_Oobache Ishtohoollo_, tell us, that ancient records affirm, all of the
priestly order (after the death of the divine messenger) were equal in
their religious office, that deference excepted, which is always due to
a virtuous seniority—and that as wisdom and virtue equally accompany
either youth, middle, or old age, they continued in that brotherly state
of religious simplicity, according to the true copy of the humble,
all-loving, and beloved messenger, for the space of three hundred years
after that period—and that, as the speech of the great divine messenger
was marked in a copious language, which abounded with various words to
express the same thing, the names of old men, overseers and bishops,
signify one and the same rank of beloved men of the beloved house,
according to the former humble conduct of their divine master; but that
the words are now tortured through mercenary views, contrary to the
plain simplicity of the primitive teachers. As holy things, and white
emblems, are easily polluted and tarnished by people of impure hearts,
and unclean hands, the divine law began then to lose its quickening
influence over the beloved men of those large countries, where the sun
rises out of the broad water. Their disputes ran high, and the longer
they lasted, the sharper they grew. They, at last, referred them to the
decision of the beloved men, toward the place where the daily sun is
drowned in the great salt water, which is called Rome. As in affairs of
state, so in religion, a remarkable precedent begets a custom, and this
becomes a law with societies. In consequence thereof, an order of
superior beloved men laid hold of this, and stretched the divine speech,
so as to answer their own mercenary views.
In process of time, there sprung up a pretended great bringer of rain,
who, like the hurtful spirits of corrupt darkness, by rejecting the
divine speech, and despising the example of the holy messenger and his
scholars, set up arrogantly for himself, against the supreme chieftain
of the rain and thunder, claimed the tenth basket-full of the new
harvest according to the obsolete law of your supposed ancestors, and
even forgave adulterers, thieves, liars, incestuous persons, and those
who accompanied with women in their lunar retreats, without any sort of
purification, if they only paid him such a quantity of yellow stone, as
he proportioned to the various degrees of each crime they committed. To
enrich himself by their weakness, his whole tribe of black-dressed
missionaries, by strict order, frightened the ignorant {443} and
credulous, with the wild notion of wandering after death in the accursed
place of darkness, without any possibility of avoiding that dreadful
fate, unless they revealed all their crimes to them, and paid them a
fixed price. Because pride and envy had spoiled some of the spirits
above, and made them accursed beings; therefore, the messenger of
_Ishtohoollo_, as I told you, strongly checked the like disposition in
its first appearance among his scholars. But the pride of the Romish
chieftain, and desire of absolute religious and civil power, became so
unbounded, as to claim an unlimited authority over all the great
chieftains on earth; and he boasted of being so highly actuated by the
unerring divine wisdom, as to know and do every thing perfectly. He, at
the same time, ordered all his scholars to involve the people in thick
clouds of darkness, and impress them with a firm belief, that ignorance
produces virtue. He invented a third state for the sake of his temporal
interest, fixing it half way between people’s favourite place of living
anew, and that of the horrible darkness, which was to be a vomiting or
purging state of the dead, and called it purgatory; where the dead must
unavoidably call, and be detained, till surviving relations satisfied
them for their enlargement. He became so highly intoxicated by pride and
power, that he erected images of such dead people as most resembled
himself, with various other objects for the living to invoke, instead of
the great eternal _Yo He Wah_, whom you supplicate in your religious
invocations: and he marked for his black scholars, a great many very
evil speeches, and spoke them with a strong mouth and ill heart, and
enforced them by swords and fiery faggots, contrary to the old beloved
speech which was confirmed by the anointed messenger.
At length, the holy spirit of fire influenced two great beloved men in
particular, according to a former prediction, to speak to the people
with a strong mouth, as witnesses of the divine truth. Their ears were
honest in hearing the old beloved speech, and it sunk deep into their
hearts. But a great many superstitious customs still remained, for had
they aimed at a perfect establishment of the divine law in their
religious worship, probably the high placed religious men through a
covetous spirit would have opposed the reformation with all their might;
as very few of them endeavoured to teach the young people, by honest
examples, to live a virtuous life, or enabled them to get refreshing
showers from _Ishtohoollo Aba_ to make plentiful harvests—and yet they
claimed a great part of it, and even {444} of the seed corn, without the
least exemption of the poor, contrary to the tender feelings even of our
indigent warriors and great canoe men, who stretch out a kindly hand to
their poor brethren. That part of the old beloved speech, the tenth
basket-full, was calculated only for your supposed predecessors, who
consisted of twelve families; one of which was devoted to the divine
service. Therefore, they were allowed some part of the religious
offerings, and of the yearly produce of the land, to make their own and
their families hearts rejoice, and at the same time to keep them humble,
and make them hospitable to the widow, the fatherless, and the stranger.
They, like the humble scholars of the great beloved messenger, were
always poor; they honestly minded their religious duty, and were not
allowed to purchase any land, nor to expose their virtue to the
temptations of heaping up yellow stone, or employing their minds on any
thing, except the divine law.
The lives and manners of the early teachers of the speech of the divine
messenger, as I before told you, were also strictly just and blameless.
They equally taught by precept and example; and their lessons, like
those of their great master, were plain, simple, and holy. They were
humble in their behaviour, and moderate in their apparel, food, and
drink, and faithful in the discharge of their religious office: instead
of assuming the arrogant title of divine chieftains, they honestly gave
themselves the lowly name of _Intooksare Ishtohoollo_, “Servants of
God,” in imitation of the life, precept, and example of the holy
messenger, which strongly actuated their honest hearts. When they were
weary after the toils of the day, by instructing the people, and working
at their trade, as your beloved men do, they joyfully rested themselves
in their humble cottages, and refreshed themselves with their homely
fare; and there they instructed the young people to invoke _Yo-He-Wah_,
and speak the divine speech. In this religious manner, they spent their
time through various countries, by the direction of divine wisdom, as a
strong pointed lesson to all succeeding beloved men to pursue, and they
sealed the truth with their blood—such were the primitive teachers of
the divine word. They lived and died in a state of equality; and were
there any different degrees to be observed in the holy office of
religion, learning and piety should recommend poor beloved men to the
high seats of profit—but only toilsome places are now allotted them,
with an allowance insufficient to support themselves, so that they
cannot stretch out their kindly hand to the poor. {445}
The mouths and hearts of the superior beloved men in our day, shamefully
contradict one another, to the discredit of the lively copy of the holy
messenger and his beloved scholars, and the great danger of infecting
those of inferior rank, by so pernicious and corrupt an example; for it
is natural for the feet to follow the direction of the head. They were
formerly a very insolent, covetous, and troublesome set; and being
advanced by rich friends to the high sounding office of _Mingo
Ishtohoollo_, “Divine chieftains,” or in their own stile, “Right
Reverend Fathers in God,” princes and supporters of the church, great
was their arrogance and power—taking advantage of the corruption of the
times, they grafted themselves into the civil constitution, and to
preserve their high and profitable places they became the fixed and
strenuous supporters of courts, in all their measures. But they will
very soon be purified. The beloved speech of _Ishotoollo_ of old, has
announced it, and that is always true. It has pointed to the present and
approaching time, which is near to the end of measured time.
To shew you how well prepared those priestly princes are for that trying
period, I shall give you the general opinion of the wise and honest
people, on this and the other side of the broad water; by which you will
see how far they agree with, or differ from, the original copy of the
plain honest scholars of the anointed holy messenger.
They boast themselves to be the embassadors of the holy chieftain of the
high church. They dwell in costly great houses, after the superb manner
of our great civil chieftain; and they give them the same lofty name,
Palaces, to distinguish them from the dwelling-houses of other mortals.
Their dress is equally rich and singular, to strike the eye, and impress
the hearts of the vulgar with a profound reverence of the divine
priestly wearers. They have the revenue of princes to support their
grandeur; and they are most exact in having it collected by litigious
mercenaries, even to the tenth of the hive of bees, and of the unlawful
and filthy young swine; and yet they act the part of _Phohe Ishto_,
“Great drones, or drones of God,” as soon as they obtain their rich high
seat, not speaking the divine speech to the people hardly three times a
year. Their food consists of a great variety of the choicest, and most
delicious sorts of fish, flesh, and fowl; their drink is of the richest
white, yellow, and red grape water, with other costly liquors which your
language cannot express. {446} They resort to the most gay assemblies in
the world, for the sake of pleasure, leaving the multitude to the divine
care, or the speakings of poor religious men who are hired at low wages
to do their duty, as they themselves have enough to mind and secure
properly temporal concerns. In this manner, do these lamps shine, and
spend their days and nights, like the great chieftains of the earth; and
when they die, their bodies are laid apart from the rest of mankind, in
polished and costly tombs, adorned with nice strokes of art, to
perpetuate their names—the long train of virtues they so highly
possessed—their great learning and eloquence—the simplicity of their
lives and manners—their faithful discharge of the various duties of
their religious high office—their contempt of the grandeur and vanities
of this transient world—their tenderness of heart to the cries of the
poor; and their singular modesty and humility, a shining copy of
imitation for common priests, and other spiritual chieftains, to pursue.
These fine monuments are very pleasant to the eye, but honest men say
that mercenary writers and artists do not act right to belie the dead.
My red beloved friends, such is the reputed life and death of those
high-seated divine chieftains of the high church; your sharp natural
reason will discern the close agreement there is between the humility
and simplicity of their principles and lives, with those of the early
overseers of the lowly divine house. It is said that some great beloved
men have an earnest desire of sending a few of their own high office, to
this side of the broad water, in order to appoint young beloved men; but
we strongly suspect a dangerous snake in the grass; and esteeming them
dead to the true interests of religion and liberty, we think they ought
to keep them at home, and even recall their present troublesome
missionaries from our settlements, and allow us to enjoy our former
peace and quiet—We wish them to go to some poor dark countries, and
instruct the people in the honest lessons of peace, love, and charity;
which they would, if they only aimed at the good of mankind, and the
honour of the supreme chieftain, according to the plain copy of the
great beloved messenger and his kind-hearted faithful scholars. We wish
the civil powers would not tempt the religious men’s virtue by such
alluring delicious baits, as they propose to them, and that all ranks
would become frugal and virtuous. {447}
Thus ended my LECTURE. The reverend old red pontiff immediately asked,
whether they had the accursed beings on the other side of the water? I
told him, I hoped not—but the religious men often spoke a strong speech
of evil to those they reckoned very bad, and turned them out of the
beloved house, to the evil spirits of darkness. Upon which he requested
me to mention any one of the crimes that might occasion such treatment.
I told him, “I had heard of a gentleman, whose heart did not allow him
to love his lady sufficiently, and she having by sharp watching
discovered him to give love to another, complained of it to a great
beloved man; accordingly, either for the neglect, or wrong application
of his love duty, he was ordered to pay her a considerable sum of
money—he valuing it more than her, his heart did not allow him to give
so much: whereupon a sharp speech of evil was spoken against him, and by
that means he was said to become accursed.” My Indian friend said, as
marriage should beget joy and happiness, instead of pain and misery, if
a couple married blindfold, and could not love each other afterwards, it
was a crime to continue together, and a virtue to part, and make a
happier choice; and as the white people did not buy their wives after
the manner of the Indians, but received value along with them, in
proportion to their own possessions, whatsoever the woman brought with
her, she ought to be allowed to take back when they separated, that her
heart might weigh even, and nothing be spoiled.—That, in his opinion,
such determinations belonged to the law, and not to the great beloved
men; and, if he understood me aright, the beloved man threw away the
gentleman to the accursed beings of darkness, not for having acted any
thing against the divine law, but for daring to oppose the words of his
mouth, in imitation of the first presumptuous great beloved man, who
spoiled the speech of the divine messenger. Many natural, pertinent, and
humorous observations, were made by him on what he had heard. {448}
-----
Footnote 15:
Bartram, _Travels_, p. 495, says “These Indians are by no means
idolaters, unless their puffing tobacco smoke towards the sun, and
rejoicing at the appearance of the new moon may be so termed. So far
from idolatry are they that they have no images amongst them, nor any
religious rite or ceremony that I could perceive; but adore the Great
Spirit, the giver and taker away of the breath of life, with the most
profound and respectful homage.” Timberlake’s observations as to their
belief in a Great Spirit and future rewards and punishment: Williams,
_Memoirs of Timberlake_, 87; see also, Hawkins, _Sketch of the Creek
Country_, 80. DeBrahm, who was at Fort Loudoun among the Cherokees,
(1756) says that the “Indians have a scant knowledge of a Divine Being
which extends no farther than that they believe he is good; the
Cherokees call him Hianequo, the great man, whom the Catawbas call
Rivet, the overseer; but they pay no adoration to him, nor anything
existing.” Plowden, _Documents Connected with the History of South
Carolina_, 221. The same testimony as to their belief in a Supreme
Being is borne by Wm. Byrd II in his _History of the Dividing Line_.
Of the Chickasaws, Rev. John Wesley wrote from Georgia in 1736: “They
have so firm a reliance on Providence and so settled a habit of
looking up to a Superior Being in all occurrences of life, etc.” _Ga.
Col. Rec._, XXI, 220. But see as to adoration of the sun by the
Natchez: Swanton, _Indian Tribes of the Lower Mississippi Valley_,
381, 168 _et seq._, and his _Early History of the Creeks_, 381; Hodge,
_Handbook_, II, 365. The theory has been held that the Southern
Indians were advanced beyond some others because of the teaching of
the Spanish missionaries among the Gulf and South Atlantic Indians at
a very early period, such as Cabeca de Vaca (1528) who wrote: “We told
them by signs, which they understood, there was One whom we called
God, who created the heaven and the earth.”
Footnote 16:
See preceding note. A native halfbreed Cherokee, Elias Boudinot, a
very intelligent man and at one time editor of the _Cherokee Phoenix_,
says of his people: “They cannot be called idolaters, for they never
worshipped images.” Foster, _Cherokee Literature_, 11. Of the
Choctaws, Israel Folsom, a Choctaw, says: “They never worshipped
idols, and believed in the existence of a Great Spirit.” Cushman,
_History of Choctaws, etc._, 362. Whatever may have been the case with
the Southern Indians of historic times, it cannot be denied that the
mound-builders had idols. This, numerous excavations fully prove.
Footnote 17:
For the “black drink” see later note, p. 49M.
Footnote 18:
For the Cherokee’s use of eagles’ tails in the reception of Sir
Alexander Cuming (1730) see: Williams, _Early Travels in the Tennessee
Country_, 126; and for Timberlake’s account of the eagle-tail dance:
_Memoirs_, 107; also, Mooney, _Myths_, 281, 492-3, and Hodge,
_Handbook_, I, 409.
Footnote 19:
Mooney, _Myths_, 475; Swanton, _Indian Tribes of the Lower Mississippi
Valley_, 351.
Footnote 20:
The Okmulgees were a branch of the Lower Creeks. The Yamasee War was
waged in 1715. Swanton’s _Early History of the Creeks_, 178. The site
was described by Bartram (1775): “Where are yet conspicuous very
wonderful remains of the power and grandeur of the ancients of this
part of America, in the ruins of a capital town and settlement.”
_Travels_, 379.
Footnote 21:
The “Lower Path” from Charles Town west is referred to. The “Upper
Path” is described in a later chapter.
Footnote 22:
The celebrated “black drink,” general among the Southern Indians, a
decoction of the leaves and tender tops and shoots of the _cassine_
shrub of the holly family. The drink repeated caused a sweating which
was supposed to purify, physically and morally. The caffeine in the
plant produced stimulation and a strong infusion was a narcotic, used
as such by the conjurers to evoke ecstasies. “No one is allowed to
drink it in council unless he has proved himself a brave warrior.”
Bossu, _Travels_, II, 299; John Bartram’s _Observations_, 23;
Gatschet, _Migration Legend of the Creeks_; Du Pratz, _History of
Louisiana_, 372; and Harris, _Memorials of Oglethorpe_, 108. The white
people of the Carolinas prepared from the shrub a sort of
tea—“Carolina tea” or “Appalachian tea.”
Footnote 23:
Pickett, in his _History of Alabama_, 106, says: “Many of the old
Indian countrymen with whom we have conferred believe in their Jewish
origin, while others are of a different opinion. Abram Mordecai, an
intelligent Jew, who dwelt fifty years in the Creek nation,
confidently believed that the Indians were originally of his people,
and he asserted that in their Green Corn Dances he had heard them
often utter in grateful tones the word _Yavoyaha! Yavoyaha!_ He was
always informed by the Indians that they meant Jehovah or the Great
Spirit.” Cushman, who was reared in the Choctaw Country in
Mississippi, gives like testimony. _History of Choctaw, etc.,
Indians_, 20.
Footnote 24:
Eleazar Wiggan. See Sir Alexander Cuming’s Journal in Williams, _Early
Travels in the Tennessee Country_, 123, 128.
Footnote 25:
Swanton, _Early History of Creeks_, 417-18.
Footnote 26:
Saponi, mentioned by Lawson and Byrd; later incorporated into the
Catawbas and now extinct. Hodge, _Handbook_, II, 464. The best account
of them is by Mooney, _Siouan Tribes of The East_, 35 _et seq._
Footnote 27:
Sometimes Chakchiuma or, in Choctaw, Shakchi-humma (red crawfish).
Cushman says they were overbearing and exterminated as a tribe by the
Chickasaws and Choctaws about the year 1721. _History of the Indians_,
242. But the statement is disproved by the report of Perier to
Maurepas, 1733, of a battle between the Chickasaw and Natchez Indians,
on the one side, and the Chakchiumas on the other. Rowland and
Sanders, _Mississippi Provincial Arch._, I, 166, 281, 340. See also,
Swanton, _Lower Tribes_, 29; _Gatschet Migration Legend_, 98; and
Hodge, _Handbook_, 231. They are referred to later by Adair.
Footnote 28:
Cyrus Byington, a missionary among the Choctaws, prepared a dictionary
and a grammar of their speech, which works are highly regarded by
philologists. For his remarks on Adair in these works: _Proceedings of
Am. Philos. Soc._, XII, 317-67; _Bulletin 46, Bureau of Am.
Ethnology_.
Footnote 29:
On time-keeping consult Hodge, _Handbook_, I, 189, where it is said
that the Creeks counted 12½ moons to the year, adding a moon at the
end of every second year, somewhat as did the Kiowas. See also Du
Pratz, _History of Louisiana_, II, 354 _et seq._ (Eng. Ed. 336).
Footnote 30:
Confirmation: Hodge, _Handbook_, I, 353.
Footnote 31:
The fullest accounts of the temple, high-priests and mode of worship
are those of the Natchez Indians, by Father Charlevoix in his _Voyage
to America_, II, 192 (1766); also in French, _Hist. Collection
Louisiana_, 166, 170; Du Pratz, _Hist. La._, III, 21, and English ed.
337. Lord Kingsborough quotes De Buisson on the _sanctum sanctorum_ as
corroboration of Adair.
Footnote 32:
Of all the greater leaders of the Cherokees, Old Hop, as to his
record, most eludes a researcher. Especially is this true of date of
birth, rise to the place of emperor and date of death. Drake in his
_Aboriginal Races_, 367, and Ramsey in his _Annals of Tennessee_, 85,
confuse him with Oconostota. His Indian name is variously spelled by
the English in an effort to produce the gutturals in Kanegwati:
Cunnicatogue, Canacackte, Concauchto, Connocotte, Connecorte,
Conogotocke. At times such spellings are followed by the description
Old Hop, or the name of his town, Chota. He was in power during the
administrations of Govs. James Glen in South Carolina and Robert
Dinwiddie in Virginia. In August, 1754, he seems not to have been
emperor, since Gov. Dinwiddie then wrote: “I always (till now)
understood the Emperor was their Chief Man. If Old Hop is a greater
man, I shall hereafter notice him as such.” _Papers_, II, 267. To the
same effect, 5 _Indian Book_, p. 6 at Columbia (letter of Sept. 1754
signed by both the “Emperor” and “Old Hop”). He was reported as dead
in a dispatch of January 6, 1760, relating to the siege of ill-fated
Fort Loudoun on Little Tennessee. Hamer, _Fort Loudoun_, 31.
Footnote 33: