|
Moses, the ancient Hebrew Lawgiver, is certainly never associated with Mexico in any traditional texts, either religious or not, in either the Old or New Worlds. So when a Vermont pastor named Ethan Smith proposed in an 1825 book that Moses may have provided the basis for the Mexican legends of 蚕耻别迟锄补濒肠ó补迟濒, the famous “Feathered Serpent”, it seemed a radical theory to say the least. He writes: “Though their ancient ‘legislator’ is called by a name importing the serpent of green feathers; yet he was an ancient man, a white man and bearded; called by Montezuma, a saint, who led them to this country, and taught them many things … Who could this be but Moses, the ancient legislator in Israel?”
Most people in the Western world 200 years ago had never even heard of the feathered serpent. If they had, it was likely via the widely circulated story of the Aztec confusion of him with the Spanish Conquistador Hernán Cortés. On what basis was Smith making such a bold claim? Why would he have ever imagined such a baffling link between one of Israel’s founding leaders and an enigmatic priest-king-god of ancient Mesoamerica, especially since they developed on opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean? Even more intriguing, could he have actually been right?
A 200-Year-Old Theory about a 3,000-Year-Old Man
Long before proposing radical religious theories, Ethan Smith was a soldier at West Point during the discovery of Benedict Arnold’s betrayal in 1780. Afterwards, he moved north to become a New England clergyman and Congregationalist. He was a social reformer, missionary, abolitionist, and author of multiple books, including A View of the Hebrews (1823, revised in 1825). This shocking book argued that Native Americans are descendants of the Lost Tribes of Israel.
Following in the footsteps of James Adair’s hugely influential The History of the American Indians (1775), and Elias Boudinot’s A Star in the West (1816), it was a prime example of a peculiar genre of early American literature which promoted the “Hebraic Indian Theory”. In a strange mix of pseudo-history and speculation, Smith argued that Native Americans were descendants of the long lost ten tribes of Israel, scattered by the Assyrian Empire over 2700 years ago.
It was common in America at the time to believe Native Americans were descended from the lost Israelites. While now very-much debunked in academic circles due to the advent of genetic studies, it once seemed a viable, competing theory for how the New World became populated. This was due primarily to religious reasons, the first of which was trying to make sense of how the Natives fit into the Biblical creation story. The second concerned identifying a central role for America within a Christian millennial belief system, i.e. converting the “lost Israelites” as a prerequisite for the Second Coming of Jesus. “It is imperative that American Christians realize that they live among the lost tribes, Smith concludes, because only then will they achieve their grand destiny.”
As one component of his argument, Smith rationalized that the fantastical deity so popular in Mesoamerican myth, 蚕耻别迟锄补濒肠ó补迟濒, was in fact Moses, the famous founder of Judaism and more broadly Western ethical law and monotheism. His argument was based on over a dozen attributes which the two characters appeared to share, including their natures as teachers and lawgivers. Modern DNA analysis had thoroughly discredited the Hebraic Indian Theory, but it has not ruled out the possibility that Moses could have visited Mexico and introduced ideas and practices. |
