Page:The History of the American Indians.djvu/452

 44O General Obfervations on

degrees, they chofe an idol-god of fuch reputed qualities, as bed fluted with their own tempers, and the fuuadon of their various countries, in or der to receive temporal good things, and avert the oppofite evils. In the length of forgetting time, they became fo exceedingly ftupid, as to v/or- fhip vegetables, frightful and fbameful images, filthy beafts, and danger ous fnakes. Self-love feemed to have induced them to adore the two laft through fear, and the bird alfo that preyed on them, became the object of their adoration. In this miferable ftate of darknefs the world was in volved, when the fupreme fatherly chieftain, through tender pity to .hu man weaknefs, appeared to your reputed anceftors, in the form of a blazing fire, renewed his old divine laws with one of their beloved men, and confirmed the whole, with dreadful thunders, lightnings, and other finking prodigies, to imprefs them with a deep awe and reverence of his majefty. In time, they built a moft magnificent beloved houfe, wonderful in its form, and for the great variety of beloved uten- fils, and emblems it contained. The ark was one of the three moft divine fymbols in it. Ijhtohoollo Eloha became their chieftain, both at home, and at war. A wonderful emanation of the holy fire refided in the great divine houfe, while they liftened to the voice of Loacbe, " the prophets," which the holy chieftain fent to them in fuccefilon, to teach them his will as the fixt rule of all his actions. While their hearts continued honeft, he enabled them to conquer their enemies, and to gain victories over formidable ar mies, which like the fwarms of buzzing infects in your low lands, could not be numbered, and at length fettled them in as happy a ftate as they could reafonably wifh for.

A little before that time, he called himfelf A-Do-Ne-To^ Minggo IJhtohoolloi " the divine chief;" but then, to your enlightened (and re puted) anceftors, To-HeWah^ which fignifies, " he lived always, and will never die." It is he, whom you invoke in your facred fongs when you are drinking your cufTeena, and you derived that awful invocation, and your ark of war, from them. He is the author of life and death, and conr. iequently, the " mafter of our breath," as the red people juftly term him. He gave them Loache and Qobache* " Prophets and afkers of rain," and preicribed to them laws that were fuitable for their own government. They chiefly confifted of facred emblems of an early divine promife to mankind, which he faithfully performed ; and when the end was anfwered, 5 thofe

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