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Cooper, James Fenimore, 1789-1851

"Oak Openings"

"It is
a good tradition. It is a strange tradition. Red men love to hear
such traditions. It is wonderful that so many as ten tribes should
be LOST, at the same time, and no one know what has become of them!
My brother asks us if WE know what has become of these ten tribes.
How should poor red men, who live on their hunting-grounds, and who
are busy when the grass grows in getting together food for their
squaws and pappooses, against a time when the buffalo can find
nothing to eat in this part of the world, know anything of a people
that they never saw? My brother has asked a question that he only
can answer. Let him tell us where these ten tribes are to be found,
if he knows the place. We should like to go and look at them."
"Here!" exclaimed the missionary, the instant Crowsfeather ceased
speaking, and even before he was seated. "Here--in this council--on
these prairies--in these openings--here, on the shores of the great
lakes of sweet water, and throughout the land of America, are these
tribes to be found. The red man is a Jew; a Jew is a red man. The
Manitou has brought the scattered people of Israel to this part of
the world, and I see his power in the wonderful fact.


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