Page:The History of the American Indians.djvu/148

 156 On the defcent of the American Indians from the yews.

chiefly lived upon. I told him, I was informed that they dwell in fmall nafty huts, and lived chiefly on (beep's guts and crickets. He laughed, and faid there was no credit to be given to the far-diftant writers of thofe old books, becaufe they might not have underftood the language and cuf- toms of the people ; but that thofe, whom our books reported to live on fuch nafty food, (if they did not deceive us) might have been forced to it for the want of better, to keep them from dying j or by the like occafion, they mighr have learned that ugly cuftom, and could not quit it when they were free from want, as the Choktah eat horfe-flefh, though they have plenty of venifon : however, it was very eafy, he faid, to know whether they were pofifefled of human reafon, for if they were endued with fhame to have a defire of covering their nakednefs, he concluded them to be human. He then aflted me, whether I had been informed of their having any fort of language, or method of counting as -high as the number of their fingers, either by words or expreffive motion, or of bearing a nearer refemblance to Tdwe the human creature, in laughter, than Shawe the ape bore ; or of being more focial and gregarious than thofe animals of the country where they lived. If they were endued with thofe properties, he affirmed them to be human creatures, and that fuch old lying books fliould not be credited.

The more religious, or the leaft corrupted, of the various remote Indian nations, will not eat of any young bead when it is newly yeaned ; and their old men think they would fuffer damage, even by the bare contact : which feems to be derived from the Mofaic law, that prohibited fuch animals to be offered up, or eaten, till they were eight days old ; becaufe, till then, they were in an imperfect and polluted ftate! JThey appear, however, to be utterly ignorant of the dcfign and meaning of this appointment and prac tice, as well as of forne other cuftoms and inftitutions. But as the time of circurncifing the Ifraelitifh children was founded on this law of purity, it feems probable, that the American Aborigines obfcrved the law of circum- cifion, for fome .time after they arrived here, and defifted from it, when it became incompatible with the hard daily toils and (harp exercifes, which necefiity muft have forced them to purfue, to fupport life: efpe- cially when we^confider, that the fharpeft and moft Jafting affront, the mod opprobious, indelible epithet, with which one Indian can pof- fibly brand another, is to call him in public company, Hoobuk lVafke 9 Eunuchus, prasputio detefto. They relent it fo highly, that in the year

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