"White,"
observes Adair of the southern Indians, "is their fixed emblem of peace,
friendship, happiness, prosperity, purity, and holiness."[175-1] Their
priests dressed in white robes, as did those of Peru and Mexico; the
kings of the various species of animals were all supposed to be
white;[175-2] the cities of refuge established as asylums for alleged
criminals by the Cherokees in the manner of the Israelites were called
"white towns," and for sacrifices animals of this color were ever most
highly esteemed. All these sentiments were linked to the dawn. Language
itself is proof of it. Many Algonkin words for east, morning, dawn, day,
light, as we have already seen, are derived from a radical signifying
_white_. Or we can take a tongue nowise related, the Quiche, and find
its words for east, dawn, morning, light, bright, glorious, happy,
noble, all derived from _zak_, white. We read in their legends of the
earliest men that they were "white children," "white sons," leading "a
white life beyond the dawn," and the creation itself is attributed to
the Dawn, the White One, the White Sacrificer of Blood.
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