Page:Light and truth.djvu/258

256 writer on the Indians in Massachusetts, in its earliest days, informs, that the name of a being they worshipped was Abamocko. Here, without any perception of the fact, he furnishes a Hebrew word in compound. Abba-mocko; father-mocho. As a tribe of Indians in the south call God, Abba-mingo-ishto; Father chief-man. In the latter, we have two Hebrew words: Abba, father; and Ish, man. Could we make proper allowance for Pagan pronunciation, and find how the syllables in their words ought to be spelled, we might probably find many more of the Hebrew roots in their language.

It is ascertained that, the Indians make great use of the syllables of the names of God, as roots of compound words. Dr. Boudinot says: " Y-O-he-wah-yah and Ale, are roots of a prodigious number of words through their various dialects." Wah being a noted name of God with the Indians, it seems often to occur in their proper names. Major Long informs us, in his expedition to the Rocky Mountains, that the name of God with the Omawhaw tribe is Wahconda. The Indians have their Wabash river, their Wa-sasheh tribe, (of which the word Osage is but a French corruption,) their Wa-bingie, Wa-ping, Wa-masqueak, Wa-shpelong, and Wa-shpeaute tribes; also their Wa-bunk, a name of the sun. A friend of mine informs me, that while surveying, in his younger life, in the state of Ohio, he obtained considerable acquaintance with the Indians there. That they appeared to have a great veneration for the sun, which they called Wahbunk. If bunk is an Indian name for a bed, as some suppose, it would seem that with those Indians, the sun was Jehovah's bed, or place of residence. The Indians have had much of an idea of embodying the Great Spirit in fire. It is an idea which resulted from the scene on the fiery top of Sinai, and from ancient Hebrew figures, (as Paul informed in his epistle to the Hebrews,) that "Our God is a consuming fire." No wonder then those Indians in Ohio, as did the ancient Peruvians, embodied their Great Spirit in the sun. And no wonder their veneration for that visible supposed residence of the Great Spirit should be mistaken by strangers for worship paid to the sun.

The Indians have had their imitation of the ark of the covenant in ancient Israel. Different travellers, and from