TEN TRIBES OF ISRAEL. 



253 



once sovereigns of the soil, at no very distant 

 period. 



I found that a custom existed among the 

 Micmacs of Nova Scotia, of exposing an adul- 

 tress to shame and punishment by the whole 

 tribe. The crime, Adelah assured me was 

 seldom known among them, but when guilty, 

 the delinquent was placed on some eminence, 

 and every one as they passed, men, women, 

 and children, reminded her of her offence, and 

 slapped her on her face with the hand. It was 

 said that they formerly stoned the offender to 

 death, which was the most general punishment 

 denounced in the law of Moses against noto- 

 rious criminals. Thus, a testimony is found, 

 one here and another there, through the wilds 

 of America, in favour of the idea that the North 

 American Indians are of the Ten Tribes of 

 Israel. The Hebrews not only had their tribes 

 and heads of tribes as the Indians, but they had 

 animal emblems also of their tribes. Dan's 

 emblem was a serpent — Issachar's an ass — Ben- 

 jamin's a wolf, and Judah's a lion. The Indians 

 have their wolf-tribe, bear-tribe, buffaloe-tribe ; 

 and a war club was given me by a warrior in 

 the Hudson's Bay Company territories, with a 

 turtle carved on it, as the distinguishing mark 

 of that tribe. There can be little doubt, but 



