They term their female delinquents, _Ahowwe Ishto_; the first is a Cheerake word, signifying, “a deer.”—And through contempts of the Chikkasah, they altered their penal law of adultery. Footnote XXXII: When human laws were first made, they commanded that if the husband found the adulterer in the fact, he should kill them both. Thus the laws of Solon and Draco ordained: but the law of the twelve tables softened it. The Muskohge Indians, either through the view of mitigating their law against adultery, that it might be adapted to their patriarchal-like government; or by misunderstanding the Mosaic precept, from length of time, and uncertainty of oral tradition, oblige the adulteress under the penalty of the severest law not to be free with any man, (unless she is inclined to favour her fellow sufferer) during the space of four moons, after the broken moon in which they suffered for each other, according to the custom of the Maldivians. But her husband exposes himself to the utmost severity of the marriage law, if he is known to hold a familiar intercourse with her after the time of her punishment. ARGUMENT XIV. Many other of the INDIAN PUNISHMENTS, resemble those of the Jews. Whosoever attentively views the features of the Indian, and his eye, and {146} reflects on his fickle, obstinate, and cruel disposition, will naturally think on the Jews. English America, feelingly knows the parity of the temper of their neighbouring Indians, with that of the Hebrew nation. The Israelites cut off the hands and feet of murderers, 2 Sam. iv. 12.—strangled false prophets—and sometimes burned, stoned, or beheaded those malefactors who were condemned by the two courts of judgment. The Indians either by the defect of tradition, or through a greedy desire of revenge, torture their prisoners and devoted captives, with a mixture of all those Jewish capital punishments. They keep the original so close in their eye, as to pour cold water on the sufferers when they are fainting, or overcome by the fiery torture—to refresh, and enable them to undergo longer tortures. The Hebrews gave wine mixt with the juice of myrrh, to their tortured criminals, to revive their spirits; and sometimes vinegar to prevent too great an effusion of blood, lest they should be disappointed in glutting their greedy eyes, with their favourite tragedy of blood: which was eminently exemplified in their insulting treatment of Christ on the cross.