t signification
or relation to that great and awful name, which describes the divine
presence."
_3rd, Their notions of a theocracy._
"Agreeably to the theocracy or divine government of Israel, the
Indians think the deity to be the immediate head of the state. All the
nations of Indians have a great deal of religious pride, and an
inexpressible contempt for the white people. In their war orations
they used to call us _the accursed people_, but flatter themselves
with the name of the _beloved people_, because their supposed
ancestors were, as they affirm, under the immediate government of the
Deity, who was present with them in a peculiar manner, and directed
them by Prophets, while the rest of the world were aliens to the
covenant.[2] When the old Archimagus, or any of their Magi, is [18]
persuading the people at their religious solemnities, to a strict
observance of the old _beloved or divine speech_, he always calls them
the _beloved or holy people_, agreeably to the Hebrew epithet, _Ammi_,
(my people) during the theocracy of Israel. It is this opinion, that
God has chosen them out of the rest of mankind, as his peculiar
people, which inspires the white Jew, and the red American, with that
steady hatred against all the world except themselves, and renders
them hated and despised by all."
_5th, Their language and dialects._
"The Indian language and dialects appear to have the very idiom and
genius of the Hebrew. Their words and sentences are expressive,
concise, emphatical, sonorous and bold; and often both the letters and
signification are synonymous with the Hebrew language." Of these Mr.
Adair cites a number of examples.
_6th, Their manner of counting time._
"The Indians count time after the manner of the Hebrews. They divide
the year into spring, summer, autumn and winter. They number their
year from any of these four periods, for they have no name for a year;
and they subdivide these and count the year by lunar months, like the
Israelites who counted time by moons, as their name sufficiently
testifies.
"The number and regular periods of the religious feasts among the
Indians, is a good historical proof that they counted time by and
observed a weekly Sabbath, long after their arrival in America. They
began the year at the appearance of the first new moon of the vernal
equinox, according to the ecclesiastical year of Moses. 'Till the
seventy years captivity [19] commenced, the Israelites had only
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