Mr. Adair likewise says that the American Indians, like the Hebrews, have an ark in which are kept various holy vessels, and which is never suffered to rest on the bare ground. "On hilly ground, where stones are plenty, they always place it on them, but on level land it is made to rest on short legs. They have also a faith, in the power and holiness of their ark, as strong as the Israelites had in theirs. It is too sacred and dangerous to be touched by any one, except the chieftain and his waiter. The leader virtually acts the part of a priest of war protempore, in imitation of the Israelites fighting under the divine military banner." Among their other religious rites the Indians, according to Adair, cut out the sinewy part of the thigh; in commemoration, as he says, of the Angel wrestling with Jacob. _12th, Their abstinence from unclean things._ "Eagles of every kind are esteemed by the Indians to be unclean food; as also ravens, crows, bats, buzzards and every species of owl. They believe that swallowing gnats, flies and the like, always breed sickness. To this that divine sarcasm alludes 'swallowing a camel and straining at a gnat.'" Their purifications for their Priests, and for having touched a dead body or other unclean thing, according to Mr. Adair, are quite Levitical. He acknowledges however, that they have no traces of circumcision; but he supposes that they lost this rite in their wanderings, as it ceased among the Hebrews, during the forty years in the wilderness. _15th, Their cities of refuge._ "The Israelites had cities of refuge for those who killed persons unawares. According to the same particular divine [22] law of mercy, each of the Indian nations has a house or town of refuge, which is a sure asylum to protect a man-slayer, or the unfortunate captive, if they can but once enter into it. In almost every nation they have peaceable towns, called ancient holy, or white towns. These seem to have been towns of refuge; for it is not in the memory of man, that ever human blood was shed in them, although they often force persons from thence and put them to death elsewhere." _16th, Their purifications and ceremonies preparatory._ "Before the Indians go to war they have many preparatory ceremonies of purification and fasting like what is recorded of the Israelites." _21st, Their raising seed to a deceased brother._ "The surviving brother, by the Mosaic law, was to raise seed to a deceased brother, who left a widow childless. The Indian custom looks the very same way; but in this as in their law of blood, the eldest brother can redeem."