with the others. The neglect of which they accused themselves, consisted in sacrificing children, purchased of parents among the poorer sort, who reared them for that purpose; and not selecting the most promising, and the most honourable, as had been the custom of old. In short, there were particular children brought up for the altar, as sheep are fattened for the shambles; and they were bought and butchered in the same manner. If a person had an only child, it was the more liable to be put to death, as being esteemed more acceptable to the deity, and more efficacious of the general good," &c. It is impossible not to shudder at this dreadful recital. In comparison with the infernal rites of these civilized nations, how pure is the religion of the Savages of America! NOTE U. The arts practised by these impostors, when called upon to exercise their supposed power of healing, are thus described by Mr. Heckewelder. "Attired in a frightful dress, he approaches his patient, with a variety of contortions and gestures, and performs by his side, and over him, all the antick tricks that his imagination can suggest. He breathes on him, blows in his mouth, and squirts some medicines, which he has prepared, in his face, mouth, and nose; he rattles his gourd filled with dry beans or pebbles, pulls out and handles about a variety of sticks and bundles, in which he appears to be seeking for the proper remedy, all which is accompanied with the most horrid gesticulations, by which he endeavours, as he says, to frighten the Spirit or the disorder away," &c. Hist. Account, p. 225. Mr. Hearne's description of the conjurers among the Chepewyan or Northern Indians, which is very minute, and disgusting enough, corresponds so exactly with Heckewelder's account, that it would seem as if the same person had sat to each for his picture. the following passage, it will be seen that he depends for success upon the aid of his attendant Spirit. From "I began to be very inquisitive about the Spirits, which appear to them, on these occasions, [swallowing a stick, bayonet, &c.] and their form; when I was told that they appeared in various shapes, for almost every conjurer had his peculiar attendant; but that the Spirit which attended the man who pretended to swallow the piece of wood, they said, generally appeared to him in the shape of a cloud." Hearne, p. 217-18. of the Northern or Chepewyan Indians. From the following extracts, it will be seen that the same office existed, attended by the same ceremonies, and the same results, among the natives of Virginia, at the time of its first settlement by the English. "To cure the sicke, a certaine man with a little rattle, using extreme howlings, shouting, singing, with divers antick and strange behaviours over the patient, sucketh blood out of his stomack or diseased place." News from Virginia, by Captain Smith, apud Purchas, vol. 5. p. 950. Master Alexander Whitaker, Minister to the Colony at Henrico, anno 1613, states, that "they stand in great awe of the Quiokosoughs, or priests, which are a generation of vipers, even of Sathan's owne brood. The manner of their life is much like to the Popish Hermits of our age; for they live alone in the woods, in houses sequestered from the common course of men, neither may any man be suffered to come into their house, or to speake with them, but when this priest doth call him. He taketh no care for his victuals, for all such kinde of things, both bread and water, &c. are brought unto a place neere unto his cottage, and there are left, which hee fetcheth for his proper neede. If they would have raine, or have lost any thing, they have their recourse to him, who conjureth for them, and many times prevaileth. If they be sick, he is their physician; if they be wounded, he sucketh them. At his command they make warre and peace, neither doe they any thing of moment without him.” Whitaker, in Purchas, vol. 4. p. 1771. Quiokosough seems to have been an appellation common to their gods and conjurers, unless it be a mistake of the English settlers. The Virginian Indians so fed Captain Smith, "that he much misdoubted that he should have beene sacrificed to the Quoyoughquosicke, which is a superiour power they worshippe, then the Image whereof, a more ugly thing cannot be described." Purchas, vol. p. 950. 5. The name written by Whitaker, Quiokosough, and by Smith, Quoyoughquosicke, is, no doubt, the same as Kewasowok in Hariot's account; a proof of the uncertainty of the orthography of Indian words. Among the New-England Indians, the same office was designated by the name of Powah, or as it is otherwise written Powow. Thus Mr. Winslow states, in his "Good Newes from New-England”"The office and dutie of the Powah, is to be exercised principally in calling upon the Devill, and curing diseases of the sicke and wounded," &c. "In the Powah's speech, hee promiseth to sacrifice many skinnes of Beasts, Kettles, Hatchets, Beades, Knives, and other the best things they have, to the fiend, if hee will come to helpe the partie diseased," &c. Purchas, vol. iv. lib. x. cap. v. The Savages of Acadia, according to Charlevoix, called their Jongleurs Automins. "Dans l'Acadie-quand on appelle les Jongleurs, c'est moins à cause de leur habileté, que parce qu'on suppose, qu'ils peuvent mieux sçavoir des Esprits la cause du mal, et les remedes, qu'il y faut appliquer.-Dans l'Acadie, les Jongleurs s'apelloient Automins, et c'étoit ordinairement le chef du village, qui etoit revêtu du cette dignité." Journal, p. 367-8. In the Bohitii of the natives of Hispaniola, when they were visited by Columbus, we clearly recognise the same office. "Their Boitii, or priests, instruct them in these superstitions: these are also physicians, making the people beleeve that they obtaine health for them of the Zemes. They tye themselves to much fasting and outward cleanlinesse and purging; especially where they take upon them the cure of great men for then they drunke the powder of a certaine hearbe, which brought them into a furie, wherein they said they learned many things of their Zemes. Much adoe they make about the sicke partie, deforming themselves with many gestures, breathing, blowing, sucking the forehead, temples, and necke of the patient; sometimes also saying, that the Zemes is angrie for not erecting a chappell, or dedicating to him a grove or garden, or the neglect of other holies. And if the sicke partie die, his kins-folkes, by witchcraft, enforce the dead to speake, and tell them whether hee died by naturall destinie, or by the negligence of the Boitii, in not fasting the full due, or ministring convenient medicine so that, if these physicians be found faulty, they take revenge of them." Purchas, vol. 5. p. 1093. NOTE W. See the very interesting report of Mr. Duponceau, to the Historical and Literary Committee of the American Philosophical Society; and also his Correspondence with Mr. Heckewelder. "All the genuine specimens that we have seen," he observes, "of the grammatical forms of the Indians from North to South, on the Continent and in the Islands, exhibit the same general features, and no exception whatever, that I know of, has yet been discovered." "When we find so many different idioms, spoken by nations which reside at immense distances from each other, so entirely different in their etymology, that there is not the least appearance of a common derivation, yet so strikingly similar in their forms, that one would imagine the same mind presided over their original formation, we may well suppose that the similarity extends through the whole of the language of this race of men, at least until we have clear and direct proof to the contrary." Correspondence, ut supr. Letter xxiii. Will it be thought an extravagant supposition, that it was the Divine mind which presided over their original formation; and that when God confounded the languages of men, for the very purpose of dispersing them throughout the Earth, He should have so planned the systems of speech, as to make similar grammatical forms characterize the great divisions of the human race ? NOTE X. "D'ailleurs les In this opinion I am supported by Charlevoix. idées quoiqu'entièrement confuses, qui leur sont restées d'un Premier Etre, les vestiges presqu'effacés du culte religieux, qu'ils paroissent avoir autrefois rendu à cette Divinité Suprême; et les foibles traces, qu'on remarque, jusques dans leurs actions les plus in différentes, de l'ancienne croyance, et de la religion primitive, peuvent les remettre plus facilement qu'on ne croit, dans le chemin de la verité, et donner à leur conversion au christianisme des facilités qu'on ne rencontre pas, ou qui sont contrebalancées par de plus grands obstacles, dans les nations les plus civilisées." Charlevoix, Journal, p. 265. a On this subject, Charlevoix may surely be admitted as a competent witness. No men have more accurately studied the human character than the Jesuits; and their conversion of the natives of Paraguay, and, what is still more to our purpose, the success of their present attempts to civilize and convert the Araucanians, nation unconquered by the Spaniards, and in the highest degree martial, and jealous of their liberties, is a convincing proof of the wisdom of their system. Their missionaries are never solitary, and therefore are not obliged to sink to the level of the savage state, in order to enjoy the privileges of social life. The Indians, also, whom they educate, are induced to marry and settle around them, under their paternal supervision, instead of being again incorporated with their uncivilized countrymen; among whom, as experience has fully shown, they would quickly lose all that they had gained. |