Page:The History of the American Indians.djvu/31

 fbeir notions of a "Deity correfpond. 19

and neceflarily exifts of himfelf, without beginning or end. The ancient heathens, it is well known, worfhipped a plurality of gods Gods which they formed to themfelves, according to their own liking, as various as the countries they inhabited, and as numerous, with fome, as the days of the year. But thefe Indian Americans pay their religious devoir to Loak-I/htoboollo-^iba^ think) above the clouds, and on earth alfo with unpolluted people. He is with them the fole author of warmth, light, and of all animal and vegetable life. They do not pay the lead perceivable adoration to any images, or to dead perfons ; neither to the celeftial luminaries, nor evil fpirits, nor any created being whatfoever. They are utter ftrangers to all the geftures practifed by the pagans in their religious rites. They kifs no idols j nor, if they were placed out of their reach, would they kifs their hands, in token of reverence and a willing obedience.
 * ' the great, beneficent, fupreme, holy fpirit of fire," who refides (as they

The ceremonies of the Indians in their religious worfhip, are more after the Mofaic inflitution, than of pagan imitation: which could not be, if the majority of the old natives were of heathenifli defcent ; for all bigots and enthufiafts will fight to death for the very fhadow of their fuperflitious wor fhip, when they have even loft all the fubftance. There yet remain fo many marks, as to enable us to trace the Hebrew extraction and rites, through all the various nations of Indians ; and we ma^y with a great deal of probability conclude, that, if any heathens accompanied them to the American world or were fettled in it before "them, they became profelytes of ju ft ice, and their pagan rites and cuftoms were fwallowed up in the Jewim.

To illuftrate the general fubjeftj I mall give the Indian opinion of fome of the heathen gods, contrafted with that of the pagan.

The American Indians do not believe the SUN to be any bigger than it appears to the naked eye. Converfing with the Chikkafah archi-magus, or high-prieft, about that luminary, he told me, " it might poffibly be as broad and round as his winter-houfe ; but he thought it could not well exceed it." We cannot be furprized at the ilupidity of the Americans in this refpecl:, when we confider the grofs ignorance which now prevails among the general part of the Jews, not only of the whole fyftem of nature, but of the eflential meaning of their own religious ceremonies, received from the Divine Majefty.

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