Page:The History of the American Indians.djvu/28

 1 6 On the decent of the American Indians from the Jews.

be of Tyrian extraction. We are told in the fragment of Sanchoniathon, that the Tyrians worfhipped fire, and the aerial wind, as gods ; and that Ufous, the fon of Hypfcuranias, built a facred pillar to each of them : fo that, if it is not of Ifraelitifh extraction, it may be derived from the Tyrians their neighbours as may, likewife, the appellative name of fijh ; efpecially, as the Indians, fometimes, invoke the eagle, and the filh, when they are curing their fick. The Tyrians were the people, in early times, who, above all others, enriched themfelves in the natural element of the filh.

The Indians, however, bear no religious refpecl to the animals from which they derive the names of their tribes, but will kill any of the fpecies, when opportunity ferves. The wolf indeed, feveral of them do not care to meddle with, believing it unlucky to kill them ; which is the fole reafon that few of the Indians fhoot at that creature, through a notion of fpoiling their guns. Confidering the proximity of Tyre to Egypt, probably this might be a cuftom of Egyptian extraction ; though, at the fame time, they are fo far from efteeming it a deity, they reckon it the moil abominable quadruped of the whole creation.

There is no tribe, or individual, among them, however, called by the -name cpc/um *, which is with the Cheerake ftiled feequa ; and with the Chikkafah and Choktah Indians, Jbookka, fynonymous with that of a hog. This may be more material than at firft appears, as our natural hiftories tell us, that? the opoflum is common in other parts of the world. Several of the old Indians aflure us, they formerly reckoned h as filthy uneatable an animal, as a hog, although they confefs, and we know by long obfervation, that, from the time our traders fettled among them, they are every year more corrupt in their morals ; not only in this inftance of eating an impure animal, but in many other religious cuftoms of their forefathers.

When we confider the various revolutions thefe unlettered favages are likely to have undergone, among themfelves, through a long-forgotten meafure of time ; and that, probably, they have been above twenty centu ries, without the ufe of letters to convey down their traditions, it cannot be reafonably expected they fliould ftill retain the identical names of


 * A creature that hath a head like a hog, and a tail like a rat.

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