In the year 1748, when I was at the Koosàh on my way to the Chikkasah country, I had a conversation on this subject, with several of the more intelligent of the Muskohge traders. One of them told me, that just before, while he and several others were drinking spirituous liquors with the Indians, one of the warriors having drank to excess, reeled into the fire, and burned himself very much. He roared, foamed, and spoke the worst things against God, that their language could express. He upbraided him with {116} ingratitude, for having treated him so barbarously in return for his religious offerings, affirming he had always sacrificed to him the first young buck he killed in the new year; as in a constant manner he offered him when at home, some of the fattest of the meat, even when he was at short allowance, on purpose that he might shine upon him as a kind God.—And he added, “now you have proved as an evil spirit, by biting me so severely who was your constant devotee, and are a kind God to those accursed nothings, who are laughing at you as a rogue, and at me as a fool, I assure you, I shall renounce you from this time forward, and instead of making you look merry with fat meat, you shall appear sad with water, for spoiling the old beloved speech. I am a beloved warrior, and consequently I scorn to lie; you shall therefore immediately fly up above the clouds, for I shall piss upon you.” From that time, his brethen said, God forsook that terrestrial residence, and the warrior became godless. This information exactly agrees with many such instances of Indian impiety, that happened within my own observation—and shews the bad consequences of that evil habit of using spirituous liquors intemperately, which they have been taught by the Europeans. The Indians have among them the resemblance of the Jewish SIN-OFFERING, and TRESPASS-OFFERING, for they commonly pull their new-killed venison (before they dress it) several times through the smoke and flame of the fire, both by the way of a sacrifice, and to consume the blood, life, or animal spirits of the beast, which with them would be a most horrid abomination to eat.[41] And they sacrifice in the woods, the milt, or a large fat piece of the first buck they kill, both in their summer and winter hunt; and frequently the whole carcass. This they offer up, either as a thanksgiving for the recovery of health, and for their former success in hunting; or that the divine care and goodness may be still continued to them.