The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Vol. 6 (of 9): Being His Autobiography, Correspondence, Reports, Messages, Addresses, and Other Writings, Official and PrivateJefferson, Thomas
History
The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Vol. 6 (of 9): Being His Autobiography, Correspondence, Reports, Messages, Addresses, and Other Writings, Official and Private
Jefferson, Thomas
United States -- Politics and government -- 1775-1783; United States -- Politics and government -- 1783-1865
You ask further, if the Indians have any order of priesthood among them,
like the Druids, Bards or Minstrels of the Celtic nations? Adair alone,
determined to see what he wished to see in every object, metamorphoses
their Conjurers into an order of priests, and describes their sorceries
as if they were the great religious ceremonies of the nation. Lafitan
called them by their proper names, Jongleurs, Devins, Sortileges; De Bry
praestigiatores; Adair himself sometimes Magi, Archimagi, cunning men,
Seers, rain makers; and the modern Indian interpreters call them conjurers
and witches. They are persons pretending to have communications with
the devil and other evil spirits, to foretell future events, bring down
rain, find stolen goods, raise the dead, destroy some and heal others
by enchantment, lay spells, &c. And Adair, without departing from his
parallel of the Jews and Indians, might have found their counterpart
much more aptly, among the soothsayers, sorcerers and wizards of the
Jews, their Gannes and Gambres, their Simon Magus, Witch of Endor, and
the young damsel whose sorceries disturbed Paul so much; instead of
placing them in a line with their high-priest, their chief priests, and
their magnificent hierarchy generally. In the solemn ceremonies of the
Indians, the persons who direct or officiate, are their chiefs, elders
and warriors, in civil ceremonies or in those of war; it is the head
of the cabin in their private or particular feasts or ceremonies; and
sometimes the matrons, as in their corn feasts. And even here, Adair
might have kept up his parallel, with ennobling his conjurers. For the
ancient patriarchs, the Noahs, the Abrahams, Isaacs and Jacobs, and even
after the consecration of Aaron, the Samuels and Elijahs, and we may say
further, every one for himself offered sacrifices on the altars. The
true line of distinction seems to be, that solemn ceremonies, whether
public or private, addressed to the Great Spirit, are conducted by the
worthies of the nation, men or matrons, while conjurers are resorted
to only for the invocation of evil spirits. The present state of the
several Indian tribes, without any public order of priests, is proof
sufficient that they never had such an order. Their steady habits permit
no innovations, not even those which the progress of science offers
to increase the comforts, enlarge the understanding, and improve the
morality of mankind. Indeed, so little idea have they of a regular order
of priests, that they mistake ours for their conjurers, and call them
by that name.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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