254 



TEN TRIBES OF ISRAEL. 



that these animal emblems of separate tribes 

 among the natives were derived from Hebrew 

 tradition. That various Heathen nations bor- 

 dering on ancient Israel, should have learned 

 something of their names of the true God, and 

 of their theology, and should have brought 

 down some traditionary notions of the creation, 

 of the deluge, and Noah's ark, and some ge- 

 neral accounts of early events taught in ancient 

 tradition and revelation, is nothing strange. 

 But that they should learn and adopt so much 

 of the special rites of Israel's ceremonial law, as 

 has in fact been found among the American 

 Indians, such as separation for three moons, or 

 eighty-four days at the birth of a female child, 

 and forty days for that of a male child, and 

 otherwise observing an ceconomy which was 

 designed to distinguish the tribes of Israel from 

 all other nations, is not only incredible, but 

 attended with every difficulty, even it is con- 

 ceived, to a moral impossibility. 6 If some of 

 the Arabs (says an Author on the present state 

 of Judah and Israel,) have practised circumci- 

 sion ; this makes nothing against us. Circum- 

 cision was long antecedent to the ceremonial 

 code. And Ishmael, the father of the Arabians, 

 being himself a son of Abraham, was circum- 

 cised. How naturally would his descendants 



