Page:The History of the American Indians.djvu/36

 24 On the defcent of the American Indians from the Jews.

kuffooma, " a {linking fheep," and " a goat." And yet a goat was one of the Egyptian deities, as likewife were all the creatures that bore wool ; on which account, the facred writers frequently term idols, " the hairy." The defpicable idea which the Indians affix to the fpecies, fhews they neither ufe it as a divine fymbol, nor have a defire of being named Dorcas, which, with the Hebrews, is a proper name, expreffive of a wild me goat. I mall fubjoin here, with regard to Amtaroth, or Aftarte, that though the ancients believed their deities to be immortal, yet they made to themfelves both male and female gods, and, by that means, Aftarte, and others, are of the fasmi- nine gender. Trifmegiftus too, and the Platonics, affirmed there was deus mafculo-faemineus ; though different fexes were needful for the procreation of human beings.

Inftead of confulting fuch as the heathen oracles or theTeraphkn the Dii Penates or Dii Lares, of the ancients, concerning future contingencies, the Indians only pretend to divine from their dreams, which may proceed from the tradition they dill retain of the knowledge their anceflors obtained from heaven, in vifions of the night, Job xxxiii. " God fpeaketh once, yea twice, yet man perceiveth it not. In a dream, in a vifion of the night, when deep fleep falleth upon men, in (lumberings upon the bed, then he openeth the ears of men, and fealeth their inftruclion." When we confider how well flocked with gods, all the neighbouring nations of Judaea were ; efpecially the maritime powers, fuch as Tyre and Sidon, Carthage and Egypt, which continually brought home foreign gods, and entered them into their own Palladia, and that thefe Americans are utterly ignorant both of the gods and their wormip, it proves, with fufficient evidence, that the gentle men, who trace them from either of thofe dates, only perplex themfelves in wild theory, without entering'into the merits of the queftion.

As the lull was the firft terreftrial cherubic emblem^ denoting fire, the an cient Egyptians, in length of rime, worfhipped Apis, Serapis, or Ofiris, under the form of an ox-, but, when he grew old, they drowned him, and lamented his death in a mourning habit, which occafioned a philofopher thus to jeft them, Si Dii //, cur plangitis ? Si mortui, cur adoratis? " If they be gods, why do you weep for them ? And, if they are dead, why do you wormip them r" A bull, ox, cow, or calf, was the favourite deity of

the

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