tittie permitted me; but it was a riffe, to make
them promptly, and on the -spot. This much'
seemed necessary in despatching this portion;of
my. researches, with the nriSëèllaneous details
accompanying them*; and having accomplished
this object, nay present task is terminated.
Where ^ e haye nothing else • to rely upon, we
may receive the rudest traditions of an Indian
nation, although they he regarded as mere bis-'
torica-kphenomena, or materials to he considered.
Whether^> such materials are to be credited or
disbelieved, wholly or an part, is quite- another
thing. Our Indians, like s, some , of the ancient
nations of Asia, whom they resembletitt many
points of character, were prone to -refer their
origin to myths a n d w h i c h they,
doubtless, sometimes meant to represent truths;
or, at least, to express opinions. The Indian
tribes, very much like their ancient prototypes
of the old world, seemed to have felt a necessity
for inventing some story of their origin, wherb'
it is sometimes probable there was little or
nothing of actual tradition to build it upon.
They were manifestly under a kind of "Self-reproach
j tp reflect that they had indeed no history;
nothing to connect their descent froth
prior races; and if they have not proved themselves
men of much judgment in their attempts
to supply the deficiency in their fabrications and-
allegories, they must often. come in, it must he
confessed, for no little share of imagination.:
There appears, througfeouf the whole race,- to
be the vestiges of a tradition of the creation and
the deluge, two great-and striking points in the
history of man, which, however he wandered, he
would be most likely remember: They unb?
formly attribute their origin to a superior and 0 k
vine power. They do not suppose that theyeame
into existence without the act of this pre-existing'
almighty power* who is * called >Ne&, or Owaneo.
This is the third great and leading point in their
traditions. -Atid^heSf^hme primary vestige»'of
the'original history of "the race hie tb be found
among the rudesb-tribes, between the straits of
Terra del buego and the Arctic ooean, notwith-
standing the amount, o# grotesque and puerile
matter which- serves ’as the vehicle'of tha traditions.
• Between fhe creation and the delrige *and the
present erfi of the world, there is nearly an entire
blank. 'Ages’ have ^dropped rout of their
memory, with all their stirring incidents of wars
and migrations, and the first reliable truth we hear
is, that at such a timeribgy lived on the banks of
the Mississippi, the Ohio, the- Lakes, or the Sty
Lawrence, ,&o. Nothing hut- this kind ofproximate|
origin could indeed he expected to be retained.
They acknowledge relationship to no prior race
of man. i We .'see that they are sui generis with,
and much resemble, some of the eastern nation's
in color and features. Physiologists have never
been able to' detect a hone or muscle, more or
le§s, than the Caucassian race possess. Philo-
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