Page:The History of the American Indians.djvu/100

 88 On the defcent of the American Indians from the Jews.

told me, as I was an infidel, literally, "one who fhakes hands with the accurfed fpeech," and did not believe its being endued with a divine power,, the fight of it could no ways benefit me, and that, as their old unerring tradition afTured them, it would fuffcr very great damage in cafe of com pliance, he hoped I would kindly acquiefce; efpecially, as he imagined, I believed every nation of people had certain beloved things, that might be eafily fpoiled by being polluted. I told him I was fully fatisfied with the friendly excufe he made to my inconfiderate requeft ; but that I could fcarcely imagine there were any fuch beloved men, and beloved things, in fo extremely fertile, but now fun-burnt foil. Their crops had failed the year before, by reafon of feveral concurring caufes: and, for the moft part of the fummer feafon, he had kept his bed through fear of incurring the punifh- ment of a falfe prophet ; which, joined with the religious regimen, and abftemious way of living he was obliged ftrictly to purfue, it fweated him fo feverely, as to reduce him to a fkeleton. I jeded him in a friendly way, faying, I imagined, the fupreme holy fire would have proved more kind to his honed devotees, than to ficken him fo feverely, efpecially at that critical feafon, when the people's food, and his own, entirely depended on his health ; that, though our beloved men never undertook to bring down feafonable rains, yet we very feldom failed of good crops, and always paid them the tenth bafket-full of our yearly produce ; becaufe, they perfuaded our young people, by the force of their honed example, and kind-hearted enchanting language, to fhun the crooked ways of Hottuk Kallakfe, " the mad light people," and honedly to lhake hands with the old beloved fpeech that the great, fupreme, fatherly Chieftain, had told his Loache to teach us how to obtain peace and plenty, and every other good thing while we live here, and when we die, not only to fhun the accurfed dark place, where the fun is every day drowned, but likewife to live again for ever, very happily in the favourite country.

He replied, that my fpeech confided of a mixture of good and ill ; the beginning of it was crooked, and the conclufion draight. He faid, I had wrongfully blamed him, for the effect of the diforderly conduct of the red people and himfelf, as it was well known he faded at different times for ieveral days together ; at other times ate green tobacco-leaves ; and fome days drank only a warm decoction of the button fnake-root, without allowing

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