Ta-Ka-E-Tuh said his people had very greatly degenerated from what they were in his early youth: and that many of the observances now kept up had been desecrated from solemn religious rites into mere scenes of revelry. The cause of this, as he said, was the capture, of the Delawares, of their religious deposit, (the interpreter called it the ark,) which contained the symbols of their worship. I inquired what were these symbols? He either could not, or would not, tell me. I feared they might be something like idols, ...
but he assured me the Cherokees had never worshipped idols, or any visible representation of God. When I told him of the nations that worshipped idols, he said they must be fools.
Reminiscences of the Indians, Cephas Washburn, 1869
But their (Hebrews) modes and objects of worship, differed very widely from those of the Americans (Cherokees) ... p170
They are such strict observers of the law of purification, and think
it so essential in obtaining health and success in war as not to allow
the best beloved trader that ever lived among them, even to enter the
beloved ground, appropriated to the religious duty of being sanctified
for war; much less to associate with the camp in the woods, though he
went (as I have known it to happen) on the same war design; - they
oblige him to walk and encamp separate and by himself, as an impure
and dangerous animal, till the leader has purified him, according to
their usual time and method, with the consecrated things of the ark...
The Indian ark is of a very simple construction, and it is only the
intention and application of it, that makes it worthy of notice; for it is made with pieces of wood securely fashioned together in the form of a square. The middle of three of the sides extend a little out, but one side is flat, for the conveniency of the person's back who carries it. Their ark has a cover and the whole is made impenetrably close with Hickory splinters; the leader, and a beloved waiter, carry it by turns. It contains several consecrated vessels, made by super annuated (ghi ga hu) women, and of such various antiquated forms, as would have puzzled Adam to give significant names to each. The leader and his attendant, are purified longer than the rest of the company, that the first may be fit to act in the religious office of a priest of war, and the other to carry the awful sacred ark. All the while they are at war, the Hessitu, or "beloved waiter" feeds each of the warriors by an exact stated rule, giving them even the water they drink, out of his own hands, lest by intemperance they should spoil the supposed communicative power of their holy things, and occasion fatal disasters to the war camp. In speaking of the Indian places of refuge for the unfortunate, I observed, that if a captive taken by the reputed power of the beloved things of the ark, should be able to make his escape into one of these towns, or even into the winter house of the Archi-magus, he is delivered from the fiery torture, otherwise inevitable. It is also highly worthy of notice, that they never place the ark on the ground, nor sit on the bare earth while they are carrying it against the enemy. On hilly
ground where stones are plenty, they place it on them: but in level
land upon short logs, always resting themselves on like materials.
Formerly, when this tract was the Indian Flanders of America, as the
French and all their red Canadian confederates were bitter enemies to
the inhabitants, we often saw the woods full of such religious war-
reliques. p 168-169
...their strict purity in their war camps; that Opae, "the leader", obliges all during the first campaign they make with the beloved ark, to stand, every day they lie by, from sun-rise to sun-set and after a fatiguing day's march, and with scanty allowance, to drink warm water imbitttered with rattle-snake-root very plentifully, in order to be
purified - that they have also as strong a faith of the power and holiness of their ark as the Israelites ascribing the superior success of the party to their stricter adherence to the law then the other and after they returned home hang it on the leaders war pole. p170
The ark is said to be so sacred and dangerous to be touched, either by
their own, sanctified warriors, or the spoiling enemy, that they durst
not touch it for any reason. It is not to be meddled with by anyone
except the war chief and his waiter under the penalty of incurring
great evil. Nor would the most inveterate enemy touch it in the woods
for the same reason. If their war expedition failed then they said it
was because of the vicious conduct of some of the followers of the
beloved ark... p170
*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 deerskin and placed on a couple of
short blocks. An Indian sentinel watched it armed with a hickory bow
and the brass pointed arrows and he was faitthful 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. p170
When they have finished their fast and purifications, they set off, at the fixed time, be it fair or foul, firing their guns, whooping, and halooing, as they march. The war-leader (savanoko) goes first, carrying the holy ark: he (or she) soon strikes up the awful and solemn song ... The rest follow in one line ... now and then sounding the war whoo-whoop, to make the war-leader's song the more striking ...
Adair's History of the American Indian, James Adair, London 1775
Buttrick: Antiquities p.12- refers to the ark being covered with a
deerskin "to be set up when they rested and carried when they
journeyed."
