their wanderings, as it
ceased among the Hebrews, during the forty years in the
wilderness.

15th, Their cities of refuge.

"The Israelites had cities of refuge for those who
killed persons unawares. According to the same particular
divine [22] law of mercy, each of the Indian nations has
a house or town of refuge, which is a sure asylum to protect

a man-slayer, or the unfortunate captive, if they can but
once enter into it. In almost every nation they have
peaceable towns, called ancient holy, or white towns.
These seem to have been towns of refuge; for it is not in
the memory of man, that ever human blood was shed in
them, although they often force persons from thence and
put them to death elsewhere."

16th, Their purifications and ceremonies preparatory.

"Before the Indians go to war they have many preparatory
ceremonies of purification and fasting like what
is recorded of the Israelites."

21st, Their raising seed to a deceased brother.

"The surviving brother, by the Mosaic law, was to
raise seed to a deceased brother, who left a widow childless.
The Indian custom looks the very same way; but
in this as in their law of blood, the eldest brother can redeem."

With these and many arguments of a like kind, has
Mr. Adair endeavored to support the conjecture, that the
American Indians are lineally descended from the Israelites;
and gravely asks of those who may dissent from his
opinion of their origin and descent, to inform him how
they came here, and by what means they formed the long
chain of rites and customs so similar to those of the Hebrews,
and dissimilar to the rites and customs of the pagan
world.

Major Carver, a provincial officer who sojourned some
time with the Indians and visited twelve different nations
of them, instead of observing the great similarity, mentioned
by Adair as existing between the natives and Hebrews,
thought he could trace features of resemblance between
them and the Chinese and Tartars; and has undertaken
to shew how they might have got here. He says,

"Although it is not ascertained certainly, that the continents
of Asia and America join each other, yet it is proven
that the sea which is supposed to divide them, is full of
islands the distance from which to either continent, is comparatively
trifling. From these islands a communication
with the main land could be more readily effected than
from any other point." "It is very evident that the manners

and customs of the American Indians, resemble that
of the Tartars; and I have no doubt that in some future
era, it will be reduced to a certainty that in some of the
wars between the Chinese and Tartars, a part [23] of the
inhabitants of the northern provinces were driven from
their country and took refuge in some of these islands,
and from thence found their way to America. At different
periods each nation might prove victorious, and the
conquered by turns fly before the conquerors; and hence
might arise the similitude of the Indians to all these people,
and that animosity which exists among so many of
their tribes."

After remarking on the similarity which exists between
the Chinese and Indians, in the singular custom of
shaving or plucking out the hair leaving only a small spot
on the crown of the head; and the resemblance in sound
and signification which many of the Chinese and Indian
words bear to each other, he proceeds, "After the most
critical inquiry and mature deliberation, I am of opinion
that America received its first inhabitants from the northeast,
by way of the islands mentioned as lying between
Asia and America. This might have been effected at different
times and from different parts: from Tartary,
China, Japan or Kamschatka, the inhabitants of these
countries resembling each other, in color, feature and
shape."

Other writers on this subject, coinciding in opinion
with Carver, mention a tradition which the Indians in
Canada have, that foreign merchants clothed in silk
formerly visited them in great ships: these are supposed
to have been Chinese, the ruins of Chinese ships having
been found on the American coast. The names of many
of the American kings, are said to be Tartar; and Tartarax,
who reigned formerly in Quivira, means the Tartar.
Manew, the founder of the Peruvian empire, most probably
came from the Manchew Tartars. Montezuma, the
title of the emperors of Mexico, is of Japanese extraction;
for according to some authors it is likewise the appellation
of the Japanese Monarch. The plant Ginseng,
since found in America, where the natives termed it

Garentoguen, a word of the same import in their language,
with Ginseng in the Tartar, both meaning THE
THINGS OF A MAN.

Dr. Robertson is decidedly of opinion, that the different
tribes of American Indians, excepting the Esquimaux,
are of Asiatic extraction. He refers to a tradition among
the Mexicans of the migration of their ancestors from a
remote country, situated to the north-west of Mexico, and
says they point out their various stations as they advanced
into the interior provinces, which is precisely the route
they must have held, if they had been emigrants from
Asia.

Mr. Jefferson, in his notes on Virginia, says, that the
passage from Europe to America was always practicable,
even to the imperfect [24] navigation of the ancient times;
and that, from recent discoveries, it is proven, that if Asia and
America be separated at all it is only by a narrow streight.
"Judging from the resemblance between the Indians of
America and the eastern inhabitants of Asia, we should
say that the former are descendants of the latter, or the
latter of the former, except indeed the Esquimaux, who,
from the same circumstance of resemblance, and from
identity of language, must be derived from the Greenlanders.
A knowledge of their several languages would
be the most certain evidence of their derivation which
could be produced. In fact it is the best proof of the
affinity of nations, which ever can be referred to."

After regretting that so many of the Indian tribes
have been suffered to perish, without our having collected
and preserved the general rudiments of their language, he
proceeds,

"Imperfect as is our knowledge of the tongues spoken
in America, it suffices to discover the following remarkable
fact. Arranging them under the radical ones to
which they may be palpably traced, and doing the same
by those of the red men of Asia, there will be found probably
twenty in America, for one in Asia, of those radical
languages; so called because if ever they were the same,
they have lost all resemblance to one another. A separation
into dialects may be the work of a few ages only, but

for two dialects to recede from one another, 'till they have
lost all vestiges of their common origin, must require an
immense course of time; perhaps not less than many people
give to the age of the earth. A greater number of
those radical changes of language having taken place
among the red men of America proves them of greater antiquity
than those of Asia.

Indian traditions say, that "in ancient days the Great
Island appeared upon the big waters, the earth brought
forth trees, herbs and fruits: that there were in the world
a good and a bad spirit, the good spirit formed creeks and
rivers on the great island, and created numerous species
of animals to inhabit the forests, and fishes of all kinds to
inhabit the water. He also made two beings to whom he
gave living souls and named them Ea-gwe-howe, (real
people). Subsequently some of the people became giants
and committed outrages upon the others. After many
years a body of Ea-gwe-howe people encamped on the
bank of a majestic stream, which they named, Kanawaga
(St. Lawrence.) After a long time a number of foreign
people sailed from a part unknown, but unfortunately the
winds drove them off and they ultimately landed on the
southern part of the great island and many of the crew
perished. Those who survived, selected a place for residence,
erected fortifications, became a numerous people
and extended their settlements."[8]

Thus various and discordant are the conjectures respecting
the manner in which this continent was first
peopled. Although some [25] of them appear more
rational and others, yet are they at best but hypothetical
disquisitions on a subject which will not now admit of
certainty. All agree that America was inhabited long anterior
to its discovery by Columbus, and by a race of human
beings, who, however numerous they once were, are
fast hastening to extinction; some centuries hence and
they will be no more known. The few memorials, which
the ravages of time have suffered to remain of them, in
those portions of the country from which they have been

long expelled; have destruction dealt them by the ruthless
hand of man. History may transmit to after ages, the
fact that they once were, and give their "local habitation
and their name." These will probably be received as the
tales of fiction, and posterity be at as much loss to determine,
whether they ever had an existence, as we now are
to say from whence they sprang.