Page:The History of the American Indians.djvu/70

 r8 On the defcent of the American Indians from the

With the Cheerake, Awwa, or Amma^ fignifies " water," and " a river ;" not much unlike the Hebrew. They likewife term fait, Hawa ; and both the conjunction copulative, and " to marry," is Tawa. The name of a wife is Awab ; which written in Hebrew, makes mrr, Eve, or Eweh y the name of our general mother. So that the Indian name of a wife, is literally and emphatically, HIS AND, " One abfolutely needful for the well-being of 2/h, or man;" IJhtawa (tim ?} fignifies "have you married?" We gain additional light from the ftrong fignifkant appellative, I/h-ke, " a mother ;" which is an evident contraction of IJha, the mother of Tawe, or man kind v with their favourite termination, Jke 9 fubjoined ; the word becomes thus fmoother than to pronounce it at its full length, JJha-Jke. If we confider that the Hebrews pronounced % Vau* when a confonant, as W 9 here is a very ftrong, exprefllve gradation, through thofe various words, up to the divine, neceflary,. AND, who formed and connected every fyftem of be ings, or to the Hebrew divine original, YO HE WAH : at the fame time,, we gain a probable reafon why fo many proper names of old Indian places,. in South-Carolina, and elfewhere, along the great continent, begin with our Anglo-Saxon borrowed character, W\ as Wampee^ Watboo^ Wappoo, Wad- mola, Wajfamefahy &c. Chance is fluctuating, and can never act uni formly.

To elucidate the aforefaid remarks,, it may not be amifs to obferve, that, according to the Ifraelitifh cuftom both of mourning, and employing mourners for their dead, and calling weeping, the lifting up of their voices to God, the Choktah literally obferve the fame cuftom ; and both they and the Chikkafah term a perfon, who through a pretended religious prin ciple bewails the dead, Yah-ah, " Ah God ! " and one, who weeps on other occafions, Yahma, " pouring out fait tears to, or before God;"' which is fimilar to >DiT. When a perfon weeps very bitterly, they fay,. Yahmijhto, which is a compounded word, derived from iT, and S D% with the initial part of the divine name, IJhtohoollo, fubjoined, to magnify the idea, according to the ufage of the Hebrews. When the divine penman is defcribing the creation, and the ftrong purifying wind, which fwept along the furface of the waters, he calls it, " the air, or fpirit ;" and, more fignificantly, " the wind of God," or a. very great wind : and, in other parts of the divine oracles, great hail, a 7 great

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