Page:The History of the American Indians.djvu/22

 Observations on the origin and defcent of the Indians.

��THE very remote hiftory of all nations, is disfigured with fable, and gives but little encouragement to diftant enquiry, and laborious re- fearches. Much of the early hiftory and antiquities of nations is loft, and fome people have no records at all, and to this day are rude and uncivi lized. Yet a knowledge of them is highly interefting, and would afford amufement, and even inftruclion in the moft polifhed times, to the mod polite. Every fcience has certain principles, as its bafis, from which it reafons and concludes. Mathematical theorems, and logical proportions, give clear demonftrations, and necefTary conclufions : and thus other fci- ences. But, biftory^ and the origin of tribes and nations, have hitherto been covered with a great deal of obfcurity. Some antient hiftorians were igno rant, others prejudiced. Some fearchers into antiquities adopted the tra ditional tales of their predeceflbrs : and others looking with contempt on the origin of tribes and focieties, altogether exploded them, without invef- tigation. My defign is, to examine, and if poffible, afcertain the genea logy and defcent of the Indians, and to omit nothing that may in the leaft contribute to furnifh the public with a full INDIAN SYSTEM.

In tracing the origin of a people, where there are no records of any kind, either written, or engraved, who rely folely on oral tradition for the lupport of their antient ufages, and have loit great part of them though the under taking be difficult, yet where feveral particulars, and circumftances, ftrong and clear, correfpond, they not only make room for conjecture, but cherifh probability, and till better can be offered, muft be deemed conclufive.

All the various nations of Indians, feem to be of one defcent ; they call

a buffalo, in their various dialefts, by one and the fame name, " Tanafa'*

And there is a ftrong fimilarity of religious rites, and of civil and

martial cuftoms, among ail the various American nations of Indians we

7 have

�� �