Hebrew Antiquities.
James Dodson
[from The Covenanter, Devoted to the Principles of the Reformed Presbyterian Church. 8.10 (May 1853) ed. James M. Willson. Philadelphia: William S. Young, 1853. pp. 296-298.]
There are very learned works on Grecian and Latin antiquities. These are much used in schools. There are also very elaborate volumes on the antiquities of the Jews, such as—Rouse’s Archælogia, [Thomas] Lewis’ Hebrew Antiquities. These works have fallen into disuse for nearly one hundred and fifty years. They all have been intended to illustrate the ancient habits and manners and usages of the south of Judea, after the secession of the ten tribes. There has been very little inquiry after the remnants of the ten tribes since they were carried away by Shalmanezer, in the reign of Hezekiah, more than six hundred and fifty years before Christ.
We have, however, great and precious promises to all the seed of Jacob yet to be fulfilled. (Ps. cxvii. 2,) “He gathereth together the outcasts of Israel.” (Isa. xi. 12,) “And he shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth.” Here the ten tribes of “outcasts” are distinguished from “the dispersed of Judah.” That promise has never been fulfilled. But where are they? That they will be found does not admit of any reasonable doubt. In this age, when men run “to and fro,” and knowledge of all kinds is “increased,” these long “outcasts of Israel” will no doubt be found. There have been various conjectures as to where they are. Some of them seem probable, but none, upon the whole, very satisfactory. One theory of late has been held, and brought before the public, accompanied with arguments which render it, as many think, almost certain. Dr. Elias Boudinot, of New Jersey, the first President of the American Bible Society, published an octavo volume, which he called “The Star in the West.” The name was suggested, to the Doctor by a learned work of a Christian traveler in the East, whose name was [Claudius] Buchanan. He had published some time before a book called “The Star in the East,” a very interesting work, in which he states that he found in the south of Asia numerous descendants of the ten tribes.
“The Star in the West” ought to be read by every friend of the Israel of God. The readers of the Covenanter would be interested by a statement of a few arguments in support of Dr. Boudinot’s theory. First.—A Rabbi, from beyond the Caspian sea, wrote to one of his friends remaining in the land of Israel, that he and his brethren had determined to go in a body, a journey of three months, and go to a place where they never would be heard of again. His letter is found in the Apocrypha, which, though uninspired, is generally found to be good history. The king of Assyria, in the sixth year of Hezekiah, carried away Israel beyond the Caspian sea. “And the king of Assyria did carry away Israel unto Assyria, and put them in Halah and in Habor, by the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes,” (2 Kings xviii. 11.) The river of the Medes is Gihon, which enters into the Caspian sea, on the south, through Ancient Media.
Peter the Great, of Russia, adopted the same policy with the Finlanders when he conquered them, planting them in the eastern outskirts of his empire. Now those Hebrews could not go south, for Hindoostan [India] was peopled by the descendants of Abraham many hundred years before, for “he sent away the children of the concubines to the east country.” Shinar was peopled by the children of Keturah.[1] The whole valley of the Euphrates and Tigris was thickly settled by the Assyrians; of course there was no other way for that colony of Hebrews than towards Behring’s Straits. That journey would require three months for a large colony, their carriages, cattle and provisions, through an unsettled country. Behring’s Straits is forty miles over, and is even now frozen over in winter, and much more would it be then.
II. A second argument is that the Tartars are descendants of the ten tribes. Mr. Daschkoff [Andrey Yakovlevich Dashkov], the Russian Ambassador, told the writer thirty-six years ago, that he knew that the Tartars were Hebrews. He said, “My family came from Tartary to European Russia one hundred and fifty years ago. Our chiefs were called Knies. When I came to America and saw Indians, I asked how Tartars came here—for, said he, the Tartars, in all their leading features are Hebrews.” The names of the rivers, mountains and towns in Tartary being disguised Hebrew, bear testimony to Mr. Daschkoff’s declaration.
III. The names of the mountains, rivers, and tribes of our Indians, are also disguised Hebrew. Mount Elias is 17,900 feet high, at the north end of the Rocky Mountains, and in north latitude sixty degrees. That mountain must have been named in remembrance of Elijah, upon Mount Carmel, in the west of Palestine, a little south of where the Kishon falls into the Mediterranean. Charleveaux [Pierre François Xavier de Charlevoix], the French Jesuit, who travelled from Canada to Louisiana, about twenty years ago, did not go so far north—neither did Carver.[2] If they had both gone so far, they would not, probably, have called a mountain by his name; but nothing could be more natural than that these exiled Hebrews should have called it by a name which they almost venerated in the time of Christ.
When we come farther south, the names of rivers are more clearly Hebrew. The Allegheny signifies, in Hebrew, “great garden;” it is derived from a God and gen, garden. Ohio is Jehovah pronounced without the points, acocaooa. Youghiogheny is the same name. The old name was Ohiopoe, which means little Ohio. The Pottowattamy Indians call the Mississippi Mishapawaw, which is plainly derived from Mesha, Moses, and pawaw, father, which means Father Moses, and we call it the “Father of Waters.” Kanawha is quna, Abba, Father. The patience of the reader would be exhausted should the writer attempt to identify the Hebrew names with the one-tenth of American rivers. The names of tribes and towns are as clearly of Hebrew origin. The Mandans, from man, and dan, and means, of Dan. Other names of tribes are to the same effect.
IV. From the literature of the Indian tribes, if it may be called by that name.[3] The writer has seen a paradigm of the Mohegan verb. The Rev. Wm. Smith, a Presbyterian Missionary among the Indians, who has finished a translation of the New Testament into the Mohegan language, told the writer “that he had for years laboured to make a paradigm of the Mohegan verb. At length it struck me that it was cast in the Hebrew mould, and I made this one, which I will show you.” It was printed on a large sheet, and any Hebrew scholar would at once recognise the suffixes and affixes of the Hebrew Bible. At the time the writer heard this Mr. Smith was in Albany, superintending the publication of the Mohegan Testament. Several years before that the writer of this article had seen a grammar of the Chilian language, and the verb was cast in that Hebrew mould. No Hebrew scholar could doubt this. It may be said that Chili is South America. Very true—but let it be remembered on our side that Hebrew emigrants had been in America five hundred years before Christ, and of course the Mexicans are descendants of the Hebrews, if it be true that the Chilians are. Judge Breckinridge, who was secretary of legation to Mexico, told the writer of this article that the language of the Mexicans is a very jingling language—a great many consonants and few vowels. In that it resembles the language of the Tartars.
V. Their usages indicate the same thing.—First, they have a long festival in spring, the time of the year when the Jews kept their passover. Second, many of the Indians, especially those of Western Pennsylvania, seventy years ago, did not eat of the sinew which shrank. Third, they make a tent and enter that tent to purify themselves.[4]
VI. One tribe at least has a box, in which is a copy of parchment, which they keep most sacred. This the writer had from Mr. Shannon, a very respectable gentleman, who said that after great persuasion they showed it to him. It was written in large letters, with blue ink. Mr. Shannon was not a Hebrew scholar, and did not know what language it was.
VII. Inscriptions. The writer will speak in the first person, as is customary now. In going down Lake Champlain, in December, 1832, I was detained by an accident, which happened to the steamboat at Lake Ticonderoga. There I discovered, near a small village, Hebrew letters on the rocks. At first I thought they were the marks of feet upon the rocks, which Mr. Morse speaks of in his geography, but on reflection I saw that some were Hebrew “sheens” [shins]. They were large letters, from four to five inches long, and beautifully carved. They are engraved in hard trap rock, a quarter of an inch deep and a quarter of an inch wide, in the thickest part, and then in beautifully curved hair lines. I found also gimel, yod, heth, in its oldest form, vaw and taw. I did not count them, but I presume to say that there were more than a hundred near the outlet of Lake George. I found an anchor with two flukes. I found but two words, shoo goo; goo for family—the family of the Shuhites. There are other inscriptions in Pennsylvania on the rocks on the route of the canal, I have heard. Now all these facts at least render it probable that our Indians are the “outcasts of Israel.” It is hoped that our ministers in the west will enter into further investigations.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] See the Life of Sir William Jones, by Lord Teignmouth.
[2] See Carver’s Travels.
[3] See notes to Boudinot’s “Star in the West,” who gives a vocabulary of some of the words.
[4] See the narration of Colonel James Smith.