History of the Mission of the United Brethren Among the Indians in North America


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[The fear of death may be] deemed the most powerful motive for their religious worship, and the principal cause of the ascendancy gained by the above-mentioned teachers over their minds.

To heathen their system of morals seemed severe, for some of them made a total cessation from fornication, adultery, murder, and robbery, the most essential condition, when they promised their hearers a place among the good spirits and a share in their affluence and joy. They added, that they must be first thoroughly cleansed from their sins, and gave the poor people vomits, as the most expeditious mode of performing this purification.

Some Indians who believed in these absurdities vomited so often, that their lives were endangered by it. They were further strictly exhorted to fast, and to take nothing but physic for many days. Few indeed persevered in attending to so severe a regimen.

Other teachers pretended, that stripes were the most effectual means to purge away sin. They advised their hearers to suffer themselves to be beaten with twelve different sticks, from the soles of their feet to their necks, that their sins might pass from them through their throats.1

1Loskiel, G.H.n/an/an/an/a, , Part 1: 37.

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Chicago: History of the Mission of the United Brethren Among the Indians in North America in Primitive Behavior: An Introduction to the Social Sciences, ed. Thomas, William I. (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., 1937), Original Sources, accessed April 19, 2024, http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=KR8EN1ELI2GVJ31.

MLA: . History of the Mission of the United Brethren Among the Indians in North America, in Primitive Behavior: An Introduction to the Social Sciences, edited by Thomas, William I., New York, McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., 1937, Original Sources. 19 Apr. 2024. http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=KR8EN1ELI2GVJ31.

Harvard: , History of the Mission of the United Brethren Among the Indians in North America. cited in 1937, Primitive Behavior: An Introduction to the Social Sciences, ed. , McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., New York. Original Sources, retrieved 19 April 2024, from http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=KR8EN1ELI2GVJ31.