out a bird, which remained eating dead bodies. He then sent out a little bird, which returned with a small branch."
Doctor Beatty says that an Indian in Ohio informed, that one of their traditions was; "Once the waters had overflowed all the land, and drowned all people then living, except a few, who made a great canoe and were saved."
This Indian added, to Dr. Beatty, that "a long time ago the people went to build a high place; that while they were building, they lost their language, and could not understand each other." Doctor Boudinot assures us that two ministers of his acquaintance informed him, that they being among the Indians away toward the Mississippi, the Indians there (who never before saw a white man,) informed him that one of their traditions was,—a great while ago they had a common father, who had the other people under him; that he had twelve sons by whom he administered his government; but the sons behaving illy, lost this government over the other people. This the two ministers conceived to be a pretty evident traditionary notion concerning Jacob and his twelve sons.
Mr. Adair informs that the southern Indians have a tradition that their ancestors once had a "sanctified rod, which budded in one night's time;" which seems a tradition of Aaron's rod.
Various traditions of the Indians strikingly denote their Hebrew extraction. Dr. Beatty informs of their feast, called the hunter's feast; answering, he thinks, to the Pentecost in ancient Israel. He describes it as follows;—
They choose twelve men, who provide twelve deer. Each of the twelve men cuts a saplin; with these they form a tent, covered with blankets. They then choose twelve stones for an altar of sacrifice. Some tribes, he observes, choose but ten men, ten poles, and ten stones. Here seems an evident allusion to the twelve tribes; and also to some idea of the ten separate tribes of Israel. Upon the stones of their altar they suffered no tool to pass. No tool might pass upon a certain altar in Israel.
The middle joint of the thigh of their game, Dr. Beatty informs, the Indians refuse to eat. Thus did ancient Israel, after the angel had touched the hollow of Jacob's thigh in the sinew that shrank: Gen. xxxii. 25, 31, 32. "In short, (says Dr. Beatty,) I was astonished to find so many of the Jewish customs prevailing among them; and began to conclude there was some affinity between them and the Jews."
Col. Smith, in his history of New-Jersey, says of another region of Indians, "They never eat of the hollow of the thigh of any thing they kill." Charlevoix, speaking of the Indians still further to the north, says, he met with people who could not help thinking that the Indians were descended from the Hebrews, and found in every thing some affinity between them. Some things he states; as on certain meals, neglecting the use of knives; not breaking a bone of the animal they eat; never eating the part under the lower joint of the thigh; but throwing it away. Such are their traditions from their ancient fathers. Other travellers among them speak of their peculiar evening feast, in which no bone of their sacrifice may be broken. No bone might be broken of the ancient paschal lamb in Israel, which was eaten in the evening.
Different men who had been eye witnesses, speak of this, and other feasts, resembling the feasts in Israel; and tell us relative to this peculiar evening feast, that if one family cannot eat all they have prepared, a neighbouring family is invited to partake with them; and if any of it be still left, it must be burned before the next rising sun. None who read the law of the passover can doubt the origin of this.
A Christian friend of mine informs me, that he some time since read in a book which he now cannot name, the account of a man taken at Quebec, in Montgomery's defeat; of his being carried far to the north west by Indians; and of a feast which they kept, in which each had his portion in a bowl; that he was charged to be very careful not to injure a bone of it; that each must eat all his bowl full, or must burn what was left on a fire, burning in the midst for this purpose. The object of the feast he knew not.
The Secretary of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, in a letter to the writer of this View, says; "An officer of the British army, stationed at Halifax, has been at Boston this season; (1823;) and I am informed he has expressed a strong opinion that the Indians are of Israelitish descent. He derives this opinion from what he has seen and known of the Indians themselves."