ISRAELITE AND INDIAN. 



73 



The "green-corn dance/' common to many Indian tribes, is 

 essentially the same ceremony of thanksgiving, or, more correctly, 

 rejoicing with payment, for the first-fruits of the earth. Adair 

 says that at the festival of the first-fruits the Southern Indians 

 drank plentifully of the cusseena and other bitter liquids, to 

 cleanse their bodies, after which they bathed in deep water, then 

 went sanctified to the feast. Their annual expiation of sin was 

 sometimes at the beginning of the first new moon in which their 

 corn became full-eared, and sometimes at the recurrent season 

 of harvest. They cleansed their " temple " and every house in 

 the village of everything supposed to pollute, carrying out even 

 the ashes from the hearths. They never ate nor handled any 

 part of a new harvest till some part of it had been offered up ; 

 then they had a long fast " till the rising of the second sun." On 

 the third day of the fast the holy fire was brought out from 

 the "temple," and it was produced, not from any old fire, but 

 by the rubbing of sticks. It was then distributed to the 

 people. 



Lafiteau says that the first animal the young hunter kills he 

 burns with fire as a sacrifice. Another festival was a kind of hol- 

 ocaust, where nothing of the victim was left, but it was all con- 

 sumed, even to the bones, which were burned. There were also 

 feasts of first-fruits. 



The Dakotas allowed no particle of the food at any of their 

 religious feasts to be left uneaten. All bones were collected and 

 thrown into the water, that no dog might get them or woman tram- 

 ple over them. It was a rule among many of the tribes that no 

 bones of the beast eaten should be broken. There is no doubt that 

 this was connected with zoolatry, and was intended to prevent 

 anger on the part of the ancestral or typical animal, the result 

 of which would be the disappearance of the game. There were 

 many other ceremonies of the same intent. When the Mandans 

 had finished eating, they often presented a bowlful of the food 

 to a buffalo-head, saying, " Eat this," evidently believing that, by 

 using the head well, the living herds of buffalo would still come 

 and supply them with meat. 



It is probable that what many authors have called the " day of 

 atonement " or " expiation " was really a general wiping out of 

 offenses a settlement of accounts between individuals and par- 

 ticularly between clans, after which there should be no reprisal. 

 This is illustrated by a peculiar ceremony among the Iroquois, 

 strongly resembling the scapegoat of the Israelites. A white dog, 

 before being burned at the annual feast, was loaded with the con- 

 fessions or repentings of the people, represented by strings of 

 wampum. The statute of limitations then began to operate. 



In the Jahvistic version, the passover, an old festival held in the 



