The Indian ark is deemed so sacred and dangerous to be touched, either by their own sanctified warriors, or the spoiling enemy, that they durst not touch it upon any account[XXXVII]. It is not to be meddled with by any, except the war chieftain and his waiter, under the penalty of incurring great evil. {162} Nor would the most inveterate enemy touch it in the woods for the very same reason; which is agreeable to the religious opinion and customs of the Hebrews, respecting the sacredness of their ark, witness what befel Uzzah, for touching it, though with a religious view, and the Philistines for carrying it away, so that they soon thought proper to return it, with presents. Footnote XXXVII: A gentleman who was at the Ohio, in the year 1756, assured me he saw a stranger there very importunate to view the inside of the Cheerake ark, which was covered with a drest deer-skin, and placed on a couple of short blocks. An Indian centinel watched it, armed with a hiccory bow, and brass-pointed barbed arrows, and he was faithful to his trust; for finding the stranger obtruding to pollute the supposed sacred vehicle, he drew an arrow to the head, and would have shot him through the body, had he not suddenly withdrawn; the interpreter, when asked by the gentleman what it contained, told him there was nothing in it but a bundle of conjuring traps. This shews what conjurers our common interpreters are, and how much the learned world have really profited by their informations. The Indians have an old tradition, that when they left their own native land, they brought with them a _sanctified rod_ by order of an oracle, which they fixed every night in the ground; and were to remove from place to place on the continent towards the sun-rising, till it budded in one night’s time; that they obeyed the sacred mandate, and the miracle took place after they arrived to this side of the Missisippi, on the present land they possess. This, they say, was the sole cause of their settling here—of fighting so firmly for their reputed holy land and holy things—and that they may be buried with their beloved fore-fathers. I have seen other Indians who pretend to the like miraculous direction, and I think it plainly to refer to Aaron’s rod, which was a branch of an almond-tree, and that budded and blossomed in one night. (A) The Overhill Cherokees under Ostenaco (Outasite, another name) were on the campaign of 1756, in aid of the British and American forces. Dinwiddie Papers, II, 446 _et seq._ (W)