Page:The History of the American Indians.djvu/99

 r lefts method of feekingfeafonaile rains. 87

communicative power. Doth not this allude to the precious blazoning ftoncs of Urim and Thummim ?

In Tymahfe, a lower Cheerake town, lived one of their reputed great divine men, who never informed the people of his feeking for rain, but at the change, or full of the moon, nnlefs there was fome pro- mifing fign of the change of the weather, either in the upper regions, or from the feathered kalender ; fuch as the quacking of ducks, the croaking of ravens, and from the moiftnefs of the air felt in their quills j confe- quently, he feldom failed of fuccefs, which highly increafed his name r and profits ; for even when it rained at other times, they afcribed it to the interceflion of their great beloved man. Rain-making, in the Cheerake mountains, is not fo dangerous an office, as in the rich level lands of the Chikkafah country, near the Miflifippi. The above Cheerake prophet had a carbuncle, near as big as an egg, which they faid he found where a great rattle- fnake lay dead, and that it fparkled with fuch furprizing luftre, as to illumi nate his dark winter-houfe, like ftrong flames of continued lightning, to the great terror of the weak, who durft not upon any account, approach the dreadful fire-darting place, for fear of fudden death. When he died, ic was buried along with him according to cuftom, in the town-houfe of Ty mahfe, under the great beloved cabbin, which itood in the wefternmoft part 'of that old fabric, where they who will run the rilk of fearching, may luckily find it j but, if any of that family detected them in difturbing the bones of their deceafed relation, they would refent it as the bafeft aft of hoftility. The inhuman conduct of the avaricious Spaniards toward the dead Peru vians and Mexicans, irritated the natives, to the higheft pitch of diftraclion, againft thofe ravaging enemies of humanity. The intenfe love the Indians bear to their dead, is the reafon that fo few have fallen into the hands of our phyficians to difTecl, or anatomife. We will hope alfo, that from a prin ciple of humanity, our ague-charmers, and water-cafters, who like birds of night keep where the Indians frequently haunt, would not cut up their fel low-creatures, as was done by the Spanifh butchers in Peru and Mexico.

Not long ago, at a friendly feaft, or feaft of love, in Weft-Florida, dur ing the time of a long-continued drought, I earneftly importuned the old rain-maker, for a fight of the pretended divine ftone, which he had aflured me he was pofleffed of ; but he would by no means gratify my re^ueft. He

told

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