The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century

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Title: The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century
Author: Parkman, Francis
Language: English
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FRANCE AND ENGLAND IN NORTH AMERICA.

A SERIES OF HISTORICAL NARRATIVES.

BY FRANCIS PARKMAN

PART SECOND.

THE JESUITS IN NORTH AMERICA IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.

BY FRANCIS PARKMAN

PREFACE.

Few passages of history are more striking than those which record the
efforts of the earlier French Jesuits to convert the Indians. Full as
they are of dramatic and philosophic interest, bearing strongly on the
political destinies of America, and closely involved with the history of
its native population, it is wonderful that they have been left so long
in obscurity. While the infant colonies of England still clung feebly to
the shores of the Atlantic, events deeply ominous to their future were in
progress, unknown to them, in the very heart of the continent. It will
be seen, in the sequel of this volume, that civil and religious liberty
found strange allies in this Western World.

The sources of information concerning the early Jesuits of New France are
very copious. During a period of forty years, the Superior of the
Mission sent, every summer, long and detailed reports, embodying or
accompanied by the reports of his subordinates, to the Provincial of the
Order at Paris, where they were annually published, in duodecimo volumes,
forming the remarkable series known as the Jesuit Relations. Though the
productions of men of scholastic training, they are simple and often
crude in style, as might be expected of narratives hastily written in
Indian lodges or rude mission-houses in the forest, amid annoyances and
interruptions of all kinds. In respect to the value of their contents,
they are exceedingly unequal. Modest records of marvellous adventures
and sacrifices, and vivid pictures of forest-life, alternate with prolix
and monotonous details of the conversion of individual savages, and the
praiseworthy deportment of some exemplary neophyte. With regard to the
condition and character of the primitive inhabitants of North America,
it is impossible to exaggerate their value as an authority. I should add,
that the closest examination has left me no doubt that these missionaries
wrote in perfect good faith, and that the Relations hold a high place as
authentic and trustworthy historical documents. They are very scarce,
and no complete collection of them exists in America. The entire series
was, however, republished, in 1858, by the Canadian government, in three
large octavo volumes.

[ Both editions--the old and the new--are cited in the following pages.
Where the reference is to the old edition, it is indicated by the name of
the publisher (Cramoisy), appended to the citation, in brackets.

In extracts given in the notes, the antiquated orthography and
accentuation are preserved. ]

These form but a part of the surviving writings of the French-American
Jesuits. Many additional reports, memoirs, journals, and letters,
official and private, have come down to us; some of which have recently
been printed, while others remain in manuscript. Nearly every prominent
actor in the scenes to be described has left his own record of events in
which he bore part, in the shape of reports to his Superiors or letters
to his friends. I have studied and compared these authorities, as well
as a great mass of collateral evidence, with more than usual care,
striving to secure the greatest possible accuracy of statement, and to
reproduce an image of the past with photographic clearness and truth.

The introductory chapter of the volume is independent of the rest; but a
knowledge of the facts set forth in it is essential to the full
understanding of the narrative which follows.

In the collection of material, I have received valuable aid from
Mr. J. G. Shea, Rev. Felix Martin, S.J., the Abbés Laverdière and
H. R. Casgrain, Dr. J. C. Taché, and the late Jacques Viger, Esq.

I propose to devote the next volume of this series to the discovery and
occupation by the French of the Valley of the Mississippi.

BOSTON, 1st May, 1867.

CONTENTS.

INTRODUCTION.

NATIVE TRIBES.

Divisions.--The Algonquins.--The Hurons.--Their Houses.--
Fortifications.--Habits.--Arts.--Women.--Trade.--Festivities.--
Medicine.--The Tobacco Nation.--The Neutrals.--The Eries.--
The Andastes.--The Iroquois.--Social and Political Organization.--
Iroquois Institutions, Customs, and Character.--
Indian Religion and Superstitions.--The Indian Mind.

CHAPTER I.

1634.

NOTRE-DAME DES ANGES.

Quebec In 1634.--Father Le Jeune.--The Mission-House.--
Its Domestic Economy.--The Jesuits and their Designs.

CHAPTER II.

LOYOLA AND THE JESUITS.

Conversion of Loyola.--Foundation of the Society of Jesus.--
Preparation of the Novice.--Characteristics of the Order.--
The Canadian Jesuits.

CHAPTER III.

1632, 1633.

PAUL LE JEUNE.

Le Jeune's Voyage.--His First Pupils.--His Studies.--
His Indian Teacher.--Winter at the Mission-house.--
Le Jeune's School.--Reinforcements.

CHAPTER IV.

1633, 1634.

LE JEUNE AND THE HUNTERS.

Le Jeune joins the Indians.--The First Encampment.--The Apostate.--
Forest Life in Winter.--The Indian Hut.--The Sorcerer.--
His Persecution of the Priest.--Evil Company.--Magic.--
Incantations.--Christmas.--Starvation.--Hopes of Conversion.--
Backsliding.--Peril and Escape of Le Jeune.--His Return.

CHAPTER V.

1633, 1634.

THE HURON MISSION.

Plans of Conversion.--Aims and Motives.--Indian Diplomacy.--
Hurons at Quebec.--Councils.--The Jesuit Chapel.--Le Borgne.--
The Jesuits thwarted.--Their Perseverance.--The Journey to the Hurons.--
Jean de Brébeuf.--The Mission begun.

CHAPTER VI.

1634, 1635.

BRÉBEUF AND HIS ASSOCIATES.

The Huron Mission-house.--Its Inmates.--Its Furniture.--Its Guests.--
The Jesuit as a Teacher.--As an Engineer.--Baptisms.--
Huron Village Life.--Festivities and Sorceries.--The Dream Feast.--
The Priests accused of Magic.--The Drought and the Red Cross.

CHAPTER VII.

1636, 1637.

THE FEAST OF THE DEAD.

Huron Graves.--Preparation for the Ceremony.--Disinterment.--
The Mourning.--The Funeral March.--The Great Sepulchre.--
Funeral Games.--Encampment of the Mourners.--Gifts.--Harangues.--
Frenzy of the Crowd.--The Closing Scene.--Another Rite.--
The Captive Iroquois.--The Sacrifice.

CHAPTER VIII.

1636, 1637.

THE HURON AND THE JESUIT.

Enthusiasm for the Mission.--Sickness of the Priests.--
The Pest among the Hurons.--The Jesuit on his Rounds.--
Efforts at Conversion.--Priests and Sorcerers.--The Man-Devil.--
The Magician's Prescription.--Indian Doctors and Patients.--
Covert Baptisms.--Self-Devotion of the Jesuits.

CHAPTER IX.

1637.

CHARACTER OF THE CANADIAN JESUITS.

Jean de Brébeuf.--Charles Garnier.--Joseph Marie Chaumonot.--
Noël Chabanel.--Isaac Jogues.--Other Jesuits.--Nature of their Faith.--
Supernaturalism.--Visions.--Miracles.

CHAPTER X.

1637-1640.

PERSECUTION.

Ossossané.--The New Chapel.--A Triumph of the Faith.--
The Nether Powers.--Signs of a Tempest.--Slanders.--
Rage Against the Jesuits.--Their Boldness and Persistency.--
Nocturnal Council.--Danger of the Priests.--Brébeuf's Letter.--
Narrow Escapes.--Woes and Consolations.

CHAPTER XI

1638-1640.

PRIEST AND PAGAN.

Du Peron's Journey.--Daily Life of the Jesuits.--
Their Missionary Excursions.--Converts at Ossossané.--
Machinery of Conversion.--Conditions of Baptism.--Backsliders.--
The Converts and their Countrymen.--The Cannibals at St. Joseph.

CHAPTER XII.

1639, 1640.

THE TOBACCO NATION.--THE NEUTRALS.

A Change of Plan.--Sainte Marie.--Mission of the Tobacco Nation.--
Winter Journeying.--Reception of the Missionaries.--
Superstitious Terrors.--Peril of Garnier and Jogues.--
Mission of the Neutrals.--Huron Intrigues.--Miracles.--
Fury of the Indians.--Intervention of Saint Michael.--
Return to Sainte Marie.--Intrepidity of the Priests.--
Their Mental Exaltation.

CHAPTER XIII.

1636-1646.

QUEBEC AND ITS TENANTS.

The New Governor.--Edifying Examples.--Le Jeune's Correspondents.--
Rank and Devotion.--Nuns.--Priestly Authority.--Condition of Quebec.--
The Hundred Associates.--Church Discipline.--Plays.--Fireworks.--
Processions.--Catechizing.--Terrorism.--Pictures.--The Converts.--
The Society of Jesus.--The Foresters.

CHAPTER XIV.

1636-1652.

DEVOTEES AND NUNS.

The Huron Seminary.--Madame de la Peltrie.--Her Pious Schemes.--
Her Sham Marriage.--She visits the Ursulines of Tours.--
Marie de Saint Bernard.--Marie de l'Incarnation.--Her Enthusiasm.--
Her Mystical Marriage.--Her Dejection.--Her Mental Conflicts.--
Her Vision.--Made Superior of the Ursulines.--The Hôtel-Dieu.--
The Voyage to Canada.--Sillery.--Labors and Sufferings of the Nuns.--
Character of Marie de l'Incarnation.--Of Madame de la Peltrie.

CHAPTER XV.

1636-1642.

VILLEMARIE DE MONTREAL.

Dauversiére and the Voice from Heaven.--Abbé Olier.--Their Schemes.--
The Society of Notre-Dame de Montreal.--Maisonneuve.--Devout Ladies.--
Mademoiselle Mance.--Marguerite Bourgeois.--The Montrealists at Quebec.--
Jealousy.--Quarrels.--Romance and Devotion.--Embarkation.--
Foundation of Montreal.

CHAPTER XVI.

1641-1644.

ISAAC JOGUES.

The Iroquois War.--Jogues.--His Capture.--His Journey to the Mohawks.--
Lake George.--The Mohawk Towns.--The Missionary tortured.--
Death of Goupil.--Misery of Jogues.--The Mohawk "Babylon."--
Fort Orange.--Escape of Jogues.--Manhattan.--The Voyage to France.--
Jogues among his Brethren.--He returns to Canada.

CHAPTER XVII.

1641-1646.

THE IROQUOIS.--BRESSANI.--DE NOUË.

War.--Distress and Terror.--Richelieu.--Battle.--Ruin of Indian Tribes.--
Mutual Destruction.--Iroquois and Algonquin.--Atrocities.--
Frightful Position of the French.--Joseph Bressani.--His Capture.--
His Treatment.--His Escape.--Anne de Nouë.--His Nocturnal Journey.--
His Death.

CHAPTER XVIII.

1642-1644.

VILLEMARIE.

Infancy of Montreal.--The Flood.--Vow of Maisonneuve.--Pilgrimage.--
D'Ailleboust.--The Hôtel-Dieu.--Piety.--Propagandism.--War.--
Hurons and Iroquois.--Dogs.--Sally of the French.--Battle.--
Exploit of Maisonneuve.

CHAPTER XIX.

1644, 1645.

PEACE.

Iroquois Prisoners.--Piskaret.--His Exploits.--More Prisoners.--
Iroquois Embassy.--The Orator.--The Great Council.--
Speeches of Kiotsaton.--Muster of Savages.--Peace confirmed.

CHAPTER XX.

1645, 1646.

THE PEACE BROKEN.

Uncertainties.--The Mission of Jogues.--He reaches the Mohawks.--
His Reception.--His Return.--His Second Mission.--Warnings of Danger.--
Rage of the Mohawks.--Murder of Jogues.

CHAPTER XXI.

1646, 1647.

ANOTHER WAR.

Mohawk Inroads.--The Hunters of Men.--The Captive Converts.--
The Escape of Marie.--Her Story.--The Algonquin Prisoner's Revenge.--
Her Flight.--Terror of the Colonists.--Jesuit Intrepidity.

CHAPTER XXII.

1645-1651.

PRIEST AND PURITAN.

Miscou.--Tadoussac.--Journeys of De Quen.--Druilletes.--
His Winter with the Montagnais.--Influence of the Missions.--
The Abenaquis.--Druilletes on the Kennebec.--His Embassy to Boston.--
Gibbons.--Dudley.--Bradford.--Eliot.--Endicott.--
French and Puritan Colonization.--Failure of Druilletes's Embassy.--
New Regulations.--New-Year's Day at Quebec.

CHAPTER XXIII.

1645-1648.

A DOOMED NATION.

Indian Infatuation.--Iroquois and Huron.--Huron Triumphs.--
The Captive Iroquois.--His Ferocity and Fortitude.--Partisan Exploits.--
Diplomacy.--The Andastes.--The Huron Embassy.--New Negotiations.--
The Iroquois Ambassador.--His Suicide.--Iroquois Honor.

CHAPTER XXIV.

1645-1648.

THE HURON CHURCH.

Hopes of the Mission.--Christian and Heathen.--Body and Soul.--
Position of Proselytes.--The Huron Girl's Visit to Heaven.--A Crisis.--
Huron Justice.--Murder and Atonement.--Hopes and Fears.

CHAPTER XXV.

1648, 1649.

SAINTE MARIE.

The Centre of the Missions.--Fort.--Convent.--Hospital.--Caravansary.--
Church.--The Inmates of Sainte Marie.--Domestic Economy.--Missions.--
A Meeting of Jesuits.--The Dead Missionary.

CHAPTER XXVI.

1648.

ANTOINE DANIEL.

Huron Traders.--Battle at Three Rivers.--St. Joseph.--
Onset of the Iroquois.--Death of Daniel.--The Town destroyed.

CHAPTER XXVII.

1649.

RUIN OF THE HURONS.

St. Louis on Fire.--Invasion.--St. Ignace captured.--
Brébeuf and Lalemant.--Battle at St. Louis.--Sainte Marie threatened.--
Renewed Fighting.--Desperate Conflict.--A Night of Suspense.--
Panic among the Victors.--Burning of St. Ignace.--
Retreat of the Iroquois.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

1649.

THE MARTYRS.

The Ruins of St. Ignace.--The Relics found.--Brébeuf at the Stake.--
His Unconquerable Fortitude.--Lalemant.--Renegade Hurons.--
Iroquois Atrocities.--Death of Brébeuf.--His Character.--
Death of Lalemant.

CHAPTER XXIX.

1649, 1650.

THE SANCTUARY.

Dispersion of the Hurons.--Sainte Marie abandoned.--Isle St. Joseph.--
Removal of the Mission.--The New Fort.--Misery of the Hurons.--Famine.--
Epidemic.--Employments of the Jesuits.

CHAPTER XXX.

1649.

GARNIER.--CHABANEL.

The Tobacco Missions.--St. Jean attacked.--Death of Garnier.--
The Journey of Chabanel.--His Death.--Garreau and Grelon.

CHAPTER XXXI.

1650-1652.

THE HURON MISSION ABANDONED.

Famine and the Tomahawk.--A New Asylum.--
Voyage of the Refugees to Quebec.--Meeting with Bressani.--
Desperate Courage of the Iroquois.--Inroads and Battles.--
Death of Buteux.

CHAPTER XXXII.

1650-1866.

THE LAST OF THE HURONS.

Fate of the Vanquished.--
The Refugees of St. Jean Baptiste and St. Michel.--
The Tobacco Nation and Its Wanderings.--The Modern Wyandots.--
The Biter Bit.--The Hurons at Quebec.--Notre-Dame de Lorette.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

1650-1670.

THE DESTROYERS.

Iroquois Ambition.--Its Victims.--The Fate of the Neutrals.--
The Fate of the Eries.--The War with the Andastes.--
Supremacy of the Iroquois.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

THE END.

Failure of the Jesuits.--What their Success would have involved.--
Future of the Mission.

INTRODUCTION.

NATIVE TRIBES.

DIVISIONS.--THE ALGONQUINS.--THE HURONS.--THEIR HOUSES.--
FORTIFICATIONS.--HABITS.--ARTS.--WOMEN.--TRADE.--FESTIVITIES.--
MEDICINE.--THE TOBACCO NATION.--THE NEUTRALS.--THE ERIES.--
THE ANDASTES.--THE IROQUOIS.--SOCIAL AND POLITICAL ORGANIZATION.--
IROQUOIS INSTITUTIONS, CUSTOMS, AND CHARACTER.--
INDIAN RELIGION AND SUPERSTITIONS.--THE INDIAN MIND.

America, when it became known to Europeans, was, as it had long been,
a scene of wide-spread revolution. North and South, tribe was giving
place to tribe, language to language; for the Indian, hopelessly
unchanging in respect to individual and social development, was, as
regarded tribal relations and local haunts, mutable as the wind. In
Canada and the northern section of the United States, the elements of
change were especially active. The Indian population which, in 1535,
Cartier found at Montreal and Quebec, had disappeared at the opening of
the next century, and another race had succeeded, in language and customs
widely different; while, in the region now forming the State of New York,
a power was rising to a ferocious vitality, which, but for the presence
of Europeans, would probably have subjected, absorbed, or exterminated
every other Indian community east of the Mississippi and north of the
Ohio.

The vast tract of wilderness from the Mississippi to the Atlantic,
and from the Carolinas to Hudson's Bay, was divided between two great
families of tribes, distinguished by a radical difference of language.
A part of Virginia and of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Southeastern New York,
New England, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Lower Canada were occupied,
so far as occupied at all, by tribes speaking various Algonquin languages
and dialects. They extended, moreover, along the shores of the Upper
Lakes, and into the dreary Northern wastes beyond. They held Wisconsin,
Michigan, Illinois, and Indiana, and detached bands ranged the lonely
hunting-round of Kentucky.

[ The word Algonquin is here used in its broadest signification. It was
originally applied to a group of tribes north of the River St. Lawrence.
The difference of language between the original Algonquins and the
Abenaquis of New England, the Ojibwas of the Great Lakes, or the Illinois
of the West, corresponded to the difference between French and Italian,
or Italian and Spanish. Each of these languages, again, had its dialects,
like those of different provinces of France. ]

Like a great island in the midst of the Algonquins lay the country of
tribes speaking the generic tongue of the Iroquois. The true Iroquois,
or Five Nations, extended through Central New York, from the Hudson to
the Genesee. Southward lay the Andastes, on and near the Susquehanna;
westward, the Eries, along the southern shore of Lake Erie, and the
Neutral Nation, along its northern shore from Niagara towards the
Detroit; while the towns of the Hurons lay near the lake to which they
have left their name.

[ To the above general statements there was, in the first half of the
seventeenth century, but one exception worth notice. A detached branch
of the Dahcotah stock, the Winnebago, was established south of Green Bay,
on Lake Michigan, in the midst of Algonquins; and small Dahcotah bands
had also planted themselves on the eastern side of the Mississippi,
nearly in the same latitude.

There was another branch of the Iroquois in the Carolinas, consisting of
the Tuscaroras and kindred bands. In 1716 they were joined to the Five
Nations. ]

Of the Algonquin populations, the densest, despite a recent epidemic
which had swept them off by thousands, was in New England. Here were
Mohicans, Pequots, Narragansetts, Wampanoags, Massachusetts, Penacooks,
thorns in the side of the Puritan. On the whole, these savages were
favorable specimens of the Algonquin stock, belonging to that section of
it which tilled the soil, and was thus in some measure spared the
extremes of misery and degradation to which the wandering hunter tribes
were often reduced. They owed much, also, to the bounty of the sea,
and hence they tended towards the coast; which, before the epidemic,
Champlain and Smith had seen at many points studded with wigwams and
waving with harvests of maize. Fear, too, drove, them eastward; for the
Iroquois pursued them with an inveterate enmity. Some paid yearly
tribute to their tyrants, while others were still subject to their
inroads, flying in terror at the sound of the Mohawk war-cry. Westward,
the population thinned rapidly; northward, it soon disappeared. Northern
New Hampshire, the whole of Vermont, and Western Massachusetts had no
human tenants but the roving hunter or prowling warrior.

We have said that this group of tribes was relatively very populous; yet
it is more than doubtful whether all of them united, had union been
possible, could have mustered eight thousand fighting men. To speak
further of them is needless, for they were not within the scope of the
Jesuit labors. The heresy of heresies had planted itself among them; and
it was for the apostle Eliot, not the Jesuit, to essay their conversion.

[ These Indians, the Armouchiquois of the old French writers, were in a
state of chronic war with the tribes of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.
Champlain, on his voyage of 1603, heard strange accounts of them.
The following is literally rendered from the first narrative of that
heroic, but credulous explorer.

"They are savages of shape altogether monstrous: for their heads are
small, their bodies short, and their arms thin as a skeleton, as are also
their thighs; but their legs are stout and long, and all of one size, and,
when they are seated on their heels, their knees rise more than half a
foot above their heads, which seems a thing strange and against Nature.
Nevertheless, they are active and bold, and they have the best country on
all the coast towards Acadia."--Des Sauvages, f. 84.

This story may match that of the great city of Norembega, on the
Penobscot, with its population of dwarfs, as related by Jean Alphonse. ]

Landing at Boston, three years before a solitude, let the traveller push
northward, pass the River Piscataqua and the Penacooks, and cross the
River Saco. Here, a change of dialect would indicate a different tribe,
or group of tribes. These were the Abenaquis, found chiefly along the
course of the Kennebec and other rivers, on whose banks they raised their
rude harvests, and whose streams they ascended to hunt the moose and bear
in the forest desert of Northern Maine, or descended to fish in the
neighboring sea.

[ The Tarratines of New-England writers were the Abenaquis, or a portion
of them. ]

Crossing the Penobscot, one found a visible descent in the scale of
humanity. Eastern Maine and the whole of New Brunswick were occupied by
a race called Etchemins, to whom agriculture was unknown, though the sea,
prolific of fish, lobsters, and seals, greatly lightened their miseries.
The Souriquois, or Micmacs, of Nova Scotia, closely resembled them in
habits and condition. From Nova Scotia to the St. Lawrence, there was no
population worthy of the name. From the Gulf of St. Lawrence to Lake
Ontario, the southern border of the great river had no tenants but
hunters. Northward, between the St. Lawrence and Hudson's Bay, roamed
the scattered hordes of the Papinachois, Bersiamites, and others,
included by the French under the general name of Montagnais. When,
in spring, the French trading-ships arrived and anchored in the port of
Tadoussac, they gathered from far and near, toiling painfully through the
desolation of forests, mustering by hundreds at the point of traffic,
and setting up their bark wigwams along the strand of that wild harbor.
They were of the lowest Algonquin type. Their ordinary sustenance was
derived from the chase; though often, goaded by deadly famine, they would
subsist on roots, the bark and buds of trees, or the foulest offal; and
in extremity, even cannibalism was not rare among them.

Ascending the St. Lawrence, it was seldom that the sight of a human form
gave relief to the loneliness, until, at Quebec, the roar of Champlain's
cannon from the verge of the cliff announced that the savage prologue of
the American drama was drawing to a close, and that the civilization of
Europe was advancing on the scene. Ascending farther, all was solitude,
except at Three Rivers, a noted place of trade, where a few Algonquins of
the tribe called Atticamegues might possibly be seen. The fear of the
Iroquois was everywhere; and as the voyager passed some wooded point,
or thicket-covered island, the whistling of a stone-headed arrow
proclaimed, perhaps, the presence of these fierce marauders. At Montreal
there was no human life, save during a brief space in early summer,
when the shore swarmed with savages, who had come to the yearly trade
from the great communities of the interior. To-day there were dances,
songs, and feastings; to-morrow all again was solitude, and the Ottawa
was covered with the canoes of the returning warriors.

Along this stream, a main route of traffic, the silence of the wilderness
was broken only by the splash of the passing paddle. To the north of the
river there was indeed a small Algonquin band, called _La Petite Nation_,
together with one or two other feeble communities; but they dwelt far
from the banks, through fear of the ubiquitous Iroquois. It was nearly
three hundred miles, by the windings of the stream, before one reached
that Algonquin tribe, _La Nation de l'Isle_, who occupied the great island
of the Allumettes. Then, after many a day of lonely travel, the voyager
found a savage welcome among the Nipissings, on the lake which bears
their name; and then circling west and south for a hundred and fifty
miles of solitude, he reached for the first time a people speaking a
dialect of the Iroquois tongue. Here all was changed. Populous towns,
rude fortifications, and an extensive, though barbarous tillage,
indicated a people far in advance of the famished wanderers of the
Saguenay, or their less abject kindred of New England. These were the
Hurons, of whom the modern Wyandots are a remnant. Both in themselves
and as a type of their generic stock they demand more than a passing
notice.

[ The usual confusion of Indian tribal names prevails in the case of the
Hurons. The following are their synonymes:--

Hurons (of French origin); Ochateguins (Champlain); Attigouantans (the
name of one of their tribes, used by Champlain for the whole nation);
Ouendat (their true name, according to Lalemant); Yendat, Wyandot,
Guyandot (corruptions of the preceding); Ouaouakecinatouek (Potier),
Quatogies (Colden). ]

THE HURONS.

More than two centuries have elapsed since the Hurons vanished from their
ancient seats, and the settlers of this rude solitude stand perplexed and
wondering over the relics of a lost people. In the damp shadow of what
seems a virgin forest, the axe and plough bring strange secrets to light:
huge pits, close packed with skeletons and disjointed bones, mixed with
weapons, copper kettles, beads, and trinkets. Not even the straggling
Algonquins, who linger about the scene of Huron prosperity, can tell
their origin. Yet, on ancient worm-eaten pages, between covers of
begrimed parchment, the daily life of this ruined community, its
firesides, its festivals, its funeral rites, are painted with a minute
and vivid fidelity.

The ancient country of the Hurons is now the northern and eastern portion
of Simcoe County, Canada West, and is embraced within the peninsula
formed by the Nottawassaga and Matchedash Bays of Lake Huron, the River
Severn, and Lake Simcoe. Its area was small,--its population
comparatively large. In the year 1639 the Jesuits made an enumeration of
all its villages, dwellings, and families. The result showed thirty-two
villages and hamlets, with seven hundred dwellings, about four thousand
families, and twelve thousand adult persons, or a total population of at
least twenty thousand.

[ Lalemant, Relation des Hurons, 1640, 88 (Cramoisy). His words are,
"de feux enuiron deux mille, et enuiron douze mille personnes." There
were two families to every fire. That by "personnes" adults only are
meant cannot be doubted, as the Relations abound in incidental evidence
of a total population far exceeding twelve thousand. A Huron family
usually numbered from five to eight persons. The number of the Huron
towns changed from year to year. Champlain and Le Caron in 1615,
reckoned them at seventeen or eighteen, with a population of about ten
thousand, meaning, no doubt, adults. Brébeuf, in 1635, found twenty
villages, and, as he thinks, thirty thousand souls. Both Le Mercier and
De Quen, as well as Dollier de Casson and the anonymous author of the
Relation of 1660, state the population at from thirty to thirty-five
thousand. Since the time of Champlain's visit, various kindred tribes or
fragments of tribes had been incorporated with the Hurons, thus more than
balancing the ravages of a pestilence which had decimated them. ]

The region whose boundaries we have given was an alternation of meadows
and deep forests, interlaced with footpaths leading from town to town.
Of these towns, some were fortified, but the greater number were open and
defenceless. They were of a construction common to all tribes of
Iroquois lineage, and peculiar to them. Nothing similar exists at the
present day. [ The permanent bark villages of the Dahcotah of the
St. Peter's are the nearest modern approach to the Huron towns. The
whole Huron country abounds with evidences of having been occupied by a
numerous population. "On a close inspection of the forest," Dr. Taché
writes to me, "the greatest part of it seems to have been cleared at
former periods, and almost the only places bearing the character of the
primitive forest are the low grounds." ] They covered a space of from
one to ten acres, the dwellings clustering together with little or no
pretension to order. In general, these singular structures were about
thirty or thirty-five feet in length, breadth, and height; but many were
much larger, and a few were of prodigious length. In some of the
villages there were dwellings two hundred and forty feet long, though in
breadth and height they did not much exceed the others. [ Brébeuf,
Relation des Hurons, 1635, 31. Champlain says that he saw them, in 1615,
more than thirty fathoms long; while Vanderdonck reports the length,
from actual measurement, of an Iroquois house, at a hundred and eighty
yards, or five hundred and forty feet! ] In shape they were much like an
arbor overarching a garden-walk. Their frame was of tall and strong
saplings, planted in a double row to form the two sides of the house,
bent till they met, and lashed together at the top. To these other poles
were bound transversely, and the whole was covered with large sheets of
the bark of the oak, elm, spruce, or white cedar, overlapping like the
shingles of a roof, upon which, for their better security, split poles
were made fast with cords of linden bark. At the crown of the arch,
along the entire length of the house, an opening a foot wide was left for
the admission of light and the escape of smoke. At each end was a close
porch of similar construction; and here were stowed casks of bark,
filled with smoked fish, Indian corn, and other stores not liable to
injury from frost. Within, on both sides, were wide scaffolds, four feet
from the floor, and extending the entire length of the house, like the
seats of a colossal omnibus. [ Often, especially among the Iroquois,
the internal arrangement was different. The scaffolds or platforms were
raised only a foot from the earthen floor, and were only twelve or
thirteen feet long, with intervening spaces, where the occupants stored
their family provisions and other articles. Five or six feet above was
another platform, often occupied by children. One pair of platforms
sufficed for a family, and here during summer they slept pellmell,
in the clothes they wore by day, and without pillows. ] These were
formed of thick sheets of bark, supported by posts and transverse poles,
and covered with mats and skins. Here, in summer, was the sleeping place
of the inmates, and the space beneath served for storage of their
firewood. The fires were on the ground, in a line down the middle of the
house. Each sufficed for two families, who, in winter, slept closely
packed around them. Above, just under the vaulted roof, were a great
number of poles, like the perches of a hen-roost, and here were suspended
weapons, clothing, skins, and ornaments. Here, too, in harvest time,
the squaws hung the ears of unshelled corn, till the rude abode, through
all its length, seemed decked with a golden tapestry. In general,
however, its only lining was a thick coating of soot from the smoke of
fires with neither draught, chimney, nor window. So pungent was the
smoke, that it produced inflammation of the eyes, attended in old age
with frequent blindness. Another annoyance was the fleas; and a third,
the unbridled and unruly children. Privacy there was none. The house
was one chamber, sometimes lodging more than twenty families.

[ One of the best descriptions of the Huron and Iroquois houses is that
of Sagard, Voyage des Hurons, 118. See also Champlain (1627), 78;
Brébeuf, Relation des Hurons, 1635, 31; Vanderdonck, New Netherlands,
in N. Y. Hist. Coll., Second Ser., I. 196; Lafitau, Murs des Sauvages,
II. 10. The account given by Cartier of the houses he saw at Montreal
corresponds with the above. He describes them as about fifty yards long.
In this case, there were partial partitions for the several families,
and a sort of loft above. Many of the Iroquois and Huron houses were of
similar construction, the partitions being at the sides only, leaving a
wide passage down the middle of the house. Bartram, Observations on a
Journey from Pennsylvania to Canada, gives a description and plan of the
Iroquois Council-House in 1751, which was of this construction. Indeed,
the Iroquois preserved this mode of building, in all essential points,
down to a recent period. They usually framed the sides of their houses
on rows of upright posts, arched with separate poles for the roof.
The Hurons, no doubt, did the same in their larger structures. For a
door, there was a sheet of bark hung on wooden hinges, or suspended by
cords from above.

On the site of Huron towns which were destroyed by fire, the size, shape,
and arrangement of the houses can still, in some instances, be traced by
remains in the form of charcoal, as well as by the charred bones and
fragments of pottery found among the ashes.

Dr. Taché, after a zealous and minute examination of the Huron country,
extended through five years, writes to me as follows. "From the remains
I have found, I can vouch for the scrupulous correctness of our ancient
writers. With the aid of their indications and descriptions, I have been
able to detect the sites of villages in the midst of the forest, and by
time study, in situ, of archæological monuments, small as they are,
to understand and confirm their many interesting details of the habits,
and especially the funeral rites, of these extraordinary tribes." ]

He who entered on a winter night beheld a strange spectacle: the vista of
fires lighting the smoky concave; the bronzed groups encircling
each,--cooking, eating, gambling, or amusing themselves with idle
badinage; shrivelled squaws, hideous with threescore years of hardship;
grisly old warriors, scarred with Iroquois war-clubs; young aspirants,
whose honors were yet to be won; damsels gay with ochre and wampum;
restless children pellmell with restless dogs. Now a tongue of resinous
flame painted each wild feature in vivid light; now the fitful gleam
expired, and the group vanished from sight, as their nation has vanished
from history.

The fortified towns of the Hurons were all on the side exposed to
Iroquois incursions. The fortifications of all this family of tribes
were, like their dwellings, in essential points alike. A situation was
chosen favorable to defence,--the bank of a lake, the crown of a
difficult hill, or a high point of land in the fork of confluent rivers.
A ditch, several feet deep, was dug around the village, and the earth
thrown up on the inside. Trees were then felled by an alternate process
of burning and hacking the burnt part with stone hatchets, and by similar
means were cut into lengths to form palisades. These were planted on the
embankment, in one, two, three, or four concentric rows,--those of each
row inclining towards those of the other rows until they intersected.
The whole was lined within, to the height of a man, with heavy sheets of
bark; and at the top, where the palisades crossed, was a gallery of
timber for the defenders, together with wooden gutters, by which streams
of water could be poured down on fires kindled by the enemy. Magazines
of stones, and rude ladders for mounting the rampart, completed the
provision for defence. The forts of the Iroquois were stronger and more
elaborate than those of the Hurons; and to this day large districts in
New York are marked with frequent remains of their ditches and
embankments.

[ There is no mathematical regularity in these works. In their form,
the builders were guided merely by the nature of the ground. Frequently
a precipice or river sufficed for partial defence, and the line of
embankment occurs only on one or two sides. In one instance, distinct
traces of a double line of palisades are visible along the embankment.
(See Squier, Aboriginal Monuments of New York, 38.) It is probable that
the palisade was planted first, and the earth heaped around it. Indeed,
this is stated by the Tuscarora Indian, Cusick, in his curious History of
the Six Nations (Iroquois). Brébeuf says, that as early as 1636 the
Jesuits taught the Hurons to build rectangular palisaded works, with
bastions. The Iroquois adopted the same practice at an early period,
omitting the ditch and embankment; and it is probable, that, even in
their primitive defences, the palisades, where the ground was of a nature
to yield easily to their rude implements, were planted simply in holes
dug for the purpose. Such seems to have been the Iroquois fortress
attacked by Champlain in 1615.

The Muscogees, with other Southern tribes, and occasionally the
Algonquins, had palisaded towns; but the palisades were usually but a
single row, planted upright. The tribes of Virginia occasionally
surrounded their dwellings with a triple palisade.--Beverly, History of
Virginia, 149. ]

Among these tribes there was no individual ownership of land, but each
family had for the time exclusive right to as much as it saw fit to
cultivate. The clearing process--a most toilsome one--consisted in
hacking off branches, piling them together with brushwood around the foot
of the standing trunks, and setting fire to the whole. The squaws,
working with their hoes of wood and bone among the charred stumps,
sowed their corn, beans, pumpkins, tobacco, sunflowers, and Huron hemp.
No manure was used; but, at intervals of from ten to thirty years,
when the soil was exhausted, and firewood distant, the village was
abandoned and a new one built.

There was little game in the Huron country; and here, as among the
Iroquois, the staple of food was Indian corn, cooked without salt in a
variety of forms, each more odious than the last. Venison was a luxury
found only at feasts; dog-flesh was in high esteem; and, in some of the
towns captive bears were fattened for festive occasions. These tribes
were far less improvident than the roving Algonquins, and stores of
provision were laid up against a season of want. Their main stock of
corn was buried in _caches_, or deep holes in the earth, either within
or without the houses.

In respect to the arts of life, all these stationary tribes were in
advance of the wandering hunters of the North. The women made a species
of earthen pot for cooking, but these were supplanted by the copper
kettles of the French traders. They wove rush mats with no little skill.
They spun twine from hemp, by the primitive process of rolling it on
their thighs; and of this twine they made nets. They extracted oil from
fish and from the seeds of the sunflower,--the latter, apparently,
only for the purposes of the toilet. They pounded their maize in huge
mortars of wood, hollowed by alternate burnings and scrapings. Their
stone axes, spear and arrow heads, and bone fish-hooks, were fast giving
place to the iron of the French; but they had not laid aside their
shields of raw bison-hide, or of wood overlaid with plaited and twisted
thongs of skin. They still used, too, their primitive breastplates and
greaves of twigs interwoven with cordage. [ Some of the northern tribes
of California, at the present day, wear a sort of breastplate "composed
of thin parallel battens of very tough wood, woven together with a small
cord." ] The masterpiece of Huron handiwork, however, was the birch
canoe, in the construction of which the Algonquins were no less skilful.
The Iroquois, in the absence of the birch, were forced to use the bark of
the elm, which was greatly inferior both in lightness and strength.
Of pipes, than which nothing was more important in their eyes, the Hurons
made a great variety, some of baked clay, others of various kinds of
stone, carved by the men, during their long periods of monotonous leisure,
often with great skill and ingenuity. But their most mysterious fabric
was wampum. This was at once their currency, their ornament, their pen,
ink, and parchment; and its use was by no means confined to tribes of the
Iroquois stock. It consisted of elongated beads, white and purple,
made from the inner part of certain shells. It is not easy to conceive
how, with their rude implements, the Indians contrived to shape and
perforate this intractable material. The art soon fell into disuse,
however; for wampum better than their own was brought them by the traders,
besides abundant imitations in glass and porcelain. Strung into
necklaces, or wrought into collars, belts, and bracelets, it was the
favorite decoration of the Indian girls at festivals and dances. It
served also a graver purpose. No compact, no speech, or clause of a
speech, to the representative of another nation, had any force, unless
confirmed by the delivery of a string or belt of wampum. [ Beaver-skins
and other valuable furs were sometimes, on such occasions, used as a
substitute. ] The belts, on occasions of importance, were wrought into
significant devices, suggestive of the substance of the compact or speech,
and designed as aids to memory. To one or more old men of the nation was
assigned the honorable, but very onerous, charge of keepers of the
wampum,--in other words, of the national records; and it was for them to
remember and interpret the meaning of the belts. The figures on
wampum-belts were, for the most part, simply mnemonic. So also were
those carved on wooden tablets, or painted on bark and skin, to preserve
in memory the songs of war, hunting, or magic. [ Engravings of many
specimens of these figured songs are given in the voluminous reports on
the condition of the Indians, published by Government, under the
editorship of Mr. Schoolcraft. The specimens are chiefly Algonquin. ]
The Hurons had, however, in common with other tribes, a system of rude
pictures and arbitrary signs, by which they could convey to each other,
with tolerable precision, information touching the ordinary subjects of
Indian interest.

Their dress was chiefly of skins, cured with smoke after the well-known
Indian mode. That of the women, according to the Jesuits, was more
modest than that "of our most pious ladies of France." The young girls
on festal occasions must be excepted from this commendation, as they wore
merely a kilt from the waist to the knee, besides the wampum decorations
of the breast and arms. Their long black hair, gathered behind the neck,
was decorated with disks of native copper, or gay pendants made in France,
and now occasionally unearthed in numbers from their graves. The men,
in summer, were nearly naked,--those of a kindred tribe wholly so,
with the sole exception of their moccasins. In winter they were clad in
tunics and leggins of skin, and at all seasons, on occasions of ceremony,
were wrapped from head to foot in robes of beaver or otter furs,
sometimes of the greatest value. On the inner side, these robes were
decorated with painted figures and devices, or embroidered with the dyed
quills of the Canada hedgehog. In this art of embroidery, however,
the Hurons were equalled or surpassed by some of the Algonquin tribes.
They wore their hair after a variety of grotesque and startling fashions.
With some, it was loose on one side, and tight braided on the other; with
others, close shaved, leaving one or more long and cherished locks; while,
with others again, it bristled in a ridge across the crown, like the back
of a hyena. [ See Le Jeune, Relation, 1638, 35.--"Quelles hures!"
exclaimed some astonished Frenchman. Hence the name, Hurons. ] When in
full dress, they were painted with ochre, white clay, soot, and the red
juice of certain berries. They practised tattooing, sometimes covering
the whole body with indelible devices. [ Bressani, Relation Abrégée, 72.
--Champlain has a picture of a warrior thus tattooed. ] When of such
extent, the process was very severe; and though no murmur escaped the
sufferer, he sometimes died from its effects.

Female life among the Hurons had no bright side. It was a youth of
license, an age of drudgery. Despite an organization which, while it
perhaps made them less sensible of pain, certainly made them less
susceptible of passion, than the higher races of men, the Hurons were
notoriously dissolute, far exceeding in this respect the wandering and
starving Algonquins. [ 1 ] Marriage existed among them, and polygamy was
exceptional; but divorce took place at the will or caprice of either
party. A practice also prevailed of temporary or experimental marriage,
lasting a day, a week, or more. The seal of the compact was merely the
acceptance of a gift of wampum made by the suitor to the object of his
desire or his whim. These gifts were never returned on the dissolution
of the connection; and as an attractive and enterprising damsel might,
and often did, make twenty such marriages before her final establishment,
she thus collected a wealth of wampum with which to adorn herself for the
village dances. [ 2 ] This provisional matrimony was no bar to a license
boundless and apparently universal, unattended with loss of reputation on
either side. Every instinct of native delicacy quickly vanished under
the influence of Huron domestic life; eight or ten families, and often
more, crowded into one undivided house, where privacy was impossible,
and where strangers were free to enter at all hours of the day or night.

[ 1 Among the Iroquois there were more favorable features in the
condition of women. The matrons had often a considerable influence on
the decisions of the councils. Lafitau, whose book appeared in 1724,
says that the nation was corrupt in his time, but that this was a
degeneracy from their ancient manners. La Potherie and Charlevoix make a
similar statement. Megapolensis, however, in 1644, says that they were
then exceedingly debauched; and Greenhalgh, in 1677, gives ample evidence
of a shameless license. One of their most earnest advocates of the
present day admits that the passion of love among them had no other than
an animal existence. (Morgan, League of the Iroquois, 322.) There is
clear proof that the tribes of the South were equally corrupt. (See
Lawson, Carolina, 34, and other early writers.) On the other hand,
chastity in women was recognized as a virtue by many tribes. This was
peculiarly the case among the Algonquins of Gaspé, where a lapse in this
regard was counted a disgrace. (See Le Clerc, Nouvelle Relation de la
Gaspésie, 417, where a contrast is drawn between the modesty of the girls
of this region and the open prostitution practised among those of other
tribes.) Among the Sioux, adultery on the part of a woman is punished by
mutilation.

The remarkable forbearance observed by Eastern and Northern tribes
towards female captives was probably the result of a superstition.
Notwithstanding the prevailing license, the Iroquois and other tribes had
among themselves certain conventional rules which excited the admiration
of the Jesuit celibates. Some of these had a superstitious origin;
others were in accordance with the iron requirements of their savage
etiquette. To make the Indian a hero of romance is mere nonsense. ]

[ 2 "Il s'en trouue telle qui passe ainsi sa ieunesse, qui aura en plus
de vingt maris, lesquels vingt maris ne sont pas seuls en la jouyssance
de la beste, quelques mariez qu'ils soient: car la nuict venuë, las
ieunes femmes courent d'une cabane en une autre, come font les ieunes
hommes de leur costé, qui en prennent par ou bon leur semble, toutesfois
sans violence aucune, et n'en reçoiuent aucune infamie, ny injure,
la coustume du pays estant telle."--Champlain (1627), 90. Compare Sagard,
Voyage des Hurons, 176. Both were personal observers.

The ceremony, even of the most serious marriage, consisted merely in the
bride's bringing a dish of boiled maize to the bridegroom, together with
an armful of fuel. There was often a feast of the relatives, or of the
whole village. ]

Once a mother, and married with a reasonable permanency, the Huron woman
from a wanton became a drudge. In March and April she gathered the
year's supply of firewood. Then came sowing, tilling, and harvesting,
smoking fish, dressing skins, making cordage and clothing, preparing
food. On the march it was she who bore the burden; for, in the words of
Champlain, "their women were their mules." The natural effect followed.
In every Huron town were shrivelled hags, hideous and despised, who,
in vindictiveness, ferocity, and cruelty, far exceeded the men.

To the men fell the task of building the houses, and making weapons,
pipes, and canoes. For the rest, their home-life was a life of leisure
and amusement. The summer and autumn were their seasons of serious
employment,--of war, hunting, fishing, and trade. There was an
established system of traffic between the Hurons and the Algonquins of
the Ottawa and Lake Nipissing: the Hurons exchanging wampum, fishing-nets,
and corn for fish and furs. [ Champlain (1627), 84. ] From various
relics found in their graves, it may be inferred that they also traded
with tribes of the Upper Lakes, as well as with tribes far southward,
towards the Gulf of Mexico. Each branch of traffic was the monopoly of
the family or clan by whom it was opened. They might, if they could,
punish interlopers, by stripping them of all they possessed, unless the
latter had succeeded in reaching home with the fruits of their trade,--in
which case the outraged monopolists had no further right of redress,
and could not attempt it without a breaking of the public peace, and
exposure to the authorized vengeance of the other party. [ Brébeuf,
Relation des Hurons, 1636, 168 (Cramoisy). ] Their fisheries, too,
were regulated by customs having the force of laws. These pursuits,
with their hunting,--in which they were aided by a wolfish breed of dogs
unable to bark,--consumed the autumn and early winter; but before the new
year the greater part of the men were gathered in their villages.

Now followed their festal season; for it was the season of idleness for
the men, and of leisure for the women. Feasts, gambling, smoking,
and dancing filled the vacant hours. Like other Indians, the Hurons were
desperate gamblers, staking their all,--ornaments, clothing, canoes,
pipes, weapons, and wives. One of their principal games was played with
plum-stones, or wooden lozenges, black on one side and white on the
other. These were tossed up in a wooden bowl, by striking it sharply
upon the ground, and the players betted on the black or white. Sometimes
a village challenged a neighboring village. The game was played in one
of the houses. Strong poles were extended from side to side, and on
these sat or perched the company, party facing party, while two players
struck the bowl on the ground between. Bets ran high; and Brébeuf
relates, that once, in midwinter, with the snow nearly three feet deep,
the men of his village returned from a gambling visit, bereft of their
leggins, and barefoot, yet in excellent humor. [ Brébeuf, Relation des
Hurons, 1636, 113.--This game is still a favorite among the Iroquois,
some of whom hold to the belief that they will play it after death in the
realms of bliss. In all their important games of chance, they employed
charms, incantations, and all the resources of their magical art, to gain
good luck. ] Ludicrous as it may appear, these games were often medical
prescriptions, and designed as a cure of the sick.

Their feasts and dances were of various character, social, medical,
and mystical or religious. Some of their feasts were on a scale of
extravagant profusion. A vain or ambitious host threw all his substance
into one entertainment, inviting the whole village, and perhaps several
neighboring villages also. In the winter of 1635 there was a feast at
the village of Contarrea, where thirty kettles were on the fires, and
twenty deer and four bears were served up. [ Brébeuf, Relation des
Hurons, 1636, 111. ] The invitation was simple. The messenger addressed
the desired guest with the concise summons, "Come and eat"; and to refuse
was a grave offence. He took his dish and spoon, and repaired to the
scene of festivity. Each, as he entered, greeted his host with the
guttural ejaculation, Ho! and ranged himself with the rest, squatted on
the earthen floor or on the platform along the sides of the house.
The kettles were slung over the fires in the midst. First, there was a
long prelude of lugubrious singing. Then the host, who took no share in
the feast, proclaimed in a loud voice the contents of each kettle in turn,
and at each announcement the company responded in unison, Ho! The
attendant squaws filled with their ladles the bowls of all the guests.
There was talking, laughing, jesting, singing, and smoking; and at times
the entertainment was protracted through the day.

When the feast had a medical or mystic character, it was indispensable
that each guest should devour the whole of the portion given him, however
enormous. Should he fail, the host would be outraged, the community
shocked, and the spirits roused to vengeance. Disaster would befall the
nation,--death, perhaps, the individual. In some cases, the imagined
efficacy of the feast was proportioned to the rapidity with which the
viands were despatched. Prizes of tobacco were offered to the most rapid
feeder; and the spectacle then became truly porcine. [ This superstition
was not confined to the Hurons, but extended to many other tribes,
including, probably, all the Algonquins, with some of which it holds in
full force to this day. A feaster, unable to do his full part, might,
if he could, hire another to aid him; otherwise, he must remain in his
place till the work was done. ] These _festins à manger tout_ were much
dreaded by many of the Hurons, who, however, were never known to decline
them.

Invitation to a dance was no less concise than to a feast. Sometimes a
crier proclaimed the approaching festivity through the village. The
house was crowded. Old men, old women, and children thronged the
platforms, or clung to the poles which supported the sides and roof.
Fires were raked out, and the earthen floor cleared. Two chiefs sang at
the top of their voices, keeping time to their song with tortoise-shell
rattles. [ 1 ] The men danced with great violence and gesticulation;
the women, with a much more measured action. The former were nearly
divested of clothing,--in mystical dances, sometimes wholly so; and,
from a superstitious motive, this was now and then the case with the women.
Both, however, were abundantly decorated with paint, oil, beads, wampum,
trinkets, and feathers.

[ 1 Sagard gives specimens of their songs. In both dances and feasts
there was no little variety. These were sometimes combined. It is
impossible, in brief space, to indicate more than their general features.
In the famous "war-dance,"--which was frequently danced, as it still is,
for amusement,--speeches, exhortations, jests, personal satire, and
repartee were commonly introduced as a part of the performance, sometimes
by way of patriotic stimulus, sometimes for amusement. The music in this
case was the drum and the war-song. Some of the other dances were also
interspersed with speeches and sharp witticisms, always taken in good
part, though Lafitau says that he has seen the victim so pitilessly
bantered that he was forced to hide his head in his blanket. ]

Religious festivals, councils, the entertainment of an envoy, the
inauguration of a chief, were all occasions of festivity, in which social
pleasure was joined with matter of grave import, and which at times
gathered nearly all the nation into one great and harmonious concourse.
Warlike expeditions, too, were always preceded by feasting, at which the
warriors vaunted the fame of their ancestors, and their own past and
prospective exploits. A hideous scene of feasting followed the torture
of a prisoner. Like the torture itself, it was, among the Hurons,
partly an act of vengeance, and partly a religious rite. If the victim
had shown courage, the heart was first roasted, cut into small pieces,
and given to the young men and boys, who devoured it to increase their
own courage. The body was then divided, thrown into the kettles, and
eaten by the assembly, the head being the portion of the chief. Many of
the Hurons joined in the feast with reluctance and horror, while others
took pleasure in it. [ 1 ] This was the only form of cannibalism among
them, since, unlike the wandering Algonquins, they were rarely under the
desperation of extreme famine.

[ 1 "Il y en a qui en mangent auec plaisir."--Brébeuf, Relation des
Hurons, 1636, 121.--Le Mercier gives a description of one of these scenes,
at which he was present. (Ibid., 1637, 118.) The same horrible practice
prevailed to a greater extent among the Iroquois. One of the most
remarkable instances of Indian cannibalism is that furnished by a Western
tribe, the Miamis, among whom there was a clan, or family, whose
hereditary duty and privilege it was to devour the bodies of prisoners
burned to death. The act had somewhat of a religious character, was
attended with ceremonial observances, and was restricted to the family in
question.--See Hon. Lewis Cass, in the appendix to Colonel Whiting's poem,
"Ontwa." ]

A great knowledge of simples for the cure of disease is popularly
ascribed to the Indian. Here, however, as elsewhere, his knowledge is in
fact scanty. He rarely reasons from cause to effect, or from effect to
cause. Disease, in his belief, is the result of sorcery, the agency of
spirits or supernatural influences, undefined and indefinable. The
Indian doctor was a conjurer, and his remedies were to the last degree
preposterous, ridiculous, or revolting. The well-known Indian sweating-
bath is the most prominent of the few means of cure based on agencies
simply physical; and this, with all the other natural remedies, was
applied, not by the professed doctor, but by the sufferer himself,
or his friends.

[ The Indians had many simple applications for wounds, said to have been
very efficacious; but the purity of their blood, owing to the absence
from their diet of condiments and stimulants, as well as to their active
habits, aided the remedy. In general, they were remarkably exempt from
disease or deformity, though often seriously injured by alternations of
hunger and excess. The Hurons sometimes died from the effects of their
_festins à manger tout_. ]

The Indian doctor beat, shook, and pinched his patient, howled, whooped,
rattled a tortoise-shell at his ear to expel the evil spirit, bit him
till blood flowed, and then displayed in triumph a small piece of wood,
bone, or iron, which he had hidden in his mouth, and which he affirmed
was the source of the disease, now happily removed. [ 1 ] Sometimes he
prescribed a dance, feast, or game; and the whole village bestirred
themselves to fulfil the injunction to the letter. They gambled away
their all; they gorged themselves like vultures; they danced or played
ball naked among the snow-drifts from morning till night. At a medical
feast, some strange or unusual act was commonly enjoined as vital to the
patient's cure: as, for example, the departing guest, in place of the
customary monosyllable of thanks, was required to greet his host with an
ugly grimace. Sometimes, by prescription, half the village would throng
into the house where the patient lay, led by old women disguised with the
heads and skins of bears, and beating with sticks on sheets of dry bark.
Here the assembly danced and whooped for hours together, with a din to
which a civilized patient would promptly have succumbed. Sometimes the
doctor wrought himself into a prophetic fury, raving through the length
and breadth of the dwelling, snatching firebrands and flinging them about
him, to the terror of the squaws, with whom, in their combustible
tenements, fire was a constant bugbear.

[ 1 The Hurons believed that the chief cause of disease and death was a
monstrous serpent, that lived under the earth. By touching a tuft of
hair, a feather, or a fragment of bone, with a portion of his flesh or
fat, the sorcerer imparted power to it of entering the body of his victim,
and gradually killing him. It was an important part of the doctor's
function to extract these charms from the vitals of his patient.--
Ragueneau, Relation des Hurons, 1648, 75. ]

Among the Hurons and kindred tribes, disease was frequently ascribed to
some hidden wish ungratified. Hence the patient was overwhelmed with
gifts, in the hope, that, in their multiplicity, the desideratum might be
supplied. Kettles, skins, awls, pipes, wampum, fish-hooks, weapons,
objects of every conceivable variety, were piled before him by a host of
charitable contributors and if, as often happened, a dream, the Indian
oracle, had revealed to the sick man the secret of his cure, his demands
were never refused, however extravagant, idle, nauseous, or abominable.
[ 1 ] Hence it is no matter of wonder that sudden illness and sudden
cures were frequent among the Hurons. The patient reaped profit,
and the doctor both profit and honor.

[ 1 "Dans le pays de nos Hurons, il se faict aussi des assemblées de
toutes les filles d'vn bourg auprés d'vne malade, tant à sa priere,
suyuant la resuerie ou le songe qu'elle en aura euë, que par l'ordonnance
de Loki (the doctor), pour sa santé et guerison. Les filles ainsi
assemblées, on leur demande à toutes, les vnes apres les autres, celuy
qu'elles veulent des ieunes hommes du bourg pour dormir auec elles la
nuict prochaine: elles en nomment chacune vn, qui sont aussi-tost
aduertis par les Maistres de la ceremonie, lesquels viennent tous au soir
en la presence de la malade dormir chacun auec celle qui l'a choysi,
d'vn bout à l'autre de la Cabane et passent ainsi toute la nuict, pendant
que deux Capitaines aux deux bouts du logis chantent et sonnent de leur
Tortuë du soir au lendemain matin, que la ceremonie cesse. Dieu vueille
abolir vne si damnable et malheureuse ceremonie."--Sagard, Voyage des
Hurons, 158.--This unique mode of cure, which was called Andacwandet,
is also described by Lalemant, who saw it. (Relation des Hurons, 1639,
84.) It was one of the recognized remedies.

For the medical practices of the Hurons, see also Champlain, Brébeuf,
Lafitau, Charlevoix, and other early writers. Those of the Algonquins
were in some points different. The doctor often consulted the spirits,
to learn the cause and cure of the disease, by a method peculiar to that
family of tribes. He shut himself in a small conical lodge, and the
spirits here visited him, manifesting their presence by a violent shaking
of the whole structure. This superstition will be described in another
connection. ]

THE HURON-IROQUOIS FAMILY.

And now, before entering upon the very curious subject of Indian social
and tribal organization, it may be well briefly to observe the position
and prominent distinctive features of the various communities speaking
dialects of the generic tongue of the Iroquois. In this remarkable
family of tribes occur the fullest developments of Indian character,
and the most conspicuous examples of Indian intelligence. If the higher
traits popularly ascribed to the race are not to be found here, they are
to be found nowhere. A palpable proof of the superiority of this stock
is afforded in the size of the Iroquois and Huron brains. In average
internal capacity of the cranium, they surpass, with few and doubtful
exceptions, all other aborigines of North and South America, not
excepting the civilized races of Mexico and Peru.

[ "On comparing five Iroquois heads, I find that they give an average
internal capacity of eighty-eight cubic inches, which is within two
inches of the Caucasian mean."--Morton, Crania Americana, 195.--It is
remarkable that the internal capacity of the skulls of the barbarous
American tribes is greater than that of either the Mexicans or the
Peruvians. "The difference in volume is chiefly confined to the
occipital and basal portions,"--in other words, to the region of the
animal propensities; and hence, it is argued, the ferocious, brutal,
and uncivilizable character of the wild tribes.--See J. S. Phillips,
Admeasurements of Crania of the Principal Groups of Indians in the United
States. ]

In the woody valleys of the Blue Mountains, south of the Nottawassaga Bay
of Lake Huron, and two days' journey west of the frontier Huron towns,
lay the nine villages of the Tobacco Nation, or Tionnontates.
[ Synonymes: Tionnontates, Etionontates, Tuinontatek, Dionondadies,
Khionontaterrhonons, Petuneux or Nation du Petun (Tobacco). ] In manners,
as in language, they closely resembled the Hurons. Of old they were
their enemies, but were now at peace with them, and about the year 1640
became their close confederates. Indeed, in the ruin which befell that
hapless people, the Tionnontates alone retained a tribal organization;
and their descendants, with a trifling exception, are to this day the
sole inheritors of the Huron or Wyandot name. Expatriated and wandering,
they held for generations a paramount influence among the Western tribes.
[ "L'ame de tous les Conseils."--Charlevoix, Voyage, 199.--In 1763 they
were Pontiac's best warriors. ] In their original seats among the Blue
Mountains, they offered an example extremely rare among Indians, of a
tribe raising a crop for the market; for they traded in tobacco largely
with other tribes. Their Huron confederates, keen traders, would not
suffer them to pass through their country to traffic with the French,
preferring to secure for themselves the advantage of bartering with them
in French goods at an enormous profit.

[ On the Tionnontates, see Le Mercier, Relation, 1637, 163; Lalemant,
Relation, 1641, 69; Ragueneau, Relation, 1648, 61. An excellent summary
of their character and history, by Mr. Shea, will be found in Hist. Mag.,
V. 262. ]

Journeying southward five days from the Tionnontate towns, the forest
traveller reached the border villages of the Attiwandarons, or Neutral
Nation. [ Attiwandarons, Attiwendaronk, Atirhagenrenrets, Rhagenratka
(Jesuit Relations), Attionidarons (Sagard). They, and not the Eries,
were the Kahkwas of Seneca tradition. ] As early as 1626, they were
visited by the Franciscan friar, La Roche Dallion, who reports a numerous
population in twenty-eight towns, besides many small hamlets. Their
country, about forty leagues in extent, embraced wide and fertile
districts on the north shore of Lake Erie, and their frontier extended
eastward across the Niagara, where they had three or four outlying towns.
[ Lalemant, Relation des Hurons, 1641, 71.--The Niagara was then called
the River of the Neutrals, or the Onguiaahra. Lalemant estimates the
Neutral population, in 1640, at twelve thousand, in forty villages. ]
Their name of Neutrals was due to their neutrality in the war between the
Hurons and the Iroquois proper. The hostile warriors, meeting in a
Neutral cabin, were forced to keep the peace, though, once in the open
air, the truce was at an end. Yet this people were abundantly ferocious,
and, while holding a pacific attitude betwixt their warring kindred,
waged deadly strife with the Mascoutins, an Algonquin horde beyond Lake
Michigan. Indeed, it was but recently that they had been at blows with
seventeen Algonquin tribes. [ Lettre du Père La Roche Dallion, 8 Juillet,
1627, in Le Clerc, Établissement de la Foy, I. 346. ] They burned female
prisoners, a practice unknown to the Hurons. [ Women were often burned
by the Iroquois: witness the case of Catherine Mercier in 1661, and many
cases of Indian women mentioned by the early writers. ] Their country
was full of game and they were bold and active hunters. In form and
stature they surpassed even the Hurons, whom they resembled in their mode
of life, and from whose language their own, though radically similar,
was dialectically distinct. Their licentiousness was even more open and
shameless; and they stood alone in the extravagance of some of their
usages. They kept their dead in their houses till they became
insupportable; then scraped the flesh from the bones, and displayed them
in rows along the walls, there to remain till the periodical Feast of the
Dead, or general burial. In summer, the men wore no clothing whatever,
but were usually tattooed from head to foot with powdered charcoal.

The sagacious Hurons refused them a passage through their country to the
French; and the Neutrals apparently had not sense or reflection enough to
take the easy and direct route of Lake Ontario, which was probably open
to them, though closed against the Hurons by Iroquois enmity. Thus the
former made excellent profit by exchanging French goods at high rates for
the valuable furs of the Neutrals.

[ The Hurons became very jealous, when La Roche Dallion visited the
Neutrals, lest a direct trade should be opened between the latter and the
French, against whom they at once put in circulation a variety of
slanders: that they were a people who lived on snakes and venom; that
they were furnished with tails; and that French women, though having but
one breast, bore six children at a birth. The missionary nearly lost his
life in consequence, the Neutrals conceiving the idea that he would
infect their country with a pestilence.--La Roche Dallion, in Le Clerc,
I. 346. ]

Southward and eastward of Lake Erie dwelt a kindred people, the Eries,
or Nation of the Cat. Little besides their existence is known of them.
They seem to have occupied Southwestern New York as far east as the
Genesee, the frontier of the Senecas, and in habits and language to have
resembled the Hurons. [ Ragueneau, Relation des Hurons, 1648, 46. ]
They were noted warriors, fought with poisoned arrows, and were long a
terror to the neighboring Iroquois.

[ Le Mercier, Relation, 1654, 10.--"Nous les appellons la Nation Chat,
à cause qu'il y a dans leur pais vne quantité prodigieuse de Chats
sauuages."--Ibid.--The Iroquois are said to have given the same name,
Jegosasa, Cat Nation, to the Neutrals.--Morgan, League of the Iroquois,
41.

Synonymes: Eriés, Erigas, Eriehronon, Riguehronon. The Jesuits never
had a mission among them, though they seem to have been visited by
Champlain's adventurous interpreter, Étienne Brulé, in the summer of
1615.--They are probably the Carantoüans of Champlain. ]

On the Lower Susquehanna dwelt the formidable tribe called by the French
Andastes. Little is known of them, beyond their general resemblance to
their kindred, in language, habits, and character. Fierce and resolute
warriors, they long made head against the Iroquois of New York, and were
vanquished at last more by disease than by the tomahawk.

[ Gallatin erroneously places the Andastes on the Alleghany, Bancroft and
others adopting the error. The research of Mr. Shea has shown their
identity with the Susquehannocks of the English, and the Minquas of the
Dutch.--See Hist. Mag., II. 294.

Synonymes: Andastes, Andastracronnons, Andastaeronnons, Andastaguez,
Antastoui (French), Susquehannocks (English), Mengwe, Minquas (Dutch),
Conestogas, Conessetagoes (English). ]

In Central New York, stretching east and west from the Hudson to the
Genesee, lay that redoubted people who have lent their name to the tribal
family of the Iroquois, and stamped it indelibly on the early pages of
American history. Among all the barbarous nations of the continent,
the Iroquois of New York stand paramount. Elements which among other
tribes were crude, confused, and embryotic, were among them systematized
and concreted into an established polity. The Iroquois was the Indian of
Indians. A thorough savage, yet a finished and developed savage, he is
perhaps an example of the highest elevation which man can reach without
emerging from his primitive condition of the hunter. A geographical
position, commanding on one hand the portal of the Great Lakes, and on
the other the sources of the streams flowing both to the Atlantic and the
Mississippi, gave the ambitious and aggressive confederates advantages
which they perfectly understood, and by which they profited to the
utmost. Patient and politic as they were ferocious, they were not only
conquerors of their own race, but the powerful allies and the dreaded
foes of the French and English colonies, flattered and caressed by both,
yet too sagacious to give themselves without reserve to either. Their
organization and their history evince their intrinsic superiority.
Even their traditionary lore, amid its wild puerilities, shows at times
the stamp of an energy and force in striking contrast with the flimsy
creations of Algonquin fancy. That the Iroquois, left under their
institutions to work out their destiny undisturbed, would ever have
developed a civilization of their own, I do not believe. These
institutions, however, are sufficiently characteristic and curious,
and we shall soon have occasion to observe them.

[ The name Iroquois is French. Charlevoix says: "Il a été formé du terme
Hiro, ou Hero, qui signifie J'ai dit, et par lequel ces sauvages
finissent tous leur discours, comme les Latins faisoient autrefois par
leur Dixi; et de Koué, qui est un cri tantôt de tristesse, lorsqu'on le
prononce en traînant, et tantôt de joye, quand on le prononce plus
court."--Hist. de la N. F., I. 271.--Their true name is Hodenosaunee,
or People of the Long House, because their confederacy of five distinct
nations, ranged in a line along Central New York, was likened to one of
the long bark houses already described, with five fires and five
families. The name Agonnonsionni, or Aquanuscioni, ascribed to them by
Lafitau and Charlevoix, who translated it "House-Makers," Faiseurs de
Cabannes, may be a conversion of the true name with an erroneous
rendering. The following are the true names of the five nations
severally, with their French and English synonymes. For other synonymes,
see "History of the Conspiracy of Pontiac," 8, note.

English. French.
Ganeagaono, Mohawk, Agnier.
Onayotekaono, Oneida, Onneyut.
Onundagaono, Onondaga, Onnontagué.
Gweugwehono, Cayuga, Goyogouin.
Nundawaono, Seneca, Tsonnontouans.

The Iroquois termination in ono--or onon, as the French write it--simply
means people. ]

SOCIAL AND POLITICAL ORGANIZATION.

In Indian social organization, a problem at once suggests itself.
In these communities, comparatively populous, how could spirits so fierce,
and in many respects so ungoverned, live together in peace, without law
and without enforced authority? Yet there were towns where savages lived
together in thousands with a harmony which civilization might envy.
This was in good measure due to peculiarities of Indian character and
habits. This intractable race were, in certain external respects,
the most pliant and complaisant of mankind. The early missionaries were
charmed by the docile acquiescence with which their dogmas were received;
but they soon discovered that their facile auditors neither believed nor
understood that to which they had so promptly assented. They assented
from a kind of courtesy, which, while it vexed the priests, tended
greatly to keep the Indians in mutual accord. That well-known self-
control, which, originating in a form of pride, covered the savage nature
of the man with a veil, opaque, though thin, contributed not a little to
the same end. Though vain, arrogant, boastful, and vindictive, the
Indian bore abuse and sarcasm with an astonishing patience. Though
greedy and grasping, he was lavish without stint, and would give away his
all to soothe the manes of a departed relative, gain influence and
applause, or ingratiate himself with his neighbors. In his dread of
public opinion, he rivalled some of his civilized successors.

All Indians, and especially these populous and stationary tribes, had
their code of courtesy, whose requirements were rigid and exact; nor
might any infringe it without the ban of public censure. Indian nature,
inflexible and unmalleable, was peculiarly under the control of custom.
Established usage took the place of law,--was, in fact, a sort of common
law, with no tribunal to expound or enforce it. In these wild
democracies,--democracies in spirit, though not in form,--a respect for
native superiority, and a willingness to yield to it, were always
conspicuous. All were prompt to aid each other in distress, and a
neighborly spirit was often exhibited among them. When a young woman was
permanently married, the other women of the village supplied her with
firewood for the year, each contributing an armful. When one or more
families were without shelter, the men of the village joined in building
them a house. In return, the recipients of the favor gave a feast,
if they could; if not, their thanks were sufficient. [ The following
testimony concerning Indian charity and hospitality is from Ragueneau:
"As often as we have seen tribes broken up, towns destroyed, and their
people driven to flight, we have seen them, to the number of seven or
eight hundred persons, received with open arms by charitable hosts,
who gladly gave them aid, and even distributed among them a part of the
lands already planted, that they might have the means of living."--
Relation, 1650, 28. ] Among the Iroquois and Hurons--and doubtless among
the kindred tribes--there were marked distinctions of noble and base,
prosperous and poor; yet, while there was food in the village, the
meanest and the poorest need not suffer want. He had but to enter the
nearest house, and seat himself by the fire, when, without a word on
either side, food was placed before him by the women.

[ The Jesuit Brébeuf, than whom no one knew the Hurons better, is very
emphatic in praise of their harmony and social spirit. Speaking of one
of the four nations of which the Hurons were composed, he says: "Ils ont
vne douceur et vne affabilité quasi incroyable pour des Sauuages; ils ne
se picquent pas aisément. . . . Ils se maintiennent dans cette si
parfaite intelligence par les frequentes visites, les secours qu'ils se
donnent mutuellement dans leurs maladies, par les festins et les
alliances. . . . Ils sont moins en leurs Cabanes que chez leurs
amis. . . S'ils ont vn bon morceau, ils en font festin à leurs amis, et
ne le mangent quasi iamais en leur particulier," etc.--Relation des
Hurons, 1636, 118. ]

Contrary to the received opinion, these Indians, like others of their
race, when living in communities, were of a very social disposition.
Besides their incessant dances and feasts, great and small, they were
continually visiting, spending most of their time in their neighbors'
houses, chatting, joking, bantering one another with witticisms, sharp,
broad, and in no sense delicate, yet always taken in good part. Every
village had its adepts in these wordy tournaments, while the shrill laugh
of young squaws, untaught to blush, echoed each hardy jest or rough
sarcasm.

In the organization of the savage communities of the continent, one
feature, more or less conspicuous, continually appears. Each nation or
tribe--to adopt the names by which these communities are usually
known--is subdivided into several clans. These clans are not locally
separate, but are mingled throughout the nation. All the members of each
clan are, or are assumed to be, intimately joined in consanguinity.
Hence it is held an abomination for two persons of the same clan to
intermarry; and hence, again, it follows that every family must contain
members of at least two clans. Each clan has its name, as the clan of
the Hawk, of the Wolf, or of the Tortoise; and each has for its emblem
the figure of the beast, bird, reptile, plant, or other object, from
which its name is derived. This emblem, called totem by the Algonquins,
is often tattooed on the clansman's body, or rudely painted over the
entrance of his lodge. The child belongs, in most cases, to the clan,
not of the father, but of the mother. In other words, descent, not of
the totem alone, but of all rank, titles, and possessions, is through the
female. The son of a chief can never be a chief by hereditary title,
though he may become so by force of personal influence or achievement.
Neither can he inherit from his father so much as a tobacco-pipe.
All possessions alike pass of right to the brothers of the chief, or to
the sons of his sisters, since these are all sprung from a common mother.
This rule of descent was noticed by Champlain among the Hurons in 1615.
That excellent observer refers it to an origin which is doubtless its
true one. The child may not be the son of his reputed father, but must
be the son of his mother,--a consideration of more than ordinary force in
an Indian community.

[ "Les enfans ne succedent iamais aux biens et dignitez de leurs peres,
doubtant comme i'ay dit de leur geniteur, mais bien font-ils leurs
successeurs et heritiers, les enfans de leurs surs, et desquels ils sont
asseurez d'estre yssus et sortis."--Champlain (1627), 91.

Captain John Smith had observed the same, several years before, among the
tribes of Virginia: "For the Crowne, their heyres inherite not, but the
first heyres of the Sisters."--True Relation, 43 (ed. Deane). ]

This system of clanship, with the rule of descent usually belonging to it,
was of very wide prevalence. Indeed, it is more than probable that close
observation would have detected it in every tribe east of the
Mississippi; while there is positive evidence of its existence in by far
the greater number. It is found also among the Dahcotah and other tribes
west of the Mississippi; and there is reason to believe it universally
prevalent as far as the Rocky Mountains, and even beyond them. The fact
that with most of these hordes there is little property worth
transmission, and that the most influential becomes chief, with little
regard to inheritance, has blinded casual observers to the existence of
this curious system.

It was found in full development among the Creeks, Choctaws, Cherokees,
and other Southern tribes, including that remarkable people, the Natchez,
who, judged by their religious and political institutions, seem a
detached offshoot of the Toltec family. It is no less conspicuous among
the roving Algonquins of the extreme North, where the number of totems is
almost countless. Everywhere it formed the foundation of the polity of
all the tribes, where a polity could be said to exist.

The Franciscans and Jesuits, close students of the languages and
superstitions of the Indians, were by no means so zealous to analyze
their organization and government. In the middle of the seventeenth
century the Hurons as a nation had ceased to exist, and their political
portraiture, as handed down to us, is careless and unfinished. Yet some
decisive features are plainly shown. The Huron nation was a confederacy
of four distinct contiguous nations, afterwards increased to five by the
addition of the Tionnontates;--it was divided into clans;--it was
governed by chiefs, whose office was hereditary through the female;--the
power of these chiefs, though great, was wholly of a persuasive or
advisory character;--there were two principal chiefs, one for peace,
the other for war;--there were chiefs assigned to special national
functions, as the charge of the great Feast of the Dead, the direction of
trading voyages to other nations, etc.;--there were numerous other chiefs,
equal in rank, but very unequal in influence, since the measure of their
influence depended on the measure of their personal ability;--each nation
of the confederacy had a separate organization, but at certain periods
grand councils of the united nations were held, at which were present,
not chiefs only, but also a great concourse of the people; and at these
and other councils the chiefs and principal men voted on proposed
measures by means of small sticks or reeds, the opinion of the plurality
ruling.

[ These facts are gathered here and there from Champlain, Sagard,
Bressani, and the Jesuit Relations prior to 1650. Of the Jesuits,
Brébeuf is the most full and satisfactory. Lafitau and Charlevoix knew
the Huron institutions only through others.

The names of the four confederate Huron nations were the Ataronchronons,
Attignenonghac, Attignaouentans, and Ahrendarrhonons. There was also a
subordinate "nation" called Tohotaenrat, which had but one town. (See
the map of the Huron Country.) They all bore the name of some animal or
other object: thus the Attignaouentans were the Nation of the Bear.
As the clans are usually named after animals, this makes confusion,
and may easily lead to error. The Bear Nation was the principal member
of the league. ]

THE IROQUOIS.

The Iroquois were a people far more conspicuous in history, and their
institutions are not yet extinct. In early and recent times, they have
been closely studied, and no little light has been cast upon a subject as
difficult and obscure as it is curious. By comparing the statements of
observers, old and new, the character of their singular organization
becomes sufficiently clear.

[ Among modern students of Iroquois institutions, a place far in advance
of all others is due to Lewis H. Morgan, himself an Iroquois by adoption,
and intimate with the race from boyhood. His work, The League of the
Iroquois, is a production of most thorough and able research, conducted
under peculiar advantages, and with the aid of an efficient co-laborer,
Hasanoanda (Ely S. Parker), an educated and highly intelligent Iroquois
of the Seneca nation. Though often differing widely from Mr. Morgan's
conclusions, I cannot bear a too emphatic testimony to the value of his
researches. The Notes on the Iroquois of Mr. H. R. Schoolcraft also
contain some interesting facts; but here, as in all Mr. Schoolcraft's
productions, the reader must scrupulously reserve his right of private
judgment. None of the old writers are so satisfactory as Lafitau.
His work, Murs des Sauvages Ameriquains comparées aux Murs des Premiers
Temps, relates chiefly to the Iroquois and Hurons: the basis for his
account of the former being his own observations and those of Father
Julien Garnier, who was a missionary among them more than sixty years,
from his novitiate to his death. ]

Both reason and tradition point to the conclusion, that the Iroquois
formed originally one undivided people. Sundered, like countless other
tribes, by dissension, caprice, or the necessities of the hunter life,
they separated into five distinct nations, cantoned from east to west
along the centre of New York, in the following order: Mohawks, Oneidas,
Onondagas, Cayugas, Senecas. There was discord among them; wars followed,
and they lived in mutual fear, each ensconced in its palisaded villages.
At length, says tradition, a celestial being, incarnate on earth,
counselled them to compose their strife and unite in a league of defence
and aggression. Another personage, wholly mortal, yet wonderfully
endowed, a renowned warrior and a mighty magician, stands, with his hair
of writhing snakes, grotesquely conspicuous through the dim light of
tradition at this birth of Iroquois nationality. This was Atotarho,
a chief of the Onondagas; and from this honored source has sprung a long
line of chieftains, heirs not to the blood alone, but to the name of
their great predecessor. A few years since, there lived in Onondaga
Hollow a handsome Indian boy on whom the dwindled remnant of the nation
looked with pride as their destined Atotarho. With earthly and celestial
aid the league was consummated, and through all the land the forests
trembled at the name of the Iroquois.

The Iroquois people was divided into eight clans. When the original
stock was sundered into five parts, each of these clans was also sundered
into five parts; and as, by the principle already indicated, the clans
were intimately mingled in every village, hamlet, and cabin, each one of
the five nations had its portion of each of the eight clans. [ 1 ]
When the league was formed, these separate portions readily resumed their
ancient tie of fraternity. Thus, of the Turtle clan, all the members
became brothers again, nominal members of one family, whether Mohawks,
Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, or Senecas; and so, too, of the remaining
clans. All the Iroquois, irrespective of nationality, were therefore
divided into eight families, each tracing its descent to a common mother,
and each designated by its distinctive emblem or totem. This connection
of clan or family was exceedingly strong, and by it the five nations of
the league were linked together as by an eightfold chain.

[ 1 With a view to clearness, the above statement is made categorical.
It requires, however, to be qualified. It is not quite certain, that,
at the formation of the confederacy, there were eight clans, though there
is positive proof of the existence of seven. Neither is it certain, that,
at the separation, every clan was represented in every nation. Among the
Mohawks and Oneidas there is no positive proof of the existence of more
than three clans,--the Wolf, Bear, and Tortoise; though there is
presumptive evidence of the existence of several others.--See Morgan, 81,
note.

The eight clans of the Iroquois were as follows: Wolf, Bear, Beaver,
Tortoise, Deer, Snipe, Heron, Hawk. (Morgan, 79.) The clans of the
Snipe and the Heron are the same designated in an early French document
as La famille du Petit Pluvier and La famille du Grand Pluvier. (New
York Colonial Documents, IX. 47.) The anonymous author of this document
adds a ninth clan, that of the Potato, meaning the wild Indian potato,
Glycine apios. This clan, if it existed, was very inconspicuous, and of
little importance.

Remarkable analogies exist between Iroquois clanship and that of other
tribes. The eight clans of the Iroquois were separated into two
divisions, four in each. Originally, marriage was interdicted between
all the members of the same division, but in time the interdict was
limited to the members of the individual clans. Another tribe, the
Choctaws, remote from the Iroquois, and radically different in language,
had also eight clans, similarly divided, with a similar interdict of
marriage.--Gallatin, Synopsis, 109.

The Creeks, according to the account given by their old chief, Sekopechi,
to Mr. D. W. Eakins, were divided into nine clans, named in most cases
from animals: clanship being transmitted, as usual, through the female. ]

The clans were by no means equal in numbers, influence, or honor.
So marked were the distinctions among them, that some of the early
writers recognize only the three most conspicuous,--those of the Tortoise,
the Bear, and the Wolf. To some of the clans, in each nation, belonged
the right of giving a chief to the nation and to the league. Others had
the right of giving three, or, in one case, four chiefs; while others
could give none. As Indian clanship was but an extension of the family
relation, these chiefs were, in a certain sense, hereditary; but the law
of inheritance, though binding, was extremely elastic, and capable of
stretching to the farthest limits of the clan. The chief was almost
invariably succeeded by a near relative, always through the female,
as a brother by the same mother, or a nephew by the sister's side.
But if these were manifestly unfit, they were passed over, and a chief
was chosen at a council of the clan from among remoter kindred. In these
cases, the successor is said to have been nominated by the matron of the
late chief's household. [ Lafitau, I. 471. ] Be this as it may, the
choice was never adverse to the popular inclination. The new chief was
"raised up," or installed, by a formal council of the sachems of the
league; and on entering upon his office, he dropped his own name, and
assumed that which, since the formation of the league, had belonged to
this especial chieftainship.

The number of these principal chiefs, or, as they have been called by way
of distinction, sachems, varied in the several nations from eight to
fourteen. The sachems of the five nations, fifty in all, assembled in
council, formed the government of the confederacy. All met as equals,
but a peculiar dignity was ever attached to the Atotarho of the Onondagas.

There was a class of subordinate chiefs, in no sense hereditary, but
rising to office by address, ability, or valor. Yet the rank was clearly
defined, and the new chief installed at a formal council. This class
embodied, as might be supposed, the best talent of the nation, and the
most prominent warriors and orators of the Iroquois have belonged to it.
In its character and functions, however, it was purely civil. Like the
sachems, these chiefs held their councils, and exercised an influence
proportionate to their number and abilities.

There was another council, between which and that of the subordinate
chiefs the line of demarcation seems not to have been very definite.
The Jesuit Lafitau calls it "the senate." Familiar with the Iroquois at
the height of their prosperity, he describes it as the central and
controlling power, so far, at least, as the separate nations were
concerned. In its character it was essentially popular, but popular in
the best sense, and one which can find its application only in a small
community. Any man took part in it whose age and experience qualified
him to do so. It was merely the gathered wisdom of the nation. Lafitau
compares it to the Roman Senate, in the early and rude age of the
Republic, and affirms that it loses nothing by the comparison. He thus
describes it: "It is a greasy assemblage, sitting _sur leur derrière_,
crouched like apes, their knees as high as their ears, or lying, some on
their bellies, some on their backs, each with a pipe in his mouth,
discussing affairs of state with as much coolness and gravity as the
Spanish Junta or the Grand Council of Venice." [ Lafitau, I. 478. ]

The young warriors had also their councils; so, too, had the women; and
the opinions and wishes of each were represented by means of deputies
before the "senate," or council of the old men, as well as before the
grand confederate council of the sachems.

The government of this unique republic resided wholly in councils.
By councils all questions were settled, all regulations established,--
social, political, military, and religious. The war-path, the chase,
the council-fire,--in these was the life of the Iroquois; and it is hard
to say to which of the three he was most devoted.

The great council of the fifty sachems formed, as we have seen, the
government of the league. Whenever a subject arose before any of the
nations, of importance enough to demand its assembling, the sachems of
that nation might summon their colleagues by means of runners, bearing
messages and belts of wampum. The usual place of meeting was the valley
of Onondaga, the political as well as geographical centre of the
confederacy. Thither, if the matter were one of deep and general
interest, not the sachems alone, but the greater part of the population,
gathered from east and west, swarming in the hospitable lodges of the
town, or bivouacked by thousands in the surrounding fields and forests.
While the sachems deliberated in the council-house, the chiefs and old
men, the warriors, and often the women, were holding their respective
councils apart; and their opinions, laid by their deputies before the
council of sachems, were never without influence on its decisions.

The utmost order and deliberation reigned in the council, with rigorous
adherence to the Indian notions of parliamentary propriety. The
conference opened with an address to the spirits, or the chief of all the
spirits. There was no heat in debate. No speaker interrupted another.
Each gave his opinion in turn, supporting it with what reason or rhetoric
he could command,--but not until he had stated the subject of discussion
in full, to prove that he understood it, repeating also the arguments,
pro and con, of previous speakers. Thus their debates were excessively
prolix; and the consumption of tobacco was immoderate. The result,
however, was a thorough sifting of the matter in hand; while the
practised astuteness of these savage politicians was a marvel to their
civilized contemporaries. "It is by a most subtle policy," says Lafitau,
"that they have taken the ascendant over the other nations, divided and
overcome the most warlike, made themselves a terror to the most remote,
and now hold a peaceful neutrality between the French and English,
courted and feared by both."

[ Lafitau, I. 480.--Many other French writers speak to the same effect.
The following are the words of the soldier historian, La Potherie,
after describing the organization of the league: "C'est donc là cette
politique qui les unit si bien, à peu près comme tous les ressorts d'une
horloge, qui par une liaison admirable de toutes les parties qui les
composent, contribuent toutes unanimement au merveilleux effet qui en
resulte."--Hist. de l'Amérique Septentrionale, III. 32.--He adds: "Les
François ont avoüé eux-mêmes qu'ils étoient nez pour la guerre, &
quelques maux qu'ils nous ayent faits nous les avons toujours estimez."--
Ibid., 2.--La Potherie's book was published in 1722. ]

Unlike the Hurons, they required an entire unanimity in their decisions.
The ease and frequency with which a requisition seemingly so difficult
was fulfilled afford a striking illustration of Indian nature,--on one
side, so stubborn, tenacious, and impracticable; on the other, so pliant
and acquiescent. An explanation of this harmony is to be found also in
an intense spirit of nationality: for never since the days of Sparta were
individual life and national life more completely fused into one.

The sachems of the league were likewise, as we have seen, sachems of
their respective nations; yet they rarely spoke in the councils of the
subordinate chiefs and old men, except to present subjects of discussion.
[ Lafitau, I. 479. ] Their influence in these councils was, however,
great, and even paramount; for they commonly succeeded in securing to
their interest some of the most dexterous and influential of the conclave,
through whom, while they themselves remained in the background, they
managed the debates.

[ The following from Lafitau is very characteristic: "Ce que je dis de
leur zèle pour le bien public n'est cependant pas si universel, que
plusieurs ne pensent à leur interêts particuliers, & que les Chefs
(sachems) principalement ne fassent joüer plusieurs ressorts secrets pour
venir à bout de leurs intrigues. Il y en a tel, dont l'adresse jouë si
bien à coup sûr, qu'il fait déliberer le Conseil plusieurs jours de suite,
sur une matière dont la détermination est arrêtée entre lui & les
principales têtes avant d'avoir été mise sur le tapis. Cependant comme
les Chefs s'entre-regardent, & qu'aucun ne veut paroître se donner une
superiorité qui puisse piquer la jalousie, ils se ménagent dans les
Conseils plus que les autres; & quoiqu'ils en soient l'ame, leur
politique les oblige à y parler peu, & à écouter plûtôt le sentiment
d'autrui, qu'à y dire le leur; mais chacun a un homme à sa main, qui est
comme une espèce de Brûlot, & qui étant sans consequence pour sa personne
hazarde en pleine liberté tout ce qu'il juge à propos, selon qu'il l'a
concerté avec le Chef même pour qui il agit."--Murs des Sauvages,
I. 481. ]

There was a class of men among the Iroquois always put forward on public
occasions to speak the mind of the nation or defend its interests.
Nearly all of them were of the number of the subordinate chiefs. Nature
and training had fitted them for public speaking, and they were deeply
versed in the history and traditions of the league. They were in fact
professed orators, high in honor and influence among the people. To a
huge stock of conventional metaphors, the use of which required nothing
but practice, they often added an astute intellect, an astonishing memory,
and an eloquence which deserved the name.

In one particular, the training of these savage politicians was never
surpassed. They had no art of writing to record events, or preserve the
stipulations of treaties. Memory, therefore, was tasked to the utmost,
and developed to an extraordinary degree. They had various devices for
aiding it, such as bundles of sticks, and that system of signs, emblems,
and rude pictures, which they shared with other tribes. Their famous
wampum-belts were so many mnemonic signs, each standing for some act,
speech, treaty, or clause of a treaty. These represented the public
archives, and were divided among various custodians, each charged with
the memory and interpretation of those assigned to him. The meaning of
the belts was from time to time expounded in their councils. In
conferences with them, nothing more astonished the French, Dutch, and
English officials than the precision with which, before replying to their
addresses, the Indian orators repeated them point by point.

It was only in rare cases that crime among the Iroquois or Hurons was
punished by public authority. Murder, the most heinous offence, except
witchcraft, recognized among them, was rare. If the slayer and the slain
were of the same household or clan, the affair was regarded as a family
quarrel, to be settled by the immediate kin on both sides. This, under
the pressure of public opinion, was commonly effected without bloodshed,
by presents given in atonement. But if the murderer and his victim were
of different clans or different nations, still more, if the slain was a
foreigner, the whole community became interested to prevent the discord
or the war which might arise. All directed their efforts, not to bring
the murderer to punishment, but to satisfy the injured parties by a
vicarious atonement. [ Lalemant, while inveighing against a practice
which made the public, and not the criminal, answerable for an offence,
admits that heinous crimes were more rare than in France, where the
guilty party himself was punished.--Lettre au P. Provincial, 15 May,
1645. ] To this end, contributions were made and presents collected.
Their number and value were determined by established usage. Among the
Hurons, thirty presents of very considerable value were the price of a
man's life. That of a woman's was fixed at forty, by reason of her
weakness, and because on her depended the continuance and increase of the
population. This was when the slain belonged to the nation. If of a
foreign tribe, his death demanded a higher compensation, since it involved
the danger of war. [ Ragueneau, Relation des Hurons, 1648, 80. ]
These presents were offered in solemn council, with prescribed
formalities. The relatives of the slain might refuse them, if they chose,
and in this case the murderer was given them as a slave; but they might
by no means kill him, since, in so doing, they would incur public censure,
and be compelled in their turn to make atonement. Besides the principal
gifts, there was a great number of less value, all symbolical, and each
delivered with a set form of words: as, "By this we wash out the blood of
the slain: By this we cleanse his wound: By this we clothe his corpse
with a new shirt: By this we place food on his grave": and so, in endless
prolixity, through particulars without number.

[ Ragueneau, Relation des Hurons, 1648, gives a description of one of
these ceremonies at length. Those of the Iroquois on such occasions were
similar. Many other tribes had the same custom, but attended with much
less form and ceremony. Compare Perrot, 73-76. ]

The Hurons were notorious thieves; and perhaps the Iroquois were not much
better, though the contrary has been asserted. Among both, the robbed
was permitted not only to retake his property by force, if he could,
but to strip the robber of all he had. This apparently acted as a
restraint in favor only of the strong, leaving the weak a prey to the
plunderer; but here the tie of family and clan intervened to aid him.
Relatives and clansmen espoused the quarrel of him who could not right
himself.

[ The proceedings for detecting thieves were regular and methodical,
after established customs. According to Bressani, no thief ever
inculpated the innocent. ]

Witches, with whom the Hurons and Iroquois were grievously infested,
were objects of utter abomination to both, and any one might kill them at
any time. If any person was guilty of treason, or by his character and
conduct made himself dangerous or obnoxious to the public, the council of
chiefs and old men held a secret session on his case, condemned him to
death, and appointed some young man to kill him. The executioner,
watching his opportunity, brained or stabbed him unawares, usually in the
dark porch of one of the houses. Acting by authority, he could not be
held answerable; and the relatives of the slain had no redress, even if
they desired it. The council, however, commonly obviated all difficulty
in advance, by charging the culprit with witchcraft, thus alienating his
best friends.

The military organization of the Iroquois was exceedingly imperfect and
derived all its efficiency from their civil union and their personal
prowess. There were two hereditary war-chiefs, both belonging to the
Senecas; but, except on occasions of unusual importance, it does not
appear that they took a very active part in the conduct of wars. The
Iroquois lived in a state of chronic warfare with nearly all the
surrounding tribes, except a few from whom they exacted tribute. Any man
of sufficient personal credit might raise a war-party when he chose.
He proclaimed his purpose through the village, sang his war-songs,
struck his hatchet into the war-post, and danced the war-dance. Any who
chose joined him; and the party usually took up their march at once,
with a little parched-corn-meal and maple-sugar as their sole provision.
On great occasions, there was concert of action,--the various parties
meeting at a rendezvous, and pursuing the march together. The leaders of
war-parties, like the orators, belonged, in nearly all cases, to the
class of subordinate chiefs. The Iroquois had a discipline suited to the
dark and tangled forests where they fought. Here they were a terrible
foe: in an open country, against a trained European force, they were,
despite their ferocious valor, far less formidable.

In observing this singular organization, one is struck by the incongruity
of its spirit and its form. A body of hereditary oligarchs was the head
of the nation, yet the nation was essentially democratic. Not that the
Iroquois were levellers. None were more prompt to acknowledge
superiority and defer to it, whether established by usage and
prescription, or the result of personal endowment. Yet each man, whether
of high or low degree, had a voice in the conduct of affairs, and was
never for a moment divorced from his wild spirit of independence.
Where there was no property worthy the name, authority had no fulcrum and
no hold. The constant aim of sachems and chiefs was to exercise it
without seeming to do so. They had no insignia of office. They were no
richer than others; indeed, they were often poorer, spending their
substance in largesses and bribes to strengthen their influence. They
hunted and fished for subsistence; they were as foul, greasy, and
unsavory as the rest; yet in them, withal, was often seen a native
dignity of bearing, which ochre and bear's grease could not hide, and
which comported well with their strong, symmetrical, and sometimes
majestic proportions.

To the institutions, traditions, rites, usages, and festivals of the
league the Iroquois was inseparably wedded. He clung to them with Indian
tenacity; and he clings to them still. His political fabric was one of
ancient ideas and practices, crystallized into regular and enduring
forms. In its component parts it has nothing peculiar to itself.
All its elements are found in other tribes: most of them belong to the
whole Indian race. Undoubtedly there was a distinct and definite effort
of legislation; but Iroquois legislation invented nothing. Like all
sound legislation, it built of materials already prepared. It organized
the chaotic past, and gave concrete forms to Indian nature itself.
The people have dwindled and decayed; but, banded by its ties of clan and
kin, the league, in feeble miniature, still subsists, and the degenerate
Iroquois looks back with a mournful pride to the glory of the past.

Would the Iroquois, left undisturbed to work out their own destiny,
ever have emerged from the savage state? Advanced as they were beyond
most other American tribes, there is no indication whatever of a tendency
to overpass the confines of a wild hunter and warrior life. They were
inveterately attached to it, impracticable conservatists of barbarism,
and in ferocity and cruelty they matched the worst of their race.
Nor did the power of expansion apparently belonging to their system ever
produce much result. Between the years 1712 and 1715, the Tuscaroras,
a kindred people, were admitted into the league as a sixth nation; but
they were never admitted on equal terms. Long after, in the period of
their decline, several other tribes were announced as new members of the
league; but these admissions never took effect. The Iroquois were always
reluctant to receive other tribes, or parts of tribes, collectively,
into the precincts of the "Long House." Yet they constantly practised a
system of adoptions, from which, though cruel and savage, they drew great
advantages. Their prisoners of war, when they had burned and butchered
as many of them as would serve to sate their own ire and that of their
women, were divided, man by man, woman by woman, and child by child,
adopted into different families and clans, and thus incorporated into the
nation. It was by this means, and this alone, that they could offset the
losses of their incessant wars. Early in the eighteenth century, and
ever-long before, a vast proportion of their population consisted of
adopted prisoners.

[ Relation, 1660, 7 (anonymous). The Iroquois were at the height of
their prosperity about the year 1650. Morgan reckons their number at
this time at 25,000 souls; but this is far too high an estimate. The
author of the Relation of 1660 makes their whole number of warriors
2,200. Le Mercier, in the Relation of 1665, says 2,350. In the Journal
of Greenhalgh, an Englishman who visited them in 1677, their warriors are
set down at 2,150. Du Chesneau, in 1681, estimates them at 2,000; De la
Barre, in 1684, at 2,600, they having been strengthened by adoptions.
A memoir addressed to the Marquis de Seignelay, in 1687, again makes them
2,000. (See N. Y. Col. Docs., IX. 162, 196, 321.) These estimates imply
a total population of ten or twelve thousand.

The anonymous writer of the Relation of 1660 may well remark: "It is
marvellous that so few should make so great a havoc, and strike such
terror into so many tribes." ]

It remains to speak of the religious and superstitious ideas which so
deeply influenced Indian life.

RELIGION AND SUPERSTITIONS.

The religious belief of the North-American Indians seems, on a first view,
anomalous and contradictory. It certainly is so, if we adopt the popular
impression. Romance, Poetry, and Rhetoric point, on the one hand,
to the august conception of a one all-ruling Deity, a Great Spirit,
omniscient and omnipresent; and we are called to admire the untutored
intellect which could conceive a thought too vast for Socrates and Plato.
On the other hand, we find a chaos of degrading, ridiculous, and
incoherent superstitions. A closer examination will show that the
contradiction is more apparent than real. We will begin with the lowest
forms of Indian belief, and thence trace it upward to the highest
conceptions to which the unassisted mind of the savage attained.

To the Indian, the material world is sentient and intelligent. Birds,
beasts, and reptiles have ears for human prayers, and are endowed with an
influence on human destiny. A mysterious and inexplicable power resides
in inanimate things. They, too, can listen to the voice of man, and
influence his life for evil or for good. Lakes, rivers, and waterfalls
are sometimes the dwelling-place of spirits; but more frequently they are
themselves living beings, to be propitiated by prayers and offerings.
The lake has a soul; and so has the river, and the cataract. Each can
hear the words of men, and each can be pleased or offended. In the
silence of a forest, the gloom of a deep ravine, resides a living mystery,
indefinite, but redoubtable. Through all the works of Nature or of man,
nothing exists, however seemingly trivial, that may not be endowed with a
secret power for blessing or for bane.

Men and animals are closely akin. Each species of animal has its great
archetype, its progenitor or king, who is supposed to exist somewhere,
prodigious in size, though in shape and nature like his subjects.
A belief prevails, vague, but perfectly apparent, that men themselves owe
their first parentage to beasts, birds, or reptiles, as bears, wolves,
tortoises, or cranes; and the names of the totemic clans, borrowed in
nearly every case from animals, are the reflection of this idea.

[ This belief occasionally takes a perfectly definite shape. There was a
tradition among Northern and Western tribes, that men were created from
the carcasses of beasts, birds, and fishes, by Manabozho, a mythical
personage, to be described hereafter. The Amikouas, or People of the
Beaver, an Algonquin tribe of Lake Huron, claimed descent from the
carcass of the great original beaver, or father of the beavers. They
believed that the rapids and cataracts on the French River and the Upper
Ottawa were caused by dams made by their amphibious ancestor. (See the
tradition in Perrot, Mémoire sur les Murs, Coustumes et Relligion des
Sauvages de l'Amérique Septentrionale, p. 20.) Charlevoix tells the same
story. Each Indian was supposed to inherit something of the nature of
the animal whence he sprung. ]

An Indian hunter was always anxious to propitiate the animals he sought
to kill. He has often been known to address a wounded bear in a long
harangue of apology. [ McKinney, Tour to the Lakes, 284, mentions the
discomposure of a party of Indians when shown a stuffed moose. Thinking
that its spirit would be offended at the indignity shown to its remains,
they surrounded it, making apologetic speeches, and blowing tobacco-smoke
at it as a propitiatory offering. ] The bones of the beaver were treated
with especial tenderness, and carefully kept from the dogs, lest the
spirit of the dead beaver, or his surviving brethren, should take
offence. [ This superstition was very prevalent, and numerous examples
of it occur in old and recent writers, from Father Le Jeune to Captain
Carver. ] This solicitude was not confined to animals, but extended to
inanimate things. A remarkable example occurred among the Hurons,
a people comparatively advanced, who, to propitiate their fishing-nets,
and persuade them to do their office with effect, married them every year
to two young girls of the tribe, with a ceremony more formal than that
observed in the case of mere human wedlock. [ 1 ] The fish, too, no less
than the nets, must be propitiated; and to this end they were addressed
every evening from the fishing-camp by one of the party chosen for that
function, who exhorted them to take courage and be caught, assuring them
that the utmost respect should be shown to their bones. The harangue,
which took place after the evening meal, was made in solemn form; and
while it lasted, the whole party, except the speaker, were required to
lie on their backs, silent and motionless, around the fire. [ 2 ]

[ 1 There are frequent allusions to this ceremony in the early writers.
The Algonquins of the Ottawa practised it, as well as the Hurons.
Lalemant, in his chapter "Du Regne de Satan en ces Contrées" (Relation
des Hurons, 1639), says that it took place yearly, in the middle of
March. As it was indispensable that the brides should be virgins,
mere children were chosen. The net was held between them; and its spirit,
or oki, was harangued by one of the chiefs, who exhorted him to do his
part in furnishing the tribe with food. Lalemant was told that the
spirit of the net had once appeared in human form to the Algonquins,
complaining that he had lost his wife, and warning them, that, unless
they could find him another equally immaculate, they would catch no more
fish. ]

[ 2 Sagard, Le Grand Voyage du Pays des Hurons, 257. Other old writers
make a similar statement. ]

Besides ascribing life and intelligence to the material world, animate
and inanimate, the Indian believes in supernatural existences, known among
the Algonquins as _Manitous_, and among the Iroquois and Hurons as _Okies_
or _Otkons_. These words comprehend all forms of supernatural being,
from the highest to the lowest, with the exception, possibly, of certain
diminutive fairies or hobgoblins, and certain giants and anomalous
monsters, which appear under various forms, grotesque and horrible,
in the Indian fireside legends. [ Many tribes have tales of diminutive
beings, which, in the absence of a better word, may be called fairies.
In the Travels of Lewis and Clarke, there is mention of a hill on the
Missouri, supposed to be haunted by them. These Western fairies
correspond to the _Puck Wudj Ininee_ of Ojibwa tradition. As an example
of the monsters alluded to, see the Saginaw story of the Weendigoes, in
Schoolcraft, Algic Researches, II. 105. ] There are local manitous of
streams, rocks, mountains, cataracts, and forests. The conception of
these beings betrays, for the most part, a striking poverty of
imagination. In nearly every case, when they reveal themselves to mortal
sight, they bear the semblance of beasts, reptiles, or birds, in shapes
unusual or distorted. [ The figure of a large bird is perhaps the most
common,--as, for example, the good spirit of Rock Island: "He was white,
with wings like a swan, but ten times larger."--Autobiography of
Blackhawk, 70. ] There are other manitous without local habitation,
some good, some evil, countless in number and indefinite in attributes.
They fill the world, and control the destinies of men,--that is to say,
of Indians: for the primitive Indian holds that the white man lives under
a spiritual rule distinct from that which governs his own fate. These
beings, also, appear for the most part in the shape of animals.
Sometimes, however, they assume human proportions; but more frequently
they take the form of stones, which, being broken, are found full of
living blood and flesh.

Each primitive Indian has his guardian manitou, to whom he looks for
counsel, guidance, and protection. These spiritual allies are gained by
the following process. At the age of fourteen or fifteen, the Indian boy
blackens his face, retires to some solitary place, and remains for days
without food. Superstitious expectancy and the exhaustion of abstinence
rarely fail of their results. His sleep is haunted by visions, and the
form which first or most often appears is that of his guardian manitou,--
a beast, a bird, a fish, a serpent, or some other object, animate or
inanimate. An eagle or a bear is the vision of a destined warrior; a
wolf, of a successful hunter; while a serpent foreshadows the future
medicine-man, or, according to others, portends disaster. [ 1 ] The
young Indian thenceforth wears about his person the object revealed in
his dream, or some portion of it,--as a bone, a feather, a snake-skin,
or a tuft of hair. This, in the modern language of the forest and
prairie, is known as his "medicine." The Indian yields to it a sort of
worship, propitiates it with offerings of tobacco, thanks it in
prosperity, and upbraids it in disaster. [ 2 ] If his medicine fails to
bring the desired success, he will sometimes discard it and adopt
another. The superstition now becomes mere fetich-worship, since the
Indian regards the mysterious object which he carries about him rather as
an embodiment than as a representative of a supernatural power.

[ 1 Compare Cass, in North-American Review, Second Series, XIII. 100.
A turkey-buzzard, according to him, is the vision of a medicine-man.
I once knew an old Dahcotah chief, who was greatly respected, but had
never been to war, though belonging to a family of peculiarly warlike
propensities. The reason was, that, in his initiatory fast, he had
dreamed of an antelope,--the peace-spirit of his people.

Women fast, as well as men,--always at the time of transition from
childhood to maturity. In the Narrative of John Tanner, there is an
account of an old woman who had fasted, in her youth, for ten days,
and throughout her life placed the firmest faith in the visions which had
appeared to her at that time. Among the Northern Algonquins, the
practice, down to a recent day, was almost universal. ]

[ 2 The author has seen a Dahcotah warrior open his medicine-bag,
talk with an air of affectionate respect to the bone, feather, or horn
within, and blow tobacco-smoke upon it as an offering. "Medicines"
are acquired not only by fasting, but by casual dreams, and otherwise.
They are sometimes even bought and sold. For a curious account of
medicine-bags and fetich-worship among the Algonquins of Gaspé, see Le
Clerc, Nouvelle Relation de la Gaspésie, Chap. XIII. ]

Indian belief recognizes also another and very different class of beings.
Besides the giants and monsters of legendary lore, other conceptions may
be discerned, more or less distinct, and of a character partly mythical.
Of these the most conspicuous is that remarkable personage of Algonquin
tradition, called Manabozho, Messou, Michabou, Nanabush, or the Great
Hare. As each species of animal has its archetype or king, so, among the
Algonquins, Manabozho is king of all these animal kings. Tradition is
diverse as to his origin. According to the most current belief, his
father was the West-Wind, and his mother a great-granddaughter of the
Moon. His character is worthy of such a parentage. Sometimes he is a
wolf, a bird, or a gigantic hare, surrounded by a court of quadrupeds;
sometimes he appears in human shape, majestic in stature and wondrous in
endowment, a mighty magician, a destroyer of serpents and evil manitous;
sometimes he is a vain and treacherous imp, full of childish whims and
petty trickery, the butt and victim of men, beasts, and spirits. His
powers of transformation are without limit; his curiosity and malice are
insatiable; and of the numberless legends of which he is the hero,
the greater part are as trivial as they are incoherent. [ 1 ] It does
not appear that Manabozho was ever an object of worship; yet, despite his
absurdity, tradition declares him to be chief among the manitous, in
short, the "Great Spirit." [ "Presque toutes les Nations Algonquines ont
donné le nom de Grand Lièvre au Premier Esprit, quelques-uns l'appellent
Michabou (Manabozho)."--Charlevoix, Journal Historique, 344. ] It was he
who restored the world, submerged by a deluge. He was hunting in company
with a certain wolf, who was his brother, or, by other accounts, his
grandson, when his quadruped relative fell through the ice of a frozen
lake, and was at once devoured by certain serpents lurking in the depths
of the waters. Manabozho, intent on revenge, transformed himself into
the stump of a tree, and by this artifice surprised and slew the king of
the serpents, as he basked with his followers in the noontide sun.
The serpents, who were all manitous, caused, in their rage, the waters of
the lake to deluge the earth. Manabozho climbed a tree, which, in answer
to his entreaties, grew as the flood rose around it, and thus saved him
from the vengeance of the evil spirits. Submerged to the neck, he looked
abroad on the waste of waters, and at length descried the bird known as
the loon, to whom he appealed for aid in the task of restoring the world.
The loon dived in search of a little mud, as material for reconstruction,
but could not reach the bottom. A musk-rat made the same attempt,
but soon reappeared floating on his back, and apparently dead. Manabozho,
however, on searching his paws, discovered in one of them a particle of
the desired mud, and of this, together with the body of the loon, created
the world anew. [ 2 ]

[ 1 Mr. Schoolcraft has collected many of these tales. See his Algic
Researches, Vol. I. Compare the stories of Messou, given by Le Jeune
(Relations, 1633, 1634), and the account of Nanabush, by Edwin James,
in his notes to Tanner's Narrative of Captivity and Adventures during a
Thirty-Years' Residence among the Indians; also the account of the Great
Hare, in the Mémoire of Nicolas Perrot, Chaps. I., II. ]

[ 2 This is a form of the story still current among the remoter
Algonquins. Compare the story of Messou, in Le Jeune, Relation, 1633,
16. It is substantially the same. ]

There are various forms of this tradition, in some of which Manabozho
appears, not as the restorer, but as the creator of the world, forming
mankind from the carcasses of beasts, birds, and fishes. [ 1 ] Other
stories represent him as marrying a female musk-rat, by whom he became
the progenitor of the human race. [ 2 ]

[ 1 In the beginning of all things, Manabozho, in the form of the Great
Hare, was on a raft, surrounded by animals who acknowledged him as their
chief. No land could be seen. Anxious to create the world, the Great
Hare persuaded the beaver to dive for mud but the adventurous diver
floated to the surface senseless. The otter next tried, and failed like
his predecessor. The musk-rat now offered himself for the desperate
task. He plunged, and, after remaining a day and night beneath the
surface, reappeared, floating on his back beside the raft, apparently
dead, and with all his paws fast closed. On opening them, the other
animals found in one of them a grain of sand, and of this the Great Hare
created the world.--Perrot, Mémoire, Chap. I. ]

[ 2 Le Jeune, Relation, 1633, 16.--The musk-rat is always a conspicuous
figure in Algonquin cosmogony.

It is said that Messou, or Manabozho, once gave to an Indian the gift of
immortality, tied in a bundle, enjoining him never to open it. The
Indian's wife, however, impelled by curiosity, one day cut the string,
the precious gift flew out, and Indians have ever since been subject to
death. Le Jeune, Relation, 1634, 13. ]

Searching for some higher conception of supernatural existence, we find,
among a portion of the primitive Algonquins, traces of a vague belief in
a spirit dimly shadowed forth under the name of Atahocan, to whom it does
not appear that any attributes were ascribed or any worship offered,
and of whom the Indians professed to know nothing whatever; [ 1 ] but
there is no evidence that this belief extended beyond certain tribes of
the Lower St. Lawrence. Others saw a supreme manitou in the Sun. [ 2 ]
The Algonquins believed also in a malignant manitou, in whom the early
missionaries failed not to recognize the Devil, but who was far less
dreaded than his wife. She wore a robe made of the hair of her victims,
for she was the cause of death; and she it was whom, by yelling, drumming,
and stamping, they sought to drive away from the sick. Sometimes,
at night, she was seen by some terrified squaw in the forest, in shape
like a flame of fire; and when the vision was announced to the circle
crouched around the lodge-fire, they burned a fragment of meat to appease
the female fiend.

[ 1 Le Jeune, Relation, 1633, 16; Relation, 1634, 13. ]

[ 2 Biard, Relation, 1611, Chap. VIII.--This belief was very prevalent.
The Ottawas, according to Ragueneau (Relation des Hurons, 1648, 77),
were accustomed to invoke the "Maker of Heaven" at their feasts; but they
recognized as distinct persons the Maker of the Earth, the Maker of
Winter, the God of the Waters, and the Seven Spirits of the Wind.
He says, at the same time, "The people of these countries have received
from their ancestors no knowledge of a God"; and he adds, that there is
no sentiment of religion in this invocation. ]

The East, the West, the North, and the South were vaguely personified as
spirits or manitous. Some of the winds, too, were personal existences.
The West-Wind, as we have seen, was father of Manabozho. There was a
Summer-Maker and a Winter-Maker; and the Indians tried to keep the latter
at bay by throwing firebrands into the air.

When we turn from the Algonquin family of tribes to that of the Iroquois,
we find another cosmogony, and other conceptions of spiritual existence.
While the earth was as yet a waste of waters, there was, according to
Iroquois and Huron traditions, a heaven with lakes, streams, plains,
and forests, inhabited by animals, by spirits, and, as some affirm,
by human beings. Here a certain female spirit, named Ataentsic, was once
chasing a bear, which, slipping through a hole, fell down to the earth.
Ataentsic's dog followed, when she herself, struck with despair, jumped
after them. Others declare that she was kicked out of heaven by the
spirit, her husband, for an amour with a man; while others, again,
hold the belief that she fell in the attempt to gather for her husband
the medicinal leaves of a certain tree. Be this as it may, the animals
swimming in the watery waste below saw her falling, and hastily met in
council to determine what should be done. The case was referred to the
beaver. The beaver commended it to the judgment of the tortoise, who
thereupon called on the other animals to dive, bring up mud, and place it
on his back. Thus was formed a floating island, on which Ataentsic fell;
and here, being pregnant, she was soon delivered of a daughter, who in
turn bore two boys, whose paternity is unexplained. They were called
Taouscaron and Jouskeha, and presently fell to blows, Jouskeha killing
his brother with the horn of a stag. The back of the tortoise grew into
a world full of verdure and life; and Jouskeha, with his grandmother,
Ataentsic, ruled over its destinies.

[ The above is the version of the story given by Brébeuf, Relation des
Hurons, 1636, 86 (Cramoisy). No two Indians told it precisely alike,
though nearly all the Hurons and Iroquois agreed as to its essential
points. Compare Vanderdonck, Cusick, Sagard, and other writers.
According to Vanderdonck, Ataentsic became mother of a deer, a bear,
and a wolf, by whom she afterwards bore all the other animals, mankind
included. Brébeuf found also among the Hurons a tradition inconsistent
with that of Ataentsic, and bearing a trace of Algonquin origin. It
declares, that, in the beginning, a man, a fox, and a skunk found
themselves together on an island, and that the man made the world out of
mud brought him by the skunk.

The Delawares, an Algonquin tribe, seem to have borrowed somewhat of the
Iroquois cosmogony, since they believed that the earth was formed on the
back of a tortoise.

According to some, Jouskeha became the father of the human race; but,
in the third generation, a deluge destroyed his posterity, so that it
was necessary to transform animals into men.--Charlevoix, III. 345. ]

He is the Sun; she is the Moon. He is beneficent; but she is malignant,
like the female demon of the Algonquins. They have a bark house, made
like those of the Iroquois, at the end of the earth, and they often come
to feasts and dances in the Indian villages. Jouskeha raises corn for
himself, and makes plentiful harvests for mankind. Sometimes he is seen,
thin as a skeleton, with a spike of shrivelled corn in his hand, or
greedily gnawing a human limb; and then the Indians know that a grievous
famine awaits them. He constantly interposes between mankind and the
malice of his wicked grandmother, whom, at times, he soundly cudgels.
It was he who made lakes and streams: for once the earth was parched and
barren, all the water being gathered under the armpit of a colossal frog;
but Jouskeha pierced the armpit, and let out the water. No prayers were
offered to him, his benevolent nature rendering them superfluous.

[ Compare Brébeuf, as before cited, and Sagard, Voyage des Hurons,
p. 228. ]

The early writers call Jouskeha the creator of the world, and speak of
him as corresponding to the vague Algonquin deity, Atahocan. Another
deity appears in Iroquois mythology, with equal claims to be regarded as
supreme. He is called Areskoui, or Agreskoui, and his most prominent
attributes are those of a god of war. He was often invoked, and the
flesh of animals and of captive enemies was burned in his honor.
[ Father Jogues saw a female prisoner burned to Areskoui, and two bears
offered to him to atone for the sin of not burning more captives.--Lettre
de Jogues, 6 Aug., 1643. ] Like Jouskeha, he was identified with the
sun; and he is perhaps to be regarded as the same being, under different
attributes. Among the Iroquois proper, or Five Nations, there was also a
divinity called Tarenyowagon, or Teharonhiawagon, [ 1 ] whose place and
character it is very difficult to determine. In some traditions he
appears as the son of Jouskeha. He had a prodigious influence; for it
was he who spoke to men in dreams. The Five Nations recognized still
another superhuman personage,--plainly a deified chief or hero. This was
Taounyawatha, or Hiawatha, said to be a divinely appointed messenger,
who made his abode on earth for the political and social instruction of
the chosen race, and whose counterpart is to be found in the traditions
of the Peruvians, Mexicans, and other primitive nations. [ 2 ]

[ 1 Le Mercier, Relation, 1670, 66; Dablon, Relation, 1671, 17. Compare
Cusick, Megapolensis, and Vanderdonck. Some writers identify
Tarenyowagon and Hiawatha. Vanderdonck assumes that Areskoui is the
Devil, and Tarenyowagon is God. Thus Indian notions are often
interpreted by the light of preconceived ideas. ]

[ 2 For the tradition of Hiawatha, see Clark, History of Onondaga,
I. 21. It will also be found in Schoolcraft's Notes on the Iroquois,
and in his History, Condition, and Prospects of Indian Tribes.

The Iroquois name for God is Hawenniio, sometimes written Owayneo; but
this use of the word is wholly due to the missionaries. Hawenniio is an
Iroquois verb, and means, "he rules, he is master". There is no Iroquois
word which, in its primitive meaning, can be interpreted, the Great
Spirit, or God. On this subject, see Études Philologiques sur quelques
Langues Sauvages (Montreal, 1866), where will also be found a curious
exposure of a few of Schoolcraft's ridiculous blunders in this
connection. ]

Close examination makes it evident that the primitive Indian's idea of a
Supreme Being was a conception no higher than might have been expected.
The moment he began to contemplate this object of his faith, and sought
to clothe it with attributes, it became finite, and commonly ridiculous.
The Creator of the World stood on the level of a barbarous and degraded
humanity, while a natural tendency became apparent to look beyond him to
other powers sharing his dominion. The Indian belief, if developed,
would have developed into a system of polytheism.

[ Some of the early writers could discover no trace of belief in a
supreme spirit of any kind. Perrot, after a life spent among the Indians,
ignores such an idea. Allouez emphatically denies that it existed among
the tribes of Lake Superior. (Relation, 1667, 11.) He adds, however,
that the Sacs and Foxes believed in a great _génie_, who lived not far
from the French settlements.--Ibid., 21. ]

In the primitive Indian's conception of a God the idea of moral good has
no part. His deity does not dispense justice for this world or the next,
but leaves mankind under the power of subordinate spirits, who fill and
control the universe. Nor is the good and evil of these inferior beings
a moral good and evil. The good spirit is the spirit that gives good
luck, and ministers to the necessities and desires of mankind: the evil
spirit is simply a malicious agent of disease, death, and mischance.

In no Indian language could the early missionaries find a word to express
the idea of God. Manitou and Oki meant anything endowed with
supernatural powers, from a snake-skin, or a greasy Indian conjurer,
up to Manabozho and Jouskeha. The priests were forced to use a
circumlocution,--"The Great Chief of Men," or "He who lives in the Sky."
[ See "Divers Sentimens," appended to the Relation of 1635, § 27; and
also many other passages of early missionaries. ] Yet it should seem
that the idea of a supreme controlling spirit might naturally arise from
the peculiar character of Indian belief. The idea that each race of
animals has its archetype or chief would easily suggest the existence of
a supreme chief of the spirits or of the human race,--a conception
imperfectly shadowed forth in Manabozho. The Jesuit missionaries seized
this advantage. "If each sort of animal has its king," they urged, "so,
too, have men; and as man is above all the animals, so is the spirit that
rules over men the master of all the other spirits." The Indian mind
readily accepted the idea, and tribes in no sense Christian quickly rose
to the belief in one controlling spirit. The Great Spirit became a
distinct existence, a pervading power in the universe, and a dispenser of
justice. Many tribes now pray to him, though still clinging obstinately
to their ancient superstitions; and with some, as the heathen portion of
the modern Iroquois, he is clothed with attributes of moral good.

[ In studying the writers of the last and of the present century, it is
to be remembered that their observations were made upon savages who had
been for generations in contact, immediate or otherwise, with the
doctrines of Christianity. Many observers have interpreted the religious
ideas of the Indians after preconceived ideas of their own; and it may
safely be affirmed that an Indian will respond with a grunt of
acquiescence to any question whatever touching his spiritual state.
Loskiel and the simple-minded Heckewelder write from a missionary point
of view; Adair, to support a theory of descent from the Jews; the worthy
theologian, Jarvis, to maintain his dogma, that all religious ideas of
the heathen world are perversions of revelation; and so, in a greater or
less degree, of many others. By far the most close and accurate
observers of Indian superstition were the French and Italian Jesuits of
the first half of the seventeenth century. Their opportunities were
unrivalled; and they used them in a spirit of faithful inquiry,
accumulating facts, and leaving theory to their successors. Of recent
American writers, no one has given so much attention to the subject as
Mr. Schoolcraft; but, in view of his opportunities and his zeal, his
results are most unsatisfactory. The work in six large quarto volumes,
History, Condition, and Prospects of Indian Tribes, published by
Government under his editorship, includes the substance of most of his
previous writings. It is a singularly crude and illiterate production,
stuffed with blunders and contradictions, giving evidence on every page
of a striking unfitness either for historical or philosophical inquiry,
and taxing to the utmost the patience of those who would extract what is
valuable in it from its oceans of pedantic verbiage. ]

The primitive Indian believed in the immortality of the soul, [ 1 ] but
he did not always believe in a state of future reward and punishment.
Nor, when such a belief existed, was the good to be rewarded a moral good,
or the evil to be punished a moral evil. Skilful hunters, brave warriors,
men of influence and consideration, went, after death, to the happy
hunting-ground; while the slothful, the cowardly, and the weak were
doomed to eat serpents and ashes in dreary regions of mist and darkness.
In the general belief, however, there was but one land of shades for all
alike. The spirits, in form and feature as they had been in life,
wended their way through dark forests to the villages of the dead,
subsisting on bark and rotten wood. On arriving, they sat all day in the
crouching posture of the sick, and, when night came, hunted the shades of
animals, with the shades of bows and arrows, among the shades of trees
and rocks: for all things, animate and inanimate, were alike immortal,
and all passed together to the gloomy country of the dead.

[ 1 The exceptions are exceedingly rare. Father Gravier says that a
Peoria Indian once told him that there was no future life. It would be
difficult to find another instance of the kind. ]

The belief respecting the land of souls varied greatly in different
tribes and different individuals. Among the Hurons there were those who
held that departed spirits pursued their journey through the sky, along
the Milky Way, while the souls of dogs took another route, by certain
constellations, known as the "Way of the Dogs." [ Sagard, Voyage des
Hurons, 233. ]

At intervals of ten or twelve years, the Hurons, the Neutrals, and other
kindred tribes, were accustomed to collect the bones of their dead,
and deposit them, with great ceremony, in a common place of burial.
The whole nation was sometimes assembled at this solemnity; and hundreds
of corpses, brought from their temporary resting-places, were inhumed in
one capacious pit. From this hour the immortality of their souls began.
They took wing, as some affirmed, in the shape of pigeons; while the
greater number declared that they journeyed on foot, and in their own
likeness, to the land of shades, bearing with them the ghosts of the
wampum-belts, beaver-skins, bows, arrows, pipes, kettles, beads, and
rings buried with them in the common grave. [ The practice of burying
treasures with the dead is not peculiar to the North American aborigines.
Thus, the London Times of Oct. 25, 1885, describing the funeral rites of
Lord Palmerston, says: "And as the words, 'Dust to dust, ashes to ashes,'
were pronounced, the chief mourner, as a last precious offering to the
dead, threw into the grave several diamond and gold rings." ] But as the
spirits of the old and of children are too feeble for the march, they are
forced to stay behind, lingering near their earthly villages, where the
living often hear the shutting of their invisible cabin-doors, and the
weak voices of the disembodied children driving birds from their
corn-fields. [ Brébeuf, Relation des Hurons, 1636, 99 (Cramoisy). ]
An endless variety of incoherent fancies is connected with the Indian
idea of a future life. They commonly owe their origin to dreams, often
to the dreams of those in extreme sickness, who, on awaking, supposed
that they had visited the other world, and related to the wondering
bystanders what they had seen.

The Indian land of souls is not always a region of shadows and gloom.
The Hurons sometimes represented the souls of their dead--those of their
dogs included--as dancing joyously in the presence of Ataentsic and
Jouskeha. According to some Algonquin traditions, heaven was a scene of
endless festivity, the ghosts dancing to the sound of the rattle and the
drum, and greeting with hospitable welcome the occasional visitor from
the living world: for the spirit-land was not far off, and roving hunters
sometimes passed its confines unawares.

Most of the traditions agree, however, that the spirits, on their journey
heavenward, were beset with difficulties and perils. There was a swift
river which must be crossed on a log that shook beneath their feet,
while a ferocious dog opposed their passage, and drove many into the
abyss. This river was full of sturgeon and other fish, which the ghosts
speared for their subsistence. Beyond was a narrow path between moving
rocks, which each instant crashed together, grinding to atoms the less
nimble of the pilgrims who essayed to pass. The Hurons believed that a
personage named Oscotarach, or the Head-Piercer, dwelt in a bark house
beside the path, and that it was his office to remove the brains from the
heads of all who went by, as a necessary preparation for immortality.
This singular idea is found also in some Algonquin traditions, according
to which, however, the brain is afterwards restored to its owner.

[ On Indian ideas of another life, compare Sagard, the Jesuit Relations,
Perrot, Charlevoix, and Lafitau, with Tanner, James, Schoolcraft, and the
Appendix to Morse's Indian Report.

Le Clerc recounts a singular story, current in his time among the
Algonquins of Gaspé and Northern New Brunswick. The favorite son of an
old Indian died; whereupon the father, with a party of friends, set out
for the land of souls to recover him. It was only necessary to wade
through a shallow lake, several days' journey in extent. This they did,
sleeping at night on platforms of poles which supported them above the
water. At length they arrived, and were met by Papkootparout, the Indian
Pluto, who rushed on them in a rage, with his war-club upraised; but,
presently relenting, changed his mind, and challenged them to a game of
ball. They proved the victors, and won the stakes, consisting of corn,
tobacco, and certain fruits, which thus became known to mankind. The
bereaved father now begged hard for his son's soul, and Papkootparout at
last gave it to him, in the form and size of a nut, which, by pressing it
hard between his hands, he forced into a small leather bag. The
delighted parent carried it back to earth, with instructions to insert it
in the body of his son, who would thereupon return to life. When the
adventurers reached home, and reported the happy issue of their journey,
there was a dance of rejoicing; and the father, wishing to take part in
it, gave his son's soul to the keeping of a squaw who stood by. Being
curious to see it, she opened the bag; on which it escaped at once,
and took flight for the realms of Papkootparout, preferring them to the
abodes of the living.--Le Clerc, Nouvelle Relation de la Gaspésie,
310-328. ]

Dreams were to the Indian a universal oracle. They revealed to him his
guardian spirit, taught him the cure of his diseases, warned him of the
devices of sorcerers, guided him to the lurking-places of his enemy or
the haunts of game, and unfolded the secrets of good and evil destiny.
The dream was a mysterious and inexorable power, whose least behests must
be obeyed to the letter,--a source, in every Indian town, of endless
mischief and abomination. There were professed dreamers, and professed
interpreters of dreams. One of the most noted festivals among the Hurons
and Iroquois was the Dream Feast, a scene of frenzy, where the actors
counterfeited madness, and the town was like a bedlam turned loose.
Each pretended to have dreamed of something necessary to his welfare,
and rushed from house to house, demanding of all he met to guess his
secret requirement and satisfy it.

Believing that the whole material world was instinct with powers to
influence and control his fate, that good and evil spirits, and
existences nameless and indefinable, filled all Nature, that a pervading
sorcery was above, below, and around him, and that issues of life and
death might be controlled by instruments the most unnoticeable and
seemingly the most feeble, the Indian lived in perpetual fear. The
turning of a leaf, the crawling of an insect, the cry of a bird, the
creaking of a bough, might be to him the mystic signal of weal or woe.

An Indian community swarmed with sorcerers, medicine-men, and diviners,
whose functions were often united in the same person. The sorcerer,
by charms, magic songs, magic feasts, and the beating of his drum,
had power over the spirits and those occult influences inherent in
animals and inanimate things. He could call to him the souls of his
enemies. They appeared before him in the form of stones. He chopped and
bruised them with his hatchet; blood and flesh issued forth; and the
intended victim, however distant, languished and died. Like the sorcerer
of the Middle Ages, he made images of those he wished to destroy, and,
muttering incantations, punctured them with an awl, whereupon the persons
represented sickened and pined away.

The Indian doctor relied far more on magic than on natural remedies.
Dreams, beating of the drum, songs, magic feasts and dances, and howling
to frighten the female demon from his patient, were his ordinary methods
of cure.

The prophet, or diviner, had various means of reading the secrets of
futurity, such as the flight of birds, and the movements of water and
fire. There was a peculiar practice of divination very general in the
Algonquin family of tribes, among some of whom it still subsists.
A small, conical lodge was made by planting poles in a circle, lashing
the tops together at the height of about seven feet from the ground,
and closely covering them with hides. The prophet crawled in, and closed
the aperture after him. He then beat his drum and sang his magic songs
to summon the spirits, whose weak, shrill voices were soon heard, mingled
with his lugubrious chanting, while at intervals the juggler paused to
interpret their communications to the attentive crowd seated on the
ground without. During the whole scene, the lodge swayed to and fro with
a violence which has astonished many a civilized beholder, and which some
of the Jesuits explain by the ready solution of a genuine diabolic
intervention.

[ This practice was first observed by Champlain. (See "Pioneers of
France in the New World." ) From his time to the present, numerous
writers have remarked upon it. Le Jeune, in the Relation of 1637,
treats it at some length. The lodge was sometimes of a cylindrical,
instead of a conical form. ]

The sorcerers, medicine-men, and diviners did not usually exercise the
function of priests. Each man sacrificed for himself to the powers he
wished to propitiate, whether his guardian spirit, the spirits of animals,
or the other beings of his belief. The most common offering was tobacco,
thrown into the fire or water; scraps of meat were sometimes burned to
the manitous; and, on a few rare occasions of public solemnity, a white
dog, the mystic animal of many tribes, was tied to the end of an upright
pole, as a sacrifice to some superior spirit, or to the sun, with which
the superior spirits were constantly confounded by the primitive Indian.
In recent times, when Judaism and Christianity have modified his
religious ideas, it has been, and still is, the practice to sacrifice
dogs to the Great Spirit. On these public occasions, the sacrificial
function is discharged by chiefs, or by warriors appointed for the
purpose.

[ Many of the Indian feasts were feasts of sacrifice,--sometimes to the
guardian spirit of the host, sometimes to an animal of which he has
dreamed, sometimes to a local or other spirit. The food was first
offered in a loud voice to the being to be propitiated, after which the
guests proceeded to devour it for him. This unique method of sacrifice
was practised at war-feasts and similar solemnities. For an excellent
account of Indian religious feasts, see Perrot, Chap. V.

One of the most remarkable of Indian sacrifices was that practised by the
Hurons in the case of a person drowned or frozen to death. The flesh of
the deceased was cut off; and thrown into a fire made for the purpose,
as an offering of propitiation to the spirits of the air or water.
What remained of the body was then buried near the fire.--Brébeuf,
Relation des Hurons, 1636, 108.

The tribes of Virginia, as described by Beverly and others, not only had
priests who offered sacrifice, but idols and houses of worship. ]

Among the Hurons and Iroquois, and indeed all the stationary tribes,
there was an incredible number of mystic ceremonies, extravagant, puerile,
and often disgusting, designed for the cure of the sick or for the
general weal of the community. Most of their observances seem originally
to have been dictated by dreams, and transmitted as a sacred heritage
from generation to generation. They consisted in an endless variety of
dances, masqueradings, and nondescript orgies; and a scrupulous adherence
to all the traditional forms was held to be of the last moment, as the
slightest failure in this respect might entail serious calamities.
If children were seen in their play imitating any of these mysteries,
they were grimly rebuked and punished. In many tribes secret magical
societies existed, and still exist, into which members are initiated with
peculiar ceremonies. These associations are greatly respected and
feared. They have charms for love, war, and private revenge, and exert a
great, and often a very mischievous influence. The societies of the
Metai and the Wabeno, among the Northern Algonquins, are conspicuous
examples; while other societies of similar character have, for a century,
been known to exist among the Dahcotah.

[ The Friendly Society of the Spirit, of which the initiatory ceremonies
were seen and described by Carver (Travels, 271), preserves to this day
its existence and its rites. ]

A notice of the superstitious ideas of the Indians would be imperfect
without a reference to the traditionary tales through which these ideas
are handed down from father to son. Some of these tales can be traced
back to the period of the earliest intercourse with Europeans. One at
least of those recorded by the first missionaries, on the Lower
St. Lawrence, is still current among the tribes of the Upper Lakes.
Many of them are curious combinations of beliefs seriously entertained
with strokes intended for humor and drollery, which never fail to awaken
peals of laughter in the lodge-circle. Giants, dwarfs, cannibals,
spirits, beasts, birds, and anomalous monsters, transformations, tricks,
and sorcery, form the staple of the story. Some of the Iroquois tales
embody conceptions which, however preposterous, are of a bold and
striking character; but those of the Algonquins are, to an incredible
degree, flimsy, silly, and meaningless; nor are those of the Dahcotah
tribes much better. In respect to this wigwam lore, there is a curious
superstition of very wide prevalence. The tales must not be told in
summer; since at that season, when all Nature is full of life, the
spirits are awake, and, hearing what is said of them, may take offence;
whereas in winter they are fast sealed up in snow and ice, and no longer
capable of listening.

[ The prevalence of this fancy among the Algonquins in the remote parts
of Canada is well established. The writer found it also among the
extreme western bands of the Dahcotah. He tried, in the month of July,
to persuade an old chief, a noted story-teller, to tell him some of the
tales; but, though abundantly loquacious in respect to his own adventures,
and even his dreams, the Indian obstinately refused, saying that winter
was the time for the tales, and that it was bad to tell them in summer.

Mr. Schoolcraft has published a collection of Algonquin tales, under the
title of Algic Researches. Most of them were translated by his wife,
an educated Ojibwa half-breed. This book is perhaps the best of
Mr. Schoolcraft's works, though its value is much impaired by the want of
a literal rendering, and the introduction of decorations which savor more
of a popular monthly magazine than of an Indian wigwam. Mrs. Eastman's
interesting Legends of the Sioux (Dahcotah) is not free from the same
defect. Other tales are scattered throughout the works of Mr. Schoolcraft
and various modern writers. Some are to be found in the works of Lafitau
and the other Jesuits. But few of the Iroquois legends have been printed,
though a considerable number have been written down. The singular History
of the Five Nations, by the old Tuscarora Indian, Cusick, gives the
substance of some of them. Others will be found in Clark's History of
Onondaga. ]

It is obvious that the Indian mind has never seriously occupied itself
with any of the higher themes of thought. The beings of its belief are
not impersonations of the forces of Nature, the courses of human destiny,
or the movements of human intellect, will, and passion. In the midst of
Nature; the Indian knew nothing of her laws. His perpetual reference of
her phenomena to occult agencies forestalled inquiry and precluded
inductive reasoning. If the wind blew with violence, it was because the
water-lizard, which makes the wind, had crawled out of his pool; if the
lightning was sharp and frequent, it was because the young of the
thunder-bird were restless in their nest; if a blight fell upon the corn,
it was because the Corn Spirit was angry; and if the beavers were shy and
difficult to catch, it was because they had taken offence at seeing the
bones of one of their race thrown to a dog. Well, and even highly
developed, in a few instances,--I allude especially to the Iroquois,--
with respect to certain points of material concernment, the mind of the
Indian in other respects was and is almost hopelessly stagnant. The very
traits that raise him above the servile races are hostile to the kind and
degree of civilization which those races so easily attain. His
intractable spirit of independence, and the pride which forbids him to be
an imitator, reinforce but too strongly that savage lethargy of mind from
which it is so hard to rouse him. No race, perhaps, ever offered greater
difficulties to those laboring for its improvement.

To sum up the results of this examination, the primitive Indian was as
savage in his religion as in his life. He was divided between fetich-
worship and that next degree of religious development which consists in
the worship of deities embodied in the human form. His conception of
their attributes was such as might have been expected. His gods were no
whit better than himself. Even when he borrows from Christianity the
idea of a Supreme and Universal Spirit, his tendency is to reduce Him to
a local habitation and a bodily shape; and this tendency disappears only
in tribes that have been long in contact with civilized white men.
The primitive Indian, yielding his untutored homage to One All-pervading
and Omnipotent Spirit, is a dream of poets, rhetoricians, and
sentimentalists.

THE JESUITS IN NORTH AMERICA.

CHAPTER I.

1634.

NOTRE-DAME DES ANGES.

QUEBEC IN 1634.--FATHER LE JEUNE.--THE MISSION-HOUSE.--
ITS DOMESTIC ECONOMY.--THE JESUITS AND THEIR DESIGNS.

Opposite Quebec lies the tongue of land called Point Levi. One who,
in the summer of the year 1634, stood on its margin and looked northward,
across the St. Lawrence, would have seen, at the distance of a mile or
more, a range of lofty cliffs, rising on the left into the bold heights
of Cape Diamond, and on the right sinking abruptly to the bed of the
tributary river St. Charles. Beneath these cliffs, at the brink of the
St. Lawrence, he would have descried a cluster of warehouses, sheds,
and wooden tenements. Immediately above, along the verge of the
precipice, he could have traced the outlines of a fortified work, with a
flagstaff, and a few small cannon to command the river; while, at the
only point where Nature had made the heights accessible, a zigzag path
connected the warehouses and the fort.

Now, embarked in the canoe of some Montagnais Indian, let him cross the
St. Lawrence, land at the pier, and, passing the cluster of buildings,
climb the pathway up the cliff. Pausing for rest and breath, he might
see, ascending and descending, the tenants of this outpost of the
wilderness: a soldier of the fort, or an officer in slouched hat and
plume; a factor of the fur company, owner and sovereign lord of all
Canada; a party of Indians; a trader from the upper country, one of the
precursors of that hardy race of _coureurs de bois_, destined to form a
conspicuous and striking feature of the Canadian population: next,
perhaps, would appear a figure widely different. The close, black
cassock, the rosary hanging from the waist, and the wide, black hat,
looped up at the sides, proclaimed the Jesuit,--Father Le Jeune, Superior
of the Residence of Quebec.

And now, that we may better know the aspect and condition of the infant
colony and incipient mission, we will follow the priest on his way.
Mounting the steep path, he reached the top of the cliff, some two
hundred feet above the river and the warehouses. On the left lay the
fort built by Champlain, covering a part of the ground now forming Durham
Terrace and the Place d'Armes. Its ramparts were of logs and earth,
and within was a turreted building of stone, used as a barrack, as
officers' quarters, and for other purposes. [ Compare the various
notices in Champlain (1632) with that of Du Creux, Historia Canadensis,
204. ] Near the fort stood a small chapel, newly built. The surrounding
country was cleared and partially cultivated; yet only one dwelling-house
worthy the name appeared. It was a substantial cottage, where lived
Madame Hébert, widow of the first settler of Canada, with her daughter,
her son-in-law Couillard, and their children, good Catholics all, who,
two years before, when Quebec was evacuated by the English, [ 1 ] wept
for joy at beholding Le Jeune, and his brother Jesuit, De Nouë, crossing
their threshold to offer beneath their roof the long-forbidden sacrifice
of the Mass. There were inclosures with cattle near at hand; and the
house, with its surroundings, betokened industry and thrift.

[ 1 See "Pioneers of France in the New World." Hébert's cottage seems
to have stood between Ste.-Famille and Couillard Streets, as appears by a
contract of 1634, cited by M. Ferland. ]

Thence Le Jeune walked on, across the site of the modern market-place,
and still onward, near the line of the cliffs which sank abruptly on his
right. Beneath lay the mouth of the St. Charles; and, beyond, the
wilderness shore of Beauport swept in a wide curve eastward, to where,
far in the distance, the Gulf of Montmorenci yawned on the great river.
[ The settlement of Beauport was begun this year, or the year following,
by the Sieur Giffard, to whom a large tract had been granted here--
Langevin, Notes sur les Archives de N. D. de Beauport, 5. ] The priest
soon passed the clearings, and entered the woods which covered the site
of the present suburb of St. John. Thence he descended to a lower
plateau, where now lies the suburb of St. Roch, and, still advancing,
reached a pleasant spot at the extremity of the Pointe-aux-Lièvres,
a tract of meadow land nearly inclosed by a sudden bend of the
St. Charles. Here lay a canoe or skiff; and, paddling across the narrow
stream, Le Jeune saw on the meadow, two hundred yards from the bank,
a square inclosure formed of palisades, like a modern picket fort of the
Indian frontier. [ 1 ] Within this inclosure were two buildings, one of
which had been half burned by the English, and was not yet repaired.
It served as storehouse, stable, workshop, and bakery. Opposite stood
the principal building, a structure of planks, plastered with mud,
and thatched with long grass from the meadows. It consisted of one story,
a garret, and a cellar, and contained four principal rooms, of which one
served as chapel, another as refectory, another as kitchen, and the
fourth as a lodging for workmen. The furniture of all was plain in the
extreme. Until the preceding year, the chapel had had no other ornament
than a sheet on which were glued two coarse engravings; but the priests
had now decorated their altar with an image of a dove representing the
Holy Ghost, an image of Loyola, another of Xavier, and three images of
the Virgin. Four cells opened from the refectory, the largest of which
was eight feet square. In these lodged six priests, while two lay
brothers found shelter in the garret. The house had been hastily built,
eight years before, and now leaked in all parts. Such was the Residence
of Notre-Dame des Anges. Here was nourished the germ of a vast
enterprise, and this was the cradle of the great mission of New France.
[ 2 ]

[ 1 This must have been very near the point where the streamlet called
the River Lairet enters the St. Charles. The place has a triple historic
interest. The wintering-place of Cartier in 1535-6 (see "Pioneers of
France") seems to have been here. Here, too, in 1759, Montcalm's bridge
of boats crossed the St. Charles; and in a large intrenchment, which
probably included the site of the Jesuit mission-house, the remnants of
his shattered army rallied, after their defeat on the Plains of
Abraham.--See the very curious Narrative of the Chevalier Johnstone,
published by the Historical Society of Quebec. ]

[ 2 The above particulars are gathered from the Relations of 1626
(Lalemant), and 1632, 1633, 1634, 1635 (Le Jeune), but chiefly from a
long letter of the Father Superior to the Provincial of the Jesuits at
Paris, containing a curiously minute report of the state of the mission.
It was sent from Quebec by the returning ships in the summer of 1634,
and will be found in Carayon, Première Mission des Jésuites au Canada,
122. The original is in the archives of the Order at Rome. ]

Of the six Jesuits gathered in the refectory for the evening meal,
one was conspicuous among the rest,--a tall, strong man, with features
that seemed carved by Nature for a soldier, but which the mental habits
of years had stamped with the visible impress of the priesthood. This
was Jean de Brébeuf, descendant of a noble family of Normandy, and one of
the ablest and most devoted zealots whose names stand on the missionary
rolls of his Order. His companions were Masse, Daniel, Davost, De Nouë,
and the Father Superior, Le Jeune. Masse was the same priest who had
been the companion of Father Biard in the abortive mission of Acadia.
[ See "Pioneers of France in the New World." ] By reason of his useful
qualities, Le Jeune nicknamed him "le Père Utile." At present, his
special function was the care of the pigs and cows, which he kept in the
inclosure around the buildings, lest they should ravage the neighboring
fields of rye, barley, wheat, and maize. [ 1 ] De Nouë had charge of the
eight or ten workmen employed by the mission, who gave him at times no
little trouble by their repinings and complaints. [ 2 ] They were forced
to hear mass every morning and prayers every evening, besides an
exhortation on Sunday. Some of them were for returning home, while two
or three, of a different complexion, wished to be Jesuits themselves.
The Fathers, in their intervals of leisure, worked with their men,
spade in hand. For the rest, they were busied in preaching, singing
vespers, saying mass and hearing confessions at the fort of Quebec,
catechizing a few Indians, and striving to master the enormous
difficulties of the Huron and Algonquin languages.

[ 1 "Le P. Masse, que je nomme quelquefois en riant le Père Utile,
est bien cognu de V. R. Il a soin des choses domestiques et du bestail
que nous avons, en quoy il a très-bien reussy."--Lettre du P. Paul le
Jeune au R. P. Provincial, in Carayon, 122.--Le Jeune does not fail to
send an inventory of the "bestail" to his Superior, namely: "Deux grosses
truies qui nourissent chacune quatre petits cochons, deux vaches, deux
petites genisses, et un petit taureau." ]

[ 2 The methodical Le Jeune sets down the causes of their discontent
under six different heads, each duly numbered. Thus:--
"1. C'est le naturel des artisans de se plaindre et de gronder."
"2. La diversité des gages les fait murmurer," etc. ]

Well might Father Le Jeune write to his Superior, "The harvest is
plentiful, and the laborers few." These men aimed at the conversion of a
continent. From their hovel on the St. Charles they surveyed a field of
labor whose vastness might tire the wings of thought itself; a scene
repellent and appalling, darkened with omens of peril and woe. They were
an advance-guard of the great army of Loyola, strong in a discipline that
controlled not alone the body and the will, but the intellect, the heart,
the soul, and the inmost consciousness. The lives of these early
Canadian Jesuits attest the earnestness of their faith and the intensity
of their zeal; but it was a zeal bridled, curbed, and ruled by a guiding
hand. Their marvellous training in equal measure kindled enthusiasm and
controlled it, roused into action a mighty power, and made it as
subservient as those great material forces which modern science has
learned to awaken and to govern. They were drilled to a factitious
humility, prone to find utterance in expressions of self-depreciation and
self-scorn, which one may often judge unwisely, when he condemns them as
insincere. They were devoted believers, not only in the fundamental
dogmas of Rome, but in those lesser matters of faith which heresy
despises as idle and puerile superstitions. One great aim engrossed
their lives. "For the greater glory of God"--ad majorem Dei gloriam--
they would act or wait, dare, suffer, or die, yet all in unquestioning
subjection to the authority of the Superiors, in whom they recognized the
agents of Divine authority itself.

CHAPTER II.

LOYOLA AND THE JESUITS.

CONVERSION OF LOYOLA.--FOUNDATION OF THE SOCIETY OF JESUS.--
PREPARATION OF THE NOVICE.--CHARACTERISTICS OF THE ORDER.--
THE CANADIAN JESUITS.

It was an evil day for new-born Protestantism, when a French artilleryman
fired the shot that struck down Ignatius Loyola in the breach of
Pampeluna. A proud noble, an aspiring soldier, a graceful courtier,
an ardent and daring gallant was metamorphosed by that stroke into the
zealot whose brain engendered and brought forth the mighty Society of
Jesus. His story is a familiar one: how, in the solitude of his
sick-room, a change came over him, upheaving, like an earthquake, all the
forces of his nature; how, in the cave of Manresa, the mysteries of
Heaven were revealed to him; how he passed from agonies to transports,
from transports to the calm of a determined purpose. The soldier gave
himself to a new warfare. In the forge of his great intellect, heated,
but not disturbed by the intense fires of his zeal, was wrought the
prodigious enginery whose power has been felt to the uttermost confines
of the world.

Loyola's training had been in courts and camps: of books he knew little
or nothing. He had lived in the unquestioning faith of one born and bred
in the very focus of Romanism; and thus, at the age of about thirty,
his conversion found him. It was a change of life and purpose, not of
belief. He presumed not to inquire into the doctrines of the Church.
It was for him to enforce those doctrines; and to this end he turned all
the faculties of his potent intellect, and all his deep knowledge of
mankind. He did not aim to build up barren communities of secluded monks,
aspiring to heaven through prayer, penance, and meditation, but to subdue
the world to the dominion of the dogmas which had subdued him; to
organize and discipline a mighty host, controlled by one purpose and one
mind, fired by a quenchless zeal or nerved by a fixed resolve, yet
impelled, restrained, and directed by a single master hand. The Jesuit
is no dreamer: he is emphatically a man of action; action is the end of
his existence.

It was an arduous problem which Loyola undertook to solve,--to rob a man
of volition, yet to preserve in him, nay, to stimulate, those energies
which would make him the most efficient instrument of a great design.
To this end the Jesuit novitiate and the constitutions of the Order are
directed. The enthusiasm of the novice is urged to its intensest pitch;
then, in the name of religion, he is summoned to the utter abnegation of
intellect and will in favor of the Superior, in whom he is commanded to
recognize the representative of God on earth. Thus the young zealot
makes no slavish sacrifice of intellect and will; at least, so he is
taught: for he sacrifices them, not to man, but to his Maker. No limit
is set to his submission: if the Superior pronounces black to be white,
he is bound in conscience to acquiesce.

[ Those who wish to know the nature of the Jesuit virtue of obedience
will find it set forth in the famous Letter on Obedience of Loyola. ]

Loyola's book of Spiritual Exercises is well known. In these exercises
lies the hard and narrow path which is the only entrance to the Society
of Jesus. The book is, to all appearance, a dry and superstitious
formulary; but, in the hands of a skilful director of consciences,
it has proved of terrible efficacy. The novice, in solitude and darkness,
day after day and night after night, ponders its images of perdition and
despair. He is taught to hear, in imagination, the howlings of the
damned, to see their convulsive agonies, to feel the flames that burn
without consuming, to smell the corruption of the tomb and the fumes of
the infernal pit. He must picture to himself an array of adverse armies,
one commanded by Satan on the plains of Babylon, one encamped under
Christ about the walls of Jerusalem; and the perturbed mind, humbled by
long contemplation of its own vileness, is ordered to enroll itself under
one or the other banner. Then, the choice made, it is led to a region of
serenity and celestial peace, and soothed with images of divine benignity
and grace. These meditations last, without intermission, about a month,
and, under an astute and experienced directorship, they have been found
of such power, that the Manual of Spiritual Exercises boasts to have
saved souls more in number than the letters it contains.

To this succeed two years of discipline and preparation, directed,
above all things else, to perfecting the virtues of humility and
obedience. The novice is obliged to perform the lowest menial offices,
and the most repulsive duties of the sick-room and the hospital; and he
is sent forth, for weeks together, to beg his bread like a common
mendicant. He is required to reveal to his confessor, not only his sins,
but all those hidden tendencies, instincts, and impulses which form the
distinctive traits of character. He is set to watch his comrades,
and his comrades are set to watch him. Each must report what he observes
of the acts and dispositions of the others; and this mutual espionage
does not end with the novitiate, but extends to the close of life.
The characteristics of every member of the Order are minutely analyzed,
and methodically put on record.

This horrible violence to the noblest qualities of manhood, joined to
that equivocal system of morality which eminent casuists of the Order
have inculcated, must, it may be thought, produce deplorable effects upon
the characters of those under its influence. Whether this has been
actually the case, the reader of history may determine. It is certain,
however, that the Society of Jesus has numbered among its members men
whose fervent and exalted natures have been intensified, without being
abased, by the pressure to which they have been subjected.

It is not for nothing that the Society studies the character of its
members so intently, and by methods so startling. It not only uses its
knowledge to thrust into obscurity or cast out altogether those whom it
discovers to be dull, feeble, or unwilling instruments of its purposes,
but it assigns to every one the task to which his talents or his
disposition may best adapt him: to one, the care of a royal conscience,
whereby, unseen, his whispered word may guide the destiny of nations; to
another, the instruction of children; to another, a career of letters or
science; and to the fervent and the self-sacrificing, sometimes also to
the restless and uncompliant, the distant missions to the heathen.

The Jesuit was, and is, everywhere,--in the school-room, in the library,
in the cabinets of princes and ministers, in the huts of savages, in the
tropics, in the frozen North, in India, in China, in Japan, in Africa,
in America; now as a Christian priest, now as a soldier, a mathematician,
an astrologer, a Brahmin, a mandarin, under countless disguises, by a
thousand arts, luring, persuading, or compelling souls into the fold of
Rome.

Of this vast mechanism for guiding and governing the minds of men,
this mighty enginery for subduing the earth to the dominion of an idea,
this harmony of contradictions, this moral Proteus, the faintest sketch
must now suffice. A disquisition on the Society of Jesus would be
without end. No religious order has ever united in itself so much to be
admired and so much to be detested. Unmixed praise has been poured on
its Canadian members. It is not for me to eulogize them, but to portray
them as they were.

CHAPTER III.

1632, 1633.

PAUL LE JEUNE.

LE JEUNE'S VOYAGE.--HIS FIRST PUPILS.--HIS STUDIES.--
HIS INDIAN TEACHER.--WINTER AT THE MISSION-HOUSE.--
LE JEUNE'S SCHOOL.--REINFORCEMENTS.

In another narrative, we have seen how the Jesuits, supplanting the
Récollet friars, their predecessors, had adopted as their own the rugged
task of Christianizing New France. We have seen, too, how a descent of
the English, or rather of Huguenots fighting under English colors,
had overthrown for a time the miserable little colony, with the mission
to which it was wedded; and how Quebec was at length restored to France,
and the broken thread of the Jesuit enterprise resumed. [ "Pioneers of
France." ]

It was then that Le Jeune had embarked for the New World. He was in his
convent at Dieppe when he received the order to depart; and he set forth
in haste for Havre, filled, he assures us, with inexpressible joy at the
prospect of a living or a dying martyrdom. At Rouen he was joined by De
Nouë, with a lay brother named Gilbert; and the three sailed together on
the eighteenth of April, 1632. The sea treated them roughly; Le Jeune
was wretchedly sea-sick; and the ship nearly foundered in a gale.
At length they came in sight of "that miserable country," as the
missionary calls the scene of his future labors. It was in the harbor of
Tadoussac that he first encountered the objects of his apostolic cares;
for, as he sat in the ship's cabin with the master, it was suddenly
invaded by ten or twelve Indians, whom he compares to a party of maskers
at the Carnival. Some had their cheeks painted black, their noses blue,
and the rest of their faces red. Others were decorated with a broad band
of black across the eyes; and others, again, with diverging rays of black,
red, and blue on both cheeks. Their attire was no less uncouth. Some of
them wore shaggy bear skins, reminding the priest of the pictures of
St. John the Baptist.

After a vain attempt to save a number of Iroquois prisoners whom they
were preparing to burn alive on shore, Le Jeune and his companions again
set sail, and reached Quebec on the fifth of July. Having said mass,
as already mentioned, under the roof of Madame Hébert and her delighted
family, the Jesuits made their way to the two hovels built by their
predecessors on the St. Charles, which had suffered woful dilapidation at
the hands of the English. Here they made their abode, and applied
themselves, with such skill as they could command, to repair the
shattered tenements and cultivate the waste meadows around.

The beginning of Le Jeune's missionary labors was neither imposing nor
promising. He describes himself seated with a small Indian boy on one
side and a small negro on the other, the latter of whom had been left by
the English as a gift to Madame Hébert. As neither of the three
understood the language of the others, the pupils made little progress in
spiritual knowledge. The missionaries, it was clear, must learn
Algonquin at any cost; and, to this end, Le Jeune resolved to visit the
Indian encampments. Hearing that a band of Montagnais were fishing for
eels on the St. Lawrence, between Cape Diamond and the cove which now
bears the name of Wolfe, he set forth for the spot on a morning in
October. As, with toil and trepidation, he scrambled around the foot of
the cape,--whose precipices, with a chaos of loose rocks, thrust
themselves at that day into the deep tidewater,--he dragged down upon
himself the trunk of a fallen tree, which, in its descent, well nigh
swept him into the river. The peril past, he presently reached his
destination. Here, among the lodges of bark, were stretched innumerable
strings of hide, from which hung to dry an incredible multitude of eels.
A boy invited him into the lodge of a withered squaw, his grandmother,
who hastened to offer him four smoked eels on a piece of birch bark,
while other squaws of the household instructed him how to roast them on a
forked stick over the embers. All shared the feast together, his
entertainers using as napkins their own hair or that of their dogs; while
Le Jeune, intent on increasing his knowledge of Algonquin, maintained an
active discourse of broken words and pantomime. [ Le Jeune, Relation,
1633, 2. ]

The lesson, however, was too laborious, and of too little profit, to be
often repeated, and the missionary sought anxiously for more stable
instruction. To find such was not easy. The interpreters--Frenchmen,
who, in the interest of the fur company, had spent years among the
Indians--were averse to Jesuits, and refused their aid. There was one
resource, however, of which Le Jeune would fain avail himself. An Indian,
called Pierre by the French, had been carried to France by the Récollet
friars, instructed, converted, and baptized. He had lately returned to
Canada, where, to the scandal of the Jesuits, he had relapsed into his
old ways, retaining of his French education little besides a few new
vices. He still haunted the fort at Quebec, lured by the hope of an
occasional gift of wine or tobacco, but shunned the Jesuits, of whose
rigid way of life he stood in horror. As he spoke good French and good
Indian, he would have been invaluable to the embarrassed priests at the
mission. Le Jeune invoked the aid of the Saints. The effect of his
prayers soon appeared, he tells us, in a direct interposition of
Providence, which so disposed the heart of Pierre that he quarrelled with
the French commandant, who thereupon closed the fort against him.
He then repaired to his friends and relatives in the woods, but only to
encounter a rebuff from a young squaw to whom he made his addresses.
On this, he turned his steps towards the mission-house, and, being
unfitted by his French education for supporting himself by hunting,
begged food and shelter from the priests. Le Jeune gratefully accepted
him as a gift vouchsafed by Heaven to his prayers, persuaded a lackey at
the fort to give him a cast-off suit of clothes, promised him maintenance,
and installed him as his teacher.

Seated on wooden stools by the rough table in the refectory, the priest
and the Indian pursued their studies. "How thankful I am," writes Le
Jeune, "to those who gave me tobacco last year! At every difficulty I
give my master a piece of it, to make him more attentive."

[ Relation, 1633, 7. He continues: "Ie ne sçaurois assez rendre graces à
Nostre Seigneur de cet heureux rencontre. . . . Que Dieu soit beny pour
vn iamais, sa prouidence est adorable, et sa bonté n'a point de limites." ]

Meanwhile, winter closed in with a severity rare even in Canada. The
St. Lawrence and the St. Charles were hard frozen; rivers, forests,
and rocks were mantled alike in dazzling sheets of snow. The humble
mission-house of Notre-Dame des Anges was half buried in the drifts,
which, heaped up in front where a path had been dug through them, rose
two feet above the low eaves. The priests, sitting at night before the
blazing logs of their wide-throated chimney, heard the trees in the
neighboring forest cracking with frost, with a sound like the report of a
pistol. Le Jeune's ink froze, and his fingers were benumbed, as he
toiled at his declensions and conjugations, or translated the Pater
Noster into blundering Algonquin. The water in the cask beside the fire
froze nightly, and the ice was broken every morning with hatchets.
The blankets of the two priests were fringed with the icicles of their
congealed breath, and the frost lay in a thick coating on the lozenge-
shaped glass of their cells. [ Le Jeune, Relation, 1633, 14, 15. ]

By day, Le Jeune and his companion practised with snow-shoes, with all
the mishaps which attend beginners,--the trippings, the falls, and
headlong dives into the soft drifts, amid the laughter of the Indians.
Their seclusion was by no means a solitude. Bands of Montagnais, with
their sledges and dogs, often passed the mission-house on their way to
hunt the moose. They once invited De Nouë to go with them; and he,
scarcely less eager than Le Jeune to learn their language, readily
consented. In two or three weeks he appeared, sick, famished, and half
dead with exhaustion. "Not ten priests in a hundred," writes Le Jeune to
his Superior, "could bear this winter life with the savages." But what
of that? It was not for them to falter. They were but instruments in
the hands of God, to be used, broken, and thrown aside, if such should be
His will.

[ "Voila, mon Reuerend Pere, vn eschantillon de ce qu'il faut souffrir
courant apres les Sauuages. . . . Il faut prendre sa vie, et tout ce
qu'on a, et le ietter à l'abandon, pour ainsi dire, se contentant d'vne
croix bien grosse et bien pesante pour toute richesse. Il est bien vray
que Dieu ne se laisse point vaincre, et que plus on quitte, plus on
trouue: plus on perd, plus on gaigne: mais Dieu se cache par fois,
et alors le Calice est bien amer."--Le Jeune, Relation 1633, 19. ]

An Indian made Le Jeune a present of two small children, greatly to the
delight of the missionary, who at once set himself to teaching them to
pray in Latin. As the season grew milder, the number of his scholars
increased; for, when parties of Indians encamped in the neighborhood,
he would take his stand at the door, and, like Xavier at Goa, ring a
bell. At this, a score of children would gather around him; and he,
leading them into the refectory, which served as his school-room, taught
them to repeat after him the Pater, Aye, and Credo, expounded the mystery
of the Trinity, showed them the sign of the cross, and made them repeat
an Indian prayer, the joint composition of Pierre and himself; then
followed the catechism, the lesson closing with singing the Pater Noster,
translated by the missionary into Algonquin rhymes; and when all was over,
he rewarded each of his pupils with a porringer of peas, to insure their
attendance at his next bell-ringing.

[ "I'ay commencé à appeller quelques enfans auec vne petite clochette.
La premiere fois i'en auois six, puis douze, puis quinze, puis vingt et
davantage; ie leur fais dire le Pater, Aue, et Credo, etc. . . . .
Nous finissons par le Pater Noster, que i'ay composé quasi en rimes en
leur langue, que ie leur fais chanter: et pour derniere conclusion,
ie leur fais donner chacun vne escuellée de pois, qu'ils mangent de bon
appetit," etc.--Le Jeune, Relation, 1633, 23. ]

It was the end of May, when the priests one morning heard the sound of
cannon from the fort, and were gladdened by the tidings that Samuel de
Champlain had arrived to resume command at Quebec, bringing with him four
more Jesuits,--Brébeuf, Masse, Daniel, and Davost. [ See "Pioneers of
France." ] Brébeuf, from the first, turned his eyes towards the distant
land of the Hurons,--a field of labor full of peril, but rich in hope and
promise. Le Jeune's duties as Superior restrained him from wanderings so
remote. His apostleship must be limited, for a time, to the vagabond
hordes of Algonquins, who roamed the forests of the lower St. Lawrence,
and of whose language he had been so sedulous a student. His
difficulties had of late been increased by the absence of Pierre, who had
run off as Lent drew near, standing in dread of that season of fasting.
Masse brought tidings of him from Tadoussac, whither he had gone, and
where a party of English had given him liquor, destroying the last trace
of Le Jeune's late exhortations. "God forgive those," writes the Father,
"who introduced heresy into this country! If this savage, corrupted as
he is by these miserable heretics, had any wit, he would be a great
hindrance to the spread of the Faith. It is plain that he was given us,
not for the good of his soul, but only that we might extract from him the
principles of his language." [ Relation, 1633, 29. ]

Pierre had two brothers. One, well known as a hunter, was named
Mestigoit; the other was the most noted "medicine-man," or, as the
Jesuits called him, sorcerer, in the tribe of the Montagnais. Like the
rest of their people, they were accustomed to set out for their winter
hunt in the autumn, after the close of their eel-fishery. Le Jeune,
despite the experience of De Nouë, had long had a mind to accompany one
of these roving bands, partly in the hope, that, in some hour of distress,
he might touch their hearts, or, by a timely drop of baptismal water,
dismiss some dying child to paradise, but chiefly with the object of
mastering their language. Pierre had rejoined his brothers; and, as the
hunting season drew near, they all begged the missionary to make one of
their party,--not, as he thought, out of any love for him, but solely
with a view to the provisions with which they doubted not he would be
well supplied. Le Jeune, distrustful of the sorcerer, demurred, but at
length resolved to go.

CHAPTER IV.

1633, 1634.

LE JEUNE AND THE HUNTERS.

LE JEUNE JOINS THE INDIANS.--THE FIRST ENCAMPMENT.--THE APOSTATE.--
FOREST LIFE IN WINTER.--THE INDIAN HUT.--THE SORCERER.--
HIS PERSECUTION OF THE PRIEST.--EVIL COMPANY.--MAGIC.--
INCANTATIONS.--CHRISTMAS.--STARVATION.--HOPES OF CONVERSION.--
BACKSLIDING.--PERIL AND ESCAPE OF LE JEUNE.--HIS RETURN.

On a morning in the latter part of October, Le Jeune embarked with the
Indians, twenty in all, men, women, and children. No other Frenchman was
of the party. Champlain bade him an anxious farewell, and commended him
to the care of his red associates, who had taken charge of his store of
biscuit, flour, corn, prunes, and turnips, to which, in an evil hour,
his friends had persuaded him to add a small keg of wine. The canoes
glided along the wooded shore of the Island of Orleans, and the party
landed, towards evening, on the small island immediately below. Le Jeune
was delighted with the spot, and the wild beauties of the autumnal sunset.

His reflections, however, were soon interrupted. While the squaws were
setting up their bark lodges, and Mestigoit was shooting wild-fowl for
supper, Pierre returned to the canoes, tapped the keg of wine, and soon
fell into the mud, helplessly drunk. Revived by the immersion, he next
appeared at the camp, foaming at the mouth, threw down the lodges,
overset the kettle, and chased the shrieking squaws into the woods.
His brother Mestigoit rekindled the fire, and slung the kettle anew; when
Pierre, who meanwhile had been raving like a madman along the shore,
reeled in a fury to the spot to repeat his former exploit. Mestigoit
anticipated him, snatched the kettle from the fire, and threw the
scalding contents in his face. "He was never so well washed before in
his life," says Le Jeune; "he lost all the skin of his face and breast.
Would to God his heart had changed also!" [ 1 ] He roared in his frenzy
for a hatchet to kill the missionary, who therefore thought it prudent to
spend the night in the neighboring woods. Here he stretched himself on
the earth, while a charitable squaw covered him with a sheet of
birch-bark. "Though my bed," he writes, "had not been made up since the
creation of the world, it was not hard enough to prevent me from
sleeping."

[ "Iamais il ne fut si bien laué, il changea de peau en la face et en
tout l'estomach: pleust à Dieu que son ame eust changé aussi bien que son
corps!"--Relation, 1634, 59. ]

Such was his initiation into Indian winter life. Passing over numerous
adventures by water and land, we find the party, on the twelfth of
November, leaving their canoes on an island, and wading ashore at low
tide over the flats to the southern bank of the St. Lawrence. As two
other bands had joined them, their number was increased to forty-five
persons. Now, leaving the river behind, they entered those savage
highlands whence issue the springs of the St. John,--a wilderness of
rugged mountain-ranges, clad in dense, continuous forests, with no human
tenant but this troop of miserable rovers, and here and there some
kindred band, as miserable as they. Winter had set in, and already dead
Nature was sheeted in funereal white. Lakes and ponds were frozen,
rivulets sealed up, torrents encased with stalactites of ice; the black
rocks and the black trunks of the pine-trees were beplastered with snow,
and its heavy masses crushed the dull green boughs into the drifts
beneath. The forest was silent as the grave.

Through this desolation the long file of Indians made its way, all on
snow-shoes, each man, woman, and child bending under a heavy load,
or dragging a sledge, narrow, but of prodigious length. They carried
their whole wealth with them, on their backs or on their sledges,--
kettles, axes, hides of meat, if such they had, and huge rolls of
birch-bark for covering their wigwams. The Jesuit was loaded like the
rest. The dogs alone floundered through the drifts unburdened. There
was neither path nor level ground. Descending, climbing, stooping
beneath half-fallen trees, clambering over piles of prostrate trunks,
struggling through matted cedar-swamps, threading chill ravines, and
crossing streams no longer visible, they toiled on till the day began to
decline, then stopped to encamp. [ 1 ] Burdens were thrown down, and
sledges unladen. The squaws, with knives and hatchets, cut long poles of
birch and spruce saplings; while the men, with snow-shoes for shovels,
cleared a round or square space in the snow, which formed an upright wall
three or four feet high, inclosing the area of the wigwam. On one side,
a passage was cut for an entrance, and the poles were planted around the
top of the wall of snow, sloping and converging. On these poles were
spread the sheets of birch-bark; a bear-skin was hung in the passage-way
for a door; the bare ground within and the surrounding snow were covered
with spruce boughs; and the work was done.

[ 1 "S'il arriuoit quelque dégel, ô Dieu quelle peine! Il me sembloit
que ie marchois sur vn chemin de verre qui se cassoit à tous coups soubs
mes pieds: la neige congelée venant à s'amollir, tomboit et s'enfonçoit
par esquarres ou grandes pieces, et nous en auions bien souuent iusques
aux genoux, quelquefois iusqu'à la ceinture. Que s'il y auoit de la
peine à tomber, il y en auoit encor plus à se retirer: car nos raquettes
se chargeoient de neiges et se rendoient si pesantes, que quand vous
veniez à les retirer il vous sembloit qu'on vous tiroit les iambes pour
vous démembrer. I'en ay veu qui glissoient tellement soubs des souches
enseuelies soubs la neige, qu'ils ne pouuoient tirer ny iambes ny
raquettes sans secours: or figurez vous maintenant vne personne chargée
comme vn mulet, et iugez si la vie des Sauuages est douce."--Relation,
1634, 67. ]

This usually occupied about three hours, during which Le Jeune, spent
with travel, and weakened by precarious and unaccustomed fare, had the
choice of shivering in idleness, or taking part in a labor which fatigued,
without warming, his exhausted frame. The sorcerer's wife was in far
worse case. Though in the extremity of a mortal sickness, they left her
lying in the snow till the wigwam was made,--without a word, on her part,
of remonstrance or complaint. Le Jeune, to the great ire of her husband,
sometimes spent the interval in trying to convert her; but she proved
intractable, and soon died unbaptized.

Thus lodged, they remained so long as game could be found within a
circuit of ten or twelve miles, and then, subsistence failing, removed to
another spot. Early in the winter, they hunted the beaver and the Canada
porcupine; and, later, in the season of deep snows, chased the moose and
the caribou.

Put aside the bear-skin, and enter the hut. Here, in a space some
thirteen feet square, were packed nineteen savages, men, women, and
children, with their dogs, crouched, squatted, coiled like hedgehogs,
or lying on their backs, with knees drawn up perpendicularly to keep
their feet out of the fire. Le Jeune, always methodical, arranges the
grievances inseparable from these rough quarters under four chief
heads,--Cold, Heat, Smoke, and Dogs. The bark covering was full of
crevices, through which the icy blasts streamed in upon him from all
sides; and the hole above, at once window and chimney, was so large, that,
as he lay, he could watch the stars as well as in the open air. While
the fire in the midst, fed with fat pine-knots, scorched him on one side,
on the other he had much ado to keep himself from freezing. At times,
however, the crowded hut seemed heated to the temperature of an oven.
But these evils were light, when compared to the intolerable plague of
smoke. During a snow-storm, and often at other times, the wigwam was
filled with fumes so dense, stifling, and acrid, that all its inmates
were forced to lie flat on their faces, breathing through mouths in
contact with the cold earth. Their throats and nostrils felt as if on
fire; their scorched eyes streamed with tears; and when Le Jeune tried to
read, the letters of his breviary seemed printed in blood. The dogs were
not an unmixed evil, for, by sleeping on and around him, they kept him
warm at night; but, as an offset to this good service, they walked, ran,
and jumped over him as he lay, snatched the food from his birchen dish,
or, in a mad rush at some bone or discarded morsel, now and then overset
both dish and missionary.

Sometimes of an evening he would leave the filthy den, to read his
breviary in peace by the light of the moon. In the forest around sounded
the sharp crack of frost-riven trees; and from the horizon to the zenith
shot up the silent meteors of the northern lights, in whose fitful
flashings the awe-struck Indians beheld the dancing of the spirits of the
dead. The cold gnawed him to the bone; and, his devotions over, he
turned back shivering. The illumined hut, from many a chink and crevice,
shot forth into the gloom long streams of light athwart the twisted
boughs. He stooped and entered. All within glowed red and fiery around
the blazing pine-knots where, like brutes in their kennel, were gathered
the savage crew. He stepped to his place, over recumbent bodies and
leggined and moccasined limbs, and seated himself on the carpet of spruce
boughs. Here a tribulation awaited him, the crowning misery of his
winter-quarters,--worse, as he declares, than cold, heat, and dogs.

Of the three brothers who had invited him to join the party, one, we have
seen, was the hunter, Mestigoit; another, the sorcerer; and the third,
Pierre, whom, by reason of his falling away from the Faith, Le Jeune
always mentions as the Apostate. He was a weak-minded young Indian,
wholly under the influence of his brother, the sorcerer, who, if not more
vicious, was far more resolute and wily. From the antagonism of their
respective professions, the sorcerer hated the priest, who lost no
opportunity of denouncing his incantations, and who ridiculed his
perpetual singing and drumming as puerility and folly. The former,
being an indifferent hunter, and disabled by a disease which he had
contracted, depended for subsistence on his credit as a magician; and,
in undermining it, Le Jeune not only outraged his pride, but threatened
his daily bread. [ 1 ] He used every device to retort ridicule on his
rival. At the outset, he had proffered his aid to Le Jeune in his study
of the Algonquin; and, like the Indian practical jokers of Acadia in the
case of Father Biard, [ See "Pioneers of France," 268. ] palmed off upon
him the foulest words in the language as the equivalent of things
spiritual. Thus it happened, that, while the missionary sought to
explain to the assembled wigwam some point of Christian doctrine, he was
interrupted by peals of laughter from men, children, and squaws. And now,
as Le Jeune took his place in the circle, the sorcerer bent upon him his
malignant eyes, and began that course of rude bantering which filled to
overflowing the cup of the Jesuit's woes. All took their cue from him,
and made their afflicted guest the butt of their inane witticisms.
"Look at him! His face is like a dog's!"--"His head is like a pumpkin!"--
"He has a beard like a rabbit's!" The missionary bore in silence these
and countless similar attacks; indeed, so sorely was he harassed, that,
lest he should exasperate his tormentor, he sometimes passed whole days
without uttering a word. [ 2 ]

[ 1 "Ie ne laissois perdre aucune occasion de le conuaincre de niaiserie
et de puerilité, mettant au iour l'impertinence de ses superstitions: or
c'estoit luy arracher l'ame du corps par violence: car comme il ne
sçauroit plus chasser, il fait plus que iamais du Prophete et du Magicien
pour conseruer son credit, et pour auoir les bons morceaux; si bien
qu'esbranlant son authorité qui se va perdant tous les iours, ie le
touchois à la prunelle de l'il."--Relation, 1634, 56. ]

[ 2 Relation, 1634, 207 (Cramoisy). "Ils me chargeoient incessament de
mille brocards & de mille injures; je me suis veu en tel estat, que pour
ne les aigrir, je passois les jours entiers sans ouvrir la bouche."
Here follows the abuse, in the original Indian, with French translations.
Le Jeune's account of his experiences is singularly graphic. The
following is his summary of his annoyances:--

"Or ce miserable homme" (the sorcerer), "& la fumée m'ont esté les deux
plus grands tourmens que i'aye enduré parmy ces Barbares: ny le froid,
ny le chaud, ny l'incommodité des chiens, ny coucher à l'air, ny dormir
sur un lict de terre, ny la posture qu'il faut tousiours tenir dans leurs
cabanes, se ramassans en peloton, ou se couchans, ou s'asseans sans siege
& sans mattelas, ny la faim, ny la soif, ny la pauureté & saleté de leur
boucan, ny la maladie, tout cela ne m'a semblé que ieu à comparaison de
la fumée & de la malice du Sorcier."--Relation, 1634, 201 (Cramoisy). ]

Le Jeune, a man of excellent observation, already knew his red associates
well enough to understand that their rudeness did not of necessity imply
ill-will. The rest of the party, in their turn fared no better. They
rallied and bantered each other incessantly, with as little forbearance,
and as little malice, as a troop of unbridled schoolboys. [ 1 ] No one
took offence. To have done so would have been to bring upon one's self
genuine contumely. This motley household was a model of harmony.
True, they showed no tenderness or consideration towards the sick and
disabled; but for the rest, each shared with all in weal or woe: the
famine of one was the famine of the whole, and the smallest portion of
food was distributed in fair and equal partition. Upbraidings and
complaints were unheard; they bore each other's foibles with wondrous
equanimity; and while persecuting Le Jeune with constant importunity for
tobacco, and for everything else he had, they never begged among
themselves.

[ 1 "Leur vie se passe à manger, à ire, et à railler les vns des autres,
et de tous les peuples qu'ils cognoissent; ils n'ont rien de serieux,
sinon par fois l'exterieur, faisans parmy nous les graues et les retenus,
mais entr'eux sont de vrais badins, de vrais enfans, qui ne demandent
qu'à rire."--Relation, 1634, 30. ]

When the fire burned well and food was abundant, their conversation,
such as it was, was incessant. They used no oaths, for their language
supplied none,--doubtless because their mythology had no beings
sufficiently distinct to swear by. Their expletives were foul words,
of which they had a superabundance, and which men, women, and children
alike used with a frequency and hardihood that amazed and scandalized the
priest. [ 1 ] Nor was he better pleased with their postures, in which
they consulted nothing but their ease. Thus, of an evening when the
wigwam was heated to suffocation, the sorcerer, in the closest possible
approach to nudity, lay on his back, with his right knee planted upright
and his left leg crossed on it, discoursing volubly to the company, who,
on their part, listened in postures scarcely less remote from decency.

[ 1 "Aussi leur disois-je par fois, que si les pourceaux et les chiens
sçauoient parler, ils tiendroient leur langage. . . . Les filles et les
ieunes femmes sont à l'exterieur tres honnestement couuertes, mais entre
elles leurs discours sont puants, comme des cloaques."--Relation, 1634,
32.--The social manners of remote tribes of the present time correspond
perfectly with Le Jeune's account of those of the Montagnais. ]

There was one point touching which Le Jeune and his Jesuit brethren had
as yet been unable to solve their doubts. Were the Indian sorcerers mere
impostors, or were they in actual league with the Devil? That the fiends
who possess this land of darkness make their power felt by action direct
and potential upon the persons of its wretched inhabitants there is,
argues Le Jeune, good reason to conclude; since it is a matter of grave
notoriety, that the fiends who infest Brazil are accustomed cruelly to
beat and otherwise torment the natives of that country, as many
travellers attest. "A Frenchman worthy of credit," pursues the Father,
"has told me that he has heard with his own ears the voice of the Demon
and the sound of the blows which he discharges upon these his miserable
slaves; and in reference to this a very remarkable fact has been reported
to me, namely, that, when a Catholic approaches, the Devil takes flight
and beats these wretches no longer, but that in presence of a Huguenot he
does not stop beating them."

[ "Surquoy on me rapporte vne chose tres remarquable, c'est que le Diable
s'enfuit, et ne frappe point ou cesse de frapper ces miserables, quand vn
Catholique entre en leur compagnie, et qu'il ne laisse point de les battre
en la presence d'vn Huguenot: d'où vient qu'vn iour se voyans battus en
la compagnie d'vn certain François, ils luy dirent: Nous nous estonnons
qua le diable nous batte, toy estant auec nous, veu qu'il n'oseroit le
faire quand tes compagnons sont presents. Luy se douta incontinent que
cela pouuoit prouenir de sa religion (car il estoit Caluiniste);
s'addressant donc à Dieu, il luy promit de se faire Catholique si le
diable cessoit de battre ces pauures peuples en sa presence. Le vu fait,
iamais plus aucun Demon ne molesta Ameriquain en sa compagnie, d'où vient
qu'il se fit Catholique, selon la promesse qu'il en auoit faicte.
Mais retournons à nostre discours."--Relation, 1634, 22. ]

Thus prone to believe in the immediate presence of the nether powers,
Le Jeune watched the sorcerer with an eye prepared to discover in his
conjurations the signs of a genuine diabolic agency. His observations,
however, led him to a different result; and he could detect in his rival
nothing but a vile compound of impostor and dupe. The sorcerer believed
in the efficacy of his own magic, and was continually singing and beating
his drum to cure the disease from which he was suffering. Towards the
close of the winter, Le Jeune fell sick, and, in his pain and weakness,
nearly succumbed under the nocturnal uproar of the sorcerer, who, hour
after hour, sang and drummed without mercy,--sometimes yelling at the top
of his throat, then hissing like a serpent, then striking his drum on the
ground as if in a frenzy, then leaping up, raving about the wigwam,
and calling on the women and children to join him in singing. Now ensued
a hideous din; for every throat was strained to the utmost, and all were
beating with sticks or fists on the bark of the hut to increase the noise,
with the charitable object of aiding the sorcerer to conjure down his
malady, or drive away the evil spirit that caused it.

He had an enemy, a rival sorcerer, whom he charged with having caused by
charms the disease that afflicted him. He therefore announced that he
should kill him. As the rival dwelt at Gaspé, a hundred leagues off,
the present execution of the threat might appear difficult; but distance
was no bar to the vengeance of the sorcerer. Ordering all the children
and all but one of the women to leave the wigwam, he seated himself,
with the woman who remained, on the ground in the centre, while the men
of the party, together with those from other wigwams in the neighborhood,
sat in a ring around. Mestigoit, the sorcerer's brother, then brought in
the charm, consisting of a few small pieces of wood, some arrow-heads,
a broken knife, and an iron hook, which he wrapped in a piece of hide.
The woman next rose, and walked around the hut, behind the company.
Mestigoit and the sorcerer now dug a large hole with two pointed stakes,
the whole assembly singing, drumming, and howling meanwhile with a
deafening uproar. The hole made, the charm, wrapped in the hide, was
thrown into it. Pierre, the Apostate, then brought a sword and a knife
to the sorcerer, who, seizing them, leaped into the hole, and, with
furious gesticulation, hacked and stabbed at the charm, yelling with the
whole force of his lungs. At length he ceased, displayed the knife and
sword stained with blood, proclaimed that he had mortally wounded his
enemy, and demanded if none present had heard his death-cry. The
assembly, more occupied in making noises than in listening for them,
gave no reply, till at length two young men declared that they had heard
a faint scream, as if from a great distance; whereat a shout of
gratulation and triumph rose from all the company.

[ "Le magicien tout glorieux dit que son homme est frappé, qu'il mourra
bien tost, demande si on n'a point entendu ses cris: tout le monde dit
que non, horsmis deux ieunes hommes ses parens, qui disent auoir ouy des
plaintes fort sourdes, et comme de loing. O qu'ils le firent aise!
Se tournant vers moy, il se mit à rire, disant: Voyez cette robe noire,
qui nous vient dire qu'il ne faut tuer personne. Comme ie regardois
attentiuement l'espée et le poignard, il me les fit presenter: Regarde,
dit-il, qu'est cela? C'est du sang, repartis-ie. De qui? De quelque
Orignac ou d'autre animal. Ils se mocquerent de moy, disants que
c'estoit du sang de ce Sorcier de Gaspé. Comment, dis-je, il est à plus
de cent lieuës d'icy? Il est vray, font-ils, mais c'est le Manitou,
c'est à dire le Diable, qui apporte son sang pardessous la terre."--
Relation, 1634, 21. ]

There was a young prophet, or diviner, in one of the neighboring huts,
of whom the sorcerer took counsel as to the prospect of his restoration
to health. The divining-lodge was formed, in this instance, of five or
six upright posts planted in a circle and covered with a blanket.
The prophet ensconced himself within; and after a long interval of
singing, the spirits declared their presence by their usual squeaking
utterances from the recesses of the mystic tabernacle. Their responses
were not unfavorable; and the sorcerer drew much consolation from the
invocations of his brother impostor. [ See Introduction. Also,
"Pioneers of France," 315. ]

Besides his incessant endeavors to annoy Le Jeune, the sorcerer now and
then tried to frighten him. On one occasion, when a period of starvation
had been followed by a successful hunt, the whole party assembled for one
of the gluttonous feasts usual with them at such times. While the guests
sat expectant, and the squaws were about to ladle out the banquet,
the sorcerer suddenly leaped up, exclaiming, that he had lost his senses,
and that knives and hatchets must be kept out of his way, as he had a
mind to kill somebody. Then, rolling his eyes towards Le Jeune, he began
a series of frantic gestures and outcries,--then stopped abruptly and
stared into vacancy, silent and motionless,--then resumed his former
clamor, raged in and out of the hut, and, seizing some of its supporting
poles, broke them, as if in an uncontrollable frenzy. The missionary,
though alarmed, sat reading his breviary as before. When, however,
on the next morning, the sorcerer began again to play the maniac, the
thought occurred to him, that some stroke of fever might in truth have
touched his brain. Accordingly, he approached him and felt his pulse,
which he found, in his own words, "as cool as a fish." The pretended
madman looked at him with astonishment, and, giving over the attempt to
frighten him, presently returned to his senses.

[ The Indians, it is well known, ascribe mysterious and supernatural
powers to the insane, and respect them accordingly. The Neutral Nation
(see Introduction, "The Huron-Iroquois Family" (p. xliv)) was full of
pretended madmen, who raved about the villages, throwing firebrands,
and making other displays of frenzy. ]

Le Jeune, robbed of his sleep by the ceaseless thumping of the sorcerer's
drum and the monotonous cadence of his medicine-songs, improved the time
in attempts to convert him. "I began," he says, "by evincing a great
love for him, and by praises, which I threw to him as a bait whereby I
might catch him in the net of truth." [ 1 ] But the Indian, though
pleased with the Father's flatteries, was neither caught nor conciliated.

[ "Ie commençay par vn témoignage de grand amour en son endroit, et par
des loüanges que ie luy iettay comme vne amorce pour le prendre dans les
filets de la verité. Ie luy fis entendre que si vn esprit, capable des
choses grandes comme le sien, cognoissoit Dieu, que tous les Sauuages
induis par son exemple le voudroient aussi cognoistre."--Relation, 1634,
71. ]

Nowhere was his magic in more requisition than in procuring a successful
chase to the hunters,--a point of vital interest, since on it hung the
lives of the whole party. They often, however, returned empty-handed;
and, for one, two, or three successive days, no other food could be had
than the bark of trees or scraps of leather. So long as tobacco lasted,
they found solace in their pipes, which seldom left their lips. "Unhappy
infidels," writes Le Jeune, "who spend their lives in smoke, and their
eternity in flames!"

As Christmas approached, their condition grew desperate. Beavers and
porcupines were scarce, and the snow was not deep enough for hunting the
moose. Night and day the medicine-drums and medicine-songs resounded
from the wigwams, mingled with the wail of starving children. The
hunters grew weak and emaciated; and, as after a forlorn march the
wanderers encamped once more in the lifeless forest, the priest
remembered that it was the eve of Christmas. "The Lord gave us for our
supper a porcupine, large as a sucking pig, and also a rabbit. It was
not much, it is true, for eighteen or nineteen persons; but the Holy
Virgin and St. Joseph, her glorious spouse, were not so well treated,
on this very day, in the stable of Bethlehem."

[ "Pour nostre souper, N. S. nous donna vn Porc-espic gros comme vn
cochon de lait, et vn liéure; c'estoit peu pour dix-huit ou vingt
personnes que nous estions, il est vray, mais la saincte Vierge et son
glorieux Espoux sainct Ioseph ne furent pas si bien traictez à mesme iour
dans l'estable de Bethleem."--Relation, 1634, 74. ]

On Christmas Day, the despairing hunters, again unsuccessful, came to
pray succor from Le Jeune. Even the Apostate had become tractable,
and the famished sorcerer was ready to try the efficacy of an appeal to
the deity of his rival. A bright hope possessed the missionary. He
composed two prayers, which, with the aid of the repentant Pierre,
he translated into Algonquin. Then he hung against the side of the hut a
napkin which he had brought with him, and against the napkin a crucifix
and a reliquary, and, this done, caused all the Indians to kneel before
them, with hands raised and clasped. He now read one of the prayers,
and required the Indians to repeat the other after him, promising to
renounce their superstitions, and obey Christ, whose image they saw
before them, if he would give them food and save them from perishing.
The pledge given, he dismissed the hunters with a benediction. At night
they returned with game enough to relieve the immediate necessity.
All was hilarity. The kettles were slung, and the feasters assembled.
Le Jeune rose to speak, when Pierre, who, having killed nothing, was in
ill humor, said, with a laugh, that the crucifix and the prayer had
nothing to do with their good luck; while the sorcerer, his jealousy
reviving as he saw his hunger about to be appeased, called out to the
missionary, "Hold your tongue! You have no sense!" As usual, all took
their cue from him. They fell to their repast with ravenous jubilation,
and the disappointed priest sat dejected and silent.

Repeatedly, before the spring, they were thus threatened with starvation.
Nor was their case exceptional. It was the ordinary winter life of all
those Northern tribes who did not till the soil, but lived by hunting and
fishing alone. The desertion or the killing of the aged, sick, and
disabled, occasional cannibalism, and frequent death from famine, were
natural incidents of an existence which, during half the year, was but a
desperate pursuit of the mere necessaries of life under the worst
conditions of hardship, suffering, and debasement.

At the beginning of April, after roaming for five months among forests
and mountains, the party made their last march, regained the bank of the
St. Lawrence, and waded to the island where they had hidden their canoes.
Le Jeune was exhausted and sick, and Mestigoit offered to carry him in
his canoe to Quebec. This Indian was by far the best of the three
brothers, and both Pierre and the sorcerer looked to him for support.
He was strong, active, and daring, a skilful hunter, and a dexterous
canoeman. Le Jeune gladly accepted his offer; embarked with him and
Pierre on the dreary and tempestuous river; and, after a voyage full of
hardship, during which the canoe narrowly escaped being ground to atoms
among the floating ice, landed on the Island of Orleans, six miles from
Quebec. The afternoon was stormy and dark, and the river was covered
with ice, sweeping by with the tide. They were forced to encamp.
At midnight, the moon had risen, the river was comparatively unencumbered,
and they embarked once more. The wind increased, and the waves tossed
furiously. Nothing saved them but the skill and courage of Mestigoit.
At length they could see the rock of Quebec towering through the gloom,
but piles of ice lined the shore, while floating masses were drifting
down on the angry current. The Indian watched his moment, shot his canoe
through them, gained the fixed ice, leaped out, and shouted to his
companions to follow. Pierre scrambled up, but the ice was six feet out
of the water, and Le Jeune's agility failed him. He saved himself by
clutching the ankle of Mestigoit, by whose aid he gained a firm foothold
at the top, and, for a moment, the three voyagers, aghast at the
narrowness of their escape, stood gazing at each other in silence.

It was three o'clock in the morning when Le Jeune knocked at the door of
his rude little convent on the St. Charles; and the Fathers, springing in
joyful haste from their slumbers, embraced their long absent Superior
with ejaculations of praise and benediction.

CHAPTER V.

1633, 1634.

THE HURON MISSION.

PLANS OF CONVERSION.--AIMS AND MOTIVES.--INDIAN DIPLOMACY.--
HURONS AT QUEBEC.--COUNCILS.--THE JESUIT CHAPEL.--LE BORGNE.--
THE JESUITS THWARTED.--THEIR PERSEVERANCE.--THE JOURNEY TO THE HURONS.--
JEAN DE BRÉBEUF.--THE MISSION BEGUN.

Le Jeune had learned the difficulties of the Algonquin mission. To
imagine that he recoiled or faltered would be an injustice to his Order;
but on two points he had gained convictions: first, that little progress
could be made in converting these wandering hordes till they could be
settled in fixed abodes; and, secondly, that their scanty numbers,
their geographical position, and their slight influence in the politics
of the wilderness offered no flattering promise that their conversion
would be fruitful in further triumphs of the Faith. It was to another
quarter that the Jesuits looked most earnestly. By the vast lakes of the
West dwelt numerous stationary populations, and particularly the Hurons,
on the lake which bears their name. Here was a hopeful basis of
indefinite conquests; for, the Hurons won over, the Faith would spread in
wider and wider circles, embracing, one by one, the kindred tribes,--the
Tobacco Nation, the Neutrals, the Eries, and the Andastes. Nay, in His
own time, God might lead into His fold even the potent and ferocious
Iroquois.

The way was pathless and long, by rock and torrent and the gloom of
savage forests. The goal was more dreary yet. Toil, hardship, famine,
filth, sickness, solitude, insult,--all that is most revolting to men
nurtured among arts and letters, all that is most terrific to monastic
credulity: such were the promise and the reality of the Huron mission.
In the eyes of the Jesuits, the Huron country was the innermost
stronghold of Satan, his castle and his donjon-keep. [ "Une des
principales forteresses & comme un donjon des Demons."--Lalemant,
Relation des Hurons, 1639, 100 (Cramoisy). ] All the weapons of his
malice were prepared against the bold invader who should assail him in
this, the heart of his ancient domain. Far from shrinking, the priest's
zeal rose to tenfold ardor. He signed the cross, invoked St. Ignatius,
St. Francis Xavier, or St. Francis Borgia, kissed his reliquary, said
nine masses to the Virgin, and stood prompt to battle with all the hosts
of Hell.

A life sequestered from social intercourse, and remote from every prize
which ambition holds worth the pursuit, or a lonely death, under forms,
perhaps, the most appalling,--these were the missionaries' alternatives.
Their maligners may taunt them, if they will, with credulity,
superstition, or a blind enthusiasm; but slander itself cannot accuse
them of hypocrisy or ambition. Doubtless, in their propagandism, they
were acting in concurrence with a mundane policy; but, for the present at
least, this policy was rational and humane. They were promoting the ends
of commerce and national expansion. The foundations of French dominion
were to be laid deep in the heart and conscience of the savage. His
stubborn neck was to be subdued to the "yoke of the Faith." The power of
the priest established, that of the temporal ruler was secure. These
sanguinary hordes, weaned from intestine strife, were to unite in a
common allegiance to God and the King. Mingled with French traders and
French settlers, softened by French manners, guided by French priests,
ruled by French officers, their now divided bands would become the
constituents of a vast wilderness empire, which in time might span the
continent. Spanish civilization crushed the Indian; English civilization
scorned and neglected him; French civilization embraced and cherished him.

Policy and commerce, then, built their hopes on the priests. These
commissioned interpreters of the Divine Will, accredited with letters
patent from Heaven, and affiliated to God's anointed on earth, would have
pushed to its most unqualified application the Scripture metaphor of the
shepherd and the sheep. They would have tamed the wild man of the woods
to a condition of obedience, unquestioning, passive, and absolute,--
repugnant to manhood, and adverse to the invigorating and expansive
spirit of modern civilization. Yet, full of error and full of danger as
was their system, they embraced its serene and smiling falsehoods with
the sincerity of martyrs and the self-devotion of saints.

We have spoken already of the Hurons, of their populous villages on the
borders of the great "Fresh Sea," their trade, their rude agriculture,
their social life, their wild and incongruous superstitions, and the
sorcerers, diviners, and medicine-men who lived on their credulity.
[ See Introduction. ] Iroquois hostility left open but one avenue to
their country, the long and circuitous route which, eighteen years before,
had been explored by Champlain, [ "Pioneers of France," 364. ]--up the
river Ottawa, across Lake Nipissing, down French River, and along the
shores of the great Georgian Bay of Lake Huron,--a route as difficult as
it was tedious. Midway, on Allumette Island, in the Ottawa, dwelt the
Algonquin tribe visited by Champlain in 1613, and who, amazed at the
apparition of the white stranger, thought that he had fallen from the
clouds. [ "Pioneers of France," 348. ] Like other tribes of this region,
they were keen traders, and would gladly have secured for themselves the
benefits of an intermediate traffic between the Hurons and the French,
receiving the furs of the former in barter at a low rate, and exchanging
them with the latter at their full value. From their position, they
could at any time close the passage of the Ottawa; but, as this would
have been a perilous exercise of their rights, [ 1 ] they were forced to
act with discretion. An opportunity for the practice of their diplomacy
had lately occurred. On or near the Ottawa, at some distance below them,
dwelt a small Algonquin tribe, called _La Petite Nation_. One of this
people had lately killed a Frenchman, and the murderer was now in the
hands of Champlain, a prisoner at the fort of Quebec. The savage
politicians of Allumette Island contrived, as will soon be seen, to turn
this incident to profit.

[ 1 Nevertheless, the Hurons always passed this way as a matter of favor,
and gave yearly presents to the Algonquins of the island, in
acknowledgment of the privilege--Le Jeune, Relation, 1636, 70.--By the
unwritten laws of the Hurons and Algonquins, every tribe had the right,
even in full peace, of prohibiting the passage of every other tribe
across its territory. In ordinary cases, such prohibitions were quietly
submitted to.

"Ces Insulaires voudraient bien que les Hurons ne vinssent point aux
François & que les François n'allassent point aux Hurons, afin d'emporter
eux seuls tout le trafic," etc.--Relation, 1633, 205 (Cramoisy),--
"desirans eux-mesmes aller recueiller les marchandises des peuples
circonvoisins pour les apporter aux François." This "Nation de l'Isle"
has been erroneously located at Montreal. Its true position is indicated
on the map of Du Creux, and on an ancient MS. map in the Dépôt des Cartes,
of which a fac-simile is before me. See also "Pioneers of France," 347. ]

In the July that preceded Le Jeune's wintering with the Montagnais,
a Huron Indian, well known to the French, came to Quebec with the tidings,
that the annual canoe-fleet of his countrymen was descending the
St. Lawrence. On the twenty-eighth, the river was alive with them.
A hundred and forty canoes, with six or seven hundred savages, landed at
the warehouses beneath the fortified rock of Quebec, and set up their
huts and camp-sheds on the strand now covered by the lower town.
The greater number brought furs and tobacco for the trade; others came
as sight-seers; others to gamble, and others to steal, [ 1 ]
--accomplishments in which the Hurons were proficient: their gambling
skill being exercised chiefly against each other, and their thieving
talents against those of other nations.

[ 1 "Quelques vns d'entre eux ne viennent à la traite auec les François
que pour iouër, d'autres pour voir, quelques vns pour dérober, et les
plus sages et les plus riches pour trafiquer."--Le Jeune, Relation, 1633,
34. ]

The routine of these annual visits was nearly uniform. On the first day,
the Indians built their huts; on the second, they held their council with
the French officers at the fort; on the third and fourth, they bartered
their furs and tobacco for kettles, hatchets, knives, cloth, beads,
iron arrow-heads, coats, shirts, and other commodities; on the fifth,
they were feasted by the French; and at daybreak of the next morning,
they embarked and vanished like a flight of birds.

[ "Comme une volée d'oiseaux."--Le Jeune, Relation, 1633, 190 (Cramoisy).
--The tobacco brought to the French by the Hurons may have been raised by
the adjacent tribe of the Tionnontates, who cultivated it largely for
sale. See Introduction. ]

On the second day, then, the long file of chiefs and warriors mounted the
pathway to the fort,--tall, well-moulded figures, robed in the skins of
the beaver and the bear, each wild visage glowing with paint and
glistening with the oil which the Hurons extracted from the seeds of the
sunflower. The lank black hair of one streamed loose upon his shoulders;
that of another was close shaven, except an upright ridge, which,
bristling like the crest of a dragoon's helmet, crossed the crown from
the forehead to the neck; while that of a third hung, long and flowing
from one side, but on the other was cut short. Sixty chiefs and
principal men, with a crowd of younger warriors, formed their council-
circle in the fort, those of each village grouped together, and all
seated on the ground with a gravity of bearing sufficiently curious to
those who had seen the same men in the domestic circle of their
lodge-fires. Here, too, were the Jesuits, robed in black, anxious and
intent; and here was Champlain, who, as he surveyed the throng,
recognized among the elder warriors not a few of those who, eighteen
years before, had been his companions in arms on his hapless foray
against the Iroquois. [ See "Pioneers of France," 370. ]

Their harangues of compliment being made and answered, and the inevitable
presents given and received, Champlain introduced to the silent conclave
the three missionaries, Brébeuf, Daniel, and Davost. To their lot had
fallen the honors, dangers, and woes of the Huron mission. "These are
our fathers," he said. "We love them more than we love ourselves.
The whole French nation honors them. They do not go among you for your
furs. They have left their friends and their country to show you the way
to heaven. If you love the French, as you say you love them, then love
and honor these our fathers." [ Le Jeune, Relation, 1633, 274 (Cramoisy);
Mercure Français, 1634. 845. ]

Two chiefs rose to reply, and each lavished all his rhetoric in praises
of Champlain and of the French. Brébeuf rose next, and spoke in broken
Huron,--the assembly jerking in unison, from the bottom of their throats,
repeated ejaculations of applause. Then they surrounded him, and vied
with each other for the honor of carrying him in their canoes. In short,
the mission was accepted; and the chiefs of the different villages
disputed among themselves the privilege of receiving and entertaining the
three priests.

On the last of July, the day of the feast of St. Ignatius, Champlain and
several masters of trading vessels went to the house of the Jesuits in
quest of indulgences; and here they were soon beset by a crowd of curious
Indians, who had finished their traffic, and were making a tour of
observation. Being excluded from the house, they looked in at the
windows of the room which served as a chapel; and Champlain, amused at
their exclamations of wonder, gave one of them a piece of citron.
The Huron tasted it, and, enraptured, demanded what it was. Champlain
replied, laughing, that it was the rind of a French pumpkin. The fame of
this delectable production was instantly spread abroad; and, at every
window, eager voices and outstretched hands petitioned for a share of the
marvellous vegetable. They were at length allowed to enter the chapel,
which had lately been decorated with a few hangings, images, and pieces
of plate. These unwonted splendors filled them with admiration. They
asked if the dove over the altar was the bird that makes the thunder; and,
pointing to the images of Loyola and Xavier, inquired if they were
_okies_, or spirits: nor was their perplexity much diminished by Brébeuf's
explanation of their true character. Three images of the Virgin next
engaged their attention; and, in answer to their questions, they were
told that they were the mother of Him who made the world. This greatly
amused them, and they demanded if he had three mothers. "Oh!" exclaims
the Father Superior, "had we but images of all the holy mysteries of our
faith! They are a great assistance, for they speak their own lesson."
[ Relation, 1633, 38. ] The mission was not doomed long to suffer from a
dearth of these inestimable auxiliaries.

The eve of departure came. The three priests packed their baggage,
and Champlain paid their passage, or, in other words, made presents to
the Indians who were to carry them in their canoes. They lodged that
night in the storehouse of the fur company, around which the Hurons were
encamped; and Le Jeune and De Nouë stayed with them to bid them farewell
in the morning. At eleven at night, they were roused by a loud voice in
the Indian camp, and saw Le Borgne, the one-eyed chief of Allumette
Island, walking round among the huts, haranguing as he went. Brébeuf,
listening, caught the import of his words. "We have begged the French
captain to spare the life of the Algonquin of the Petite Nation whom he
keeps in prison; but he will not listen to us. The prisoner will die.
Then his people will revenge him. They will try to kill the three
black-robes whom you are about to carry to your country. If you do not
defend them, the French will be angry, and charge you with their death.
But if you do, then the Algonquins will make war on you, and the river
will be closed. If the French captain will not let the prisoner go,
then leave the three black-robes where they are; for, if you take them
with you, they will bring you to trouble."

Such was the substance of Le Borgne's harangue. The anxious priests
hastened up to the fort, gained admittance, and roused Champlain from his
slumbers. He sent his interpreter with a message to the Hurons, that he
wished to speak to them before their departure; and, accordingly, in the
morning an Indian crier proclaimed through their camp that none should
embark till the next day. Champlain convoked the chiefs, and tried
persuasion, promises, and threats; but Le Borgne had been busy among them
with his intrigues, and now he declared in the council, that, unless the
prisoner were released, the missionaries would be murdered on their way,
and war would ensue. The politic savage had two objects in view.
On the one hand, he wished to interrupt the direct intercourse between
the French and the Hurons; and, on the other, he thought to gain credit
and influence with the nation of the prisoner by effecting his release.
His first point was won. Champlain would not give up the murderer,
knowing those with whom he was dealing too well to take a course which
would have proclaimed the killing of a Frenchman a venial offence.
The Hurons thereupon refused to carry the missionaries to their country;
coupling the refusal with many regrets and many protestations of love,
partly, no doubt, sincere,--for the Jesuits had contrived to gain no
little favor in their eyes. The council broke up, the Hurons embarked,
and the priests returned to their convent.

Here, under the guidance of Brébeuf, they employed themselves, amid their
other avocations, in studying the Huron tongue. A year passed, and again
the Indian traders descended from their villages. In the meanwhile,
grievous calamities had befallen the nation. They had suffered
deplorable reverses at the hands of the Iroquois; while a pestilence,
similar to that which a few years before had swept off the native
populations of New England, had begun its ravages among them. They
appeared at Three Rivers--this year the place of trade--in small numbers,
and in a miserable state of dejection and alarm. Du Plessis Bochart,
commander of the French fleet, called them to a council, harangued them,
feasted them, and made them presents; but they refused to take the
Jesuits. In private, however, some of them were gained over; then again
refused; then, at the eleventh hour, a second time consented. On the eve
of embarkation, they once more wavered. All was confusion, doubt,
and uncertainty, when Brébeuf bethought him of a vow to St. Joseph.
The vow was made. At once, he says, the Indians became tractable; the
Fathers embarked, and, amid salvos of cannon from the ships, set forth
for the wild scene of their apostleship.

They reckoned the distance at nine hundred miles; but distance was the
least repellent feature of this most arduous journey. Barefoot, lest
their shoes should injure the frail vessel, each crouched in his canoe,
toiling with unpractised hands to propel it. Before him, week after week,
he saw the same lank, unkempt hair, the same tawny shoulders, and long,
naked arms ceaselessly plying the paddle. The canoes were soon
separated; and, for more than a month, the Frenchmen rarely or never met.
Brébeuf spoke a little Huron, and could converse with his escort; but
Daniel and Davost were doomed to a silence unbroken save by the
occasional unintelligible complaints and menaces of the Indians, of whom
many were sick with the epidemic, and all were terrified, desponding,
and sullen. Their only food was a pittance of Indian corn, crushed
between two stones and mixed with water. The toil was extreme. Brébeuf
counted thirty-five portages, where the canoes were lifted from the water,
and carried on the shoulders of the voyagers around rapids or cataracts.
More than fifty times, besides, they were forced to wade in the raging
current, pushing up their empty barks, or dragging them with ropes.
Brébeuf tried to do his part; but the boulders and sharp rocks wounded
his naked feet, and compelled him to desist. He and his companions bore
their share of the baggage across the portages, sometimes a distance of
several miles. Four trips, at the least, were required to convey the
whole. The way was through the dense forest, incumbered with rocks and
logs, tangled with roots and underbrush, damp with perpetual shade,
and redolent of decayed leaves and mouldering wood. [ 1 ] The Indians
themselves were often spent with fatigue. Brébeuf, a man of iron frame
and a nature unconquerably resolute, doubted if his strength would
sustain him to the journey's end. He complains that he had no moment to
read his breviary, except by the moonlight or the fire, when stretched
out to sleep on a bare rock by some savage cataract of the Ottawa,
or in a damp nook of the adjacent forest.

[ 1 "Adioustez à ces difficultez, qu'il faut coucher sur la terre nue,
ou sur quelque dure roche, faute de trouuer dix ou douze pieds de terre
en quarré pour placer vne chetiue cabane; qu'il faut sentir incessamment
la puanteur des Sauuages recreus, marcher dans les eaux, dans les fanges,
dans l'obscurité et l'embarras des forest, où les piqueures d'vne
multitude infinie de mousquilles et cousins vous importunent fort."--
Brébeuf, Relation des Hurons, 1635, 25, 26. ]

All the Jesuits, as well as several of their countrymen who accompanied
them, suffered more or less at the hands of their ill-humored conductors.
[ 1 ] Davost's Indian robbed him of a part of his baggage, threw a part
into the river, including most of the books and writing-materials of the
three priests, and then left him behind, among the Algonquins of
Allumette Island. He found means to continue the journey, and at length
reached the Huron towns in a lamentable state of bodily prostration.
Daniel, too, was deserted, but fortunately found another party who
received him into their canoe. A young Frenchman, named Martin, was
abandoned among the Nipissings; another, named Baron, on reaching the
Huron country, was robbed by his conductors of all he had, except the
weapons in his hands. Of these he made good use, compelling the robbers
to restore a part of their plunder.

[ 1 "En ce voyage, il nous a fallu tous commencer par ces experiences a
porter la Croix que Nostre Seigneur nous presente pour son honneur,
et pour le salut de ces pauures Barbares. Certes ie me suis trouué
quelquesfois si las, que le corps n'en pouuoit plus. Mais d'ailleurs mon
âme ressentoit de tres-grands contentemens, considerant que ie souffrois
pour Dieu: nul ne le sçait, s'il ne l'experimente. Tous n'en ont pas
esté quittes à si bon marché."--Brébeuf, Relation des Hurons, 1635, 26.

Three years afterwards, a paper was printed by the Jesuits of Paris,
called Instruction pour les Pères de nostre Compagnie qui seront enuoiez
aux Hurons, and containing directions for their conduct on this route by
the Ottawa. It is highly characteristic, both of the missionaries and of
the Indians. Some of the points are, in substance, as follows.--You
should love the Indians like brothers, with whom you are to spend the
rest of your life.--Never make them wait for you in embarking.--Take a
flint and steel to light their pipes and kindle their fire at night; for
these little services win their hearts.--Try to eat their sagamite as
they cook it, bad and dirty as it is.--Fasten up the skirts of your
cassock, that you may not carry water or sand into the canoe.--Wear no
shoes or stockings in the canoe; but you may put them on in crossing the
portages.--Do not make yourself troublesome, even to a single Indian.--Do
not ask them too many questions.--Bear their faults in silence, and
appear always cheerful.--Buy fish for them from the tribes you will pass;
and for this purpose take with you some awls, beads, knives, and
fish-hooks.--Be not ceremonious with the Indians; take at once what they
offer you: ceremony offends them.--Be very careful, when in the canoe,
that the brim of your hat does not annoy them. Perhaps it would be
better to wear your night-cap. There is no such thing as impropriety
among Indians.--Remember that it is Christ and his cross that you are
seeking; and if you aim at anything else, you will get nothing but
affliction for body and mind. ]

Descending French River, and following the lonely shores of the great
Georgian Bay, the canoe which carried Brébeuf at length neared its
destination, thirty days after leaving Three Rivers. Before him,
stretched in savage slumber, lay the forest shore of the Hurons. Did his
spirit sink as he approached his dreary home, oppressed with a dark
foreboding of what the future should bring forth? There is some reason
to think so. Yet it was but the shadow of a moment; for his masculine
heart had lost the sense of fear, and his intrepid nature was fired with
a zeal before which doubts and uncertainties fled like the mists of the
morning. Not the grim enthusiasm of negation, tearing up the weeds of
rooted falsehood, or with bold hand felling to the earth the baneful
growth of overshadowing abuses: his was the ancient faith uncurtailed,
redeemed from the decay of centuries, kindled with a new life, and
stimulated to a preternatural growth and fruitfulness.

Brébeuf and his Huron companions having landed, the Indians, throwing the
missionary's baggage on the ground, left him to his own resources; and,
without heeding his remonstrances, set forth for their respective
villages, some twenty miles distant. Thus abandoned, the priest kneeled,
not to implore succor in his perplexity, but to offer thanks to the
Providence which had shielded him thus far. Then, rising, he pondered as
to what course he should take. He knew the spot well. It was on the
borders of the small inlet called Thunder Bay. In the neighboring Huron
town of Toanché he had lived three years, preaching and baptizing; [ 1 ]
but Toanché had now ceased to exist. Here, Étienne Brulé, Champlain's
adventurous interpreter, had recently been murdered by the inhabitants,
who, in excitement and alarm, dreading the consequences of their deed,
had deserted the spot, and built, at the distance of a few miles, a new
town, called Ihonatiria. [ Concerning Brulé, see "Pioneers of France,"
377-380. ] Brébeuf hid his baggage in the woods, including the vessels
for the Mass, more precious than all the rest, and began his search for
this new abode. He passed the burnt remains of Toanché, saw the charred
poles that had formed the frame of his little chapel of bark, and found,
as he thought, the spot where Brulé had fallen. [ 2 ] Evening was near,
when, after following, bewildered and anxious, a gloomy forest path,
he issued upon a wild clearing, and saw before him the bark roofs of
Ihonatiria.

[ 1 From 1626 to 1629. There is no record of the events of this first
mission, which was ended with the English occupation of Quebec. Brébeuf
had previously spent the winter of 1625-26 among the Algonquins, like Le
Jeune in 1633-34.--Lettre du P. Charles Lalemant au T. R. P. Mutio
Vitelleschi, 1 Aug., 1626, in Carayon. ]

[ 2 "Ie vis pareillement l'endroit où le pauure Estienne Brulé auoit
esté barbarement et traîtreusement assommé; ce qui me fit penser que
quelque iour on nous pourroit bien traitter de la sorte, et desirer au
moins que ce fust en pourchassant la gloire de N. Seigneur."--Brébeuf,
Relation des Hurons, 1635, 28, 29.--The missionary's prognostics were but
too well founded. ]

A crowd ran out to meet him. "Echom has come again! Echom has come
again!" they cried, recognizing in the distance the stately figure,
robed in black, that advanced from the border of the forest. They led
him to the town, and the whole population swarmed about him. After a
short rest, he set out with a number of young Indians in quest of his
baggage, returning with it at one o'clock in the morning. There was a
certain Awandoay in the village, noted as one of the richest and most
hospitable of the Hurons,--a distinction not easily won where hospitality
was universal. His house was large, and amply stored with beans and
corn; and though his prosperity had excited the jealousy of the villagers,
he had recovered their good-will by his generosity. With him Brébeuf
made his abode, anxiously waiting, week after week, the arrival of his
companions. One by one, they appeared: Daniel, weary and worn; Davost,
half dead with famine and fatigue; and their French attendants, each with
his tale of hardship and indignity. At length, all were assembled under
the roof of the hospitable Indian, and once more the Huron mission was
begun.

CHAPTER VI.

1634, 1635.

BRÉBEUF AND HIS ASSOCIATES.

THE HURON MISSION-HOUSE.--ITS INMATES.--ITS FURNITURE.--ITS GUESTS.--
THE JESUIT AS A TEACHER.--AS AN ENGINEER.--BAPTISMS.--
HURON VILLAGE LIFE.--FESTIVITIES AND SORCERIES.--THE DREAM FEAST.--
THE PRIESTS ACCUSED OF MAGIC.--THE DROUGHT AND THE RED CROSS.

Where should the Fathers make their abode? Their first thought had been
to establish themselves at a place called by the French Rochelle, the
largest and most important town of the Huron confederacy; but Brébeuf now
resolved to remain at Ihonatiria. Here he was well known; and here, too,
he flattered himself, seeds of the Faith had been planted, which, with
good nurture, would in time yield fruit.

By the ancient Huron custom, when a man or a family wanted a house,
the whole village joined in building one. In the present case, not
Ihonatiria only, but the neighboring town of Wenrio also, took part in
the work,--though not without the expectation of such gifts as the
priests had to bestow. Before October, the task was finished. The house
was constructed after the Huron model. [ See Introduction. ] It was
thirty-six feet long and about twenty feet wide, framed with strong
sapling poles planted in the earth to form the sides, with the ends bent
into an arch for the roof,--the whole lashed firmly together, braced with
cross-poles, and closely covered with overlapping sheets of bark.
Without, the structure was strictly Indian; but within, the priests,
with the aid of their tools, made innovations which were the astonishment
of all the country. They divided their dwelling by transverse partitions
into three apartments, each with its wooden door,--a wondrous novelty in
the eyes of their visitors. The first served as a hall, an anteroom,
and a place of storage for corn, beans, and dried fish. The second--the
largest of the three--was at once kitchen, workshop, dining-room,
drawing-room, school-room, and bed-chamber. The third was the chapel.
Here they made their altar, and here were their images, pictures, and
sacred vessels. Their fire was on the ground, in the middle of the
second apartment, the smoke escaping by a hole in the roof. At the sides
were placed two wide platforms, after the Huron fashion, four feet from
the earthen floor. On these were chests in which they kept their
clothing and vestments, and beneath them they slept, reclining on sheets
of bark, and covered with skins and the garments they wore by day.
Rude stools, a hand-mill, a large Indian mortar of wood for crushing corn,
and a clock, completed the furniture of the room.

There was no lack of visitors, for the house of the black-robes contained
marvels [ 1 ] the fame of which was noised abroad to the uttermost
confines of the Huron nation. Chief among them was the clock. The
guests would sit in expectant silence by the hour, squatted on the ground,
waiting to hear it strike. They thought it was alive, and asked what it
ate. As the last stroke sounded, one of the Frenchmen would cry
"Stop!"--and, to the admiration of the company, the obedient clock was
silent. The mill was another wonder, and they were never tired of
turning it. Besides these, there was a prism and a magnet; also a
magnifying-glass, wherein a flea was transformed to a frightful monster,
and a multiplying lens, which showed them the same object eleven times
repeated. "All this," says Brébeuf, "serves to gain their affection,
and make them more docile in respect to the admirable and
incomprehensible mysteries of our Faith; for the opinion they have of our
genius and capacity makes them believe whatever we tell them." [ Brébeuf,
Relation des Hurons, 1636, 33. ]

[ 1 "Ils ont pensé qu'elle entendoit, principalement quand, pour rire,
quelqu'vn de nos François s'escrioit au dernier coup de marteau, c'est
assez sonné, et que tout aussi tost elle se taisoit. Ils l'appellent le
Capitaine du iour. Quand elle sonne, ils disent qu'elle parle, et
demandent quand ils nous viennent veoir, combien de fois le Capitaine a
desia parlé. Ils nous interrogent de son manger. Ils demeurent les
heures entieres, et quelquesfois plusieurs, afin de la pouuoir ouyr
parler."--Brébeuf, Relation des Hurons, 1635, 33. ]

"What does the Captain say?" was the frequent question; for by this title
of honor they designated the clock.

"When he strikes twelve times, he says, 'Hang on the kettle'; and when he
strikes four times, he says, 'Get up, and go home.'"

Both interpretations were well remembered. At noon, visitors were never
wanting, to share the Fathers' sagamite; but at the stroke of four,
all rose and departed, leaving the missionaries for a time in peace.
Now the door was barred, and, gathering around the fire, they discussed
the prospects of the mission, compared their several experiences, and
took counsel for the future. But the standing topic of their evening
talk was the Huron language. Concerning this each had some new discovery
to relate, some new suggestion to offer; and in the task of analyzing its
construction and deducing its hidden laws, these intelligent and highly
cultivated minds found a congenial employment. [ Lalemant, Relation des
Hurons, 1639, 17 (Cramoisy). ]

But while zealously laboring to perfect their knowledge of the language,
they spared no pains to turn their present acquirements to account.
Was man, woman, or child sick or suffering, they were always at hand with
assistance and relief,--adding, as they saw opportunity, explanations of
Christian doctrine, pictures of Heaven and Hell, and exhortations to
embrace the Faith. Their friendly offices did not cease here, but
included matters widely different. The Hurons lived in constant fear of
the Iroquois. At times the whole village population would fly to the
woods for concealment, or take refuge in one of the neighboring fortified
towns, on the rumor of an approaching war-party. The Jesuits promised
them the aid of the four Frenchmen armed with arquebuses, who had come
with them from Three Rivers. They advised the Hurons to make their
palisade forts, not, as hitherto, in a circular form, but rectangular,
with small flanking towers at the corners for the arquebuse-men. The
Indians at once saw the value of the advice, and soon after began to act
on it in the case of their great town of Ossossané, or Rochelle.
[ Brébeuf, Relation des Hurons, 1636, 86. ]

At every opportunity, the missionaries gathered together the children of
the village at their house. On these occasions, Brébeuf, for greater
solemnity, put on a surplice, and the close, angular cap worn by Jesuits
in their convents. First he chanted the Pater Noster, translated by
Father Daniel into Huron rhymes,--the children chanting in their turn.
Next he taught them the sign of the cross; made them repeat the Ave,
the Credo, and the Commandments; questioned them as to past instructions;
gave them briefly a few new ones; and dismissed them with a present of
two or three beads, raisins, or prunes. A great emulation was kindled
among this small fry of heathendom. The priests, with amusement and
delight, saw them gathered in groups about the village, vying with each
other in making the sign of the cross, or in repeating the rhymes they
had learned.

At times, the elders of the people, the repositories of its ancient
traditions, were induced to assemble at the house of the Jesuits, who
explained to them the principal points of their doctrine, and invited
them to a discussion. The auditors proved pliant to a fault, responding,
"Good," or "That is true," to every proposition; but, when urged to adopt
the faith which so readily met their approval, they had always the same
reply: "It is good for the French; but we are another people, with
different customs." On one occasion, Brébeuf appeared before the chiefs
and elders at a solemn national council, described Heaven and Hell with
images suited to their comprehension, asked to which they preferred to go
after death, and then, in accordance with the invariable Huron custom in
affairs of importance, presented a large and valuable belt of wampum,
as an invitation to take the path to Paradise. [ Brébeuf, Relation des
Hurons, 1636, 81. For the use of wampum belts, see Introduction. ]

Notwithstanding all their exhortations, the Jesuits, for the present,
baptized but few. Indeed, during the first year or more, they baptized
no adults except those apparently at the point of death; for, with
excellent reason, they feared backsliding and recantation. They found
especial pleasure in the baptism of dying infants, rescuing them from the
flames of perdition, and changing them, to borrow Le Jeune's phrase,
"from little Indians into little angels."

[ "Le seiziesme du mesme mois, deux petits Sauvages furent changes en
deux petits Anges."--Relation, 1636, 89 (Cramoisy).

"O mon cher frère, vous pourrois-je expliquer quelle consolation ce
m'etoit quand je voyois un pauure baptisé mourir deux heures, une demi
journée, une ou deux journées, après son baptesme, particulièrement quand
c'etoit un petit enfant!"--Lettre du Père Garnier à son Frère, MS.--This
form of benevolence is beyond heretic appreciation.

"La joye qu'on a quand on a baptisé un Sauvage qui se meurt peu apres,
& qui s'envole droit au Ciel, pour devenir un Ange, certainement c'est un
joye qui surpasse tout ce qu'on se peut imaginer."--Le Jeune, Relation,
1635, 221 (Cramoisy). ]

The Fathers' slumbers were brief and broken. Winter was the season of
Huron festivity; and, as they lay stretched on their hard couch,
suffocating with smoke and tormented by an inevitable multitude of fleas,
the thumping of the drum resounded all night long from a neighboring
house, mingled with the sound of the tortoise-shell rattle, the stamping
of moccasined feet, and the cadence of voices keeping time with the
dancers. Again, some ambitious villager would give a feast, and invite
all the warriors of the neighboring towns; or some grand wager of
gambling, with its attendant drumming, singing, and outcries, filled the
night with discord.

But these were light annoyances, compared with the insane rites to cure
the sick, prescribed by the "medicine-men," or ordained by the eccentric
inspiration of dreams. In one case, a young sorcerer, by alternate
gorging and fasting,--both in the interest of his profession,--joined
with excessive exertion in singing to the spirits, contracted a disorder
of the brain, which caused him, in mid-winter, to run naked about the
village, howling like a wolf. The whole population bestirred itself to
effect a cure. The patient had, or pretended to have, a dream, in which
the conditions of his recovery were revealed to him. These were equally
ridiculous and difficult; but the elders met in council, and all the
villagers lent their aid, till every requisition was fulfilled, and the
incongruous mass of gifts which the madman's dream had demanded were all
bestowed upon him. This cure failing, a "medicine-feast" was tried; then
several dances in succession. As the patient remained as crazy as before,
preparations were begun for a grand dance, more potent than all the rest.
Brébeuf says, that, except the masquerades of the Carnival among
Christians, he never saw a folly equal to it. "Some," he adds, "had
sacks over their heads, with two holes for the eyes. Some were as naked
as your hand, with horns or feathers on their heads, their bodies painted
white, and their faces black as devils. Others were daubed with red,
black, and white. In short, every one decked himself as extravagantly as
he could, to dance in this ballet, and contribute something towards the
health of the sick man." [ Relation des Hurons, 1636, 116. ] This remedy
also failing, a crowning effort of the medical art was essayed. Brébeuf
does not describe it, for fear, as he says, of being tedious; but,
for the time, the village was a pandemonium. [ 1 ] This, with other
ceremonies, was supposed to be ordered by a certain image like a doll,
which a sorcerer placed in his tobacco-pouch, whence it uttered its
oracles, at the same time moving as if alive. "Truly," writes Brébeuf,
"here is nonsense enough: but I greatly fear there is something more dark
and mysterious in it."

[ 1 "Suffit pour le present de dire en general, que iamais les
Bacchantes forcenées du temps passé ne firent rien de plus furieux en
leurs orgyes. C'est icy à s'entretuer, disent-ils, par des sorts qu'ils
s'entreiettent, dont la composition est d'ongles d'Ours, de dents de Loup,
d'ergots d'Aigles, de certaines pierres et de nerfs de Chien; c'est à
rendre du sang par la bouche et par les narines, ou plustost d'vne poudre
rouge qu'ils prennent subtilement, estans tombez sous le sort, et
blessez; et dix mille autres sottises que ie laisse volontiers."--Brébeuf,
Relation des Hurons, 1636, 117. ]

But all these ceremonies were outdone by the grand festival of the
_Ononhara_, or Dream Feast,--esteemed the most powerful remedy in cases of
sickness, or when a village was infested with evil spirits. The time and
manner of holding it were determined at a solemn council. This scene of
madness began at night. Men, women, and children, all pretending to have
lost their senses, rushed shrieking and howling from house to house,
upsetting everything in their way, throwing firebrands, beating those
they met or drenching them with water, and availing themselves of this
time of license to take a safe revenge on any who had ever offended them.
This scene of frenzy continued till daybreak. No corner of the village
was secure from the maniac crew. In the morning there was a change.
They ran from house to house, accosting the inmates by name, and
demanding of each the satisfaction of some secret want, revealed to the
pretended madman in a dream, but of the nature of which he gave no hint
whatever. The person addressed thereupon threw to him at random any
article at hand, as a hatchet, a kettle, or a pipe; and the applicant
continued his rounds till the desired gift was hit upon, when he gave an
outcry of delight, echoed by gratulatory cries from all present. If,
after all his efforts, he failed in obtaining the object of his dream,
he fell into a deep dejection, convinced that some disaster was in store
for him.

[ Brébeuf's account of the Dream Feast is brief. The above particulars
are drawn chiefly from Charlevoix, Journal Historique, 356, and Sagard,
Voyage du Pays des Hurons, 280. See also Lafitau, and other early
writers. This ceremony was not confined to the Hurons, but prevailed
also among the Iroquois, and doubtless other kindred tribes. The Jesuit
Dablon saw it in perfection at Onondaga. It usually took place in
February, occupying about three days, and was often attended with great
indecencies. The word ononhara means turning of the brain. ]

The approach of summer brought with it a comparative peace. Many of the
villagers dispersed,--some to their fishing, some to expeditions of trade,
and some to distant lodges by their detached corn-fields. The priests
availed themselves of the respite to engage in those exercises of private
devotion which the rule of St. Ignatius enjoins. About midsummer,
however, their quiet was suddenly broken. The crops were withering under
a severe drought, a calamity which the sandy nature of the soil made
doubly serious. The sorcerers put forth their utmost power, and, from
the tops of the houses, yelled incessant invocations to the spirits.
All was in vain; the pitiless sky was cloudless. There was thunder in
the east and thunder in the west; but over Ihonatiria all was serene.
A renowned "rain-maker," seeing his reputation tottering under his
repeated failures, bethought him of accusing the Jesuits, and gave out
that the red color of the cross which stood before their house scared the
bird of thunder, and caused him to fly another way. [ 1 ] On this a
clamor arose. The popular ire turned against the priests, and the
obnoxious cross was condemned to be hewn down. Aghast at the threatened
sacrilege, they attempted to reason away the storm, assuring the crowd
that the lightning was not a bird, but certain hot and fiery exhalations,
which, being imprisoned, darted this way and that, trying to escape.
As this philosophy failed to convince the hearers, the missionaries
changed their line of defence.

[ 1 The following is the account of the nature of thunder, given to
Brébeuf on a former occasion by another sorcerer.

"It is a man in the form of a turkey-cock. The sky is his palace,
and he remains in it when the air is clear. When the clouds begin to
grumble, he descends to the earth to gather up snakes, and other objects
which the Indians call _okies_. The lightning flashes whenever he opens
or closes his wings. If the storm is more violent than usual, it is
because his young are with him, and aiding in the noise as well as they
can."--Relation des Hurons, 1636, 114.

The word oki is here used to denote any object endued with supernatural
power. A belief similar to the above exists to this day among the
Dacotahs. Some of the Hurons and Iroquois, however, held that the
thunder was a giant in human form. According to one story, he vomited
from time to time a number of snakes, which, falling to the earth,
caused the appearance of lightning. ]

"You say that the red color of the cross frightens the bird of thunder.
Then paint the cross white, and see if the thunder will come."

This was accordingly done; but the clouds still kept aloof. The Jesuits
followed up their advantage.

"Your spirits cannot help you, and your sorcerers have deceived you with
lies. Now ask the aid of Him who made the world, and perhaps He will
listen to your prayers." And they added, that, if the Indians would
renounce their sins and obey the true God, they would make a procession
daily to implore his favor towards them.

There was no want of promises. The processions were begun, as were also
nine masses to St. Joseph; and, as heavy rains occurred soon after,
the Indians conceived a high idea of the efficacy of the French
"medicine."

[ "Nous deuons aussi beaucoup au glorieux sainct Ioseph, espoux de Nostre
Dame, et protecteur des Hurons, dont nous auons touché au doigt
l'assistance plusieurs fois. Ce fut vne chose remarquable, que le iour
de sa feste et durant l'Octaue, les commoditez nous venoient de toutes
parts."--Brébeuf, Relation des Hurons, 1635, 41.

The above extract is given as one out of many illustrations of the
confidence with which the priests rested on the actual and direct aid of
their celestial guardians. To St. Joseph, in particular, they find no
words for their gratitude. ]

In spite of the hostility of the sorcerers, and the transient commotion
raised by the red cross, the Jesuits had gained the confidence and
good-will of the Huron population. Their patience, their kindness,
their intrepidity, their manifest disinterestedness, the blamelessness of
their lives, and the tact which, in the utmost fervors of their zeal,
never failed them, had won the hearts of these wayward savages; and
chiefs of distant villages came to urge that they would make their abode
with them. [ Brébeuf preserves a speech made to him by one of these
chiefs, as a specimen of Huron eloquence.--Relation des Hurons, 1636,
123. ] As yet, the results of the mission had been faint and few; but
the priests toiled on courageously, high in hope that an abundant harvest
of souls would one day reward their labors.

CHAPTER VII.

1636, 1637.

THE FEAST OF THE DEAD.

HURON GRAVES.--PREPARATION FOR THE CEREMONY.--DISINTERMENT.--
THE MOURNING.--THE FUNERAL MARCH.--THE GREAT SEPULCHRE.--
FUNERAL GAMES.--ENCAMPMENT OF THE MOURNERS.--GIFTS.--HARANGUES.--
FRENZY OF THE CROWD.--THE CLOSING SCENE.--ANOTHER RITE.--
THE CAPTIVE IROQUOIS.--THE SACRIFICE.

Mention has been made of those great depositories of human bones found at
the present day in the ancient country of the Hurons. [ See
Introduction. ] They have been a theme of abundant speculation; [ 1 ]
yet their origin is a subject, not of conjecture, but of historic
certainty. The peculiar rites to which they owe their existence were
first described at length by Brébeuf, who, in the summer of the year 1636,
saw them at the town of Ossossané.

[ 1 Among those who have wondered and speculated over these remains is
Mr. Schoolcraft. A slight acquaintance with the early writers would have
solved his doubts. ]

The Jesuits had long been familiar with the ordinary rites of sepulture
among the Hurons; the corpse placed in a crouching posture in the midst
of the circle of friends and relatives; the long, measured wail of the
mourners; the speeches in praise of the dead, and consolation to the
living; the funeral feast; the gifts at the place of burial; the funeral
games, where the young men of the village contended for prizes; and the
long period of mourning to those next of kin. The body was usually laid
on a scaffold, or, more rarely, in the earth. This, however, was not its
final resting-place. At intervals of ten or twelve years, each of the
four nations which composed the Huron Confederacy gathered together its
dead, and conveyed them all to a common place of sepulture. Here was
celebrated the great "Feast of the Dead,"--in the eyes of the Hurons,
their most solemn and important ceremonial.

In the spring of 1636, the chiefs and elders of the Nation of the
Bear--the principal nation of the Confederacy, and that to which
Ihonatiria belonged--assembled in a general council, to prepare for the
great solemnity. There was an unwonted spirit of dissension. Some
causes of jealousy had arisen, and three or four of the Bear villages
announced their intention of holding their Feast of the Dead apart from
the rest. As such a procedure was thought abhorrent to every sense of
propriety and duty, the announcement excited an intense feeling; yet
Brébeuf, who was present, describes the debate which ensued as perfectly
calm, and wholly free from personal abuse or recrimination. The
secession, however, took place, and each party withdrew to its villages
to gather and prepare its dead.

The corpses were lowered from their scaffolds, and lifted from their
graves. Their coverings were removed by certain functionaries appointed
for the office, and the hideous relics arranged in a row, surrounded by
the weeping, shrieking, howling concourse. The spectacle was frightful.
Here were all the village dead of the last twelve years. The priests,
connoisseurs in such matters, regarded it as a display of mortality so
edifying, that they hastened to summon their French attendants to
contemplate and profit by it. Each family reclaimed its own, and
immediately addressed itself to removing what remained of flesh from the
bones. These, after being tenderly caressed, with tears and lamentations,
were wrapped in skins and adorned with pendent robes of fur. In the
belief of the mourners, they were sentient and conscious. A soul was
thought still to reside in them; [ 1 ] and to this notion, very general
among Indians, is in no small degree due that extravagant attachment to
the remains of their dead, which may be said to mark the race.

[ 1 In the general belief, the soul took flight after the great ceremony
was ended. Many thought that there were two souls, one remaining with
the bones, while the other went to the land of spirits. ]

These relics of mortality, together with the recent corpses,--which were
allowed to remain entire, but which were also wrapped carefully in
furs,--were now carried to one of the largest houses, and hung to the
numerous cross-poles, which, like rafters, supported the roof. Here the
concourse of mourners seated themselves at a funeral feast; and, as the
squaws of the household distributed the food, a chief harangued the
assembly, lamenting the loss of the deceased, and extolling their
virtues. This solemnity over, the mourners began their march for
Ossossané, the scene of the final rite. The bodies remaining entire were
borne on a kind of litter, while the bundles of bones were slung at the
shoulders of the relatives, like fagots. Thus the procession slowly
defiled along the forest pathways, with which the country of the Hurons
was everywhere intersected; and as they passed beneath the dull shadow of
the pines, they uttered at intervals, in unison, a dreary, wailing cry,
designed to imitate the voices of disembodied souls winging their way to
the land of spirits, and believed to have an effect peculiarly soothing
to the conscious relics which each man bore. When, at night, they
stopped to rest at some village on the way, the inhabitants came forth to
welcome them with a grave and mournful hospitality.

From every town of the Nation of the Bear,--except the rebellious few
that had seceded,--processions like this were converging towards
Ossossané. This chief town of the Hurons stood on the eastern margin of
Nottawassaga Bay, encompassed with a gloomy wilderness of fir and pine.
Thither, on the urgent invitation of the chiefs, the Jesuits repaired.
The capacious bark houses were filled to overflowing, and the surrounding
woods gleamed with camp-fires: for the processions of mourners were fast
arriving, and the throng was swelled by invited guests of other tribes.
Funeral games were in progress, the young men and women practising
archery and other exercises, for prizes offered by the mourners in the
name of their dead relatives. [ Funeral games were not confined to the
Hurons and Iroquois: Perrot mentions having seen them among the Ottawas.
An illustrated description of them will be found in Lafitau. ] Some of
the chiefs conducted Brébeuf and his companions to the place prepared for
the ceremony. It was a cleared area in the forest, many acres in extent.
In the midst was a pit, about ten feet deep and thirty feet wide.
Around it was reared a high and strong scaffolding; and on this were
planted numerous upright poles, with cross-poles extended between,
for hanging the funeral gifts and the remains of the dead.

Meanwhile there was a long delay. The Jesuits were lodged in a house
where more than a hundred of these bundles of mortality were hanging from
the rafters. Some were mere shapeless rolls; others were made up into
clumsy effigies, adorned with feathers, beads, and belts of dyed
porcupine-quills. Amidst this throng of the living and the dead, the
priests spent a night which the imagination and the senses conspired to
render almost insupportable.

At length the officiating chiefs gave the word to prepare for the
ceremony. The relics were taken down, opened for the last time, and the
bones caressed and fondled by the women amid paroxysms of lamentation.
[ 1 ] Then all the processions were formed anew, and, each bearing its
dead, moved towards the area prepared for the last solemn rites. As they
reached the ground, they defiled in order, each to a spot assigned to it,
on the outer limits of the clearing. Here the bearers of the dead laid
their bundles on the ground, while those who carried the funeral gifts
outspread and displayed them for the admiration of the beholders.
Their number was immense, and their value relatively very great. Among
them were many robes of beaver and other rich furs, collected and
preserved for years, with a view to this festival. Fires were now
lighted, kettles slung, and, around the entire circle of the clearing,
the scene was like a fair or caravansary. This continued till three
o'clock in the afternoon, when the gifts were repacked, and the bones
shouldered afresh. Suddenly, at a signal from the chiefs, the crowd ran
forward from every side towards the scaffold, like soldiers to the
assault of a town, scaled it by rude ladders with which it was furnished,
and hung their relics and their gifts to the forest of poles which
surmounted it. Then the ladders were removed; and a number of chiefs,
standing on the scaffold, harangued the crowd below, praising the dead,
and extolling the gifts, which the relatives of the departed now bestowed,
in their names, upon their surviving friends.

[ 1 "I'admiray la tendresse d'vne femme enuers son pere et ses enfans;
elle est fille d'vn Capitaine, qui est mort fort âgé, et a esté autrefois
fort considerable dans le Païs: elle luy peignoit sa cheuelure, elle
manioit ses os les vns apres les autres, auec la mesme affection que si
elle luy eust voulu rendre la vie; elle luy mit aupres de luy son
Atsatone8ai, c'est à dire son pacquet de buchettes de Conseil, qui sont
tous les liures et papiers du Païs. Pour ses petits enfans, elle leur
mit des brasselets de Pourcelaine et de rassade aux bras, et baigna leurs
os de ses larmes; on ne l'en pouuoit quasi separer, mais on pressoit,
et il fallut incontinent partir."--Brébeuf, Relation des Hurons, 1636,
134. ]

During these harangues, other functionaries were lining the grave
throughout with rich robes of beaver-skin. Three large copper kettles
were next placed in the middle, [ 1 ] and then ensued a scene of hideous
confusion. The bodies which had been left entire were brought to the
edge of the grave, flung in, and arranged in order at the bottom by ten
or twelve Indians stationed there for the purpose, amid the wildest
excitement and the uproar of many hundred mingled voices. [ 2 ] When
this part of the work was done, night was fast closing in. The concourse
bivouacked around the clearing, and lighted their camp-fires under the
brows of the forest which hedged in the scene of the dismal solemnity.
Brébeuf and his companions withdrew to the village, where, an hour before
dawn, they were roused by a clamor which might have wakened the dead.
One of the bundles of bones, tied to a pole on the scaffold, had chanced
to fall into the grave. This accident had precipitated the closing act,
and perhaps increased its frenzy. Guided by the unearthly din, and the
broad glare of flames fed with heaps of fat pine logs, the priests soon
reached the spot, and saw what seemed, in their eyes, an image of Hell.
All around blazed countless fires, and the air resounded with discordant
outcries. [ 3 ] The naked multitude, on, under, and around the scaffold,
were flinging the remains of their dead, discharged from their
envelopments of skins, pell-mell into the pit, where Brébeuf discerned
men who, as the ghastly shower fell around them, arranged the bones in
their places with long poles. All was soon over; earth, logs, and stones
were cast upon the grave, and the clamor subsided into a funereal
chant,--so dreary and lugubrious, that it seemed to the Jesuits the wail
of despairing souls from the abyss of perdition. [ 4 ]

[ 1 In some of these graves, recently discovered, five or six large
copper kettles have been found, in a position corresponding with the
account of Brébeuf. In one, there were no less than twenty-six kettles. ]

[ 2 "Iamais rien ce m'a mieux figuré la confusion qui est parmy les
damnez. Vous eussiez veu décharger de tous costez des corps à demy
pourris, et de tous costez on entendoit vn horrible tintamarre de voix
confuses de personnes qui parloient et ne s'entendoient pas."--Brébeuf,
Relation des Hurons, 1636, 135. ]

[ 3 "Approchans, nous vismes tout à fait une image de l'Enfer: cette
grande place estoit toute remplie de feux & de flammes, & l'air
retentissoit de toutes parts des voix confuses de ces Barbares,"
etc.--Brébeuf, Relation des Hurons, 1636, 209 (Cramoisy). ]

[ 4 "Se mirent à chanter, mais d'un ton si lamentable & si lugubre,
qu'il nous representoit l'horrible tristesse & l'abysme du desespoir dans
lequel sont plongées pour iamais ces âmes malheureuses."--Ibid., 210.

For other descriptions of these rites, see Charlevoix, Bressani, Du Creux,
and especially Lafitau, in whose work they are illustrated with
engravings. In one form or another, they were widely prevalent. Bartram
found them among the Floridian tribes. Traces of a similar practice have
been observed in recent times among the Dacotahs. Remains of places of
sepulture, evidently of kindred origin, have been found in Tennessee,
Missouri, Kentucky, and Ohio. Many have been discovered in several parts
of New York, especially near the River Niagara. (See Squier, Aboriginal
Monuments of New York.) This was the eastern extremity of the ancient
territory of the Neuters. One of these deposits is said to have
contained the bones of several thousand individuals. There is a large
mound on Tonawanda Island, said by the modern Senecas to be a Neuter
burial-place. (See Marshall, Historical Sketches of the Niagara Frontier,
8.) In Canada West, they are found throughout the region once occupied
by the Neuters, and are frequent in the Huron district.

Dr. Taché writes to me,--"I have inspected sixteen bone-pits," (in the
Huron country,) "the situation of which is indicated on the little pencil
map I send you. They contain from six hundred to twelve hundred
skeletons each, of both sexes and all ages, all mixed together purposely.
With one exception, these pits also contain pipes of stone or clay,
small earthen pots, shells, and wampum wrought of these shells, copper
ornaments, beads of glass, and other trinkets. Some pits contained
articles of copper of aboriginal Mexican fabric."

This remarkable fact, together with the frequent occurrence in these
graves of large conch-shells, of which wampum was made, and which could
have been procured only from the Gulf of Mexico, or some part of the
southern coast of the United States, proves the extent of the relations
of traffic by which certain articles were passed from tribe to tribe over
a vast region. The transmission of pipes from the famous Red Pipe-Stone
Quarry of the St. Peter's to tribes more than a thousand miles distant is
an analogous modern instance, though much less remarkable.

The Taché Museum, at the Laval University of Quebec, contains a large
collection of remains from these graves. In one instance, the human
bones are of a size that may be called gigantic.

In nearly every case, the Huron graves contain articles of use or
ornament of European workmanship. From this it may be inferred, that the
nation itself, or its practice of inhumation, does not date back to a
period long before the arrival of the French.

The Northern Algonquins had also a solemn Feast of the Dead; but it was
widely different from that of the Hurons.--See the very curious account
of it by Lalemant, Relation des Hurons, 1642, 94, 95. ]

Such was the origin of one of those strange sepulchres which are the
wonder and perplexity of the modern settler in the abandoned forests of
the Hurons.

The priests were soon to witness another and a more terrible rite,
yet one in which they found a consolation, since it signalized the saving
of a soul,--the snatching from perdition of one of that dreaded race,
into whose very midst they hoped, with devoted daring, to bear hereafter
the cross of salvation. A band of Huron warriors had surprised a small
party of Iroquois, killed several, and captured the rest. One of the
prisoners was led in triumph to a village where the priests then were.
He had suffered greatly; his hands, especially, were frightfully
lacerated. Now, however, he was received with every mark of kindness.
"Take courage," said a chief, addressing him; "you are among friends."
The best food was prepared for him, and his captors vied with each other
in offices of good-will. [ This pretended kindness in the treatment of a
prisoner destined to the torture was not exceptional. The Hurons
sometimes even supplied their intended victim with a temporary wife. ]
He had been given, according to Indian custom, to a warrior who had lost
a near relative in battle, and the captive was supposed to be adopted in
place of the slain. His actual doom was, however, not for a moment in
doubt. The Huron received him affectionately, and, having seated him in
his lodge, addressed him in a tone of extreme kindness. "My nephew,
when I heard that you were coming, I was very glad, thinking that you
would remain with me to take the place of him I have lost. But now that
I see your condition, and your hands crushed and torn so that you will
never use them, I change my mind. Therefore take courage, and prepare to
die tonight like a brave man."

The prisoner coolly asked what should be the manner of his death.

"By fire," was the reply.

"It is well," returned the Iroquois.

Meanwhile, the sister of the slain Huron, in whose place the prisoner was
to have been adopted, brought him a dish of food, and, her eyes flowing
with tears, placed it before him with an air of the utmost tenderness;
while, at the same time, the warrior brought him a pipe, wiped the sweat
from his brow, and fanned him with a fan of feathers.

About noon he gave his farewell feast, after the custom of those who knew
themselves to be at the point of death. All were welcome to this strange
banquet; and when the company were gathered, the host addressed them in a
loud, firm voice: "My brothers, I am about to die. Do your worst to me.
I do not fear torture or death." Some of those present seemed to have
visitings of real compassion; and a woman asked the priests if it would
be wrong to kill him, and thus save him from the fire.

The Jesuits had from the first lost no opportunity of accosting him;
while he, grateful for a genuine kindness amid the cruel hypocrisy that
surrounded him, gave them an attentive ear, till at length, satisfied
with his answers, they baptized him. His eternal bliss secure, all else
was as nothing; and they awaited the issue with some degree of composure.

A crowd had gathered from all the surrounding towns, and after nightfall
the presiding chief harangued them, exhorting them to act their parts
well in the approaching sacrifice, since they would be looked upon by the
Sun and the God of War. [ Areskoui (see Introduction). He was often
regarded as identical with the Sun. The semi-sacrificial character of
the torture in this case is also shown by the injunction, "que pour ceste
nuict on n'allast point folastrer dans les bois."--Le Mercier, Relation
des Hurons, 1637, 114. ] It is needless to dwell on the scene that
ensued. It took place in the lodge of the great war chief, Atsan.
Eleven fires blazed on the ground, along the middle of this capacious
dwelling. The platforms on each side were closely packed with
spectators; and, betwixt these and the fires, the younger warriors stood
in lines, each bearing lighted pine-knots or rolls of birch-bark.
The heat, the smoke, the glare of flames, the wild yells, contorted
visages, and furious gestures of these human devils, as their victim,
goaded by their torches, bounded through the fires again and again,
from end to end of the house, transfixed the priests with horror.
But when, as day dawned, the last spark of life had fled, they consoled
themselves with the faith that the tortured wretch had found his rest at
last in Paradise.

[ Le Mercier's long and minute account of the torture of this prisoner is
too revolting to be dwelt upon. One of the most atrocious features of
the scene was the alternation of raillery and ironical compliment which
attended it throughout, as well as the pains taken to preserve life and
consciousness in the victim as long as possible. Portions of his flesh
were afterwards devoured. ]

CHAPTER VIII.

1636, 1637.

THE HURON AND THE JESUIT.

ENTHUSIASM FOR THE MISSION.--SICKNESS OF THE PRIESTS.--
THE PEST AMONG THE HURONS.--THE JESUIT ON HIS ROUNDS.--
EFFORTS AT CONVERSION.--PRIESTS AND SORCERERS.--THE MAN-DEVIL.--
THE MAGICIAN'S PRESCRIPTION.--INDIAN DOCTORS AND PATIENTS.--
COVERT BAPTISMS.--SELF-DEVOTION OF THE JESUITS.

Meanwhile from Old France to New came succors and reinforcements to the
missions of the forest. More Jesuits crossed the sea to urge on the work
of conversion. These were no stern exiles, seeking on barbarous shores
an asylum for a persecuted faith. Rank, wealth, power, and royalty
itself, smiled on their enterprise, and bade them God-speed. Yet, withal,
a fervor more intense, a self-abnegation more complete, a self-devotion
more constant and enduring, will scarcely find its record on the page of
human history.

Holy Mother Church, linked in sordid wedlock to governments and thrones,
numbered among her servants a host of the worldly and the proud, whose
service of God was but the service of themselves,--and many, too, who,
in the sophistry of the human heart, thought themselves true soldiers of
Heaven, while earthly pride, interest, and passion were the life-springs
of their zeal. This mighty Church of Rome, in her imposing march along
the high road of history, heralded as infallible and divine, astounds the
gazing world with prodigies of contradiction: now the protector of the
oppressed, now the right arm of tyrants; now breathing charity and love,
now dark with the passions of Hell; now beaming with celestial truth,
now masked in hypocrisy and lies; now a virgin, now a harlot; an imperial
queen, and a tinselled actress. Clearly, she is of earth, not of heaven;
and her transcendently dramatic life is a type of the good and ill,
the baseness and nobleness, the foulness and purity, the love and hate,
the pride, passion, truth, falsehood, fierceness, and tenderness, that
battle in the restless heart of man.

It was her nobler and purer part that gave life to the early missions of
New France. That gloomy wilderness, those hordes of savages, had nothing
to tempt the ambitious, the proud, the grasping, or the indolent.
Obscure toil, solitude, privation, hardship, and death were to be the
missionary's portion. He who set sail for the country of the Hurons left
behind him the world and all its prizes. True, he acted under orders,--
obedient, like a soldier, to the word of command: but the astute Society
of Jesus knew its members, weighed each in the balance, gave each his
fitting task; and when the word was passed to embark for New France,
it was but the response to a secret longing of the fervent heart.
The letters of these priests, departing for the scene of their labors,
breathe a spirit of enthusiastic exaltation, which, to a colder nature
and a colder faith, may sometimes seem overstrained, but which is in no
way disproportionate to the vastness of the effort and the sacrifice
demanded of them.

[ The following are passages from letters of missionaries at this time.
See "Divers Sentimens," appended to the Relation of 1635.

"On dit que les premiers qui fondent les Eglises d'ordinaire sont
saincts: cette pensée m'attendrit si fort le cur, que quoy que ie me
voye icy fort inutile dans ceste fortunée Nouuelle France, si faut-il que
i'auoüe que ie ne me sçaurois defendre d'vne pensée qui me presse le cur:
Cupio impendi, et superimpendi pro vobis, Pauure Nouuelle France, ie
desire me sacrifier pour ton bien, et quand il me deuroit couster mille
vies, moyennant que ie puisse aider à sauuer vne seule âme, ie seray trop
heureux, et ma vie tres bien employée."

"Ma consolation parmy les Hurons, c'est que tous les iours ie me confesse,
et puis ie dis la Messe, comme si ie deuois prendre le Viatique et mourir
ce iour là, et ie ne crois pas qu'on puisse mieux viure, ny auec plus de
satisfaction et de courage, et mesme de merites, que viure en un lieu,
où on pense pouuoir mourir tous les iours, et auoir la deuise de S. Paul,
Quotidie morior, fratres, etc. mes freres, ie fais estat de mourir tous
les iours."

"Qui ne void la Nouuelle France que par les yeux de chair et de nature,
il n'y void que des bois et des croix; mais qui les considere auec les
yeux de la grace et d'vne bonne vocation, il n'y void que Dieu, les
vertus et les graces, et on y trouue tant et de si solides consolations,
que si ie pouuois acheter la Nouuelle France, en donnant tout le Paradis
Terrestre, certainement ie l'acheterois. Mon Dieu, qu'il fait bon estre
au lieu où Dieu nous a mis de sa grace! veritablement i'ay trouué icy ce
que i'auois esperé, vn cur selon le cur de Dieu, qui ne cherche que
Dieu." ]

All turned with longing eyes towards the mission of the Hurons; for here
the largest harvest promised to repay their labor, and here hardships and
dangers most abounded. Two Jesuits, Pijart and Le Mercier, had been sent
thither in 1635; and in midsummer of the next year three more arrived,--
Jogues, Chatelain, and Garnier. When, after their long and lonely
journey, they reached Ihonatiria one by one, they were received by their
brethren with scanty fare indeed, but with a fervor of affectionate
welcome which more than made amends; for among these priests, united in a
community of faith and enthusiasm, there was far more than the genial
comradeship of men joined in a common enterprise of self-devotion and
peril. [ 1 ] On their way, they had met Daniel and Davost descending to
Quebec, to establish there a seminary of Huron children,--a project long
cherished by Brébeuf and his companions.

[ 1 "Ie luy preparay de ce que nous auions, pour le receuoir, mais quel
festin! vne poignée de petit poisson sec auec vn peu de farine;
i'enuoyay chercher quelques nouueaux espics, que nous luy fismes rostir à
la façon du pays; mais il est vray que dans son cur et à l'entendre,
il ne fit iamais meilleure chere. La ioye qui se ressent à ces
entreueuës semble estre quelque image du contentement des bien-heureux à
leur arriuée dans le Ciel, tant elle est pleine de suauité."--Le Mercier,
Relation des Hurons, 1637, 106. ]

Scarcely had the new-comers arrived, when they were attacked by a
contagious fever, which turned their mission-house into a hospital.
Jogues, Garnier, and Chatelain fell ill in turn; and two of their
domestics also were soon prostrated, though the only one of the number
who could hunt fortunately escaped. Those who remained in health
attended the sick, and the sufferers vied with each other in efforts
often beyond their strength to relieve their companions in misfortune.
[ Lettre de Brébeuf au T. R. P. Mutio Vitelleschi, 20 Mai, 1637, in
Carayon, 157. Le Mercier, Relation des Hurons, 1637, 120, 123. ]
The disease in no case proved fatal; but scarcely had health begun to
return to their household, when an unforeseen calamity demanded the
exertion of all their energies.

The pestilence, which for two years past had from time to time visited
the Huron towns, now returned with tenfold violence, and with it soon
appeared a new and fearful scourge,--the small-pox. Terror was universal.
The contagion increased as autumn advanced; and when winter came, far
from ceasing, as the priests had hoped, its ravages were appalling.
The season of Huron festivity was turned to a season of mourning; and
such was the despondency and dismay, that suicide became frequent.
The Jesuits, singly or in pairs, journeyed in the depth of winter from
village to village, ministering to the sick, and seeking to commend their
religious teachings by their efforts to relieve bodily distress. Happily,
perhaps, for their patients, they had no medicine but a little senna.
A few raisins were left, however; and one or two of these, with a
spoonful of sweetened water, were always eagerly accepted by the
sufferers, who thought them endowed with some mysterious and sovereign
efficacy. No house was left unvisited. As the missionary, physician at
once to body and soul, entered one of these smoky dens, he saw the
inmates, their heads muffled in their robes of skins, seated around the
fires in silent dejection. Everywhere was heard the wail of sick and
dying children; and on or under the platforms at the sides of the house
crouched squalid men and women, in all the stages of the distemper.
The Father approached, made inquiries, spoke words of kindness,
administered his harmless remedies, or offered a bowl of broth made from
game brought in by the Frenchman who hunted for the mission. [ Game was
so scarce in the Huron country, that it was greatly prized as a luxury.
Le Mercier speaks of an Indian, sixty years of age, who walked twelve
miles to taste the wild-fowl killed by the French hunter. The ordinary
food was corn, beans, pumpkins, and fish. ] The body cared for, he next
addressed himself to the soul. "This life is short, and very miserable.
It matters little whether we live or die." The patient remained silent,
or grumbled his dissent. The Jesuit, after enlarging for a time, in
broken Huron, on the brevity and nothingness of mortal weal or woe,
passed next to the joys of Heaven and the pains of Hell, which he set
forth with his best rhetoric. His pictures of infernal fires and
torturing devils were readily comprehended, if the listener had
consciousness enough to comprehend anything; but with respect to the
advantages of the French Paradise, he was slow of conviction. "I wish to
go where my relations and ancestors have gone," was a common reply.
"Heaven is a good place for Frenchmen," said another; "but I wish to be
among Indians, for the French will give me nothing to eat when I get
there." [ It was scarcely possible to convince the Indians, that there
was but one God for themselves and the whites. The proposition was met
by such arguments as this: "If we had been of one father, we should know
how to make knives and coats as well as you."--Le Mercier, Relation des
Hurons, 1637, 147. ] Often the patient was stolidly silent; sometimes he
was hopelessly perverse and contradictory. Again, Nature triumphed over
Grace. "Which will you choose," demanded the priest of a dying woman,
"Heaven or Hell?" "Hell, if my children are there, as you say," returned
the mother. "Do they hunt in Heaven, or make war, or go to feasts?"
asked an anxious inquirer. "Oh, no!" replied the Father. "Then,"
returned the querist, "I will not go. It is not good to be lazy."
But above all other obstacles was the dread of starvation in the regions
of the blest. Nor, when the dying Indian had been induced at last to
express a desire for Paradise, was it an easy matter to bring him to a
due contrition for his sins; for he would deny with indignation that he
had ever committed any. When at length, as sometimes happened, all these
difficulties gave way, and the patient had been brought to what seemed to
his instructor a fitting frame for baptism, the priest, with contentment
at his heart, brought water in a cup or in the hollow of his hand,
touched his forehead with the mystic drop, and snatched him from an
eternity of woe. But the convert, even after his baptism, did not always
manifest a satisfactory spiritual condition. "Why did you baptize that
Iroquois?" asked one of the dying neophytes, speaking of the prisoner
recently tortured; "he will get to Heaven before us, and, when he sees us
coming, he will drive us out." [ Most of the above traits are drawn from
Le Mercier's report of 1637. The rest are from Brébeuf. ]

Thus did these worthy priests, too conscientious to let these
unfortunates die in peace, follow them with benevolent persecutions to
the hour of their death.

It was clear to the Fathers, that their ministrations were valued solely
because their religion was supposed by many to be a "medicine," or charm,
efficacious against famine, disease, and death. They themselves, indeed,
firmly believed that saints and angels were always at hand with temporal
succors for the faithful. At their intercession, St. Joseph had
interposed to procure a happy delivery to a squaw in protracted pains of
childbirth; [ Brébeuf, Relation des Hurons, 1636, 89. Another woman was
delivered on touching a relic of St. Ignatius. Ibid., 90. ] and they
never doubted, that, in the hour of need, the celestial powers would
confound the unbeliever with intervention direct and manifest. At the
town of Wenrio, the people, after trying in vain all the feasts, dances,
and preposterous ceremonies by which their medicine-men sought to stop
the pest, resolved to essay the "medicine" of the French, and, to that
end, called the priests to a council. "What must we do, that your God
may take pity on us?" Brébeuf's answer was uncompromising:--

"Believe in Him; keep His commandments; abjure your faith in dreams; take
but one wife, and be true to her; give up your superstitious feasts;
renounce your assemblies of debauchery; eat no human flesh; never give
feasts to demons; and make a vow, that, if God will deliver you from this
pest, you will build a chapel to offer Him thanksgiving and praise."
[ Le Mercier, Relation des Hurons, 1637, 114, 116 (Cramoisy). ]

The terms were too hard. They would fain bargain to be let off with
building the chapel alone; but Brébeuf would bate them nothing, and the
council broke up in despair.

At Ossossané, a few miles distant, the people, in a frenzy of terror,
accepted the conditions, and promised to renounce their superstitions and
reform their manners. It was a labor of Hercules, a cleansing of Augean
stables; but the scared savages were ready to make any promise that might
stay the pestilence. One of their principal sorcerers proclaimed in a
loud voice through the streets of the town, that the God of the French
was their master, and that thenceforth all must live according to His
will. "What consolation," exclaims Le Mercier, "to see God glorified by
the lips of an imp of Satan!" [ Le Mercier, Relation des Hurons, 1637,
127, 128 (Cramoisy). ]

Their joy was short. The proclamation was on the twelfth of December.
On the twenty-first, a noted sorcerer came to Ossossané. He was of a
dwarfish, hump-backed figure,--most rare among this symmetrical
people,--with a vicious face, and a dress consisting of a torn and shabby
robe of beaver-skin. Scarcely had he arrived, when, with ten or twelve
other savages, he ensconced himself in a kennel of bark made for the
occasion. In the midst were placed several stones, heated red-hot.
On these the sorcerer threw tobacco, producing a stifling fumigation; in
the midst of which, for a full half-hour, he sang, at the top of his
throat, those boastful, yet meaningless, rhapsodies of which Indian
magical songs are composed. Then came a grand "medicine-feast"; and the
disappointed Jesuits saw plainly that the objects of their spiritual care,
unwilling to throw away any chance of cure, were bent on invoking aid
from God and the Devil at once.

The hump-backed sorcerer became a thorn in the side of the Fathers,
who more than half believed his own account of his origin. He was, he
said, not a man, but an _oki_,--a spirit, or, as the priests rendered it,
a demon,--and had dwelt with other _okies_ under the earth, when the whim
seized him to become a man. Therefore he ascended to the upper world,
in company with a female spirit. They hid beside a path, and, when they
saw a woman passing, they entered her womb. After a time they were born,
but not until the male oki had quarrelled with and strangled his female
companion, who came dead into the world. [ Le Mercier, Relation des
Hurons, 1637, 72 (Cramoisy). This "petit sorcier" is often mentioned
elsewhere. ] The character of the sorcerer seems to have comported
reasonably well with this story of his origin. He pretended to have an
absolute control over the pestilence, and his prescriptions were
scrupulously followed.

He had several conspicuous rivals, besides a host of humbler competitors.
One of these magician-doctors, who was nearly blind, made for himself a
kennel at the end of his house, where he fasted for seven days. [ See
Introduction. ] On the sixth day the spirits appeared, and, among other
revelations, told him that the disease could be frightened away by means
of images of straw, like scarecrows, placed on the tops of the houses.
Within forty-eight hours after this announcement, the roofs of
Onnentisati and the neighboring villages were covered with an army of
these effigies. The Indians tried to persuade the Jesuits to put them on
the mission-house; but the priests replied, that the cross before their
door was a better protector; and, for further security, they set another
on their roof, declaring that they would rely on it to save them from
infection. [ "Qu'en vertu de ce signe nous ne redoutions point les
demons, et esperions que Dieu preserueroit nostre petite maison de cette
maladie contagieuse."--Le Mercier, Relation des Hurons, 1637, 150. ]
The Indians, on their part, anxious that their scarecrows should do their
office well, addressed them in loud harangues and burned offerings of
tobacco to them. [ Ibid., 157. ]

There was another sorcerer, whose medical practice was so extensive, that,
unable to attend to all his patients, he sent substitutes to the
surrounding towns, first imparting to them his own mysterious power.
One of these deputies came to Ossossané while the priests were there.
The principal house was thronged with expectant savages, anxiously
waiting his arrival. A chief carried before him a kettle of mystic water,
with which the envoy sprinkled the company, [ 1 ] at the same time
fanning them with the wing of a wild turkey. Then came a grand
medicine-feast, followed by a medicine-dance of women.

[ 1 The idea seems to have been taken from the holy water of the French.
Le Mercier says that a Huron who had been to Quebec once asked him the
use of the vase of water at the door of the chapel. The priest told him
that it was "to frighten away the devils". On this, he begged earnestly
to have some of it. ]

Opinion was divided as to the nature of the pest; but the greater number
were agreed that it was a malignant oki, who came from Lake Huron. [ 1 ]
As it was of the last moment to conciliate or frighten him, no means to
these ends were neglected. Feasts were held for him, at which, to do him
honor, each guest gorged himself like a vulture. A mystic fraternity
danced with firebrands in their mouths; while other dancers wore masks,
and pretended to be hump-backed. Tobacco was burned to the Demon of the
Pest, no less than to the scarecrows which were to frighten him. A chief
climbed to the roof of a house, and shouted to the invisible monster,
"If you want flesh, go to our enemies, go to the Iroquois!"--while,
to add terror to persuasion, the crowd in the dwelling below yelled with
all the force of their lungs, and beat furiously with sticks on the walls
of bark.

[ 1 Many believed that the country was bewitched by wicked sorcerers,
one of whom, it was said, had been seen at night roaming around the
villages, vomiting fire. (Le Mercier, Relation des Hurons, 1637, 134.)
This superstition of sorcerers vomiting fire was common among the
Iroquois of New York.--Others held that a sister of Étienne Brulé caused
the evil, in revenge for the death of her brother, murdered some years
before. She was said to have been seen flying over the country,
breathing forth pestilence. ]

Besides these public efforts to stay the pestilence, the sufferers,
each for himself, had their own methods of cure, dictated by dreams or
prescribed by established usage. Thus two of the priests, entering a
house, saw a sick man crouched in a corner, while near him sat three
friends. Before each of these was placed a huge portion of food,--enough,
the witness declares, for four,--and though all were gorged to
suffocation, with starting eyeballs and distended veins, they still held
staunchly to their task, resolved at all costs to devour the whole,
in order to cure the patient, who meanwhile ceased not in feeble tones,
to praise their exertions, and implore them to persevere.

[ "En fin il leur fallut rendre gorge, ce qu'ils firent à diuerses
reprises, ne laissants pas pour cela de continuer à vuider leur
plat."--Le Mercier, Relation des Hurons, 1637, 142.--This beastly
superstition exists in some tribes at the present day. A kindred
superstition once fell under the writer's notice, in the case of a
wounded Indian, who begged of every one he met to drink a large bowl of
water, in order that he, the Indian, might be cured. ]

Turning from these eccentricities of the "noble savage" [ 1 ] to the
zealots who were toiling, according to their light, to snatch him from
the clutch of Satan, we see the irrepressible Jesuits roaming from town
to town in restless quest of subjects for baptism. In the case of adults,
they thought some little preparation essential; but their efforts to this
end, even with the aid of St. Joseph, whom they constantly invoked, [ 2 ]
were not always successful; and, cheaply as they offered salvation,
they sometimes railed to find a purchaser. With infants, however,
a simple drop of water sufficed for the transfer from a prospective Hell
to an assured Paradise. The Indians, who at first had sought baptism as
a cure, now began to regard it as a cause of death; and when the priest
entered a lodge where a sick child lay in extremity, the scowling parents
watched him with jealous distrust, lest unawares the deadly drop should
be applied. The Jesuits were equal to the emergency. Father Le Mercier
will best tell his own story.

[ 1 In the midst of these absurdities we find recorded one of the best
traits of the Indian character. At Ihonatiria, a house occupied by a
family of orphan children was burned to the ground, leaving the inmates
destitute. The villagers united to aid them. Each contributed something,
and they were soon better provided for than before. ]

[ 2 "C'est nostre refuge ordinaire en semblables necessitez, et
d'ordinaire auec tels succez, que nous auons sujet d'en benir Dieu à
iamais, qui nous fait cognoistre en cette barbarie le credit de ce
S. Patriarche aupres de son infinie misericorde."--Le Mercier, Relation
des Hurons, 1637, 153.--In the case of a woman at Onnentisati, "Dieu nous
inspira de luy vouër quelques Messes en l'honneur de S. Joseph."
The effect was prompt. In half an hour the woman was ready for baptism.
On the same page we have another subject secured to Heaven, "sans doute
par les merites du glorieux Patriarche S. Joseph." ]

"On the third of May, Father Pierre Pijart baptized at Anonatea a little
child two months old, in manifest danger of death, without being seen by
the parents, who would not give their consent. This is the device which
he used. Our sugar does wonders for us. He pretended to make the child
drink a little sugared water, and at the same time dipped a finger in it.
As the father of the infant began to suspect something, and called out to
him not to baptize it, he gave the spoon to a woman who was near, and
said to her, 'Give it to him yourself.' She approached and found the
child asleep; and at the same time Father Pijart, under pretence of
seeing if he was really asleep touched his face with his wet finger,
and baptized him. At the end of forty-eight hours he went to Heaven.

"Some days before, the missionary had used the same device (_industrie_)
for baptizing a little boy six or seven years old. His father, who was
very sick, had several times refused to receive baptism; and when asked
if he would not be glad to have his son baptized, he had answered, No.
'At least,' said Father Pijart, 'you will not object to my giving him a
little sugar.' 'No; but you must not baptize him.' The missionary gave
it to him once; then again; and at the third spoonful, before he had put
the sugar into the water, he let a drop of it fall on the child, at the
same time pronouncing the sacramental words. A little girl, who was
looking at him, cried out, 'Father, he is baptizing him!' The child's
father was much disturbed; but the missionary said to him, 'Did you not
see that I was giving him sugar?' The child died soon after; but God
showed His grace to the father, who is now in perfect health."

[ Le Mercier, Relation des Hurons, 1637, 165. Various other cases of the
kind are mentioned in the Relations. ]

That equivocal morality, lashed by the withering satire of Pascal,--a
morality built on the doctrine that all means are permissible for saving
souls from perdition, and that sin itself is no sin when its object is
the "greater glory of God,"--found far less scope in the rude wilderness
of the Hurons than among the interests, ambitions, and passions of
civilized life. Nor were these men, chosen from the purest of their
Order, personally well fitted to illustrate the capabilities of this
elastic system. Yet now and then, by the light of their own writings,
we may observe that the teachings of the school of Loyola had not been
wholly without effect in the formation of their ethics.

But when we see them, in the gloomy February of 1637, and the gloomier
months that followed, toiling on foot from one infected town to another,
wading through the sodden snow, under the bare and dripping forests,
drenched with incessant rains, till they descried at length through the
storm the clustered dwellings of some barbarous hamlet,--when we see them
entering, one after another, these wretched abodes of misery and darkness,
and all for one sole end, the baptism of the sick and dying, we may smile
at the futility of the object, but we must needs admire the self-
sacrificing zeal with which it was pursued.

CHAPTER IX.

1637.

CHARACTER OF THE CANADIAN JESUITS.

JEAN DE BRÉBEUF.--CHARLES GARNIER.--JOSEPH MARIE CHAUMONOT.--
NOËL CHABANEL.--ISAAC JOGUES.--OTHER JESUITS.--NATURE OF THEIR FAITH.--
SUPERNATURALISM.--VISIONS.--MIRACLES.

Before pursuing farther these obscure, but noteworthy, scenes in the
drama of human history, it will be well to indicate, so far as there are
means of doing so, the distinctive traits of some of the chief actors.
Mention has often been made of Brébeuf,--that masculine apostle of the
Faith,--the Ajax of the mission. Nature had given him all the passions
of a vigorous manhood, and religion had crushed them, curbed them,
or tamed them to do her work,--like a dammed-up torrent, sluiced and
guided to grind and saw and weave for the good of man. Beside him,
in strange contrast, stands his co-laborer, Charles Garnier. Both were
of noble birth and gentle nurture; but here the parallel ends. Garnier's
face was beardless, though he was above thirty years old. For this he
was laughed at by his friends in Paris, but admired by the Indians,
who thought him handsome. [ "C'est pourquoi j'ai bien gagne quitter la
France, où vous me fesiez la guerre de n'avoir point de barbe; car c'est
ce qui me fait estimes beau des Sauvages."--Lettres de Garnier, MSS. ]
His constitution, bodily or mental, was by no means robust. From boyhood,
he had shown a delicate and sensitive nature, a tender conscience,
and a proneness to religious emotion. He had never gone with his
schoolmates to inns and other places of amusement, but kept his
pocket-money to give to beggars. One of his brothers relates of him,
that, seeing an obscene book, he bought and destroyed it, lest other boys
should be injured by it. He had always wished to be a Jesuit, and,
after a novitiate which is described as most edifying, he became a
professed member of the Order. The Church, indeed, absorbed the greater
part, if not the whole, of this pious family,--one brother being a
Carmelite, another a Capuchin, and a third a Jesuit, while there seems
also to have been a fourth under vows. Of Charles Garnier there remain
twenty-four letters, written at various times to his father and two of
his brothers, chiefly during his missionary life among the Hurons.
They breathe the deepest and most intense Roman Catholic piety, and a
spirit enthusiastic, yet sad, as of one renouncing all the hopes and
prizes of the world, and living for Heaven alone. The affections of his
sensitive nature, severed from earthly objects, found relief in an ardent
adoration of the Virgin Mary. With none of the bone and sinew of rugged
manhood, he entered, not only without hesitation, but with eagerness,
on a life which would have tried the boldest; and, sustained by the
spirit within him, he was more than equal to it. His fellow-missionaries
thought him a saint; and had he lived a century or two earlier, he would
perhaps have been canonized: yet, while all his life was a willing
martyrdom, one can discern, amid his admirable virtues, some slight
lingerings of mortal vanity. Thus, in three several letters, he speaks
of his great success in baptizing, and plainly intimates that he had sent
more souls to Heaven than the other Jesuits.

[ The above sketch of Garnier is drawn from various sources.
Observations du P. Henri de St. Joseph, Carme, sur son Frère le
P. Charles Garnier, MS.--Abrégé de la Vie du R. Père Charles Garnier, MS.
This unpublished sketch bears the signature of the Jesuit Ragueneau,
with the date 1652. For the opportunity of consulting it I am indebted
to Rev. Felix Martin, S. J.--Lettres du P. Charles Garnier, MSS. These
embrace his correspondence from the Huron country, and are exceedingly
characteristic and striking. There is another letter in Carayon,
Première Mission.--Garnier's family was wealthy, as well as noble.
Its members seem to have been strongly attached to each other, and the
young priest's father was greatly distressed at his departure for Canada. ]

Next appears a young man of about twenty-seven years, Joseph Marie
Chaumonot. Unlike Brébeuf and Garnier, he was of humble origin,--his
father being a vine-dresser, and his mother the daughter of a poor
village schoolmaster. At an early age they sent him to Châtillon on the
Seine, where he lived with his uncle, a priest, who taught him to speak
Latin, and awakened his religious susceptibilities, which were naturally
strong. This did not prevent him from yielding to the persuasions of one
of his companions to run off to Beaune, a town of Burgundy, where the
fugitives proposed to study music under the Fathers of the Oratory.
To provide funds for the journey, he stole a sum of about the value of a
dollar from his uncle, the priest. This act, which seems to have been a
mere peccadillo of boyish levity, determined his future career. Finding
himself in total destitution at Beaune, he wrote to his mother for money,
and received in reply an order from his father to come home. Stung with
the thought of being posted as a thief in his native village, he resolved
not to do so, but to set out forthwith on a pilgrimage to Rome; and
accordingly, tattered and penniless, he took the road for the sacred
city. Soon a conflict began within him between his misery and the pride
which forbade him to beg. The pride was forced to succumb. He begged
from door to door; slept under sheds by the wayside, or in haystacks; and
now and then found lodging and a meal at a convent. Thus, sometimes
alone, sometimes with vagabonds whom he met on the road, he made his way
through Savoy and Lombardy in a pitiable condition of destitution, filth,
and disease. At length he reached Ancona, when the thought occured to
him of visiting the Holy House of Loretto, and imploring the succor of
the Virgin Mary. Nor were his hopes disappointed. He had reached that
renowned shrine, knelt, paid his devotions, and offered his prayer, when,
as he issued from the door of the chapel, he was accosted by a young man,
whom he conjectures to have been an angel descended to his relief,
and who was probably some penitent or devotee bent on works of charity or
self-mortification. With a voice of the greatest kindness, he proffered
his aid to the wretched boy, whose appearance was alike fitted to awaken
pity and disgust. The conquering of a natural repugnance to filth,
in the interest of charity and humility, is a conspicuous virtue in most
of the Roman Catholic saints; and whatever merit may attach to it was
acquired in an extraordinary degree by the young man in question.
Apparently, he was a physician; for he not only restored the miserable
wanderer to a condition of comparative decency, but cured him of a
grievous malady, the result of neglect. Chaumonot went on his way,
thankful to his benefactor, and overflowing with an enthusiasm of
gratitude to Our Lady of Loretto.

[ "Si la moindre dame m'avoit fait rendre ce service par le dernier de
ses valets, n'aurois-je pas dus lui en rendre toutes les reconnoissances
possibles? Et si après une telle charité elle s'étoit offerte à me
servir toujours de mesme, comment aurois-je dû l'honorer, lui obéir,
l'aimer toute ma vie! Pardon, Reine des Anges et des hommes! pardon de
ce qu'après avoir reçu de vous tant de marques, par lesquelles vous
m'avez convaincu que vous m'avez adopté pour votre fils, j'ai eu
l'ingratitude pendant des années entières de me comporter encore plutôt
en esclave de Satan qu'en enfant d'une Mère Vierge. O que vous êtes
bonne et charitable! puisque quelques obstacles que mes péchés ayent pu
mettre à vos graces, vous n'avez jamais cessé de m'attirer au bien;
jusque là que vous m'avez fait admettre dans la Sainte Compagnie de Jésus,
votre fils."--Chaumonot, Vie, 20. The above is from the very curious
autobiography written by Chaumonot, at the command of his Superior,
in 1688. The original manuscript is at the Hôtel Dieu of Quebec.
Mr. Shea has printed it. ]

As he journeyed towards Rome, an old burgher, at whose door he had begged,
employed him as a servant. He soon became known to a Jesuit, to whom he
had confessed himself in Latin; and as his acquirements were considerable
for his years, he was eventually employed as teacher of a low class in
one of the Jesuit schools. Nature had inclined him to a life of
devotion. He would fain be a hermit, and, to that end, practised eating
green ears of wheat; but, finding he could not swallow them, conceived
that he had mistaken his vocation. Then a strong desire grew up within
him to become a Récollet, a Capuchin, or, above all, a Jesuit; and at
length the wish of his heart was answered. At the age of twenty-one,
he was admitted to the Jesuit novitiate. [ 1 ] Soon after its close,
a small duodecimo volume was placed in his hands. It was a Relation of
the Canadian mission, and contained one of those narratives of Brébeuf
which have been often cited in the preceding pages. Its effect was
immediate. Burning to share those glorious toils, the young priest asked
to be sent to Canada; and his request was granted.

[ 1 His age, when he left his uncle, the priest, is not mentioned.
But he must have been a mere child; for, at the end of his novitiate,
he had forgotten his native language, and was forced to learn it a second
time.

"Jamais y eut-il homme sur terre plus obligé que moi à la Sainte Famille
de Jésus, de Marie et de Joseph! Marie en me guérissant de ma vilaine
galle ou teigne, me délivra d'une infinité de peines et d'incommodités
corporelles, que cette hideuse maladie qui me rongeoit m'avoit causé.
Joseph m'ayant obtenu la grace d'être incorporé à un corps aussi saint
qu'est celui des Jésuites, m'a preservé d'une infinité de misères
spirituelles, de tentations très dangereuses et de péchés très énormes.
Jésus n'ayant pas permis que j'entrasse dans aucun autre ordre qu'en
celui qu'il honore tout à la fois de son beau nom, de sa douce présence
et de sa protection spéciale. O Jésus! O Marie! O Joseph! qui méritoit
moins que moi vos divines faveurs, et envers qui avez vous été plus
prodigue?"--Chaumonot, Vie, 37. ]

Before embarking, he set out with the Jesuit Poncet, who was also
destined for Canada, on a pilgrimage from Rome to the shrine of Our Lady
of Loretto. They journeyed on foot, begging alms by the way. Chaumonot
was soon seized with a pain in the knee, so violent that it seemed
impossible to proceed. At San Severino, where they lodged with the
Barnabites, he bethought him of asking the intercession of a certain poor
woman of that place, who had died some time before with the reputation of
sanctity. Accordingly he addressed to her his prayer, promising to
publish her fame on every possible occasion, if she would obtain his cure
from God. [ "Je me recommandai à elle en lui promettant de la faire
connoître dans toutes les occasions que j'en aurois jamais, si elle
vn'obtenoit de Dieu ma guérison."--Chaumonot, Vie, 46. ] The
intercession was accepted; the offending limb became sound again, and the
two pilgrims pursued their journey. They reached Loretto, and, kneeling
before the Queen of Heaven, implored her favor and aid; while Chaumonot,
overflowing with devotion to this celestial mistress of his heart,
conceived the purpose of building in Canada a chapel to her honor,
after the exact model of the Holy House of Loretto. They soon afterwards
embarked together, and arrived among the Hurons early in the autumn of
1639.

Noël Chabanel came later to the mission; for he did not reach the Huron
country until 1643. He detested the Indian life,--the smoke, the vermin,
the filthy food, the impossibility of privacy. He could not study by the
smoky lodge-fire, among the noisy crowd of men and squaws, with their
dogs, and their restless, screeching children. He had a natural
inaptitude to learning the language, and labored at it for five years
with scarcely a sign of progress. The Devil whispered a suggestion into
his ear: Let him procure his release from these barren and revolting
toils, and return to France, where congenial and useful employments
awaited him. Chabanel refused to listen; and when the temptation still
beset him, he bound himself by a solemn vow to remain in Canada to the
day of his death. [ Abrégé de la Vie du Père Noël Chabanel, MS. This
anonymous paper bears the signature of Ragueneau, in attestation of its
truth. See also Ragueneau, Relation, 1650, 17, 18. Chabanel's vow is
here given verbatim. ]

Isaac Jogues was of a character not unlike Garnier. Nature had given him
no especial force of intellect or constitutional energy, yet the man was
indomitable and irrepressible, as his history will show. We have but few
means of characterizing the remaining priests of the mission otherwise
than as their traits appear on the field of their labors. Theirs was no
faith of abstractions and generalities. For them, heaven was very near
to earth, touching and mingling with it at many points. On high, God the
Father sat enthroned: and, nearer to human sympathies, Divinity incarnate
in the Son, with the benign form of his immaculate mother, and her spouse,
St. Joseph, the chosen patron of New France. Interceding saints and
departed friends bore to the throne of grace the petitions of those yet
lingering in mortal bondage, and formed an ascending chain from earth to
heaven.

These priests lived in an atmosphere of supernaturalism. Every day had
its miracle. Divine power declared itself in action immediate and direct,
controlling, guiding, or reversing the laws of Nature. The missionaries
did not reject the ordinary cures for disease or wounds; but they relied
far more on a prayer to the Virgin, a vow to St. Joseph, or the promise of
a _neuvaine_, or nine days' devotion, to some other celestial personage;
while the touch of a fragment of a tooth or bone of some departed saint
was of sovereign efficacy to cure sickness, solace pain, or relieve a
suffering squaw in the throes of childbirth. Once, Chaumonot, having a
headache, remembered to have heard of a sick man who regained his health
by commending his case to St. Ignatius, and at the same time putting a
medal stamped with his image into his mouth. Accordingly he tried a
similar experiment, putting into his mouth a medal bearing a
representation of the Holy Family, which was the object of his especial
devotion. The next morning found him cured. [ Chaumonot, Vie, 73. ]

The relation between this world and the next was sometimes of a nature
curiously intimate. Thus, when Chaumonot heard of Garnier's death,
he immediately addressed his departed colleague, and promised him the
benefit of all the good works which he, Chaumonot, might perform during
the next week, provided the defunct missionary would make him heir to his
knowledge of the Huron tongue. [ 1 ] And he ascribed to the deceased
Garnier's influence the mastery of that language which he afterwards
acquired.

[ 1 "Je n'eus pas plutôt appris sa glorieuse mort, que je lui promis
tout ce que je ferois de bien pendant huit jours, à condition qu'il me
feroit son héritier dans la connoissance parfaite qu'il avoit du
Huron."--Chaumonot, Vie, 61. ]

The efforts of the missionaries for the conversion of the savages were
powerfully seconded from the other world, and the refractory subject who
was deaf to human persuasions softened before the superhuman agencies
which the priest invoked to his aid.

[ As these may be supposed to be exploded ideas of the past, the writer
may recall an incident of his youth, while spending a few days in the
convent of the Passionists, near the Coliseum at Rome. These worthy
monks, after using a variety of arguments for his conversion, expressed
the hope that a miraculous interposition would be vouchsafed to that end,
and that the Virgin would manifest herself to him in a nocturnal vision.
To this end they gave him a small brass medal, stamped with her image,
to be worn at his neck, while they were to repeat a certain number of
Aves and Paters, in which he was urgently invited to join; as the result
of which, it was hoped the Virgin would appear on the same night.
No vision, however, occurred. ]

It is scarcely necessary to add, that signs and voices from another world,
visitations from Hell and visions from Heaven, were incidents of no rare
occurrence in the lives of these ardent apostles. To Brébeuf, whose deep
nature, like a furnace white hot, glowed with the still intensity of his
enthusiasm, they were especially frequent. Demons in troops appeared
before him, sometimes in the guise of men, sometimes as bears, wolves,
or wildcats. He called on God, and the apparitions vanished. Death,
like a skeleton, sometimes menaced him, and once, as he faced it with an
unquailing eye, it fell powerless at his feet. A demon, in the form of a
woman, assailed him with the temptation which beset St. Benedict among
the rocks of Subiaco; but Brébeuf signed the cross, and the infernal
siren melted into air. He saw the vision of a vast and gorgeous palace;
and a miraculous voice assured him that such was to be the reward of
those who dwelt in savage hovels for the cause of God. Angels appeared
to him; and, more than once, St. Joseph and the Virgin were visibly
present before his sight. Once, when he was among the Neutral Nation,
in the winter of 1640, he beheld the ominous apparition of a great cross
slowly approaching from the quarter where lay the country of the
Iroquois. He told the vision to his comrades. "What was it like?
How large was it?" they eagerly demanded. "Large enough," replied the
priest, "to crucify us all." [ 1 ] To explain such phenomena is the
province of psychology, and not of history. Their occurrence is no
matter of surprise, and it would be superfluous to doubt that they were
recounted in good faith, and with a full belief in their reality.

[ 1 Quelques Remarques sur la Vie du Père Jean de Brébeuf, MS. On the
margin of this paper, opposite several of the statements repeated above,
are the words, signed by Ragueneau, "Ex ipsius autographo," indicating
that the statements were made in writing by Brébeuf himself.

Still other visions are recorded by Chaumonot as occurring to Brébeuf,
when they were together in the Neutral country. See also the long notice
of Brébeuf, written by his colleague, Ragueneau, in the Relation of 1649;
and Tanner, Societas Jesu Militans, 533. ]

In these enthusiasts we shall find striking examples of one of the morbid
forces of human nature; yet in candor let us do honor to what was genuine
in them,--that principle of self-abnegation which is the life of true
religion, and which is vital no less to the highest forms of heroism.

CHAPTER X.

1637-1640.

PERSECUTION.

OSSOSSANÉ.--THE NEW CHAPEL.--A TRIUMPH OF THE FAITH.--
THE NETHER POWERS.--SIGNS OF A TEMPEST.--SLANDERS.--
RAGE AGAINST THE JESUITS.--THEIR BOLDNESS AND PERSISTENCY.--
NOCTURNAL COUNCIL.--DANGER OF THE PRIESTS.--BRÉBEUF'S LETTER.--
NARROW ESCAPES.--WOES AND CONSOLATIONS.

The town of Ossossané, or Rochelle, stood, as we have seen, on the
borders of Lake Huron, at the skirts of a gloomy wilderness of pine.
Thither, in May, 1637, repaired Father Pijart, to found, in this, one of
the largest of the Huron towns, the new mission of the Immaculate
Conception. [ The doctrine of the immaculate conception of the Virgin,
recently sanctioned by the Pope, has long been a favorite tenet of the
Jesuits. ] The Indians had promised Brébeuf to build a house for the
black-robes, and Pijart found the work in progress. There were at this
time about fifty dwellings in the town, each containing eight or ten
families. The quadrangular fort already alluded to had now been
completed by the Indians, under the instruction of the priests.
[ Lettres de Garnier, MSS. It was of upright pickets, ten feet high
with flanking towers at two angles. ]

The new mission-house was about seventy feet in length. No sooner had
the savage workmen secured the bark covering on its top and sides than
the priests took possession, and began their preparations for a notable
ceremony. At the farther end they made an altar, and hung such
decorations as they had on the rough walls of bark throughout half the
length of the structure. This formed their chapel. On the altar was a
crucifix, with vessels and ornaments of shining metal; while above hung
several pictures,--among them a painting of Christ, and another of the
Virgin, both of life-size. There was also a representation of the Last
Judgment, wherein dragons and serpents might be seen feasting on the
entrails of the wicked, while demons scourged them into the flames of
Hell. The entrance was adorned with a quantity of tinsel, together with
green boughs skilfully disposed.

[ "Nostre Chapelle estoit extraordinairement bien ornée, . . nous auions
dressé vn portique entortillé de feüillage, meslé d'oripeau, en vn mot
nous auions estallé tout ce que vostre R. nous a enuoié de beau," etc.,
etc.--Le Mercier, Relation des Hurons, 1637, 175, 176.--In his Relation
of the next year he recurs to the subject, and describes the pictures
displayed on this memorable occasion.--Relation des Hurons, 1638, 33. ]

Never before were such splendors seen in the land of the Hurons. Crowds
gathered from afar, and gazed in awe and admiration at the marvels of the
sanctuary. A woman came from a distant town to behold it, and, tremulous
between curiosity and fear, thrust her head into the mysterious recess,
declaring that she would see it, though the look should cost her life.
[ Ibid., 1637, 176. ]

One is forced to wonder at, if not to admire, the energy with which these
priests and their scarcely less zealous attendants [ 1 ] toiled to carry
their pictures and ornaments through the most arduous of journeys,
where the traveller was often famished from the sheer difficulty of
transporting provisions.

[ 1 The Jesuits on these distant missions were usually attended by
followers who had taken no vows, and could leave their service at will,
but whose motives were religious, and not mercenary. Probably this was
the character of their attendants in the present case. They were known
as _donnés_, or "given men." It appears from a letter of the Jesuit
Du Peron, that twelve hired laborers were soon after sent up to the
mission. ]

A great event had called forth all this preparation. Of the many
baptisms achieved by the Fathers in the course of their indefatigable
ministry, the subjects had all been infants, or adults at the point of
death; but at length a Huron, in full health and manhood, respected and
influential in his tribe, had been won over to the Faith, and was now to
be baptized with solemn ceremonial, in the chapel thus gorgeously
adorned. It was a strange scene. Indians were there in throngs, and the
house was closely packed: warriors, old and young, glistening in grease
and sunflower-oil, with uncouth locks, a trifle less coarse than a
horse's mane, and faces perhaps smeared with paint in honor of the
occasion; wenches in gay attire; hags muffled in a filthy discarded
deer-skin, their leathery visages corrugated with age and malice, and
their hard, glittering eyes riveted on the spectacle before them.
The priests, no longer in their daily garb of black, but radiant in their
surplices, the genuflections, the tinkling of the bell, the swinging of
the censer, the sweet odors so unlike the fumes of the smoky lodge-fires,
the mysterious elevation of the Host, (for a mass followed the baptism,)
and the agitation of the neophyte, whose Indian imperturbability fairly
deserted him,--all these combined to produce on the minds of the savage
beholders an impression that seemed to promise a rich harvest for the
Faith. To the Jesuits it was a day of triumph and of hope. The ice had
been broken; the wedge had entered; light had dawned at last on the long
night of heathendom. But there was one feature of the situation which in
their rejoicing they overlooked.

The Devil had taken alarm. He had borne with reasonable composure the
loss of individual souls snatched from him by former baptisms; but here
was a convert whose example and influence threatened to shake his Huron
empire to its very foundation. In fury and fear, he rose to the conflict,
and put forth all his malice and all his hellish ingenuity. Such,
at least, is the explanation given by the Jesuits of the scenes that
followed. [ 1 ] Whether accepting it or not, let us examine the
circumstances which gave rise to it.

[ 1 Several of the Jesuits allude to this supposed excitement among the
tenants of the nether world. Thus, Le Mercier says, "Le Diable se
sentoit pressé de prés, il ne pouuoit supporter le Baptesme solennel de
quelques Sauuages des plus signalez."--Relation des Hurons, 1638, 33.--
Several other baptisms of less note followed that above described.
Garnier, writing to his brother, repeatedly alludes to the alarm excited
in Hell by the recent successes of the mission, and adds,--"Vous pouvez
juger quelle consolation nous étoit-ce de voir le diable s'armer contre
nous et se servir de ses esclaves pour nous attaquer et tâcher de nous
perdre en haine de J. C." ]

The mysterious strangers, garbed in black, who of late years had made
their abode among them, from motives past finding out, marvellous in
knowledge, careless of life, had awakened in the breasts of the Hurons
mingled emotions of wonder, perplexity, fear, respect, and awe. From the
first, they had held them answerable for the changes of the weather,
commending them when the crops were abundant, and upbraiding them in
times of scarcity. They thought them mighty magicians, masters of life
and death; and they came to them for spells, sometimes to destroy their
enemies, and sometimes to kill grasshoppers. And now it was whispered
abroad that it was they who had bewitched the nation, and caused the pest
which threatened to exterminate it.

It was Isaac Jogues who first heard this ominous rumor, at the town of
Onnentisati, and it proceeded from the dwarfish sorcerer already
mentioned, who boasted himself a devil incarnate. The slander spread
fast and far. Their friends looked at them askance; their enemies
clamored for their lives. Some said that they concealed in their houses
a corpse, which infected the country,--a perverted notion, derived from
some half-instructed neophyte, concerning the body of Christ in the
Eucharist. Others ascribed the evil to a serpent, others to a spotted
frog, others to a demon which the priests were supposed to carry in the
barrel of a gun. Others again gave out that they had pricked an infant
to death with awls in the forest, in order to kill the Huron children by
magic. "Perhaps," observes Father Le Mercier, "the Devil was enraged
because we had placed a great many of these little innocents in Heaven."

[ "Le diable enrageoit peutestre de ce que nous avions placé dans le ciel
quantité de ces petits innocens."--Le Mercier, Relation des Hurons, 1638,
12 (Cramoisy). ]

The picture of the Last Judgment became an object of the utmost terror.
It was regarded as a charm. The dragons and serpents were supposed to be
the demons of the pest, and the sinners whom they were so busily
devouring to represent its victims. On the top of a spruce-tree, near
their house at Ihonatiria, the priests had fastened a small streamer,
to show the direction of the wind. This, too, was taken for a charm,
throwing off disease and death to all quarters. The clock, once an
object of harmless wonder, now excited the wildest alarm; and the Jesuits
were forced to stop it, since, when it struck, it was supposed to sound
the signal of death. At sunset, one would have seen knots of Indians,
their faces dark with dejection and terror, listening to the measured
sounds which issued from within the neighboring house of the mission,
where, with bolted doors, the priests were singing litanies, mistaken for
incantations by the awe-struck savages.

Had the objects of these charges been Indians, their term of life would
have been very short. The blow of a hatchet, stealthily struck in the
dusky entrance of a lodge, would have promptly avenged the victims of
their sorcery, and delivered the country from peril. But the priests
inspired a strange awe. Nocturnal councils were held; their death was
decreed; and, as they walked their rounds, whispering groups of children
gazed after them as men doomed to die. But who should be the executioner?
They were reviled and upbraided. The Indian boys threw sticks at them as
they passed, and then ran behind the houses. When they entered one of
these pestiferous dens, this impish crew clambered on the roof, to pelt
them with snowballs through the smoke-holes. The old squaw who crouched
by the fire scowled on them with mingled anger and fear, and cried out,
"Begone! there are no sick ones here." The invalids wrapped their heads
in their blankets; and when the priest accosted some dejected warrior,
the savage looked gloomily on the ground, and answered not a word.

Yet nothing could divert the Jesuits from their ceaseless quest of dying
subjects for baptism, and above all of dying children. They penetrated
every house in turn. When, through the thin walls of bark, they heard
the wail of a sick infant, no menace and no insult could repel them from
the threshold. They pushed boldly in, asked to buy some trifle, spoke of
late news of Iroquois forays,--of anything, in short, except the
pestilence and the sick child; conversed for a while till suspicion was
partially lulled to sleep, and then, pretending to observe the sufferer
for the first time, approached it, felt its pulse, and asked of its
health. Now, while apparently fanning the heated brow, the dexterous
visitor touched it with a corner of his handkerchief, which he had
previously dipped in water, murmured the baptismal words with motionless
lips, and snatched another soul from the fangs of the "Infernal Wolf."
[ 1 ] Thus, with the patience of saints, the courage of heroes, and an
intent truly charitable, did the Fathers put forth a nimble-fingered
adroitness that would have done credit to the profession of which the
function is less to dispense the treasures of another world than to grasp
those which pertain to this.

[ 1 _Ce loup infernal_ is a title often bestowed in the Relations on the
Devil. The above details are gathered from the narratives of Brébeuf,
Le Mercier, and Lalemant, and letters, published and unpublished, of
several other Jesuits.

In another case, an Indian girl was carrying on her back a sick child,
two months old. Two Jesuits approached, and while one of them amused the
girl with his rosary, "l'autre le baptise lestement; le pauure petit
n'attendoit que ceste faueur du Ciel pour s'y enuoler." ]

The Huron chiefs were summoned to a great council, to discuss the state
of the nation. The crisis demanded all their wisdom; for, while the
continued ravages of disease threatened them with annihilation, the
Iroquois scalping-parties infested the outskirts of their towns, and
murdered them in their fields and forests. The assembly met in August,
1637; and the Jesuits, knowing their deep stake in its deliberations,
failed not to be present, with a liberal gift of wampum, to show their
sympathy in the public calamities. In private, they sought to gain the
good-will of the deputies, one by one; but though they were successful in
some cases, the result on the whole was far from hopeful.

In the intervals of the council, Brébeuf discoursed to the crowd of
chiefs on the wonders of the visible heavens,--the sun, the moon, the
stars, and the planets. They were inclined to believe what he told them;
for he had lately, to their great amazement, accurately predicted an
eclipse. From the fires above he passed to the fires beneath, till the
listeners stood aghast at his hideous pictures of the flames of
perdition,--the only species of Christian instruction which produced any
perceptible effect on this unpromising auditory.

The council opened on the evening of the fourth of August, with all the
usual ceremonies; and the night was spent in discussing questions of
treaties and alliances, with a deliberation and good sense which the
Jesuits could not help admiring. [ Le Mercier, Relation des Hurons, 1638,
38. ] A few days after, the assembly took up the more exciting question
of the epidemic and its causes. Deputies from three of the four Huron
nations were present, each deputation sitting apart. The Jesuits were
seated with the Nation of the Bear, in whose towns their missions were
established. Like all important councils, the session was held at night.
It was a strange scene. The light of the fires flickered aloft into the
smoky vault and among the soot-begrimed rafters of the great council-
house, [ 1 ] and cast an uncertain gleam on the wild and dejected throng
that filled the platforms and the floor. "I think I never saw anything
more lugubrious," writes Le Mercier: "they looked at each other like so
many corpses, or like men who already feel the terror of death. When
they spoke, it was only with sighs, each reckoning up the sick and dead
of his own family. All this was to excite each other to vomit poison
against us."

[ 1 It must have been the house of a chief. The Hurons, unlike some
other tribes, had no houses set apart for public occasions. ]

A grisly old chief, named Ontitarac, withered with age and stone-blind,
but renowned in past years for eloquence and counsel, opened the debate
in a loud, though tremulous voice. First he saluted each of the three
nations present, then each of the chiefs in turn,--congratulated them
that all were there assembled to deliberate on a subject of the last
importance to the public welfare, and exhorted them to give it a mature
and calm consideration. Next rose the chief whose office it was to
preside over the Feast of the Dead. He painted in dismal colors the
woful condition of the country, and ended with charging it all upon the
sorceries of the Jesuits. Another old chief followed him. "My brothers,"
he said, "you know well that I am a war-chief, and very rarely speak
except in councils of war; but I am compelled to speak now, since nearly
all the other chiefs are dead, and I must utter what is in my heart
before I follow them to the grave. Only two of my family are left alive,
and perhaps even these will not long escape the fury of the pest.
I have seen other diseases ravaging the country, but nothing that could
compare with this. In two or three moons we saw their end: but now we
have suffered for a year and more, and yet the evil does not abate.
And what is worst of all, we have not yet discovered its source."
Then, with words of studied moderation, alternating with bursts of angry
invective, he proceeded to accuse the Jesuits of causing, by their
sorceries, the unparalleled calamities that afflicted them; and in
support of his charge he adduced a prodigious mass of evidence. When he
had spent his eloquence, Brébeuf rose to reply, and in a few words
exposed the absurdities of his statements; whereupon another accuser
brought a new array of charges. A clamor soon arose from the whole
assembly, and they called upon Brébeuf with one voice to give up a
certain charmed cloth which was the cause of their miseries. In vain the
missionary protested that he had no such cloth. The clamor increased.

"If you will not believe me," said Brébeuf, "go to our house; search
everywhere; and if you are not sure which is the charm, take all our
clothing and all our cloth, and throw them into the lake."

"Sorcerers always talk in that way," was the reply.

"Then what will you have me say?" demanded Brébeuf.

"Tell us the cause of the pest."

Brébeuf replied to the best of his power, mingling his explanations with
instructions in Christian doctrine and exhortations to embrace the Faith.
He was continually interrupted; and the old chief, Ontitarac, still
called upon him to produce the charmed cloth. Thus the debate continued
till after midnight, when several of the assembly, seeing no prospect of
a termination, fell asleep, and others went away. One old chief, as he
passed out said to Brébeuf, "If some young man should split your head,
we should have nothing to say." The priest still continued to harangue
the diminished conclave on the necessity of obeying God and the danger of
offending Him, when the chief of Ossossané called out impatiently,
"What sort of men are these? They are always saying the same thing,
and repeating the same words a hundred times. They are never done with
telling us about their _Oki_, and what he demands and what he forbids,
and Paradise and Hell." [ The above account of the council is drawn from
Le Mercier, Relation des Hurons, 1638, Chap. II. See also Bressani,
Relation Abrégée, 163. ]

"Here was the end of this miserable council," writes Le Mercier; . . .
"and if less evil came of it than was designed, we owe it, after God,
to the Most Holy Virgin, to whom we had made a vow of nine masses in
honor of her immaculate conception."

The Fathers had escaped for the time; but they were still in deadly
peril. They had taken pains to secure friends in private, and there were
those who were attached to their interests; yet none dared openly take
their part. The few converts they had lately made came to them in secret,
and warned them that their death was determined upon. Their house was
set on fire; in public, every face was averted from them; and a new
council was called to pronounce the decree of death. They appeared
before it with a front of such unflinching assurance, that their judges,
Indian-like, postponed the sentence. Yet it seemed impossible that they
should much longer escape. Brébeuf, therefore, wrote a letter of
farewell to his Superior, Le Jeune, at Quebec, and confided it to some
converts whom he could trust, to be carried by them to its destination.

"We are perhaps," he says, "about to give our blood and our lives in the
cause of our Master, Jesus Christ. It seems that His goodness will
accept this sacrifice, as regards me, in expiation of my great and
numberless sins, and that He will thus crown the past services and ardent
desires of all our Fathers here. . . . Blessed be His name forever,
that He has chosen us, among so many better than we, to aid him to bear
His cross in this land! In all things, His holy will be done!" He then
acquaints Le Jeune that he has directed the sacred vessels, and all else
belonging to the service of the altar, to be placed, in case of his death,
in the hands of Pierre, the convert whose baptism has been described,
and that especial care will be taken to preserve the dictionary and other
writings on the Huron language. The letter closes with a request for
masses and prayers.

[ The following is the conclusion of the letter (Le Mercier, Relation des
Hurons, 1638, 43.)

"En tout, sa sainte volonté soit faite; s'il veut que dés ceste heure
nous mourions, ô la bonne heure pour nous! s'il veut nous reseruer à
d'autres trauaux, qu'il soit beny; si vous entendez que Dieu ait couronné
nos petits trauaux, ou plustost nos desirs, benissez-le: car c'est pour
luy que nous desirons viure et mourir, et c'est luy qui nous en donne la
grace. Au reste si quelques-vns suruiuent, i'ay donné ordre de tout ce
qu'ils doiuent faire. I'ay esté d'aduis que nos Peres et nos domestiques
se retirent chez ceux qu'ils croyront estre leurs mei'leurs amis; i'ay
donné charge qu'on porte chez Pierre nostre premier Chrestien tout ce qui
est de la Sacristie, sur tout qu'on ait vn soin particulier de mettre en
lieu d'asseurance le Dictionnaire et tout ce que nous auons de la langue.
Pour moy, si Dieu me fait la grace d'aller au Ciel, ie prieray Dieu pour
eux, pour les pauures Hurons, et n'oublieray pas Vostre Reuerence.

"Apres tout, nous supplions V. R. et tous nos Peres de ne nous oublier en
leurs saincts Sacrifices et prieres, afin qu'en la vie et apres la mort,
il nous fasse misericorde; nous sommes tous en la vie et à l'Eternité,

"De vostre Reuerence tres-humbles et tres-affectionnez seruiteurs en
Nostre Seigneur,

"IEAN DE BREBEVF.
FRANÇOIS IOSEPH LE MERCIER.
PIERRE CHASTELLAIN.
CHARLES GARNIER.
PAVL RAGVENEAV.

"En la Residence de la Conception, à Ossossané,
ce 28 Octobre.

"I'ay laissé en la Residence de sainct Ioseph les Peres Pierre Pijart et
Isaac Iogves, dans les mesmes sentimens." ]

The imperilled Jesuits now took a singular, but certainly a very wise
step. They gave one of those farewell feasts--festins d'adieu--which
Huron custom enjoined on those about to die, whether in the course of
Nature or by public execution. Being interpreted, it was a declaration
that the priests knew their danger, and did not shrink from it. It might
have the effect of changing overawed friends into open advocates, and
even of awakening a certain sympathy in the breasts of an assembly on
whom a bold bearing could rarely fail of influence. The house was packed
with feasters, and Brébeuf addressed them as usual on his unfailing
themes of God, Paradise, and Hell. The throng listened in gloomy
silence; and each, when he had emptied his bowl, rose and departed,
leaving his entertainers in utter doubt as to his feelings and
intentions. From this time forth, however, the clouds that overhung the
Fathers became less dark and threatening. Voices were heard in their
defence, and looks were less constantly averted. They ascribed the
change to the intercession of St. Joseph, to whom they had vowed a nine
days' devotion. By whatever cause produced, the lapse of a week wrought
a hopeful improvement in their prospects; and when they went out of doors
in the morning, it was no longer with the expectation of having a hatchet
struck into their brains as they crossed the threshold.

[ "Tant y a que depuis le 6. de Nouembre que nous acheuasmes nos Messes
votiues son honneur, nous auons iouy d'vn repos incroyable, nons nous en
emerueillons nous-mesmes de iour en iour, quand nous considerons en quel
estat estoient nos affaires il n'y a que huict iours."--Le Mercier,
Relation des Hurons, 1638, 44. ]

The persecution of the Jesuits as sorcerers continued, in an intermittent
form, for years; and several of them escaped very narrowly. In a house
at Ossossané, a young Indian rushed suddenly upon François Du Peron,
and lifted his tomahawk to brain him, when a squaw caught his hand.
Paul Ragueneau wore a crucifix, from which hung the image of a skull.
An Indian, thinking it a charm, snatched it from him. The priest tried
to recover it, when the savage, his eyes glittering with murder,
brandished his hatchet to strike. Ragueneau stood motionless, waiting
the blow. His assailant forbore, and withdrew, muttering. Pierre
Chaumonot was emerging from a house at the Huron town called by the
Jesuits St. Michel, where he had just baptized a dying girl, when her
brother, standing hidden in the doorway, struck him on the head with a
stone. Chaumonot, severely wounded, staggered without falling, when the
Indian sprang upon him with his tomahawk. The bystanders arrested the
blow. François Le Mercier, in the midst of a crowd of Indians in a house
at the town called St. Louis, was assailed by a noted chief, who rushed
in, raving like a madman, and, in a torrent of words, charged upon him
all the miseries of the nation. Then, snatching a brand from the fire,
he shook it in the Jesuit's face, and told him that he should be burned
alive. Le Mercier met him with looks as determined as his own, till,
abashed at his undaunted front and bold denunciations, the Indian stood
confounded.

[ The above incidents are from Le Mercier, Lalemant, Bressani, the
autobiography of Chaumonot, the unpublished writings of Garnier, and the
ancient manuscript volume of memoirs of the early Canadian missionaries,
at St. Mary's College, Montreal. ]

The belief that their persecutions were owing to the fury of the Devil,
driven to desperation by the home-thrusts he had received at their hands,
was an unfailing consolation to the priests. "Truly," writes Le Mercier,
"it is an unspeakable happiness for us, in the midst of this barbarism,
to hear the roaring of the demons, and to see Earth and Hell raging
against a handful of men who will not even defend themselves." [ 1 ]
In all the copious records of this dark period, not a line gives occasion
to suspect that one of this loyal band flinched or hesitated. The iron
Brébeuf, the gentle Garnier, the all-enduring Jogues, the enthusiastic
Chaumonot, Lalemant, Le Mercier, Chatelain, Daniel, Pijart, Ragueneau,
Du Peron, Poncet, Le Moyne,--one and all bore themselves with a tranquil
boldness, which amazed the Indians and enforced their respect.

[ 1 "C'est veritablement un bonheur indicible pour nous, au milieu de
cette barbarie, d'entendre les rugissemens des demons, & de voir tout
l'Enfer & quasi tous les hommes animez & remplis de fureur contre une
petite poignée de gens qui ne voudroient pas se defendre."--Relation des
Hurons, 1640, 31 (Cramoisy). ]

Father Jerome Lalemant, in his journal of 1639, is disposed to draw an
evil augury for the mission from the fact that as yet no priest had been
put to death, inasmuch as it is a received maxim that the blood of the
martyrs is the seed of the Church. [ 1 ] He consoles himself with the
hope that the daily life of the missionaries may be accepted as a living
martyrdom; since abuse and threats without end, the smoke, fleas, filth,
and dogs of the Indian lodges,--which are, he says, little images of
Hell,--cold, hunger, and ceaseless anxiety, and all these continued for
years, are a portion to which many might prefer the stroke of a tomahawk.
Reasonable as the Father's hope may be, its expression proved needless in
the sequel; for the Huron church was not destined to suffer from a lack
of martyrdom in any form.

[ 1 "Nous auons quelque fois douté, sçauoir si on pouuoit esperer la
conuersion de ce païs sans qu'il y eust effusion de sang: le principe
reçeu ce semble dans l'Eglise de Dieu, que le sang des Martyrs est la
semence des Chrestiens, me faisoit conclure pour lors, que cela n'estoit
pas à esperer, voire mesme qu'il n'étoit pas à souhaiter, consideré la
gloire qui reuient à Dieu de la constance des Martyrs, du sang desquels
tout le reste de la terre ayant tantost esté abreuué, ce seroit vne
espece de malediction, que ce quartier du monde ne participast point au
bonheur d'auoir contribué à l'esclat de ceste gloire."--Lalemant,
Relation des Hurons, 1639, 56, 57. ]

CHAPTER XI

1638-1640.

PRIEST AND PAGAN.

DU PERON'S JOURNEY.--DAILY LIFE OF THE JESUITS.--
THEIR MISSIONARY EXCURSIONS.--CONVERTS AT OSSOSSANÉ.--
MACHINERY OF CONVERSION.--CONDITIONS OF BAPTISM.--BACKSLIDERS.--
THE CONVERTS AND THEIR COUNTRYMEN.--THE CANNIBALS AT ST. JOSEPH.

We have already touched on the domestic life of the Jesuits. That we may
the better know them, we will follow one of their number on his journey
towards the scene of his labors, and observe what awaited him on his
arrival.

Father François Pu Peron came up the Ottawa in a Huron canoe in September,
1638, and was well treated by the Indian owner of the vessel. Lalemant
and Le Moyne, who had set out from Three Rivers before him, did not fare
so well. The former was assailed by an Algonquin of Allumette Island,
who tried to strangle him in revenge for the death of a child, which a
Frenchman in the employ of the Jesuits had lately bled, but had failed to
restore to health by the operation. Le Moyne was abandoned by his Huron
conductors, and remained for a fortnight by the bank of the river,
with a French attendant who supported him by hunting. Another Huron,
belonging to the flotilla that carried Du Peron, then took him into his
canoe; but, becoming tired of him, was about to leave him on a rock in
the river, when his brother priest bribed the savage with a blanket to
carry him to his journey's end.

It was midnight, on the twenty-ninth of September, when Du Peron landed
on the shore of Thunder Bay, after paddling without rest since one
o'clock of the preceding morning. The night was rainy, and Ossossané was
about fifteen miles distant. His Indian companions were impatient to
reach their towns; the rain prevented the kindling of a fire; while the
priest, who for a long time had not heard mass, was eager to renew his
communion as soon as possible. Hence, tired and hungry as he was,
he shouldered his sack, and took the path for Ossossané without breaking
his fast. He toiled on, half-spent, amid the ceaseless pattering,
trickling, and whispering of innumerable drops among innumerable leaves,
till, as day dawned, he reached a clearing, and descried through the
mists a cluster of Huron houses. Faint and bedrenched, he entered the
principal one, and was greeted with the monosyllable "Shay!"--"Welcome!"
A squaw spread a mat for him by the fire, roasted four ears of Indian
corn before the coals, baked two squashes in the embers, ladled from her
kettle a dish of sagamite, and offered them to her famished guest.
Missionaries seem to have been a novelty at this place; for, while the
Father breakfasted, a crowd, chiefly of children, gathered about him,
and stared at him in silence. One examined the texture of his cassock;
another put on his hat; a third took the shoes from his feet, and tried
them on her own. Du Peron requited his entertainers with a few trinkets,
and begged, by signs, a guide to Ossossané. An Indian accordingly set
out with him, and conducted him to the mission-house, which he reached at
six o'clock in the evening.

Here he found a warm welcome, and little other refreshment. In respect
to the commodities of life, the Jesuits were but a step in advance of the
Indians. Their house, though well ventilated by numberless crevices in
its bark walls, always smelt of smoke, and, when the wind was in certain
quarters, was filled with it to suffocation. At their meals, the Fathers
sat on logs around the fire, over which their kettle was slung in the
Indian fashion. Each had his wooden platter, which, from the difficulty
of transportation, was valued, in the Huron country, at the price of a
robe of beaver-skin, or a hundred francs. [ "Nos plats, quoyque de bois,
nous coûtent plus cher que Les vôtres; ils sont de la valeur d'une robe
de castor, c'est à dire cent francs."--Lettre du P. Du Peron à son Frère,
27 Avril, 1639.--The Father's appraisement seems a little questionable. ]
Their food consisted of sagamite, or "mush," made of pounded Indian-corn,
boiled with scraps of smoked fish. Chaumonot compares it to the paste
used for papering the walls of houses. The repast was occasionally
varied by a pumpkin or squash baked in the ashes, or, in the season,
by Indian corn roasted in the ear. They used no salt whatever. They
could bring their cumbrous pictures, ornaments and vestments through the
savage journey of the Ottawa; but they could not bring the common
necessaries of life. By day, they read and studied by the light that
streamed in through the large smoke-holes in the roof,--at night, by the
blaze of the fire. Their only candles were a few of wax, for the altar.
They cultivated a patch of ground, but raised nothing on it except wheat
for making the sacramental bread. Their food was supplied by the Indians,
to whom they gave, in return, cloth, knives, awls, needles, and various
trinkets. Their supply of wine for the Eucharist was so scanty, that
they limited themselves to four or five drops for each mass.

[ The above particulars are drawn from a long letter of François Du Peron
to his brother, Joseph-Imbert Du Peron, dated at La Conception
(Ossossané), April 27, 1639, and from a letter, equally long, of
Chaumonot to Father Philippe Nappi, dated Du Pays des Hurons, May 26,
1640. Both are in Carayon. These private letters of the Jesuits,
of which many are extant, in some cases written on birch-bark, are
invaluable as illustrations of the subject.

The Jesuits soon learned to make wine from wild grapes. Those in Maine
and Acadia, at a later period, made good candles from the waxy fruit of
the shrub known locally as the "bayberry." ]

Their life was regulated with a conventual strictness. At four in the
morning, a bell roused them from the sheets of bark on which they slept.
Masses, private devotions, reading religious books, and breakfasting,
filled the time until eight, when they opened their door and admitted the
Indians. As many of these proved intolerable nuisances, they took what
Lalemant calls the _honnête_ liberty of turning out the most intrusive and
impracticable,--an act performed with all tact and courtesy, and rarely
taken in dudgeon. Having thus winnowed their company, they catechized
those that remained, as opportunity offered. In the intervals, the
guests squatted by the fire and smoked their pipes.

As among the Spartan virtues of the Hurons that of thieving was
especially conspicuous, it was necessary that one or more of the Fathers
should remain on guard at the house all day. The rest went forth on
their missionary labors, baptizing and instructing, as we have seen.
To each priest who could speak Huron [ 1 ] was assigned a certain number
of houses,--in some instances, as many as forty; and as these often had
five or six fires, with two families to each, his spiritual flock was as
numerous as it was intractable. It was his care to see that none of the
number died without baptism, and by every means in his power to commend
the doctrines of his faith to the acceptance of those in health.

[ 1 At the end of the year 1638, there were seven priests who spoke
Huron, and three who had begun to learn it. ]

At dinner, which was at two o'clock, grace was said in Huron,--for the
benefit of the Indians present,--and a chapter of the Bible was read
aloud during the meal. At four or five, according to the season, the
Indians were dismissed, the door closed, and the evening spent in writing,
reading, studying the language, devotion, and conversation on the affairs
of the mission.

The local missions here referred to embraced Ossossané and the villages
of the neighborhood; but the priests by no means confined themselves
within these limits. They made distant excursions, two in company,
until every house in every Huron town had heard the annunciation of the
new doctrine. On these journeys, they carried blankets or large mantles
at their backs, for sleeping in at night, besides a supply of needles,
awls, beads, and other small articles, to pay for their lodging and
entertainment: for the Hurons, hospitable without stint to each other,
expected full compensation from the Jesuits.

At Ossossané, the house of the Jesuits no longer served the double
purpose of dwelling and chapel. In 1638, they had in their pay twelve
artisans and laborers, sent up from Quebec, [ Du Peron in Carayon,
173. ] who had built, before the close of the year, a chapel of wood.
[ "La chapelle est faite d'une charpente bien jolie, semblable presque en
façon et grandeur, à notre chapelle de St. Julien."--Ibid., 183. ]
Hither they removed their pictures and ornaments; and here, in winter,
several fires were kept burning, for the comfort of the half-naked
converts. [ Lalemant, Relation des Hurons, 1639, 62. ] Of these they
now had at Ossossané about sixty,--a large, though evidently not a very
solid nucleus for the Huron church,--and they labored hard and anxiously
to confirm and multiply them. Of a Sunday morning in winter, one could
have seen them coming to mass, often from a considerable distance,
"as naked," says Lalemant, "as your hand, except a skin over their backs
like a mantle, and, in the coldest weather, a few skins around their feet
and legs." They knelt, mingled with the French mechanics, before the
altar,--very awkwardly at first, for the posture was new to them,--and
all received the sacrament together: a spectacle which, as the missionary
chronicler declares, repaid a hundred times all the labor of their
conversion. [ Lalemant, Relation des Hurons, 1639, 62. ]

Some of the principal methods of conversion are curiously illustrated in
a letter written by Garnier to a friend in France. "Send me," he says,
"a picture of Christ without a beard." Several Virgins are also
requested, together with a variety of souls in perdition--âmes damnées--
most of them to be mounted in a portable form. Particular directions are
given with respect to the demons, dragons, flames, and other essentials
of these works of art. Of souls in bliss--âmes bienheureuses--he thinks
that one will be enough. All the pictures must be in full face, not in
profile; and they must look directly at the beholder, with open eyes.
The colors should be bright; and there must be no flowers or animals,
as these distract the attention of the Indians.

[ Garnier, Lettre 17me, MS. These directions show an excellent knowledge
of Indian peculiarities. The Indian dislike of a beard is well known.
Catlin, the painter, once caused a fatal quarrel among a party of Sioux,
by representing one of them in profile, whereupon he was jibed by a rival
as being but half a man. ]

The first point with the priests was of course to bring the objects of
their zeal to an acceptance of the fundamental doctrines of the Roman
Church; but, as the mind of the savage was by no means that beautiful
blank which some have represented it, there was much to be erased as well
as to be written. They must renounce a host of superstitions, to which
they were attached with a strange tenacity, or which may rather be said
to have been ingrained in their very natures. Certain points of
Christian morality were also strongly urged by the missionaries, who
insisted that the convert should take but one wife, and not cast her off
without grave cause, and that he should renounce the gross license almost
universal among the Hurons. Murder, cannibalism, and several other
offences, were also forbidden. Yet, while laboring at the work of
conversion with an energy never surpassed, and battling against the
powers of darkness with the mettle of paladins, the Jesuits never had the
folly to assume towards the Indians a dictatorial or overbearing tone.
Gentleness, kindness, and patience were the rule of their intercourse.
[ 1 ] They studied the nature of the savage, and conformed themselves to
it with an admirable tact. Far from treating the Indian as an alien and
barbarian, they would fain have adopted him as a countryman; and they
proposed to the Hurons that a number of young Frenchmen should settle
among them, and marry their daughters in solemn form. The listeners were
gratified at an overture so flattering. "But what is the use," they
demanded, "of so much ceremony? If the Frenchmen want our women, they
are welcome to come and take them whenever they please, as they always
used to do." [ Le Mercier, Relation des Hurons, 1637, 160. ]

[ 1 The following passage from the "Divers Sentimens," before cited,
will illustrate this point. "Pour conuertir les Sauuages, il n'y faut
pas tant de science que de bonté et vertu bien solide. Les quatre
Elemens d'vn homme Apostolique en la Nouuelle France sont l'Affabilité,
l'Humilité, la Patience et vne Charité genereuse. Le zele trop ardent
brusle plus qu'il n'eschauffe, et gaste tout; il faut vne grande
magnanimité et condescendance, pour attirer peu à peu ces Sauuages.
Ils n'entendent pas bien nostre Theologie, mais ils entendent
parfaictement bien nostre humilité et nostre affabilité, et se laissent
gaigner."

So too Brébeuf, in a letter to Vitelleschi, General of the Jesuits (see
Carayon, 163): "Ce qu'il faut demander, avant tout, des ouvriers destinés
à cette mission, c'est une douceur inaltérable et une patience à toute
épreuve." ]

The Fathers are well agreed that their difficulties did not arise from
any natural defect of understanding on the part of the Indians, who,
according to Chaumonot, were more intelligent than the French peasantry,
and who, in some instances, showed in their way a marked capacity.
It was the inert mass of pride, sensuality, indolence, and superstition
that opposed the march of the Faith, and in which the Devil lay
intrenched as behind impregnable breastworks.

[ In this connection, the following specimen of Indian reasoning is worth
noting. At the height of the pestilence, a Huron said to one of the
priests, "I see plainly that your God is angry with us because we will
not believe and obey him. Ihonatiria, where you first taught his word,
is entirely ruined. Then you came here to Ossossané, and we would not
listen; so Ossossané is ruined too. This year you have been all through
our country, and found scarcely any who would do what God commands;
therefore the pestilence is everywhere." After premises so hopeful,
the Fathers looked for a satisfactory conclusion; but the Indian
proceeded--"My opinion is, that we ought to shut you out from all the
houses, and stop our ears when you speak of God, so that we cannot hear.
Then we shall not be so guilty of rejecting the truth, and he will not
punish us so cruelly."--Lalemant, Relation des Hurons, 1640, 80. ]

It soon became evident that it was easier to make a convert than to keep
him. Many of the Indians clung to the idea that baptism was a safeguard
against pestilence and misfortune; and when the fallacy of this notion
was made apparent, their zeal cooled. Their only amusements consisted of
feasts, dances, and games, many of which were, to a greater or less
degree, of a superstitious character; and as the Fathers could rarely
prove to their own satisfaction the absence of the diabolic element in
any one of them, they proscribed the whole indiscriminately, to the
extreme disgust of the neophyte. His countrymen, too, beset him with
dismal prognostics: as, "You will kill no more game,"--"All your hair
will come out before spring," and so forth. Various doubts also assailed
him with regard to the substantial advantages of his new profession; and
several converts were filled with anxiety in view of the probable want of
tobacco in Heaven, saying that they could not do without it. [ Lalemant,
Relation des Hurons, 1639, 80. ] Nor was it pleasant to these incipient
Christians, as they sat in class listening to the instructions of their
teacher, to find themselves and him suddenly made the targets of a shower
of sticks, snowballs, corn-cobs, and other rubbish, flung at them by a
screeching rabble of vagabond boys. [ Ibid., 78. ]

Yet, while most of the neophytes demanded an anxious and diligent
cultivation, there were a few of excellent promise; and of one or two
especially, the Fathers, in the fulness of their satisfaction, assure us
again and again "that they were savage only in name."

[ From June, 1639, to June, 1640, about a thousand persons were baptized.
Of these, two hundred and sixty were infants, and many more were
children. Very many died soon after baptism. Of the whole number,
less than twenty were baptized in health,--a number much below that of
the preceding year.

The following is a curious case of precocious piety. It is that of a
child at St. Joseph. "Elle n'a que deux ans, et fait joliment le signe
de la croix, et prend elle-même de l'eau bénite; et une fois se mit à
crier, sortant de la Chapelle, à cause que sa mère qui la portoit ne lui
avoit donné le loisir d'en prendre. Il l'a fallu reporter en prendre."--
Lettres de Garnier, MSS. ]

As the town of Ihonatiria, where the Jesuits had made their first abode,
was ruined by the pestilence, the mission established there, and known by
the name of St. Joseph, was removed, in the summer of 1638, to
Teanaustayé, a large town at the foot of a range of hills near the
southern borders of the Huron territory. The Hurons, this year, had had
unwonted successes in their war with the Iroquois, and had taken, at
various times, nearly a hundred prisoners. Many of these were brought to
the seat of the new mission of St. Joseph, and put to death with
frightful tortures, though not before several had been converted and
baptized. The torture was followed, in spite of the remonstrances of the
priests, by those cannibal feasts customary with the Hurons on such
occasions. Once, when the Fathers had been strenuous in their
denunciations, a hand of the victim, duly prepared, was flung in at their
door, as an invitation to join in the festivity. As the owner of the
severed member had been baptized, they dug a hole in their chapel,
and buried it with solemn rites of sepulture. [ Lalemant, Relation des
Hurons, 1639, 70. ]

CHAPTER XII.

1639, 1640.

THE TOBACCO NATION.--THE NEUTRALS.

A CHANGE OF PLAN.--SAINTE MARIE.--MISSION OF THE TOBACCO NATION.--
WINTER JOURNEYING.--RECEPTION OF THE MISSIONARIES.--
SUPERSTITIOUS TERRORS.--PERIL OF GARNIER AND JOGUES.--
MISSION OF THE NEUTRALS.--HURON INTRIGUES.--MIRACLES.--
FURY OF THE INDIANS.--INTERVENTION OF SAINT MICHAEL.--
RETURN TO SAINTE MARIE.--INTREPIDITY OF THE PRIESTS.--
THEIR MENTAL EXALTATION.

It had been the first purpose of the Jesuits to form permanent missions
in each of the principal Huron towns; but, before the close of the year
1639, the difficulties and risks of this scheme had become fully
apparent. They resolved, therefore, to establish one central station,
to be a base of operations, and, as it were, a focus, whence the light of
the Faith should radiate through all the wilderness around. It was to
serve at once as residence, fort, magazine, hospital, and convent.
Hence the priests would set forth on missionary expeditions far and near;
and hither they might retire, as to an asylum, in times of sickness or
extreme peril. Here the neophytes could be gathered together, safe from
perverting influences; and here in time a Christian settlement, Hurons
mingled with Frenchmen, might spring up and thrive under the shadow of
the cross.

The site of the new station was admirably chosen. The little river Wye
flows from the southward into the Matchedash Bay of Lake Huron, and,
at about a mile from its mouth, passes through a small lake. The Jesuits
made choice of the right bank of the Wye, where it issues from this
lake,--gained permission to build from the Indians, though not without
difficulty,--and began their labors with an abundant energy, and a very
deficient supply of workmen and tools. The new establishment was called
Sainte Marie. The house at Teanaustayé, and the house and chapel at
Ossossané, were abandoned, and all was concentrated at this spot.
On one hand, it had a short water communication with Lake Huron; and on
the other, its central position gave the readiest access to every part of
the Huron territory.

During the summer before, the priests had made a survey of their field of
action, visited all the Huron towns, and christened each of them with the
name of a saint. This heavy draft on the calendar was followed by
another, for the designation of the nine towns of the neighboring and
kindred people of the Tobacco Nation. [ See Introduction. ] The Huron
towns were portioned into four districts, while those of the Tobacco
Nation formed a fifth, and each district was assigned to the charge of
two or more priests. In November and December, they began their
missionary excursions,--for the Indians were now gathered in their
settlements,--and journeyed on foot through the denuded forests, in mud
and snow, bearing on their backs the vessels and utensils necessary for
the service of the altar.

The new and perilous mission of the Tobacco Nation fell to Garnier and
Jogues. They were well chosen; and yet neither of them was robust by
nature, in body or mind, though Jogues was noted for personal activity.
The Tobacco Nation lay at the distance of a two days' journey from the
Huron towns, among the mountains at the head of Nottawassaga Bay.
The two missionaries tried to find a guide at Ossossané; but none would
go with them, and they set forth on their wild and unknown pilgrimage
alone.

The forests were full of snow; and the soft, moist flakes were still
falling thickly, obscuring the air, beplastering the gray trunks,
weighing to the earth the boughs of spruce and pine, and hiding every
footprint of the narrow path. The Fathers missed their way, and toiled
on till night, shaking down at every step from the burdened branches a
shower of fleecy white on their black cassocks. Night overtook them in a
spruce swamp. Here they made a fire with great difficulty, cut the
evergreen boughs, piled them for a bed, and lay down. The storm
presently ceased; and, "praised be God," writes one of the travellers,
"we passed a very good night." [ Jogues and Garnier in Lalemant, Relation
des Hurons, 1640, 95. ]

In the morning they breakfasted on a morsel of corn bread, and, resuming
their journey, fell in with a small party of Indians, whom they followed
all day without food. At eight in the evening they reached the first
Tobacco town, a miserable cluster of bark cabins, hidden among forests
and half buried in snow-drifts, where the savage children, seeing the two
black apparitions, screamed that Famine and the Pest were coming.
Their evil fame had gone before them. They were unwelcome guests;
nevertheless, shivering and famished as they were, in the cold and
darkness, they boldly pushed their way into one of these dens of
barbarism. It was precisely like a Huron house. Five or six fires
blazed on the earthen floor, and around them were huddled twice that
number of families, sitting, crouching, standing, or flat on the ground;
old and young, women and men, children and dogs, mingled pell-mell.
The scene would have been a strange one by daylight: it was doubly
strange by the flicker and glare of the lodge-fires. Scowling brows,
sidelong looks of distrust and fear, the screams of scared children,
the scolding of squaws, the growling of wolfish dogs,--this was the
greeting of the strangers. The chief man of the household treated them
at first with the decencies of Indian hospitality; but when he saw them
kneeling in the litter and ashes at their devotions, his suppressed fears
found vent, and he began a loud harangue, addressed half to them and half
to the Indians. "Now, what are these _okies_ doing? They are making
charms to kill us, and destroy all that the pest has spared in this house.
I heard that they were sorcerers; and now, when it is too late, I believe
it." [ Lalemant, Relation des Hurons, 1640, 96. ] It is wonderful that
the priests escaped the tomahawk. Nowhere is the power of courage, faith,
and an unflinching purpose more strikingly displayed than in the record
of these missions.

In other Tobacco towns their reception was much the same; but at the
largest, called by them St. Peter and St. Paul, they fared worse.
They reached it on a winter afternoon. Every door of its capacious bark
houses was closed against them; and they heard the squaws within calling
on the young men to go out and split their heads, while children screamed
abuse at the black-robed sorcerers. As night approached, they left the
town, when a band of young men followed them, hatchet in hand, to put
them to death. Darkness, the forest, and the mountain favored them; and,
eluding their pursuers, they escaped. Thus began the mission of the
Tobacco Nation.

In the following November, a yet more distant and perilous mission was
begun. Brébeuf and Chaumonot set out for the Neutral Nation. This
fierce people, as we have already seen, occupied that part of Canada
which lies immediately north of Lake Erie, while a wing of their
territory extended across the Niagara into Western New York. [ 1 ]
In their athletic proportions, the ferocity of their manners, and the
extravagance of their superstitions, no American tribe has ever exceeded
them. They carried to a preposterous excess the Indian notion, that
insanity is endowed with a mysterious and superhuman power. Their
country was full of pretended maniacs, who, to propitiate their guardian
spirits, or _okies_, and acquire the mystic virtue which pertained to
madness, raved stark naked through the villages, scattering the brands of
the lodge-fires, and upsetting everything in their way.

[ 1 Introduction.--The river Niagara was at this time, 1640, well known
to the Jesuits, though none of them had visited it. Lalemant speaks of
it as the "famous river of this nation" (the Neutrals). The following
translation, from his Relation of 1641, shows that both Lake Ontario and
Lake Erie had already taken their present names.

"This river" (the Niagara) "is the same by which our great lake of the
Hurons, or Fresh Sea, discharges itself, in the first place, into Lake
Erie (le lac d'Erié), or the Lake of the Cat Nation. Then it enters the
territories of the Neutral Nation, and takes the name of Onguiaahra
(Niagara), until it discharges itself into Ontario, or the Lake of
St. Louis; whence at last issues the river which passes before Quebec,
and is called the St. Lawrence." He makes no allusion to the cataract,
which is first mentioned as follows by Ragueneau, in the Relation of 1648.

"Nearly south of this same Neutral Nation there is a great lake, about
two hundred leagues in circuit, named Erie (Erié), which is formed by the
discharge of the Fresh Sea, and which precipitates itself by a cataract
of frightful height into a third lake, named Ontario, which we call Lake
St. Louis."--Relation des Hurons, 1648, 46. ]

The two priests left Sainte Marie on the second of November, found a
Huron guide at St. Joseph, and, after a dreary march of five days through
the forest, reached the first Neutral town. Advancing thence, they
visited in turn eighteen others; and their progress was a storm of
maledictions. Brébeuf especially was accounted the most pestilent of
sorcerers. The Hurons, restrained by a superstitious awe, and unwilling
to kill the priests, lest they should embroil themselves with the French
at Quebec, conceived that their object might be safely gained by stirring
up the Neutrals to become their executioners. To that end, they sent two
emissaries to the Neutral towns, who, calling the chiefs and young
warriors to a council, denounced the Jesuits as destroyers of the human
race, and made their auditors a gift of nine French hatchets on condition
that they would put them to death. It was now that Brébeuf, fully
conscious of the danger, half starved and half frozen, driven with
revilings from every door, struck and spit upon by pretended maniacs,
beheld in a vision that great cross, which as we have seen, moved onward
through the air, above the wintry forests that stretched towards the land
of the Iroquois. [ See ante, chapter 9 second last paragraph (page 109). ]

Chaumonot records yet another miracle. "One evening, when all the chief
men of the town were deliberating in council whether to put us to death,
Father Brébeuf, while making his examination of conscience, as we were
together at prayers, saw the vision of a spectre, full of fury, menacing
us both with three javelins which he held in his hands. Then he hurled
one of them at us; but a more powerful hand caught it as it flew: and
this took place a second and a third time, as he hurled his two remaining
javelins. . . . Late at night our host came back from the council,
where the two Huron emissaries had made their gift of hatchets to have us
killed. He wakened us to say that three times we had been at the point
of death; for the young men had offered three times to strike the blow,
and three times the old men had dissuaded them. This explained the
meaning of Father Brébeuf's vision." [ Chaumonot, Vie, 55. ]

They had escaped for the time; but the Indians agreed among themselves,
that thenceforth no one should give them shelter. At night, pierced with
cold and faint with hunger, they found every door closed against them.
They stood and watched, saw an Indian issue from a house, and, by a quick
movement, pushed through the half-open door into this abode of smoke and
filth. The inmates, aghast at their boldness, stared in silence.
Then a messenger ran out to carry the tidings, and an angry crowd
collected.

"Go out, and leave our country," said an old chief, "or we will put you
into the kettle, and make a feast of you."

"I have had enough of the dark-colored flesh of our enemies," said a
young brave; "I wish to know the taste of white meat, and I will eat
yours."

A warrior rushed in like a madman, drew his bow, and aimed the arrow at
Chaumonot. "I looked at him fixedly," writes the Jesuit, "and commended
myself in full confidence to St. Michael. Without doubt, this great
archangel saved us; for almost immediately the fury of the warrior was
appeased, and the rest of our enemies soon began to listen to the
explanation we gave them of our visit to their country." [ Ibid., 57. ]

The mission was barren of any other fruit than hardship and danger,
and after a stay of four months the two priests resolved to return.
On the way, they met a genuine act of kindness. A heavy snow-storm
arresting their progress, a Neutral woman took them into her lodge,
entertained them for two weeks with her best fare, persuaded her father
and relatives to befriend them, and aided them to make a vocabulary of
the dialect. Bidding their generous hostess farewell, they journeyed
northward, through the melting snows of spring, and reached Sainte Marie
in safety.

[ Lalemant, in his Relation of 1641, gives the narrative of this mission
at length. His account coincides perfectly with the briefer notice of
Chaumonot in his Autobiography. Chaumonot describes the difficulties of
the journey very graphically in a letter to his friend, Father Nappi,
dated Aug. 3, 1640, preserved in Carayon. See also the next letter,
Brébeuf au T. R. P. Mutio Vitelleschi, 20 Août, 1641.

The Récollet La Roche Dallion had visited the Neutrals fourteen years
before, (see Introduction, note,) and, like his two successors, had been
seriously endangered by Huron intrigues. ]

The Jesuits had borne all that the human frame seems capable of bearing.
They had escaped as by miracle from torture and death. Did their zeal
flag or their courage fail? A fervor intense and unquenchable urged them
on to more distant and more deadly ventures. The beings, so near to
mortal sympathies, so human, yet so divine, in whom their faith
impersonated and dramatized the great principles of Christian truth,--
virgins, saints, and angels,--hovered over them, and held before their
raptured sight crowns of glory and garlands of immortal bliss. They
burned to do, to suffer, and to die; and now, from out a living martyrdom,
they turned their heroic gaze towards an horizon dark with perils yet
more appalling, and saw in hope the day when they should bear the cross
into the blood-stained dens of the Iroquois. [ This zeal was in no
degree due to success; for in 1641, after seven years of toil, the
mission counted only about fifty living converts,--a falling off from
former years. ]

But, in this exaltation and tension of the powers, was there no moment
when the recoil of Nature claimed a temporary sway? When, an exile from
his kind, alone, beneath the desolate rock and the gloomy pine-trees,
the priest gazed forth on the pitiless wilderness and the hovels of its
dark and ruthless tenants, his thoughts, it may be, flew longingly beyond
those wastes of forest and sea that lay between him and the home of his
boyhood. Or rather, led by a deeper attraction, they revisited the
ancient centre of his faith, and he seemed to stand once more in that
gorgeous temple, where, shrined in lazuli and gold, rest the hallowed
bones of Loyola. Column and arch and dome rise upon his vision, radiant
in painted light, and trembling with celestial music. Again he kneels
before the altar, from whose tablature beams upon him that loveliest of
shapes in which the imagination of man has embodied the spirit of
Christianity. The illusion overpowers him. A thrill shakes his frame,
and he bows in reverential rapture. No longer a memory, no longer a
dream, but a visioned presence, distinct and luminous in the forest
shades, the Virgin stands before him. Prostrate on the rocky earth,
he adores the benign angel of his ecstatic faith, then turns with
rekindled fervors to his stern apostleship.

Now, by the shores of Thunder Bay, the Huron traders freight their birch
vessels for their yearly voyage; and, embarked with them, let us, too,
revisit the rock of Quebec.

CHAPTER XIII.

1636-1646.

QUEBEC AND ITS TENANTS.

THE NEW GOVERNOR.--EDIFYING EXAMPLES.--LE JEUNE'S CORRESPONDENTS.--
RANK AND DEVOTION.--NUNS.--PRIESTLY AUTHORITY.--CONDITION OF QUEBEC.--
THE HUNDRED ASSOCIATES.--CHURCH DISCIPLINE.--PLAYS.--FIREWORKS.--
PROCESSIONS.--CATECHIZING.--TERRORISM.--PICTURES.--THE CONVERTS.--
THE SOCIETY OF JESUS.--THE FORESTERS.

I have traced, in another volume, the life and death of the noble founder
of New France, Samuel de Champlain. It was on Christmas Day, 1635,
that his heroic spirit bade farewell to the frame it had animated,
and to the rugged cliff where he had toiled so long to lay the corner-
stone of a Christian empire.

Quebec was without a governor. Who should succeed Champlain and would
his successor be found equally zealous for the Faith, and friendly to the
mission? These doubts, as he himself tells us, agitated the mind of the
Father Superior, Le Jeune; but they were happily set at rest, when,
on a morning in June, he saw a ship anchoring in the basin below, and,
hastening with his brethren to the landing-place, was there met by
Charles Huault de Montmagny, a Knight of Malta, followed by a train of
officers and gentlemen. As they all climbed the rock together, Montmagny
saw a crucifix planted by the path. He instantly fell on his knees
before it; and nobles, soldiers, sailors, and priests imitated his
example. The Jesuits sang Te Deum at the church, and the cannon roared
from the adjacent fort. Here the new governor was scarcely installed,
when a Jesuit came in to ask if he would be godfather to an Indian about
to be baptized. "Most gladly," replied the pious Montmagny. He repaired
on the instant to the convert's hut, with a company of gayly apparelled
gentlemen; and while the inmates stared in amazement at the scarlet and
embroidery, he bestowed on the dying savage the name of Joseph, in honor
of the spouse of the Virgin and the patron of New France. [ Le Jeune,
Relation, 1636, 5 (Cramoisy). "Monsieur le Gouverneur se transporte aux
Cabanes de ces pauures barbares, suivy d'une leste Noblesse. Je vous
laisse à penser quel estonnement à ces Peuples de voir tant d'écarlate,
tant de personnes bien faites sous leurs toits d'écorce!" ] Three days
after, he was told that a dead proselyte was to be buried; on which,
leaving the lines of the new fortification he was tracing, he took in
hand a torch, De Lisle, his lieutenant, took another, Repentigny and
St. Jean, gentlemen of his suite, with a band of soldiers followed,
two priests bore the corpse, and thus all moved together in procession to
the place of burial. The Jesuits were comforted. Champlain himself had
not displayed a zeal so edifying. [ Ibid., 83 (Cramoisy). ]

A considerable reinforcement came out with Montmagny, and among the rest
several men of birth and substance, with their families and dependants.
"It was a sight to thank God for," exclaims Father Le Jeune, "to behold
these delicate young ladies and these tender infants issuing from their
wooden prison, like day from the shades of night." The Father, it will
be remembered, had for some years past seen nothing but squaws, with
papooses swathed like mummies and strapped to a board.

He was even more pleased with the contents of a huge packet of letters
that was placed in his hands, bearing the signatures of nuns, priests,
soldiers, courtiers, and princesses. A great interest in the mission had
been kindled in France. Le Jeune's printed Relations had been read with
avidity; and his Jesuit brethren, who, as teachers, preachers, and
confessors, had spread themselves through the nation, had successfully
fanned the rising flame. The Father Superior finds no words for his joy.
"Heaven," he exclaims, "is the conductor of this enterprise. Nature's
arms are not long enough to touch so many hearts." [ "C'est Dieu qui
conduit cette entreprise. La Nature n'a pas les bras assez longs,"
etc.--Relation, 1636, 3. ] He reads how in a single convent, thirteen
nuns have devoted themselves by a vow to the work of converting the
Indian women and children; how, in the church of Montmartre, a nun lies
prostrate day and night before the altar, praying for the mission;
[ Brébeuf, Relation des Hurons, 1636, 76. ] how "the Carmelites are all
on fire, the Ursulines full of zeal, the sisters of the Visitation have
no words to speak their ardor"; [ Le Jeune, Relation, 1636, 6. Compare
"Divers Sentimens," appended to the Relation of 1635. ] how some person
unknown, but blessed of Heaven, means to found a school for Huron
children; how the Duchesse d'Aiguillon has sent out six workmen to build
a hospital for the Indians; how, in every house of the Jesuits, young
priests turn eager eyes towards Canada; and how, on the voyage thither,
the devils raised a tempest, endeavoring, in vain fury, to drown the
invaders of their American domain.

[ "L'Enfer enrageant de nous veoir aller en la Nouuelle France pour
conuertir les infidelles et diminuer sa puissance, par dépit il
sousleuoit tous les Elemens contre nous, et vouloit abysmer la flotte."--
Divers Sentimens. ]

Great was Le Jeune's delight at the exalted rank of some of those who
gave their patronage to the mission; and again and again his satisfaction
flows from his pen in mysterious allusions to these eminent persons.
[ Among his correspondents was the young Duc d'Enghien, afterwards the
Great Condé, at this time fifteen years old. "Dieu soit loüé! tout le
ciel de nostre chere Patrie nous promet de fauorables influences, iusques
à ce nouuel astre, qui commence à paroistre parmy ceux de la premiere
grandeur."--Le Jeune, Relation, 1636, 3, 4. ] In his eyes, the vicious
imbecile who sat on the throne of France was the anointed champion of the
Faith, and the cruel and ambitious priest who ruled king and nation alike
was the chosen instrument of Heaven. Church and State, linked in
alliance close and potential, played faithfully into each other's hands;
and that enthusiasm, in which the Jesuit saw the direct inspiration of
God, was fostered by all the prestige of royalty and all the patronage of
power. And, as often happens where the interests of a hierarchy are
identified with the interests of a ruling class, religion was become a
fashion, as graceful and as comforting as the courtier's embroidered
mantle or the court lady's robe of fur.

Such, we may well believe, was the complexion of the enthusiasm which
animated some of Le Jeune's noble and princely correspondents. But there
were deeper fervors, glowing in the still depths of convent cells,
and kindling the breasts of their inmates with quenchless longings.
Yet we hear of no zeal for the mission among religious communities of
men. The Jesuits regarded the field as their own, and desired no rivals.
They looked forward to the day when Canada should be another Paraguay.
[ "Que si celuy qui a escrit cette lettre a leu la Relation de ce qui se
passe au Paraguais, qu'il a veu ce qui se fera un jour en la Nouuelle
France."--Le Jeune, Relation, 1637, 304 (Cramoisy). ] It was to the
combustible hearts of female recluses that the torch was most busily
applied; and here, accordingly, blazed forth a prodigious and amazing
flame. "If all had their pious will," writes Le Jeune, "Quebec would
soon be flooded with nuns." [ Chaulmer. Le Nouveau Monde Chrestien, 41,
is eloquent on this theme. ]

Both Montmagny and De Lisle were half churchmen, for both were Knights of
Malta. More and more the powers spiritual engrossed the colony. As
nearly as might be, the sword itself was in priestly hands. The Jesuits
were all in all. Authority, absolute and without appeal, was vested in a
council composed of the governor, Le Jeune, and the syndic, an official
supposed to represent the interests of the inhabitants. [ Le Clerc,
Établissement de la Foy, Chap. XV. ] There was no tribunal of justice,
and the governor pronounced summarily on all complaints. The church
adjoined the fort; and before it was planted a stake bearing a placard
with a prohibition against blasphemy, drunkenness, or neglect of mass and
other religious rites. To the stake was also attached a chain and iron
collar; and hard by was a wooden horse, whereon a culprit was now and
then mounted by way of example and warning. [ Le Jeune, Relation, 1636,
153, 154 (Cramoisy). ] In a community so absolutely priest-governed,
overt offences were, however, rare; and, except on the annual arrival of
the ships from France, when the rock swarmed with godless sailors,
Quebec was a model of decorum, and wore, as its chroniclers tell us,
an aspect unspeakably edifying.

In the year 1640, various new establishments of religion and charity
might have been seen at Quebec. There was the beginning of a college and
a seminary for Huron children, an embryo Ursuline convent, an incipient
hospital, and a new Algonquin mission at a place called Sillery, four
miles distant. Champlain's fort had been enlarged and partly rebuilt in
stone by Montmagny, who had also laid out streets on the site of the
future city, though as yet the streets had no houses. Behind the fort,
and very near it, stood the church and a house for the Jesuits. Both
were of pine wood: and this year, 1640, both were burned to the ground,
to be afterwards rebuilt in stone. The Jesuits, however, continued to
occupy their rude mission-house of Notre-Dame des Anges, on the
St. Charles, where we first found them.

The country around Quebec was still an unbroken wilderness, with the
exception of a small clearing made by the Sieur Giffard on his seigniory
of Beauport, another made by M. de Puiseaux between Quebec and Sillery,
and possibly one or two feeble attempts in other quarters. [ 1 ] The
total population did not much exceed two hundred, including women and
children. Of this number, by far the greater part were agents of the fur
company known as the Hundred Associates, and men in their employ.
Some of these had brought over their families. The remaining inhabitants
were priests, nuns, and a very few colonists.

[ 1 For Giffard, Puiseaux, and other colonists, compare Langevin,
Notes sur les Archives de Notre-Dame de Beauport, 5, 6, 7; Ferland,
Notes sur les Archives de N. D. de Québec, 22, 24 (1863); Ibid., Cours
d'Histoire du Canada, I. 266; Le Jeune, Relation, 1636, 45; Faillon,
Histoire de la Colonie Française, I. c. iv., v. ]

The Company of the Hundred Associates was bound by its charter to send to
Canada four thousand colonists before the year 1643. [ See "Pioneers of
France," 399. ] It had neither the means nor the will to fulfil this
engagement. Some of its members were willing to make personal sacrifices
for promoting the missions, and building up a colony purely Catholic.
Others thought only of the profits of trade; and the practical affairs of
the company had passed entirely into the hands of this portion of its
members. They sought to evade obligations the fulfilment of which would
have ruined them. Instead of sending out colonists, they granted lands
with the condition that the grantees should furnish a certain number of
settlers to clear and till them, and these were to be credited to the
Company. [ 1 ] The grantees took the land, but rarely fulfilled the
condition. Some of these grants were corrupt and iniquitous. Thus,
a son of Lauson, president of the Company, received, in the name of a
third person, a tract of land on the south side of the St. Lawrence of
sixty leagues front. To this were added all the islands in that river,
excepting those of Montreal and Orleans, together with the exclusive
right of fishing in it through its whole extent. [ 2 ] Lauson sent out
not a single colonist to these vast concessions.

[ 1 This appears in many early grants of the Company. Thus, in a grant
to Simon Le Maitre, Jan. 15, 1636, "que les hommes que le dit . . . fera
passer en la N. F. tourneront à la décharge de la dite Compagnie," etc.,
etc.--See Pièces sur la Tenure Seigneuriale, published by the Canadian
government, passim. ]

[ 2 Archives du Séminaire de Villemarie, cited by Faillon, I. 350.
Lauson's father owned Montreal. The son's grant extended from the River
St. Francis to a point far above Montreal.--La Fontaine, Mémoire sur la
Famille de Lauson. ]

There was no real motive for emigration. No persecution expelled the
colonist from his home; for none but good Catholics were tolerated in New
France. The settler could not trade with the Indians, except on
condition of selling again to the Company at a fixed price. He might
hunt, but he could not fish; and he was forced to beg or buy food for
years before he could obtain it from that rude soil in sufficient
quantity for the wants of his family. The Company imported provisions
every year for those in its employ; and of these supplies a portion was
needed for the relief of starving settlers. Giffard and his seven men on
his seigniory of Beauport were for some time the only settlers--excepting,
perhaps, the Hébert family--who could support themselves throughout the
year. The rigor of the climate repelled the emigrant; nor were the
attractions which Father Le Jeune held forth--"piety, freedom, and
independence"--of a nature to entice him across the sea, when it is
remembered that this freedom consisted in subjection to the arbitrary
will of a priest and a soldier, and in the liability, should he forget to
go to mass, of being made fast to a post with a collar and chain, like a
dog.

Aside from the fur trade of the Company, the whole life of the colony was
in missions, convents, religious schools, and hospitals. Here on the
rock of Quebec were the appendages, useful and otherwise, of an
old-established civilization. While as yet there were no inhabitants,
and no immediate hope of any, there were institutions for the care of
children, the sick, and the decrepit. All these were supported by a
charity in most cases precarious. The Jesuits relied chiefly on the
Company, who, by the terms of their patent, were obliged to maintain
religious worship. [ 1 ] Of the origin of the convent, hospital, and
seminary I shall soon have occasion to speak.

[ 1 It is a principle of the Jesuits, that each of its establishments
shall find a support of its own, and not be a burden on the general funds
of the Society. The Relations are full of appeals to the charity of
devout persons in behalf of the missions.

"Of what use to the country at this period could have been two
communities of cloistered nuns?" asks the modern historian of the
Ursulines of Quebec. And he answers by citing the words of Pope Gregory
the Great, who, when Rome was ravaged by famine, pestilence, and the
barbarians, declared that his only hope was in the prayers of the three
thousand nuns then assembled in the holy city.--Les Ursulines de Québec.
Introd., XI. ]

Quebec wore an aspect half military, half monastic. At sunrise and
sunset, a squad of soldiers in the pay of the Company paraded in the
fort; and, as in Champlain's time, the bells of the church rang morning,
noon, and night. Confessions, masses, and penances were punctiliously
observed; and, from the governor to the meanest laborer, the Jesuit
watched and guided all. The social atmosphere of New England itself was
not more suffocating. By day and by night, at home, at church, or at his
daily work, the colonist lived under the eyes of busy and over-zealous
priests. At times, the denizens of Quebec grew restless. In 1639,
deputies were covertly sent to beg relief in France, and "to represent
the hell in which the consciences of the colony were kept by the union of
the temporal and spiritual authority in the same hands." [ "Pour leur
representer la gehenne où estoient les consciences de la Colonie, de se
voir gouverné par les mesmes personnes pour le spirituel et pour le
temporel."--Le Clerc, I. 478. ] In 1642, partial and ineffective
measures were taken, with the countenance of Richelieu, for introducing
into New France an Order less greedy of seigniories and endowments than
the Jesuits, and less prone to political encroachment. [ 1 ] No
favorable result followed; and the colony remained as before, in a
pitiful state of cramping and dwarfing vassalage.

[ 1 Declaration de Pierre Breant, par devant les Notaires du Roy, MS.
The Order was that of the Capuchins, who, like the Récollets, are a
branch of the Franciscans. Their introduction into Canada was prevented;
but they established themselves in Maine. ]

This is the view of a heretic. It was the aim of the founders of New
France to build on a foundation purely and supremely Catholic. What this
involved is plain; for no degree of personal virtue is a guaranty against
the evils which attach to the temporal rule of ecclesiastics. Burning
with love and devotion to Christ and his immaculate Mother, the fervent
and conscientious priest regards with mixed pity and indignation those
who fail in this supreme allegiance. Piety and charity alike demand that
he should bring back the rash wanderer to the fold of his divine Master,
and snatch him from the perdition into which his guilt must otherwise
plunge him. And while he, the priest, himself yields reverence and
obedience to the Superior, in whom he sees the representative of Deity,
it behooves him, in his degree, to require obedience from those whom he
imagines that God has confided to his guidance. His conscience, then,
acts in perfect accord with the love of power innate in the human heart.
These allied forces mingle with a perplexing subtlety; pride, disguised
even from itself, walks in the likeness of love and duty; and a thousand
times on the pages of history we find Hell beguiling the virtues of
Heaven to do its work. The instinct of domination is a weed that grows
rank in the shadow of the temple, climbs over it, possesses it, covers
its ruin, and feeds on its decay. The unchecked sway of priests has
always been the most mischievous of tyrannies; and even were they all
well-meaning and sincere, it would be so still.

To the Jesuits, the atmosphere of Quebec was well-nigh celestial.
"In the climate of New France," they write, "one learns perfectly to seek
only God, to have no desire but God, no purpose but for God." And again:
"To live in New France is in truth to live in the bosom of God." "If,"
adds Le Jeune, "any one of those who die in this country goes to
perdition, I think he will be doubly guilty."

[ "La Nouuelle France est vn vray climat où on apprend parfaictement bien
à ne chercher que Dieu, ne desirer que Dieu seul, auoir l'intention
purement à Dieu, etc. . . . Viure en la Nouuelle France, c'est à vray
dire viure dans le sein de Dieu, et ne respirer que l'air de sa Diuine
conduite."--Divers Sentimens. "Si quelqu'un de ceux qui meurent en ces
contrées se damne, je croy qu'il sera doublement coupable."--Relation,
1640, 5 (Cramoisy). ]

The very amusements of this pious community were acts of religion.
Thus, on the fête-day of St. Joseph, the patron of New France, there was
a show of fireworks to do him honor. In the forty volumes of the Jesuit
Relations there is but one pictorial illustration; and this represents
the pyrotechnic contrivance in question, together with a figure of the
Governor in the act of touching it off. [ Relation, 1637, 8. The
Relations, as originally published, comprised about forty volumes. ]
But, what is more curious, a Catholic writer of the present day, the Abbé
Faillon, in an elaborate and learned work, dilates at length on the
details of the display; and this, too, with a gravity which evinces his
conviction that squibs, rockets, blue-lights, and serpents are important
instruments for the saving of souls. [ Histoire de la Colonie Française,
I. 291, 292. ] On May-Day of the same year, 1637, Montmagny planted
before the church a May-pole surmounted by a triple crown, beneath which
were three symbolical circles decorated with wreaths, and bearing
severally the names, Iesus, Maria, Ioseph; the soldiers drew up before it,
and saluted it with a volley of musketry. [ Relation, 1637, 82. ]

On the anniversary of the Dauphin's birth there was a dramatic
performance, in which an unbeliever, speaking Algonquin for the profit of
the Indians present, was hunted into Hell by fiends. [ Vimont, Relation,
1640, 6. ] Religious processions were frequent. In one of them, the
Governor in a court dress and a baptized Indian in beaver-skins were
joint supporters of the canopy which covered the Host. [ Le Jeune,
Relation, 1638, 6. ] In another, six Indians led the van, arrayed each
in a velvet coat of scarlet and gold sent them by the King. Then came
other Indian converts, two and two; then the foundress of the Ursuline
convent, with Indian children in French gowns; then all the Indian girls
and women, dressed after their own way; then the priests; then the
Governor; and finally the whole French population, male and female,
except the artillery-men at the fort, who saluted with their cannon the
cross and banner borne at the head of the procession. When all was over,
the Governor and the Jesuits rewarded the Indians with a feast.
[ Le Jeune, Relation, 1639, 3. ]

Now let the stranger enter the church of Notre-Dame de La Recouvrance,
after vespers. It is full, to the very porch: officers in slouched hats
and plumes, musketeers, pikemen, mechanics, and laborers. Here is
Montmagny himself; Repentigny and Poterie, gentlemen of good birth;
damsels of nurture ill fitted to the Canadian woods; and, mingled with
these, the motionless Indians, wrapped to the throat in embroidered
moose-hides. Le Jeune, not in priestly vestments, but in the common
black dress of his Order, is before the altar; and on either side is a
row of small red-skinned children listening with exemplary decorum, while,
with a cheerful, smiling face, he teaches them to kneel, clasp their
hands, and sign the cross. All the principal members of this zealous
community are present, at once amused and edified at the grave deportment,
and the prompt, shrill replies of the infant catechumens; while their
parents in the crowd grin delight at the gifts of beads and trinkets with
which Le Jeune rewards his most proficient pupils. [ Le Jeune, Relation,
1637, 122 (Cramoisy). ]

We have seen the methods of conversion practised among the Hurons.
They were much the same at Quebec. The principal appeal was to fear.
[ Ibid., 1636, 119, and 1637, 32 (Cramoisy). "La crainte est l'auan
couriere de la foy dans ces esprits barbares." ] "You do good to your
friends," said Le Jeune to an Algonquin chief, "and you burn your
enemies. God does the same." And he painted Hell to the startled
neophyte as a place where, when he was hungry, he would get nothing to
eat but frogs and snakes, and, when thirsty, nothing to drink but flames.
[ Le Jeune, Relation, 1637, 80-82 (Cramoisy). "Avoir faim et ne manger
que des serpens et des crapaux, avoir soif et ne boire que des flammes." ]
Pictures were found invaluable. "These holy representations," pursues
the Father Superior, "are half the instruction that can be given to the
Indians. I wanted some pictures of Hell and souls in perdition, and a
few were sent us on paper; but they are too confused. The devils and the
men are so mixed up, that one can make out nothing without particular
attention. If three, four, or five devils were painted tormenting a soul
with different punishments,--one applying fire, another serpents, another
tearing him with pincers, and another holding him fast with a chain,--
this would have a good effect, especially if everything were made
distinct, and misery, rage, and desperation appeared plainly in his face."

[ "Les heretiques sont grandement blasmables, de condamner et de briser
les images qui ont de si bons effets. Ces sainctes figures sont la
moitié de l'instruction qu'on peut donner aux Sauuages. I'auois desiré
quelques portraits de l'enfer et de l'âme damnée; on nous en a enuoyé
quelques vns en papier, mais cela est trop confus. Les diables sont
tellement meslez auec les hommes, qu'on n'y peut rien recognoistre,
qu'auec vne particuliere attention. Qui depeindroit trois ou quatre ou
cinq demons, tourmentans vne âme de diuers supplices, l'vn luy appliquant
des feux, l'autre des serpens, l'autre la tenaillant, l'autre la tenant
liée auec des chaisnes, cela auroit vn bon effet, notamment si tout
estoit bien distingué, et que la rage et la tristesse parussent bien en
la face de cette âme desesperée"--Relation, 1637, 32 (Cramoisy). ]

The preparation of the convert for baptism was often very slight.
A dying Algonquin, who, though meagre as a skeleton, had thrown himself,
with a last effort of expiring ferocity, on an Iroquois prisoner, and
torn off his ear with his teeth, was baptized almost immediately. [ 1 ]
In the case of converts in health there was far more preparation; yet
these often apostatized. The various objects of instruction may all be
included in one comprehensive word, submission,--an abdication of will
and judgment in favor of the spiritual director, who was the interpreter
and vicegerent of God. The director's function consisted in the
enforcement of dogmas by which he had himself been subdued, in which he
believed profoundly, and to which he often clung with an absorbing
enthusiasm. The Jesuits, an Order thoroughly and vehemently reactive,
had revived in Europe the mediæval type of Christianity, with all its
attendant superstitions. Of these the Canadian missions bear abundant
marks. Yet, on the whole, the labors of the missionaries tended greatly
to the benefit of the Indians. Reclaimed, as the Jesuits tried to
reclaim them, from their wandering life, settled in habits of peaceful
industry, and reduced to a passive and childlike obedience, they would
have gained more than enough to compensate them for the loss of their
ferocious and miserable independence. At least, they would have escaped
annihilation. The Society of Jesus aspired to the mastery of all New
France; but the methods of its ambition were consistent with a Christian
benevolence. Had this been otherwise, it would have employed other
instruments. It would not have chosen a Jogues or a Garnier. The
Society had men for every work, and it used them wisely. It utilized the
apostolic virtues of its Canadian missionaries, fanned their enthusiasm,
and decorated itself with their martyr crowns. With joy and gratulation,
it saw them rival in another hemisphere the noble memory of its saint and
hero, Francis Xavier. [ Enemies of the Jesuits, while denouncing them in
unmeasured terms, speak in strong eulogy of many of the Canadian
missionaries. See, for example, Steinmetz, History of the Jesuits,
II. 415. ]

[ 1 "Ce seroit vne estrange cruauté de voir descendre vne âme toute
viuante dans les enfers, par le refus d'vn bien que Iesus Christ luy a
acquis au prix de son sang."--Relation, 1637, 66 (Cramoisy).

"Considerez d'autre coté la grande appréhension que nous avions sujet de
redouter la guérison; pour autant que bien souvent étant guéris il ne
leur reste du St. Baptême que le caractère."--Lettres de Garnier, MSS.

It was not very easy to make an Indian comprehend the nature of baptism.
An Iroquois at Montreal, hearing a missionary speaking of the water which
cleansed the soul from sin, said that he was well acquainted with it,
as the Dutch had once given him so much that they were forced to tie him,
hand and foot, to prevent him from doing mischief.--Faillon II. 43. ]

I have spoken of the colonists as living in a state of temporal and
spiritual vassalage. To this there was one exception,--a small class of
men whose home was the forest, and their companions savages. They
followed the Indians in their roamings, lived with them, grew familiar
with their language, allied themselves with their women, and often became
oracles in the camp and leaders on the war-path. Champlain's bold
interpreter, Étienne Brulé, whose adventures I have recounted elsewhere,
[ "Pioneers of France," 377. ] may be taken as a type of this class.
Of the rest, the most conspicuous were Jean Nicollet, Jacques Hertel,
François Marguerie, and Nicolas Marsolet. [ 1 ] Doubtless, when they
returned from their rovings, they often had pressing need of penance and
absolution; yet, for the most part, they were good Catholics, and some of
them were zealous for the missions. Nicollet and others were at times
settled as interpreters at Three Rivers and Quebec. Several of them were
men of great intelligence and an invincible courage. From hatred of
restraint, and love of a wild and adventurous independence, they
encountered privations and dangers scarcely less than those to which the
Jesuit exposed himself from motives widely different,--he from religious
zeal, charity, and the hope of Paradise; they simply because they liked
it. Some of the best families of Canada claim descent from this vigorous
and hardy stock.

[ 1 See Ferland, Notes sur les Registres de N. D. de Québec, 30.

Nicollet, especially, was a remarkable man. As early as 1639, he
ascended the Green Bay of Lake Michigan, and crossed to the waters of the
Mississippi. This was first shown by the researches of Mr. Shea.
See his Discovery and Exploration of the Mississippi Valley, XX. ]

CHAPTER XIV.

1636-1652.

DEVOTEES AND NUNS.

THE HURON SEMINARY.--MADAME DE LA PELTRIE.--HER PIOUS SCHEMES.--
HER SHAM MARRIAGE.--SHE VISITS THE URSULINES OF TOURS.--
MARIE DE SAINT BERNARD.--MARIE DE L'INCARNATION.--HER ENTHUSIASM.--
HER MYSTICAL MARRIAGE.--HER DEJECTION.--HER MENTAL CONFLICTS.--
HER VISION.--MADE SUPERIOR OF THE URSULINES.--THE HÔTEL-DIEU.--
THE VOYAGE TO CANADA.--SILLERY.--LABORS AND SUFFERINGS OF THE NUNS.--
CHARACTER OF MARIE DE L'INCARNATION.--OF MADAME DE LA PELTRIE.

Quebec, as we have seen, had a seminary, a hospital, and a convent,
before it had a population. It will be well to observe the origin of
these institutions.

The Jesuits from the first had cherished the plan of a seminary for Huron
boys at Quebec. The Governor and the Company favored the design; since
not only would it be an efficient means of spreading the Faith and
attaching the tribe to the French interest, but the children would be
pledges for the good behavior of the parents, and hostages for the safety
of missionaries and traders in the Indian towns. [ "M. de Montmagny
cognoit bien l'importance de ce Seminaire pour la gloire de Nostre
Seigneur, et pour le commerce de ces Messieurs"--Relation, 1637, 209
(Cramoisy). ] In the summer of 1636, Father Daniel, descending from the
Huron country, worn, emaciated, his cassock patched and tattered, and his
shirt in rags, brought with him a boy, to whom two others were soon
added; and through the influence of the interpreter, Nicollet, the number
was afterwards increased by several more. One of them ran away, two ate
themselves to death, a fourth was carried home by his father, while three
of those remaining stole a canoe, loaded it with all they could lay their
hands upon, and escaped in triumph with their plunder. [ Le Jeune,
Relation, 1637, 55-59. Ibid., Relation, 1638, 23. ]

The beginning was not hopeful; but the Jesuits persevered, and at length
established their seminary on a firm basis. The Marquis de Gamache had
given the Society six thousand crowns for founding a college at Quebec.
In 1637, a year before the building of Harvard College, the Jesuits began
a wooden structure in the rear of the fort; and here, within one
inclosure, was the Huron seminary and the college for French boys.

Meanwhile the female children of both races were without instructors; but
a remedy was at hand. At Alençon, in 1603, was born Marie Madeleine de
Chauvigny, a scion of the _haute noblesse_ of Normandy. Seventeen years
later she was a young lady, abundantly wilful and superabundantly
enthusiastic,--one who, in other circumstances, might perhaps have made a
romantic elopement and a _mésalliance_. [ 1 ] But her impressible and
ardent nature was absorbed in other objects. Religion and its ministers
possessed her wholly, and all her enthusiasm was spent on works of
charity and devotion. Her father, passionately fond of her, resisted her
inclination for the cloister, and sought to wean her back to the world;
but she escaped from the chateau to a neighboring convent, where she
resolved to remain. Her father followed, carried her home, and engaged
her in a round of fêtes and hunting parties, in the midst of which she
found herself surprised into a betrothal to M. de la Peltrie, a young
gentleman of rank and character. The marriage proved a happy one,
and Madame de la Peltrie, with an excellent grace, bore her part in the
world she had wished to renounce. After a union of five years, her
husband died, and she was left a widow and childless at the age of
twenty-two. She returned to the religious ardors of her girlhood,
again gave all her thoughts to devotion and charity, and again resolved
to be a nun. She had heard of Canada; and when Le Jeune's first
Relations appeared, she read them with avidity. "Alas!" wrote the Father,
"is there no charitable and virtuous lady who will come to this country
to gather up the blood of Christ, by teaching His word to the little
Indian girls?" His appeal found a prompt and vehement response from the
breast of Madame de la Peltrie. Thenceforth she thought of nothing but
Canada. In the midst of her zeal, a fever seized her. The physicians
despaired; but, at the height of the disease, the patient made a vow to
St. Joseph, that, should God restore her to health, she would build a
house in honor of Him in Canada, and give her life and her wealth to the
instruction of Indian girls. On the following morning, say her
biographers, the fever had left her.

[ 1 There is a portrait of her, taken at a later period, of which a
photograph is before me. She has a semi-religious dress, hands clasped
in prayer, large dark eyes, a smiling and mischievous mouth, and a face
somewhat pretty and very coquettish. An engraving from the portrait is
prefixed to the "Notice Biographique de Madame de la Peltrie" in Les
Ursulines de Québec, I. 348. ]

Meanwhile her relatives, or those of her husband, had confirmed her pious
purposes by attempting to thwart them. They pronounced her a romantic
visionary, incompetent to the charge of her property. Her father, too,
whose fondness for her increased with his advancing age, entreated her to
remain with him while he lived, and to defer the execution of her plans
till he should be laid in his grave. From entreaties he passed to
commands, and at length threatened to disinherit her, if she persisted.
The virtue of obedience, for which she is extolled by her clerical
biographers, however abundantly exhibited in respect to those who held
charge of her conscience, was singularly wanting towards the parent who,
in the way of Nature, had the best claim to its exercise; and Madame de
la Peltrie was more than ever resolved to go to Canada. Her father,
on his part, was urgent that she should marry again. On this she took
counsel of a Jesuit, [ 1 ] who, "having seriously reflected before God,"
suggested a device, which to the heretical mind is a little startling,
but which commended itself to Madame de la Peltrie as fitted at once to
soothe the troubled spirit of her father, and to save her from the sin
involved in the abandonment of her pious designs.

[ 1 "Partagée ainsi entre l'amour filial et la religion, en proie aux
plus poignantes angoisses, elle s'adressa à un religieux de la Compagnie
de Jésus, dont elle connaissait la prudence consommée, et le supplia de
l'éclairer de ses lumières. Ce religieux, après y avoir sérieusement
réfléchi devant Dieu, lui répondit qu'il croyait avoir trouvé un moyen de
tout concilier."--Casgrain, Vie de Marie de l'Incarnation, 243. ]

Among her acquaintance was M. de Bernières, a gentleman of high rank,
great wealth, and zealous devotion. She wrote to him, explained the
situation, and requested him to feign a marriage with her. His sense of
honor recoiled: moreover, in the fulness of his zeal, he had made a vow
of chastity, and an apparent breach of it would cause scandal. He
consulted his spiritual director and a few intimate friends. All agreed
that the glory of God was concerned, and that it behooved him to accept
the somewhat singular overtures of the young widow, [ 1 ] and request her
hand from her father. M. de Chauvigny, who greatly esteemed Bernières,
was delighted; and his delight was raised to transport at the dutiful and
modest acquiescence of his daughter. [ 2 ] A betrothal took place; all
was harmony, and for a time no more was said of disinheriting Madame de
la Peltrie, or putting her in wardship.

[ 1 "Enfin après avoir longtemps imploré les lumières du ciel, il remit
toute l'affaire entre les mains de son directeur et de quelques amis
intimes. Tous, d'un commun accord, lui déclarèrent que la gloire de Dieu
y était interessée, et qu'il devait accepter."--Ibid., 244. ]

[ 2 "The prudent young widow answered him with much respect and modesty,
that, as she knew M. de Bernières to be a favorite with him, she also
preferred him to all others."

The above is from a letter of Marie de l'Incarnation, translated by
Mother St. Thomas, of the Ursuline convent of Quebec, in her Life of
Madame de la Peltrie, 41. Compare Les Ursulines de Québec, 10, and the
"Notice Biographique" in the same volume. ]

Bernières's scruples returned. Divided between honor and conscience,
he postponed the marriage, until at length M. de Chauvigny conceived
misgivings, and again began to speak of disinheriting his daughter,
unless the engagement was fulfilled. [ 1 ] Bernières yielded, and went
with Madame de la Peltrie to consult "the most eminent divines." [ 2 ]
A sham marriage took place, and she and her accomplice appeared in public
as man and wife. Her relatives, however, had already renewed their
attempts to deprive her of the control of her property. A suit, of what
nature does not appear, had been decided against her at Caen, and she had
appealed to the Parliament of Normandy. Her lawyers were in despair; but,
as her biographer justly observes, "the saints have resources which
others have not." A vow to St. Joseph secured his intercession and
gained her case. Another thought now filled her with agitation. Her
plans were laid, and the time of action drew near. How could she endure
the distress of her father, when he learned that she had deluded him with
a false marriage, and that she and all that was hers were bound for the
wilderness of Canada? Happily for him, he fell ill, and died in
ignorance of the deceit that had been practised upon him. [ 3 ]

[ 1 "Our virtuous widow did not lose courage. As she had given her
confidence to M. de Bernières, she informed him of all that passed,
while she flattered her father each day, telling him that this nobleman
was too honorable to fail in keeping his word."--St. Thomas, Life of
Madame de la Peltrie, 42. ]

[ 2 "He" (Bernières) "went to stay at the house of a mutual friend,
where they had frequent opportunities of seeing each other, and
consulting the most eminent divines on the means of effecting this
pretended marriage."--Ibid., 43. ]

[ 3 It will be of interest to observe the view taken of this pretended
marriage by Madame de la Peltrie's Catholic biographers. Charlevoix
tells the story without comment, but with apparent approval. Sainte-Foi,
in his Premières Ursulines de France, says, that, as God had taken her
under His guidance, we should not venture to criticize her. Casgrain,
in his Vie de Marie de l'Incarnation, remarks:--

"Une telle conduite peut encore aujourd'hui paraître étrange à bien des
personnes; mais outre que l'avenir fit bien voir que c'était une
inspiration du ciel, nous pouvons répondre, avec un savant et pieux
auteur, que nous ne devons point juger ceux que Dieu se charge lui-même
de conduire."--p. 247.

Mother St. Thomas highly approves the proceeding, and says:--

"Thus ended the pretended engagement of this virtuous lady and gentleman,
which caused, at the time, so much inquiry and excitement among the
nobility in France, and which, after a lapse of two hundred years,
cannot fail exciting feelings of admiration in the heart of every
virtuous woman!"

Surprising as it may appear, the book from which the above is taken was
written a few years since, in so-called English, for the instruction of
the pupils in the Ursuline Convent at Quebec. ]

Whatever may be thought of the quality of Madame de la Peltrie's devotion,
there can be no reasonable doubt of its sincerity or its ardor; and yet
one can hardly fail to see in her the signs of that restless longing for
_éclat_, which, with some women, is a ruling passion. When, in company
with Bernières, she passed from Alençon to Tours, and from Tours to Paris,
an object of attention to nuns, priests, and prelates,--when the Queen
herself summoned her to an interview,--it may be that the profound
contentment of soul ascribed to her had its origin in sources not
exclusively of the spirit. At Tours, she repaired to the Ursuline
convent. The Superior and all the nuns met her at the entrance of the
cloister, and, separating into two rows as she appeared, sang the _Veni
Creator_, while the bell of the monastery sounded its loudest peal.
Then they led her in triumph to their church, sang _Te Deum_, and, while
the honored guest knelt before the altar, all the sisterhood knelt around
her in a semicircle. Their hearts beat high within them. That day they
were to know who of their number were chosen for the new convent of
Quebec, of which Madame de la Peltrie was to be the foundress; and when
their devotions were over, they flung themselves at her feet, each
begging with tears that the lot might fall on her. Aloof from this
throng of enthusiastic suppliants stood a young nun, Marie de St. Bernard,
too timid and too modest to ask the boon for which her fervent heart was
longing. It was granted without asking. This delicate girl was chosen,
and chosen wisely. [ Casgrain, Vie de Marie de l'Incarnation, 271-273.
There is a long account of Marie de St. Bernard, by Ragueneau, in the
Relation of 1652. Here it is said that she showed an unaccountable
indifference as to whether she went to Canada or not, which, however,
was followed by an ardent desire to go. ]

There was another nun who stood apart, silent and motionless,--a stately
figure, with features strongly marked and perhaps somewhat masculine;
[ 1 ] but, if so, they belied her, for Marie de l'Incarnation was a woman
to the core. For her there was no need of entreaties; for she knew that
the Jesuits had made her their choice, as Superior of the new convent.
She was born, forty years before, at Tours, of a good _bourgeois_ family.
As she grew up towards maturity, her qualities soon declared themselves.
She had uncommon talents and strong religious susceptibilities, joined to
a vivid imagination,--an alliance not always desirable under a form of
faith where both are excited by stimulants so many and so powerful.
Like Madame de la Peltrie, she married, at the desire of her parents,
in her eighteenth year. The marriage was not happy. Her biographers say
that there was no fault on either side. Apparently, it was a severe case
of "incompatibility." She sought her consolation in the churches; and,
kneeling in dim chapels, held communings with Christ and the angels.
At the end of two years her husband died, leaving her with an infant son.
She gave him to the charge of her sister, abandoned herself to solitude
and meditation, and became a mystic of the intense and passional school.
Yet a strong maternal instinct battled painfully in her breast with a
sense of religious vocation. Dreams, visions, interior voices, ecstasies,
revulsions, periods of rapture and periods of deep dejection, made up the
agitated tissue of her life. She fasted, wore hair-cloth, scourged
herself, washed dishes among the servants, and did their most menial
work. She heard, in a trance, a miraculous voice. It was that of Christ,
promising to become her spouse. Months and years passed, full of
troubled hopes and fears, when again the voice sounded in her ear,
with assurance that the promise was fulfilled, and that she was indeed
his bride. Now ensued phenomena which are not infrequent among Roman
Catholic female devotees, when unmarried, or married unhappily, and which
have their source in the necessities of a woman's nature. To her excited
thought, her divine spouse became a living presence; and her language to
him, as recorded by herself, is that of the most intense passion.
She went to prayer, agitated and tremulous, as if to a meeting with an
earthly lover. "O my Love!" she exclaimed, "when shall I embrace you?
Have you no pity on me in the torments that I suffer? Alas! alas! my
Love, my Beauty, my Life! instead of healing my pain, you take pleasure
in it. Come, let me embrace you, and die in your sacred arms!" And
again she writes: "Then, as I was spent with fatigue, I was forced to say,
'My divine Love, since you wish me to live, I pray you let me rest a
little, that I may the better serve you'; and I promised him that
afterward I would suffer myself to consume in his chaste and divine
embraces." [ 2 ]

[ 1 There is an engraved portrait of her, taken some years later,
of which a photograph is before me. When she was "in the world," her
stately proportions are said to have attracted general attention.
Her family name was Marie Guyard. She was born on the eighteenth of
October, 1599. ]

[ 2 "Allant à l'oraison, je tressaillois en moi-même, et disois: Allons
dans la solitude, mon cher amour, afin que je vous embrasse à mon aise,
et que, respirant mon âme en vous, elle ne soit plus que vous-même par
union d'amour. . . . Puis, mon corps étant brisé de fatigues, j'étois
contrainte de dire: Mon divin amour, je vous prie de me laisser prendre
un peu de repos, afin que je puisse mieux vous servir, puisque vous
voulez que je vive. . . . Je le priois de me laisser agir; lui
promettant de me laisser après cela consumer dans ses chastes et divins
embrassemens. . . O amour! quand vous embrasserai-je? N'avez-vous point
pitié de moi dans le tourment que je souffre? helas! helas! mon amour,
ma beauté, ma vie! au lieu de me guérir, vous vous plaisez à mes maux.
Venez donc que je vous embrasse, et que je meure entre vos bras sacréz!"

The above passages, from various pages of her journal, will suffice
though they give but an inadequate idea of these strange extravagances.
What is most astonishing is, that a man of sense like Charlevoix; in his
Life of Marie de l'Incarnation, should extract them in full, as matter of
edification and evidence of saintship. Her recent biographer, the Abbé
Casgrain, refrains from quoting them, though he mentions them approvingly
as evincing fervor. The Abbé Racine, in his Discours à l'Occasion du
192ème Anniversaire de l'heureuse Mort de la Vén. Mère de l'Incarnation,
delivered at Quebec in 1864, speaks of them as transcendent proofs of the
supreme favor of Heaven.--Some of the pupils of Marie de l'Incarnation
also had mystical marriages with Christ; and the impassioned rhapsodies
of one of them being overheard, she nearly lost her character, as it was
thought that she was apostrophsizing an earthly lover. ]

Clearly, here is a case for the physiologist as well as the theologian;
and the "holy widow," as her biographers call her, becomes an example,
and a lamentable one, of the tendency of the erotic principle to ally
itself with high religious excitement.

But the wings of imagination will tire and droop, the brightest
dream-land of contemplative fancy grow dim, and an abnormal tension of
the faculties find its inevitable reaction at last. From a condition of
highest exaltation, a mystical heaven of light and glory, the unhappy
dreamer fell back to a dreary earth, or rather to an abyss of darkness
and misery. Her biographers tell us that she became a prey to dejection,
and thoughts of infidelity, despair, estrangement from God, aversion to
mankind, pride, vanity, impurity, and a supreme disgust at the rites of
religion. Exhaustion produced common-sense, and the dreams which had
been her life now seemed a tissue of illusions. Her confessor became a
weariness to her, and his words fell dead on her ear. Indeed, she
conceived a repugnance to the holy man. Her old and favorite confessor,
her oracle, guide, and comforter, had lately been taken from her by
promotion in the Church,--which may serve to explain her dejection; and
the new one, jealous of his predecessor, told her that all his counsels
had been visionary and dangerous to her soul. Having overwhelmed her
with this announcement, he left her, apparently out of patience with her
refractory and gloomy mood; and she remained for several months deprived
of spiritual guidance. [ Casgrain, 195-197. ] Two years elapsed before
her mind recovered its tone, when she soared once more in the seventh
heaven of imaginative devotion.

Marie de l'Incarnation, we have seen, was unrelenting in every practice
of humiliation; dressed in mean attire, did the servants' work, nursed
sick beggars, and, in her meditations, taxed her brain with metaphysical
processes of self-annihilation. And yet, when one reads her "Spiritual
Letters," the conviction of an enormous spiritual pride in the writer can
hardly be repressed. She aspired to that inner circle of the faithful,
that aristocracy of devotion, which, while the common herd of Christians
are busied with the duties of life, eschews the visible and the present,
and claims to live only for God. In her strong maternal affection she
saw a lure to divert her from the path of perfect saintship. Love for
her child long withheld her from becoming a nun; but at last, fortified
by her confessor, she left him to his fate, took the vows, and immured
herself with the Ursulines of Tours. The boy, frenzied by his desertion,
and urged on by indignant relatives, watched his opportunity, and made
his way into the refectory of the convent, screaming to the horrified
nuns to give him back his mother. As he grew older, her anxiety
increased; and at length she heard in her seclusion that he had fallen
into bad company, had left the relative who had sheltered him, and run
off, no one knew whither. The wretched mother, torn with anguish,
hastened for consolation to her confessor, who met her with stern
upbraidings. Yet, even in this her intensest ordeal, her enthusiasm and
her native fortitude enabled her to maintain a semblance of calmness,
till she learned that the boy had been found and brought back.

Strange as it may seem, this woman, whose habitual state was one of
mystical abstraction, was gifted to a rare degree with the faculties most
useful in the practical affairs of life. She had spent several years in
the house of her brother-in-law. Here, on the one hand, her vigils,
visions, and penances set utterly at nought the order of a well-governed
family; while, on the other, she made amends to her impatient relative by
able and efficient aid in the conduct of his public and private affairs.
Her biographers say, and doubtless with truth, that her heart was far
away from these mundane interests; yet her talent for business was not
the less displayed. Her spiritual guides were aware of it, and saw
clearly that gifts so useful to the world might be made equally useful to
the Church. Hence it was that she was chosen Superior of the convent
which Madame de la Peltrie was about to endow at Quebec. [ The
combination of religious enthusiasm, however extravagant and visionary,
with a talent for business, is not very rare. Nearly all the founders of
monastic Orders are examples of it. ]

Yet it was from heaven itself that Marie de l'Incarnation received her
first "vocation" to Canada. The miracle was in this wise.

In a dream she beheld a lady unknown to her. She took her hand; and the
two journeyed together westward, towards the sea. They soon met one of
the Apostles, clothed all in white, who, with a wave of his hand,
directed them on their way. They now entered on a scene of surpassing
magnificence. Beneath their feet was a pavement of squares of white
marble, spotted with vermilion, and intersected with lines of vivid
scarlet; and all around stood monasteries of matchless architecture.
But the two travellers, without stopping to admire, moved swiftly on till
they beheld the Virgin seated with her Infant Son on a small temple of
white marble, which served her as a throne. She seemed about fifteen
years of age, and was of a "ravishing beauty." Her head was turned
aside; she was gazing fixedly on a wild waste of mountains and valleys,
half concealed in mist. Marie de l'Incarnation approached with
outstretched arms, adoring. The vision bent towards her, and, smiling,
kissed her three times; whereupon, in a rapture, the dreamer awoke.
[ Marie de l'Incarnation recounts this dream at great length in her
letters; and Casgrain copies the whole, verbatim, as a revelation from
God. ]

She told the vision to Father Dinet, a Jesuit of Tours. He was at no
loss for an interpretation. The land of mists and mountains was Canada,
and thither the Virgin called her. Yet one mystery remained unsolved.
Who was the unknown companion of her dream? Several years had passed,
and signs from heaven and inward voices had raised to an intense fervor
her zeal for her new vocation, when, for the first time, she saw Madame
de la Peltrie on her visit to the convent at Tours, and recognized,
on the instant, the lady of her nocturnal vision. No one can be
surprised at this who has considered with the slightest attention the
phenomena of religious enthusiasm.

On the fourth of May, 1639, Madame de la Peltrie, Marie de l'Incarnation,
Marie de St. Bernard, and another Ursuline, embarked at Dieppe for
Canada. In the ship were also three young hospital nuns, sent out to
found at Quebec a Hôtel Dieu, endowed by the famous niece of Richelieu,
the Duchesse d'Aiguillon. [ Juchereau, Histoire de l'Hôtel-Dieu ae
Québec, 4. ] Here, too, were the Jesuits Chaumonot and Poncet, on the
way to their mission, together with Father Vimont, who was to succeed Le
Jeune in his post of Superior. To the nuns, pale from their cloistered
seclusion, there was a strange and startling novelty in this new world of
life and action,--the ship, the sailors, the shouts of command, the
flapping of sails, the salt wind, and the boisterous sea. The voyage was
long and tedious. Sometimes they lay in their berths, sea-sick and
woe-begone; sometimes they sang in choir on deck, or heard mass in the
cabin. Once, on a misty morning, a wild cry of alarm startled crew and
passengers alike. A huge iceberg was drifting close upon them. The
peril was extreme. Madame de la Peltrie clung to Marie de l'Incarnation,
who stood perfectly calm, and gathered her gown about her feet that she
might drown with decency. It is scarcely necessary to say that they were
saved by a vow to the Virgin and St. Joseph. Vimont offered it in behalf
of all the company, and the ship glided into the open sea unharmed.

They arrived at Tadoussac on the fifteenth of July; and the nuns ascended
to Quebec in a small craft deeply laden with salted codfish, on which,
uncooked, they subsisted until the first of August, when they reached
their destination. Cannon roared welcome from the fort and batteries;
all labor ceased; the storehouses were closed; and the zealous Montmagny,
with a train of priests and soldiers, met the new-comers at the landing.
All the nuns fell prostrate, and kissed the sacred soil of Canada. [ 1 ]
They heard mass at the church, dined at the fort, and presently set forth
to visit the new settlement of Sillery, four miles above Quebec.

[ 1 Juchereau, 14; Le Clerc, II. 33; Ragueneau, Vie de Catherine de
St. Augustin, "Epistre dédicatoire;" Le Jeune, Relation, 1639, Chap. II.;
Charlevoix, Vie de Marie de l'Incarnation, 264; "Acte de Reception,"
in Les Ursulines de Québec, I. 21. ]

Noel Brulart de Sillery, a Knight of Malta, who had once filled the
highest offices under the Queen Marie de Médicis, had now severed his
connection with his Order, renounced the world, and become a priest.
He devoted his vast revenues--for a dispensation of the Pope had freed
him from his vow of poverty--to the founding of religious establishments.
[ 1 ] Among other endowments, he had placed an ample fund in the hands
of the Jesuits for the formation of a settlement of Christian Indians at
the spot which still bears his name. On the strand of Sillery, between
the river and the woody heights behind, were clustered the small
log-cabins of a number of Algonquin converts, together with a church,
a mission-house, and an infirmary,--the whole surrounded by a palisade.
It was to this place that the six nuns were now conducted by the Jesuits.
The scene delighted and edified them; and, in the transports of their
zeal, they seized and kissed every female Indian child on whom they could
lay hands, "without minding," says Father Le Jeune, "whether they were
dirty or not." "Love and charity," he adds, "triumphed over every human
consideration." [ 2 ]

[ 1 See Vie de l'Illustre Serviteur de Dieu Noel Brulart de Sillery;
also Études et Recherches Bioqraphiques sur le Chevalier Noel Brulart de
Sillery, and several documents in Martin's translation of Bressani,
Appendix IV. ]

[ 2 ". . . sans prendre garde si ces petits enfans sauvages estoient
sales ou non; . . . la loy d'amour et de charité l'emportoit par dessus
toutes les considerations humaines."--Relation, 1639, 26 (Cramoisy). ]

The nuns of the Hôtel-Dieu soon after took up their abode at Sillery,
whence they removed to a house built for them at Quebec by their
foundress, the Duchesse d'Aiguillon. The Ursulines, in the absence of
better quarters, were lodged at first in a small wooden tenement under
the rock of Quebec, at the brink of the river. Here they were soon beset
with such a host of children, that the floor of their wretched tenement
was covered with beds, and their toil had no respite. Then came the
small-pox, carrying death and terror among the neighboring Indians.
These thronged to Quebec in misery and desperation, begging succor from
the French. The labors both of the Ursulines and of the hospital nuns
were prodigious. In the infected air of their miserable hovels, where
sick and dying savages covered the floor, and were packed one above
another in berths,--amid all that is most distressing and most revolting,
with little food and less sleep, these women passed the rough beginning
of their new life. Several of them fell ill. But the excess of the evil
at length brought relief; for so many of the Indians died in these
pest-houses that the survivors shunned them in horror.

But how did these women bear themselves amid toils so arduous? A
pleasant record has come down to us of one of them,--that fair and
delicate girl, Marie de St. Bernard, called, in the convent, Sister
St. Joseph, who had been chosen at Tours as the companion of Marie de
l'Incarnation. Another Ursuline, writing at a period when the severity
of their labors was somewhat relaxed, says, "Her disposition is charming.
In our times of recreation, she often makes us cry with laughing: it
would be hard to be melancholy when she is near." [ Lettre de la Mère Ste
Claire à une de ses Surs Ursulines de Paris, Québec, 2 Sept., 1640.--See
Les Ursulines de Québec, I. 38. ]

It was three years later before the Ursulines and their pupils took
possession of a massive convent of stone, built for them on the site
which they still occupy. Money had failed before the work was done,
and the interior was as unfinished as a barn. [ The interior was
finished after a year or two, with cells as usual. There were four
chimneys, with fireplaces burning a hundred and seventy-five cords of
wood in a winter; and though the nuns were boxed up in beds which closed
like chests, Marie de l'Incarnation complains bitterly of the cold.
See her letter of Aug. 26, 1644. ] Beside the cloister stood a large
ash-tree; and it stands there still. Beneath its shade, says the convent
tradition, Marie de l'Incarnation and her nuns instructed the Indian
children in the truths of salvation; but it might seem rash to affirm
that their teachings were always either wise or useful, since Father
Vimont tells us approvingly, that they reared their pupils in so chaste a
horror of the other sex, that a little girl, whom a man had playfully
taken by the hand, ran crying to a bowl of water to wash off the
unhallowed influence. [ Vimont, Relation, 1642, 112 (Cramoisy). ]

Now and henceforward one figure stands nobly conspicuous in this devoted
sisterhood. Marie de l'Incarnation, no longer lost in the vagaries of an
insane mysticism, but engaged in the duties of Christian charity and the
responsibilities of an arduous post, displays an ability, a fortitude,
and an earnestness which command respect and admiration. Her mental
intoxication had ceased, or recurred only at intervals; and false
excitements no longer sustained her. She was racked with constant
anxieties about her son, and was often in a condition described by her
biographers as a "deprivation of all spiritual consolations." Her
position was a very difficult one. She herself speaks of her life as a
succession of crosses and humiliations. Some of these were due to Madame
de la Peltrie, who, in a freak of enthusiasm, abandoned her Ursulines for
a time, as we shall presently see, leaving them in the utmost
destitution. There were dissensions to be healed among them; and money,
everything, in short, to be provided. Marie de l'Incarnation, in her
saddest moments, neither failed in judgment nor slackened in effort.
She carried on a vast correspondence, embracing every one in France who
could aid her infant community with money or influence; she harmonized
and regulated it with excellent skill; and, in the midst of relentless
austerities, she was loved as a mother by her pupils and dependants.
Catholic writers extol her as a saint. [ 1 ] Protestants may see in her
a Christian heroine, admirable, with all her follies and her faults.

[ 1 There is a letter extant from Sister Anne de Ste Claire, an Ursuline
who came to Quebec in 1640, written soon after her arrival, and
containing curious evidence that a reputation of saintship already
attached to Marie de l'Incarnation. "When I spoke to her," writes Sister
Anne, speaking of her first interview, "I perceived in the air a certain
odor of sanctity, which gave me the sensation of an agreeable perfume."
See the letter in a recent Catholic work, Les Ursulines de Québec, I. 38,
where the passage is printed in Italics, as worthy the especial attention
of the pious reader. ]

The traditions of the Ursulines are full of the virtues of Madame de la
Peltrie,--her humility, her charity, her penances, and her acts of
mortification. No doubt, with some little allowance, these traditions
are true; but there is more of reason than of uncharitableness in the
belief, that her zeal would have been less ardent and sustained, if it
had had fewer spectators. She was now fairly committed to the conventual
life, her enthusiasm was kept within prescribed bounds, and she was no
longer mistress of her own movements. On the one hand, she was anxious
to accumulate merits against the Day of Judgment; and, on the other,
she had a keen appreciation of the applause which the sacrifice of her
fortune and her acts of piety had gained for her. Mortal vanity takes
many shapes. Sometimes it arrays itself in silk and jewels; sometimes it
walks in sackcloth, and speaks the language of self-abasement. In the
convent, as in the world, the fair devotee thirsted for admiration.
The halo of saintship glittered in her eyes like a diamond crown, and she
aspired to outshine her sisters in humility. She was as sincere as
Simeon Stylites on his column; and, like him, found encouragement and
comfort in the gazing and wondering eyes below. [ Madame de la Peltrie
died in her convent in 1671. Marie de l'Incarnation died the following
year. She had the consolation of knowing that her son had fulfilled her
ardent wishes, and become a priest. ]

CHAPTER XV.

1636-1642.

VILLEMARIE DE MONTREAL.

DAUVERSIÈRE AND THE VOICE FROM HEAVEN.--ABBÉ OLIER.--THEIR SCHEMES.--
THE SOCIETY OF NOTRE-DAME DE MONTREAL.--MAISONNEUVE.--DEVOUT LADIES.--
MADEMOISELLE MANCE.--MARGUERITE BOURGEOIS.--THE MONTREALISTS AT QUEBEC.--
JEALOUSY.--QUARRELS.--ROMANCE AND DEVOTION.--EMBARKATION.--
FOUNDATION OF MONTREAL.

We come now to an enterprise as singular in its character as it proved
important in its results.

At La Flèche, in Anjou, dwelt one Jérôme le Royer de la Dauversière,
receiver of taxes. His portrait shows us a round, _bourgeois_ face,
somewhat heavy perhaps, decorated with a slight moustache, and redeemed
by bright and earnest eyes. On his head he wears a black skull-cap; and
over his ample shoulders spreads a stiff white collar, of wide expanse
and studious plainness. Though he belonged to the _noblesse_, his look is
that of a grave burgher, of good renown and sage deportment. Dauversière
was, however, an enthusiastic devotee, of mystical tendencies, who
whipped himself with a scourge of small chains till his shoulders were
one wound, wore a belt with more than twelve hundred sharp points,
and invented for himself other torments, which filled his confessor with
admiration. [ Fancamp in Faillon, Vie de Mlle Mance, Introduction. ]
One day, while at his devotions, he heard an inward voice commanding him
to become the founder of a new Order of hospital nuns; and he was further
ordered to establish, on the island called Montreal, in Canada, a
hospital, or Hôtel-Dieu, to be conducted by these nuns. But Montreal was
a wilderness, and the hospital would have no patients. Therefore,
in order to supply them, the island must first be colonized. Dauversière
was greatly perplexed. On the one hand, the voice of Heaven must be
obeyed; on the other, he had a wife, six children, and a very moderate
fortune. [ Faillon, Vie de Mlle Mance, Introduction; Dollier de Casson,
Hist. de Montreal, MS.; Les Véritables Motifs des Messieurs et Dames de
Montreal, 25; Juchereau, 33. ]

Again: there was at Paris a young priest, about twenty-eight years of
age,--Jean Jacques Olier, afterwards widely known as founder of the
Seminary of St. Sulpice. Judged by his engraved portrait, his
countenance, though marked both with energy and intellect, was anything
but prepossessing. Every lineament proclaims the priest. Yet the Abbé
Olier has high titles to esteem. He signalized his piety, it is true,
by the most disgusting exploits of self-mortification; but, at the same
time, he was strenuous in his efforts to reform the people and the
clergy. So zealous was he for good morals, that he drew upon himself the
imputation of a leaning to the heresy of the Jansenists,--a suspicion
strengthened by his opposition to certain priests, who, to secure the
faithful in their allegiance, justified them in lives of licentiousness.
[ Faillon, Vie de M. Olier, II. 188. ] Yet Olier's catholicity was past
attaintment, and in his horror of Jansenists he yielded to the Jesuits
alone.

He was praying in the ancient church of St. Germain des Prés, when,
like Dauversière, he thought he heard a voice from Heaven, saying that he
was destined to be a light to the Gentiles. It is recorded as a mystic
coincidence attending this miracle, that the choir was at that very time
chanting the words, _Lumen ad revelationem Gentium_; [ 1 ] and it seems
to have occurred neither to Olier nor to his biographer, that, falling on
the ear of the rapt worshipper, they might have unconsciously suggested
the supposed revelation. But there was a further miracle. An inward
voice told Olier that he was to form a society of priests, and establish
them on the island called Montreal, in Canada, for the propagation of the
True Faith; and writers old and recent assert, that, while both he and
Dauversière were totally ignorant of Canadian geography, they suddenly
found themselves in possession, they knew not how, of the most exact
details concerning Montreal, its size, shape, situation, soil, climate,
and productions.

[ 1 Mémoires Autographes de M. Olier, cited by Faillon, in Histoire de
la Colonie Française, I. 384. ]

The annual volumes of the Jesuit Relations, issuing from the renowned
press of Cramoisy, were at this time spread broadcast throughout France;
and, in the circles of _haute devotion_, Canada and its missions were
everywhere the themes of enthusiastic discussion; while Champlain,
in his published works, had long before pointed out Montreal as the
proper site for a settlement. But we are entering a region of miracle,
and it is superfluous to look far for explanations. The illusion,
in these cases, is a part of the history.

Dauversière pondered the revelation he had received; and the more he
pondered, the more was he convinced that it came from God. He therefore
set out for Paris, to find some means of accomplishing the task assigned
him. Here, as he prayed before an image of the Virgin in the church of
Notre-Dame, he fell into an ecstasy, and beheld a vision. "I should he
false to the integrity of history," writes his biographer, "if I did not
relate it here." And he adds, that the reality of this celestial favor
is past doubting, inasmuch as Dauversière himself told it to his
daughters. Christ, the Virgin, and St. Joseph appeared before him.
He saw them distinctly. Then he heard Christ ask three times of his
Virgin Mother, Where can I find a faithful servant? On which, the Virgin,
taking him (Dauversière) by the hand, replied, See, Lord, here is that
faithful servant!--and Christ, with a benignant smile, received him into
his service, promising to bestow on him wisdom and strength to do his
work. [ Faillon, Vie de Mlle Mance, Introduction, xxviii. The Abbé
Ferland, in his Histoire du Canada, passes over the miracles in silence. ]
From Paris he went to the neighboring chateau of Meudon, which overlooks
the valley of the Seine, not far from St. Cloud. Entering the gallery
of the old castle, he saw a priest approaching him. It was Olier.
Now we are told that neither of these men had ever seen or heard of
the other; and yet, says the pious historian, "impelled by a kind of
inspiration, they knew each other at once, even to the depths of their
hearts; saluted each other by name, as we read of St. Paul, the Hermit,
and St. Anthony, and of St. Dominic and St. Francis; and ran to embrace
each other, like two friends who had met after a long separation."
[ Ibid., La Colonie Française, I. 390. ]

"Monsieur," exclaimed Olier, "I know your design, and I go to commend it
to God at the holy altar."

And he went at once to say mass in the chapel. Dauversière received the
communion at his hands; and then they walked for three hours in the park,
discussing their plans. They were of one mind, in respect both to
objects and means; and when they parted, Olier gave Dauversière a hundred
louis, saying, "This is to begin the work of God."

They proposed to found at Montreal three religious communities,--three
being the mystic number,--one of secular priests to direct the colonists
and convert the Indians, one of nuns to nurse the sick, and one of nuns
to teach the Faith to the children, white and red. To borrow their own
phrases, they would plant the banner of Christ in an abode of desolation
and a haunt of demons; and to this end a band of priests and women were
to invade the wilderness, and take post between the fangs of the
Iroquois. But first they must make a colony, and to do so must raise
money. Olier had pious and wealthy penitents; Dauversière had a friend,
the Baron de Fancamp, devout as himself and far richer. Anxious for his
soul, and satisfied that the enterprise was an inspiration of God,
he was eager to bear part in it. Olier soon found three others; and the
six together formed the germ of the Society of Notre-Dame de Montreal.
Among them they raised the sum of seventy-five thousand livres,
equivalent to about as many dollars at the present day.

[ Dollier de Casson, Histoire de Montreal, MS.; also Belmont, Histoire du
Canada, 2. Juchereau doubles the sum. Faillon agrees with Dollier.

On all that relates to the early annals of Montreal a flood of new light
has been thrown by the Abbé Faillon. As a priest of St. Sulpice, he had
ready access to the archives of the Seminaries of Montreal and Paris,
and to numerous other ecclesiastical depositories, which would have been
closed hopelessly against a layman and a heretic. It is impossible to
commend too highly the zeal, diligence, exactness, and extent of his
conscientious researches. His credulity is enormous, and he is
completely in sympathy with the supernaturalists of whom he writes: in
other words, he identifies himself with his theme, and is indeed a
fragment of the seventeenth century, still extant in the nineteenth.
He is minute to prolixity, and abounds in extracts and citations from the
ancient manuscripts which his labors have unearthed. In short, the Abbé
is a prodigy of patience and industry; and if he taxes the patience of
his readers, he also rewards it abundantly. Such of his original
authorities as have proved accessible are before me, including a
considerable number of manuscripts. Among these, that of Dollier de
Casson, Histoire de Montreal, as cited above, is the most important.
The copy in my possession was made from the original in the Mazarin
Library. ]

Now to look for a moment at their plan. Their eulogists say, and with
perfect truth, that, from a worldly point of view, it was mere folly.
The partners mutually bound themselves to seek no return for the money
expended. Their profit was to be reaped in the skies: and, indeed,
there was none to be reaped on earth. The feeble settlement at Quebec
was at this time in danger of utter ruin; for the Iroquois, enraged at
the attacks made on them by Champlain, had begun a fearful course of
retaliation, and the very existence of the colony trembled in the
balance. But if Quebec was exposed to their ferocious inroads, Montreal
was incomparably more so. A settlement here would be a perilous
outpost,--a hand thrust into the jaws of the tiger. It would provoke
attack, and lie almost in the path of the war-parties. The associates
could gain nothing by the fur-trade; for they would not be allowed to
share in it. On the other hand, danger apart, the place was an excellent
one for a mission; for here met two great rivers: the St. Lawrence,
with its countless tributaries, flowed in from the west, while the Ottawa
descended from the north; and Montreal, embraced by their uniting waters,
was the key to a vast inland navigation. Thither the Indians would
naturally resort; and thence the missionaries could make their way into
the heart of a boundless heathendom. None of the ordinary motives of
colonization had part in this design. It owed its conception and its
birth to religious zeal alone.

The island of Montreal belonged to Lauson, former president of the great
company of the Hundred Associates; and, as we have seen, his son had a
monopoly of fishing in the St. Lawrence. Dauversière and Fancamp,
after much diplomacy, succeeded in persuading the elder Lauson to
transfer his title to them; and, as there was a defect in it, they also
obtained a grant of the island from the Hundred Associates, its original
owners, who, however, reserved to themselves its western extremity as a
site for a fort and storehouses. [ 1 ] At the same time, the younger
Lauson granted them a right of fishery within two leagues of the shores
of the island, for which they were to make a yearly acknowledgment of ten
pounds of fish. A confirmation of these grants was obtained from the
King. Dauversière and his companions were now _seigneurs_ of Montreal.
They were empowered to appoint a governor, and to establish courts,
from which there was to be an appeal to the Supreme Court of Quebec,
supposing such to exist. They were excluded from the fur-trade, and
forbidden to build castles or forts other than such as were necessary for
defence against the Indians.

[ Donation et Transport de la Concession de l'Isle de Montreal par
M. Jean de Lauzon aux Sieurs Chevrier de Fouancant (Fancamp) et le Royer
de la Doversière, MS.

Concession d'une Partie de l'Isle de Montreal accordée par la Compagnie
de la Nouvelle France aux Sieurs Chevrier et le Royer, MS.

Lettres de Ratification, MS.

Acte qui prouve que les Sieurs Chevrier de Fancamps et Royer de la
Dauversière n'ont stipulé qu'au nom de la Compagnie de Montreal, MS.

From copies of other documents before me, it appears that in 1659 the
reserved portion of the island was also ceded to the Company of Montreal.

See also Edits, Ordonnances Royaux, etc., I. 20-26 (Quebec, 1854). ]

Their title assured, they matured their plan. First they would send out
forty men to take possession of Montreal, intrench themselves, and raise
crops. Then they would build a house for the priests, and two convents
for the nuns. Meanwhile, Olier was toiling at Vaugirard, on the
outskirts of Paris, to inaugurate the seminary of priests, and
Dauversière at La Flèche, to form the community of hospital nuns.
How the school nuns were provided for we shall see hereafter. The colony,
it will be observed, was for the convents, not the convents for the
colony.

The Associates needed a soldier-governor to take charge of their forty
men; and, directed as they supposed by Providence, they found one wholly
to their mind. This was Paul de Chomedey, Sieur de Maisonneuve, a devout
and valiant gentleman, who in long service among the heretics of Holland
had kept his faith intact, and had held himself resolutely aloof from the
license that surrounded him. He loved his profession of arms, and wished
to consecrate his sword to the Church. Past all comparison, he is the
manliest figure that appears in this group of zealots. The piety of the
design, the miracles that inspired it, the adventure and the peril,
all combined to charm him; and he eagerly embraced the enterprise.
His father opposed his purpose; but he met him with a text of St. Mark,
"There is no man that hath left house or brethren or sisters or father
for my sake, but he shall receive an hundred-fold." On this the elder
Maisonneuve, deceived by his own worldliness, imagined that the plan
covered some hidden speculation, from which enormous profits were
expected, and therefore withdrew his opposition. [ Faillon, La Colonie
Française, I. 409. ]

Their scheme was ripening fast, when both Olier and Dauversière were
assailed by one of those revulsions of spirit, to which saints of the
ecstatic school are naturally liable. Dauversière, in particular,
was a prey to the extremity of dejection, uncertainty, and misgiving.
What had he, a family man, to do with ventures beyond sea? Was it not
his first duty to support his wife and children? Could he not fulfil all
his obligations as a Christian by reclaiming the wicked and relieving the
poor at La Flèche? Plainly, he had doubts that his vocation was genuine.
If we could raise the curtain of his domestic life, perhaps we should
find him beset by wife and daughters, tearful and wrathful, inveighing
against his folly, and imploring him to provide a support for them before
squandering his money to plant a convent of nuns in a wilderness.
How long his fit of dejection lasted does not appear; but at length [ 1 ]
he set himself again to his appointed work. Olier, too, emerging from
the clouds and darkness, found faith once more, and again placed himself
at the head of the great enterprise. [ 2 ]

[ 1 Faillon, Vie de Mlle Mance, Introduction, xxxv. ]

[ 2 Faillon (Vie de M. Olier) devotes twenty-one pages to the history of
his fit of nervous depression. ]

There was imperative need of more money; and Dauversière, under judicious
guidance, was active in obtaining it. This miserable victim of illusions
had a squat, uncourtly figure, and was no proficient in the graces either
of manners or of speech: hence his success in commending his objects to
persons of rank and wealth is set down as one of the many miracles which
attended the birth of Montreal. But zeal and earnestness are in
themselves a power; and the ground had been well marked out and ploughed
for him in advance. That attractive, though intricate, subject of study,
the female mind, has always engaged the attention of priests, more
especially in countries where, as in France, women exert a strong social
and political influence. The art of kindling the flames of zeal, and the
more difficult art of directing and controlling them, have been themes of
reflection the most diligent and profound. Accordingly we find that a
large proportion of the money raised for this enterprise was contributed
by devout ladies. Many of them became members of the Association of
Montreal, which was eventually increased to about forty-five persons,
chosen for their devotion and their wealth.

Olier and his associates had resolved, though not from any collapse of
zeal, to postpone the establishment of the seminary and the college until
after a settlement should be formed. The hospital, however, might,
they thought, be begun at once; for blood and blows would be the assured
portion of the first settlers. At least, a discreet woman ought to
embark with the first colonists as their nurse and housekeeper. Scarcely
was the need recognized when it was supplied.

Mademoiselle Jeanne Mance was born of an honorable family of Nogent-le-
Roi, and in 1640 was thirty-four years of age. These Canadian heroines
began their religious experiences early. Of Marie de l'Incarnation we
read, that at the age of seven Christ appeared to her in a vision;
[ Casgrain, Vie de Marie de l'Incarnation, 78. ] and the biographer of
Mademoiselle Mance assures us, with admiring gravity, that, at the same
tender age, she bound herself to God by a vow of perpetual chastity.
[ Faillon, Vie de Mlle Mance, I. 3. ] This singular infant in due time
became a woman, of a delicate constitution, and manners graceful, yet
dignified. Though an earnest devotee, she felt no vocation for the
cloister; yet, while still "in the world," she led the life of a nun.
The Jesuit Relations, and the example of Madame de la Peltrie, of whom
she had heard, inoculated her with the Canadian enthusiasm, then so
prevalent; and, under the pretence of visiting relatives, she made a
journey to Paris, to take counsel of certain priests. Of one thing she
was assured: the Divine will called her to Canada, but to what end she
neither knew nor asked to know; for she abandoned herself as an atom to
be borne to unknown destinies on the breath of God. At Paris, Father
St. Jure, a Jesuit, assured her that her vocation to Canada was, past
doubt, a call from Heaven; while Father Rapin, a Récollet, spread abroad
the fame of her virtues, and introduced her to many ladies of rank,
wealth, and zeal. Then, well supplied with money for any pious work to
which she might be summoned, she journeyed to Rochelle, whence ships were
to sail for New France. Thus far she had been kept in ignorance of the
plan with regard to Montreal; but now Father La Place, a Jesuit, revealed
it to her. On the day after her arrival at Rochelle, as she entered the
Church of the Jesuits, she met Dauversière coming out. "Then," says her
biographer, "these two persons, who had never seen nor heard of each
other, were enlightened supernaturally, whereby their most hidden
thoughts were mutually made known, as had happened already with M. Olier
and this same M. de la Dauversière." [ Faillon, Vie de Mlle Mance, I. 18.
Here again the Abbé Ferland, with his usual good sense, tacitly rejects
the supernaturalism. ] A long conversation ensued between them; and the
delights of this interview were never effaced from the mind of
Mademoiselle Mance. "She used to speak of it like a seraph," writes one
of her nuns, "and far better than many a learned doctor could have done."
[ La Sur Morin, Annales des Hospitalières de Villemarie, MS., cited by
Faillon. ]

She had found her destiny. The ocean, the wilderness, the solitude,
the Iroquois,--nothing daunted her. She would go to Montreal with
Maisonneuve and his forty men. Yet, when the vessel was about to sail,
a new and sharp misgiving seized her. How could she, a woman, not yet
bereft of youth or charms, live alone in the forest, among a troop of
soldiers? Her scruples were relieved by two of the men, who, at the last
moment, refused to embark without their wives,--and by a young woman, who,
impelled by enthusiasm, escaped from her friends, and took passage,
in spite of them, in one of the vessels.

All was ready; the ships set sail; but Olier, Dauversière, and Fancamp
remained at home, as did also the other Associates, with the exception of
Maisonneuve and Mademoiselle Mance. In the following February, an
impressive scene took place in the Church of Notre Dame, at Paris.
The Associates, at this time numbering about forty-five, [ Dollier de
Casson, A.D. 1641-42, MS. Vimont says thirty-five. ] with Olier at their
head, assembled before the altar of the Virgin, and, by a solemn
ceremonial, consecrated Montreal to the Holy Family. Henceforth it was
to be called Villemarie de Montreal, [ Vimont Relation, 1642, 37.
Compare Le Clerc, Établissement de la Foy, II. 49. ]--a sacred town,
reared to the honor and under the patronage of Christ, St. Joseph,
and the Virgin, to be typified by three persons on earth, founders
respectively of the three destined communities,--Olier, Dauversière,
and a maiden of Troyes, Marguerite Bourgeoys: the seminary to be
consecrated to Christ, the Hôtel-Dieu to St. Joseph, and the college to
the Virgin.

But we are anticipating a little; for it was several years as yet before
Marguerite Bourgeoys took an active part in the work of Montreal.
She was the daughter of a respectable tradesman, and was now twenty-two
years of age. Her portrait has come down to us; and her face is a mirror
of frankness, loyalty, and womanly tenderness. Her qualities were those
of good sense, conscientiousness, and a warm heart. She had known no
miracles, ecstasies, or trances; and though afterwards, when her
religious susceptibilities had reached a fuller development, a few such
are recorded of her, yet even the Abbé Faillon, with the best intentions,
can credit her with but a meagre allowance of these celestial favors.
Though in the midst of visionaries, she distrusted the supernatural,
and avowed her belief, that, in His government of the world, God does not
often set aside its ordinary laws. Her religion was of the affections,
and was manifested in an absorbing devotion to duty. She had felt no
vocation to the cloister, but had taken the vow of chastity, and was
attached, as an externe, to the Sisters of the Congregation of Troyes,
who were fevered with eagerness to go to Canada. Marguerite, however,
was content to wait until there was a prospect that she could do good by
going; and it was not till the year 1653, that renouncing an inheritance,
and giving all she had to the poor, she embarked for the savage scene of
her labors. To this day, in crowded school-rooms of Montreal and Quebec,
fit monuments of her unobtrusive virtue, her successors instruct the
children of the poor, and embalm the pleasant memory of Marguerite
Bourgeoys. In the martial figure of Maisonneuve, and the fair form of
this gentle nun, we find the true heroes of Montreal. [ For Marguerite
Bourgeoys, see her life by Faillon. ]

Maisonneuve, with his forty men and four women, reached Quebec too late
to ascend to Montreal that season. They encountered distrust, jealousy,
and opposition. The agents of the Company of the Hundred Associates
looked on them askance; and the Governor of Quebec, Montmagny, saw a
rival governor in Maisonneuve. Every means was used to persuade the
adventurers to abandon their project, and settle at Quebec. Montmagny
called a council of the principal persons of his colony, who gave it as
their opinion that the new-comers had better exchange Montreal for the
Island of Orleans, where they would be in a position to give and receive
succor; while, by persisting in their first design, they would expose
themselves to destruction, and be of use to nobody. [ Juchereau, 32;
Faillon, Colonie Française, I. 423. ] Maisonneuve, who was present,
expressed his surprise that they should assume to direct his affairs.
"I have not come here," he said, "to deliberate, but to act. It is my
duty and my honor to found a colony at Montreal; and I would go, if every
tree were an Iroquois!" [ La Tour, Mémoire de Laval, Liv. VIII; Belmont,
Histoire du Canada, 3. ]

At Quebec there was little ability and no inclination to shelter the new
colonists for the winter; and they would have fared ill, but for the
generosity of M. Puiseaux, who lived not far distant, at a place called
St. Michel. This devout and most hospitable person made room for them
all in his rough, but capacious dwelling. Their neighbors were the
hospital nuns, then living at the mission of Sillery, in a substantial,
but comfortless house of stone; where, amidst destitution, sickness,
and irrepressible disgust at the filth of the savages whom they had in
charge, they were laboring day and night with devoted assiduity. Among
the minor ills which beset them were the eccentricities of one of their
lay sisters, crazed with religious enthusiasm, who had the care of their
poultry and domestic animals, of which she was accustomed to inquire,
one by one, if they loved God; when, not receiving an immediate answer in
the affirmative, she would instantly put them to death, telling them that
their impiety deserved no better fate. [ Juchereau, 45. A great
mortification to these excellent nuns was the impossibility of keeping
their white dresses clean among their Indian patients, so that they were
forced to dye them with butternut juice. They were the _Hospitalières_
who had come over in 1639. ]

At St. Michel, Maisonneuve employed his men in building boats to ascend
to Montreal, and in various other labors for the behoof of the future
colony. Thus the winter wore away; but, as celestial minds are not
exempt from ire, Montmagny and Maisonneuve fell into a quarrel. The
twenty-fifth of January was Maisonneuve's _fête_ day; and, as he was
greatly beloved by his followers, they resolved to celebrate the
occasion. Accordingly, an hour and a half before daylight, they made a
general discharge of their muskets and cannon. The sound reached Quebec,
two or three miles distant, startling the Governor from his morning
slumbers; and his indignation was redoubled when he heard it again at
night: for Maisonneuve, pleased at the attachment of his men, had feasted
them and warmed their hearts with a distribution of wine. Montmagny,
jealous of his authority, resented these demonstrations as an infraction
of it, affirming that they had no right to fire their pieces without his
consent; and, arresting the principal offender, one Jean Gory, he put him
in irons. On being released, a few days after, his companions welcomed
him with great rejoicing, and Maisonneuve gave them all a feast. He
himself came in during the festivity, drank the health of the company,
shook hands with the late prisoner, placed him at the head of the table,
and addressed him as follows:--

"Jean Gory, you have been put in irons for me: you had the pain, and I
the affront. For that, I add ten crowns to your wages." Then, turning
to the others: "My boys," he said, "though Jean Gory has been misused,
you must not lose heart for that, but drink, all of you, to the health of
the man in irons. When we are once at Montreal, we shall be our own
masters, and can fire our cannon when we please." [ Documents Divers,
MSS., now or lately in possession of G. B. Faribault, Esq.; Ferland,
Notes sur les Registres de N. D. de Québec, 25; Faillon, La Colonie
Française, I. 433. ]

Montmagny was wroth when this was reported to him; and, on the ground
that what had passed was "contrary to the service of the King and the
authority of the Governor," he summoned Gory and six others before him,
and put them separately under oath. Their evidence failed to establish a
case against their commander; but thenceforth there was great coldness
between the powers of Quebec and Montreal.

Early in May, Maisonneuve and his followers embarked. They had gained an
unexpected recruit during the winter, in the person of Madame de la
Peltrie. The piety, the novelty, and the romance of their enterprise,
all had their charms for the fair enthusiast; and an irresistible
impulse--imputed by a slandering historian to the levity of her sex
[ La Tour, Mémoire de Laval, Liv. VIII. ]--urged her to share their
fortunes. Her zeal was more admired by the Montrealists whom she joined
than by the Ursulines whom she abandoned. She carried off all the
furniture she had lent them, and left them in the utmost destitution.
[ Charlevoix, Vie de Marie de l'Incarnation, 279; Casgrain, Vie de Marie
de l'Incarnation, 333. ] Nor did she remain quiet after reaching Montreal,
but was presently seized with a longing to visit the Hurons, and preach
the Faith in person to those benighted heathen. It needed all the
eloquence of a Jesuit, lately returned from that most arduous mission,
to convince her that the attempt would be as useless as rash.
[ St. Thomas, Life of Madame de la Peltrie, 98. ]

It was the eighth of May when Maisonneuve and his followers embarked at
St. Michel; and as the boats, deep-laden with men, arms, and stores,
moved slowly on their way, the forest, with leaves just opening in the
warmth of spring, lay on their right hand and on their left, in a
flattering semblance of tranquillity and peace. But behind woody islets,
in tangled thickets and damp ravines, and in the shade and stillness of
the columned woods, lurked everywhere a danger and a terror.

What shall we say of these adventurers of Montreal,--of these who
bestowed their wealth, and, far more, of these who sacrificed their peace
and risked their lives, on an enterprise at once so romantic and so
devout? Surrounded as they were with illusions, false lights, and false
shadows,--breathing an atmosphere of miracle,--compassed about with
angels and devils,--urged with stimulants most powerful, though
unreal,--their minds drugged, as it were, to preternatural excitement,--
it is very difficult to judge of them. High merit, without doubt,
there was in some of their number; but one may beg to be spared the
attempt to measure or define it. To estimate a virtue involved in
conditions so anomalous demands, perhaps, a judgment more than human.

The Roman Church, sunk in disease and corruption when the Reformation
began, was roused by that fierce trumpet-blast to purge and brace herself
anew. Unable to advance, she drew back to the fresher and comparatively
purer life of the past; and the fervors of mediæval Christianity were
renewed in the sixteenth century. In many of its aspects, this
enterprise of Montreal belonged to the time of the first Crusades.
The spirit of Godfrey de Bouillon lived again in Chomedey de Maisonneuve;
and in Marguerite Bourgeoys was realized that fair ideal of Christian
womanhood, a flower of Earth expanding in the rays of Heaven, which
soothed with gentle influence the wildness of a barbarous age.

On the seventeenth of May, 1642, Maisonneuve's little flotilla--a pinnace,
a flat-bottomed craft moved by sails, and two row-boats [ Dollier de
Casson, A.D. 1641-42, MS. ]--approached Montreal; and all on board raised
in unison a hymn of praise. Montmagny was with them, to deliver the
island, in behalf of the Company of the Hundred Associates, to
Maisonneuve, representative of the Associates of Montreal. [ Le Clerc,
II. 50, 51. ] And here, too, was Father Vimont, Superior of the
missions; for the Jesuits had been prudently invited to accept the
spiritual charge of the young colony. On the following day, they glided
along the green and solitary shores now thronged with the life of a busy
city, and landed on the spot which Champlain, thirty-one years before,
had chosen as the fit site of a settlement. [ "Pioneers of France," 333.
It was the Place Royale of Champlain. ] It was a tongue or triangle of
land, formed by the junction of a rivulet with the St. Lawrence, and
known afterwards as Point Callière. The rivulet was bordered by a meadow,
and beyond rose the forest with its vanguard of scattered trees. Early
spring flowers were blooming in the young grass, and birds of varied
plumage flitted among the boughs. [ Dollier de Casson, A.D. 1641-42, MS. ]

Maisonneuve sprang ashore, and fell on his knees. His followers imitated
his example; and all joined their voices in enthusiastic songs of
thanksgiving. Tents, baggage, arms, and stores were landed. An altar
was raised on a pleasant spot near at hand; and Mademoiselle Mance,
with Madame de la Peltrie, aided by her servant, Charlotte Barré,
decorated it with a taste which was the admiration of the beholders.
[ Morin, Annales, MS., cited by Faillon, La Colonie Française, I. 440;
also Dollier de Casson, A.D. 1641-42, MS. ] Now all the company gathered
before the shrine. Here stood Vimont, in the rich vestments of his
office. Here were the two ladies, with their servant; Montmagny, no very
willing spectator; and Maisonneuve, a warlike figure, erect and tall,
his men clustering around him,--soldiers, sailors, artisans, and
laborers,--all alike soldiers at need. They kneeled in reverent silence
as the Host was raised aloft; and when the rite was over, the priest
turned and addressed them:--

"You are a grain of mustard-seed, that shall rise and grow till its
branches overshadow the earth. You are few, but your work is the work of
God. His smile is on you, and your children shall fill the Land."
[ Dollier de Casson, MS., as above. Vimont, in the Relation of 1642,
p. 87, briefly mentions the ceremony. ]

The afternoon waned; the sun sank behind the western forest, and twilight
came on. Fireflies were twinkling over the darkened meadow. They caught
them, tied them with threads into shining festoons, and hung them before
the altar, where the Host remained exposed. Then they pitched their
tents, lighted their bivouac fires, stationed their guards, and lay down
to rest. Such was the birth-night of Montreal.

[ The Associates of Montreal published, in 1643, a thick pamphlet in
quarto, entitled Les Véritables Motifs de Messieurs et Dames de la
Société de Notre-Dame de Montréal, pour la Conversion des Sauvages de la
Nouvelle France. It was written as an answer to aspersions cast upon
them, apparently by persons attached to the great Company of New France
known as the "Hundred Associates," and affords a curious exposition of
the spirit of their enterprise. It is excessively rare; but copies of
the essential portions are before me. The following is a characteristic
extract:--

"Vous dites que l'entreprise de Montréal est d'une dépense infinie,
plus convenable à un roi qu'a quelques particuliers, trop faibles pour la
soutenir; & vous alléguez encore les périls de la navigation & les
naufrages qui peuvent la ruiner. Vous avez mieux rencontré que vous ne
pensiez, en disant que c'est une uvre de roi, puisque le Roi des rois
s'en mêle, lui à qui obéissent la mer & les vents. Nous ne craignons
donc pas les naufrages; il n'en suscitera que lorsque nous en aurons
besoin, & qu'il sera plus expédient pour sa gloire, que nous cherchons
uniquement. Comment avez-vous pu mettre dans votre esprit qu'appuyés de
nos propres forces, nous eussions présumé de penser à un si glorieux
dessein? Si Dieu n'est point dans l'affaire de Montréal, si c'est une
invention humaine, ne vous en mettez point en peine, elle ne durera
guère. Ce que vous prédisez arrivera, & quelque chose de pire encore;
mais si Dieu l'a ainsi voulu, qui êtes-vous pour lui contredire? C'était
la reflexion que le docteur Gamaliel faisait aux Juifs, en faveur des
Apôtres; pour vous, qui ne pouvez ni croire, ni faire, laissez les autres
en liberté de faire ce qu'ils croient que Dieu demande d'eux. Vous
assurez qu'il ne se fait plus de miracles; mais qui vous l'a dit? où cela
est-il écrit? Jésus-Christ assure, au contraire, que ceux qui auront
autant de Foi qu'un grain de senevé, feront, en son nom, des miracles
plus grands que ceux qu'il a faits lui-même. Depuis quand êtes-vous les
directeurs des operations divines, pour les réduire à certains temps &
dans la conduite ordinaire? Tant de saints mouvements, d'inspirations &
de vues intérieures, qu'il lui plait de donner à quelques âmes dont il se
sert pour l'avancement de cette uvre, sont des marques de son bon
plaisir. Jusqu'-ici, il a pourvu au nécessaire; nous ne voulons point
d'abondance, & nous espérons que sa Providence continuera." ]

Is this true history, or a romance of Christian chivalry? It is both.

CHAPTER XVI.

1641-1644.

ISAAC JOGUES.

THE IROQUOIS WAR.--JOGUES.--HIS CAPTURE.--HIS JOURNEY TO THE MOHAWKS.--
LAKE GEORGE.--THE MOHAWK TOWNS.--THE MISSIONARY TORTURED.--
DEATH OF GOUPIL.--MISERY OF JOGUES.--THE MOHAWK "BABYLON."--
FORT ORANGE.--ESCAPE OF JOGUES.--MANHATTAN.--THE VOYAGE TO FRANCE.--
JOGUES AMONG HIS BRETHREN.--HE RETURNS TO CANADA.

The waters of the St. Lawrence rolled through a virgin wilderness, where,
in the vastness of the lonely woodlands, civilized man found a precarious
harborage at three points only,--at Quebec, at Montreal, and at Three
Rivers. Here and in the scattered missions was the whole of New
France,--a population of some three hundred souls in all. And now,
over these miserable settlements, rose a war-cloud of frightful portent.

It was thirty-two years since Champlain had first attacked the Iroquois.
[ See "Pioneers of France," 318. ] They had nursed their wrath for more
than a generation, and at length their hour was come. The Dutch traders
at Fort Orange, now Albany, had supplied them with fire-arms. The
Mohawks, the most easterly of the Iroquois nations, had, among their
seven or eight hundred warriors, no less than three hundred armed with
the arquebuse, a weapon somewhat like the modern carbine. [ 1 ] They
were masters of the thunderbolts which, in the hands of Champlain,
had struck terror into their hearts.

[ 1 Vimont, Relation, 1643, 62. The Mohawks were the Agniés, or
Agneronons, of the old French writers.

According to the Journal of New Netherland, a contemporary Dutch document,
(see Colonial Documents of New York, I. 179,) the Dutch at Fort Orange
had supplied the Mohawks with four hundred guns; the profits of the trade,
which was free to the settlers, blinding them to the danger. ]

We have surveyed in the introductory chapter the character and
organization of this ferocious people; their confederacy of five nations,
bound together by a peculiar tie of clanship; their chiefs, half
hereditary, half elective; their government, an oligarchy in form and a
democracy in spirit; their minds, thoroughly savage, yet marked here and
there with traits of a vigorous development. The war which they had long
waged with the Hurons was carried on by the Senecas and the other Western
nations of their league; while the conduct of hostilities against the
French and their Indian allies in Lower Canada was left to the Mohawks.
In parties of from ten to a hundred or more, they would leave their towns
on the River Mohawk, descend Lake Champlain and the River Richelieu,
lie in ambush on the banks of the St. Lawrence, and attack the passing
boats or canoes. Sometimes they hovered about the fortifications of
Quebec and Three Rivers, killing stragglers, or luring armed parties into
ambuscades. They followed like hounds on the trail of travellers and
hunters; broke in upon unguarded camps at midnight; and lay in wait,
for days and weeks, to intercept the Huron traders on their yearly
descent to Quebec. Had they joined to their ferocious courage the
discipline and the military knowledge that belong to civilization,
they could easily have blotted out New France from the map, and made the
banks of the St. Lawrence once more a solitude; but, though the most
formidable of savages, they were savages only.

In the early morning of the second of August, 1642, [ For the date,
see Lalemant, Relation des Hurons, 1647, 18. ] twelve Huron canoes were
moving slowly along the northern shore of the expansion of the
St. Lawrence known as the Lake of St. Peter. There were on board about
forty persons, including four Frenchmen, one of them being the Jesuit,
Isaac Jogues, whom we have already followed on his missionary journey to
the towns of the Tobacco Nation. In the interval he had not been idle.
During the last autumn, (1641,) he, with Father Charles Raymbault,
had passed along the shore of Lake Huron northward, entered the strait
through which Lake Superior discharges itself, pushed on as far as the
Sault Sainte Marie, and preached the Faith to two thousand Ojibwas,
and other Algonquins there assembled. [ Lalemant, Relation des Hurons,
1642, 97. ] He was now on his return from a far more perilous errand.
The Huron mission was in a state of destitution. There was need of
clothing for the priests, of vessels for the altars, of bread and wine
for the eucharist, of writing materials,--in short, of everything; and,
early in the summer of the present year, Jogues had descended to Three
Rivers and Quebec with the Huron traders, to procure the necessary
supplies. He had accomplished his task, and was on his way back to the
mission. With him were a few Huron converts, and among them a noted
Christian chief, Eustache Ahatsistari. Others of the party were in
course of instruction for baptism; but the greater part were heathen,
whose canoes were deeply laden with the proceeds of their bargains with
the French fur-traders.

Jogues sat in one of the leading canoes. He was born at Orleans in 1607,
and was thirty-five years of age. His oval face and the delicate mould
of his features indicated a modest, thoughtful, and refined nature.
He was constitutionally timid, with a sensitive conscience and great
religious susceptibilities. He was a finished scholar, and might have
gained a literary reputation; but he had chosen another career, and one
for which he seemed but ill fitted. Physically, however, he was well
matched with his work; for, though his frame was slight, he was so active,
that none of the Indians could surpass him in running.

[ Buteux, Narré de la Prise du Père Jogues, MS.; Mémoire touchant le Père
Jogues, MS.

There is a portrait of him prefixed to Mr. Shea's admirable edition in
quarto of Jogues's Novum Belgium. ]

With him were two young men, René Goupil and Guillaume Couture, _donnés_
of the mission,--that is to say, laymen who, from a religious motive and
without pay, had attached themselves to the service of the Jesuits.
Goupil had formerly entered upon the Jesuit novitiate at Paris, but
failing health had obliged him to leave it. As soon as he was able,
he came to Canada, offered his services to the Superior of the mission,
was employed for a time in the humblest offices, and afterwards became an
attendant at the hospital. At length, to his delight, he received
permission to go up to the Hurons, where the surgical skill which he had
acquired was greatly needed; and he was now on his way thither. [ Jogues,
Notice sur René Goupil. ] His companion, Couture, was a man of
intelligence and vigor, and of a character equally disinterested.
[ For an account of him, see Ferland, Notes sur les Registres de N. D. de
Québec, 83 (1863). ] Both were, like Jogues, in the foremost canoes;
while the fourth Frenchman was with the unconverted Hurons, in the rear.

The twelve canoes had reached the western end of the Lake of St. Peter,
where it is filled with innumerable islands. [ Buteux, Narré de le Prise
du Père Jogues, MS. This document leaves no doubt as to the locality. ]
The forest was close on their right, they kept near the shore to avoid
the current, and the shallow water before them was covered with a dense
growth of tall bulrushes. Suddenly the silence was frightfully broken.
The war-whoop rose from among the rushes, mingled with the reports of
guns and the whistling of bullets; and several Iroquois canoes, filled
with warriors, pushed out from their concealment, and bore down upon
Jogues and his companions. The Hurons in the rear were seized with a
shameful panic. They leaped ashore; left canoes, baggage, and weapons;
and fled into the woods. The French and the Christian Hurons made fight
for a time; but when they saw another fleet of canoes approaching from
the opposite shores or islands, they lost heart, and those escaped who
could. Goupil was seized amid triumphant yells, as were also several of
the Huron converts. Jogues sprang into the bulrushes, and might have
escaped; but when he saw Goupil and the neophytes in the clutches of the
Iroquois, he had no heart to abandon them, but came out from his
hiding-place, and gave himself up to the astonished victors. A few of
them had remained to guard the prisoners; the rest were chasing the
fugitives. Jogues mastered his agony, and began to baptize those of the
captive converts who needed baptism.

Couture had eluded pursuit; but when he thought of Jogues and of what
perhaps awaited him, he resolved to share his fate, and, turning,
retraced his steps. As he approached, five Iroquois ran forward to meet
him; and one of them snapped his gun at his breast, but it missed fire.
In his confusion and excitement, Couture fired his own piece, and laid
the savage dead. The remaining four sprang upon him, stripped off all
his clothing, tore away his finger-nails with their teeth, gnawed his
fingers with the fury of famished dogs, and thrust a sword through one of
his hands. Jogues broke from his guards, and, rushing to his friend,
threw his arms about his neck. The Iroquois dragged him away, beat him
with their fists and war-clubs till he was senseless, and, when he
revived, lacerated his fingers with their teeth, as they had done those
of Couture. Then they turned upon Goupil, and treated him with the same
ferocity. The Huron prisoners were left for the present unharmed.
More of them were brought in every moment, till at length the number of
captives amounted in all to twenty-two, while three Hurons had been
killed in the fight and pursuit. The Iroquois, about seventy in number,
now embarked with their prey; but not until they had knocked on the head
an old Huron, whom Jogues, with his mangled hands, had just baptized,
and who refused to leave the place. Then, under a burning sun, they
crossed to the spot on which the town of Sorel now stands at the mouth of
the river Richelieu, where they encamped.

[ The above, with much of what follows, rests on three documents.
The first is a long letter, written in Latin, by Jogues, to the Father
Provincial at Paris. It is dated at Rensselaerswyck (Albany), Aug. 5,
1643, and is preserved in the Societas Jesu Militans of Tanner, and in
the Mortes Illustres et Gesta eorum de Societate Jesu, etc., of Alegambe.
There is a French translation in Martin's Bressani, and an English
translation, by Mr. Shea, in the New York Hist. Coll. of 1857. The
second document is an old manuscript, entitled Narré de la Prise du Père
Jogues. It was written by the Jesuit Buteux, from the lips of Jogues.
Father Martin, S.J., in whose custody it was, kindly permitted me to have
a copy made from it. Besides these, there is a long account in the
Relation des Hurons of 1647, and a briefer one in that of 1644. All
these narratives show the strongest internal evidence of truth, and are
perfectly concurrent. They are also supported by statements of escaped
Huron prisoners, and by several letters and memoirs of the Dutch at
Rensselaerswyck. ]

Their course was southward, up the River Richelieu and Lake Champlain;
thence, by way of Lake George, to the Mohawk towns. The pain and fever
of their wounds, and the clouds of mosquitoes, which they could not drive
off, left the prisoners no peace by day nor sleep by night. On the
eighth day, they learned that a large Iroquois war-party, on their way to
Canada, were near at hand; and they soon approached their camp, on a
small island near the southern end of Lake Champlain. The warriors,
two hundred in number, saluted their victorious countrymen with volleys
from their guns; then, armed with clubs and thorny sticks, ranged
themselves in two lines, between which the captives were compelled to
pass up the side of a rocky hill. On the way, they were beaten with such
fury, that Jogues, who was last in the line, fell powerless, drenched in
blood and half dead. As the chief man among the French captives, he
fared the worst. His hands were again mangled, and fire applied to his
body; while the Huron chief, Eustache, was subjected to tortures even
more atrocious. When, at night, the exhausted sufferers tried to rest,
the young warriors came to lacerate their wounds and pull out their hair
and beards.

In the morning they resumed their journey. And now the lake narrowed to
the semblance of a tranquil river. Before them was a woody mountain,
close on their right a rocky promontory, and between these flowed a
stream, the outlet of Lake George. On those rocks, more than a hundred
years after, rose the ramparts of Ticonderoga. They landed, shouldered
their canoes and baggage, took their way through the woods, passed the
spot where the fierce Highlanders and the dauntless regiments of England
breasted in vain the storm of lead and fire, and soon reached the shore
where Abercrombie landed and Lord Howe fell. First of white men, Jogues
and his companions gazed on the romantic lake that bears the name,
not of its gentle discoverer, but of the dull Hanoverian king. Like a
fair Naiad of the wilderness, it slumbered between the guardian mountains
that breathe from crag and forest the stern poetry of war. But all then
was solitude; and the clang of trumpets, the roar of cannon, and the
deadly crack of the rifle had never as yet awakened their angry echoes.

[ Lake George, according to Jogues, was called by the Mohawks
"Andiatarocte," or Place where the Lake closes. "Andiataraque" is found
on a map of Sanson. Spofford, Gazetteer of New York, article "Lake
George," says that it was called "Canideri-oit," or Tail of the Lake.
Father Martin, in his notes on Bressani, prefixes to this name that of
"Horicon," but gives no original authority.

I have seen an old Latin map on which the name "Horiconi" is set down as
belonging to a neighboring tribe. This seems to be only a misprint for
"Horicoui," that is, "Irocoui," or "Iroquois." In an old English map,
prefixed to the rare tract, A Treatise of New England, the "Lake of
Hierocoyes" is laid down. The name "Horicon," as used by Cooper in his
Last of the Mohicans, seems to have no sufficient historical foundation.
In 1646, the lake, as we shall see, was named "Lac St. Sacrement." ]

Again the canoes were launched, and the wild flotilla glided on its
way,--now in the shadow of the heights, now on the broad expanse, now
among the devious channels of the narrows, beset with woody islets,
where the hot air was redolent of the pine, the spruce, and the
cedar,--till they neared that tragic shore, where, in the following
century, New-England rustics baffled the soldiers of Dieskau, where
Montcalm planted his batteries, where the red cross waved so long amid
the smoke, and where at length the summer night was hideous with carnage,
and an honored name was stained with a memory of blood.

[ The allusion is, of course, to the siege of Fort William Henry in 1757,
and the ensuing massacre by Montcalm's Indians. Charlevoix, with his
usual carelessness, says that Jogues's captors took a circuitous route to
avoid enemies. In truth, however, they were not in the slightest danger
of meeting any; and they followed the route which, before the present
century, was the great highway between Canada and New Holland, or New
York. ]

The Iroquois landed at or near the future site of Fort William Henry,
left their canoes, and, with their prisoners, began their march for the
nearest Mohawk town. Each bore his share of the plunder. Even Jogues,
though his lacerated hands were in a frightful condition and his body
covered with bruises, was forced to stagger on with the rest under a
heavy load. He with his fellow-prisoners, and indeed the whole party,
were half starved, subsisting chiefly on wild berries. They crossed the
upper Hudson, and, in thirteen days after leaving the St. Lawrence,
neared the wretched goal of their pilgrimage, a palisaded town, standing
on a hill by the banks of the River Mohawk.

The whoops of the victors announced their approach, and the savage hive
sent forth its swarms. They thronged the side of the hill, the old and
the young, each with a stick, or a slender iron rod, bought from the
Dutchmen on the Hudson. They ranged themselves in a double line,
reaching upward to the entrance of the town; and through this "narrow
road of Paradise," as Jogues calls it, the captives were led in single
file, Couture in front, after him a half-score of Hurons, then Goupil,
then the remaining Hurons, and at last Jogues. As they passed, they were
saluted with yells, screeches, and a tempest of blows. One, heavier than
the others, knocked Jogues's breath from his body, and stretched him on
the ground; but it was death to lie there, and, regaining his feet,
he staggered on with the rest. [ This practice of forcing prisoners to
"run the gauntlet" was by no means peculiar to the Iroquois, but was
common to many tribes. ] When they reached the town, the blows ceased,
and they were all placed on a scaffold, or high platform, in the middle
of the place. The three Frenchmen had fared the worst, and were
frightfully disfigured. Goupil, especially, was streaming with blood,
and livid with bruises from head to foot.

They were allowed a few minutes to recover their breath, undisturbed,
except by the hootings and gibes of the mob below. Then a chief called
out, "Come, let us caress these Frenchmen!"--and the crowd, knife in hand,
began to mount the scaffold. They ordered a Christian Algonquin woman,
a prisoner among them, to cut off Jogues's left thumb, which she did; and
a thumb of Goupil was also severed, a clam-shell being used as the
instrument, in order to increase the pain. It is needless to specify
further the tortures to which they were subjected, all designed to cause
the greatest possible suffering without endangering life. At night,
they were removed from the scaffold, and placed in one of the houses,
each stretched on his back, with his limbs extended, and his ankles and
wrists bound fast to stakes driven into the earthen floor. The children
now profited by the examples of their parents, and amused themselves by
placing live coals and red-hot ashes on the naked bodies of the prisoners,
who, bound fast, and covered with wounds and bruises which made every
movement a torture, were sometimes unable to shake them off.

In the morning, they were again placed on the scaffold, where, during
this and the two following days, they remained exposed to the taunts of
the crowd. Then they were led in triumph to the second Mohawk town,
and afterwards to the third, [ 1 ] suffering at each a repetition of
cruelties, the detail of which would be as monotonous as revolting.

[ 1 The Mohawks had but three towns. The first, and the lowest on the
river, was Osseruenon; the second, two miles above, was Andagaron; and
the third, Teonontogen: or, as Megapolensis, in his Sketch of the Mohawks,
writes the names, Asserué, Banagiro, and Thenondiogo. They all seem to
have been fortified in the Iroquois manner, and their united population
was thirty-five hundred, or somewhat more. At a later period, 1720,
there were still three towns, named respectively Teahtontaioga, Ganowauga,
and Ganeganaga. See the map in Morgan, League of the Iroquois. ]

In a house in the town of Teonontogen, Jogues was hung by the wrists
between two of the upright poles which supported the structure, in such a
manner that his feet could not touch the ground; and thus he remained for
some fifteen minutes, in extreme torture, until, as he was on the point
of swooning, an Indian, with an impulse of pity, cut the cords and
released him. While they were in this town, four fresh Huron prisoners,
just taken, were brought in, and placed on the scaffold with the rest.
Jogues, in the midst of his pain and exhaustion, took the opportunity to
convert them. An ear of green corn was thrown to him for food, and he
discovered a few rain-drops clinging to the husks. With these he
baptized two of the Hurons. The remaining two received baptism soon
after from a brook which the prisoners crossed on the way to another town.

Couture, though he had incensed the Indians by killing one of their
warriors, had gained their admiration by his bravery; and, after
torturing him most savagely, they adopted him into one of their families,
in place of a dead relative. Thenceforth he was comparatively safe.
Jogues and Goupil were less fortunate. Three of the Hurons had been
burned to death, and they expected to share their fate. A council was
held to pronounce their doom; but dissensions arose, and no result was
reached. They were led back to the first village, where they remained,
racked with suspense and half dead with exhaustion. Jogues, however,
lost no opportunity to baptize dying infants, while Goupil taught
children to make the sign of the cross. On one occasion, he made the
sign on the forehead of a child, grandson of an Indian in whose lodge
they lived. The superstition of the old savage was aroused. Some
Dutchmen had told him that the sign of the cross came from the Devil,
and would cause mischief. He thought that Goupil was bewitching the
child; and, resolving to rid himself of so dangerous a guest, applied for
aid to two young braves. Jogues and Goupil, clad in their squalid garb
of tattered skins, were soon after walking together in the forest that
adjoined the town, consoling themselves with prayer, and mutually
exhorting each other to suffer patiently for the sake of Christ and the
Virgin, when, as they were returning, reciting their rosaries, they met
the two young Indians, and read in their sullen visages an augury of ill.
The Indians joined them, and accompanied them to the entrance of the town,
where one of the two, suddenly drawing a hatchet from beneath his blanket,
struck it into the head of Goupil, who fell, murmuring the name of
Christ. Jogues dropped on his knees, and, bowing his head in prayer,
awaited the blow, when the murderer ordered him to get up and go home.
He obeyed but not until he had given absolution to his still breathing
friend, and presently saw the lifeless body dragged through the town amid
hootings and rejoicings.

Jogues passed a night of anguish and desolation, and in the morning,
reckless of life, set forth in search of Goupil's remains. "Where are
you going so fast?" demanded the old Indian, his master. "Do you not see
those fierce young braves, who are watching to kill you?" Jogues
persisted, and the old man asked another Indian to go with him as a
protector. The corpse had been flung into a neighboring ravine, at the
bottom of which ran a torrent; and here, with the Indian's help, Jogues
found it, stripped naked, and gnawed by dogs. He dragged it into the
water, and covered it with stones to save it from further mutilation,
resolving to return alone on the following day and secretly bury it.
But with the night there came a storm; and when, in the gray of the
morning, Jogues descended to the brink of the stream, he found it a
rolling, turbid flood, and the body was nowhere to be seen. Had the
Indians or the torrent borne it away? Jogues waded into the cold
current; it was the first of October; he sounded it with his feet and
with his stick; he searched the rocks, the thicket, the forest; but all
in vain. Then, crouched by the pitiless stream, he mingled his tears
with its waters, and, in a voice broken with groans, chanted the service
of the dead. [ Jogues in Tanner, Societas Militans, 519; Bressani,
216; Lalemant, Relation, 1647, 25, 26; Buteux, Narré, MS.; Jogues,
Notice sur René Goupil. ]

The Indians, it proved, and not the flood, had robbed him of the remains
of his friend. Early in the spring, when the snows were melting in the
woods, he was told by Mohawk children that the body was lying, where it
had been flung, in a lonely spot lower down the stream. He went to seek
it; found the scattered bones, stripped by the foxes and the birds; and,
tenderly gathering them up, hid them in a hollow tree, hoping that a day
might come when he could give them a Christian burial in consecrated
ground.

After the murder of Goupil, Jogues's life hung by a hair. He lived in
hourly expectation of the tomahawk, and would have welcomed it as a boon.
By signs and words, he was warned that his hour was near; but, as he
never shunned his fate, it fled from him, and each day, with renewed
astonishment, he found himself still among the living.

Late in the autumn, a party of the Indians set forth on their yearly
deer-hunt, and Jogues was ordered to go with them. Shivering and half
famished, he followed them through the chill November forest, and shared
their wild bivouac in the depths of the wintry desolation. The game they
took was devoted to Areskoui, their god, and eaten in his honor. Jogues
would not taste the meat offered to a demon; and thus he starved in the
midst of plenty. At night, when the kettle was slung, and the savage
crew made merry around their fire, he crouched in a corner of the hut,
gnawed by hunger, and pierced to the bone with cold. They thought his
presence unpropitious to their hunting, and the women especially hated
him. His demeanor at once astonished and incensed his masters. He
brought them fire-wood, like a squaw; he did their bidding without a
murmur, and patiently bore their abuse; but when they mocked at his God,
and laughed at his devotions, their slave assumed an air and tone of
authority, and sternly rebuked them. [ Lalemant, Relation, 1647, 41.]

He would sometimes escape from "this Babylon," as he calls the hut,
and wander in the forest, telling his beads and repeating passages of
Scripture. In a remote and lonely spot, he cut the bark in the form of a
cross from the trunk of a great tree; and here he made his prayers.
This living martyr, half clad in shaggy furs, kneeling on the snow among
the icicled rocks and beneath the gloomy pines, bowing in adoration
before the emblem of the faith in which was his only consolation and his
only hope, is alike a theme for the pen and a subject for the pencil.

The Indians at last grew tired of him, and sent him back to the village.
Here he remained till the middle of March, baptizing infants and trying
to convert adults. He told them of the sun, moon, planets, and stars.
They listened with interest; but when from astronomy he passed to
theology, he spent his breath in vain. In March, the old man with whom
he lived set forth for his spring fishing, taking with him his squaw,
and several children. Jogues also was of the party. They repaired to a
lake, perhaps Lake Saratoga, four days distant. Here they subsisted for
some time on frogs, the entrails of fish, and other garbage. Jogues
passed his days in the forest, repeating his prayers, and carving the
name of Jesus on trees, as a terror to the demons of the wilderness.
A messenger at length arrived from the town; and on the following day,
under the pretence that signs of an enemy had been seen, the party broke
up their camp, and returned home in hot haste. The messenger had brought
tidings that a war-party, which had gone out against the French, had been
defeated and destroyed, and that the whole population were clamoring to
appease their grief by torturing Jogues to death. This was the true
cause of the sudden and mysterious return; but when they reached the town,
other tidings had arrived. The missing warriors were safe, and on their
way home in triumph with a large number of prisoners. Again Jogues's
life was spared; but he was forced to witness the torture and butchery of
the converts and allies of the French. Existence became unendurable to
him, and he longed to die. War-parties were continually going out.
Should they be defeated and cut off, he would pay the forfeit at the
stake; and if they came back, as they usually did, with booty and
prisoners, he was doomed to see his countrymen and their Indian friends
mangled, burned, and devoured.

Jogues had shown no disposition to escape, and great liberty was
therefore allowed him. He went from town to town, giving absolution to
the Christian captives, and converting and baptizing the heathen.
On one occasion, he baptized a woman in the midst of the fire, under
pretence of lifting a cup of water to her parched lips. There was no
lack of objects for his zeal. A single war-party returned from the Huron
country with nearly a hundred prisoners, who were distributed among the
Iroquois towns, and the greater part burned. [ 1 ] Of the children of
the Mohawks and their neighbors, he had baptized, before August, about
seventy; insomuch that he began to regard his captivity as a Providential
interposition for the saving of souls.

[ 1 The Dutch clergyman, Megapolensis, at this time living at Fort
Orange, bears the strongest testimony to the ferocity with which his
friends, the Mohawks, treated their prisoners. He mentions the same
modes of torture which Jogues describes, and is very explicit as to
cannibalism. "The common people," he says, "eat the arms, buttocks,
and trunk; but the chiefs eat the head and the heart." (Short Sketch of
the Mohawk Indians. ) This feast was of a religious character. ]

At the end of July, he went with a party of Indians to a fishing-place on
the Hudson, about twenty miles below Fort Orange. While here, he learned
that another war-party had lately returned with prisoners, two of whom
had been burned to death at Osseruenon. On this, his conscience smote
him that he had not remained in the town to give the sufferers absolution
or baptism; and he begged leave of the old woman who had him in charge to
return at the first opportunity. A canoe soon after went up the river
with some of the Iroquois, and he was allowed to go in it. When they
reached Rensselaerswyck, the Indians landed to trade with the Dutch,
and took Jogues with them.

The centre of this rude little settlement was Fort Orange, a miserable
structure of logs, standing on a spot now within the limits of the city
of Albany. [ The site of the Phnix Hotel.--Note by Mr. Shea to Jogues's
Novum Belgium. ] It contained several houses and other buildings; and
behind it was a small church, recently erected, and serving as the abode
of the pastor, Dominie Megapolensis, known in our day as the writer of an
interesting, though short, account of the Mohawks. Some twenty-five or
thirty houses, roughly built of boards and roofed with thatch, were
scattered at intervals on or near the borders of the Hudson, above and
below the fort. Their inhabitants, about a hundred in number, were for
the most part rude Dutch farmers, tenants of Van Rensselaer, the patroon,
or lord of the manor. They raised wheat, of which they made beer,
and oats, with which they fed their numerous horses. They traded, too,
with the Indians, who profited greatly by the competition among them,
receiving guns, knives, axes, kettles, cloth, and beads, at moderate
rates, in exchange for their furs. [ 1 ] The Dutch were on excellent
terms with their red neighbors, met them in the forest without the least
fear, and sometimes intermarried with them. They had known of Jogues's
captivity, and, to their great honor, had made efforts for his release,
offering for that purpose goods to a considerable value, but without
effect. [ 2 ]

[ 1 Jogues, Novum Belgium; Barnes, Settlement of Albany, 50-55;
O'Callaghan, New Netherland, Chap. VI.

On the relations of the Mohawks and Dutch, see Megapolensis, Short Sketch
of the Mohawk Indians, and portions of the letter of Jogues to his
Superior, dated Rensselaerswyck, Aug. 30, 1643. ]

[ 2 See a long letter of Arendt Van Curler (Corlaer) to Van Rensselaer,
June 16, 1643, in O'Callaghan's New Netherland, Appendix L. "We
persuaded them so far," writes Van Curler, "that they promised not to
kill them. . . . The French captives ran screaming after us, and
besought us to do all in our power to release them out of the hands of
the barbarians." ]

At Fort Orange Jogues heard startling news. The Indians of the village
where he lived were, he was told, enraged against him, and determined to
burn him. About the first of July, a war-party had set out for Canada,
and one of the warriors had offered to Jogues to be the bearer of a
letter from him to the French commander at Three Rivers, thinking
probably to gain some advantage under cover of a parley. Jogues knew
that the French would be on their guard; and he felt it his duty to lose
no opportunity of informing them as to the state of affairs among the
Iroquois. A Dutchman gave him a piece of paper; and he wrote a letter,
in a jargon of Latin, French, and Huron, warning his countrymen to be on
their guard, as war-parties were constantly going out, and they could
hope for no respite from attack until late in the autumn. [ See a French
rendering of the letter in Vimont, Relation, 1643, p. 75. ] When the
Iroquois reached the mouth of the River Richelieu, where a small fort had
been built by the French the preceding summer, the messenger asked for a
parley, and gave Jogues's letter to the commander of the post, who,
after reading it, turned his cannon on the savages. They fled in dismay,
leaving behind them their baggage and some of their guns; and, returning
home in a fury, charged Jogues with having caused their discomfiture.
Jogues had expected this result, and was prepared to meet it; but several
of the principal Dutch settlers, and among them Van Curler, who had made
the previous attempt to rescue him, urged that his death was certain,
if he returned to the Indian town, and advised him to make his escape.
In the Hudson, opposite the settlement, lay a small Dutch vessel nearly
ready to sail. Van Curler offered him a passage in her to Bordeaux or
Rochelle,--representing that the opportunity was too good to be lost,
and making light of the prisoner's objection, that a connivance in his
escape on the part of the Dutch would excite the resentment of the
Indians against them. Jogues thanked him warmly; but, to his amazement,
asked for a night to consider the matter, and take counsel of God in
prayer.

He spent the night in great agitation, tossed by doubt, and full of
anxiety lest his self-love should beguile him from his duty. [ Buteux,
Narré, MS. ] Was it not possible that the Indians might spare his life,
and that, by a timely drop of water, he might still rescue souls from
torturing devils, and eternal fires of perdition? On the other hand,
would he not, by remaining to meet a fate almost inevitable, incur the
guilt of suicide? And even should he escape torture and death, could he
hope that the Indians would again permit him to instruct and baptize
their prisoners? Of his French companions, one, Goupil, was dead; while
Couture had urged Jogues to flight, saying that he would then follow his
example, but that, so long as the Father remained a prisoner, he, Couture,
would share his fate. Before morning, Jogues had made his decision.
God, he thought, would be better pleased should he embrace the
opportunity given him. He went to find his Dutch friends, and, with a
profusion of thanks, accepted their offer. They told him that a boat
should be left for him on the shore, and that he must watch his time,
and escape in it to the vessel, where he would be safe.

He and his Indian masters were lodged together in a large building,
like a barn, belonging to a Dutch farmer. It was a hundred feet long,
and had no partition of any kind. At one end the farmer kept his cattle;
at the other he slept with his wife, a Mohawk squaw, and his children,
while his Indian guests lay on the floor in the middle. [ Buteux, Narré,
MS. ] As he is described as one of the principal persons of the colony,
it is clear that the civilization of Rensselaerswyck was not high.

In the evening, Jogues, in such a manner as not to excite the suspicion
of the Indians, went out to reconnoitre. There was a fence around the
house, and, as he was passing it, a large dog belonging to the farmer
flew at him, and bit him very severely in the leg. The Dutchman, hearing
the noise, came out with a light, led Jogues back into the building,
and bandaged his wound. He seemed to have some suspicion of the
prisoner's design; for, fearful perhaps that his escape might exasperate
the Indians, he made fast the door in such a manner that it could not
readily be opened. Jogues now lay down among the Indians, who, rolled in
their blankets, were stretched around him. He was fevered with
excitement; and the agitation of his mind, joined to the pain of his
wound, kept him awake all night. About dawn, while the Indians were
still asleep, a laborer in the employ of the farmer came in with a
lantern, and Jogues, who spoke no Dutch, gave him to understand by signs
that he needed his help and guidance. The man was disposed to aid him,
silently led the way out, quieted the dogs, and showed him the path to
the river. It was more than half a mile distant, and the way was rough
and broken. Jogues was greatly exhausted, and his wounded limb gave him
such pain that he walked with the utmost difficulty. When he reached the
shore, the day was breaking, and he found, to his dismay, that the ebb of
the tide had left the boat high and dry. He shouted to the vessel,
but no one heard him. His desperation gave him strength; and, by working
the boat to and fro, he pushed it at length, little by little, into the
water, entered it, and rowed to the vessel. The Dutch sailors received
him kindly, and hid him in the bottom of the hold, placing a large box
over the hatchway.

He remained two days, half stifled, in this foul lurking-place, while the
Indians, furious at his escape, ransacked the settlement in vain to find
him. They came off to the vessel, and so terrified the officers, that
Jogues was sent on shore at night, and led to the fort. Here he was
hidden in the garret of a house occupied by a miserly old man, to whose
charge he was consigned. Food was sent to him; but, as his host
appropriated the larger part to himself, Jogues was nearly starved.
There was a compartment of his garret, separated from the rest by a
partition of boards. Here the old Dutchman, who, like many others of the
settlers, carried on a trade with the Mohawks, kept a quantity of goods
for that purpose; and hither he often brought his customers. The boards
of the partition had shrunk, leaving wide crevices; and Jogues could
plainly see the Indians, as they passed between him and the light.
They, on their part, might as easily have seen him, if he had not,
when he heard them entering the house, hidden himself behind some barrels
in the corner, where he would sometimes remain crouched for hours,
in a constrained and painful posture, half suffocated with heat, and
afraid to move a limb. His wounded leg began to show dangerous symptoms;
but he was relieved by the care of a Dutch surgeon of the fort. The
minister, Megapolensis, also visited him, and did all in his power for
the comfort of his Catholic brother, with whom he seems to have been well
pleased, and whom he calls "a very learned scholar." [ Megapolensis,
A Short Sketch of the Mohawk Indians. ]

When Jogues had remained for six weeks in this hiding-place, his Dutch
friends succeeded in satisfying his Indian masters by the payment of a
large ransom. [ Lettre de Jogues à Lalemant, Rennes, Jan. 6, 1644.--See
Relation, 1643, p. 79.--Goods were given the Indians to the value of
three hundred livres. ] A vessel from Manhattan, now New York, soon
after brought up an order from the Director-General, Kieft, that he
should be sent to him. Accordingly he was placed in a small vessel,
which carried him down the Hudson. The Dutch on board treated him with
great kindness; and, to do him honor, named after him one of the islands
in the river. At Manhattan he found a dilapidated fort, garrisoned by
sixty soldiers, and containing a stone church and the Director-General's
house, together with storehouses and barracks. Near it were ranges of
small houses, occupied chiefly by mechanics and laborers; while the
dwellings of the remaining colonists, numbering in all four or five
hundred, were scattered here and there on the island and the neighboring
shores. The settlers were of different sects and nations, but chiefly
Dutch Calvinists. Kieft told his guest that eighteen different languages
were spoken at Manhattan. [ Jogues, Novum Belgium. ] The colonists were
in the midst of a bloody Indian war, brought on by their own besotted
cruelty; and while Jogues was at the fort, some forty of the Dutchmen
were killed on the neighboring farms, and many barns and houses burned.
[ This war was with Algonquin tribes of the neighborhood.--See
O'Callaghan, New Netherland, I., Chap. III. ]

The Director-General, with a humanity that was far from usual with him,
exchanged Jogues's squalid and savage dress for a suit of Dutch cloth,
and gave him passage in a small vessel which was then about to sail.
The voyage was rough and tedious; and the passenger slept on deck or on a
coil of ropes, suffering greatly from cold, and often drenched by the
waves that broke over the vessel's side. At length she reached Falmouth,
on the southern coast of England, when all the crew went ashore for a
carouse, leaving Jogues alone on board. A boat presently came alongside
with a gang of desperadoes, who boarded her, and rifled her of everything
valuable, threatened Jogues with a pistol, and robbed him of his hat and
coat. He obtained some assistance from the crew of a French ship in the
harbor, and, on the day before Christmas, took passage in a small coal
vessel for the neighboring coast of Brittany. In the following afternoon
he was set on shore a little to the north of Brest, and, seeing a
peasant's cottage not far off, he approached it, and asked the way to the
nearest church. The peasant and his wife, as the narrative gravely tells
us, mistook him, by reason of his modest deportment, for some poor,
but pious Irishman, and asked him to share their supper, after finishing
his devotions, an invitation which Jogues, half famished as he was,
gladly accepted. He reached the church in time for the evening mass,
and with an unutterable joy knelt before the altar, and renewed the
communion of which he had been deprived so long. When he returned to the
cottage, the attention of his hosts was at once attracted to his
mutilated and distorted hands. They asked with amazement how he could
have received such injuries; and when they heard the story of his
tortures, their surprise and veneration knew no bounds. Two young girls,
their daughters, begged him to accept all they had to give,--a handful of
sous; while the peasant made known the character of his new guest to his
neighbors. A trader from Rennes brought a horse to the door, and offered
the use of it to Jogues, to carry him to the Jesuit college in that town.
He gratefully accepted it; and, on the morning of the fifth of January,
1644, reached his destination.

He dismounted, and knocked at the door of the college. The porter opened
it, and saw a man wearing on his head an old woollen nightcap, and in an
attire little better than that of a beggar. Jogues asked to see the
Rector; but the porter answered, coldly, that the Rector was busied in
the Sacristy. Jogues begged him to say that a man was at the door with
news from Canada. The missions of Canada were at this time an object of
primal interest to the Jesuits, and above all to the Jesuits of France.
A letter from Jogues, written during his captivity, had already reached
France, as had also the Jesuit Relation of 1643, which contained a long
account of his capture; and he had no doubt been an engrossing theme of
conversation in every house of the French Jesuits. The Father Rector was
putting on his vestments to say mass; but when he heard that a poor man
from Canada had asked for him at the door, he postponed the service,
and went to meet him. Jogues, without discovering himself, gave him a
letter from the Dutch Director-General attesting his character. The
Rector, without reading it, began to question him as to the affairs of
Canada, and at length asked him if he knew Father Jogues.

"I knew him very well," was the reply.

"The Iroquois have taken him," pursued the Rector. "Is he dead? Have
they murdered him?"

"No," answered Jogues; "he is alive and at liberty, and I am he."
And he fell on his knees to ask his Superior's blessing.

That night was a night of jubilation and thanksgiving in the college of
Rennes. [ For Jogues's arrival in Brittany, see Lettre de Jogues à
Lalemant, Rennes, Jan. 6, 1644; Lettre de Jogues à ----, Rennes, Jan. 5,
1644, (in Relation, 1643,) and the long account in the Relation of 1647. ]

Jogues became a centre of curiosity and reverence. He was summoned to
Paris. The Queen, Anne of Austria, wished to see him; and when the
persecuted slave of the Mohawks was conducted into her presence, she
kissed his mutilated hands, while the ladies of the Court thronged around
to do him homage. We are told, and no doubt with truth, that these
honors were unwelcome to the modest and single-hearted missionary,
who thought only of returning to his work of converting the Indians.
A priest with any deformity of body is debarred from saying mass.
The teeth and knives of the Iroquois had inflicted an injury worse than
the torturers imagined, for they had robbed Jogues of the privilege which
was the chief consolation of his life; but the Pope, by a special
dispensation, restored it to him, and with the opening spring he sailed
again for Canada.

CHAPTER XVII.

1641-1646.

THE IROQUOIS.--BRESSANI.--DE NOUË.

WAR.--DISTRESS AND TERROR.--RICHELIEU.--BATTLE.--RUIN OF INDIAN TRIBES.--
MUTUAL DESTRUCTION.--IROQUOIS AND ALGONQUIN.--ATROCITIES.--
FRIGHTFUL POSITION OF THE FRENCH.--JOSEPH BRESSANI.--HIS CAPTURE.--
HIS TREATMENT.--HIS ESCAPE.--ANNE DE NOUË.--HIS NOCTURNAL JOURNEY.--
HIS DEATH.

Two forces were battling for the mastery of Canada: on the one side,
Christ, the Virgin, and the Angels, with their agents, the priests; on
the other, the Devil, and his tools, the Iroquois. Such at least was the
view of the case held in full faith, not by the Jesuit Fathers alone,
but by most of the colonists. Never before had the fiend put forth such
rage, and in the Iroquois he found instruments of a nature not
uncongenial with his own.

At Quebec, Three Rivers, Montreal, and the little fort of Richelieu,
that is to say, in all Canada, no man could hunt, fish, till the fields,
or cut a tree in the forest, without peril to his scalp. The Iroquois
were everywhere, and nowhere. A yell, a volley of bullets, a rush of
screeching savages, and all was over. The soldiers hastened to the spot
to find silence, solitude, and a mangled corpse.

"I had as lief," writes Father Vimont, "be beset by goblins as by the
Iroquois. The one are about as invisible as the other. Our people on
the Richelieu and at Montreal are kept in a closer confinement than ever
were monks or nuns in our smallest convents in France."

The Confederates at this time were in a flush of unparalleled audacity.
They despised white men as base poltroons, and esteemed themselves
warriors and heroes, destined to conquer all mankind. [ 1 ] The
fire-arms with which the Dutch had rashly supplied them, joined to their
united councils, their courage, and ferocity, gave them an advantage over
the surrounding tribes which they fully understood. Their passions rose
with their sense of power. They boasted that they would wipe the Hurons,
the Algonquins, and the French from the face of the earth, and carry the
"white girls," meaning the nuns, to their villages. This last event,
indeed, seemed more than probable; and the Hospital nuns left their
exposed station at Sillery, and withdrew to the ramparts and palisades of
Quebec. The St. Lawrence and the Ottawa were so infested, that
communication with the Huron country was cut off; and three times the
annual packet of letters sent thither to the missionaries fell into the
hands of the Iroquois.

[ 1 Bressani, when a prisoner among them, writes to this effect in a
letter to his Superior.--See Relation Abrégée, 131.

The anonymous author of the Relation of 1660 says, that, in their belief,
if their nation were destroyed, a general confusion and overthrow of
mankind must needs be the consequence.--Relation, 1660, 6. ]

It was towards the close of the year 1640 that the scourge of Iroquois
war had begun to fall heavily on the French. At that time, a party of
their warriors waylaid and captured Thomas Godefroy and François
Marguerie, the latter a young man of great energy and daring, familiar
with the woods, a master of the Algonquin language, and a scholar of no
mean acquirements. [ During his captivity, he wrote, on a beaver-skin,
a letter to the Dutch in French, Latin, and English. ] To the great joy
of the colonists, he and his companion were brought back to Three Rivers
by their captors, and given up, in the vain hope that the French would
respond with a gift of fire-arms. Their demand for them being declined,
they broke off the parley in a rage, fortified themselves, fired on the
French, and withdrew under cover of night.

Open war now ensued, and for a time all was bewilderment and terror.
How to check the inroads of an enemy so stealthy and so keen for blood
was the problem that taxed the brain of Montmagny, the Governor. He
thought he had found a solution, when he conceived the plan of building a
fort at the mouth of the River Richelieu, by which the Iroquois always
made their descents to the St. Lawrence. Happily for the perishing
colony, the Cardinal de Richelieu, in 1642, sent out thirty or forty
soldiers for its defence. [ Faillon, Colonie Française, II. 2; Vimont,
Relation, 1642, 2, 44. ] Ten times the number would have been scarcely
sufficient; but even this slight succor was hailed with delight, and
Montmagny was enabled to carry into effect his plan of the fort, for
which hitherto he had had neither builders nor garrison. He took with
him, besides the new-comers, a body of soldiers and armed laborers from
Quebec, and, with a force of about a hundred men in all, [ Marie de
l'Incarnation, Lettre, Sept. 29, 1642. ] sailed for the Richelieu,
in a brigantine and two or three open boats.

On the thirteenth of August he reached his destination, and landed where
the town of Sorel now stands. It was but eleven days before that Jogues
and his companions had been captured, and Montmagny's followers found
ghastly tokens of the disaster. The heads of the slain were stuck on
poles by the side of the river; and several trees, from which portions of
the bark had been peeled, were daubed with the rude picture-writing in
which the victors recorded their exploit. [ 1 ] Among the rest, a
representation of Jogues himself was clearly distinguishable. The heads
were removed, the trees cut down, and a large cross planted on the spot.
An altar was raised, and all heard mass; then a volley of musketry was
fired; and then they fell to their work. They hewed an opening into the
forest, dug up the roots, cleared the ground, and cut, shaped, and
planted palisades. Thus a week passed, and their defences were nearly
completed, when suddenly the war-whoop rang in their ears, and two
hundred Iroquois rushed upon them from the borders of the clearing.
[ The Relation of 1642 says three hundred. Jogues who had been among
them to his cost, is the better authority. ]

[ 1 Vimont, Relation, 1642, 52.

This practice was common to many tribes, and is not yet extinct. The
writer has seen similar records, made by recent war-parties of Crows or
Blackfeet, in the remote West. In this case, the bark was removed from
the trunks of large cotton-wood trees, and the pictures traced with
charcoal and vermilion. There were marks for scalps, for prisoners,
and for the conquerors themselves. ]

It was the party of warriors that Jogues had met on an island in Lake
Champlain. But for the courage of Du Rocher, a corporal, who was on
guard, they would have carried all before them. They were rushing
through an opening in the palisade, when he, with a few soldiers, met
them with such vigor and resolution, that they were held in check long
enough for the rest to snatch their arms. Montmagny, who was on the
river in his brigantine, hastened on shore, and the soldiers, encouraged
by his arrival, fought with great determination.

The Iroquois, on their part, swarmed up to the palisade, thrust their
guns through the loop-holes, and fired on those within; nor was it till
several of them had been killed and others wounded that they learned to
keep a more prudent distance. A tall savage, wearing a crest of the hair
of some animal, dyed scarlet and bound with a fillet of wampum, leaped
forward to the attack, and was shot dead. Another shared his fate,
with seven buck-shot in his shield, and as many in his body. The French,
with shouts, redoubled their fire, and the Indians at length lost heart
and fell back. The wounded dropped guns, shields, and war-clubs, and the
whole band withdrew to the shelter of a fort which they had built in the
forest, three miles above. On the part of the French, one man was killed
and four wounded. They had narrowly escaped a disaster which might have
proved the ruin of the colony; and they now gained time so far to
strengthen their defences as to make them reasonably secure against any
attack of savages. [ 1 ] The new fort, however, did not effectually
answer its purpose of stopping the inroads of the Iroquois. They would
land a mile or more above it, carry their canoes through the forest
across an intervening tongue of land, and then launch them in the
St. Lawrence, while the garrison remained in total ignorance of their
movements.

[ 1 Vimont, Relation, 1642, 50, 51.

Assaults by Indians on fortified places are rare. The Iroquois are known,
however, to have made them with success in several cases, some of the
most remarkable of which will appear hereafter. The courage of Indians
is uncertain and spasmodic. They are capable, at times, of a furious
temerity, approaching desperation; but this is liable to sudden and
extreme reaction. Their courage, too, is much oftener displayed in
covert than in open attacks. ]

While the French were thus beset, their Indian allies fared still worse.
The effect of Iroquois hostilities on all the Algonquin tribes of Canada,
from the Saguenay to the Lake of the Nipissings, had become frightfully
apparent. Famine and pestilence had aided the ravages of war, till these
wretched bands seemed in the course of rapid extermination. Their spirit
was broken. They became humble and docile in the hands of the
missionaries, ceased their railings against the new doctrine, and leaned
on the French as their only hope in this extremity of woe. Sometimes
they would appear in troops at Sillery or Three Rivers, scared out of
their forests by the sight of an Iroquois footprint; then some new terror
would seize them, and drive them back to seek a hiding-place in the
deepest thickets of the wilderness. Their best hunting-grounds were
beset by the enemy. They starved for weeks together, subsisting on the
bark of trees or the thongs of raw hide which formed the net-work of
their snow-shoes. The mortality among them was prodigious. "Where,
eight years ago," writes Father Vimont, "one would see a hundred wigwams,
one now sees scarcely five or six. A chief who once had eight hundred
warriors has now but thirty or forty; and in place of fleets of three or
four hundred canoes, we see less than a tenth of that number." [ Relation,
1644, 8. ]

These Canadian tribes were undergoing that process of extermination,
absorption, or expatriation, which, as there is reason to believe,
had for many generations formed the gloomy and meaningless history of the
greater part of this continent. Three or four hundred Dutch guns,
in the hands of the conquerors, gave an unwonted quickness and decision
to the work, but in no way changed its essential character. The horrible
nature of this warfare can be known only through examples; and of these
one or two will suffice.

A band of Algonquins, late in the autumn of 1641, set forth from Three
Rivers on their winter hunt, and, fearful of the Iroquois, made their way
far northward, into the depths of the forests that border the Ottawa.
Here they thought themselves safe, built their lodges, and began to hunt
the moose and beaver. But a large party of their enemies, with a
persistent ferocity that is truly astonishing, had penetrated even here,
found the traces of the snow-shoes, followed up their human prey, and hid
at nightfall among the rocks and thickets around the encampment. At
midnight, their yells and the blows of their war-clubs awakened their
sleeping victims. In a few minutes all were in their power. They bound
the prisoners hand and foot, rekindled the fire, slung the kettles,
cut the bodies of the slain to pieces, and boiled and devoured them
before the eyes of the wretched survivors. "In a word," says the
narrator, "they ate men with as much appetite and more pleasure than
hunters eat a boar or a stag." [ Vimont, Relation, 1642, 46. ]

Meanwhile they amused themselves with bantering their prisoners. "Uncle,"
said one of them to an old Algonquin, "you are a dead man. You are going
to the land of souls. Tell them to take heart: they will have good
company soon, for we are going to send all the rest of your nation to
join them. This will be good news for them." [ Vimont, Relation, 1642,
45. ]

This old man, who is described as no less malicious than his captors,
and even more crafty, soon after escaped, and brought tidings of the
disaster to the French. In the following spring, two women of the party
also escaped; and, after suffering almost incredible hardships, reached
Three Rivers, torn with briers, nearly naked, and in a deplorable state
of bodily and mental exhaustion. One of them told her story to Father
Buteux, who translated it into French, and gave it to Vimont to be
printed in the Relation of 1642. Revolting as it is, it is necessary to
recount it. Suffice it to say, that it is sustained by the whole body of
contemporary evidence in regard to the practices of the Iroquois and some
of the neighboring tribes.

The conquerors feasted in the lodge till nearly daybreak, and then,
after a short rest, began their march homeward with their prisoners.
Among these were three women, of whom the narrator was one, who had each
a child of a few weeks or months old. At the first halt, their captors
took the infants from them, tied them to wooden spits, placed them to die
slowly before a fire, and feasted on them before the eyes of the agonized
mothers, whose shrieks, supplications, and frantic efforts to break the
cords that bound them were met with mockery and laughter. "They are not
men, they are wolves!" sobbed the wretched woman, as she told what had
befallen her to the pitying Jesuit. [ Vimont, Relation, 1642, 46. ]
At the Fall of the Chaudière, another of the women ended her woes by
leaping into the cataract. When they approached the first Iroquois town,
they were met, at the distance of several leagues, by a crowd of the
inhabitants, and among them a troop of women, bringing food to regale the
triumphant warriors. Here they halted, and passed the night in songs of
victory, mingled with the dismal chant of the prisoners, who were forced
to dance for their entertainment.

On the morrow, they entered the town, leading the captive Algonquins,
fast bound, and surrounded by a crowd of men, women, and children,
all singing at the top of their throats. The largest lodge was ready to
receive them; and as they entered, the victims read their doom in the
fires that blazed on the earthen floor, and in the aspect of the
attendant savages, whom the Jesuit Father calls attendant demons, that
waited their coming. The torture which ensued was but preliminary,
designed to cause all possible suffering without touching life. It
consisted in blows with sticks and cudgels, gashing their limbs with
knives, cutting off their fingers with clam-shells, scorching them with
firebrands, and other indescribable torments. [ 1 ] The women were
stripped naked, and forced to dance to the singing of the male prisoners,
amid the applause and laughter of the crowd. They then gave them food,
to strengthen them for further suffering.

[ 1 "Cette pauure creature qui s'est sauuée, a les deux pouces couppez,
ou plus tost hachez. Quand ils me les eurent couppez, disoit-elle,
ils me les voulurent faire manger; mais ie les mis sur mon giron, et leur
dis qu'ils me tuassent s'ils vouloient, que ie ne leur pouuois obeir."--
Buteux in Relation, 1642, 47. ]

On the following morning, they were placed on a large scaffold, in sight
of the whole population. It was a gala-day. Young and old were gathered
from far and near. Some mounted the scaffold, and scorched them with
torches and firebrands; while the children, standing beneath the bark
platform, applied fire to the feet of the prisoners between the crevices.
The Algonquin women were told to burn their husbands and companions; and
one of them obeyed, vainly thinking to appease her tormentors. The
stoicism of one of the warriors enraged his captors beyond measure.
"Scream! why don't you scream?" they cried, thrusting their burning
brands at his naked body. "Look at me," he answered; "you cannot make me
wince. If you were in my place, you would screech like babies." At this
they fell upon him with redoubled fury, till their knives and firebrands
left in him no semblance of humanity. He was defiant to the last,
and when death came to his relief, they tore out his heart and devoured
it; then hacked him in pieces, and made their feast of triumph on his
mangled limbs.

[ The diabolical practices described above were not peculiar to the
Iroquois. The Neutrals and other kindred tribes were no whit less cruel.
It is a remark of Mr. Gallatin, and I think a just one, that the Indians
west of the Mississippi are less ferocious than those east of it.
The burning of prisoners is rare among the prairie tribes, but is not
unknown. An Ogillallah chief, in whose lodge I lived for several weeks
in 1846, described to me, with most expressive pantomime, how he had
captured and burned a warrior of the Snake Tribe, in a valley of the
Medicine Bow Mountains, near which we were then encamped. ]

All the men and all the old women of the party were put to death in a
similar manner, though but few displayed the same amazing fortitude.
The younger women, of whom there were about thirty, after passing their
ordeal of torture, were permitted to live; and, disfigured as they were,
were distributed among the several villages, as concubines or slaves to
the Iroquois warriors. Of this number were the narrator and her
companion, who, being ordered to accompany a war-party and carry their
provisions, escaped at night into the forest, and reached Three Rivers,
as we have seen.

While the Indian allies of the French were wasting away beneath this
atrocious warfare, the French themselves, and especially the travelling
Jesuits, had their full share of the infliction. In truth, the puny and
sickly colony seemed in the gasps of dissolution. The beginning of
spring, particularly, was a season of terror and suspense; for with the
breaking up of the ice, sure as a destiny, came the Iroquois. As soon as
a canoe could float, they were on the war-path; and with the cry of the
returning wild-fowl mingled the yell of these human tigers. They did not
always wait for the breaking ice, but set forth on foot, and, when they
came to open water, made canoes and embarked.

Well might Father Vimont call the Iroquois "the scourge of this infant
church." They burned, hacked, and devoured the neophytes; exterminated
whole villages at once; destroyed the nations whom the Fathers hoped to
convert; and ruined that sure ally of the missions, the fur-trade.
Not the most hideous nightmare of a fevered brain could transcend in
horror the real and waking perils with which they beset the path of these
intrepid priests.

In the spring of 1644, Joseph Bressani, an Italian Jesuit, born in Rome,
and now for two years past a missionary in Canada, was ordered by his
Superior to go up to the Hurons. It was so early in the season that
there seemed hope that he might pass in safety; and as the Fathers in
that wild mission had received no succor for three years, Bressani was
charged with letters to them, and such necessaries for their use as he
was able to carry. With him were six young Hurons, lately converted,
and a French boy in his service. The party were in three small canoes.
Before setting out they all confessed and prepared for death.

They left Three Rivers on the twenty-seventh of April, and found ice
still floating in the river, and patches of snow lying in the naked
forests. On the first day, one of the canoes overset, nearly drowning
Bressani, who could not swim. On the third day, a snow-storm began,
and greatly retarded their progress. The young Indians foolishly fired
their guns at the wild-fowl on the river, and the sound reached the ears
of a war-party of Iroquois, one of ten that had already set forth for the
St. Lawrence, the Ottawa, and the Huron towns. [ Vimont, Relation, 1644,
41. ] Hence it befell, that, as they crossed the mouth of a small stream
entering the St. Lawrence, twenty-seven Iroquois suddenly issued from
behind a point, and attacked them in canoes. One of the Hurons was
killed, and all the rest of the party captured without resistance.

On the fifteenth of July following, Bressani wrote from the Iroquois
country to the General of the Jesuits at Rome--"I do not know if your
Paternity will recognize the handwriting of one whom you once knew very
well. The letter is soiled and ill-written; because the writer has only
one finger of his right hand left entire, and cannot prevent the blood
from his wounds, which are still open, from staining the paper. His ink
is gunpowder mixed with water, and his table is the earth." [ This letter
is printed anonymously in the Second Part, Chap. II, of Bressani's
Relation Abrégée. A comparison with Vimont's account, in the Relation of
1644, makes its authorship apparent. Vimont's narrative agrees in all
essential points. His informant was "vne personne digne de foy, qui a
esté tesmoin oculaire de tout ce qu'il a soufiert pendant sa captiuité."--
Vimont, Relation, 1644, 43. ]

Then follows a modest narrative of what be endured at the hands of his
captors. First they thanked the Sun for their victory; then plundered
the canoes; then cut up, roasted, and devoured the slain Huron before the
eyes of the prisoners. On the next day they crossed to the southern
shore, and ascended the River Richelieu as far as the rapids of Chambly,
whence they pursued their march on foot among the brambles, rocks,
and swamps of the trackless forest. When they reached Lake Champlain,
they made new canoes and re-embarked, landed at its southern extremity
six days afterwards, and thence made for the Upper Hudson. Here they
found a fishing camp of four hundred Iroquois, and now Bressani's
torments began in earnest. They split his hand with a knife, between the
little finger and the ring finger; then beat him with sticks, till he was
covered with blood; and afterwards placed him on one of their torture-
scaffolds of bark, as a spectacle to the crowd. Here they stripped him,
and while he shivered with cold from head to foot they forced him to
sing. After about two hours they gave him up to the children, who
ordered him to dance, at the same time thrusting sharpened sticks into
his flesh, and pulling out his hair and beard. "Sing!" cried one; "Hold
your tongue!" screamed another; and if he obeyed the first, the second
burned him. "We will burn you to death; we will eat you." "I will eat
one of your hands." "And I will eat one of your feet." [ "Ils me
répétaient sans cesse: Nous te brûlerons; nous te mangerons;--je te
mangerai un pied;--et moi, une main," etc.--Bressani, in Relation Abrégée,
137. ] These scenes were renewed every night for a week. Every evening
a chief cried aloud through the camp, "Come, my children, come and caress
our prisoners!"--and the savage crew thronged jubilant to a large hut,
where the captives lay. They stripped off the torn fragment of a cassock,
which was the priest's only garment; burned him with live coals and
red-hot stones; forced him to walk on hot cinders; burned off now a
finger-nail and now the joint of a finger,--rarely more than one at a
time, however, for they economized their pleasures, and reserved the rest
for another day. This torture was protracted till one or two o'clock,
after which they left him on the ground, fast bound to four stakes,
and covered only with a scanty fragment of deer-skin. [ 1 ] The other
prisoners had their share of torture; but the worst fell upon the Jesuit,
as the chief man of the party. The unhappy boy who attended him, though
only twelve or thirteen years old, was tormented before his eyes with a
pitiless ferocity.

[ 1 "Chaque nuit après m'avoir fait chanter, et m'avoir tourmenté comme
ie l'ai dit, ils passaient environ un quart d'heure à me brûler un ongle
ou un doigt. Il ne m'en reste maintenant qu'un seul entier, et encore
ils en ont arraché l'ongle avec les dents. Un soir ils m'enlevaient un
ongle, le lendemain la première phalange, le jour suivant la seconde.
En six fois, ils en brûlèrent presque six. Aux mains seules, ils m'ont
appliqué le feu et le fer plus de 18 fois, et i'étais obligé de chanter
pendant ce supplice. Ils ne cessaient de me tourmenter qu'à une ou deux
heures de la nuit."--Bressani, Relation Abrégée, 122.

Bressani speaks in another passage of tortures of a nature yet more
excruciating. They were similar to those alluded to by the anonymous
author of the Relation of 1660: "Ie ferois rougir ce papier, et les
oreilles frémiroient, si ie rapportois les horribles traitemens que les
Agnieronnons" (the Mohawk nation of the Iroquois) "ont faits sur quelques
captifs." He adds, that past ages have never heard of such.--Relation,
1660, 7, 8. ]

At length they left this encampment, and, after a march of several
days,--during which Bressani, in wading a rocky stream, fell from
exhaustion and was nearly drowned,--they reached an Iroquois town.
It is needless to follow the revolting details of the new torments that
succeeded. They hung him by the feet with chains; placed food for their
dogs on his naked body, that they might lacerate him as they ate; and at
last had reduced his emaciated frame to such a condition, that even they
themselves stood in horror of him. "I could not have believed," he
writes to his Superior, "that a man was so hard to kill." He found among
them those who, from compassion, or from a refinement of cruelty, fed him,
for he could not feed himself. They told him jestingly that they wished
to fatten him before putting him to death.

The council that was to decide his fate met on the nineteenth of June,
when, to the prisoner's amazement, and, as it seemed, to their own
surprise, they resolved to spare his life. He was given, with due
ceremony, to an old woman, to take the place of a deceased relative; but,
since he was as repulsive, in his mangled condition, as, by the Indian
standard, he was useless, she sent her son with him to Fort Orange,
to sell him to the Dutch. With the same humanity which they had shown in
the case of Jogues, they gave a generous ransom for him, supplied him
with clothing, kept him till his strength was in some degree recruited,
and then placed him on board a vessel bound for Rochelle. Here he
arrived on the fifteenth of November; and in the following spring,
maimed and disfigured, but with health restored, embarked to dare again
the knives and firebrands of the Iroquois.

[ Immediately on his return to Canada he was ordered to set out again for
the Hurons. More fortunate than on his first attempt, he arrived safely,
early in the autumn of 1645.--Ragueneau, Relation des Hurons, 1646, 73.

On Bressani, besides the authorities cited, see Du Creux, Historia
Canadensis, 399-403; Juchereau, Histoire de l'Hôtel-Dieu, 53; and Martin,
Biographie du P. François-Joseph Bressani, prefixed to the Relation
Abrégée.

He made no converts while a prisoner, but he baptized a Huron catechumen
at the stake, to the great fury of the surrounding Iroquois. He has left,
besides his letters, some interesting notes on his captivity, preserved
in the Relation Abrégée. ]

It should be noticed, in justice to the Iroquois, that, ferocious and
cruel as past all denial they were, they were not so bereft of the
instincts of humanity as at first sight might appear. An inexorable
severity towards enemies was a very essential element, in their savage
conception, of the character of the warrior. Pity was a cowardly
weakness, at which their pride revolted. This, joined to their thirst
for applause and their dread of ridicule, made them smother every
movement of compassion, [ 1 ] and conspired with their native fierceness
to form a character of unrelenting cruelty rarely equalled.

[ 1 Thus, when Bressani, tortured by the tightness of the cords that
bound him, asked an Indian to loosen them, he would reply by mockery,
if others were present; but if no one saw him, he usually complied. ]

The perils which beset the missionaries did not spring from the fury of
the Iroquois alone, for Nature herself was armed with terror in this
stern wilderness of New France. On the thirtieth of January, 1646,
Father Anne de Nouë set out from Three Rivers to go to the fort built by
the French at the mouth of the River Richelieu, where he was to say mass
and hear confessions. De Nouë was sixty-three years old, and had come to
Canada in 1625. [ See "Pioneers of France," 393. ] As an indifferent
memory disabled him from mastering the Indian languages, he devoted
himself to the spiritual charge of the French, and of the Indians about
the forts, within reach of an interpreter. For the rest, he attended the
sick, and, in times of scarcity, fished in the river or dug roots in the
woods for the subsistence of his flock. In short, though sprung from a
noble family of Champagne, he shrank from no toil, however humble,
to which his idea of duty or his vow of obedience called him. [ He was
peculiarly sensitive as regarded the cardinal Jesuit virtue of obedience;
and both Lalemant and Bressani say, that, at the age of sixty and upwards,
he was sometimes seen in tears, when he imagined that he had not
fulfilled to the utmost the commands of his Superior. ]

The old missionary had for companions two soldiers and a Huron Indian.
They were all on snow-shoes, and the soldiers dragged their baggage on
small sledges. Their highway was the St. Lawrence, transformed to solid
ice, and buried, like all the country, beneath two or three feet of snow,
which, far and near, glared dazzling white under the clear winter sun.
Before night they had walked eighteen miles, and the soldiers, unused to
snow-shoes, were greatly fatigued. They made their camp in the forest,
on the shore of the great expansion of the St. Lawrence called the Lake
of St. Peter,--dug away the snow, heaped it around the spot as a barrier
against the wind, made their fire on the frozen earth in the midst,
and lay down to sleep. At two o'clock in the morning De Nouë awoke.
The moon shone like daylight over the vast white desert of the frozen
lake, with its bordering fir-trees bowed to the ground with snow; and the
kindly thought struck the Father, that he might ease his companions by
going in advance to Fort Richelieu, and sending back men to aid them in
dragging their sledges. He knew the way well. He directed them to
follow the tracks of his snow-shoes in the morning; and, not doubting to
reach the fort before night, left behind his blanket and his flint and
steel. For provisions, he put a morsel of bread and five or six prunes
in his pocket, told his rosary, and set forth.

Before dawn the weather changed. The air thickened, clouds hid the moon,
and a snow-storm set in. The traveller was in utter darkness. He lost
the points of the compass, wandered far out on the lake, and when day
appeared could see nothing but the snow beneath his feet, and the myriads
of falling flakes that encompassed him like a curtain, impervious to the
sight. Still he toiled on, winding hither and thither, and at times
unwittingly circling back on his own footsteps. At night he dug a hole
in the snow under the shore of an island, and lay down, without fire,
food, or blanket.

Meanwhile the two soldiers and the Indian, unable to trace his footprints,
which the snow had hidden, pursued their way for the fort; but the Indian
was ignorant of the country, and the Frenchmen were unskilled. They
wandered from their course, and at evening encamped on the shore of the
island of St. Ignace, at no great distance from De Nouë. Here the Indian,
trusting to his instinct, left them and set forth alone in search of
their destination, which he soon succeeded in finding. The palisades of
the feeble little fort, and the rude buildings within, were whitened with
snow, and half buried in it. Here, amid the desolation, a handful of men
kept watch and ward against the Iroquois. Seated by the blazing logs,
the Indian asked for De Nouë, and, to his astonishment, the soldiers of
the garrison told him that he had not been seen. The captain of the post
was called; all was anxiety; but nothing could be done that night.

At daybreak parties went out to search. The two soldiers were readily
found; but they looked in vain for the missionary. All day they were
ranging the ice, firing their guns and shouting; but to no avail, and
they returned disconsolate. There was a converted Indian, whom the
French called Charles, at the fort, one of four who were spending the
winter there. On the next morning, the second of February, he and one of
his companions, together with Baron, a French soldier, resumed the
search; and, guided by the slight depressions in the snow which had
fallen on the wanderer's footprints, the quick-eyed savages traced him
through all his windings, found his camp by the shore of the island,
and thence followed him beyond the fort. He had passed near without
discovering it,--perhaps weakness had dimmed his sight,--stopped to rest
at a point a league above, and thence made his way about three leagues
farther. Here they found him. He had dug a circular excavation in the
snow, and was kneeling in it on the earth. His head was bare, his eyes
open and turned upwards, and his hands clasped on his breast. His hat
and his snow-shoes lay at his side. The body was leaning slightly
forward, resting against the bank of snow before it, and frozen to the
hardness of marble.

Thus, in an act of kindness and charity, died the first martyr of the
Canadian mission.

[ Lalemant, Relation, 1646, 9; Marie de l'Incarnation, Lettre, 10 Sept.,
1646; Bressani, Relation Abrégée, 175.

One of the Indians who found the body of De Nouë was killed by the
Iroquois at Ossossané, in the Huron country, three years after. He
received the death-blow in a posture like that in which he had seen the
dead missionary. His body was found with the hands still clasped on the
breast.--Lettre de Chaumonot à Lalemant, 1 Juin, 1649.

The next death among the Jesuits was that of Masse, who died at Sillery,
on the twelfth of May of this year, 1646, at the age of seventy-two.
He had come with Biard to Acadia as early as 1611. (See "Pioneers of
France," 262.) Lalemant, in the Relation of 1646, gives an account of him,
and speaks of penances which he imposed on himself, some of which are to
the last degree disgusting. ]

CHAPTER XVIII.

1642-1644.

VILLEMARIE.

INFANCY OF MONTREAL.--THE FLOOD.--VOW OF MAISONNEUVE.--PILGRIMAGE.--
D'AILLEBOUST.--THE HÔTEL-DIEU.--PIETY.--PROPAGANDISM.--WAR.--
HURONS AND IROQUOIS.--DOGS.--SALLY OF THE FRENCH.--BATTLE.--
EXPLOIT OF MAISONNEUVE.

Let us now ascend to the island of Montreal. Here, as we have seen,
an association of devout and zealous persons had essayed to found a
mission-colony under the protection of the Holy Virgin; and we left the
adventurers, after their landing, bivouacked on the shore, on an evening
in May. There was an altar in the open air, decorated with a taste that
betokened no less of good nurture than of piety; and around it clustered
the tents that sheltered the commandant, Maisonneuve, the two ladies,
Madame de la Peltrie and Mademoiselle Mance, and the soldiers and
laborers of the expedition.

In the morning they all fell to their work, Maisonneuve hewing down the
first tree,--and labored with such good-will, that their tents were soon
inclosed with a strong palisade, and their altar covered by a provisional
chapel, built, in the Huron mode, of bark. Soon afterward, their canvas
habitations were supplanted by solid structures of wood, and the feeble
germ of a future city began to take root.

The Iroquois had not yet found them out; nor did they discover them till
they had had ample time to fortify themselves. Meanwhile, on a Sunday,
they would stroll at their leisure over the adjacent meadow and in the
shade of the bordering forest, where, as the old chronicler tells us,
the grass was gay with wild-flowers, and the branches with the flutter
and song of many strange birds. [ Dollier de Casson, MS. ]

The day of the Assumption of the Virgin was celebrated with befitting
solemnity. There was mass in their bark chapel; then a Te Deum; then
public instruction of certain Indians who chanced to be at Montreal; then
a procession of all the colonists after vespers, to the admiration of the
redskinned beholders. Cannon, too, were fired, in honor of their
celestial patroness. "Their thunder made all the island echo," writes
Father Vimont; "and the demons, though used to thunderbolts, were scared
at a noise which told them of the love we bear our great Mistress; and I
have scarcely any doubt that the tutelary angels of the savages of New
France have marked this day in the calendar of Paradise." [ Vimont,
Relation, 1642, 38. Compare Le Clerc, Premier Etablissement de la Foy,
II. 51. ]

The summer passed prosperously, but with the winter their faith was put
to a rude test. In December, there was a rise of the St. Lawrence,
threatening to sweep away in a night the results of all their labor.
They fell to their prayers; and Maisonneuve planted a wooden cross in
face of the advancing deluge, first making a vow, that, should the peril
be averted, he, Maisonneuve, would bear another cross on his shoulders up
the neighboring mountain, and place it on the summit. The vow seemed in
vain. The flood still rose, filled the fort ditch, swept the foot of the
palisade, and threatened to sap the magazine; but here it stopped,
and presently began to recede, till at length it had withdrawn within its
lawful channel, and Villemarie was safe.

[ A little MS. map in M. Jacques Viger's copy of Le Petit Registre de la
Cure de Montreal, lays down the position and shape of the fort at this
time, and shows the spot where Maisonneuve planted the cross. ]

Now it remained to fulfil the promise from which such happy results had
proceeded. Maisonneuve set his men at work to clear a path through the
forest to the top of the mountain. A large cross was made, and solemnly
blessed by the priest; then, on the sixth of January, the Jesuit Du Peron
led the way, followed in procession by Madame de la Peltrie, the artisans,
and soldiers, to the destined spot. The commandant, who with all the
ceremonies of the Church had been declared First Soldier of the Cross,
walked behind the rest, bearing on his shoulder a cross so heavy that it
needed his utmost strength to climb the steep and rugged path. They
planted it on the highest crest, and all knelt in adoration before it.
Du Peron said mass; and Madame de la Peltrie, always romantic and always
devout, received the sacrament on the mountain-top, a spectacle to the
virgin world outstretched below. Sundry relics of saints had been set
in the wood of the cross, which remained an object of pilgrimage to the
pious colonists of Villemarie. [ Vimont, Relation, 1643, 52, 53. ]

Peace and harmony reigned within the little fort; and so edifying was the
demeanor of the colonists, so faithful were they to the confessional,
and so constant at mass, that a chronicler of the day exclaims, in a
burst of enthusiasm, that the deserts lately a resort of demons were now
the abode of angels. [ Véritables Motifs, cited by Faillon, I. 453,
454. ] The two Jesuits who for the time were their pastors had them well
in hand. They dwelt under the same roof with most of their flock,
who lived in community, in one large house, and vied with each other in
zeal for the honor of the Virgin and the conversion of the Indians.

At the end of August, 1643, a vessel arrived at Villemarie with a
reinforcement commanded by Louis d'Ailleboust de Coulonges, a pious
gentleman of Champagne, and one of the Associates of Montreal.
[ Chaulmer, 101; Juchereau, 91. ] Some years before, he had asked in
wedlock the hand of Barbe de Boulogne; but the young lady had, when a
child, in the ardor of her piety, taken a vow of perpetual chastity.
By the advice of her Jesuit confessor, she accepted his suit, on
condition that she should preserve, to the hour of her death, the state
to which Holy Church has always ascribed a peculiar merit. [ 1 ]
D'Ailleboust married her; and when, soon after, he conceived the purpose
of devoting his life to the work of the Faith in Canada, he invited his
maiden spouse to go with him. She refused, and forbade him to mention
the subject again. Her health was indifferent, and about this time she
fell ill. As a last resort, she made a promise to God, that, if He would
restore her, she would go to Canada with her husband; and forthwith her
maladies ceased. Still her reluctance continued; she hesitated, and then
refused again, when an inward light revealed to her that it was her duty
to cast her lot in the wilderness. She accordingly embarked with
d'Ailleboust, accompanied by her sister, Mademoiselle Philippine de
Boulogne, who had caught the contagion of her zeal. The presence of
these damsels would, to all appearance, be rather a burden than a profit
to the colonists, beset as they then were by Indians, and often in peril
of starvation; but the spectacle of their ardor, as disinterested as it
was extravagant, would serve to exalt the religious enthusiasm in which
alone was the life of Villemarie.

[ 1 Juchereau, Histoire de l'Hôtel-Dieu de Québec, 276. The confessor
told D'Ailleboust, that, if he persuaded his wife to break her vow of
continence, "God would chastise him terribly." The nun historian adds,
that, undeterred by the menace, he tried and failed. ]

Their vessel passed in safety the Iroquois who watched the St. Lawrence,
and its arrival filled the colonists with joy. D'Ailleboust was a
skilful soldier, specially versed in the arts of fortification; and,
under his direction, the frail palisades which formed their sole defence
were replaced by solid ramparts and bastions of earth. He brought news
that the "unknown benefactress," as a certain generous member of the
Association of Montreal was called, in ignorance of her name, had given
funds, to the amount, as afterwards appeared, of forty-two thousand
livres, for the building of a hospital at Villemarie. [ Archives du
Séminaire de Villemarie, cited by Faillon, I. 466. The amount of the
gift was not declared until the next year. ] The source of the gift was
kept secret, from a religious motive; but it soon became known that it
proceeded from Madame de Bullion, a lady whose rank and wealth were
exceeded only by her devotion. It is true that the hospital was not
wanted, as no one was sick at Villemarie and one or two chambers would
have sufficed for every prospective necessity; but it will be remembered
that the colony had been established in order that a hospital might be
built, and Madame de Bullion would not hear to any other application of
her money. [ Mademoiselle Mance wrote to her, to urge that the money
should be devoted to the Huron mission; but she absolutely refused.
Dollier de Casson, MS. ] Instead, therefore, of tilling the land to
supply their own pressing needs, all the laborers of the settlement were
set at this pious, though superfluous, task. [ 1 ] There was no room in
the fort, which, moreover, was in danger of inundation; and the hospital
was accordingly built on higher ground adjacent. To leave it unprotected
would be to abandon its inmates to the Iroquois; it was therefore
surrounded by a strong palisade, and, in time of danger, a part of the
garrison was detailed to defend it. Here Mademoiselle Mance took up her
abode, and waited the day when wounds or disease should bring patients to
her empty wards.

[ 1 Journal des Supérieurs des Jésuites, MS.

The hospital was sixty feet long and twenty-four feet wide, with a
kitchen, a chamber for Mademoiselle Mance, others for servants, and two
large apartments for the patients. It was amply provided with furniture,
linen, medicines, and all necessaries; and had also two oxen, three cows,
and twenty sheep. A small oratory of stone was built adjoining it.
The inclosure was four arpents in extent.--Archives du Séminaire de
Villemarie, cited by Faillon. ]

Dauversière, who had first conceived this plan of a hospital in the
wilderness, was a senseless enthusiast, who rejected as a sin every
protest of reason against the dreams which governed him; yet one rational
and practical element entered into the motives of those who carried the
plan into execution. The hospital was intended not only to nurse sick
Frenchmen, but to nurse and convert sick Indians; in other words, it was
an engine of the mission.

From Maisonneuve to the humblest laborer, these zealous colonists were
bent on the work of conversion. To that end, the ladies made pilgrimages
to the cross on the mountain, sometimes for nine days in succession,
to pray God to gather the heathen into His fold. The fatigue was great;
nor was the danger less; and armed men always escorted them, as a
precaution against the Iroquois. [ Morin, Annales de l'Hôtel-Dieu de
St. Joseph, MS., cited by Faillon, I. 457. ] The male colonists were
equally fervent; and sometimes as many as fifteen or sixteen persons
would kneel at once before the cross, with the same charitable petition.
[ Marguerite Bourgeoys, Écrits Autographes, MS., extracts in Faillon,
I. 458. ] The ardor of their zeal may be inferred from the fact, that
these pious expeditions consumed the greater part of the day, when time
and labor were of a value past reckoning to the little colony. Besides
their pilgrimages, they used other means, and very efficient ones,
to attract and gain over the Indians. They housed, fed, and clothed them
at every opportunity; and though they were subsisting chiefly on
provisions brought at great cost from France, there was always a portion
for the hungry savages who from time to time encamped near their fort.
If they could persuade any of them to be nursed, they were consigned to
the tender care of Mademoiselle Mance; and if a party went to war,
their women and children were taken in charge till their return. As this
attention to their bodies had for its object the profit of their souls,
it was accompanied with incessant catechizing. This, with the other
influences of the place, had its effect; and some notable conversions
were made. Among them was that of the renowned chief, Tessouat, or Le
Borgne, as the French called him,--a crafty and intractable savage, whom,
to their own surprise, they succeeded in taming and winning to the Faith.
[ Vimont, Relation, 1643, 54, 55. Tessouat was chief of Allumette Island,
in the Ottawa. His predecessor, of the same name, was Champlain's host
in 1613.--See "Pioneers of France," Chap. XII. ] He was christened with
the name of Paul, and his squaw with that of Madeleine. Maisonneuve
rewarded him with a gun, and celebrated the day by a feast to all the
Indians present.

[ It was the usual practice to give guns to converts, "pour attirer leur
compatriotes à la Foy." They were never given to heathen Indians.
"It seems," observes Vimont, "that our Lord wishes to make use of this
method in order that Christianity may become acceptable in this
country."--Relation, 1643, 71. ]

The French hoped to form an agricultural settlement of Indians in the
neighborhood of Villemarie; and they spared no exertion to this end,
giving them tools, and aiding them to till the fields. They might have
succeeded, but for that pest of the wilderness, the Iroquois, who hovered
about them, harassed them with petty attacks, and again and again drove
the Algonquins in terror from their camps. Some time had elapsed,
as we have seen, before the Iroquois discovered Villemarie; but at length
ten fugitive Algonquins, chased by a party of them, made for the friendly
settlement as a safe asylum; and thus their astonished pursuers became
aware of its existence. They reconnoitred the place, and went back to
their towns with the news. [ Dollier de Casson, MS. ] From that time
forth the colonists had no peace; no more excursions for fishing and
hunting; no more Sunday strolls in woods and meadows. The men went armed
to their work, and returned at the sound of a bell, marching in a compact
body, prepared for an attack.

Early in June, 1643, sixty Hurons came down in canoes for traffic, and,
on reaching the place now called Lachine, at the head of the rapids of
St. Louis, and a few miles above Villemarie, they were amazed at finding
a large Iroquois war-party in a fort hastily built of the trunks and
boughs of trees. Surprise and fright seem to have infatuated them.
They neither fought nor fled, but greeted their inveterate foes as if
they were friends and allies, and, to gain their good graces, told them
all they knew of the French settlement, urging them to attack it, and
promising an easy victory. Accordingly, the Iroquois detached forty of
their warriors, who surprised six Frenchmen at work hewing timber within
a gunshot of the fort, killed three of them, took the remaining three
prisoners, and returned in triumph. The captives were bound with the
usual rigor; and the Hurons taunted and insulted them, to please their
dangerous companions. Their baseness availed them little; for at night,
after a feast of victory, when the Hurons were asleep or off their guard,
their entertainers fell upon them, and killed or captured the greater
part. The rest ran for Villemarie, where, as their treachery was as yet
unknown, they were received with great kindness.

[ I have followed Dollier de Casson. Vimont's account is different.
He says that the Iroquois fell upon the Hurons at the outset, and took
twenty-three prisoners, killing many others; after which they made the
attack at Villemarie.--Relation, 1643, 62.

Faillon thinks that Vimont was unwilling to publish the treachery of the
Hurons, lest the interests of the Huron mission should suffer in
consequence.

Belmont, Histoire du Canada, 1643, confirms the account of the Huron
treachery. ]

The next morning the Iroquois decamped, carrying with them their
prisoners, and the furs plundered from the Huron canoes. They had taken
also, and probably destroyed, all the letters from the missionaries in
the Huron country, as well as a copy of their Relation of the preceding
year. Of the three French prisoners, one escaped and reached Montreal;
the remaining two were burned alive.

At Villemarie it was usually dangerous to pass beyond the ditch of the
fort or the palisades of the hospital. Sometimes a solitary warrior
would lie hidden for days, without sleep and almost without food, behind
a log in the forest, or in a dense thicket, watching like a lynx for some
rash straggler. Sometimes parties of a hundred or more made ambuscades
near by, and sent a few of their number to lure out the soldiers by a
petty attack and a flight. The danger was much diminished, however,
when the colonists received from France a number of dogs, which proved
most efficient sentinels and scouts. Of the instinct of these animals
the writers of the time speak with astonishment. Chief among them was a
bitch named Pilot, who every morning made the rounds of the forests and
fields about the fort, followed by a troop of her offspring. If one of
them lagged behind, she hit him to remind him of his duty; and if any
skulked and ran home, she punished them severely in the same manner on
her return. When she discovered the Iroquois, which she was sure to do
by the scents if any were near, she barked furiously, and ran at once
straight to the fort, followed by the rest. The Jesuit chronicler adds,
with an amusing naïveté, that, while this was her duty, "her natural
inclination was for hunting squirrels."

[ Lalemant, Relation, 1647, 74, 75. "Son attrait naturel estoit la
chasse aux écurieux." Dollier de Casson also speaks admiringly of her
and her instinct. Faillon sees in it a manifest proof of the protecting
care of God over Villemarie. ]

Maisonneuve was as brave a knight of the cross as ever fought in
Palestine for the sepulchre of Christ; but he could temper his valor with
discretion. He knew that he and his soldiers were but indifferent
woodsmen; that their crafty foe had no equal in ambuscades and surprises;
and that, while a defeat might ruin the French, it would only exasperate
an enemy whose resources in men were incomparably greater. Therefore,
when the dogs sounded the alarm, he kept his followers close, and stood
patiently on the defensive. They chafed under this Fabian policy,
and at length imputed it to cowardice. Their murmurings grew louder,
till they reached the ear of Maisonneuve. The religion which animated
him had not destroyed the soldierly pride which takes root so readily and
so strongly in a manly nature; and an imputation of cowardice from his
own soldiers stung him to the quick. He saw, too, that such an opinion
of him must needs weaken his authority, and impair the discipline
essential to the safety of the colony.

On the morning of the thirtieth of March, Pilot was heard barking with
unusual fury in the forest eastward from the fort; and in a few moments
they saw her running over the clearing, where the snow was still deep,
followed by her brood, all giving tongue together. The excited Frenchmen
flocked about their commander.

"Monsieur, les ennemis sont dans le bois; ne les irons-nous jamais voir?"
[ Dollier de Casson, MS. ]

Maisonneuve, habitually composed and calm, answered sharply,--

"Yes, you shall see the enemy. Get yourselves ready at once, and take
care that you are as brave as you profess to be. I shall lead you
myself."

All was bustle in the fort. Guns were loaded, pouches filled, and
snow-shoes tied on by those who had them and knew how to use them.
There were not enough, however, and many were forced to go without them.
When all was ready, Maisonneuve sallied forth at the head of thirty men,
leaving d'Ailleboust, with the remainder, to hold the fort. They crossed
the snowy clearing and entered the forest, where all was silent as the
grave. They pushed on, wading through the deep snow, with the countless
pitfalls hidden beneath it, when suddenly they were greeted with the
screeches of eighty Iroquois, [ 1 ] who sprang up from their lurking-
places, and showered bullets and arrows upon the advancing French.
The emergency called, not for chivalry, but for woodcraft; and
Maisonneuve ordered his men to take shelter, like their assailants,
behind trees. They stood their ground resolutely for a long time; but
the Iroquois pressed them close, three of their number were killed,
others were wounded, and their ammunition began to fail. Their only
alternatives were destruction or retreat; and to retreat was not easy.
The order was given. Though steady at first, the men soon became
confused, and over-eager to escape the galling fire which the Iroquois
sent after them. Maisonneuve directed them towards a sledge-track which
had been used in dragging timber for building the hospital, and where the
snow was firm beneath the foot. He himself remained to the last,
encouraging his followers and aiding the wounded to escape. The French,
as they struggled through the snow, faced about from time to time,
and fired back to check the pursuit; but no sooner had they reached the
sledge-track than they gave way to their terror, and ran in a body for
the fort. Those within, seeing this confused rush of men from the
distance, mistook them for the enemy; and an over-zealous soldier touched
the match to a cannon which had been pointed to rake the sledge-track.
Had not the piece missed fire, from dampness of the priming, he would
have done more execution at one shot than the Iroquois in all the fight
of that morning.

[ 1 Vimont, Relation, 1644, 42. Dollier de Casson says two hundred,
but it is usually safe in these cases to accept the smaller number,
and Vimont founds his statement on the information of an escaped
prisoner. ]

Maisonneuve was left alone, retreating backwards down the track, and
holding his pursuers in check, with a pistol in each hand. They might
easily have shot him; but, recognizing him as the commander of the French,
they were bent on taking him alive. Their chief coveted this honor for
himself, and his followers held aloof to give him the opportunity.
He pressed close upon Maisonneuve, who snapped a pistol at him, which
missed fire. The Iroquois, who had ducked to avoid the shot, rose erect,
and sprang forward to seize him, when Maisonneuve, with his remaining
pistol, shot him dead. Then ensued a curious spectacle, not infrequent
in Indian battles. The Iroquois seemed to forget their enemy, in their
anxiety to secure and carry off the body of their chief; and the French
commander continued his retreat unmolested, till he was safe under the
cannon of the fort. From that day, he was a hero in the eyes of his men.

[ Dollier de Casson, MS. Vimont's mention of the affair is brief.
He says that two Frenchmen were made prisoners, and burned. Belmont,
Histoire du Canada, 1645, gives a succinct account of the fight, and
indicates the scene of it. It seems to have been a little below the site
of the Place d'Armes, on which stands the great Parish Church of
Villemarie, commonly known to tourists as the "Cathedral." Faillon
thinks that Maisonneuve's exploit was achieved on this very spot.

Marguerite Bourgeoys also describes the affair in her unpublished
writings. ]

Quebec and Montreal are happy in their founders. Samuel de Champlain and
Chomedey de Maisonneuve are among the names that shine with a fair and
honest lustre on the infancy of nations.

CHAPTER XIX.

1644, 1645.

PEACE.

IROQUOIS PRISONERS.--PISKARET.--HIS EXPLOITS.--MORE PRISONERS.--
IROQUOIS EMBASSY.--THE ORATOR.--THE GREAT COUNCIL.--
SPEECHES OF KIOTSATON.--MUSTER OF SAVAGES.--PEACE CONFIRMED.

In the damp and freshness of a midsummer morning, when the sun had not
yet risen, but when the river and the sky were red with the glory of
approaching day, the inmates of the fort at Three Rivers were roused by a
tumult of joyous and exultant voices. They thronged to the shore,--
priests, soldiers, traders, and officers, mingled with warriors and
shrill-voiced squaws from Huron and Algonquin camps in the neighboring
forest. Close at hand they saw twelve or fifteen canoes slowly drifting
down the current of the St. Lawrence, manned by eighty young Indians,
all singing their songs of victory, and striking their paddles against
the edges of their bark vessels in cadence with their voices. Among them
three Iroquois prisoners stood upright, singing loud and defiantly,
as men not fearing torture or death.

A few days before, these young warriors, in part Huron and in part
Algonquin, had gone out on the war-path to the River Richelieu, where
they had presently found themselves entangled among several bands of
Iroquois. They withdrew in the night, after a battle in the dark with an
Iroquois canoe, and, as they approached Fort Richelieu, had the good
fortune to discover ten of their enemy ambuscaded in a clump of bushes
and fallen trees, watching to waylay some of the soldiers on their
morning visit to the fishing-nets in the river hard by. They captured
three of them, and carried them back in triumph.

The victors landed amid screams of exultation. Two of the prisoners were
assigned to the Hurons, and the third to the Algonquins, who immediately
took him to their lodges near the fort at Three Rivers, and began the
usual "caress," by burning his feet with red-hot stones, and cutting off
his fingers. Champfleur, the commandant, went out to them with urgent
remonstrances, and at length prevailed on them to leave their victim
without further injury, until Montmagny, the Governor, should arrive.
He came with all dispatch,--not wholly from a motive of humanity, but
partly in the hope that the three captives might be made instrumental in
concluding a peace with their countrymen.

A council was held in the fort at Three Rivers. Montmagny made valuable
presents to the Algonquins and the Hurons, to induce them to place the
prisoners in his hands. The Algonquins complied; and the unfortunate
Iroquois, gashed, maimed, and scorched, was given up to the French,
who treated him with the greatest kindness. But neither the Governor's
gifts nor his eloquence could persuade the Hurons to follow the example
of their allies; and they departed for their own country with their two
captives,--promising, however, not to burn them, but to use them for
negotiations of peace. With this pledge, scarcely worth the breath that
uttered it, Montmagny was forced to content himself. [ Vimont, Relation,
1644, 45-49. ]

Thus it appeared that the fortune of war did not always smile even on the
Iroquois. Indeed, if there is faith in Indian tradition, there had been
a time, scarcely half a century past, when the Mohawks, perhaps the
fiercest and haughtiest of the confederate nations, had been nearly
destroyed by the Algonquins, whom they now held in contempt. [ 1 ]
This people, whose inferiority arose chiefly from the want of that
compact organization in which lay the strength of the Iroquois, had not
lost their ancient warlike spirit; and they had one champion of whom even
the audacious confederates stood in awe. His name was Piskaret; and he
dwelt on that great island in the Ottawa of which Le Borgne was chief.
He had lately turned Christian, in the hope of French favor and
countenance,--always useful to an ambitious Indian,--and perhaps, too,
with an eye to the gun and powder-horn which formed the earthly reward of
the convert. [ 2 ] Tradition tells marvellous stories of his exploits.
Once, it is said, he entered an Iroquois town on a dark night. His first
care was to seek out a hiding-place, and he soon found one in the midst
of a large wood-pile. [ 3 ] Next he crept into a lodge, and, finding the
inmates asleep, killed them with his war-club, took their scalps, and
quietly withdrew to the retreat he had prepared. In the morning a howl
of lamentation and fury rose from the astonished villagers. They ranged
the fields and forests in vain pursuit of the mysterious enemy, who
remained all day in the wood-pile, whence, at midnight, he came forth and
repeated his former exploit. On the third night, every family placed its
sentinels; and Piskaret, stealthily creeping from lodge to lodge, and
reconnoitring each through crevices in the bark, saw watchers everywhere.
At length he descried a sentinel who had fallen asleep near the entrance
of a lodge, though his companion at the other end was still awake and
vigilant. He pushed aside the sheet of bark that served as a door,
struck the sleeper a deadly blow, yelled his war-cry, and fled like the
wind. All the village swarmed out in furious chase; but Piskaret was the
swiftest runner of his time, and easily kept in advance of his pursuers.
When daylight came, he showed himself from time to time to lure them on,
then yelled defiance, and distanced them again. At night, all but six
had given over the chase; and even these, exhausted as they were, had
begun to despair. Piskaret, seeing a hollow tree, crept into it like a
bear, and hid himself; while the Iroquois, losing his traces in the dark,
lay down to sleep near by. At midnight he emerged from his retreat,
stealthily approached his slumbering enemies, nimbly brained them all
with his war-club, and then, burdened with a goodly bundle of scalps,
journeyed homeward in triumph. [ 4 ]

[ 1 Relation, 1660, 6 (anonymous).

Both Parrot and La Potherie recount traditions of the ancient superiority
of the Algonquins over the Iroquois, who formerly, it is said, dwelt near
Montreal and Three Rivers, whence the Algonquins expelled them. They
withdrew, first to the neighborhood of Lake Erie, then to that of Lake
Ontario, their historic seat. There is much to support the conjecture
that the Indians found by Cartier at Montreal in 1535 were Iroquois (See
"Pioneers of France," 189.) That they belonged to the same family of
tribes is certain. For the traditions alluded to, see Perrot, 9, 12, 79,
and La Potherie, I. 288-295. ]

[ 2 "Simon Pieskaret . . . n'estoit Chrestien qu'en apparence et par
police."--Lalemant, Relation, 1647, 68.--He afterwards became a convert
in earnest. ]

[ 3 Both the Iroquois and the Hurons collected great quantities of wood
in their villages in the autumn. ]

[ 4 This story is told by La Potherie, I. 299, and, more briefly,
by Perrot, 107. La Potherie, writing more than half a century after the
time in question, represents the Iroquois as habitually in awe of the
Algonquins. In this all the contemporary writers contradict him. ]

This is but one of several stories that tradition has preserved of his
exploits; and, with all reasonable allowances, it is certain that the
crafty and valiant Algonquin was the model of an Indian warrior. That
which follows rests on a far safer basis.

Early in the spring of 1645, Piskaret, with six other converted Indians,
some of them better Christians than he, set out on a war-party, and,
after dragging their canoes over the frozen St. Lawrence, launched them
on the open stream of the Richelieu. They ascended to Lake Champlain,
and hid themselves in the leafless forests of a large island, watching
patiently for their human prey. One day they heard a distant shot.
"Come, friends," said Piskaret, "let us get our dinner: perhaps it will
be the last, for we must dine before we run." Having dined to their
contentment, the philosophic warriors prepared for action. One of them
went to reconnoitre, and soon reported that two canoes full of Iroquois
were approaching the island. Piskaret and his followers crouched in the
bushes at the point for which the canoes were making, and, as the
foremost drew near, each chose his mark, and fired with such good effect
that, of seven warriors, all but one were killed. The survivor jumped
overboard, and swam for the other canoe, where he was taken in. It now
contained eight Iroquois, who, far from attempting to escape, paddled in
haste for a distant part of the shore, in order to land, give battle,
and avenge their slain comrades. But the Algonquins, running through the
woods, reached the landing before them, and, as one of them rose to fire,
they shot him. In his fall he overset the canoe. The water was shallow,
and the submerged warriors, presently finding foothold, waded towards the
shore, and made desperate fight. The Algonquins had the advantage of
position, and used it so well, that they killed all but three of their
enemies, and captured two of the survivors. Next they sought out the
bodies, carefully scalped them, and set out in triumph on their return.
To the credit of their Jesuit teachers, they treated their prisoners with
a forbearance hitherto without example. One of them, who was defiant and
abusive, received a blow to silence him; but no further indignity was
offered to either.

[ According to Marie de l'Incarnation, Lettre, 14 Sept., 1645, Piskaret
was for torturing the captives; but a convert, named Bernard by the
French, protested against it. ]

As the successful warriors approached the little mission settlement of
Sillery, immediately above Quebec, they raised their song of triumph,
and beat time with their paddles on the edges of their canoes; while,
from eleven poles raised aloft, eleven fresh scalps fluttered in the
wind. The Father Jesuit and all his flock were gathered on the strand to
welcome them. The Indians fired their guns, and screeched in jubilation;
one Jean Baptiste, a Christian chief of Sillery, made a speech from the
shore; Piskaret replied, standing upright in his canoe; and, to crown the
occasion, a squad of soldiers, marching in haste from Quebec, fired a
salute of musketry, to the boundless delight of the Indians. Much to the
surprise of the two captives, there was no running of the gantlet,
no gnawing off of finger-nails or cutting off of fingers; but the scalps
were hung, like little flags, over the entrances of the lodges, and all
Sillery betook itself to feasting and rejoicing. [ Vimont, Relation,
1645, 19-21. ] One old woman, indeed, came to the Jesuit with a
pathetic appeal: "Oh, my Father! let me caress these prisoners a little:
they have killed, burned, and eaten my father, my husband, and my
children." But the missionary, answered with a lecture on the duty of
forgiveness. [ Vimont, Relation, 1645, 21, 22. ]

On the next day, Montmagny came to Sillery, and there was a grand council
in the house of the Jesuits. Piskaret, in a solemn harangue, delivered
his captives to the Governor, who replied with a speech of compliment and
an ample gift. The two Iroquois were present, seated with a seeming
imperturbability, but great anxiety of heart; and when at length they
comprehended that their lives were safe, one of them, a man of great size
and symmetry, rose and addressed Montmagny:--

"Onontio, [ 1 ] I am saved from the fire; my body is delivered from
death. Onontio, you have given me my life. I thank you for it. I will
never forget it. All my country will be grateful to you. The earth will
be bright; the river calm and smooth; there will be peace and friendship
between us. The shadow is before my eyes no longer. The spirits of my
ancestors slain by the Algonquins have disappeared. Onontio, you are
good: we are bad. But our anger is gone; I have no heart but for peace
and rejoicing." As he said this, he began to dance, holding his hands
upraised, as if apostrophizing the sky. Suddenly he snatched a hatchet,
brandished it for a moment like a madman, and then flung it into the fire,
saying, as he did so, "Thus I throw down my anger! thus I cast away the
weapons of blood! Farewell, war! Now I am your friend forever!" [ 2 ]

[ 1 _Onontio_, _Great Mountain_, a translation of Montmagny's name.
It was the Iroquois name ever after for the Governor of Canada. In the
same manner, _Onas_, _Feather_ or _Quill_, became the official name of
William Penn, and all succeeding Governors of Pennsylvania. We have seen
that the Iroquois hereditary chiefs had official names, which are the same
to-day that they were at the period of this narrative. ]

[ 2 Vimont, Relation, 1645, 22, 23. He adds, that, "if these people are
barbarous in deed, they have thoughts worthy of Greeks and Romans." ]

The two prisoners were allowed to roam at will about the settlement,
withheld from escaping by an Indian point of honor. Montmagny soon after
sent them to Three Rivers, where the Iroquois taken during the last
summer had remained all winter. Champfleur, the commandant, now received
orders to clothe, equip, and send him home, with a message to his nation
that Onontio made them a present of his life, and that he had still two
prisoners in his hands, whom he would also give them, if they saw fit to
embrace this opportunity of making peace with the French and their Indian
allies.

This was at the end of May. On the fifth of July following, the
liberated Iroquois reappeared at Three Rivers, bringing with him two men
of renown, ambassadors of the Mohawk nation. There was a fourth man of
the party, and, as they approached, the Frenchmen on the shore recognized,
to their great delight, Guillaume Couture, the young man captured three
years before with Father Jogues, and long since given up as dead.
In dress and appearance he was an Iroquois. He had gained a great
influence over his captors, and this embassy of peace was due in good
measure to his persuasions. [ Marie de l'Incarnation, Lettre, 14 Sept.,
1645. ]

The chief of the Iroquois, Kiotsaton, a tall savage, covered from head to
foot with belts of wampum, stood erect in the prow of the sail-boat which
had brought him and his companions from Richelieu, and in a loud voice
announced himself as the accredited envoy of his nation. The boat fired
a swivel, the fort replied with a cannon-shot, and the envoys landed in
state. Kiotsaton and his colleague were conducted to the room of the
commandant, where, seated on the floor, they were regaled sumptuously,
and presented in due course with pipes of tobacco. They had never before
seen anything so civilized, and were delighted with their entertainment.
"We are glad to see you," said Champfleur to Kiotsaton; "you may be sure
that you are safe here. It is as if you were among your own people,
and in your own house."

"Tell your chief that he lies," replied the honored guest, addressing the
interpreter.

Champfleur, though he probably knew that this was but an Indian mode of
expressing dissent, showed some little surprise; when Kiotsaton, after
tranquilly smoking for a moment, proceeded:--"Your chief says it is as if
I were in my own country. This is not true; for there I am not so
honored and caressed. He says it is as if I were in my own house; but in
my own house I am some times very ill served, and here you feast me with
all manner of good cheer." From this and many other replies, the French
conceived that they had to do with a man of _esprit_. [ Vimont, Relation,
1645, 24. ]

He undoubtedly belonged to that class of professed orators who, though
rarely or never claiming the honors of hereditary chieftainship, had
great influence among the Iroquois, and were employed in all affairs of
embassy and negotiation. They had memories trained to an astonishing
tenacity, were perfect in all the conventional metaphors in which the
language of Indian diplomacy and rhetoric mainly consisted, knew by heart
the traditions of the nation, and were adepts in the parliamentary usages,
which, among the Iroquois, were held little less than sacred.

The ambassadors were feasted for a week, not only by the French, but also
by the Hurons and Algonquins; and then the grand peace council took
place. Montmagny had come up from Quebec, and with him the chief men of
the colony. It was a bright midsummer day; and the sun beat hot upon the
parched area of the fort, where awnings were spread to shelter the
assembly. On one side sat Montmagny, with officers and others who
attended him. Near him was Vimont, Superior of the Mission, and other
Jesuits,--Jogues among the rest. Immediately before them sat the
Iroquois, on sheets of spruce-bark spread on the ground like mats: for
they had insisted on being near the French, as a sign of the extreme love
they had of late conceived towards them. On the opposite side of the
area were the Algonquins, in their several divisions of the Algonquins
proper, the Montagnais, and the Atticamegues, [ 1 ] sitting, lying,
or squatting on the ground. On the right hand and on the left were
Hurons mingled with Frenchmen. In the midst was a large open space like
the arena of a prize-ring; and here were planted two poles with a line
stretched from one to the other, on which, in due time, were to be hung
the wampum belts that represented the words of the orator. For the
present, these belts were in part hung about the persons of the two
ambassadors, and in part stored in a bag carried by one of them.

[ 1 The Atticamegues, or tribe of the White Fish, dwelt in the forests
north of Three Rivers. They much resembled their Montagnais kindred. ]

When all was ready, Kiotsaton arose, strode into the open space, and,
raising his tall figure erect, stood looking for a moment at the sun.
Then he gazed around on the assembly, took a wampum belt in his hand,
and began:--

"Onontio, give ear. I am the mouth of all my nation. When you listen to
me, you listen to all the Iroquois. There is no evil in my heart.
My song is a song of peace. We have many war-songs in our country; but
we have thrown them all away, and now we sing of nothing but gladness and
rejoicing."

Hereupon he began to sing, his countrymen joining with him. He walked to
and fro, gesticulated towards the sky, and seemed to apostrophize the
sun; then, turning towards the Governor, resumed his harangue. First he
thanked him for the life of the Iroquois prisoner released in the spring,
but blamed him for sending him home without company or escort. Then he
led forth the young Frenchman, Guillaume Couture, and tied a wampum belt
to his arm.

"With this," he said, "I give you back this prisoner. I did not say to
him, 'Nephew, take a canoe and go home to Quebec.' I should have been
without sense, had I done so. I should have been troubled in my heart,
lest some evil might befall him. The prisoner whom you sent back to us
suffered every kind of danger and hardship on the way." Here he
proceeded to represent the difficulties of the journey in pantomime,
"so natural," says Father Vimont, "that no actor in France could equal
it." He counterfeited the lonely traveller toiling up some rocky portage
track, with a load of baggage on his head, now stopping as if half spent,
and now tripping against a stone. Next he was in his canoe, vainly
trying to urge it against the swift current, looking around in despair on
the foaming rapids, then recovering courage, and paddling desperately for
his life. "What did you mean," demanded the orator, resuming his
harangue, "by sending a man alone among these dangers? I have not done
so. 'Come, nephew,' I said to the prisoner there before you,"--pointing
to Couture,--"'follow me: I will see you home at the risk of my life.'"
And to confirm his words, he hung another belt on the line.

The third belt was to declare that the nation of the speaker had sent
presents to the other nations to recall their war-parties, in view of the
approaching peace. The fourth was an assurance that the memory of the
slain Iroquois no longer stirred the living to vengeance. "I passed near
the place where Piskaret and the Algonquins slew our warriors in the
spring. I saw the scene of the fight where the two prisoners here were
taken. I passed quickly; I would not look on the blood of my people.
Their bodies lie there still; I turned away my eyes, that I might not be
angry." Then, stooping, he struck the ground and seemed to listen.
"I heard the voice of my ancestors, slain by the Algonquins, crying to me
in a tone of affection, 'My grandson, my grandson, restrain your anger:
think no more of us, for you cannot deliver us from death; think of the
living; rescue them from the knife and the fire.' When I heard these
voices, I went on my way, and journeyed hither to deliver those whom you
still hold in captivity."

The fifth, sixth, and seventh belts were to open the passage by water
from the French to the Iroquois, to chase hostile canoes from the river,
smooth away the rapids and cataracts, and calm the waves of the lake.
The eighth cleared the path by land. "You would have said," writes
Vimont, "that he was cutting down trees, hacking off branches, dragging
away bushes, and filling up holes."--"Look!" exclaimed the orator,
when he had ended this pantomime, "the road is open, smooth, and
straight"; and he bent towards the earth, as if to see that no impediment
remained. "There is no thorn, or stone, or log in the way. Now you may
see the smoke of our villages from Quebec to the heart of our country."

Another belt, of unusual size and beauty, was to bind the Iroquois,
the French, and their Indian allies together as one man. As he presented
it, the orator led forth a Frenchman and an Algonquin from among his
auditors, and, linking his arms with theirs, pressed them closely to his
sides, in token of indissoluble union.

The next belt invited the French to feast with the Iroquois. "Our
country is full of fish, venison, moose, beaver, and game of every kind.
Leave these filthy swine that run about among your houses, feeding on
garbage, and come and eat good food with us. The road is open; there is
no danger."

There was another belt to scatter the clouds, that the sun might shine on
the hearts of the Indians and the French, and reveal their sincerity and
truth to all; then others still, to confirm the Hurons in thoughts of
peace. By the fifteenth belt, Kiotsaton declared that the Iroquois had
always wished to send home Jogues and Bressani to their friends, and had
meant to do so; but that Jogues was stolen from them by the Dutch,
and they had given Bressani to them because he desired it. "If he had
but been patient," added the ambassador, "I would have brought him back
myself. Now I know not what has befallen him. Perhaps he is drowned.
Perhaps he is dead." Here Jogues said, with a smile, to the Jesuits near
him, "They had the pile laid to burn me. They would have killed me a
hundred times, if God had not saved my life."

Two or three more belts were hung on the line, each with its appropriate
speech; and, then the speaker closed his harangue: "I go to spend what
remains of the summer in my own country, in games and dances and
rejoicing for the blessing of peace." He had interspersed his discourse
throughout with now a song and now a dance; and the council ended in a
general dancing, in which Iroquois, Hurons, Algonquins, Montagnais,
Atticamegues, and French, all took part, after their respective fashions.

In spite of one or two palpable falsehoods that embellished his oratory,
the Jesuits were delighted with him. "Every one admitted," says Vimont,
"that he was eloquent and pathetic. In short, he showed himself an
excellent actor, for one who has had no instructor but Nature. I
gathered only a few fragments of his speech from the mouth of the
interpreter, who gave us but broken portions of it, and did not translate
consecutively."

[ Vimont describes the council at length in the Relation of 1645.
Marie de l'Incarnation also describes it in a letter to her son, of
Sept. 14, 1645. She evidently gained her information from Vimont and
the other Jesuits present. ]

Two days after, another council was called, when the Governor gave his
answer, accepting the proffered peace, and confirming his acceptance by
gifts of considerable value. He demanded as a condition, that the Indian
allies of the French should be left unmolested, until their principal
chiefs, who were not then present, should make a formal treaty with the
Iroquois in behalf of their several nations. Piskaret then made a
present to wipe away the remembrance of the Iroquois he had slaughtered,
and the assembly was dissolved.

In the evening, Vimont invited the ambassadors to the mission-house,
and gave each of them a sack of tobacco and a pipe. In return, Kiotsaton
made him a speech: "When I left my country, I gave up my life; I went to
meet death, and I owe it to you that I am yet alive. I thank you that I
still see the sun; I thank you for all your words and acts of kindness; I
thank you for your gifts. You have covered me with them from head to
foot. You left nothing free but my mouth; and now you have stopped that
with a handsome pipe, and regaled it with the taste of the herb we love.
I bid you farewell,--not for a long time, for you will hear from us soon.
Even if we should be drowned on our way home, the winds and the waves
will bear witness to our countrymen of your favors; and I am sure that
some good spirit has gone before us to tell them of the good news that we
are about to bring." [ Vimont, Relation, 1645, 28. ]

On the next day, he and his companion set forth on their return.
Kiotsaton, when he saw his party embarked, turned to the French and
Indians who lined the shore, and said with a loud voice, "Farewell,
brothers! I am one of your relations now." Then turning to the
Governor,--"Onontio, your name will be great over all the earth. When I
came hither, I never thought to carry back my head, I never thought to
come out of your doors alive; and now I return loaded with honors, gifts,
and kindness." "Brothers,"--to the Indians,--"obey Onontio and the
French. Their hearts and their thoughts are good. Be friends with them,
and do as they do. You shall hear from us soon."

The Indians whooped and fired their guns; there was a cannon-shot from
the fort; and the sail-boat that bore the distinguished visitors moved on
its way towards the Richelieu.

But the work was not done. There must be more councils, speeches,
wampum-belts, and gifts of all kinds,--more feasts, dances, songs,
and uproar. The Indians gathered at Three Rivers were not sufficient in
numbers or in influence to represent their several tribes; and more were
on their way. The principal men of the Hurons were to come down this
year, with Algonquins of many tribes, from the North and the Northwest;
and Kiotsaton had promised that Iroquois ambassadors, duly empowered,
should meet them at Three Rivers, and make a solemn peace with them all,
under the eye of Onontio. But what hope was there that this swarm of
fickle and wayward savages could be gathered together at one time and at
one place,--or that, being there, they could be restrained from cutting
each other's throats? Yet so it was; and in this happy event the Jesuits
saw the interposition of God, wrought upon by the prayers of those pious
souls in France who daily and nightly besieged Heaven with supplications
for the welfare of the Canadian missions. [ Vimont, Relation, 1645, 29. ]

First came a band of Montagnais; next followed Nipissings, Atticamegues,
and Algonquins of the Ottawa, their canoes deep-laden with furs. Then,
on the tenth of September, appeared the great fleet of the Hurons,
sixty canoes, bearing a host of warriors, among whom the French
recognized the tattered black cassock of Father Jerome Lalemant. There
were twenty French soldiers, too, returning from the Huron country,
whither they had been sent the year before, to guard the Fathers and
their flock.

Three Rivers swarmed like an ant-hill with savages. The shore was lined
with canoes; the forests and the fields were alive with busy camps.
The trade was brisk; and in its attendant speeches, feasts, and dances,
there was no respite.

But where were the Iroquois? Montmagny and the Jesuits grew very
anxious. In a few days more the concourse would begin to disperse,
and the golden moment be lost. It was a great relief when a canoe
appeared with tidings that the promised embassy was on its way; and yet
more, when, on the seventeenth, four Iroquois approached the shore, and,
in a loud voice, announced themselves as envoys of their nation. The
tumult was prodigious. Montmagny's soldiers formed a double rank,
and the savage rabble, with wild eyes and faces smeared with grease and
paint, stared over the shoulders and between the gun-barrels of the
musketeers, as the ambassadors of their deadliest foe stalked, with
unmoved visages, towards the fort.

Now council followed council, with an insufferable prolixity of
speech-making. There were belts to wipe out the memory of the slain;
belts to clear the sky, smooth the rivers, and calm the lakes; a belt to
take the hatchet from the hands of the Iroquois; another to take away
their guns; another to take away their shields; another to wash the
war-paint from their faces; and another to break the kettle in which they
boiled their prisoners. [ Vimont, Relation, 1645, 34. ] In short,
there were belts past numbering, each with its meaning, sometimes literal,
sometimes figurative, but all bearing upon the great work of peace.
At length all was ended. The dances ceased, the songs and the whoops
died away, and the great muster dispersed,--some to their smoky lodges on
the distant shores of Lake Huron, and some to frozen hunting-grounds in
northern forests.

There was peace in this dark and blood-stained wilderness. The lynx,
the panther, and the wolf had made a covenant of love; but who should be
their surety? A doubt and a fear mingled with the joy of the Jesuit
Fathers; and to their thanksgivings to God they joined a prayer, that the
hand which had given might still be stretched forth to preserve.

CHAPTER XX.

1645, 1646.

THE PEACE BROKEN.

UNCERTAINTIES.--THE MISSION OF JOGUES.--HE REACHES THE MOHAWKS.--
HIS RECEPTION.--HIS RETURN.--HIS SECOND MISSION.--WARNINGS OF DANGER.--
RAGE OF THE MOHAWKS.--MURDER OF JOGUES.

There is little doubt that the Iroquois negotiators acted, for the moment,
in sincerity. Guillaume Couture, who returned with them and spent the
winter in their towns, saw sufficient proof that they sincerely desired
peace. And yet the treaty had a double defect. First, the wayward,
capricious, and ungoverned nature of the Indian parties to it, on both
sides, made a speedy rupture more than likely. Secondly, in spite of
their own assertion to the contrary, the Iroquois envoys represented,
not the confederacy of the five nations, but only one of these nations,
the Mohawks: for each of the members of this singular league could,
and often did, make peace and war independently of the rest.

It was the Mohawks who had made war on the French and their Indian allies
on the lower St. Lawrence. They claimed, as against the other Iroquois,
a certain right of domain to all this region; and though the warriors of
the four upper nations had sometimes poached on the Mohawk preserve,
by murdering both French and Indians at Montreal, they employed their
energies for the most part in attacks on the Hurons, the Upper Algonquins,
and other tribes of the interior. These attacks still continued,
unaffected by the peace with the Mohawks. Imperfect, however, as the
treaty was, it was invaluable, could it but be kept inviolate; and to
this end Montmagny, the Jesuits, and all the colony, anxiously turned
their thoughts.

[ The Mohawks were at this time more numerous, as compared with the other
four nations of the Iroquois, than they were a few years later. They
seem to have suffered more reverses in war than any of the others.
At this time they may be reckoned at six or seven hundred warriors.
A war with the Mohegans, and another with the Andastes, besides their war
with the Algonquins and the French of Canada soon after, told severely on
their strength. The following are estimates of the numbers of the
Iroquois warriors made in 1660 by the author of the Relation of that year,
and by Wentworth Greenhalgh in 1677, from personal inspection:--

1660. 1677.

Mohawks . . . . . 500 . . 300
Oneidas . . . . . 100 . . 200
Onondagas . . . . 300 . . 350
Cayugas . . . . . 300 . . 300
Senecas . . . . . 1,000 . . 1,000
----- -----
2,200 2,150 ]

It was to hold the Mohawks to their faith that Couture had bravely gone
back to winter among them; but an agent of more acknowledged weight was
needed, and Father Isaac Jogues was chosen. No white man, Couture
excepted, knew their language and their character so well. His errand
was half political, half religious; for not only was he to be the bearer
of gifts, wampum-belts, and messages from the Governor, but he was also
to found a new mission, christened in advance with a prophetic name,--the
Mission of the Martyrs.

For two years past, Jogues had been at Montreal; and it was here that he
received the order of his Superior to proceed to the Mohawk towns.
At first, nature asserted itself, and he recoiled involuntarily at the
thought of the horrors of which his scarred body and his mutilated hands
were a living memento. [ Lettre du P. Isaac Jogues au B. P. Jérosme
L'Allemant. Montreal, 2 Mai, 1646. MS. ] It was a transient weakness;
and he prepared to depart with more than willingness, giving thanks to
Heaven that he had been found worthy to suffer and to die for the saving
of souls and the greater glory of God.

He felt a presentiment that his death was near, and wrote to a friend,
"I shall go, and shall not return." [ "Ibo et non redibo." Lettre du
P. Jogues au R. P. No date. ] An Algonquin convert gave him sage
advice. "Say nothing about the Faith at first, for there is nothing so
repulsive, in the beginning, as our doctrine, which seems to destroy
everything that men hold dear; and as your long cassock preaches, as well
as your lips, you had better put on a short coat." Jogues, therefore,
exchanged the uniform of Loyola for a civilian's doublet and hose; "for,"
observes his Superior, "one should be all things to all men, that he may
gain them all to Jesus Christ." [ Lalemant, Relation, 1646, 15. ]
It would be well, if the application of the maxim had always been as
harmless.

Jogues left Three Rivers about the middle of May, with the Sieur Bourdon,
engineer to the Governor, two Algonquins with gifts to confirm the peace,
and four Mohawks as guides and escort. He passed the Richelieu and Lake
Champlain, well-remembered scenes of former miseries, and reached the
foot of Lake George on the eve of Corpus Christi. Thence he called the
lake Lac St. Sacrement; and this name it preserved, until, a century
after, an ambitious Irishman, in compliment to the sovereign from whom he
sought advancement, gave it the name it bears.

[ Mr. Shea very reasonably suggests, that a change from Lake George to
Lake Jogues would be equally easy and appropriate. ]

From Lake George they crossed on foot to the Hudson, where, being greatly
fatigued by their heavy loads of gifts, they borrowed canoes at an
Iroquois fishing station, and descended to Fort Orange. Here Jogues met
the Dutch friends to whom he owed his life, and who now kindly welcomed
and entertained him. After a few days he left them, and ascended the
River Mohawk to the first Mohawk town. Crowds gathered from the
neighboring towns to gaze on the man whom they had known as a scorned and
abused slave, and who now appeared among them as the ambassador of a
power which hitherto, indeed, they had despised, but which in their
present mood they were willing to propitiate.

There was a council in one of the lodges; and while his crowded auditory
smoked their pipes, Jogues stood in the midst, and harangued them.
He offered in due form the gifts of the Governor, with the wampum belts
and their messages of peace, while at every pause his words were echoed
by a unanimous grunt of applause from the attentive concourse. Peace
speeches were made in return; and all was harmony. When, however,
the Algonquin deputies stood before the council, they and their gifts
were coldly received. The old hate, maintained by traditions of mutual
atrocity, burned fiercely under a thin semblance of peace; and though no
outbreak took place, the prospect of the future was very ominous.

The business of the embassy was scarcely finished, when the Mohawks
counselled Jogues and his companions to go home with all despatch, saying,
that, if they waited longer, they might meet on the way warriors of the
four upper nations, who would inevitably kill the two Algonquin deputies,
if not the French also. Jogues, therefore, set out on his return; but
not until, despite the advice of the Indian convert, he had made the
round of the houses, confessed and instructed a few Christian prisoners
still remaining here, and baptized several dying Mohawks. Then he and
his party crossed through the forest to the southern extremity of Lake
George, made bark canoes, and descended to Fort Richelieu, where they
arrived on the twenty seventh of June. [ Lalemant, Relation, 1646, 17. ]

His political errand was accomplished. Now, should he return to the
Mohawks, or should the Mission of the Martyrs be for a time abandoned?
Lalemant, who had succeeded Vimont as Superior of the missions, held a
council at Quebec with three other Jesuits, of whom Jogues was one,
and it was determined, that, unless some new contingency should arise,
he should remain for the winter at Montreal. [ Journal des Supérieurs
des Jésuites. MS. ] This was in July. Soon after, the plan was changed,
for reasons which do not appear, and Jogues received orders to repair to
his dangerous post. He set out on the twenty-fourth of August,
accompanied by a young Frenchman named Lalande, and three or four Hurons.
[ Journal des Supérieurs des Jésuites. MS. ] On the way they met
Indians who warned them of a change of feeling in the Mohawk towns,
and the Hurons, alarmed, refused to go farther. Jogues, naturally
perhaps the most timid man of the party, had no thought of drawing back,
and pursued his journey with his young companion, who, like other _donnés_
of the missions; was scarcely behind the Jesuits themselves in devoted
enthusiasm.

The reported change of feeling had indeed taken place; and the occasion
of it was characteristic. On his previous visit to the Mohawks, Jogues,
meaning to return, had left in their charge a small chest or box.
From the first they were distrustful, suspecting that it contained some
secret mischief. He therefore opened it, and showed them the contents,
which were a few personal necessaries; and having thus, as he thought,
reassured them, locked the box, and left it in their keeping. The Huron
prisoners in the town attempted to make favor with their Iroquois enemies
by abusing their French friends,--declaring them to be sorcerers, who had
bewitched, by their charms and mummeries, the whole Huron nation, and
caused drought, famine, pestilence, and a host of insupportable miseries.
Thereupon, the suspicions of the Mohawks against the box revived with
double force, and they were convinced that famine, the pest, or some
malignant spirit was shut up in it, waiting the moment to issue forth and
destroy them. There was sickness in the town, and caterpillars were
eating their corn: this was ascribed to the sorceries of the Jesuit.
[ Lettre de Marie de l'Incarnation à son Fils. Québec, . . . 1647. ]
Still they were divided in opinion. Some stood firm for the French;
others were furious against them. Among the Mohawks, three clans or
families were predominant, if indeed they did not compose the entire
nation,--the clans of the Bear, the Tortoise, and the Wolf. [ See
Introduction. ] Though, by the nature of their constitution, it was
scarcely possible that these clans should come to blows, so intimately
were they bound together by ties of blood, yet they were often divided on
points of interest or policy; and on this occasion the Bear raged against
the French, and howled for war, while the Tortoise and the Wolf still
clung to the treaty. Among savages, with no government except the
intermittent one of councils, the party of action and violence must
always prevail. The Bear chiefs sang their war-songs, and, followed by
the young men of their own clan, and by such others as they had infected
with their frenzy, set forth, in two bands, on the war-path.

The warriors of one of these bands were making their way through the
forests between the Mohawk and Lake George, when they met Jogues and
Lalande. They seized them, stripped them, and led them in triumph to
their town. Here a savage crowd surrounded them, beating them with
sticks and with their fists. One of them cut thin strips of flesh from
the back and arms of Jogues, saying, as he did so, "Let us see if this
white flesh is the flesh of an oki."--"I am a man like yourselves,"
replied Jogues; "but I do not fear death or torture. I do not know why
you would kill me. I come here to confirm the peace and show you the
way to heaven, and you treat me like a dog." [ 1 ]--"You shall die
to-morrow," cried the rabble. "Take courage, we shall not burn you.
We shall strike you both with a hatchet, and place your heads on the
palisade, that your brothers may see you when we take them prisoners."
[ 2 ] The clans of the Wolf and the Tortoise still raised their voices
in behalf of the captive Frenchmen; but the fury of the minority swept
all before it.

[ 1 Lettre du P. De Quen au R. P. Lallemant; no date. MS. ]

[ 2 Lettre de J. Labatie à M. La Montagne, Fort d'Orange, 30 Oct. 1646.
MS. ]

In the evening,--it was the eighteenth of October,--Jogues, smarting with
his wounds and bruises, was sitting in one of the lodges, when an Indian
entered, and asked him to a feast. To refuse would have been an offence.
He arose and followed the savage, who led him to the lodge of the Bear
chief. Jogues bent his head to enter, when another Indian, standing
concealed within, at the side of the doorway, struck at him with a
hatchet. An Iroquois, called by the French Le Berger, [ 1 ] who seems to
have followed in order to defend him, bravely held out his arm to ward
off the blow; but the hatchet cut through it, and sank into the
missionary's brain. He fell at the feet of his murderer, who at once
finished the work by hacking off his head. Lalande was left in suspense
all night, and in the morning was killed in a similar manner. The bodies
of the two Frenchmen were then thrown into the Mohawk, and their heads
displayed on the points of the palisade which inclosed the town. [ 2 ]

[ 1 It has been erroneously stated that this brave attempt to save
Jogues was made by the orator Kiotsaton. Le Berger was one of those who
had been made prisoners by Piskaret, and treated kindly by the French.
In 1648, he voluntarily came to Three Rivers, and gave himself up to a
party of Frenchmen. He was converted, baptized, and carried to France,
where his behavior is reported to have been very edifying, but where he
soon died. "Perhaps he had eaten his share of more than fifty men,"
is the reflection of Father Ragueneau, after recounting his exemplary
conduct.--Relation, 1650, 43-48. ]

[ 2 In respect to the death of Jogues, the best authority is the letter
of Labatie, before cited. He was the French interpreter at Fort Orange,
and, being near the scene of the murder, took pains to learn the facts.
The letter was inclosed in another written to Montmagny by the Dutch
Governor, Kieft, which is also before me, together with a MS. account,
written from hearsay, by Father Buteux, and a letter of De Quen, cited
above. Compare the Relations of 1647 and 1650. ]

Thus died Isaac Jogues, one of the purest examples of Roman Catholic
virtue which this Western continent has seen. The priests, his
associates, praise his humility, and tell us that it reached the point of
self-contempt,--a crowning virtue in their eyes; that he regarded himself
as nothing, and lived solely to do the will of God as uttered by the lips
of his Superiors. They add, that, when left to the guidance of his own
judgment, his self-distrust made him very slow of decision, but that,
when acting under orders, he knew neither hesitation nor fear. With all
his gentleness, he had a certain warmth or vivacity of temperament; and
we have seen how, during his first captivity, while humbly submitting to
every caprice of his tyrants and appearing to rejoice in abasement,
a derisive word against his faith would change the lamb into the lion,
and the lips that seemed so tame would speak in sharp, bold tones of
menace and reproof.

CHAPTER XXI.

1646, 1647.

ANOTHER WAR.

MOHAWK INROADS.--THE HUNTERS OF MEN.--THE CAPTIVE CONVERTS.--
THE ESCAPE OF MARIE.--HER STORY.--THE ALGONQUIN PRISONER'S REVENGE.--
HER FLIGHT.--TERROR OF THE COLONISTS.--JESUIT INTREPIDITY.

The peace was broken, and the hounds of war turned loose. The contagion
spread through all the Mohawk nation, the war-songs were sung, and the
warriors took the path for Canada. The miserable colonists and their
more miserable allies woke from their dream of peace to a reality of fear
and horror. Again Montreal and Three Rivers were beset with murdering
savages, skulking in thickets and prowling under cover of night, yet,
when it came to blows, displaying a courage almost equal to the ferocity
that inspired it. They plundered and burned Fort Richelieu, which its
small garrison had abandoned, thus leaving the colony without even the
semblance of protection. Before the spring opened, all the fighting men
of the Mohawks took the war-path; but it is clear that many of them still
had little heart for their bloody and perfidious work; for, of these
hardy and all-enduring warriors, two-thirds gave out on the way, and
returned, complaining that the season was too severe. [ Lettre du
P. Buteux au R. P. Lalemant. MS. ] Two hundred or more kept on, divided
into several bands.

On Ash-Wednesday, the French at Three Rivers were at mass in the chapel,
when the Iroquois, quietly approaching, plundered two houses close to the
fort, containing all the property of the neighboring inhabitants, which
had been brought hither as to a place of security. They hid their booty,
and then went in quest of two large parties of Christian Algonquins
engaged in their winter hunt. Two Indians of the same nation, whom they
captured, basely set them on the trail; and they took up the chase like
hounds on the scent of game. Wrapped in furs or blanket-coats, some with
gun in hand, some with bows and quivers, and all with hatchets, war-clubs,
knives, or swords,--striding on snow-shoes, with bodies half bent,
through the gray forests and the frozen pine-swamps, among wet, black
trunks, along dark ravines and under savage hill-sides, their small,
fierce eyes darting quick glances that pierced the farthest recesses of
the naked woods,--the hunters of men followed the track of their human
prey. At length they descried the bark wigwams of the Algonquin camp.
The warriors were absent; none were here but women and children. The
Iroquois surrounded the huts, and captured all the shrieking inmates.
Then ten of them set out to find the traces of the absent hunters.
They soon met the renowned Piskaret returning alone. As they recognized
him and knew his mettle, they thought treachery better than an open
attack. They therefore approached him in the attitude of friends; while
he, ignorant of the rupture of the treaty, began to sing his peace-song.
Scarcely had they joined him, when one of them ran a sword through his
body; and, having scalped him, they returned in triumph to their
companions. [ 1 ] All the hunters were soon after waylaid, overpowered
by numbers, and killed or taken prisoners.

[ 1 Lalemant, Relation, 1647, 4. Marie de l'Incarnation, Lettre à son
Fils. Québec, . . . 1647. Perrot's account, drawn from tradition,
is different, though not essentially so. ]

Another band of the Mohawks had meanwhile pursued the other party of
Algonquins, and overtaken them on the march, as, incumbered with their
sledges and baggage, they were moving from one hunting-camp to another.
Though taken by surprise, they made fight, and killed several of their
assailants; but in a few moments their resistance was overcome, and those
who survived the fray were helpless in the clutches of the enraged
victors. Then began a massacre of the old, the disabled, and the infants,
with the usual beating, gashing, and severing of fingers to the rest.
The next day, the two bands of Mohawks, each with its troop of captives
fast bound, met at an appointed spot on the Lake of St. Peter, and
greeted each other with yells of exultation, with which mingled a wail of
anguish, as the prisoners of either party recognized their companions in
misery. They all kneeled in the midst of their savage conquerors,
and one of the men, a noted convert, after a few words of exhortation,
repeated in a loud voice a prayer, to which the rest responded. Then
they sang an Algonquin hymn, while the Iroquois, who at first had stared
in wonder, broke into laughter and derision, and at length fell upon them
with renewed fury. One was burned alive on the spot. Another tried to
escape, and they burned the soles of his feet that he might not repeat
the attempt. Many others were maimed and mangled; and some of the women
who afterwards escaped affirmed, that, in ridicule of the converts,
they crucified a small child by nailing it with wooden spikes against a
thick sheet of bark.

The prisoners were led to the Mohawk towns; and it is needless to repeat
the monotonous and revolting tale of torture and death. The men, as
usual, were burned; but the lives of the women and children were spared,
in order to strengthen the conquerors by their adoption,--not, however,
until both, but especially the women, had been made to endure the
extremes of suffering and indignity. Several of them from time to time
escaped, and reached Canada with the story of their woes. Among these
was Marie, the wife of Jean Baptiste, one of the principal Algonquin
converts, captured and burned with the rest. Early in June, she appeared
in a canoe at Montreal, where Madame d'Ailleboust, to whom she was well
known, received her with great kindness, and led her to her room in the
fort. Here Marie was overcome with emotion. Madame d'Ailleboust spoke
Algonquin with ease; and her words of sympathy, joined to the
associations of a place where the unhappy fugitive, with her murdered
husband and child, had often found a friendly welcome, so wrought upon
her, that her voice was smothered with sobs.

She had once before been a prisoner of the Iroquois, at the town of
Onondaga. When she and her companions in misfortune had reached the
Mohawk towns, she was recognized by several Onondagas who chanced to be
there, and who, partly by threats and partly by promises, induced her to
return with them to the scene of her former captivity, where they assured
her of good treatment. With their aid, she escaped from the Mohawks,
and set out with them for Onondaga. On their way, they passed the great
town of the Oneidas; and her conductors, fearing that certain Mohawks who
were there would lay claim to her, found a hiding-place for her in the
forest, where they gave her food, and told her to wait their return.
She lay concealed all day, and at night approached the town, under cover
of darkness. A dull red glare of flames rose above the jagged tops of
the palisade that encompassed it; and, from the pandemonium within,
an uproar of screams, yells, and bursts of laughter told her that they
were burning one of her captive countrymen. She gazed and listened,
shivering with cold and aghast with horror. The thought possessed her
that she would soon share his fate, and she resolved to fly. The ground
was still covered with snow, and her footprints would infallibly have
betrayed her, if she had not, instead of turning towards home, followed
the beaten Indian path westward. She journeyed on, confused and
irresolute, and tortured between terror and hunger. At length she
approached Onondaga, a few miles from the present city of Syracuse,
and hid herself in a dense thicket of spruce or cedar, whence she crept
forth at night, to grope in the half-melted snow for a few ears of corn,
left from the last year's harvest. She saw many Indians from her
lurking-place, and once a tall savage, with an axe on his shoulder,
advanced directly towards the spot where she lay: but, in the extremity
of her fright, she murmured a prayer, on which he turned and changed his
course. The fate that awaited her, if she remained,--for a fugitive
could not hope for mercy,--and the scarcely less terrible dangers of the
pitiless wilderness between her and Canada, filled her with despair,
for she was half dead already with hunger and cold. She tied her girdle
to the bough of a tree, and hung herself from it by the neck. The cord
broke. She repeated the attempt with the same result, and then the
thought came to her that God meant to save her life. The snow by this
time had melted in the forests, and she began her journey for home,
with a few handfuls of corn as her only provision. She directed her
course by the sun, and for food dug roots, peeled the soft inner bark of
trees, and sometimes caught tortoises in the muddy brooks. She had the
good fortune to find a hatchet in a deserted camp, and with it made one
of those wooden implements which the Indians used for kindling fire by
friction. This saved her from her worst suffering; for she had no
covering but a thin tunic, which left her legs and arms bare, and exposed
her at night to tortures of cold. She built her fire in some deep nook
of the forest, warmed herself, cooked what food she had found, told her
rosary on her fingers, and slept till daylight, when she always threw
water on the embers, lest the rising smoke should attract attention.
Once she discovered a party of Iroquois hunters; but she lay concealed,
and they passed without seeing her. She followed their trail back,
and found their bark canoe, which they had hidden near the bank of a
river. It was too large for her use; but, as she was a practised
canoe-maker, she reduced it to a convenient size, embarked in it, and
descended the stream. At length she reached the St. Lawrence, and
paddled with the current towards Montreal. On islands and rocky shores
she found eggs of water-fowl in abundance; and she speared fish with a
sharpened pole, hardened at the point with fire. She even killed deer,
by driving them into the water, chasing them in her canoe, and striking
them on the head with her hatchet. When she landed at Montreal, her
canoe had still a good store of eggs and dried venison.

[ This story is taken from the Relation of 1647, and the letter of Marie
de l'Incarnation to her son, before cited. The woman must have descended
the great rapids of Lachine in her canoe: a feat demanding no ordinary
nerve and skill. ]

Her journey from Onondaga had occupied about two months, under hardships
which no woman but a squaw could have survived. Escapes not less
remarkable of several other women are chronicled in the records of this
year; and one of them, with a notable feat of arms which attended it,
calls for a brief notice.

Eight Algonquins, in one of those fits of desperate valor which sometimes
occur in Indians, entered at midnight a camp where thirty or forty
Iroquois warriors were buried in sleep, and with quick, sharp blows of
their tomahawks began to brain them as they lay. They killed ten of them
on the spot, and wounded many more. The rest, panic-stricken and
bewildered by the surprise and the thick darkness, fled into the forest,
leaving all they had in the hands of the victors, including a number of
Algonquin captives, of whom one had been unwittingly killed by his
countrymen in the confusion. Another captive, a woman, had escaped on a
previous night. They had stretched her on her back, with limbs extended,
and bound her wrists and ankles to four stakes firmly driven into the
earth,--their ordinary mode of securing prisoners. Then, as usual,
they all fell asleep. She presently became aware that the cord that
bound one of her wrists was somewhat loose, and, by long and painful
efforts, she freed her hand. To release the other hand and her feet was
then comparatively easy. She cautiously rose. Around her, breathing in
deep sleep, lay stretched the dark forms of the unconscious warriors,
scarcely visible in the gloom. She stepped over them to the entrance of
the hut; and here, as she was passing out, she descried a hatchet on the
ground. The temptation was too strong for her Indian nature. She seized
it, and struck again and again, with all her force, on the skull of the
Iroquois who lay at the entrance. The sound of the blows, and the
convulsive struggles of the victim, roused the sleepers. They sprang up,
groping in the dark, and demanding of each other what was the matter.
At length they lighted a roll of birch-bark, found their prisoner gone
and their comrade dead, and rushed out in a rage in search of the
fugitive. She, meanwhile, instead of running away, had hid herself in
the hollow of a tree, which she had observed the evening before. Her
pursuers ran through the dark woods, shouting and whooping to each other;
and when all had passed, she crept from her hiding-place, and fled in an
opposite direction. In the morning they found her tracks and followed
them. On the second day they had overtaken and surrounded her, when,
hearing their cries on all sides, she gave up all hope. But near at hand,
in the thickest depths of the forest, the beavers had dammed a brook and
formed a pond, full of gnawed stumps, dead fallen trees, rank weeds,
and tangled bushes. She plunged in, and, swimming and wading, found a
hiding-place, where her body was concealed by the water, and her head by
the masses of dead and living vegetation. Her pursuers were at fault,
and, after a long search, gave up the chase in despair. Shivering, naked,
and half-starved, she crawled out from her wild asylum, and resumed her
flight. By day, the briers and bushes tore her unprotected limbs; by
night, she shivered with cold, and the mosquitoes and small black gnats
of the forest persecuted her with torments which the modern sportsman
will appreciate. She subsisted on such roots, bark, reptiles, or other
small animals, as her Indian habits enabled her to gather on her way.
She crossed streams by swimming, or on rafts of driftwood, lashed
together with strips of linden-bark; and at length reached the
St. Lawrence, where, with the aid of her hatchet, she made a canoe.
Her home was on the Ottawa, and she was ignorant of the great river, or,
at least, of this part of it. She had scarcely even seen a Frenchman,
but had heard of the French as friends, and knew that their dwellings
were on the banks of the St. Lawrence. This was her only guide; and she
drifted on her way, doubtful whether the vast current would bear her to
the abodes of the living or to the land of souls. She passed the watery
wilderness of the Lake of St. Peter, and presently descried a Huron
canoe. Fearing that it was an enemy, she hid herself, and resumed her
voyage in the evening, when she soon came in sight of the wooden
buildings and palisades of Three Rivers. Several Hurons saw her at the
same moment, and made towards her; on which she leaped ashore and hid in
the bushes, whence, being entirely without clothing, she would not come
out till one of them threw her his coat. Having wrapped herself in it,
she went with them to the fort and the house of the Jesuits, in a
wretched state of emaciation, but in high spirits at the happy issue of
her voyage. [ Lalemant, Relation, 1647, 15, 16. ]

Such stories might be multiplied; but these will suffice. Nor is it
necessary to dwell further on the bloody record of inroads, butcheries,
and tortures. We have seen enough to show the nature of the scourge that
now fell without mercy on the Indians and the French of Canada. There
was no safety but in the imprisonment of palisades and ramparts. A deep
dejection sank on the white and red men alike; but the Jesuits would not
despair.

"Do not imagine," writes the Father Superior, "that the rage of the
Iroquois, and the loss of many Christians and many catechumens, can bring
to nought the mystery of the cross of Jesus Christ, and the efficacy of
his blood. We shall die; we shall be captured, burned, butchered: be it
so. Those who die in their beds do not always die the best death.
I see none of our company cast down. On the contrary, they ask leave to
go up to the Hurons, and some of them protest that the fires of the
Iroquois are one of their motives for the journey." [ Lalemant, Relation,
1647, 8. ]

CHAPTER XXII.

1645-1651.

PRIEST AND PURITAN.

MISCOU.--TADOUSSAC.--JOURNEYS OF DE QUEN.--DRUILLETES.--
HIS WINTER WITH THE MONTAGNAIS.--INFLUENCE OF THE MISSIONS.--
THE ABENAQUIS.--DRUILLETES ON THE KENNEBEC.--HIS EMBASSY TO BOSTON.--
GIBBONS.--DUDLEY.--BRADFORD.--ELIOT.--ENDICOTT.--
FRENCH AND PURITAN COLONIZATION.--FAILURE OF DRUILLETES'S EMBASSY.--
NEW REGULATIONS.--NEW-YEAR'S DAY AT QUEBEC.

Before passing to the closing scenes of this wilderness drama, we will
touch briefly on a few points aside from its main action, yet essential
to an understanding of the scope of the mission. Besides their
establishments at Quebec, Sillery, Three Rivers, and the neighborhood of
Lake Huron, the Jesuits had an outlying post at the island of Miscou,
on the Gulf of St. Lawrence, near the entrance of the Bay of Chaleurs,
where they instructed the wandering savages of those shores, and
confessed the French fishermen. The island was unhealthy in the extreme.
Several of the priests sickened and died; and scarcely one convert repaid
their toils. There was a more successful mission at Tadoussac, or
Sadilege, as the neighboring Indians called it. In winter, this place
was a solitude; but in summer, when the Montagnais gathered from their
hunting-grounds to meet the French traders, Jesuits came yearly from
Quebec to instruct them in the Faith. Some times they followed them
northward, into wilds where, at this day, a white man rarely penetrates.
Thus, in 1646, De Quen ascended the Saguenay, and, by a series of rivers,
torrents, lakes, and rapids, reached a Montagnais horde called the Nation
of the Porcupine, where he found that the teachings at Tadoussac had
borne fruit, and that the converts had planted a cross on the borders of
the savage lake where they dwelt. There was a kindred band, the Nation
of the White Fish, among the rocks and forests north of Three Rivers.
They proved tractable beyond all others, threw away their "medicines"
or fetiches, burned their magic drums, renounced their medicine-songs,
and accepted instead rosaries, crucifixes, and versions of Catholic hymns.

In a former chapter, we followed Father Paul Le Jeune on his winter
roamings, with a band of Montagnais, among the forests on the northern
boundary of Maine. Now Father Gabriel Druilletes sets forth on a similar
excursion, but with one essential difference. Le Jeune's companions were
heathen, who persecuted him day and night with their gibes and sarcasms.
Those of Druilletes were all converts, who looked on him as a friend and
a father. There were prayers, confessions, masses, and invocations of
St. Joseph. They built their bark chapel at every camp, and no festival
of the Church passed unobserved. On Good Friday they laid their best
robe of beaver-skin on the snow, placed on it a crucifix, and knelt
around it in prayer. What was their prayer? It was a petition for the
forgiveness and the conversion of their enemies, the Iroquois. [ Vimont,
Relation, 1645, 16. ] Those who know the intensity and tenacity of an
Indian's hatred will see in this something more than a change from one
superstition to another. An idea had been presented to the mind of the
savage, to which he had previously been an utter stranger. This is the
most remarkable record of success in the whole body of the Jesuit
Relations; but it is very far from being the only evidence, that, in
teaching the dogmas and observances of the Roman Church, the missionaries
taught also the morals of Christianity. When we look for the results of
these missions, we soon become aware that the influence of the French and
the Jesuits extended far beyond the circle of converts. It eventually
modified and softened the manners of many unconverted tribes. In the
wars of the next century we do not often find those examples of diabolic
atrocity with which the earlier annals are crowded. The savage burned
his enemies alive, it is true, but he rarely ate them; neither did he
torment them with the same deliberation and persistency. He was a savage
still, but not so often a devil. The improvement was not great, but it
was distinct; and it seems to have taken place wherever Indian tribes
were in close relations with any respectable community of white men.
Thus Philip's war in New England, cruel as it was, was less ferocious,
judging from Canadian experience, than it would have been, if a
generation of civilized intercourse had not worn down the sharpest
asperities of barbarism. Yet it was to French priests and colonists,
mingled as they were soon to be among the tribes of the vast interior,
that the change is chiefly to be ascribed. In this softening of manners,
such as it was, and in the obedient Catholicity of a few hundred tamed
savages gathered at stationary missions in various parts of Canada,
we find, after a century had elapsed, all the results of the heroic toil
of the Jesuits. The missions had failed, because the Indians had ceased
to exist. Of the great tribes on whom rested the hopes of the early
Canadian Fathers, nearly all were virtually extinct. The missionaries
built laboriously and well, but they were doomed to build on a failing
foundation. The Indians melted away, not because civilization destroyed
them, but because their own ferocity and intractable indolence made it
impossible that they should exist in its presence. Either the plastic
energies of a higher race or the servile pliancy of a lower one would,
each in its way, have preserved them: as it was, their extinction was a
foregone conclusion. As for the religion which the Jesuits taught them,
however Protestants may carp at it, it was the only form of Christianity
likely to take root in their crude and barbarous nature.

To return to Druilletes. The smoke of the wigwam blinded him; and it is
no matter of surprise to hear that he was cured by a miracle. He
returned from his winter roving to Quebec in high health, and soon set
forth on a new mission. On the River Kennebec, in the present State of
Maine, dwelt the Abenaquis, an Algonquin people, destined hereafter to
become a thorn in the sides of the New-England colonists. Some of them
had visited their friends, the Christian Indians of Sillery. Here they
became converted, went home, and preached the Faith to their countrymen,
and this to such purpose that the Abenaquis sent to Quebec to ask for a
missionary. Apart from the saving of souls, there were solid reasons for
acceding to their request. The Abenaquis were near the colonies of New
England,--indeed, the Plymouth colony, under its charter, claimed
jurisdiction over them; and in case of rupture, they would prove
serviceable friends or dangerous enemies to New France. [ Charlevoix,
I. 280, gives this as a motive of the mission. ] Their messengers were
favorably received; and Druilletes was ordered to proceed upon the new
mission.

He left Sillery, with a party of Indians, on the twenty-ninth of August,
1646, [ Lalemant, Relation, 1647, 51. ] and following, as it seems,
the route by which, a hundred and twenty-nine years later, the soldiers
of Arnold made their way to Quebec, he reached the waters of the Kennebec
and descended to the Abenaqui villages. Here he nursed the sick,
baptized the dying, and gave such instruction as, in his ignorance of the
language, he was able. Apparently he had been ordered to reconnoitre;
for he presently descended the river from Norridgewock to the first
English trading-post, where Augusta now stands. Thence he continued his
journey to the sea, and followed the coast in a canoe to the Penobscot,
visiting seven or eight English posts on the way, where, to his surprise,
he was very well received. At the Penobscot he found several Capuchin
friars, under their Superior, Father Ignace, who welcomed him with the
utmost cordiality. Returning, he again ascended the Kennebec to the
English post at Augusta. At a spot three miles above the Indians had
gathered in considerable numbers, and here they built him a chapel after
their fashion. He remained till midwinter, catechizing and baptizing,
and waging war so successfully against the Indian sorcerers, that
medicine-bags were thrown away, and charms and incantations were
supplanted by prayers. In January the whole troop set off on their grand
hunt, Druilletes following them, "with toil," says the chronicler,
"too great to buy the kingdoms of this world, but very small as a price
for the Kingdom of Heaven." [ Lalemant, Relation, 1647, 54. For an
account of this mission, see also Maurault, Histoire des Abenakis,
116-156. ] They encamped on Moosehead Lake, where new disputes with the
"medicine-men" ensued, and the Father again remained master of the field.
When, after a prosperous hunt, the party returned to the English
trading-house, John Winslow, the agent in charge again received the
missionary with a kindness which showed no trace of jealousy or religious
prejudice.

[ Winslow would scarcely have recognized his own name in the Jesuit
spelling,--"Le Sieur de Houinslaud." In his journal of 1650 Druilletes
is more successful in his orthography, and spells it Winslau. ]

Early in the summer Druilletes went to Quebec; and during the two
following years, the Abenaquis, for reasons which are not clear, were
left without a missionary. He spent another winter of extreme hardship
with the Algonquins on their winter rovings, and during summer instructed
the wandering savages of Tadoussac. It was not until the autumn of 1650
that he again descended the Kennebec. This time he went as an envoy
charged with the negotiation of a treaty. His journey is worthy of
notice, since, with the unimportant exception of Jogues's embassy to the
Mohawks, it is the first occasion on which the Canadian Jesuits appear in
a character distinctly political. Afterwards, when the fervor and
freshness of the missions had passed away, they frequently did the work
of political agents among the Indians: but the Jesuit of the earlier
period was, with rare exceptions, a missionary only; and though he was
expected to exert a powerful influence in gaining subjects and allies for
France, he was to do so by gathering them under the wings of the Church.

The Colony of Massachusetts had applied to the French officials at Quebec,
with a view to a reciprocity of trade. The Iroquois had brought Canada
to extremity, and the French Governor conceived the hope of gaining the
powerful support of New England by granting the desired privileges on
condition of military aid. But, as the Puritans would scarcely see it
for their interest to provoke a dangerous enemy, who had thus far never
molested them, it was resolved to urge the proposed alliance as a point
of duty. The Abenaquis had suffered from Mohawk inroads; and the French,
assuming for the occasion that they were under the jurisdiction of the
English colonies, argued that they were bound to protect them.
Druilletes went in a double character,--as an envoy of the government at
Quebec, and as an agent of his Abenaqui flock, who had been advised to
petition for English assistance. The time seemed inauspicious for a
Jesuit visit to Boston; for not only had it been announced as foremost
among the objects in colonizing New England, "to raise a bulwark against
the kingdom of Antichrist, which the Jesuits labor to rear up in all
places of the world," [ 1 ] but, three years before, the Legislature of
Massachusetts had enacted, that Jesuits entering the colony should be
expelled, and if they returned, hanged. [ 2 ]

[ 1 Considerations for the Plantation in New England.--See Hutchinson,
Collection, 27. Mr. Savage thinks that this paper was by Winthrop.
See Savage's Winthrop, I. 360, note. ]

[ 2 See the Act, in Hazard, 550. ]

Nevertheless, on the first of September, Druilletes set forth from Quebec
with a Christian chief of Sillery, crossed forests, mountains, and
torrents, and reached Norridgewock, the highest Abenaqui settlement on
the Kennebec. Thence he descended to the English trading-house at
Augusta, where his fast friend, the Puritan Winslow, gave him a warm
welcome, entertained him hospitably, and promised to forward the object
of his mission. He went with him, at great personal inconvenience,
to Merrymeeting Bay, where Druilletes embarked in an English vessel for
Boston. The passage was stormy, and the wind ahead. He was forced to
land at Cape Ann, or, as he calls it, _Kepane_, whence, partly on foot,
partly in boats along the shore, he made his way to Boston. The
three-hilled city of the Puritans lay chill and dreary under a December
sky, as the priest crossed in a boat from the neighboring peninsula of
Charlestown.

Winslow was agent for the merchant, Edward Gibbons, a personage of note,
whose life presents curious phases,--a reveller of Merry Mount, a bold
sailor, a member of the church, an adventurous trader, an associate of
buccaneers, a magistrate of the commonwealth, and a major-general. [ 1 ]
The Jesuit, with credentials from the Governor of Canada and letters from
Winslow, met a reception widely different from that which the law
enjoined against persons of his profession. [ 2 ] Gibbons welcomed him
heartily, prayed him to accept no other lodging than his house while he
remained in Boston, and gave him the key of a chamber, in order that he
might pray after his own fashion, without fear of disturbance. An
accurate Catholic writer thinks it likely that he brought with him the
means of celebrating the Mass. [ J. G. Shea, in Boston Pilot. ] If so,
the house of the Puritan was, no doubt, desecrated by that Popish
abomination; but be this as it may, Massachusetts, in the person of her
magistrate, became the gracious host of one of those whom, next to the
Devil and an Anglican bishop, she most abhorred.

[ 1 An account of him will be found in Palfrey, Hist. of New England,
II. 225, note. ]

[ 2 In the Act, an exception, however, was made in favor of Jesuits
coming as ambassadors or envoys from their government, who were declared
not liable to the penalty of hanging. ]

On the next day, Gibbons took his guest to Roxbury,--called _Rogsbray_ by
Druilletes,--to see the Governor, the harsh and narrow Dudley, grown gray
in repellent virtue and grim honesty. Some half a century before,
he had served in France, under Henry the Fourth; but he had forgotten his
French, and called for an interpreter to explain the visitor's
credentials. He received Druilletes with courtesy, and promised to call
the magistrates together on the following Tuesday to hear his proposals.
They met accordingly, and Druilletes was asked to dine with them.
The old Governor sat at the head of the table, and after dinner invited
the guest to open the business of his embassy. They listened to him,
desired him to withdraw, and, after consulting among themselves, sent for
him to join them again at supper, when they made him an answer, of which
the record is lost, but which evidently was not definitive.

As the Abenaqui Indians were within the jurisdiction of Plymouth, [ 1 ]
Druilletes proceeded thither in his character of their agent. Here,
again, he was received with courtesy and kindness. Governor Bradford
invited him to dine, and, as it was Friday, considerately gave him a
dinner of fish. Druilletes conceived great hope that the colony could be
wrought upon to give the desired assistance; for some of the chief
inhabitants had an interest in the trade with the Abenaquis. [ 2 ]
He came back by land to Boston, stopping again at Roxbury on the way.
It was night when he arrived; and, after the usual custom, he took
lodging with the minister. Here were several young Indians, pupils of
his host: for he was no other than the celebrated Eliot, who, during the
past summer, had established his mission at Natick, [ 3 ] and was now
laboring, in the fulness of his zeal, in the work of civilization and
conversion. There was great sympathy between the two missionaries; and
Eliot prayed his guest to spend the winter with him.

[ 1 For the documents on the title of Plymouth to lands on the Kennebec,
see Drake's additions to Baylies's History of New Plymouth, 36, where
they are illustrated by an ancient map. The patent was obtained as early
as 1628, and a trading-house soon after established. ]

[ 2 The Record of the Colony of Plymouth, June 5, 1651, contains,
however the entry, "The Court declare themselves not to be willing to aid
them (the French) in their design, or to grant them liberty to go through
their jurisdiction for the aforesaid purpose" (to attack the Mohawks). ]

[ 3 See Palfrey, New England, II. 336. ]

At Salem, which Druilletes also visited, in company with the minister of
Marblehead, he had an interview with the stern, but manly, Endicott, who,
he says, spoke French, and expressed both interest and good-will towards
the objects of the expedition. As the envoy had no money left, Endicott
paid his charges, and asked him to dine with the magistrates.

[ On Druilletes's visit to New England, see his journal, entitled Narre
du Voyage faict pour la Mission des Abenaquois, et des Connoissances
tiréz de la Nouvelle Angleterre et des Dispositions des Magistrats de
cette Republique pour le Secours contre les Iroquois. See also
Druilletes, Rapport sur le Résultat deses Négotiations, in Ferland,
Notes sur les Registres, 95. ]

Druilletes was evidently struck with the thrift and vigor of these sturdy
young colonies, and the strength of their population. He says that
Boston, meaning Massachusetts, could alone furnish four thousand fighting
men, and that the four united colonies could count forty thousand souls.
[ 1 ] These numbers may be challenged; but, at all events, the contrast
was striking with the attenuated and suffering bands of priests, nuns,
and fur-traders on the St. Lawrence. About twenty-one thousand persons
had come from Old to New England, with the resolve of making it their
home; and though this immigration had virtually ceased, the natural
increase had been great. The necessity, or the strong desire, of
escaping from persecution had given the impulse to Puritan colonization;
while, on the other hand, none but good Catholics, the favored class of
France, were tolerated in Canada. These had no motive for exchanging the
comforts of home and the smiles of Fortune for a starving wilderness and
the scalping-knives of the Iroquois. The Huguenots would have emigrated
in swarms; but they were rigidly forbidden. The zeal of propagandism and
the fur-trade were, as we have seen, the vital forces of New France.
Of her feeble population, the best part was bound to perpetual chastity;
while the fur-traders and those in their service rarely brought their
wives to the wilderness. The fur-trader, moreover, is always the worst
of colonists; since the increase of population, by diminishing the
numbers of the fur-bearing animals, is adverse to his interest. But
behind all this there was in the religious ideal of the rival colonies an
influence which alone would have gone far to produce the contrast in
material growth.

[ 1 Druilletes, Reflexions touchant ce qu'on peut esperer de la Nouvelle
Angleterre contre l'Irocquois (sic), appended to his journal. ]

To the mind of the Puritan, heaven was God's throne; but no less was the
earth His footstool: and each in its degree and its kind had its demands
on man. He held it a duty to labor and to multiply; and, building on the
Old Testament quite as much as on the New, thought that a reward on earth
as well as in heaven awaited those who were faithful to the law.
Doubtless, such a belief is widely open to abuse, and it would be folly
to pretend that it escaped abuse in New England; but there was in it an
element manly, healthful, and invigorating. On the other hand, those who
shaped the character, and in great measure the destiny, of New France had
always on their lips the nothingness and the vanity of life. For them,
time was nothing but a preparation for eternity, and the highest virtue
consisted in a renunciation of all the cares, toils, and interests of
earth. That such a doctrine has often been joined to an intense
worldliness, all history proclaims; but with this we have at present
nothing to do. If all mankind acted on it in good faith, the world would
sink into decrepitude. It is the monastic idea carried into the wide
field of active life, and is like the error of those who, in their zeal
to cultivate their higher nature, suffer the neglected body to dwindle
and pine, till body and mind alike lapse into feebleness and disease.

Druilletes returned to the Abenaquis, and thence to Quebec, full of hope
that the object of his mission was in a fair way of accomplishment.
The Governor, d'Ailleboust, [ 1 ] who had succeeded Montmagny, called his
council, and Druilletes was again dispatched to New England, together
with one of the principal inhabitants of Quebec, Jean Paul Godefroy. [ 2 ]
They repaired to New Haven, and appeared before the Commissioners of
the Four Colonies, then in session there; but their errand proved
bootless. The Commissioners refused either to declare war or to permit
volunteers to be raised in New England against the Iroquois. The Puritan,
like his descendant, would not fight without a reason. The bait of
free-trade with Canada failed to tempt him; and the envoys retraced their
steps, with a flat, though courteous refusal. [ 3 ]

[ 1 The same who, with his wife, had joined the colonists of Montreal.
See ante, chapter 18 (page 264). ]

[ 2 He was one of the Governor's council.--Ferland, Notes sur les
Registres, 67. ]

[ 3 On Druilletes's second embassy, see Lettre écrite par le Conseil de
Quebec aux Commissionaires de la Nouvelle Angleterre, in Charlevoix,
I. 287; Extrait des Registres de l'Ancien Conseil de Quebec, Ibid.,
I. 288; Copy of a Letter from the Commissioners of the United Colonies to
the Governor of Canada, in Hazard, II. 183; Answare to the Propositions
presented by the honered French Agents, Ibid., II. 184; and Hutchinson,
Collection of Papers, 240. Also, Records of the Commissioners of the
United Colonies, Sept. 5, 1651; and Commission of Druilletes and Godefroy,
in N. Y. Col. Docs., IX. 6. ]

Now let us stop for a moment at Quebec, and observe some notable changes
that had taken place in the affairs of the colony. The Company of the
Hundred Associates, whose outlay had been great and their profit small,
transferred to the inhabitants of the colony their monopoly of the
fur-trade, and with it their debts. The inhabitants also assumed their
obligations to furnish arms, munitions, soldiers, and works of defence,
to pay the Governor and other officials, introduce emigrants, and
contribute to support the missions. The Company was to receive, besides,
an annual acknowledgement of a thousand pounds of beaver, and was to
retain all seigniorial rights. The inhabitants were to form a
corporation, of which any one of them might be a member; and no
individual could trade on his own account, except on condition of selling
at a fixed price to the magazine of this new company.

[ Articles accordés entre les Directeurs et Associés de la Compagnie de
la Nelle France et les Députés des Habitans du dit Pays, 6 Mars, 1645.
MS. ]

This change took place in 1645. It was followed, in 1647, by the
establishment of a Council, composed of the Governor-General, the
Superior of the Jesuits, and the Governor of Montreal, who were invested
with absolute powers, legislative, judicial, and executive. The
Governor-General had an appointment of twenty-five thousand livres,
besides the privilege of bringing over seventy tons of freight, yearly,
in the Company's ships. Out of this he was required to pay the soldiers,
repair the forts, and supply arms and munitions. Ten thousand livres and
thirty tons of freight, with similar conditions, were assigned to the
Governor of Montreal. Under these circumstances, one cannot wonder that
the colony was but indifferently defended against the Iroquois, and that
the King had to send soldiers to save it from destruction. In the next
year, at the instance of Maisonneuve, another change was made. A
specified sum was set apart for purposes of defence, and the salaries of
the Governors were proportionably reduced. The Governor-General,
Montmagny, though he seems to have done better than could reasonably have
been expected, was removed; and, as Maisonneuve declined the office,
d'Ailleboust, another Montrealist, was appointed to it. This movement,
indeed, had been accomplished by the interest of the Montreal party; for
already there was no slight jealousy between Quebec and her rival.

The Council was reorganized, and now consisted of the Governor, the
Superior of the Jesuits, and three of the principal inhabitants. [ The
Governors of Montreal and Three Rivers, when present had also seats in
the Council. ] These last were to be chosen every three years by the
Council itself, in conjunction with the Syndics of Quebec, Montreal,
and Three Rivers. The Syndic was an officer elected by the inhabitants
of the community to which he belonged, to manage its affairs. Hence a
slight ingredient of liberty was introduced into the new organization.

The colony, since the transfer of the fur-trade, had become a resident
corporation of merchants, with the Governor and Council at its head.
They were at once the directors of a trading company, a legislative
assembly, a court of justice, and an executive body: more even than this,
for they regulated the private affairs of families and individuals.
The appointment and payment of clerks and the examining of accounts
mingled with high functions of government; and the new corporation of the
inhabitants seems to have been managed with very little consultation of
its members. How the Father Superior acquitted himself in his capacity
of director of a fur-company is nowhere recorded.

[ Those curious in regard to these new regulations will find an account
of them, at greater length, in Ferland and Faillon. ]

As for Montreal, though it had given a Governor to the colony, its
prospects were far from hopeful. The ridiculous Dauversière, its chief
founder, was sick and bankrupt; and the Associates of Montreal, once so
full of zeal and so abounding in wealth, were reduced to nine persons.
What it had left of vitality was in the enthusiastic Mademoiselle Mance,
the earnest and disinterested soldier, Maisonneuve, and the priest, Olier,
with his new Seminary of St. Sulpice.

Let us visit Quebec in midwinter. We pass the warehouses and dwellings
of the lower town, and as we climb the zigzag way now called Mountain
Street, the frozen river, the roofs, the summits of the cliff, and all
the broad landscape below and around us glare in the sharp sunlight with
a dazzling whiteness. At the top, scarcely a private house is to be
seen; but, instead, a fort, a church, a hospital, a cemetery, a house of
the Jesuits, and an Ursuline convent. Yet, regardless of the keen air,
soldiers, Jesuits, servants, officials, women, all of the little
community who are not cloistered, are abroad and astir. Despite the
gloom of the times, an unwonted cheer enlivens this rocky perch of France
and the Faith; for it is New-Year's Day, and there is an active
interchange of greetings and presents. Thanks to the nimble pen of the
Father Superior, we know what each gave and what each received. He thus
writes in his private journal:--"The soldiers went with their guns to
salute Monsieur the Governor; and so did also the inhabitants in a body.
He was beforehand with us, and came here at seven o'clock to wish us a
happy New-Year, each in turn, one after another. I went to see him after
mass. Another time we must be beforehand with him. M. Giffard also came
to see us. The Hospital nuns sent us letters of compliment very early in
the morning; and the Ursulines sent us some beautiful presents, with
candles, rosaries, a crucifix, etc., and, at dinner time, two excellent
pies. I sent them two images, in enamel, of St. Ignatius and St. Francis
Xavier. We gave to M. Giffard Father Bonnet's book on the life of Our
Lord; to M. des Châtelets, a little volume on Eternity; to M. Bourdon,
a telescope and compass; and to others, reliquaries, rosaries, medals,
images, etc. I went to see M. Giffard, M. Couillard, and Mademoiselle de
Repentigny. The Ursulines sent to beg that I would come and see them
before the end of the day. I went, and paid my compliments also to
Madame de la Peltrie, who sent us some presents. I was near leaving this
out, which would have been a sad oversight. We gave a crucifix to the
woman who washes the church-linen, a bottle of eau-de-vie to Abraham,
four handkerchiefs to his wife, some books of devotion to others, and two
handkerchiefs to Robert Hache. He asked for two more, and we gave them
to him."

[ Journal des Supérieurs des Jésuites, MS. Only fragments of this
curious record are extant. It was begun by Lalemant in 1645. For the
privilege of having what remains of it copied I am indebted to M. Jacques
Viger. The entry translated above is of Jan. 1, 1646. Of the persons
named in it, Giffard was seigneur of Beauport, and a member of the
Council; Des Châtelets was one of the earliest settlers, and connected by
marriage with Giffard; Couillard was son-in-law of the first settler,
Hébert; Mademoiselle de Repentigny was daughter of Le Gardeur de
Repentigny, commander of the fleet; Madame de la Peltrie has been
described already; Bourdon was chief engineer of the colony; Abraham was
Abraham Martin, pilot for the King on the St. Lawrence, from whom the
historic Plains of Abraham received their name. (See Ferland, Notes sur
Registres, 16.) The rest were servants, or persons of humble station. ]

CHAPTER XXIII.

1645-1648.

A DOOMED NATION.

INDIAN INFATUATION.--IROQUOIS AND HURON.--HURON TRIUMPHS.--
THE CAPTIVE IROQUOIS.--HIS FEROCITY AND FORTITUDE.--PARTISAN EXPLOITS.--
DIPLOMACY.--THE ANDASTES.--THE HURON EMBASSY.--NEW NEGOTIATIONS.--
THE IROQUOIS AMBASSADOR.--HIS SUICIDE.--IROQUOIS HONOR.

It was a strange and miserable spectacle to behold the savages of this
continent at the time when the knell of their common ruin had already
sounded. Civilization had gained a foothold on their borders. The long
and gloomy reign of barbarism was drawing near its close, and their
united efforts could scarcely have availed to sustain it. Yet, in this
crisis of their destiny, these doomed tribes were tearing each other's
throats in a wolfish fury, joined to an intelligence that served little
purpose but mutual destruction.

How the quarrel began between the Iroquois and their Huron kindred no man
can tell, and it is not worth while to conjecture. At this time, the
ruling passion of the savage Confederates was the annihilation of this
rival people and of their Algonquin allies,--if the understanding between
the Hurons and these incoherent hordes can be called an alliance.
United, they far outnumbered the Iroquois. Indeed, the Hurons alone were
not much inferior in force; for, by the largest estimates, the strength
of the five Iroquois nations must now have been considerably less than
three thousand warriors. Their true superiority was a moral one.
They were in one of those transports of pride, self-confidence, and rage
for ascendency, which, in a savage people, marks an era of conquest.
With all the defects of their organization, it was far better than that
of their neighbors. There were bickerings, jealousies, plottings,
and counter plottings, separate wars and separate treaties, among the
five members of the league; yet nothing could sunder them. The bonds
that united them were like cords of India-rubber: they would stretch,
and the parts would be seemingly disjoined, only to return to their old
union with the recoil. Such was the elastic strength of those relations
of clanship which were the life of the league. [ See ante, Introduction. ]

The first meeting of white men with the Hurons found them at blows with
the Iroquois; and from that time forward, the war raged with increasing
fury. Small scalping-parties infested the Huron forests, killing squaws
in the cornfields, or entering villages at midnight to tomahawk their
sleeping inhabitants. Often, too, invasions were made in force.
Sometimes towns were set upon and burned, and sometimes there were deadly
conflicts in the depths of the forests and the passes of the hills.
The invaders were not always successful. A bloody rebuff and a sharp
retaliation now and then requited them. Thus, in 1638, a war-party of a
hundred Iroquois met in the forest a band of three hundred Huron and
Algonquin warriors. They might have retreated, and the greater number
were for doing so; but Ononkwaya, an Oneida chief, refused. "Look!"
he said, "the sky is clear; the Sun beholds us. If there were clouds to
hide our shame from his sight, we might fly; but, as it is, we must fight
while we can." They stood their ground for a time, but were soon
overborne. Four or five escaped; but the rest were surrounded, and
killed or taken. This year, Fortune smiled on the Hurons; and they took,
in all, more than a hundred prisoners, who were distributed among their
various towns, to be burned. These scenes, with them, occurred always in
the night; and it was held to be of the last importance that the torture
should be protracted from sunset till dawn. The too valiant Ononkwaya
was among the victims. Even in death he took his revenge; for it was
thought an augury of disaster to the victors, if no cry of pain could he
extorted from the sufferer, and, on the present occasion, he displayed an
unflinching courage, rare even among Indian warriors. His execution took
place at the town of Teanaustayé, called St. Joseph by the Jesuits.
The Fathers could not save his life, but, what was more to the purpose,
they baptized him. On the scaffold where he was burned, he wrought
himself into a fury which seemed to render him insensible to pain.
Thinking him nearly spent, his tormentors scalped him, when, to their
amazement, he leaped up, snatched the brands that had been the
instruments of his torture, drove the screeching crowd from the scaffold,
and held them all at bay, while they pelted him from below with sticks,
stones, and showers of live coals. At length he made a false step and
fell to the ground, when they seized him and threw him into the fire.
He instantly leaped out, covered with blood, cinders, and ashes, and
rushed upon them, with a blazing brand in each hand. The crowd gave way
before him, and he ran towards the town, as if to set it on fire.
They threw a pole across his way, which tripped him and flung him
headlong to the earth, on which they all fell upon him, cut off his hands
and feet, and again threw him into the fire. He rolled himself out,
and crawled forward on his elbows and knees, glaring upon them with such
unutterable ferocity that they recoiled once more, till, seeing that he
was helpless, they threw themselves upon him, and cut off his head.

[ Lalemant, Relation des Hurons, 1639, 68. It was this chief whose
severed hand was thrown to the Jesuits. See ante, chapter 11 (page 137). ]

When the Iroquois could not win by force, they were sometimes more
successful with treachery. In the summer of 1645, two war-parties of the
hostile nations met in the forest. The Hurons bore themselves so well
that they had nearly gained the day, when the Iroquois called for a
parley, displayed a great number of wampum-belts, and said that they
wished to treat for peace. The Hurons had the folly to consent. The
chiefs on both sides sat down to a council, during which the Iroquois,
seizing a favorable moment, fell upon their dupes and routed them
completely, killing and capturing a considerable number. [ Ragueneau,
Relation des Hurons, 1646, 55. ]

The large frontier town of St. Joseph was well fortified with palisades,
on which, at intervals, were wooden watch-towers. On an evening of this
same summer of 1645, the Iroquois approached the place in force; and the
young Huron warriors, mounting their palisades, sang their war-songs all
night, with the utmost power of their lungs, in order that the enemy,
knowing them to be on their guard, might be deterred from an attack.
The night was dark, and the hideous dissonance resounded far and wide;
yet, regardless of the din, two Iroquois crept close to the palisade,
where they lay motionless till near dawn. By this time the last song had
died away, and the tired singers had left their posts or fallen asleep.
One of the Iroquois, with the silence and agility of a wild-cat, climbed
to the top of a watch-tower, where he found two slumbering Hurons,
brained one of them with his hatchet, and threw the other down to his
comrade, who quickly despoiled him of his life and his scalp. Then,
with the reeking trophies of their exploit, the adventurers rejoined
their countrymen in the forest.

The Hurons planned a counter-stroke; and three of them, after a journey
of twenty days, reached the great town of the Senecas. They entered it
at midnight, and found, as usual, no guard; but the doors of the houses
were made fast. They cut a hole in the bark side of one of them, crept
in, stirred the fading embers to give them light, chose each his man,
tomahawked him, scalped him, and escaped in the confusion. [ Ragueneau,
Relation des Hurons, 1646, 55, 56. ]

Despite such petty triumphs, the Hurons felt themselves on the verge of
ruin. Pestilence and war had wasted them away, and left but a skeleton
of their former strength. In their distress, they cast about them for
succor, and, remembering an ancient friendship with a kindred nation,
the Andastes, they sent an embassy to ask of them aid in war or
intervention to obtain peace. This powerful people dwelt, as has been
shown, on the River Susquehanna. [ 1 ] The way was long, even in a
direct line; but the Iroquois lay between, and a wide circuit was
necessary to avoid them. A Christian chief, whom the Jesuits had named
Charles, together with four Christian and four heathen Hurons, bearing
wampum-belts and gifts from the council, departed on this embassy on the
thirteenth of April, 1647, and reached the great town of the Andastes
early in June. It contained, as the Jesuits were told, no less than
thirteen hundred warriors. The council assembled, and the chief
ambassador addressed them:--

"We come from the Land of Souls, where all is gloom, dismay, and
desolation. Our fields are covered with blood; our houses are filled
only with the dead; and we ourselves have but life enough to beg our
friends to take pity on a people who are drawing near their end." [ 2 ]
Then he presented the wampum-belts and other gifts, saying that they were
the voice of a dying country.

[ 1 See Introduction. The Susquehannocks of Smith, clearly the same
people, are placed, in his map, on the east side of the Susquehanna,
some twenty miles from its mouth. He speaks of them as great enemies of
the Massawomekes (Mohawks). No other savage people so boldly resisted
the Iroquois; but the story in Hazard's Annals of Pennsylvania, that a
hundred of them beat off sixteen hundred Senecas, is disproved by the
fact, that the Senecas, in their best estate, never had so many warriors.
The miserable remnant of the Andastes, called Conestogas, were massacred
by the Paxton Boys, in 1763. See "Conspiracy of Pontiac," 414. Compare
Historical Magazine, II. 294. ]

[ 2 "Il leur dit qu'il venoit du pays des Ames, où la guerre et la
terreur des ennemis auoit tout desolé, où les campagnes n'estoient
couuertes que de sang, où les cabanes n'estoient remplies que de cadaures,
et qu'il ne leur restoit à eux-mesmes de vie, sinon autant qu'ils en
auoient eu besoin pour venir dire à leurs amis, qu'ils eussent pitié d'vn
pays qui tiroit à sa fin."--Ragueneau, Relation des Hurons, 1648, 58. ]

The Andastes, who had a mortal quarrel with the Mohawks, and who had
before promised to aid the Hurons in case of need, returned a favorable
answer, but were disposed to try the virtue of diplomacy rather than the
tomahawk. After a series of councils, they determined to send
ambassadors, not to their old enemies, the Mohawks, but to the Onondagas,
Oneidas, and Cayugas, [ 1 ] who were geographically the central nations
of the Iroquois league, while the Mohawks and the Senecas were
respectively at its eastern and western extremities. By inducing the
three central nations, and, if possible, the Senecas also, to conclude a
treaty with the Hurons, these last would be enabled to concentrate their
force against the Mohawks, whom the Andastes would attack at the same
time, unless they humbled themselves and made peace. This scheme,
it will be seen, was based on the assumption, that the dreaded league of
the Iroquois was far from being a unit in action or counsel.

[ 1 Examination leaves no doubt that the Ouiouenronnons of Ragueneau
(Relation des Hurons, 1648, 46, 59) were the Oiogouins or Goyogouins,
that is to say, the Cayugas. They must not be confounded with the
Ouenrohronnons, a small tribe hostile to the Iroquois, who took refuge
among the Hurons in 1638. ]

Charles, with some of his colleagues, now set out for home, to report the
result of their mission; but the Senecas were lying in wait for them,
and they were forced to make a wide sweep through the Alleghanies,
Western Pennsylvania, and apparently Ohio, to avoid these vigilant foes.
It was October before they reached the Huron towns, and meanwhile hopes
of peace had arisen from another quarter. [ On this mission of the
Hurons to the Andastes, see Ragueneau, Relation des Hurons, 1648, 58-60. ]

Early in the spring, a band of Onondagas had made an inroad, but were
roughly handled by the Hurons, who killed several of them, captured
others, and put the rest to flight. The prisoners were burned, with the
exception of one who committed suicide to escape the torture, and one
other, the chief man of the party, whose name was Annenrais. Some of the
Hurons were dissatisfied at the mercy shown him, and gave out that they
would kill him; on which the chiefs, who never placed themselves in open
opposition to the popular will, secretly fitted him out, made him
presents, and aided him to escape at night, with an understanding that he
should use his influence at Onondaga in favor of peace. After crossing
Lake Ontario, he met nearly all the Onondaga warriors on the march to
avenge his supposed death; for he was a man of high account. They
greeted him as one risen from the grave; and, on his part, he persuaded
them to renounce their warlike purpose and return home. On their arrival,
the chiefs and old men were called to council, and the matter was debated
with the usual deliberation.

About this time the ambassador of the Andastes appeared with his
wampum-belts. Both this nation and the Onondagas had secret motives
which were perfectly in accordance. The Andastes hated the Mohawks as
enemies, and the Onondagas were jealous of them as confederates; for,
since they had armed themselves with Dutch guns, their arrogance and
boastings had given umbrage to their brethren of the league; and a peace
with the Hurons would leave the latter free to turn their undivided
strength against the Mohawks, and curb their insolence. The Oneidas and
the Cayugas were of one mind with the Onondagas. Three nations of the
league, to satisfy their spite against a fourth, would strike hands with
the common enemy of all. It was resolved to send an embassy to the
Hurons. Yet it may be, that, after all, the Onondagas had but half a
mind for peace. At least, they were unfortunate in their choice of an
ambassador. He was by birth a Huron, who, having been captured when a
boy, adopted and naturalized, had become more an Iroquois than the
Iroquois themselves; and scarcely one of the fierce confederates had shed
so much Huron blood. When he reached the town of St. Ignace, which he
did about midsummer, and delivered his messages and wampum-belts, there
was a great division of opinion among the Hurons. The Bear Nation--the
member of their confederacy which was farthest from the Iroquois, and
least exposed to danger--was for rejecting overtures made by so offensive
an agency; but those of the Hurons who had suffered most were eager for
peace at any price, and, after solemn deliberation, it was resolved to
send an embassy in return. At its head was placed a Christian chief
named Jean Baptiste Atironta; and on the first of August he and four
others departed for Onondaga, carrying a profusion of presents, and
accompanied by the apostate envoy of the Iroquois. As the ambassadors
had to hunt on the way for subsistence, besides making canoes to cross
Lake Ontario, it was twenty days before they reached their destination.
When they arrived, there was great jubilation, and, for a full month,
nothing but councils. Having thus sifted the matter to the bottom,
the Onondagas determined at last to send another embassy with Jean
Baptiste on his return, and with them fifteen Huron prisoners, as an
earnest of their good intentions, retaining, on their part, one of
Baptiste's colleagues as a hostage. This time they chose for their envoy
a chief of their own nation, named Scandawati, a man of renown, sixty
years of age, joining with him two colleagues. The old Onondaga entered
on his mission with a troubled mind. His anxiety was not so much for his
life as for his honor and dignity; for, while the Oneidas and the Cayugas
were acting in concurrence with the Onondagas, the Senecas had refused
any part in the embassy, and still breathed nothing but war. Would they,
or still more the Mohawks, so far forget the consideration due to one
whose name had been great in the councils of the League as to assault the
Hurons while he was among them in the character of an ambassador of his
nation, whereby his honor would be compromised and his life endangered.
His mind brooded on this idea, and he told one of his colleagues, that,
if such a slight were put upon him, he should die of mortification.
"I am not a dead dog," he said, "to be despised and forgotten. I am
worthy that all men should turn their eyes on me while I am among enemies,
and do nothing that may involve me in danger."

What with hunting, fishing, canoe-making, and bad weather, the progress
of the august travellers was so slow, that they did not reach the Huron
towns till the twenty-third of October. Scandawati presented seven large
belts of wampum, each composed of three or four thousand beads, which the
Jesuits call the pearls and diamonds of the country. He delivered, too,
the fifteen captives, and promised a hundred more on the final conclusion
of peace. The three Onondagas remained, as surety for the good faith of
those who sent them, until the beginning of January, when the Hurons on
their part sent six ambassadors to conclude the treaty, one of the
Onondagas accompanying them. Soon there came dire tidings. The
prophetic heart of the old chief had not deceived him. The Senecas and
Mohawks, disregarding negotiations in which they had no part, and
resolved to bring them to an end, were invading the country in force.
It might be thought that the Hurons would take their revenge on the
Onondaga envoys, now hostages among them; but they did not do so, for the
character of an ambassador was, for the most part, held in respect.
One morning, however, Scandawati had disappeared. They were full of
excitement; for they thought that he had escaped to the enemy. They
ranged the woods in search of him, and at length found him in a thicket
near the town. He lay dead, on a bed of spruce-boughs which he had made,
his throat deeply gashed with a knife. He had died by his own hand,
a victim of mortified pride. "See," writes Father Ragueneau, "how much
our Indians stand on the point of honor!" [ This remarkable story is
told by Ragueneau, Relation des Hurons, 1648, 56-58. He was present at
the time, and knew all the circumstances. ]

We have seen that one of his two colleagues had set out for Onondaga with
a deputation of six Hurons. This party was met by a hundred Mohawks,
who captured them all and killed the six Hurons but spared the Onondaga,
and compelled him to join them. Soon after, they made a sudden onset on
about three hundred Hurons journeying through the forest from the town of
St. Ignace; and, as many of them were women, they routed the whole,
and took forty prisoners. The Onondaga bore part in the fray, and
captured a Christian Huron girl; but the next day he insisted on
returning to the Huron town. "Kill me, if you will," he said to the
Mohawks, "but I cannot follow you; for then I should be ashamed to appear
among my countrymen, who sent me on a message of peace to the Hurons; and
I must die with them, sooner than seem to act as their enemy." On this,
the Mohawks not only permitted him to go, but gave him the Huron girl
whom he had taken; and the Onondaga led her back in safety to her
countrymen. [ 1 ] Here, then, is a ray of light out of Egyptian
darkness. The principle of honor was not extinct in these wild hearts.

[ 1 "Celuy qui l'auoit prise estoit Onnontaeronnon, qui estant icy en os
tage à cause de la paix qui se traite auec les Onnontaeronnons, et
s'estant trouué auec nos Hurons à cette chasse, y fut pris tout des
premiers par les Sonnontoueronnons (Annieronnons?), qui l'ayans reconnu
ne luy firent aucun mal, et mesme l'obligerent de les suiure et prendre
part à leur victoire; et ainsi en ce rencontre cét Onnontaeronnon auoit
fait sa prise, tellement neantmoins qu'il desira s'en retourner le
lendemain, disant aux Sonnontoueronnons qu'ils le tuassent s'ils
vouloient, mais qu'il ne pouuoit se resoudre à les suiure, et qu'il
auroit honte de reparoistre en son pays, les affaires qui l'auoient amené
aux Hurons pour la paix ne permettant pas qu'il fist autre chose que de
mourir avec eux plus tost que de paroistre s'estre comporté en ennemy.
Ainsi les Sonnontoueronnons luy permirent de s'en retourner et de ramener
cette bonne Chrestienne, qui estoit sa captiue, laquelle nous a consolé
par le recit des entretiens de ces pauures gens dans leur affliction."--
Ragueneau, Relation des Hurons, 1648, 65.

Apparently the word Sonnontoueronnons (Senecas), in the above, should
read Annieronnons (Mohawks); for, on pp. 50, 57, the writer twice speaks
of the party as Mohawks. ]

We hear no more of the negotiations between the Onondagas and the Hurons.
They and their results were swept away in the storm of events soon to be
related.

CHAPTER XXIV.

1645-1648.

THE HURON CHURCH.

HOPES OF THE MISSION.--CHRISTIAN AND HEATHEN.--BODY AND SOUL.--
POSITION OF PROSELYTES.--THE HURON GIRL'S VISIT TO HEAVEN.--A CRISIS.--
HURON JUSTICE.--MURDER AND ATONEMENT.--HOPES AND FEARS.

How did it fare with the missions in these days of woe and terror?
They had thriven beyond hope. The Hurons, in their time of trouble,
had become tractable. They humbled themselves, and, in their desolation
and despair, came for succor to the priests. There was a harvest of
converts, not only exceeding in numbers that of all former years, but
giving in many cases undeniable proofs of sincerity and fervor. In some
towns the Christians outnumbered the heathen, and in nearly all they
formed a strong party. The mission of La Conception, or Ossossané,
was the most successful. Here there were now a church and one or more
resident Jesuits,--as also at St. Joseph, St. Ignace, St. Michel, and
St. Jean Baptiste: [ 1 ] for we have seen that the Huron towns were
christened with names of saints. Each church had its bell, which was
sometimes hung in a neighboring tree. [ 2 ] Every morning it rang its
summons to mass; and, issuing from their dwellings of bark, the converts
gathered within the sacred precinct, where the bare, rude walls, fresh
from the axe and saw, contrasted with the sheen of tinsel and gilding,
and the hues of gay draperies and gaudy pictures. At evening they met
again at prayers; and on Sunday, masses, confession, catechism, sermons,
and repeating the rosary consumed the whole day. [ 3 ]

[ 1 Ragueneau, Relation des Hurons, 1646, 56. ]

[ 2 A fragment of one of these bells, found on the site of a Huron town,
is preserved in the museum of Huron relics at the Laval University,
Quebec. The bell was not large, but was of very elaborate workmanship.
Before 1644 the Jesuits had used old copper kettles as a substitute.--
Lettre de Lalemant, 31 March, 1644. ]

[ 3 Ragueneau, Relation des Hurons, 1646, 56. ]

These converts rarely took part in the burning of prisoners. On the
contrary, they sometimes set their faces against the practice; and on one
occasion, a certain Étienne Totiri, while his heathen countrymen were
tormenting a captive Iroquois at St. Ignace, boldly denounced them,
and promised them an eternity of flames and demons, unless they desisted.
Not content with this, he addressed an exhortation to the sufferer in one
of the intervals of his torture. The dying wretch demanded baptism,
which Étienne took it upon himself to administer, amid the hootings of
the crowd, who, as he ran with a cup of water from a neighboring house,
pushed him to and fro to make him spill it, crying out, "Let him alone!
Let the devils burn him after we have done!"

[ Ragueneau, Relation des Hurons, 1646, 58. The Hurons often resisted
the baptism of their prisoners, on the ground that Hell, and not Heaven,
was the place to which they would have them go.--See Lalemant, Relation
des Hurons, 1642, 60, Ragueneau, Ibid., 1648, 53, and several other
passages. ]

In regard to these atrocious scenes, which formed the favorite Huron
recreation of a summer night, the Jesuits, it must be confessed, did not
quite come up to the requirements of modern sensibility. They were
offended at them, it is true, and prevented them when they could; but
they were wholly given to the saving of souls, and held the body in scorn,
as the vile source of incalculable mischief, worthy the worst inflictions
that could be put upon it. What were a few hours of suffering to an
eternity of bliss or woe? If the victim were heathen, these brief pangs
were but the faint prelude of an undying flame; and if a Christian,
they were the fiery portal of Heaven. They might, indeed, be a blessing;
since, accepted in atonement for sin, they would shorten the torments of
Purgatory. Yet, while schooling themselves to despise the body, and all
the pain or pleasure that pertained to it, the Fathers were emphatic on
one point. It must not be eaten. In the matter of cannibalism, they
were loud and vehement in invective.

[ The following curious case of conversion at the stake, gravely related
by Lalemant, is worth preserving.

"An Iroquois was to be burned at a town some way off. What consolation
to set forth, in the hottest summer weather, to deliver this poor victim
from the hell prepared for him! The Father approaches him, and instructs
him even in the midst of his torments. Forthwith the Faith finds a place
in his heart, he recognizes and adores, as the author of his life,
Him whose name he had never heard till the hour of his death. He
receives the grace of baptism, and breathes nothing but heaven. . . .
This newly made, but generous Christian, mounted on the scaffold which is
the place of his torture, in the sight of a thousand spectators, who are
at once his enemies, his judges, and his executioners, raises his eyes
and his voice heavenward, and cries aloud, 'Sun, who art witness of my
torments, hear my words! I am about to die; but, after my death, I shall
go to dwell in heaven.'"--Relation des Hurons, 1641, 67.

The Sun, it will be remembered, was the god of the heathen Iroquois.
The convert appealed to his old deity to rejoice with him in his happy
future. ]

Undeniably, the Faith was making progress; yet it is not to be supposed
that its path was a smooth one. The old opposition and the old calumnies
were still alive and active. "It is _la prière_ that kills us. Your books
and your strings of beads have bewitched the country. Before you came,
we were happy and prosperous. You are magicians. Your charms kill our
corn, and bring sickness and the Iroquois. Echon (Brébeuf) is a traitor
among us, in league with our enemies." Such discourse was still rife,
openly and secretly.

The Huron who embraced the Faith renounced thenceforth, as we have seen,
the feasts, dances, and games in which was his delight, since all these
savored of diabolism. And if, being in health, he could not enjoy
himself, so also, being sick, he could not be cured; for his physician
was a sorcerer, whose medicines were charms and incantations. If the
convert was a chief, his case was far worse; since, writes Father
Lalemant, "to be a chief and a Christian is to combine water and fire;
for the business of the chiefs is mainly to do the Devil's bidding,
preside over ceremonies of hell, and excite the young Indians to dances,
feasts, and shameless indecencies."

[ Relation des Hurons, 1642, 89. The indecencies alluded to were chiefly
naked dances, of a superstitious character, and the mystical cure called
Andacwandet, before mentioned. ]

It is not surprising, then, that proselytes were difficult to make,
or that, being made, they often relapsed. The Jesuits complain that they
had no means of controlling their converts, and coercing backsliders to
stand fast; and they add, that the Iroquois, by destroying the fur-trade,
had broken the principal bond between the Hurons and the French, and
greatly weakened the influence of the mission. [ Lettre du P. Hierosme
Lalemant, appended to the Relation of 1645. ]

Among the slanders devised by the heathen party against the teachers of
the obnoxious doctrine was one which found wide credence, even among the
converts, and produced a great effect. They gave out that a baptized
Huron girl, who had lately died, and was buried in the cemetery at Sainte
Marie, had returned to life, and given a deplorable account of the heaven
of the French. No sooner had she entered,--such was the story,--than
they seized her, chained her to a stake, and tormented her all day with
inconceivable cruelty. They did the same to all the other converted
Hurons; for this was the recreation of the French, and especially of the
Jesuits, in their celestial abode. They baptized Indians with no other
object than that they might have them to torment in heaven; to which end
they were willing to meet hardships and dangers in this life, just as a
war-party invades the enemy's country at great risk that it may bring
home prisoners to burn. After her painful experience, an unknown friend
secretly showed the girl a path down to the earth; and she hastened
thither to warn her countrymen against the wiles of the missionaries.
[ Ragueneau, Relation des Hurons, 1646, 65. ]

In the spring of 1648 the excitement of the heathen party reached a
crisis. A young Frenchman, named Jacques Douart, in the service of the
mission, going out at evening a short distance from the Jesuit house of
Sainte Marie, was tomahawked by unknown Indians, [ 1 ] who proved to be
two brothers, instigated by the heathen chiefs. A great commotion
followed, and for a few days it seemed that the adverse parties would
fall to blows, at a time when the common enemy threatened to destroy them
both. But sager counsels prevailed. In view of the manifest strength of
the Christians, the pagans lowered their tone; and it soon became
apparent that it was the part of the Jesuits to insist boldly on
satisfaction for the outrage. They made no demand that the murderers
should be punished or surrendered, but, with their usual good sense in
such matters, conformed to Indian usage, and required that the nation at
large should make atonement for the crime by presents. [ 2 ] The number
of these, their value, and the mode of delivering them were all fixed by
ancient custom; and some of the converts, acting as counsel, advised the
Fathers of every step it behooved them to take in a case of such
importance. As this is the best illustration of Huron justice on record,
it may be well to observe the method of procedure,--recollecting that the
public, and not the criminal, was to pay the forfeit of the crime.

[ 1 Ragueneau, Relation des Hurons, 1648, 77. Compare Lettre du P. Jean
de Brébeuf au T. R. P. Vincent Carafa, Général de la Compagnie de Jésus,
Sainte Marie, 2 Juin, 1648, in Carayon. ]

[ 2 See Introduction. ]

First of all, the Huron chiefs summoned the Jesuits to meet them at a
grand council of the nation, when an old orator, chosen by the rest,
rose and addressed Ragueneau, as chief of the French, in the following
harangue. Ragueneau, who reports it, declares that he has added nothing
to it, and the translation is as literal as possible.

"My Brother," began the speaker, "behold all the tribes of our league
assembled!"--and he named them one by one. "We are but a handful; you
are the prop and stay of this nation. A thunderbolt has fallen from the
sky, and rent a chasm in the earth. We shall fall into it, if you do not
support us. Take pity on us. We are here, not so much to speak as to
weep over our loss and yours. Our country is but a skeleton, without
flesh, veins, sinews, or arteries; and its bones hang together by a
thread. This thread is broken by the blow that has fallen on the head of
your nephew, [ 1 ] for whom we weep. It was a demon of Hell who placed
the hatchet in the murderer's hand. Was it you, Sun, whose beams shine
on us, who led him to do this deed? Why did you not darken your light,
that he might be stricken with horror at his crime? Were you his
accomplice? No; for he walked in darkness, and did not see where he
struck. He thought, this wretched murderer, that he aimed at the head of
a young Frenchman; but the blow fell upon his country, and gave it a
death-wound. The earth opens to receive the blood of the innocent victim,
and we shall be swallowed up in the chasm; for we are all guilty.
The Iroquois rejoice at his death, and celebrate it as a triumph; for
they see that our weapons are turned against each other, and know well
that our nation is near its end.

"Brother, take pity on this nation. You alone can restore it to life.
It is for you to gather up all these scattered bones, and close this
chasm that opens to ingulf us. Take pity on your country. I call it
yours, for you are the master of it; and we came here like criminals to
receive your sentence, if you will not show us mercy. Pity those who
condemn themselves and come to ask forgiveness. It is you who have given
strength to the nation by dwelling with it; and if you leave us, we shall
be like a wisp of straw torn from the ground to be the sport of the wind.
This country is an island drifting on the waves, for the first storm to
overwhelm and sink. Make it fast again to its foundation, and posterity
will never forget to praise you. When we first heard of this murder,
we could do nothing but weep; and we are ready to receive your orders and
comply with your demands. Speak, then, and ask what satisfaction you
will, for our lives and our possessions are yours; and even if we rob our
children to satisfy you, we will tell them that it is not of you that
they have to complain, but of him whose crime has made us all guilty.
Our anger is against him; but for you we feel nothing but love. He
destroyed our lives; and you will restore them, if you will but speak and
tell us what you will have us do."

[ 1 The usual Indian figure in such cases, and not meant to express an
actual relationship;--"Uncle" for a superior, "Brother" for an equal,
"Nephew" for an inferior. ]

Ragueneau, who remarks that this harangue is a proof that eloquence is
the gift of Nature rather than of Art, made a reply, which he has not
recorded, and then gave the speaker a bundle of small sticks, indicating
the number of presents which he required in satisfaction for the murder.
These sticks were distributed among the various tribes in the council,
in order that each might contribute its share towards the indemnity.
The council dissolved, and the chiefs went home, each with his allotment
of sticks, to collect in his village a corresponding number of presents.
There was no constraint; those gave who chose to do so; but, as all were
ambitious to show their public spirit, the contributions were ample.
No one thought of molesting the murderers. Their punishment was their
shame at the sacrifices which the public were making in their behalf.

The presents being ready, a day was set for the ceremony of their
delivery; and crowds gathered from all parts to witness it. The assembly
was convened in the open air, in a field beside the mission-house of
Sainte Marie; and, in the midst, the chiefs held solemn council. Towards
evening, they deputed four of their number, two Christians and two
heathen, to carry their address to the Father Superior. They came,
loaded with presents; but these were merely preliminary. One was to open
the door, another for leave to enter; and as Sainte Marie was a large
house, with several interior doors, at each one of which it behooved them
to repeat this formality, their stock of gifts became seriously reduced
before they reached the room where Father Ragueneau awaited them.
On arriving, they made him a speech, every clause of which was confirmed
by a present. The first was to wipe away his tears; the second, to
restore his voice, which his grief was supposed to have impaired; the
third, to calm the agitation of his mind; and the fourth, to allay the
just anger of his heart. [ 1 ] These gifts consisted of wampum and the
large shells of which it was made, together with other articles,
worthless in any eyes but those of an Indian. Nine additional presents
followed: four for the four posts of the sepulchre or scaffold of the
murdered man; four for the cross-pieces which connected the posts; and
one for a pillow to support his head. Then came eight more,
corresponding to the eight largest bones of the victim's body, and also
to the eight clans of the Hurons. [ 2 ] Ragueneau, as required by
established custom, now made them a present in his turn. It consisted of
three thousand beads of wampum, and was designed to soften the earth,
in order that they might not be hurt, when falling upon it, overpowered
by his reproaches for the enormity of their crime. This closed the
interview, and the deputation withdrew.

[ 1 Ragueneau himself describes the scene. Relation des Hurons, 1648,
80. ]

[ 2 Ragueneau says, "les huit nations"; but, as the Hurons consisted of
only four, or at most five, nations, he probably means the clans.
For the nature of these divisions, see Introduction. ]

The grand ceremony took place on the next day. A kind of arena had been
prepared, and here were hung the fifty presents in which the atonement
essentially consisted,--the rest, amounting to as many more, being only
accessory. [ 1 ] The Jesuits had the right of examining them all,
rejecting any that did not satisfy them, and demanding others in place of
them. The naked crowd sat silent and attentive, while the orator in the
midst delivered the fifty presents in a series of harangues, which the
tired listener has not thought it necessary to preserve. Then came the
minor gifts, each with its signification explained in turn by the
speaker. First, as a sepulchre had been provided the day before for the
dead man, it was now necessary to clothe and equip him for his journey to
the next world; and to this end three presents were made. They
represented a hat, a coat, a shirt, breeches, stockings, shoes, a gun,
powder, and bullets; but they were in fact something quite different,
as wampum, beaver-skins, and the like. Next came several gifts to close
up the wounds of the slain. Then followed three more. The first closed
the chasm in the earth, which had burst through horror of the crime.
The next trod the ground firm, that it might not open again; and here the
whole assembly rose and danced, as custom required. The last placed a
large stone over the closed gulf; to make it doubly secure.

[ 1 The number was unusually large,--partly because the affair was
thought very important, and partly because the murdered man belonged to
another nation. See Introduction. ]

Now came another series of presents, seven in number,--to restore the
voices of all the missionaries,--to invite the men in their service to
forget the murder,--to appease the Governor when he should hear of
it,--to light the fire at Sainte Marie,--to open the gate,--to launch the
ferry boat in which the Huron visitors crossed the river,--and to give
back the paddle to the boy who had charge of the boat. The Fathers,
it seems, had the right of exacting two more presents, to rebuild their
house and church,--supposed to have been shaken to the earth by the late
calamity; but they forbore to urge the claim. Last of all were three
gifts to confirm all the rest, and to entreat the Jesuits to cherish an
undying love for the Hurons.

The priests on their part gave presents, as tokens of good-will; and with
that the assembly dispersed. The mission had gained a triumph, and its
influence was greatly strengthened. The future would have been full of
hope, but for the portentous cloud of war that rose, black and wrathful,
from where lay the dens of the Iroquois.

CHAPTER XXV.

1648, 1649.

SAINTE MARIE.

THE CENTRE OF THE MISSIONS.--FORT.--CONVENT.--HOSPITAL.--CARAVANSARY.--
CHURCH.--THE INMATES OF SAINTE MARIE.--DOMESTIC ECONOMY.--MISSIONS.--
A MEETING OF JESUITS.--THE DEAD MISSIONARY.

The River Wye enters the Bay of Glocester, an inlet of the Bay of
Matchedash, itself an inlet of the vast Georgian Bay of Lake Huron.
Retrace the track of two centuries and more, and ascend this little
stream in the summer of the year 1648. Your vessel is a birch canoe,
and your conductor a Huron Indian. On the right hand and on the left,
gloomy and silent, rise the primeval woods; but you have advanced
scarcely half a league when the scene is changed, and cultivated fields,
planted chiefly with maize, extend far along the bank, and back to the
distant verge of the forest. Before you opens the small lake from which
the stream issues; and on your left, a stone's throw from the shore,
rises a range of palisades and bastioned walls, inclosing a number of
buildings. Your canoe enters a canal or ditch immediately above them,
and you land at the Mission, or Residence, or Fort of Sainte Marie.

Here was the centre and base of the Huron missions; and now, for once,
one must wish that Jesuit pens had been more fluent. They have told us
but little of Sainte Marie, and even this is to be gathered chiefly from
incidental allusions. In the forest, which long since has resumed its
reign over this memorable spot, the walls and ditches of the
fortifications may still be plainly traced; and the deductions from these
remains are in perfect accord with what we can gather from the Relations
and letters of the priests. [ Before me is an elaborate plan of the
remains, taken on the spot. ] The fortified work which inclosed the
buildings was in the form of a parallelogram, about a hundred and
seventy-five feet long, and from eighty to ninety wide. It lay parallel
with the river, and somewhat more than a hundred feet distant from it.
On two sides it was a continuous wall of masonry, [ 1 ] flanked with
square bastions, adapted to musketry, and probably used as magazines,
storehouses, or lodgings. The sides towards the river and the lake had
no other defences than a ditch and palisade, flanked, like the others,
by bastions, over each of which was displayed a large cross. [ 2 ]
The buildings within were, no doubt, of wood; and they included a church,
a kitchen, a refectory, places of retreat for religious instruction and
meditation, [ 3 ] and lodgings for at least sixty persons. Near the
church, but outside the fortification, was a cemetery. Beyond the ditch
or canal which opened on the river was a large area, still traceable,
in the form of an irregular triangle, surrounded by a ditch, and
apparently by palisades. It seems to have been meant for the protection
of the Indian visitors who came in throngs to Sainte Marie, and who were
lodged in a large house of bark, after the Huron manner. [ 4 ] Here,
perhaps, was also the hospital, which was placed without the walls,
in order that Indian women, as well as men, might be admitted into it.
[ 5 ]

[ 1 It seems probable that the walls, of which the remains may still be
traced, were foundations supporting a wooden superstructure. Ragueneau,
in a letter to the General of the Jesuits, dated March 13, 1650, alludes
to the defences of Saint Marie as "une simple palissade." ]

[ 2 "Quatre grandes Croix qui sont aux quatre coins de nostre enclos."--
Ragueneau, Relation des Hurons, 1648, 81. ]

[ 3 It seems that these places, besides those for the priests, were of
two kinds,--"vne retraite pour les pelerins (Indians), enfin vn lieu plus
separé, où les infideles, qui n'y sont admis que de iour au passage,
y puissent tousiours receuoir quelque bon mot pour leur salut."--Lalemant,
Relation des Hurons, 1644, 74. ]

[ 4 At least it was so in 1642. "Nous leur auons dressé vn Hospice ou
Cabane d'écorce."--Ibid., 1642, 57. ]

[ 5 "Cet hospital est tellement separé de nostre demeure, que non
seulement les hommes et enfans, mais les femmes y peuuent estre
admises."--Ibid., 1644, 74. ]

No doubt the buildings of Sainte Marie were of the roughest,--rude walls
of boards, windows without glass, vast chimneys of unhewn stone. All its
riches were centred in the church, which, as Lalemant tells us, was
regarded by the Indians as one of the wonders of the world, but which,
he adds, would have made but a beggarly show in France. Yet one wonders,
at first thought, how so much labor could have been accomplished here.
Of late years, however, the number of men at the command of the mission
had been considerable. Soldiers had been sent up from time to time,
to escort the Fathers on their way, and defend them on their arrival.
Thus, in 1644, Montmagny ordered twenty men of a reinforcement just
arrived from France to escort Brébeuf, Garreau, and Chabanel to the
Hurons, and remain there during the winter. [ 1 ] These soldiers lodged
with the Jesuits, and lived at their table. [ 2 ] It was not, however,
on detachments of troops that they mainly relied for labor or defence.
Any inhabitant of Canada who chose to undertake so hard and dangerous a
service was allowed to do so, receiving only his maintenance from the
mission, without pay. In return, he was allowed to trade with the
Indians, and sell the furs thus obtained at the magazine of the Company,
at a fixed price. [ Registres des Arrêts du Conseil, extract in Faillon,
II, 94. ] Many availed themselves of this permission; and all whose
services were accepted by the Jesuits seem to have been men to whom they
had communicated no small portion of their own zeal, and who were
enthusiastically attached to their Order and their cause. There is
abundant evidence that a large proportion of them acted from motives
wholly disinterested. They were, in fact, _donnés_ of the mission, [ 3 ]
--given, heart and hand, to its service. There is probability in the
conjecture, that the profits of their trade with the Indians were reaped,
not for their own behoof, but for that of the mission. [ 4 ] It is
difficult otherwise to explain the confidence with which the Father
Superior, in a letter to the General of the Jesuits at Rome, speaks of
its resources. He says, "Though our number is greatly increased, and
though we still hope for more men, and especially for more priests of our
Society, it is not necessary to increase the pecuniary aid given us."
[ 5 ]

[ 1 Vimont, Relation, 1644, 49. He adds, that some of these soldiers,
though they had once been "assez mauvais garçons," had shown great zeal
and devotion in behalf of the mission. ]

[ 2 Journal des Supérieurs des Jésuites, MS. In 1648, a small cannon
was sent to Sainte Marie in the Huron canoes.--Ibid. ]

[ 3 See ante, chapter 16 (page 214), "donnés". Garnier calls them
"séculiers d'habit, mais religieux de cur."--Lettres, MSS. ]

[ 4 The Jesuits, even at this early period, were often and loudly
charged with sharing in the fur-trade. It is certain that this charge
was not wholly without foundation. Le Jeune, in the Relation of 1657,
speaking of the wampum, guns, powder, lead, hatchets, kettles, and other
articles which the missionaries were obliged to give to the Indians,
at councils and elsewhere, says that these must be bought from the
traders with beaver-skins, which are the money of the country; and he
adds, "Que si vn Iesuite en reçoit ou en recueille quelques-vns pour
ayder aux frais immenses qu'il faut faire dans ces Missions si éloignées,
et pour gagner ces peuples à Iesus-Christ et les porter à la paix,
il seroit à souhaiter que ceux-là mesme qui deuroient faire ces despenses
pour la conseruation du pays, ne fussent pas du moins les premiers à
condamner le zele de ces Peres, et à les rendre par leurs discours plus
noirs que leurs robes."--Relation, 1657, 16.

In the same year, Chaumonot, addressing a council of the Iroquois during
a period of truce, said, "Keep your beaver-skins, if you choose, for the
Dutch. Even such of them as may fall into our possession will be
employed for your service."--Ibid., 17.

In 1636, La Jeune thought it necessary to write a long letter of defence
against the charge; and in 1643, a declaration, appended to the Relation
of that year, and certifying that the Jesuits took no part in the
fur-trade, was drawn up and signed by twelve members of the company of
New France. Its only meaning is, that the Jesuits were neither partners
nor rivals of the Company's monopoly. They certainly bought supplies
from its magazines with furs which they obtained from the Indians.

Their object evidently was to make the mission partially self-supporting.
To impute mercenary motives to Garnier, Jogues, and their co-laborers,
is manifestly idle; but, even in the highest flights of his enthusiasm,
the Jesuit never forgot his worldly wisdom. ]

[ 5 Lettre du P. Paul Ragueneau au T. R. P. Vincent Carafa, Général de
la Compagnie de Jésus à Rome, Sainte Marie aux Hurons, 1 Mars, 1649
(Carayon). ]

Much of this prosperity was no doubt due to the excellent management of
their resources, and a very successful agriculture. While the Indians
around them were starving, they raised maize in such quantities, that,
in the spring of 1649, the Father Superior thought that their stock of
provisions might suffice for three years. "Hunting and fishing," he says,
"are better than heretofore"; and he adds, that they had fowls, swine,
and even cattle. [ 1 ] How they could have brought these last to Sainte
Marie it is difficult to conceive. The feat, under the circumstances,
is truly astonishing. Everything indicates a fixed resolve on the part
of the Fathers to build up a solid and permanent establishment.

[ 1 Lettre du P. Paul Ragueneau au T. R. P. Vincent Carafa, Général de
la Compagnie de Jésus à Rome, Sainte Marie aux Hurons, 1 Mars, 1649
(Carayon). ]

It is by no means to be inferred that the household fared sumptuously.
Their ordinary food was maize, pounded and boiled, and seasoned, in the
absence of salt, which was regarded as a luxury, with morsels of smoked
fish. [ Ragueneau, Relation des Hurons, 1648, 48. ]

In March, 1649, there were in the Huron country and its neighborhood
eighteen Jesuit priests, four lay brothers, twenty-three men serving
without pay, seven hired men, four boys, and eight soldiers. [ 1 ]
Of this number, fifteen priests were engaged in the various missions,
while all the rest were retained permanently at Sainte Marie. All was
method, discipline, and subordination. Some of the men were assigned to
household work, and some to the hospital; while the rest labored at the
fortifications, tilled the fields, and stood ready, in case of need,
to fight the Iroquois. The Father Superior, with two other priests as
assistants, controlled and guided all. The remaining Jesuits,
undisturbed by temporal cares, were devoted exclusively to the charge of
their respective missions. Two or three times in the year, they all,
or nearly all, assembled at Sainte Marie, to take counsel together and
determine their future action. Hither, also, they came at intervals for
a period of meditation and prayer, to nerve themselves and gain new
inspiration for their stern task.

[ 1 See the report of the Father Superior to the General, above cited.
The number was greatly increased within the year. In April, 1648,
Ragueneau reports but forty-two French in all, including priests.
Before the end of the summer a large reinforcement came up in the Huron
canoes. ]

Besides being the citadel and the magazine of the mission, Sainte Marie
was the scene of a bountiful hospitality. On every alternate Saturday,
as well as on feast-days, the converts came in crowds from the farthest
villages. They were entertained during Saturday, Sunday, and a part of
Monday; and the rites of the Church were celebrated before them with all
possible solemnity and pomp. They were welcomed also at other times,
and entertained, usually with three meals to each. In these latter years
the prevailing famine drove them to Sainte Marie in swarms. In the
course of 1647 three thousand were lodged and fed here; and in the
following year the number was doubled. [ Compare Ragueneau in Relation
des Hurons, 1648, 48, and in his report to the General in 1649. ]
Heathen Indians were also received and supplied with food, but were not
permitted to remain at night. There was provision for the soul as well
as the body; and, Christian or heathen, few left Sainte Marie without a
word of instruction or exhortation. Charity was an instrument of
conversion.

Such, so far as we can reconstruct it from the scattered hints remaining,
was this singular establishment, at once military, monastic, and
patriarchal. The missions of which it was the basis were now eleven in
number. To those among the Hurons already mentioned another had lately
been added,--that of Sainte Madeleine; and two others, called St. Jean
and St. Matthias, had been established in the neighboring Tobacco Nation.
[ 1 ] The three remaining missions were all among tribes speaking the
Algonquin languages. Every winter, bands of these savages, driven by
famine and fear of the Iroquois, sought harborage in the Huron country,
and the mission of Sainte Elisabeth was established for their benefit.
The next Algonquin mission was that of Saint Esprit, embracing the
Nipissings and other tribes east and north-east of Lake Huron; and,
lastly, the mission of St. Pierre included the tribes at the outlet of
Lake Superior, and throughout a vast extent of surrounding wilderness.
[ 2 ]

[ 1 The mission of the Neutral Nation had been abandoned for the time,
from the want of missionaries. The Jesuits had resolved on concentration,
and on the thorough conversion of the Hurons, as a preliminary to more
extended efforts. ]

[ 2 Besides these tribes, the Jesuits had become more or less acquainted
with many others, also Algonquin on the west and south of Lake Huron; as
well as with the Puans, or Winnebagoes, a Dacotah tribe between Lake
Michigan and the Mississippi.

The Mission of Sault Sainte Marie, at the outlet of Lake Superior,
was established at a later period. Modern writers have confounded it
with Sainte Marie of the Hurons.

By the Relation of 1649 it appears that another mission had lately been
begun at the Grand Manitoulin Island, which the Jesuits also christened
Isle Sainte Marie. ]

These missions were more laborious, though not more perilous, than those
among the Hurons. The Algonquin hordes were never long at rest; and,
summer and winter, the priest must follow them by lake, forest, and
stream: in summer plying the paddle all day, or toiling through pathless
thickets, bending under the weight of a birch canoe or a load of
baggage,--at night, his bed the rugged earth, or some bare rock, lashed
by the restless waves of Lake Huron; while famine, the snow-storms,
the cold, the treacherous ice of the Great Lakes, smoke, filth, and,
not rarely, threats and persecution, were the lot of his winter
wanderings. It seemed an earthly paradise, when, at long intervals,
he found a respite from his toils among his brother Jesuits under the
roof of Sainte Marie.

Hither, while the Fathers are gathered from their scattered stations at
one of their periodical meetings,--a little before the season of Lent,
1649, [ 1 ]--let us, too, repair, and join them. We enter at the eastern
gate of the fortification, midway in the wall between its northern and
southern bastions, and pass to the hall, where, at a rude table, spread
with ruder fare, all the household are assembled,--laborers, domestics,
soldiers, and priests.

[ 1 The date of this meeting is a supposition merely. It is adopted
with reference to events which preceded and followed. ]

It was a scene that might recall a remote half feudal, half patriarchal
age, when, under the smoky rafters of his antique hail, some warlike
thane sat, with kinsmen and dependants ranged down the long board,
each in his degree. Here, doubtless, Ragueneau, the Father Superior,
held the place of honor; and, for chieftains scarred with Danish
battle-axes, was seen a band of thoughtful men, clad in a threadbare garb
of black, their brows swarthy from exposure, yet marked with the lines of
intellect and a fixed enthusiasm of purpose. Here was Bressani, scarred
with firebrand and knife; Chabanel, once a professor of rhetoric in
France, now a missionary, bound by a self-imposed vow to a life from
which his nature recoiled; the fanatical Chaumonot, whose character
savored of his peasant birth,--for the grossest fungus of superstition
that ever grew under the shadow of Rome was not too much for his
omnivorous credulity, and miracles and mysteries were his daily food; yet,
such as his faith was, he was ready to die for it. Garnier, beardless
like a woman, was of a far finer nature. His religion was of the
affections and the sentiments; and his imagination, warmed with the ardor
of his faith, shaped the ideal forms of his worship into visible
realities. Brébeuf sat conspicuous among his brethren, portly and tall,
his short moustache and beard grizzled with time,--for he was fifty-six
years old. If he seemed impassive, it was because one overmastering
principle had merged and absorbed all the impulses of his nature and all
the faculties of his mind. The enthusiasm which with many is fitful and
spasmodic was with him the current of his life,--solemn and deep as the
tide of destiny. The Divine Trinity, the Virgin, the Saints, Heaven and
Hell, Angels and Fiends,--to him, these alone were real, and all things
else were nought. Gabriel Lalemant, nephew of Jerome Lalemant, Superior
at Quebec, was Brébeuf's colleague at the mission of St. Ignace. His
slender frame and delicate features gave him an appearance of youth,
though he had reached middle life; and, as in the case of Garnier,
the fervor of his mind sustained him through exertions of which he seemed
physically incapable. Of the rest of that company little has come down
to us but the bare record of their missionary toils; and we may ask in
vain what youthful enthusiasm, what broken hope or faded dream, turned
the current of their lives, and sent them from the heart of civilization
to this savage outpost of the world.

No element was wanting in them for the achievement of such a success as
that to which they aspired,--neither a transcendent zeal, nor a matchless
discipline, nor a practical sagacity very seldom surpassed in the
pursuits where men strive for wealth and place; and if they were destined
to disappointment, it was the result of external causes, against which no
power of theirs could have insured them.

There was a gap in their number. The place of Antoine Daniel was empty,
and never more to be filled by him,--never at least in the flesh, for
Chaumonot averred, that not long since, when the Fathers were met in
council, he had seen their dead companion seated in their midst, as of
old, with a countenance radiant and majestic. [ 1 ] They believed his
story,--no doubt he believed it himself; and they consoled one another
with the thought, that, in losing their colleague on earth, they had
gained him as a powerful intercessor in heaven. Daniel's station had
been at St. Joseph; but the mission and the missionary had alike ceased
to exist.

[ 1 "Ce bon Pere s'apparut après sa mort à vn des nostres par deux
diuerses fois. En l'vne il se fit voir en estat de gloire, portant le
visage d'vn homme d'enuiron trente ans, quoy qu'il soit mort en l'âge de
quarante-huict. . . . Vne autre fois il fut veu assister à vne assemblée
que nous tenions," etc.--Ragueneau, Relation des Hurons, 1649, 5.

"Le P. Chaumonot vit au milieu de l'assemblée le P. Daniel qui aidait les
Pères de ses conseils, et les remplissait d'une force surnaturelle; son
visage était plein de majesté et d'éclat."--Ibid., Lettre au Général de
la Compagnie de Jésus (Carayon, 243).

"Le P. Chaumonot nous a quelque fois raconté, à la gloire de cet illustre
confesseur de J. C. (Daniel) qu'il s'étoit fait voir à lui dans la gloire,
à l'âge d'environ 30 ans, quoiqu'il en eut près de 50, et avec les autres
circonstances qui se trouuent là (in the Historia Canadensis of Du
Creux). Il ajoutait seulement qu'à la vue de ce bien-heureux tant de
choses lui vinrent à l'esprit pour les lui demander, qu'il ne savoit pas
où commencer son entretien avec ce cher défunt. Enfin, lui dit-il:
"Apprenez moi, mon Père, ce que ie dois faire pour être bien agréable à
Dieu."--"Jamais," répondit le martyr, "ne perdez le souvenir de vos
péchés."--Suite de la Vie de Chaumonot, 11. ]

CHAPTER XXVI.

1648.

ANTOINE DANIEL.

HURON TRADERS.--BATTLE AT THREE RIVERS.--ST. JOSEPH.--
ONSET OF THE IROQUOIS.--DEATH OF DANIEL.--THE TOWN DESTROYED.

In the summer of 1647 the Hurons dared not go down to the French
settlements, but in the following year they took heart, and resolved at
all risks to make the attempt; for the kettles, hatchets, and knives of
the traders had become necessaries of life. Two hundred and fifty of
their best warriors therefore embarked, under five valiant chiefs.
They made the voyage in safety, approached Three Rivers on the
seventeenth of July, and, running their canoes ashore among the bulrushes,
began to grease their hair, paint their faces, and otherwise adorn
themselves, that they might appear after a befitting fashion at the fort.
While they were thus engaged, the alarm was sounded. Some of their
warriors had discovered a large body of Iroquois, who for several days
had been lurking in the forest, unknown to the French garrison, watching
their opportunity to strike a blow. The Hurons snatched their arms, and,
half-greased and painted, ran to meet them. The Iroquois received them
with a volley. They fell flat to avoid the shot, then leaped up with a
furious yell, and sent back a shower of arrows and bullets. The Iroquois,
who were outnumbered, gave way and fled, excepting a few who for a time
made fight with their knives. The Hurons pursued. Many prisoners were
taken, and many dead left on the field. [ Lalemant, Relation, 1648, 11.
The Jesuit Bressani had come down with the Hurons, and was with them in
the fight. ] The rout of the enemy was complete; and when their trade
was ended, the Hurons returned home in triumph, decorated with the
laurels and the scalps of victory. As it proved, it would have been well,
had they remained there to defend their families and firesides.

The oft-mentioned town of Teanaustayé, or St. Joseph, lay on the
south-eastern frontier of the Huron country, near the foot of a range of
forest-covered hills, and about fifteen miles from Sainte Marie. It had
been the chief town of the nation, and its population, by the Indian
standard, was still large; for it had four hundred families, and at least
two thousand inhabitants. It was well fortified with palisades, after
the Huron manner, and was esteemed the chief bulwark of the country.
Here countless Iroquois had been burned and devoured. Its people had
been truculent and intractable heathen, but many of them had surrendered
to the Faith, and for four years past Father Daniel had preached among
them with excellent results.

On the morning of the fourth of July, when the forest around basked
lazily in the early sun, you might have mounted the rising ground on
which the town stood, and passed unchallenged through the opening in the
palisade. Within, you would have seen the crowded dwellings of bark,
shaped like the arched coverings of huge baggage-wagons, and decorated
with the _totems_ or armorial devices of their owners daubed on the
outside with paint. Here some squalid wolfish dog lay sleeping in the
sun, a group of Huron girls chatted together in the shade, old squaws
pounded corn in large wooden mortars, idle youths gambled with cherry
stones on a wooden platter, and naked infants crawled in the dust.
Scarcely a warrior was to be seen. Some were absent in quest of game or
of Iroquois scalps, and some had gone with the trading-party to the
French settlements. You followed the foul passage-ways among the houses,
and at length came to the church. It was full to the door. Daniel had
just finished the mass, and his flock still knelt at their devotions.
It was but the day before that he had returned to them, warmed with new
fervor, from his meditations in retreat at Sainte Marie. Suddenly an
uproar of voices, shrill with terror, burst upon the languid silence of
the town. "The Iroquois! the Iroquois!" A crowd of hostile warriors had
issued from the forest, and were rushing across the clearing, towards the
opening in the palisade. Daniel ran out of the church, and hurried to
the point of danger. Some snatched weapons; some rushed to and fro in
the madness of a blind panic. The priest rallied the defenders; promised
Heaven to those who died for their homes and their faith; then hastened
from house to house, calling on unbelievers to repent and receive baptism,
to snatch them from the Hell that yawned to ingulf them. They crowded
around him, imploring to be saved; and, immersing his handkerchief in a
bowl of water, he shook it over them, and baptized them by aspersion.
They pursued him, as he ran again to the church, where he found a throng
of women, children, and old men, gathered as in a sanctuary. Some cried
for baptism, some held out their children to receive it, some begged for
absolution, and some wailed in terror and despair. "Brothers," he
exclaimed again and again, as he shook the baptismal drops from his
handkerchief,--"brothers, to-day we shall be in Heaven."

The fierce yell of the war-whoop now rose close at hand. The palisade
was forced, and the enemy was in the town. The air quivered with the
infernal din. "Fly!" screamed the priest, driving his flock before him.
"I will stay here. We shall meet again in Heaven." Many of them escaped
through an opening in the palisade opposite to that by which the Iroquois
had entered; but Daniel would not follow, for there still might be souls
to rescue from perdition. The hour had come for which he had long
prepared himself. In a moment he saw the Iroquois, and came forth from
the church to meet them. When they saw him in turn, radiant in the
vestments of his office, confronting them with a look kindled with the
inspiration of martyrdom, they stopped and stared in amazement; then
recovering themselves, bent their bows, and showered him with a volley of
arrows, that tore through his robes and his flesh. A gun shot followed;
the ball pierced his heart, and he fell dead, gasping the name of Jesus.
They rushed upon him with yells of triumph, stripped him naked, gashed
and hacked his lifeless body, and, scooping his blood in their hands,
bathed their faces in it to make them brave. The town was in a blaze;
when the flames reached the church, they flung the priest into it,
and both were consumed together.

[ Ragueneau, Relation des Hurons, 1649, 3-5; Bressani, Relation Abrégée,
247; Du Creux, Historia Canadensis, 524; Tanner, Societas Jesu Militans,
531; Marie de l'Incarnation, Lettre aux Ursulines de Tours, Quebec, 1649.

Daniel was born at Dieppe, and was forty-eight years old at the time of
his death. He had been a Jesuit from the age of twenty. ]

Teanaustayé was a heap of ashes, and the victors took up their march with
a train of nearly seven hundred prisoners, many of whom they killed on
the way. Many more had been slain in the town and the neighboring forest,
where the pursuers hunted them down, and where women, crouching for
refuge among thickets, were betrayed by the cries and wailing of their
infants.

The triumph of the Iroquois did not end here; for a neighboring fortified
town, included within the circle of Daniel's mission, shared the fate of
Teanaustayé. Never had the Huron nation received such a blow.

CHAPTER XXVII.

1649.

RUIN OF THE HURONS.

ST. LOUIS ON FIRE.--INVASION.--ST. IGNACE CAPTURED.--
BRÉBEUF AND LALEMANT.--BATTLE AT ST. LOUIS.--SAINTE MARIE THREATENED.--
RENEWED FIGHTING.--DESPERATE CONFLICT.--A NIGHT OF SUSPENSE.--
PANIC AMONG THE VICTORS.--BURNING OF ST. IGNACE.--
RETREAT OF THE IROQUOIS.

More than eight months had passed since the catastrophe of St. Joseph.
The winter was over, and that dreariest of seasons had come, the churlish
forerunner of spring. Around Sainte Marie the forests were gray and bare,
and, in the cornfields, the oozy, half-thawed soil, studded with the
sodden stalks of the last autumn's harvest, showed itself in patches
through the melting snow.

At nine o'clock on the morning of the sixteenth of March, the priests saw
a heavy smoke rising over the naked forest towards the south-east,
about three miles distant. They looked at each other in dismay. "The
Iroquois! They are burning St. Louis!" Flames mingled with the smoke;
and, as they stood gazing, two Christian Hurons came, breathless and
aghast, from the burning town. Their worst fear was realized. The
Iroquois were there; but where were the priests of the mission, Brébeuf
and Lalemant?

Late in the autumn, a thousand Iroquois, chiefly Senecas and Mohawks,
had taken the war-path for the Hurons. They had been all winter in the
forests, hunting for subsistence, and moving at their leisure towards
their prey. The destruction of the two towns of the mission of
St. Joseph had left a wide gap, and in the middle of March they entered
the heart of the Huron country, undiscovered. Common vigilance and
common sense would have averted the calamities that followed; but the
Hurons were like a doomed people, stupefied, sunk in dejection, fearing
everything, yet taking no measures for defence. They could easily have
met the invaders with double their force, but the besotted warriors lay
idle in their towns, or hunted at leisure in distant forests; nor could
the Jesuits, by counsel or exhortation, rouse them to face the danger.

Before daylight of the sixteenth, the invaders approached St. Ignace,
which, with St. Louis and three other towns, formed the mission of the
same name. They reconnoitred the place in the darkness. It was defended
on three sides by a deep ravine, and further strengthened by palisades
fifteen or sixteen feet high, planted under the direction of the Jesuits.
On the fourth side it was protected by palisades alone; and these were
left, as usual, unguarded. This was not from a sense of security; for
the greater part of the population had abandoned the town, thinking it
too much exposed to the enemy, and there remained only about four hundred,
chiefly women, children, and old men, whose infatuated defenders were
absent hunting, or on futile scalping-parties against the Iroquois.
It was just before dawn, when a yell, as of a legion of devils, startled
the wretched inhabitants from their sleep; and the Iroquois, bursting in
upon them, cut them down with knives and hatchets, killing many, and
reserving the rest for a worse fate. They had entered by the weakest
side; on the other sides there was no exit, and only three Hurons
escaped. The whole was the work of a few minutes. The Iroquois left a
guard to hold the town, and secure the retreat of the main body in case
of a reverse; then, smearing their faces with blood, after their ghastly
custom, they rushed, in the dim light of the early dawn, towards
St. Louis, about a league distant.

The three fugitives had fled, half naked, through the forest, for the
same point, which they reached about sunrise, yelling the alarm. The
number of inhabitants here was less, at this time, than seven hundred;
and, of these, all who had strength to escape, excepting about eighty
warriors, made in wild terror for a place of safety. Many of the old,
sick, and decrepit were left perforce in the lodges. The warriors,
ignorant of the strength of the assailants, sang their war-songs, and
resolved to hold the place to the last. It had not the natural strength
of St. Ignace; but, like it, was surrounded by palisades.

Here were the two Jesuits, Brébeuf and Lalemant. Brébeuf's converts
entreated him to escape with them; but the Norman zealot, bold scion of a
warlike stock, had no thought of flight. His post was in the teeth of
danger, to cheer on those who fought, and open Heaven to those who fell.
His colleague, slight of frame and frail of constitution, trembled
despite himself; but deep enthusiasm mastered the weakness of Nature,
and he, too, refused to fly.

Scarcely had the sun risen, and scarcely were the fugitives gone, when,
like a troop of tigers, the Iroquois rushed to the assault. Yell echoed
yell, and shot answered shot. The Hurons, brought to bay, fought with
the utmost desperation, and with arrows, stones, and the few guns they
had, killed thirty of their assailants, and wounded many more. Twice the
Iroquois recoiled, and twice renewed the attack with unabated ferocity.
They swarmed at the foot of the palisades, and hacked at them with their
hatchets, till they had cut them through at several different points.
For a time there was a deadly fight at these breaches. Here were the two
priests, promising Heaven to those who died for their faith,--one giving
baptism, and the other absolution. At length the Iroquois broke in,
and captured all the surviving defenders, the Jesuits among the rest.
They set the town on fire; and the helpless wretches who had remained,
unable to fly, were consumed in their burning dwellings. Next they fell
upon Brébeuf and Lalemant, stripped them, bound them fast, and led them
with the other prisoners back to St. Ignace, where all turned out to
wreak their fury on the two priests, beating them savagely with sticks
and clubs as they drove them into the town. At present, there was no
time for further torture, for there was work in hand.

The victors divided themselves into several bands, to burn the
neighboring villages and hunt their flying inhabitants. In the flush of
their triumph, they meditated a bolder enterprise; and, in the afternoon,
their chiefs sent small parties to reconnoitre Sainte Marie, with a view
to attacking it on the next day.

Meanwhile the fugitives of St. Louis, joined by other bands as terrified
and as helpless as they, were struggling through the soft snow which
clogged the forests towards Lake Huron, where the treacherous ice of
spring was still unmelted. One fear expelled another. They ventured
upon it, and pushed forward all that day and all the following night,
shivering and famished, to find refuge in the towns of the Tobacco
Nation. Here, when they arrived, they spread a universal panic.

Ragueneau, Bressani, and their companions waited in suspense at Sainte
Marie. On the one hand, they trembled for Brébeuf and Lalemant; on the
other, they looked hourly for an attack: and when at evening they saw the
Iroquois scouts prowling along the edge of the bordering forest, their
fears were confirmed. They had with them about forty Frenchmen, well
armed; but their palisades and wooden buildings were not fire-proof,
and they had learned from fugitives the number and ferocity of the
invaders. They stood guard all night, praying to the Saints, and above
all to their great patron, Saint Joseph, whose festival was close at hand.

In the morning they were somewhat relieved by the arrival of about three
hundred Huron warriors, chiefly converts from La Conception and Sainte
Madeleine, tolerably well armed, and full of fight. They were expecting
others to join them; and meanwhile, dividing into several bands, they
took post by the passes of the neighboring forest, hoping to waylay
parties of the enemy. Their expectation was fulfilled; for, at this time,
two hundred of the Iroquois were making their way from St. Ignace,
in advance of the main body, to begin the attack on Sainte Marie.
They fell in with a band of the Hurons, set upon them, killed many,
drove the rest to headlong flight, and, as they plunged in terror through
the snow, chased them within sight of Sainte Marie. The other Hurons,
hearing the yells and firing, ran to the rescue, and attacked so fiercely,
that the Iroquois in turn were routed, and ran for shelter to St. Louis,
followed closely by the victors. The houses of the town had been burned,
but the palisade around them was still standing, though breached and
broken. The Iroquois rushed in; but the Hurons were at their heels.
Many of the fugitives were captured, the rest killed or put to utter rout,
and the triumphant Hurons remained masters of the place.

The Iroquois who escaped fled to St. Ignace. Here, or on the way thither,
they found the main body of the invaders; and when they heard of the
disaster, the whole swarm, beside themselves with rage, turned towards
St. Louis to take their revenge. Now ensued one of the most furious
Indian battles on record. The Hurons within the palisade did not much
exceed a hundred and fifty; for many had been killed or disabled, and
many, perhaps, had straggled away. Most of their enemies had guns,
while they had but few. Their weapons were bows and arrows, war-clubs,
hatchets, and knives; and of these they made good use, sallying
repeatedly, fighting like devils, and driving back their assailants again
and again. There are times when the Indian warrior forgets his cautious
maxims, and throws himself into battle with a mad and reckless ferocity.
The desperation of one party, and the fierce courage of both, kept up the
fight after the day had closed; and the scout from Sainte Marie, as he
bent listening under the gloom of the pines, heard, far into the night,
the howl of battle rising from the darkened forest. The principal chief
of the Iroquois was severely wounded, and nearly a hundred of their
warriors were killed on the spot. When, at length, their numbers and
persistent fury prevailed, their only prize was some twenty Huron
warriors, spent with fatigue and faint with loss of blood. The rest lay
dead around the shattered palisades which they had so valiantly defended.
Fatuity, not cowardice, was the ruin of the Huron nation.

The lamps burned all night at Sainte Marie, and its defenders stood
watching till daylight, musket in hand. The Jesuits prayed without
ceasing, and Saint Joseph was besieged with invocations. "Those of us
who were priests," writes Ragueneau, "each made a vow to say a mass in
his honor every month, for the space of a year; and all the rest bound
themselves by vows to divers penances." The expected onslaught did not
take place. Not an Iroquois appeared. Their victory had been bought too
dear, and they had no stomach for more fighting. All the next day,
the eighteenth, a stillness, like the dead lull of a tempest, followed
the turmoil of yesterday,--as if, says the Father Superior, "the country
were waiting, palsied with fright, for some new disaster."

On the following day,--the journalist fails not to mention that it was
the festival of Saint Joseph,--Indians came in with tidings that a panic
had seized the Iroquois camp, that the chiefs could not control it,
and that the whole body of invaders was retreating in disorder, possessed
with a vague terror that the Hurons were upon them in force. They had
found time, however, for an act of atrocious cruelty. They planted
stakes in the bark houses of St. Ignace, and bound to them those of their
prisoners whom they meant to sacrifice, male and female, from old age to
infancy, husbands, mothers, and children, side by side. Then, as they
retreated, they set the town on fire, and laughed with savage glee at the
shrieks of anguish that rose from the blazing dwellings.

[ The site of St. Ignace still bears evidence of the catastrophe, in the
ashes and charcoal that indicate the position of the houses, and the
fragments of broken pottery and half-consumed bone, together with
trinkets of stone, metal, or glass, which have survived the lapse of two
centuries and more. The place has been minutely examined by Dr. Taché. ]

They loaded the rest of their prisoners with their baggage and plunder,
and drove them through the forest southward, braining with their hatchets
any who gave out on the march. An old woman, who had escaped out of the
midst of the flames of St. Ignace, made her way to St. Michel, a large
town not far from the desolate site of St. Joseph. Here she found about
seven hundred Huron warriors, hastily mustered. She set them on the
track of the retreating Iroquois, and they took up the chase,--but
evidently with no great eagerness to overtake their dangerous enemy,
well armed as he was with Dutch guns, while they had little beside their
bows and arrows. They found, as they advanced, the dead bodies of
prisoners tomahawked on the march, and others bound fast to trees and
half burned by the fagots piled hastily around them. The Iroquois pushed
forward with such headlong speed, that the pursuers could not, or would
not, overtake them; and, after two days, they gave over the attempt.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

1649.

THE MARTYRS.

THE RUINS OF ST. IGNACE.--THE RELICS FOUND.--BRÉBEUF AT THE STAKE.--
HIS UNCONQUERABLE FORTITUDE.--LALEMANT.--RENEGADE HURONS.--
IROQUOIS ATROCITIES.--DEATH OF BRÉBEUF.--HIS CHARACTER.--
DEATH OF LALEMANT.

On the morning of the twentieth, the Jesuits at Sainte Marie received
full confirmation of the reported retreat of the invaders; and one of
them, with seven armed Frenchmen, set out for the scene of havoc.
They passed St. Louis, where the bloody ground was strown thick with
corpses, and, two or three miles farther on, reached St. Ignace. Here
they saw a spectacle of horror; for among the ashes of the burnt town
were scattered in profusion the half-consumed bodies of those who had
perished in the flames. Apart from the rest, they saw a sight that
banished all else from their thoughts; for they found what they had come
to seek,--the scorched and mangled relics of Brébeuf and Lalemant.

[ "Ils y trouuerent vn spectacle d'horreur, les restes de la cruauté
mesme, ou plus tost les restes de l'amour de Dieu, qui seul triomphe dans
la mort des Martyrs."--Ragueneau, Relation des Hurons, 1649, 13. ]

They had learned their fate already from Huron prisoners, many of whom
had made their escape in the panic and confusion of the Iroquois retreat.
They described what they had seen, and the condition in which the bodies
were found confirmed their story.

On the afternoon of the sixteenth,--the day when the two priests were
captured,--Brébeuf was led apart, and bound to a stake. He seemed more
concerned for his captive converts than for himself, and addressed them
in a loud voice, exhorting them to suffer patiently, and promising Heaven
as their reward. The Iroquois, incensed, scorched him from head to foot,
to silence him; whereupon, in the tone of a master, he threatened them
with everlasting flames, for persecuting the worshippers of God. As he
continued to speak, with voice and countenance unchanged, they cut away
his lower lip and thrust a red-hot iron down his throat. He still held
his tall form erect and defiant, with no sign or sound of pain; and they
tried another means to overcome him. They led out Lalemant, that Brébeuf
might see him tortured. They had tied strips of bark, smeared with pitch,
about his naked body. When he saw the condition of his Superior, he
could not hide his agitation, and called out to him, with a broken voice,
in the words of Saint Paul, "We are made a spectacle to the world,
to angels, and to men." Then he threw himself at Brébeuf's feet; upon
which the Iroquois seized him, made him fast to a stake, and set fire to
the bark that enveloped him. As the flame rose, he threw his arms upward,
with a shriek of supplication to Heaven. Next they hung around Brébeuf's
neck a collar made of hatchets heated red hot; but the indomitable priest
stood like a rock. A Huron in the crowd, who had been a convert of the
mission, but was now an Iroquois by adoption, called out, with the malice
of a renegade, to pour hot water on their heads, since they had poured so
much cold water on those of others. The kettle was accordingly slung,
and the water boiled and poured slowly on the heads of the two
missionaries. "We baptize you," they cried, "that you may be happy in
Heaven; for nobody can be saved without a good baptism." Brébeuf would
not flinch; and, in a rage, they cut strips of flesh from his limbs,
and devoured them before his eyes. Other renegade Hurons called out to
him, "You told us, that, the more one suffers on earth, the happier he is
in Heaven. We wish to make you happy; we torment you because we love
you; and you ought to thank us for it." After a succession of other
revolting tortures, they scalped him; when, seeing him nearly dead,
they laid open his breast, and came in a crowd to drink the blood of so
valiant an enemy, thinking to imbibe with it some portion of his courage.
A chief then tore out his heart, and devoured it.

Thus died Jean de Brébeuf, the founder of the Huron mission, its truest
hero, and its greatest martyr. He came of a noble race,--the same,
it is said, from which sprang the English Earls of Arundel; but never had
the mailed barons of his line confronted a fate so appalling, with so
prodigious a constancy. To the last he refused to flinch, and "his death
was the astonishment of his murderers." [ Charlevoix, I. 204. Alegambe
uses a similar expression. ] In him an enthusiastic devotion was grafted
on an heroic nature. His bodily endowments were as remarkable as the
temper of his mind. His manly proportions, his strength, and his
endurance, which incessant fasts and penances could not undermine,
had always won for him the respect of the Indians, no less than a courage
unconscious of fear, and yet redeemed from rashness by a cool and
vigorous judgment; for, extravagant as were the chimeras which fed the
fires of his zeal, they were consistent with the soberest good sense on
matters of practical bearing.

Lalemant, physically weak from childhood, and slender almost to
emaciation, was constitutionally unequal to a display of fortitude like
that of his colleague. When Brébeuf died, he was led back to the house
whence he had been taken, and tortured there all night, until, in the
morning, one of the Iroquois, growing tired of the protracted
entertainment, killed him with a hatchet. [ 1 ] It was said, that,
at times, he seemed beside himself; then, rallying, with hands uplifted,
he offered his sufferings to Heaven as a sacrifice. His robust companion
had lived less than four hours under the torture, while he survived it
for nearly seventeen. Perhaps the Titanic effort of will with which
Brébeuf repressed all show of suffering conspired with the Iroquois
knives and firebrands to exhaust his vitality; perhaps his tormentors,
enraged at his fortitude, forgot their subtlety, and struck too near the
life.

[ 1 "We saw no part of his body," says Ragueneau, "from head to foot,
which was not burned, even to his eyes, in the sockets of which these
wretches had placed live coals."--Relation des Hurons, 1649, 15.

Lalemant was a Parisian, and his family belonged to the class of _gens de
robe_, or hereditary practitioners of the law. He was thirty-nine years
of age. His physical weakness is spoken of by several of those who knew
him. Marie de l'Incarnation says, "C'était l'homme le plus faible et le
plus délicat qu'on eût pu voir." Both Bressani and Ragueneau are equally
emphatic on this point. ]

The bodies of the two missionaries were carried to Sainte Marie, and
buried in the cemetery there; but the skull of Brébeuf was preserved as a
relic. His family sent from France a silver bust of their martyred
kinsman, in the base of which was a recess to contain the skull; and,
to this day, the bust and the relic within are preserved with pious care
by the nuns of the Hôtel-Dieu at Quebec.

[ Photographs of the bust are before me. Various relics of the two
missionaries were preserved; and some of them may still be seen in
Canadian monastic establishments. The following extract from a letter of
Marie de l'Incarnation to her son, written from Quebec in October of this
year, 1649, is curious.

"Madame our foundress (Madame de la Peltrie) sends you relics of our holy
martyrs; but she does it secretly, since the reverend Fathers would not
give us any, for fear that we should send them to France: but, as she is
not bound by vows, and as the very persons who went for the bodies have
given relics of them to her in secret, I begged her to send you some of
them, which she has done very gladly, from the respect she has for you."
She adds, in the same letter, "Our Lord having revealed to him (Brébeuf)
the time of his martyrdom three days before it happened, he went, full of
joy, to find the other Fathers; who, seeing him in extraordinary spirits,
caused him, by an inspiration of God, to be bled; after which time
surgeon dried his blood, through a presentiment of what was to take place,
lest he should be treated like Father Daniel, who, eight months before,
had been so reduced to ashes that no remains of his body could be found."

Brébeuf had once been ordered by the Father Superior to write down the
visions, revelations, and inward experiences with which he was favored,--
"at least," says Ragueneau, "those which he could easily remember,
for their multitude was too great for the whole to be recalled."--"I find
nothing," he adds, "more frequent in this memoir than the expression of
his desire to die for Jesus Christ: 'Sentio me vehementer impelli ad
moriendum pro Christo.' . . . In fine, wishing to make himself a
holocaust and a victim consecrated to death, and holily to anticipate the
happiness of martyrdom which awaited him, he bound himself by a vow to
Christ, which he conceived in these terms"; and Ragueneau gives the vow
in the original Latin. It binds him never to refuse "the grace of
martyrdom, if at any day, Thou shouldst, in Thy infinite pity, offer it
to me, Thy unworthy servant;". . . "and when I shall have received the
stroke of death, I bind myself to accept it at Thy hand, with all the
contentment and joy of my heart."

Some of his innumerable visions have been already mentioned. (See ante,
chapter 9 (page 108).) Tanner, Societas Militans, gives various others,--
as, for example, that he once beheld a mountain covered thick with saints,
but above all with virgins, while the Queen of Virgins sat at the top in
a blaze of glory. In 1637, when the whole country was enraged against
the Jesuits, and above all against Brébeuf, as sorcerers who had caused
the pest, Ragueneau tells us that "a troop of demons appeared before him
divers times,--sometimes like men in a fury, sometimes like frightful
monsters, bears, lions, or wild horses, trying to rush upon him. These
spectres excited in him neither horror nor fear. He said to them,
'Do to me whatever God permits you; for without His will not one hair
will fall from my head.' And at these words all the demons vanished in a
moment."--Relation des Hurons, 1649, 20. Compare the long notice in
Alegambe, Mortes Illustres, 644.

In Ragueneau's notice of Brébeuf, as in all other notices of deceased
missionaries in the Relations, the saintly qualities alone are brought
forward, as obedience, humility, etc.; but wherever Brébeuf himself
appears in the course of those voluminous records, he always brings with
him an impression of power.

We are told that, punning on his own name, he used to say that he was an
ox, fit only to bear burdens. This sort of humility may pass for what it
is worth; but it must be remembered, that there is a kind of acting in
which the actor firmly believes in the part he is playing. As for the
obedience, it was as genuine as that of a well-disciplined soldier,
and incomparably more profound. In the case of the Canadian Jesuits,
posterity owes to this, their favorite virtue, the record of numerous
visions, inward voices, and the like miracles, which the object of these
favors set down on paper, at the command of his Superior; while,
otherwise, humility would have concealed them forever. The truth is,
that with some of these missionaries, one may throw off trash and
nonsense by the cart-load, and find under it all a solid nucleus of saint
and hero. ]

CHAPTER XXIX.

1649, 1650.

THE SANCTUARY.

DISPERSION OF THE HURONS.--SAINTE MARIE ABANDONED.--ISLE ST. JOSEPH.--
REMOVAL OF THE MISSION.--THE NEW FORT.--MISERY OF THE HURONS.--FAMINE.--
EPIDEMIC.--EMPLOYMENTS OF THE JESUITS.

All was over with the Hurons. The death-knell of their nation had
struck. Without a leader, without organization, without union, crazed
with fright and paralyzed with misery, they yielded to their doom without
a blow. Their only thought was flight. Within two weeks after the
disasters of St. Ignace and St. Louis, fifteen Huron towns were abandoned,
and the greater number burned, lest they should give shelter to the
Iroquois. The last year's harvest had been scanty; the fugitives had no
food, and they left behind them the fields in which was their only hope
of obtaining it. In bands, large or small, some roamed northward and
eastward, through the half-thawed wilderness; some hid themselves on the
rocks or islands of Lake Huron; some sought an asylum among the Tobacco
Nation; a few joined the Neutrals on the north of Lake Erie. The Hurons,
as a nation, ceased to exist.

[ Chaumonot, who was at Ossossané at the time of the Iroquois invasion,
gives a vivid picture of the panic and lamentation which followed the
news of the destruction of the Huron warriors at St. Louis, and of the
flight of the inhabitants to the country of the Tobacco Nation.--Vie,
62. ]

Hitherto Sainte Marie had been covered by large fortified towns which lay
between it and the Iroquois; but these were all destroyed, some by the
enemy and some by their own people, and the Jesuits were left alone to
bear the brunt of the next attack. There was, moreover, no reason for
their remaining. Sainte Marie had been built as a basis for the
missions; but its occupation was gone: the flock had fled from the
shepherds, and its existence had no longer an object. If the priests
stayed to be butchered, they would perish, not as martyrs, but as fools.
The necessity was as clear as it was bitter. All their toil must come to
nought. Sainte Marie must be abandoned. They confess the pang which the
resolution cost them; but, pursues the Father Superior, "since the birth
of Christianity, the Faith has nowhere been planted except in the midst
of sufferings and crosses. Thus this desolation consoles us; and in the
midst of persecution, in the extremity of the evils which assail us and
the greater evils which threaten us, we are all filled with joy: for our
hearts tell us that God has never had a more tender love for us than now."
[ Ragueneau. Relation des Hurons, 1649, 26. ]

Several of the priests set out to follow and console the scattered bands
of fugitive Hurons. One embarked in a canoe, and coasted the dreary
shores of Lake Huron northward, among the wild labyrinth of rocks and
islets, whither his scared flock had fled for refuge; another betook
himself to the forest with a band of half-famished proselytes, and shared
their miserable rovings through the thickets and among the mountains.
Those who remained took counsel together at Sainte Marie. Whither should
they go, and where should be the new seat of the mission? They made
choice of the Grand Manitoulin Island, called by them Isle Sainte Marie,
and by the Hurons Ekaentoton. It lay near the northern shores of Lake
Huron, and by its position would give a ready access to numberless
Algonquin tribes along the borders of all these inland seas. Moreover,
it would bring the priests and their flock nearer to the French
settlements, by the route of the Ottawa, whenever the Iroquois should
cease to infest that river. The fishing, too, was good; and some of the
priests, who knew the island well, made a favorable report of the soil.
Thither, therefore, they had resolved to transplant the mission, when
twelve Huron chiefs arrived, and asked for an interview with the Father
Superior and his fellow Jesuits. The conference lasted three hours.
The deputies declared that many of the scattered Hurons had determined to
reunite, and form a settlement on a neighboring island of the lake,
called by the Jesuits Isle St. Joseph; that they needed the aid of the
Fathers; that without them they were helpless, but with them they could
hold their ground and repel the attacks of the Iroquois. They urged
their plea in language which Ragueneau describes as pathetic and
eloquent; and, to confirm their words, they gave him ten large collars of
wampum, saying that these were the voices of their wives and children.
They gained their point. The Jesuits abandoned their former plan,
and promised to join the Hurons on Isle St. Joseph.

They had built a boat, or small vessel, and in this they embarked such of
their stores as it would hold. The greater part were placed on a large
raft made for the purpose, like one of the rafts of timber which every
summer float down the St. Lawrence and the Ottawa. Here was their stock
of corn,--in part the produce of their own fields, and in part bought
from the Hurons in former years of plenty,--pictures, vestments, sacred
vessels and images, weapons, ammunition, tools, goods for barter with the
Indians, cattle, swine, and poultry. [ Some of these were killed for
food after reaching the island. In March following, they had ten fowls,
a pair of swine, two bulls and two cows, kept for breeding.--Lettre de
Ragueneau au Général de la Compagnie de Jésus, St. Joseph, 13 Mars,
1650. ] Sainte Marie was stripped of everything that could be moved.
Then, lest it should harbor the Iroquois, they set it on fire, and saw
consumed in an hour the results of nine or ten years of toil. It was
near sunset, on the fourteenth of June. [ 1 ] The houseless band
descended to the mouth of the Wye, went on board their raft, pushed it
from the shore, and, with sweeps and oars, urged it on its way all night.
The lake was calm and the weather fair; but it crept so slowly over the
water that several days elapsed before they reached their destination,
about twenty miles distant.

[ 1 Ragueneau, Relation des Hurons, 1650, 3. In the Relation of the
preceding year he gives the fifteenth of May as the date,--evidently an
error.

"Nous sortismes de ces terres de Promission qui estoient nostre Paradis,
et où la mort nous eust esté mille fois plus douce que ne sera la vie en
quelque lieu que nous puissions estre. Mais il faut suiure Dieu, et il
faut aimer ses conduites, quelque opposées qu'elles paroissent à nos
desirs, à nos plus saintes esperances et aux plus tendres amours de
nostre cur."--Lettre de Ragueneau au P. Provincial à Paris, in Relation
des Hurons, 1650, 1.

"Mais il fallut, à tous tant que nous estions, quitter cette ancienne
demeure de saincte Marie; ces edifices, qui quoy que pauures,
paroissoient des chefs-d'uure de l'art aux yeux de nos pauures Sauuages;
ces terres cultiuées, qui nous promettoient vne riche moisson. Il nous
fallut abandonner ce lieu, que ie puis appeller nostre seconde Patrie et
nos delices innocentes, puis qu'il auoit esté le berceau de ce
Christianisme, qu'il estoit le temple de Dieu et la maison des seruiteurs
de Iesus-Christ; et crainte que nos ennemis trop impies, ne profanassent
ce lieu de saincteté et n'en prissent leur auantage, nous y mismes le feu
nous mesmes, et nous vismes brusler à nos yeux, en moins d'vne heure,
nos trauaux de neuf et de dix ans."--Ragueneau, Relation des Hurons, 1650,
2, 3. ]

Near the entrance of Matchedash Bay lie the three islands now known as
Faith, Hope, and Charity. Of these, Charity or Christian Island, called
Ahoendoé by the Hurons and St. Joseph by the Jesuits, is by far the
largest. It is six or eight miles wide; and when the Hurons sought
refuge here, it was densely covered with the primeval forest. The
priests landed with their men, some forty soldiers, laborers, and others,
and found about three hundred Huron families bivouacked in the woods.
Here were wigwams and sheds of bark, and smoky kettles slung over fires,
each on its tripod of poles, while around lay groups of famished wretches,
with dark, haggard visages and uncombed hair, in every posture of
despondency and woe. They had not been wholly idle; for they had made
some rough clearings, and planted a little corn. The arrival of the
Jesuits gave them new hope; and, weakened as they were with famine,
they set themselves to the task of hewing and burning down the forest,
making bark houses, and planting palisades. The priests, on their part,
chose a favorable spot, and began to clear the ground and mark out the
lines of a fort. Their men--the greater part serving without pay--
labored with admirable spirit, and before winter had built a square,
bastioned fort of solid masonry, with a deep ditch, and walls about
twelve feet high. Within were a small chapel, houses for lodging,
and a well, which, with the ruins of the walls, may still be seen on the
south-eastern shore of the island, a hundred feet from the water. [ 1 ]
Detached redoubts were also built near at hand, where French musketeers
could aid in defending the adjacent Huron village. [ Compare Martin,
Introduction to Bressani, Relation Abrégée, 38. ] Though the island was
called St. Joseph, the fort, like that on the Wye, received the name of
Sainte Marie. Jesuit devotion scattered these names broadcast over all
the field of their labors.

[ 1 The measurement between the angles of the two southern bastions is
123 feet, and that of the curtain wall connecting these bastions is 78
feet. Some curious relics have been found in the fort,--among others,
a steel mill for making wafers for the Host. It was found in 1848,
in a remarkable state of preservation, and is now in an English museum,
having been bought on the spot by an amateur. As at Sainte Marie on the
Wye, the remains are in perfect conformity with the narratives and
letters of the priests. ]

The island, thanks to the vigilance of the French, escaped attack
throughout the summer; but Iroquois scalping-parties ranged the
neighboring shores, killing stragglers and keeping the Hurons in
perpetual alarm. As winter drew near, great numbers, who, trembling and
by stealth, had gathered a miserable subsistence among the northern
forests and islands, rejoined their countrymen at St. Joseph, until six
or eight thousand expatriated wretches were gathered here under the
protection of the French fort. They were housed in a hundred or more
bark dwellings, each containing eight or ten families. [ Ragueneau,
Relation des Hurons, 1650, 3, 4. He reckons eight persons to a family. ]
Here were widows without children, and children without parents; for
famine and the Iroquois had proved more deadly enemies than the
pestilence which a few years before had wasted their towns. [ 1 ]
Of this multitude but few had strength enough to labor, scarcely any had
made provision for the winter, and numbers were already perishing from
want, dragging themselves from house to house, like living skeletons.
The priests had spared no effort to meet the demands upon their charity.
They sent men during the autumn to buy smoked fish from the Northern
Algonquins, and employed Indians to gather acorns in the woods. Of this
miserable food they succeeded in collecting five or six hundred bushels.
To diminish its bitterness, the Indians boiled it with ashes, or the
priests served it out to them pounded, and mixed with corn. [ Eight
hundred sacks of this mixture were given to the Hurons during the
winter.--Bressani, Relation Abrégée, 283. ]

[ 1 "Ie voudrois pouuoir representer à toutes les personnes
affectionnées à nos Hurons, l'état pitoyable auquel ils sont reduits;
. . . comment seroit-il possible que ces imitateurs de Iésus Christ ne
fussent émeus à pitié à la veuë des centaines et centaines de veuues dont
non seulement les enfans, mais quasi les parens ont esté outrageusement
ou tuez, ou emmenez captifs, et puis inhumainement bruslez, cuits,
déchirez et deuorez des ennemis."--Lettre de Chaumonot à Lalemant,
Supérieur à Quebec, Isle de St. Joseph, 1 Juin, 1649.

"Vne mère s'est veuë, n'ayant que ses deux mamelles, mais sans suc et
sans laict, qui toutefois estoit l'vnique chose qu'elle eust peu
presenter à trois ou quatre enfans qui pleuroient y estans attachez.
Elle les voyoit mourir entre ses bras, les vns apres les autres, et
n'auoit pas mesme les forces de les pousser dans le tombeau. Elle
mouroit sous cette charge, et en mourant elle disoit: Ouy, Mon Dieu,
vous estes le maistre de nos vies; nous mourrons puisque vous le voulez;
voila qui est bien que nous mourrions Chrestiens. I'estois damnée,
et mes enfans auec moy, si nous ne fussions morts miserables; ils ont
receu le sainct Baptesme, et ie croy fermement que mourans tous de
compagnie, nous ressusciterons tous ensemble."--Ragueneau, Relation des
Hurons, 1650, 5. ]

As winter advanced, the Huron houses became a frightful spectacle.
Their inmates were dying by scores daily. The priests and their men
buried the bodies, and the Indians dug them from the earth or the snow
and fed on them, sometimes in secret and sometimes openly; although,
notwithstanding their superstitious feasts on the bodies of their enemies,
their repugnance and horror were extreme at the thought of devouring
those of relatives and friends. [ 1 ] An epidemic presently appeared,
to aid the work of famine. Before spring, about half of their number
were dead.

[ 1 "Ce fut alors que nous fusmes contraints de voir des squeletes
mourantes, qui soustenoient vne vie miserable, mangeant iusqu'aux ordures
et les rebuts de la nature. Le gland estoit à la pluspart, ce que
seroient en France les mets les plus exquis. Les charognes mesme
deterrées, les restes des Renards et des Chiens ne faisoient point
horreur, et se mangeoient, quoy qu'en cachete: car quoy que les Hurons,
auant que la foy leur eust donné plus de lumiere qu'ils n'en auoient dans
l'infidelité, ne creussent pas commettre aucun peché de manger leurs
ennemis, aussi peu qu'il y en a de les tuer, toutefois ie puis dire auec
verité, qu'ils n'ont pas moins d'horreur de manger de leurs compatriotes,
qu'on peut auoir en France de manger de la chair humaine. Mais la
necessité n'a plus de loy, et des dents fameliques ne discernent plus ce
qu'elles mangent. Les mères se sont repeuës de leurs enfans, des freres
de leurs freres, et des enfans ne reconnoissoient plus en vn cadaure mort,
celuy lequel lors qu'il viuoit, ils appelloient leur Pere."--Ragueneau,
Relation des Hurons, 1650, 4. Compare Bressani, Relation Abrégée, 283. ]

Meanwhile, though the cold was intense and the snow several feet deep,
yet not an hour was free from the danger of the Iroquois; and, from
sunset to daybreak, under the cold moon or in the driving snow-storm,
the French sentries walked their rounds along the ramparts.

The priests rose before dawn, and spent the time till sunrise in their
private devotions. Then the bell of their chapel rang, and the Indians
came in crowds at the call; for misery had softened their hearts, and
nearly all on the island were now Christian. There was a mass, followed
by a prayer and a few words of exhortation; then the hearers dispersed to
make room for others. Thus the little chapel was filled ten or twelve
times, until all had had their turn. Meanwhile other priests were
hearing confessions and giving advice and encouragement in private,
according to the needs of each applicant. This lasted till nine o'clock,
when all the Indians returned to their village, and the priests presently
followed, to give what assistance they could. Their cassocks were worn
out, and they were dressed chiefly in skins. [ Lettre de Ragueneau au
Général de la Compagnie de Jésus, Isle St. Joseph, 13 Mars, 1650. ]
They visited the Indian houses, and gave to those whose necessities were
most urgent small scraps of hide, severally stamped with a particular
mark, and entitling the recipients, on presenting them at the fort,
to a few acorns, a small quantity of boiled maize, or a fragment of
smoked fish, according to the stamp on the leather ticket of each.
Two hours before sunset the bell of the chapel again rang, and the
religious exercises of the morning were repeated. [ Ragueneau, Relation
des Hurons, 1650, 6, 7. ]

Thus this miserable winter wore away, till the opening spring brought new
fears and new necessities.

[ Concerning the retreat of the Hurons to Isle St. Joseph, the principal
authorities are the Relations of 1649 and 1650, which are ample in detail,
and written with an excellent simplicity and modesty; the Relation
Abrégée of Bressani; the reports of the Father Superior to the General of
the Jesuits at Rome; the manuscript of 1652, entitled Mémoires touchant
la Mort et les Vertus des Pères, etc.; the unpublished letters of
Garnier; and a letter of Chaumonot, written on the spot, and preserved in
the Relations. ]

CHAPTER XXX.

1649.

GARNIER.--CHABANEL.

THE TOBACCO MISSIONS.--ST. JEAN ATTACKED.--DEATH OF GARNIER.--
THE JOURNEY OF CHABANEL.--HIS DEATH.--GARREAU AND GRELON.

Late in the preceding autumn the Iroquois had taken the war-path in
force. At the end of November, two escaped prisoners came to Isle
St. Joseph with the news that a band of three hundred warriors was
hovering in the Huron forests, doubtful whether to invade the island or
to attack the towns of the Tobacco Nation in the valleys of the Blue
Mountains. The Father Superior, Ragueneau, sent a runner thither in all
haste, to warn the inhabitants of their danger.

There were at this time two missions in the Tobacco Nation, St. Jean and
St. Matthias, [ 1 ]--the latter under the charge of the Jesuits Garreau
and Grelon, and the former under that of Garnier and Chabanel. St. Jean,
the principal seat of the mission of the same name, was a town of five or
six hundred families. Its population was, moreover, greatly augmented by
the bands of fugitive Hurons who had taken refuge there. When the
warriors were warned by Ragueneau's messenger of a probable attack from
the Iroquois, they were far from being daunted, but, confiding in their
numbers, awaited the enemy in one of those fits of valor which
characterize the unstable courage of the savage. At St. Jean all was
paint, feathers, and uproar,--singing, dancing, howling, and stamping.
Quivers were filled, knives whetted, and tomahawks sharpened; but when,
after two days of eager expectancy, the enemy did not appear, the
warriors lost patience. Thinking, and probably with reason, that the
Iroquois were afraid of them, they resolved to sally forth, and take the
offensive. With yelps and whoops they defiled into the forest, where the
branches were gray and bare, and the ground thickly covered with snow.
They pushed on rapidly till the following day, but could not discover
their wary enemy, who had made a wide circuit, and was approaching the
town from another quarter. By ill luck, the Iroquois captured a Tobacco
Indian and his squaw, straggling in the forest not far from St. Jean; and
the two prisoners, to propitiate them, told them the defenceless
condition of the place, where none remained but women, children, and old
men. The delighted Iroquois no longer hesitated, but silently and
swiftly pushed on towards the town.

[ 1 The Indian name of St. Jean was Etarita; and that of St. Matthias,
Ekarenniondi. ]

It was two o'clock in the afternoon of the seventh of December.
[ Bressani, Relation Abrégée, 264. ] Chabanel had left the place a day
or two before, in obedience to a message from Ragueneau, and Garnier was
here alone. He was making his rounds among the houses, visiting the sick
and instructing his converts, when the horrible din of the war-whoop rose
from the borders of the clearing, and, on the instant, the town was mad
with terror. Children and girls rushed to and fro, blind with fright;
women snatched their infants, and fled they knew not whither. Garnier
ran to his chapel, where a few of his converts had sought asylum.
He gave them his benediction, exhorted them to hold fast to the Faith,
and bade them fly while there was yet time. For himself, he hastened
back to the houses, running from one to another, and giving absolution or
baptism to all whom he found. An Iroquois met him, shot him with three
balls through the body and thigh, tore off his cassock, and rushed on in
pursuit of the fugitives. Garnier lay for a moment on the ground,
as if stunned; then, recovering his senses, he was seen to rise into a
kneeling posture. At a little distance from him lay a Huron, mortally
wounded, but still showing signs of life. With the Heaven that awaited
him glowing before his fading vision, the priest dragged himself towards
the dying Indian, to give him absolution; but his strength failed,
and he fell again to the earth. He rose once more, and again crept
forward, when a party of Iroquois rushed upon him, split his head with
two blows of a hatchet, stripped him, and left his body on the ground.
[ 1 ] At this time the whole town was on fire. The invaders, fearing
that the absent warriors might return and take their revenge, hastened to
finish their work, scattered firebrands every where, and threw children
alive into the burning houses. They killed many of the fugitives,
captured many more, and then made a hasty retreat through the forest with
their prisoners, butchering such of them as lagged on the way. St. Jean
lay a waste of smoking ruins thickly strewn with blackened corpses of the
slain.

[ The above particulars of Garnier's death rest on the evidence of a
Christian Huron woman, named Marthe, who saw him shot down, and also saw
his attempt to reach the dying Indian. She was herself struck down
immediately after with a war-club, but remained alive, and escaped in the
confusion. She died three months later, at Isle St. Joseph, from the
effects of the injuries she had received, after reaffirming the truth of
her story to Ragueneau, who was with her, and who questioned her on the
subject. (Mémoires touchant la Mort et les Vertus des Pères Garnier,
etc., MS.). Ragueneau also speaks of her in Relation des Hurons, 1650, 9.
--The priests Grelon and Garreau found the body stripped naked, with
three gunshot wounds in the abdomen and thigh, and two deep hatchet
wounds in the head. ]

Towards evening, parties of fugitives reached St. Matthias, with tidings
of the catastrophe. The town was wild with alarm, and all stood on the
watch, in expectation of an attack; but when, in the morning, scouts came
in and reported the retreat of the Iroquois, Garreau and Grelon set out
with a party of converts to visit the scene of havoc. For a long time
they looked in vain for the body of Garnier; but at length they found him
lying where he had fallen,--so scorched and disfigured, that he was
recognized with difficulty. The two priests wrapped his body in a part
of their own clothing; the Indian converts dug a grave on the spot where
his church had stood; and here they buried him. Thus, at the age of
forty-four, died Charles Garnier, the favorite child of wealthy and noble
parents, nursed in Parisian luxury and ease, then living and dying,
a more than willing exile, amid the hardships and horrors of the Huron
wilderness. His life and his death are his best eulogy. Brébeuf was the
lion of the Huron mission, and Garnier was the lamb; but the lamb was as
fearless as the lion.

[ Garnier's devotion to the mission was absolute. He took little or no
interest in the news from France, which, at intervals of from one to
three years, found its way to the Huron towns. His companion Bressani
says, that he would walk thirty or forty miles in the hottest summer day,
to baptize some dying Indian, when the country was infested by the enemy.
On similar errands, he would sometimes pass the night alone in the forest
in the depth of winter. He was anxious to fall into the hands of the
Iroquois, that he might preach the Faith to them even out of the midst of
the fire. In one of his unpublished letters he writes, "Praised be our
Lord, who punishes me for my sins by depriving me of this crown" (the
crown of martyrdom). After the death of Brébeuf and Lalemant, he writes
to his brother--

"Hélas! Mon cher frère, si ma conscience ne me convainquait et ne me
confondait de mon infidélité au service de notre bon maître, je pourrais
espérer quelque faveur approchante de celles qu'il a faites aux bien-heureux
martyrs avec qui j'avais le bien de converser souvent, étant dans les mêmes
occasions et dangers qu'ils étaient, mais sa justice me fait craindre que
je ne demeure toujours indigne d'une telle couronne."

He contented himself with the most wretched fare during the last years of
famine, living in good measure on roots and acorns; "although," says
Ragueneau, "he had been the cherished son of a rich and noble house,
on whom all the affection of his father had centred, and who had been
nourished on food very different from that of swine."--Relation des
Hurons, 1650, 12.

For his character, see Ragueneau, Bressani, Tanner, and Alegambe, who
devotes many pages to the description of his religious traits; but the
complexion of his mind is best reflected in his private letters. ]

When, on the following morning, the warriors of St. Jean returned from
their rash and bootless sally, and saw the ashes of their desolated homes
and the ghastly relics of their murdered families, they seated themselves
amid the ruin, silent and motionless as statues of bronze, with heads
bowed down and eyes fixed on the ground. Thus they remained through half
the day. Tears and wailing were for women; this was the mourning of
warriors.

Garnier's colleague, Chabanel, had been recalled from St. Jean by an
order from the Father Superior, who thought it needless to expose the
life of more than one priest in a position of so much danger. He stopped
on his way at St. Matthias, and on the morning of the seventh of December,
the day of the attack, left that town with seven or eight Christian
Hurons. The journey was rough and difficult. They proceeded through the
forest about eighteen miles, and then encamped in the snow. The Indians
fell asleep; but Chabanel, from an apprehension of danger, or some other
cause, remained awake. About midnight he heard a strange sound in the
distance,--a confusion of fierce voices, mingled with songs and outcries.
It was the Iroquois on their retreat with their prisoners, some of whom
were defiantly singing their war-songs, after the Indian custom.
Chabanel waked his companions, who instantly took flight. He tried to
follow, but could not keep pace with the light-footed savages, who
returned to St. Matthias, and told what had occurred. They said, however,
that Chabanel had left them and taken an opposite direction, in order to
reach Isle St. Joseph. His brother priests were for some time ignorant
of what had befallen him. At length a Huron Indian, who had been
converted, but afterward apostatized, gave out that he had met him in the
forest, and aided him with his canoe to cross a river which lay in his
path. Some supposed that he had lost his way, and died of cold and
hunger; but others were of a different opinion. Their suspicion was
confirmed some time afterwards by the renegade Huron, who confessed that
he had killed Chabanel and thrown his body into the river, after robbing
him of his clothes, his hat, the blanket or mantle which was strapped to
his shoulders, and the bag in which he carried his books and papers.
He declared that his motive was hatred of the Faith, which had caused the
ruin of the Hurons. [ Mémoires touchant la Mort et les Vertus des Pères,
etc., MS. ] The priest had prepared himself for a worse fate. Before
leaving Sainte Marie on the Wye, to go to his post in the Tobacco Nation,
he had written to his brother to regard him as a victim destined to the
fires of the Iroquois. [ Abrégé de la Vie du P. Noël Chabanel, MS. ]
He added, that, though he was naturally timid, he was now wholly
indifferent to danger; and he expressed the belief that only a superhuman
power could have wrought such a change in him.

[ "Ie suis fort apprehensif de mon naturel; toutefois, maintenant que ie
vay au plus grand danger et qu'il me semble que la mort n'est pas
esloignée, ie ne sens plus de crainte. Cette disposition ne vient pas de
moy."--Relation des Hurons, 1650, 18.

The following is the vow made by Chabanel, at a time when his disgust at
the Indian mode of life beset him with temptations to ask to be recalled
from the mission. It is translated from the Latin original:--

"My Lord Jesus Christ, who, in the admirable disposition of thy paternal
providence, hast willed that I, although most unworthy, should be a
co-laborer with the holy Apostles in this vineyard of the Hurons,--I,
Noël Chabanel, impelled by the desire of fulfilling thy holy will in
advancing the conversion of the savages of this land to thy faith, do vow,
in the presence of the most holy sacrament of thy precious body and blood,
which is God's tabernacle among men, to remain perpetually attached to
this mission of the Hurons, understanding all things according to the
interpretation and disposal of the Superiors of the Society of Jesus.
Therefore I entreat thee to receive me as the perpetual servant of this
mission, and to render me worthy of so sublime a ministry. Amen.
This twentieth day of June, 1647." ]

Garreau and Grelon, in their mission of St. Matthias, were exposed to
other dangers than those of the Iroquois. A report was spread, not only
that they were magicians, but that they had a secret understanding with
the enemy. A nocturnal council was called, and their death was decreed.
In the morning, a furious crowd gathered before a lodge which they were
about to enter, screeching and yelling after the manner of Indians when
they compel a prisoner to run the gantlet. The two priests, giving no
sign of fear, passed through the crowd and entered the lodge unharmed.
Hatchets were brandished over them, but no one would be the first to
strike. Their converts were amazed at their escape, and they themselves
ascribed it to the interposition of a protecting Providence. The Huron
missionaries were doubly in danger,--not more from the Iroquois than from
the blind rage of those who should have been their friends.

[ Ragueneau, Relation des Hurons, 1650, 20.

One of these two missionaries, Garreau, was afterwards killed by the
Iroquois, who shot him through the spine, in 1656, near Montreal.--
De Quen, Relation, 1656, 41. ]

CHAPTER XXXI.

1650-1652.

THE HURON MISSION ABANDONED.

FAMINE AND THE TOMAHAWK.--A NEW ASYLUM.--
VOYAGE OF THE REFUGEES TO QUEBEC.--MEETING WITH BRESSANI.--
DESPERATE COURAGE OF THE IROQUOIS.--INROADS AND BATTLES.--
DEATH OF BUTEUX.

As spring approached, the starving multitude on Isle St. Joseph grew
reckless with hunger. Along the main shore, in spots where the sun lay
warm, the spring fisheries had already begun, and the melting snow was
uncovering the acorns in the woods. There was danger everywhere, for
bands of Iroquois were again on the track of their prey. [ 1 ] The
miserable Hurons, gnawed with inexorable famine, stood in the dilemma of
a deadly peril and an assured death. They chose the former; and, early
in March, began to leave their island and cross to the main-land, to
gather what sustenance they could. The ice was still thick, but the
advancing season had softened it; and, as a body of them were crossing,
it broke under their feet. Some were drowned; while others dragged
themselves out, drenched and pierced with cold, to die miserably on the
frozen lake, before they could reach a shelter. Other parties, more
fortunate, gained the shore safely, and began their fishing, divided into
companies of from eight or ten to a hundred persons. But the Iroquois
were in wait for them. A large band of warriors had already made their
way, through ice and snow, from their towns in Central New York. They
surprised the Huron fishermen, surrounded them, and cut them in pieces
without resistance,--tracking out the various parties of their victims,
and hunting down fugitives with such persistency and skill, that, of all
who had gone over to the main, the Jesuits knew of but one who escaped.
[ 2 ]

[ 1 "Mais le Printemps estant venu, les Iroquois nous furent encore plus
cruels; et ce sont eux qui vrayement ont ruiné toutes nos esperances,
et qui ont fait vn lieu d'horreur, vne terre de sang et de carnage,
vn theatre de cruauté et vn sepulchre de carcasses décharnées par les
langueurs d'vne longue famine, d'vn païs de benediction, d'vne terre de
Sainteté et d'vn lieu qui n'auoit plus rien de barbare, depuis que le
sang respandu pour son amour auoit rendu tout son peuple Chrestien."--
Ragueneau, Relation des Hurons, 1650, 23. ]

[ 2 "Le iour de l'Annonciation, vingt-cinquiesme de Mars, vne armée
d'Iroquois ayans marché prez de deux cents lieuës de païs, à trauers les
glaces et les neiges, trauersans les montagnes et les forests pleines
d'horreur, surprirent au commencement de la nuit le camp de nos
Chrestiens, et en firent vne cruelle boucherie. Il sembloit que le Ciel
conduisit toutes leurs demarches et qu'ils eurent vn Ange pour guide: car
ils diuiserent leurs troupes auec tant de bon-heur, qu'ils trouuerent en
moins de deux iours, toutes les bandes de nos Chrestiens qui estoient
dispersées ça et là, esloignées les vnes des autres de six, sept et huit
lieuës, cent personnes en vn lieu, en vn autre cinquante; et mesme il y
auoit quelques familles solitaires, qui s'estoient escartées en des lieux
moins connus et hors de tout chemin. Chose estrange! de tout ce monde
dissipé, vn seul homme s'eschappa, qui vint nous en apporter les
nouuelles."--Ragueneau, Relation des Hurons, 1650, 23, 24. ]

"My pen," writes Ragueneau, "has no ink black enough to describe the fury
of the Iroquois." Still the goadings of famine were relentless and
irresistible. "It is said," adds the Father Superior, "that hunger will
drive wolves from the forest. So, too, our starving Hurons were driven
out of a town which had become an abode of horror. It was the end of
Lent. Alas, if these poor Christians could have had but acorns and water
to keep their fast upon! On Easter Day we caused them to make a general
confession. On the following morning they went away, leaving us all
their little possessions; and most of them declared publicly that they
made us their heirs, knowing well that they were near their end. And,
in fact, only a few days passed before we heard of the disaster which we
had foreseen. These poor people fell into ambuscades of our Iroquois
enemies. Some were killed on the spot; some were dragged into captivity;
women and children were burned. A few made their escape, and spread
dismay and panic everywhere. A week after, another band was overtaken by
the same fate. Go where they would, they met with slaughter on all
sides. Famine pursued them, or they encountered an enemy more cruel than
cruelty itself; and, to crown their misery, they heard that two great
armies of Iroquois were on the way to exterminate them. . . . Despair
was universal." [ Ragueneau, Relation des Hurons, 1650, 24. ]

The Jesuits at St. Joseph knew not what course to take. The doom of
their flock seemed inevitable. When dismay and despondency were at their
height, two of the principal Huron chiefs came to the fort, and asked an
interview with Ragueneau and his companions. They told them that the
Indians had held a council the night before, and resolved to abandon the
island. Some would disperse in the most remote and inaccessible forests;
others would take refuge in a distant spot, apparently the Grand
Manitoulin Island; others would try to reach the Andastes; and others
would seek safety in adoption and incorporation with the Iroquois
themselves.

"Take courage, brother," continued one of the chiefs, addressing
Ragueneau. "You can save us, if you will but resolve on a bold step.
Choose a place where you can gather us together, and prevent this
dispersion of our people. Turn your eyes towards Quebec, and transport
thither what is left of this ruined country. Do not wait till war and
famine have destroyed us to the last man. We are in your hands. Death
has taken from you more than ten thousand of us. If you wait longer,
not one will remain alive; and then you will be sorry that you did not
save those whom you might have snatched from danger, and who showed you
the means of doing so. If you do as we wish, we will form a church under
the protection of the fort at Quebec. Our faith will not be
extinguished. The examples of the French and the Algonquins will
encourage us in our duty, and their charity will relieve some of our
misery. At least, we shall sometimes find a morsel of bread for our
children, who so long have had nothing but bitter roots and acorns to
keep them alive."

[ Ragueneau, Relation des Hurons, 1650, 25. It appears from the
MS. Journal des Supérieurs des Jésuites, that a plan of bringing the
remnant of the Hurons to Quebec was discussed and approved by Lalemant
and his associates, in a council held by them at that place in April. ]

The Jesuits were deeply moved. They consulted together again and again,
and prayed in turn during forty hours without ceasing, that their minds
might be enlightened. At length they resolved to grant the petition of
the two chiefs, and save the poor remnant of the Hurons, by leading them
to an asylum where there was at least a hope of safety. Their resolution
once taken, they pushed their preparations with all speed, lest the
Iroquois might learn their purpose, and lie in wait to cut them off.
Canoes were made ready, and on the tenth of June they began the voyage,
with all their French followers and about three hundred Hurons. The
Huron mission was abandoned.

"It was not without tears," writes the Father Superior, "that we left the
country of our hopes and our hearts, where our brethren had gloriously
shed their blood." [ Compare Bressani, Relation Abrégée, 288. ] The
fleet of canoes held its melancholy way along the shores where two years
before had been the seat of one of the chief savage communities of the
continent, and where now all was a waste of death and desolation.
Then they steered northward, along the eastern coast of the Georgian Bay,
with its countless rocky islets; and everywhere they saw the traces of
the Iroquois. When they reached Lake Nipissing, they found it deserted,--
nothing remaining of the Algonquins who dwelt on its shore, except the
ashes of their burnt wigwams. A little farther on, there was a fort
built of trees, where the Iroquois who made this desolation had spent the
winter; and a league or two below, there was another similar fort.
The River Ottawa was a solitude. The Algonquins of Allumette Island and
the shores adjacent had all been killed or driven away, never again to
return. "When I came up this great river, only thirteen years ago,"
writes Ragueneau, "I found it bordered with Algonquin tribes, who knew no
God, and, in their infidelity, thought themselves gods on earth; for they
had all that they desired, abundance of fish and game, and a prosperous
trade with allied nations: besides, they were the terror of their
enemies. But since they have embraced the Faith and adored the cross of
Christ, He has given them a heavy share in this cross, and made them a
prey to misery, torture, and a cruel death. In a word, they are a people
swept from the face of the earth. Our only consolation is, that, as they
died Christians, they have a part in the inheritance of the true children
of God, who scourgeth every one whom He receiveth." [ Ragueneau,
Relation des Hurons, 1650, 27. These Algonquins of the Ottawa, though
broken and dispersed, were not destroyed, as Ragueneau supposes. ]

As the voyagers descended the river, they had a serious alarm. Their
scouts came in, and reported that they had found fresh footprints of men
in the forest. These proved, however, to be the tracks, not of enemies,
but of friends. In the preceding autumn Bressani had gone down to the
French settlements with about twenty Hurons, and was now returning with
them, and twice their number of armed Frenchmen, for the defence of the
mission. His scouts had also been alarmed by discovering the footprints
of Ragueneau's Indians; and for some time the two parties stood on their
guard, each taking the other for an enemy. When at length they
discovered their mistake, they met with embraces and rejoicing. Bressani
and his Frenchmen had come too late. All was over with the Hurons and
the Huron mission; and, as it was useless to go farther, they joined
Ragueneau's party, and retraced their course for the settlements.

A day or two before, they had had a sharp taste of the mettle of the
enemy. Ten Iroquois warriors had spent the winter in a little fort of
felled trees on the borders of the Ottawa, hunting for subsistence,
and waiting to waylay some passing canoe of Hurons, Algonquins, or
Frenchmen. Bressani's party outnumbered them six to one; but they
resolved that it should not pass without a token of their presence.
Late on a dark night, the French and Hurons lay encamped in the forest,
sleeping about their fires. They had set guards: but these, it seems,
were drowsy or negligent; for the ten Iroquois, watching their time,
approached with the stealth of lynxes, and glided like shadows into the
midst of the camp, where, by the dull glow of the smouldering fires,
they could distinguish the recumbent figures of their victims. Suddenly
they screeched the war-whoop, and struck like lightning with their
hatchets among the sleepers. Seven were killed before the rest could
spring to their weapons. Bressani leaped up, and received on the instant
three arrow-wounds in the head. The Iroquois were surrounded, and a
desperate fight ensued in the dark. Six of them were killed on the spot,
and two made prisoners; while the remaining two, breaking through the
crowd, bounded out of the camp and escaped in the forest.

The united parties soon after reached Montreal; but the Hurons refused to
remain in a spot so exposed to the Iroquois. Accordingly, they all
descended the St. Lawrence, and at length, on the twenty-eighth of July,
reached Quebec. Here the Ursulines, the hospital nuns, and the
inhabitants taxed their resources to the utmost to provide food and
shelter for the exiled Hurons. Their good will exceeded their power; for
food was scarce at Quebec, and the Jesuits themselves had to bear the
chief burden of keeping the sufferers alive. [ Compare Juchereau,
Histoire de l'Hôtel-Dieu, 79, 80. ]

But, if famine was an evil, the Iroquois were a far greater one; for,
while the western nations of their confederacy were engrossed with the
destruction of the Hurons, the Mohawks kept up incessant attacks on the
Algonquins and the French. A party of Christian Indians, chiefly from
Sillery, planned a stroke of retaliation, and set out for the Mohawk
country, marching cautiously and sending forward scouts to scour the
forest. One of these, a Huron, suddenly fell in with a large Iroquois
war party, and, seeing that he could not escape, formed on the instant a
villanous plan to save himself. He ran towards the enemy, crying out,
that he had long been looking for them and was delighted to see them;
that his nation, the Hurons, had come to an end; and that henceforth his
country was the country of the Iroquois, where so many of his kinsmen and
friends had been adopted. He had come, he declared, with no other
thought than that of joining them, and turning Iroquois, as they had
done. The Iroquois demanded if he had come alone. He answered, "No,"
and said, that, in order to accomplish his purpose, he had joined an
Algonquin war-party who were in the woods not far off. The Iroquois,
in great delight, demanded to be shown where they were. This Judas,
as the Jesuits call him, at once complied; and the Algonquins were
surprised by a sudden onset, and routed with severe loss. The
treacherous Huron was well treated by the Iroquois, who adopted him into
their nation. Not long after, he came to Canada, and, with a view,
as it was thought, to some further treachery, rejoined the French.
A sharp cross-questioning put him to confusion, and he presently
confessed his guilt. He was sentenced to death; and the sentence was
executed by one of his own countrymen, who split his head with a hatchet.
[ Ragueneau, Relation, 1650, 30. ]

In the course of the summer, the French at Three Rivers became aware that
a band of Iroquois was prowling in the neighborhood, and sixty men went
out to meet them. Far from retreating, the Iroquois, who were about
twenty-five in number, got out of their canoes, and took post, waist-deep
in mud and water, among the tall rushes at the margin of the river.
Here they fought stubbornly, and kept all the Frenchmen at bay. At
length, finding themselves hard pressed, they entered their canoes again,
and paddled off. The French rowed after them, and soon became separated
in the chase; whereupon the Iroquois turned, and made desperate fight
with the foremost, retreating again as soon as the others came up.
This they repeated several times, and then made their escape, after
killing a number of the best French soldiers. Their leader in this
affair was a famous half-breed, known as the Flemish Bastard, who is
styled by Ragueneau "an abomination of sin, and a monster produced
between a heretic Dutch father and a pagan mother."

In the forests far north of Three Rivers dwelt the tribe called the
Atticamegues, or Nation of the White Fish. From their remote position,
and the difficult nature of the intervening country, they thought
themselves safe; but a band of Iroquois, marching on snow-shoes a
distance of twenty days' journey northward from the St. Lawrence, fell
upon one of their camps in the winter, and made a general butchery of the
inmates. The tribe, however, still held its ground for a time, and,
being all good Catholics, gave their missionary, Father Buteux, an urgent
invitation to visit them in their own country. Buteux, who had long been
stationed at Three Rivers, was in ill health, and for years had rarely
been free from some form of bodily suffering. Nevertheless, he acceded
to their request, and, before the opening of spring, made a remarkable
journey on snow-shoes into the depths of this frozen wilderness.
[ Iournal du Pere Iacques Buteux du Voyage qu'il a fait pour la Mission
des Attikamegues. See Relation, 1651, 15. ] In the year following,
he repeated the undertaking. With him were a large party of Atticamegues,
and several Frenchmen. Game was exceedingly scarce, and they were forced
by hunger to separate, a Huron convert and a Frenchman named Fontarabie
remaining with the missionary. The snows had melted, and all the streams
were swollen. The three travellers, in a small birch canoe, pushed their
way up a turbulent river, where falls and rapids were so numerous,
that many times daily they were forced to carry their bark vessel and
their baggage through forests and thickets and over rocks and precipices.
On the tenth of May, they made two such portages, and soon after,
reaching a third fall, again lifted their canoe from the water. They
toiled through the naked forest, among the wet, black trees, over tangled
roots, green, spongy mosses, mouldering leaves, and rotten, prostrate
trunks, while the cataract foamed amidst the rocks hard by. The Indian
led the way with the canoe on his head, while Buteux and the other
Frenchman followed with the baggage. Suddenly they were set upon by a
troop of Iroquois, who had crouched behind thickets, rocks, and fallen
trees, to waylay them. The Huron was captured before he had time to fly.
Buteux and the Frenchman tried to escape, but were instantly shot down,
the Jesuit receiving two balls in the breast. The Iroquois rushed upon
them, mangled their bodies with tomahawks and swords, stripped them,
and then flung them into the torrent. [ Ragueneau, Relation, 1652, 2,
3. ]

CHAPTER XXXII.

1650-1866.

THE LAST OF THE HURONS.

FATE OF THE VANQUISHED.--
THE REFUGEES OF ST. JEAN BAPTISTE AND ST. MICHEL.--
THE TOBACCO NATION AND ITS WANDERINGS.--THE MODERN WYANDOTS.--
THE BITER BIT.--THE HURONS AT QUEBEC.--NOTRE-DAME DE LORETTE.

Iroquois bullets and tomahawks had killed the Hurons by hundreds, but
famine and disease had killed incomparably more. The miseries of the
starving crowd on Isle St. Joseph had been shared in an equal degree by
smaller bands, who had wintered in remote and secret retreats of the
wilderness. Of those who survived that season of death, many were so
weakened that they could not endure the hardships of a wandering life,
which was new to them. The Hurons lived by agriculture; their fields and
crops were destroyed, and they were so hunted from place to place that
they could rarely till the soil. Game was very scarce; and, without
agriculture, the country could support only a scanty and scattered
population like that which maintained a struggling existence in the
wilderness of the lower St. Lawrence. The mortality among the exiles was
prodigious.

It is a matter of some interest to trace the fortunes of the shattered
fragments of a nation once prosperous, and, in its own eyes and those of
its neighbors, powerful and great. None were left alive within their
ancient domain. Some had sought refuge among the Neutrals and the Eries,
and shared the disasters which soon overwhelmed those tribes; others
succeeded in reaching the Andastes; while the inhabitants of two towns,
St. Michel and St. Jean Baptiste, had recourse to an expedient which
seems equally strange and desperate, but which was in accordance with
Indian practices. They contrived to open a communication with the Seneca
Nation of the Iroquois, and promised to change their nationality and turn
Senecas as the price of their lives. The victors accepted the proposal;
and the inhabitants of these two towns, joined by a few other Hurons,
migrated in a body to the Seneca country. They were not distributed
among different villages, but were allowed to form a town by themselves,
where they were afterwards joined by some prisoners of the Neutral
Nation. They identified themselves with the Iroquois in all but
religion,--holding so fast to their faith, that, eighteen years after,
a Jesuit missionary found that many of them were still good Catholics.

[ Compare Relation, 1651, 4; 1660, 14, 28; and 1670, 69. The Huron town
among the Senecas was called Gandougaraé. Father Fremin was here in 1668,
and gives an account of his visit in the Relation of 1670. ]

The division of the Hurons called the Tobacco Nation, favored by their
isolated position among mountains, had held their ground longer than the
rest; but at length they, too, were compelled to fly, together with such
other Hurons as had taken refuge with them. They made their way
northward, and settled on the Island of Michilimackinac, where they were
joined by the Ottawas, who, with other Algonquins, had been driven by
fear of the Iroquois from the western shores of Lake Huron and the banks
of the River Ottawa. At Michilimackinac the Hurons and their allies were
again attacked by the Iroquois, and, after remaining several years,
they made another remove, and took possession of the islands at the mouth
of the Green Bay of Lake Michigan. Even here their old enemy did not
leave them in peace; whereupon they fortified themselves on the main-land,
and afterwards migrated southward and westward. This brought them in
contact with the Illinois, an Algonquin people, at that time very
numerous, but who, like many other tribes at this epoch, were doomed to a
rapid diminution from wars with other savage nations. Continuing their
migration westward, the Hurons and Ottawas reached the Mississippi,
where they fell in with the Sioux. They soon quarrelled with those
fierce children of the prairie, who drove them from their country.
They retreated to the south-western extremity of Lake Superior, and
settled on Point Saint Esprit, or Shagwamigon Point, near the Islands of
the Twelve Apostles. As the Sioux continued to harass them, they left
this place about the year 1671, and returned to Michilimackinac, where
they settled, not on the island, but on the neighboring Point St. Ignace,
now Graham's Point, on the north side of the strait. The greater part of
them afterwards removed thence to Detroit and Sandusky, where they lived
under the name of Wyandots until within the present century, maintaining
a marked influence over the surrounding Algonquins. They bore an active
part, on the side of the French, in the war which ended in the reduction
of Canada; and they were the most formidable enemies of the English in
the Indian war under Pontiac. [ See "History of the Conspiracy of
Pontiac." ] The government of the United States at length removed them
to reserves on the western frontier, where a remnant of them may still be
found. Thus it appears that the Wyandots, whose name is so conspicuous
in the history of our border wars, are descendants of the ancient Hurons,
and chiefly of that portion of them called the Tobacco Nation.

[ The migrations of this band of the Hurons may be traced by detached
passages and incidental remarks in the Relations of 1654, 1660, 1667,
1670, 1671, and 1672. Nicolas Perrot, in his chapter, Deffaitte et
Füitte des Hurons chassés de leur Pays, and in the chapter following,
gives a long and rather confused account of their movements and
adventures. See also La Poterie, Histoire de l'Amérique Septentrionale,
II. 51-56. According to the Relation of 1670, the Hurons, when living at
Shagwamigon Point, numbered about fifteen hundred souls. ]

When Ragueneau and his party left Isle St. Joseph for Quebec, the greater
number of the Hurons chose to remain. They took possession of the stone
fort which the French had abandoned, and where, with reasonable vigilance,
they could maintain themselves against attack. In the succeeding autumn
a small Iroquois war-party had the audacity to cross over to the island,
and build a fort of felled trees in the woods. The Hurons attacked them;
but the invaders made so fierce a defence, that they kept their
assailants at bay, and at length retreated with little or no loss.
Soon after, a much larger band of Onondaga Iroquois, approaching
undiscovered, built a fort on the main-land, opposite the island, but
concealed from sight in the forest. Here they waited to waylay any party
of Hurons who might venture ashore. A Huron war chief, named Étienne
Annaotaha, whose life is described as a succession of conflicts and
adventures, and who is said to have been always in luck, landed with a
few companions, and fell into an ambuscade of the Iroquois. He prepared
to defend himself, when they called out to him, that they came not as
enemies, but as friends, and that they brought wampum-belts and presents
to persuade the Hurons to forget the past, go back with them to their
country, become their adopted countrymen, and live with them as one
nation. Étienne suspected treachery, but concealed his distrust, and
advanced towards the Iroquois with an air of the utmost confidence.
They received him with open arms, and pressed him to accept their
invitation; but he replied, that there were older and wiser men among the
Hurons, whose counsels all the people followed, and that they ought to
lay the proposal before them. He proceeded to advise them to keep him as
a hostage, and send over his companions, with some of their chiefs,
to open the negotiation. His apparent frankness completely deceived
them; and they insisted that he himself should go to the Huron village,
while his companions remained as hostages. He set out accordingly with
three of the principal Iroquois.

When he reached the village, he gave the whoop of one who brings good
tidings, and proclaimed with a loud voice that the hearts of their
enemies had changed, that the Iroquois would become their countrymen and
brothers, and that they should exchange their miseries for a life of
peace and plenty in a fertile and prosperous land. The whole Huron
population, full of joyful excitement, crowded about him and the three
envoys, who were conducted to the principal lodge, and feasted on the
best that the village could supply. Étienne seized the opportunity to
take aside four or five of the principal chiefs, and secretly tell them
his suspicions that the Iroquois were plotting to compass their
destruction under cover of overtures of peace; and he proposed that they
should meet treachery with treachery. He then explained his plan,
which was highly approved by his auditors, who begged him to charge
himself with the execution of it. Étienne now caused criers to proclaim
through the village that every one should get ready to emigrate in a few
days to the country of their new friends. The squaws began their
preparations at once, and all was bustle and alacrity; for the Hurons
themselves were no less deceived than were the Iroquois envoys.

During one or two succeeding days, many messages and visits passed
between the Hurons and the Iroquois, whose confidence was such, that
thirty-seven of their best warriors at length came over in a body to the
Huron village. Étienne's time had come. He and the chiefs who were in
the secret gave the word to the Huron warriors, who, at a signal, raised
the war-whoop, rushed upon their visitors, and cut them to pieces.
One of them, who lingered for a time, owned before he died that Étienne's
suspicions were just, and that they had designed nothing less than the
massacre or capture of all the Hurons. Three of the Iroquois,
immediately before the slaughter began, had received from Étienne a
warning of their danger in time to make their escape. The year before,
he had been captured, with Brébeuf and Lalemant, at the town of St. Louis,
and had owed his life to these three warriors, to whom he now paid back
the debt of gratitude. They carried tidings of what had befallen to
their countrymen on the main-land, who, aghast at the catastrophe,
fled homeward in a panic.

[ Ragueneau, Relation des Hurons, 1651, 5, 6. Le Mercier, in the
Relation of 1654, preserves the speech of a Huron chief, in which he
speaks of this affair, and adds some particulars not mentioned by
Ragueneau. He gives thirty-four as the number killed. ]

Here was a sweet morsel of vengeance. The miseries of the Hurons were
lighted up with a brief gleam of joy; but it behooved them to make a
timely retreat from their island before the Iroquois came to exact a
bloody retribution. Towards spring, while the lake was still frozen,
many of them escaped on the ice, while another party afterwards followed
in canoes. A few, who had neither strength to walk nor canoes to
transport them, perforce remained behind, and were soon massacred by the
Iroquois. The fugitives directed their course to the Grand Manitoulin
Island, where they remained for a short time, and then, to the number of
about four hundred, descended the Ottawa, and rejoined their countrymen
who had gone to Quebec the year before.

These united parties, joined from time to time by a few other fugitives,
formed a settlement on land belonging to the Jesuits, near the south-
western extremity of the Isle of Orleans, immediately below Quebec.
Here the Jesuits built a fort, like that on Isle St. Joseph, with a
chapel, and a small house for the missionaries, while the bark dwellings
of the Hurons were clustered around the protecting ramparts. [ 1 ]
Tools and seeds were given them, and they were encouraged to cultivate
the soil. Gradually they rallied from their dejection, and the mission
settlement was beginning to wear an appearance of thrift, when, in 1656,
the Iroquois made a descent upon them, and carried off a large number of
captives, under the very cannon of Quebec; the French not daring to fire
upon the invaders, lest they should take revenge upon the Jesuits who
were at that time in their country. This calamity was, four years after,
followed by another, when the best of the Huron warriors, including their
leader, the crafty and valiant Étienne Annaotaha, were slain, fighting
side by side with the French, in the desperate conflict of the Long
Sault. [ Relation, 1660 (anonymous), 14. ]

[ 1 The site of the fort was the estate now known as "La Terre du Fort,"
near the landing of the steam ferry. In 1856, Mr. N. H. Bowen, a
resident near the spot, in making some excavations, found a solid stone
wall five feet thick, which, there can be little doubt, was that of the
work in question. This wall was originally crowned with palisades.
See Bowen, Historical Sketch of the Isle of Orleans, 25. ]

The attenuated colony, replenished by some straggling bands of the same
nation, and still numbering several hundred persons, was removed to
Quebec after the inroad in 1656, and lodged in a square inclosure of
palisades close to the fort. [ In a plan of Quebec of 1660, the "Fort
des Hurons" is laid down on a spot adjoining the north side of the
present Place d'Armes. ] Here they remained about ten years, when,
the danger of the times having diminished, they were again removed to a
place called Notre-Dame de Foy, now Ste. Foi, three or four miles west of
Quebec. Six years after, when the soil was impoverished and the wood in
the neighborhood exhausted, they again changed their abode, and, under
the auspices of the Jesuits, who owned the land, settled at Old Lorette,
nine miles from Quebec.

Chaumonot was at this time their missionary. It may be remembered that
he had professed special devotion to Our Lady of Loretto, who, in his
boyhood, had cured him, as he believed, of a distressing malady. [ See
ante, chapter 9 (p. 102). ] He had always cherished the idea of building
a chapel in honor of her in Canada, after the model of the Holy House of
Loretto,--which, as all the world knows, is the house wherein Saint
Joseph dwelt with his virgin spouse, and which angels bore through the
air from the Holy Land to Italy, where it remains an object of pilgrimage
to this day. Chaumonot opened his plan to his brother Jesuits, who were
delighted with it, and the chapel was begun at once, not without the
intervention of miracle to aid in raising the necessary funds. It was
built of brick, like its original, of which it was an exact facsimile;
and it stood in the centre of a quadrangle, the four sides of which were
formed by the bark dwellings of the Hurons, ranged with perfect order in
straight lines. Hither came many pilgrims from Quebec and more distant
settlements, and here Our Lady granted to her suppliants, says Chaumonot,
many miraculous favors, insomuch that "it would require an entire book to
describe them all."

[ "Les grâces qu'on y obtient par l'entremise de la Mère de Dieu vont
jusqu'au miracle. Comme il faudroit composer un livre entier pour
décrire toutes ces faveurs extraordinaires, je n'en rapporterai que deux,
ayant été témoin oculaire de l'une et propre sujet de l'autre."--Vie, 95.

The removal from Notre-Dame de Foy took place at the end of 1673, and the
chapel was finished in the following year. Compare Vie de Chaumonot with
Dablon, Relation, 1672-73, p. 21; and Ibid., Relation 1673-79, p. 259. ]

But the Hurons were not destined to remain permanently even here; for,
before the end of the century, they removed to a place four miles distant,
now called New Lorette, or Indian Lorette. It was a wild spot, covered
with the primitive forest, and seamed by a deep and tortuous ravine,
where the St. Charles foams, white as a snow-drift, over the black ledges,
and where the sunlight struggles through matted boughs of the pine and
fir, to bask for brief moments on the mossy rocks or flash on the
hurrying waters. On a plateau beside the torrent, another chapel was
built to Our Lady, and another Huron town sprang up; and here, to this
day, the tourist finds the remnant of a lost people, harmless weavers of
baskets and sewers of moccasins, the Huron blood fast bleaching out of
them, as, with every generation, they mingle and fade away in the French
population around.

[ An interesting account of a visit to Indian Lorette in 1721 will be
found in the Journal Historique of Charlevoix. Kalm, in his Travels in
North America, describes its condition in 1749. See also Le Beau,
Aventures, I. 103; who, however, can hardly be regarded as an authority. ]

CHAPTER XXXIII.

1650-1670.

THE DESTROYERS.

IROQUOIS AMBITION.--ITS VICTIMS.--THE FATE OF THE NEUTRALS.--
THE FATE OF THE ERIES.--THE WAR WITH THE ANDASTES.--
SUPREMACY OF THE IROQUOIS.

It was well for the European colonies, above all for those of England,
that the wisdom of the Iroquois was but the wisdom of savages. Their
sagacity is past denying; it showed itself in many ways; but it was not
equal to a comprehension of their own situation and that of their race.
Could they have read their destiny, and curbed their mad ambition,
they might have leagued with themselves four great communities of kindred
lineage, to resist the encroachments of civilization, and oppose a
barrier of fire to the spread of the young colonies of the East. But
their organization and their intelligence were merely the instruments of
a blind frenzy, which impelled them to destroy those whom they might have
made their allies in a common cause.

Of the four kindred communities, two at least, the Hurons and the
Neutrals, were probably superior in numbers to the Iroquois. Either one
of these, with union and leadership, could have held its ground against
them, and the two united could easily have crippled them beyond the power
of doing mischief. But these so-called nations were mere aggregations of
villages and families, with nothing that deserved to be called a
government. They were very liable to panics, because the part attacked
by an enemy could never rely with confidence on prompt succor from the
rest; and when once broken, they could not be rallied, because they had
no centre around which to gather. The Iroquois, on the other hand,
had an organization with which the ideas and habits of several
generations were interwoven, and they had also sagacious leaders for
peace and war. They discussed all questions of policy with the coolest
deliberation, and knew how to turn to profit even imperfections in their
plan of government which seemed to promise only weakness and discord.
Thus, any nation, or any large town, of their confederacy, could make a
separate war or a separate peace with a foreign nation, or any part of
it. Some member of the league, as, for example, the Cayugas, would make
a covenant of friendship with the enemy, and, while the infatuated
victims were thus lulled into a delusive security, the war-parties of the
other nations, often joined by the Cayuga warriors, would overwhelm them
by a sudden onset. But it was not by their craft, nor by their
organization,--which for military purposes was wretchedly feeble,--that
this handful of savages gained a bloody supremacy. They carried all
before them, because they were animated throughout, as one man, by the
same audacious pride and insatiable rage for conquest. Like other
Indians, they waged war on a plan altogether democratic,--that is,
each man fought or not, as he saw fit; and they owed their unity and
vigor of action to the homicidal frenzy that urged them all alike.

The Neutral Nation had taken no part, on either side, in the war of
extermination against the Hurons; and their towns were sanctuaries where
either of the contending parties might take asylum. On the other hand,
they made fierce war on their western neighbors, and, a few years before,
destroyed, with atrocious cruelties, a large fortified town of the Nation
of Fire. [ 1 ] Their turn was now come, and their victims found fit
avengers; for no sooner were the Hurons broken up and dispersed, than the
Iroquois, without waiting to take breath, turned their fury on the
Neutrals. At the end of the autumn of 1650, they assaulted and took one
of their chief towns, said to have contained at the time more than
sixteen hundred men, besides women and children; and early in the
following spring, they took another town. The slaughter was prodigious,
and the victors drove back troops of captives for butchery or adoption.
It was the death-blow of the Neutrals. They abandoned their corn-fields
and villages in the wildest terror, and dispersed themselves abroad in
forests, which could not yield sustenance to such a multitude. They
perished by thousands, and from that time forth the nation ceased to
exist. [ 2 ]

[ 1 "Last summer," writes Lalemant in 1643, "two thousand warriors of
the Neutral Nation attacked a town of the Nation of Fire, well fortified
with a palisade, and defended by nine hundred warriors. They took it
after a siege of ten days; killed many on the spot; and made eight
hundred prisoners, men, women, and children. After burning seventy of
the best warriors, they put out the eyes of the old men, and cut away
their lips, and then left them to drag out a miserable existence.
Behold the scourge that is depopulating all this country!"--Relation des
Hurons, 1644, 98.

The Assistaeronnons, Atsistaehonnons, Mascoutins, or Nation of Fire (more
correctly, perhaps, Nation of the Prairie), were a very numerous
Algonquin people of the West, speaking the same language as the Sacs and
Foxes. In the map of Sanson, they are placed in the southern part of
Michigan; and according to the Relation of 1658, they had thirty towns.
They were a stationary, and in some measure an agricultural people.
They fled before their enemies to the neighborhood of Fox River in
Wisconsin, where they long remained. Frequent mention of them will be
found in the later Relations, and in contemporary documents. They are
now extinct as a tribe. ]

[ 2 Ragueneau, Relation, 1651, 4. In the unpublished journal kept by
the Superior of the Jesuits at Quebec, it is said, under date of April,
1651, that news had just come from Montreal, that, in the preceding
autumn, fifteen hundred Iroquois had taken a Neutral town; that the
Neutrals had afterwards attacked them, and killed two hundred of their
warriors; and that twelve hundred Iroquois had again invaded the Neutral
country to take their revenge. Lafitau, Murs des Sauvaqes, II. 176,
gives, on the authority of Father Julien Garnier, a singular and
improbable account of the origin of the war.

An old chief, named Kenjockety, who claimed descent from an adopted
prisoner of the Neutral Nation, was recently living among the Senecas of
Western New York. ]

During two or three succeeding years, the Iroquois contented themselves
with harassing the French and Algonquins; but in 1653 they made treaties
of peace, each of the five nations for itself, and the colonists and
their red allies had an interval of rest. In the following May, an
Onondaga orator, on a peace visit to Montreal, said, in a speech to the
Governor, "Our young men will no more fight the French; but they are too
warlike to stay at home, and this summer we shall invade the country of
the Eries. The earth trembles and quakes in that quarter; but here all
remains calm." [ Le Mercier, Relation, 1654, 9. ] Early in the autumn,
Father Le Moyne, who had taken advantage of the peace to go on a mission
to the Onondagas, returned with the tidings that the Iroquois were all on
fire with this new enterprise, and were about to march against the Eries
with eighteen hundred warriors. [ Le Mercier, Relation, 1654, 10.
Le Moyne, in his interesting journal of his mission, repeatedly alludes
to their preparations. ]

The occasion of this new war is said to have been as follows. The Eries,
who it will be remembered dwelt on the south of the lake named after them,
had made a treaty of peace with the Senecas, and in the preceding year
had sent a deputation of thirty of their principal men to confirm it.
While they were in the great Seneca town, it happened that one of that
nation was killed in a casual quarrel with an Erie; whereupon his
countrymen rose in a fury, and murdered the thirty deputies. Then ensued
a brisk war of reprisals, in which not only the Senecas, but the other
Iroquois nations, took part. The Eries captured a famous Onondaga chief,
and were about to burn him, when he succeeded in convincing them of the
wisdom of a course of conciliation; and they resolved to give him to the
sister of one of the murdered deputies, to take the place of her lost
brother. The sister, by Indian law, had it in her choice to receive him
with a fraternal embrace or to burn him; but, though she was absent at
the time, no one doubted that she would choose the gentler alternative.
Accordingly, he was clothed in gay attire, and all the town fell to
feasting in honor of his adoption. In the midst of the festivity,
the sister returned. To the amazement of the Erie chiefs, she rejected
with indignation their proffer of a new brother, declared that she would
be revenged for her loss, and insisted that the prisoner should forthwith
be burned. The chiefs remonstrated in vain, representing the danger in
which such a procedure would involve the nation: the female fury was
inexorable; and the unfortunate prisoner, stripped of his festal robes,
was bound to the stake, and put to death. [ De Quen, Relation, 1656,
30. ] He warned his tormentors with his last breath, that they were
burning not only him, but the whole Erie nation; since his countrymen
would take a fiery vengeance for his fate. His words proved true; for no
sooner was his story spread abroad among the Iroquois, than the
confederacy resounded with war-songs from end to end, and the warriors
took the field under their two great war-chiefs. Notwithstanding Le
Moyne's report, their number, according to the Iroquois account, did not
exceed twelve hundred.

[ This was their statement to Chaumonot and Dablon, at Onondaga, in
November of this year. They added, that the number of the Eries was
between three and four thousand, (Journal des PP. Chaumonot et Dablon,
in Relation, 1656, 18.) In the narrative of De Quen (Ibid., 30, 31),
based, of course, on Iroquois reports, the Iroquois force is also set
down at twelve hundred, but that of the Eries is reduced to between two
and three thousand warriors. Even this may safely be taken as an
exaggeration.

Though the Eries had no fire-arms, they used poisoned arrows with great
effect, discharging them, it is said, with surprising rapidity. ]

They embarked in canoes on the lake. At their approach the Eries fell
back, withdrawing into the forests towards the west, till they were
gathered into one body, when, fortifying themselves with palisades and
felled trees, they awaited the approach of the invaders. By the lowest
estimate, the Eries numbered two thousand warriors, besides women and
children. But this is the report of the Iroquois, who were naturally
disposed to exaggerate the force of their enemies.

They approached the Erie fort, and two of their chiefs, dressed like
Frenchmen, advanced and called on those within to surrender. One of them
had lately been baptized by Le Moyne; and he shouted to the Eries, that,
if they did not yield in time, they were all dead men, for the Master of
Life was on the side of the Iroquois. The Eries answered with yells of
derision. "Who is this master of your lives?" they cried; "our hatchets
and our right arms are the masters of ours." The Iroquois rushed to the
assault, but were met with a shower of poisoned arrows, which killed and
wounded many of them, and drove the rest back. They waited awhile,
and then attacked again with unabated mettle. This time, they carried
their bark canoes over their heads like huge shields, to protect them
from the storm of arrows; then planting them upright, and mounting them
by the cross-bars like ladders, scaled the barricade with such impetuous
fury that the Eries were thrown into a panic. Those escaped who could;
but the butchery was frightful, and from that day the Eries as a nation
were no more. The victors paid dear for their conquest. Their losses
were so heavy that they were forced to remain for two months in the Erie
country, to bury their dead and nurse their wounded.

[ De Quen, Relation, 1656, 31. The Iroquois, it seems, afterwards made
other expeditions, to finish their work. At least, they told Chaumonot
and Dablon, in the autumn of this year, that they meant to do so in the
following spring.

It seems, that, before attacking the great fort of the Eries, the
Iroquois had made a promise to worship the new God of the French, if He
would give them the victory. This promise, and the success which
followed, proved of great advantage to the mission.

Various traditions are extant among the modern remnant of the Iroquois
concerning the war with the Eries. They agree in little beyond the fact
of the existence and destruction of that people. Indeed, Indian
traditions are very rarely of any value as historical evidence. One of
these stories, told me some years ago by a very intelligent Iroquois of
the Cayuga Nation, is a striking illustration of Iroquois ferocity.
It represents, that, the night after the great battle, the forest was
lighted up with more than a thousand fires, at each of which an Erie was
burning alive. It differs from the historical accounts in making the
Eries the aggressors. ]

One enemy of their own race remained,--the Andastes. This nation appears
to have been inferior in numbers to either the Hurons, the Neutrals,
or the Eries; but they cost their assailants more trouble than all these
united. The Mohawks seem at first to have borne the brunt of the Andaste
war; and, between the years 1650 and 1660, they were so roughly handled
by these stubborn adversaries, that they were reduced from the height of
audacious insolence to the depths of dejection. [ 1 ] The remaining four
nations of the Iroquois league now took up the quarrel, and fared
scarcely better than the Mohawks. In the spring of 1662, eight hundred
of their warriors set out for the Andaste country, to strike a decisive
blow; but when they reached the great town of their enemies, they saw
that they had received both aid and counsel from the neighboring Swedish
colonists. The town was fortified by a double palisade, flanked by two
bastions, on which, it is said, several small pieces of cannon were
mounted. Clearly, it was not to be carried by assault, as the invaders
had promised themselves. Their only hope was in treachery; and,
accordingly, twenty-five of their warriors gained entrance, on pretence
of settling the terms of a peace. Here, again, ensued a grievous
disappointment; for the Andastes seized them all, built high scaffolds
visible from without, and tortured them to death in sight of their
countrymen, who thereupon decamped in miserable discomfiture.
[ Lalemant, Relation, 1663, 10. ]

[ 1 Relation, 1660, 6 (anonymous).

The Mohawks also suffered great reverses about this time at the hands of
their Algonquin neighbors, the Mohicans. ]

The Senecas, by far the most numerous of the five Iroquois nations,
now found themselves attacked in turn,--and this, too, at a time when
they were full of despondency at the ravages of the small-pox. The
French reaped a profit from their misfortunes; for the disheartened
savages made them overtures of peace, and begged that they would settle
in their country, teach them to fortify their towns, supply them with
arms and ammunition, and bring "black-robes" to show them the road to
Heaven. [ Lalemant, Relation, 1664, 33. ]

The Andaste war became a war of inroads and skirmishes, under which the
weaker party gradually wasted away, though it sometimes won laurels at
the expense of its adversary. Thus, in 1672, a party of twenty Senecas
and forty Cayugas went against the Andastes. They were at a considerable
distance the one from the other, the Cayugas being in advance, when the
Senecas were set upon by about sixty young Andastes, of the class known
as "Burnt-Knives," or "Soft-Metals," because as yet they had taken no
scalps. Indeed, they are described as mere boys, fifteen or sixteen
years old. They killed one of the Senecas, captured another, and put the
rest to flight; after which, flushed with their victory, they attacked
the Cayugas with the utmost fury, and routed them completely, killing
eight of them, and wounding twice that number, who, as is reported by the
Jesuit then in the Cayuga towns, came home half dead with gashes of
knives and hatchets. [ Dablon, Relation, 1672, 24. ] "May God preserve
the Andastes," exclaims the Father, "and prosper their arms, that the
Iroquois may be humbled, and we and our missions left in peace!" "None
but they," he elsewhere adds, "can curb the pride of the Iroquois."
The only strength of the Andastes, however, was in their courage: for at
this time they were reduced to three hundred fighting men; and about the
year 1675 they were finally overborne by the Senecas. [ État Présent des
Missions, in Relations Inédites, II. 44. Relation, 1676, 2. This is one
of the Relations printed by Mr. Lenox. ] Yet they were not wholly
destroyed; for a remnant of this valiant people continued to subsist,
under the name of Conestogas, for nearly a century, until, in 1763,
they were butchered, as already mentioned, by the white ruffians known as
the "Paxton Boys." [ "History of the Conspiracy of Pontiac," Chap. XXIV.
Compare Shea, in Historical Magazine, II. 297. ]

The bloody triumphs of the Iroquois were complete. They had "made a
solitude, and called it peace." All the surrounding nations of their own
lineage were conquered and broken up, while neighboring Algonquin tribes
were suffered to exist only on condition of paying a yearly tribute of
wampum. The confederacy remained a wedge thrust between the growing
colonies of France and England.

But what was the state of the conquerors? Their triumphs had cost them
dear. As early as the year 1660, a writer, evidently well-informed,
reports that their entire force had been reduced to twenty-two hundred
warriors, while of these not more than twelve hundred were of the true
Iroquois stock. The rest was a medley of adopted prisoners,--Hurons,
Neutrals, Eries, and Indians of various Algonquin tribes. [ 1 ] Still
their aggressive spirit was unsubdued. These incorrigible warriors
pushed their murderous raids to Hudson's Bay, Lake Superior, the
Mississippi, and the Tennessee; they were the tyrants of all the
intervening wilderness; and they remained, for more than half a century,
a terror and a scourge to the afflicted colonists of New France.

[ 1 Relation, 1660, 6, 7 (anonymous). Le Jeune says, "Their victories
have so depopulated their towns, that there are more foreigners in them
than natives. At Onondaga there are Indians of seven different nations
permanently established; and, among the Senecas, of no less than eleven."
(Relation, 1657, 34.) These were either adopted prisoners, or Indians
who had voluntarily joined the Iroquois to save themselves from their
hostility. They took no part in councils, but were expected to join
war-parties, though they were usually excused from fighting against their
former countrymen. The condition of female prisoners was little better
than that of slaves, and those to whom they were assigned often killed
them on the slightest pique. ]

CHAPTER XXXIV.

THE END.

FAILURE OF THE JESUITS.--WHAT THEIR SUCCESS WOULD HAVE INVOLVED.--
FUTURE OF THE MISSION.

With the fall of the Hurons, fell the best hope of the Canadian mission.
They, and the stable and populous communities around them, had been the
rude material from which the Jesuit would have formed his Christian
empire in the wilderness; but, one by one, these kindred peoples were
uprooted and swept away, while the neighboring Algonquins, to whom they
had been a bulwark, were involved with them in a common ruin. The land
of promise was turned to a solitude and a desolation. There was still
work in hand, it is true,--vast regions to explore, and countless
heathens to snatch from perdition; but these, for the most part, were
remote and scattered hordes, from whose conversion it was vain to look
for the same solid and decisive results.

In a measure, the occupation of the Jesuits was gone. Some of them went
home, "well resolved," writes the Father Superior, "to return to the
combat at the first sound of the trumpet;" [ 1 ] while of those who
remained, about twenty in number, several soon fell victims to famine,
hardship, and the Iroquois. A few years more, and Canada ceased to be a
mission; political and commercial interests gradually became ascendant,
and the story of Jesuit propagandism was interwoven with her civil and
military annals.

[ 1 Lettre de Lalemant au R. P. Provincial (Relation, 1650, 48). ]

Here, then, closes this wild and bloody act of the great drama of New
France; and now let the curtain fall, while we ponder its meaning.

The cause of the failure of the Jesuits is obvious. The guns and
tomahawks of the Iroquois were the ruin of their hopes. Could they have
curbed or converted those ferocious bands, it is little less than certain
that their dream would have become a reality. Savages tamed--not
civilized, for that was scarcely possible--would have been distributed in
communities through the valleys of the Great Lakes and the Mississippi,
ruled by priests in the interest of Catholicity and of France. Their
habits of agriculture would have been developed, and their instincts of
mutual slaughter repressed. The swift decline of the Indian population
would have been arrested; and it would have been made, through the
fur-trade, a source of prosperity to New France. Unmolested by Indian
enemies, and fed by a rich commerce, she would have put forth a vigorous
growth. True to her far-reaching and adventurous genius, she would have
occupied the West with traders, settlers, and garrisons, and cut up the
virgin wilderness into fiefs, while as yet the colonies of England were
but a weak and broken line along the shore of the Atlantic; and when at
last the great conflict came, England and Liberty would have been
confronted, not by a depleted antagonist, still feeble from the
exhaustion of a starved and persecuted infancy, but by an athletic
champion of the principles of Richelieu and of Loyola.

Liberty may thank the Iroquois, that, by their insensate fury, the plans
of her adversary were brought to nought, and a peril and a woe averted
from her future. They ruined the trade which was the life-blood of New
France; they stopped the current of her arteries, and made all her early
years a misery and a terror. Not that they changed her destinies.
The contest on this continent between Liberty and Absolutism was never
doubtful; but the triumph of the one would have been dearly bought,
and the downfall of the other incomplete. Populations formed in the
ideas and habits of a feudal monarchy, and controlled by a hierarchy
profoundly hostile to freedom of thought, would have remained a hindrance
and a stumbling-block in the way of that majestic experiment of which
America is the field.

The Jesuits saw their hopes struck down; and their faith, though not
shaken, was sorely tried. The Providence of God seemed in their eyes
dark and inexplicable; but, from the stand-point of Liberty, that
Providence is clear as the sun at noon. Meanwhile let those who have
prevailed yield due honor to the defeated. Their virtues shine amidst
the rubbish of error, like diamonds and gold in the gravel of the torrent.

But now new scenes succeed, and other actors enter on the stage, a hardy
and valiant band, moulded to endure and dare,--the Discoverers of the
Great West.

Appendix: Transcription notes:

This etext was transcribed from a volume of the Twentieth Edition.

The principal works of Francis Parkman:
The Oregon Trail, 1849
The Conspiracy of Pontiac, 1851
The seven works comprising "France and England in North America":
Pioneers of France in the New World, 1865
The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century, 1867
LaSalle and the Discovery of the Great West, 1869
The Old Regime in Canada, 1874
Count Frontenac and New France Under Louis XIV, 1877
Montcalm and Wolfe, 1884
A Half-Century of Conflict, 1892 (2 volumes)

The 8-bit version of this etext, with accented French characters,
is produced using Windows Code Page 1252. Most of the accented
characters will also display correctly if you view the text using
any of the ISO 8859 character sets. However, the "oe" ligature -
- will only display correctly if using Windows 1252.

This book contains five hundred sixty-eight (568) footnotes:
- Footnotes are always presented in square brackets.
- Where practical, the footnote is presented at the point that the
footnote is referenced.
- Otherwise, a numbered reference [ 1 ] is shown at the point that the
footnote is referenced, and the corresponding numbered footnotes are
presented immediately following the paragraph.

In those cases in which I felt it would be beneficial, underscores are
used to denote _words and phrases_ which are presented in _italics_ in
the printed book.

Detailed notes include:
- modifications applied while transcribing printed book to e-text.
- instances in which a footnote referred to a specific page in the
printed book; these references have been modified to identify the
appropriate chapter.
- problems transcribing the text.

Introduction:
Page xxxv, in the French footnote the word "come" is printed with
a straight line over the "o". This character is not available in
code page 1252.

Chapter 4:
Page 31, fixed typo ("fumeé", wrong character accented) in footnote
Page 31, footnote is not printed clearly, word appears to be "mais"
Page 31, apostrophe is not printed in "qu'à"
Page 33, fixed typo ("laiss", should be "laisse") in footnote
Page 37, footnote refers back to page xliv

Chapter 6:
Page 62, there is a footnote 1 on this page, but no clear
reference mark within the page. I placed the footnote at
the end of the second paragraph, where it appears that there
might be an intended but mis-printed reference mark.

Chpater 7:
Page 76, French footnote contains the word "Atsatone8ai". No
similar word occurs elsewhere in the text, so I did not know
what to change it to, so I left it as is.

Chapter 8:
Page 85, "i" is not printed in "i'auoüe"
Page 85, footnote is not printed clearly, word appears to be "cherche"

Chapter 12:
Page 144, footnote refers back to page 109

Chapter 15:
Page 195, rightmost digit of year in footnote is poorly printed,
appears most likely to be 1659

Chapter 18:
Page 263, poorly printed word in footnote, appears to be "de"

Chapter 19:
Page 281, fixed typo ("die", should be "dine")

Chapter 22:
Page 330, footnote refers back to page 264

Page 333, fixed typo ("Govornor")

Chapter 23:
Page 339, footnote refers back to page 137

Chapter 25:
Page 364, footnote refers back to page 214
Page 364, footnote 4, add missing close-quotes
Page 371, I assumed a comma at end of page
Page 372, fixed typo ("aprés", wrong accent on "e") in footnote
Page 372, I guessed ":" after "dit-il"

Chapter 28:
Page 392, footnote refers back to page 108

Chapter 29:
Page 397, footnote, add missing close-quotes

Chapter 30:
Page 407, fixed typo ("mâitre", wrong character accented) in footnote

Chapter 31:
Page 412, fixed typo ("neges", should be "neiges") in footnote

Chapter 32:
Page 431, footnote refers back to page 102

*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century" ***

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