The Indian is steady to that simple creed, which forms the basis of all
this mythology; that there is a God, and a life beyond this; a right and
wrong which each man can see, betwixt which each man should choose; that
good brings with it its reward and vice its punishment. Their moral
code, if not refined as that of civilized nations, is clear and noble in
the stress laid upon truth and fidelity. And all unprejudiced observers
bear testimony that the Indians, until broken from their old anchorage
by intercourse with the whites, who offer them, instead, a religion of
which they furnish neither interpretation nor example, were singularly
virtuous, if virtue be allowed to consist in a man's acting up to his
own ideas of right.
Old Adair, who lived forty years among the Indians; not these tribes,
indeed, but the southern Indians; does great justice to their religious
aspiration. He is persuaded that they are Jews, and his main object is
to identify their manifold ritual, and customs connected with it, with
that of the Jews. His narrative contains much that is worthless, and is
written in the most tedious manner of the folios. But his devotion to
the records of ancient Jewry, has really given him power to discern
congenial traits elsewhere, and for the sake of what he has expressed of
the noble side of Indian character, we pardon him our having to wade
through so many imbecilities.
An infidel; he says, is, in their language, "one who has shaken hands
with the accursed speech;" a religious man, "one who has shaken hands
with the beloved speech.
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