Page:The History of the American Indians.djvu/227

 T6e tejlimonies of French writers, &c.

dead in that manner, left it mould prevent their being raifed and united again *. </

Monfieur de Poutrincourt fays, that, when the Canada Indians faluted him, they faid Ho Ho Ho ; but as we are well affured, they exprefs To He a Ah, in the time of their feftivals and other rejoicings, we have reafon to conclude he made a very material miftake in fetting down the Indian folemn blcffing, or invocation. He likewife tells us, that the Indian women will not marry on the graves of their hufbands, i. e. " foon after their deceafe," but wait a long time before they even think of a fecond hufband. That, if the hu(band was killed, they would neither enter into a fecond marriage, nor eat flefh, till his blood had been revenged : and that after child-bear ing, they obferve the Mofaic law of purification, {hutting up themfelves from their hufbands, for the fpace of forty days.

Peter Martyr writes, that the Indian widow married the brother of her deceafed hufband, according to the Mofaic law : and he fays, the Indians worfhip that God who created the fun, moon, and all invifible things, and who gives them every thing that is good. He affirms the Indian prieils had chambers in the temple, according to the cuftom of the Ifraelites, by divine appointment, as i Chron. ix. 26, 27. And that there were certain places in it, which none but their priefts could enter, i. e. " the holieft." And Key fays alfo, they have in fome parts of America, an exact form of king, prieft, and prophet, as was formerly in Canaan.

Robert Williams, the fir ft Engliihman in New-England, who is faid to have learned the Indian language, in order to convert the natives, believed them to be Jews : and he allures us, that their tradition records that their anceftors came from the fouth-weft, and that they return there at death j that their women feparate themfelves from the reft of the people at certain periods ; and that their language bore fome affinity to the Hebrew.

Baron Lahontan writes, that the Indian women of Canada purify them felves after travail ; thirty days for a male child and forty for a female : that during the faid time, they live apart from their hufband that the un married brother of the deceafed hufband marries the widow, fix months

'/ * Vid.Ceuto ad Solin. Benz. & Hift. Peruv.

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