Dr. Cartwright Reviewed—The Negro, Ape and Serpent, Part I [pp. 238-250]

DR. CARTWRIGHT ON TIlE NEGRO, REVIEWVED.
scholars, this issue must be left. As it was undeniable that
naclhash sometimes properly means "serpent," and sometimes
expresses the ophidian act of "hissing," even this is made an
argument to prove that, in the third chapter of Genesis, it does
not mean a'Iserpent," but a negro! To give this plausibility it
is said:
"We have in the Northwest a tribe of Indians called Snakes. The name
was intended to be significant of some peculiar trait in their character."De Bow's Review. Vol. iv, p. 134. August, 1860.
Of course, it is not intended to identify these with the nachash, for that would destroy the nigritian theory. The reader
is left to draw the inference that Adam, who named all creatures, may have called a negro a snake, because of some
peculiar trait. Indians frequently take the names of animals
possessing qualities which they value in a brave. One of
those qualities is a noiseless approach to surprise an ienemy.
Hence a tribe, boasting of this quality, may well have assumed
the name of Snakes. But this tends no more to establish Dr.
Cartwright's theory than the fact that there is a city called
Buffalo and a country called Turkey. If it had been shown
that the Egyptian worshippers of the cat, ibis, and otl-her creaturIes were called by the names of the animals to which they
devoted themselves, it would have been in point; for the negro
trait on which Dr. Cartwright relies is thus set fortlih:
"Nearly all the ancestors of the negroes now in the United States, were
the slaves of the serpent before they became the slaves of Christian white
men. They worshipped their snake master, believed that the serpent-god
was all-wise, all-powerful, and very wicked." De Bow's Review. Vol. iv, p.
133. August, 1860.
Dr. Cartwright's theory proceeds on several unwarrantable
assumptions: first, that Adam adopted the Indian method of
applying to humans the names of animals, "to be significant
atof some peculiar trait in their character;" secondly, that the
trait selected had reference to the object of their worship;
thirdly, either that snake-worship had commenced in the Garden ot Eden, where the Lord, the true God, was wont to walk
"in the cool of the day;" or, that Adam, gifted with prophetic
vision, foresaw that it would prevail among the negro race;
and, fourthly, that the serpent was named before tihe negro.
But the last assumption conflicts with another of Dr. Cartwright's statements, namely:
"' We are told that all the creatures were brought before Adam to receive
names, and that what he called every living creature, that was the name
thereof. What these names were appears afterward...... The first
one of these names......... is Nachash. That is the name of the creature which beguiled Eve." De Bow's Review. Vol. iv, p. 131.
But, if Adam called this creature nachash, "serpent," because
he worshipped a serpent, the reptile, after which he was named,
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