mation respecting it. "For the pronouns, which are common in other languages, they use letters or syllables placed at the beginning and the end of words. In this particular the structure of their language coincides with that of the Hebrew in an instance in which the Hebrew is said to differ from all the languages of Europe, ancient and modern; with this difference, that the latter place affixes at the end of words, whereas the former to express the singular number prefix the letter or syllable, but in the plural, place it at the end: They also change and transpose the vowel to express the possessive pronouns." Dr. Edwards has pointed out a number of instances in which the analogy between these two languages is striking: and he tells us, that the Mohegan dialect, which is that of which he writes, is spoken over a very large extent of country, and is to others a sort of mother tongue: it seems to be the same as others call the Algonquin, from another tribe using the same dialect.

A tribe has been thought to be discovered among them corresponding with the tribe of Levi. The Mohawks, once very numerous, were held by all the other tribes in great reverence, and even in fear; so that they fled before them, made neither war nor peace without their advice, and paid them an annual tribute. The Mohawks were the correctors of what was done amiss by the other tribes.

Now it is worthy of an incidental remark, that the name of this nation greatly resembles the Hebrew word which signifies a law-giver, or interpreter of the law, Meichokek. Gen. 49. 10. Law-giver between his feet.

To enlarge upon the subject of language would not

accord with the limits I have prescribed to myself in the size and price of this volume. I can only subjoin the remark that there are a number of verbs and of nouns which are nearly or altogether alike in the two languages, notwithstanding the change which time, and the difference in the organs of speech, and the fancies of an untaught people must of necessity have occasioned. The pronunciation of this people is so guttural as to make even the Hebrew words appear different to those who are looking for them: their language consists of a multitude of monosyllables added together; every property or circumstance of a thing being noted by an additional syllable. A very natural way for an untaught people to express their meaning. Making reasonable allowances for these and other causes of change in names and in pronunciation, it is next to marvellous that so great an affinity between them should still subsist; and most of all, that in their religious associations, these nations, who have changed their manner of expression in the common intercourses of life, have preserved those sacred words and use them with the same precaution, which have distinguished the people of God from the days of Moses to the present time.

Souard, in his Melanges de Litterature, speaking of the Indians of Guiana observes, on the authority of a learned Jew, Isaac Nasic, residing at Surinam, "that their language is soft and agreeable to the ear, abounding in vowels and synonimes: that all the substantives are Hebrew: that the word expressive of the soul means breath, that they have the same word as in Hebrew to denominate God, which means master or lord."

CHAPTER VII.

ON THE INDIAN TRADITIONS.

THE Indians do not possess the advantage of conveying the knowledge of old times down to posterity by means of writing: this can be preserved only by tradition: therefore young men have been selected by the judgment of the old ones, of merit and good character, to be the channels through which the manners and customs of their ancestors shall be made known to distant generations. Without specifying the sources whence these traditions were received, because that would make it necessary to write more than is necessary for information, and many of them have come from different and distant tribes, I shall state the chief and most important of these traditions.

They hold it as a general and a certain fact, that all the tribes came into that country from the same quarter, in ages very remote, from a far distant country by the way of the North-west, that all the people were of one colour, and in process of time moved eastward and southward to their present settlements. Those of Mexico state, that

their fathers were settled in another place before they came to their present abode, that they wandered eighty years in obedience to the command of the Great Spirit in quest of new lands under particular directions given to them, and having obeyed the divine directions they were guided to Mexico.

The Southerns say, that their ancestors lived beyond a great river. That nine parts of their nation passed over the river, but the others refused and staid behind: that when they lived far west they had a king who left two sons: that one of them, with a number of the people travelled a great way for many years till they came to the Delaware river, and settled there. They have it handed down from their ancestors, that the book which the white people have was once theirs: while they had it they prospered: but the white people bought it of them and learned many things from it; whilst the Indians offended the Great Spirit, lost their credit and suffered exceedingly from the neighbouring nations: that the Great Spirit took pity upon them and directed them to this country: on their way they came to a great river, which they could not pass, but God dried up the waters and they passed over dry shod: that their fathers were possessed of an extraordinary divine Spirit by which they foretold future things and controuled the course of nature, whilst they obeyed the sacred laws: but that this power had left them.

M'Kensie writes-they have a tradition, that they came from another country inhabited by wicked people, and had traversed a great lake which was narrow, shallow and full of islands, where they had suffered great hardships

and much misery, it being always winter, with ice and deep snows at a place they called the Copper-mine River, where they made the first land, the ground was covered with copper, over which a body of earth had since been collected to the depth of a man: their ancestors had gone on till their feet were worn out with walking and their throats with eating: they spake of a deluge, when the waters spread over the earth, except the highest mountain on the top of which they were preserved: they also believe in a future judgment. He remarks, "whether circumcision be practised among them I cannot pretend to say, but the appearance of it was general among those I saw." On this subject we have still more explicit information from several quarters; that it was generally practised long ago, but that the young men, not knowing the use of it or why it was practised, made a mock of it, brought it into disrepute and so it fell generally out of use: that the people went formerly to build a high place, and while they were building it they lost their language and could not understand one another, while one called for a stick a stone was brought to him; and from that time they began to talk different languages: that the first woman came from Heaven and had twins, and that the elder killed the younger. The Southern Indians mention, that when they left their native land, they brought with them a sanctified rod, by order of the oracle, which they fixed every night in the ground, and were to remove from place to place on this continent, towards the rising sun, till it budded in one night's time, that they obeyed the sacred oracle and the miracle at last took place when they arrived at the Missisippi.