Page:The History of the American Indians.djvu/76

 - 6 4 On the defcent of the American Indians from the Jews.

arrows impatient to be on the wing-, and, left delay fhould burn their hearts any longer, he gave them the cool refrefhing word, " Join the holy .ark, and away to cut off the devoted enemy." They immediately founded the fhrill whop -.whoop, and ftruck up the folemn, awful fong, To, &c.


 * In Virginia, refides the remnant of .an Indian tribe, who call themfelves

Sepone ; which word, with. the Egyptians, fignifies the time of putting their wine into vdTels ; derived, according to mythologifts, from Sapban, " to in- clc-fe or conceal." From thence they formed the fictitious Tifipbone, the pu- nifher of fins, animated with hatred ; and alfo the reft of their pretended furies, from the like circumftances of the year. Our early American writers have beftowed on thefe Indians an emperor, according to the Spanifh copy, calling him Pawhatan cpntrary to the Indian method of ending their pro per names with a vowel ; and have pictured them as a feparate body of fierce idolatrous canibals. We however find them in the prefent day, of the fame temper and religious tenets, as the reft of the Indian Americans, in propor tion to their fituation in life. Confidering the nearneis of Egypt to Judea, they might have derived that appellative from the Egyptians, efpecially, as here, and in feveral of our American colonies, (particularly on the north fide of Sufquehana river, in Penfylvania) are old towns, called Kama. There was about thirty years ago, a remnant of a nation, or fubdivided tribe of Indians, called Kanaai ; which refembles the Hebrew proper name, 2y2D, (Canaan, or Chanoona\ Their proper names always end with a vowel : and they feldom ufe a confonant at the end of any word *. I cannot recollect

many gentlemen of eminent learning, it will appear not a little furprizing that the name Ca- ,naaaites t in the original language, according to the Indian method of expreffing it, as above, did not excite the attention of the curious, and prompt them to fome enquiry into the lan guage, rites, and cuftoms, of thofe Aborigines : which had they effected, would have juftly procured them thofe eulogia from the learned world, which their fociety profufely bellowed on the artful, improved flrokes of a former prime magiftrate of South-Carolina, whofe conduct in Indian affairs, was fo exceedingly lingular, if not fordid and faulty, (as I publicly proved when he prefided there) that another year's fuch management would have caufed the Cheerake to remove to the French barrier, or to have invited the French to fettle a garrifon, where the late unfortunate Fort-Loudon flood. But a true Britifh adminiflratiou Succeeding, in the very critical time, it deftroyed their immature, but molt dangerous threatening fcheme. This note I infert here, though rather out of place, to mew, that the northern gentlemen have not made all thofe obfervations and enquiries, with regard to the Indians, which might have been reafonably expefted, from fo numerous and learned a body.
 * If we confider the proximity of thofe Indians to a thick-fettled colony, in which there are

7 any

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