Note 41 — Observations, and arguments, in proof of the American Indians being descended from the Jews. (continued 3)

Sec. p. 442 post. The taboo touching raw meat and of its purification is based upon the common belief among primitive peoples that the soul or spirit of the animal is in its blood. Frazer in Golden Bough says that it was held even by the Romans, Arabs and Chinese medical writers. Payne says that the belief in the efficiency of fire “extended to smoke which was esteemed Fire’s messenger, always ready to convey the petition above. A child immediately after birth was waived over the fire”—a custom, says Logan, that survived “even to this day in the practice of the Scotch Highlanders to pass a child over the fire,” by way of purification. Upper South Carolina, I, 213.