jugglers pretend to swallow knives and hatchets, and their skill in these feats of legerdemain is so great, that intelligent observers have been unable to detect the deception.* In Virginia the conjurors, as described by Captain Smith, practised the same rites, and the young men, who desired to be admitted into the religious caste, were subjected to flagellations and tortures, which often terminated in death.†

The Algonquin-Lenape tribes all had their sorcerers. "The most dangerous deceivers among the Indians," says Loskiel, are the so-called sorcerers." Indeed it seems to be necessary for every savage to have his manitto, or tutelar spirit or deity. To these manittos they have recourse "when they are in any danger, when they go on any enterprise, and when they would obtain some extraordinary favor. They think they may ask any thing of them, however unreasonable it may be, or however contrary even to good behavior and honesty. But children, they suppose, are not born under their protection. They must first know how to handle a bow and arrows to merit this favor. There must also be some preparations to receive it. This is the most important affair of life."§ The child, after fastings and other ceremonies, was supposed to perceive in his dreams the form or shape under which his manitto manifested himself, the image of which from that time he carried with him, and to which he in future directed his prayers. To become conjurors or medicine-men other ceremonies are necessary, the principal of The incantations and other

which, however, are long fasts.

rites practised by these impostors, present little diversity from

*Hearne, p. 293. † Voyages and Discoveries, vol. i. p. 140.

Loskiel, p. 46, etc.

§ Charlevoix, Voyage.

those already described. The most remarkable of these are the songs and dances for the Metai and for medicine-hunting, which are permitted only to the initiated. These are taught by figures carved on wood, and by their means the spirits are controlled, and the sorcerers obtain power over the animals of the chase, the lives and health of men, and disclose the secrets of futurity. Sacrifices appear to have been formerly of very general prevalence among these tribes, and, according to Loskiel, they were of "very ancient date, and considered in so sacred a light that unless they were performed in proper time and in a manner acceptable to the deity, they suppose illness, misfortunes, and death itself would certainly befall themselves and their families." All these songs, dances, and feasts seem to be connected with religion, and to have been preserved traditionally.*

It thus appears that a most astonishing conformity prevails in the religious ideas and customs of most of the aboriginal tribes in both continents, a resemblance so striking, indeed, as alone to justify a belief in their common origin. These rites, it is to be observed, are nowhere of recent invention, but are invariably considered as derived from some ancient source. In the songs, allusions are often made to mythological ideas which are characteristic of the cults of Eastern Asia, and the magical practices are clearly of an Oriental character, though in remote ages they appear to have been common to many ancient na

* James, in Tanner's Narrative, pp. 286, 341. Loskiel, p. 40. Van Der Donck's New Netherlands. N. Y. Hist. Soc. Coll., vol. i. p. 203. Charlevoix, ibid. McKenzie's Journal, p. 101. Schoolcraft's Nar., p. 68. Pike's Expedition, part ii. app. p. 10.

According to Loskiel, the Delawares believed in the Metempsychosis.

tions. Amid all these dark and hideous institutions, we can perceive feeble glimmerings of a loftier and purer religion, which recognized the Supeme Being. And even to this day, nothing is more usual for the Indians than to address their prayers to the great Spirit. Sabaism appears to have been the first step of degradation, and though at the discovery retained principally by the civilized nations, to have been, at some remote epoch, common to the barbarous tribes. Its purest form seems to have been still preserved by the Peruvians, who worshipped the Sun as the symbol and emblem of Divine Power. Sabaism was based upon the principle of divine emanations, and the barbarous tribes extended this idea to its utmost development,-it was the foundation of their Polytheism and system of magic.

We are surprised to find among the aborigines many other religious customs and ideas, which, though enveloped in mysteries, and clouded by fables and superstitions, are manifestly relics of the primitive faith. It would appear as if the various branches of the human race carried with them, after the dispersion, rays of that original moral light which once enlightened all mankind. It is no despicable proof of the antiquity and sanctity of those great truths, to find among our aborigines a belief in the existence of a Supreme Being, a firm faith in the immortality of the soul, in a state of future retribution, in the doctrine of atonement as emblemized in sacrifices and expiatory self-punishments, in a deluge, and in the final destruction of the world with all its inhabitants. The early missionaries failed not to perceive these analogies to many of the principles of our own religion, and sought to explain them upon the supposition that the Gospel had once been preached in America by some of the primitive

fathers; but in view of the proofs of the antiquity of the race upon this continent, it seems just to suppose that the aborigines, in common with some of the ancient nations in the old world, had preserved feeble vestiges of those great truths which were known to man in primeval ages, and which have been purely preserved only in the sacred writings.* The testimony of Charlevoix, on this point, is interesting. "Furthermore,” he remarks, "the ideas, though quite confused, which they have retained of a first Being; the traces, though almost effaced, of a religious worship which they appear to have rendered formerly to this Supreme Deity, and the faint marks which we observe, even in the most indifferent actions, of the ancient belief and the primitive religion, may bring them more easily than we think, into the way of truth, and make their conversion to Christianity to be more easily effected than that of more civilized nations."

The Indians generally placed the abode of the spirits of the dead in the west. This circumstance has been supposed to indicate the direction of the country whence they originally proceeded; but it seems to be an ancient myth common to many other nations. The Hindoos placed the abode of their gods and their paradise in the west; so likewise the Chinese, Thibetians, Greeks, Persians, Germanic nations, and the Celts.

CHAPTER X.

ORIGIN OF THE ABORIGINES.

WITH the general data now possessed, the path is open towards a brief examination of such analogies as exist between the aboriginal monuments, customs, and institutions, and those of several nations of the other hemisphere.

The Celts. In many parts of England and Ireland there are mounds and mural remains, which exhibit a striking resemblance to the ancient monuments in the United States and South America. These consist of square and circular earthen enclosures, some of which are thought to be of a sacred character like that at Circleville in Ohio; of sepulchral mounds or tumuli; of fortifications, surrounded by ditches and embankments; and of terraced hills cut into an artificial form, similar to those in Peru. From these circumstances, and from a correspondence in some of the Celtic rites and customs with those of the aborigines, conjectures have been advanced, that the authors of the ancient remains at the West, may have been connected in some way with the former inhabitants of Great Britain. But as appears by the profound researches of Dr. Pritchard, the Celtic and Sanscrit are kindred languages, and the result of the investigations of English antiquarians seems to be conclusive as to