Whispering

Earlier this week, I caught a glimpse of a post showing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu whispering to President Obama. There was a video and a superimposed text. I read the text which, I believe, was an interpretation rather than a quotation of what Prime Minister Netanyahu may have been whispering. To the best of my recollection, Prime Minister Netanyahu was reminding President Obama of the sorry fate of Amerindians. I was truly puzzled.

The Ten Lost Tribes

A few minutes later, I remembered reading that members of certain North-American “tribes,” several Cherokees, for instance, believe they are the descendants of the Ten Lost Tribes. I tried to retrieve the post I had glimpsed, but it had disappeared from my reader.

This is not a recent theory. One of its early proponents was Indian trader James Adair (c.1709 – 1783) who published The History of the Indians, in 1775, an Internet Archive publication. (See Ten Lost Tribes, Native Americans.) Moreover, the theory is also supported by Israeli scholars.

http://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/native-americans-jews-the-lost-tribes-episode/

The Beringia Land Bridge

The prevailing theory remains that Amerindians came to the Americas via the Behring Strait or through the Beringia Land Bridge. These Native Americans would belong to the Clovis culture,13,200 to 12,900 calendar years ago, or the Folsom complex, about 9,000 calendar years ago. The Clovis culture used pointed projectiles called the Clovis point. As for the Folsom complex, its hunters used the Folsom point. Both projectiles are in the shape of a leaf and both Clovis and Folsom are locations in New Mexico.

However, there is evidence of other entryways. For instance, aboriginals may have lived in Beringia for a long time, long enough for Beringians to be ancestors to Native Americans.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/aboriginal-people-may-have-lived-on-beringia-for-millenia-1.2554118

Aboriginals may also originate from countries located in southeast Asia and would have arrived by boat to the west coast of the Americas.

But the above, does not preclude the possibility of North American aboriginals being members of the Ten Lost Tribes. Identifying the origin of first Americans now includes DNA analysis, a reliable tool.

Cherokees

If Cherokees are descendants of the Ten Lost Tribes, Sequoya who created the Cherokee syllabary could be a descendant of the Ten Lost Tribes and Jewish. At the moment, sources differ as to the identity of Sequoya’s father. Some claim that his father was a peddler from Swabia (Germany) whose name was Guyst, Guist, or Gist. Sequoya’s English-speaking friends called him George Guess or George Gist. According to Josiah C. Nott, Sequoyah was the “son of a Scotchman.”

In 1971, writer Traveller Bird, a Cherokee who claims Sequoyah was his ancestor, wrote a book entitled Tell Them They Lie: The Sequoyah Myth. In Traveller Bird’s opinion, Sequoyah was a Cherokee. His mother was named Wuteh and, at one point, the two left Tennessee and settled in Alabama where Sequoya created his Cherokee syllabary and married Sally Benge in 1815. In 1829, Sequoyah moved to a location near the present city of Sallisaw, Oklahoma.

Sequoya was self-taught, but very gifted and resourceful. Once his syllabary was accepted, the literacy rate of Cherokees surpassed that of the local European population (see Sequoyah, Wikipedia). Exceptional resourcefulness is a characteristic often attributed to the Jews.

Josiah C. Nott

The above-mentioned Josiah C. Nott (31 March 1804 – 31 March 1873) was an American surgeon and author. He is known for his racist theories. He claimed, for instance, that “the negro achieves his greatest perfection, physical and moral, and also greatest longevity, in a state of slavery.” Sickening! He hired Swiss-born Henry Hotze to translate Arthur de Gobineau‘s Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races, published in 1853 and 1855.

We have discussed Arthur de Gobineau, in Comments on Racism.

Conclusion

Amerindians speak several languages, which points to different ancestry and some tribes have moved. At one point in their history, there was a migration of Cherokees from the vicinity of Lake Superior to the southeast of the current United States.

I will never know what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu whispered to President Obama, but it may have been about the possible Jewish origins of certain North American Aboriginals. It’s an interesting hypothesis.

With kind regards to all of you and apologies for being away from my computer. I’ve not been well. ♥

RELATED ARTICLES

• Comments on Racism (2 February 2015)
• See page entitled Aboriginals in North America

Sources and Resources

• James Adair, The History of the Indians (Internet Archive) https://archive.org/stream/historyofamerica00adairich#page/n3/mode/2up
• Current Genomics http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2874220/
• Indigenous People of the Americas, Wikipedia
• Settlement of the Americas, Wikipedia
• The Origins of Amerindians http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2874220/
• George Catlin
  Illustrations of the manners, customs and conditions of the North American Indians, with Letters and Notes, Vol. 1 Internet Archives (images)
  George Catlin
• Illustrations of the manners, customs and conditions of the North American Indians,
  with Letters and Notes, Vol. 2 Internet Archives (images)
• George Catlin
  Life Among the Indians, Internet Archives

© Micheline Walker
24 September 2015

Buffalo Bull Grazing, 1845
George Catlin