Page:The History of the American Indians.djvu/23

 On the origin and defcent of the Indians. 1 1

liave any knowledge of, on the extenlive continent ; as will foon be fhewn.

Their language is copious, and very expreffive, for their narrow orbit of ideas, and full of rhetorical tropes and figures, like the orientalifts. In early times, when languages were not fo copious, rhetoric was. invented to fupply that defect : and, what barrennefs then forced them to, cuftom now continues as an ornament.

Formerly, at a public meeting of the head-men, and chief orators, >of the Choktah nation, I heard one of their eloquent fpeakers deliver a very pathetic, elaborate, allegorical, tragic oration, in the high praife, and for the great lofs, of their great, judicious war-chieftain, Shu-las hum-mdjh- ta-be, our daring, brave friend, rcdjhoes. The orator compared him to the fun, that enlightens and enlivens the whole fyftem of created beings : and having carried the metaphor to a confiderable length, he expatiated on the variety of evils, that neceflarily refult from the difappearance and ab- fence of the fun, and, with a great deal of judgment, and propriety of expreffion, he concluded his oration with the fame trope, with which he began.

They often change the fenfe of words into a different fignification from the natural, exactly after the manner alfo of the orientalifts. Even, their common fpeech is full of it, like the prophetic writings, and the book of Job, their orations are concife, ftrong, and full of fire ; which fuf- ficiently confutes the wild notion which fome have efpoufed of the North American Indians being Pras-Adamites, or a feparate race of men, created for that continent What ftronger circumftantial proofs can be expected, than that they, being disjoined from the reft of the world, time immemorial, and deftitute alfo of the ufe of letters, mould have, and ftill retain the ancient ftandard of fpeech, conveyed down by oral tradition from father to fon, to the prefent generation ? Befides, thc-ir perfons, cuftoms, &c. are not fingular from the reft of the world ; which, probably, they would, were they not deicendcd from one and the fame common head. Their notions of things are like ours, and their organScal ftructure is the fame. In them, the foul governs the body, according to the common laws of God in the creation of Adam. God employed fix days, in creating the heavens, this earth, and the innumerable fpecies

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