Page:The History of the American Indians.djvu/127

 ��Their daily facrijice.

people, their bowing pofture during the time of thofe religious acclamations and invocations, helps to confirm their Hebrew origin.

��ARGUMENT IX.

��The Hebrews offered DAILY SACRIFICE, which the prophet Daniel calls Vamid, " the daily." It was an offering of a lamb every morning and evening, at the charges of the common treafury of the temple, and except the fldn and intrails, it was burnt to afhes upon which account they called it, Oolab Kalile, to afcend and confume. The Indians have a fimilar religious fervice. The Indian women always throw a fmall piece of the fatted of the meat into the fire when they are eating, and frequently before they be gin to eat. Sometimes they view it with a pleafing attention, and pretend to draw omens from it. They firmly believe fuch a method to be a great means of producing temporal good things, and of averting thofe that are evil : and they are fo far from making this fat-offering through pride or hy- pocrify, that they perform it when they think they are not leen by thofe of contrary principles, who might ridicule them without teaching them better.

Inftead of blaming their religious conduct, as fome have done, I advifed them to perfift in their religious duty to IJhtohoollo Aba, becaufe he never failed to be kind to thofe who firmly fhaked hands with the old beloved fpeech, particularly the moral precepts, and after they died, he would bring them to their beloved land ; and took occafion to fhew them the innumer able advantages their reputed forefathers were bled with, while they obeyed the divine law.

The white people, (I had almod faid chridians) who have become Indian profelytes of judice, by living according to the Indian religious fydem, allure us, that the Indian men obferve the daily facrifice both at home, and in the woods, with new-killed venifon ; but that otherwife they decline it. The difficulty of getting fait for religious ufes from the fea-fhore, and likewife its irritating quality when eaten by thofe who have green wounds, might in time occafion them to difcontinue that part of the facrifice.

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