Page:The History of the American Indians.djvu/198

 1 86 On the defcent of the American Indians from the Jews.

��ARGUMENT XX.

��The Jewifii records tell us, that their women MOURNED for the lofs of their deceafed huibands, and were reckoned vile, by the civil law, if .they married in the fpace, at leaft, of ten months after their death. In refem- blance to that Cuftom, all the Indian widows, by an eftablifhed Uriel: penal law, mourn for the lofs of their deceafed hufbands, and among fome tribes for the fpace of three or four years. But the Eaft-India Pagans forced the widow, to fit on a pile of wood,, and hold the body of her hufband on her knees, to be confumed together in the flames.

The Mufkohge widows are obliged to live a chafte fmgle life, for the tedi ous fpace of four years, and the Chikkafah women, for the term of three, at the rifque of the law of adultery being executed againft the recufants. Every evening, and at the very dawn of day, for the firft year of her widowhood, me is obliged through the fear of mame to lament her lofs, in very intenfe audible ftrains. As Tab ah fignifies weeping, lamenting, mourn ing, or Ah God ; and as the widows, and others, in their grief bewail and cry To He (fa) Wah^ Tohetaweh ; Tohetaha Tohetahe, the origin is fuffici- ently clear. For the Hebrews reckoned it fo great an evil to die unla- mented, like Jehoiakim, Jer. xxii. 18. " who had none to fay, Ah, my brother ! Ah, my fifter ! Ah, my Lord ! Ah, his glory !" that it is one of the four judgments they pray againft, and it is called the burial of an afs, "With them, burying fignified lamenting, and fo the Indian widows direct their mournful cries to the author of life and death, infert a plural note in the facred name, and again tranfpofe the latter, through an inva riable religious principle, to prevent a prophanation.

Their law compels the widow, through the long term of her weeds,

to refrain all public company and diverfions, at th6 penalty of an adul-

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