Page:The History of the American Indians.djvu/212

 2 oo On the defcent of the American Indians from the Jews.

as our North-American Indians ftili prac"tife, when they devote their cap tives to death, which is ufhered in with ablutions, and other methods of fanctifying themfelves, as have been particularly defcribed , and they per form the tblemnity with finging the facred triumphal fong, with beating of the drum, dances, and various forts of rejoicings, through gratitude to the beneficent and divine author of fuccefs againft their common enemy. By the defcription of the Portuguefe writers, the Indian-Brafilian method of war, and of torturing their devoted captives, very nearly refembks the cuftoms of our Indians.

Acofta, according to his ufual ignorance of the Indian cuftoms, fay?, that fome in Mexico -underftood one another by whittling, on which he attempts to be witty but notwithftanding the great contempt and furprife of the Spaniards at thofe Indians who whittled as they went; this whittle was no other than the war-whoop, or a very loud and fhrill fiiout, denoting death, or good or bad news, or bringing in captives from war. The fame writer fays they had three kinds of knighthood, with which they honoured the beft foldiers ; the chief of which was the red ribbon, the next the lion, or tyger-knight j and the meaneft was the grey knight. He might with as much truth, have added the turky-buz- zard knight, the fun-blind bat knight, and the night-owl knight. His ac count of the various gradations of the Indian xvar-titles, (hews the unfkil- fulnefs of that voluminous writer, even in the firft principles of his Indian fubjecT:, and how far we ought to rely on his marvellous works.

The accounts the Spaniards formerly gave us of Florida and its inhabitants, are written in the fame romantic drain with thofe of Mexico. Ramufius tells us, that Alvaro Nunes and his company reported the Apalahchee Indians to be fuch a gigantic people, as to carry bows, thick as a man's arm, and of eleven or twelve fpans long, mooting with proportional force and direction. It feems they lived then a fober and temperate life, for Morgues fays, one of their kings was three hundred years old ; though Laudon reckons him only two hundred and fifty : and Morgues afTures us, he faw this young Indian Methufalah's father, who was fifty years older than his fon, and that each of them was likely by the common courfe of nature to live thirty or forty years longer, although they had feen their fifth generation. Since that
 * imc they have fo exceedingly degenerated, in height of body, largenefs of

3 defenfive

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