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+The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century, by Francis Parkman
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
+of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
+will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
+using this eBook.
+
+Title: The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century
+
+Author: Francis Parkman
+
+Release Date: February 13, 2003 [eBook #6933]
+[Most recently updated: May 2, 2023]
+
+Language: English
+
+Produced by: Ken Reeder, Cyrille Héloir and Robert Homa
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE JESUITS IN NORTH AMERICA ***
+
+
+
+
+The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century
+by Francis Parkman
+
+
+France and England
+in North America
+
+A Series
+of Historical Narratives
+
+Part Second
+
+BOSTON:
+LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY.
+1867.
+
+Entered According to Act of Congress, in the year 1867, by
+Francis Parkman,
+In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of
+Massachusetts.
+
+CAMBRIDGE:
+STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY JOHN WILSON AND SON.
+
+
+
+
+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. [1]
+
+[1] 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
+
+The Jesuits in North America
+
+PREFACE.
+
+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 • Indian
+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 Bourgeoys • 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
+
+INDEX.
+APPENDIX.
+
+
+
+
+
+The Jesuits in North America
+in the Seventeenth Century
+
+by Francis Parkman
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+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 • Indian
+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-ground of Kentucky. [1]
+
+[1] 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. [2]
+
+[2] 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 1715 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.
+[3]
+
+[3] 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. 34.
+
+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. [4]
+
+[4] 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. [5]
+
+[5] 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. [6]
+
+[6] Lalemant, Relation des Hurons, 1640, 38 (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. [7] 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. [8] 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. [9] 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. [10]
+
+[7] 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."
+
+[8] 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!
+
+[9] 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.
+
+[10] 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, Mœurs 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. [11]
+
+[11] 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. [12] 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. [13] 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. [14] 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.
+
+[12] 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."
+[13] Beaver-skins and other valuable furs were sometimes, on such
+occasions, used as a substitute.
+[14] 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.
+
+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. [15] 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. [16] When of such extent, the process was very
+severe; and though no murmur escaped the sufferer, he sometimes died
+from its effects.
+
+[15] See Le Jeune, Relation, 1633, 35.--"Quelles hures!" exclaimed some
+astonished Frenchman. Hence the name, Hurons.
+[16] Bressani, Relation Abrégée, 72.--Champlain has a picture of a
+warrior thus tattooed.
+
+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. [17] 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. [18] 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.
+
+[17] 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.
+[18] "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, les
+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. [19] 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. [20] 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.
+
+[19] Champlain (1627), 84.
+[20] Brébeuf, Relation des Hurons, 1636, 156 (Cramoisy).
+
+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. [21] Ludicrous as it may
+appear, these games were often medical prescriptions, and designed as a
+cure of the sick.
+
+[21] 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.
+
+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. [22] 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.
+
+[22] Brébeuf, Relation des Hurons, 1636, 111.
+
+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. [23]
+These festins à manger tout were much dreaded by many of the Hurons,
+who, however, were never known to decline them.
+
+[23] 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.
+
+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. [24] 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.
+
+[24] 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. [25] This was the only form of cannibalism
+among them, since, unlike the wandering Algonquins, they were rarely
+under the desperation of extreme famine.
+
+[25] "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. [26]
+
+[26] 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. [27] 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.
+
+[27] 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.
+[28] 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.
+
+[28] "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. [29]
+
+[29] "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.
+[30] 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. [31] 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. [32]
+
+[30] Synonymes: Tionnontates, Etionontates, Tuinontatek, Dionondadies,
+Khionontaterrhonons, Petuneux or Nation du Petun (Tobacco).
+[31] "L'ame de tous les Conseils."--Charlevoix, Voyage, 199.--In 1763
+they were Pontiac's best warriors.
+[32] 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. [33] 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. [34] 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. [35] They burned female prisoners, a
+practice unknown to the Hurons. [36] 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.
+
+[33] Attiwandarons, Attiwendaronk, Atirhagenrenrets, Rhagenratka (Jesuit
+Relations), Attionidarons (Sagard). They, and not the Eries, were the
+Kahkwas of Seneca tradition.
+[34] 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.
+[35] Lettre du Père La Roche Dallion, 8 Juillet, 1627, in Le Clerc,
+Établissement de la Foy, I. 346.
+[36] Women were often burned by the Iroquois: witness the case of
+Catherine Mercier in 1651, and many cases of Indian women mentioned by
+the early writers.
+
+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. [37]
+
+[37] 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. [38] They were noted warriors, fought with
+poisoned arrows, and were long a terror to the neighboring Iroquois.
+[39]
+
+[38] Ragueneau, Relation des Hurons, 1648, 46.
+[39] 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. [40]
+
+[40] 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. [41]
+
+[41] 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. [42] 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. [43]
+
+[42] 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.
+[43] 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 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. [44]
+
+[44] "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 sœurs, 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 inseparable from 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. [45]
+
+[45] 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. [46]
+
+[46] 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, Mœurs des Sauvages Ameriquains comparées aux Mœurs
+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.
+[47] 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.
+
+[47] 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. [48] 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.
+
+[48] Lafitau, I. 471.
+
+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." [49]
+
+[49] 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." [50]
+
+[50] 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. [51] 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. [52]
+
+[51] Lafitau, I. 479.
+[52] 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."--Mœurs 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. [53] 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. [54] 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. [55]
+
+[53] 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.
+[54] Ragueneau, Relation des Hurons, 1648, 80.
+[55] 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. [56]
+
+[56] 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 even long before, a vast proportion of their population
+consisted of adopted prisoners. [57]
+
+[57] 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. [58]
+
+[58] 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 Mœurs, 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. [59] 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. [60]
+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. [61] 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. [62]
+
+[59] 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.
+[60] This superstition was very prevalent, and numerous examples of it
+occur in old and recent writers, from Father Le Jeune to Captain Carver.
+[61] 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.
+[62] 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. [63] 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.
+[64] 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.
+
+[63] 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.
+[64] 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.
+
+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. [65]
+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. [66] 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.
+
+[65] 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.
+[66] 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. [67] 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." [68] 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. [69]
+
+[67] 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.
+[68] "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.
+[69] 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. [70] Other
+stories represent him as marrying a female musk-rat, by whom he became
+the progenitor of the human race. [71]
+
+[70] 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.
+[71] 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;
+[72] 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. [73] 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.
+
+[72] Le Jeune, Relation, 1633, 16; Relation, 1634, 13.
+[73] 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.
+[74]
+
+[74] 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.
+[75]
+
+[75] 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. [76]
+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, [77] 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. [78]
+
+[76] 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, 5 Aug., 1643.
+[77] 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.
+[78] 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. [79]
+
+[79] 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."
+[80] 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. [81]
+
+[80] See "Divers Sentimens," appended to the Relation of 1635, § 27; and
+also many other passages of early missionaries.
+[81] 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, [82] 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.
+
+[82] 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." [83]
+
+[83] 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. [84] 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.
+[85] 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.
+
+[84] The practice of burying treasures with the dead is not peculiar to
+the North American aborigines. Thus, the London Times of Oct. 28, 1865,
+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."
+[85] Brébeuf, Relation des Hurons, 1636, 99 (Cramoisy).
+
+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. [86]
+
+[86] 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. [87]
+
+[87] 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. [88]
+
+[88] 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. [89]
+
+[89] 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. [90]
+
+[90] 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.
+
+
+
+
+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. [1] 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, [2] 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] Compare the various notices in Champlain (1632) with that of Du
+Creux, Historia Canadensis, 204.
+[2] 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.
+[3] 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. [4] 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. [5]
+
+[3] 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.
+[4] 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.
+[5] 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.
+[6] 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.
+[7] 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. [8] 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.
+
+[6] See "Pioneers of France in the New World."
+[7] "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."
+[8] The methodical Le Jeune sets down the causes of their discontent
+under six different heads, each duly numbered. Thus:--
+"1º. C'est le naturel des artisans de se plaindre et de gronder."
+"2º. 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. [1]
+
+[1] 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. [1]
+
+[1] "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. [2]
+
+[2] 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." [3]
+
+[3] 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. [4]
+
+[4] 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. [5]
+
+[5] "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, Ave, 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. [6]
+
+[6] "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. [7] 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." [8]
+
+[7] See "Pioneers of France."
+[8] 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."
+
+[1] "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, bales 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. [2] 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.
+
+[2] "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. [3] 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, [4] 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. [5]
+
+[3] "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'œil."--Relation, 1634, 56.
+[4] See "Pioneers of France," 268.
+[5] 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 fumeé & 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.
+[6] 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.
+
+[6] "Leur vie se passe à manger, à rire, 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. [7] 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.
+
+[7] "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." [8]
+
+[8] "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 laiss 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 que 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 vœu 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. [9]
+
+[9] "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. [10]
+
+[10] 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. [11]
+
+[11] The Indians, it is well known, ascribe mysterious and supernatural
+powers to the insane, and respect them accordingly. The Neutral Nation
+(see Introduction, (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." [12] But the
+Indian, though pleased with the Father's flatteries, was neither caught
+nor conciliated.
+
+[12] "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." [13]
+
+[13] "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. [1] 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.
+
+[1] "Une des principales forteresses & comme un donjon des
+Demons."--Lalemant, Relation des Hurons, 1639, 100 (Cramoisy).
+
+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. [2]
+Iroquois hostility left open but one avenue to their country, the long
+and circuitous route which, eighteen years before, had been explored by
+Champlain, [3]--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. [4] 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, [5] 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.
+
+[2] See Introduction.
+[3] "Pioneers of France," 364.
+[4] Ibid., 348.
+[5] 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, [6]--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.
+
+[6] "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. [7]
+
+[7] "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. [8]
+
+[8] 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." [9]
+
+[9] 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." [10] The mission was not doomed long to suffer from a
+dearth of these inestimable auxiliaries.
+
+[10] Relation, 1633, 38.
+
+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. [11] 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.
+
+[11] "Adioustez à ces difficultez, qu'il faut coucher sur la terre nuë,
+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. [12] 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.
+
+[12] "En ce voyage, il nous a fallu tous commencer par ces experiences à
+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; [13]
+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. [14] 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. [15] 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.
+
+[13] 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.
+[14] Concerning Brulé, see "Pioneers of France," 377-380.
+[15] "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. [1] 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.
+
+[1] See Introduction.
+
+There was no lack of visitors, for the house of the black-robes
+contained marvels [2] 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." [3]
+
+[2] "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.
+[3] 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. [4]
+
+[4] 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. [5]
+
+[5] 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. [6]
+
+[6] 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." [7]
+
+[7] "Le seiziesme du mesme mois, deux petits Sauvages furent changez 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." [8] 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. [9] 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."
+
+[8] Relation des Hurons, 1636, 116.
+[9] "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. [10]
+
+[10] 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. [11] 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.
+
+[11] 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
+is 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."
+[12]
+
+[12] "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. [13] 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.
+
+[13] Brébeuf preserves a speech made to him by one of these chiefs, as a
+specimen of Huron eloquence.--Relation des Hurons, 1636, 123.
+
+
+
+
+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. [1] They have
+been a theme of abundant speculation; [2] 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] See Introduction.
+[2] 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; [3] 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.
+
+[3] 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. [4] 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.
+
+[4] 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.
+
+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.
+[5] 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.
+
+[5] "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, [6] 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. [7] 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. [8] 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. [9]
+
+[6] 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.
+[7] "Iamais rien ne 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.
+[8] "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).
+[9] "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. [10] 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."
+
+[10] 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.
+
+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. [11] 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. [12]
+
+[11] 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.
+[12] 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. [1]
+
+[1] 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 cœur, 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
+cœur: 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,
+je 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 cœur selon le cœur 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. [2] 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.
+
+[2] "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 cœur 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.
+[3] 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.
+
+[3] Lettre de Brébeuf au T. R. P. Mutio Vitelleschi, 20 Mai, 1637, in
+Carayon, 157. Le Mercier, Relation des Hurons, 1637, 120, 123.
+
+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.
+[4] 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." [5] 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." [6]
+
+[4] 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.
+[5] 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.
+[6] 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; [7] 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:--
+
+[7] Brébeuf, Relation des Hurons, 1636, 89. Another woman was delivered
+on touching a relic of St. Ignatius. Ibid., 90.
+
+"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." [8]
+
+[8] 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!" [9]
+
+[9] 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. [10] 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.
+
+[10] Le Mercier, Relation des Hurons, 1637, 72 (Cramoisy). This "petit
+sorcier" is often mentioned elsewhere.
+
+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. [11] 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. [12] 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. [13]
+
+[11] See Introduction.
+[12] "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.
+[13] 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, [14] 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.
+
+[14] 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. [15]
+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.
+
+[15] 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. [16]
+
+[16] "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" [17] 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, [18] 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.
+
+[17] 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.
+[18] "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." [19]
+
+[19] 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. [1] 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. [2]
+
+[1] "C'est pourquoi j'ai bien gagne à quitter la France, où vous me
+fesiez la guerre de n'avoir point de barbe; car c'est ce qui me fait
+estimer beau des Sauvages."--Lettres de Garnier, MSS.
+[2] 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. [3]
+
+[3] "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. [4] 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.
+
+[4] 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. [5] 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.
+
+[5] "Je me recommandai à elle en lui promettant de la faire connoître
+dans toutes les occasions que j'en aurois jamais, si elle m'obtenoit de
+Dieu ma guérison."--Chaumonot, Vie, 46.
+
+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. [6]
+
+[6] 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. [7]
+
+[7] 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. [8] And he ascribed to the deceased
+Garnier's influence the mastery of that language which he afterwards
+acquired.
+
+[8] "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. [9]
+
+[9] 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 wild-cats. 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." [10] 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.
+
+[10] 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. [1] 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. [2]
+
+[1] The doctrine of the immaculate conception of the Virgin, recently
+sanctioned by the Pope, has long been a favorite tenet of the Jesuits.
+[2] 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. [3]
+
+[3] "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. [4]
+
+[4] 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 [5] 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.
+
+[5] 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. [6] Whether accepting it or not, let us examine the
+circumstances which gave rise to it.
+
+[6] 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."
+[7]
+
+[7] "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."
+[8] 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.
+
+[8] 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. [9] 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, [10] 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."
+
+[9] Le Mercier, Relation des Hurons, 1638, 38.
+[10] 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." [11]
+
+[11] 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. [12]
+
+[12] 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 meilleurs
+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 Piiart,
+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. [13]
+
+[13] "Tant y a que depuis le 6. de Nouembre que nous acheuasmes nos
+Messes votiues à 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. [14]
+
+[14] 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."
+[15] 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.
+
+[15] "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. [16] 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.
+
+[16] "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 Du 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. [1] 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. [2]
+
+[1] "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.
+[2] 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 [3] 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.
+
+[3] 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, [4] who had built, before
+the close of the year, a chapel of wood. [5] Hither they removed their
+pictures and ornaments; and here, in winter, several fires were kept
+burning, for the comfort of the half-naked converts. [6] 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. [7]
+
+[4] Du Peron in Carayon, 173.
+[5] "La chapelle est faite d'une charpente bien jolie, semblable
+presque, en façon et grandeur, à notre chapelle de St. Julien."--Ibid.,
+183.
+[6] Lalemant, Relation des Hurons, 1639, 62.
+[7] 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.
+[8]
+
+[8] 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. [9] 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." [10]
+
+[9] 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."
+[10] Le Mercier, Relation des Hurons, 1637, 160.
+
+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. [11]
+
+[11] 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. [12] 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. [13]
+
+[12] Lalemant, Relation des Hurons, 1639, 80.
+[13] 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." [14]
+
+[14] 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. [15]
+
+[15] 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. [1] 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.
+
+[1] See Introduction.
+
+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." [2]
+
+[2] 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."
+[3] 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.
+
+[3] Lalemant, Relation des Hurons, 1640, 96.
+
+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. [4] 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.
+
+[4] 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. [5]
+
+[5] See ante, (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." [6]
+
+[6] 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." [7]
+
+[7] 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. [8]
+
+[8] 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. [9]
+
+[9] 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. [1] 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. [2]
+
+[1] 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!"
+[2] 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." [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; [4] how "the Carmelites are all on fire, the Ursulines
+full of zeal, the sisters of the Visitation have no words to speak their
+ardor"; [5] 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. [6]
+
+[3] "C'est Dieu qui conduit cette entreprise. La Nature n'a pas les bras
+assez longs," etc.--Relation, 1636, 3.
+[4] Brébeuf, Relation des Hurons, 1636, 76.
+[5] Le Jeune, Relation, 1636, 6. Compare "Divers Sentimens," appended to
+the Relation of 1635.
+[6] "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. [7] 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.
+
+[7] 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.
+
+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. [8] 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." [9]
+
+[8] "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).
+[9] 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. [10] 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. [11] 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.
+
+[10] Le Clerc, Établissement de la Foy, Chap. XV.
+[11] Le Jeune, Relation, 1636, 153, 154 (Cramoisy).
+
+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. [12] 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.
+
+[12] 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. [13] 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.
+[14] 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. [15] Lauson sent out not a single colonist
+to these vast concessions.
+
+[13] See "Pioneers of France," 399.
+[14] This appears in many early grants of the Company. Thus, in a grant
+to Simon Le Maître, 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.
+[15] 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. [16] Of the origin of the convent, hospital, and
+seminary I shall soon have occasion to speak.
+
+[16] 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." [17] 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. [18] No favorable result followed; and the colony remained
+as before, in a pitiful state of cramping and dwarfing vassalage.
+
+[17] "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.
+[18] 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." [19]
+
+[19] "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. [20] 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. [21] 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. [22]
+
+[20] Relation, 1637, 8. The Relations, as originally published,
+comprised about forty volumes.
+[21] Histoire de la Colonie Française, I. 291, 292.
+[22] 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. [23] 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. [24] 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. [25]
+
+[23] Vimont, Relation, 1640, 6.
+[24] Le Jeune, Relation, 1638, 6.
+[25] 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. [26]
+
+[26] 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. [27]
+"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. [28] 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." [29]
+
+[27] Ibid., 1636, 119, and 1637, 32 (Cramoisy). "La crainte est l'auan
+couriere de la foy dans ces esprits barbares."
+[28] 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."
+[29] "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. [30]
+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. [31]
+
+[30] "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
+
+"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.
+
+[31] 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.
+
+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,
+[32] 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. [33] 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.
+
+[32] "Pioneers of France," 377.
+[33] 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. [1] 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. [2]
+
+[1] "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).
+[2] 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. [3] 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.
+
+[3] 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, [4] 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.
+
+[4] "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, [5] 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. [6] 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.
+
+[5] "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.
+[6] "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. [7] Bernières yielded, and went
+with Madame de la Peltrie to consult "the most eminent divines." [8] 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. [9]
+
+[7] "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.
+[8] "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.
+[9] 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. [10]
+
+[10] 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;
+[11] 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." [12]
+
+[11] 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.
+[12] "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. [13] Two years elapsed before her mind recovered
+its tone, when she soared once more in the seventh heaven of imaginative
+devotion.
+
+[13] Casgrain, 195-197.
+
+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. [14]
+
+[14] 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. [15]
+
+[15] 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. [16] 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.
+
+[16] Juchereau, Histoire de l'Hôtel-Dieu de Québec, 4.
+
+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. [17] 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.
+
+[17] 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.
+[18] 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." [19]
+
+[18] 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.
+[19] "... 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." [20]
+
+[20] Lettre de la Mère Ste Claire à une de ses Sœurs 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. [21] 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. [22]
+
+[21] 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.
+[22] 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. [23] Protestants may see in her a
+Christian heroine, admirable, with all her follies and her faults.
+
+[23] 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. [24]
+
+[24] 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.
+
+Dauversiére and the Voice from Heaven • Abbé Olier • Their Schemes • The
+Society of Notre-Dame de Montreal • Maisonneuve • Devout Ladies •
+Mademoiselle Mance • Marguerite Bourgeoys • 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. [1] 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. [2]
+
+[1] Fancamp in Faillon, Vie de Mlle Mance. Introduction.
+[2] 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.
+[3] Yet Olier's catholicity was past attaintment, and in his horror of
+Jansenists he yielded to the Jesuits alone.
+
+[3] Faillon, Vie de M. Olier, II. 188.
+
+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; [4] 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.
+
+[4] 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 be
+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. [5] 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." [6]
+
+[5] Faillon, Vie de Mlle Mance, Introduction, xxviii. The Abbé Ferland,
+in his Histoire du Canada, passes over the miracles in silence.
+[6] 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. [7]
+
+[7] 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. [8] 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.
+
+[8] 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. [9]
+
+[9] 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 [10]
+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. [11]
+
+[10] Faillon, Vie de Mlle Mance, Introduction, xxxv.
+[11] 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; [12] 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. [13] 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." [14] 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." [15]
+
+[12] Casgrain, Vie de Marie de l'Incarnation, 78.
+[13] Faillon, Vie de Mlle Mance, I. 3.
+[14] Faillon, Vie de Mlle Mance, I. 18. Here again the Abbé Ferland,
+with his usual good sense, tacitly rejects the supernaturalism.
+[15] La Sœur 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, [16] 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, [17]--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.
+
+[16] Dollier de Casson, A.D. 1641-42, MS. Vimont says thirty five.
+[17] Vimont, Relation, 1642, 37. Compare Le Clerc, Établissement de la
+Foy, II. 49.
+
+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. [18]
+
+[18] 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. [19] 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!" [20]
+
+[19] Juchereau, 32; Faillon, Colonie Française, I. 423.
+[20] 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. [21]
+
+[21] 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." [22]
+
+[22] 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
+[23]--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. [24] 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. [25]
+
+[23] La Tour, Mémoire de Laval, Liv. VIII.
+[24] Charlevoix, Vie de Marie de l'Incarnation, 279; Casgrain, Vie de
+Marie de l'Incarnation, 333.
+[25] 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
+[26]--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. [27] 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. [28] 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. [29]
+
+[26] Dollier de Casson, A.D. 1641-42, MS.
+[27] Le Clerc, II. 50, 51.
+[28] "Pioneers of France," 333. It was the Place Royale of Champlain.
+[29] 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. [30] 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:--
+
+[30] Morin, Annales, MS., cited by Faillon, La Colonie Française, I.
+440; also Dollier de Casson, A.D. 1641-42, MS.
+
+"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." [31]
+
+[31] Dollier de Casson, MS., as above. Vimont, in the Relation of 1642,
+p. 37, 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. [32]
+
+[32] 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'à 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 œuvre 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 plaît de donner à
+quelques âmes dont il se sert pour l'avancement de cette œuvre, 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.
+[1] 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. [2] They were masters of the
+thunderbolts which, in the hands of Champlain, had struck terror into
+their hearts.
+
+[1] See "Pioneers of France," 318.
+[2] 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, [3] 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. [4] 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.
+
+[3] For the date, see Lalemant, Relation des Hurons, 1647, 18.
+[4] Lalemant, Relation des Hurons, 1642, 97.
+
+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. [5]
+
+[5] 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. [6] His
+companion, Couture, was a man of intelligence and vigor, and of a
+character equally disinterested. [7] Both were, like Jogues, in the
+foremost canoes; while the fourth Frenchman was with the unconverted
+Hurons, in the rear.
+
+[6] Jogues, Notice sur René Goupil.
+[7] For an account of him, see Ferland, Notes sur les Registres de N. D.
+de Québec, 83 (1863).
+
+The twelve canoes had reached the western end of the Lake of St. Peter,
+where it is filled with innumerable islands. [8] 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.
+
+[8] Buteux, Narré de le Prise du Père Jogues, MS. This document leaves
+no doubt as to the locality.
+
+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. [9]
+
+[9] 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.
+[10]
+
+[10] 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. [11]
+
+[11] 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. [12] 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.
+
+[12] This practice of forcing prisoners to "run the gauntlet" was by no
+means peculiar to the Iroquois, but was common to many tribes.
+
+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, [13] suffering at each a repetition of
+cruelties, the detail of which would be as monotonous as revolting.
+
+[13] 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.
+[14]
+
+[14] 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. [15]
+
+[15] 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. [16] 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.
+
+[16] 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. [17] 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. [18] 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. [19]
+
+[17] The site of the Phœnix Hotel.--Note by Mr. Shea to Jogues's Novum
+Belgium.
+[18] 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.
+
+[19] 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. [20] 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.
+
+[20] See a French rendering of the letter in Vimont, Relation, 1643, p.
+75.
+
+He spent the night in great agitation, tossed by doubt, and full of
+anxiety lest his self-love should beguile him from his duty. [21] 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.
+
+[21] Buteux, Narré, MS.
+
+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. [22] As he is
+described as one of the principal persons of the colony, it is clear
+that the civilization of Rensselaerswyck was not high.
+
+[22] Buteux, Narré, MS.
+
+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." [23]
+
+[23] 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. [24] 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. [25] 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. [26]
+
+[24] 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.
+[25] Jogues, Novum Belgium.
+[26] 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. [27]
+
+[27] 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. [2] 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.
+
+[2] During his captivity, he wrote, on a beaver-skin, a letter to the
+Dutch in French, Latin, and English.
+
+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. [3] 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, [4] sailed for
+the Richelieu, in a brigantine and two or three open boats.
+
+[3] Faillon, Colonie Française, II. 2; Vimont, Relation, 1642, 2, 44.
+[4] Marie de l'Incarnation, Lettre, Sept. 29, 1642.
+
+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. [5] 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. [6]
+
+[5] 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.
+[6] The Relation of 1642 says three hundred. Jogues, who had been among
+them to his cost, is the better authority.
+
+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. [7] 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.
+
+[7] 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." [8]
+
+[8] Relation, 1644, 3.
+
+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." [9]
+
+[9] 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." [10]
+
+[10] 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. [11] 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.
+
+[11] Vimont, Relation, 1642, 46.
+
+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. [12] 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.
+
+[12] "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. [13]
+
+[13] 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. [14] 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.
+
+[14] Vimont, Relation, 1644, 41.
+
+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." [15]
+
+[15] 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 souffert pendant sa
+captiuité."--Vimont, Relation, 1644, 43.
+
+Then follows a modest narrative of what he 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." [16] 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. [17] 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.
+
+[16] "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.
+[17] "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. [18]
+
+[18] 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, [19] and conspired with their native fierceness
+to form a character of unrelenting cruelty rarely equalled.
+
+[19] 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. [20] 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. [21]
+
+[20] See "Pioneers of France," 393.
+[21] 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. [22]
+
+[22] 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. [1]
+
+[1] 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." [2]
+
+[2] 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. [3]
+
+[3] 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. [4]
+
+[4] 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. [5] 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.
+
+[5] Véritables Motifs, cited by Faillon, I. 453, 454.
+
+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. [6] 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. [7] 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.
+
+[6] Chaulmer, 101; Juchereau, 91.
+[7] 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. [8] 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. [9] 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. [10] 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.
+
+[8] Archives du Séminaire de Villemarie, cited by Faillon, I. 466. The
+amount of the gift was not declared until the next year.
+[9] 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.
+[10] 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. [11] 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. [12] 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. [13] 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. [14]
+
+[11] Morin, Annales de l'Hôtel-Dieu de St. Joseph, MS., cited by
+Faillon, I. 457.
+[12] Marguerite Bourgeoys, Écrits Autographes, MS., extracts in Faillon,
+I. 458.
+[13] 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.
+[14] 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. [15] 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.
+
+[15] Dollier de Casson, MS.
+
+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. [16]
+
+[16] 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 scent, 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." [17]
+
+[17] 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?" [18]
+
+[18] 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, [19] 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.
+
+[19] 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. [20]
+
+[20] 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. [1]
+
+[1] 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. [2] 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. [3] 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. [4] 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. [5]
+
+[2] Relation, 1660, 6 (anonymous).
+
+Both Perrot 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.
+
+[3] "Simon Pieskaret ... n'estoit Chrestien qu'en apparence et par
+police."--Lalemant, Relation, 1647, 68.--He afterwards became a convert
+in earnest.
+[4] Both the Iroquois and the Hurons collected great quantities of wood
+in their villages in the autumn.
+[5] 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. [6]
+
+[6] 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. [7] 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. [8]
+
+[7] Vimont, Relation, 1645, 19-21.
+[8] 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, [9] 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!"
+[10]
+
+[9] 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.
+[10] 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. [11]
+
+[11] 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. [12]
+
+[12] 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, [13] 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.
+
+[13] 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." [14]
+
+[14] 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." [15]
+
+[15] 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. [16]
+
+[16] 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. [17] 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.
+
+[17] Vimont, Relation, 1645, 34.
+
+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. [1]
+
+[1] 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. [2] 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.
+
+[2] Lettre du P. Isaac Jogues au R. P. Jérosme L'Allemant. Montreal, 2
+Mai, 1646. MS.
+
+He felt a presentiment that his death was near, and wrote to a friend,
+"I shall go, and shall not return." [3] 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." [4] It would be well,
+if the application of the maxim had always been as harmless.
+
+[3] "Ibo et non redibo." Lettre du P. Jogues au R. P. No date.
+[4] Lalemant, Relation, 1646, 15.
+
+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. Hence
+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. [5]
+
+[5] 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. [6]
+
+[6] 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. [7] 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. [8] 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.
+
+[7] Journal des Supérieurs des Jésuites. MS.
+[8] Ibid.
+
+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. [9] 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.
+[10] 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.
+
+[9] Lettre de Marie de l'Incarnation à son Fils. Québec, ... 1647.
+[10] See Introduction.
+
+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." [11]--"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."
+[12] 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.
+
+[11] Lettre du P. De Quen au R. P. Lallemant; no date. MS.
+[12] 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, [13] 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. [14]
+
+[13] 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.
+[14] 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. [1]
+Two hundred or more kept on, divided into several bands.
+
+[1] Lettre du P. Buteux au R. P. Lalemant. MS.
+
+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. [2] All the hunters were soon
+after waylaid, overpowered by numbers, and killed or taken prisoners.
+
+[2] 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. [3]
+
+[3] 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. [4]
+
+[4] 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." [5]
+
+[5] 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. [1] 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.
+
+[1] Vimont, Relation, 1645, 16.
+
+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. [2] Their
+messengers were favorably received; and Druilletes was ordered to
+proceed upon the new mission.
+
+[2] Charlevoix, I. 280, gives this as a motive of the mission.
+
+He left Sillery, with a party of Indians, on the twenty-ninth of August,
+1646, [3] 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." [4] 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. [5]
+
+[3] Lalemant, Relation, 1647, 51.
+[4] Lalemant, Relation, 1647, 54. For an account of this mission, see
+also Maurault, Histoire des Abenakis, 116-156.
+[5] 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," [6] but, three years
+before, the Legislature of Massachusetts had enacted, that Jesuits
+entering the colony should be expelled, and, if they returned, hanged.
+[7]
+
+[6] 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.
+[7] 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. [8]
+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. [9] 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. [10] 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.
+
+[8] An account of him will be found in Palfrey, Hist. of New England,
+II. 225, note.
+[9] 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.
+[10] J. G. Shea, in Boston Pilot.
+
+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, [11]
+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. [12] 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, [13] 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.
+
+[11] 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.
+[12] 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).
+[13] 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.
+[14]
+
+[14] On Druilletes's visit to New England, see his journal, entitled
+Narré 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 de ses 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. [15] 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.
+
+[15] 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, [16] 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.
+[17] 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. [18]
+
+[16] The same who, with his wife, had joined the colonists of Montreal.
+See ante, (page 264).
+[17] He was one of the Governor's council.--Ferland, Notes sur les
+Registres, 67.
+[18] 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, 166. 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. [19]
+
+[19] 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. [20]
+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.
+
+[20] The Governors of Montreal and Three Rivers, when present, had also
+seats in the Council.
+
+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. [21]
+
+[21] 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." [22]
+
+[22] 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. [1]
+
+[1] 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 be
+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. [2]
+
+[2] Lalemant, Relation des Hurons, 1639, 68. It was this chief whose
+severed hand was thrown to the Jesuits. See ante, (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. [3]
+
+[3] 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. [4]
+
+[4] 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. [5] 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." [6]
+Then he presented the wampum-belts and other gifts, saying that they
+were the voice of a dying country.
+
+[5] 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.
+[6] "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, [7] 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.
+
+[7] 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. [8]
+
+[8] 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 mid-summer, 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!" [9]
+
+[9] 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. [10] Here, then, is a ray of light out of
+Egyptian darkness. The principle of honor was not extinct in these wild
+hearts.
+
+[10] "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!" [4]
+
+[4] 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. [5]
+
+[5] 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." [6]
+
+[6] 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. [7]
+
+[7] 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. [8]
+
+[8] 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, [9] 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. [10] 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.
+
+[9] 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.
+[10] 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, [11] 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."
+
+[11] 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. [12] 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. [13] 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.
+
+[12] Ragueneau himself describes the scene. Relation des Hurons, 1648,
+80.
+[13] 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. [14] 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.
+
+[14] 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. [1] 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, [2]
+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. [3]
+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, [4] 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.
+[5] 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. [6]
+
+[1] Before me is an elaborate plan of the remains, taken on the spot.
+[2] 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."
+[3] "Quatre grandes Croix qui sont aux quatre coins de nostre
+enclos."--Ragueneau, Relation des Hurons, 1648, 81.
+[4] 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.
+[5] At least it was so in 1642. "Nous leur auons dressé vn Hospice ou
+Cabane d'écorce."--Ibid., 1642, 57.
+[6] "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. [7] These soldiers lodged with the
+Jesuits, and lived at their table. [8] 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. [9] 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,
+[10]--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. [11] 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." [12]
+
+[7] 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.
+[8] Journal des Supérieurs des Jésuites, MS. In 1648, a small cannon was
+sent to Sainte Marie in the Huron canoes.--Ibid.
+[9] Registres des Arrêts du Conseil, extract in Faillon, II. 94.
+[10] See ante, (page 214). Garnier calls them "séculiers d'habit, mais
+religieux de cœur."--Lettres, MSS.
+[11] 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.
+
+[12] 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. [13] 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.
+
+[13] 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. [14]
+
+[14] 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. [15] 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.
+
+[15] 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. [16] 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.
+
+[16] Compare Ragueneau in Relation des Hurons, 1648, 48, and in his
+report to the General in 1649.
+
+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. [17] 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.
+[18]
+
+[17] 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.
+[18] 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, [19]--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.
+
+[19] 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 hall, 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. [20] 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.
+
+[20] "Ce bon Pere s'apparut aprés 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. [1] 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.
+
+[1] Lalemant, Relation, 1648, 11. The Jesuit Bressani had come down with
+the Hurons, and was with them in the fight.
+
+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 gunshot
+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. [2]
+
+[2] 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. [1]
+
+[1] 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. [1]
+
+[1] "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." [2] 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.
+
+[2] Charlevoix, I. 294. Alegambe uses a similar expression.
+
+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. [3] 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.
+
+[3] "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. [4]
+
+[4] 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,
+(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. [1]
+
+[1] 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." [2]
+
+[2] 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. [3] 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. [4] 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.
+
+[3] 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.
+[4] 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 cœur."--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'œuure 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. [5] Detached redoubts were
+also built near at hand, where French musketeers could aid in defending
+the adjacent Huron village. [6] 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.
+
+[5] 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.
+[6] Compare Martin, Introduction to Bressani, Relation Abrégée, 38.
+
+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. [7] 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. [8] 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. [9]
+
+[7] Ragueneau, Relation des Hurons, 1650, 3, 4. He reckons eight persons
+to a family.
+[8] "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.
+[9] Eight hundred sacks of this mixture were given to the Hurons during
+the winter.--Bressani, Relation Abrégée, 283.
+
+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. [10] An epidemic presently
+appeared, to aid the work of famine. Before spring, about half of their
+number were dead.
+
+[10] "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. [11] 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. [12]
+
+[11] Lettre de Ragueneau au Général de la Compagnie de Jésus, Isle St.
+Joseph, 13 Mars, 1650.
+[12] Ragueneau, Relation des Hurons, 1650, 6, 7.
+
+Thus this miserable winter wore away, till the opening spring brought
+new fears and new necessities. [13]
+
+[13] 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. [2]
+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. [3] 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 everywhere, 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.
+
+[2] Bressani, Relation Abrégée, 264.
+[3] 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. [4]
+
+[4] 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 mâitre, je pourrais
+espérer quelque faveur approchante de celles qu'il a faites aux
+bienheureux 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. [5] 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. [6] 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. [7]
+
+[5] Mémoires touchant la Mort et les Vertus des Pères, etc., MS.
+[6] Abrégé de la Vie du P. Noël Chabanel. MS.
+[7] "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. [8]
+
+[8] 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 neges, 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." [3]
+
+[3] 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." [4]
+
+[4] 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." [5] 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." [6]
+
+[5] Compare Bressani, Relation Abrégée, 288.
+[6] 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. [7]
+
+[7] 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. [8]
+
+[8] 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. [9] 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. [10]
+
+[9] Iournal du Pere Iacques Buteux du Voyage qu'il a fait pour la
+Mission des Attikamegues. See Relation, 1651, 15.
+[10] 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. [1]
+
+[1] 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, at
+the northern extremity of the great peninsula of Michigan. 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. [2] 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. [3]
+
+[2] See "History of the Conspiracy of Pontiac."
+[3] 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. [4]
+
+[4] 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.
+[5] 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. [6]
+
+[5] 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.
+[6] Relation, 1660 (anonymous), 14.
+
+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. [7] 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 St. 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.
+
+[7] 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.
+
+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. [8] 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." [9]
+
+[8] See ante, (p. 102).
+[9] "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. [10]
+
+[10] 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, Mœurs des Sauvages, 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." [3] 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. [4]
+
+[3] Le Mercier, Relation, 1654, 9.
+[4] Ibid., 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. [5] 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. [6]
+
+[5] De Quen, Relation, 1656, 30.
+[6] 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. [7]
+
+[7] 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. [8] 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. [9]
+
+[8] Relation, 1660, 6 (anonymous).
+
+The Mohawks also suffered great reverses about this time at the hands of
+their Algonquin neighbors, the Mohicans.
+
+[9] Lalemant, Relation, 1663, 10.
+
+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.
+[10]
+
+[10] 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. [11] "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. [12] 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."
+[13]
+
+[11] Dablon, Relation, 1672, 24.
+[12] État Présent des Missions, in Relations Inédites, II. 44. Relation,
+1676, 2. This is one of the Relations printed by Mr. Lenox.
+[13] "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. [14] 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.
+
+[14] 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.
+
+INDEX
+
+The Roman Numerals refer to the introduction.
+
+A.
+
+Abenaquis, where found, xxii; ask for a missionary, 321.
+Abraham, Plains of, whence the name, 335 note.
+Adoption of prisoners as members of the tribe, lxvi, 223, 309, 424, 444.
+Adventures and sufferings of an Algonquin woman, 309-313; of another,
+313-316.
+Agnier, a name for the Mohawks, xlviii note.
+Aiguillon, Duchess d', founds a Hôtel-Dieu at Quebec, 181.
+Albany, formerly Rensselaerswyck, its condition in 1643, 229.
+Algonquins, a comprehensive term, xx; regions occupied by them in 1535,
+xx; the designation, how applied, ib. note; found in New England, xxi;
+their relation to the Iroquois, xxi; numbers, ib.; Algonquin missions,
+368.
+Allumette Island, xxiv, 45; its true position, 46.
+Amikouas, or People of the Beaver, lxviii note; supposed descent from
+that animal, ib.
+Amusements of the Indians, xxxvi; the Jesuits require them to be
+abandoned, 136.
+Andacwandet, a strange method of cure, xlii.
+Andastes, where found in the early times, xx, xlvi; fierce warriors,
+xlvi; identical with the Susquehannocks, ib. note; their aid sought by
+the Hurons, 341; the result unsatisfactory, 344 seq.; war with the
+Mohawks, 441; assisted by the Swedes from Delaware River, 442; repulse
+an attack of the Iroquois, ib.; a party of Andaste boys defeat the
+Senecas and Cayugas, 443; finally subdued by the Senecas, ib.
+Aquanuscioni, or Iroquois, xlviii note.
+Areskoui, the god of war, lxxvii; human sacrifices offered to him, ib.;
+a captive Iroquois sacrificed to him, 81.
+Armouchiquois, a name applied to the Algonquins of New England, xxi; a
+strange account of them given by Champlain, xxii note.
+Arts of life, as practised by the Hurons, xxxi.
+Assistaeronnons, or Nation of Fire. See Nation of Fire.
+Ataentsic, a malignant deity; the moon, lxxvi.
+Atahocan, a dim conception of the Supreme Being, lxxiv.
+Atotarho of the Onondagas, liv, lvii.
+Attendants of the Jesuits, 112 note, 132. See Donnés.
+Atticamegues, xxiii, 286, 293; attacked by the Iroquois, 420.
+Attigouantans. See Hurons.
+Attiwandarons, or Neutral Nation, why so called, xliv; their country,
+ib.; ferocious and cruel, xlv; licentious, ib.; their treatment of the
+dead, ib. See Neutral Nation.
+
+
+B.
+
+Baptism of dying men, 89, 124; clandestine, of infants, 96, 97, 116,
+117; of an influential Huron, 112; conditions of baptism, 134; baptisms,
+number in a year, 136 note.
+Birch-bark used instead of writing-paper, 130.
+Bourgeoys, Marguerite, her character, 201; foundress of the school at
+Montreal, 202.
+Bradford, William, governor of Plymouth, kindly entertains the Jesuit
+Druilletes, 327.
+Brébeuf, Jean de, arrives at Quebec, 5, 20, 48; commences his journey to
+the Huron country, 53; suffers great fatigue by the way, 54; his
+intrepidity, 54 note, 56; arrives in the Huron country, 56; his previous
+residence there, ib.; his misgivings as to his future treatment by the
+Indians, 57 note; the Indians build a house for him, 59; the house
+described, 60; its furniture, ib.; Brébeuf witnesses the " Feast of the
+Dead," 75; witnesses a human sacrifice, 80 seq.; his uncompromising
+manner, 90; "the Ajax of the mission," 99; his dealings with beings from
+the invisible world, 108; sees a great cross in the air, 109, 144; his
+courage, 120; his letter in prospect of martyrdom, 122; harangues the
+Hurons at a festin d'adieu, 123; commences a mission in the Neutral
+Nation, 143; sees miraculous sights, 144; at the Huron mission, 370;
+taken by the Iroquois, 381; his appalling fate, 388; his intrepid
+character, 390; his skull preserved to this day at Quebec, 391; his
+visions and revelations, 392 note; a saint and a hero, ib.
+Bressani, Joseph, attempts to go to the Hurons, 251; taken by the
+Iroquois, 252; terrible sufferings from his captors, 253-255; his
+escape, 256; at the Huron Mission, 370.
+Brulé, Étienne, murdered by the Hurons, 56; the murder supposed to be
+avenged by a raging pestilence, 94.
+Bullion, Madame de, founds a hospital at Montreal, 266.
+Burning of captives alive, instances of, xlv note, 80-82; 249, 250; 309,
+339, 385; 436 note, 439, 441 note.
+Buteux, Jacques, his toilsome journey, 421; waylaid by the Iroquois and
+slain, 422.
+
+
+C.
+
+Cannibalism of the Hurons, xxxix, 137, of the Miamis, xl; other
+instances, 247.
+Canoes, Indian, xxxi.
+Capuchins, unsuccessful attempt to introduce them into Canada, 159 note;
+a station of them on the Penobscot, 322.
+Cayugas, one of the Five Nations, xlviii note, liv. See Iroquois.
+Cemeteries of Indians lately opened, 79; description of them, ib.
+Chabanel, Noël, joins the mission, 105; among the Hurons, 370; recalled
+from St. Jean, 408; his journey, ib.; murdered by a renegade Huron, 409;
+his vow, 410 note.
+Champfleur, commandant at Three Rivers, 277, 285.
+Champlain, Samuel de, resumes command at Quebec, 20; his explorations,
+45; introduces the missionaries to the Hurons, 48; assists the
+missionaries at their departure, 50; his death, 149.
+Chatelain, Pierre, joins the mission, 86; his illness, ib.; his peril,
+126.
+Chaumonot, Joseph Marie, his early life, 101-104; his gratitude to the
+Virgin, 103, 105; becomes a Jesuit, and embarks for Canada, 105, 181;
+narrowly escapes death, 124; goes with Brébeuf to convert the Neutrals,
+142; his extreme peril, 145; saved by the interference of Saint Michael,
+ib.; among the Hurons, 370; with a colony of Hurons, near Quebec, 431;
+builds Lorette, 432.
+Choctaws, like the Iroquois, have eight clans, lvi note.
+Clanship, system of, l-lii.
+Clock of the Jesuits an object of wonder to the Hurons, 61; an object of
+alarm, 115.
+Colonization, French and English, compared, 328, 329.
+Condé, in his youth writes to Paul Le Jeune, 152.
+Conestogas. See Andastes.
+Converts, how made, 133, 162 seq.
+Couillard, a resident in Quebec, 3, 334, 335.
+Councils of the Iroquois, their power, lvii-lx.
+Council, nocturnal, of the Hurons, relative to the epidemic in 1637,
+118.
+Couture, Guillaume, a donné of the mission, 214; a prisoner to the
+Iroquois, 216; tortured by them, 216, 223; adopted by them, 223; assists
+in negotiations for peace, 284, 287; returns with the Iroquois, 296.
+Crania of Indians compared with those of Caucasian races, lxiii.
+Credulity and superstition of the Indians, 301.
+Crime, how punished, lxi.
+Cruelties, Indian, xlv note, 80, 216 seq., 248, 253, 254, 277, 303 seq.,
+308 seq., 313, 339, 350, 377, 381, 385, 388 seq., 436 note, 439, 441
+note.
+Custom, with the Indians, had the force of law, xlix.
+
+
+D.
+
+Dahcotahs, found east of the Mississippi, xx note; their villages, xxvi.
+D'Ailleboust de Coulonges, Louis, lands at Montreal, 264; history, 265;
+fortifies Montreal, 266; becomes governor of Canada, 330, 332.
+Daily life of the Jesuits, 129; their food, ib.; how obtained, 130.
+Dallion, La Roche, visits the Neutral Nation in 1626, xliv; exposed to
+great danger among them, xlvi note, 146.
+Daniel, Antoine, 5, 20, 48; commences his journey to the Huron country,
+53; disasters by the way, 55; his arrival in the Huron country, 58; his
+peril, 126; returns to Quebec to commence a seminary, 168; labors with
+success among the Hurons, 374; slain by the Iroquois, 377.
+Dauversière, Jérôme le Royer de la, described, 188; hears a voice from
+heaven, 189; has a vision, 191; meets Olier, 192; plans a religious
+community at Montreal, ib.; one of the purchasers of the island, 195;
+his misgivings, 197.
+Davost at Quebec, 5, 20, 48; sets out on his journey to the Huron
+country, 53; robbed and left behind by his conductors, 54; his arrival
+among the Hurons, 58.
+De Nouë, Anne, a missionary, 5, 14; perishes in the snow, 257-260.
+Des Châtelets, an inhabitant of Quebec, 334, 335.
+Devil, worshipped, lxxiv, lxxvi, lxxvii; his supposed alarm at the
+success of the mission, 113; consequences, 114 seq.
+Dionondadies. See Tobacco Nation.
+Disease, how accounted for, xl, xli; how treated, ib.
+Divination and sorcery, lxxxiv, lxxxv.
+Dogs sacrificed to the Great Spirit, lxxxvi; used at Montreal for
+sentinels, 271; very useful, 272.
+"Donnés" of the mission, 112 note, 214, 364.
+Dreams, confidence of the Indian in, lxxxiii, lxxxiv, lxxxvi;
+"Dream-Feast," a scene of frenzy, 67.
+Dress of the Indians, xxxii; scarcely worn in summer, xxxiii.
+Druilletes, Gabriel, his labors among the Montagnais, 318; among the
+Abenaquis on the Kennebec, 321, 323; visits English settlements in
+Maine, 322; again descends the Kennebec, and visits Boston, 324, 325;
+object of the visit, 324; visits Governor Dudley at Roxbury, 326; and
+Governor Bradford at Plymouth, 327; spends a night with Eliot at
+Roxbury, ib.; visits Endicott at Salem, ib.; his impressions of New
+England, 328; failure of his embassy, 330.
+Dudley, Thomas, governor of Massachusetts, kindly receives the Jesuit
+Druilletes, 326.
+Du Peron, François, his narrow escape, 124; his journey, 127; his
+arrival, 128; his letter, 130; at Montreal, 263.
+Du Quen, journeys of, xxv note, 318.
+Dutch at Albany supply the Iroquois with fire-arms, 211, 212; endeavor
+to procure the release of prisoners among the Mohawks, 230.
+
+
+E.
+Eliot, John, the "apostle," has a visit from the Jesuit Druilletes, 327.
+Endicott, John, visited by the Jesuit Druilletes, 327.
+Enthusiasm for the mission, 85 note.
+Erie, Lake, how early known as such, 143.
+Eries, or Nation of the Cat, xlvi; where found in the early periods, xx,
+xlvi; why so called, xlvi note; war with the Iroquois, 438; its cause,
+439; a sister's revenge, ib.; utter destruction of the Eries, 440.
+Etchemins, where found, xxii.
+Etienne Annaotaha, a Huron brave, destroys an Iroquois war-party,
+427-429; slain, 431.
+Exaltation, mental, of the priests, 146.
+Excursions, missionary, 132.
+
+
+F.
+Faillon, Abbé, his researches in the early history of Montreal, 193
+note; their value, ib.
+Fancamp, Baron de, furnishes money for the undertaking at Montreal, 193;
+one of the purchasers of the island, 195.
+Fasts among the Indians, lxxi.
+"Feast of the Dead," 72.
+Feasts of the Indians, xxxvii.
+Female life among the Hurons, xxxiii.
+"Festins d'adieu," 123.
+Festivities of the Hurons, xxxvii.
+Fire, Nation of, attacked by the Neutral Nation, 436.
+Fire-arms sold to the Iroquois by the Dutch, 211, 212; given to converts
+by the French, 269.
+Fish, and fishing-nets, prayers to them, lxix.
+Fortifications of the Hurons, xxix; of the Iroquois, ib. note; of other
+Indian tribes, xxx note.
+Fortitude, striking instances of, 81, 250, 339, 389.
+French and English colonization compared, 328, 329.
+Funeral among the Hurons, 75; funeral gifts, 76.
+Fur trade, xlv, 47, 155, 331.
+
+
+G.
+
+Gambling, Indian, xxxvii.
+Garnier, Charles, joins the Huron mission, 86; his sickness, ib.; his
+character, 99; his letters, 101, 133; his journey to the Tobacco Nation,
+140; at the Huron mission, 370; slain by the Iroquois, 405; his body
+found, 406 note; his gentle spirit, 370, 407; his absolute devotion to
+the mission, 407 note.
+Garnier, Julien, liv note.
+Garreau, missionary among the Hurons, his danger, 410.
+Gaspé, Algonquins of, their women chaste, xxxiv.
+George, Lake, its first discoverer, 219; its Indian name, ib. note;
+called St. Sacrament, 299; a better name proposed, ib. note.
+Gibbons, Edward, welcomes the Jesuit Druilletes to Boston, 325.
+Giffard, his seigniory of Beauport, 155, 157; at Quebec, 334.
+Gluttony at feasts, xxxviii; practised as a cure for pestilence, 95.
+Godefroy, Jean Paul, visits New Haven on an embassy from the governor of
+Canada, 330.
+Goupil, René, a donné of the mission, 214; made prisoner by the
+Iroquois, 216; tortured, 217, 221; murdered in cold blood, 224.
+Goyogouin, a name for the Cayugas, xlviii note.
+Great Hare, The. See Manabozho.
+Green Bay, visited by the French in 1639, 166.
+
+
+H.
+Habitations, Indian, xxvi; internal aspect in summer, xxvii; in winter,
+xxviii.
+Hawenniio, the modern Iroquois name for God, lxxviii.
+Hébert, Madame, an early resident of Quebec, 2, 15.
+Hell, how represented to the Indians, 88, 163; pictures of, 163.
+Hiawatha, a deified hero, lxxvii, lxxviii.
+Hodenosaunee, the true name of the Iroquois, xlviii note.
+Hôtel-Dieu at Quebec founded, 181; one at Montreal, 266.
+Hundred Associates, the, a fur company, its grants of land, 156; their
+quit-claim of the island of Montreal, 195; transfer their monopoly to
+the colonists, 331.
+Hunters of men, 307.
+Huron mission proposed, 42; the difficulties, 43; motives for the
+undertaking, 44; route to the Huron country, 45; the missionaries
+baffled by a stroke of Indian diplomacy, 51; they commence their
+journey, 53; fatigues of the way, ib.; reception of the missionaries by
+the Hurons, 57; mission house, 60; methods taken to awaken interest, 61;
+instructions given, 62; the results not satisfactory, 64; the Jesuits
+made responsible for the failure of rain, 68; they gain the confidence
+of the Huron people, 70; the mission strengthened by new arrivals, 85;
+kindness of the Jesuits to the sick, 87; their efforts at conversion,
+88; the Hurons slow to apprehend the subject of a future life, 89; terms
+of salvation too hard, 90; an elastic morality practised by the Jesuits,
+97; conversions promoted by supernatural aid, 108; the new chapel at
+Ossossané described, 111; first important success, 112; persecuting
+spirit aroused, 115; the Jesuits in danger, 116; their daily life, 129;
+number of converts in 1638, 132; backsliding frequent, 135; partial
+success, 147; great subsequent success of the mission, 349; the mission
+encounters slander and misrepresentation, 352, 353; prosperity, 366;
+successful agriculture, ib.; number of ecclesiastics and others in the
+Huron mission, 1649, ib.; the mission removed to an island in Lake
+Huron, 397; a multitude of refugees, 399; their extreme misery, 400; the
+priests fully occupied, 401; the mission abandoned, 415; failure of the
+Jesuit plans in Canada, 446; the cause, 447; the consequences, 448. See
+Jesuits.
+Hurons, origin of the name, xxxiii note; their country, xx, xxiv, xxv;
+had a language akin to the Iroquois, xxiv; their disappearance, ib.;
+vestiges of them still found, xxv; supposed population, xxv, xxvi; their
+habitations, xxvi, xxviii note; extravagant accounts, xxvi note;
+internal aspect of their huts in summer, xxvii; in winter, xxviii; their
+fortifications, xxix; their agriculture, xxx; food, ib.; arts of life,
+ib.; dress, xxxii; dress scarcely worn in summer, xxxiii; female life,
+ib., xxxv; an unchaste people, xxxiv; marriages, temporary, ib.;
+shameless conduct of young people, xxxv note; employments of the men,
+xxxvi; amusements, ib.; feasts and dances, xxxvii; voracity, xxxviii;
+cannibalism, xxxix; practice of medicine, xl; Huron brains, xliii; the
+Huron Confederacy, lii; their political organization, ib.; propensity of
+the Hurons to theft, lxiii, 131; murder atoned for by presents, lxi;
+proceedings in case of witchcraft, lxiii; their objects of worship, lxix
+seq.; their conceptions of a future state, lxxxi; their burial of the
+dead, ib.; hostility of the Iroquois, 45, 52, 62; visit Quebec, 46; the
+scene after their arrival described, 47; their idea of thunder, 69;
+Huron graves, 71; their origin, ib.; disposal of the dead, 73; "Feast of
+the Dead," 75 seq.; disinterment, 73; mourning, 74, 78; funeral gifts,
+76; frightful scene, 77; a pestilence, 87; cannibals, 137; attacked by
+the Iroquois, 212, 337; defeat them, 338; torture and burn an Iroquois
+chief, 339; on the verge of ruin, 341; apply for help to the Andastes,
+342; specimen of Huron eloquence, 355; Hurons defeat the Iroquois at
+Three Rivers, 374; fatuity of the Hurons, 379; their towns destroyed,
+379 seq.; ruin of the Hurons, 393; the survivors take refuge on Isle St.
+Joseph, 399; their extreme misery, 411 seq.; they abandon the island,
+415; endeavor to reach Quebec, 416; the Iroquois waylay them, 417; a
+fight on the Ottawa, ib.; they reach Montreal, 418; and Quebec, ib.; a
+Huron traitor, 419; a portion of the Hurons retreat to Lake Michigan and
+the Mississippi, 425; others become incorporated with the Senecas, 424;
+their country desolate, ib.; afterwards known as the Wyandots, 426; a
+body of the Hurons left at St. Joseph destroy a party of Iroquois,
+427-429; a colony of Hurons near Quebec, 430.
+
+
+I.
+Ihonatiria, a Huron village, 57; Brébeuf takes up his abode there, 59;
+ruined by the pestilence, 137.
+Immaculate Conception of the Virgin, 110.
+Incarnation, Marie de l', at Tours, 174; her unhappy marriage, 175; a
+widow, ib; self-inflicted austerities, ib.; mystical espousal to Christ,
+176; rhapsodies, ib.; dejection, 177; abandons her child and becomes a
+nun, 178; her talents for business, 179; her vision, 180; the vision
+explained as a call to Canada, 181; embarks for that country, ib.;
+perilous voyage, 182; her arduous labors at Quebec, 185; her
+difficulties, 186; extolled as a saint, 177, 186.
+Indian population mutable, xix; its distribution, xx; two great
+families, ib.; superstitions and traditions, lxvii-lxxxvii; dreamers,
+lxxxiii; sorcerers and diviners, lxxxiv, 93; their religion fearful yet
+puerile, lxxxviii, 94; an Indian lodge, 141; Indian manners softened by
+the influence of the missions, 319; Indian infatuation, 336.
+Indians, their arts of life, xxx; amusements, xxxvi; festivals, xxxvii;
+social character, xlviii; self-control, xlix; influenced by custom, ib.;
+hospitality and generosity, ib. note; fond of society, 1; their division
+into clans, li; the totem, or symbol of the clan, 39 ib.; Indian rule of
+descent and inheritance, ib.; vast extent of this rule, lii; their
+superstitions, lxvii et seq.; their cosmogonies, lxxiii, lxxv; degrading
+conceptions of the Supreme Being, lxxviii; no word for God, lxxix;
+obliged to use a circumlocution, ib.; their belief in a future state,
+lxxx; their conceptions of it dim, ib.; their belief in dreams, lxxxiii;
+the Indian Pluto, ib. note; the Indian mind stagnant, lxxxix; savage in
+religion as in life, ib.; no knowledge of the true God, ib.; scenes in a
+wigwam, 30; their foul language, 31; not profane, ib.; hardships and
+sufferings, 39; a specimen of their diplomacy, 51; an Indian masquerade,
+66; Indian bacchanals, 67; their idea of thunder, 69; Indian mind not a
+blank, 134; specimen of Indian reasoning, 135; Indians received benefit
+from the Jesuit missions, 164.
+Initiatory fast for obtaining a guardian manitou, lxxi.
+"Infernal Wolf," the, 117; a name for the Devil, ib. note.
+Influence of the missions salutary, 319.
+Instructions for the missionaries to the Hurons, 54.
+Intrepid conduct of the Jesuits, 125.
+Iroquois, or Five Nations, origin of the name, xlvii; where found in
+early times, xx, xlvi, 278 note; their dwellings, xxvii note., xxviii
+note; a licentious people, xxxiv note; have capacious skulls, xliii
+note; burn female captives, xlv; their character, xlvii; their eminent
+position and influence, ib.; their true name, xlviii note; divided into
+eight clans or families, lv; symbols of these clans, ib. note; the
+chiefs, how selected, lvi; the councils, lvii; how and when assembled,
+lviii; how conducted, lix; their debates, ib.; strict unanimity
+required, ib.; artful management of the chiefs, lx note; the professed
+orators, lxi; military organization, lxiv; and discipline, ib.; spirit
+of the confederacy, lxv; attachment to ancient forms, ib.; their
+increase by adoption, lxvi; population at different times, ib. note;
+have no name for God, lxxviii; a captive Iroquois sacrificed by the
+Hurons to the god of war, 80; supplied by the Dutch with fire-arms, 211;
+make war on the French in Canada, 212, 269 seq.; extreme cruelty to
+Jogues and other prisoners, 217-222, 228; cannibalism, 228, 250;
+audacity, 241; attack Fort Richelieu, 244; spread devastation and terror
+through Canada, 245, 251; horrible nature of their warfare, 246-250;
+torments inflicted on prisoners, 248 seq., 271; an Iroquois prisoner
+tortured by Algonquins, 277; treaty of peace with the French and
+Algonquins, 284 seq.; numbers of the Iroquois, 297 note; the Iroquois
+determination to destroy the Hurons, 336; their moral superiority, 337;
+a defeat sustained by them, 338; their shameless treachery, 339; invade
+the Huron country and destroy the towns, 379; their atrocious cruelty,
+385; their retreat, 386; they pursue the remnants of the Huron nation,
+412, 425; attack the Atticamegues, 420; attack the Hurons at
+Michilimackinac, 425; exterminate the Neutral Nation, 437; exterminate
+the Eries, 438-440; terrible cruelty, 441 note; their bloody supremacy,
+444; it cost them dear, ib.; tyrants of a wide wilderness, 445; their
+short-sighted policy, 434.
+
+
+J.
+
+Jesuits, their founder, 8; their discipline, 11; their influence, 12;
+salutary, 319; the early Canadian Jesuits did not meddle with political
+affairs, 323; denounced cannibalism, but faint in opposing the burning
+of prisoners, 351; were engaged in the fur-trade, 365 note; purity of
+their motives, 83, 85; benevolent care of the sick, 87, 98, 267; accused
+of sorcery, 120; in great peril, 121; their intrepidity, 125; their
+prudence, 134; their intense zeal, 146. See Huron Mission.
+Jogues, Isaac, his birth and character, 214; joins the mission, 86; his
+illness, ib.; his character, 106, 304; his journey to the Tobacco
+Nation, 140; visits Lake Superior and preaches to the Ojibwas, 213;
+visits Quebec, 214; taken prisoner by the Iroquois, 216; tortured by
+them, 217, 218, 221, 222; in daily expectation of death, 224, 225; his
+conscientiousness, 226, 229, 232; his patience, 226; his spirit of
+devotion, 227; longs for death, 228; his pious labors while a captive,
+ib.; visits Albany, 229; writes to the commandant at Three Rivers, 230;
+escapes, 234; voyage across the Atlantic, 236; reception in France, 237;
+the queen honors him, 238; returns to Canada, 239, 286; his mission to
+the Mohawks, 297; misgivings, 298; has a presentiment of death, ib.;
+goes as a civilian, ib; visits Fort Orange, 299; reaches the Mohawk
+country, ib.; his reception, ib.; returns to Canada, 300; his second
+mission to the Mohawks, 301; warned of danger, ib.; his cruel murder,
+304.
+Joseph, Saint, his interposition in a case of childbirth, 90; his help
+much relied on by the Jesuits, 70, 95, 96; fireworks let off in his
+honor, 160. See Saint Joseph.
+Jouskeha, a beneficent deity, the sun, the creator, lxxvi, lxxix.
+
+
+K.
+
+Kennebec, visited by a Jesuit, 322.
+Kieft, William, governor of New Netherland, his kindness to Jogues, 235;
+his letter to the governor of Canada, 304 note.
+Kiotsaton, envoy of the Iroquois, 284 seq.; his speech, 287 seq.; the
+French delighted with him, 291; another speech, 292.
+
+
+L.
+Lafitau, his book on the Iroquois, liv note; describes the council of
+the Iroquois, lvii, lviii.
+Lalande, an assistant in the mission, 301; tortured by the Mohawks, 303;
+killed by them, 304.
+Lalemant, Gabriel, at the Huron mission, 126, 371; taken by the
+Iroquois, 381; tortured with fire, 388; his death, 390.
+Lalemant, Jerome, brother of Gabriel, assailed by an Algonquin, 127;
+visits Three Rivers, 294; becomes Superior of the missions, 301.
+Lauson, president of the Canada Fur Company, 156; sells the island of
+Montreal to the Jesuits, 194.
+Le Berger, a Christian Iroquois, 304; endeavors to save Jogues, ib.
+Le Borgne, chief of Allumette Island, hinders the departure of the
+missionaries, 50; his motives, 51; converted, 268.
+Le Jeune, Paul, Father Superior, his voyage, 15; his arrival in Quebec,
+2, 15; begins his labors there, 16; joins an Indian hunting-party, 23;
+adventures in this connection, 25-39; his description of a winter scene,
+26 note; grievances in an Indian lodge in winter, 27; experience with a
+sorcerer, 30; suffers the rude banter of the Indians, ib.; doubts
+whether the Indian sorcerers are impostors or in league with the devil,
+32; relates what he had been informed of the devil's proceedings in
+Brazil, 33 note; attempts to convert a sorcerer, 37; disappointment, 39;
+returns to Quebec, 40; rejoices at the advent of the new governor, 150
+note; rejoices at the interest in the mission awakened in France, 151;
+has for a correspondent the future Condé, 152; is invested with civil
+authority, 154; sends for pictures of the torments of hell, 163.
+Le Mercier, Francis Joseph, joins the mission, 85; his peril, 125.
+Le Moyne, among the Hurons, 126; among the Onondagas, 438, 440.
+Licentiousness of the Indians, xxxiv note; xxxv note, xlv.
+Life in a wigwam, 27-31.
+Loretto, in Italy, 102, 105, 432; Old Lorette, in Canada, 431; New
+Lorette, in Canada, 432; settlement of Hurons there, ib.
+Loyola, Ignatius, his story, 8; founds the order of Jesuits, 9; his book
+of Spiritual Exercises, 10.
+
+
+M.
+
+Maisonneuve, Chomedey, Sieur de, military leader of the settlement at
+Montreal, 196; spends the first winter at Quebec, 202; poorly
+accommodated there, 203; has a quarrel with the governor, 204; beloved
+by his followers, 205; compared to Godfrey, the leader of the first
+crusade, 207; lands at Montreal, 208, 261; plants a cross on the top of
+the mountain, 263; his great bravery, 275.
+Manabozho, a mythical personage, lxviii; the chief deity of the
+Algonquins, yet not worshipped, lxxii, lxxix; his achievements, lxxiii.
+Mance, Jeanne, devotes herself to the mission in Canada, 198; embarks,
+201; impressive scene before embarking, ib.; lands at Montreal, 208,
+261.
+Manitous, a generic term for super-natural beings, lxix; extensive in
+its meaning, lxx; process for obtaining a guardian manitou, ib.
+Marie, a Christian Algonquin, her adventures and sufferings, 309-313.
+Marriage among the Hurons often temporary and experimental, xxxiv.
+Mass, neglect of the, a punishable offence, 154, 157.
+Masse, 5, 20; "le Père Utile," ib.; his death, 260.
+Medical practice among the Indians, xli, xlii note; lxxxiv, 66.
+"Medicine," or Indian charms, lxxi.
+"Medicine-bags," lxxi; "medicine-men," or sorcerers, lxxxiv, lxxxv,
+32-38; a "medicine-feast," 66; the religion taught by the Jesuits
+supposed to be a "medicine," 90.
+Megapolensis, Dutch pastor at Albany, 229; his account of the Mohawks,
+ib.; befriends Jogues, 235.
+Memory, devices for aiding the, lxi.
+Messou. See Manabozho.
+Mestigoit, an Indian hunter, 21, 24, 29, 34; his skill and courage, 40;
+helps Le Jeune to reach Quebec, ib.
+Mexican fabrics found in Indian cemeteries, 79 note.
+Miamis, cannibalism among them, xl.
+Michabou. See Manabozho.
+Micmacs in Nova Scotia, xxii.
+Minquas. See Andastes.
+Miracles in the Huron mission, 108; how to be accounted for, 109; why
+miracles were expected, 210 note.
+Miscou, mission at, 317.
+Mission to Hurons. See Huron Mission.
+Mission-house near Quebec described, 4.
+Mohawks, xlviii note, liv; number of warriors, 212, 297; their towns,
+222; make peace with the French, 296; credulity and superstition, 301;
+their causeless rage, 303; renew the war with the French, 306; their
+perfidy, 308; cruelty, ib.; torture of prisoners, 309; invade the Huron
+country, 379; furious battle near St. Marie, 384; war with the Andastes,
+441; and Mohicans, ib. note. See Iroquois.
+Montmagny, Charles Huault de, succeeds Champlain as governor of New
+France, 149; his zeal for the mission, 150, 161; meets the Ursulines at
+their landing, 182; quarrels with the leader of the Montreal settlement,
+204; delivers Montreal to Maisonneuve, 208; builds a fort at Sorel, 242;
+called Onontio by the Iroquois, 283; negotiates a peace with the
+Iroquois, 284 seq.
+Montagnais, an Algonquin tribe, where found, xxiii; their degradation,
+ib.; Le Jeune essays their conversion, 19; concerned in a treaty of
+peace, 286, 293; salutary changes from the influence of the mission,
+319.
+Montreal, island of, purchased for the site of a religious community,
+195; part of the money given by ladies, 198; consecrated to the Holy
+Family, 201; the enterprise compared with the crusades, 207; first day
+of the settlement, 209; motives of the enterprise, as stated by the
+leaders themselves, 210 note; infancy of the settlement, 261; rise of
+the St. Lawrence checked by a wooden cross, 263; arrival of D'Ailleboust
+and others, 264; pilgrimages, 267; hospital built, 266; Indians fed,
+268; attacks by the Iroquois, 269 seq.; sally of the French, 273;
+condition of Montreal in 1651, 333.
+Moon, the, worshipped, lxxvi.
+Morgan, Lewis H., his account of the Iroquois, liv note.
+Murder atoned for by presents, lxi, lxii, 354; a grand ceremony of this
+sort, 355 seq.
+
+
+N.
+
+Nanabush. See Manabozho.
+Nation of the Bear, liii.
+Nation of Fire, an Algonquin people, attacked by the Neutral Nation,
+436.
+Neutral Nation, their country, xx, xliv, 142; their cruelty and
+licentiousness, xlv; representations made to them respecting the French,
+xlvi note; a ferocious people, 143; their excessive superstition, ib.; a
+mission among them attempted, 142; but in vain, 146; kindness of a
+Neutral woman, ib.; destroy a large town of the Nation of Fire, 436;
+their ferocious cruelty, ib. note; themselves exterminated by the
+Iroquois, 437.
+New England, Indians in, xxi; a Jesuit's impressions of, 328.
+Niagara, called the River of the Neutrals, xliv; described by the
+Jesuits, 143 note.
+Nicollet, Jean, visits Green Bay in 1639, 166.
+Nipissings, xxiv.
+Notre-Dame des Anges, at Quebec, 5, 155; Notre-Dame de Montreal, 193.
+
+
+O.
+
+Ochateguins. See Hurons.
+Ojibwas, how differing in language from Algonquins, xx; visited by
+Jogues, 213.
+Okies, or Otkons, objects of worship among the Iroquois, lxix.
+Olier, Jean Jacques, Abbé, suspected of Jansenism, 189; has a
+revelation, 190; meets Dauversière, 192; their schemes, ib.
+Oneidas, or Onneyut, one of the Five Nations, xlviii note, liv. See
+Iroquois.
+Onondagas, or Onnontagué, one of the Five Nations, xlviii note, liv (see
+Iroquois); their inroad on the Hurons, 343; their jealousy of the
+Mohawks, 344; their embassy to the Hurons, 345; suicide of the
+ambassador, 347.
+Ononkwaya, an Oneida chief, a prisoner to the Hurons, 338; his
+marvellous fortitude under torture, 339.
+Onontio, Great Mountain, name given to the Governor of Canada among the
+Iroquois, and why, 283.
+Ontitarac, a Huron chief, his speech, 119.
+Orators of the Iroquois, lx.
+Ossossané, chief town of the Hurons, 74; great Huron cemetery there, 75;
+mission established there, 110, 129; abandoned, 139.
+Ouendats, or Wyandots. See Hurons.
+
+
+P.
+
+Parker, Ely S., an educated Iroquois, liv note.
+Passionists, convent of, a singular incident there, 108 note.
+Peace concluded between the French and Iroquois, 284-295; defects of the
+treaty, 296; the peace broken and why, 302.
+Peltrie, de la, Madame, her birth, 168; her girlhood, 169; a widow, ib.;
+religious schemes, 170; resolves to go to Canada, ib.; her sham
+marriage, 172; visits the Ursuline Convent at Tours, 173; results of
+that visit, 174; embarks for Canada, 181; perilous voyage, 182; her
+character, 186; thirst for admiration, 187; leaves the Ursulines and
+joins the Colony of Montreal, 206, 261; receives the sacrament on the
+top of the mountain, 264; at Quebec, 334.
+Penobscot, a station on it of Capuchin friars, 322.
+Pestilence among the Hurons, 87; its supposed origin, 94.
+Persecution of the Jesuits, 116 seq.
+Pictures requested for the mission, 133; of souls in perdition, many,
+ib.; of souls in bliss, one, ib.; how to be colored, ib.; Le Jeune
+describes the pictures of Hell which he wants, 163.
+Picture-writing by the Indians, 243.
+Pierre, an Algonquin, 17; teacher of Le Jeune, 18; runs away, 21;
+returns, 22; frantic from strong drink, 24; repents and assists Le
+Jeune, 38; another of this name, a converted Huron, 122.
+Pijart, Pierre, joins the mission, 85; his clandestine baptisms, 96, 97;
+establishes a mission at Ossossané, 110.
+Piskaret, an Algonquin brave, 278; his exploits, 279; his successes
+against the Iroquois, 281; assists in a treaty of peace, 291; murdered
+by Mohawks, 308.
+Poncet, father, his pilgrimage to Loretto, 104; embarks for Canada, 181;
+his peril, 126.
+Price of a man's life, lxii; of a woman's, ib.
+Prisoners, cruel treatment of, xxxix, xlv, 80, 216 seq., 248 seq., 253,
+277, 339, 388 seq., 436 note, 439, 441 note.
+Processions, religious, at Quebec, 161.
+
+
+Q.
+
+Quatogies. See Hurons.
+Qualifications for success in an Indian mission, 134 note.
+Quebec in 1634, 1; its first settler, 3; condition in 1640, 154; its
+aspect half military, half monastic, 158; its very amusements acts of
+religion, 160; state of things in 1651, 331; New-Year's Day, 1646, 334.
+
+
+R.
+Ragueneau, Paul, missionary among the Hurons, 123, 124, 126; relates
+proceedings of a council held respecting a murder, 355; Father Superior,
+370.
+Raymbault, Charles, enters Lake Superior with Jogues, 213.
+Religion and superstitions of the Indians, lxvii et seq.; worship of
+material objects, inanimate no less than animate, ib.; the Indians
+attribute their origin to beasts, birds, and reptiles, lxviii; all
+nature full of objects of religious fear and dread, lxxxiv; sacrifices,
+lxxxvi.
+Remarkable instance of Indian forgiveness, 319.
+Rome, Church of, her strange contradictions, 84; self-denial of her
+missionaries, ib.
+
+
+S.
+
+Sacrifice, a human, by fire, witnessed by a missionary, 80 seq.
+Sacrifices of the Indians, lxxxv, lxxxvi note.
+St. Bernard, Marie de, a nun at Tours, 174; embarks for Canada, 181.
+St. Ignace, town, taken by the Iroquois, 380; furious battle with the
+Hurons, 384; the town and its inhabitants destroyed by fire, 385;
+vestiges still remaining, ib. note.
+St. Jean, town in the Tobacco Nation, attacked by the Iroquois, 405;
+destroyed by fire, 406.
+St. Joseph, a town in the Huron country, 137, 374; surprised by the
+Iroquois, 375; and destroyed, 377; another station of this name on an
+island, 395; the Huron refugees repair thither, 399; their extreme
+misery, ib.; famine, 400.
+St. Louis, town in the Huron country, attacked, 380; severe struggle,
+381; destroyed by the Iroquois, ib.
+Ste. Marie, in the Huron country, a mission established there, 139; the
+place described, 362 seq.; a bountiful hospitality exercised towards the
+converts and others, 367; alarm and anxiety at the Iroquois invasion,
+382; the station abandoned, 394; stripped of all valuables, and set on
+fire, 396.
+Schoolcraft, Henry R., his Notes on the Iroquois, liv note; his
+mistakes, lxxviii, lxxx; his collection of Algonquin tales, lxxxviii;
+his unsatisfactory speculations about Huron graves, 71.
+Seminary, Huron, at Quebec, 167.
+Senecas, one of the Five Nations, xlviii note, liv. See Iroquois.
+Sepulture among the Hurons, lxxxi, 71 seq.
+Sillery, Noël Brulart de, becomes a priest, 182; founds the settlement
+which bears his name, 183.
+Sioux punish adultery, xxxiv; harass the Hurons, 425.
+Sorcerer, a dwarfish, deformed one, troubles the Jesuits, 91; his
+account of his origin, 92; sorcerers, several, in time of mortal
+sickness, 93.
+Sorcery, as practised among the Indians, lxxxiv, 32-38.
+Speech-making, Indian, 287, 292-294.
+Sun worshipped, lxxvi.
+Supernaturalism of the Jesuits, 106; supposed efficacy of relics and
+prayers to relieve pain and cure disease, 107; conversions effected in
+this manner, 108; such views still entertained, as illustrated in a
+curious incident, ib.
+Superstitions of the Indians, lxvii seq., 68.
+Superstitious terrors, lxxxiv, 115, 141.
+Susquehannocks. See Andastes.
+Swedish colonists on the Delaware assist the Andastes, 442.
+
+
+T.
+
+Tarenyowagon, a powerful deity, lxxvii.
+Tarratines, the Abenaquis so called, xxii note.
+Tattooing practised, xxxiii; a severe process, ib.
+Teanaustayé, 137. See St. Joseph.
+Tessouat, or Le Borgne, converted, 268.
+Tionnontates. See Tobacco Nation.
+Tobacco Nation, or Tionnontates, in league with the Hurons, xliii;
+raised tobacco, 47; mission among them, 140; reception of the
+missionaries, 141; perils of the missionaries, 142; some of the Hurons
+seek an asylum there, 393, 404.
+Tobacco, none in Heaven, a sad thought to the Indian, 136.
+Totems, emblems of clans, li, lxviii, 375.
+Trade in furs, xlv, 47, 155.
+Traffic of the Indians, how conducted, xxxvi.
+Treatment of women, xxxiv, xxxv; of prisoners, xxxix, xlv, 80, 216 seq.,
+248 seq., 253, 254, 277, 339, 388, 439, 441 note.
+Tuscaroras, in Carolina, xxi; unite with the Five Nations, xxi, lxvi.
+
+
+U.
+
+Unchastity of the Indians, xxxiv note, xlv.
+Ursulines at Tours, 173; at Quebec, their labors, 184; their
+instructions, 185.
+
+
+V.
+
+Villemarie de Montreal, a three-fold religious establishment, 201, 261.
+Vimont, father, embarks for Canada, 181; makes a vow to Saint Joseph,
+182; visits Montreal, 208; Superior of the Canadian Mission, 286;
+assists in a treaty of peace, 292.
+Visions and visitations from Heaven and from Hell frequent occurrences
+in the lives of the missionaries, 108; the subject illustrated by a
+curious incident, ib. note.
+
+
+W.
+
+Wampum, its material and uses, xxxi; served the purpose of records,
+xxxii, lxi.
+War-dance, often practised for amusement, xxxix.
+Wigwam, how built, xxvii; inconveniences in one, 27, 28.
+Winnebagoes, their residence when first known to Europeans, xx; known to
+the Jesuits in 1648, 368.
+Winslow, John, kindly receives the Jesuit Druilletes at Augusta, 322,
+325; his name in the Relations, how spelled, 323 note.
+Winter in Canada, 18, 26, 28.
+Witchcraft, proceedings in case of, lxiii.
+Women, their condition, xxxiii, xxxiv, xxxv, xiv.
+Wyandots, a remnant of the Hurons, xxiv, 426. See Hurons.
+
+
+The End.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Francis Parkman
+
+
+France and England in North America
+
+1.  Pioneers of France in the New World (1865, 1885)
+2.  The Jesuits in North America in the seventeenth century (1867)
+3.  The Discovery of the West (1869)
+    La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West (1879)
+4.  The Old Régime in Canada (1874, 1894)
+5.  Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV. (1877)
+6.  A Half Century of Conflict (1892)
+    Volume 1
+    Volume 2
+7.  Montcalm and Wolfe (1884)
+
+The year that each book was published is printed and enclosed by
+parenthesis after the title of each volume. In some cases, there are two
+years in parenthesis. These indicate that a volume with major revisions
+was published.
+
+The revised version of Pioneers of France contains new descriptions of
+Florida and some changes to the section on Samuel Champlain. Parkman
+revised Discovery of the West after obtaining access to Margry's
+collection. The revised version of The Old Régime includes three new
+chapters regarding La Tour and D'Aunay.
+
+Volume 3 was not only revised, but the title was altered. Parkman first
+released Volume 3 as The Discovery of the West. His updated version of
+Volume 3 was entitled La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West.
+
+Other Principal Works
+
+•  The Oregon Trail (1849)
+•  The Conspiracy of Pontiac (1851)
+
+
+Appendix
+
+
+Transcription notes:
+
+This book was originally transcribed from Volume 20. While making a
+batch of corrections, a decision was made to base this etext on Volume 1
+for three reasons: 1) Parkman's subsequent revisions were virtually
+insignificant; 2) Volume 1, released in 1867, is available at the New
+York Public Library through Hathitrust, and thus, can readily be
+consulted for future claims of errata, and 3) In the Notes on the Texts
+prepared for the The Library of America reprint (1983), David Levin
+opined that using Volume 1 for this title was the best choice to
+approximate Parkman's own conception of France and England in North
+America.
+
+In resolving errors and questions that came up during transcription,
+Parkman's Seventh volume of The Jesuits in North America from 1872 was
+consulted (from the Library of Congress, available through Hathitrust),
+as well as the aforementioned The Library of America edition of this
+work. When these notes refer to a mistake in all the volumes, they refer
+to Volumes 1, 7, and 20. These volumes were produced during Parkman's
+lifetime, and assume that changes met with Parkman's approval.
+
+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--œ--will only display
+correctly if using Windows 1252.
+
+The footnotes have been produced using the Project Gutenberg™ standard.
+Footnotes follow the paragraph in which they were mentioned. Footnotes
+have been set in smaller print and have larger margins than regular
+text. Footnotes are numbered sequentially and the numbers are reset
+after each change in chapter. There are a total of 548 footnotes in this
+book. Please note that we have made no emendations to the content of
+footnotes to preserve the antiquated orthography and accentuation of the
+contents.
+
+This text generally preserved the italicization of words, phrases, and
+the titles of references which are presented in italics in the printed
+book. The standard of the book is to use italics when citing Relations,
+1650; and not to use them when writing Relations of 1650. There were
+some cases that did not observe the standard: they were treated as
+errata, and changed. Small capitalization has also been retained--used
+primarily for the first word of each chapter.
+
+Detailed notes describe problems or issues in transcribing a specific
+portion of the text: the reconciliation of variances between the topics
+list in the contents and the topics list preceeding each chapter; other
+modifications applied while transcribing the printed book to an e-text;
+emendations; and other issues in transcribing the text.
+
+You will see changed text underlined by dotted silver lines. In some
+versions (like the HTML version) of this document, you can hover your
+cursor over the changed text and see details in a small box. Those
+details are repeated, and sometimes elaborated upon, in the Detailed
+Notes Section of this Appendix.
+
+
+Detailed Notes Section:
+
+
+Contents
+
+• Chapter 5: Capitalize Thwarted and Begun in the topics list.
+• Chapter 16: Capitalize Tortured in the topics list.
+• Chapter 19: Capitalize Confirmed in the topics list.
+• Chapter 26: Capitalize Destroyed in the topics list.
+
+
+Introduction:
+
+• Page xix, add Indian before "Social and Political Organization" to
+match topics list in Table of Contents.
+• Page xxxv, in footnote 0-18, the word "come" is printed with a
+straight line over the "o," not only in Volume 1, but also in Volume 7.
+The Library of America version of the book assumes that the line
+resulted from an imperfection in the plates. The assumption is not only
+reasonable but practical, and it is adopted here, too.
+• Page xlviii, place period after the clause "which they had so promptly
+assented" This period was also missing in Volume 7.
+• On Page li, Parkman added the qualifier "in most cases" to the clause
+"The child belongs to the clan," in the eighth volume of this title. The
+new clause is, "The child belongs, in most cases, to the clan,"
+• On Page lii, Parkman used the less precise "usually belonging to it"
+instead of "inseparable from it" in the eighth volume of this title. The
+new sentence reads, "This system of clanship, with the rule of descent
+usually belonging to it, was of very wide prevalence."
+• On Page lxv, Un doubtedly is not hyphenated and split between two
+lines as if two words, not just in Volume 1, but in Volume 7. There
+should have been a hyphen after Un-. The clause was transcribed:
+"Undoubtedly there was a distinct and definite effort of legislation;"
+
+
+Chapter 3:
+
+• Changed "Mission-house" to "Mission-House" in topics list beginning
+Chapter 3 to match topics list for Chapter 3 in the Contents.
+• Page 18: footnote 3-3 does not end the last sentence with a period:
+"et sa bonté n'a point de limites" The period was also missing in Volume
+7. We did not make an emendation because of Parkman's statement in the
+Preface.
+• Page 21: add period to end the sentence with the clause "sorcerer, in
+the tribe of the Montagnais" The period was added in Volume 7.
+
+
+Chapter 4:
+
+• Page 24: In footnote 4-1, add beginning quote before Iamais: "Iamais
+il ne fut ..."
+• Page 26: In footnote 4-2, text is missing a period after ceinture, in
+all volumes. This was not changed, as it was in the footnote.
+• Page 30-Page 31: Confirmed the spelling of "fumeé" and "fumée;" in
+footnote 4-5.
+• Page 31: Confirmed the spelling of "mais" in footnote 4-6.
+• Page 31: Confirmed the apostrophe in "qu'à" in footnote 4-6.
+• Page 33: In footnote 4-8: the correct word is "laisse," but "laiss"
+remains unchanged in accordance with Parkman's statement in the preface.
+• Page 37: footnote 4-11 in Volume 1 refers back to no page number in
+the introduction. Volume 7 & Volume 20 have the page number xliv. We
+replaced the blank space for the page number left in volume 1 with the
+page number specified in later volumes.
+
+
+Chapter 6:
+
+• On Page 62, Footnote 6-4 was not marked clearly in the original book
+used for transcription. The footnote appeared fine in Volume 1, and is
+rendered appropriately.
+
+
+Chapter 7:
+
+• Page 76, Footnote 7-5 contains the word "Atsatone8ai". The "spelling
+is correct." See The Old Regime in Canada for similar usage, such as
+"8ta8aks."
+
+
+Chapter 8:
+
+• Page 85, confirmed the spelling of "i'auoüe" and the phrase "qui ne
+cherche que Dieu," which were unclear in footnote 8-1 from the book
+originally used for transcription.
+• Page 87: small-pox is hyphenated and split between two lines for
+spacing. There are two other occurrences of the word, and the hyphen was
+used, so the hyphen was retained here, too.
+
+
+Chapter 9:
+
+• Page 105, Change gain to again in the clause "the offending limb
+became sound again." The text was incorrect in Volume 1, and corrected
+in Volume 7.
+
+
+Chapter 12:
+
+• Page 147: By volume 7, Parkman broke this long, compound sentence into
+two not-quite-as-long sentences. The colon before "or" was changed to a
+period, and Or began the next sentence: "... between him and the home of
+his boyhood. Or rather ..."
+
+
+Chapter 13:
+
+• Page 157: Near the end of the page, precarious is split between two
+lines without a hyphen. "All these were supported by a charity in most
+cases precari ous." The hyphen was missing, and the word was split for
+spacing. We transcribed the word without the hyphen, but omitted the
+space. This error was found in all volumes.
+
+
+Chapter 14:
+
+• Page 171-Page 172: In footnote 14-5, add quotation mark before Enfin.
+The leading quotation mark was missing in all volumes.
+• Page 175: See the sentence "Like Madame de la Peltrie, she married, at
+the desire of her parents. in her eighteenth year." The comma after
+parents was either malformed because of the quality of the plates, or
+mistyped as a period. We used a comma after parents. In volume 7, the
+punctuation mark after parents was visibly a comma.
+
+
+Chapter 15:
+
+• Changed Bourgeois in topics list of Chapter 15 to Bourgeoys. Not only
+does the correction match the spelling in the topics list for Chapter 15
+in the contents, but it matches the spelling of Marguerite Bourgeoys in
+seven other instances of Chapter XV. In no other instance in this book
+was her name spelled differently.
+• Page 195--Confirmed that year in footnote 15-8 is 1659.
+
+
+Chapter 16:
+
+• Page 237: By volume 7, the narrative describing the return of Jogues
+says "He reached the church in time for the early mass..." instead of
+the evening mass.
+
+
+Chapter 18:
+
+• Page 263: poorly printed word in footnote, appears to be "de."
+Footnote 18-3 has two uses of de in italics, and both appear clearly in
+Volume 1. We believe this issue is resolved.
+
+
+Chapter 19:
+
+• Page 281: fixed typo ("die", should be "dine"). Volume 7 also has the
+phrase "We must die before we run." This typo does not fall under
+Parkman's caveat in the Preface, and could confuse if preserved.
+Therefore, the spelling was corrected.
+• Page 281: Add missing comma after effect in the clause "and fired with
+such good effect, that, of seven warriors, all but one were killed."
+This comma was added by Volume 7.
+
+
+Chapter 22:
+
+• In Volume 1, Parkman cited page 166 in Hutchinson, Collection of
+Papers in Footnote 22-18, but changed the page number to 240 in later
+volumes.
+• Page 333: fixed typo ("Govornor"), spelled incorrectly in all volumes.
+
+
+Chapter 25:
+
+• Page 364: footnote 25-10, add missing close-quotes after cœur.
+• Page 368: In footnote 25-18, add comma after Algonquin. There is a
+space reserved for the comma but it didn't appear in the text: "Besides
+these tribes, the Jesuits had become more or less acquainted with many
+others, also Algonquin  on the west and south of Lake Huron;" The comma
+was missing in all volumes.
+• Page 371: A colon appears at the end of the page, after "at least in
+the flesh:"
+• Page 372: In footnote 25-20, après is correctly spelled with a grave
+accent, but the text had an acute accent, and this was preserved in
+accordance with Parkman's statement in the preface.
+• In footnote 25-20, verified the colon (":") after "dit-il" in the
+final paragraph. In three quotations that follow, we changed the double
+quotes to single quotes, because they were quotations embedded within a
+quotation.
+
+
+Chapter 28:
+
+• Changed "unconquerable" to "Unconquerable" in topics list beginning
+Chapter XXVIII to match topics list for Chapter 28 in the Contents.
+
+
+Chapter 29:
+
+• Page 397, footnote 29-4, add missing close-quotes after cœur. Parkman
+put the quotes around the extract from the letter, but just omitted the
+closing quote after cœur. This mistake does not come under the caveat of
+Parkman stated in the Preface, so we made the change. This error can be
+found in all volumes.
+• Page 401, footnote 29-10, add comma after Ragueneau in reference
+"Ragueneau Relation des Hurons, 1650." This comma is missing in all
+volumes.
+
+
+Chapter 30:
+
+• Page 407: "mâitre" (which should be maître) is preserved with the
+wrong character circumflexed in the second paragraph of footnote 30-4,
+for reasons described in Parkman's Preface.
+
+
+Chapter 31:
+
+• Page 412: "neges" in footnote 31-2 should be "neiges," but it is part
+of quoted text from the Relations, so the spelling has been preserved.
+• Page 418-Page 419: war-party is split between the pages, and
+hyphenated, so the transcription can only be war-party or warparty. We
+chose the former.
+
+
+Chapter 32:
+
+• Page 426: By volume 7, Parkman described neighboring Point St. Ignace,
+"now Graham's Point, on the north side of the strait."
+
+
+
+
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+<div style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century, by Francis Parkman</div>
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+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
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+</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Francis Parkman</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: February 13, 2003 [eBook #6933]<br />
+[Most recently updated: May 2, 2023]</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Ken Reeder, Cyrille Héloir and Robert Homa</div>
+<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE JESUITS IN NORTH AMERICA ***</div>
+
+<div class="titlepage quad-space-top">
+   <h1 id="id00006">The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century</h1>
+   <h2 id="id00007">by Francis Parkman</h2>
+	 <p class="noindent double-space-top">
+			 France and England<br /> in North America
+	 </p>
+	 <p class="noindent">
+	     A Series<br /> of Historical Narratives
+	 </p>
+	 <p class="noindent">
+			 Part Second<br />
+	 </p>
+	 <p class="double-space-top center small">
+	    BOSTON:<br />
+			LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY.<br />
+			1867.<br />
+	 </p>
+
+	 <hr class="main" />
+	 <p class="quad-space-top center small">
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_ii" id="Page_ii">ii</a></span>
+                  Entered According to Act of Congress, in the year 1867, by <br />
+                  <span class="smcap">Francis Parkman,</span><br />
+									In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.
+									<br /><br />
+									CAMBRIDGE:<br />
+									STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY JOHN WILSON AND SON.
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="main" />
+<div class="chapterhead">
+   <br /><a name="Preface" id="Preface"></a>
+	 <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">v</a></span>
+	 <br /><br /><br />
+	 <h2><a href="#Contents">PREFACE.</a><br />
+	 </h2>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="double-space-top" id="id00022">
+<span class="smcap">Few</span> 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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00023">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">vi</a></span>
+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 <i>Relations</i>.
+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 <i>Relations</i> 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,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">vii</a></span>
+in 1858, by the Canadian government, in three
+large octavo volumes.
+<a href="#footer_P-1"><span class="superscript">[1]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00024" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_P-1" name="footer_P-1"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[1]</span>
+				Both editions&mdash;the old and the new&mdash;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.</p>
+		<p id="id00025">
+        In extracts given in the notes, the antiquated orthography and
+				accentuation are preserved. <br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00026">
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00027">
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00028">
+In the collection of material, I have received
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">viii</a></span>
+valuable aid from
+Mr. J.&nbsp;G. Shea, Rev. Felix Martin, S.J., the Abb&eacute;s
+Laverdi&egrave;re and H.&nbsp;R. Casgrain, Dr. J.&nbsp;C. Tach&eacute;,
+and the late Jacques Viger, Esq.
+</p>
+
+<p id="id00029">
+I propose to devote the next volume of this series to the discovery and
+occupation by the French of the Valley of the Mississippi.
+</p>
+
+<p class="right" id="id00030">
+   <span class="smcap">Boston</span>, <i>1st May, 1867</i>
+</p>
+
+
+<hr class="main" />
+
+<div class="contents">
+   <a id="Contents" name="Contents"></a>
+	 <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">ix</a></span>
+   <h2>Contents</h2>
+</div>
+
+   <p class="smcapheader">
+	    The Jesuits in North America
+	 </p>
+	 <p class="noindent"><a href="#Preface">PREFACE.</a></p>
+   <p class="noindent"><a href="#Chapter_0">INTRODUCTION.</a></p>
+	 <p class="noindent">NATIVE TRIBES.</p>
+	 <p class="topics">
+            Divisions &bull; The Algonquins &bull;
+						The Hurons &bull;  Their Houses &bull;
+						Fortifications &bull; Habits &bull;  Arts &bull;
+						Women &bull; Trade &bull; Festivities &bull;
+						Medicine &bull; The Tobacco Nation &bull;
+						The Neutrals &bull; The Eries &bull; The Andastes &bull;
+						The Iroquois &bull; Indian Social and Political Organization &bull;
+						Iroquois Institutions, Customs, and Character &bull;
+            Indian Religion and Superstitions &bull; The Indian Mind
+   </p>
+   <p class="noindent">
+	    <a id="Contents1" name="Contents1"></a>
+	    <a href="#Chapter_1">CHAPTER I.</a> 1634.
+	 </p>
+	 <p class="noindent">NOTRE-DAME DES ANGES.</p>
+	 <p class="topics">
+            Quebec in 1634 &bull; Father Le Jeune &bull;
+						The Mission-House &bull;  Its Domestic Economy &bull;
+						The Jesuits and their Designs
+   </p>
+   <p class="noindent">
+	    <a id="Contents2" name="Contents2"></a>
+			<a href="#Chapter_2">CHAPTER II. </a>
+	 </p>
+	 <p class="noindent">LOYOLA AND THE JESUITS.</p>
+	 <p class="topics">
+            Conversion of Loyola &bull;
+						Foundation of the Society of Jesus &bull;
+						Preparation of the Novice &bull;
+						Characteristics of the Order &bull;
+						The Canadian Jesuits
+   </p>
+   <p class="noindent">
+	    <a id="Contents3" name="Contents3"></a>
+			<a href="#Chapter_3">CHAPTER III.</a> 1632, 1633.
+	 </p>
+	 <p class="noindent">PAUL LE JEUNE.</p>
+	 <p class="topics">
+            Le Jeune's Voyage &bull; His First Pupils &bull;
+						His Studies &bull; His Indian Teacher &bull;
+						Winter at the Mission-House &bull; Le Jeune's School &bull;
+						Reinforcements
+   </p>
+   <p class="noindent">
+	    <a id="Contents4" name="Contents4"></a>
+			<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_x" id="Page_x">x</a></span>
+	    <a href="#Chapter_4">CHAPTER IV.</a> 1633, 1634.
+	 </p>
+	 <p class="noindent">LE JEUNE AND THE HUNTERS.</p>
+	 <p class="topics">
+            Le Jeune joins the Indians &bull; The First Encampment &bull;
+						The Apostate &bull; Forest Life in Winter &bull;
+						The Indian Hut &bull; The Sorcerer &bull;
+						His Persecution of the Priest &bull; Evil Company &bull;
+						Magic &bull; Incantations &bull; Christmas &bull;
+					  Starvation &bull; Hopes of Conversion &bull;
+						Backsliding &bull; Peril and Escape of Le Jeune &bull;
+						His Return
+   </p>
+   <p id="id00050" class="noindent">
+	    <a id="Contents5" name="Contents5"></a>
+	    <a href="#Chapter_5">CHAPTER V.</a> 1633, 1634.
+	 </p>
+	 <p id="id00051" class="noindent">THE HURON MISSION.</p>
+	 <p id="id00052" class="topics">
+            Plans of Conversion &bull; Aims and Motives &bull;
+						Indian Diplomacy &bull; Hurons at Quebec &bull;
+						Councils &bull; The Jesuit Chapel &bull;
+						Le Borgne &bull; The Jesuits
+						<ins title="Capitalize Thwarted to match the topic list at the top of Chapter V.">
+						T</ins>hwarted &bull;
+						Their Perseverance &bull; The Journey to the Hurons &bull;
+					  Jean de Br&eacute;beuf &bull; The Mission
+						<ins title="Capitalize Begun to match the topic list at the top of Chapter V.">
+						B</ins>egun
+   </p>
+
+	 <p id="id00054" class="noindent">
+	    <a id="Contents6" name="Contents6"></a>
+	    <a href="#Chapter_6">CHAPTER VI.</a> 1634, 1635.
+	 </p>
+	 <p id="id00055" class="noindent">BR&Eacute;BEUF AND HIS ASSOCIATES.</p>
+	 <p id="id00056" class="topics">
+	          The Huron Mission-House &bull; Its Inmates &bull;
+						Its Furniture &bull; Its Guests &bull;
+						The Jesuit as a Teacher &bull; As an Engineer &bull;
+						Baptisms &bull; Huron Village Life &bull;
+						Festivities and Sorceries &bull; The Dream Feast &bull;
+						The Priests accused of Magic &bull;
+						The Drought and the Red Cross
+   </p>
+
+	 <p id="id00058" class="noindent">
+	    <a id="Contents7" name="Contents7"></a>
+	    <a href="#Chapter_7">CHAPTER VII.</a> 1636, 1637.
+	 </p>
+	 <p id="id00059" class="noindent">THE FEAST OF THE DEAD.</p>
+	 <p id="id00060" class="topics">
+	          Huron Graves &bull; Preparation for the Ceremony &bull;
+						Disinterment &bull; The Mourning &bull; The Funeral March &bull;
+						The Great Sepulchre &bull; Funeral Games &bull;
+						Encampment of the Mourners &bull; Gifts &bull; Harangues &bull;
+						Frenzy of the Crowd &bull; The Closing Scene &bull;
+						Another Rite &bull; The Captive Iroquois &bull;
+						The Sacrifice.
+   </p>
+
+    <p id="id00061" class="noindent">
+	    <a id="Contents8" name="Contents8"></a>
+			<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xi" id="Page_xi">xi</a></span>
+	    <a href="#Chapter_8">CHAPTER VIII.</a> 1636, 1637.
+	 </p>
+	 <p id="id00062" class="noindent">THE HURON AND THE JESUIT.</p>
+	 <p id="id00063" class="topics">
+	          Enthusiasm for the Mission &bull; Sickness of the Priests &bull;
+            The Pest among the Hurons &bull; The Jesuit on his Rounds &bull;
+            Efforts at Conversion &bull; Priests and Sorcerers &bull;
+						The Man-Devil &bull; The Magician's Prescription &bull;
+						Indian Doctors and Patients &bull; Covert Baptisms &bull;
+						Self-Devotion of the Jesuits
+   </p>
+
+
+   <p id="id00066" class="noindent">
+	    <a id="Contents9" name="Contents9"></a>
+	    <a href="#Chapter_9">CHAPTER IX.</a> 1637.
+	 </p>
+	 <p id="id00067" class="noindent">CHARACTER OF THE CANADIAN JESUITS.</p>
+	 <p id="id00068" class="topics">
+	          Jean de Br&eacute;beuf &bull; Charles Garnier &bull;
+						Joseph Marie Chaumonot &bull; No&euml;l Chabanel &bull;
+						Isaac Jogues &bull; Other Jesuits &bull;
+						Nature of their Faith &bull; Supernaturalism &bull;
+						Visions &bull; Miracles
+   </p>
+
+   <p id="id00070" class="noindent">
+	     <a id="Contents10" name="Contents10"></a>
+			 <a href="#Chapter_10">CHAPTER X.</a> 1637-1640.
+	 </p>
+	 <p id="id00071" class="noindent">PERSECUTION.</p>
+	 <p id="id00072" class="topics">
+            Ossossan&eacute; &bull; The New Chapel &bull;
+						A Triumph of the Faith &bull; The Nether Powers &bull;
+						Signs of a Tempest &bull; Slanders &bull;
+						Rage against the Jesuits &bull;
+						Their Boldness and Persistency &bull; Nocturnal Council &bull;
+						Danger of the Priests &bull; Br&eacute;beuf's Letter &bull;
+						Narrow Escapes &bull; Woes and Consolations
+   </p>
+
+   <p id="id00073" class="noindent">
+	     <a id="Contents11" name="Contents11"></a>
+	     <a href="#Chapter_11">CHAPTER XI.</a> 1638-1640.
+	 </p>
+	 <p id="id00074" class="noindent">PRIEST AND PAGAN.</p>
+	 <p id="id00075" class="topics">
+            Du Peron's Journey &bull; Daily Life of the Jesuits &bull;
+						Their Missionary Excursions &bull;
+						Converts at Ossossan&eacute; &bull;
+						Machinery of Conversion &bull; Conditions of Baptism &bull;
+						Backsliders &bull; The Converts and their Countrymen &bull;
+						The Cannibals at St. Joseph
+   </p>
+
+	 <p id="id00076" class="noindent">
+	    <a id="Contents12" name="Contents12"></a>
+			<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xii" id="Page_xii">xii</a></span>
+			<a href="#Chapter_12">CHAPTER XII.</a> 1639, 1640.
+	 </p>
+	 <p id="id00077" class="noindent">THE TOBACCO NATION&mdash;THE NEUTRALS.</p>
+	 <p id="id00078" class="topics">
+ 	 		      A Change of Plan &bull; Sainte Marie &bull;
+						Mission of the Tobacco Nation &bull;
+						Winter Journeying &bull; Reception of the Missionaries &bull;
+						Superstitious Terrors &bull; Peril of Garnier and Jogues &bull;
+						Mission of the Neutrals &bull; Huron Intrigues &bull;
+						Miracles &bull; Fury of the Indians &bull;
+						Intervention of Saint Michael &bull; Return to Sainte Marie &bull;
+						Intrepidity of the Priests &bull; Their Mental Exaltation
+   </p>
+
+	 <p id="id00082" class="noindent">
+	    <a id="Contents13" name="Contents13"></a>
+			<a href="#Chapter_13">CHAPTER XIII.</a> 1636-1646.
+	 </p>
+	 <p id="id00083" class="noindent">QUEBEC AND ITS TENANTS.</p>
+	 <p id="id00084" class="topics">
+ 	 		      The New Governor &bull; Edifying Examples &bull;
+						Le Jeune's Correspondents &bull; Rank and Devotion &bull;
+						Nuns &bull; Priestly Authority &bull; Condition of Quebec &bull;
+						The Hundred Associates &bull; Church Discipline &bull;
+						Plays &bull; Fireworks &bull; Processions &bull;
+						Catechizing &bull; Terrorism &bull; Pictures &bull;
+						The Converts &bull; The Society of Jesus &bull;
+						The Foresters
+   </p>
+
+   <p id="id00086" class="noindent">
+	    <a id="Contents14" name="Contents14"></a>
+			<a href="#Chapter_14">CHAPTER XIV.</a> 1636-1652.
+	 </p>
+	 <p id="id00087" class="noindent">DEVOTEES AND NUNS.</p>
+	 <p id="id00088" class="topics">
+ 	 		      The Huron Seminary &bull; Madame de la Peltrie &bull;
+						Her Pious Schemes &bull; Her Sham Marriage &bull;
+						She visits the Ursulines of Tours &bull;
+						Marie de Saint Bernard &bull; Marie de l'Incarnation &bull;
+						Her Enthusiasm &bull; Her Mystical Marriage &bull;
+						Her Dejection &bull; Her Mental Conflicts &bull;
+						Her Vision &bull; Made Superior of the Ursulines &bull;
+						The H&ocirc;tel-Dieu &bull; The Voyage to Canada &bull;
+						Sillery &bull; Labors and Sufferings of the Nuns &bull;
+						Character of Marie de l'Incarnation &bull;
+						Of Madame de la Peltrie
+   </p>
+
+   <p id="id00090" class="noindent">
+	    <a id="Contents15" name="Contents15"></a>
+			<a href="#Chapter_15">CHAPTER XV.</a> 1636-1642.
+	 </p>
+	 <p id="id00091" class="noindent">VILLEMARIE DE MONTREAL.</p>
+	 <p id="id00092" class="topics">
+ 	 		      Dauversi&eacute;re and the Voice from Heaven &bull;
+						Abb&eacute; Olier &bull; Their Schemes &bull;
+						The Society of Notre-Dame de Montreal &bull;
+						Maisonneuve &bull;
+						<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xiii" id="Page_xiii">xiii</a></span>
+						Devout Ladies &bull;
+						Mademoiselle Mance &bull; Marguerite Bourgeoys &bull;
+						The Montrealists at Quebec &bull; Jealousy &bull;
+						Quarrels &bull; Romance and Devotion &bull; Embarkation &bull;
+						Foundation of Montreal
+   </p>
+
+   <p id="id00095" class="noindent">
+	    <a id="Contents16" name="Contents16"></a>
+			<a href="#Chapter_16">CHAPTER XVI.</a> 1641-1644.
+	 </p>
+	 <p id="id00096" class="noindent">ISAAC JOGUES.</p>
+	 <p id="id00097" class="topics">
+ 	 		      The Iroquois War &bull; Jogues &bull;
+						His Capture &bull; His Journey to the Mohawks &bull;
+						Lake George &bull; The Mohawk Towns &bull;
+						The Missionary
+						<ins title="Capitalize Tortured to match the topic list at the top of Chapter XVI.">
+						T</ins>ortured &bull;  Death of Goupil &bull;
+						Misery of Jogues &bull; The Mohawk "Babylon" &bull;
+						Fort Orange &bull; Escape of Jogues &bull;
+						Manhattan &bull; The Voyage to France &bull;
+						Jogues among his Brethren &bull; He returns to Canada
+   </p>
+
+   <p id="id00099" class="noindent">
+	    <a id="Contents17" name="Contents17"></a>
+			<a href="#Chapter_17">CHAPTER XVII.</a> 1641-1646.
+	 </p>
+	 <p id="id00100" class="noindent">THE IROQUOIS&mdash;BRESSANI&mdash;DE NOU&Euml;.</p>
+	 <p id="id00101" class="topics">
+	          War &bull; Distress and Terror &bull; Richelieu &bull;
+						Battle &bull; Ruin of Indian Tribes &bull;
+						Mutual Destruction &bull; Iroquois and Algonquin &bull;
+						Atrocities &bull; Frightful Position of the French &bull;
+						Joseph Bressani &bull; His Capture &bull;
+						His Treatment &bull; His Escape &bull;
+						Anne de Nou&euml; &bull; His Nocturnal Journey &bull;
+						His Death
+   </p>
+
+   <p id="id00102" class="noindent">
+	    <a id="Contents18" name="Contents18"></a>
+			<a href="#Chapter_18">CHAPTER XVIII.</a> 1642-1644.
+	 </p>
+	 <p id="id00103" class="noindent">VILLEMARIE.</p>
+	 <p id="id00104" class="topics">
+	          Infancy of Montreal &bull; The Flood &bull;
+						Vow of Maisonneuve &bull; Pilgrimage &bull;
+						D'Ailleboust &bull; The H&ocirc;tel-Dieu &bull; Piety &bull;
+						Propagandism &bull; War &bull; Hurons and Iroquois &bull;
+						Dogs &bull; Sally of the French &bull; Battle &bull;
+						Exploit of Maisonneuve
+   </p>
+
+	 <p id="id00106" class="noindent">
+	    <a id="Contents19" name="Contents19"></a>
+			<a href="#Chapter_19">CHAPTER XIX.</a> 1644, 1645.
+	 </p>
+	 <p id="id00107" class="noindent">PEACE.</p>
+	 <p id="id00108" class="topics">
+	    			Iroquois Prisoners &bull; Piskaret &bull; His Exploits &bull;
+						More Prisoners &bull; Iroquois Embassy &bull; The Orator &bull;
+						The Great Council &bull; Speeches of Kiotsaton &bull;
+						Muster of Savages &bull; Peace
+						<ins title="Capitalize confirmed to match the topic list at the top of Chapter XIX.">
+						C</ins>onfirmed
+   </p>
+
+   <p id="id00110" class="noindent">
+	    <a id="Contents20" name="Contents20"></a>
+			<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xiv" id="Page_xiv">xiv</a></span>
+			<a href="#Chapter_20">CHAPTER XX.</a> 1645, 1646.
+	 </p>
+	 <p id="id00111" class="noindent">THE PEACE BROKEN.</p>
+	 <p id="id00112" class="topics">
+	          Uncertainties &bull; The Mission of Jogues &bull;
+						He reaches the Mohawks &bull; His Reception &bull;
+						His Return &bull; His Second Mission &bull;
+						Warnings of Danger &bull;  Rage of the Mohawks &bull;
+						Murder of Jogues
+   </p>
+
+   <p id="id00114" class="noindent">
+	    <a id="Contents21" name="Contents21"></a>
+			<a href="#Chapter_21">CHAPTER XXI.</a> 1646, 1647.
+	 </p>
+	 <p id="id00115" class="noindent">ANOTHER WAR.</p>
+	 <p id="id00116" class="topics">
+	          Mohawk Inroads &bull; The Hunters of Men &bull;
+						The Captive Converts &bull; The Escape of Marie &bull;
+						Her Story &bull; The Algonquin Prisoner's Revenge &bull;
+            Her Flight &bull; Terror of the Colonists &bull;
+						Jesuit Intrepidity
+   </p>
+
+   <p id="id00118" class="noindent">
+	    <a id="Contents22" name="Contents22"></a>
+			<a href="#Chapter_22">CHAPTER XXII.</a> 1645-1651.
+	 </p>
+	 <p id="id00119" class="noindent">PRIEST AND PURITAN.</p>
+	 <p id="id00120" class="topics">
+	          Miscou &bull; Tadoussac &bull; Journeys of De Quen &bull;
+						Druilletes &bull; His Winter with the Montagnais &bull;
+						Influence of the Missions &bull; The Abenaquis &bull;
+						Druilletes on the Kennebec &bull; His Embassy to Boston &bull;
+            Gibbons &bull; Dudley &bull; Bradford &bull; Eliot &bull;
+						Endicott &bull; French and Puritan Colonization &bull;
+						Failure of Druilletes's Embassy &bull; New Regulations &bull;
+						New-Year's Day at Quebec.
+   </p>
+
+   <p id="id00122" class="noindent">
+	    <a id="Contents23" name="Contents23"></a>
+			<a href="#Chapter_23">CHAPTER XXIII.</a> 1645-1648.
+	 </p>
+	 <p id="id00123" class="noindent">A DOOMED NATION.</p>
+	 <p id="id00124" class="topics">
+	         Indian Infatuation &bull; Iroquois and Huron &bull;
+					 Huron Triumphs &bull;  The Captive Iroquois &bull;
+					 His Ferocity and Fortitude &bull; Partisan Exploits &bull;
+					 Diplomacy &bull; The Andastes &bull; The Huron Embassy &bull;
+					 New Negotiations &bull; The Iroquois Ambassador &bull;
+					 His Suicide &bull; Iroquois Honor
+   </p>
+
+   <p id="id00126" class="noindent">
+	    <a id="Contents24" name="Contents24"></a>
+			<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xv" id="Page_xv">xv</a></span>
+			<a href="#Chapter_24">CHAPTER XXIV.</a> 1645-1648.
+	 </p>
+	 <p id="id00127" class="noindent">THE HURON CHURCH.</p>
+	 <p id="id00128" class="topics">
+	         Hopes of the Mission &bull; Christian and Heathen &bull;
+					 Body and Soul &bull; Position of Proselytes &bull;
+					 The Huron Girl's Visit to Heaven &bull;
+					 A Crisis &bull; Huron Justice &bull;
+					 Murder and Atonement &bull; Hopes and Fears
+	 </p>
+
+	 <p id="id00129" class="noindent">
+	    <a id="Contents25" name="Contents25"></a>
+			<a href="#Chapter_25">CHAPTER XXV.</a> 1648, 1649.
+	 </p>
+	 <p id="id00130" class="noindent">SAINTE MARIE.</p>
+	 <p id="id00131" class="topics">
+	         The Centre of the Missions &bull; Fort &bull; Convent &bull;
+					 Hospital &bull; Caravansary &bull; Church &bull;
+					 The Inmates of Sainte Marie &bull; Domestic Economy &bull;
+					 Missions &bull; A Meeting of Jesuits &bull; The Dead Missionary
+	 </p>
+
+   <p id="id00134" class="noindent">
+	    <a id="Contents26" name="Contents26"></a>
+			<a href="#Chapter_26">CHAPTER XXVI.</a> 1648.
+	 </p>
+	 <p id="id00135" class="noindent">ANTOINE DANIEL.</p>
+	 <p id="id00136" class="topics">
+	        Huron Traders &bull; Battle at Three Rivers &bull;
+					St. Joseph &bull; Onset of the Iroquois &bull;
+					Death of Daniel &bull; The Town
+					<ins title="Capitalize Detroyed to match the topic list at the top of Chapter XXVI.">
+					D</ins>estroyed
+	 </p>
+
+	  <p id="id00138" class="noindent">
+	    <a id="Contents27" name="Contents27"></a>
+			<a href="#Chapter_27">CHAPTER XXVII.</a> 1649.
+	 </p>
+	 <p id="id00139" class="noindent">RUIN OF THE HURONS.</p>
+	 <p id="id00140" class="topics">
+	        St. Louis on Fire &bull; Invasion &bull;
+					St. Ignace captured &bull; Br&eacute;beuf and Lalemant &bull;
+					Battle at St. Louis &bull; Sainte Marie threatened &bull;
+					Renewed Fighting &bull; Desperate Conflict &bull;
+					A Night of Suspense &bull; Panic among the Victors &bull;
+					Burning of St. Ignace &bull; Retreat of the Iroquois
+	 </p>
+
+   <p id="id00142" class="noindent">
+	    <a id="Contents28" name="Contents28"></a>
+			<a href="#Chapter_28">CHAPTER XXVIII.</a> 1649.
+	 </p>
+	 <p id="id00143" class="noindent">THE MARTYRS.</p>
+	 <p id="id00144" class="topics">
+	        The Ruins of St. Ignace &bull; The Relics found &bull;
+					Br&eacute;beuf at the Stake &bull; His Unconquerable Fortitude &bull;
+					Lalemant &bull; Renegade
+					<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xvi" id="Page_xvi">xvi</a></span>
+					Hurons &bull; Iroquois Atrocities &bull;
+					Death of Br&eacute;beuf &bull; His Character &bull;
+          Death of Lalemant
+	 </p>
+
+    <p id="id00146" class="noindent">
+	    <a id="Contents29" name="Contents29"></a>
+			<a href="#Chapter_29">CHAPTER XXIX.</a> 1649, 1650.
+	 </p>
+	 <p id="id00147" class="noindent">THE SANCTUARY.</p>
+	 <p id="id00148" class="topics">
+	        Dispersion of the Hurons &bull; Sainte Marie abandoned &bull;
+					Isle St. Joseph &bull; Removal of the Mission &bull;
+					The New Fort &bull; Misery of the Hurons &bull;
+					Famine &bull; Epidemic &bull; Employments of the Jesuits
+	 </p>
+
+	 <p id="id00149" class="noindent">
+	    <a id="Contents30" name="Contents30"></a>
+			<a href="#Chapter_30">CHAPTER XXX.</a> 1649.
+	 </p>
+	 <p id="id00150" class="noindent">GARNIER&mdash;CHABANEL.</p>
+	 <p id="id00151" class="topics">
+	        The Tobacco Missions &bull; St. Jean attacked &bull;
+					Death of Garnier &bull; The Journey of Chabanel &bull;
+					His Death &bull; Garreau and Grelon.
+	 </p>
+
+   <p id="id00154" class="noindent">
+	    <a id="Contents31" name="Contents31"></a>
+			<a href="#Chapter_31">CHAPTER XXXI.</a> 1650-1652.
+	 </p>
+	 <p id="id00155" class="noindent">THE HURON MISSION ABANDONED.</p>
+	 <p id="id00156" class="topics">
+	        Famine and the Tomahawk &bull; A New Asylum &bull;
+					Voyage of the Refugees to Quebec &bull;
+					Meeting with Bressani &bull;
+					Desperate Courage of the Iroquois &bull;
+					Inroads and Battles &bull; Death of Buteux
+	 </p>
+
+   <p id="id00158" class="noindent">
+	    <a id="Contents32" name="Contents32"></a>
+			<a href="#Chapter_32">CHAPTER XXXII.</a> 1650-1866.
+	 </p>
+	 <p id="id00159" class="noindent">THE LAST OF THE HURONS.</p>
+	 <p id="id00160" class="topics">
+	          Fate of the Vanquished &bull;
+						The Refugees of St. Jean Baptiste and St. Michel &bull;
+						The Tobacco Nation and its Wanderings &bull;
+						The Modern Wyandots &bull; The Biter Bit &bull;
+						The Hurons at Quebec &bull; Notre-Dame de Lorette.
+   </p>
+
+   <p id="id00162" class="noindent">
+	    <a id="Contents33" name="Contents33"></a>
+			<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xvii" id="Page_xvii">xvii</a></span>
+			<a href="#Chapter_33">CHAPTER XXXIII.</a> 1650-1670.
+	 </p>
+	 <p id="id00163" class="noindent">THE DESTROYERS.</p>
+	 <p id="id00164" class="topics">
+	          Iroquois Ambition &bull; Its Victims &bull;
+						The Fate of the Neutrals &bull; The Fate of the Eries &bull;
+						The War with the Andastes &bull; Supremacy of the Iroquois
+   </p>
+
+   <p id="id00166" class="noindent">
+	    <a id="Contents34" name="Contents34"></a>
+			<a href="#Chapter_34">CHAPTER XXXIV.</a>
+	 </p>
+	 <p id="id00167" class="noindent">THE END.</p>
+	 <p id="id00168" class="topics">
+	          Failure of the Jesuits &bull;
+						What their Success would have involved &bull;
+						Future of the Mission
+   </p>
+   <p class="noindent">
+	    <a id="Contents35" name="Contents35"></a>
+			<a href="#Index">INDEX.</a>
+	 </p>
+   <p class="noindent">
+	    <a id="Contents36" name="Contents36"></a>
+			<a href="#Appendix">APPENDIX.</a>
+	 </p>
+
+<hr class="main" />
+
+<div class="chapterhead">
+   <p>
+	    <br />
+			<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xviii" id="Page_xviii">xviii</a></span>
+      <br /><br /><br />
+	 </p>
+   <p class="title-author xl">
+	 The Jesuits in North America<br />
+	  in the Seventeenth Century
+	 </p>
+	 <p class="title-author lg">
+	 by Francis Parkman
+	 </p>
+	 <br /><br />
+	 <hr class="tiny" />
+	 <p>
+	    <br /><br />
+			<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xix" id="Page_xix">xix</a></span>
+      <br /><a name="Chapter_0" id="Chapter_0"></a>
+	    <br /><br />
+	 </p>
+	 <h2 id="id00169"><a href="#Contents">INTRODUCTION.</a><br />
+	 </h2>
+	 <p id="id00170" class="smcapheader">NATIVE TRIBES.</p>
+	 <p id="id00171" class="noindent space-bottom">
+	          Divisions &bull; The Algonquins &bull;
+						The Hurons &bull;  Their Houses &bull;
+						Fortifications &bull; Habits &bull;  Arts &bull;
+						Women &bull; Trade &bull; Festivities &bull;
+						Medicine &bull; The Tobacco Nation &bull;
+						The Neutrals &bull; The Eries &bull; The Andastes &bull;
+						The Iroquois &bull;
+						<ins title="Add Indian before Social and Political Org to match the topic list in the Contents.">
+					  Indian</ins>
+						Social and Political Organization &bull;
+						Iroquois Institutions, Customs, and Character &bull;
+            Indian Religion and Superstitions &bull; The Indian Mind
+	 </p>
+	 <p class="break1"></p>
+</div>
+
+
+
+<p class="double-space-top" id="id00172">
+<span class="smcap">America</span>, 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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xx" id="Page_xx">xx</a></span>
+community east of the Mississippi and north of the
+Ohio.</p>
+
+<p id="id00173">
+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-ground of Kentucky.
+<a href="#footer_0-1"><span class="superscript">[1]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00174" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_0-1" name="footer_0-1"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[1]</span>
+        The word <i>Algonquin</i> 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. <br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00175">
+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.
+<a href="#footer_0-2"><span class="superscript">[2]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00176" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_0-2" name="footer_0-2"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[2]</span>
+        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.</p>
+    <p id="id00177">
+		    There was another branch of the Iroquois in the Carolinas,
+				consisting of the Tuscaroras and kindred bands.  In 1715 they
+				were joined to the Five Nations. <br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00178">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xxi" id="Page_xxi">xxi</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00179">
+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.
+<a href="#footer_0-3"><span class="superscript">[3]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00180" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_0-3" name="footer_0-3"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[3]</span>
+				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.</p>
+    <p id="id00181">
+		    "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."&mdash;<i>Des Sauvages</i>, f. 34.</p>
+    <p id="id00182">
+		    This story may match that of the great city of Norembega, on the
+				Penobscot, with its population of dwarfs, as related by Jean Alphonse.<br/>
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00183">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xxii" id="Page_xxii">xxii</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_0-4"><span class="superscript">[4]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00184" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_0-4" name="footer_0-4"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[4]</span>
+        The Tarratines of New-England writers were the Abenaquis, or a portion
+				of them.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="id00185">
+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,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xxiii" id="Page_xxiii">xxiii</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00186">
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00187">
+Along this stream, a main route of traffic, the silence
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xxiv" id="Page_xxiv">xxiv</a></span>
+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 <i>La Petite Nation</i>,
+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, <i>La Nation de l'Isle</i>, 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.
+<a href="#footer_0-5"><span class="superscript">[5]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00188" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_0-5" name="footer_0-5"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[5]</span>
+        The usual confusion of Indian tribal names prevails in the case of the
+				Hurons.  The following are their synonymes:&mdash;</p>
+    <p id="id00189">
+		    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). <br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p><br /></p>
+<h3 class="double-space-top" id="id00190">THE HURONS.</h3>
+
+<p id="id00191">
+<span class="smcap">More</span> 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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xxv" id="Page_xxv">xxv</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00192">
+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,&mdash;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.
+<a href="#footer_0-6"><span class="superscript">[6]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00193" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_0-6" name="footer_0-6"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[6]</span>
+				Lalemant, <i>Relation des Hurons, 1640</i>, 38 (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 <i>Relations</i> 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.  Br&eacute;beuf, 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 <i>Relation</i> 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. <br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="id00194">
+The region whose boundaries we have given was an alternation of meadows
+and deep forests, interlaced with
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xxvi" id="Page_xxvi">xxvi</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_0-7"><span class="superscript">[7]</span></a>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_0-8"><span class="superscript">[8]</span></a>
+ 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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xxvii" id="Page_xxvii">xxvii</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_0-9"><span class="superscript">[9]</span></a>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_0-10"><span class="superscript">[10]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00195" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_0-7" name="footer_0-7"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[7]</span>
+				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. Tach&eacute;
+				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."</p>
+		<p class="noindent">
+				<a id="footer_0-8" name="footer_0-8"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[8]</span>
+				Br&eacute;beuf, <i>Relation des Hurons, 1635</i>, 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!</p>
+		<p class="noindent">
+				<a id="footer_0-9" name="footer_0-9"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[9]</span>
+				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.</p>
+		<p class="noindent">
+				<a id="footer_0-10" name="footer_0-10"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[10]</span>
+				One of the best descriptions of the Huron and Iroquois
+				houses is that of Sagard, <i>Voyage des Hurons</i>, 118.
+				See also Champlain (1627), 78; Br&eacute;beuf, <i>Relation
+				des Hurons, 1635</i>, 31; Vanderdonck, <i>New Netherlands</i>, in
+				N. Y. <i>Hist. Coll., Second Ser.</i>, I. 196; Lafitau, <i>M&oelig;urs
+				des Sauvages</i>, 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, <i>Observations on a Journey from
+				Pennsylvania to Canada</i>, 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.</p>
+   <p id="id00196">
+	      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.</p>
+   <p id="id00197">
+	      Dr. Tach&eacute;, 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, <i>in situ</i>, of arch&aelig;ological
+				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."<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="id00198">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xxviii" id="Page_xxviii">xxviii</a></span>
+He who entered on a winter night beheld a strange spectacle: the vista of
+fires lighting the smoky concave; the bronzed groups encircling
+each,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00199">
+The fortified towns of the Hurons were all on the side
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xxix" id="Page_xxix">xxix</a></span>
+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,&mdash;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,&mdash;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.
+<a href="#footer_0-11"><span class="superscript">[11]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00200" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_0-11" name="footer_0-11"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[11]</span>
+        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, <i>Aboriginal Monuments of New York</i>, 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 <i>History of the Six Nations</i> (Iroquois).
+				Br&eacute;beuf 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.</p>
+		<p id="id00201">
+		    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.&mdash;Beverly,
+				<i>History of Virginia</i>, 149.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="id00202">
+Among these tribes there was no individual ownership of land, but each
+family had for the time exclusive right
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xxx" id="Page_xxx">xxx</a></span>
+ to as much as it saw fit to
+cultivate.  The clearing process&mdash;a most toilsome one&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00203">
+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 <i>caches</i>, or deep holes in the earth, either within
+or without the houses.</p>
+
+<p id="id00204">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xxxi" id="Page_xxxi">xxxi</a></span>
+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,&mdash;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.
+<a href="#footer_0-12"><span class="superscript">[12]</span></a>
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xxxii" id="Page_xxxii">xxxii</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_0-13"><span class="superscript">[13]</span></a>
+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,&mdash;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.
+<a href="#footer_0-14"><span class="superscript">[14]</span></a>
+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.</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_0-12" name="footer_0-12"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[12]</span>
+        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."<br />
+				<a id="footer_0-13" name="footer_0-13"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[13]</span>
+				Beaver-skins and other valuable furs were sometimes, on such
+				occasions, used as a substitute.<br />
+				<a id="footer_0-14" name="footer_0-14"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[14]</span>
+				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.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+
+
+<p id="id00205">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xxxiii" id="Page_xxxiii">xxxiii</a></span>
+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,&mdash;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.
+<a href="#footer_0-15"><span class="superscript">[15]</span></a>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_0-16"><span class="superscript">[16]</span></a>
+When of such
+extent, the process was very severe; and though no murmur escaped the
+sufferer, he sometimes died from its effects.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_0-15" name="footer_0-15"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[15]</span>
+        See Le Jeune, <i>Relation, 1633</i>, 35.&mdash;"Quelles hures!"
+				exclaimed some astonished Frenchman.  Hence the name,
+				<i>Hurons</i>. <br />
+				<a id="footer_0-16" name="footer_0-16"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[16]</span>
+				Bressani, <i>Relation Abr&eacute;g&eacute;e</i>,
+				72.&mdash;Champlain has a picture of a warrior
+				thus tattooed. <br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+
+
+<p id="id00206">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xxxiv" id="Page_xxxiv">xxxiv</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_0-17"><span class="superscript">[17]</span></a>
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xxxv" id="Page_xxxv">xxxv</a></span>
+ of wampum with which to adorn herself for the
+village dances.
+<a href="#footer_0-18"><span class="superscript">[18]</span></a>
+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.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00207" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_0-17" name="footer_0-17"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[17]</span>
+				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, <i>League of the Iroquois</i>,
+				322.)  There is clear proof that the tribes of the South were equally
+				corrupt.  (See Lawson, <i>Carolina</i>, 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
+				Gasp&eacute;, where a lapse in this regard was counted a disgrace.
+				(See Le Clerc, <i>Nouvelle Relation de la Gasp&eacute;sie</i>, 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.</p>
+    <p id="id00208">
+		    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.<br />
+        <a id="footer_0-18" name="footer_0-18"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[18]</span>
+				"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 venu&euml;, les
+				ieunes femmes courent d'une cabane en une autre, come font les ieunes
+				hommes de leur cost&eacute;, qui en prennent par ou bon leur semble,
+				toutesfois sans violence aucune, et n'en re&ccedil;oiuent aucune
+				infamie, ny injure, la coustume du pays estant telle."&mdash;Champlain
+				(1627), 90.  Compare Sagard, <i>Voyage des Hurons</i>, 176.  Both were
+				personal observers.</p>
+    <p id="id00210">
+		    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. <br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="id00211">
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00212">
+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,&mdash;of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xxxvi" id="Page_xxxvi">xxxvi</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_0-19"><span class="superscript">[19]</span></a>
+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,&mdash;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.
+<a href="#footer_0-20"><span class="superscript">[20]</span></a>
+Their fisheries, too,
+were regulated by customs having the force of laws.  These pursuits,
+with their hunting,&mdash;in which they were aided by a wolfish breed of dogs
+unable to bark,&mdash;consumed the autumn and early winter; but before the new
+year the greater part of the men were gathered in their villages.</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_0-19" name="footer_0-19"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[19]</span>
+        Champlain (1627), 84.<br />
+				<a id="footer_0-20" name="footer_0-20"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[20]</span>
+				Br&eacute;beuf, <i>Relation des Hurons, 1636</i>, 156
+				(Cramoisy).<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00213">
+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,&mdash;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.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xxxvii" id="Page_xxxvii">xxxvii</a></span>
+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 Br&eacute;beuf
+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.
+<a href="#footer_0-21"><span class="superscript">[21]</span></a>
+Ludicrous as it may appear, these games were often medical
+prescriptions, and designed as a cure of the sick.</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+				<a id="footer_0-21" name="footer_0-21"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[21]</span>
+				Br&eacute;beuf, <i>Relation des Hurons, 1636</i>, 113.&mdash;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.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="id00214">
+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.
+<a href="#footer_0-22"><span class="superscript">[22]</span></a>
+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, <i>Ho!</i> 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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xxxviii" id="Page_xxxviii">xxxviii</a></span>
+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, <i>Ho!</i>  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.</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+				<a id="footer_0-22" name="footer_0-22"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[22]</span>
+				Br&eacute;beuf, <i>Relation des Hurons, 1636</i>, 111. <br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+
+
+<p id="id00215">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,&mdash;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.
+<a href="#footer_0-23"><span class="superscript">[23]</span></a>
+ These <i>festins &agrave; manger tout</i> were much
+dreaded by many of the Hurons, who, however, were never known to decline
+them.</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+				<a id="footer_0-23" name="footer_0-23"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[23]</span>
+				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. <br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00216">
+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.
+<a href="#footer_0-24"><span class="superscript">[24]</span></a>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xxxix" id="Page_xxxix">xxxix</a></span>
+The men danced with great violence and gesticulation;
+the women, with a much more measured action.  The former were nearly
+divested of clothing,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00217" class="noindent">
+				<a id="footer_0-24" name="footer_0-24"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[24]</span>
+				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,"&mdash;which was frequently danced,
+				as it still is, for amusement,&mdash;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.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00218">
+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.
+<a href="#footer_0-25"><span class="superscript">[25]</span></a>
+This was the only form of cannibalism
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xl" id="Page_xl">xl</a></span>
+among them, since, unlike the wandering Algonquins, they were rarely
+under the desperation of extreme famine.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00219" class="noindent">
+				<a id="footer_0-25" name="footer_0-25"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[25]</span>
+				"Il y en a qui en mangent auec plaisir."&mdash;Br&eacute;beuf,
+				<i>Relation des Hurons, 1636</i>, 121.&mdash;Le Mercier gives a
+				description of one of these scenes, at which he was present.
+				(<i>Ibid., 1637</i>, 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.&mdash;See Hon. Lewis Cass,
+				in the appendix to Colonel Whiting's poem, "Ontwa." <br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00220">
+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.
+<a href="#footer_0-26"><span class="superscript">[26]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00221" class="noindent">
+				<a id="footer_0-26" name="footer_0-26"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[26]</span>
+				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 <i>festins &agrave; manger
+				tout</i>. <br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00222">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xli" id="Page_xli">xli</a></span>
+was the source of the disease, now happily removed.
+<a href="#footer_0-27"><span class="superscript">[27]</span></a>
+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.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00223" class="noindent">
+				<a id="footer_0-27" name="footer_0-27"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[27]</span>
+				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.&mdash;Ragueneau, <i>Relation des Hurons, 1648</i>, 75.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00224">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xlii" id="Page_xlii">xlii</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_0-28"><span class="superscript">[28]</span></a>
+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.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00225" class="noindent">
+				<a id="footer_0-28" name="footer_0-28"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[28]</span>
+				"Dans le pays de nos Hurons, il se faict aussi des assembl&eacute;es de
+				toutes les filles d'vn bourg aupr&eacute;s d'vne malade, tant &agrave;
+				sa priere, suyuant la resuerie ou le songe qu'elle en aura eu&euml;,
+				que par l'ordonnance de Loki (<i>the doctor</i>), pour sa sant&eacute; et
+				guerison.  Les filles ainsi assembl&eacute;es, on leur demande &agrave;
+				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 &agrave;
+				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
+				Tortu&euml; du soir au lendemain matin, que la ceremonie cesse.  Dieu
+				vueille abolir vne si damnable et malheureuse ceremonie."&mdash;Sagard,
+				<i>Voyage des Hurons</i>, 158.&mdash;This unique mode of cure, which
+				was called <i>Andacwandet</i>, is also described by Lalemant, who saw it.
+				(<i>Relation des Hurons, 1639</i>, 84.)  It was one of the recognized
+				remedies.</p>
+   <p id="id00226">
+	      For the medical practices of the Hurons, see also Champlain,
+				Br&eacute;beuf, 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. <br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p><br /></p>
+<h3 class="double-space-top" id="id00227">THE HURON-IROQUOIS FAMILY.</h3>
+
+<p id="id00228">
+<span class="smcap">And</span>
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xliii" id="Page_xliii">xliii</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_0-29"><span class="superscript">[29]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00229" class="noindent">
+				<a id="footer_0-29" name="footer_0-29"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[29]</span>
+				"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."&mdash;Morton, <i>Crania Americana</i>,
+				195.&mdash;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,"&mdash;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.&mdash;See J. S. Phillips, <i>Admeasurements of Crania of the
+				Principal Groups of Indians in the United States</i>.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00230">
+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.
+<a href="#footer_0-30"><span class="superscript">[30]</span></a>
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xliv" id="Page_xliv">xliv</a></span>
+Western tribes.
+<a href="#footer_0-31"><span class="superscript">[31]</span></a>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_0-32"><span class="superscript">[32]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00231" class="noindent">
+				<a id="footer_0-30" name="footer_0-30"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[30]</span>
+				<i>Synonymes</i>: Tionnontates, Etionontates, Tuinontatek, Dionondadies,
+				Khionontaterrhonons, Petuneux or Nation du Petun (Tobacco).<br />
+				<a id="footer_0-31" name="footer_0-31"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[31]</span>
+				"L'ame de tous les Conseils."&mdash;Charlevoix, <i>Voyage</i>,
+				199.&mdash;In 1763 they were Pontiac's best warriors.<br />
+				<a id="footer_0-32" name="footer_0-32"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[32]</span>
+				On the Tionnontates, see Le Mercier, <i>Relation, 1637</i>,
+				163; Lalemant, <i>Relation, 1641</i>, 69; Ragueneau,
+				<i>Relation, 1648</i>, 61.  An excellent summary of their
+				character and history, by Mr. Shea, will be found in
+				<i>Hist. Mag.</i>, V. 262.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="id00232">
+Journeying southward five days from the Tionnontate towns, the forest
+traveller reached the border villages of the Attiwandarons, or Neutral
+Nation.
+<a href="#footer_0-33"><span class="superscript">[33]</span></a>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_0-34"><span class="superscript">[34]</span></a>
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xlv" id="Page_xlv">xlv</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_0-35"><span class="superscript">[35]</span></a>
+They burned female prisoners, a practice unknown to the Hurons.
+<a href="#footer_0-36"><span class="superscript">[36]</span></a>
+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.</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+				<a id="footer_0-33" name="footer_0-33"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[33]</span>
+				Attiwandarons, Attiwendaronk, Atirhagenrenrets, Rhagenratka
+				(<i>Jesuit Relations</i>), Attionidarons (<i>Sagard</i>).
+				They, and not the Eries, were the <i>Kahkwas</i> of
+				Seneca tradition. <br />
+				<a id="footer_0-34" name="footer_0-34"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[34]</span>
+				Lalemant, <i>Relation des Hurons, 1641</i>,
+				71.&mdash;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. <br />
+				<a id="footer_0-35" name="footer_0-35"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[35]</span>
+				<i>Lettre du P&egrave;re La Roche Dallion, 8 Juillet,
+				1627</i>, in Le Clerc, <i>&Eacute;tablissement de la
+				Foy</i>, I. 346.<br />
+				<a id="footer_0-36" name="footer_0-36"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[36]</span>
+				Women were often burned by the Iroquois: witness the case of
+				Catherine Mercier in 1651, and many cases of Indian women
+				mentioned by the early writers.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="id00233">
+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.
+<a href="#footer_0-37"><span class="superscript">[37]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00234" class="noindent">
+				<a id="footer_0-37" name="footer_0-37"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[37]</span>
+				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.&mdash;La Roche Dallion, in Le Clerc, I. 346.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00235">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xlvi" id="Page_xlvi">xlvi</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_0-38"><span class="superscript">[38]</span></a>
+They were noted warriors, fought with poisoned arrows, and were long a
+terror to the neighboring Iroquois.
+<a href="#footer_0-39"><span class="superscript">[39]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00236" class="noindent">
+				<a id="footer_0-38" name="footer_0-38"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[38]</span>
+				Ragueneau, <i>Relation des Hurons, 1648</i>, 46.<br />
+				<a id="footer_0-39" name="footer_0-39"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[39]</span>
+				Le Mercier, <i>Relation, 1654</i>, 10.&mdash;"Nous les
+				appellons la Nation Chat, &agrave; cause qu'il y a dans leur
+				pais vne quantit&eacute; prodigieuse de Chats
+				sauuages."&mdash;<i>Ibid</i>.&mdash;The Iroquois are said
+				to have given the same name, <i>Jegosasa, Cat Nation</i>, to the
+				Neutrals.&mdash;Morgan, <i>League of the Iroquois</i>,
+				41.</p>
+    <p id="id00237">
+		    <i>Synonymes</i>: Eri&eacute;s, Erigas, Eriehronon, Riguehronon.
+				The Jesuits never had a mission among them, though they seem
+				to have been visited by Champlain's adventurous interpreter,
+				&Eacute;tienne Brul&eacute;, in the summer of 1615.&mdash;They
+				are probably the Caranto&uuml;ans of Champlain.<br />
+		</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00238">
+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.
+<a href="#footer_0-40"><span class="superscript">[40]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00239" class="noindent">
+				<a id="footer_0-40" name="footer_0-40"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[40]</span>
+				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 <i>Susquehannocks</i> of
+				the English, and the <i>Minquas</i> of the Dutch.&mdash;See
+				<i>Hist. Mag.</i>, II. 294.</p>
+    <p id="id00240">
+		    <i>Synonymes</i>: Andastes, Andastracronnons, Andastaeronnons,
+				Andastaguez, Antastoui (French), Susquehannocks (English),
+				Mengwe, Minquas (Dutch), Conestogas, Conessetagoes (English).<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="id00241">
+In Central New York, stretching east and west from the Hudson to the
+Genesee, lay that redoubted people
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xlvii" id="Page_xlvii">xlvii</a></span>
+ 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.
+<a href="#footer_0-41"><span class="superscript">[41]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00242" class="noindent">
+				<a id="footer_0-41" name="footer_0-41"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[41]</span>
+				The name <i>Iroquois</i> is French.  Charlevoix says: "Il a
+				&eacute;t&eacute; form&eacute; du terme <i>Hiro</i>, ou <i>Hero</i>,
+				qui signifie <i>J'ai dit</i>, et par lequel ces sauvages finissent
+				tous leur discours, comme les Latins faisoient autrefois par leur
+				<i>Dixi</i>; et de <i>Kou&eacute;</i>, qui est un  cri tant&ocirc;t
+				de tristesse, lorsqu'on le prononce en tra&icirc;nant, et
+				tant&ocirc;t de joye, quand on le prononce plus court."&mdash;<i>Hist.
+				de la N. F.</i>, I. 271.&mdash;Their true name is  <i>Hodenosaunee</i>,
+				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  <i>Agonnonsionni</i>,
+				or <i>Aquanuscioni</i>, ascribed to them by Lafitau and Charlevoix,
+				who translated it "House-Makers," <i>Faiseurs de Cabannes</i>, 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, <i>note</i>.
+				<br />
+    </p>
+	  <table summary="The-Iroquois" class="iroquois">
+    <tbody>
+		<tr>
+		    <th></th>
+				<th class="smcap">English</th>
+				<th class="smcap">French</th>
+		</tr>
+
+		<tr>
+				<td>Ganeagaono,</td>
+				<td>Mohawk,</td>
+				<td>Agnier.</td>
+		</tr>
+	  <tr>
+				<td>Onayotekaono,</td>
+				<td>Oneida, </td>
+				<td>Onneyut.</td>
+		</tr>
+
+		<tr>
+				<td>Onundagaono,</td>
+				<td>Onondaga,  </td>
+				<td>Onnontagu&eacute;.</td>
+		</tr>
+
+		<tr>
+				<td>Gweugwehono,</td>
+				<td>Cayuga,     </td>
+				<td>Goyogouin.  </td>
+		</tr>
+
+		<tr>
+				<td>Nundawaono, </td>
+				<td>Seneca,     </td>
+				<td>Tsonnontouans. </td>
+		</tr>
+    </tbody>
+    </table>
+
+    <p id="id00244">
+	    The Iroquois termination in <i>ono</i>&mdash;or <i>onon</i>, as the French write
+			it&mdash;simply means <i>people</i>.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>
+<br />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xlviii" id="Page_xlviii">xlviii</a></span>
+</p>
+<h3 class="double-space-top" id="id00245">SOCIAL AND POLITICAL ORGANIZATION.</h3>
+
+<p id="id00246">
+<span class="smcap">In</span>
+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<ins title="Add period after assented.">.</ins>
+They assented
+from a kind of courtesy, which, while it vexed the priests, tended
+greatly to keep the Indians in mutual
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xlix" id="Page_xlix">xlix</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00247">
+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,&mdash;was, in fact, a sort of common
+law, with no tribunal to expound or enforce it.  In these wild
+democracies,&mdash;democracies in spirit, though not in form,&mdash;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.
+<a href="#footer_0-42"><span class="superscript">[42]</span></a>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_l" id="Page_l">l</a></span>
+Among the Iroquois and Hurons&mdash;and doubtless among
+the kindred tribes&mdash;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.
+<a href="#footer_0-43"><span class="superscript">[43]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00248" class="noindent">
+				<a id="footer_0-42" name="footer_0-42"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[42]</span>
+				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."&mdash;<i>Relation, 1650</i>, 28.
+				<br />
+				<a id="footer_0-43" name="footer_0-43"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[43]</span>
+				The Jesuit Br&eacute;beuf, 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
+				affabilit&eacute; quasi incroyable pour des Sauuages; ils ne
+				se picquent pas ais&eacute;ment.&hellip;  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.&hellip; Ils sont moins en
+				leurs Cabanes que chez leurs amis.&hellip; S'ils ont vn bon
+				morceau, ils en font festin &agrave; leurs amis, et
+				ne le mangent quasi iamais en leur particulier,"
+				etc.&mdash;<i>Relation des Hurons, 1636</i>, 118.<br />
+		</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00249">
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00250">
+<a id="id00250a" name="id00250a"></a>
+In the organization of the savage communities of the continent, one
+feature, more or less conspicuous, continually appears.  Each nation or
+tribe&mdash;to adopt the names by which these communities are usually
+known&mdash;is subdivided into several clans.  These clans are not
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_li" id="Page_li">li</a></span>
+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 <i>totem</i> by the Algonquins,
+is often tattooed on the clansman's body, or rudely painted over the
+entrance of his lodge.  The child
+<ins title="In later volumes, Parkman added the qualifier 'in most cases.'">
+belongs to the clan,</ins> 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,&mdash;a
+consideration of more than ordinary force in an Indian community.
+<a href="#footer_0-44"><span class="superscript">[44]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00251" class="noindent">
+				<a id="footer_0-44" name="footer_0-44"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[44]</span>
+				"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 s&oelig;urs, et desquels
+				ils sont asseurez d'estre yssus et sortis."&mdash;Champlain (1627),
+				91.</p>
+    <p id="id00252">
+		    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."&mdash;<i>True
+				Relation</i>, 43 (ed. Deane). <br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="id00253">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_lii" id="Page_lii">lii</a></span>
+<a id="id00253a" name="id00253a"></a>
+This system of clanship, with the rule of descent
+<ins title="In later volumes, Parkman wrote 'usually belonging to it' instead of the more precise 'inseparable from it.'">
+inseparable from it,</ins> 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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00254">
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00255">
+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;&mdash;it was divided into clans;&mdash;it was
+governed by chiefs, whose office was hereditary through the female;&mdash;the
+power of these chiefs, though
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_liii" id="Page_liii">liii</a></span>
+great, was wholly of a persuasive or
+advisory character;&mdash;there were two principal chiefs, one for peace,
+the other for war;&mdash;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.;&mdash;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;&mdash;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.
+<a href="#footer_0-45"><span class="superscript">[45]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00256" class="noindent">
+				<a id="footer_0-45" name="footer_0-45"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[45]</span>
+				These facts are gathered here and there from Champlain, Sagard,
+				Bressani, and the Jesuit <i>Relations</i> prior to 1650.  Of
+				the Jesuits, Br&eacute;beuf is the most full and satisfactory.
+				Lafitau and Charlevoix knew the Huron institutions only through
+				others.</p>
+    <p id="id00257">
+		    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. <br />
+    </p>
+</div>
+
+<p><br /></p>
+<h3 class="double-space-top" id="id00258">THE IROQUOIS.</h3>
+
+<p id="id00259">
+<span class="smcap">The</span>
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_liv" id="Page_liv">liv</a></span>
+statements of observers, old and new, the character of their singular
+organization becomes sufficiently clear.
+<a href="#footer_0-46"><span class="superscript">[46]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00260" class="noindent">
+				<a id="footer_0-46" name="footer_0-46"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[46]</span>
+				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, <i>The League of the
+				Iroquois</i>, 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 <i>Notes on the
+				Iroquois</i> 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,
+				<i>M&oelig;urs des Sauvages Ameriquains compar&eacute;es aux
+				M&oelig;urs des Premiers Temps</i>, 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.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00261">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_lv" id="Page_lv">lv</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00262">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.
+<a href="#footer_0-47"><span class="superscript">[47]</span></a>
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_lvi" id="Page_lvi">lvi</a></span>
+emblem or <i>totem</i>.  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.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00263" class="noindent">
+				<a id="footer_0-47" name="footer_0-47"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[47]</span>
+				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,&mdash;the Wolf, Bear, and Tortoise; though there is
+				presumptive evidence of the existence of several others.&mdash;See Morgan, 81,
+				note.</p>
+    <p id="id00264">
+		    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 <i>La famille du Petit Pluvier</i> and <i>La famille du Grand
+				Pluvier</i>.  (<i>New York Colonial Documents</i>, IX. 47.)  The
+				anonymous author of this document adds a ninth clan, that of the Potato,
+				meaning the wild Indian potato, <i>Glycine apios</i>.  This clan, if
+				it existed, was very inconspicuous, and of little importance.</p>
+    <p id="id00265">
+		    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.&mdash;Gallatin, <i>Synopsis</i>, 109.</p>
+    <p id="id00266">
+		    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. <br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00267">
+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,&mdash;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.
+<a href="#footer_0-48"><span class="superscript">[48]</span></a>
+Be this as it may, the choice was
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_lvii" id="Page_lvii">lvii</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+				<a id="footer_0-48" name="footer_0-48"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[48]</span>
+				Lafitau, I. 471. <br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00268">
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00269">
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00270">
+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.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_lviii" id="Page_lviii">lviii</a></span>
+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 <i>sur leur derri&egrave;re</i>,
+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."
+<a href="#footer_0-49"><span class="superscript">[49]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+				<a id="footer_0-49" name="footer_0-49"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[49]</span>
+				Lafitau, I. 478.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00271">
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00272">
+The government of this unique republic resided wholly in councils.
+By councils all questions were settled, all regulations
+established,&mdash;social, political, military, and religious.
+The war-path, the chase, the council-fire,&mdash;in these was the
+life of the Iroquois; and it is hard to say to which of the three
+he was most devoted.</p>
+
+<p id="id00273">
+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.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_lix" id="Page_lix">lix</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00274">
+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,&mdash;but not until he had stated the subject of discussion
+in full, to prove that he understood it, repeating also the arguments,
+<i>pro</i> and <i>con</i>, 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."
+<a href="#footer_0-50"><span class="superscript">[50]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00275" class="noindent">
+				<a id="footer_0-50" name="footer_0-50"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[50]</span>
+				Lafitau, I. 480.&mdash;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 l&agrave; cette politique qui les unit
+				si bien, &agrave; peu pr&egrave;s 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."&mdash;<i>Hist. de l'Am&eacute;rique
+				Septentrionale</i>, III. 32.&mdash;He adds: "Les Fran&ccedil;ois
+				ont avo&uuml;&eacute; eux-m&ecirc;mes qu'ils &eacute;toient
+				nez pour la guerre, &amp; quelques maux qu'ils nous ayent faits
+				nous les avons toujours estimez."&mdash;<i>Ibid</i>., 2.&mdash;La
+				Potherie's book was published in 1722.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00276">
+Unlike the Hurons, they required an entire unanimity
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_lx" id="Page_lx">lx</a></span>
+in their decisions.
+The ease and frequency with which a requisition seemingly so difficult
+was fulfilled afford a striking illustration of Indian nature,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00277">
+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.
+<a href="#footer_0-51"><span class="superscript">[51]</span></a>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_0-52"><span class="superscript">[52]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00278" class="noindent">
+				<a id="footer_0-51" name="footer_0-51"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[51]</span>
+				Lafitau, I. 479. <br />
+				<a id="footer_0-52" name="footer_0-52"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[52]</span>
+				The following from Lafitau is very characteristic: "Ce que je dis de
+				leur z&egrave;le pour le bien public n'est cependant pas si
+				universel, que plusieurs ne pensent &agrave; leur inter&ecirc;ts
+				particuliers, &amp; que les Chefs (<i>sachems</i>) principalement ne
+				fassent jo&uuml;er plusieurs ressorts secrets pour venir &agrave;
+				bout de leurs intrigues.  Il y en a tel, dont l'adresse jou&euml; si
+				bien &agrave; coup s&ucirc;r, qu'il fait d&eacute;liberer le Conseil
+				plusieurs jours de suite, sur une mati&egrave;re dont la
+				d&eacute;termination est arr&ecirc;t&eacute;e entre lui &amp; les
+				principales t&ecirc;tes avant d'avoir &eacute;t&eacute; mise sur le
+				tapis.  Cependant comme les Chefs s'entre-regardent, &amp; qu'aucun
+				ne veut paro&icirc;tre se donner une superiorit&eacute; qui puisse
+				piquer la jalousie, ils se m&eacute;nagent dans les Conseils plus
+				que les autres; &amp; quoiqu'ils en soient l'ame, leur politique
+				les oblige &agrave; y parler peu, &amp; &agrave; &eacute;couter
+				pl&ucirc;t&ocirc;t le sentiment d'autrui, qu'&agrave; y dire le
+				leur; mais chacun a un homme &agrave; sa main, qui est
+				comme une esp&egrave;ce de Br&ucirc;lot, &amp; qui &eacute;tant
+				sans consequence pour sa personne hazarde en pleine libert&eacute;
+				tout ce qu'il juge &agrave; propos, selon qu'il l'a concert&eacute;
+				avec le Chef m&ecirc;me pour qui il agit."&mdash;<i>M&oelig;urs
+				des Sauvages</i>, I. 481.<br />
+		</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00279">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_lxi" id="Page_lxi">lxi</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00280">
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00281">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_lxii" id="Page_lxii">lxii</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_0-53"><span class="superscript">[53]</span></a>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_0-54"><span class="superscript">[54]</span></a>
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_lxiii" id="Page_lxiii">lxiii</a></span>
+so, in endless
+prolixity, through particulars without number.
+<a href="#footer_0-55"><span class="superscript">[55]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00282" class="noindent">
+				<a id="footer_0-53" name="footer_0-53"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[53]</span>
+				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.&mdash;<i>Lettre au P. Provincial,
+				15 May, 1645</i>.<br />
+				<a id="footer_0-54" name="footer_0-54"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[54]</span>
+				Ragueneau, <i>Relation des Hurons, 1648</i>, 80.<br />
+				<a id="footer_0-55" name="footer_0-55"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[55]</span>
+				Ragueneau, <i>Relation des Hurons, 1648</i>, 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. <br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00283">
+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.
+<a href="#footer_0-56"><span class="superscript">[56]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00284" class="noindent">
+				<a id="footer_0-56" name="footer_0-56"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[56]</span>
+				The proceedings for detecting thieves were regular and methodical,
+				after established customs.  According to Bressani, no thief ever
+				inculpated the innocent.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00285">
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00286">
+The military organization of the Iroquois was exceedingly
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_lxiv" id="Page_lxiv">lxiv</a></span>
+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,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00287">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_lxv" id="Page_lxv">lxv</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00288">
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00289">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_lxvi" id="Page_lxvi">lxvi</a></span>
+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
+even long before, a vast proportion of their population consisted of
+adopted prisoners.
+<a href="#footer_0-57"><span class="superscript">[57]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00290" class="noindent">
+				<a id="footer_0-57" name="footer_0-57"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[57]</span>
+				<i>Relation</i>, 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 <i>Relation</i> of 1660 makes their whole number of
+				warriors 2,200.  Le Mercier, in the <i>Relation</i> 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 <i>N. Y. Col.
+				Docs.</i>, IX. 162, 196, 321.) These estimates imply a total population
+				of ten or twelve thousand.</p>
+    <p id="id00291">
+		    The anonymous writer of the <i>Relation</i> 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."<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00292">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_lxvii" id="Page_lxvii">lxvii</a></span>
+It remains to speak of the religious and superstitious ideas which so
+deeply influenced Indian life.</p>
+
+<p><br /></p>
+<h3 class="double-space-top" id="id00293">RELIGION AND SUPERSTITIONS.</h3>
+
+<p id="id00294">
+<span class="smcap">The</span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00295">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_lxviii" id="Page_lxviii">lxviii</a></span>
+Nature or of man,
+nothing exists, however seemingly trivial, that may not be endowed with a
+secret power for blessing or for bane.</p>
+
+<p id="id00296">
+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.
+<a href="#footer_0-58"><span class="superscript">[58]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00297" class="noindent">
+				<a id="footer_0-58" name="footer_0-58"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[58]</span>
+				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, <i>M&eacute;moire sur les M&oelig;urs,
+				Coustumes et Relligion des Sauvages de
+				l'Am&eacute;rique Septentrionale</i>, p.  20.) Charlevoix tells the same
+				story.  Each Indian was supposed to inherit something of the nature of
+				the animal whence he sprung.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="id00298">
+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.
+<a href="#footer_0-59"><span class="superscript">[59]</span></a>
+ 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.
+<a href="#footer_0-60"><span class="superscript">[60]</span></a>
+This solicitude was not confined to animals,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_lxix" id="Page_lxix">lxix</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_0-61"><span class="superscript">[61]</span></a>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_0-62"><span class="superscript">[62]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00299" class="noindent">
+				<a id="footer_0-59" name="footer_0-59"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[59]</span>
+				McKinney, <i>Tour to the Lakes</i>, 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.<br />
+				<a id="footer_0-60" name="footer_0-60"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[60]</span>
+				This superstition was very prevalent, and numerous examples
+				of it occur in old and recent writers, from Father Le Jeune
+				to Captain Carver.<br />
+				<a id="footer_0-61" name="footer_0-61"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[61]</span>
+				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 Contr&eacute;es"
+				(<i>Relation des Hurons, 1639</i>), 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 <i>oki</i>, 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. <br />
+			  <a id="footer_0-62" name="footer_0-62"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[62]</span>
+				Sagard, <i>Le Grand Voyage du Pays des Hurons</i>, 257.
+				Other old writers make a similar statement. <br />
+		</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00301">
+Besides ascribing life and intelligence to the material world, animate
+and inanimate, the Indian believes in supernatural existences, known among
+the Algonquins as <i>Manitous</i>, and among the Iroquois and Hurons as <i>Okies</i>
+or <i>Otkons</i>.  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,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_lxx" id="Page_lxx">lxx</a></span>
+which appear under various forms, grotesque and horrible,
+in the Indian fireside legends.
+<a href="#footer_0-63"><span class="superscript">[63]</span></a>
+ 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.
+<a href="#footer_0-64"><span class="superscript">[64]</span></a>
+ 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,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+				<a id="footer_0-63" name="footer_0-63"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[63]</span>
+				Many tribes have tales of diminutive beings, which, in
+				the absence of a better word, may be called fairies.
+				In the <i>Travels of Lewis and Clarke</i>, there is mention
+				of a hill on the Missouri, supposed to be haunted by
+				them.  These Western fairies correspond to the <i>Puck
+				Wudj Ininee</i> of Ojibwa tradition.  As an example
+				of the monsters alluded to, see the Saginaw story of
+				the <i>Weendigoes</i>, in Schoolcraft, <i>Algic
+				Researches</i>, II. 105.<br />
+				<a id="footer_0-64" name="footer_0-64"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[64]</span>
+				The figure of a large bird is perhaps the most
+				common,&mdash;as, for example, the good spirit of
+				Rock Island: "He was white, with wings like a swan,
+				but ten times larger."&mdash;<i>Autobiography of
+				Blackhawk</i>, 70.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="id00302">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_lxxi" id="Page_lxxi">lxxi</a></span>
+manitou,&mdash;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.
+<a href="#footer_0-65"><span class="superscript">[65]</span></a>
+The young Indian thenceforth wears about his person the object revealed in
+his dream, or some portion of it,&mdash;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.
+<a href="#footer_0-66"><span class="superscript">[66]</span></a>
+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.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00303" class="noindent">
+				<a id="footer_0-65" name="footer_0-65"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[65]</span>
+				Compare Cass, in <i>North-American Review</i>, 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,&mdash;the peace-spirit of his people.</p>
+    <p id="id00304">
+		    Women fast, as well as men,&mdash;always at the time of transition from
+				childhood to maturity.  In the <i>Narrative</i> 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.<br />
+				<a id="footer_0-66" name="footer_0-66"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[66]</span>
+        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 Gasp&eacute;,
+				see Le Clerc, <i>Nouvelle Relation de la Gasp&eacute;sie</i>,
+				Chap. XIII.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00306">
+Indian belief recognizes also another and very different
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_lxxii" id="Page_lxxii">lxxii</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_0-67"><span class="superscript">[67]</span></a>
+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."
+<a href="#footer_0-68"><span class="superscript">[68]</span></a>
+It was he who restored
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_lxxiii" id="Page_lxxiii">lxxiii</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_0-69"><span class="superscript">[69]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00307" class="noindent">
+				<a id="footer_0-67" name="footer_0-67"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[67]</span>
+				Mr. Schoolcraft has collected many of these tales.  See his <i>Algic
+				Researches</i>, Vol. I.  Compare the stories of Messou, given by Le
+				Jeune (<i>Relations, 1633, 1634</i>), and the account of Nanabush, by
+				Edwin James, in his notes to Tanner's <i>Narrative of Captivity and
+				Adventures during a Thirty-Years' Residence among the Indians</i>;
+				also the account of the Great Hare, in the <i>M&eacute;moire</i> of
+				Nicolas Perrot, Chaps. I., II.<br />
+				<a id="footer_0-68" name="footer_0-68"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[68]</span>
+        "Presque toutes les Nations Algonquines ont
+				donn&eacute; le nom de <i>Grand Li&egrave;vre</i> au Premier Esprit,
+				quelques-uns l'appellent <i>Michabou</i> (Manabozho)."&mdash;Charlevoix,
+				<i>Journal Historique</i>, 344. <br />
+				<a id="footer_0-69" name="footer_0-69"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[69]</span>
+				This is a form of the story still current among the remoter
+				Algonquins.  Compare the story of Messou, in Le Jeune,
+				<i>Relation, 1633</i>, 16.  It is substantially the same.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+
+
+<p id="id00309">
+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.
+<a href="#footer_0-70"><span class="superscript">[70]</span></a>
+Other stories represent
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_lxxiv" id="Page_lxxiv">lxxiv</a></span>
+him as marrying a female musk-rat, by whom he became
+the progenitor of the human race.
+<a href="#footer_0-71"><span class="superscript">[71]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00310" class="noindent">
+				<a id="footer_0-70" name="footer_0-70"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[70]</span>
+				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.&mdash;Perrot, <i>M&eacute;moire</i>, Chap. I.
+				<br />
+				<a id="footer_0-71" name="footer_0-71"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[71]</span>
+				Le Jeune, <i>Relation, 1633</i>, 16.&mdash;The musk-rat is always a
+				conspicuous figure in Algonquin cosmogony.</p>
+   <p id="id00312">
+	      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, <i>Relation, 1634</i>, 13.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00313">
+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;
+<a href="#footer_0-72"><span class="superscript">[72]</span></a>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_0-73"><span class="superscript">[73]</span></a>
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_lxxv" id="Page_lxxv">lxxv</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00314" class="noindent">
+				<a id="footer_0-72" name="footer_0-72"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[72]</span>
+				Le Jeune, <i>Relation, 1633</i>, 16; <i>Relation, 1634</i>, 13.<br />
+	      <a id="footer_0-73" name="footer_0-73"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[73]</span>
+        Biard, <i>Relation, 1611</i>, Chap. VIII.&mdash;This belief was very
+				prevalent. The Ottawas, according to Ragueneau (<i>Relation des Hurons,
+				1648</i>, 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.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00316">
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00317">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_lxxvi" id="Page_lxxvi">lxxvi</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_0-74"><span class="superscript">[74]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00318" class="noindent">
+				<a id="footer_0-74" name="footer_0-74"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[74]</span>
+				The above is the version of the story given by Br&eacute;beuf,
+				<i>Relation des Hurons, 1636</i>, 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.
+				Br&eacute;beuf 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.</p>
+    <p id="id00319">
+        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.</p>
+    <p id="id00320">
+		    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.&mdash;Charlevoix, III.
+				345. <br />
+    </p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00321">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_lxxvii" id="Page_lxxvii">lxxvii</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_0-75"><span class="superscript">[75]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00322" class="noindent">
+				<a id="footer_0-75" name="footer_0-75"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[75]</span>
+				Compare Br&eacute;beuf, as before cited, and Sagard,
+				<i>Voyage des Hurons</i>, p. 228. <br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="id00323">
+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.
+<a href="#footer_0-76"><span class="superscript">[76]</span></a>
+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,
+<a href="#footer_0-77"><span class="superscript">[77]</span></a>
+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,&mdash;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_lxxviii" id="Page_lxxviii">lxxviii</a></span>
+counterpart is to be found in the traditions
+of the Peruvians, Mexicans, and other primitive nations.
+<a href="#footer_0-78"><span class="superscript">[78]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00324" class="noindent">
+				<a id="footer_0-76" name="footer_0-76"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[76]</span>
+				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.&mdash;<i>Lettre	de Jogues, 5 Aug., 1643</i>. <br />
+				<a id="footer_0-77" name="footer_0-77"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[77]</span>
+				Le Mercier, <i>Relation, 1670</i>, 66; Dablon, <i>Relation, 1671</i>,
+				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. <br />
+				<a id="footer_0-78" name="footer_0-78"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[78]</span>
+        For the tradition of Hiawatha, see Clark, <i>History of Onondaga</i>,
+				I. 21.  It will also be found in Schoolcraft's <i>Notes on the
+				Iroquois</i>, and in his <i>History, Condition, and Prospects of
+				Indian Tribes</i>.</p>
+    <p id="id00326">
+	      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, <i>he rules, he is master</i>.  There is
+				no Iroquois word which, in its primitive meaning, can be interpreted,
+				the Great Spirit, or God.  On this subject, see <i>&Eacute;tudes
+				Philologiques sur quelques Langues Sauvages</i> (Montreal, 1866),
+				where will also be found a curious exposure of a few of Schoolcraft's
+				ridiculous blunders in this connection. <br />
+		</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00327">
+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.
+<a href="#footer_0-79"><span class="superscript">[79]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00328" class="noindent">
+				<a id="footer_0-79" name="footer_0-79"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[79]</span>
+				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.  (<i>Relation,
+				1667</i>, 11.)  He adds, however, that the Sacs and Foxes
+				believed in a great <i>g&eacute;nie</i>, who lived not far
+				from the French settlements.&mdash;<i>Ibid.</i>, 21. <br />
+    </p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00329">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_lxxix" id="Page_lxxix">lxxix</a></span>
+simply a malicious agent of disease, death, and mischance.</p>
+
+<p id="id00330">
+In no Indian language could the early missionaries find a word to express
+the idea of God.  <i>Manitou</i> and <i>Oki</i> 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,&mdash;"The Great Chief of Men," or "He who lives in the Sky."
+<a href="#footer_0-80"><span class="superscript">[80]</span></a>
+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,&mdash;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.
+<a href="#footer_0-81"><span class="superscript">[81]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00331" class="noindent">
+				<a id="footer_0-80" name="footer_0-80"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[80]</span>
+				See "Divers Sentimens," appended to the <i>Relation</i> of 1635,
+				&sect; 27; and also many other passages of early missionaries.<br />
+			  <a id="footer_0-81" name="footer_0-81"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[81]</span>
+				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,
+				<i>History, Condition, and Prospects of Indian Tribes</i>, 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.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00332">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_lxxx" id="Page_lxxx">lxxx</a></span>
+The primitive Indian believed in the immortality of the soul,
+<a href="#footer_0-82"><span class="superscript">[82]</span></a>
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_lxxxi" id="Page_lxxxi">lxxxi</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+				<a id="footer_0-82" name="footer_0-82"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[82]</span>
+				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. <br />
+    </p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00334">
+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."
+<a href="#footer_0-83"><span class="superscript">[83]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+				<a id="footer_0-83" name="footer_0-83"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[83]</span>
+				Sagard, <i>Voyage des Hurons</i>, 233. <br />
+    </p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="id00335">
+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.
+<a href="#footer_0-84"><span class="superscript">[84]</span></a>
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_lxxxii" id="Page_lxxxii">lxxxii</a></span>
+voices of the disembodied children driving birds from their
+corn-fields.
+<a href="#footer_0-85"><span class="superscript">[85]</span></a>
+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.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+				<a id="footer_0-84" name="footer_0-84"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[84]</span>
+				The practice of burying treasures with the dead is not peculiar
+				to the North American aborigines. Thus, the London <i>Times</i>
+				of Oct. 28, 1865, 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."<br />
+				<a id="footer_0-85" name="footer_0-85"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[85]</span>
+				Br&eacute;beuf, <i>Relation des Hurons, 1636</i>,
+				99 (Cramoisy).<br />
+    </p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="id00336">
+The Indian land of souls is not always a region of shadows and gloom.
+The Hurons sometimes represented the souls of their dead&mdash;those of their
+dogs included&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00337">
+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.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_lxxxiii" id="Page_lxxxiii">lxxxiii</a></span>
+This singular idea is found also in some Algonquin traditions, according
+to which, however, the brain is afterwards restored to its owner.
+<a href="#footer_0-86"><span class="superscript">[86]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00338" class="noindent">
+				<a id="footer_0-86" name="footer_0-86"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[86]</span>
+				On Indian ideas of another life, compare Sagard, the Jesuit
+				<i>Relations</i>, Perrot, Charlevoix, and Lafitau, with Tanner,
+				James, Schoolcraft, and the Appendix to Morse's Indian Report.</p>
+    <p id="id00339">
+		    Le Clerc recounts a singular story, current in his time among the
+				Algonquins of Gasp&eacute; 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.&mdash;Le Clerc, <i>Nouvelle Relation de la
+				Gasp&eacute;sie</i>, 310-328. <br />
+    </p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00340">
+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,&mdash;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_lxxxiv" id="Page_lxxxiv">lxxxiv</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00341">
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00342">
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00343">
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00344">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_lxxxv" id="Page_lxxxv">lxxxv</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_0-87"><span class="superscript">[87]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00345" class="noindent">
+				<a id="footer_0-87" name="footer_0-87"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[87]</span>
+				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 <i>Relation</i> of
+				1637, treats it at some length.  The lodge was sometimes of a
+				cylindrical, instead of a conical form. <br />
+    </p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00346">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_lxxxvi" id="Page_lxxxvi">lxxxvi</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_0-88"><span class="superscript">[88]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00347" class="noindent">
+				<a id="footer_0-88" name="footer_0-88"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[88]</span>
+				Many of the Indian feasts were feasts of sacrifice,&mdash;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.</p>
+    <p id="id00348">
+        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.&mdash;Br&eacute;beuf, <i>Relation des Hurons, 1636</i>, 108.</p>
+    <p id="id00349">
+		    The tribes of Virginia, as described by Beverly and others, not only had
+ 				priests who offered sacrifice, but idols and houses of worship.<br />
+    </p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00350">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_lxxxvii" id="Page_lxxxvii">lxxxvii</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_0-89"><span class="superscript">[89]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00351" class="noindent">
+				<a id="footer_0-89" name="footer_0-89"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[89]</span>
+				The Friendly Society of the Spirit, of which the initiatory ceremonies
+				were seen and described by Carver (<i>Travels</i>, 271), preserves to
+				this day its existence and its rites. <br />
+    </p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00352">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_lxxxviii" id="Page_lxxxviii">lxxxviii</a></span>
+are fast sealed up in snow and ice, and no longer
+capable of listening.
+<a href="#footer_0-90"><span class="superscript">[90]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00353" class="noindent">
+				<a id="footer_0-90" name="footer_0-90"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[90]</span>
+				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.</p>
+    <p id="id00354">
+		    Mr. Schoolcraft has published a collection of Algonquin tales, under the
+				title of <i>Algic Researches</i>.  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 <i>Legends of the Sioux</i> (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 <i>History
+				of the Five Nations</i>, by the old Tuscarora Indian, Cusick, gives the
+				substance of some of them.  Others will be found in Clark's <i>History of
+				Onondaga</i>.<br />
+    </p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00355">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_lxxxix" id="Page_lxxxix">lxxxix</a></span>
+ 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,&mdash;I allude especially to the
+Iroquois,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00356">
+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.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="main" />
+<div class="chapterhead">
+   <br /><a name="Chapter_1" id="Chapter_1"></a>
+	 <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">1</a></span>
+	 <br /><br /><br />
+	 <h2 id="id00358"><a href="#Contents1">CHAPTER I.</a><br />
+	 <span class="med">1634.</span>
+	 </h2>
+	 <p id="id00359" class="smcapheader">NOTRE-DAME DES ANGES.</p>
+	 <p id="id00360" class="noindent space-bottom">
+	          Quebec in 1634 &bull; Father Le Jeune &bull;
+						The Mission-House &bull;  Its Domestic Economy &bull;
+						The Jesuits and their Designs
+	 </p>
+	 <p class="break1"></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="double-space-top" id="id00363">
+<span class="smcap">Opposite</span> 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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00364">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">2</a></span>
+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 <i>coureurs de bois</i>, 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,&mdash;Father Le Jeune, Superior
+of the Residence of Quebec.</p>
+
+<p id="id00365">
+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.
+<a href="#footer_1-1"><span class="superscript">[1]</span></a>
+Near the fort stood a small chapel, newly built.  The
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">3</a></span>
+surrounding
+country was cleared and partially cultivated; yet only one dwelling-house
+worthy the name appeared.  It was a substantial cottage, where lived
+Madame H&eacute;bert, 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,
+<a href="#footer_1-2"><span class="superscript">[2]</span></a>
+wept for joy at beholding Le Jeune, and his brother Jesuit, De Nou&euml;,
+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.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00366" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_1-1" name="footer_1-1"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[1]</span>
+        Compare the various notices in Champlain (1632) with that of
+				Du Creux, <i>Historia Canadensis</i>, 204.<br />
+				<a id="footer_1-2" name="footer_1-2"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[2]</span>
+				See "Pioneers of France in the New World."  H&eacute;bert's
+				cottage seems to have stood between Ste.-Famille and Couillard
+				Streets, as appears by a contract of 1634, cited by M. Ferland.
+				<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00367">
+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.
+<a href="#footer_1-3"><span class="superscript">[3]</span></a>
+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-Li&egrave;vres,
+a tract of meadow land nearly inclosed
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">4</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_1-4"><span class="superscript">[4]</span></a>
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">5</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_1-5"><span class="superscript">[5]</span></a></p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00368" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_1-3" name="footer_1-3"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[3]</span>
+        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&mdash;Langevin, <i>Notes sur les Archives de N. D. de
+				Beauport</i>, 5.<br />
+				<a id="footer_1-4" name="footer_1-4"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[4]</span>
+				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.&mdash;See the very curious <i>Narrative of the Chevalier
+				Johnstone</i>, published by the Historical Society of Quebec. <br />
+				<a id="footer_1-5" name="footer_1-5"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[5]</span>
+				The above particulars are gathered from the <i>Relations</i> 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, <i>Premi&egrave;re Mission des
+				J&eacute;suites au Canada</i>, 122.  The original is in the archives
+				of the Order at Rome.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="id00369">
+Of the six Jesuits gathered in the refectory for the evening meal,
+one was conspicuous among the rest,&mdash;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 Br&eacute;beuf, 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 Nou&euml;,
+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.
+<a href="#footer_1-6"><span class="superscript">[6]</span></a>
+ By reason of his useful
+qualities, Le Jeune nicknamed him "le P&egrave;re 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,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">6</a></span>
+and maize.
+<a href="#footer_1-7"><span class="superscript">[7]</span></a>
+De Nou&euml; 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.
+<a href="#footer_1-8"><span class="superscript">[8]</span></a>
+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.</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00370" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_1-6" name="footer_1-6"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[6]</span>
+        See "Pioneers of France in the New World." <br />
+        <a id="footer_1-7" name="footer_1-7"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[7]</span>
+				"Le P. Masse, que je nomme quelquefois en riant le P&egrave;re
+				<i>Utile</i>, est bien cognu de V. R.  Il a soin des choses
+				domestiques et du bestail que nous avons, en quoy il a
+				tr&egrave;s-bien reussy."&mdash;<i>Lettre du P. Paul le
+				Jeune au R. P. Provincial</i>, in Carayon, 122.&mdash;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." <br />
+				<a id="footer_1-8" name="footer_1-8"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[8]</span>
+        The methodical Le Jeune sets down the causes of their discontent
+				under six different heads, each duly numbered.  Thus:&mdash;<br />
+        "1&ordm;. C'est le naturel des artisans de se plaindre et de gronder."<br/>
+				"2&ordm;. La diversit&eacute; des gages les fait murmurer," etc.<br/>
+		</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00372">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">7</a></span>
+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"&mdash;<i>ad majorem Dei
+gloriam</i>&mdash;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.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="main" />
+<div class="chapterhead">
+   <br /><a name="Chapter_2" id="Chapter_2"></a>
+	 <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">8</a></span>
+	 <br /><br /><br />
+	 <h2 id="id00373"><a href="#Contents2">CHAPTER II.</a><br />
+	 </h2>
+	 <p id="id00374" class="smcapheader">LOYOLA AND THE JESUITS.</p>
+	 <p id="id00375" class="noindent space-bottom">
+	          Conversion of Loyola &bull;
+						Foundation of the Society of Jesus &bull;
+						Preparation of the Novice &bull;
+						Characteristics of the Order &bull;
+						The Canadian Jesuits
+	 </p>
+	 <p class="break1"></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="double-space-top" id="id00376">
+<span class="smcap">It</span> 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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00377">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">9</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00378">
+It was an arduous problem which Loyola undertook to solve,&mdash;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">10</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_2-1"><span class="superscript">[1]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00379" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_2-1" name="footer_2-1"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[1]</span>
+				Those who wish to know the nature of the Jesuit virtue of obedience
+				will find it set forth in the famous <i>Letter on Obedience</i> of Loyola.
+<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="id00380">
+Loyola's book of <i>Spiritual Exercises</i> 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,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">11</a></span>
+and, under an astute and experienced directorship, they have been found
+of such power, that the <i>Manual of Spiritual Exercises</i> boasts to have
+saved souls more in number than the letters it contains.</p>
+
+<p id="id00381">
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00382">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">12</a></span>
+and exalted natures have been intensified, without being
+abased, by the pressure to which they have been subjected.</p>
+
+<p id="id00383">
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00384">
+The Jesuit was, and is, everywhere,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00385">
+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.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">13</a></span>
+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.</p>
+<hr class="main" />
+
+
+<div class="chapterhead">
+   <br /><a name="Chapter_3" id="Chapter_3"></a>
+	 <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">14</a></span>
+	 <br /><br /><br />
+	 <h2 id="id00386"><a href="#Contents3">CHAPTER III.</a><br />
+	 <span class="med">1632, 1633.</span>
+	 </h2>
+	 <p id="id00387" class="smcapheader">PAUL LE JEUNE.</p>
+	 <p id="id00388" class="noindent space-bottom">
+	          Le Jeune's Voyage &bull; His First Pupils &bull;
+						His Studies &bull; His Indian Teacher &bull;
+						Winter at the
+						Mission-<ins title="Capitalize House to match the topics list in the Contents.">H</ins>ouse
+						&bull; Le Jeune's School &bull;
+						Reinforcements
+	 </p>
+	 <p class="break1"></p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="double-space-top" id="id00390">
+<span class="smcap">In</span> another narrative, we have seen how
+the Jesuits, supplanting the R&eacute;collet 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.
+<a href="#footer_3-1"><span class="superscript">[1]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_3-1" name="footer_3-1"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[1]</span>
+				"Pioneers of France." <br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="id00391">
+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
+Nou&euml;, with a lay brother named Gilbert; and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">15</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00392">
+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 H&eacute;bert 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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00393">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">16</a></span>
+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 H&eacute;bert.  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,&mdash;whose precipices, with a chaos of loose rocks, thrust
+themselves at that day into the deep tidewater,&mdash;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">17</a></span>
+increasing his knowledge of Algonquin, maintained an
+active discourse of broken words and pantomime.
+<a href="#footer_3-2"><span class="superscript">[2]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_3-2" name="footer_3-2"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[2]</span>
+				Le Jeune, <i>Relation, 1633</i>, 2. <br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00394">
+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&mdash;Frenchmen,
+who, in the interest of the fur company, had spent years among the
+Indians&mdash;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 R&eacute;collet
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">18</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00395">
+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."
+<a href="#footer_3-3"><span class="superscript">[3]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00396" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_3-3" name="footer_3-3"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[3]</span>
+				<i>Relation, 1633</i>, 7.  He continues: "Ie ne s&ccedil;aurois
+				assez rendre graces &agrave; Nostre Seigneur de cet heureux
+				rencontre.&hellip; Que Dieu soit beny pour vn iamais, sa
+				prouidence est adorable, et sa bont&eacute; n'a point de
+				<ins title="the text did not have a period after limites.">limites"</ins>
+				<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00397">
+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,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">19</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_3-4"><span class="superscript">[4]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_3-4" name="footer_3-4"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[4]</span>
+				Le Jeune, <i>Relation, 1633</i>, 14, 15. <br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="id00398">
+By day, Le Jeune and his companion practised with snow-shoes, with all
+the mishaps which attend beginners,&mdash;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 Nou&euml; 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.
+<a href="#footer_3-5"><span class="superscript">[5]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00399" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_3-5" name="footer_3-5"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[5]</span>
+				"Voila, mon Reuerend Pere, vn eschantillon de ce qu'il faut souffrir
+				courant apres les Sauuages.&hellip; Il faut prendre sa vie, et tout ce
+				qu'on a, et le ietter &agrave; 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."&mdash;Le Jeune, <i>Relation 1633</i>, 19. <br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00400">
+An Indian made Le Jeune a present of two small
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">20</a></span>
+ 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, Ave, 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.
+<a href="#footer_3-6"><span class="superscript">[6]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00401" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_3-6" name="footer_3-6"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[6]</span>
+				"I'ay commenc&eacute; &agrave; 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
+				<i>Pater, Aue, et Credo</i>, etc. &hellip; Nous finissons par le
+				<i>Pater Noster</i>, que i'ay compos&eacute; quasi en rimes en
+				leur langue, que ie leur fais chanter: et pour derniere conclusion,
+				ie leur fais donner chacun vne escuell&eacute;e de pois, qu'ils
+				mangent de bon appetit," etc.&mdash;Le Jeune, <i>Relation, 1633</i>,
+				23. <br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00402">
+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,&mdash;Br&eacute;beuf, Masse, Daniel, and Davost.
+<a href="#footer_3-7"><span class="superscript">[7]</span></a>
+Br&eacute;beuf,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">21</a></span>
+from the first, turned his eyes towards the distant
+land of the Hurons,&mdash;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."
+<a href="#footer_3-8"><span class="superscript">[8]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_3-7" name="footer_3-7"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[7]</span>
+				See "Pioneers of France." <br />
+				<a id="footer_3-8" name="footer_3-8"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[8]</span>
+				<i>Relation, 1633</i>, 29.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00403">
+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<ins title="add period after Montagnais.">.</ins>
+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 Nou&euml;, had long had a mind to accompany one
+of these roving bands, partly in the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">22</a></span>
+ 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,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="main" />
+<div class="chapterhead">
+   <br /><a name="Chapter_4" id="Chapter_4"></a>
+	 <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">23</a></span>
+	 <br /><br /><br />
+	 <h2 id="id00404"><a href="#Contents4">CHAPTER IV.</a><br />
+	 <span class="med">1633, 1634.</span>
+	 </h2>
+	 <p id="id00405" class="smcapheader">LE JEUNE AND THE HUNTERS.</p>
+	 <p id="id00406" class="noindent space-bottom">
+	          Le Jeune joins the Indians &bull; The First Encampment &bull;
+						The Apostate &bull; Forest Life in Winter &bull;
+						The Indian Hut &bull; The Sorcerer &bull;
+						His Persecution of the Priest &bull; Evil Company &bull;
+						Magic &bull; Incantations &bull; Christmas &bull;
+					  Starvation &bull; Hopes of Conversion &bull;
+						Backsliding &bull; Peril and Escape of Le Jeune &bull;
+						His Return
+	 </p>
+	 <p class="break1"></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="double-space-top" id="id00408">
+<span class="smcap">On</span> 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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00409">
+His reflections, however, were soon interrupted.  While the squaws were
+setting up their bark lodges,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">24</a></span>
+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!"
+<a href="#footer_4-1"><span class="superscript">[1]</span></a>
+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."</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00410" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_4-1" name="footer_4-1"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[1]</span>
+				"Iamais il ne fut si bien lau&eacute;, il changea de peau en la
+				face et en tout l'estomach: pleust &agrave; Dieu que son ame eust
+				chang&eacute; aussi bien que son corps!"&mdash;<i>Relation,
+				1634</i>, 59.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00411">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">25</a></span>
+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,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00412">
+<a id="id00412a" name="id00412a"></a>
+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,&mdash;kettles, axes, <ins title="changed to hides of meat in later volumes.">
+bales of meat,</ins> 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,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">26</a></span>
+and
+crossing streams no longer visible, they toiled on till the day began to
+decline, then stopped to encamp.
+<a href="#footer_4-2"><span class="superscript">[2]</span></a>
+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.</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00413" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_4-2" name="footer_4-2"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[2]</span>
+				"S'il arriuoit quelque d&eacute;gel, &ocirc; Dieu quelle peine!
+				Il me sembloit que ie marchois sur vn chemin de verre qui se
+				cassoit &agrave; tous coups soubs mes pieds: la neige
+				congel&eacute;e venant &agrave; s'amollir, tomboit et
+				s'enfon&ccedil;oit par esquarres ou grandes pieces, et nous en
+				auions bien souuent iusques aux genoux, quelquefois iusqu'&agrave;
+				la ceinture  Que s'il y auoit de la peine &agrave; tomber, il y
+				en auoit encor plus &agrave; se retirer: car nos raquettes se
+				chargeoient de neiges et se rendoient si pesantes, que quand vous
+				veniez &agrave; les retirer il vous sembloit qu'on vous tiroit les
+				iambes pour vous d&eacute;membrer.  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 charg&eacute;e comme vn mulet, et
+				iugez si la vie des Sauuages est douce."&mdash;<i>Relation,
+				1634</i>, 67. <br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00414">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">27</a></span>
+worse case.  Though in the extremity of a mortal sickness, they left her
+lying in the snow till the wigwam was made,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00415">
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00416">
+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,&mdash;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">28</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00417">
+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,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">29</a></span>
+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,&mdash;worse, as he declares, than cold, heat, and dogs.</p>
+
+<p id="id00418">
+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.
+<a href="#footer_4-3"><span class="superscript">[3]</span></a>
+He used every device to retort ridicule on his
+rival.  At the outset, he had proffered
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">30</a></span>
+ 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,
+<a href="#footer_4-4"><span class="superscript">[4]</span></a>
+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!"&mdash;"His head is like a
+pumpkin!"&mdash;"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.
+<a href="#footer_4-5"><span class="superscript">[5]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00419" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_4-3" name="footer_4-3"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[3]</span>
+				"Ie ne laissois perdre aucune occasion de le conuaincre de niaiserie
+				et de puerilit&eacute;, mettant au iour l'impertinence de ses
+				superstitions: or	c'estoit luy arracher l'ame du corps par
+				violence: car comme il ne s&ccedil;auroit 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
+				authorit&eacute; qui se va perdant tous les iours, ie le touchois
+				&agrave; la prunelle de l'&oelig;il."&mdash;<i>Relation, 1634</i>,
+				56.<br />
+				<a id="footer_4-4" name="footer_4-4"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[4]</span>
+				See "Pioneers of France," 268.<br />
+				<a id="footer_4-5" name="footer_4-5"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[5]</span>
+				<i>Relation, 1634</i>, 207 (Cramoisy).  "Ils me chargeoient
+				incessament de mille brocards &amp; 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:&mdash;</p>
+    <p id="id00421">
+		    "Or ce miserable homme" (the sorcerer), "&amp; la
+				fum&eacute;e m'ont est&eacute; les deux plus grands tourmens
+				que i'aye endur&eacute; parmy ces Barbares: ny le froid, ny
+				le chaud, ny l'incommodit&eacute; des chiens, ny coucher
+				&agrave; 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 &amp;
+				sans mattelas, ny la faim, ny la soif, ny la pauuret&eacute;
+				&amp; salet&eacute; de leur boucan, ny la maladie, tout cela
+				ne m'a sembl&eacute; que ieu &agrave; comparaison de la
+				fum<ins title="spelling is correct, although acute should technically be on the first e in fumee.">e&eacute;</ins>
+				&amp; de la malice du Sorcier."&mdash;<i>Relation,
+				1634</i>, 201 (Cramoisy).<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="id00422">
+Le Jeune, a man of excellent observation, already knew his red associates
+well enough to understand that their rudeness did not of necessity
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">31</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_4-6"><span class="superscript">[6]</span></a>
+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.</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00423" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_4-6" name="footer_4-6"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[6]</span>
+				"Leur vie se passe &agrave; manger, &agrave; rire,
+				et &agrave; 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'&agrave;
+				rire."&mdash;<i>Relation, 1634</i>, 30. <br />
+   </p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00424">
+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,&mdash;doubtless because their mythology had no beings
+sufficiently distinct to swear by.  Their expletives were foul words,
+of which they
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">32</a></span>
+had a superabundance, and which men, women, and children
+alike used with a frequency and hardihood that amazed and scandalized the
+priest.
+<a href="#footer_4-7"><span class="superscript">[7]</span></a>
+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.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00425" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_4-7" name="footer_4-7"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[7]</span>
+				"Aussi leur disois-je par fois, que si les pourceaux et les
+				chiens s&ccedil;auoient parler, ils tiendroient leur
+				langage.&hellip;  Les filles et les ieunes femmes sont
+				&agrave; l'exterieur tres honnestement couuertes, mais
+				entre elles leurs discours sont puants, comme des
+				cloaques."&mdash;<i>Relation, 1634</i>, 32.&mdash;The
+				social manners of remote tribes of the present time correspond
+				perfectly with Le Jeune's account of those of the Montagnais.<br />
+   </p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00426">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">33</a></span>
+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."
+<a href="#footer_4-8"><span class="superscript">[8]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00427" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_4-8" name="footer_4-8"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[8]</span>
+				"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 laiss point de les battre en la presence d'vn Huguenot:
+				d'o&ugrave; vient qu'vn iour se voyans battus en la compagnie
+				d'vn certain Fran&ccedil;ois, ils luy dirent: Nous nous estonnons
+				que 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 &agrave; Dieu,
+				il luy promit de se faire Catholique si le diable cessoit de
+				battre ces pauures peuples en sa presence.  Le v&oelig;u fait, iamais
+				plus aucun Demon ne molesta Ameriquain en sa compagnie,
+				d'o&ugrave; vient qu'il se fit Catholique, selon la promesse
+				qu'il en auoit faicte. Mais retournons &agrave; nostre
+				discours."&mdash;<i>Relation, 1634</i>, 22.<br />
+   </p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00428">
+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,&mdash;sometimes yelling at the top
+of his throat,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">34</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00429">
+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 Gasp&eacute;, 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,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">35</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_4-9"><span class="superscript">[9]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00430" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_4-9" name="footer_4-9"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[9]</span>
+				"Le magicien tout glorieux dit que son homme est frapp&eacute;,
+				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 &agrave;
+				rire, disant: Voyez cette robe noire, qui nous vient dire qu'il
+				ne faut tuer personne.  Comme ie regardois attentiuement
+				l'esp&eacute;e 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 Gasp&eacute;.
+				Comment, dis-je, il est &agrave; plus de cent lieu&euml;s d'icy?
+				Il est vray, font-ils, mais c'est le Manitou, c'est &agrave; dire
+				le Diable, qui apporte son sang pardessous la
+				terre."&mdash;<i>Relation, 1634</i>, 21. <br />
+   </p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00431">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">36</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_4-10"><span class="superscript">[10]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_4-10" name="footer_4-10"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[10]</span>
+				See Introduction.  Also, "Pioneers of France," 315. <br />
+   </p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00432">
+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,&mdash;then stopped abruptly and
+stared into vacancy, silent and motionless,&mdash;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">37</a></span>
+looked at him with astonishment, and, giving over the attempt to
+frighten him, presently returned to his senses.
+<a href="#footer_4-11"><span class="superscript">[11]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00433" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_4-11" name="footer_4-11"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[11]</span>
+				The Indians, it is well known, ascribe mysterious
+				and supernatural powers to the insane, and respect
+				them accordingly.  The Neutral Nation (see
+				Introduction, <a href="#Page_xliv">(p. xliv)</a>)
+				was full of pretended madmen, who raved about the
+				villages, throwing firebrands, and making other
+				displays of frenzy.<br />
+   </p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00434">
+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."
+<a href="#footer_4-12"><span class="superscript">[12]</span></a>
+But the Indian, though pleased with the Father's flatteries, was
+neither caught nor conciliated.</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00435" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_4-12" name="footer_4-12"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[12]</span>
+				"Ie commen&ccedil;ay par vn t&eacute;moignage de grand
+				amour en son endroit, et par des lo&uuml;anges que ie
+				luy iettay comme vne amorce pour le prendre dans les
+				filets de la verit&eacute;.  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."&mdash;<i>Relation,
+				1634</i>, 71. <br />
+   </p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00436">
+Nowhere was his magic in more requisition than in procuring a successful
+chase to the hunters,&mdash;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!"</p>
+
+<p id="id00437">
+As Christmas approached, their condition grew
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">38</a></span>
+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."
+<a href="#footer_4-13"><span class="superscript">[13]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00438" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_4-13" name="footer_4-13"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[13]</span>
+				"Pour nostre souper, N. S. nous donna vn Porc-espic gros
+				comme vn cochon de lait, et vn li&eacute;ure; 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
+				&agrave; mesme iour dans l'estable de
+				Bethleem."&mdash;<i>Relation, 1634</i>, 74.<br />
+   </p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="id00439">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">39</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00440">
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00441">
+At the beginning of April, after roaming for five months among forests
+and mountains, the party
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">40</a></span>
+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,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">41</a></span>
+the three voyagers, aghast at the
+narrowness of their escape, stood gazing at each other in silence.</p>
+
+<p id="id00442">
+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.</p>
+
+<hr class="main" />
+<div class="chapterhead">
+   <br /><a name="Chapter_5" id="Chapter_5"></a>
+	 <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">42</a></span>
+	 <br /><br /><br />
+	 <h2 id="id00444"><a href="#Contents5">CHAPTER V.</a><br />
+	 <span class="med">1633, 1634.</span>
+	 </h2>
+	 <p id="id00445" class="smcapheader">THE HURON MISSION.</p>
+	 <p id="id00446" class="noindent space-bottom">
+	          Plans of Conversion &bull; Aims and Motives &bull;
+						Indian Diplomacy &bull; Hurons at Quebec &bull;
+						Councils &bull; The Jesuit Chapel &bull;
+						Le Borgne &bull; The Jesuits Thwarted &bull;
+						Their Perseverance &bull; The Journey to the Hurons &bull;
+					  Jean de Br&eacute;beuf &bull; The Mission Begun
+	 </p>
+	 <p class="break1"></p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="double-space-top" id="id00447">
+<span class="smcap">Le Jeune</span> 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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">43</a></span>
+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,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00448">
+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,&mdash;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.
+<a href="#footer_5-1"><span class="superscript">[1]</span></a>
+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.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_5-1" name="footer_5-1"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[1]</span>
+				"Une des principales forteresses &amp; comme un donjon des
+				Demons."&mdash;Lalemant, <i>Relation des Hurons, 1639</i>,
+				100 (Cramoisy). <br />
+   </p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="id00449">
+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,&mdash;these were the missionaries' alternatives.
+Their maligners may taunt
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">44</a></span>
+ 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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00450">
+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,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">45</a></span>
+passive, and
+absolute,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00451">
+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.
+<a href="#footer_5-2"><span class="superscript">[2]</span></a>
+ Iroquois hostility left open but one avenue to
+their country, the long and circuitous route which, eighteen years before,
+had been explored by Champlain,
+<a href="#footer_5-3"><span class="superscript">[3]</span></a>&mdash;up the
+river Ottawa, across Lake Nipissing, down French River, and along the
+shores of the great Georgian Bay of Lake Huron,&mdash;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.
+<a href="#footer_5-4"><span class="superscript">[4]</span></a>
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">46</a></span>
+could at any time close the passage of the Ottawa; but, as this would
+have been a perilous exercise of their rights,
+<a href="#footer_5-5"><span class="superscript">[5]</span></a>
+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 <i>La Petite Nation</i>.  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.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00452" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_5-2" name="footer_5-2"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[2]</span>
+				See Introduction.<br />
+				<a id="footer_5-3" name="footer_5-3"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[3]</span>
+				"Pioneers of France," 364.<br />
+				<a id="footer_5-4" name="footer_5-4"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[4]</span>
+				<i>Ibid.</i>, 348. <br />
+				<a id="footer_5-5" name="footer_5-5"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[5]</span>
+  			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&mdash;Le Jeune, <i>Relation, 1636</i>,
+				70.&mdash;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.</p>
+    <p id="id00453">
+		    "Ces Insulaires voudraient bien que les Hurons ne vinssent point aux
+				Fran&ccedil;ois &amp; que les Fran&ccedil;ois n'allassent point aux
+				Hurons, afin d'emporter eux seuls tout le trafic,"
+				etc.&mdash;<i>Relation, 1633</i>, 205
+				(Cramoisy),&mdash;"desirans
+				eux-mesmes aller recueiller les marchandises des peuples
+				circonvoisins pour les apporter aux Fran&ccedil;ois."  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 <i>D&eacute;p&ocirc;t des Cartes</i>,
+				of which a fac-simile is before me.  See also "Pioneers of France,"
+				347.<br />
+		</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00454">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">47</a></span>
+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,
+<a href="#footer_5-6"><span class="superscript">[6]</span></a>&mdash;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.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00455" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_5-6" name="footer_5-6"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[6]</span>
+				"Quelques vns d'entre eux ne viennent &agrave; la traite auec les
+				Fran&ccedil;ois que pour iou&euml;r, d'autres pour voir, quelques
+				vns pour d&eacute;rober, et les plus sages et les plus riches pour
+				trafiquer."&mdash;Le Jeune, <i>Relation, 1633</i>, 34.<br />
+   </p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00456">
+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.
+<a href="#footer_5-7"><span class="superscript">[7]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00457" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_5-7" name="footer_5-7"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[7]</span>
+				"Comme une vol&eacute;e d'oiseaux."&mdash;Le Jeune, <i>Relation,
+				1633</i>, 190 (Cramoisy).&mdash;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.<br />
+   </p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00458">
+On the second day, then, the long file of chiefs and warriors mounted the
+pathway to the fort,&mdash;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">48</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_5-8"><span class="superscript">[8]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_5-8" name="footer_5-8"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[8]</span>
+				See "Pioneers of France," 370. <br />
+   </p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="id00459">
+Their harangues of compliment being made and answered, and the inevitable
+presents given and received, Champlain introduced to the silent conclave
+the three missionaries, Br&eacute;beuf, 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."
+<a href="#footer_5-9"><span class="superscript">[9]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_5-9" name="footer_5-9"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[9]</span>
+				Le Jeune, <i>Relation, 1633</i>, 274 (Cramoisy);
+				<i>Mercure Fran&ccedil;ais</i>, 1634, 845. <br />
+   </p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="id00460">
+Two chiefs rose to reply, and each lavished all his
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">49</a></span>
+rhetoric in praises
+of Champlain and of the French.  Br&eacute;beuf rose next, and spoke in broken
+Huron,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00461">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">50</a></span>
+Loyola and Xavier, inquired if they were
+<i>okies</i>, or spirits: nor was their perplexity much diminished by
+Br&eacute;beuf'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."
+<a href="#footer_5-10"><span class="superscript">[10]</span></a>
+The mission was not doomed long to suffer from a
+dearth of these inestimable auxiliaries.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_5-10" name="footer_5-10"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[10]</span>
+				<i>Relation, 1633</i>, 38. <br />
+   </p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="id00462">
+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 Nou&euml; 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.  Br&eacute;beuf,
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">51</a></span>
+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."</p>
+
+<p id="id00463">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">52</a></span>
+missionaries to their country;
+coupling the refusal with many regrets and many protestations of love,
+partly, no doubt, sincere,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00464">
+Here, under the guidance of Br&eacute;beuf, 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&mdash;this year the place of trade&mdash;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 Br&eacute;beuf 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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00465">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">53</a></span>
+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.
+Br&eacute;beuf 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.  Br&eacute;beuf
+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.
+Br&eacute;beuf 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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">54</a></span>
+and logs, tangled with roots and underbrush, damp with perpetual
+shade, and redolent of decayed leaves and mouldering wood.
+<a href="#footer_5-11"><span class="superscript">[11]</span></a>
+The Indians themselves were often spent with fatigue.  Br&eacute;beuf,
+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.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00466" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_5-11" name="footer_5-11"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[11]</span>
+				"Adioustez &agrave; ces difficultez, qu'il faut coucher sur la
+				terre nu&euml;, ou sur quelque dure roche, faute de trouuer dix
+				ou douze pieds de terre en quarr&eacute; pour placer vne chetiue
+				cabane; qu'il faut sentir incessamment la puanteur des Sauuages
+				recreus, marcher dans les eaux, dans les fanges, dans
+				l'obscurit&eacute; et l'embarras des forest, o&ugrave; les
+				piqueures d'vne multitude infinie de mousquilles et cousins
+				vous importunent fort."&mdash;Br&eacute;beuf, <i>Relation des
+				Hurons, 1635</i>, 25, 26. <br />
+   </p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="id00467">
+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.
+<a href="#footer_5-12"><span class="superscript">[12]</span></a>
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">55</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00468" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_5-12" name="footer_5-12"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[12]</span>
+				"En ce voyage, il nous a fallu tous commencer par ces experiences
+				&agrave; porter la Croix que Nostre Seigneur nous presente pour
+				son honneur, et pour le salut de ces pauures Barbares.  Certes ie
+				me suis trouu&eacute; quelquesfois si las, que le corps n'en
+				pouuoit plus.  Mais d'ailleurs mon &acirc;me ressentoit de
+				tres-grands contentemens, considerant que ie souffrois pour Dieu:
+				nul ne le s&ccedil;ait, s'il ne l'experimente.  Tous n'en ont pas
+				est&eacute; quittes &agrave; si bon
+				march&eacute;."&mdash;Br&eacute;beuf, <i>Relation des Hurons,
+				1635</i>, 26.</p>
+    <p id="id00469">
+		    Three years afterwards, a paper was printed by the Jesuits of Paris,
+				called <i>Instruction pour les P&egrave;res de nostre Compagnie qui
+				seront enuoiez aux Hurons</i>, 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.&mdash;You should love the Indians like
+				brothers, with whom you are to spend the rest of your life.&mdash;Never
+				make them wait for you in embarking.&mdash;Take a flint and steel to
+				light their pipes and kindle their fire at night; for these little
+				services win their hearts.&mdash;Try to eat their sagamite as
+				they cook it, bad and dirty as it is.&mdash;Fasten up the skirts
+				of your cassock, that you may not carry water or sand into the
+				canoe.&mdash;Wear no shoes or stockings in the canoe; but you may put
+				them on in crossing the portages.&mdash;Do not make yourself
+				troublesome, even to a single Indian.&mdash;Do not ask them too
+				many questions.&mdash;Bear their faults in silence, and appear
+				always cheerful.&mdash;Buy fish for them from the tribes you will pass;
+				and for this purpose take with you some awls, beads, knives, and
+				fish-hooks.&mdash;Be not ceremonious with the Indians; take at once
+				what they offer you: ceremony offends them.&mdash;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.&mdash;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.<br />
+   </p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00470">
+Descending French River, and following the lonely shores of the great
+Georgian Bay, the canoe which carried Br&eacute;beuf 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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">56</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00471">
+Br&eacute;beuf 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 Toanch&eacute; he had lived three years, preaching and baptizing;
+<a href="#footer_5-13"><span class="superscript">[13]</span></a>
+but Toanch&eacute; had now ceased to exist.  Here, &Eacute;tienne
+Brul&eacute;, Champlain's adventurous interpreter, had recently been
+murdered by the inhabitants, who, in
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">57</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_5-14"><span class="superscript">[14]</span></a>
+Br&eacute;beuf 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 Toanch&eacute;, saw the charred
+poles that had formed the frame of his little chapel of bark, and found,
+as he thought, the spot where Brul&eacute; had fallen.
+<a href="#footer_5-15"><span class="superscript">[15]</span></a>
+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.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00472" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_5-13" name="footer_5-13"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[13]</span>
+				From 1626 to 1629.  There is no record of the events of this first
+				mission, which was ended with the English occupation of Quebec.
+				Br&eacute;beuf had previously spent the winter of 1625-26 among the
+				Algonquins, like Le Jeune in 1633-34.&mdash;<i>Lettre du P. Charles
+				Lalemant au T. R. P. Mutio Vitelleschi, 1 Aug., 1626</i>, in
+				Carayon.<br />
+				<a id="footer_5-14" name="footer_5-14"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[14]</span>
+        Concerning Brul&eacute;, see "Pioneers of France," 377-380.<br />
+		    <a id="footer_5-15" name="footer_5-15"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[15]</span>
+		    "Ie vis pareillement l'endroit o&ugrave; le pauure Estienne
+				Brul&eacute; auoit est&eacute; barbarement et tra&icirc;treusement
+				assomm&eacute;; 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."&mdash;Br&eacute;beuf,
+				<i>Relation des Hurons, 1635</i>, 28, 29.&mdash;The missionary's
+				prognostics were but too well founded. <br />
+   </p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00474">
+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,&mdash;a distinction not easily won where hospitality
+was
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">58</a></span>
+ 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 Br&eacute;beuf
+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.</p>
+
+<hr class="main" />
+<div class="chapterhead">
+   <br /><a name="Chapter_6" id="Chapter_6"></a>
+	 <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">59</a></span>
+	 <br /><br /><br />
+	 <h2 id="id00475"><a href="#Contents6">CHAPTER VI.</a><br />
+	 <span class="med">1634, 1635.</span>
+	 </h2>
+	 <p id="id00476" class="smcapheader">BR&Eacute;BEUF AND HIS ASSOCIATES.</p>
+	 <p id="id00477" class="noindent space-bottom">
+	          The Huron Mission-House &bull; Its Inmates &bull;
+						Its Furniture &bull; Its Guests &bull;
+						The Jesuit as a Teacher &bull; As an Engineer &bull;
+						Baptisms &bull; Huron Village Life &bull;
+						Festivities and Sorceries &bull; The Dream Feast &bull;
+						The Priests accused of Magic &bull;
+						The Drought and the Red Cross
+	 </p>
+	 <p class="break1"></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="double-space-top" id="id00479">
+<span class="smcap">Where</span> should the Fathers make their abode?
+Their first thought had been to establish themselves at a place called
+by the French <i>Rochelle</i>, the largest and most important town of the Huron
+confederacy; but Br&eacute;beuf 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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00480">
+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,&mdash;though not without the expectation of such gifts as the
+priests had to bestow.  Before October, the task was finished.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">60</a></span>
+The house
+was constructed after the Huron model.
+<a href="#footer_6-1"><span class="superscript">[1]</span></a>
+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,&mdash;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,&mdash;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&mdash;the
+largest of the three&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_6-1" name="footer_6-1"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[1]</span>
+				See Introduction. <br />
+   </p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00481">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">61</a></span>
+There was no lack of visitors, for the house of the black-robes contained
+marvels
+<a href="#footer_6-2"><span class="superscript">[2]</span></a>
+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!"&mdash;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 Br&eacute;beuf, "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."
+<a href="#footer_6-3"><span class="superscript">[3]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00482" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_6-2" name="footer_6-2"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[2]</span>
+				"Ils ont pens&eacute; qu'elle entendoit, principalement quand,
+				pour rire, quelqu'vn de nos Fran&ccedil;ois s'escrioit au dernier
+				coup de marteau, c'est assez sonn&eacute;, 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
+				parl&eacute;.  Ils nous interrogent de son manger.  Ils demeurent les
+				heures entieres, et quelquesfois plusieurs, afin de la pouuoir ouyr
+				parler."&mdash;Br&eacute;beuf, <i>Relation des Hurons, 1635</i>,
+				33.<br />
+				<a id="footer_6-3" name="footer_6-3"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[3]</span>
+				Br&eacute;beuf, <i>Relation des Hurons, 1635</i>, 33.<br />
+   </p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="id00483">
+"What does the Captain say?" was the frequent question; for by this title
+of honor they designated the clock.</p>
+
+<p id="id00484">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">62</a></span>
+"When he strikes twelve times, he says, 'Hang on the kettle'; and when he
+strikes four times, he says, 'Get up, and go home.'"</p>
+
+<p id="id00485">
+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.
+<a href="#footer_6-4"><span class="superscript">[4]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_6-4" name="footer_6-4"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[4]</span>
+				Lalemant, <i>Relation des Hurons, 1639</i>, 17 (Cramoisy).<br />
+   </p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00486">
+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,&mdash;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">63</a></span>
+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 Ossossan&eacute;, or Rochelle.
+<a href="#footer_6-5"><span class="superscript">[5]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_6-5" name="footer_6-5"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[5]</span>
+				Br&eacute;beuf, <i>Relation des Hurons, 1636</i>, 86.<br />
+   </p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00487">
+At every opportunity, the missionaries gathered together the children of
+the village at their house.  On these occasions, Br&eacute;beuf, for greater
+solemnity, put on a surplice, and the close, angular cap worn by Jesuits
+in their convents.  First he chanted the <i>Pater Noster</i>, translated by
+Father Daniel into Huron rhymes,&mdash;the children chanting in their turn.
+Next he taught them the sign of the cross; made them repeat the <i>Ave</i>,
+the <i>Credo</i>, 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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00488">
+At times, the elders of the people, the repositories of its ancient
+traditions, were induced to
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">64</a></span>
+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, Br&eacute;beuf 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.
+<a href="#footer_6-6"><span class="superscript">[6]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_6-6" name="footer_6-6"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[6]</span>
+				Br&eacute;beuf, <i>Relation des Hurons, 1636</i>, 81.  For the use of
+				wampum belts, see Introduction.<br />
+   </p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00489">
+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."
+<a href="#footer_6-7"><span class="superscript">[7]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00490" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_6-7" name="footer_6-7"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[7]</span>
+				"Le seiziesme du mesme mois, deux petits Sauvages furent
+				changez en deux petits Anges."&mdash;<i>Relation, 1636</i>,
+				89 (Cramoisy).</p>
+    <p id="id00491">
+		    "O mon cher fr&egrave;re, vous pourrois-je expliquer quelle
+				consolation ce m'etoit quand je voyois un pauure baptis&eacute;
+				mourir deux heures, une demi journ&eacute;e, une ou deux
+				journ&eacute;es, apr&egrave;s son baptesme, particuli&egrave;rement
+				quand c'etoit un petit enfant!"&mdash;<i>Lettre du P&egrave;re
+				Garnier &agrave; son Fr&egrave;re</i>, MS.&mdash;This form of
+				benevolence is beyond heretic appreciation.</p>
+    <p id="id00492">
+		    "La joye qu'on a quand on a baptis&eacute; un Sauvage qui se meurt
+				peu apres, &amp; qui s'envole droit au Ciel, pour devenir un Ange,
+				certainement c'est un joye qui surpasse tout ce qu'on se peut
+				imaginer."&mdash;Le Jeune, <i>Relation, 1635</i>, 221 (Cramoisy).<br />
+   </p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00493">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">65</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00494">
+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,&mdash;both in the interest of his profession,&mdash;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">66</a></span>
+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.
+Br&eacute;beuf 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."
+<a href="#footer_6-8"><span class="superscript">[8]</span></a>
+This remedy
+also failing, a crowning effort of the medical art was essayed.  Br&eacute;beuf
+does not describe it, for fear, as he says, of being tedious; but,
+for the time, the village was a pandemonium.
+<a href="#footer_6-9"><span class="superscript">[9]</span></a>
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">67</a></span>
+moving as if alive.  "Truly," writes Br&eacute;beuf,
+"here is nonsense enough: but I greatly fear there is something more dark
+and mysterious in it."</p>
+
+<div id="id00495" class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_6-8" name="footer_6-8"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[8]</span>
+				<i>Relation des Hurons, 1636</i>, 116.<br />
+				<a id="footer_6-9" name="footer_6-9"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[9]</span>
+				"Suffit pour le present de dire en general, que iamais les
+				Bacchantes forcen&eacute;es du temps pass&eacute; ne firent
+				rien de plus furieux en leurs orgyes.  C'est icy &agrave;
+				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 &agrave; 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."&mdash;Br&eacute;beuf,
+				<i>Relation des Hurons, 1636</i>, 117.<br />
+   </p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="id00496">
+But all these ceremonies were outdone by the grand festival of the
+<i>Ononhara</i>, or Dream Feast,&mdash;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">68</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_6-10"><span class="superscript">[10]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00497" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_6-10" name="footer_6-10"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[10]</span>
+				Br&eacute;beuf's account of the Dream Feast is brief.
+				The above particulars are drawn chiefly from Charlevoix,
+				<i>Journal Historique</i>, 356, and Sagard, <i>Voyage du
+				Pays des Hurons</i>, 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 <i>ononhara</i> means <i>turning
+				of the brain</i>.<br />
+   </p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00498">
+The approach of summer brought with it a comparative peace.  Many of the
+villagers dispersed,&mdash;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,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">69</a></span>
+and caused him to fly another way.
+<a href="#footer_6-11"><span class="superscript">[11]</span></a>
+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.</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00499" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_6-11" name="footer_6-11"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[11]</span>
+				The following is the account of the nature of thunder, given to
+				Br&eacute;beuf on a former occasion by another sorcerer.</p>
+    <p id="id00500">
+		    "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 <i>okies</i>.  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."&mdash;<i>Relation des Hurons, 1636</i>, 114.</p>
+    <p id="id00501">
+		    The word <i>oki</i> 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.<br />
+   </p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00502">
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p id="id00503">
+This was accordingly done; but the clouds still kept aloof.  The Jesuits
+followed up their advantage.</p>
+
+<p id="id00504">
+"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,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">70</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00505">
+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."
+<a href="#footer_6-12"><span class="superscript">[12]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00506" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_6-12" name="footer_6-12"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[12]</span>
+				"Nous deuons aussi beaucoup au glorieux sainct Ioseph,
+				espoux de Nostre Dame, et protecteur des Hurons, dont
+				nous auons touch&eacute; 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."&mdash;Br&eacute;beuf, <i>Relation des
+				Hurons, 1635</i>, 41.</p>
+    <p id="id00507">
+		    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.<br />
+   </p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00508">
+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.
+<a href="#footer_6-13"><span class="superscript">[13]</span></a>
+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.</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_6-13" name="footer_6-13"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[13]</span>
+				Br&eacute;beuf preserves a speech made to him by one of these
+				chiefs, as a specimen of Huron eloquence.&mdash;<i>Relation
+				des Hurons, 1636</i>, 123.<br />
+   </p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="main" />
+<div class="chapterhead">
+   <br /><a name="Chapter_7" id="Chapter_7"></a>
+	 <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">71</a></span>
+	 <br /><br /><br />
+	 <h2 id="id00509"><a href="#Contents7">CHAPTER VII.</a><br />
+	 <span class="med">1636, 1637.</span>
+	 </h2>
+	 <p id="id00510" class="smcapheader">THE FEAST OF THE DEAD.</p>
+	 <p id="id00511" class="noindent space-bottom">
+	          Huron Graves &bull; Preparation for the Ceremony &bull;
+						Disinterment &bull; The Mourning &bull; The Funeral March &bull;
+						The Great Sepulchre &bull; Funeral Games &bull;
+						Encampment of the Mourners &bull; Gifts &bull; Harangues &bull;
+						Frenzy of the Crowd &bull; The Closing Scene &bull;
+						Another Rite &bull; The Captive Iroquois &bull;
+						The Sacrifice.
+	 </p>
+	 <p class="break1"></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="double-space-top" id="id00513">
+<span class="smcap">
+Mention</span> has been made of those great depositories of human bones found at
+the present day in the ancient country of the Hurons.
+<a href="#footer_7-1"><span class="superscript">[1]</span></a>
+They have been a theme of abundant speculation;
+<a href="#footer_7-2"><span class="superscript">[2]</span></a>
+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 Br&eacute;beuf, who, in the summer of the year 1636,
+saw them at the town of Ossossan&eacute;.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_7-1" name="footer_7-1"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[1]</span>
+				See Introduction.<br />
+				<a id="footer_7-2" name="footer_7-2"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[2]</span>
+				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.<br />
+   </p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="id00515">
+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,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">72</a></span>
+ 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,"&mdash;in the eyes of the Hurons,
+their most solemn and important ceremonial.</p>
+
+<p id="id00516">
+In the spring of 1636, the chiefs and elders of the Nation of the
+Bear&mdash;the principal nation of the Confederacy, and that to which
+Ihonatiria belonged&mdash;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
+Br&eacute;beuf, 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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00517">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">73</a></span>
+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;
+<a href="#footer_7-3"><span class="superscript">[3]</span></a>
+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.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_7-3" name="footer_7-3"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[3]</span>
+				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.<br />
+   </p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00519">
+These relics of mortality, together with the recent corpses,&mdash;which were
+allowed to remain entire, but which were also wrapped carefully in
+furs,&mdash;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;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">74</a></span>
+ 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
+Ossossan&eacute;, 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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00520">
+From every town of the Nation of the Bear,&mdash;except the rebellious few
+that had seceded,&mdash;processions like this were converging towards
+Ossossan&eacute;.  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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">75</a></span>
+ 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.
+<a href="#footer_7-4"><span class="superscript">[4]</span></a>
+Some of
+the chiefs conducted Br&eacute;beuf 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.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_7-4" name="footer_7-4"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[4]</span>
+				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. <br />
+   </p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00521">
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00522">
+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.
+<a href="#footer_7-5"><span class="superscript">[5]</span></a>
+Then all the processions were
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">76</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00523" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_7-5" name="footer_7-5"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[5]</span>
+				"I'admiray la tendresse d'vne femme enuers son pere et ses enfans;
+				elle est fille d'vn Capitaine, qui est mort fort &acirc;g&eacute;,
+				et a est&eacute; autrefois fort considerable dans le Pa&iuml;s:
+				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
+				&agrave; dire son pacquet de buchettes de Conseil, qui sont
+				tous les liures et papiers du Pa&iuml;s.  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."&mdash;Br&eacute;beuf, <i>Relation des Hurons, 1636</i>,
+				134. <br />
+   </p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00524">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">77</a></span>
+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,
+<a href="#footer_7-6"><span class="superscript">[6]</span></a>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_7-7"><span class="superscript">[7]</span></a>
+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.
+Br&eacute;beuf 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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">78</a></span>
+the air resounded with discordant outcries.
+<a href="#footer_7-8"><span class="superscript">[8]</span></a>
+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 Br&eacute;beuf 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,&mdash;so dreary and lugubrious, that it seemed to the Jesuits the wail
+of despairing souls from the abyss of perdition.
+<a href="#footer_7-9"><span class="superscript">[9]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00525" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_7-6" name="footer_7-6"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[6]</span>
+				In some of these graves, recently discovered, five or six large
+				copper kettles have been found, in a position corresponding with the
+				account of Br&eacute;beuf.  In one, there were no less than twenty-six
+				kettles.<br />
+				<a id="footer_7-7" name="footer_7-7"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[7]</span>
+				"Iamais rien ne m'a mieux figur&eacute; la confusion qui est parmy les
+				damnez.  Vous eussiez veu d&eacute;charger de tous costez des corps
+				&agrave; demy pourris, et de tous costez on entendoit vn horrible
+				tintamarre de voix confuses de personnes qui parloient et ne
+				s'entendoient pas."&mdash;Br&eacute;beuf, <i>Relation des Hurons,
+				1636</i>, 135.<br />
+				<a id="footer_7-8" name="footer_7-8"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[8]</span>
+				"Approchans, nous vismes tout &agrave; fait une image de l'Enfer: cette
+				grande place estoit toute remplie de feux &amp; de flammes, &amp; l'air
+				retentissoit de toutes parts des voix confuses de ces Barbares,"
+				etc.&mdash;Br&eacute;beuf, <i>Relation des Hurons, 1636,</i> 209
+				(Cramoisy).<br />
+				<a id="footer_7-9" name="footer_7-9"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[9]</span>
+				"Se mirent &agrave; chanter, mais d'un ton si lamentable &amp; si
+				lugubre, qu'il nous representoit l'horrible tristesse &amp; l'abysme
+				du desespoir dans lequel sont plong&eacute;es pour iamais ces
+				&acirc;mes malheureuses."&mdash;<i>Ibid.</i>, 210.</p>
+    <p id="id00529">
+	      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, <i>Aboriginal Monuments of New York</i>.)
+				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, <i>Historical Sketches of the Niagara Frontier</i>, 8.)
+				In Canada West, they are found throughout the region once occupied
+				by the Neuters, and are frequent in the Huron district.</p>
+    <p id="id00530">
+		   Dr. Tach&eacute; writes to me,&mdash;"I have inspected sixteen
+			 <i>bone-pits</i>," (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 <i>purposely</i>. 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
+			 <i>aboriginal Mexican fabric</i>."</p>
+    <p id="id00531">
+		   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.</p>
+    <p id="id00532">
+		   The Tach&eacute; 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.</p>
+    <p id="id00533">
+		   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.</p>
+    <p id="id00534">
+		   The Northern Algonquins had also a solemn Feast of the Dead; but it was
+			 widely different from that of the Hurons.&mdash;See the very curious
+			 account of it by Lalemant, <i>Relation des Hurons, 1642</i>, 94, 95.
+			 <br />
+    </p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00535">
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00536">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">79</a></span>
+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,&mdash;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">80</a></span>
+ among friends."
+The best food was prepared for him, and his captors vied with each other
+in offices of good-will.
+<a href="#footer_7-10"><span class="superscript">[10]</span></a>
+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."</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_7-10" name="footer_7-10"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[10]</span>
+				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.
+				<br />
+   </p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00537">
+The prisoner coolly asked what should be the manner of his death.</p>
+
+<p id="id00538">
+"By fire," was the reply.</p>
+
+<p id="id00539">
+"It is well," returned the Iroquois.</p>
+
+<p id="id00540">
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00541">
+About noon he gave his farewell feast, after the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">81</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00542">
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00543">
+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.
+<a href="#footer_7-11"><span class="superscript">[11]</span></a>
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">82</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_7-12"><span class="superscript">[12]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00544" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_7-11" name="footer_7-11"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[11]</span>
+				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."&mdash;Le Mercier, <i>Relation des Hurons, 1637</i>,
+				114.<br />
+				<a id="footer_7-12" name="footer_7-12"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[12]</span>
+   			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.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr class="main" />
+<div class="chapterhead">
+   <br /><a name="Chapter_8" id="Chapter_8"></a>
+	 <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">83</a></span>
+	 <br /><br /><br />
+	 <h2 id="id00545"><a href="#Contents8">CHAPTER VIII.</a><br />
+	 <span class="med">1636, 1637.</span>
+	 </h2>
+	 <p id="id00546" class="smcapheader">THE HURON AND THE JESUIT.</p>
+	 <p id="id00547" class="noindent space-bottom">
+	          Enthusiasm for the Mission &bull; Sickness of the Priests &bull;
+            The Pest among the Hurons &bull; The Jesuit on his Rounds &bull;
+            Efforts at Conversion &bull; Priests and Sorcerers &bull;
+						The Man-Devil &bull; The Magician's Prescription &bull;
+						Indian Doctors and Patients &bull; Covert Baptisms &bull;
+						Self-Devotion of the Jesuits
+	 </p>
+	 <p class="break1"></p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="double-space-top" id="id00549">
+<span class="smcap">Meanwhile</span> 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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00550">
+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,&mdash;and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">84</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00551">
+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,&mdash;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">85</a></span>
+ 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.
+<a href="#footer_8-1"><span class="superscript">[1]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00552" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_8-1" name="footer_8-1"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[1]</span>
+				The following are passages from letters of missionaries at this time.
+				See "Divers Sentimens," appended to the <i>Relation</i> of 1635.</p>
+    <p id="id00553">
+		    "On dit que les premiers qui fondent les Eglises d'ordinaire sont
+				saincts: cette pens&eacute;e m'attendrit si fort le c&oelig;ur, que quoy
+				que ie me voye icy fort inutile dans ceste fortun&eacute;e Nouuelle
+				France, si faut-il que i'auo&uuml;e que ie ne me s&ccedil;aurois
+				defendre d'vne pens&eacute;e qui me presse le c&oelig;ur:
+				<i>Cupio impendi, et superimpendi pro vobis</i>, Pauure Nouuelle
+				France, ie desire me sacrifier pour ton bien, et quand il me
+				deuroit couster mille vies, moyennant que ie puisse aider
+				&agrave; sauuer vne seule &acirc;me, ie seray trop heureux,
+				et ma vie tres bien employ&eacute;e."</p>
+    <p id="id00554">
+		    "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 l&agrave;, 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, o&ugrave; on pense pouuoir
+				mourir tous les iours, et auoir la deuise de S. Paul, <i>Quotidie
+				morior, fratres</i>, etc. mes freres, je fais estat de mourir tous
+				les iours."</p>
+    <p id="id00555">
+		    "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 o&ugrave; Dieu nous a mis de sa grace!  veritablement i'ay
+				trouu&eacute; icy ce que i'auois esper&eacute;, vn c&oelig;ur selon le
+				c&oelig;ur de Dieu, qui ne cherche que Dieu."<br />
+   </p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00556">
+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,&mdash;Jogues,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">86</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_8-2"><span class="superscript">[2]</span></a>
+On their way, they had met Daniel and Davost descending to
+Quebec, to establish there a seminary of Huron children,&mdash;a project long
+cherished by Br&eacute;beuf and his companions.</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_8-2" name="footer_8-2"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[2]</span>
+				"Ie luy preparay de ce que nous auions, pour le receuoir, mais quel
+				festin!  vne poign&eacute;e de petit poisson sec auec vn peu de farine;
+				i'enuoyay chercher quelques nouueaux espics, que nous luy fismes rostir
+				&agrave; la fa&ccedil;on du pays; mais il est vray que dans son
+				c&oelig;ur et &agrave; l'entendre, il ne fit iamais meilleure chere.
+				La ioye qui se ressent &agrave; ces entreueu&euml;s semble estre
+				quelque image du contentement des bien-heureux &agrave; leur
+				arriu&eacute;e dans le Ciel, tant elle est pleine de
+				suauit&eacute;."&mdash;Le Mercier, <i>Relation des Hurons, 1637</i>,
+				106.<br />
+   </p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00558">
+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.
+<a href="#footer_8-3"><span class="superscript">[3]</span></a>
+The disease in no case proved fatal; but scarcely had health
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">87</a></span>
+ begun to
+return to their household, when an unforeseen calamity demanded the
+exertion of all their energies.</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_8-3" name="footer_8-3"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[3]</span>
+				<i>Lettre de Br&eacute;beuf au T. R. P. Mutio Vitelleschi, 20 Mai,
+				1637</i>, in Carayon, 157.  Le Mercier, <i>Relation des Hurons,
+				1637</i>, 120, 123.<br />
+   </p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="id00559">
+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,&mdash;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">88</a></span>
+ 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.
+<a href="#footer_8-4"><span class="superscript">[4]</span></a>
+ 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."
+<a href="#footer_8-5"><span class="superscript">[5]</span></a>
+Often the patient was stolidly silent; sometimes he
+was hopelessly perverse and contradictory.  Again, Nature triumphed over
+Grace.  "Which will you choose," demanded
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">89</a></span>
+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."
+<a href="#footer_8-6"><span class="superscript">[6]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_8-4" name="footer_8-4"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[4]</span>
+				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.<br />
+				<a id="footer_8-5" name="footer_8-5"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[5]</span>
+				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."&mdash;Le Mercier,
+				<i>Relation des Hurons, 1637</i>, 147.<br />
+				<a id="footer_8-6" name="footer_8-6"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[6]</span>
+				Most of the above traits are drawn from Le Mercier's
+				report of 1637.  The rest are from Br&eacute;beuf.
+				<br />
+   </p>
+</div>
+
+
+
+<p id="id00560">
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00561">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">90</a></span>
+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;
+<a href="#footer_8-7"><span class="superscript">[7]</span></a>
+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?"  Br&eacute;beuf's answer was uncompromising:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_8-7" name="footer_8-7"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[7]</span>
+				Br&eacute;beuf, <i>Relation des Hurons, 1636</i>, 89.  Another woman was
+				delivered on touching a relic of St. Ignatius.  <i>Ibid.</i>, 90.<br />
+   </p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00562">
+"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."
+<a href="#footer_8-8"><span class="superscript">[8]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_8-8" name="footer_8-8"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[8]</span>
+				Le Mercier, <i>Relation des Hurons, 1637</i>, 114, 116 (Cramoisy). <br />
+   </p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00563">
+The terms were too hard.  They would fain bargain
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">91</a></span>
+ to be let off with
+building the chapel alone; but Br&eacute;beuf would bate them nothing, and the
+council broke up in despair.</p>
+
+<p id="id00564">
+At Ossossan&eacute;, 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!"
+<a href="#footer_8-9"><span class="superscript">[9]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_8-9" name="footer_8-9"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[9]</span>
+				Le Mercier, <i>Relation des Hurons, 1637</i>,
+				127, 128 (Cramoisy). <br />
+   </p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00565">
+Their joy was short.  The proclamation was on the twelfth of December.
+On the twenty-first, a noted sorcerer came to Ossossan&eacute;.  He was of a
+dwarfish, hump-backed figure,&mdash;most rare among this symmetrical
+people,&mdash;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">92</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00566">
+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 <i>oki</i>,&mdash;a spirit, or, as the priests rendered it,
+a demon,&mdash;and had dwelt with other <i>okies</i> 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 <i>oki</i> had quarrelled with and strangled his female
+companion, who came dead into the world.
+<a href="#footer_8-10"><span class="superscript">[10]</span></a>
+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.</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_8-10" name="footer_8-10"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[10]</span>
+				Le Mercier, <i>Relation des Hurons, 1637</i>, 72 (Cramoisy).
+				This "petit sorcier" is often mentioned elsewhere. <br />
+   </p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="id00567">
+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.
+<a href="#footer_8-11"><span class="superscript">[11]</span></a>
+On the sixth day the spirits appeared, and, among other
+revelations, told
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">93</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_8-12"><span class="superscript">[12]</span></a>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_8-13"><span class="superscript">[13]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_8-11" name="footer_8-11"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[11]</span>
+				See Introduction.<br />
+				<a id="footer_8-12" name="footer_8-12"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[12]</span>
+				"Qu'en vertu de ce signe nous ne redoutions point les
+				demons, et esperions que Dieu preserueroit nostre petite maison de cette
+				maladie contagieuse."&mdash;Le Mercier, <i>Relation des Hurons,
+				1637</i>, 150.<br />
+				<a id="footer_8-13" name="footer_8-13"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[13]</span>
+				<i>Ibid.</i>, 157.<br />
+   </p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="id00568">
+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 Ossossan&eacute; 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,
+<a href="#footer_8-14"><span class="superscript">[14]</span></a>
+at the same time
+fanning them
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">94</a></span>
+with the wing of a wild turkey.  Then came a grand
+medicine-feast, followed by a medicine-dance of women.</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00569" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_8-14" name="footer_8-14"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[14]</span>
+				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.<br />
+   </p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="id00570">
+Opinion was divided as to the nature of the pest; but the greater number
+were agreed that it was a malignant <i>oki</i>, who came from Lake Huron.
+<a href="#footer_8-15"><span class="superscript">[15]</span></a>
+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!"&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00571" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_8-15" name="footer_8-15"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[15]</span>
+				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, <i>Relation des Hurons,
+				1637</i>, 134.)  This superstition of sorcerers vomiting fire was
+				common among the Iroquois of New York.&mdash;Others held that a
+				sister of &Eacute;tienne Brul&eacute; 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. <br />
+   </p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00572">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">95</a></span>
+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,&mdash;enough,
+the witness declares, for four,&mdash;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.
+<a href="#footer_8-16"><span class="superscript">[16]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00573" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_8-16" name="footer_8-16"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[16]</span>
+				"En fin il leur fallut rendre gorge, ce qu'ils firent &agrave; diuerses
+				reprises, ne laissants pas pour cela de continuer &agrave; vuider leur
+				plat."&mdash;Le Mercier, <i>Relation des Hurons, 1637</i>,
+				142.&mdash;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.<br />
+   </p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00574">
+Turning from these eccentricities of the "noble savage"
+<a href="#footer_8-17"><span class="superscript">[17]</span></a>
+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,
+<a href="#footer_8-18"><span class="superscript">[18]</span></a>
+were not always successful; and,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">96</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00575" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_8-17" name="footer_8-17"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[17]</span>
+				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. <br />
+        <a id="footer_8-18" name="footer_8-18"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[18]</span>
+        "C'est nostre refuge ordinaire en semblables necessitez, et
+				d'ordinaire auec tels succez, que nous auons sujet d'en benir Dieu
+				&agrave; iamais, qui nous fait cognoistre en cette barbarie le credit
+				de ce S. Patriarche aupres de son infinie misericorde."&mdash;Le
+				Mercier, <i>Relation des Hurons, 1637</i>, 153.&mdash;In the case
+				of a woman at Onnentisati, "Dieu nous inspira de luy vou&euml;r
+				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."<br />
+   </p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00577">
+"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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00578">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">97</a></span>
+"Some days before, the missionary had used the same device (<i>industrie</i>)
+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, <i>No</i>.
+'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."
+<a href="#footer_8-19"><span class="superscript">[19]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00579" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_8-19" name="footer_8-19"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[19]</span>
+				Le Mercier, <i>Relation des Hurons, 1637</i>, 165.  Various
+				other cases of the kind are mentioned in the <i>Relations</i>.<br />
+   </p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00580">
+That equivocal morality, lashed by the withering satire of Pascal,&mdash;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,"&mdash;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,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">98</a></span>
+we may observe that the teachings of the school of Loyola had not been
+wholly without effect in the formation of their ethics.</p>
+
+<p id="id00581">
+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,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="main" />
+<div class="chapterhead">
+   <br /><a name="Chapter_9" id="Chapter_9"></a>
+	 <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">99</a></span>
+	 <br /><br /><br />
+	 <h2 id="id00582"><a href="#Contents9">CHAPTER IX.</a><br />
+	 <span class="med">1637.</span>
+	 </h2>
+	 <p id="id00583" class="smcapheader">CHARACTER OF THE CANADIAN JESUITS.</p>
+	 <p id="id00584" class="noindent space-bottom">
+	          Jean de Br&eacute;beuf &bull; Charles Garnier &bull;
+						Joseph Marie Chaumonot &bull; No&euml;l Chabanel &bull;
+						Isaac Jogues &bull; Other Jesuits &bull;
+						Nature of their Faith &bull; Supernaturalism &bull;
+						Visions &bull; Miracles
+	 </p>
+	 <p class="break1"></p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="double-space-top" id="id00586">
+<span class="smcap">Before</span> 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
+Br&eacute;beuf,&mdash;that masculine apostle of the Faith,&mdash;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,&mdash;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">100</a></span>
+the Indians,
+who thought him handsome.
+<a href="#footer_9-1"><span class="superscript">[1]</span></a>
+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,&mdash;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">101</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_9-2"><span class="superscript">[2]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00587" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_9-1" name="footer_9-1"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[1]</span>
+				"C'est pourquoi j'ai bien gagne &agrave; quitter la
+				France, o&ugrave; vous me fesiez la guerre de n'avoir point de barbe;
+				car c'est ce qui me fait estimer beau des Sauvages."&mdash;<i>Lettres
+				de Garnier</i>, MSS.<br />
+				<a id="footer_9-2" name="footer_9-2"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[2]</span>
+				The above sketch of Garnier is drawn from various sources.
+				<i>Observations du P. Henri de St. Joseph, Carme, sur son
+				Fr&egrave;re le P. Charles Garnier</i>,
+				MS.&mdash;<i>Abr&eacute;g&eacute; de la Vie du R.
+				P&egrave;re Charles Garnier</i>, 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.&mdash;<i>Lettres du P. Charles Garnier</i>,
+				MSS.  These embrace his correspondence from the Huron country, and are
+				exceedingly characteristic and striking.  There is another letter in
+				Carayon, <i>Premi&egrave;re Mission</i>.&mdash;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.<br />
+   </p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="id00588">
+Next appears a young man of about twenty-seven years, Joseph Marie
+Chaumonot.  Unlike Br&eacute;beuf and Garnier, he was of humble
+origin,&mdash;his father being a vine-dresser, and his mother the
+daughter of a poor village schoolmaster.  At an early age they sent
+him to Ch&acirc;tillon 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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">102</a></span>
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">103</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_9-3"><span class="superscript">[3]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00589" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_9-3" name="footer_9-3"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[3]</span>
+				"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 apr&egrave;s
+				une telle charit&eacute; elle s'&eacute;toit offerte &agrave;
+				me servir toujours de mesme, comment aurois-je d&ucirc;
+				l'honorer, lui ob&eacute;ir, l'aimer toute ma vie!  Pardon,
+				Reine des Anges et des hommes! pardon de ce qu'apr&egrave;s
+				avoir re&ccedil;u de vous tant de marques, par lesquelles vous
+				m'avez convaincu que vous m'avez adopt&eacute; pour votre fils,
+				j'ai eu l'ingratitude pendant des ann&eacute;es enti&egrave;res
+				de me comporter encore plut&ocirc;t en esclave de Satan qu'en
+				enfant d'une M&egrave;re Vierge.  O que vous &ecirc;tes
+				bonne et charitable! puisque quelques obstacles que mes
+				p&eacute;ch&eacute;s ayent pu mettre &agrave; vos graces,
+				vous n'avez jamais cess&eacute; de m'attirer au bien;
+				jusque l&agrave; que vous m'avez fait admettre dans la Sainte
+				Compagnie de J&eacute;sus, votre fils."&mdash;Chaumonot,
+				<i>Vie</i>, 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 H&ocirc;tel Dieu of Quebec.
+				Mr. Shea has printed it.<br />
+   </p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00590">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">104</a></span>
+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 R&eacute;collet, 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.
+<a href="#footer_9-4"><span class="superscript">[4]</span></a>
+Soon after its close, a small duodecimo volume was placed in his hands.
+It was a <i>Relation</i> of the Canadian mission, and contained one of
+those narratives of Br&eacute;beuf 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.</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00591" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_9-4" name="footer_9-4"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[4]</span>
+				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.</p>
+    <p id="id00592">
+		    "Jamais y eut-il homme sur terre plus oblig&eacute; que moi
+				&agrave; la Sainte Famille de J&eacute;sus, de Marie et de
+				Joseph!  Marie en me gu&eacute;rissant de ma vilaine galle
+				ou teigne, me d&eacute;livra d'une infinit&eacute; de peines
+				et d'incommodit&eacute;s corporelles, que cette hideuse
+				maladie qui me rongeoit m'avoit caus&eacute;. Joseph m'ayant
+				obtenu la grace d'&ecirc;tre incorpor&eacute; &agrave; un
+				corps aussi saint qu'est celui des J&eacute;suites, m'a
+				preserv&eacute; d'une infinit&eacute; de mis&egrave;res
+				spirituelles, de tentations tr&egrave;s dangereuses et de
+				p&eacute;ch&eacute;s tr&egrave;s &eacute;normes. J&eacute;sus
+				n'ayant pas permis que j'entrasse dans aucun autre ordre qu'en
+				celui qu'il honore tout &agrave; la fois de son beau nom, de
+				sa douce pr&eacute;sence et de sa protection sp&eacute;ciale.
+				O J&eacute;sus! O Marie! O Joseph! qui m&eacute;ritoit moins
+				que moi vos divines faveurs, et envers qui avez vous
+				&eacute;t&eacute; plus prodigue?"&mdash;Chaumonot, <i>Vie</i>,
+				37. <br />
+   </p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00593">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">105</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_9-5"><span class="superscript">[5]</span></a>
+The intercession was accepted; the offending limb became sound
+<ins title="change gain to again.">again,</ins>
+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.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_9-5" name="footer_9-5"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[5]</span>
+				"Je me recommandai &agrave; elle en lui promettant de la faire
+				conno&icirc;tre dans toutes les occasions que j'en aurois jamais,
+				si elle m'obtenoit de Dieu ma gu&eacute;rison."&mdash;Chaumonot,
+				<i>Vie</i>, 46.<br />
+   </p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="id00594">
+No&euml;l Chabanel came later to the mission; for he did not reach the Huron
+country until 1643.  He detested the Indian life,&mdash;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">106</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_9-6"><span class="superscript">[6]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_9-6" name="footer_9-6"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[6]</span>
+				<i>Abr&eacute;g&eacute; de la Vie du P&egrave;re No&euml;l
+				Chabanel</i>, MS.  This anonymous paper bears the signature
+				of Ragueneau, in attestation of its truth.  See also Ragueneau,
+				<i>Relation, 1650</i>, 17, 18.  Chabanel's vow is here given
+				<i>verbatim</i>.<br />
+   </p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="id00595">
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00596">
+These priests lived in an atmosphere of supernaturalism.  Every day had
+its miracle.  Divine
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">107</a></span>
+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 <i>neuvaine</i>, 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.
+<a href="#footer_9-7"><span class="superscript">[7]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_9-7" name="footer_9-7"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[7]</span>
+				Chaumonot, <i>Vie</i>, 73. <br />
+   </p>
+</div>
+
+
+
+<p id="id00597">
+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.
+<a href="#footer_9-8"><span class="superscript">[8]</span></a>
+And he ascribed to the deceased Garnier's
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">108</a></span>
+influence the mastery of
+that language which he afterwards acquired.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00598" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_9-8" name="footer_9-8"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[8]</span>
+				"Je n'eus pas plut&ocirc;t appris sa glorieuse mort, que je lui promis
+				tout ce que je ferois de bien pendant huit jours, &agrave; condition
+				qu'il me feroit son h&eacute;ritier dans la connoissance parfaite
+				qu'il avoit du Huron."&mdash;Chaumonot, <i>Vie</i>, 61. <br />
+   </p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="id00599">
+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.
+<a href="#footer_9-9"><span class="superscript">[9]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00600" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_9-9" name="footer_9-9"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[9]</span>
+				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 <i>Aves</i> and <i>Paters</i>, 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.<br />
+   </p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00601">
+<a id="id00601a" name="id00601a"></a>
+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 Br&eacute;beuf, 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 wild-cats.  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 Br&eacute;beuf signed the cross, and the infernal
+siren melted into air.  He saw the vision
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">109</a></span>
+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."
+<a href="#footer_9-10"><span class="superscript">[10]</span></a>
+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.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00602" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_9-10" name="footer_9-10"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[10]</span>
+				<i>Quelques Remarques sur la Vie du P&egrave;re Jean de
+				Br&eacute;beuf</i>, MS.  On the margin of this paper,
+				opposite several of the statements repeated above, are
+				the words, signed by Ragueneau, "<i>Ex ipsius
+				autographo</i>," indicating that the statements were
+				made in writing by Br&eacute;beuf himself.</p>
+    <p id="id00603">
+		    Still other visions are recorded by Chaumonot as occurring to
+				Br&eacute;beuf, when they were together in the Neutral country.
+				See also the long notice of Br&eacute;beuf, written by his colleague,
+				Ragueneau, in the <i>Relation</i> of 1649; and Tanner, <i>Societas
+				Jesu Militans</i>, 533.<br />
+   </p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="id00604">
+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,&mdash;that principle of self-abnegation which is the life of true
+religion, and which is vital no less to the highest forms of heroism.</p>
+
+<hr class="main" />
+<div class="chapterhead">
+   <br /><a name="Chapter_10" id="Chapter_10"></a>
+	 <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">110</a></span>
+	 <br /><br /><br />
+	 <h2><a href="#Contents10">CHAPTER X.</a><br />
+	 <span class="med">1637-1640.</span>
+	 </h2>
+	 <p class="smcapheader">PERSECUTION.</p>
+	 <p class="noindent space-bottom">
+            Ossossan&eacute; &bull; The New Chapel &bull;
+						A Triumph of the Faith &bull; The Nether Powers &bull;
+						Signs of a Tempest &bull; Slanders &bull;
+						Rage against the Jesuits &bull;
+						Their Boldness and Persistency &bull; Nocturnal Council &bull;
+						Danger of the Priests &bull; Br&eacute;beuf's Letter &bull;
+						Narrow Escapes &bull; Woes and Consolations
+	 </p>
+	 <p class="break1"></p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="double-space-top" id="id00609">
+<span class="smcap">The</span> town of Ossossan&eacute;, 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.
+<a href="#footer_10-1"><span class="superscript">[1]</span></a>
+The Indians had promised Br&eacute;beuf 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.
+<a href="#footer_10-2"><span class="superscript">[2]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_10-1" name="footer_10-1"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[1]</span>
+	      The doctrine of the immaculate conception of the Virgin,
+				recently sanctioned by the Pope, has long been a favorite
+				tenet of the Jesuits. <br />
+        <a id="footer_10-2" name="footer_10-2"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[2]</span>
+				<i>Lettres de Garnier</i>, MSS.  It was of upright pickets,
+				ten feet high, with flanking towers at two angles.<br />
+    </p>
+		</div>
+
+<p id="id00610">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">111</a></span>
+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,&mdash;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.
+<a href="#footer_10-3"><span class="superscript">[3]</span></a></p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00611" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_10-3" name="footer_10-3"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[3]</span>
+				"Nostre Chapelle estoit extraordinairement bien orn&eacute;e,
+				&hellip; nous auions dress&eacute; vn portique entortill&eacute; de
+				fe&uuml;illage, mesl&eacute; d'oripeau, en vn mot nous auions
+				estall&eacute; tout ce que vostre R. nous a enuoi&eacute; de beau,"
+				etc., etc.&mdash;Le Mercier, <i>Relation des Hurons, 1637</i>, 175,
+				176.&mdash;In his <i>Relation</i> of the next year he recurs to the
+				subject, and describes the pictures displayed on this memorable
+				occasion.&mdash;<i>Relation des Hurons, 1638</i>, 33.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="id00612">
+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.
+<a href="#footer_10-4"><span class="superscript">[4]</span></a></p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_10-4" name="footer_10-4"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[4]</span>
+				<i>Ibid., 1637</i>, 176. <br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="id00613">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">112</a></span>
+One is forced to wonder at, if not to admire, the energy with which these
+priests and their scarcely less zealous attendants
+<a href="#footer_10-5"><span class="superscript">[5]</span></a>
+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.</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00614" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_10-5" name="footer_10-5"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[5]</span>
+				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 <i>donn&eacute;s</i>, 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. <br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00615">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">113</a></span>
+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,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00616">
+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.
+<a href="#footer_10-6"><span class="superscript">[6]</span></a>
+Whether accepting it or not, let us examine the
+circumstances which gave rise to it.</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00617" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_10-6" name="footer_10-6"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[6]</span>
+				Several of the Jesuits allude to this supposed excitement among the
+				tenants of the nether world.  Thus, Le Mercier says, "Le Diable se
+				sentoit press&eacute; de pr&eacute;s, il ne pouuoit supporter le
+				Baptesme solennel de quelques Sauuages des plus
+				signalez."&mdash;<i>Relation des Hurons, 1638</i>, 33.&mdash;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,&mdash;"Vous
+				pouvez juger quelle consolation nous &eacute;toit-ce de voir le
+				diable s'armer contre nous et se servir de ses esclaves pour nous
+				attaquer et t&acirc;cher de nous perdre en haine de J.&nbsp;C." <br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00618">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">114</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00619">
+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,&mdash;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,"
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">115</a></span>
+observes Father Le Mercier, "the Devil was enraged
+because we had placed a great many of these little innocents in Heaven."
+<a href="#footer_10-7"><span class="superscript">[7]</span></a></p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00620" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_10-7" name="footer_10-7"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[7]</span>
+				"Le diable enrageoit peutestre de ce que nous avions plac&eacute;
+				dans le ciel quantit&eacute; de ces petits innocens."&mdash;Le Mercier,
+				<i>Relation des Hurons, 1638</i>, 12 (Cramoisy). <br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00621">
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00622">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">116</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00623">
+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,&mdash;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">117</a></span>
+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."
+<a href="#footer_10-8"><span class="superscript">[8]</span></a>
+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.</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00624" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_10-8" name="footer_10-8"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[8]</span>
+				<i>Ce loup infernal</i> is a title often bestowed in the
+				<i>Relations</i> 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.
+    </p>
+		<p id="id00625">
+				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." <br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00626">
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00627">
+In the intervals of the council, Br&eacute;beuf
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">118</a></span>
+discoursed to the crowd of
+chiefs on the wonders of the visible heavens,&mdash;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,&mdash;the only species of Christian instruction which produced any
+perceptible effect on this unpromising auditory.</p>
+
+<p id="id00628">
+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.
+<a href="#footer_10-9"><span class="superscript">[9]</span></a>
+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,
+<a href="#footer_10-10"><span class="superscript">[10]</span></a>
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">119</a></span>
+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."</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00629" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_10-9" name="footer_10-9"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[9]</span>
+				Le Mercier, <i>Relation des Hurons, 1638</i>, 38.<br />
+        <a id="footer_10-10" name="footer_10-10"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[10]</span>
+				It must have been the house of a chief.  The Hurons, unlike some
+				other tribes, had no houses set apart for public occasions.
+<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00630">
+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,&mdash;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">120</a></span>
+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, Br&eacute;beuf 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 Br&eacute;beuf 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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00631">
+"If you will not believe me," said Br&eacute;beuf, "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."</p>
+
+<p id="id00632">
+"Sorcerers always talk in that way," was the reply.</p>
+
+<p id="id00633">
+"Then what will you have me say?" demanded Br&eacute;beuf.</p>
+
+<p id="id00634">
+"Tell us the cause of the pest."</p>
+
+<p id="id00635">
+Br&eacute;beuf 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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">121</a></span>
+went away.  One old chief, as he
+passed out, said to Br&eacute;beuf, "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 Ossossan&eacute; 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 <i>Oki</i>, and what he demands and what he forbids,
+and Paradise and Hell."
+<a href="#footer_10-11"><span class="superscript">[11]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_10-11" name="footer_10-11"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[11]</span>
+The above account of the council is drawn from Le Mercier,
+<i>Relation des Hurons, 1638</i>, Chap. II.  See also Bressani,
+<i>Relation Abr&eacute;g&eacute;e,</i> 163.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00636">
+"Here was the end of this miserable council," writes Le Mercier; &hellip;
+"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."</p>
+
+<p id="id00637">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">122</a></span>
+ the sentence.  Yet it seemed impossible that they
+should much longer escape.  Br&eacute;beuf, 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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00638">
+"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.&hellip; 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.
+<a href="#footer_10-12"><span class="superscript">[12]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00639" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_10-12" name="footer_10-12"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[12]</span>
+				The following is the conclusion of the letter (Le Mercier,
+				<i>Relation des Hurons, 1638</i>, 43.)</p>
+    <p id="id00640">
+		    "En tout, sa sainte volont&eacute; soit faite; s'il veut que
+				d&eacute;s ceste heure nous mourions, &ocirc; la bonne heure
+				pour nous! s'il veut nous reseruer &agrave; d'autres trauaux,
+				qu'il soit beny; si vous entendez que Dieu ait couronn&eacute;
+				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 donn&eacute; ordre de tout ce qu'ils doiuent faire.  I'ay
+				est&eacute; d'aduis que nos Peres et nos domestiques se retirent
+				chez ceux qu'ils croyront estre leurs meilleurs amis; i'ay
+				donn&eacute; 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.</p>
+		<p id="id00641">
+		    "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 &agrave; l'Eternit&eacute;,
+    </p>
+    <p id="id00642">
+        "De vostre Reuerence tres-humbles et tres-affectionnez seruiteurs en
+        Nostre Seigneur,</p>
+    <p id="id00643" class="signatures">
+                                        "Iean de Brebevf.<br />
+                                        Fran&ccedil;ois Ioseph Le Mercier.<br />
+                                        Pierre Chastellain.<br />
+                                        Charles Garnier.<br />
+                                        Pavl Ragveneav.<br />
+    </p>
+		<p id="id00644" class="noindent small">
+       "En la Residence de la Conception, &agrave; Ossossan&eacute;,<br/>
+       <span class="margin-left-4em">ce 28 Octobre.</span>
+    </p>
+    <p id="id00645">
+       "I'ay laiss&eacute; en la Residence de sainct Ioseph les Peres
+			 Pierre Piiart, et Isaac Iogves, dans les mesmes sentimens." <br/>
+	  </p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00646">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">123</a></span>
+The imperilled Jesuits now took a singular, but certainly a very wise
+step.  They gave one of those farewell feasts&mdash;<i>festins
+d'adieu</i>&mdash;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 Br&eacute;beuf 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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">124</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_10-13"><span class="superscript">[13]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_10-13" name="footer_10-13"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[13]</span>
+"Tant y a que depuis le 6. de Nouembre que nous acheuasmes nos Messes
+votiues &agrave; 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."&mdash;Le Mercier, <i>Relation des Hurons, 1638</i>, 44. <br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00648">
+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 Ossossan&eacute;, a young Indian rushed suddenly upon Fran&ccedil;ois 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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">125</a></span>
+wounded, staggered without falling, when the
+Indian sprang upon him with his tomahawk.  The bystanders arrested the
+blow.  Fran&ccedil;ois 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.
+<a href="#footer_10-14"><span class="superscript">[14]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00649" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_10-14" name="footer_10-14"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[14]</span>
+				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. <br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00650">
+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."
+<a href="#footer_10-15"><span class="superscript">[15]</span></a>
+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
+Br&eacute;beuf, the gentle Garnier,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">126</a></span>
+the all-enduring Jogues, the enthusiastic
+Chaumonot, Lalemant, Le Mercier, Chatelain, Daniel, Pijart, Ragueneau,
+Du Peron, Poncet, Le Moyne,&mdash;one and all bore themselves with a tranquil
+boldness, which amazed the Indians and enforced their respect.
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00651" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_10-15" name="footer_10-15"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[15]</span>
+				"C'est veritablement un bonheur indicible pour nous, au milieu de
+				cette barbarie, d'entendre les rugissemens des demons, &amp; de voir
+				tout l'Enfer &amp; quasi tous les hommes animez &amp; remplis de fureur
+				contre une petite poign&eacute;e de gens qui ne voudroient pas se
+				defendre."&mdash;<i>Relation des Hurons, 1640</i>, 31 (Cramoisy). <br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00652">
+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.
+<a href="#footer_10-16"><span class="superscript">[16]</span></a>
+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,&mdash;which are, he
+says, little images of Hell,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00653" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_10-16" name="footer_10-16"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[16]</span>
+				"Nous auons quelque fois dout&eacute;, s&ccedil;auoir si on pouuoit
+				esperer la conuersion de ce pa&iuml;s sans qu'il y eust effusion de
+				sang: le principe re&ccedil;eu 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 &agrave; esperer, voire
+				mesme qu'il n'&eacute;toit pas &agrave; souhaiter, consider&eacute;
+				la gloire qui reuient &agrave; Dieu de la constance des Martyrs,
+				du sang desquels tout le reste de la terre ayant tantost est&eacute;
+				abreuu&eacute;, ce seroit vne espece de malediction, que ce quartier
+				du monde ne participast point au bonheur d'auoir contribu&eacute;
+				&agrave; l'esclat de ceste gloire."&mdash;Lalemant, <i>Relation des
+				Hurons, 1639</i>, 56, 57.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="main" />
+<div class="chapterhead">
+   <br /><a name="Chapter_11" id="Chapter_11"></a>
+	 <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">127</a></span>
+	 <br /><br /><br />
+	 <h2><a href="#Contents11">CHAPTER XI.</a><br />
+	 <span class="med">1638-1640.</span>
+	 </h2>
+	 <p class="smcapheader">PRIEST AND PAGAN.</p>
+	 <p class="noindent space-bottom">
+	          Du Peron's Journey &bull; Daily Life of the Jesuits &bull;
+						Their Missionary Excursions &bull;
+						Converts at Ossossan&eacute; &bull;
+						Machinery of Conversion &bull; Conditions of Baptism &bull;
+						Backsliders &bull; The Converts and their Countrymen &bull;
+						The Cannibals at St. Joseph
+	 </p>
+	 <p class="break1"></p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="double-space-top" id="id00658">
+<span class="smcap">We</span> 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.
+</p>
+
+<p id="id00659">
+Father Fran&ccedil;ois Du 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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">128</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00660">
+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
+Ossossan&eacute; 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 Ossossan&eacute; 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
+"<i>Shay!</i>"&mdash;"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.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">129</a></span>
+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 Ossossan&eacute;.  An Indian accordingly set out with him,
+and conducted him to the mission-house, which he reached at
+six o'clock in the evening.</p>
+
+<p id="id00661">
+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.
+<a href="#footer_11-1"><span class="superscript">[1]</span></a>
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">130</a></span>
+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,&mdash;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.
+<a href="#footer_11-2"><span class="superscript">[2]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00662" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_11-1" name="footer_11-1"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[1]</span>
+				"Nos plats, quoyque de bois, nous co&ucirc;tent plus cher que les
+				v&ocirc;tres; ils sont de la valeur d'une robe de castor,
+				c'est &agrave; dire cent francs."&mdash;<i>Lettre du P. Du Peron
+				&agrave; son Fr&egrave;re, 27 Avril, 1639</i>.&mdash;The Father's
+				appraisement seems a little questionable. <br />
+        <a id="footer_11-2" name="footer_11-2"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[2]</span>
+				The above particulars are drawn from a long letter of Fran&ccedil;ois
+				Du Peron to his brother, Joseph-Imbert Du Peron, dated at <i>La
+				Conception</i> (Ossossan&eacute;), April 27, 1639, and from a letter,
+				equally long, of Chaumonot to Father Philippe Nappi, dated <i>Du Pays
+				des Hurons, May 26, 1640</i>.  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.</p>
+				<p id="id00663">
+				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." <br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="id00664">
+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 <i>honn&ecirc;te</i> liberty of turning out the most
+intrusive and impracticable,&mdash;an
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">131</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00665">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
+<a href="#footer_11-3"><span class="superscript">[3]</span></a>
+was assigned a certain number of houses,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00666" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_11-3" name="footer_11-3"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[3]</span>
+				At the end of the year 1638, there were seven priests who spoke
+Huron, and three who had begun to learn it. <br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00667">
+At dinner, which was at two o'clock, grace was said in Huron,&mdash;for the
+benefit of the Indians present,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00668">
+The local missions here referred to embraced
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">132</a></span>
+Ossossan&eacute; 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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00669">
+At Ossossan&eacute;, 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,
+<a href="#footer_11-4"><span class="superscript">[4]</span></a>
+who had built, before the close of the year, a chapel of wood.
+<a href="#footer_11-5"><span class="superscript">[5]</span></a>
+Hither they removed their pictures and ornaments; and here, in winter,
+several fires were kept burning, for the comfort of the half-naked
+converts.
+<a href="#footer_11-6"><span class="superscript">[6]</span></a>
+Of these they now had at Ossossan&eacute; about sixty,&mdash;a large,
+though evidently not a very solid nucleus for the Huron church,&mdash;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">133</a></span>
+their feet and legs."
+They knelt, mingled with the French mechanics, before the
+altar,&mdash;very awkwardly at first, for the posture was new to
+them,&mdash;and all received the sacrament together: a spectacle
+which, as the missionary chronicler declares, repaid a hundred
+times all the labor of their conversion.
+<a href="#footer_11-7"><span class="superscript">[7]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_11-4" name="footer_11-4"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[4]</span>
+				Du Peron in Carayon, 173. <br />
+				<a id="footer_11-5" name="footer_11-5"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[5]</span>
+				"La chapelle est faite d'une charpente bien jolie,
+				semblable presque, en fa&ccedil;on et grandeur,
+				&agrave; notre chapelle de St. Julien."&mdash;<i>Ibid.</i>,
+				183.<br />
+				<a id="footer_11-6" name="footer_11-6"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[6]</span>
+				Lalemant, <i>Relation des Hurons, 1639</i>, 62.<br />
+				<a id="footer_11-7" name="footer_11-7"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[7]</span>
+				Lalemant, <i>Relation des Hurons, 1639</i>, 62.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00670">
+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&mdash;<i>&acirc;mes damn&eacute;es</i>&mdash;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&mdash;<i>&acirc;mes
+bienheureuses</i>&mdash;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.
+<a href="#footer_11-8"><span class="superscript">[8]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00671" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_11-8" name="footer_11-8"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[8]</span>
+				<i>Garnier, Lettre 17<span class="superscript">me</span></i>, 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
+				<i>half a man</i>. <br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="id00672">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">134</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_11-9"><span class="superscript">[9]</span></a>
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">135</a></span>
+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."
+<a href="#footer_11-10"><span class="superscript">[10]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00673" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_11-9" name="footer_11-9"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[9]</span>
+				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 bont&eacute; et vertu bien solide.  Les quatre
+Elemens d'vn homme Apostolique en la Nouuelle France sont l'Affabilit&eacute;,
+l'Humilit&eacute;, la Patience et vne Charit&eacute; genereuse.  Le zele trop ardent
+brusle plus qu'il n'eschauffe, et gaste tout; il faut vne grande
+magnanimit&eacute; et condescendance, pour attirer peu &agrave; peu ces Sauuages.
+Ils n'entendent pas bien nostre Theologie, mais ils entendent
+parfaictement bien nostre humilit&eacute; et nostre affabilit&eacute;, et se laissent
+gaigner."</p>
+        <p id="id00674">
+				So too Br&eacute;beuf, in a letter to Vitelleschi, General of the
+				Jesuits (see Carayon, 163): "Ce qu'il faut demander, avant tout,
+				des ouvriers destin&eacute;s &agrave; cette mission, c'est une
+				douceur inalt&eacute;rable et une patience &agrave; toute
+				&eacute;preuve." <br />
+        <a id="footer_11-10" name="footer_11-10"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[10]</span>
+				Le Mercier, <i>Relation des Hurons, 1637</i>, 160. <br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00675">
+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.
+<a href="#footer_11-11"><span class="superscript">[11]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00676" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_11-11" name="footer_11-11"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[11]</span>
+				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 Ossossan&eacute;, and we would not
+listen; so Ossossan&eacute; 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&mdash;"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."&mdash;Lalemant, <i>Relation des Hurons, 1640</i>, 80.
+<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00677">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">136</a></span>
+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,"&mdash;"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.
+<a href="#footer_11-12"><span class="superscript">[12]</span></a>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_11-13"><span class="superscript">[13]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_11-12" name="footer_11-12"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[12]</span>
+				Lalemant, <i>Relation des Hurons, 1639</i>, 80. <br />
+				<a id="footer_11-13" name="footer_11-13"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[13]</span>
+				<i>Ibid.</i>, 78. <br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00678">
+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."
+<a href="#footer_11-14"><span class="superscript">[14]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00679" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_11-14" name="footer_11-14"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[14]</span>
+				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,&mdash;a number much below that of the preceding year.
+				</p>
+    <p id="id00680">
+		    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-m&ecirc;me
+				de l'eau b&eacute;nite; et une fois se mit &agrave; crier,
+				sortant de la Chapelle, &agrave; cause que sa m&egrave;re
+				qui la portoit ne lui avoit donn&eacute; le loisir d'en
+				prendre.  Il l'a fallu reporter en
+				prendre."&mdash;<i>Lettres de Garnier</i>, MSS.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00681">
+<a id="id00681a" name="id00681a" ></a>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">137</a></span>
+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
+Teanaustay&eacute;, 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.
+<a href="#footer_11-15"><span class="superscript">[15]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00682" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_11-15" name="footer_11-15"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[15]</span>
+				Lalemant, <i>Relation des Hurons, 1639</i>, 70. <br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="main" />
+<div class="chapterhead">
+   <br /><a name="Chapter_12" id="Chapter_12"></a>
+	 <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">138</a></span>
+	 <br /><br /><br />
+	 <h2 id="id00683"><a href="#Contents12">CHAPTER XII.</a><br />
+	 <span class="med">1639, 1640.</span>
+	 </h2>
+	 <p id="id00684" class="smcapheader">THE TOBACCO NATION&mdash;THE NEUTRALS.</p>
+	 <p id="id00685" class="noindent space-bottom">
+	          A Change of Plan &bull; Sainte Marie &bull;
+						Mission of the Tobacco Nation &bull;
+						Winter Journeying &bull; Reception of the Missionaries &bull;
+						Superstitious Terrors &bull; Peril of Garnier and Jogues &bull;
+						Mission of the Neutrals &bull; Huron Intrigues &bull;
+						Miracles &bull; Fury of the Indians &bull;
+						Intervention of Saint Michael &bull; Return to Sainte Marie &bull;
+						Intrepidity of the Priests &bull; Their Mental Exaltation
+	 </p>
+	 <p class="break1"></p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="double-space-top" id="id00686">
+<span class="smcap">It</span> 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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">139</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00687">
+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,&mdash;gained permission to build from the Indians, though not without
+difficulty,&mdash;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 Teanaustay&eacute;, and the house and chapel at
+Ossossan&eacute;, 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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00688">
+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.
+<a href="#footer_12-1"><span class="superscript">[1]</span></a>
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">140</a></span>
+priests.  In November and December, they began their
+missionary excursions,&mdash;for the Indians were now gathered in their
+settlements,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_12-1" name="footer_12-1"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[1]</span>
+				See Introduction.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00689">
+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 Ossossan&eacute;; but none would
+go with them, and they set forth on their wild and unknown pilgrimage
+alone.</p>
+
+<p id="id00690">
+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."
+<a href="#footer_12-2"><span class="superscript">[2]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_12-2" name="footer_12-2"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[2]</span>
+				Jogues and Garnier in Lalemant, <i>Relation
+				des Hurons, 1640</i>, 95. <br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00691">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">141</a></span>
+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,&mdash;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 <i>okies</i> doing? They are making
+charms to kill us, and destroy all
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">142</a></span>
+that the pest has spared in this house.
+I heard that they were sorcerers; and now, when it is too late, I believe
+it."
+<a href="#footer_12-3"><span class="superscript">[3]</span></a>
+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.</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_12-3" name="footer_12-3"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[3]</span>
+				 Lalemant, <i>Relation des Hurons, 1640</i>, 96.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00692">
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00693">
+In the following November, a yet more distant and perilous mission was
+begun.  Br&eacute;beuf 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.
+<a href="#footer_12-4"><span class="superscript">[4]</span></a>
+In their athletic proportions, the ferocity
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">143</a></span>
+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 <i>okies</i>, 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.</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00694" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_12-4" name="footer_12-4"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[4]</span>
+				Introduction.&mdash;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
+				<i>Relation</i> of 1641, shows that both Lake Ontario and
+				Lake Erie had already taken their present names.</p>
+    <p id="id00695">
+		    "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 (<i>le lac d'Eri&eacute;</i>),
+				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 <i>Relation</i> of 1648.</p>
+    <p id="id00696">
+		    "Nearly south of this same Neutral Nation there is a great
+				lake, about two hundred leagues in circuit, named Erie
+				(Eri&eacute;), 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."&mdash;<i>Relation des
+				Hurons, 1648</i>, 46.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00697">
+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.  Br&eacute;beuf 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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">144</a></span>
+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 Br&eacute;beuf, 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.
+<a href="#footer_12-5"><span class="superscript">[5]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_12-5" name="footer_12-5"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[5]</span>
+				See <i>ante</i>, <a href="#Page_109">(page 109)</a>.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00698">
+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 Br&eacute;beuf, 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.&hellip;  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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">145</a></span>
+to strike the blow,
+and three times the old men had dissuaded them.  This explained the
+meaning of Father Br&eacute;beuf's vision."
+<a href="#footer_12-6"><span class="superscript">[6]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_12-6" name="footer_12-6"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[6]</span>
+				Chaumonot, <i>Vie</i>, 55.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00699">
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00700">
+"Go out, and leave our country," said an old chief, "or we will put you
+into the kettle, and make a feast of you."
+</p>
+
+<p id="id00701">
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p id="id00702">
+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."
+<a href="#footer_12-7"><span class="superscript">[7]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_12-7" name="footer_12-7"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[7]</span>
+				<i>Ibid.</i>, 57.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00703">
+The mission was barren of any other fruit than
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">146</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_12-8"><span class="superscript">[8]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00704" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_12-8" name="footer_12-8"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[8]</span>
+				Lalemant, in his <i>Relation</i> 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,
+				<i>Br&eacute;beuf au T. R. P. Mutio Vitelleschi, 20 Ao&ucirc;t,
+				1641</i>.</p>
+    <p id="id00705">
+		    The R&eacute;collet La Roche Dallion had visited the Neutrals
+				fourteen years before, (see Introduction, <i>note</i>,) and,
+				like his two successors, had been seriously endangered by
+				Huron intrigues.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00706">
+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,&mdash;virgins, saints, and angels,&mdash;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">147</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_12-9"><span class="superscript">[9]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_12-9" name="footer_12-9"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[9]</span>
+				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,&mdash;a falling off from former
+				years.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="id00707">
+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<ins title="In volume 7:  'boyhood. Or ...'.">: or</ins>
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">148</a></span>
+ecstatic faith, then turns with
+rekindled fervors to his stern apostleship.</p>
+
+<p id="id00708">
+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.</p>
+
+<hr class="main" />
+<div class="chapterhead">
+   <br /><a name="Chapter_13" id="Chapter_13"></a>
+	 <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">149</a></span>
+	 <br /><br /><br />
+	 <h2 id="id00709"><a href="#Contents13">CHAPTER XIII.</a><br />
+	 <span class="med">1636-1646.</span>
+	 </h2>
+	 <p id="id00710" class="smcapheader">QUEBEC AND ITS TENANTS.</p>
+	 <p id="id00711" class="noindent space-bottom">
+	          The New Governor &bull; Edifying Examples &bull;
+						Le Jeune's Correspondents &bull; Rank and Devotion &bull;
+						Nuns &bull; Priestly Authority &bull; Condition of Quebec &bull;
+						The Hundred Associates &bull; Church Discipline &bull;
+						Plays &bull; Fireworks &bull; Processions &bull;
+						Catechizing &bull; Terrorism &bull; Pictures &bull;
+						The Converts &bull; The Society of Jesus &bull;
+						The Foresters
+	 </p>
+	 <p class="break1"></p>
+</div>
+
+
+
+<p class="double-space-top" id="id00713">
+<span class="smcap">I have</span> 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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00714">
+<a name="id00714a" id="id00714a"></a>
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">150</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_13-1"><span class="superscript">[1]</span></a>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_13-2"><span class="superscript">[2]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_13-1" name="footer_13-1"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[1]</span>
+				Le Jeune, <i>Relation, 1636</i>, 5 (Cramoisy).
+				"Monsieur le Gouverneur se transporte aux
+				Cabanes de ces pauures barbares, suivy d'une
+				leste Noblesse.  Je vous laisse &agrave; penser
+				quel estonnement &agrave; ces Peuples de voir
+				tant d'&eacute;carlate, tant de personnes bien
+				faites sous leurs toits d'&eacute;corce!"<br />
+        <a id="footer_13-2" name="footer_13-2"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[2]</span>
+				<i>Ibid.</i>, 83 (Cramoisy).<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="id00715">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">151</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00716">
+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 <i>Relations</i> 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."
+<a href="#footer_13-3"><span class="superscript">[3]</span></a>
+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;
+<a href="#footer_13-4"><span class="superscript">[4]</span></a>
+how
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">152</a></span>
+"the Carmelites are all
+on fire, the Ursulines full of zeal, the sisters of the Visitation have
+no words to speak their ardor";
+<a href="#footer_13-5"><span class="superscript">[5]</span></a>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_13-6"><span class="superscript">[6]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00717" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_13-3" name="footer_13-3"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[3]</span>
+				"C'est Dieu qui conduit cette entreprise.  La Nature
+				n'a pas les bras assez longs," etc.&mdash;<i>Relation,
+				1636</i>, 3.<br />
+				<a id="footer_13-4" name="footer_13-4"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[4]</span>
+				Br&eacute;beuf, <i>Relation des Hurons, 1636</i>, 76.<br />
+				<a id="footer_13-5" name="footer_13-5"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[5]</span>
+				Le Jeune, <i>Relation, 1636</i>, 6.  Compare
+				"Divers Sentimens," appended to the <i>Relation</i>
+				of 1635.<br />
+				<a id="footer_13-6" name="footer_13-6"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[6]</span>
+				"L'Enfer enrageant de nous veoir aller en la Nouuelle
+				France pour conuertir les infidelles et diminuer sa
+				puissance, par d&eacute;pit il sousleuoit tous les
+				Elemens contre nous, et vouloit abysmer la
+				flotte."&mdash;<i>Divers Sentimens</i>.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="id00718">
+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.
+<a href="#footer_13-7"><span class="superscript">[7]</span></a>
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">153</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_13-7" name="footer_13-7"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[7]</span>
+				Among his correspondents was the young Duc d'Enghien,
+				afterwards the Great Cond&eacute;, at this time fifteen
+				years old.  "Dieu soit lo&uuml;&eacute;! tout le
+				ciel de nostre chere Patrie nous promet de fauorables
+				influences, iusques &agrave; ce nouuel astre, qui
+				commence &agrave; paroistre parmy ceux de la premiere
+ 				grandeur."&mdash;Le Jeune, <i>Relation, 1636</i>, 3,
+				4.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00719">
+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.
+<a href="#footer_13-8"><span class="superscript">[8]</span></a>
+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."
+<a href="#footer_13-9"><span class="superscript">[9]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_13-8" name="footer_13-8"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[8]</span>
+				"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."&mdash;Le Jeune, <i>Relation, 1637</i>,
+				304 (Cramoisy). <br />
+				<a id="footer_13-9" name="footer_13-9"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[9]</span>
+				Chaulmer, <i>Le Nouveau Monde Chrestien</i>, 41,
+				is eloquent on this theme.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00720">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">154</a></span>
+vested in a
+council composed of the governor, Le Jeune, and the syndic, an official
+supposed to represent the interests of the inhabitants.
+<a href="#footer_13-10"><span class="superscript">[10]</span></a>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_13-11"><span class="superscript">[11]</span></a>
+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.</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00721" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_13-10" name="footer_13-10"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[10]</span>
+				Le Clerc, <i>&Eacute;tablissement de la Foy</i>,
+				Chap. XV.<br />
+				<a id="footer_13-11" name="footer_13-11"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[11]</span>
+				Le Jeune, <i>Relation, 1636</i>, 153, 154 (Cramoisy).<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00722">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">155</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00723">
+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.
+<a href="#footer_13-12"><span class="superscript">[12]</span></a>
+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.</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00724" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_13-12" name="footer_13-12"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[12]</span>
+				For Giffard, Puiseaux, and other colonists, compare Langevin,
+				<i>Notes sur les Archives de Notre-Dame de Beauport</i>, 5,
+				6, 7; Ferland, <i>Notes sur les Archives de N. D. de
+				Qu&eacute;bec</i>, 22, 24 (1863); Ibid., <i>Cours
+				d'Histoire du Canada</i>, I. 266; Le Jeune, <i>Relation,
+				1636</i>, 45; Faillon, <i>Histoire de la Colonie
+				Fran&ccedil;aise</i>, I. c.  iv., v.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00725">
+The Company of the Hundred Associates was bound by its charter to send to
+Canada four thousand colonists before the year 1643.
+<a href="#footer_13-13"><span class="superscript">[13]</span></a>
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">156</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_13-14"><span class="superscript">[14]</span></a>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_13-15"><span class="superscript">[15]</span></a>
+Lauson sent out not a single colonist to these vast concessions.</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00726" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_13-13" name="footer_13-13"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[13]</span>
+				See "Pioneers of France," 399. <br />
+				<a id="footer_13-14" name="footer_13-14"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[14]</span>
+				This appears in many early grants of the Company.  Thus,
+				in a grant to Simon Le Ma&icirc;tre, Jan. 15, 1636, "que
+				les hommes que le dit &hellip; fera passer en la N. F.
+				tourneront &agrave; la d&eacute;charge de la dite
+				Compagnie," etc., etc.&mdash;See <i>Pi&egrave;ces sur la
+				Tenure Seigneuriale</i>, published by the Canadian
+				government, <i>passim</i>.<br />
+				<a id="footer_13-15" name="footer_13-15"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[15]</span>
+				<i>Archives du S&eacute;minaire de Villemarie</i>,
+				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.&mdash;La
+				Fontaine, <i>M&eacute;moire sur la Famille de
+				Lauson</i>.<br/>
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00727">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">157</a></span>
+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&mdash;excepting,
+perhaps, the H&eacute;bert family&mdash;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&mdash;"piety, freedom, and
+independence"&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00728">
+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.
+<a href="#footer_13-16"><span class="superscript">[16]</span></a>
+Of the origin of the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">158</a></span>
+convent, hospital, and seminary I shall soon
+have occasion to speak.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00729" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_13-16" name="footer_13-16"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[16]</span>
+				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 <i>Relations</i> are full of appeals to the
+				charity of devout persons in behalf of the missions.
+				</p>
+	  <p id="id00730">
+		    "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.&mdash;<i>Les Ursulines de Qu&eacute;bec. Introd.</i>,
+				XI. <br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="id00731">
+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."
+<a href="#footer_13-17"><span class="superscript">[17]</span></a>
+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,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">159</a></span>
+and less prone to political encroachment.
+<a href="#footer_13-18"><span class="superscript">[18]</span></a>
+No favorable result followed; and the colony remained as before,
+in a pitiful state of cramping and dwarfing vassalage.</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00732" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_13-17" name="footer_13-17"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[17]</span>
+				"Pour leur representer la gehenne o&ugrave; estoient
+				les consciences de la Colonie, de se voir gouvern&eacute;
+				par les mesmes personnes pour le spirituel et pour le
+				temporel."&mdash;Le Clerc, I. 478. <br />
+				<a id="footer_13-18" name="footer_13-18"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[18]</span>
+				<i>Declaration de Pierre Breant, par devant
+				les Notaires du Roy</i>, MS. The Order was
+				that of the Capuchins, who, like the
+				R&eacute;collets, are a branch of the
+				Franciscans.  Their introduction into Canada
+				was prevented; but they established themselves
+				in Maine.
+				<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00733">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">160</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00734">
+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."
+<a href="#footer_13-19"><span class="superscript">[19]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00735" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_13-19" name="footer_13-19"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[19]</span>
+				"La Nouuelle France est vn vray climat o&ugrave; on
+				apprend parfaictement bien &agrave; ne chercher que
+				Dieu, ne desirer que Dieu seul, auoir l'intention
+				purement &agrave; Dieu, etc.&hellip; Viure en la
+				Nouuelle France, c'est &agrave; vray dire viure dans
+				le sein de Dieu, et ne respirer que l'air de sa Diuine
+				conduite."&mdash;<i>Divers Sentimens</i>.  "Si
+				quelqu'un de ceux qui meurent en ces contr&eacute;es
+				se damne, je croy qu'il sera doublement
+				coupable."&mdash;<i>Relation, 1640</i>, 5 (Cramoisy).<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00736">
+The very amusements of this pious community were acts of religion.
+Thus, on the f&ecirc;te-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
+<i>Relations</i> 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.
+<a href="#footer_13-20"><span class="superscript">[20]</span></a>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">161</a></span>
+But, what is more curious, a Catholic writer of the present day, the Abb&eacute;
+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.
+<a href="#footer_13-21"><span class="superscript">[21]</span></a>
+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, <i>Iesus, Maria, Ioseph</i>; the soldiers drew up
+before it, and saluted it with a volley of musketry.
+<a href="#footer_13-22"><span class="superscript">[22]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_13-20" name="footer_13-20"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[20]</span>
+				<i>Relation, 1637</i>, 8.  The <i>Relations</i>, as
+				originally published, comprised about forty volumes. <br />
+				<a id="footer_13-21" name="footer_13-21"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[21]</span>
+				<i>Histoire de la Colonie Fran&ccedil;aise</i>,
+				I. 291, 292.<br />
+				<a id="footer_13-22" name="footer_13-22"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[22]</span>
+				<i>Relation, 1637</i>, 82.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00737">
+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.
+<a href="#footer_13-23"><span class="superscript">[23]</span></a>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_13-24"><span class="superscript">[24]</span></a>
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">162</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_13-25"><span class="superscript">[25]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_13-23" name="footer_13-23"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[23]</span>
+				Vimont, <i>Relation, 1640</i>, 6.<br />
+				<a id="footer_13-24" name="footer_13-24"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[24]</span>
+				Le Jeune, <i>Relation, 1638</i>, 6.<br />
+				<a id="footer_13-25" name="footer_13-25"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[25]</span>
+				Le Jeune, <i>Relation, 1639</i>, 3.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00738">
+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.
+<a href="#footer_13-26"><span class="superscript">[26]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_13-26" name="footer_13-26"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[26]</span>
+				Le Jeune, <i>Relation, 1637</i>, 122 (Cramoisy).<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00739">
+We have seen the methods of conversion practised among the Hurons.
+They were much the same at Quebec.  The principal appeal was to fear.
+<a href="#footer_13-27"><span class="superscript">[27]</span></a>
+"You do good to your friends," said Le Jeune to an Algonquin chief,
+"and you burn your
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">163</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_13-28"><span class="superscript">[28]</span></a>
+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,&mdash;one applying fire, another serpents, another
+tearing him with pincers, and another holding him fast with a
+chain,&mdash;this would have a good effect, especially if everything were made
+distinct, and misery, rage, and desperation appeared plainly in his face."
+<a href="#footer_13-29"><span class="superscript">[29]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00740" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_13-27" name="footer_13-27"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[27]</span>
+				<i>Ibid., 1636</i>, 119, and <i>1637</i>, 32 (Cramoisy).
+				"La crainte est l'auan couriere de la foy dans ces
+				esprits barbares."<br />
+				<a id="footer_13-28" name="footer_13-28"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[28]</span>
+				Le Jeune, <i>Relation, 1637</i>, 80-82 (Cramoisy).
+				"Avoir faim et ne manger que des serpens et des
+				crapaux, avoir soif et ne boire que des flammes."
+				<br />
+				<a id="footer_13-29" name="footer_13-29"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[29]</span>
+				"Les heretiques sont grandement blasmables, de condamner
+				et de briser les images qui ont de si bons effets.  Ces
+				sainctes figures sont la moiti&eacute; de l'instruction
+				qu'on peut donner aux Sauuages.  I'auois desir&eacute;
+				quelques portraits de l'enfer et de l'&acirc;me
+				damn&eacute;e; on nous en a enuoy&eacute; 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 &acirc;me de diuers supplices, l'vn luy appliquant
+				des feux, l'autre des serpens, l'autre la tenaillant,
+				l'autre la tenant li&eacute;e auec des chaisnes, cela
+				auroit vn bon effet, notamment si tout estoit bien
+				distingu&eacute;, et que la rage et la tristesse
+				parussent bien en la face de cette &acirc;me
+				desesper&eacute;e"&mdash;<i>Relation, 1637</i>,
+				32 (Cramoisy).<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00741">
+The preparation of the convert for baptism was often very slight.
+A dying Algonquin, who, though
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">164</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_13-30"><span class="superscript">[30]</span></a>
+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,&mdash;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 medi&aelig;val 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,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">165</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_13-31"><span class="superscript">[31]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00742" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_13-30" name="footer_13-30"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[30]</span>
+				"Ce seroit vne estrange cruaut&eacute; de voir descendre
+				vne &acirc;me toute viuante dans les enfers, par le
+				refus d'vn bien que Iesus Christ luy a acquis au prix
+				de son sang."&mdash;<i>Relation, 1637</i>, 66 </p>
+		<p id="id00743">
+		    "Considerez d'autre cot&eacute; la grande
+				appr&eacute;hension que nous avions sujet de redouter la
+				gu&eacute;rison; pour autant que bien souvent
+				&eacute;tant gu&eacute;ris il ne leur reste du St.
+				Bapt&ecirc;me que le caract&egrave;re."&mdash;<i>Lettres
+				de Garnier, MSS</i>.</p>
+		<p id="id00744">
+		    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.&mdash;Faillon,
+				II. 43.</p>
+	  <p class="noindent">
+				<a id="footer_13-31" name="footer_13-31"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[31]</span>
+				Enemies of the Jesuits, while denouncing them in
+				unmeasured terms, speak in strong eulogy of many of
+				the Canadian missionaries.  See, for example,
+				Steinmetz, <i>History of the Jesuits</i>, II. 415.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00745">
+I have spoken of the colonists as living in a state of temporal and
+spiritual vassalage.  To this there was one exception,&mdash;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, &Eacute;tienne Brul&eacute;, whose adventures I have
+recounted elsewhere,
+<a href="#footer_13-32"><span class="superscript">[32]</span></a>
+may be taken as a type of this class.
+Of the rest, the most conspicuous were Jean Nicollet, Jacques Hertel,
+Fran&ccedil;ois Marguerie, and Nicolas
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">166</a></span>
+Marsolet.
+<a href="#footer_13-33"><span class="superscript">[33]</span></a>
+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,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00746" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_13-32" name="footer_13-32"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[32]</span>
+				"Pioneers of France," 377.<br />
+				<a id="footer_13-33" name="footer_13-33"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[33]</span>
+				See Ferland, <i>Notes sur les Registres de N.
+				D. de Qu&eacute;bec</i>, 30.</p>
+    <p id="id00747">
+		    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 <i>Discovery and Exploration of the Mississippi
+				Valley</i>, XX.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="main" />
+<div class="chapterhead">
+   <br /><a name="Chapter_14" id="Chapter_14"></a>
+	 <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">167</a></span>
+	 <br /><br /><br />
+	 <h2 id="id00748"><a href="#Contents14">CHAPTER XIV.</a><br />
+	 <span class="med">1636-1652.</span>
+	 </h2>
+	 <p id="id00749" class="smcapheader">DEVOTEES AND NUNS.</p>
+	 <p id="id00750" class="noindent space-bottom">
+	          The Huron Seminary &bull; Madame de la Peltrie &bull;
+						Her Pious Schemes &bull; Her Sham Marriage &bull;
+						She visits the Ursulines of Tours &bull;
+						Marie de Saint Bernard &bull; Marie de l'Incarnation &bull;
+						Her Enthusiasm &bull; Her Mystical Marriage &bull;
+						Her Dejection &bull; Her Mental Conflicts &bull;
+						Her Vision &bull; Made Superior of the Ursulines &bull;
+						The H&ocirc;tel-Dieu &bull; The Voyage to Canada &bull;
+						Sillery &bull; Labors and Sufferings of the Nuns &bull;
+						Character of Marie de l'Incarnation &bull;
+						Of Madame de la Peltrie
+	 </p>
+	 <p class="break1"></p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="double-space-top" id="id00752">
+<span class="smcap">Quebec</span>, 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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00753">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">168</a></span>
+in the Indian towns.
+<a href="#footer_14-1"><span class="superscript">[1]</span></a>
+ 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.
+<a href="#footer_14-2"><span class="superscript">[2]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00754" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_14-1" name="footer_14-1"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[1]</span>
+				"M. de Montmagny cognoit bien l'importance de ce Seminaire
+				pour la gloire de Nostre Seigneur, et pour le commerce de
+				ces Messieurs"&mdash;<i>Relation, 1637</i>, 209 (Cramoisy).
+				<br />
+				<a id="footer_14-2" name="footer_14-2"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[2]</span>
+				Le Jeune, <i>Relation, 1637</i>, 55-59.  Ibid.,
+				<i>Relation, 1638</i>, 23.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="id00755">
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00756">
+Meanwhile the female children of both races were without instructors; but
+a remedy was at hand.  At Alen&ccedil;on, in 1603, was born Marie Madeleine de
+Chauvigny, a scion of the <i>haute noblesse</i> of Normandy.  Seventeen years
+later she was a young lady, abundantly wilful and superabundantly
+enthusiastic,&mdash;one who, in other circumstances, might perhaps have made a
+romantic elopement
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">169</a></span>
+and a <i>m&eacute;salliance</i>.
+<a href="#footer_14-3"><span class="superscript">[3]</span></a>
+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 f&ecirc;tes 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
+<i>Relations</i> 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?"
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">170</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00757" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_14-3" name="footer_14-3"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[3]</span>
+				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 <i>Les Ursulines
+				de Qu&eacute;bec</i>, I. 348.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00758">
+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,
+<a href="#footer_14-4"><span class="superscript">[4]</span></a>
+who,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">171</a></span>
+"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.</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00759" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_14-4" name="footer_14-4"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[4]</span>
+				"Partag&eacute;e ainsi entre l'amour filial et la religion,
+				en proie aux plus poignantes angoisses, elle s'adressa
+				&agrave; un religieux de la Compagnie de J&eacute;sus, dont
+				elle connaissait la prudence consomm&eacute;e, et le supplia de
+				l'&eacute;clairer de ses lumi&egrave;res.  Ce religieux,
+				apr&egrave;s y avoir s&eacute;rieusement r&eacute;fl&eacute;chi
+				devant Dieu, lui r&eacute;pondit qu'il croyait avoir trouv&eacute;
+				un moyen de tout concilier."&mdash;Casgrain, <i>Vie de Marie
+				de l'Incarnation</i>, 243.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00760">
+Among her acquaintance was M. de Berni&egrave;res, 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,
+<a href="#footer_14-5"><span class="superscript">[5]</span></a>
+and request her
+hand from her father.  M. de Chauvigny, who greatly esteemed Berni&egrave;res,
+was delighted; and his delight was raised to transport at the dutiful and
+modest acquiescence of his daughter.
+<a href="#footer_14-6"><span class="superscript">[6]</span></a>
+A betrothal took place; all was
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">172</a></span>
+harmony, and for a time no more was said of disinheriting Madame de
+la Peltrie, or putting her in wardship.</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00761" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_14-5" name="footer_14-5"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[5]</span>
+				"Enfin apr&egrave;s avoir longtemps implor&eacute; les
+				lumi&egrave;res du ciel, il remit toute l'affaire entre
+				les mains de son directeur et de quelques amis intimes.
+				Tous, d'un commun accord, lui d&eacute;clar&egrave;rent
+				que la gloire de Dieu y &eacute;tait interess&eacute;e,
+				et qu'il devait accepter."&mdash;<i>Ibid.</i>, 244.<br />
+				<a id="footer_14-6" name="footer_14-6"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[6]</span>
+				"The prudent young widow answered him with much respect
+				and modesty, that, as she knew M. de Berni&egrave;res to
+				be a favorite with him, <i>she</i> also preferred him to
+				all others."</p>
+		<p id="id00762">
+		    The above is from a letter of Marie de l'Incarnation,
+				translated by Mother St. Thomas, of the Ursuline convent
+				of Quebec, in her <i>Life of Madame de la Peltrie</i>,
+				41.  Compare <i>Les Ursulines de Qu&eacute;bec</i>, 10,
+				and the "Notice Biographique" in the same volume.<br/>
+</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="id00763">
+Berni&egrave;res'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.
+<a href="#footer_14-7"><span class="superscript">[7]</span></a>
+Berni&egrave;res yielded, and went
+with Madame de la Peltrie to consult "the most eminent divines."
+<a href="#footer_14-8"><span class="superscript">[8]</span></a>
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">173</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_14-9"><span class="superscript">[9]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00764" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_14-7" name="footer_14-7"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[7]</span>
+				"Our virtuous widow did not lose courage.  As she had given her
+				confidence to M. de Berni&egrave;res, 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."&mdash;St. Thomas, <i>Life of Madame de la Peltrie</i>, 42.<br />
+				<a id="footer_14-8" name="footer_14-8"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[8]</span>
+				"He" (Berni&egrave;res) "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."&mdash;<i>Ibid.</i>, 43.<br />
+				<a id="footer_14-9" name="footer_14-9"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[9]</span>
+				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 <i>Premi&egrave;res Ursulines de
+				France</i>, says, that, as God had taken her under His guidance,
+				we should not venture to criticize her.  Casgrain, in his
+				<i>Vie de Marie de l'Incarnation</i>, remarks:&mdash;</p>
+		<p id="id00765">
+		    "Une telle conduite peut encore aujourd'hui para&icirc;tre
+				&eacute;trange &agrave; bien des personnes; mais outre que
+				l'avenir fit bien voir que c'&eacute;tait une inspiration
+				du ciel, nous pouvons r&eacute;pondre, avec un savant et pieux
+				auteur, que nous ne devons point juger ceux que Dieu se charge
+				lui-m&ecirc;me de conduire."&mdash;p.  247.</p>
+		<p id="id00766">
+		    Mother St. Thomas highly approves the proceeding,
+				and says:&mdash;</p>
+    <p id="id00767">
+		    "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!"</p>
+		<p id="id00768">
+		    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.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00769">
+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
+<i>&eacute;clat</i>, which, with some women, is a ruling passion.  When,
+in company with Berni&egrave;res, she passed from Alen&ccedil;on to Tours,
+and from Tours to Paris, an object of attention to nuns, priests, and
+prelates,&mdash;when the Queen herself summoned her to an interview,&mdash;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">174</a></span>
+at the
+entrance of the cloister, and, separating into two rows as she appeared,
+sang the <i>Veni Creator</i>, while the bell of the monastery sounded its
+loudest peal. Then they led her in triumph to their church, sang
+<i>Te Deum</i>, 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.
+<a href="#footer_14-10"><span class="superscript">[10]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00770" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_14-10" name="footer_14-10"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[10]</span>
+				Casgrain, <i>Vie de Marie de l'Incarnation</i>,
+				271-273. There is a long account of Marie de St.
+				Bernard, by Ragueneau, in the <i>Relation</i> 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.
+				<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00771">
+There was another nun who stood apart, silent and motionless,&mdash;a stately
+figure, with features strongly marked and perhaps somewhat masculine;
+<a href="#footer_14-11"><span class="superscript">[11]</span></a>
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">175</a></span>
+the Jesuits had made her their choice, as Superior of the new convent.
+She was born, forty years before, at Tours, of a good <i>bourgeois</i> 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,&mdash;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
+<ins title="Changed period after parents to a comma.">parents,</ins>
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">176</a></span>
+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."
+<a href="#footer_14-12"><span class="superscript">[12]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00772" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_14-11" name="footer_14-11"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[11]</span>
+				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.<br />
+				<a id="footer_14-12" name="footer_14-12"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[12]</span>
+				"Allant &agrave; l'oraison, je tressaillois en moi-m&ecirc;me,
+				et disois: Allons dans la solitude, mon cher amour, afin que je
+				vous embrasse &agrave; mon aise, et que, respirant mon &acirc;me
+				en vous, elle ne soit plus que vous-m&ecirc;me par union
+				d'amour.&hellip; Puis, mon corps &eacute;tant bris&eacute; de
+				fatigues, j'&eacute;tois 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.&hellip; Je le priois de me laisser agir; lui promettant
+				de me laisser apr&egrave;s cela consumer dans ses chastes et divins
+				embrassemens.&hellip; O amour! quand vous embrasserai-je?
+				N'avez-vous point piti&eacute; de moi dans le tourment que je
+				souffre? helas! helas! mon amour, ma beaut&eacute;, ma vie! au
+				lieu de me gu&eacute;rir, vous vous plaisez &agrave; mes maux.
+				Venez donc que je vous embrasse, et que je meure entre vos bras
+				sacr&eacute;z!"</p>
+   <p id="id00773">
+	      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
+				Abb&eacute; Casgrain, refrains from quoting them, though he mentions
+				them approvingly as evincing fervor.  The Abb&eacute; Racine, in his
+				<i>Discours &agrave; l'Occasion du
+				192<span class="superscript">&egrave;me</span> Anniversaire de
+				l'heureuse Mort de la V&eacute;n. M&egrave;re de l'Incarnation</i>,
+				delivered at Quebec in 1864, speaks of them as transcendent proofs of
+				the supreme favor of Heaven.&mdash;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.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00774">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">177</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00775">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">178</a></span>
+favorite confessor,
+her oracle, guide, and comforter, had lately been taken from her by
+promotion in the Church,&mdash;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.
+<a href="#footer_14-13"><span class="superscript">[13]</span></a>
+Two years elapsed before
+her mind recovered its tone, when she soared once more in the seventh
+heaven of imaginative devotion.</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00776" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_14-13" name="footer_14-13"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[13]</span>
+				Casgrain, 195-197. <br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00777">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">179</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00778">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">180</a></span>
+of the convent
+which Madame de la Peltrie was about to endow at Quebec.
+<a href="#footer_14-14"><span class="superscript">[14]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00779" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_14-14" name="footer_14-14"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[14]</span>
+				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.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00780">
+Yet it was from heaven itself that Marie de l'Incarnation received her
+first "vocation" to Canada.  The miracle was in this wise.</p>
+
+<p id="id00781">
+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.
+<a href="#footer_14-15"><span class="superscript">[15]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_14-15" name="footer_14-15"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[15]</span>
+				Marie de l'Incarnation recounts this dream at great length in
+				her letters; and Casgrain copies the whole, <i>verbatim</i>,
+				as a revelation from God. <br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00782">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">181</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00783">
+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 H&ocirc;tel-Dieu, endowed by the famous niece of Richelieu,
+the Duchesse d'Aiguillon.
+<a href="#footer_14-16"><span class="superscript">[16]</span></a>
+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,&mdash;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">182</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_14-16" name="footer_14-16"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[16]</span>
+				Juchereau, <i>Histoire de l'H&ocirc;tel-Dieu de
+				Qu&eacute;bec</i>, 4. <br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00784">
+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.
+<a href="#footer_14-17"><span class="superscript">[17]</span></a>
+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.</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00785" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_14-17" name="footer_14-17"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[17]</span>
+				Juchereau, 14; Le Clerc, II. 33; Ragueneau, <i>Vie
+				de Catherine de St. Augustin</i>, "Epistre
+				d&eacute;dicatoire;" Le Jeune, <i>Relation, 1639</i>,
+				Chap. II.; Charlevoix, <i>Vie de Marie de
+				l'Incarnation</i>, 264; "Acte de Reception,"
+				in <i>Les Ursulines de Qu&eacute;bec</i>, I. 21.
+				<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00786">
+Noel Brulart de Sillery, a Knight of Malta, who had once filled the
+highest offices under the Queen Marie de M&eacute;dicis, had now severed his
+connection
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">183</a></span>
+with his Order, renounced the world, and become a priest.
+He devoted his vast revenues&mdash;for a dispensation of the Pope had freed
+him from his vow of poverty&mdash;to the founding of religious establishments.
+<a href="#footer_14-18"><span class="superscript">[18]</span></a>
+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,&mdash;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."
+<a href="#footer_14-19"><span class="superscript">[19]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00787" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_14-18" name="footer_14-18"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[18]</span>
+				See <i>Vie de l'Illustre Serviteur de Dieu Noel
+				Brulart de Sillery</i>; also <i>&Eacute;tudes et
+				Recherches Bioqraphiques sur le Chevalier Noel
+				Brulart de Sillery</i>; and several documents in
+				Martin's translation of Bressani, Appendix IV.
+				<br />
+				<a id="footer_14-19" name="footer_14-19"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[19]</span>
+				"&hellip; sans prendre garde si ces petits enfans
+				sauvages estoient sales ou non; &hellip; la loy
+				d'amour et de charit&eacute; l'emportoit par dessus
+				toutes les considerations humaines."&mdash;<i>Relation,
+				1639</i>, 26 (Cramoisy).<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="id00789">
+The nuns of the H&ocirc;tel-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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">184</a></span>
+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,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00790">
+But how did these women bear themselves amid toils so arduous?  A
+pleasant record has come down to us of one of them,&mdash;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."
+<a href="#footer_14-20"><span class="superscript">[20]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_14-20" name="footer_14-20"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[20]</span>
+				<i>Lettre de la M&egrave;re S<span class="superscript">te</span>
+				Claire &agrave; une de ses S&oelig;urs Ursulines de
+				Paris. Qu&eacute;bec, 2 Sept.,
+				1640</i>.&mdash;See <i>Les Ursulines de Qu&eacute;bec</i>,
+				I. 38. <br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="id00791">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">185</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_14-21"><span class="superscript">[21]</span></a>
+ 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.
+<a href="#footer_14-22"><span class="superscript">[22]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_14-21" name="footer_14-21"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[21]</span>
+				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. <br />
+				<a id="footer_14-22" name="footer_14-22"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[22]</span>
+				Vimont, <i>Relation, 1642</i>, 112 (Cramoisy).<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+
+
+<p id="id00792">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">186</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_14-23"><span class="superscript">[23]</span></a>
+Protestants may see in her a Christian heroine, admirable, with
+all her follies and her faults.</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00793" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_14-23" name="footer_14-23"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[23]</span>
+				There is a letter extant from Sister Anne de
+				S<span class="superscript">te</span> 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, <i>Les Ursulines
+				de Qu&eacute;bec</i>, I. 38, where the passage is printed in
+				Italics, as worthy the especial attention of the pious
+				reader.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00794">
+The traditions of the Ursulines are full of the virtues of Madame de la
+Peltrie,&mdash;her humility, her charity, her penances, and her acts of
+mortification.  No doubt, with some little allowance, these
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">187</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_14-24"><span class="superscript">[24]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_14-24" name="footer_14-24"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[24]</span>
+				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. <br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="main" />
+<div class="chapterhead">
+   <br /><a name="Chapter_15" id="Chapter_15"></a>
+	 <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">188</a></span>
+	 <br /><br /><br />
+	 <h2 id="id00795"><a href="#Contents15">CHAPTER XV.</a><br />
+	 <span class="med">1636-1642.</span>
+	 </h2>
+	 <p id="id00796" class="smcapheader">VILLEMARIE DE MONTREAL.</p>
+	 <p id="id00797" class="noindent space-bottom">
+	          Dauversi&eacute;re and the Voice from Heaven &bull;
+						Abb&eacute; Olier &bull; Their Schemes &bull;
+						The Society of Notre-Dame de Montreal &bull;
+						Maisonneuve &bull; Devout Ladies &bull;
+						Mademoiselle Mance &bull; Marguerite
+						<ins title="Change Bourgeois to Bourgeoys.">Bourgeoys</ins> &bull;
+						The Montrealists at Quebec &bull; Jealousy &bull;
+						Quarrels &bull; Romance and Devotion &bull; Embarkation &bull;
+						Foundation of Montreal
+	 </p>
+	 <p class="break1"></p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="double-space-top" id="id00799">
+<span class="smcap">We</span> come now to an enterprise as singular in
+its character as it proved important in its results.</p>
+
+<p id="id00800">
+At La Fl&egrave;che, in Anjou, dwelt one J&eacute;r&ocirc;me le Royer de
+la Dauversi&egrave;re, receiver of taxes.  His portrait shows us a round,
+<i>bourgeois</i> 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 <i>noblesse</i>, his look is that of a grave burgher, of good
+renown and sage deportment.  Dauversi&egrave;re 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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">189</a></span>
+than twelve hundred sharp points, and invented for himself other
+torments, which filled his confessor with admiration.
+<a href="#footer_15-1"><span class="superscript">[1]</span></a>
+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 H&ocirc;tel-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.  Dauversi&egrave;re
+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.
+<a href="#footer_15-2"><span class="superscript">[2]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_15-1" name="footer_15-1"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[1]</span>
+				Fancamp in Faillon, <i>Vie de M<span class="superscript">lle</span>
+				Mance. Introduction.</i><br />
+				<a id="footer_15-2" name="footer_15-2"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[2]</span>
+				Faillon, <i>Vie de M<span class="superscript">lle</span> Mance,
+				Introduction</i>;
+				Dollier de Casson, <i>Hist. de Montreal</i>, MS.;
+				<i>Les V&eacute;ritables Motifs des Messieurs et
+				Dames de Montreal</i>, 25; Juchereau, 33. <br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00801">
+Again: there was at Paris a young priest, about twenty-eight years of
+age,&mdash;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 Abb&eacute;
+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,&mdash;a
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">190</a></span>
+suspicion
+strengthened by his opposition to certain priests, who, to secure the
+faithful in their allegiance, justified them in lives of licentiousness.
+<a href="#footer_15-3"><span class="superscript">[3]</span></a>
+Yet Olier's catholicity was past
+attaintment, and in his horror of Jansenists he yielded to the Jesuits
+alone.</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_15-3" name="footer_15-3"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[3]</span>
+				Faillon, <i>Vie de M. Olier</i>, II. 188. <br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+
+
+<p id="id00802">
+He was praying in the ancient church of St. Germain des Pr&eacute;s, when,
+like Dauversi&egrave;re, 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, <i>Lumen ad revelationem Gentium</i>;
+<a href="#footer_15-4"><span class="superscript">[4]</span></a>
+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 Dauversi&egrave;re 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.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00803" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_15-4" name="footer_15-4"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[4]</span>
+				<i>M&eacute;moires Autographes de M. Olier</i>,
+				cited by Faillon, in <i>Histoire de la Colonie
+				Fran&ccedil;aise</i>, I. 384.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00804">
+The annual volumes of the Jesuit <i>Relations</i>, issuing from the renowned
+press of Cramoisy, were
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">191</a></span>
+at this time spread broadcast throughout France;
+and, in the circles of <i>haute devotion</i>, 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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00805">
+Dauversi&egrave;re 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 be
+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 Dauversi&egrave;re 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, <i>Where can I find a faithful servant?</i>  On which,
+the Virgin, taking him (Dauversi&egrave;re) by the hand, replied,
+<i>See, Lord, here is that faithful servant!</i>&mdash;and Christ,
+with a benignant smile, received him into his service, promising to
+bestow on him wisdom and strength to do his work.
+<a href="#footer_15-5"><span class="superscript">[5]</span></a>
+From Paris he went to
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">192</a></span>
+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."
+<a href="#footer_15-6"><span class="superscript">[6]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_15-5" name="footer_15-5"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[5]</span>
+				Faillon, <i>Vie de M<span class="superscript">lle</span> Mance,
+				Introduction</i>, xxviii.
+				The Abb&eacute; Ferland, in his <i>Histoire du Canada</i>,
+				passes over the miracles in silence. <br />
+				<a id="footer_15-6" name="footer_15-6"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[6]</span>
+				Ibid., <i>La Colonie Fran&ccedil;aise</i>, I. 390.
+</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="id00806">
+"Monsieur," exclaimed Olier, "I know your design, and I go to commend it
+to God at the holy altar."</p>
+
+<p id="id00807">
+And he went at once to say mass in the chapel.  Dauversi&egrave;re 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 Dauversi&egrave;re a hundred
+louis, saying, "This is to begin the work of God."</p>
+
+<p id="id00808">
+They proposed to found at Montreal three religious
+communities,&mdash;<i>three</i> being the mystic number,&mdash;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">193</a></span>
+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; Dauversi&egrave;re 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.
+<a href="#footer_15-7"><span class="superscript">[7]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00809" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_15-7" name="footer_15-7"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[7]</span>
+				Dollier de Casson, <i>Histoire de Montreal</i>, MS.;
+				also Belmont, <i>Histoire du Canada</i>, 2.  Juchereau
+				doubles the sum.  Faillon agrees with Dollier.</p>
+    <p id="id00810">
+		    On all that relates to the early annals of Montreal
+				a flood of new light has been thrown by the Abb&eacute;
+				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 Abb&eacute; 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, <i>Histoire de
+				Montreal</i>, as cited above, is the most important.
+				The copy in my possession was made from the original
+				in the Mazarin Library.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+
+
+<p id="id00811">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">194</a></span>
+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,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00812">
+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.  Dauversi&egrave;re and Fancamp,
+after much diplomacy,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">195</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_15-8"><span class="superscript">[8]</span></a>
+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.
+Dauversi&egrave;re and his companions were now <i>seigneurs</i> 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.</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00813" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_15-8" name="footer_15-8"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[8]</span>
+				<i>Donation et Transport de la Concession de l'Isle
+				de Montreal par M. Jean de Lauzon aux Sieurs
+				Chevrier de Fouancant</i> (Fancamp) <i>et le Royer
+				de la Doversi&egrave;re</i>, MS.</p>
+    <p id="id00814">
+		    <i>Concession d'une Partie de l'Isle de Montreal
+				accord&eacute;e par la Compagnie de la Nouvelle
+				France aux Sieurs Chevrier et le Royer</i>, MS.</p>
+    <p id="id00815">
+		    <i>Lettres de Ratification</i>, MS.</p>
+    <p id="id00816">
+        <i>Acte qui prouve que les Sieurs Chevrier de
+				Fancamps et Royer de la Dauversi&egrave;re n'ont
+				stipul&eacute; qu'au nom de la Compagnie de
+				Montreal</i>, MS.</p>
+    <p id="id00817">
+		    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.
+				</p>
+		<p id="id00818">
+		   See also <i>Edits, Ordonnances Royaux</i>, etc.,
+			 I. 20-26 (Quebec, 1854).<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="id00819">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">196</a></span>
+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 Dauversi&egrave;re at
+La Fl&egrave;che, 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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00820">
+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.
+<a href="#footer_15-9"><span class="superscript">[9]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_15-9" name="footer_15-9"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[9]</span>
+				Faillon, <i>La Colonie Fran&ccedil;aise</i>, I. 409.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="id00821">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">197</a></span>
+Their scheme was ripening fast, when both Olier and Dauversi&egrave;re were
+assailed by one of those revulsions of spirit, to which saints of the
+ecstatic school are naturally liable.  Dauversi&egrave;re, 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 Fl&egrave;che?  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
+<a href="#footer_15-10"><span class="superscript">[10]</span></a>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_15-11"><span class="superscript">[11]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_15-10" name="footer_15-10"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[10]</span>
+				Faillon, <i>Vie de M<span class="superscript">lle</span> Mance,
+				Introduction</i>, xxxv.<br />
+				<a id="footer_15-11" name="footer_15-11"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[11]</span>
+				Faillon (<i>Vie de M. Olier</i>) devotes twenty-one pages
+				to the history of his fit of nervous depression.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00824">
+There was imperative need of more money; and Dauversi&egrave;re, 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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">198</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00825">
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00826">
+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.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">199</a></span>
+Of Marie
+de l'Incarnation we read, that at the age of seven Christ appeared to
+her in a vision;
+<a href="#footer_15-12"><span class="superscript">[12]</span></a>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_15-13"><span class="superscript">[13]</span></a>
+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 <i>Relations</i>, 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
+R&eacute;collet, 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;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">200</a></span>
+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 Dauversi&egrave;re 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 Dauversi&egrave;re."
+<a href="#footer_15-14"><span class="superscript">[14]</span></a>
+ 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."
+<a href="#footer_15-15"><span class="superscript">[15]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_15-12" name="footer_15-12"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[12]</span>
+				Casgrain, <i>Vie de Marie de l'Incarnation</i>, 78.<br />
+				<a id="footer_15-13" name="footer_15-13"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[13]</span>
+				Faillon, <i>Vie de M<span class="superscript">lle</span> Mance</i>,
+				I. 3.<br />
+				<a id="footer_15-14" name="footer_15-14"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[14]</span>
+				Faillon, <i>Vie de M<span class="superscript">lle</span> Mance</i>,
+				I. 18.
+				Here again the Abb&eacute; Ferland, with his usual
+				good sense, tacitly rejects the supernaturalism.<br />
+				<a id="footer_15-15" name="footer_15-15"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[15]</span>
+				La S&oelig;ur Morin, <i>Annales des Hospitali&egrave;res
+				de Villemarie</i>, MS., cited by Faillon.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00827">
+She had found her destiny.  The ocean, the wilderness, the solitude,
+the Iroquois,&mdash;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,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00828">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">201</a></span>
+All was ready; the ships set sail; but Olier, Dauversi&egrave;re, 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,
+<a href="#footer_15-16"><span class="superscript">[16]</span></a>
+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 <i>Villemarie de Montreal</i>,
+<a href="#footer_15-17"><span class="superscript">[17]</span></a>&mdash;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,&mdash;Olier, Dauversi&egrave;re,
+and a maiden of Troyes, Marguerite Bourgeoys: the seminary to be
+consecrated to Christ, the H&ocirc;tel-Dieu to St. Joseph, and the college to
+the Virgin.</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_15-16" name="footer_15-16"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[16]</span>
+				Dollier de Casson, A.D. 1641-42, MS.
+				Vimont says thirty five. <br />
+				<a id="footer_15-17" name="footer_15-17"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[17]</span>
+				Vimont, <i>Relation, 1642</i>, 37. Compare Le Clerc,
+				<i>&Eacute;tablissement de la Foy</i>, II. 49. <br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="id00829">
+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,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">202</a></span>
+when her
+religious susceptibilities had reached a fuller development, a few such
+are recorded of her, yet even the Abb&eacute; 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 <i>externe</i>, 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.
+<a href="#footer_15-18"><span class="superscript">[18]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_15-18" name="footer_15-18"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[18]</span>
+				For Marguerite Bourgeoys, see her life by Faillon.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00830">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">203</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_15-19"><span class="superscript">[19]</span></a>
+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!"
+<a href="#footer_15-20"><span class="superscript">[20]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_15-19" name="footer_15-19"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[19]</span>
+				Juchereau, 32; Faillon, <i>Colonie Fran&ccedil;aise</i>,
+				I. 423.<br />
+				<a id="footer_15-20" name="footer_15-20"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[20]</span>
+				La Tour, <i>M&eacute;moire de Laval</i>, Liv. VIII;
+				Belmont, <i>Histoire du Canada</i>, 3.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00831">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">204</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_15-21"><span class="superscript">[21]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_15-21" name="footer_15-21"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[21]</span>
+				 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
+				 <i>Hospitali&egrave;res</i> who had come over in 1639.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00832">
+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 <i>f&ecirc;te</i> 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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">205</a></span>
+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:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p id="id00833">
+"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."
+<a href="#footer_15-22"><span class="superscript">[22]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_15-22" name="footer_15-22"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[22]</span>
+				<i>Documents Divers</i>, MSS., now or lately in possession
+				of G. B. Faribault, Esq.; Ferland, <i>Notes sur les
+				Registres de N. D. de Qu&eacute;bec</i>, 25; Faillon, <i>La
+				Colonie Fran&ccedil;aise</i>, I. 433.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00834">
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00835">
+Early in May, Maisonneuve and his followers embarked.  They had gained an
+unexpected recruit
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">206</a></span>
+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&mdash;imputed by a slandering historian to the levity of her sex
+<a href="#footer_15-23"><span class="superscript">[23]</span></a>&mdash;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.
+<a href="#footer_15-24"><span class="superscript">[24]</span></a>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_15-25"><span class="superscript">[25]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_15-23" name="footer_15-23"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[23]</span>
+				La Tour, <i>M&eacute;moire de Laval</i>, Liv.  VIII.<br />
+				<a id="footer_15-24" name="footer_15-24"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[24]</span>
+				Charlevoix, <i>Vie de Marie de l'Incarnation</i>, 279;
+				Casgrain, <i>Vie de Marie de l'Incarnation</i>, 333.<br />
+				<a id="footer_15-25" name="footer_15-25"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[25]</span>
+				St. Thomas, <i>Life of Madame de la Peltrie</i>, 98.
+</p>
+</div>
+
+
+
+<p id="id00836">
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00837">
+What shall we say of these adventurers of Montreal,&mdash;of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">207</a></span>
+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,&mdash;breathing an atmosphere of miracle,&mdash;compassed about with
+angels and devils,&mdash;urged with stimulants most powerful, though
+unreal,&mdash;their minds drugged, as it were, to preternatural
+excitement,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00838">
+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 medi&aelig;val 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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00839">
+On the seventeenth of May, 1642, Maisonneuve's little flotilla&mdash;a pinnace,
+a flat-bottomed craft moved
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">208</a></span>
+by sails, and two row-boats
+<a href="#footer_15-26"><span class="superscript">[26]</span></a>&mdash;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.
+<a href="#footer_15-27"><span class="superscript">[27]</span></a>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_15-28"><span class="superscript">[28]</span></a>
+ It was a tongue or triangle of
+land, formed by the junction of a rivulet with the St. Lawrence, and
+known afterwards as Point Calli&egrave;re.  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.
+<a href="#footer_15-29"><span class="superscript">[29]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_15-26" name="footer_15-26"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[26]</span>
+				Dollier de Casson, A.D. 1641-42, MS.<br />
+				<a id="footer_15-27" name="footer_15-27"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[27]</span>
+				Le Clerc, II. 50, 51.<br />
+				<a id="footer_15-28" name="footer_15-28"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[28]</span>
+				"Pioneers of France," 333. It was the <i>Place Royale</i>
+				of Champlain.<br />
+				<a id="footer_15-29" name="footer_15-29"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[29]</span>
+				Dollier de Casson, A.D. 1641-42, MS.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="id00840">
+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 Barr&eacute;,
+decorated it with a taste which was the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">209</a></span>
+admiration of the beholders.
+<a href="#footer_15-30"><span class="superscript">[30]</span></a>
+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,&mdash;soldiers, sailors, artisans, and
+laborers,&mdash;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:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_15-30" name="footer_15-30"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[30]</span>
+				Morin, <i>Annales</i>, MS., cited by Faillon, <i>La
+				Colonie Fran&ccedil;aise</i>, I. 440; also Dollier de
+				Casson, A.D. 1641-42, MS.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00841">
+"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."
+<a href="#footer_15-31"><span class="superscript">[31]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+				<a id="footer_15-31" name="footer_15-31"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[31]</span>
+				Dollier de Casson, MS., <i>as above</i>.
+				Vimont, in the <i>Relation</i> of 1642, p. 37,
+				briefly mentions the ceremony.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00842">
+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.
+<a href="#footer_15-32"><span class="superscript">[32]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00843" class="noindent">
+				<a id="footer_15-32" name="footer_15-32"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[32]</span>
+				The Associates of Montreal published, in 1643, a thick
+				pamphlet in quarto, entitled <i>Les V&eacute;ritables
+				Motifs de Messieurs et Dames de la Soci&eacute;t&eacute;
+				de Notre-Dame de Montr&eacute;al, pour la Conversion des
+				Sauvages de la Nouvelle France</i>.  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:&mdash;</p>
+    <p id="id00844">
+		    <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">210</a></span>
+		    "Vous dites que l'entreprise de Montr&eacute;al est
+				d'une d&eacute;pense infinie, plus convenable &agrave; un
+				roi qu'&agrave; quelques particuliers, trop faibles pour la
+				soutenir; &amp; vous all&eacute;guez encore les p&eacute;rils
+				de la navigation &amp; les naufrages qui peuvent la ruiner.
+				Vous avez mieux rencontr&eacute; que vous ne pensiez, en
+				disant que c'est une &oelig;uvre de roi, puisque le Roi des rois
+				s'en m&ecirc;le, lui &agrave; qui ob&eacute;issent la mer
+				&amp; les vents.  Nous ne craignons donc pas les naufrages;
+				il n'en suscitera que lorsque nous en aurons besoin, &amp;
+				qu'il sera plus exp&eacute;dient pour sa gloire, que nous
+				cherchons uniquement.  Comment avez-vous pu mettre dans
+				votre esprit qu'appuy&eacute;s de nos propres forces, nous
+				eussions pr&eacute;sum&eacute; de penser &agrave; un si
+				glorieux dessein?  Si Dieu n'est point dans l'affaire de
+				Montr&eacute;al, si c'est une invention humaine, ne vous en
+				mettez point en peine, elle ne durera gu&egrave;re.  Ce que
+				vous pr&eacute;disez arrivera, &amp; quelque chose de pire
+				encore; mais si Dieu l'a ainsi voulu, qui &ecirc;tes-vous
+				pour lui contredire?  C'&eacute;tait la reflexion que le
+				docteur Gamaliel faisait aux Juifs, en faveur des
+				Ap&ocirc;tres; pour vous, qui ne pouvez ni croire, ni faire,
+				laissez les autres en libert&eacute; 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? o&ugrave; cela
+				est-il &eacute;crit?  J&eacute;sus-Christ assure, au contraire,
+				<i>que ceux qui auront autant de Foi qu'un grain de
+				senev&eacute;, feront, en son nom, des miracles
+				plus grands que ceux qu'il a faits lui-m&ecirc;me</i>.
+				Depuis quand &ecirc;tes-vous les directeurs des operations
+				divines, pour les r&eacute;duire &agrave; certains temps &amp;
+				dans la conduite ordinaire?  Tant de saints mouvements,
+				d'inspirations &amp; de vues int&eacute;rieures, qu'il lui
+				pla&icirc;t de donner &agrave; quelques &acirc;mes dont il se
+				sert pour l'avancement de cette &oelig;uvre, sont des marques
+				de son bon plaisir.  Jusqu'-ici, il a pourvu au n&eacute;cessaire;
+				nous ne voulons point d'abondance, &amp; nous esp&eacute;rons
+				que sa Providence continuera." <br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00845">
+   Is this true history, or a romance of Christian chivalry?  It is both.
+</p>
+
+<hr class="main" />
+<div class="chapterhead">
+   <br /><a name="Chapter_16" id="Chapter_16"></a>
+	 <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">211</a></span>
+	 <br /><br /><br />
+	 <h2 id="id00846"><a href="#Contents16">CHAPTER XVI.</a><br />
+	 <span class="med">1641-1644.</span>
+	 </h2>
+	 <p id="id00847" class="smcapheader">ISAAC JOGUES.</p>
+	 <p id="id00848" class="noindent space-bottom">
+	          The Iroquois War &bull; Jogues &bull;
+						His Capture &bull; His Journey to the Mohawks &bull;
+						Lake George &bull; The Mohawk Towns &bull;
+						The Missionary Tortured &bull; Death of Goupil &bull;
+						Misery of Jogues &bull; The Mohawk "Babylon" &bull;
+						Fort Orange &bull; Escape of Jogues &bull;
+						Manhattan &bull; The Voyage to France &bull;
+						Jogues among his Brethren &bull; He returns to Canada
+	 </p>
+	 <p class="break1"></p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="double-space-top" id="id00850">
+<span class="smcap">The</span> 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,&mdash;at
+Quebec, at Montreal, and at Three Rivers.  Here and in the scattered
+missions was the whole of New France,&mdash;a population of some three
+hundred souls in all.  And now, over these miserable settlements, rose
+a war-cloud of frightful portent.</p>
+
+<p id="id00851">
+It was thirty-two years since Champlain had first attacked the Iroquois.
+<a href="#footer_16-1"><span class="superscript">[1]</span></a>
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">212</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_16-2"><span class="superscript">[2]</span></a>
+They were masters of the thunderbolts which, in the hands of Champlain,
+had struck terror into their hearts.</p>
+
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00852" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_16-1" name="footer_16-1"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[1]</span>
+				See "Pioneers of France," 318.<br />
+				<a id="footer_16-2" name="footer_16-2"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[2]</span>
+				Vimont, <i>Relation, 1643</i>, 62.  The Mohawks were the
+				Agni&eacute;s, or Agneronons, of the old French writers.</p>
+    <p id="id00853">
+		    According to the <i>Journal of New Netherland</i>, a contemporary
+				Dutch document, (see <i>Colonial Documents of New York</i>, 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. <br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="id00854">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">213</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00855">In the early morning of the second of August, 1642,
+<a href="#footer_16-3"><span class="superscript">[3]</span></a>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_16-4"><span class="superscript">[4]</span></a>
+He was now on his return from a far more perilous errand.
+The Huron mission was in a state of destitution.  There was need
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">214</a></span>
+of clothing for the priests, of vessels for the altars, of bread and wine
+for the eucharist, of writing materials,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_16-3" name="footer_16-3"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[3]</span>
+				For the date, see Lalemant, <i>Relation des Hurons,
+				1647</i>, 18.<br />
+				<a id="footer_16-4" name="footer_16-4"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[4]</span>
+				Lalemant, <i>Relation des Hurons, 1642</i>, 97.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="id00856">
+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.
+<a href="#footer_16-5"><span class="superscript">[5]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00857" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_16-5" name="footer_16-5"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[5]</span>
+				Buteux, <i>Narr&eacute; de la Prise du P&egrave;re Jogues</i>,
+				MS.; <i>M&eacute;moire touchant le P&egrave;re Jogues</i>,
+				MS.</p>
+    <p id="id00858">
+		    There is a portrait of him prefixed to Mr. Shea's admirable
+				edition in quarto of Jogues's <i>Novum Belgium.</i><br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00859">
+With him were two young men, Ren&eacute; Goupil and Guillaume Couture,
+<i>donn&eacute;s</i> of the mission,&mdash;that
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">215</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_16-6"><span class="superscript">[6]</span></a>
+His companion, Couture, was a man of intelligence and vigor, and of a
+character equally disinterested.
+<a href="#footer_16-7"><span class="superscript">[7]</span></a>
+Both were, like Jogues, in the foremost canoes; while the fourth
+Frenchman was with the unconverted Hurons, in the rear.</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_16-6" name="footer_16-6"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[6]</span>
+				Jogues, <i>Notice sur Ren&eacute; Goupil</i>.<br />
+				<a id="footer_16-7" name="footer_16-7"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[7]</span>
+				For an account of him, see Ferland, <i>Notes sur les
+				Registres de N. D. de Qu&eacute;bec</i>, 83 (1863).<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="id00860">
+The twelve canoes had reached the western end of the Lake of St. Peter,
+where it is filled with innumerable islands.
+<a href="#footer_16-8"><span class="superscript">[8]</span></a>
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">216</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_16-8" name="footer_16-8"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[8]</span>
+				Buteux, <i>Narr&eacute; de le Prise du P&egrave;re Jogues</i>,
+				MS.  This document leaves no doubt as to the locality. <br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00861">
+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,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">217</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_16-9"><span class="superscript">[9]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00862" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_16-9" name="footer_16-9"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[9]</span>
+				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 <i>Societas Jesu Militans</i> of Tanner,
+				and in the <i>Mortes Illustres et Gesta eorum de Societate Jesu</i>,
+				etc., of Alegambe. There is a French translation in Martin's Bressani,
+				and an English translation, by Mr. Shea, in the <i>New York Hist.
+				Coll.</i> of 1857.  The second document is an old manuscript, entitled
+				<i>Narr&eacute; de la Prise du P&egrave;re Jogues</i>.  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 <i>Relation des Hurons</i>
+				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. <br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00863">
+Their course was southward, up the River Richelieu and Lake Champlain;
+thence, by way of Lake
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">218</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00864">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">219</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_16-10"><span class="superscript">[10]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00865" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_16-10" name="footer_16-10"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[10]</span>
+				Lake George, according to Jogues, was called by the Mohawks
+				"Andiatarocte," or <i>Place where the Lake closes</i>.
+				"Andiataraque" is found on a map of Sanson.  Spofford,
+				<i>Gazetteer of New York</i>, article "Lake George," says
+				that it was called "Canideri-oit,"  or <i>Tail of the Lake</i>.
+				Father Martin, in his notes on Bressani, prefixes to this
+				name that of "Horicon," but gives no original authority.</p>
+    <p id="id00866">
+        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,
+				<i>A Treatise of New England</i>, the "Lake of Hierocoyes" is laid
+				down.  The name "Horicon," as used by Cooper in his
+				<i>Last of the Mohicans</i>, seems to have no sufficient historical
+				foundation. In 1646, the lake, as we shall see, was named
+				"Lac St. Sacrement." <br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00867">
+Again the canoes were launched, and the wild flotilla glided on its
+way,&mdash;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,&mdash;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">220</a></span>
+where at length the summer night was hideous with carnage,
+and an honored name was stained with a memory of blood.
+<a href="#footer_16-11"><span class="superscript">[11]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00868" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_16-11" name="footer_16-11"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[11]</span>
+				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. <br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00869">
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00870">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">221</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_16-12"><span class="superscript">[12]</span></a>
+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.</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_16-12" name="footer_16-12"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[12]</span>
+        This practice of forcing prisoners to "run the gauntlet"
+				was by no means peculiar to the Iroquois, but was common
+				to many tribes. <br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00871">
+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!"&mdash;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">222</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00872">
+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,
+<a href="#footer_16-13"><span class="superscript">[13]</span></a>
+suffering at each a repetition of cruelties, the detail of
+which would be as monotonous as revolting.</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00873" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_16-13" name="footer_16-13"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[13]</span>
+        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 <i>Sketch of the Mohawks</i>, writes the names,
+				Asseru&eacute;, 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, <i>League of the Iroquois</i>.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="id00874">
+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.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">223</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00875">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">224</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00876">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">225</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_16-14"><span class="superscript">[14]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_16-14" name="footer_16-14"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[14]</span>
+        Jogues in Tanner, <i>Societas Militans</i>, 519; Bressani,
+				216; Lalemant, <i>Relation, 1647</i>, 25, 26; Buteux,
+				<i>Narr&eacute;</i>, MS.; Jogues, <i>Notice sur Ren&eacute;
+				Goupil</i>. <br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+
+
+<p id="id00877">
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00878">
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00879">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">226</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_16-15"><span class="superscript">[15]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_16-15" name="footer_16-15"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[15]</span>
+        Lalemant, <i>Relation, 1647</i>, 41.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00880">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">227</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00881">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">228</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00882">
+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.
+<a href="#footer_16-16"><span class="superscript">[16]</span></a>
+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.</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00883" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_16-16" name="footer_16-16"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[16]</span>
+        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."  (<i>Short
+				Sketch of the Mohawk Indians.</i>) This feast was of a religious
+				character. <br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00884">
+At the end of July, he went with a party of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">229</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00885">
+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.
+<a href="#footer_16-17"><span class="superscript">[17]</span></a>
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">230</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_16-18"><span class="superscript">[18]</span></a>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_16-19"><span class="superscript">[19]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00886" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_16-17" name="footer_16-17"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[17]</span>
+        The site of the Ph&oelig;nix Hotel.&mdash;<i>Note by Mr. Shea
+				to Jogues's Novum Belgium</i>. <br />
+        <a id="footer_16-18" name="footer_16-18"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[18]</span>
+				Jogues, <i>Novum Belgium</i>; Barnes, <i>Settlement of Albany</i>,
+				50-55; O'Callaghan, <i>New Netherland</i>, Chap. VI.</p>
+    <p id="id00887">
+		    On the relations of the Mohawks and Dutch, see Megapolensis,
+				<i>Short Sketch of the Mohawk Indians</i>, and portions of
+				the letter of Jogues to his Superior, dated Rensselaerswyck,
+				Aug. 30, 1643.</p>
+	 <p class="noindent">
+				<a id="footer_16-19" name="footer_16-19"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[19]</span>
+        See a long letter of Arendt Van Curler (Corlaer) to Van Rensselaer,
+				June 16, 1643, in O'Callaghan's <i>New Netherland</i>, Appendix L.
+				"We persuaded them so far," writes Van Curler, "that they promised
+				not to kill them.&hellip; 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."<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="id00889">
+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.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">231</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_16-20"><span class="superscript">[20]</span></a>
+ 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,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_16-20" name="footer_16-20"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[20]</span>
+        See a French rendering of the letter in Vimont,
+				<i>Relation, 1643</i>, p. 75. <br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00890">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">232</a></span>
+He spent the night in great agitation, tossed by doubt, and full of
+anxiety lest his self-love should beguile him from his duty.
+<a href="#footer_16-21"><span class="superscript">[21]</span></a>
+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.</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_16-21" name="footer_16-21"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[21]</span>
+        Buteux, <i>Narr&eacute;</i>, MS. <br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="id00891">
+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.
+<a href="#footer_16-22"><span class="superscript">[22]</span></a>
+As he is
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">233</a></span>
+described as one of the principal persons of the colony,
+it is clear that the civilization of Rensselaerswyck was not high.</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_16-22" name="footer_16-22"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[22]</span>
+        Buteux, <i>Narr&eacute;</i>, MS. <br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00892">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">234</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00893">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">235</a></span>
+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."
+<a href="#footer_16-23"><span class="superscript">[23]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_16-23" name="footer_16-23"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[23]</span>
+        Megapolensis, <i>A Short Sketch of the Mohawk Indians</i>. <br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00894">
+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.
+<a href="#footer_16-24"><span class="superscript">[24]</span></a>
+ 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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">236</a></span>
+were spoken at Manhattan.
+<a href="#footer_16-25"><span class="superscript">[25]</span></a>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_16-26"><span class="superscript">[26]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_16-24" name="footer_16-24"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[24]</span>
+        <i>Lettre de Jogues &agrave; Lalemant, Rennes, Jan. 6,
+				1644</i>.&mdash;See <i>Relation, 1643</i>, p. 79.&mdash;Goods
+				were given the Indians to the value of three hundred
+				livres. <br />
+				<a id="footer_16-25" name="footer_16-25"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[25]</span>
+        Jogues, <i>Novum Belgium</i>. <br />
+				<a id="footer_16-26" name="footer_16-26"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[26]</span>
+				This war was with Algonquin tribes of the
+				neighborhood.&mdash;See O'Callaghan, <i>New
+				Netherland</i>, I., Chap. III.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00895">
+<a id="id00895a" name="id00895a"></a>
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">237</a></span>
+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
+<ins title="Changed to early mass in later volumes.">
+for the evening mass,</ins> 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,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00896">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">238</a></span>
+Jesuits of France.
+A letter from Jogues, written during his captivity, had already reached
+France, as had also the Jesuit <i>Relation</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00897">
+"I knew him very well," was the reply.</p>
+
+<p id="id00898">
+"The Iroquois have taken him," pursued the Rector.  "Is he dead?  Have
+they murdered him?"</p>
+
+<p id="id00899">
+"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.
+</p>
+
+<p id="id00900">
+That night was a night of jubilation and thanksgiving in the college of
+Rennes.
+<a href="#footer_16-27"><span class="superscript">[27]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00901" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_16-27" name="footer_16-27"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[27]</span>
+        For Jogues's arrival in Brittany, see <i>Lettre de Jogues &agrave;
+				Lalemant, Rennes, Jan. 6, 1644; Lettre de Jogues
+				&agrave;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;, Rennes, Jan. 5, 1644</i>,
+				(in <i>Relation, 1643</i>,) and the long account in the
+				<i>Relation</i> of 1647.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00902">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">239</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<hr class="main" />
+<div class="chapterhead">
+   <br /><a name="Chapter_17" id="Chapter_17"></a>
+	 <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">240</a></span>
+	 <br /><br /><br />
+	 <h2 id="id00903"><a href="#Contents17">CHAPTER XVII.</a><br />
+	 <span class="med">1641-1646.</span>
+	 </h2>
+	 <p id="id00904" class="smcapheader">THE IROQUOIS&mdash;BRESSANI&mdash;DE NOU&Euml;.</p>
+	 <p id="id00905" class="noindent space-bottom">
+	          War &bull; Distress and Terror &bull; Richelieu &bull;
+						Battle &bull; Ruin of Indian Tribes &bull;
+						Mutual Destruction &bull; Iroquois and Algonquin &bull;
+						Atrocities &bull; Frightful Position of the French &bull;
+						Joseph Bressani &bull; His Capture &bull;
+						His Treatment &bull; His Escape &bull;
+						Anne de Nou&euml; &bull; His Nocturnal Journey &bull;
+						His Death
+	 </p>
+	 <p class="break1"></p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="double-space-top" id="id00906">
+<span class="smcap">Two</span> 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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00907">
+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,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">241</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00908">
+"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."</p>
+
+<p id="id00909">
+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.
+<a href="#footer_17-1"><span class="superscript">[1]</span></a>
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">242</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00910" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_17-1" name="footer_17-1"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[1]</span>
+				Bressani, when a prisoner among them, writes to this effect
+				in a letter to his Superior.&mdash;See <i>Relation
+				Abr&eacute;g&eacute;e</i>, 131.</p>
+		<p id="id00911">
+		    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.&mdash;<i>Relation, 1660</i>, 6.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00912">
+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 Fran&ccedil;ois
+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.
+<a href="#footer_17-2"><span class="superscript">[2]</span></a>
+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.</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_17-2" name="footer_17-2"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[2]</span>
+				During his captivity, he wrote, on a beaver-skin,
+				a letter to the Dutch in French, Latin, and English.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00913">
+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.
+<a href="#footer_17-3"><span class="superscript">[3]</span></a>
+Ten times the number
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">243</a></span>
+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,
+<a href="#footer_17-4"><span class="superscript">[4]</span></a>
+sailed for the Richelieu,
+in a brigantine and two or three open boats.</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_17-3" name="footer_17-3"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[3]</span>
+				Faillon, <i>Colonie Fran&ccedil;aise</i>, II. 2;
+				Vimont, <i>Relation, 1642</i>, 2, 44.<br />
+				<a id="footer_17-4" name="footer_17-4"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[4]</span>
+				Marie de l'Incarnation, <i>Lettre, Sept. 29, 1642.</i><br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00914">
+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.
+<a href="#footer_17-5"><span class="superscript">[5]</span></a>
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">244</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_17-6"><span class="superscript">[6]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00915" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_17-5" name="footer_17-5"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[5]</span>
+				Vimont, <i>Relation, 1642</i>, 52.</p>
+    <p id="id00916">
+		    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.<br />
+				<a id="footer_17-6" name="footer_17-6"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[6]</span>
+				The <i>Relation</i> of 1642 says three hundred.  Jogues,
+				who had been among them to his cost, is the better authority.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="id00917">
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00918">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">245</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_17-7"><span class="superscript">[7]</span></a>
+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.</p>
+
+<div id="id00919" class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_17-7" name="footer_17-7"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[7]</span>
+				Vimont, <i>Relation, 1642</i>, 50, 51.</p>
+	  <p id="id00920">
+		    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.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="id00921">
+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,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">246</a></span>
+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."
+<a href="#footer_17-8"><span class="superscript">[8]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_17-8" name="footer_17-8"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[8]</span>
+				<i>Relation, 1644</i>, 3.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="id00922">
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00923">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">247</a></span>
+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."
+<a href="#footer_17-9"><span class="superscript">[9]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_17-9" name="footer_17-9"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[9]</span>
+				Vimont, <i>Relation, 1642</i>, 46.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00924">
+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."
+<a href="#footer_17-10"><span class="superscript">[10]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_17-10" name="footer_17-10"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[10]</span>
+				Vimont, <i>Relation, 1642</i>, 45.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00925">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">248</a></span>
+told her story to Father
+Buteux, who translated it into French, and gave it to Vimont to be
+printed in the <i>Relation</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00926">
+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.
+<a href="#footer_17-11"><span class="superscript">[11]</span></a>
+At the Fall of the Chaudi&egrave;re, 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.</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_17-11" name="footer_17-11"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[11]</span>
+				Vimont, <i>Relation, 1642</i>, 46.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00927">
+On the morrow, they entered the town, leading
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">249</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_17-12"><span class="superscript">[12]</span></a>
+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.</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00928" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_17-12" name="footer_17-12"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[12]</span>
+				"Cette pauure creature qui s'est sauu&eacute;e, 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."&mdash;Buteux in <i>Relation, 1642</i>,
+				47.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00929">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">250</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_17-13"><span class="superscript">[13]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00930" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_17-13" name="footer_17-13"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[13]</span>
+				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.
+<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00931">
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00932">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">251</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00933">
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00934">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">252</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00935">
+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.
+<a href="#footer_17-14"><span class="superscript">[14]</span></a>
+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.</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_17-14" name="footer_17-14"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[14]</span>
+				Vimont, <i>Relation, 1644</i>, 41.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00936">
+On the fifteenth of July following, Bressani wrote from the Iroquois
+country to the General of the Jesuits at Rome:&mdash;"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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">253</a></span>
+gunpowder mixed with water, and his table is the earth."
+<a href="#footer_17-15"><span class="superscript">[15]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_17-15" name="footer_17-15"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[15]</span>
+				This letter is printed anonymously in the Second Part, Chap. II,
+				of Bressani's <i>Relation Abr&eacute;g&eacute;e</i>.  A comparison
+				with Vimont's account, in the <i>Relation</i> of 1644, makes its
+				authorship apparent.  Vimont's narrative agrees in all essential
+				points.  His informant was "vne personne digne de foy, qui a
+				est&eacute; tesmoin oculaire de tout ce qu'il a souffert pendant
+				sa captiuit&eacute;."&mdash;Vimont, <i>Relation, 1644</i>, 43.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00937">
+Then follows a modest narrative of what he 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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">254</a></span>
+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."
+<a href="#footer_17-16"><span class="superscript">[16]</span></a>
+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!"&mdash;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,&mdash;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.
+<a href="#footer_17-17"><span class="superscript">[17]</span></a>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">255</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00938" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_17-16" name="footer_17-16"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[16]</span>
+				"Ils me r&eacute;p&eacute;taient sans cesse: Nous te
+				br&ucirc;lerons; nous te mangerons;&mdash;je te mangerai
+				un pied;&mdash;et moi, une main," etc.&mdash;Bressani,
+				in <i>Relation Abr&eacute;g&eacute;e</i>, 137.<br />
+				<a id="footer_17-17" name="footer_17-17"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[17]</span>
+				"Chaque nuit apr&egrave;s m'avoir fait chanter, et m'avoir
+				tourment&eacute; comme ie l'ai dit, ils passaient environ
+				un quart d'heure &agrave; me br&ucirc;ler un ongle ou un
+				doigt.  Il ne m'en reste maintenant qu'un seul entier, et
+				encore ils en ont arrach&eacute; l'ongle avec les dents.
+				Un soir ils m'enlevaient un ongle, le lendemain la
+				premi&egrave;re phalange, le jour suivant la seconde. En
+				six fois, ils en br&ucirc;l&egrave;rent presque six.  Aux
+				mains seules, ils m'ont appliqu&eacute; le feu et le fer
+				plus de 18 fois, et i'&eacute;tais oblig&eacute; de chanter
+				pendant ce supplice.  Ils ne cessaient de me tourmenter
+				qu'&agrave; une ou deux heures de la nuit."&mdash;Bressani,
+				<i>Relation Abr&eacute;g&eacute;e</i>, 122.</p>
+   <p id="id00939">
+	      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 <i>Relation</i> of 1660:
+				"Ie ferois rougir ce papier, et les oreilles fr&eacute;miroient,
+				si ie rapportois les horribles traitemens que les Agnieronnons"
+				(<i>the Mohawk nation of the Iroquois</i>) "ont faits sur quelques
+				captifs."  He adds, that past ages have never heard of
+				such.&mdash;<i>Relation, 1660</i>, 7, 8.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00940">
+At length they left this encampment, and, after a march of several
+days,&mdash;during which Bressani, in wading a rocky stream, fell from
+exhaustion and was nearly drowned,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00941">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">256</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_17-18"><span class="superscript">[18]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00942" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_17-18" name="footer_17-18"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[18]</span>
+				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.&mdash;Ragueneau,
+				<i>Relation des Hurons, 1646</i>, 73.</p>
+    <p id="id00943">
+		    On Bressani, besides the authorities cited, see Du Creux,
+				<i>Historia Canadensis</i>, 399-403; Juchereau, <i>Histoire
+				de l'H&ocirc;tel-Dieu</i>, 53; and Martin, <i>Biographie du
+				P. Fran&ccedil;ois-Joseph Bressani</i>, prefixed to the
+				<i>Relation Abr&eacute;g&eacute;e</i>.</p>
+    <p id="id00944">
+		    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 <i>Relation
+				Abr&eacute;g&eacute;e</i>.<br />
+    </p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00945">
+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,
+<a href="#footer_17-19"><span class="superscript">[19]</span></a>
+and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">257</a></span>
+conspired with their native fierceness
+to form a character of unrelenting cruelty rarely equalled.</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00946" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_17-19" name="footer_17-19"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[19]</span>
+				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.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00947">
+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 Nou&euml; 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 Nou&euml; was sixty-three years old, and had come to
+Canada in 1625.
+<a href="#footer_17-20"><span class="superscript">[20]</span></a>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_17-21"><span class="superscript">[21]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_17-20" name="footer_17-20"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[20]</span>
+				See "Pioneers of France," 393.<br />
+				<a id="footer_17-21" name="footer_17-21"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[21]</span>
+				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.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00948">
+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,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">258</a></span>
+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,&mdash;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 Nou&euml; 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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00949">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">259</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00950">
+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 Nou&euml;.  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 Nou&euml;, 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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00951">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">260</a></span>
+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,&mdash;perhaps weakness had dimmed his sight,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00952">
+Thus, in an act of kindness and charity, died the first martyr of the
+Canadian mission.
+<a href="#footer_17-22"><span class="superscript">[22]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00953" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_17-22" name="footer_17-22"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[22]</span>
+				Lalemant, <i>Relation, 1646</i>, 9; Marie de
+				l'Incarnation, <i>Lettre, 10 Sept., 1646</i>;
+				Bressani, <i>Relation Abr&eacute;g&eacute;e</i>, 175.</p>
+    <p id="id00954">
+		    One of the Indians who found the body of De Nou&euml; was
+				killed by the Iroquois at Ossossan&eacute;, 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.&mdash;<i>Lettre de Chaumonot &agrave; Lalemant, 1
+				Juin, 1649</i>.</p>
+    <p id="id00955">
+		    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
+				<i>Relation</i> 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.<br />
+    </p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="main" />
+<div class="chapterhead">
+   <br /><a name="Chapter_18" id="Chapter_18"></a>
+	 <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">261</a></span>
+	 <br /><br /><br />
+	 <h2 id="id00956"><a href="#Contents18">CHAPTER XVIII.</a><br />
+	 <span class="med">1642-1644.</span>
+	 </h2>
+	 <p id="id00957" class="smcapheader">VILLEMARIE.</p>
+	 <p id="id00958" class="noindent space-bottom">
+	          Infancy of Montreal &bull; The Flood &bull;
+						Vow of Maisonneuve &bull; Pilgrimage &bull;
+						D'Ailleboust &bull; The H&ocirc;tel-Dieu &bull; Piety &bull;
+						Propagandism &bull; War &bull; Hurons and Iroquois &bull;
+						Dogs &bull; Sally of the French &bull; Battle &bull;
+						Exploit of Maisonneuve
+	 </p>
+	 <p class="break1"></p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="double-space-top" id="id00960">
+<span class="smcap">Let</span> 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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00961">
+In the morning they all fell to their work, Maisonneuve hewing down the
+first tree,&mdash;and labored with such good-will, that their tents were soon
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">262</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00962">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.
+<a href="#footer_18-1"><span class="superscript">[1]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_18-1" name="footer_18-1"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[1]</span>
+				Dollier de Casson, MS. <br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00963">
+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."
+<a href="#footer_18-2"><span class="superscript">[2]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_18-2" name="footer_18-2"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[2]</span>
+				Vimont, <i>Relation, 1642</i>, 38.  Compare Le Clerc,
+				<i>Premier Etablissement de la Foy</i>, II. 51.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="id00964">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">263</a></span>
+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 href="#footer_18-3"><span class="superscript">[3]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00965" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_18-3" name="footer_18-3"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[3]</span>
+				A little MS. map in M. Jacques Viger's copy of
+				<i>Le Petit Registre de la Cure de Montreal</i>,
+				lays down the position and shape of the fort at
+				this time, and shows the spot where Maisonneuve
+				planted the cross.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00966">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">264</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_18-4"><span class="superscript">[4]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_18-4" name="footer_18-4"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[4]</span>
+				Vimont, <i>Relation, 1643</i>, 52, 53.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00967">
+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.
+<a href="#footer_18-5"><span class="superscript">[5]</span></a>
+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.</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_18-5" name="footer_18-5"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[5]</span>
+				<i>V&eacute;ritables Motifs</i>, cited by Faillon, I.
+				453, 454. <br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00968">
+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.
+<a href="#footer_18-6"><span class="superscript">[6]</span></a>
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">265</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_18-7"><span class="superscript">[7]</span></a>
+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.</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00969" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_18-6" name="footer_18-6"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[6]</span>
+				Chaulmer, 101; Juchereau, 91.<br />
+				<a id="footer_18-7" name="footer_18-7"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[7]</span>
+				Juchereau, <i>Histoire de l'H&ocirc;tel-Dieu de
+				Qu&eacute;bec</i>, 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.
+				<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00970">
+Their vessel passed in safety the Iroquois who
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">266</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_18-8"><span class="superscript">[8]</span></a>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_18-9"><span class="superscript">[9]</span></a>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_18-10"><span class="superscript">[10]</span></a>
+There was no room in
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">267</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00971" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_18-8" name="footer_18-8"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[8]</span>
+				<i>Archives du S&eacute;minaire de Villemarie</i>,
+				cited by Faillon, I. 466.  The amount of the gift
+				was not declared until the next year. <br />
+				<a id="footer_18-9" name="footer_18-9"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[9]</span>
+				Mademoiselle Mance wrote to her, to urge that the money
+				should be devoted to the Huron mission; but she absolutely
+				refused.&mdash;Dollier de Casson, MS.<br />
+				<a id="footer_18-10" name="footer_18-10"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[10]</span>
+				<i>Journal des Sup&eacute;rieurs des
+				J&eacute;suites</i>, MS.</p>
+    <p id="id00972">
+		    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 <i>arpents</i> in
+				extent.&mdash;<i>Archives du S&eacute;minaire de Villemarie</i>,
+				cited by Faillon.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00973">
+Dauversi&egrave;re, 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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00974">
+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.
+<a href="#footer_18-11"><span class="superscript">[11]</span></a>
+The
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">268</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_18-12"><span class="superscript">[12]</span></a>
+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,&mdash;a crafty and intractable savage, whom,
+to their own surprise, they succeeded in taming and winning to the Faith.
+<a href="#footer_18-13"><span class="superscript">[13]</span></a>
+He was christened with the name of Paul, and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">269</a></span>
+his squaw with that of Madeleine.  Maisonneuve
+rewarded him with a gun, and celebrated the day by a feast to all the
+Indians present.
+<a href="#footer_18-14"><span class="superscript">[14]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00975" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_18-11" name="footer_18-11"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[11]</span>
+				Morin, <i>Annales de l'H&ocirc;tel-Dieu de St. Joseph</i>, MS.,
+				cited by Faillon, I. 457.<br />
+				<a id="footer_18-12" name="footer_18-12"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[12]</span>
+				Marguerite Bourgeoys, <i>&Eacute;crits Autographes</i>, MS.,
+				extracts in Faillon, I. 458.<br />
+				<a id="footer_18-13" name="footer_18-13"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[13]</span>
+				Vimont, <i>Relation, 1643</i>, 54, 55.  Tessouat was chief of
+				Allumette Island, in the Ottawa.  His predecessor, of the same
+				name, was Champlain's host in 1613.&mdash;See "Pioneers of
+				France," Chap. XII.<br />
+				<a id="footer_18-14" name="footer_18-14"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[14]</span>
+				It was the usual practice to give guns to converts, "pour
+				attirer leur compatriotes &agrave; 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."&mdash;<i>Relation, 1643</i>, 71.<br />
+		</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00976">
+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.
+<a href="#footer_18-15"><span class="superscript">[15]</span></a>
+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.</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_18-15" name="footer_18-15"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[15]</span>
+				Dollier de Casson, MS.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00977">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">270</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_18-16"><span class="superscript">[16]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00978" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_18-16" name="footer_18-16"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[16]</span>
+				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.&mdash;<i>Relation, 1643</i>, 62.</p>
+    <p id="id00979">
+		    Faillon thinks that Vimont was unwilling to publish the treachery of the
+				Hurons, lest the interests of the Huron mission should suffer in
+				consequence.</p>
+    <p id="id00980">
+		    Belmont, <i>Histoire du Canada</i>, 1643, confirms the account of the
+				Huron treachery. <br />
+    </p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00981">
+The next morning the Iroquois decamped, carrying with them their
+prisoners, and the furs plundered
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">271</a></span>
+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 <i>Relation</i> of the preceding
+year.  Of the three French prisoners, one escaped and reached Montreal;
+the remaining two were burned alive.</p>
+
+<p id="id00982">
+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 scent, 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 <i>na&iuml;vet&eacute;</i>,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">272</a></span>
+that, while this was her duty,
+"her natural inclination was for hunting squirrels."
+<a href="#footer_18-17"><span class="superscript">[17]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00983" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_18-17" name="footer_18-17"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[17]</span>
+				Lalemant, <i>Relation, 1647</i>, 74, 75.  "Son attrait naturel estoit
+				la chasse aux &eacute;curieux."  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.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00984">
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id00985">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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">273</a></span>
+brood, all giving tongue together.  The excited Frenchmen
+flocked about their commander.</p>
+
+<p id="id00986">
+<i>"Monsieur, les ennemis sont dans le bois; ne les irons-nous jamais voir?"</i>
+<a href="#footer_18-18"><span class="superscript">[18]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_18-18" name="footer_18-18"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[18]</span>
+				Dollier de Casson, MS.<br />
+    </p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00987">
+Maisonneuve, habitually composed and calm, answered sharply,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p id="id00988">
+"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."</p>
+
+<p id="id00989">
+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,
+<a href="#footer_18-19"><span class="superscript">[19]</span></a>
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">274</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00990" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_18-19" name="footer_18-19"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[19]</span>
+				Vimont, <i>Relation, 1644</i>, 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.<br />
+    </p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00991">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">275</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_18-20"><span class="superscript">[20]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id00992" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_18-20" name="footer_18-20"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[20]</span>
+				Dollier de Casson, MS.  Vimont's mention of the affair is brief.
+				He says that two Frenchmen were made prisoners, and burned.  Belmont,
+				<i>Histoire du Canada</i>, 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.</p>
+    <p id="id00993">
+		    Marguerite Bourgeoys also describes the affair in her unpublished
+				writings.<br />
+    </p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id00994">
+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.</p>
+
+<hr class="main" />
+<div class="chapterhead">
+   <br /><a name="Chapter_19" id="Chapter_19"></a>
+	 <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">276</a></span>
+	 <br /><br /><br />
+	 <h2 id="id00995"><a href="#Contents19">CHAPTER XIX.</a><br />
+	 <span class="med">1644, 1645.</span>
+	 </h2>
+	 <p id="id00996" class="smcapheader">PEACE.</p>
+	 <p id="id00997" class="noindent space-bottom">
+	          Iroquois Prisoners &bull; Piskaret &bull; His Exploits &bull;
+						More Prisoners &bull; Iroquois Embassy &bull; The Orator &bull;
+						The Great Council &bull; Speeches of Kiotsaton &bull;
+						Muster of Savages &bull; Peace Confirmed
+	 </p>
+	 <p class="break1"></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="double-space-top" id="id00999">
+<span class="smcap">In</span> 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,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p id="id01000">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">277</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id01001">
+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,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p id="id01002">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">278</a></span>
+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,&mdash;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.
+<a href="#footer_19-1"><span class="superscript">[1]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_19-1" name="footer_19-1"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[1]</span>
+				Vimont, <i>Relation, 1644</i>, 45-49. <br />
+    </p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id01003">
+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.
+<a href="#footer_19-2"><span class="superscript">[2]</span></a>
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">279</a></span>
+which Le Borgne was chief.
+He had lately turned Christian, in the hope of French favor and
+countenance,&mdash;always useful to an ambitious Indian,&mdash;and perhaps, too,
+with an eye to the gun and powder-horn which formed the earthly reward of
+the convert.
+<a href="#footer_19-3"><span class="superscript">[3]</span></a>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_19-4"><span class="superscript">[4]</span></a>
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">280</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_19-5"><span class="superscript">[5]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id01004" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_19-2" name="footer_19-2"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[2]</span>
+				<i>Relation, 1660</i>, 6 (anonymous).<br /></p>
+		<p id="id01005">
+				Both Perrot 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.</p>
+		<p id="id01006" class="noindent">
+				<a id="footer_19-3" name="footer_19-3"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[3]</span>
+		    "Simon Pieskaret &hellip; n'estoit Chrestien qu'en apparence et
+				par police."&mdash;Lalemant, <i>Relation, 1647</i>, 68.&mdash;He
+				afterwards became a convert in earnest.<br />
+				<a id="footer_19-4" name="footer_19-4"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[4]</span>
+		    Both the Iroquois and the Hurons collected great quantities of wood
+				in their villages in the autumn.<br />
+				<a id="footer_19-5" name="footer_19-5"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[5]</span>
+		    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. <br />
+   </p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id01009">
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id01010">
+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,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">281</a></span>
+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 <ins title="Changed die to dine.">
+dine</ins> 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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">282</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_19-6"><span class="superscript">[6]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id01011" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_19-6" name="footer_19-6"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[6]</span>
+				According to Marie de l'Incarnation, <i>Lettre, 14 Sept., 1645</i>,
+				Piskaret was for torturing the captives; but a convert, named
+				Bernard by the French, protested against it.<br />
+    </p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id01012">
+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.
+<a href="#footer_19-7"><span class="superscript">[7]</span></a>
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">283</a></span>
+missionary answered with a lecture on the duty of
+forgiveness.
+<a href="#footer_19-8"><span class="superscript">[8]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_19-7" name="footer_19-7"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[7]</span>
+				Vimont, <i>Relation, 1645</i>, 19-21.<br />
+				<a id="footer_19-8" name="footer_19-8"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[8]</span>
+				Vimont, <i>Relation, 1645</i>, 21, 22.<br />
+    </p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id01013">
+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:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p id="id01014">
+"Onontio,
+<a href="#footer_19-9"><span class="superscript">[9]</span></a>
+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,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">284</a></span>
+"Thus I throw down my anger! thus I cast away the
+weapons of blood!  Farewell, war!  Now I am your friend forever!"
+<a href="#footer_19-10"><span class="superscript">[10]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id01015" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_19-9" name="footer_19-9"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[9]</span>
+				<i>Onontio</i>, <i>Great Mountain</i>, a translation of
+				Montmagny's name. It was the Iroquois name ever after
+				for the Governor of Canada.  In the same manner,
+				<i>Onas</i>, <i>Feather</i> or <i>Quill</i>, 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.<br />
+        <a id="footer_19-10" name="footer_19-10"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[10]</span>
+				Vimont, <i>Relation, 1645</i>, 22, 23.  He adds, that,
+				"if these people are barbarous in deed, they have thoughts
+				worthy of Greeks and Romans." <br />
+    </p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id01017">
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id01018">
+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.
+<a href="#footer_19-11"><span class="superscript">[11]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_19-11" name="footer_19-11"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[11]</span>
+				Marie de l'Incarnation, <i>Lettre, 14 Sept., 1645</i>.<br />
+    </p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id01019">
+The chief of the Iroquois, Kiotsaton, a tall savage,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">285</a></span>
+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."</p>
+
+<p id="id01020">
+"Tell your chief that he lies," replied the honored guest, addressing the
+interpreter.</p>
+
+<p id="id01021">
+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:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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 <i>esprit</i>.
+<a href="#footer_19-12"><span class="superscript">[12]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_19-12" name="footer_19-12"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[12]</span>
+				Vimont, <i>Relation, 1645</i>, 24.<br />
+    </p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id01022">
+He undoubtedly belonged to that class of professed
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">286</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id01023">
+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,&mdash;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,
+<a href="#footer_19-13"><span class="superscript">[13]</span></a>
+sitting, lying,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">287</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id01024" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_19-13" name="footer_19-13"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[13]</span>
+				The Atticamegues, or tribe of the White Fish, dwelt in the forests
+				north of Three Rivers.  They much resembled their Montagnais kindred.
+				<br />
+    </p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="id01025">
+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:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p id="id01026">
+"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."</p>
+
+<p id="id01027">
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id01028">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">288</a></span>
+"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,"&mdash;pointing
+to Couture,&mdash;"'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.</p>
+
+<p id="id01029">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">289</a></span>
+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."</p>
+
+<p id="id01030">
+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."&mdash;"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."</p>
+
+<p id="id01031">
+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,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">290</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id01032">
+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."</p>
+
+<p id="id01033">
+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."</p>
+
+<p id="id01034">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">291</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id01035">
+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."
+<a href="#footer_19-14"><span class="superscript">[14]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id01036" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_19-14" name="footer_19-14"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[14]</span>
+				Vimont describes the council at length in the <i>Relation</i>
+				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.<br />
+    </p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id01037">
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id01038">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">292</a></span>
+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,&mdash;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."
+<a href="#footer_19-15"><span class="superscript">[15]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_19-15" name="footer_19-15"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[15]</span>
+				Vimont, <i>Relation, 1645</i>, 28.<br />
+    </p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id01039">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,&mdash;"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,"&mdash;to the Indians,&mdash;"obey Onontio and the
+French.  Their hearts and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">293</a></span>
+their thoughts are good.  Be friends with them,
+and do as they do.  You shall hear from us soon."</p>
+
+<p id="id01040">
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id01041">
+But the work was not done.  There must be more councils, speeches,
+wampum-belts, and gifts of all kinds,&mdash;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,&mdash;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.
+<a href="#footer_19-16"><span class="superscript">[16]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_19-16" name="footer_19-16"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[16]</span>
+				Vimont, <i>Relation, 1645</i>, 29.<br />
+    </p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id01042">
+First came a band of Montagnais; next followed Nipissings, Atticamegues,
+and Algonquins of the Ottawa, their canoes deep-laden with furs.  Then,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">294</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id01043">
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id01044">
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id01045">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">295</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_19-17"><span class="superscript">[17]</span></a>
+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,&mdash;some to their smoky lodges on the distant shores
+of Lake Huron, and some to frozen hunting-grounds in northern
+forests.</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_19-17" name="footer_19-17"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[17]</span>
+				Vimont, <i>Relation, 1645</i>, 34.<br />
+    </p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="id01046">
+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.</p>
+
+<hr class="main" />
+<div class="chapterhead">
+   <br /><a name="Chapter_20" id="Chapter_20"></a>
+	 <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">296</a></span>
+	 <br /><br /><br />
+	 <h2 id="id01047"><a href="#Contents20">CHAPTER XX.</a><br />
+	 <span class="med">1645, 1646.</span>
+	 </h2>
+	 <p id="id01048" class="smcapheader">THE PEACE BROKEN.</p>
+	 <p id="id01049" class="noindent space-bottom">
+	          Uncertainties &bull; The Mission of Jogues &bull;
+						He reaches the Mohawks &bull; His Reception &bull;
+						His Return &bull; His Second Mission &bull;
+						Warnings of Danger &bull;  Rage of the Mohawks &bull;
+						Murder of Jogues
+	 </p>
+	 <p class="break1"></p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="double-space-top" id="id01051">
+<span class="smcap">There</span> 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.</p>
+
+<p id="id01052">
+It was the Mohawks who had made war on the French and their Indian allies
+on the lower St.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">297</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_20-1"><span class="superscript">[1]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id01053" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_20-1" name="footer_20-1"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[1]</span>
+				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
+				<i>Relation</i> of that year,	and by Wentworth Greenhalgh in 1677,
+				from personal inspection:&mdash;<br />
+    </p>
+		<table summary="Iroquois-Warriors" class="iroquois">
+    <tbody>
+		<tr>
+		    <th></th>
+				<th>1660</th>
+				<th>1677</th>
+		</tr>
+
+		<tr>
+				<td>Mohawks</td>
+				<td class="warriors">500</td>
+				<td class="warriors">300</td>
+		</tr>
+    <tr>
+				<td>Oneidas</td>
+				<td class="warriors">100</td>
+				<td class="warriors">200</td>
+		</tr>
+		<tr>
+				<td>Onondagas</td>
+				<td class="warriors">300</td>
+				<td class="warriors">350</td>
+		</tr>
+		<tr>
+				<td>Cayugas</td>
+				<td class="warriors">300</td>
+				<td class="warriors">300</td>
+		</tr>
+		<tr>
+				<td>Senecas</td>
+				<td class="warriors">1,000</td>
+				<td class="warriors">1,000</td>
+		</tr>
+		<tr>
+				<td></td>
+				<td class="totals">2,200</td>
+				<td class="totals">2,150</td>
+		</tr>
+    </tbody>
+    </table>
+</div>
+
+
+
+<p id="id01056">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">298</a></span>
+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,&mdash;<i>the Mission of the Martyrs</i>.</p>
+
+<p id="id01057">
+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.
+<a href="#footer_20-2"><span class="superscript">[2]</span></a>
+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.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_20-2" name="footer_20-2"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[2]</span>
+				<i>Lettre du P. Isaac Jogues au R. P. J&eacute;rosme
+				L'Allemant.  Montreal, 2 Mai, 1646</i>.  MS.<br />
+    </p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id01058">
+He felt a presentiment that his death was near, and wrote to a friend,
+"I shall go, and shall not return."
+<a href="#footer_20-3"><span class="superscript">[3]</span></a>
+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."
+<a href="#footer_20-4"><span class="superscript">[4]</span></a>
+It would be well, if the application of the maxim had always been as
+harmless.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_20-3" name="footer_20-3"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[3]</span>
+				"Ibo et non redibo."  <i>Lettre du
+				P. Jogues au R. P.  No date.</i><br />
+				<a id="footer_20-4" name="footer_20-4"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[4]</span>
+				Lalemant, <i>Relation, 1646</i>, 15.<br />
+    </p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="id01059">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">299</a></span>
+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.  Hence 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.
+<a href="#footer_20-5"><span class="superscript">[5]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id01060" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_20-5" name="footer_20-5"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[5]</span>
+				Mr. Shea very reasonably suggests, that a change from <i>Lake
+				George</i> to <i>Lake Jogues</i> would be equally easy and
+				appropriate.<br />
+    </p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id01061">
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id01062">
+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.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">300</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id01063">
+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.
+<a href="#footer_20-6"><span class="superscript">[6]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_20-6" name="footer_20-6"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[6]</span>
+				Lalemant, <i>Relation, 1646</i>, 17.<br />
+    </p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id01064">
+His political errand was accomplished.  Now, should he return to the
+Mohawks, or should the Mission of the Martyrs be for a time abandoned?
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">301</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_20-7"><span class="superscript">[7]</span></a>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_20-8"><span class="superscript">[8]</span></a>
+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 <i>donn&eacute;s</i>
+of the missions; was scarcely behind the Jesuits themselves in devoted
+enthusiasm.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_20-7" name="footer_20-7"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[7]</span>
+				<i>Journal des Sup&eacute;rieurs des J&eacute;suites.</i>
+				MS. <br />
+				<a id="footer_20-8" name="footer_20-8"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[8]</span>
+				<i>Ibid.</i><br />
+    </p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="id01065">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">302</a></span>
+their Iroquois enemies
+by abusing their French friends,&mdash;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.
+<a href="#footer_20-9"><span class="superscript">[9]</span></a>
+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,&mdash;the clans of the Bear, the Tortoise, and the Wolf.
+<a href="#footer_20-10"><span class="superscript">[10]</span></a>
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">303</a></span>
+others as they had infected
+with their frenzy, set forth, in two bands, on the war-path.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_20-9" name="footer_20-9"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[9]</span>
+				<i>Lettre de Marie de l'Incarnation &agrave; son Fils.
+				Qu&eacute;bec, &hellip; 1647</i>.<br />
+				<a id="footer_20-10" name="footer_20-10"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[10]</span>
+				See Introduction. <br />
+    </p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="id01066">
+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."&mdash;"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."
+<a href="#footer_20-11"><span class="superscript">[11]</span></a>&mdash;"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."
+<a href="#footer_20-12"><span class="superscript">[12]</span></a>
+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.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id01068" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_20-11" name="footer_20-11"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[11]</span>
+				<i>Lettre du P. De Quen au R. P. Lallemant; no date</i>.  MS.<br />
+        <a id="footer_20-12" name="footer_20-12"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[12]</span>
+				<i>Lettre de J. Labatie &agrave; M. La Montagne,
+				Fort d'Orange, 30 Oct., 1646. MS.</i><br />
+    </p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id01069">
+In the evening,&mdash;it was the eighteenth of October,&mdash;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">304</a></span>
+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,
+<a href="#footer_20-13"><span class="superscript">[13]</span></a>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_20-14"><span class="superscript">[14]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id01070" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_20-13" name="footer_20-13"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[13]</span>
+				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.&mdash;<i>Relation, 1650</i>, 43-48.<br />
+				<a id="footer_20-14" name="footer_20-14"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[14]</span>
+				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 <i>Relations</i> of 1647 and 1650.<br />
+    </p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id01072">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">305</a></span>
+point of
+self-contempt,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<hr class="main" />
+<div class="chapterhead">
+   <br /><a name="Chapter_21" id="Chapter_21"></a>
+	 <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">306</a></span>
+	 <br /><br /><br />
+	 <h2 id="id01073"><a href="#Contents21">CHAPTER XXI.</a><br />
+	 <span class="med">1646, 1647.</span>
+	 </h2>
+	 <p id="id01074" class="smcapheader">ANOTHER WAR.</p>
+	 <p id="id01075" class="noindent space-bottom">
+	          Mohawk Inroads &bull; The Hunters of Men &bull;
+						The Captive Converts &bull; The Escape of Marie &bull;
+						Her Story &bull; The Algonquin Prisoner's Revenge &bull;
+            Her Flight &bull; Terror of the Colonists &bull;
+						Jesuit Intrepidity
+	 </p>
+	 <p class="break1"></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="double-space-top" id="id01077">
+<span class="smcap">The</span> 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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">307</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_21-1"><span class="superscript">[1]</span></a>
+Two hundred or more kept on, divided
+into several bands.</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_21-1" name="footer_21-1"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[1]</span>
+				<i>Lettre du P. Buteux au R. P. Lalemant</i>.  MS.<br />
+    </p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="id01078">
+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,&mdash;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,&mdash;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">308</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_21-2"><span class="superscript">[2]</span></a>
+All the hunters were soon after waylaid, overpowered
+by numbers, and killed or taken prisoners.</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id01079" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_21-2" name="footer_21-2"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[2]</span>
+				Lalemant, <i>Relation, 1647</i>, 4.  Marie de l'Incarnation,
+				<i>Lettre &agrave; son Fils.  Qu&eacute;bec, &hellip; 1647</i>.
+				Perrot's account, drawn from tradition, is different, though
+				not essentially so. <br />
+    </p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id01080">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">309</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id01081">
+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,&mdash;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">310</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id01082">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">311</a></span>
+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,&mdash;for a fugitive
+could not hope for mercy,&mdash;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">312</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_21-3"><span class="superscript">[3]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id01083" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_21-3" name="footer_21-3"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[3]</span>
+				This story is taken from the <i>Relation</i> of 1647, and the
+				letter of Marie de l'Incarnation to her son, before cited.
+				The woman must have
+				<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">313</a></span>
+				descended the great rapids of Lachine in
+				her canoe: a feat demanding no ordinary nerve and skill.<br />
+    </p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id01084">
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id01085">
+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,&mdash;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,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">314</a></span>
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">315</a></span>
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">316</a></span>
+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. <a href="#footer_21-4"><span class="superscript">[4]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_21-4" name="footer_21-4"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[4]</span>
+				Lalemant, <i>Relation, 1647</i>, 15, 16. <br />
+    </p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id01086">
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id01087">
+"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."
+<a href="#footer_21-5"><span class="superscript">[5]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id01088" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_21-5" name="footer_21-5"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[5]</span>
+				Lalemant, <i>Relation, 1647</i>, 8. <br />
+    </p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="main" />
+<div class="chapterhead">
+   <br /><a name="Chapter_22" id="Chapter_22"></a>
+	 <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">317</a></span>
+	 <br /><br /><br />
+	 <h2 id="id01089"><a href="#Contents22">CHAPTER XXII.</a><br />
+	 <span class="med">1645-1651.</span>
+	 </h2>
+	 <p id="id01090" class="smcapheader">PRIEST AND PURITAN.</p>
+	 <p id="id01091" class="noindent space-bottom">
+	          Miscou &bull; Tadoussac &bull; Journeys of De Quen &bull;
+						Druilletes &bull; His Winter with the Montagnais &bull;
+						Influence of the Missions &bull; The Abenaquis &bull;
+						Druilletes on the Kennebec &bull; His Embassy to Boston &bull;
+            Gibbons &bull; Dudley &bull; Bradford &bull; Eliot &bull;
+						Endicott &bull; French and Puritan Colonization &bull;
+						Failure of Druilletes's Embassy &bull; New Regulations &bull;
+						New-Year's Day at Quebec.
+	 </p>
+	 <p class="break1"></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="double-space-top" id="id01092">
+<span class="smcap">Before</span> 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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">318</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id01093">
+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,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">319</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_22-1"><span class="superscript">[1]</span></a>
+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
+<i>Relations</i>; 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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">320</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_22-1" name="footer_22-1"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[1]</span>
+				Vimont, <i>Relation, 1645</i>, 16. <br />
+    </p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="id01094">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">321</a></span>
+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,&mdash;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.
+<a href="#footer_22-2"><span class="superscript">[2]</span></a>
+ Their messengers were
+favorably received; and Druilletes was ordered to proceed upon the new
+mission.</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_22-2" name="footer_22-2"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[2]</span>
+				Charlevoix, I. 280, gives this as a motive of the mission.<br />
+    </p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id01095">
+He left Sillery, with a party of Indians, on the twenty-ninth of August,
+1646,
+<a href="#footer_22-3"><span class="superscript">[3]</span></a>
+ 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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">322</a></span>
+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,&mdash;"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."
+<a href="#footer_22-4"><span class="superscript">[4]</span></a>
+ 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,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">323</a></span>
+again received the
+missionary with a kindness which showed no trace of jealousy or religious
+prejudice.
+<a href="#footer_22-5"><span class="superscript">[5]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id01096" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_22-3" name="footer_22-3"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[3]</span>
+				Lalemant, <i>Relation, 1647</i>, 51.<br />
+				<a id="footer_22-4" name="footer_22-4"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[4]</span>
+				Lalemant, <i>Relation, 1647</i>, 54.  For an account of this
+				mission, see also Maurault, <i>Histoire des Abenakis</i>,
+				116-156.<br />
+				<a id="footer_22-5" name="footer_22-5"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[5]</span>
+				Winslow would scarcely have recognized his own name in the Jesuit
+				spelling,&mdash;"Le Sieur de <i>Houinslaud</i>."  In his journal
+				of 1650 Druilletes is more successful in his orthography, and
+				spells it <i>Winslau</i>.<br />
+    </p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id01097">
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id01098">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">324</a></span>
+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,&mdash;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,"
+<a href="#footer_22-6"><span class="superscript">[6]</span></a>
+but, three years before, the Legislature of
+Massachusetts had enacted, that Jesuits entering the colony should be
+expelled, and, if they returned, hanged.
+<a href="#footer_22-7"><span class="superscript">[7]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id01099" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_22-6" name="footer_22-6"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[6]</span>
+				<i>Considerations for the Plantation in New England</i>.&mdash;See
+				Hutchinson, <i>Collection</i>, 27.  Mr. Savage thinks that this paper
+				was by Winthrop. See Savage's Winthrop. I. 360, <i>note</i>.<br />
+				<a id="footer_22-7" name="footer_22-7"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[7]</span>
+				See the Act, in Hazard, 550.
+    </p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="id01101">
+<a id="id01101a" name="id01101a"></a>
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">325</a></span>
+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, <i>Kepane</i>, 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.</p>
+
+<p id="id01102">
+Winslow was agent for the merchant, Edward Gibbons, a personage of note,
+whose life presents curious phases,&mdash;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.
+<a href="#footer_22-8"><span class="superscript">[8]</span></a>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_22-9"><span class="superscript">[9]</span></a>
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">326</a></span>
+thinks it likely
+that he brought with him the means of celebrating the Mass.
+<a href="#footer_22-10"><span class="superscript">[10]</span></a>
+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.</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id01103" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_22-8" name="footer_22-8"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[8]</span>
+				An account of him will be found in Palfrey, <i>Hist. of
+				New England</i>, II. 225, <i>note</i>.<br />
+				<a id="footer_22-9" name="footer_22-9"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[9]</span>
+				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.<br />
+				<a id="footer_22-10" name="footer_22-10"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[10]</span>
+				J. G. Shea, in <i>Boston Pilot</i>.<br />
+    </p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="id01105">
+On the next day, Gibbons took his guest to Roxbury,&mdash;called
+<i>Rogsbray</i> by Druilletes,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p id="id01106">
+As the Abenaqui Indians were within the jurisdiction of Plymouth,
+<a href="#footer_22-11"><span class="superscript">[11]</span></a>
+Druilletes proceeded thither
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">327</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_22-12"><span class="superscript">[12]</span></a>
+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,
+<a href="#footer_22-13"><span class="superscript">[13]</span></a>
+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.</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id01107" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_22-11" name="footer_22-11"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[11]</span>
+				For the documents on the title of Plymouth to lands on the Kennebec,
+				see Drake's additions to Baylies's <i>History of New Plymouth</i>,
+				36, where they are illustrated by an ancient map.  The patent was
+				obtained as early as 1628, and a trading-house soon after
+				established.<br />
+				<a id="footer_22-12" name="footer_22-12"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[12]</span>
+				<i>The Record of the Colony of Plymouth</i>, June 5, 1651, contains,
+				however, the entry, "The Court declare themselves not to be willing to
+				aid them (<i>the French</i>) in their design, or to grant them
+				liberty to go through their jurisdiction for the aforesaid purpose"
+				(<i>to attack the Mohawks</i>).<br />
+				<a id="footer_22-13" name="footer_22-13"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[13]</span>
+				See Palfrey, <i>New England</i>, II. 336.<br />
+    </p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id01110">
+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.
+<a href="#footer_22-14"><span class="superscript">[14]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id01111" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_22-14" name="footer_22-14"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[14]</span>
+				On Druilletes's visit to New England, see his journal, entitled
+				<i>Narr&eacute;
+				<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">328</a></span>
+				du Voyage faict pour la Mission des Abenaquois,
+				et des Connoissances tir&eacute;z de la Nouvelle Angleterre et
+				des Dispositions des Magistrats de cette Republique pour le
+				Secours contre les Iroquois</i>.  See also Druilletes,
+				<i>Rapport sur le R&eacute;sultat de ses N&eacute;gotiations</i>,
+				in Ferland, <i>Notes sur les Registres</i>, 95. <br />
+
+    </p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="id01112">
+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.
+<a href="#footer_22-15"><span class="superscript">[15]</span></a>
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">329</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id01113" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_22-15" name="footer_22-15"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[15]</span>
+				Druilletes, <i>Reflexions touchant ce qu'on peut esperer de la Nouvelle
+				Angleterre contre l'Irocquois</i> (sic), appended to his journal.
+				<br />
+    </p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id01114">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">330</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id01115">
+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,
+<a href="#footer_22-16"><span class="superscript">[16]</span></a>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_22-17"><span class="superscript">[17]</span></a>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_22-18"><span class="superscript">[18]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id01116" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_22-16" name="footer_22-16"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[16]</span>
+				The same who, with his wife, had joined the colonists of Montreal.
+				See <i>ante</i>, <a href="#Page_264">(page 264)</a>. <br />
+				<a id="footer_22-17" name="footer_22-17"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[17]</span>
+				He was one of the Governor's council.&mdash;Ferland, <i>Notes sur
+				les Registres</i>, 67.<br />
+				<a id="footer_22-18" name="footer_22-18"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[18]</span>
+				On Druilletes's second embassy, see <i>Lettre &eacute;crite par
+				le Conseil de Quebec aux Commissionaires de la Nouvelle
+				Angleterre</i>, in Charlevoix, I. 287; <i>Extrait des
+				Registres de l'Ancien Conseil de Quebec</i>, Ibid., I. 288;
+				<i>Copy of a Letter from the Commissioners of the United Colonies to
+				the Governor of Canada</i>, in Hazard, II. 183; <i>Answare to the
+				Propositions presented by the honered French Agents</i>, Ibid., II.
+				184; and Hutchinson, <i>Collection of Papers</i>,
+				<ins title="Volume 1 cites page number 166; Volume 20 cites page number 240.">
+				166.</ins> Also, <i>Records of the Commissioners of the United
+				Colonies, Sept. 5, 1651</i>; and <i>Commission of Druilletes
+				and Godefroy, in N. Y. Col. Docs.</i>, IX. 6. <br />
+    </p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id01119">
+Now let us stop for a moment at Quebec, and observe some notable changes
+that had taken place
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">331</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_22-19"><span class="superscript">[19]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id01120" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_22-19" name="footer_22-19"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[19]</span>
+				<i>Articles accord&eacute;s entre les Directeurs et
+				Associ&eacute;s de la Compagnie de la
+				N<span class="superscript">elle</span> France et les
+				D&eacute;put&eacute;s des Habitans du dit Pays, 6 Mars, 1645</i>.
+        MS.	<br />
+    </p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id01121">
+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.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">332</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id01122">
+The Council was reorganized, and now consisted of the Governor, the
+Superior of the Jesuits, and three of the principal inhabitants.
+<a href="#footer_22-20"><span class="superscript">[20]</span></a>
+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.</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_22-20" name="footer_22-20"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[20]</span>
+				The Governors of Montreal and Three Rivers, when present, had
+				also seats in the Council. <br />
+    </p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="id01123">
+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,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">333</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_22-21"><span class="superscript">[21]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id01124" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_22-21" name="footer_22-21"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[21]</span>
+				Those curious in regard to these new regulations will find an account
+				of them, at greater length, in Ferland and Faillon. <br />
+    </p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="id01125">
+As for Montreal, though it had given a
+<ins title="Change Govornor to Governor.">Governor</ins>
+to the colony, its
+prospects were far from hopeful.  The ridiculous Dauversi&egrave;re, 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.</p>
+
+<p id="id01126">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">334</a></span>
+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:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>
+"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 Ch&acirc;telets, 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,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">335</a></span>
+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 <i>eau-de-vie</i> 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."
+<a href="#footer_22-22"><span class="superscript">[22]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id01127" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_22-22" name="footer_22-22"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[22]</span>
+				<i>Journal des Sup&eacute;rieurs des J&eacute;suites</i>, 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 Ch&acirc;telets was one of the earliest
+				settlers, and connected by marriage with Giffard; Couillard
+				was son-in-law of the first settler, H&eacute;bert;
+				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, <i>Notes sur Registres</i>,
+				16.)  The rest were servants, or persons of humble station.<br />
+    </p>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr class="main" />
+<div class="chapterhead">
+   <br /><a name="Chapter_23" id="Chapter_23"></a>
+	 <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">336</a></span>
+	 <br /><br /><br />
+	 <h2 id="id01128"><a href="#Contents23">CHAPTER XXIII.</a><br />
+	 <span class="med">1645-1648.</span>
+	 </h2>
+	 <p id="id01129" class="smcapheader">A DOOMED NATION.</p>
+	 <p id="id01130" class="noindent space-bottom">
+	          Indian Infatuation &bull; Iroquois and Huron &bull;
+				 	  Huron Triumphs &bull;  The Captive Iroquois &bull;
+					  His Ferocity and Fortitude &bull; Partisan Exploits &bull;
+					  Diplomacy &bull; The Andastes &bull; The Huron Embassy &bull;
+					  New Negotiations &bull; The Iroquois Ambassador &bull;
+					  His Suicide &bull; Iroquois Honor
+	 </p>
+	 <p class="break1"></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="double-space-top" id="id01132">
+<span class="smcap">It</span> 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.</p>
+
+<p id="id01133">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">337</a></span>
+allies,&mdash;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.
+<a href="#footer_23-1"><span class="superscript">[1]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_23-1" name="footer_23-1"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[1]</span>
+				See <i>ante</i>, Introduction. <br />
+    </p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="id01134">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">338</a></span>
+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 be
+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 Teanaustay&eacute;, 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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">339</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_23-2"><span class="superscript">[2]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id01135" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_23-2" name="footer_23-2"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[2]</span>
+				Lalemant, <i>Relation des Hurons, 1639</i>, 68.  It was this
+				chief whose severed hand was thrown to the Jesuits.  See
+				<i>ante</i>, <a href="#id00681a">(page 137)</a>.
+				<br />
+    </p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="id01136">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">340</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_23-3"><span class="superscript">[3]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_23-3" name="footer_23-3"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[3]</span>
+				Ragueneau, <i>Relation des Hurons, 1646</i>, 55.<br />
+    </p>
+</div>
+
+
+
+<p id="id01137">
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id01138">
+The Hurons planned a counter-stroke; and three of them, after a journey
+of twenty days, reached
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">341</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_23-4"><span class="superscript">[4]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id01139" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_23-4" name="footer_23-4"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[4]</span>
+				Ragueneau, <i>Relation des Hurons, 1646</i>, 55, 56. <br />
+    </p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="id01140">
+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.
+<a href="#footer_23-5"><span class="superscript">[5]</span></a>
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">342</a></span>
+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:&mdash;</p>
+
+
+<p id="id01141">
+"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."
+<a href="#footer_23-6"><span class="superscript">[6]</span></a>
+Then he presented the wampum-belts and other gifts, saying that they were
+the voice of a dying country.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id01142" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_23-5" name="footer_23-5"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[5]</span>
+				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 <i>Annals of Pennsylvania</i>,
+				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 <i>Historical Magazine</i>, II. 294.<br />
+				<a id="footer_23-6" name="footer_23-6"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[6]</span>
+	      "Il leur dit qu'il venoit du pays des Ames, o&ugrave; la guerre et la
+				terreur des ennemis auoit tout desol&eacute;, o&ugrave; les campagnes
+				n'estoient couuertes que de sang, o&ugrave; les cabanes n'estoient
+				remplies que de cadaures, et qu'il ne leur restoit &agrave; eux-mesmes
+				de vie, sinon autant qu'ils en auoient eu besoin pour venir dire
+				&agrave; leurs amis, qu'ils eussent piti&eacute; d'vn pays qui tiroit
+				&agrave; sa fin."&mdash;Ragueneau, <i>Relation des Hurons, 1648</i>,
+				58.<br />
+    </p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id01143">
+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,
+<a href="#footer_23-7"><span class="superscript">[7]</span></a>
+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,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">343</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id01144" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_23-7" name="footer_23-7"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[7]</span>
+				Examination leaves no doubt that the <i>Ouiouenronnons</i> of
+				Ragueneau (<i>Relation des Hurons, 1648</i>, 46, 59) were the
+				Oiogouins or <i>Goyogouins</i>, 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.<br />
+    </p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id01145">
+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.
+<a href="#footer_23-8"><span class="superscript">[8]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_23-8" name="footer_23-8"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[8]</span>
+				On this mission of the Hurons to the Andastes, see Ragueneau,
+				<i>Relation des Hurons, 1648</i>, 58-60.<br />
+    </p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id01146">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">344</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id01147">
+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;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">345</a></span>
+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 mid-summer, and delivered his messages and wampum-belts, there
+was a great division of opinion among the Hurons.  The Bear Nation&mdash;the
+member of their confederacy which was farthest from the Iroquois, and
+least exposed to danger&mdash;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">346</a></span>
+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."</p>
+
+<p id="id01148">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">347</a></span>
+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!"
+<a href="#footer_23-9"><span class="superscript">[9]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_23-9" name="footer_23-9"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[9]</span>
+				This remarkable story is told by Ragueneau, <i>Relation
+				des Hurons, 1648</i>, 56-58.  He was present at the time,
+				and knew all the circumstances. <br />
+    </p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="id01149">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">348</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_23-10"><span class="superscript">[10]</span></a>
+Here, then, is a ray of light out of Egyptian
+darkness.  The principle of honor was not extinct in these wild hearts.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id01150" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_23-10" name="footer_23-10"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[10]</span>
+				"Celuy qui l'auoit prise estoit Onnontaeronnon, qui estant icy en os
+				tage &agrave; cause de la paix qui se traite auec les Onnontaeronnons,
+				et s'estant trouu&eacute; auec nos Hurons &agrave; cette chasse, y fut
+				pris tout des premiers par les Sonnontoueronnons (<i>Annieronnons?</i>),
+				qui l'ayans reconnu ne luy firent aucun mal, et mesme l'obligerent de
+				les suiure et prendre part &agrave; leur victoire; et ainsi en ce
+				rencontre c&eacute;t 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 &agrave; les suiure, et qu'il auroit honte de
+				reparoistre en son pays, les affaires qui l'auoient amen&eacute; 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 comport&eacute; en
+				ennemy. Ainsi les Sonnontoueronnons luy permirent de s'en retourner et
+				de ramener cette bonne Chrestienne, qui estoit sa captiue, laquelle
+				nous a consol&eacute; par le recit des entretiens de ces pauures gens
+				dans leur affliction."&mdash;Ragueneau, <i>Relation des Hurons,
+				1648</i>, 65.</p>
+    <p id="id01151">
+		    Apparently the word <i>Sonnontoueronnons</i> (Senecas), in the above,
+				should read <i>Annieronnons</i> (Mohawks); for, on pp. 50, 57, the
+				writer twice speaks of the party as Mohawks. <br />
+    </p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id01152">
+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.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="main" />
+<div class="chapterhead">
+   <br /><a name="Chapter_24" id="Chapter_24"></a>
+	 <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">349</a></span>
+	 <br /><br /><br />
+	 <h2 id="id01153"><a href="#Contents24">CHAPTER XXIV.</a><br />
+	 <span class="med">1645-1648.</span>
+	 </h2>
+	 <p id="id01154" class="smcapheader">THE HURON CHURCH.</p>
+	 <p id="id01155" class="noindent space-bottom">
+	          Hopes of the Mission &bull; Christian and Heathen &bull;
+				    Body and Soul &bull; Position of Proselytes &bull;
+					  The Huron Girl's Visit to Heaven &bull;
+					  A Crisis &bull; Huron Justice &bull;
+					  Murder and Atonement &bull; Hopes and Fears
+	 </p>
+	 <p class="break1"></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="double-space-top" id="id01157">
+<span class="smcap">How</span> 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 Ossossan&eacute;, was the most successful.  Here there were now a
+church and one or more resident Jesuits,&mdash;as also at St. Joseph,
+St. Ignace, St. Michel, and St. Jean Baptiste:
+<a href="#footer_24-1"><span class="superscript">[1]</span></a>
+for we have seen that the Huron towns were
+christened with names of saints.  Each church had its bell, which was
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">350</a></span>
+sometimes hung in a neighboring tree.
+<a href="#footer_24-2"><span class="superscript">[2]</span></a>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_24-3"><span class="superscript">[3]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_24-1" name="footer_24-1"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[1]</span>
+				Ragueneau, <i>Relation des Hurons, 1646</i>, 56. <br />
+				<a id="footer_24-2" name="footer_24-2"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[2]</span>
+				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.&mdash;<i>Lettre de Lalemant, 31 March, 1644</i>.<br />
+				<a id="footer_24-3" name="footer_24-3"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[3]</span>
+				Ragueneau, <i>Relation des Hurons, 1646</i>, 56. <br />
+    </p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="id01161">
+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 &Eacute;tienne 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 &Eacute;tienne 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!"
+<a href="#footer_24-4"><span class="superscript">[4]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id01162" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_24-4" name="footer_24-4"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[4]</span>
+				Ragueneau, <i>Relation des Hurons, 1646</i>, 58.  The Hurons often
+				resisted the baptism of their prisoners, on the ground that Hell,
+				and not Heaven, was the place to which they
+				<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">351</a></span>
+				would have them
+				go.&mdash;See Lalemant, <i>Relation des Hurons, 1642</i>, 60,
+				Ragueneau, <i>Ibid., 1648</i>, 53, and several other passages.<br />
+    </p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id01163">
+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.
+<a href="#footer_24-5"><span class="superscript">[5]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id01164" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_24-5" name="footer_24-5"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[5]</span>
+				The following curious case of conversion at the stake, gravely related
+				by Lalemant, is worth preserving.</p>
+    <p id="id01165">
+		    "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.&hellip; 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
+				<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">352</a></span>
+				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.'"&mdash;<i>Relation des Hurons, 1641</i>, 67.</p>
+    <p id="id01166">
+		    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.<br />
+    </p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id01167">
+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 <i>la pri&egrave;re</i> 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 (Br&eacute;beuf)
+is a traitor among us, in league with our enemies."  Such discourse was
+still rife, openly and secretly.</p>
+
+<p id="id01168">
+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."
+<a href="#footer_24-6"><span class="superscript">[6]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id01169" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_24-6" name="footer_24-6"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[6]</span>
+				<i>Relation des Hurons, 1642</i>, 89.  The indecencies
+				alluded to were chiefly naked dances, of a superstitious
+				character, and the mystical cure called <i>Andacwandet</i>,
+				before mentioned.<br />
+    </p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="id01170">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">353</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_24-7"><span class="superscript">[7]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_24-7" name="footer_24-7"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[7]</span>
+				<i>Lettre du P. Hierosme Lalemant</i>,
+				appended to the <i>Relation</i> of 1645. <br />
+    </p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id01171">
+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,&mdash;such was the story,&mdash;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">354</a></span>
+to warn her countrymen against the wiles of the missionaries.
+<a href="#footer_24-8"><span class="superscript">[8]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_24-8" name="footer_24-8"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[8]</span>
+				Ragueneau, <i>Relation des Hurons, 1646</i>, 65. <br />
+    </p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="id01172">
+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,
+<a href="#footer_24-9"><span class="superscript">[9]</span></a>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_24-10"><span class="superscript">[10]</span></a>
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">355</a></span>
+the method of procedure,&mdash;recollecting that the
+public, and not the criminal, was to pay the forfeit of the crime.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id01173" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_24-9" name="footer_24-9"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[9]</span>
+				Ragueneau, <i>Relation des Hurons, 1648</i>, 77.  Compare <i>Lettre
+				du P. Jean de Br&eacute;beuf au T. R. P. Vincent Carafa,
+				G&eacute;n&eacute;ral de la Compagnie de J&eacute;sus, Sainte Marie,
+				2 Juin, 1648</i>, in Carayon.<br />
+				<a id="footer_24-10" name="footer_24-10"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[10]</span>
+        See Introduction.<br />
+    </p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id01175">
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id01176">
+"My Brother," began the speaker, "behold all the tribes of our league
+assembled!"&mdash;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,
+<a href="#footer_24-11"><span class="superscript">[11]</span></a>
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">356</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id01177">
+"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,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">357</a></span>
+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."</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id01178" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_24-11" name="footer_24-11"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[11]</span>
+				The usual Indian figure in such cases, and not meant to express an
+				actual relationship;&mdash;"Uncle" for a superior, "Brother" for an
+				equal, "Nephew" for an inferior. <br />
+    </p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id01179">
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id01180">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">358</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_24-12"><span class="superscript">[12]</span></a>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_24-13"><span class="superscript">[13]</span></a>
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">359</a></span>
+his reproaches for the enormity of their crime.  This closed the
+interview, and the deputation withdrew.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id01181" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_24-12" name="footer_24-12"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[12]</span>
+				Ragueneau himself describes the scene.  <i>Relation des Hurons,
+				1648</i>, 80. <br />
+				<a id="footer_24-13" name="footer_24-13"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[13]</span>
+				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.<br />
+    </p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="id01183">
+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,&mdash;the rest, amounting to as many more, being only
+accessory.
+<a href="#footer_24-14"><span class="superscript">[14]</span></a>
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">360</a></span>
+rose and danced, as custom required.  The last placed a
+large stone over the closed gulf, to make it doubly secure.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id01184" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_24-14" name="footer_24-14"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[14]</span>
+				The number was unusually large,&mdash;partly because the affair was
+				thought very important, and partly because the murdered man belonged to
+				another nation.  See Introduction. <br />
+    </p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="id01185">
+Now came another series of presents, seven in number,&mdash;to restore the
+voices of all the missionaries,&mdash;to invite the men in their service to
+forget the murder,&mdash;to appease the Governor when he should hear of
+it,&mdash;to light the fire at Sainte Marie,&mdash;to open the gate,&mdash;to
+launch the ferry-boat in which the Huron visitors crossed the river,&mdash;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,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p id="id01186">
+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.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="main" />
+<div class="chapterhead">
+   <br /><a name="Chapter_25" id="Chapter_25"></a>
+	 <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">361</a></span>
+	 <br /><br /><br />
+	 <h2 id="id01187"><a href="#Contents25">CHAPTER XXV.</a><br />
+	 <span class="med">1648, 1649.</span>
+	 </h2>
+	 <p id="id01188" class="smcapheader">SAINTE MARIE.</p>
+	 <p id="id01189" class="noindent space-bottom">
+	         The Centre of the Missions &bull; Fort &bull; Convent &bull;
+					 Hospital &bull; Caravansary &bull; Church &bull;
+					 The Inmates of Sainte Marie &bull; Domestic Economy &bull;
+					 Missions &bull; A Meeting of Jesuits &bull; The Dead Missionary
+	 </p>
+	 <p class="break1"></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="double-space-top" id="id01191">
+<span class="smcap">The</span> 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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">362</a></span>
+canoe enters a canal or ditch immediately above them,
+and you land at the Mission, or Residence, or Fort of Sainte Marie.</p>
+
+<p id="id01192">
+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
+<i>Relations</i> and letters of the priests.
+<a href="#footer_25-1"><span class="superscript">[1]</span></a>
+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,
+<a href="#footer_25-2"><span class="superscript">[2]</span></a>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_25-3"><span class="superscript">[3]</span></a>
+The buildings within
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">363</a></span>
+were, no doubt, of wood; and they included a church,
+a kitchen, a refectory, places of retreat for religious instruction and
+meditation,
+<a href="#footer_25-4"><span class="superscript">[4]</span></a>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_25-5"><span class="superscript">[5]</span></a>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_25-6"><span class="superscript">[6]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id01193" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_25-1" name="footer_25-1"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[1]</span>
+				Before me is an elaborate plan of the remains, taken on the spot. <br />
+				<a id="footer_25-2" name="footer_25-2"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[2]</span>
+        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 "<i>une simple palissade</i>."<br />
+				<a id="footer_25-3" name="footer_25-3"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[3]</span>
+		    "Quatre grandes Croix qui sont aux quatre coins de nostre
+				enclos."&mdash;Ragueneau, <i>Relation des Hurons, 1648</i>, 81.<br />
+		    <a id="footer_25-4" name="footer_25-4"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[4]</span>
+		    It seems that these places, besides those for the priests, were of
+				two kinds,&mdash;"vne retraite pour les pelerins (<i>Indians</i>),
+				enfin vn lieu plus separ&eacute;, o&ugrave; les infideles, qui n'y
+				sont admis que de iour au passage, y puissent tousiours receuoir
+				quelque bon mot pour leur salut."&mdash;Lalemant, <i>Relation des
+				Hurons, 1644</i>, 74.<br />
+        <a id="footer_25-5" name="footer_25-5"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[5]</span>
+				At least it was so in 1642.  "Nous leur auons dress&eacute; vn
+				Hospice ou Cabane d'&eacute;corce."&mdash;<i>Ibid., 1642</i>, 57.<br />
+        <a id="footer_25-6" name="footer_25-6"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[6]</span>
+        "Cet hospital est tellement separ&eacute; de nostre demeure, que non
+				seulement les hommes et enfans, mais les femmes y peuuent estre
+				admises."&mdash;<i>Ibid., 1644</i>, 74.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id01198">
+No doubt the buildings of Sainte Marie were of the roughest,&mdash;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.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">364</a></span>
+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 Br&eacute;beuf, Garreau, and Chabanel to the
+Hurons, and remain there during the winter.
+<a href="#footer_25-7"><span class="superscript">[7]</span></a>
+These soldiers lodged
+with the Jesuits, and lived at their table.
+<a href="#footer_25-8"><span class="superscript">[8]</span></a>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_25-9"><span class="superscript">[9]</span></a>
+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, <i>donn&eacute;s</i> of the mission,
+<a href="#footer_25-10"><span class="superscript">[10]</span></a>&mdash;given,
+heart and hand, to
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">365</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_25-11"><span class="superscript">[11]</span></a>
+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."
+<a href="#footer_25-12"><span class="superscript">[12]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id01199" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_25-7" name="footer_25-7"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[7]</span>
+				Vimont, <i>Relation, 1644</i>, 49.  He adds, that some of these
+				soldiers, though they had once been "assez mauvais gar&ccedil;ons,"
+				had shown great zeal and devotion in behalf of the mission.<br />
+        <a id="footer_25-8" name="footer_25-8"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[8]</span>
+				<i>Journal des Sup&eacute;rieurs des J&eacute;suites</i>, MS.
+				In 1648, a small cannon was sent to Sainte Marie in the Huron
+				canoes.&mdash;<i>Ibid</i>. <br />
+        <a id="footer_25-9" name="footer_25-9"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[9]</span>
+				<i>Registres des Arr&ecirc;ts du Conseil</i>, extract in Faillon,
+				II. 94.<br />
+				<a id="footer_25-10" name="footer_25-10"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[10]</span>
+        See <i>ante</i>, <a href="#Page_214">(Page 214)</a>.
+				Garnier calls them "s&eacute;culiers d'habit, mais religieux de
+				<ins title="Add end-quote after couer.">
+				c&oelig;ur."&mdash;<i>Lettres</i>,</ins>
+				MSS.<br />
+        <a id="footer_25-11" name="footer_25-11"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[11]</span>
+				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 <i>Relation</i>
+				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 re&ccedil;oit ou en recueille
+				quelques-vns pour ayder aux frais immenses qu'il faut faire dans ces
+				Missions si &eacute;loign&eacute;es, et pour gagner ces peuples
+				&agrave; Iesus-Christ et les porter &agrave; la paix, il seroit
+				&agrave; souhaiter que ceux-l&agrave; mesme qui deuroient faire ces
+				despenses pour la conseruation du pays, ne fussent pas du moins les
+				premiers &agrave; condamner le zele de ces Peres, et &agrave; les
+				rendre par leurs discours plus noirs que leurs
+				robes."&mdash;<i>Relation, 1657</i>, 16.</p>
+    <p id="id01203">
+		    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."&mdash;<i>Ibid.</i>, 17.</p>
+    <p id="id01204">
+		    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
+				<i>Relation</i> 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.</p>
+    <p id="id01205">
+			  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.</p>
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_25-12" name="footer_25-12"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[12]</span>
+				<i>Lettre du P. Paul Ragueneau au T. R. P. Vincent Carafa,
+				G&eacute;n&eacute;ral de la Compagnie de J&eacute;sus &agrave;
+				Rome, Sainte Marie aux Hurons, 1 Mars, 1649</i> (Carayon).<br />
+    </p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id01207">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">366</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_25-13"><span class="superscript">[13]</span></a>
+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.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id01208" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_25-13" name="footer_25-13"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[13]</span>
+				<i>Lettre du P. Paul Ragueneau au T. R. P. Vincent Carafa,
+				G&eacute;n&eacute;ral de la Compagnie de J&eacute;sus
+				&agrave; Rome, Sainte Marie aux Hurons, 1 Mars, 1649</i>
+				(Carayon). <br />
+    </p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id01209">
+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.
+<a href="#footer_25-14"><span class="superscript">[14]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_25-14" name="footer_25-14"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[14]</span>
+				Ragueneau, <i>Relation des Hurons, 1648</i>, 48. <br />
+    </p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="id01210">
+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.
+<a href="#footer_25-15"><span class="superscript">[15]</span></a>
+Of this number, fifteen priests were engaged in the various missions,
+while all the rest were retained permanently at Sainte Marie.  All was
+method,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">367</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id01211" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_25-15" name="footer_25-15"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[15]</span>
+				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. <br />
+    </p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id01212">
+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.
+<a href="#footer_25-16"><span class="superscript">[16]</span></a>
+Heathen Indians were also received and supplied with food,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">368</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_25-16" name="footer_25-16"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[16]</span>
+				Compare Ragueneau in <i>Relation des Hurons, 1648</i>, 48,
+				and in his report to the General in 1649.<br />
+    </p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id01213">
+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,&mdash;that of Sainte Madeleine; and two others, called St. Jean
+and St. Matthias, had been established in the neighboring Tobacco Nation.
+<a href="#footer_25-17"><span class="superscript">[17]</span></a>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_25-18"><span class="superscript">[18]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id01214" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_25-17" name="footer_25-17"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[17]</span>
+				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. <br />
+        <a id="footer_25-18" name="footer_25-18"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[18]</span>
+				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.</p>
+    <p id="id01216">
+		    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.</p>
+    <p id="id01217">
+		    By the <i>Relation</i> of 1649 it appears that another mission had lately been
+				begun at the Grand Manitoulin Island, which the Jesuits also christened
+				Isle Sainte Marie.<br />
+    </p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id01218">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369">369</a></span>
+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,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p id="id01219">
+Hither, while the Fathers are gathered from their scattered stations at
+one of their periodical meetings,&mdash;a little before the season of Lent,
+1649,
+<a href="#footer_25-19"><span class="superscript">[19]</span></a>&mdash;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,&mdash;laborers, domestics,
+soldiers, and priests.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id01220" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_25-19" name="footer_25-19"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[19]</span>
+				The date of this meeting is a supposition merely.  It is adopted
+				with reference to events which preceded and followed.<br />
+    </p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id01221">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">370</a></span>
+It was a scene that might recall a remote half feudal, half patriarchal
+age, when, under the smoky rafters of his antique hall, 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,&mdash;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.  Br&eacute;beuf sat conspicuous among his brethren, portly and tall,
+his short moustache and beard grizzled with time,&mdash;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_371" id="Page_371">371</a></span>
+mind.  The enthusiasm which with many is fitful and
+spasmodic was with him the current of his life,&mdash;solemn and deep as the
+tide of destiny.  The Divine Trinity, the Virgin, the Saints, Heaven and
+Hell, Angels and Fiends,&mdash;to him, these alone were real, and all things
+else were nought.  Gabriel Lalemant, nephew of Jerome Lalemant, Superior
+at Quebec, was Br&eacute;beuf'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.</p>
+
+<p id="id01222">
+No element was wanting in them for the achievement of such a success as
+that to which they aspired,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p id="id01223">
+There was a gap in their number.  The place of Antoine Daniel was empty,
+and never more to be filled by him,&mdash;never at least in the flesh:
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_372" id="Page_372">372</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_25-20"><span class="superscript">[20]</span></a>
+They believed his
+story,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id01224" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_25-20" name="footer_25-20"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[20]</span>
+				"Ce bon Pere s'apparut apr&eacute;s sa mort &agrave; 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'&acirc;ge de quarante-huict.&hellip; Vne autre fois il
+				fut veu assister &agrave; vne assembl&eacute;e que nous tenions,"
+				etc.&mdash;Ragueneau, <i>Relation des Hurons, 1649</i>, 5.</p>
+    <p id="id01225">
+		    "Le P. Chaumonot vit au milieu de l'assembl&eacute;e le P. Daniel
+				qui aidait les P&egrave;res de ses conseils, et les remplissait
+				d'une force surnaturelle; son visage &eacute;tait plein de
+				majest&eacute; et d'&eacute;clat."&mdash;Ibid., <i>Lettre au
+				G&eacute;n&eacute;ral de la Compagnie de J&eacute;sus</i>
+				(Carayon, 243).</p>
+    <p id="id01226">
+		    "Le P. Chaumonot nous a quelque fois racont&eacute;, &agrave;
+				la gloire de cet illustre confesseur de J.&nbsp;C. (<i>Daniel</i>) qu'il
+				s'&eacute;toit fait voir &agrave; lui dans la gloire, &agrave;
+				l'&acirc;ge d'environ 30 ans, quoiqu'il en eut pr&egrave;s de 50,
+				et avec les autres circonstances qui se trouuent l&agrave; (<i>in
+				the Historia Canadensis of Du Creux</i>).  Il ajoutait seulement
+				qu'&agrave; la vue de ce bien-heureux tant de choses lui vinrent
+				&agrave; l'esprit pour les lui demander, qu'il ne savoit pas
+				o&ugrave; commencer son entretien avec ce cher d&eacute;funt.
+				Enfin, lui dit-il: 'Apprenez moi, mon P&egrave;re, ce que ie dois
+				faire pour &ecirc;tre bien agr&eacute;able &agrave;
+				Dieu.'&mdash;'Jamais,' r&eacute;pondit le martyr, 'ne perdez le
+				souvenir de vos p&eacute;ch&eacute;s.'"&mdash;<i>Suite de la Vie
+				de Chaumonot</i>, 11. <br />
+    </p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="main" />
+<div class="chapterhead">
+   <br /><a name="Chapter_26" id="Chapter_26"></a>
+	 <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_373" id="Page_373">373</a></span>
+	 <br /><br /><br />
+	 <h2 id="id01227"><a href="#Contents26">CHAPTER XXVI.</a><br />
+	 <span class="med">1648.</span>
+	 </h2>
+	 <p id="id01228" class="smcapheader">ANTOINE DANIEL.</p>
+	 <p id="id01229" class="noindent space-bottom">
+	        Huron Traders &bull; Battle at Three Rivers &bull;
+					St. Joseph &bull; Onset of the Iroquois &bull;
+					Death of Daniel &bull; The Town Destroyed
+	 </p>
+	 <p class="break1"></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="double-space-top" id="id01231">
+<span class="smcap">In</span> 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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_374" id="Page_374">374</a></span>
+ 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.
+<a href="#footer_26-1"><span class="superscript">[1]</span></a>
+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.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_26-1" name="footer_26-1"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[1]</span>
+				Lalemant, <i>Relation, 1648</i>, 11. The Jesuit Bressani had come
+				down with the Hurons, and was with them in the fight. <br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id01232">
+The oft-mentioned town of Teanaustay&eacute;, 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.</p>
+
+<p id="id01233">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_375" id="Page_375">375</a></span>
+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 <i>totems</i> 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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_376" id="Page_376">376</a></span>
+ 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,&mdash;"brothers, to-day we shall be in Heaven."</p>
+
+<p id="id01234">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_377" id="Page_377">377</a></span>
+ 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 gunshot 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.
+<a href="#footer_26-2"><span class="superscript">[2]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id01235" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_26-2" name="footer_26-2"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[2]</span>
+				Ragueneau, <i>Relation des Hurons, 1649</i>, 3-5; Bressani,
+				<i>Relation Abr&eacute;g&eacute;e</i>, 247; Du Creux,
+				<i>Historia Canadensis</i>, 524; Tanner, <i>Societas
+				Jesu Militans</i>, 531; Marie de l'Incarnation,
+				<i>Lettre aux Ursulines de Tours, Quebec, 1649</i>.</p>
+    <p id="id01236">
+		    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. <br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id01237">
+Teanaustay&eacute; 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.</p>
+
+<p id="id01238">
+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
+Teanaustay&eacute;.  Never had the Huron nation received such a blow.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="main" />
+<div class="chapterhead">
+   <br /><a name="Chapter_27" id="Chapter_27"></a>
+	 <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_378" id="Page_378">378</a></span>
+	 <br /><br /><br />
+	 <h2 id="id01239"><a href="#Contents27">CHAPTER XXVII.</a><br />
+	 <span class="med">1649.</span>
+	 </h2>
+	 <p id="id01240" class="smcapheader">RUIN OF THE HURONS.</p>
+	 <p id="id01241" class="noindent space-bottom">
+	        St. Louis on Fire &bull; Invasion &bull;
+					St. Ignace captured &bull; Br&eacute;beuf and Lalemant &bull;
+					Battle at St. Louis &bull; Sainte Marie threatened &bull;
+					Renewed Fighting &bull; Desperate Conflict &bull;
+					A Night of Suspense &bull; Panic among the Victors &bull;
+					Burning of St. Ignace &bull; Retreat of the Iroquois
+	 </p>
+	 <p class="break1"></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="double-space-top" id="id01243">
+<span class="smcap">More</span> 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.</p>
+
+<p id="id01244">
+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,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_379" id="Page_379">379</a></span>
+breathless and
+aghast, from the burning town.  Their worst fear was realized.  The
+Iroquois were there; but where were the priests of the mission,
+Br&eacute;beuf and Lalemant?</p>
+
+<p id="id01245">
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id01246">
+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;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_380" id="Page_380">380</a></span>
+ 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.</p>
+
+<p id="id01247">
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id01248">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_381" id="Page_381">381</a></span>
+Here were the two Jesuits, Br&eacute;beuf and Lalemant.  Br&eacute;beuf'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.</p>
+
+<p id="id01249">
+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,&mdash;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 Br&eacute;beuf and Lalemant, stripped them, bound them fast, and led them
+with the other
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_382" id="Page_382">382</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id01250">
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id01251">
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id01252">
+Ragueneau, Bressani, and their companions waited in suspense at Sainte
+Marie.  On the one hand, they trembled for Br&eacute;beuf 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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_383" id="Page_383">383</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id01253">
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id01254">
+The Iroquois who escaped fled to St. Ignace.  Here, or on the way thither,
+they found the main
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_384" id="Page_384">384</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id01255">
+The lamps burned all night at Sainte Marie, and its defenders stood
+watching till daylight, musket
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_385" id="Page_385">385</a></span>
+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,&mdash;as if, says the Father Superior, "the country
+were waiting, palsied with fright, for some new disaster."</p>
+
+<p id="id01256">
+On the following day,&mdash;the journalist fails not to mention that it was
+the festival of Saint Joseph,&mdash;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.
+<a href="#footer_27-1"><span class="superscript">[1]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id01257" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_27-1" name="footer_27-1"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[1]</span>
+				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.
+				Tach&eacute;. <br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id01258">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_386" id="Page_386">386</a></span>
+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,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="main" />
+<div class="chapterhead">
+   <br /><a name="Chapter_28" id="Chapter_28"></a>
+	 <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_387" id="Page_387">387</a></span>
+	 <br /><br /><br />
+	 <h2 id="id01259"><a href="#Contents28">CHAPTER XXVIII.</a><br />
+	 <span class="med">1649.</span>
+	 </h2>
+	 <p id="id01260" class="smcapheader">THE MARTYRS.</p>
+	 <p id="id01261" class="noindent space-bottom">
+	        The Ruins of St. Ignace &bull; The Relics found &bull;
+					Br&eacute;beuf at the Stake &bull; His
+					<ins title="Capitalize Unconquerable to match the topic list in the Contents section.">
+					U</ins>nconquerable Fortitude &bull;
+					Lalemant &bull; Renegade Hurons &bull; Iroquois Atrocities &bull;
+					Death of Br&eacute;beuf &bull; His Character &bull;
+          Death of Lalemant
+	 </p>
+	 <p class="break1"></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="double-space-top" id="id01263">
+<span class="smcap">On</span> 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,&mdash;the
+scorched and mangled relics of Br&eacute;beuf and Lalemant.
+<a href="#footer_28-1"><span class="superscript">[1]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id01264" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_28-1" name="footer_28-1"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[1]</span>
+				"Ils y trouuerent vn spectacle d'horreur, les restes de la
+				cruaut&eacute; mesme, ou plus tost les restes de l'amour de Dieu,
+				qui seul triomphe dans la mort des Martyrs."&mdash;Ragueneau,
+				<i>Relation des Hurons, 1649</i>, 13. <br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id01265">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_388" id="Page_388">388</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id01266">
+On the afternoon of the sixteenth,&mdash;the day when the two priests were
+captured,&mdash;Br&eacute;beuf 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 Br&eacute;beuf
+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 Br&eacute;beuf'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,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_389" id="Page_389">389</a></span>
+he threw his arms upward,
+with a shriek of supplication to Heaven.  Next they hung around Br&eacute;beuf'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."  Br&eacute;beuf 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.</p>
+
+<p id="id01267">
+Thus died Jean de Br&eacute;beuf, the founder of the Huron mission, its truest
+hero, and its greatest martyr.  He came of a noble race,&mdash;the same,
+it is said, from which sprang the English Earls of Arundel; but never had
+the mailed barons of his line
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_390" id="Page_390">390</a></span>
+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."
+<a href="#footer_28-2"><span class="superscript">[2]</span></a>
+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.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_28-2" name="footer_28-2"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[2]</span>
+				Charlevoix, I. 294.  Alegambe uses a similar expression. <br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id01268">
+Lalemant, physically weak from childhood, and slender almost to
+emaciation, was constitutionally unequal to a display of fortitude like
+that of his colleague.  When Br&eacute;beuf 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.
+<a href="#footer_28-3"><span class="superscript">[3]</span></a>
+It was said, that,
+at times, he seemed beside himself; then, rallying, with hands uplifted,
+he offered his
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_391" id="Page_391">391</a></span>
+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
+Br&eacute;beuf 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.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id01269" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_28-3" name="footer_28-3"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[3]</span>
+				"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."&mdash;<i>Relation des Hurons, 1649</i>,
+				15.</p>
+   <p id="id01270">
+	      Lalemant was a Parisian, and his family belonged to the class of
+				<i>gens de robe</i>, 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'&eacute;tait l'homme le plus faible et le plus d&eacute;licat
+				qu'on e&ucirc;t pu voir."  Both Bressani and Ragueneau are equally
+				emphatic on this point.<br />
+   </p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id01271">
+The bodies of the two missionaries were carried to Sainte Marie, and
+buried in the cemetery there; but the skull of Br&eacute;beuf 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 H&ocirc;tel-Dieu at Quebec.
+<a href="#footer_28-4"><span class="superscript">[4]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id01272" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_28-4" name="footer_28-4"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[4]</span>
+				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.</p>
+    <p id="id01273">
+		    "Madame our foundress (<i>Madame de la Peltrie</i>) 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 (<i>Br&eacute;beuf</i>) 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."</p>
+    <p id="id01274">
+		    Br&eacute;beuf had once been ordered by the Father Superior to write
+				down the visions, revelations, and inward experiences with which he
+				was
+				<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_392" id="Page_392">392</a></span>
+				favored,&mdash;"at least," says Ragueneau, "those which he could
+				easily remember, for their multitude was too great for the whole to
+				be recalled."&mdash;"I find nothing," he adds, "more frequent in this
+				memoir than the expression of his desire to die for Jesus Christ:
+				'<i>Sentio me vehementer impelli ad moriendum pro
+				Christo</i>.'&hellip; 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;" &hellip;
+				"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."</p>
+    <p id="id01275">
+		    Some of his innumerable visions have been already mentioned.
+				(See <i>ante</i>, <a href="#Page_108">(page 108)</a>.)
+				Tanner, <i>Societas Militans</i>, gives various others,&mdash;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
+				Br&eacute;beuf, as sorcerers who had caused the pest,
+				Ragueneau tells us that "a troop of demons appeared before him
+				divers times,&mdash;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."&mdash;<i>Relation des Hurons, 1649</i>, 20.  Compare
+				the long notice in Alegambe, <i>Mortes Illustres</i>, 644.</p>
+    <p id="id01276">
+		    In Ragueneau's notice of Br&eacute;beuf, as in all other notices
+				of deceased missionaries in the <i>Relations</i>, the saintly
+				qualities alone are brought forward, as obedience, humility,
+				etc.; but wherever Br&eacute;beuf himself appears in the course
+				of those voluminous records, he always brings with him an
+				impression of power.</p>
+    <p id="id01277">
+		    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.<br />
+		</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="main" />
+<div class="chapterhead">
+   <br /><a name="Chapter_29" id="Chapter_29"></a>
+	 <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_393" id="Page_393">393</a></span>
+	 <br /><br /><br />
+	 <h2 id="id01279"><a href="#Contents29">CHAPTER XXIX.</a><br />
+	 <span class="med">1649, 1650.</span>
+	 </h2>
+	 <p id="id01280" class="smcapheader">THE SANCTUARY.</p>
+	 <p id="id01281" class="noindent space-bottom">
+	          Dispersion of the Hurons &bull; Sainte Marie abandoned &bull;
+						Isle St. Joseph &bull; Removal of the Mission &bull;
+						The New Fort &bull; Misery of the Hurons &bull;
+						Famine &bull; Epidemic &bull; Employments of the Jesuits
+	 </p>
+	 <p class="break1"></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="double-space-top" id="id01282">
+<span class="smcap">All</span> 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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_394" id="Page_394">394</a></span>
+Nation; a few joined the Neutrals on the north of Lake Erie.  The Hurons,
+as a nation, ceased to exist.
+<a href="#footer_29-1"><span class="superscript">[1]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id01283" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_29-1" name="footer_29-1"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[1]</span>
+				Chaumonot, who was at Ossossan&eacute; 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.&mdash;<i>Vie</i>, 62.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id01284">
+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."
+<a href="#footer_29-2"><span class="superscript">[2]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_29-2" name="footer_29-2"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[2]</span>
+				Ragueneau, <i>Relation des Hurons, 1649</i>, 26.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id01285">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_395" id="Page_395">395</a></span>
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_396" id="Page_396">396</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id01286">
+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,&mdash;in part the produce of their own fields, and in part bought
+from the Hurons in former years of plenty,&mdash;pictures, vestments, sacred
+vessels and images, weapons, ammunition, tools, goods for barter with the
+Indians, cattle, swine, and poultry.
+<a href="#footer_29-3"><span class="superscript">[3]</span></a>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_29-4"><span class="superscript">[4]</span></a>
+The
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_397" id="Page_397">397</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id01287" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_29-3" name="footer_29-3"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[3]</span>
+				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.&mdash;<i>Lettre de Ragueneau au
+				G&eacute;n&eacute;ral de la Compagnie de J&eacute;sus,
+				St. Joseph, 13 Mars, 1650</i>. <br />
+				<a id="footer_29-4" name="footer_29-4"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[4]</span>
+				Ragueneau, <i>Relation des Hurons, 1650</i>, 3.  In the
+				<i>Relation</i> of the preceding year he gives the fifteenth
+				of May as the date,&mdash;evidently an error.</p>
+    <p id="id01288">
+		    "Nous sortismes de ces terres de Promission qui estoient nostre Paradis,
+				et o&ugrave; la mort nous eust est&eacute; 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 oppos&eacute;es
+				qu'elles paroissent &agrave; nos desirs, &agrave; nos plus saintes
+				esperances et aux plus tendres amours de nostre
+				<ins title="Add end-quote after coeur">c&oelig;ur."&mdash;<i>Lettre
+				de Ragueneau au P. Provincial &agrave;
+				Paris</i>,</ins>  in <i>Relation des Hurons, 1650</i>, 1.</p>
+    <p id="id01289">
+		    "Mais il fallut, &agrave; tous tant que nous estions, quitter
+				cette ancienne demeure de saincte Marie; ces edifices, qui quoy
+				que pauures, paroissoient des chefs-d'&oelig;uure de l'art aux yeux de
+				nos pauures Sauuages; ces terres cultiu&eacute;es, 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 est&eacute; 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 sainctet&eacute; et n'en prissent leur
+				auantage, nous y mismes le feu nous mesmes, et nous vismes brusler
+				&agrave; nos yeux, en moins d'vne heure, nos trauaux de neuf et de
+				dix ans."&mdash;Ragueneau, <i>Relation des Hurons, 1650</i>, 2, 3.
+				<br />
+		</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id01290">
+Near the entrance of Matchedash Bay lie the three islands now known as
+Faith, Hope, and Charity.  Of these, Charity or Christian Island, called
+Ahoendo&eacute; 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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_398" id="Page_398">398</a></span>
+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&mdash;the greater part serving without
+pay&mdash;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.
+<a href="#footer_29-5"><span class="superscript">[5]</span></a>
+Detached redoubts were also built near at hand, where French musketeers
+could aid in defending the adjacent Huron village.
+<a href="#footer_29-6"><span class="superscript">[6]</span></a>
+Though the island was
+called St. Joseph, the fort, like that on the Wye, received the name of
+Sainte Marie.  Jesuit
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_399" id="Page_399">399</a></span>
+devotion scattered these names broadcast over all
+the field of their labors.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id01291" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_29-5" name="footer_29-5"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[5]</span>
+				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,&mdash;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. <br />
+       <a id="footer_29-6" name="footer_29-6"></a>
+			 <span class="superscript">[6]</span>
+			 Compare Martin, Introduction to Bressani,
+			 <i>Relation Abr&eacute;g&eacute;e</i>, 38. <br />
+   </p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id01292">
+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.
+<a href="#footer_29-7"><span class="superscript">[7]</span></a>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_29-8"><span class="superscript">[8]</span></a>
+Of this
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_400" id="Page_400">400</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_29-9"><span class="superscript">[9]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id01293" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_29-7" name="footer_29-7"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[7]</span>
+				Ragueneau, <i>Relation des Hurons, 1650</i>, 3, 4.
+				He reckons eight persons to a family. <br />
+				<a id="footer_29-8" name="footer_29-8"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[8]</span>
+				"Ie voudrois pouuoir representer &agrave; toutes les personnes
+				affectionn&eacute;es &agrave; nos Hurons, l'&eacute;tat pitoyable
+				auquel ils sont reduits; &hellip; comment seroit-il possible que
+				ces imitateurs de I&eacute;sus Christ ne fussent &eacute;meus
+				&agrave; piti&eacute; &agrave; la veu&euml; des centaines et
+				centaines de veuues dont non seulement les enfans, mais quasi
+				les parens ont est&eacute; outrageusement ou tuez, ou emmenez
+				captifs, et puis inhumainement bruslez, cuits, d&eacute;chirez
+				et deuorez des ennemis."&mdash;<i>Lettre de Chaumonot &agrave;
+				Lalemant, Sup&eacute;rieur &agrave; Quebec, Isle de St. Joseph,
+				1 Juin, 1649</i>.</p>
+    <p id="id01294">
+        "Vne m&egrave;re s'est veu&euml;, n'ayant que ses deux mamelles,
+				mais sans suc et sans laict, qui toutefois estoit l'vnique chose
+				qu'elle eust peu presenter &agrave; 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 damn&eacute;e,
+				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."&mdash;Ragueneau,
+				<i>Relation des Hurons, 1650</i>, 5.<br />
+				<a id="footer_29-9" name="footer_29-9"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[9]</span>
+        Eight hundred sacks of this mixture were given to the Hurons during the
+				winter.&mdash;Bressani, <i>Relation Abr&eacute;g&eacute;e</i>, 283. <br />
+   </p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id01295">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.
+<a href="#footer_29-10"><span class="superscript">[10]</span></a>
+An epidemic presently appeared,
+to aid
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_401" id="Page_401">401</a></span>
+the work of famine.  Before spring, about half of their number
+were dead.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id01296" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_29-10" name="footer_29-10"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[10]</span>
+				"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 &agrave; la
+				pluspart, ce que seroient en France les mets les plus exquis.
+				Les charognes mesme deterr&eacute;es, 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 donn&eacute; plus de lumiere qu'ils n'en auoient dans
+				l'infidelit&eacute;, ne creussent pas commettre aucun pech&eacute;
+				de manger leurs ennemis, aussi peu qu'il y en a de les tuer,
+				toutefois ie puis dire auec verit&eacute;, 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 necessit&eacute;
+				n'a plus de loy, et des dents fameliques ne discernent plus ce
+				qu'elles mangent.  Les m&egrave;res se sont repeu&euml;s 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."&mdash;Ragueneau,
+			  <i>Relation des Hurons, 1650</i>, 4.  Compare Bressani,
+				<i>Relation Abr&eacute;g&eacute;e</i>, 283.<br />
+   </p>
+</div>
+<p id="id01297">
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id01298">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_402" id="Page_402">402</a></span>
+were dressed chiefly in skins.
+<a href="#footer_29-11"><span class="superscript">[11]</span></a>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_29-12"><span class="superscript">[12]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_29-11" name="footer_29-11"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[11]</span>
+				<i>Lettre de Ragueneau au G&eacute;n&eacute;ral de la
+				Compagnie de J&eacute;sus, Isle St. Joseph, 13 Mars,
+				1650</i>.<br />
+				<a id="footer_29-12" name="footer_29-12"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[12]</span>
+				Ragueneau, <i>Relation des Hurons, 1650</i>, 6, 7. <br />
+   </p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id01299">
+Thus this miserable winter wore away, till the opening spring brought new
+fears and new necessities.
+<a href="#footer_29-13"><span class="superscript">[13]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id01300" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_29-13" name="footer_29-13"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[13]</span>
+				Concerning the retreat of the Hurons to Isle St. Joseph, the principal
+				authorities are the <i>Relations</i> of 1649 and 1650, which are ample
+				in detail, and written with an excellent simplicity and modesty; the
+				<i>Relation Abr&eacute;g&eacute;e</i> of Bressani; the reports of the
+				Father Superior to the General of the Jesuits at Rome; the
+				manuscript of 1652, entitled <i>M&eacute;moires touchant la Mort et
+				les Vertus des P&egrave;res, etc.</i>; the unpublished letters of
+				Garnier; and a letter of Chaumonot, written on the spot, and preserved
+				in the <i>Relations</i>.<br />
+   </p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="main" />
+<div class="chapterhead">
+   <br /><a name="Chapter_30" id="Chapter_30"></a>
+	 <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_403" id="Page_403">403</a></span>
+	 <br /><br /><br />
+	 <h2 id="id01301"><a href="#Contents30">CHAPTER XXX.</a><br />
+	 <span class="med">1649.</span>
+	 </h2>
+	 <p id="id01302" class="smcapheader">GARNIER&mdash;CHABANEL.</p>
+	 <p id="id01303" class="noindent space-bottom">
+	          The Tobacco Missions &bull; St. Jean attacked &bull;
+					  Death of Garnier &bull; The Journey of Chabanel &bull;
+					  His Death &bull; Garreau and Grelon.
+	 </p>
+	 <p class="break1"></p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="double-space-top" id="id01305">
+<span class="smcap">Late</span> 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.</p>
+
+<p id="id01306">
+There were at this time two missions in the Tobacco Nation, St. Jean and
+St. Matthias,
+<a href="#footer_30-1"><span class="superscript">[1]</span></a>&mdash;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_404" id="Page_404">404</a></span>
+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,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id01307" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_30-1" name="footer_30-1"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[1]</span>
+				The Indian name of St. Jean was Etarita; and that of St. Matthias,
+				Ekarenniondi.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id01308">It was two o'clock in the afternoon of the seventh
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_405" id="Page_405">405</a></span>
+of December.
+<a href="#footer_30-2"><span class="superscript">[2]</span></a>
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_406" id="Page_406">406</a></span>
+on the ground.
+<a href="#footer_30-3"><span class="superscript">[3]</span></a>
+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 everywhere, 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.</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id01309" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_30-2" name="footer_30-2"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[2]</span>
+				Bressani, <i>Relation Abr&eacute;g&eacute;e</i>, 264.<br />
+				<a id="footer_30-3" name="footer_30-3"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[3]</span>
+				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.  (<i>M&eacute;moires touchant la Mort et les Vertus
+				des P&egrave;res Garnier, etc.</i>, MS.).  Ragueneau also speaks of her
+				in <i>Relation des Hurons, 1650</i>, 9.&mdash;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.<br />
+		</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id01310">
+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,&mdash;so scorched and disfigured, that he was
+recognized with difficulty.  The two priests wrapped his body in a part
+of their own
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_407" id="Page_407">407</a></span>
+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.  Br&eacute;beuf was the
+lion of the Huron mission, and Garnier was the lamb; but the lamb was as
+fearless as the lion.
+<a href="#footer_30-4"><span class="superscript">[4]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id01311" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_30-4" name="footer_30-4"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[4]</span>
+				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 Br&eacute;beuf and Lalemant, he writes
+				to his brother:&mdash;</p>
+    <p id="id01312">
+		    "H&eacute;las!  Mon cher fr&egrave;re, si ma conscience ne me
+				convainquait et ne me confondait de mon infid&eacute;lit&eacute;
+				au service de notre bon m&acirc;itre, je pourrais esp&eacute;rer
+				quelque faveur approchante de celles qu'il a faites aux bienheureux
+				martyrs avec qui j'avais le bien de converser souvent, &eacute;tant
+				dans les m&ecirc;mes occasions et dangers qu'ils &eacute;taient,
+				mais sa justice me fait craindre que je ne demeure toujours indigne
+				d'une telle couronne."</p>
+    <p id="id01313">
+        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."&mdash;<i>Relation
+				des Hurons, 1650</i>, 12.</p>
+    <p id="id01314">
+		    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. <br />
+    </p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="id01315">
+When, on the following morning, the warriors of St. Jean returned from
+their rash and bootless
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_408" id="Page_408">408</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id01316">
+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,&mdash;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.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_409" id="Page_409">409</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_30-5"><span class="superscript">[5]</span></a>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_30-6"><span class="superscript">[6]</span></a>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_30-7"><span class="superscript">[7]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id01317" class="noindent">
+		    <a id="footer_30-5" name="footer_30-5"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[5]</span>
+				<i>M&eacute;moires touchant la Mort et les Vertus des P&egrave;res,
+				etc.</i>, MS.<br />
+        <a id="footer_30-6" name="footer_30-6"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[6]</span>
+				<i>Abr&eacute;g&eacute; de la Vie du P. No&euml;l Chabanel</i>. MS.
+				<br />
+				<a id="footer_30-7" name="footer_30-7"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[7]</span>
+				"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
+				esloign&eacute;e, ie ne sens plus de crainte.  Cette disposition ne
+				vient pas de moy."&mdash;<i>Relation des Hurons, 1650</i>, 18.</p>
+    <p id="id01318">
+		    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:&mdash;</p>
+    <p id="id01319">
+		    "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,&mdash;I,
+				No&euml;l 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." </p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id01320">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_410" id="Page_410">410</a></span>
+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,&mdash;not more from the Iroquois than from
+the blind rage of those who should have been their friends.
+<a href="#footer_30-8"><span class="superscript">[8]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id01333" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_30-8" name="footer_30-8"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[8]</span>
+				Ragueneau, <i>Relation des Hurons, 1650</i>, 20.</p>
+    <p id="id01322">
+		    One of these two missionaries, Garreau, was afterwards killed by the
+        Iroquois, who shot him through the spine, in 1656, near Montreal.&mdash;De
+        Quen, <i>Relation, 1656</i>, 41. <br />
+    </p>
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr class="main" />
+<div class="chapterhead">
+   <br /><a name="Chapter_31" id="Chapter_31"></a>
+	 <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_411" id="Page_411">411</a></span>
+	 <br /><br /><br />
+	 <h2 id="id01323"><a href="#Contents31">CHAPTER XXXI.</a><br />
+	 <span class="med">1650-1652.</span>
+	 </h2>
+	 <p id="id01324" class="smcapheader">THE HURON MISSION ABANDONED.</p>
+	 <p id="id01325" class="noindent space-bottom">
+	          Famine and the Tomahawk &bull; A New Asylum &bull;
+					  Voyage of the Refugees to Quebec &bull;
+					  Meeting with Bressani &bull;
+					  Desperate Courage of the Iroquois &bull;
+					  Inroads and Battles &bull; Death of Buteux
+	 </p>
+	 <p class="break1"></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="double-space-top" id="id01327">
+<span class="smcap">As</span> 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.
+<a href="#footer_31-1"><span class="superscript">[1]</span></a>
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_412" id="Page_412">412</a></span>
+ 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,&mdash;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.
+<a href="#footer_31-2"><span class="superscript">[2]</span></a></p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id01328" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_31-1" name="footer_31-1"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[1]</span>
+				"Mais le Printemps estant venu, les Iroquois nous furent encore plus
+				cruels; et ce sont eux qui vrayement ont ruin&eacute; toutes nos
+				esperances, et qui ont fait vn lieu d'horreur, vne terre de sang et
+				de carnage, vn theatre de cruaut&eacute; et vn sepulchre de
+				carcasses d&eacute;charn&eacute;es par les langueurs d'vne longue
+				famine, d'vn pa&iuml;s de benediction, d'vne terre de Saintet&eacute;
+				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."&mdash;Ragueneau, <i>Relation des Hurons,
+				1650</i>, 23.<br />
+        <a id="footer_31-2" name="footer_31-2"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[2]</span>
+        "Le iour de l'Annonciation, vingt-cinquiesme de Mars, vne arm&eacute;e
+				d'Iroquois ayans march&eacute; prez de deux cents lieu&euml;s de
+				pa&iuml;s, &agrave; trauers les glaces et les neges, 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 dispers&eacute;es &ccedil;a
+				et l&agrave;, esloign&eacute;es les vnes des autres de six, sept et huit
+				lieu&euml;s, cent personnes en vn lieu, en vn autre cinquante; et mesme
+				il y auoit quelques familles solitaires, qui s'estoient escart&eacute;es
+				en des lieux moins connus et hors de tout chemin.  Chose estrange! de
+				tout ce monde dissip&eacute;, vn seul homme s'eschappa, qui vint nous en
+				apporter les nouuelles."&mdash;Ragueneau, <i>Relation des Hurons,
+				1650</i>, 23, 24. <br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id01330">
+"My pen," writes Ragueneau, "has no ink black
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_413" id="Page_413">413</a></span>
+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.&hellip;  Despair
+was universal."
+<a href="#footer_31-3"><span class="superscript">[3]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_31-3" name="footer_31-3"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[3]</span>
+				Ragueneau, <i>Relation des Hurons, 1650</i>, 24. <br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id01331">
+The Jesuits at St. Joseph knew not what course to take.  The doom of
+their flock seemed inevitable.  When dismay and despondency were at
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_414" id="Page_414">414</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id01332">
+"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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_415" id="Page_415">415</a></span>
+nothing but bitter roots and acorns to
+keep them alive."
+<a href="#footer_31-4"><span class="superscript">[4]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_31-4" name="footer_31-4"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[4]</span>
+				Ragueneau, <i>Relation des Hurons, 1650</i>, 25.  It appears from the
+				MS. <i>Journal des Sup&eacute;rieurs des J&eacute;suites</i>, 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.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id01334">
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id01335">
+"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."
+<a href="#footer_31-5"><span class="superscript">[5]</span></a>
+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,&mdash;nothing
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_416" id="Page_416">416</a></span>
+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."
+<a href="#footer_31-6"><span class="superscript">[6]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_31-5" name="footer_31-5"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[5]</span>
+				Compare Bressani, <i>Relation Abr&eacute;g&eacute;e</i>, 288.
+				<br />
+				<a id="footer_31-6" name="footer_31-6"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[6]</span>
+				Ragueneau, <i>Relation des Hurons, 1650</i>, 27.  These
+				Algonquins of the Ottawa, though broken and dispersed,
+				were not destroyed, as Ragueneau supposes.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id01336">
+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,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_417" id="Page_417">417</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id01337">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_418" id="Page_418">418</a></span>
+ 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.</p>
+
+<p id="id01338">
+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.
+<a href="#footer_31-7"><span class="superscript">[7]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_31-7" name="footer_31-7"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[7]</span>
+				Compare Juchereau, <i>Histoire de l'H&ocirc;tel-Dieu</i>,
+				79, 80.<br />
+
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id01339">
+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,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_419" id="Page_419">419</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_31-8"><span class="superscript">[8]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_31-8" name="footer_31-8"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[8]</span>
+				Ragueneau, <i>Relation, 1650</i>, 30.<br />
+
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id01340">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_420" id="Page_420">420</a></span>
+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."</p>
+
+<p id="id01341">
+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.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_421" id="Page_421">421</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_31-9"><span class="superscript">[9]</span></a>
+ 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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_422" id="Page_422">422</a></span>
+ 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.
+<a href="#footer_31-10"><span class="superscript">[10]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_31-9" name="footer_31-9"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[9]</span>
+				<i>Iournal du Pere Iacques Buteux du Voyage qu'il a fait pour la Mission
+				des Attikamegues</i>.  See <i>Relation, 1651</i>, 15. <br />
+				<a id="footer_31-10" name="footer_31-10"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[10]</span>
+				Ragueneau, <i>Relation, 1652</i>, 2, 3. <br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="main" />
+<div class="chapterhead">
+   <br /><a name="Chapter_32" id="Chapter_32"></a>
+	 <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_423" id="Page_423">423</a></span>
+	 <br /><br /><br />
+	 <h2 id="id01342"><a href="#Contents32">CHAPTER XXXII.</a><br />
+	 <span class="med">1650-1866.</span>
+	 </h2>
+	 <p id="id01343" class="smcapheader">THE LAST OF THE HURONS.</p>
+	 <p id="id01344" class="noindent space-bottom">
+	          Fate of the Vanquished &bull;
+						The Refugees of St. Jean Baptiste and St. Michel &bull;
+						The Tobacco Nation and its Wanderings &bull;
+						The Modern Wyandots &bull; The Biter Bit &bull;
+						The Hurons at Quebec &bull; Notre-Dame de Lorette.
+	 </p>
+	 <p class="break1"></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="double-space-top" id="id01346">
+<span class="smcap">Iroquois</span> 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.</p>
+
+<p id="id01347">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_424" id="Page_424">424</a></span>
+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,&mdash;holding so fast to their faith, that, eighteen years after,
+a Jesuit missionary found that many of them were still good Catholics.
+<a href="#footer_32-1"><span class="superscript">[1]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id01348" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_32-1" name="footer_32-1"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[1]</span>
+				Compare <i>Relation, 1651</i>, 4; <i>1660</i>, 14, 28;
+				and <i>1670</i>, 69.  The Huron town among the
+				Senecas was called Gandougara&eacute;.  Father
+				Fremin was here in 1668, and gives an account
+				of his visit in the <i>Relation</i> of 1670.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id01349">
+The division of the Hurons called the Tobacco Nation, favored by their
+isolated position among
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_425" id="Page_425">425</a></span>
+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,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_426" id="Page_426">426</a></span>
+not on the island, but on the neighboring Point St. Ignace,
+<ins title="later editions describe this location differently.">
+at the northern extremity of the great peninsula of Michigan.</ins>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_32-2"><span class="superscript">[2]</span></a>
+ 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.
+<a href="#footer_32-3"><span class="superscript">[3]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id01350" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_32-2" name="footer_32-2"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[2]</span>
+				See "History of the Conspiracy of Pontiac."<br />
+				<a id="footer_32-3" name="footer_32-3"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[3]</span>
+				The migrations of this band of the Hurons may be traced by
+				detached passages and incidental remarks in the <i>Relations</i>
+				of 1654, 1660, 1667, 1670, 1671, and 1672.  Nicolas Perrot, in
+				his chapter, <i>Deffaitte et F&uuml;itte des Hurons
+				chass&eacute;s de leur Pays</i>, and in the chapter following,
+				gives a long and rather confused account of their movements and
+				adventures.  See also La Poterie, <i>Histoire de
+				l'Am&eacute;rique Septentrionale</i>, II. 51-56.  According to
+				the <i>Relation</i> of 1670, the Hurons, when living at
+				Shagwamigon Point, numbered about fifteen hundred souls. <br />
+		</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id01351">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_427" id="Page_427">427</a></span>
+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 &Eacute;tienne
+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.  &Eacute;tienne 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.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_428" id="Page_428">428</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id01352">
+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.  &Eacute;tienne 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.  &Eacute;tienne 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.</p>
+
+<p id="id01353">
+During one or two succeeding days, many messages
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_429" id="Page_429">429</a></span>
+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.  &Eacute;tienne'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 &Eacute;tienne'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 &Eacute;tienne a
+warning of their danger in time to make their escape.  The year before,
+he had been captured, with Br&eacute;beuf 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.
+<a href="#footer_32-4"><span class="superscript">[4]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id01354" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_32-4" name="footer_32-4"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[4]</span>
+				Ragueneau, <i>Relation des Hurons, 1651</i>, 5, 6.
+				Le Mercier, in the <i>Relation</i> 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.<br />
+		</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="id01355">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_430" id="Page_430">430</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id01356">
+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.
+<a href="#footer_32-5"><span class="superscript">[5]</span></a>
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_431" id="Page_431">431</a></span>
+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 &Eacute;tienne Annaotaha, were slain, fighting
+side by side with the French, in the desperate conflict of the Long
+Sault.
+<a href="#footer_32-6"><span class="superscript">[6]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id01357" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_32-5" name="footer_32-5"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[5]</span>
+				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.&nbsp;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, <i>Historical Sketch of the Isle of Orleans</i>,
+				25.<br />
+				<a id="footer_32-6" name="footer_32-6"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[6]</span>
+				<i>Relation, 1660</i> (anonymous), 14.<br />
+		</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="id01358">
+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.
+<a href="#footer_32-7"><span class="superscript">[7]</span></a>
+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 St. 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.</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_32-7" name="footer_32-7"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[7]</span>
+				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. <br />
+		</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="id01359">
+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.
+<a href="#footer_32-8"><span class="superscript">[8]</span></a>
+He had always cherished the idea of building
+a chapel in honor of her in Canada,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_432" id="Page_432">432</a></span>
+after the model of the Holy House of
+Loretto,&mdash;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."
+<a href="#footer_32-9"><span class="superscript">[9]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id01360" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_32-8" name="footer_32-8"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[8]</span>
+				See <i>ante</i>, <a href="#Page_102">(p. 102)</a>. <br />
+				<a id="footer_32-9" name="footer_32-9"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[9]</span>
+		    "Les gr&acirc;ces qu'on y obtient par l'entremise de la M&egrave;re
+				de Dieu vont jusqu'au miracle.  Comme il faudroit composer un livre
+				entier pour d&eacute;crire toutes ces faveurs extraordinaires, je
+				n'en rapporterai que deux, ayant &eacute;t&eacute; t&eacute;moin
+				oculaire de l'une et propre sujet de l'autre."&mdash;<i>Vie</i>, 95.
+        </p>
+   <p id="id01361">
+	      The removal from Notre-Dame de Foy took place at the end of 1673,
+				and the chapel was finished in the following year.  Compare <i>Vie
+				de Chaumonot</i> with Dablon, <i>Relation, 1672-73</i>, p. 21; and
+				Ibid., <i>Relation 1673-79</i>, p. 259.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id01362">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_433" id="Page_433">433</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_32-10"><span class="superscript">[10]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id01363" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_32-10" name="footer_32-10"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[10]</span>
+				An interesting account of a visit to Indian Lorette in 1721 will be
+				found in the <i>Journal Historique</i> of Charlevoix.  Kalm, in his
+				<i>Travels in North America</i>, describes its condition in 1749.
+				See also Le Beau, <i>Aventures</i>, I. 103; who, however, can hardly
+				be regarded as an authority.<br />
+		</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="main" />
+<div class="chapterhead">
+   <br /><a name="Chapter_33" id="Chapter_33"></a>
+	 <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_434" id="Page_434">434</a></span>
+	 <br /><br /><br />
+	 <h2 id="id01364"><a href="#Contents33">CHAPTER XXXIII.</a><br />
+	 <span class="med">1650-1670.</span>
+	 </h2>
+	 <p id="id01365" class="smcapheader">THE DESTROYERS.</p>
+	 <p id="id01366" class="noindent space-bottom">
+	          Iroquois Ambition &bull; Its Victims &bull;
+						The Fate of the Neutrals &bull; The Fate of the Eries &bull;
+						The War with the Andastes &bull; Supremacy of the Iroquois
+	 </p>
+	 <p class="break1"></p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="double-space-top" id="id01368">
+<span class="smcap">It</span> 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.</p>
+
+<p id="id01369">
+Of the four kindred communities, two at least,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_435" id="Page_435">435</a></span>
+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,&mdash;which for military purposes was wretchedly
+feeble,&mdash;that
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_436" id="Page_436">436</a></span>
+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,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p id="id01370">
+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.
+<a href="#footer_33-1"><span class="superscript">[1]</span></a>
+Their turn was now come, and their victims found fit
+avengers; for no sooner
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_437" id="Page_437">437</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_33-2"><span class="superscript">[2]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id01371" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_33-1" name="footer_33-1"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[1]</span>
+				"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!"&mdash;<i>Relation des Hurons, 1644</i>, 98.</p>
+    <p id="id01372">
+		    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 <i>Relation</i> 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 <i>Relations</i>, and in contemporary documents.
+				They are now extinct as a tribe. </p>
+	  <p class="noindent">
+				<a id="footer_33-2" name="footer_33-2"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[2]</span>
+				Ragueneau, <i>Relation, 1651</i>, 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, <i>M&oelig;urs
+				des Sauvages</i>, II. 176, gives, on the authority of Father Julien
+				Garnier, a singular and improbable account of the origin of the war.</p>
+    <p id="id01374">
+	      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.
+		</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="id01375">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_438" id="Page_438">438</a></span>
+ 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."
+<a href="#footer_33-3"><span class="superscript">[3]</span></a>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_33-4"><span class="superscript">[4]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_33-3" name="footer_33-3"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[3]</span>
+				Le Mercier, <i>Relation, 1654</i>, 9.<br />
+				<a id="footer_33-4" name="footer_33-4"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[4]</span>
+				<i>Ibid.</i>, 10. Le Moyne, in his interesting journal of his
+				mission, repeatedly alludes to their preparations.<br />
+		</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="id01376">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_439" id="Page_439">439</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_33-5"><span class="superscript">[5]</span></a>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_33-6"><span class="superscript">[6]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id01377" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_33-5" name="footer_33-5"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[5]</span>
+				De Quen, <i>Relation, 1656</i>, 30.<br />
+				<a id="footer_33-6" name="footer_33-6"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[6]</span>
+				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, (<i>Journal des PP. Chaumonot et
+				Dablon</i>, in <i>Relation, 1656</i>, 18.)  In the narrative of De
+				Quen (<i>Ibid.</i>, 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.</p>
+   <p id="id01378">
+	      Though the Eries had no fire-arms, they used poisoned arrows with great
+				effect, discharging them, it is said, with surprising rapidity.<br />
+		</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id01379">
+They embarked in canoes on the lake.  At their approach the Eries fell
+back, withdrawing into the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_440" id="Page_440">440</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id01380">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_441" id="Page_441">441</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_33-7"><span class="superscript">[7]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id01381" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_33-7" name="footer_33-7"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[7]</span>
+				De Quen, <i>Relation, 1656</i>, 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.</p>
+    <p id="id01382">
+		    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.</p>
+    <p id="id01383">
+		    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.<br />
+		</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id01384">
+One enemy of their own race remained,&mdash;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.
+<a href="#footer_33-8"><span class="superscript">[8]</span></a>
+The remaining
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_442" id="Page_442">442</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_33-9"><span class="superscript">[9]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id01385" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_33-8" name="footer_33-8"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[8]</span>
+				<i>Relation, 1660</i>, 6 (anonymous).</p>
+    <p id="id01386">
+		    The Mohawks also suffered great reverses about this time at the hands of
+				their Algonquin neighbors, the Mohicans.</p>
+		<p class="noindent">
+				<a id="footer_33-9" name="footer_33-9"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[9]</span>
+				Lalemant, <i>Relation, 1663</i>, 10.<br />
+		</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="id01387">
+The Senecas, by far the most numerous of the five Iroquois nations,
+now found themselves attacked in turn,&mdash;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.
+<a href="#footer_33-10"><span class="superscript">[10]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_33-10" name="footer_33-10"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[10]</span>
+				Lalemant, <i>Relation, 1664</i>, 33.<br />
+		</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id01388">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_443" id="Page_443">443</a></span>
+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.
+<a href="#footer_33-11"><span class="superscript">[11]</span></a>
+"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.
+<a href="#footer_33-12"><span class="superscript">[12]</span></a>
+Yet they were not wholly destroyed; for a remnant
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_444" id="Page_444">444</a></span>
+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."
+<a href="#footer_33-13"><span class="superscript">[13]</span></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_33-11" name="footer_33-11"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[11]</span>
+				Dablon, <i>Relation, 1672</i>, 24.<br />
+				<a id="footer_33-12" name="footer_33-12"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[12]</span>
+				<i>&Eacute;tat Pr&eacute;sent des Missions</i>, in
+				<i>Relations In&eacute;dites</i>, II. 44.  <i>Relation, 1676</i>,
+				2.  This is one of the <i>Relations</i> printed by Mr. Lenox.<br />
+				<a id="footer_33-13" name="footer_33-13"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[13]</span>
+				"History of the Conspiracy of Pontiac," Chap. XXIV.
+				Compare Shea, in <i>Historical Magazine</i>, II. 297.<br />
+		</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id01389">
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id01390">
+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,&mdash;Hurons,
+Neutrals, Eries, and Indians of various Algonquin tribes.
+<a href="#footer_33-14"><span class="superscript">[14]</span></a>
+Still their aggressive
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_445" id="Page_445">445</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id01391" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_33-14" name="footer_33-14"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[14]</span>
+				<i>Relation, 1660</i>, 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." (<i>Relation, 1657</i>, 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.<br />
+		</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="main" />
+<div class="chapterhead">
+   <br /><a name="Chapter_34" id="Chapter_34"></a>
+	 <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_446" id="Page_446">446</a></span>
+	 <br /><br /><br />
+	 <h2 id="id01392"><a href="#Contents34">CHAPTER XXXIV.</a><br />
+	 </h2>
+	 <p id="id01393" class="smcapheader">THE END.</p>
+	 <p id="id01394" class="noindent space-bottom">
+	          Failure of the Jesuits &bull;
+						What their Success would have involved &bull;
+						Future of the Mission
+	 </p>
+	 <p class="break1"></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="double-space-top" id="id01395">
+<span class="smcap">With</span> 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,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p id="id01396">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_447" id="Page_447">447</a></span>
+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;"
+<a href="#footer_34-1"><span class="superscript">[1]</span></a>
+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.</p>
+
+<div class="footer">
+		<p id="id01397" class="noindent">
+        <a id="footer_34-1" name="footer_34-1"></a>
+				<span class="superscript">[1]</span>
+				<i>Lettre de Lalemant au R. P. Provincial (Relation, 1650</i>, 48).
+				<br />
+		</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p id="id01398">
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p id="id01399">
+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&mdash;not
+civilized, for that was scarcely possible&mdash;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_448" id="Page_448">448</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id01400">
+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.</p>
+
+<p id="id01401">
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_449" id="Page_449">449</a></span>
+honor to the defeated.  Their virtues shine amidst
+the rubbish of error, like diamonds and gold in the gravel of the torrent.</p>
+
+<p id="id01402">
+But now new scenes succeed, and other actors enter on the stage, a hardy
+and valiant band, moulded to endure and dare,&mdash;the Discoverers of the
+Great West.</p>
+
+
+<div class="chapterhead">
+		  <p class="center">
+			   <br/>
+				 <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_453" id="Page_453">453</a></span>
+			   <a name="Index" id="Index"></a>
+				 <br/><br/><br/>
+			</p>
+			<h2>
+      <a href="#Contents35">INDEX</a>
+      </h2>
+    </div>
+		<p class="center noindent smcap">The Roman Numerals refer to the introduction. </p>
+
+
+    <h3>A.</h3>
+    <div class="indexfont">
+       <i>Abenaquis</i>, where found, <a href="#Page_xxii">xxii</a>;
+			    ask for a missionary, <a href="#Page_321">321</a>.<br/>
+       Abraham, Plains of, whence the name,
+			    <a href="#Page_335">335</a> <i>note</i>.<br/>
+       Adoption of prisoners as members of the tribe,
+			    <a href="#Page_lxvi">lxvi</a>, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>,
+					<a href="#Page_309">309</a>, <a href="#Page_424">424</a>,
+					<a href="#Page_444">444</a>.<br/>
+       Adventures and sufferings of an Algonquin woman,
+			    <a href="#Page_309">309</a>-<a href="#Page_313">313</a>;
+          of another,
+					   <a href="#Page_313">313</a>-<a href="#Page_316">316</a>.<br/>
+       Agnier, a name for the Mohawks,
+			    <a href="#Page_xlviii">xlviii</a> <i>note</i>.<br />
+       Aiguillon, Duchess d', founds a H&ocirc;tel-Dieu at Quebec,
+			    <a href="#Page_181">181</a>.<br/>
+       Albany, formerly Rensselaerswyck, its condition in 1643,
+			    <a href="#Page_229">229</a>.<br/>
+       <i>Algonquins,</i> a comprehensive term, <a href="#Page_xx">xx</a>;
+          regions occupied by them in 1535, <a href="#Page_xx">xx</a>;
+          the designation, how applied, <i>ib. note</i>;
+          found in New England, <a href="#Page_xxi">xxi</a>;
+   				their relation to the Iroquois, <a href="#Page_xxi">xxi</a>;
+   				numbers, <i>ib.</i>;
+					Algonquin missions, <a href="#Page_368">368</a>.<br/>
+       Allumette Island,
+			    <a href="#Page_xxiv">xxiv</a>, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>;
+					its true position, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>.<br />
+       <i>Amikouas</i>, or People of the Beaver,
+			    <a href="#Page_lxviii">lxviii</a> <i>note</i>;
+          supposed descent from that animal, <i>ib.</i> <br/>
+       Amusements of the Indians, <a href="#Page_xxxvi">xxxvi</a>;
+          the Jesuits require them to be abandoned,
+					   <a href="#Page_136">136</a>.<br/>
+       <i>Andacwandet</i>, a strange method of cure,
+			    <a href="#Page_xlii">xlii</a>.<br/>
+			 <i>Andastes</i>, where found in the early times,
+			       <a href="#Page_xx">xx</a>, <a href="#Page_xlvi">xlvi</a>;
+   		    fierce warriors, <a href="#Page_xlvi">xlvi</a>;
+   		    identical with the Susquehannocks, <i>ib. note</i>;
+   		    their aid sought by the Hurons, <a href="#Page_341">341</a>;
+   		    the result unsatisfactory, <a href="#Page_344">344</a> <i>seq.</i>;
+   		    war with the Mohawks, <a href="#Page_441">441</a>;
+   		    assisted by the Swedes from Delaware River,
+					   <a href="#Page_442">442</a>;
+   		    repulse an attack of the Iroquois, <i>ib.</i>;
+   		    a party of Andaste boys defeat the Senecas and Cayugas,
+					   <a href="#Page_443">443</a>;
+   		    finally subdued by the Senecas, <i>ib.</i><br />
+			 <i>Aquanuscioni,</i> or Iroquois,
+			    <a href="#Page_xlviii">xlviii</a> <i>note</i>.<br/>
+			 Areskoui, the god of war, <a href="#Page_lxxvii">lxxvii</a>;
+   		    human sacrifices offered to him, <i>ib.</i>;
+   		    a captive Iroquois sacrificed to him, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>.<br/>
+			 <i>Armouchiquois,</i>
+   		    a name applied to the Algonquins of New England,
+					   <a href="#Page_xxi">xxi</a>;
+   		    a strange account of them given by Champlain,
+					   <a href="#Page_xxii">xxii</a> <i>note</i>.<br />
+			 Arts of life, as practised by the Hurons,
+			    <a href="#Page_xxxi">xxxi</a>.<br/>
+			 <i>Assistaeronnons,</i> or Nation of Fire.
+   		    See <i>Nation of Fire</i>.<br/>
+			 <i>Ataentsic,</i> a malignant deity;
+   		    the moon, <a href="#Page_lxxvi">lxxvi</a>.<br/>
+       <i>Atahocan,</i> a dim conception of the Supreme Being,
+			    <a href="#Page_lxxiv">lxxiv</a>.<br/>
+			 Atotarho of the Onondagas, <a href="#Page_liv">liv</a>,
+			    <a href="#Page_lvii">lvii</a>.<br/>
+			 Attendants of the Jesuits,
+			    <a href="#Page_112">112</a> <i>note,</i> <a href="#Page_132">132</a>.
+			    See <i>Donn&eacute;s.</i><br />
+			 <i>Atticamegues,</i> <a href="#Page_xxiii">xxiii</a>,
+			    <a href="#Page_286">286</a>, <a href="#Page_293">293</a>;
+   		 attacked by the Iroquois, <a href="#Page_420">420</a>.<br/>
+			 <i>Attigouantans.</i> See <i>Hurons.</i><br />
+			 <i>Attiwandarons,</i> or Neutral Nation, why so called,
+			    <a href="#Page_xliv">xliv</a>;
+   		 their country, <i>ib.</i>;
+   		 ferocious and cruel, <a href="#Page_xlv">xlv</a>;
+   		 licentious, <i>ib.;</i>
+   		 their treatment of the dead, <i>ib.</i>
+   		 See <i>Neutral Nation</i>.<br/>
+       <p><br/></p>
+			 <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_454" id="Page_454">454</a></span>
+	 </div>
+   <h3>B.</h3>
+   <div class="indexfont">
+       Baptism of dying men,
+			    <a href="#Page_89">89</a>, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>;
+          clandestine, of infants,
+					   <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>,
+					   <a href="#Page_116">116</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>;
+   				of an influential Huron, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>;
+   				conditions of baptism, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>;
+   				baptisms, number in a year,
+					   <a href="#Page_136">136</a> <i>note.</i><br />
+       Birch-bark used instead of writing-paper,
+			    <a href="#Page_130">130</a>.<br/>
+			 Bourgeoys, Marguerite, her character, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>;
+   		    foundress of the school at Montreal,
+					   <a href="#Page_202">202</a>.<br/>
+			 Bradford, William, governor of Plymouth,
+   		    kindly entertains the Jesuit Druilletes,
+					   <a href="#Page_327">327</a>.<br/>
+       Br&eacute;beuf, Jean de, arrives at Quebec, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>,
+			       <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>;
+   		    commences his journey to the Huron country,
+					   <a href="#Page_53">53</a>;
+   		 		suffers great fatigue by the way, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>;
+   				his intrepidity, <a href="#Page_54">54</a> <i>note,</i>
+					   <a href="#Page_56">56</a>;
+   				arrives in the Huron country, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>;
+   				his previous residence there, <i>ib.;</i>
+   				his misgivings as to his future treatment by the Indians,
+					   <a href="#Page_57">57</a> <i>note;</i>
+   				the Indians build a house for him, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>;
+   				the house described, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>;
+   				its furniture, <i>ib.;</i>
+          Br&eacute;beuf witnesses the " Feast of the Dead,"
+					   <a href="#Page_75">75</a>;
+   				witnesses a human sacrifice, <a href="#Page_80">80</a> <i>seq.;</i>
+   				his uncompromising manner, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>;
+   				"the Ajax of the mission," <a href="#Page_99">99</a>;
+   				his dealings with beings from the invisible world, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>;
+   				sees a great cross in the air,
+					   <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>;
+   				his courage, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>;
+   				his letter in prospect of martyrdom, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>;
+   				harangues the Hurons at a <i>festin d'adieu,</i>
+					   <a href="#Page_123">123</a>;
+   				commences a mission in the Neutral Nation,
+					   <a href="#Page_143">143</a>;
+   				sees miraculous sights, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>;
+   				at the Huron mission, <a href="#Page_370">370</a>;
+   				taken by the Iroquois, <a href="#Page_381">381</a>;
+   				his appalling fate, <a href="#Page_388">388</a>;
+   				his intrepid character, <a href="#Page_390">390</a>;
+   				his skull preserved to this day at Quebec,
+					   <a href="#Page_391">391</a>;
+   				his visions and revelations, <a href="#Page_392">392</a> <i>note;</i>
+   				a saint and a hero, <i>ib.</i> <br />
+       Bressani, Joseph, attempts to go to the Hurons,
+			       <a href="#Page_251">251</a>;
+   		    taken by the Iroquois, <a href="#Page_252">252</a>;
+   				terrible sufferings from his captors,
+					   <a href="#Page_253">253</a>-<a href="#Page_255">255</a>;
+   				his escape, <a href="#Page_256">256</a>;
+   				at the Huron Mission, <a href="#Page_370">370</a>.<br/>
+       Brul&eacute;, &Eacute;tienne, murdered by the Hurons,
+			       <a href="#Page_56">56</a>;
+   		    the murder supposed to be avenged by a raging pestilence,
+					   <a href="#Page_94">94</a>.<br/>
+       Bullion, Madame de, founds a hospital at Montreal,
+			    <a href="#Page_266">266</a>.<br/>
+			 Burning of captives alive,
+   		    instances of, <a href="#Page_xlv">xlv</a> <i>note,</i>
+					<a href="#Page_80">80</a>-<a href="#Page_82">82</a>;
+					<a href="#Page_249">249</a>, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>;
+					<a href="#Page_309">309</a>, <a href="#Page_339">339</a>,
+					<a href="#Page_385">385</a>;
+					<a href="#Page_436">436</a> <i>note,</i>
+					<a href="#Page_439">439</a>,
+					<a href="#Page_441">441</a> <i>note.</i><br />
+       Buteux, Jacques, his toilsome journey, <a href="#Page_421">421</a>;
+   		 waylaid by the Iroquois and slain, <a href="#Page_422">422</a>.<br/>
+       <p><br/></p>
+	 </div>
+   <h3>C.</h3>
+   <div class="indexfont">
+       Cannibalism of the Hurons,
+			       <a href="#Page_xxxix">xxxix</a>, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>,
+   		    of the Miamis, <a href="#Page_xl">xl</a>;
+   		    other instances, <a href="#Page_247">247</a>.<br/>
+			 Canoes, Indian, <a href="#Page_xxxi">xxxi</a>.<br/>
+			 Capuchins,
+   		    unsuccessful attempt to introduce them into Canada,
+					   <a href="#Page_159">159</a> <i>note;</i>
+   		    a station of them on the Penobscot, <a href="#Page_322">322</a>.<br/>
+			 Cayugas, one of the Five Nations,
+			    <a href="#Page_xlviii">xlviii</a> <i>note,</i>
+					<a href="#Page_liv">liv</a>.
+   		    See <i>Iroquois.</i><br />
+			 Cemeteries of Indians lately opened, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>;
+   		    description of them, <i>ib.</i><br />
+			 Chabanel, No&euml;l, joins the mission, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>;
+   		    among the Hurons, <a href="#Page_370">370</a>;
+   		    recalled from St. Jean, <a href="#Page_408">408</a>;
+   		    his journey, <i>ib.;</i>
+   		    murdered by a renegade Huron, <a href="#Page_409">409</a>;
+   		    his vow, <a href="#Page_410">410</a> <i>note.</i><br />
+			 Champfleur, commandant at Three Rivers,
+			    <a href="#Page_277">277</a>, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>.<br />
+			 Champlain, Samuel de, resumes command at Quebec,
+			    <a href="#Page_20">20</a>;
+          his explorations, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>;
+   				introduces the missionaries to the Hurons, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>;
+   				assists the missionaries at their departure,
+					   <a href="#Page_50">50</a>;
+   				his death, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>.<br />
+       Chatelain, Pierre, joins the mission, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>;
+   		    his illness, <i>ib.;</i>
+   		 		his peril, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>.<br />
+			 Chaumonot, Joseph Marie, his early life,
+			    <a href="#Page_101">101</a>-<a href="#Page_104">104</a>;
+   		    his gratitude to the Virgin,
+					   <a href="#Page_103">103</a>, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>;
+   		 		becomes a Jesuit, and embarks for Canada,
+					   <a href="#Page_105">105</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>;
+   		 		narrowly escapes death, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>;
+   				goes with Br&eacute;beuf to convert the Neutrals,
+					   <a href="#Page_142">142</a>;
+   				his extreme peril, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>;
+   				saved by the interference of Saint Michael, <i>ib.;</i>
+   				among the Hurons, <a href="#Page_370">370</a>;
+   				with a colony of Hurons, near Quebec, <a href="#Page_431">431</a>;
+   				builds Lorette, <a href="#Page_432">432</a>.<br/>
+       Choctaws, like the Iroquois, have eight clans,
+			    <a href="#Page_lvi">lvi</a> <i>note.</i><br/>
+			 Clanship, system of,
+			    <a href="#Page_l">l</a>-<a href="#Page_lii">lii</a>.<br/>
+			 Clock of the Jesuits an object of wonder to the Hurons,
+			    <a href="#Page_61">61</a>;
+   		    an object of alarm, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>.<br/>
+			 Colonization, French and English, compared,
+			    <a href="#Page_328">328</a>, <a href="#Page_329">329</a>.<br/>
+			 Cond&eacute;, in his youth writes to Paul Le Jeune,
+			    <a href="#Page_152">152</a>.<br/>
+			 Conestogas. See <i>Andastes.</i>  <br/>
+			 Converts, how made, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>,
+			    <a href="#Page_162">162</a> <i>seq.</i> <br/>
+			 Couillard, a resident in Quebec, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>,
+			    <a href="#Page_334">334</a>, <a href="#Page_335">335</a>.<br/>
+			 Councils of the Iroquois, their power,
+			    <a href="#Page_lvii">lvii</a>-<a href="#Page_lx">lx</a>.<br/>
+			 Council, nocturnal, of the Hurons,
+   		    relative to the epidemic in 1637, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>.<br/>
+       Couture, Guillaume, a <i>donn&eacute;</i> of the mission,
+			    <a href="#Page_214">214</a>;
+   		    a prisoner to the Iroquois, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>;
+   				tortured by them,
+					   <a href="#Page_216">216</a>, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>;
+          <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_455" id="Page_455">455</a></span>
+          adopted by them, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>;
+   				assists in negotiations for peace,
+					   <a href="#Page_284">284</a>,  <a href="#Page_287">287</a>;
+   				returns with the Iroquois, <a href="#Page_296">296</a>.<br/>
+       Crania of Indians compared with those of Caucasian races,
+			    <a href="#Page_lxiii">lxiii</a>.<br/>
+			 Credulity and superstition of the Indians,
+			    <a href="#Page_301">301</a>.<br/>
+			 Crime, how punished, <a href="#Page_lxi">lxi</a>.<br/>
+			 Cruelties, Indian, <a href="#Page_xlv">xlv</a> <i>note,</i>
+			    <a href="#Page_80">80</a>, <a href="#Page_216">216</a> <i>seq.,</i>
+   		    <a href="#Page_248">248</a>, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>,
+					<a href="#Page_254">254</a>, <a href="#Page_277">277</a>,
+					<a href="#Page_303">303</a> <i>seq.,</i>
+					<a href="#Page_308">308</a> <i>seq.,</i>
+					<a href="#Page_313">313</a>, <a href="#Page_339">339</a>,
+					<a href="#Page_350">350</a>, <a href="#Page_377">377</a>,
+					<a href="#Page_381">381</a>, <a href="#Page_385">385</a>,
+					<a href="#Page_388">388</a> <i>seq.,</i>
+   				<a href="#Page_436">436</a> <i>note,</i>
+					<a href="#Page_439">439</a>,
+					<a href="#Page_441">441</a> <i>note.</i><br />
+			 Custom, with the Indians, had the force of law,
+			    <a href="#Page_xlix">xlix</a>.<br/>
+       <p><br/></p>
+	 </div>
+   <h3>D.</h3>
+   <div class="indexfont">
+       <i>Dahcotahs,</i> found east of the Mississippi,
+			    <a href="#Page_xx">xx</a> <i>note;</i>
+          their villages, <a href="#Page_xxvi">xxvi</a>.<br/>
+       D'Ailleboust de Coulonges, Louis,
+          lands at Montreal, <a href="#Page_264">264</a>;
+					history, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>;
+   				fortifies Montreal, <a href="#Page_266">266</a>;
+   				becomes governor of Canada,
+					   <a href="#Page_330">330</a>, <a href="#Page_332">332</a>.<br/>
+       Daily life of the Jesuits, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>;
+			    their food, <i>ib.;</i>
+   		    how obtained, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>.<br/>
+       Dallion, La Roche,
+   		    visits the Neutral Nation in 1626, <a href="#Page_xliv">xliv</a>;
+   				exposed to great danger among them,
+					   <a href="#Page_xlvi">xlvi</a> <i>note,</i>
+						 <a href="#Page_146">146</a>.<br/>
+       Daniel, Antoine, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>,
+			    <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>;
+   		    commences his journey to the Huron country, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>;
+   				disasters by the way, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>;
+   				his arrival in the Huron country, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>;
+   				his peril, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>;
+   				returns to Quebec to commence a seminary, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>;
+   				labors with success among the Hurons, <a href="#Page_374">374</a>;
+   				slain by the Iroquois, <a href="#Page_377">377</a>.<br/>
+       Dauversi&egrave;re, J&eacute;r&ocirc;me le Royer de la,
+   		    described, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>;
+   				hears a voice from heaven, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>;
+   				has a vision, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>;
+   				meets Olier, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>;
+   				plans a religious community at Montreal, <i>ib.;</i>
+   				one of the purchasers of the island, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>;
+   				his misgivings, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>.<br/>
+       Davost at Quebec, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>,
+			    <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>;
+   		    sets out on his journey to the Huron country,
+					   <a href="#Page_53">53</a>;
+   				robbed and left behind by his conductors, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>;
+   				his arrival among the Hurons, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>.<br/>
+       De Nou&euml;, Anne, a missionary, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>,
+			    <a href="#Page_14">14</a>;
+   		    perishes in the snow,
+					   <a href="#Page_257">257</a>-<a href="#Page_260">260</a>.<br/>
+       Des Ch&acirc;telets,
+   		    an inhabitant of Quebec,
+					   <a href="#Page_334">334</a>, <a href="#Page_335">335</a>.<br/>
+       Devil, worshipped, <a href="#Page_lxxiv">lxxiv</a>,
+			    <a href="#Page_lxxvi">lxxvi</a>, <a href="#Page_lxxvii">lxxvii</a>;
+   		    his supposed alarm at the success of the mission,
+					   <a href="#Page_113">113</a>;
+   				consequences, <a href="#Page_114">114</a> <i>seq.</i><br/>
+       <i>Dionondadies.</i> See <i>Tobacco Nation.</i> <br/>
+			 Disease, how accounted for,
+			    <a href="#Page_xl">xl</a>, <a href="#Page_xli">xli</a>;
+   		    how treated, <i>ib.</i> <br/>
+			 Divination and sorcery, <a href="#Page_lxxxiv">lxxxiv</a>,
+			    <a href="#Page_lxxxv">lxxxv</a>.<br/>
+			 Dogs sacrificed to the Great Spirit, <a href="#Page_lxxxvi">lxxxvi</a>;
+   		    used at Montreal for sentinels, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>;
+   		 		very useful, <a href="#Page_272">272</a>.<br/>
+			 <i>"Donn&eacute;s"</i> of the mission,
+			    <a href="#Page_112">112</a> <i>note,</i>
+					<a href="#Page_214">214</a>, <a href="#Page_364">364</a>. <br/>
+			 Dreams, confidence of the Indian in, <a href="#Page_lxxxiii">lxxxiii</a>,
+			    <a href="#Page_lxxxiv">lxxxiv</a>, <a href="#Page_lxxxvi">lxxxvi</a>;
+   		 "Dream-Feast," a scene of frenzy, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>.<br/>
+			 Dress of the Indians, <a href="#Page_xxxii">xxxii</a>;
+   		    scarcely worn in summer, <a href="#Page_xxxiii">xxxiii</a>. <br/>
+       Druilletes, Gabriel, his labors among the Montagnais,
+			    <a href="#Page_318">318</a>;
+   		    among the Abenaquis on the Kennebec, <a href="#Page_321">321</a>,
+					   <a href="#Page_323">323</a>;
+   				visits English settlements in Maine, <a href="#Page_322">322</a>;
+   				again descends the Kennebec, and visits Boston,
+					   <a href="#Page_324">324</a>, <a href="#Page_325">325</a>;
+   				object of the visit, <a href="#Page_324">324</a>;
+   				visits Governor Dudley at Roxbury, <a href="#Page_326">326</a>;
+   				and Governor Bradford at Plymouth, <a href="#Page_327">327</a>;
+   				spends a night with Eliot at Roxbury, <i>ib.;</i>
+   				visits Endicott at Salem, <i>ib.;</i>
+   				his impressions of New England, <a href="#Page_328">328</a>;
+   				failure of his embassy, <a href="#Page_330">330</a>. <br/>
+       Dudley, Thomas, governor of Massachusetts,
+   		    kindly receives the Jesuit Druilletes,
+					   <a href="#Page_326">326</a>. <br/>
+       Du Peron, Fran&ccedil;ois, his narrow escape,
+			    <a href="#Page_124">124</a>;
+   		    his journey, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>;
+   				his arrival, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>;
+   				his letter, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>;
+   				at Montreal, <a href="#Page_263">263</a>.<br/>
+       Du Quen, journeys of, <a href="#Page_xxv">xxv</a> <i>note,</i>
+			    <a href="#Page_318">318</a>.<br/>
+			 Dutch at Albany supply the Iroquois with fire-arms,
+			    <a href="#Page_211">211</a>, <a href="#Page_212">212</a>;
+   		    endeavor to procure the release of prisoners among the Mohawks,
+					<a href="#Page_230">230</a>.<br/>
+       <p><br/></p>
+	 </div>
+   <h3>E.</h3>
+   <div class="indexfont">
+       Eliot, John, the "apostle," has a visit from the Jesuit Druilletes,
+			    <a href="#Page_327">327</a>.<br/>
+			 Endicott, John, visited by the Jesuit Druilletes,
+			    <a href="#Page_327">327</a>.<br/>
+			 Enthusiasm for the mission, <a href="#Page_85">85</a> <i>note.</i><br />
+			 Erie, Lake, how early known as such, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>.<br/>
+			 <i>Eries,</i> or Nation of the Cat, <a href="#Page_xlvi">xlvi</a>;
+   		    where found in the early periods,
+					   <a href="#Page_xx">xx</a>, <a href="#Page_xlvi">xlvi</a>;
+   		 		why so called, <a href="#Page_xlvi">xlvi</a> <i>note;</i>
+   		 		war with the Iroquois, <a href="#Page_438">438</a>;
+   		 		its cause, <a href="#Page_439">439</a>;
+   		 		a sister's revenge, <i>ib.;</i>
+   		 		utter destruction of the Eries, <a href="#Page_440">440</a>.<br/>
+			 Etchemins, where found, <a href="#Page_xxii">xxii</a>.<br/>
+			 Etienne Annaotaha, a Huron brave,
+   		    destroys an Iroquois war-party,
+					   <a href="#Page_427">427</a>-<a href="#Page_429">429</a>;
+   		    slain, <a href="#Page_431">431</a>.<br/>
+			 Exaltation, mental, of the priests, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>.<br/>
+			 Excursions, missionary, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>.<br/>
+			 <p><br/></p>
+			 <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_456" id="Page_456">456</a></span>
+	 </div>
+   <h3>F.</h3>
+   <div class="indexfont">
+      Faillon, Abb&eacute;,
+   		   his researches in the early history of Montreal,
+				    <a href="#Page_193">193</a> <i>note;</i>
+   		   their value, <i>ib.</i> <br/>
+			Fancamp, Baron de,
+   		   furnishes money for the undertaking at Montreal,
+				    <a href="#Page_193">193</a>;
+   		   one of the purchasers of the island, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>.<br/>
+			Fasts among the Indians, <a href="#Page_lxxi">lxxi</a>.<br/>
+			"Feast of the Dead," <a href="#Page_72">72</a>.<br/>
+			Feasts of the Indians, <a href="#Page_xxxvii">xxxvii</a>.<br/>
+			Female life among the Hurons, <a href="#Page_xxxiii">xxxiii</a>.<br/>
+			"<i>Festins d'adieu,</i>" <a href="#Page_123">123</a>.<br/>
+			Festivities of the Hurons, <a href="#Page_xxxvii">xxxvii</a>.<br/>
+			Fire, Nation of, attacked by the Neutral Nation,
+			   <a href="#Page_436">436</a>.<br/>
+			Fire-arms sold to the Iroquois by the Dutch,
+			   <a href="#Page_211">211</a>, <a href="#Page_212">212</a>;
+   		   given to converts by the French, <a href="#Page_269">269</a>.<br/>
+      Fish, and fishing-nets, prayers to them,
+			   <a href="#Page_lxix">lxix</a>.<br/>
+			Fortifications of the Hurons, <a href="#Page_xxix">xxix</a>;
+   		   of the Iroquois, <i>ib. note;</i>
+   			 of other Indian tribes, <a href="#Page_xxx">xxx</a> <i>note.</i> <br/>
+      Fortitude, striking instances of,
+			   <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>,
+				 <a href="#Page_339">339</a>, <a href="#Page_389">389</a>. <br/>
+			French and English colonization compared,
+			   <a href="#Page_328">328</a>, <a href="#Page_329">329</a>.<br/>
+			Funeral among the Hurons, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>;
+			   funeral gifts, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>.<br/>
+			Fur trade, <a href="#Page_xlv">xlv</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>,
+			   <a href="#Page_155">155</a>, <a href="#Page_331">331</a>.<br/>
+      <p><br/></p>
+	 </div>
+   <h3>G.</h3>
+   <div class="indexfont">
+      Gambling, Indian, <a href="#Page_xxxvii">xxxvii</a>.<br/>
+			Garnier, Charles, joins the Huron mission, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>;
+   		   his sickness, <i>ib.;</i>
+   			 his character, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>;
+   			 his letters, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>;
+   			 his journey to the Tobacco Nation, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>;
+   			 at the Huron mission, <a href="#Page_370">370</a>;
+   			 slain by the Iroquois, <a href="#Page_405">405</a>;
+   			 his body found, <a href="#Page_406">406</a> <i>note;</i>
+   			 his gentle spirit, <a href="#Page_370">370</a>,
+				    <a href="#Page_407">407</a>;
+   			 his absolute devotion to the mission,
+				    <a href="#Page_407">407</a> <i>note.</i><br />
+      Garnier, Julien, <a href="#Page_liv">liv</a> <i>note.</i> <br />
+			Garreau, missionary among the Hurons, his danger,
+			   <a href="#Page_410">410</a>.<br/>
+			Gasp&eacute;, Algonquins of, their women chaste,
+			   <a href="#Page_xxxiv">xxxiv</a>.<br/>
+			George, Lake, its first discoverer, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>;
+   		   its Indian name, <i>ib. note;</i>
+   			 called St. Sacrament, <a href="#Page_299">299</a>;
+   			 a better name proposed, <i>ib. note.</i><br />
+			Gibbons, Edward, welcomes the Jesuit Druilletes to Boston,
+			   <a href="#Page_325">325</a>.<br/>
+			Giffard, his seigniory of Beauport,
+			   <a href="#Page_155">155</a>, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>;
+   		   at Quebec, <a href="#Page_334">334</a>.<br/>
+			Gluttony at feasts, <a href="#Page_xxxviii">xxxviii</a>;
+   		   practised as a cure for pestilence, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>.<br/>
+			Godefroy, Jean Paul, visits New Haven on an embassy
+   		   from the governor of Canada, <a href="#Page_330">330</a>.<br/>
+			Goupil, Ren&eacute;, a <i>donn&eacute;</i> of the mission,
+			   <a href="#Page_214">214</a>;
+   		   made prisoner by the Iroquois, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>;
+   			 tortured, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>;
+   			 murdered in cold blood, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>.<br/>
+			<i>Goyogouin,</i> a name for the Cayugas,
+			   <a href="#Page_xlviii">xlviii</a> <i>note.</i><br />
+			Great Hare, The. See <i>Manabozho.</i><br />
+			Green Bay, visited by the French in 1639,
+			   <a href="#Page_166">166</a>.<br/>
+      <p><br/></p>
+	 </div>
+   <h3>H.</h3>
+   <div class="indexfont">
+      Habitations, Indian, <a href="#Page_xxvi">xxvi</a>;
+   		internal aspect in summer, <a href="#Page_xxvii">xxvii</a>;
+   		in winter, <a href="#Page_xxviii">xxviii</a>.<br/>
+			Hawenniio, the modern Iroquois name for God,
+			   <a href="#Page_lxxviii">lxxviii</a>.<br />
+			H&eacute;bert, Madame, an early resident of Quebec,
+			   <a href="#Page_2">2</a>, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>.<br/>
+			Hell, how represented to the Indians, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>,
+			   <a href="#Page_163">163</a>;
+   		pictures of, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>.<br/>
+			Hiawatha, a deified hero, <a href="#Page_lxxvii">lxxvii</a>,
+			   <a href="#Page_lxxviii">lxxviii</a>.<br />
+			<i>Hodenosaunee,</i> the true name of the Iroquois,
+			   <a href="#Page_xlviii">xlviii</a> <i>note.</i><br />
+			H&ocirc;tel-Dieu at Quebec founded, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>;
+   		one at Montreal, <a href="#Page_266">266</a>.<br/>
+			Hundred Associates, the, a fur company,
+   		its grants of land, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>;
+   		their quit-claim of the island of Montreal, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>;
+   		transfer their monopoly to the colonists, <a href="#Page_331">331</a>.<br/>
+			Hunters of men, <a href="#Page_307">307</a>.<br/>
+			Huron mission proposed, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>;
+   		the difficulties, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>;
+   		motives for the undertaking, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>;
+   		route to the Huron country, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>;
+   		the missionaries baffled by a stroke of Indian diplomacy,
+			   <a href="#Page_51">51</a>;
+   		they commence their journey, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>;
+   		fatigues of the way, <i>ib.;</i>
+   		reception of the missionaries by the Hurons, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>;
+   		mission house, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>;
+   		methods taken to awaken interest, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>;
+   		instructions given, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>;
+   		the results not satisfactory, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>;
+   		the Jesuits made responsible for the failure of rain,
+			   <a href="#Page_68">68</a>;
+   		they gain the confidence of the Huron people, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>;
+   		the mission strengthened by new arrivals, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>;
+   		kindness of the Jesuits to the sick, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>;
+   		their efforts at conversion, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>;
+   		the Hurons slow to apprehend the subject of a future life,
+			   <a href="#Page_89">89</a>;
+   		terms of salvation too hard, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>;
+   		an elastic morality practised by the Jesuits, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>;
+   		conversions promoted by supernatural aid, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>;
+   		the new chapel at Ossossan&eacute; described, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>;
+   		first important success, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>;
+   		<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_457" id="Page_457">457</a></span>
+   		persecuting spirit aroused, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>;
+   		the Jesuits in danger, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>;
+   		their daily life, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>;
+   		number of converts in 1638, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>;
+   		backsliding frequent, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>;
+   		partial success, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>;
+   		great subsequent success of the mission, <a href="#Page_349">349</a>;
+   		the mission encounters slander and misrepresentation,
+			   <a href="#Page_352">352</a>, <a href="#Page_353">353</a>;
+   		prosperity, <a href="#Page_366">366</a>;
+   		successful agriculture, <i>ib.;</i>
+   		number of ecclesiastics and others
+         in the Huron mission, 1649, <i>ib.;</i>
+   		the mission removed to an island in Lake Huron,
+			   <a href="#Page_397">397</a>;
+   		a multitude of refugees, <a href="#Page_399">399</a>;
+   		their extreme misery, <a href="#Page_400">400</a>;
+   		the priests fully occupied, <a href="#Page_401">401</a>;
+   		the mission abandoned, <a href="#Page_415">415</a>;
+   		failure of the Jesuit plans in Canada, <a href="#Page_446">446</a>;
+   		the cause, <a href="#Page_447">447</a>;
+   		the consequences, <a href="#Page_448">448</a>. See <i>Jesuits.</i><br />
+			<i>Hurons,</i> origin of the name,
+			   <a href="#Page_xxxiii">xxxiii</a> <i>note;</i>
+   		their country, <a href="#Page_xx">xx</a>, <a href="#Page_xxiv">xxiv</a>,
+			   <a href="#Page_xxv">xxv</a>;
+   		had a language akin to the Iroquois, <a href="#Page_xxiv">xxiv</a>;
+   		their disappearance, <i>ib.;</i>
+   		vestiges of them still found, <a href="#Page_xxv">xxv</a>;
+   		supposed population,
+			   <a href="#Page_xxv">xxv</a>, <a href="#Page_xxvi">xxvi</a>;
+   		their habitations, <a href="#Page_xxvi">xxvi</a>,
+			   <a href="#Page_xxviii">xxviii</a> <i>note;</i>
+   		extravagant accounts, <a href="#Page_xxvi">xxvi</a> <i>note;</i>
+   		internal aspect of their huts in summer, <a href="#Page_xxvii">xxvii</a>;
+   		in winter, <a href="#Page_xxviii">xxviii</a>;
+   		their fortifications, <a href="#Page_xxix">xxix</a>;
+   		their agriculture, <a href="#Page_xxx">xxx</a>;
+   		food, <i>ib.;</i>
+   		arts of life, <i>ib.;</i>
+   		dress, <a href="#Page_xxxii">xxxii</a>;
+   		dress scarcely worn in summer, <a href="#Page_xxxiii">xxxiii</a>;
+   		female life, <i>ib.,</i> <a href="#Page_xxxv">xxxv</a>;
+   		an unchaste people, <a href="#Page_xxxiv">xxxiv</a>;
+   		marriages, temporary, <i>ib.;</i>
+   		shameless conduct of young people,
+			   <a href="#Page_xxxv">xxxv</a> <i>note;</i>
+   		employments of the men, <a href="#Page_xxxvi">xxxvi</a>;
+   		amusements, <i>ib.;</i>
+   		feasts and dances, <a href="#Page_xxxvii">xxxvii</a>;
+   		voracity, <a href="#Page_xxxviii">xxxviii</a>;
+			cannibalism, <a href="#Page_xxxix">xxxix</a>;
+   		practice of medicine, <a href="#Page_xl">xl</a>;
+   		Huron brains, <a href="#Page_xliii">xliii</a>;
+   		the Huron Confederacy, <a href="#Page_lii">lii</a>;
+   		their political organization, <i>ib.;</i>
+   		propensity of the Hurons to theft,
+			   <a href="#Page_lxiii">lxiii</a>, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>;
+   		murder atoned for by presents, <a href="#Page_lxi">lxi</a>;
+   		proceedings in case of witchcraft, <a href="#Page_lxiii">lxiii</a>;
+   		their objects of worship, <a href="#Page_lxix">lxix</a> <i>seq.;</i>
+   		their conceptions of a future state, <a href="#Page_lxxxi">lxxxi</a>;
+   		their burial of the dead, <i>ib.;</i>
+   		hostility of the Iroquois, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>,
+			   <a href="#Page_52">52</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>;
+   		visit Quebec, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>;
+   		the scene after their arrival described, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>;
+   		their idea of thunder, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>;
+   		Huron graves, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>;
+   		their origin, <i>ib.;</i>
+   		disposal of the dead, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>;
+   		"Feast of the Dead," <a href="#Page_75">75</a> <i>seq.;</i>
+   		disinterment, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>;
+   		mourning, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>;
+   		funeral gifts, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>;
+   		frightful scene, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>;
+   		a pestilence, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>;
+   		cannibals, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>;
+   		attacked by the Iroquois,
+			   <a href="#Page_212">212</a>, <a href="#Page_337">337</a>;
+   		defeat them, <a href="#Page_338">338</a>;
+   		torture and burn an Iroquois chief, <a href="#Page_339">339</a>;
+   		on the verge of ruin, <a href="#Page_341">341</a>;
+   		apply for help to the Andastes, <a href="#Page_342">342</a>;
+   		specimen of Huron eloquence, <a href="#Page_355">355</a>;
+   		Hurons defeat the Iroquois at Three Rivers, <a href="#Page_374">374</a>;
+   		fatuity of the Hurons, <a href="#Page_379">379</a>;
+   		their towns destroyed, <a href="#Page_379">379</a> <i>seq.;</i>
+   		ruin of the Hurons, <a href="#Page_393">393</a>;
+   		the survivors take refuge on Isle St. Joseph, <a href="#Page_399">399</a>;
+   		their extreme misery, <a href="#Page_411">411</a> <i>seq.;</i>
+   		they abandon the island, <a href="#Page_415">415</a>;
+   		endeavor to reach Quebec, <a href="#Page_416">416</a>;
+   		the Iroquois waylay them, <a href="#Page_417">417</a>;
+   		a fight on the Ottawa, <i>ib.;</i>
+   		they reach Montreal, <a href="#Page_418">418</a>;
+   		and Quebec, <i>ib.;</i>
+   		a Huron traitor, <a href="#Page_419">419</a>;
+   		a portion of the Hurons retreat
+         to Lake Michigan and the Mississippi, <a href="#Page_425">425</a>;
+   		others become incorporated with the Senecas, <a href="#Page_424">424</a>;
+   		their country desolate, <i>ib.;</i>
+   		afterwards known as the Wyandots, <a href="#Page_426">426</a>;
+   		a body of the Hurons left
+         at St. Joseph destroy a party of Iroquois,
+				    <a href="#Page_427">427</a>-<a href="#Page_429">429</a>;
+   		a colony of Hurons near Quebec, <a href="#Page_430">430</a>.<br/>
+      <p><br/></p>
+	 </div>
+   <h3>I.</h3>
+   <div class="indexfont">
+      Ihonatiria, a Huron village, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>;
+   		   Br&eacute;beuf takes up his abode there, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>;
+   		   ruined by the pestilence, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>.<br/>
+			Immaculate Conception of the Virgin, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>.<br/>
+			Incarnation, Marie de l', at Tours,  <a href="#Page_174">174</a>;
+   		   her unhappy marriage, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>;
+   		   a widow, <i>ib;</i>
+   		   self-inflicted austerities, <i>ib.;</i>
+   		   mystical espousal to Christ, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>;
+   		   rhapsodies, <i>ib.;</i>
+   		   dejection, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>;
+   		   abandons her child and becomes a nun, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>;
+   		   her talents for business, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>;
+   		   her vision, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>;
+   		   the vision explained as a call to Canada, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>;
+   		   embarks for that country, <i>ib.;</i>
+   		   perilous voyage, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>;
+   		   her arduous labors at Quebec, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>;
+   		   her difficulties, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>;
+   		   extolled as a saint, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>,
+				    <a href="#Page_186">186</a>.<br />
+			Indian population mutable, <a href="#Page_xix">xix</a>;
+   		   its distribution, <a href="#Page_xx">xx</a>;
+   		   two great families, <i>ib.;</i>
+   			 superstitions and traditions,
+				    <a href="#Page_lxvii">lxvii</a>-<a href="#Page_lxxxvii">lxxxvii</a>;
+   			 dreamers, <a href="#Page_lxxxiii">lxxxiii</a>;
+   			 sorcerers and diviners,
+				    <a href="#Page_lxxxiv">lxxxiv</a>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>;
+   			 their religion fearful yet puerile,
+				    <a href="#Page_lxxxviii">lxxxviii</a>, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>;
+   			 an Indian lodge, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>;
+   		   Indian manners softened by the influence of the missions,
+				    <a href="#Page_319">319</a>;
+   		   Indian infatuation, <a href="#Page_336">336</a>.<br />
+			Indians, their arts of life, <a href="#Page_xxx">xxx</a>;
+   		   amusements, <a href="#Page_xxxvi">xxxvi</a>;
+   		   festivals, <a href="#Page_xxxvii">xxxvii</a>;
+   			 social character, <a href="#Page_xlviii">xlviii</a>;
+   			 self-control, <a href="#Page_xlix">xlix</a>;
+   			 influenced by custom, <i>ib.;</i>
+   			 hospitality and generosity, <i>ib. note;</i>
+   			 fond of society, <a href="#Page_1">1</a>;
+   			 their division into clans, <a href="#Page_li">li</a>;
+   			 the <i>totem,</i> or symbol of the clan, <a href="#Page_39">39</a> <i>ib.;</i>
+      	 <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_458" id="Page_458">458</a></span>
+   			 Indian rule of descent and inheritance, <i>ib.;</i>
+   			 vast extent of this rule, <a href="#Page_lii">lii</a>;
+   			 their superstitions, <a href="#Page_lxvii">lxvii</a> <i>et seq.;</i>
+   			 their cosmogonies,
+				    <a href="#Page_lxxiii">lxxiii</a>, <a href="#Page_lxxv">lxxv</a>;
+   			 degrading conceptions of the Supreme Being,
+				    <a href="#Page_lxxviii">lxxviii</a>;
+   			 no word for God, <a href="#Page_lxxix">lxxix</a>;
+   			 obliged to use a circumlocution, <i>ib.;</i>
+   			 their belief in a future state, <a href="#Page_lxxx">lxxx</a>;
+   			 their conceptions of it dim, <i>ib.;</i>
+   			 their belief in dreams, <a href="#Page_lxxxiii">lxxxiii</a>;
+   			 the Indian Pluto, <i>ib. note;</i>
+   			 the Indian mind stagnant, <a href="#Page_lxxxix">lxxxix</a>;
+   			 savage in religion as in life, <i>ib.;</i>
+   			 no knowledge of the true God, <i>ib.;</i>
+   			 scenes in a wigwam, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>;
+   			 their foul language, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>;
+   			 not profane, <i>ib.;</i>
+   			 hardships and sufferings, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>;
+   			 a specimen of their diplomacy, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>;
+   			 an Indian masquerade, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>;
+   			 Indian bacchanals, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>;
+   			 their idea of thunder, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>;
+   			 Indian mind not a blank, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>;
+   			 specimen of Indian reasoning, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>;
+   			 Indians received benefit from the Jesuit missions,
+				    <a href="#Page_164">164</a>.<br />
+			Initiatory fast for obtaining a guardian manitou,
+			   <a href="#Page_lxxi">lxxi</a>.<br />
+			"Infernal Wolf," the, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>;
+   		   a name for the Devil, <i>ib. note.</i><br />
+			Influence of the missions salutary, <a href="#Page_319">319</a>.<br />
+			Instructions for the missionaries to the Hurons,
+			   <a href="#Page_54">54</a>.<br />
+			Intrepid conduct of the Jesuits, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>.<br />
+			<i>Iroquois,</i> or Five Nations,
+   		   origin of the name, <a href="#Page_xlvii">xlvii</a>;
+   			 where found in early times, <a href="#Page_xx">xx</a>,
+				    <a href="#Page_xlvi">xlvi</a>,
+						<a href="#Page_278">278</a> <i>note;</i>
+   			 their dwellings, <a href="#Page_xxvii">xxvii</a> <i>note.,</i>
+				    <a href="#Page_xxviii">xxviii</a> <i>note;</i>
+   			 a licentious people, <a href="#Page_xxxiv">xxxiv</a> <i>note;</i>
+   			 have capacious skulls, <a href="#Page_xliii">xliii</a> <i>note;</i>
+   			 burn female captives, <a href="#Page_xlv">xlv</a>;
+   			 their character, <a href="#Page_xlvii">xlvii</a>;
+   			 their eminent position and influence, <i>ib.;</i>
+   			 their true name, <a href="#Page_xlviii">xlviii</a> <i>note;</i>
+   			 divided into eight clans or families, <a href="#Page_lv">lv</a>;
+   			 symbols of these clans, <i>ib. note;</i>
+   			 the chiefs, how selected, <a href="#Page_lvi">lvi</a>;
+   			 the councils, <a href="#Page_lvii">lvii</a>;
+   			 how and when assembled, <a href="#Page_lviii">lviii</a>;
+   			 how conducted, <a href="#Page_lix">lix</a>;
+   			 their debates, <i>ib.;</i>
+   			 strict unanimity required, <i>ib.;</i>
+   			 artful management of the chiefs, <a href="#Page_lx">lx</a> <i>note;</i>
+   			 the professed orators, <a href="#Page_lxi">lxi</a>;
+   			 military organization, <a href="#Page_lxiv">lxiv</a>;
+   			 and discipline, <i>ib.;</i>
+   			 spirit of the confederacy, <a href="#Page_lxv">lxv</a>;
+   			 attachment to ancient forms, <i>ib.;</i>
+   			 their increase by adoption, <a href="#Page_lxvi">lxvi</a>;
+   			 population at different times, <i>ib. note;</i>
+   			 have no name for God, <a href="#Page_lxxviii">lxxviii</a>;
+   			 a captive Iroquois sacrificed by the Hurons to the god of war,
+				    <a href="#Page_80">80</a>;
+				 supplied by the Dutch with fire-arms, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>;
+   			 make war on the French in Canada, <a href="#Page_212">212</a>,
+				    <a href="#Page_269">269</a> <i>seq.;</i>
+   			 extreme cruelty to Jogues and other prisoners,
+				    <a href="#Page_217">217</a>-<a href="#Page_222">222</a>,
+						<a href="#Page_228">228</a>;
+   			 cannibalism, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>;
+   			 audacity, <a href="#Page_241">241</a>;
+   			 attack Fort Richelieu, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>;
+   			 spread devastation and terror through Canada,
+				    <a href="#Page_245">245</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>;
+   			 horrible nature of their warfare,
+				    <a href="#Page_246">246</a>-<a href="#Page_250">250</a>;
+   			 torments inflicted on prisoners,
+				    <a href="#Page_248">248</a> <i>seq.,</i>
+						<a href="#Page_271">271</a>;
+   			 an Iroquois prisoner tortured by Algonquins,
+				    <a href="#Page_277">277</a>;
+   			 treaty of peace with the French and Algonquins,
+				    <a href="#Page_284">284</a> <i>seq.;</i>
+				 numbers of the Iroquois, <a href="#Page_297">297</a> <i>note;</i>
+   			 the Iroquois determination to destroy the Hurons,
+				    <a href="#Page_336">336</a>;
+   			 their moral superiority, <a href="#Page_337">337</a>;
+   			 a defeat sustained by them, <a href="#Page_338">338</a>;
+   			 their shameless treachery, <a href="#Page_339">339</a>;
+   			 invade the Huron country and destroy the towns,
+				    <a href="#Page_379">379</a>;
+   			 their atrocious cruelty, <a href="#Page_385">385</a>;
+   			 their retreat, <a href="#Page_386">386</a>;
+   			 they pursue the remnants of the Huron nation,
+				    <a href="#Page_412">412</a>, <a href="#Page_425">425</a>;
+   			 attack the Atticamegues, <a href="#Page_420">420</a>;
+   			 attack the Hurons at Michilimackinac, <a href="#Page_425">425</a>;
+   			 exterminate the Neutral Nation, <a href="#Page_437">437</a>;
+   			 exterminate the Eries,
+				    <a href="#Page_438">438</a>-<a href="#Page_440">440</a>;
+   			 terrible cruelty, <a href="#Page_441">441</a> <i>note;</i>
+   			 their bloody supremacy, <a href="#Page_444">444</a>;
+   			 it cost them dear, <i>ib.;</i>
+   			 tyrants of a wide wilderness, <a href="#Page_445">445</a>;
+   			 their short-sighted policy, <a href="#Page_434">434</a>.<br />
+      <p><br/></p>
+	 </div>
+   <h3>J.</h3>
+   <div class="indexfont">
+       Jesuits, their founder, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>;
+			    their discipline, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>;
+   		    their influence, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>;
+					salutary, <a href="#Page_319">319</a>;
+   		 		the early Canadian Jesuits
+       		   did not meddle with political affairs, <a href="#Page_323">323</a>;
+   		    denounced cannibalism, but faint in opposing the burning
+       		   of prisoners, <a href="#Page_351">351</a>;
+   		    were engaged in the fur-trade,
+					   <a href="#Page_365">365</a> <i>note;</i>
+   		 		purity of their motives,
+					   <a href="#Page_83">83</a>, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>;
+   		 		benevolent care of the sick, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>,
+					   <a href="#Page_98">98</a>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>;
+   		 		accused of sorcery, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>;
+   		 		in great peril, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>;
+   		 		their intrepidity, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>;
+   				their prudence, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>;
+   				their intense zeal, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>.
+   				See <i>Huron Mission.</i><br />
+       Jogues, Isaac, his birth and character, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>;
+   		    joins the mission, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>;
+   		 		his illness, <i>ib.;</i>
+   		 		his character,
+					   <a href="#Page_106">106</a>, <a href="#Page_304">304</a>;
+   		 		his journey to the Tobacco Nation, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>;
+   		 		visits Lake Superior and preaches to the Ojibwas,
+					   <a href="#Page_213">213</a>;
+   		 		visits Quebec, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>;
+   				taken prisoner by the Iroquois, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>;
+   				tortured by them,
+					   <a href="#Page_217">217</a>, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>,
+						 <a href="#Page_221">221</a>, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>;
+   				in daily expectation of death, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>,
+					   <a href="#Page_225">225</a>;
+   				his conscientiousness, <a href="#Page_226">226</a>,
+					   <a href="#Page_229">229</a>, <a href="#Page_232">232</a>;
+   				his patience, <a href="#Page_226">226</a>;
+   				his spirit of devotion, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>;
+   				longs for death, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>;
+   				his pious labors while a captive, <i>ib.;</i>
+   				visits Albany, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>;
+   				writes to the commandant at
+       <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_459" id="Page_459">459</a></span>
+          Three Rivers, <a href="#Page_230">230</a>;
+   				escapes, <a href="#Page_234">234</a>;
+   				voyage across the Atlantic, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>;
+   				reception in France, <a href="#Page_237">237</a>;
+   				the queen honors him, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>;
+   				returns to Canada,
+					   <a href="#Page_239">239</a>, <a href="#Page_286">286</a>;
+   				his mission to the Mohawks, <a href="#Page_297">297</a>;
+   				misgivings, <a href="#Page_298">298</a>;
+   				has a presentiment of death, <i>ib.;</i>
+   				goes as a civilian, <i>ib;</i>
+   				visits Fort Orange, <a href="#Page_299">299</a>;
+   				reaches the Mohawk country, <i>ib.;</i>
+   				his reception, <i>ib.;</i>
+   				returns to Canada, <a href="#Page_300">300</a>;
+   				his second mission to the Mohawks, <a href="#Page_301">301</a>;
+   				warned of danger, <i>ib.;</i>
+   				his cruel murder, <a href="#Page_304">304</a>.<br />
+       Joseph, Saint, his interposition in a case of childbirth,
+			    <a href="#Page_90">90</a>;
+   		    his help much relied on by the Jesuits, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>,
+					   <a href="#Page_95">95</a>, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>;
+   				fireworks let off in his honor, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>.
+   				See <i>Saint Joseph.</i><br />
+       <i>Jouskeha,</i> a beneficent deity, the sun,
+   		    the creator, <a href="#Page_lxxvi">lxxvi</a>,
+					   <a href="#Page_lxxix">lxxix</a>.<br />
+       <p><br/></p>
+	 </div>
+   <h3>K.</h3>
+   <div class="indexfont">
+       Kennebec, visited by a Jesuit, <a href="#Page_322">322</a>.<br />
+			 Kieft, William, governor of New Netherland,
+   		    his kindness to Jogues, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>;
+   		    his letter to the governor of Canada,
+					   <a href="#Page_304">304</a> <i>note.</i> <br />
+       Kiotsaton, envoy of the Iroquois,
+			    <a href="#Page_284">284</a> <i>seq.;</i>
+   		    his speech, <a href="#Page_287">287</a> <i>seq.;</i>
+   				the French delighted with him, <a href="#Page_291">291</a>;
+   				another speech, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>.<br />
+       <p><br/></p>
+	 </div>
+   <h3>L.</h3>
+   <div class="indexfont">
+       Lafitau, his book on the Iroquois,
+			    <a href="#Page_liv">liv</a> <i>note;</i>
+   		    describes the council of the Iroquois, <a href="#Page_lvii">lvii</a>,
+					    <a href="#Page_lviii">lviii</a>.<br />
+			 Lalande, an assistant in the mission, <a href="#Page_301">301</a>;
+   		    tortured by the Mohawks, <a href="#Page_303">303</a>;
+   				killed by them, <a href="#Page_304">304</a>.<br />
+       Lalemant, Gabriel, at the Huron mission, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>,
+			    <a href="#Page_371">371</a>;
+   		    taken by the Iroquois, <a href="#Page_381">381</a>;
+   				tortured with fire, <a href="#Page_388">388</a>;
+   				his death, <a href="#Page_390">390</a>.<br />
+       Lalemant, Jerome, brother of Gabriel,
+   		    assailed by an Algonquin, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>;
+   				visits Three Rivers, <a href="#Page_294">294</a>;
+   				becomes Superior of the missions, <a href="#Page_301">301</a>.<br />
+       Lauson, president of the Canada Fur Company, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>;
+   		    sells the island of Montreal to the Jesuits,
+					   <a href="#Page_194">194</a>.<br />
+       Le Berger, a Christian Iroquois, <a href="#Page_304">304</a>;
+   		    endeavors to save Jogues, <i>ib.</i><br />
+			 Le Borgne, chief of Allumette Island,
+   		    hinders the departure of the missionaries, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>;
+   		 		his motives, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>;
+   		 		converted, <a href="#Page_268">268</a>.<br />
+			 Le Jeune, Paul, Father Superior, his voyage, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>;
+   		    his arrival in Quebec,
+					   <a href="#Page_2">2</a>, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>;
+   		 		begins his labors there, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>;
+   		 		joins an Indian hunting-party, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>;
+   		 		adventures in this connection,
+					   <a href="#Page_25">25</a>-<a href="#Page_39">39</a>;
+   		 		his description of a winter scene,
+					   <a href="#Page_26">26</a> <i>note;</i>
+   		 		grievances in an Indian lodge in winter, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>;
+   		 		experience with a sorcerer, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>;
+					suffers the rude banter of the Indians, <i>ib.;</i>
+   		 		doubts whether the Indian sorcerers are impostors
+       		   or in league with the devil, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>;
+   		    relates what he had been informed
+       		   of the devil's proceedings in Brazil,
+						    <a href="#Page_33">33</a> <i>note;</i>
+   		    attempts to convert a sorcerer, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>;
+   		 		disappointment, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>;
+   		 		returns to Quebec, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>;
+   		 		rejoices at the advent of the new governor,
+					   <a href="#Page_150">150</a> <i>note;</i>
+   		 		rejoices at the interest in the mission awakened in France,
+					   <a href="#Page_151">151</a>;
+   		 		has for a correspondent the future Cond&eacute;,
+					   <a href="#Page_152">152</a>;
+   		 		is invested with civil authority, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>;
+   		 		sends for pictures of the torments of hell,
+					   <a href="#Page_163">163</a>.<br />
+			 Le Mercier, Francis Joseph, joins the mission, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>;
+   		    his peril, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>.<br />
+			 Le Moyne, among the Hurons, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>;
+   		    among the Onondagas, <a href="#Page_438">438</a>,
+					   <a href="#Page_440">440</a>.<br />
+       Licentiousness of the Indians,
+			    <a href="#Page_xxxiv">xxxiv</a> <i>note;</i>
+   		    <a href="#Page_xxxv">xxxv</a> <i>note,</i>
+					<a href="#Page_xlv">xlv</a>.<br />
+       Life in a wigwam,
+			    <a href="#Page_27">27</a>-<a href="#Page_31">31</a>.<br />
+			 Loretto, in Italy, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>,
+			    <a href="#Page_105">105</a>, <a href="#Page_432">432</a>;
+   		    Old Lorette, in Canada, <a href="#Page_431">431</a>;
+   				New Lorette, in Canada, <a href="#Page_432">432</a>;
+   				settlement of Hurons there, <i>ib.</i> <br />
+       Loyola, Ignatius, his story, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>;
+   		    founds the order of Jesuits, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>;
+   				his book of Spiritual Exercises, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>.<br />
+       <p><br/></p>
+	 </div>
+   <h3>M.</h3>
+   <div class="indexfont">
+       Maisonneuve, Chomedey, Sieur de,
+   		    military leader of the settlement at Montreal,
+					   <a href="#Page_196">196</a>;
+   				spends the first winter at Quebec, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>;
+   				poorly accommodated there, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>;
+   				has a quarrel with the governor, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>;
+   				beloved by his followers, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>;
+   				compared to Godfrey, the leader of the first crusade,
+					   <a href="#Page_207">207</a>;
+   				lands at Montreal, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>,
+					   <a href="#Page_261">261</a>;
+   				plants a cross on the top of the mountain,
+					   <a href="#Page_263">263</a>;
+   				his great bravery, <a href="#Page_275">275</a>.<br />
+       <i>Manabozho,</i> a mythical personage,
+			    <a href="#Page_lxviii">lxviii</a>;
+   		    the chief deity of the Algonquins, yet not worshipped,
+					   <a href="#Page_lxxii">lxxii</a>, <a href="#Page_lxxix">lxxix</a>;
+   				his achievements, <a href="#Page_lxxiii">lxxiii</a>.<br />
+       Mance, Jeanne, devotes herself to the mission in Canada,
+			    <a href="#Page_198">198</a>;
+   		    embarks, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>;
+   				impressive scene before embarking, <i>ib.;</i>
+   				lands at Montreal, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>,
+					   <a href="#Page_261">261</a>.<br />
+       <i>Manitous,</i> a generic term for super-natural beings,
+			    <a href="#Page_lxix">lxix</a>;
+       <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_460" id="Page_460">460</a></span>
+          extensive in its meaning, <a href="#Page_lxx">lxx</a>;
+   				process for obtaining a guardian manitou, <i>ib.</i><br />
+       Marie, a Christian Algonquin, her adventures and sufferings,
+			    <a href="#Page_309">309</a>-<a href="#Page_313">313</a>.<br />
+			 Marriage among the Hurons often temporary and experimental,
+			    <a href="#Page_xxxiv">xxxiv</a>.<br />
+			 Mass, neglect of the, a punishable offence, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>,
+			    <a href="#Page_157">157</a>.<br />
+			 Masse, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>;
+			    "le P&egrave;re Utile," <i>ib.;</i>
+   		    his death, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>.<br />
+       Medical practice among the Indians, <a href="#Page_xli">xli</a>,
+			    <a href="#Page_xlii">xlii</a> <i>note;</i>
+					<a href="#Page_lxxxiv">lxxxiv</a>,
+			    <a href="#Page_66">66</a>.<br />
+			 "Medicine," or Indian charms, <a href="#Page_lxxi">lxxi</a>.<br />
+			 "Medicine-bags," <a href="#Page_lxxi">lxxi</a>;
+   		    "medicine-men," or sorcerers, <a href="#Page_lxxxiv">lxxxiv</a>,
+					    <a href="#Page_lxxxv">lxxxv</a>,
+							<a href="#Page_32">32</a>-<a href="#Page_38">38</a>;
+   				a "medicine-feast," <a href="#Page_66">66</a>;
+   				the religion taught by the Jesuits supposed to be a "medicine,"
+					   <a href="#Page_90">90</a>.<br />
+       Megapolensis, Dutch pastor at Albany, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>;
+   		    his account of the Mohawks, <i>ib.;</i>
+   				befriends Jogues, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>.<br />
+			 Memory, devices for aiding the,
+			    <a href="#Page_lxi">lxi</a>.<br />
+			 <i>Messou.</i> See <i>Manabozho.</i><br />
+			 Mestigoit, an Indian hunter,
+			    <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>,
+					<a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>;
+   		    his skill and courage, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>;
+   				helps Le Jeune to reach Quebec, <i>ib.</i><br />
+       Mexican fabrics found in Indian cemeteries,
+			    <a href="#Page_79">79</a> <i>note.</i><br />
+			 Miamis, cannibalism among them, <a href="#Page_xl">xl</a>.<br />
+			 <i>Michabou.</i> See <i>Manabozho.</i><br />
+			 Micmacs in Nova Scotia, <a href="#Page_xxii">xxii</a>.<br />
+			 Minquas. See <i>Andastes.</i><br />
+			 Miracles in the Huron mission, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>;
+   		    how to be accounted for, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>;
+   		    why miracles were expected,
+					   <a href="#Page_210">210</a> <i>note.</i><br />
+			 Miscou, mission at, <a href="#Page_317">317</a>.<br />
+			 Mission to Hurons. See <i>Huron Mission.</i><br />
+			 Mission-house near Quebec described, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>.<br />
+			 Mohawks, <a href="#Page_xlviii">xlviii</a> <i>note,</i>
+			    <a href="#Page_liv">liv</a>;
+   		    number of warriors, <a href="#Page_212">212</a>,
+					   <a href="#Page_297">297</a>;
+   				their towns, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>;
+   				make peace with the French, <a href="#Page_296">296</a>;
+   				credulity and superstition, <a href="#Page_301">301</a>;
+   				their causeless rage, <a href="#Page_303">303</a>;
+   				renew the war with the French, <a href="#Page_306">306</a>;
+   				their perfidy, <a href="#Page_308">308</a>;
+   				cruelty, <i>ib.;</i>
+   				torture of prisoners, <a href="#Page_309">309</a>;
+   				invade the Huron country, <a href="#Page_379">379</a>;
+   				furious battle near St. Marie, <a href="#Page_384">384</a>;
+   				war with the Andastes, <a href="#Page_441">441</a>;
+   				and Mohicans, <i>ib. note.</i>
+   				See <i>Iroquois.</i><br />
+       Montmagny, Charles Huault de,
+   		    succeeds Champlain as governor of New France,
+					   <a href="#Page_149">149</a>;
+   				his zeal for the mission, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>,
+					   <a href="#Page_161">161</a>;
+   				meets the Ursulines at their landing, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>;
+   				quarrels with the leader of the Montreal settlement,
+					   <a href="#Page_204">204</a>;
+   				delivers Montreal to Maisonneuve, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>;
+   				builds a fort at Sorel, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>;
+   				called Onontio by the Iroquois, <a href="#Page_283">283</a>;
+   				negotiates a peace with the Iroquois,
+					   <a href="#Page_284">284</a> <i>seq.</i><br />
+       Montagnais, an Algonquin tribe, where found,
+			    <a href="#Page_xxiii">xxiii</a>;
+   		    their degradation, <i>ib.;</i>
+   				Le Jeune essays their conversion, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>;
+   				concerned in a treaty of peace, <a href="#Page_286">286</a>,
+					   <a href="#Page_293">293</a>;
+   				salutary changes from the influence of the mission,
+					   <a href="#Page_319">319</a>.<br />
+       Montreal, island of,
+   		    purchased for the site of a religious community,
+					   <a href="#Page_195">195</a>;
+   				part of the money given by ladies, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>;
+   				consecrated to the Holy Family, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>;
+   				the enterprise compared with the crusades,
+					   <a href="#Page_207">207</a>;
+   				first day of the settlement, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>;
+   				motives of the enterprise,
+      		   as stated by the leaders themselves,
+						    <a href="#Page_210">210</a> <i>note;</i>
+          infancy of the settlement, <a href="#Page_261">261</a>;
+   				rise of the St. Lawrence checked by a wooden cross,
+					   <a href="#Page_263">263</a>;
+   				arrival of D'Ailleboust and others, <a href="#Page_264">264</a>;
+   				pilgrimages, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>;
+   				hospital built, <a href="#Page_266">266</a>;
+   				Indians fed, <a href="#Page_268">268</a>;
+   				attacks by the Iroquois, <a href="#Page_269">269</a> <i>seq.;</i>
+   				sally of the French, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>;
+   				condition of Montreal in 1651, <a href="#Page_333">333</a>.<br />
+       Moon, the, worshipped, <a href="#Page_lxxvi">lxxvi</a>.<br />
+			 Morgan, Lewis H., his account of the Iroquois,
+			    <a href="#Page_liv">liv</a> <i>note.</i><br />
+			 Murder atoned for by presents, <a href="#Page_lxi">lxi</a>,
+			    <a href="#Page_lxii">lxii</a>, <a href="#Page_354">354</a>;
+          a grand ceremony of this sort,
+					   <a href="#Page_355">355</a> <i>seq.</i>
+       <p><br/></p>
+	 </div>
+   <h3>N.</h3>
+   <div class="indexfont">
+       <i>Nanabush.</i> See <i>Manabozho.</i><br />
+			 Nation of the Bear, <a href="#Page_liii">liii</a>.<br />
+			 Nation of Fire, an Algonquin people,
+   		    attacked by the Neutral Nation, <a href="#Page_436">436</a>.<br />
+       <i>Neutral Nation,</i> their country, <a href="#Page_xx">xx</a>,
+			       <a href="#Page_xliv">xliv</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>;
+   		    their cruelty and licentiousness, <a href="#Page_xlv">xlv</a>;
+   				representations made to them respecting the French,
+					   <a href="#Page_xlvi">xlvi</a> <i>note;</i>
+   				a ferocious people, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>;
+   				their excessive superstition, <i>ib.;</i>
+   				a mission among them attempted, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>;
+					but in vain, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>;
+   				kindness of a Neutral woman, <i>ib.;</i>
+   				destroy a large town of the Nation of Fire,
+					   <a href="#Page_436">436</a>;
+   				their ferocious cruelty, <i>ib. note;</i>
+   				themselves exterminated by the Iroquois,
+					   <a href="#Page_437">437</a>.<br />
+       New England, Indians in, <a href="#Page_xxi">xxi</a>;
+   		    a Jesuit's impressions of, <a href="#Page_328">328</a>.<br />
+       Niagara, called the River of the Neutrals, <a href="#Page_xliv">xliv</a>;
+   		    described by the Jesuits,
+					   <a href="#Page_143">143</a> <i>note.</i><br />
+       Nicollet, Jean, visits Green Bay in 1639,
+			    <a href="#Page_166">166</a>.<br />
+			 Nipissings, <a href="#Page_xxiv">xxiv</a>.<br />
+			 Notre-Dame des Anges, at Quebec,
+			    <a href="#Page_5">5</a>, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>;
+   		 Notre-Dame de Montreal, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>.<br />
+       <p><br/></p>
+			 <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_461" id="Page_461">461</a></span>
+	 </div>
+   <h3>O.</h3>
+   <div class="indexfont">
+       <i>Ochateguins.</i> See <i>Hurons.</i><br />
+			 <i>Ojibwas,</i> how differing in language from Algonquins,
+			    <a href="#Page_xx">xx</a>;
+   		    visited by Jogues, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>.<br />
+       <i>Okies,</i> or <i>Otkons,</i>
+   		    objects of worship among the Iroquois,
+					   <a href="#Page_lxix">lxix</a>.<br />
+			 Olier, Jean Jacques, Abb&eacute;,
+   		    suspected of Jansenism, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>;
+   		 		has a revelation, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>;
+   		 		meets Dauversi&egrave;re, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>;
+   		 		their schemes, <i>ib.</i><br />
+			 Oneidas, or <i>Onneyut,</i>
+   		 		one of the Five Nations,
+					   <a href="#Page_xlviii">xlviii</a> <i>note</i>,
+						 <a href="#Page_liv">liv</a>.
+   		 		See <i>Iroquois.</i><br />
+			 Onondagas, or Onnontagu&eacute;,
+   		    one of the Five Nations,
+					   <a href="#Page_xlviii">xlviii</a> <i>note,</i>
+						 <a href="#Page_liv">liv</a>
+      		   (see <i>Iroquois</i>);
+   				their inroad on the Hurons, <a href="#Page_343">343</a>;
+   				their jealousy of the Mohawks, <a href="#Page_344">344</a>;
+   				their embassy to the Hurons, <a href="#Page_345">345</a>;
+   				suicide of the ambassador, <a href="#Page_347">347</a>.<br />
+       Ononkwaya, an Oneida chief,
+   		    a prisoner to the Hurons, <a href="#Page_338">338</a>;
+   				his marvellous fortitude under torture,
+					   <a href="#Page_339">339</a>.<br />
+       <i>Onontio,</i> Great Mountain,
+   		    name given to the Governor of Canada
+      		   among the Iroquois, and why, <a href="#Page_283">283</a>.<br />
+       Ontitarac, a Huron chief, his speech, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>.<br />
+			 Orators of the Iroquois, <a href="#Page_lx">lx</a>.<br />
+			 Ossossan&eacute;, chief town of the Hurons, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>;
+          great Huron cemetery there, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>;
+   				mission established there,
+					   <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>;
+   				abandoned, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>.<br />
+       Ouendats, or Wyandots. See <i>Hurons.</i> <br />
+       <p><br/></p>
+	 </div>
+   <h3>P.</h3>
+   <div class="indexfont">
+       Parker, Ely S., an educated Iroquois,
+			    <a href="#Page_liv">liv</a> <i>note.</i><br />
+			 Passionists, convent of, a singular incident there,
+			    <a href="#Page_108">108</a> <i>note.</i><br />
+			 Peace concluded between the French and Iroquois,
+			    <a href="#Page_284">284</a>-<a href="#Page_295">295</a>;
+   		    defects of the treaty, <a href="#Page_296">296</a>;
+   		    the peace broken and why, <a href="#Page_302">302</a>.<br />
+       Peltrie, de la, Madame, her birth, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>;
+          her girlhood, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>;
+   				a widow, <i>ib.;</i>
+   				religious schemes, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>;
+   				resolves to go to Canada, <i>ib.;</i>
+   				her sham marriage, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>;
+   				visits the Ursuline Convent at Tours, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>;
+   				results of that visit, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>;
+   				embarks for Canada, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>;
+   				perilous voyage, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>;
+   				her character, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>;
+   				thirst for admiration, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>;
+   				leaves the Ursulines and joins the Colony of Montreal,
+					   <a href="#Page_206">206</a>, <a href="#Page_261">261</a>;
+	 				receives the sacrament on the top of the mountain,
+					   <a href="#Page_264">264</a>;
+   				at Quebec, <a href="#Page_334">334</a>.<br />
+      Penobscot, a station on it of Capuchin friars,
+			   <a href="#Page_322">322</a>.<br />
+			Pestilence among the Hurons, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>;
+			   its supposed origin, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>.<br />
+			Persecution of the Jesuits, <a href="#Page_116">116</a> <i>seq.</i><br />
+			Pictures requested for the mission, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>;
+   		   of souls in perdition, many, <i>ib.;</i>
+   			 of souls in bliss, one, <i>ib.;</i>
+   			 how to be colored, <i>ib.;</i>
+   			 Le Jeune describes the pictures of Hell which he wants,
+				    <a href="#Page_163">163</a>.<br />
+      Picture-writing by the Indians, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>.<br />
+			Pierre, an Algonquin, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>;
+   		   teacher of Le Jeune, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>;
+   			 runs away, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>;
+   			 returns, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>;
+   			 frantic from strong drink, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>;
+   			 repents and assists Le Jeune, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>;
+   			 another of this name, a converted Huron,
+				    <a href="#Page_122">122</a>.<br />
+			Pijart, Pierre, joins the mission, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>;
+   		   his clandestine baptisms,
+				    <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>;
+   			 establishes a mission at Ossossan&eacute;,
+				    <a href="#Page_110">110</a>.<br />
+			Piskaret, an Algonquin brave, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>;
+			   his exploits, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>;
+   			 his successes against the Iroquois, <a href="#Page_281">281</a>;
+   			 assists in a treaty of peace, <a href="#Page_291">291</a>;
+   			 murdered by Mohawks, <a href="#Page_308">308</a>.<br />
+			Poncet, father, his pilgrimage to Loretto, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>;
+   		   embarks for Canada, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>;
+   			 his peril, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>.<br />
+			Price of a man's life, <a href="#Page_lxii">lxii</a>;
+			   of a woman's, <i>ib.</i> <br />
+			Prisoners, cruel treatment of,
+   		   <a href="#Page_xxxix">xxxix</a>, <a href="#Page_xlv">xlv</a>,
+				 <a href="#Page_80">80</a>, <a href="#Page_216">216</a> <i>seq.,</i>
+				 <a href="#Page_248">248</a> <i>seq.,</i>
+				 <a href="#Page_253">253</a>, <a href="#Page_277">277</a>,
+				 <a href="#Page_339">339</a>, <a href="#Page_388">388</a> <i>seq.,</i>
+				 <a href="#Page_436">436</a> <i>note,</i> <a href="#Page_439">439</a>,
+				 <a href="#Page_441">441</a> <i>note.</i><br />
+      Processions, religious, at Quebec, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>.<br />
+      <p><br/></p>
+	 </div>
+   <h3>Q.</h3>
+   <div class="indexfont">
+      <i>Quatogies.</i> See <i>Hurons.</i><br />
+			Qualifications for success in an Indian mission,
+			   <a href="#Page_134">134</a> <i>note.</i> <br />
+			Quebec in 1634, <a href="#Page_1">1</a>;
+			   its first settler, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>;
+   		   condition in 1640, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>;
+   			 its aspect half military, half monastic, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>;
+   			 its very amusements acts of religion, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>;
+   			 state of things in 1651, <a href="#Page_331">331</a>;
+   			 New-Year's Day, 1646, <a href="#Page_334">334</a>.<br />
+         <p><br/></p>
+	 </div>
+   <h3>R.</h3>
+   <div class="indexfont">
+       Ragueneau, Paul,
+   		    missionary among the Hurons, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>,
+					   <a href="#Page_124">124</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>;
+   				relates proceedings of a council held respecting a murder,
+					   <a href="#Page_355">355</a>;
+					Father Superior, <a href="#Page_370">370</a>.<br />
+      Raymbault, Charles, enters Lake Superior with Jogues,
+			   <a href="#Page_213">213</a>.<br />
+      <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_462" id="Page_462">462</a></span>
+      Religion and superstitions of the Indians,
+			   <a href="#Page_lxvii">lxvii</a> <i>et seq.;</i>
+         worship of material objects,
+      	    inanimate no less than animate, <i>ib.;</i>
+         the Indians attribute their origin to beasts,
+            birds, and reptiles, <a href="#Page_lxviii">lxviii</a>;
+         all nature full of objects of religious fear and dread,
+				    <a href="#Page_lxxxiv">lxxxiv</a>;
+   			 sacrifices, <a href="#Page_lxxxvi">lxxxvi</a>.<br />
+      Remarkable instance of Indian forgiveness,
+			   <a href="#Page_319">319</a>.<br />
+			Rome, Church of, her strange contradictions, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>;
+   		   self-denial of her missionaries, <i>ib.</i>
+      <p><br/></p>
+	 </div>
+   <h3>S.</h3>
+   <div class="indexfont">
+      Sacrifice, a human, by fire, witnessed by a missionary,
+			   <a href="#Page_80">80</a> <i>seq.</i><br />
+			Sacrifices of the Indians, <a href="#Page_lxxxv">lxxxv</a>,
+			   <a href="#Page_lxxxvi">lxxxvi</a> <i>note.</i><br />
+			St. Bernard, Marie de, a nun at Tours, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>;
+   		   embarks for Canada, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>.<br />
+			St. Ignace, town, taken by the Iroquois, <a href="#Page_380">380</a>;
+         furious battle with the Hurons, <a href="#Page_384">384</a>;
+   			 the town and its inhabitants destroyed by fire,
+				    <a href="#Page_385">385</a>;
+   			 vestiges still remaining, <i>ib. note.</i><br />
+      St. Jean, town in the Tobacco Nation, attacked by the Iroquois,
+			   <a href="#Page_405">405</a>;
+   		   destroyed by fire, <a href="#Page_406">406</a>.<br />
+      St. Joseph, a town in the Huron country, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>,
+			   <a href="#Page_374">374</a>;
+   		   surprised by the Iroquois, <a href="#Page_375">375</a>;
+				 and destroyed, <a href="#Page_377">377</a>;
+   			 another station of this name on an island, <a href="#Page_395">395</a>;
+   			 the Huron refugees repair thither, <a href="#Page_399">399</a>;
+   			 their extreme misery, <i>ib.;</i> famine,
+				    <a href="#Page_400">400</a>.<br />
+      St. Louis, town in the Huron country, attacked,
+			   <a href="#Page_380">380</a>;
+   		   severe struggle, <a href="#Page_381">381</a>;
+   			 destroyed by the Iroquois, <i>ib.</i><br />
+      Ste. Marie, in the Huron country,
+  		   a mission established there, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>;
+   			 the place described, <a href="#Page_362">362</a> <i>seq.;</i>
+   			 a bountiful hospitality exercised
+      	    towards the converts and others, <a href="#Page_367">367</a>;
+         alarm and anxiety at the Iroquois invasion, <a href="#Page_382">382</a>;
+   			 the station abandoned, <a href="#Page_394">394</a>;
+   			 stripped of all valuables, and set on fire,
+				    <a href="#Page_396">396</a>.<br />
+      Schoolcraft, Henry R., his Notes on the Iroquois,
+			   <a href="#Page_liv">liv</a> <i>note;</i>
+   		   his mistakes, <a href="#Page_lxxviii">lxxviii</a>,
+				    <a href="#Page_lxxx">lxxx</a>;
+   			 his collection of Algonquin tales,
+				    <a href="#Page_lxxxviii">lxxxviii</a>;
+   			 his unsatisfactory speculations about Huron graves,
+				    <a href="#Page_71">71</a>.<br />
+      Seminary, Huron, at Quebec, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>.<br />
+			Senecas, one of the Five Nations,
+			   <a href="#Page_xlviii">xlviii</a> <i>note,</i>
+				 <a href="#Page_liv">liv</a>.
+   			 See <i>Iroquois.</i><br />
+      Sepulture among the Hurons, <a href="#Page_lxxxi">lxxxi</a>,
+			   <a href="#Page_71">71</a> <i>seq.</i><br />
+			Sillery, No&euml;l Brulart de, becomes a priest,
+			   <a href="#Page_182">182</a>;
+         founds the settlement which bears his name,
+				    <a href="#Page_183">183</a>.<br />
+      Sioux punish adultery, <a href="#Page_xxxiv">xxxiv</a>;
+			   harass the Hurons, <a href="#Page_425">425</a>.<br />
+      Sorcerer, a dwarfish, deformed one, troubles the Jesuits,
+			   <a href="#Page_91">91</a>;
+         his account of his origin, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>;
+         sorcerers, several, in time of mortal sickness,
+				    <a href="#Page_93">93</a>.<br />
+	    Sorcery, as practised among the Indians,
+			   <a href="#Page_lxxxiv">lxxxiv</a>,
+				 <a href="#Page_32">32</a>-<a href="#Page_38">38</a>.<br />
+      Speech-making, Indian, <a href="#Page_287">287</a>,
+			   <a href="#Page_292">292</a>-<a href="#Page_294">294</a>.<br />
+      Sun worshipped, <a href="#Page_lxxvi">lxxvi</a>.<br />
+      Supernaturalism of the Jesuits, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>;
+         supposed efficacy of relics and prayers
+         to relieve pain and cure disease, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>;
+         conversions effected in this manner, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>;
+         such views still entertained,
+         as illustrated in a curious incident, <i>ib.</i> <br />
+      Superstitions of the Indians, <a href="#Page_lxvii">lxvii</a> <i>seq.,</i>
+			   <a href="#Page_68">68</a>.<br />
+			Superstitious terrors, <a href="#Page_lxxxiv">lxxxiv</a>,
+			   <a href="#Page_115">115</a>, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>.<br />
+			Susquehannocks. See <i>Andastes.</i><br />
+			Swedish colonists on the Delaware assist the Andastes,
+			   <a href="#Page_442">442</a>.<br />
+      <p><br/></p>
+	 </div>
+   <h3>T.</h3>
+   <div class="indexfont">
+      <i>Tarenyowagon,</i> a powerful deity,
+			   <a href="#Page_lxxvii">lxxvii</a>.<br />
+			<i>Tarratines,</i> the Abenaquis so called,
+			   <a href="#Page_xxii">xxii</a> <i>note.</i><br />
+			Tattooing practised, <a href="#Page_xxxiii">xxxiii</a>;
+			   a severe process, <i>ib.</i><br />
+			<i>Teanaustay&eacute;,</i> <a href="#Page_137">137</a>.
+			   See <i>St. Joseph.</i><br />
+			Tessouat, or Le Borgne, converted, <a href="#Page_268">268</a>.<br />
+			Tionnontates. See <i>Tobacco Nation.</i><br />
+			Tobacco Nation, or Tionnontates,
+   		   in league with the Hurons, <a href="#Page_xliii">xliii</a>;
+   			 raised tobacco, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>;
+   			 mission among them, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>;
+   			 reception of the missionaries, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>;
+   			 perils of the missionaries, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>;
+  			 some of the Hurons seek an asylum there,
+				    <a href="#Page_393">393</a>, <a href="#Page_404">404</a>.<br />
+      Tobacco, none in Heaven, a sad thought to the Indian,
+			   <a href="#Page_136">136</a>.<br />
+			<i>Totems,</i> emblems of clans, <a href="#Page_li">li</a>,
+			   <a href="#Page_lxviii">lxviii</a>, <a href="#Page_375">375</a>.<br />
+			Trade in furs, <a href="#Page_xlv">xlv</a>,
+			   <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>.<br />
+			Traffic of the Indians, how conducted,
+			   <a href="#Page_xxxvi">xxxvi</a>.<br />
+      Treatment of women, <a href="#Page_xxxiv">xxxiv</a>,
+			   <a href="#Page_xxxv">xxxv</a>;
+   			 of prisoners, <a href="#Page_xxxix">xxxix</a>,
+				    <a href="#Page_xlv">xlv</a>, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>,
+						<a href="#Page_216">216</a> <i>seq.,</i>
+						<a href="#Page_248">248</a> <i>seq.,</i>
+						<a href="#Page_253">253</a>, <a href="#Page_254">254</a>,
+						<a href="#Page_277">277</a>, <a href="#Page_339">339</a>,
+            <a href="#Page_388">388</a>, <a href="#Page_439">439</a>,
+						<a href="#Page_441">441</a> <i>note.</i><br />
+      Tuscaroras, in Carolina, <a href="#Page_xxi">xxi</a>;
+   		   unite with the Five Nations, <a href="#Page_xxi">xxi</a>,
+				    <a href="#Page_lxvi">lxvi</a>.<br />
+      <p><br/></p>
+      <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_463" id="Page_463">463</a></span>
+	 </div>
+   <h3>U.</h3>
+   <div class="indexfont">
+      Unchastity of the Indians, <a href="#Page_xxxiv">xxxiv</a> <i>note,</i>
+			   <a href="#Page_xlv">xlv</a>.<br />
+			Ursulines at Tours, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>;
+   		   at Quebec, their labors, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>;
+   			 their instructions, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>.<br />
+      <p><br/></p>
+	 </div>
+   <h3>V.</h3>
+   <div class="indexfont">
+      Villemarie de Montreal, a three-fold religious establishment,
+			   <a href="#Page_201">201</a>, <a href="#Page_261">261</a>.<br/>
+			Vimont, father, embarks for Canada, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>;
+   		   makes a vow to Saint Joseph, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>;
+   			 visits Montreal, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>;
+   			 Superior of the Canadian Mission, <a href="#Page_286">286</a>;
+   			 assists in a treaty of peace, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>.<br/>
+      Visions and visitations from Heaven and from Hell
+			   frequent occurrences in the lives of the missionaries,
+				    <a href="#Page_108">108</a>;
+   			 the subject illustrated by a curious incident, <i>ib. note.</i>
+      <p><br/></p>
+	 </div>
+   <h3>W.</h3>
+   <div class="indexfont">
+      Wampum, its material and uses, <a href="#Page_xxxi">xxxi</a>;
+         served the purpose of records,
+				    <a href="#Page_xxxii">xxxii</a>, <a href="#Page_lxi">lxi</a>.<br />
+			War-dance, often practised for amusement,
+			   <a href="#Page_xxxix">xxxix</a>.<br />
+			Wigwam, how built, <a href="#Page_xxvii">xxvii</a>;
+			   inconveniences in one,
+			      <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>.<br />
+			Winnebagoes, their residence when first known to Europeans,
+			   <a href="#Page_xx">xx</a>;
+   		   known to the Jesuits in 1648, <a href="#Page_368">368</a>.<br />
+		  Winslow, John,
+         kindly receives the Jesuit Druilletes at Augusta,
+				    <a href="#Page_322">322</a>, <a href="#Page_325">325</a>;
+   			 his name in the <i>Relations,</i> how spelled,
+				    <a href="#Page_323">323</a> <i>note.</i><br />
+      Winter in Canada, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>,
+			   <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>.<br />
+			Witchcraft, proceedings in case of, <a href="#Page_lxiii">lxiii</a>.<br />
+			Women, their condition,
+			   <a href="#Page_xxxiii">xxxiii</a>, <a href="#Page_xxxiv">xxxiv</a>,
+			   <a href="#Page_xxxv">xxxv</a>, <a href="#Page_xlv">xiv</a>.<br />
+			Wyandots, a remnant of the Hurons,
+			   <a href="#Page_xxiv">xxiv</a>, <a href="#Page_426">426</a>.
+   			 See <i>Hurons.</i>
+       <p><br/></p>
+       <p class="center smcap noindent">The End.</p>
+       <p><br/></p>
+		</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<hr class="main" />
+<div class="chapterhead">
+      <br />
+			<a name="parkman" id="parkman"></a>
+			<br /><br /><br />
+	 <h2><a href="#Contents35">Francis Parkman</a></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p><br /></p>
+<h3>France and England in North America</h3>
+<ol>
+<li><a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3721">
+		Pioneers of France in the New World</a> (1865, 1885)</li>
+<li><a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6933">
+    The Jesuits in North America in the seventeenth century</a> (1867)</li>
+<li><a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/9997">
+    The Discovery of the West</a> (1869) <br />
+		<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/40143">
+    La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West</a> (1879)</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">The Old R&eacute;gime in Canada</span>
+    (1874, 1894)</li>
+<li><a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6875">
+    Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV.</a> (1877)</li>
+<li>A Half Century of Conflict (1892)<br />
+    <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/24457">
+		Volume 1</a><br />
+		<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7064">
+		Volume 2</a> </li>
+<li><a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/14517">
+    Montcalm and Wolfe </a> (1884)</li>
+</ol>
+
+<p>
+The year that each book was published is printed and enclosed by parenthesis
+after the title of each volume.  In some cases, there are two years in
+parenthesis.  These indicate that a volume with major revisions was
+published.
+</p>
+<p>
+The revised version of <i>Pioneers of France </i> contains new descriptions
+of Florida and some changes to the section on Samuel Champlain.  Parkman
+revised <i>Discovery of the West</i> after obtaining access to Margry's
+collection.  The revised version of <i>The Old R&eacute;gime</i> includes
+three new chapters regarding La Tour and D'Aunay.
+</p>
+<p>
+Volume 3 was not only revised, but the title was altered.  Parkman first
+released Volume 3 as <i>The Discovery of the West.</i>  His updated version of
+Volume 3 was entitled <i>La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West.</i>
+</p>
+
+<h3>Other Principal Works</h3>
+<ul>
+<li><a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1015">
+		The Oregon Trail</a> (1849)</li>
+<li><a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/39253">
+    The Conspiracy of Pontiac</a> (1851)</li>
+</ul>
+
+<hr class="main" />
+<div class="chapterhead">
+      <br />
+			<a name="Appendix" id="Appendix"></a>
+			<br /><br /><br />
+	 <h2><a href="#Contents36">Appendix</a></h2>
+	 <p><br /></p>
+	 <h3>Transcription notes:</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p id="id01404">
+This book was originally transcribed from Volume 20.  While making a batch
+of corrections, a decision was made to base this etext on Volume 1 for three
+reasons:  1) Parkman's subsequent revisions were virtually insignificant;
+2) Volume 1, released in 1867, is available at the New York Public Library
+through Hathitrust, and thus, can readily be consulted for future claims
+of errata, and 3) In the Notes on the Texts prepared for the The Library
+of America reprint (1983), David Levin opined that using Volume 1 for this
+title was the best choice to approximate Parkman's own conception of
+<i>France and England in North America</i>.  </p>
+<p>
+In resolving errors and questions that came up during transcription,
+Parkman's Seventh volume of <i>The Jesuits in North America</i> from 1872 was
+consulted (from the Library of Congress, available through Hathitrust),
+as well as the aforementioned The Library of America edition of this work.
+When these notes refer to a mistake in <em>all the volumes,</em> they
+refer to Volumes 1, 7, and 20. These volumes were produced during Parkman's
+lifetime, and assume that changes met with Parkman's approval.
+</p>
+
+<p id="id01405">
+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--&oelig;--will only display correctly if using Windows
+1252.</p>
+
+<p id="id01406">
+The footnotes have been produced using the <span class="smcap">Project
+Gutenberg</span>&trade; standard.  Footnotes follow the paragraph in
+which they were mentioned.  Footnotes have been set in smaller print
+and have larger margins than regular text.  Footnotes are numbered
+sequentially and the numbers are reset after each change in chapter.
+There are a total of 548 footnotes in this book.  Please note that
+we have made no emendations to the content of footnotes to preserve
+the antiquated orthography and accentuation of the contents.</p>
+
+<p id="id01407">
+This text generally preserved the italicization of <i>words, phrases, and
+the titles of references</i> which are presented in <i>italics</i> in the
+printed book.  The standard of the book is to use italics when citing
+<i>Relations, 1650</i>; and not to use them when writing <i>Relations</i>
+of 1650.  There were some cases that did not observe the standard:
+they were treated as errata, and changed.
+<span class="smcap">Small capitalization</span> has also been
+retained--used primarily for the first word of each chapter.   </p>
+
+<p id="id01408">
+Detailed notes describe problems or issues in transcribing a specific
+portion of the text:  the reconciliation of variances between the topics
+list in the contents and the topics list preceeding each chapter; other
+modifications applied while transcribing the printed book to an e-text;
+emendations; and other issues in transcribing the text. <br/>
+</p>
+
+<p>You will see
+<ins title="a short message, such as the original text, will appear here.">
+changed text</ins> underlined by dotted silver lines.  In some versions
+(like the HTML version) of this document, you can hover your cursor over the
+changed text and see details in a small box.  Those details are repeated, and
+sometimes elaborated upon, in the Detailed Notes Section of this
+<i>Appendix</i>.</p>
+
+<p><br /></p>
+<h3>Detailed Notes Section:</h3>
+
+
+
+<div class="notes">
+<p><br /></p>
+<h4 id="id01410"> Contents</h4>
+<p class="noindent">
+  &bull; Chapter 5: Capitalize Thwarted and Begun in the topics list.<br />
+  &bull; Chapter 16: Capitalize Tortured in the topics list. <br />
+	&bull; Chapter 19: Capitalize Confirmed in the topics list. <br />
+	&bull; Chapter 26: Capitalize Destroyed in the topics list. <br />
+</p>
+
+<p><br /></p>
+<h4 id="id01411"> Introduction:</h4>
+<p class="noindent">
+   &bull; <a href="#Page_xix">Page xix</a>,
+	 add Indian before "Social and Political Organization"
+	 to match topics list in Table of Contents.<br />
+   &bull; <a href="#Page_xxxv">Page xxxv</a>,
+	 in <a href="#footer_0-18">footnote 0-18</a>, the word "come" is printed
+	 with a straight line over the "o," not only in Volume 1, but also in
+	 Volume 7. The Library of America version of the book assumes that the
+	 line resulted from an imperfection in the plates. The assumption is not
+	 only reasonable but practical, and it is adopted here, too. <br />
+	 &bull; <a href="#Page_xlviii">Page xlviii</a>,
+	 place period after the clause "which they had so promptly assented"
+	 This period was also missing in Volume 7.<br />
+	 &bull; On <a href="#Page_li">Page li</a>,
+	 Parkman added the qualifier "in most cases" to the clause "The child belongs
+	 to the clan," in the eighth volume of this title. The new clause is,
+	 "The child belongs, in most cases, to the clan,"
+	 <br />
+	 &bull; On <a href="#Page_lii">Page lii</a>, Parkman used the less precise
+	 "usually belonging to it" instead of "inseparable from it" in the eighth
+	 volume of this title.  The new sentence reads, "This system of clanship,
+	 with the rule of descent usually belonging to it, was of very wide
+	 prevalence."<br />
+	 &bull; On <a href="#Page_lxv">Page lxv</a>, Un doubtedly is not hyphenated
+	 and split between two lines as if two words, not just in Volume 1, but in
+	 Volume 7.  There should have been a hyphen after Un-.  The clause was
+	 transcribed:  "Undoubtedly there was a distinct and definite effort of
+	 legislation;"
+</p>
+
+<p><br /></p>
+<h4 id="id01412"> Chapter 3:</h4>
+<p class="noindent">
+   &bull; Changed "Mission-house" to "Mission-House" in topics list
+	 beginning Chapter 3 to match topics list for Chapter 3 in the Contents.
+	 <br />
+	 &bull; <a href="#Page_18">Page 18</a>: <a href="#footer_3-3">footnote
+	 3-3</a> does not end the last sentence with a period: "et sa bont&eacute;
+	 n'a point de limites" The period was also missing in Volume 7.  We did not
+	 make an emendation because of Parkman's statement in the Preface.  <br />
+	 &bull; <a href="#Page_21">Page 21</a>: add period to end the sentence with
+	 the clause "sorcerer, in the tribe of the Montagnais"  The period was
+	 added in Volume 7.
+</p>
+
+<p><br /></p>
+<h4 id="id01413"> Chapter 4:</h4>
+<p class="noindent">
+  &bull; <a href="#Page_24">Page 24</a>: In
+	<a href="#footer_4-1">footnote 4-1</a>, add beginning quote before Iamais:
+	"Iamais il ne fut ..."<br />
+	&bull; <a href="#Page_26">Page 26</a>: In
+	<a href="#footer_4-2">footnote 4-2</a>, text is missing a period after
+	ceinture, in all volumes.  This was not changed, as it was in the footnote.
+	<br />
+  &bull; <a href="#Page_30">Page 30</a>-<a href="#Page_31">Page 31</a>:
+	Confirmed the spelling of "fume&eacute;" and "fum&eacute;e;" in
+	<a href="#footer_4-5">footnote 4-5</a>.<br />
+	&bull; <a href="#Page_31">Page 31</a>: Confirmed the spelling of "mais" in
+	<a href="#footer_4-6">footnote 4-6</a>.<br />
+	&bull; <a href="#Page_31">Page 31</a>: Confirmed the apostrophe in
+	"qu'&agrave;" in <a href="#footer_4-6">footnote 4-6</a>.<br />
+  &bull; <a href="#Page_33">Page 33</a>:
+	In <a href="#footer_4-8">footnote 4-8</a>: the correct word is "laisse,"
+	but "laiss" remains unchanged in accordance with Parkman's statement
+	in the preface.<br />
+  &bull; <a href="#Page_37">Page 37</a>:
+	<a href="#footer_4-11">footnote 4-11</a> in Volume 1 refers back to no page
+	number in the introduction.  Volume 7 &amp; Volume 20 have the page number
+	xliv.  We replaced the blank space for the page number left in volume 1 with
+	the page number specified in later volumes.
+</p>
+
+<p><br /></p>
+<h4 id="id01414"> Chapter 6:</h4>
+<p class="noindent">
+   &bull; On <a href="#Page_62">Page 62</a>,
+	 <a href="#footer_6-4">Footnote 6-4</a> was not marked clearly in the
+	 original book used for transcription.  The footnote appeared fine in
+	 Volume 1, and is rendered appropriately.
+	 </p>
+<p><br /></p>
+<h4 id="id01415">  Chapter 7:</h4>
+<p class="noindent">
+   &bull; <a href="#Page_76">Page 76</a>,
+	 <a href="#footer_7-5">Footnote 7-5</a> contains the word
+	 "Atsatone8ai".  The "spelling is correct."  See <i>The Old Regime in
+	 Canada</i> for similar usage, such as "8ta8aks."
+</p>
+
+<p><br /></p>
+<h4 id="id01416"> Chapter 8:</h4>
+<p class="noindent">
+  &bull; <a href="#Page_85">Page 85</a>, confirmed the spelling of
+	"i'auo&uuml;e" and the phrase "qui ne cherche que Dieu," which
+	were unclear in <a href="#footer_8-1">footnote 8-1</a> from the book
+	originally used for transcription.<br />
+	&bull; <a href="#Page_87">Page 87</a>:
+	small-pox is hyphenated and split between two lines for spacing.
+	There are two other occurrences of the word, and the hyphen was
+	used, so the hyphen was retained here, too.
+</p>
+
+<p><br /></p>
+<h4> Chapter 9:</h4>
+<p class="noindent">
+&bull; <a href="#Page_105">Page 105</a>, Change gain to again in the clause
+"the offending limb became sound again."  The text was incorrect in Volume 1,
+and corrected in Volume 7.
+</p>
+
+<p><br /></p>
+<h4 id="id01417"> Chapter 12:</h4>
+<p class="noindent">
+	&bull; <a href="#Page_147">Page 147</a>: By volume 7, Parkman
+	broke this long, compound sentence into two not-quite-as-long
+	sentences.  The colon before "or" was changed to a period, and Or
+	began the next sentence:  "... between him and the home of his boyhood.
+	Or rather ..." </p>
+
+<p><br /></p>
+<h4 id="id01418"> Chapter 13:</h4>
+<p class="noindent">
+  &bull; <a href="#Page_157">Page 157</a>: Near the end of the page, precarious
+	is split between two lines without a hyphen. "All these were supported by a
+	charity in most cases precari ous."  The hyphen was missing, and the
+	word was split for spacing.  We transcribed the word without the hyphen,
+	but omitted the space.  This error was found in all volumes.
+</p>
+
+<p><br /></p>
+<h4 id="id01418a"> Chapter 14:</h4>
+<p class="noindent">
+  &bull;  <a href="#Page_171">Page 171</a>-<a href="#Page_172">Page 172</a>:
+	In <a href="#footer_14-5">footnote 14-5</a>, add quotation mark before Enfin.
+	The leading quotation mark was missing in all volumes.
+	<br />
+  &bull;  <a href="#Page_175">Page 175</a>: See the sentence "Like Madame de la
+	Peltrie, she married, at the desire of her parents. in her eighteenth year."
+	The comma after parents was either malformed because of the quality of the
+	plates, or mistyped as a period.  We used a comma after parents. In volume 7,
+	the punctuation mark after parents was visibly a comma.
+</p>
+
+<p><br /></p>
+<h4 id="id01419"> Chapter 15:</h4>
+<p class="noindent">
+  &bull; Changed Bourgeois in topics list of Chapter 15 to Bourgeoys.  Not
+	only does the correction match the spelling in the topics list for Chapter
+	15 in the contents, but it matches the spelling of Marguerite Bourgeoys in
+	seven other instances of Chapter XV. In no other instance in this book was her
+	name spelled differently.<br />
+  &bull; Page 195--Confirmed that year in
+	<a href="#footer_15-8">footnote 15-8</a> is 1659.</p>
+
+<p><br /></p>
+<h4 id="id01420"> Chapter 16:</h4>
+<p class="noindent">
+  &bull; <a href="#Page_237">Page 237</a>:
+	By volume 7, the narrative describing the return of Jogues says "He
+	reached the church in time for the early mass..." instead of the
+	evening mass.
+	</p>
+
+<p><br /></p>
+<h4 id="id01421"> Chapter 18:</h4>
+<p class="noindent">
+  &bull; <a href="#Page_263">Page 263</a>: poorly printed word in footnote,
+	appears to be "de." <a href="#footer_18-3">Footnote 18-3</a> has two uses
+	of de in italics, and both appear clearly in Volume 1.  We believe this
+	issue is resolved.</p>
+
+<p><br /></p>
+<h4 id="id01422"> Chapter 19:</h4>
+<p class="noindent">
+  &bull; <a href="#Page_281">Page 281</a>: fixed typo ("die", should be "dine").
+	Volume 7 also has the phrase "We must die before we run."  This typo does not
+	fall under Parkman's caveat in the Preface, and could confuse if preserved.
+	Therefore, the spelling was corrected. <br />
+  &bull; <a href="#Page_281">Page 281</a>: Add missing comma after effect in
+	the clause "and fired with such good effect, that, of seven warriors,
+	all but one were killed."  This comma was added by Volume 7.
+</p>
+
+<p><br /></p>
+<h4 id="id01423"> Chapter 22:</h4>
+<p class="noindent">
+		&bull; In Volume 1, Parkman cited page 166 in Hutchinson, <i>Collection
+		of Papers</i> in <a href="#footer_22-18">Footnote 22-18</a>, but changed
+		the page number to 240 in later volumes.  <br />
+		&bull; <a href="#Page_333">Page 333</a>: fixed typo ("Govornor"),
+		spelled incorrectly in all volumes. <br />
+</p>
+
+<p><br /></p>
+<h4 id="id01425"> Chapter 25:</h4>
+<p class="noindent">
+  &bull; <a href="#Page_364">Page 364</a>: <a href="#footer_25-10">footnote
+	25-10</a>, add missing close-quotes after c&oelig;ur.<br />
+	&bull; <a href="#Page_368">Page 368</a>: In
+	<a href="#footer_25-18">footnote 25-18</a>, add comma after Algonquin.
+	There is a space reserved for the comma but it didn't appear in
+	the text: "Besides these tribes, the Jesuits had become more or less
+	acquainted with many others, also Algonquin&nbsp; on the west and south of
+	Lake Huron;"  The comma was missing in all volumes.<br />
+  &bull; <a href="#Page_371">Page 371</a>: A colon appears at the end of the
+	page, after "at least in the flesh:"<br />
+	&bull; <a href="#Page_372">Page 372</a>:
+	In <a href="#footer_25-20">footnote 25-20</a>, apr&egrave;s is correctly
+	spelled with a grave accent, but the text had an acute accent, and this
+	was preserved in accordance with Parkman's statement in the preface.<br />
+	&bull; In <a href="#footer_25-20">footnote 25-20</a>, verified the colon
+	(":") after "dit-il" in the final paragraph.  In three quotations that
+	follow, we changed the double quotes to single quotes, because they were
+	quotations embedded within a quotation. <br />
+	</p>
+
+<p><br /></p>
+<h4 id="id01426"> Chapter 28:</h4>
+<p class="noindent">
+  &bull; Changed "unconquerable" to "Unconquerable" in topics list
+	beginning Chapter XXVIII to match topics list for Chapter 28 in the Contents.
+	</p>
+
+<p><br /></p>
+<h4 id="id01427"> Chapter 29:</h4>
+<p class="noindent">
+  &bull; Page 397, <a href="#footer_29-4">footnote 29-4</a>, add missing
+	close-quotes after c&oelig;ur.  Parkman put the quotes around the extract
+	from the letter, but just omitted the closing quote after c&oelig;ur. This
+	mistake does not come under the caveat of Parkman stated in the Preface,
+	so we made the change.  This error can be found in all volumes. <br />
+	&bull; Page 401, <a href="#footer_29-10">footnote 29-10</a>, add comma
+	after Ragueneau in reference "Ragueneau Relation des Hurons, 1650." This
+	comma is missing in all volumes.
+	</p>
+
+<p><br /></p>
+<h4 id="id01428"> Chapter 30:</h4>
+<p class="noindent">
+  &bull; <a href="#Page_407">Page 407</a>:
+	"m&acirc;itre" (which should be ma&icirc;tre) is preserved with the wrong
+	character circumflexed in the second paragraph of
+	<a href="#footer_30-4">footnote 30-4</a>, for reasons described in
+	Parkman's Preface. </p>
+
+<p><br /></p>
+<h4 id="id01429"> Chapter 31:</h4>
+<p class="noindent">
+  &bull; <a href="#Page_412">Page 412</a>:
+	"neges" in <a href="#footer_31-2">footnote 31-2</a> should
+	be "neiges," but it is part of quoted text from the <i>Relations</i>, so
+	the spelling has been preserved. <br />
+  &bull; <a href="#Page_418">Page 418</a>-<a href="#Page_419">Page 419</a>:
+	war-party is split between the pages, and hyphenated, so the transcription
+	can only be war-party or warparty.  We chose the former.</p>
+<p><br /></p>
+<h4 id="id01430"> Chapter 32:</h4>
+<p class="noindent">
+	&bull; <a href="#Page_426">Page 426</a>:
+	By volume 7, Parkman described neighboring Point St. Ignace, "now Graham's
+	Point, on the north side of the strait." </p>
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE JESUITS IN NORTH AMERICA ***</div>
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Jesuits in North America in the
+Seventeenth Century, by Francis Parkman #2 in the series France and
+England in North America.
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost
+no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
+under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
+eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+Title: The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century
+Volume 2 of the France and England in North America series
+Author: Francis Parkman
+Release Date: November, 2004 [EBook #6933]
+Updated: September 7, 2016.
+Character set encoding: Windows Code Page 1252
+
+This etext was produced by Ken Reeder.
+Thanks to Cyrille H�loir for French proofreading.
+Transcription notes are included as an appendix.
+Text corrections, formatting modifications, and index by Robert Homa.
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE JESUITS IN NORTH AMERICA
+***
+
+The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century
+by Francis Parkman
+
+
+France and England
+in North America
+
+A Series
+of Historical Narratives
+
+Part Second
+
+BOSTON:
+LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY.
+1867.
+
+Entered According to Act of Congress, in the year 1867, by
+Francis Parkman,
+In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of
+Massachusetts.
+
+CAMBRIDGE:
+STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY JOHN WILSON AND SON.
+
+
+
+
+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. [1]
+
+[1] 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 Abb�s Laverdi�re and H. R.
+Casgrain, Dr. J. C. Tach�, 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
+
+The Jesuits in North America
+
+PREFACE.
+
+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 � Indian
+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 Br�beuf � The
+Mission Begun
+
+CHAPTER VI. 1634, 1635.
+
+BR�BEUF 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 Br�beuf � Charles Garnier � Joseph Marie Chaumonot � No�l
+Chabanel � Isaac Jogues � Other Jesuits � Nature of their Faith �
+Supernaturalism � Visions � Miracles
+
+CHAPTER X. 1637-1640.
+
+PERSECUTION.
+
+Ossossan� � 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 �
+Br�beuf'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 Ossossan� � 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 H�tel-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.
+
+Dauversi�re and the Voice from Heaven � Abb� Olier � Their Schemes � The
+Society of Notre-Dame de Montreal � Maisonneuve � Devout Ladies �
+Mademoiselle Mance � Marguerite Bourgeoys � 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 NOU�.
+
+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 Nou� � His Nocturnal Journey � His Death
+
+CHAPTER XVIII. 1642-1644.
+
+VILLEMARIE.
+
+Infancy of Montreal � The Flood � Vow of Maisonneuve � Pilgrimage �
+D'Ailleboust � The H�tel-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 � Br�beuf 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 � Br�beuf at the Stake � His
+Unconquerable Fortitude � Lalemant � Renegade Hurons � Iroquois
+Atrocities � Death of Br�beuf � 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
+
+INDEX.
+APPENDIX.
+
+
+
+
+
+The Jesuits in North America
+in the Seventeenth Century
+
+by Francis Parkman
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+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 � Indian
+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-ground of Kentucky. [1]
+
+[1] 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. [2]
+
+[2] 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 1715 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.
+[3]
+
+[3] 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. 34.
+
+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. [4]
+
+[4] 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. [5]
+
+[5] 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. [6]
+
+[6] Lalemant, Relation des Hurons, 1640, 38 (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. Br�beuf, 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. [7] 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. [8] 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. [9] 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. [10]
+
+[7] 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. Tach� 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."
+
+[8] Br�beuf, 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!
+
+[9] 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.
+
+[10] One of the best descriptions of the Huron and Iroquois houses is
+that of Sagard, Voyage des Hurons, 118. See also Champlain (1627), 78;
+Br�beuf, Relation des Hurons, 1635, 31; Vanderdonck, New Netherlands, in
+N. Y. Hist. Coll., Second Ser., I. 196; Lafitau, M�urs 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. Tach�, 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 arch�ological 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. [11]
+
+[11] 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). Br�beuf 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. [12] 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. [13] 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. [14] 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.
+
+[12] 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."
+[13] Beaver-skins and other valuable furs were sometimes, on such
+occasions, used as a substitute.
+[14] 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.
+
+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. [15] 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. [16] When of such extent, the process was very
+severe; and though no murmur escaped the sufferer, he sometimes died
+from its effects.
+
+[15] See Le Jeune, Relation, 1633, 35.--"Quelles hures!" exclaimed some
+astonished Frenchman. Hence the name, Hurons.
+[16] Bressani, Relation Abr�g�e, 72.--Champlain has a picture of a
+warrior thus tattooed.
+
+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. [17] 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. [18] 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.
+
+[17] 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 Gasp�, where a lapse in this
+regard was counted a disgrace. (See Le Clerc, Nouvelle Relation de la
+Gasp�sie, 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.
+[18] "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 venu�, les
+ieunes femmes courent d'une cabane en une autre, come font les ieunes
+hommes de leur cost�, qui en prennent par ou bon leur semble, toutesfois
+sans violence aucune, et n'en re�oiuent 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. [19] 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. [20] 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.
+
+[19] Champlain (1627), 84.
+[20] Br�beuf, Relation des Hurons, 1636, 156 (Cramoisy).
+
+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 Br�beuf
+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. [21] Ludicrous as it may
+appear, these games were often medical prescriptions, and designed as a
+cure of the sick.
+
+[21] Br�beuf, 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.
+
+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. [22] 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.
+
+[22] Br�beuf, Relation des Hurons, 1636, 111.
+
+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. [23]
+These festins � manger tout were much dreaded by many of the Hurons,
+who, however, were never known to decline them.
+
+[23] 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.
+
+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. [24] 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.
+
+[24] 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. [25] This was the only form of cannibalism
+among them, since, unlike the wandering Algonquins, they were rarely
+under the desperation of extreme famine.
+
+[25] "Il y en a qui en mangent auec plaisir."--Br�beuf, 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. [26]
+
+[26] 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 � 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. [27] 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.
+
+[27] 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.
+[28] 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.
+
+[28] "Dans le pays de nos Hurons, il se faict aussi des assembl�es de
+toutes les filles d'vn bourg aupr�s d'vne malade, tant � sa priere,
+suyuant la resuerie ou le songe qu'elle en aura eu�, que par
+l'ordonnance de Loki (the doctor), pour sa sant� et guerison. Les filles
+ainsi assembl�es, on leur demande � 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 � 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 Tortu� 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, Br�beuf,
+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. [29]
+
+[29] "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.
+[30] 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. [31] 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. [32]
+
+[30] Synonymes: Tionnontates, Etionontates, Tuinontatek, Dionondadies,
+Khionontaterrhonons, Petuneux or Nation du Petun (Tobacco).
+[31] "L'ame de tous les Conseils."--Charlevoix, Voyage, 199.--In 1763
+they were Pontiac's best warriors.
+[32] 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. [33] 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. [34] 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. [35] They burned female prisoners, a
+practice unknown to the Hurons. [36] 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.
+
+[33] Attiwandarons, Attiwendaronk, Atirhagenrenrets, Rhagenratka (Jesuit
+Relations), Attionidarons (Sagard). They, and not the Eries, were the
+Kahkwas of Seneca tradition.
+[34] 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.
+[35] Lettre du P�re La Roche Dallion, 8 Juillet, 1627, in Le Clerc,
+�tablissement de la Foy, I. 346.
+[36] Women were often burned by the Iroquois: witness the case of
+Catherine Mercier in 1651, and many cases of Indian women mentioned by
+the early writers.
+
+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. [37]
+
+[37] 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. [38] They were noted warriors, fought with
+poisoned arrows, and were long a terror to the neighboring Iroquois.
+[39]
+
+[38] Ragueneau, Relation des Hurons, 1648, 46.
+[39] Le Mercier, Relation, 1654, 10.--"Nous les appellons la Nation
+Chat, � cause qu'il y a dans leur pais vne quantit� 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: Eri�s, Erigas, Eriehronon, Riguehronon. The Jesuits never had
+a mission among them, though they seem to have been visited by
+Champlain's adventurous interpreter, �tienne Brul�, in the summer of
+1615.--They are probably the Caranto�ans 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. [40]
+
+[40] 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. [41]
+
+[41] The name Iroquois is French. Charlevoix says: "Il a �t� form� 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 Kou�, qui est un cri tant�t de tristesse, lorsqu'on le
+prononce en tra�nant, et tant�t 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,       Onnontagu�.
+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. [42] 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. [43]
+
+[42] 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.
+[43] The Jesuit Br�beuf, 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 affabilit� quasi incroyable pour des Sauuages;
+ils ne se picquent pas ais�ment.... 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 � 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 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. [44]
+
+[44] "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 s�urs, 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 inseparable from 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. [45]
+
+[45] These facts are gathered here and there from Champlain, Sagard,
+Bressani, and the Jesuit Relations prior to 1650. Of the Jesuits,
+Br�beuf 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. [46]
+
+[46] 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, M�urs des Sauvages Ameriquains compar�es aux M�urs
+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.
+[47] 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.
+
+[47] 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. [48] 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.
+
+[48] Lafitau, I. 471.
+
+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 derri�re,
+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." [49]
+
+[49] 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." [50]
+
+[50] 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
+l� cette politique qui les unit si bien, � peu pr�s 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'Am�rique Septentrionale, III. 32.--He
+adds: "Les Fran�ois ont avo�� eux-m�mes qu'ils �toient 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. [51] 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. [52]
+
+[51] Lafitau, I. 479.
+[52] The following from Lafitau is very characteristic: "Ce que je dis
+de leur z�le pour le bien public n'est cependant pas si universel, que
+plusieurs ne pensent � leur inter�ts particuliers, & que les Chefs
+(sachems) principalement ne fassent jo�er plusieurs ressorts secrets
+pour venir � bout de leurs intrigues. Il y en a tel, dont l'adresse jou�
+si bien � coup s�r, qu'il fait d�liberer le Conseil plusieurs jours de
+suite, sur une mati�re dont la d�termination est arr�t�e entre lui & les
+principales t�tes avant d'avoir �t� mise sur le tapis. Cependant comme
+les Chefs s'entre-regardent, & qu'aucun ne veut paro�tre se donner une
+superiorit� qui puisse piquer la jalousie, ils se m�nagent dans les
+Conseils plus que les autres; & quoiqu'ils en soient l'ame, leur
+politique les oblige � y parler peu, & � �couter pl�t�t le sentiment
+d'autrui, qu'� y dire le leur; mais chacun a un homme � sa main, qui est
+comme une esp�ce de Br�lot, & qui �tant sans consequence pour sa
+personne hazarde en pleine libert� tout ce qu'il juge � propos, selon
+qu'il l'a concert� avec le Chef m�me pour qui il agit."--M�urs 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. [53] 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. [54] 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. [55]
+
+[53] 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.
+[54] Ragueneau, Relation des Hurons, 1648, 80.
+[55] 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. [56]
+
+[56] 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 even long before, a vast proportion of their population
+consisted of adopted prisoners. [57]
+
+[57] 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. [58]
+
+[58] 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, M�moire sur les M�urs, Coustumes et Relligion des
+Sauvages de l'Am�rique 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. [59] 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. [60]
+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. [61] 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. [62]
+
+[59] 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.
+[60] This superstition was very prevalent, and numerous examples of it
+occur in old and recent writers, from Father Le Jeune to Captain Carver.
+[61] 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 Contr�es" (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.
+[62] 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. [63] 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.
+[64] 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.
+
+[63] 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.
+[64] 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.
+
+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. [65]
+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. [66] 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.
+
+[65] 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.
+[66] 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 Gasp�, see Le
+Clerc, Nouvelle Relation de la Gasp�sie, 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. [67] 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." [68] 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. [69]
+
+[67] 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 M�moire of Nicolas Perrot, Chaps. I., II.
+[68] "Presque toutes les Nations Algonquines ont donn� le nom de Grand
+Li�vre au Premier Esprit, quelques-uns l'appellent Michabou
+(Manabozho)."--Charlevoix, Journal Historique, 344.
+[69] 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. [70] Other
+stories represent him as marrying a female musk-rat, by whom he became
+the progenitor of the human race. [71]
+
+[70] 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, M�moire, Chap. I.
+[71] 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;
+[72] 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. [73] 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.
+
+[72] Le Jeune, Relation, 1633, 16; Relation, 1634, 13.
+[73] 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.
+[74]
+
+[74] The above is the version of the story given by Br�beuf, 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. Br�beuf 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.
+[75]
+
+[75] Compare Br�beuf, 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. [76]
+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, [77] 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. [78]
+
+[76] 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, 5 Aug., 1643.
+[77] 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.
+[78] 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 �tudes 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. [79]
+
+[79] 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 g�nie, 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."
+[80] 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. [81]
+
+[80] See "Divers Sentimens," appended to the Relation of 1635, � 27; and
+also many other passages of early missionaries.
+[81] 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, [82] 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.
+
+[82] 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." [83]
+
+[83] 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. [84] 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.
+[85] 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.
+
+[84] The practice of burying treasures with the dead is not peculiar to
+the North American aborigines. Thus, the London Times of Oct. 28, 1865,
+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."
+[85] Br�beuf, Relation des Hurons, 1636, 99 (Cramoisy).
+
+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. [86]
+
+[86] 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 Gasp� 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 Gasp�sie,
+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. [87]
+
+[87] 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. [88]
+
+[88] 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.--Br�beuf, 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. [89]
+
+[89] 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. [90]
+
+[90] 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.
+
+
+
+
+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. [1] 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 H�bert, 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, [2] wept for joy at
+beholding Le Jeune, and his brother Jesuit, De Nou�, 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] Compare the various notices in Champlain (1632) with that of Du
+Creux, Historia Canadensis, 204.
+[2] See "Pioneers of France in the New World." H�bert'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.
+[3] 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-Li�vres, 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. [4] 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. [5]
+
+[3] 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.
+[4] 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.
+[5] 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, Premi�re Mission des J�suites 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 Br�beuf, 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 Nou�,
+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.
+[6] By reason of his useful qualities, Le Jeune nicknamed him "le P�re
+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.
+[7] De Nou� 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. [8] 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.
+
+[6] See "Pioneers of France in the New World."
+[7] "Le P. Masse, que je nomme quelquefois en riant le P�re Utile, est
+bien cognu de V. R. Il a soin des choses domestiques et du bestail que
+nous avons, en quoy il a tr�s-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."
+[8] 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 diversit� 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. [1]
+
+[1] 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
+R�collet 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. [1]
+
+[1] "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
+Nou�, 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 H�bert 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 H�bert. 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. [2]
+
+[2] 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
+R�collet 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." [3]
+
+[3] Relation, 1633, 7. He continues: "Ie ne s�aurois assez rendre graces
+� Nostre Seigneur de cet heureux rencontre.... Que Dieu soit beny pour
+vn iamais, sa prouidence est adorable, et sa bont� 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. [4]
+
+[4] 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 Nou� 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. [5]
+
+[5] "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 � 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, Ave, 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. [6]
+
+[6] "I'ay commenc� � 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 compos� quasi en rimes en leur
+langue, que ie leur fais chanter: et pour derniere conclusion, ie leur
+fais donner chacun vne escuell�e 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,--Br�beuf, Masse, Daniel, and Davost. [7] Br�beuf,
+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." [8]
+
+[7] See "Pioneers of France."
+[8] 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 Nou�, 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."
+
+[1] "Iamais il ne fut si bien lau�, il changea de peau en la face et en
+tout l'estomach: pleust � Dieu que son ame eust chang� 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, bales 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. [2] 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.
+
+[2] "S'il arriuoit quelque d�gel, � Dieu quelle peine! Il me sembloit
+que ie marchois sur vn chemin de verre qui se cassoit � tous coups soubs
+mes pieds: la neige congel�e venant � s'amollir, tomboit et s'enfon�oit
+par esquarres ou grandes pieces, et nous en auions bien souuent iusques
+aux genoux, quelquefois iusqu'� la ceinture  Que s'il y auoit de la
+peine � tomber, il y en auoit encor plus � se retirer: car nos raquettes
+se chargeoient de neiges et se rendoient si pesantes, que quand vous
+veniez � les retirer il vous sembloit qu'on vous tiroit les iambes pour
+vous d�membrer. 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 charg�e
+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. [3] 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, [4] 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. [5]
+
+[3] "Ie ne laissois perdre aucune occasion de le conuaincre de niaiserie
+et de puerilit�, mettant au iour l'impertinence de ses superstitions: or
+c'estoit luy arracher l'ame du corps par violence: car comme il ne
+s�auroit 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 authorit� qui se va perdant tous les iours, ie le
+touchois � la prunelle de l'�il."--Relation, 1634, 56.
+[4] See "Pioneers of France," 268.
+[5] 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 fum�e m'ont est� les deux
+plus grands tourmens que i'aye endur� parmy ces Barbares: ny le froid,
+ny le chaud, ny l'incommodit� des chiens, ny coucher � 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 pauuret� &
+salet� de leur boucan, ny la maladie, tout cela ne m'a sembl� que ieu �
+comparaison de la fume� & 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.
+[6] 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.
+
+[6] "Leur vie se passe � manger, � rire, et � 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'� 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. [7] 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.
+
+[7] "Aussi leur disois-je par fois, que si les pourceaux et les chiens
+s�auoient parler, ils tiendroient leur langage.... Les filles et les
+ieunes femmes sont � 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." [8]
+
+[8] "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 laiss point de
+les battre en la presence d'vn Huguenot: d'o� vient qu'vn iour se voyans
+battus en la compagnie d'vn certain Fran�ois, ils luy dirent: Nous nous
+estonnons que 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 � Dieu, il luy promit de se faire
+Catholique si le diable cessoit de battre ces pauures peuples en sa
+presence. Le v�u fait, iamais plus aucun Demon ne molesta Ameriquain en
+sa compagnie, d'o� vient qu'il se fit Catholique, selon la promesse
+qu'il en auoit faicte. Mais retournons � 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 Gasp�, 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. [9]
+
+[9] "Le magicien tout glorieux dit que son homme est frapp�, 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 � rire, disant: Voyez cette
+robe noire, qui nous vient dire qu'il ne faut tuer personne. Comme ie
+regardois attentiuement l'esp�e 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 Gasp�. Comment, dis-je, il est � plus
+de cent lieu�s d'icy? Il est vray, font-ils, mais c'est le Manitou,
+c'est � 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. [10]
+
+[10] 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. [11]
+
+[11] The Indians, it is well known, ascribe mysterious and supernatural
+powers to the insane, and respect them accordingly. The Neutral Nation
+(see Introduction, (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." [12] But the
+Indian, though pleased with the Father's flatteries, was neither caught
+nor conciliated.
+
+[12] "Ie commen�ay par vn t�moignage de grand amour en son endroit, et
+par des lo�anges que ie luy iettay comme vne amorce pour le prendre dans
+les filets de la verit�. 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." [13]
+
+[13] "Pour nostre souper, N. S. nous donna vn Porc-espic gros comme vn
+cochon de lait, et vn li�ure; 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 � 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 Br�beuf � 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. [1] 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.
+
+[1] "Une des principales forteresses & comme un donjon des
+Demons."--Lalemant, Relation des Hurons, 1639, 100 (Cramoisy).
+
+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. [2]
+Iroquois hostility left open but one avenue to their country, the long
+and circuitous route which, eighteen years before, had been explored by
+Champlain, [3]--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. [4] 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, [5] 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.
+
+[2] See Introduction.
+[3] "Pioneers of France," 364.
+[4] Ibid., 348.
+[5] 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
+Fran�ois & que les Fran�ois 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 Fran�ois." 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 D�p�t
+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, [6]--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.
+
+[6] "Quelques vns d'entre eux ne viennent � la traite auec les Fran�ois
+que pour iou�r, d'autres pour voir, quelques vns pour d�rober, 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. [7]
+
+[7] "Comme une vol�e 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. [8]
+
+[8] 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, Br�beuf, 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." [9]
+
+[9] Le Jeune, Relation, 1633, 274 (Cramoisy); Mercure Fran�ais, 1634,
+845.
+
+Two chiefs rose to reply, and each lavished all his rhetoric in praises
+of Champlain and of the French. Br�beuf 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
+Br�beuf'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." [10] The mission was not doomed long to suffer from a
+dearth of these inestimable auxiliaries.
+
+[10] Relation, 1633, 38.
+
+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 Nou� 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. Br�beuf,
+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 Br�beuf, 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 Br�beuf 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. Br�beuf 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. Br�beuf
+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. Br�beuf 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. [11] The Indians themselves were often spent with fatigue.
+Br�beuf, 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.
+
+[11] "Adioustez � ces difficultez, qu'il faut coucher sur la terre nu�,
+ou sur quelque dure roche, faute de trouuer dix ou douze pieds de terre
+en quarr� pour placer vne chetiue cabane; qu'il faut sentir incessamment
+la puanteur des Sauuages recreus, marcher dans les eaux, dans les
+fanges, dans l'obscurit� et l'embarras des forest, o� les piqueures
+d'vne multitude infinie de mousquilles et cousins vous importunent
+fort."--Br�beuf, 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. [12] 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.
+
+[12] "En ce voyage, il nous a fallu tous commencer par ces experiences �
+porter la Croix que Nostre Seigneur nous presente pour son honneur, et
+pour le salut de ces pauures Barbares. Certes ie me suis trouu�
+quelquesfois si las, que le corps n'en pouuoit plus. Mais d'ailleurs mon
+�me ressentoit de tres-grands contentemens, considerant que ie souffrois
+pour Dieu: nul ne le s�ait, s'il ne l'experimente. Tous n'en ont pas
+est� quittes � si bon march�."--Br�beuf, Relation des Hurons, 1635, 26.
+
+Three years afterwards, a paper was printed by the Jesuits of Paris,
+called Instruction pour les P�res 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 Br�beuf 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.
+
+Br�beuf 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 Toanch� he had lived three years, preaching and baptizing; [13]
+but Toanch� had now ceased to exist. Here, �tienne Brul�, 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. [14] Br�beuf 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
+Toanch�, saw the charred poles that had formed the frame of his little
+chapel of bark, and found, as he thought, the spot where Brul� had
+fallen. [15] 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.
+
+[13] From 1626 to 1629. There is no record of the events of this first
+mission, which was ended with the English occupation of Quebec. Br�beuf
+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.
+[14] Concerning Brul�, see "Pioneers of France," 377-380.
+[15] "Ie vis pareillement l'endroit o� le pauure Estienne Brul� auoit
+est� barbarement et tra�treusement assomm�; 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."--Br�beuf,
+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 Br�beuf 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.
+
+BR�BEUF 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 Br�beuf
+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. [1] 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.
+
+[1] See Introduction.
+
+There was no lack of visitors, for the house of the black-robes
+contained marvels [2] 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 Br�beuf, "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." [3]
+
+[2] "Ils ont pens� qu'elle entendoit, principalement quand, pour rire,
+quelqu'vn de nos Fran�ois s'escrioit au dernier coup de marteau, c'est
+assez sonn�, 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 parl�. Ils nous interrogent de son manger. Ils demeurent les
+heures entieres, et quelquesfois plusieurs, afin de la pouuoir ouyr
+parler."--Br�beuf, Relation des Hurons, 1635, 33.
+[3] Br�beuf, 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. [4]
+
+[4] 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 Ossossan�,
+or Rochelle. [5]
+
+[5] Br�beuf, Relation des Hurons, 1636, 86.
+
+At every opportunity, the missionaries gathered together the children of
+the village at their house. On these occasions, Br�beuf, 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, Br�beuf 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. [6]
+
+[6] Br�beuf, 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." [7]
+
+[7] "Le seiziesme du mesme mois, deux petits Sauvages furent changez en
+deux petits Anges."--Relation, 1636, 89 (Cramoisy).
+
+"O mon cher fr�re, vous pourrois-je expliquer quelle consolation ce
+m'etoit quand je voyois un pauure baptis� mourir deux heures, une demi
+journ�e, une ou deux journ�es, apr�s son baptesme, particuli�rement
+quand c'etoit un petit enfant!"--Lettre du P�re Garnier � son Fr�re,
+MS.--This form of benevolence is beyond heretic appreciation.
+
+"La joye qu'on a quand on a baptis� 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. Br�beuf 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." [8] This remedy also
+failing, a crowning effort of the medical art was essayed. Br�beuf does
+not describe it, for fear, as he says, of being tedious; but, for the
+time, the village was a pandemonium. [9] 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 Br�beuf, "here is
+nonsense enough: but I greatly fear there is something more dark and
+mysterious in it."
+
+[8] Relation des Hurons, 1636, 116.
+[9] "Suffit pour le present de dire en general, que iamais les
+Bacchantes forcen�es du temps pass� ne firent rien de plus furieux en
+leurs orgyes. C'est icy � 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 � 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."--Br�beuf, 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. [10]
+
+[10] Br�beuf'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. [11] 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.
+
+[11] The following is the account of the nature of thunder, given to
+Br�beuf 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
+is 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."
+[12]
+
+[12] "Nous deuons aussi beaucoup au glorieux sainct Ioseph, espoux de
+Nostre Dame, et protecteur des Hurons, dont nous auons touch� 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."--Br�beuf, 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. [13] 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.
+
+[13] Br�beuf preserves a speech made to him by one of these chiefs, as a
+specimen of Huron eloquence.--Relation des Hurons, 1636, 123.
+
+
+
+
+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. [1] They have
+been a theme of abundant speculation; [2] 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
+Br�beuf, who, in the summer of the year 1636, saw them at the town of
+Ossossan�.
+
+[1] See Introduction.
+[2] 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 Br�beuf, 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; [3] 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.
+
+[3] 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
+Ossossan�, 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
+Ossossan�. 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. [4] Some of the chiefs
+conducted Br�beuf 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.
+
+[4] 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.
+
+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.
+[5] 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.
+
+[5] "I'admiray la tendresse d'vne femme enuers son pere et ses enfans;
+elle est fille d'vn Capitaine, qui est mort fort �g�, et a est�
+autrefois fort considerable dans le Pa�s: 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 � dire son pacquet de buchettes de
+Conseil, qui sont tous les liures et papiers du Pa�s. 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."--Br�beuf,
+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, [6] 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. [7] 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.
+Br�beuf 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. [8] 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 Br�beuf
+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. [9]
+
+[6] In some of these graves, recently discovered, five or six large
+copper kettles have been found, in a position corresponding with the
+account of Br�beuf. In one, there were no less than twenty-six kettles.
+[7] "Iamais rien ne m'a mieux figur� la confusion qui est parmy les
+damnez. Vous eussiez veu d�charger de tous costez des corps � demy
+pourris, et de tous costez on entendoit vn horrible tintamarre de voix
+confuses de personnes qui parloient et ne s'entendoient pas."--Br�beuf,
+Relation des Hurons, 1636, 135.
+[8] "Approchans, nous vismes tout � 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.--Br�beuf, Relation des Hurons, 1636, 209 (Cramoisy).
+[9] "Se mirent � chanter, mais d'un ton si lamentable & si lugubre,
+qu'il nous representoit l'horrible tristesse & l'abysme du desespoir
+dans lequel sont plong�es pour iamais ces �mes 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. Tach� 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 Tach� 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. [10] 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."
+
+[10] 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.
+
+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. [11] 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. [12]
+
+[11] 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.
+[12] 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. [1]
+
+[1] 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 pens�e m'attendrit si fort le c�ur, que quoy que ie me
+voye icy fort inutile dans ceste fortun�e Nouuelle France, si faut-il
+que i'auo�e que ie ne me s�aurois defendre d'vne pens�e qui me presse le
+c�ur: 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 � sauuer vne seule �me, ie
+seray trop heureux, et ma vie tres bien employ�e."
+
+"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 l�, 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, o� on pense pouuoir mourir tous les iours, et
+auoir la deuise de S. Paul, Quotidie morior, fratres, etc. mes freres,
+je 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 o� Dieu nous a mis de sa grace! veritablement i'ay trouu� icy ce
+que i'auois esper�, vn c�ur selon le c�ur 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. [2] 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 Br�beuf and his companions.
+
+[2] "Ie luy preparay de ce que nous auions, pour le receuoir, mais quel
+festin! vne poign�e de petit poisson sec auec vn peu de farine;
+i'enuoyay chercher quelques nouueaux espics, que nous luy fismes rostir
+� la fa�on du pays; mais il est vray que dans son c�ur et � l'entendre,
+il ne fit iamais meilleure chere. La ioye qui se ressent � ces
+entreueu�s semble estre quelque image du contentement des bien-heureux �
+leur arriu�e dans le Ciel, tant elle est pleine de suauit�."--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.
+[3] 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.
+
+[3] Lettre de Br�beuf au T. R. P. Mutio Vitelleschi, 20 Mai, 1637, in
+Carayon, 157. Le Mercier, Relation des Hurons, 1637, 120, 123.
+
+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.
+[4] 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." [5] 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." [6]
+
+[4] 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.
+[5] 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.
+[6] Most of the above traits are drawn from Le Mercier's report of 1637.
+The rest are from Br�beuf.
+
+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; [7] 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?" Br�beuf's answer was
+uncompromising:--
+
+[7] Br�beuf, Relation des Hurons, 1636, 89. Another woman was delivered
+on touching a relic of St. Ignatius. Ibid., 90.
+
+"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." [8]
+
+[8] 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 Br�beuf would bate them nothing, and the
+council broke up in despair.
+
+At Ossossan�, 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!" [9]
+
+[9] 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 Ossossan�. 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. [10] 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.
+
+[10] Le Mercier, Relation des Hurons, 1637, 72 (Cramoisy). This "petit
+sorcier" is often mentioned elsewhere.
+
+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. [11] 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. [12] 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. [13]
+
+[11] See Introduction.
+[12] "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.
+[13] 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 Ossossan� 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, [14] 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.
+
+[14] 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. [15]
+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.
+
+[15] 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 �tienne Brul� 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. [16]
+
+[16] "En fin il leur fallut rendre gorge, ce qu'ils firent � diuerses
+reprises, ne laissants pas pour cela de continuer � 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" [17] 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, [18] 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.
+
+[17] 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.
+[18] "C'est nostre refuge ordinaire en semblables necessitez, et
+d'ordinaire auec tels succez, que nous auons sujet d'en benir Dieu �
+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 vou�r 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." [19]
+
+[19] 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 Br�beuf � Charles Garnier � Joseph Marie Chaumonot � No�l
+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 Br�beuf,--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. [1] 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. [2]
+
+[1] "C'est pourquoi j'ai bien gagne � quitter la France, o� vous me
+fesiez la guerre de n'avoir point de barbe; car c'est ce qui me fait
+estimer beau des Sauvages."--Lettres de Garnier, MSS.
+[2] The above sketch of Garnier is drawn from various sources.
+Observations du P. Henri de St. Joseph, Carme, sur son Fr�re le P.
+Charles Garnier, MS.--Abr�g� de la Vie du R. P�re 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,
+Premi�re 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 Br�beuf 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 Ch�tillon 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. [3]
+
+[3] "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 apr�s une telle charit� elle s'�toit offerte � me
+servir toujours de mesme, comment aurois-je d� l'honorer, lui ob�ir,
+l'aimer toute ma vie! Pardon, Reine des Anges et des hommes! pardon de
+ce qu'apr�s avoir re�u de vous tant de marques, par lesquelles vous
+m'avez convaincu que vous m'avez adopt� pour votre fils, j'ai eu
+l'ingratitude pendant des ann�es enti�res de me comporter encore plut�t
+en esclave de Satan qu'en enfant d'une M�re Vierge. O que vous �tes
+bonne et charitable! puisque quelques obstacles que mes p�ch�s ayent pu
+mettre � vos graces, vous n'avez jamais cess� de m'attirer au bien;
+jusque l� que vous m'avez fait admettre dans la Sainte Compagnie de
+J�sus, 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 H�tel 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 R�collet, 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. [4] 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 Br�beuf 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.
+
+[4] 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 oblig� que moi � la Sainte Famille
+de J�sus, de Marie et de Joseph! Marie en me gu�rissant de ma vilaine
+galle ou teigne, me d�livra d'une infinit� de peines et d'incommodit�s
+corporelles, que cette hideuse maladie qui me rongeoit m'avoit caus�.
+Joseph m'ayant obtenu la grace d'�tre incorpor� � un corps aussi saint
+qu'est celui des J�suites, m'a preserv� d'une infinit� de mis�res
+spirituelles, de tentations tr�s dangereuses et de p�ch�s tr�s �normes.
+J�sus n'ayant pas permis que j'entrasse dans aucun autre ordre qu'en
+celui qu'il honore tout � la fois de son beau nom, de sa douce pr�sence
+et de sa protection sp�ciale. O J�sus! O Marie! O Joseph! qui m�ritoit
+moins que moi vos divines faveurs, et envers qui avez vous �t� 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. [5] 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.
+
+[5] "Je me recommandai � elle en lui promettant de la faire conno�tre
+dans toutes les occasions que j'en aurois jamais, si elle m'obtenoit de
+Dieu ma gu�rison."--Chaumonot, Vie, 46.
+
+No�l 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. [6]
+
+[6] Abr�g� de la Vie du P�re No�l 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. [7]
+
+[7] 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. [8] And he ascribed to the deceased
+Garnier's influence the mastery of that language which he afterwards
+acquired.
+
+[8] "Je n'eus pas plut�t appris sa glorieuse mort, que je lui promis
+tout ce que je ferois de bien pendant huit jours, � condition qu'il me
+feroit son h�ritier 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. [9]
+
+[9] 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 Br�beuf,
+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 wild-cats. 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 Br�beuf 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." [10] 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.
+
+[10] Quelques Remarques sur la Vie du P�re Jean de Br�beuf, 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 Br�beuf himself.
+
+Still other visions are recorded by Chaumonot as occurring to Br�beuf,
+when they were together in the Neutral country. See also the long notice
+of Br�beuf, 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.
+
+Ossossan� � 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 �
+Br�beuf's Letter � Narrow Escapes � Woes and Consolations
+
+The town of Ossossan�, 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. [1] The Indians had promised Br�beuf 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. [2]
+
+[1] The doctrine of the immaculate conception of the Virgin, recently
+sanctioned by the Pope, has long been a favorite tenet of the Jesuits.
+[2] 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. [3]
+
+[3] "Nostre Chapelle estoit extraordinairement bien orn�e, ... nous
+auions dress� vn portique entortill� de fe�illage, mesl� d'oripeau, en
+vn mot nous auions estall� tout ce que vostre R. nous a enuoi� 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. [4]
+
+[4] 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 [5] 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.
+
+[5] 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 donn�s, 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. [6] Whether accepting it or not, let us examine the
+circumstances which gave rise to it.
+
+[6] Several of the Jesuits allude to this supposed excitement among the
+tenants of the nether world. Thus, Le Mercier says, "Le Diable se
+sentoit press� de pr�s, 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 �toit-ce de voir le diable s'armer contre
+nous et se servir de ses esclaves pour nous attaquer et t�cher 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."
+[7]
+
+[7] "Le diable enrageoit peutestre de ce que nous avions plac� dans le
+ciel quantit� 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."
+[8] 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.
+
+[8] Ce loup infernal is a title often bestowed in the Relations on the
+Devil. The above details are gathered from the narratives of Br�beuf, 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, Br�beuf 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. [9] 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, [10] 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."
+
+[9] Le Mercier, Relation des Hurons, 1638, 38.
+[10] 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, Br�beuf 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 Br�beuf 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 Br�beuf, "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 Br�beuf.
+
+"Tell us the cause of the pest."
+
+Br�beuf 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 Br�beuf, "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 Ossossan�
+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." [11]
+
+[11] The above account of the council is drawn from Le Mercier, Relation
+des Hurons, 1638, Chap. II. See also Bressani, Relation Abr�g�e, 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. Br�beuf, 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. [12]
+
+[12] The following is the conclusion of the letter (Le Mercier, Relation
+des Hurons, 1638, 43.)
+
+"En tout, sa sainte volont� soit faite; s'il veut que d�s ceste heure
+nous mourions, � la bonne heure pour nous! s'il veut nous reseruer �
+d'autres trauaux, qu'il soit beny; si vous entendez que Dieu ait
+couronn� 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 donn� ordre
+de tout ce qu'ils doiuent faire. I'ay est� d'aduis que nos Peres et nos
+domestiques se retirent chez ceux qu'ils croyront estre leurs meilleurs
+amis; i'ay donn� 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 �
+l'Eternit�,
+
+"De vostre Reuerence tres-humbles et tres-affectionnez seruiteurs en
+Nostre Seigneur,
+
+"Iean de Brebevf.
+Fran�ois Ioseph Le Mercier.
+Pierre Chastellain.
+Charles Garnier.
+Pavl Ragveneav.
+
+"En la Residence de la Conception, � Ossossan�,
+ce 28 Octobre.
+
+"I'ay laiss� en la Residence de sainct Ioseph les Peres Pierre Piiart,
+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 Br�beuf 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. [13]
+
+[13] "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 Ossossan�, a young Indian rushed suddenly upon Fran�ois 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. Fran�ois 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. [14]
+
+[14] 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."
+[15] 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 Br�beuf, 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.
+
+[15] "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 poign�e 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. [16] 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.
+
+[16] "Nous auons quelque fois dout�, s�auoir si on pouuoit esperer la
+conuersion de ce pa�s sans qu'il y eust effusion de sang: le principe
+re�eu 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 � esperer, voire mesme qu'il n'�toit pas � souhaiter, consider� la
+gloire qui reuient � Dieu de la constance des Martyrs, du sang desquels
+tout le reste de la terre ayant tantost est� abreuu�, ce seroit vne
+espece de malediction, que ce quartier du monde ne participast point au
+bonheur d'auoir contribu� � 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 Ossossan� � 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 Fran�ois Du 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 Ossossan� 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 Ossossan� 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 Ossossan�. 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. [1] 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. [2]
+
+[1] "Nos plats, quoyque de bois, nous co�tent plus cher que les v�tres;
+ils sont de la valeur d'une robe de castor, c'est � dire cent
+francs."--Lettre du P. Du Peron � son Fr�re, 27 Avril, 1639.--The
+Father's appraisement seems a little questionable.
+[2] The above particulars are drawn from a long letter of Fran�ois Du
+Peron to his brother, Joseph-Imbert Du Peron, dated at La Conception
+(Ossossan�), 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 honn�te 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 [3] 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.
+
+[3] 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 Ossossan� 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 Ossossan�, 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, [4] who had built, before
+the close of the year, a chapel of wood. [5] Hither they removed their
+pictures and ornaments; and here, in winter, several fires were kept
+burning, for the comfort of the half-naked converts. [6] Of these they
+now had at Ossossan� 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. [7]
+
+[4] Du Peron in Carayon, 173.
+[5] "La chapelle est faite d'une charpente bien jolie, semblable
+presque, en fa�on et grandeur, � notre chapelle de St. Julien."--Ibid.,
+183.
+[6] Lalemant, Relation des Hurons, 1639, 62.
+[7] 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--�mes
+damn�es--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--�mes
+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.
+[8]
+
+[8] 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. [9] 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." [10]
+
+[9] 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 bont� et vertu bien solide. Les quatre
+Elemens d'vn homme Apostolique en la Nouuelle France sont l'Affabilit�,
+l'Humilit�, la Patience et vne Charit� genereuse. Le zele trop ardent
+brusle plus qu'il n'eschauffe, et gaste tout; il faut vne grande
+magnanimit� et condescendance, pour attirer peu � peu ces Sauuages. Ils
+n'entendent pas bien nostre Theologie, mais ils entendent parfaictement
+bien nostre humilit� et nostre affabilit�, et se laissent gaigner."
+
+So too Br�beuf, in a letter to Vitelleschi, General of the Jesuits (see
+Carayon, 163): "Ce qu'il faut demander, avant tout, des ouvriers
+destin�s � cette mission, c'est une douceur inalt�rable et une patience
+� toute �preuve."
+[10] Le Mercier, Relation des Hurons, 1637, 160.
+
+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. [11]
+
+[11] 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 Ossossan�, and we would
+not listen; so Ossossan� 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. [12] 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. [13]
+
+[12] Lalemant, Relation des Hurons, 1639, 80.
+[13] 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." [14]
+
+[14] 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-m�me de l'eau b�nite; et une fois se mit �
+crier, sortant de la Chapelle, � cause que sa m�re qui la portoit ne lui
+avoit donn� 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
+Teanaustay�, 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. [15]
+
+[15] 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 Teanaustay�, and the house and chapel at
+Ossossan�, 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. [1] 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.
+
+[1] See Introduction.
+
+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 Ossossan�; 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." [2]
+
+[2] 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."
+[3] 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.
+
+[3] Lalemant, Relation des Hurons, 1640, 96.
+
+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. Br�beuf 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. [4] 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.
+
+[4] 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'Eri�), 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 (Eri�), 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. Br�beuf 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 Br�beuf,
+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. [5]
+
+[5] See ante, (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 Br�beuf, 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 Br�beuf's vision." [6]
+
+[6] 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." [7]
+
+[7] 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. [8]
+
+[8] 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, Br�beuf au T. R. P. Mutio Vitelleschi, 20 Ao�t, 1641.
+
+The R�collet 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. [9]
+
+[9] 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. [1] 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. [2]
+
+[1] 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 � penser quel estonnement � ces Peuples de voir
+tant d'�carlate, tant de personnes bien faites sous leurs toits
+d'�corce!"
+[2] 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." [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; [4] how "the Carmelites are all on fire, the Ursulines
+full of zeal, the sisters of the Visitation have no words to speak their
+ardor"; [5] 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. [6]
+
+[3] "C'est Dieu qui conduit cette entreprise. La Nature n'a pas les bras
+assez longs," etc.--Relation, 1636, 3.
+[4] Br�beuf, Relation des Hurons, 1636, 76.
+[5] Le Jeune, Relation, 1636, 6. Compare "Divers Sentimens," appended to
+the Relation of 1635.
+[6] "L'Enfer enrageant de nous veoir aller en la Nouuelle France pour
+conuertir les infidelles et diminuer sa puissance, par d�pit 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. [7] 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.
+
+[7] Among his correspondents was the young Duc d'Enghien, afterwards the
+Great Cond�, at this time fifteen years old. "Dieu soit lo��! tout le
+ciel de nostre chere Patrie nous promet de fauorables influences,
+iusques � ce nouuel astre, qui commence � paroistre parmy ceux de la
+premiere grandeur."--Le Jeune, Relation, 1636, 3, 4.
+
+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. [8] 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." [9]
+
+[8] "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).
+[9] 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. [10] 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. [11] 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.
+
+[10] Le Clerc, �tablissement de la Foy, Chap. XV.
+[11] Le Jeune, Relation, 1636, 153, 154 (Cramoisy).
+
+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. [12] 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.
+
+[12] 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 Qu�bec, 22, 24 (1863); Ibid., Cours d'Histoire
+du Canada, I. 266; Le Jeune, Relation, 1636, 45; Faillon, Histoire de la
+Colonie Fran�aise, 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. [13] 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.
+[14] 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. [15] Lauson sent out not a single colonist
+to these vast concessions.
+
+[13] See "Pioneers of France," 399.
+[14] This appears in many early grants of the Company. Thus, in a grant
+to Simon Le Ma�tre, Jan. 15, 1636, "que les hommes que le dit ... fera
+passer en la N. F. tourneront � la d�charge de la dite Compagnie," etc.,
+etc.--See Pi�ces sur la Tenure Seigneuriale, published by the Canadian
+government, passim.
+[15] Archives du S�minaire 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, M�moire 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 H�bert 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. [16] Of the origin of the convent, hospital, and
+seminary I shall soon have occasion to speak.
+
+[16] 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 Qu�bec.
+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." [17] 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. [18] No favorable result followed; and the colony remained
+as before, in a pitiful state of cramping and dwarfing vassalage.
+
+[17] "Pour leur representer la gehenne o� estoient les consciences de la
+Colonie, de se voir gouvern� par les mesmes personnes pour le spirituel
+et pour le temporel."--Le Clerc, I. 478.
+[18] Declaration de Pierre Breant, par devant les Notaires du Roy, MS.
+The Order was that of the Capuchins, who, like the R�collets, 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." [19]
+
+[19] "La Nouuelle France est vn vray climat o� on apprend parfaictement
+bien � ne chercher que Dieu, ne desirer que Dieu seul, auoir l'intention
+purement � Dieu, etc.... Viure en la Nouuelle France, c'est � 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
+contr�es 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 f�te-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. [20] But, what is more curious,
+a Catholic writer of the present day, the Abb� 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. [21] 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. [22]
+
+[20] Relation, 1637, 8. The Relations, as originally published,
+comprised about forty volumes.
+[21] Histoire de la Colonie Fran�aise, I. 291, 292.
+[22] 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. [23] 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. [24] 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. [25]
+
+[23] Vimont, Relation, 1640, 6.
+[24] Le Jeune, Relation, 1638, 6.
+[25] 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. [26]
+
+[26] 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. [27]
+"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. [28] 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." [29]
+
+[27] Ibid., 1636, 119, and 1637, 32 (Cramoisy). "La crainte est l'auan
+couriere de la foy dans ces esprits barbares."
+[28] 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."
+[29] "Les heretiques sont grandement blasmables, de condamner et de
+briser les images qui ont de si bons effets. Ces sainctes figures sont
+la moiti� de l'instruction qu'on peut donner aux Sauuages. I'auois
+desir� quelques portraits de l'enfer et de l'�me damn�e; on nous en a
+enuoy� 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 �me de diuers supplices, l'vn luy
+appliquant des feux, l'autre des serpens, l'autre la tenaillant, l'autre
+la tenant li�e auec des chaisnes, cela auroit vn bon effet, notamment si
+tout estoit bien distingu�, et que la rage et la tristesse parussent
+bien en la face de cette �me desesper�e"--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. [30]
+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 medi�val 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. [31]
+
+[30] "Ce seroit vne estrange cruaut� de voir descendre vne �me 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
+
+"Considerez d'autre cot� la grande appr�hension que nous avions sujet de
+redouter la gu�rison; pour autant que bien souvent �tant gu�ris il ne
+leur reste du St. Bapt�me que le caract�re."--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.
+
+[31] 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.
+
+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, �tienne Brul�, whose adventures I have recounted elsewhere,
+[32] may be taken as a type of this class. Of the rest, the most
+conspicuous were Jean Nicollet, Jacques Hertel, Fran�ois Marguerie, and
+Nicolas Marsolet. [33] 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.
+
+[32] "Pioneers of France," 377.
+[33] See Ferland, Notes sur les Registres de N. D. de Qu�bec, 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 H�tel-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. [1] 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. [2]
+
+[1] "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).
+[2] 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 Alen�on, 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 m�salliance. [3] 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 f�tes 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.
+
+[3] 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 Qu�bec, 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, [4] 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.
+
+[4] "Partag�e ainsi entre l'amour filial et la religion, en proie aux
+plus poignantes angoisses, elle s'adressa � un religieux de la Compagnie
+de J�sus, dont elle connaissait la prudence consomm�e, et le supplia de
+l'�clairer de ses lumi�res. Ce religieux, apr�s y avoir s�rieusement
+r�fl�chi devant Dieu, lui r�pondit qu'il croyait avoir trouv� un moyen
+de tout concilier."--Casgrain, Vie de Marie de l'Incarnation, 243.
+
+Among her acquaintance was M. de Berni�res, 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, [5] and request her
+hand from her father. M. de Chauvigny, who greatly esteemed Berni�res,
+was delighted; and his delight was raised to transport at the dutiful
+and modest acquiescence of his daughter. [6] 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.
+
+[5] "Enfin apr�s avoir longtemps implor� les lumi�res du ciel, il remit
+toute l'affaire entre les mains de son directeur et de quelques amis
+intimes. Tous, d'un commun accord, lui d�clar�rent que la gloire de Dieu
+y �tait interess�e, et qu'il devait accepter."--Ibid., 244.
+[6] "The prudent young widow answered him with much respect and modesty,
+that, as she knew M. de Berni�res 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 Qu�bec, 10, and the
+"Notice Biographique" in the same volume.
+
+Berni�res'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. [7] Berni�res yielded, and went
+with Madame de la Peltrie to consult "the most eminent divines." [8] 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. [9]
+
+[7] "Our virtuous widow did not lose courage. As she had given her
+confidence to M. de Berni�res, 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.
+[8] "He" (Berni�res) "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.
+[9] 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 Premi�res 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 para�tre �trange � bien des
+personnes; mais outre que l'avenir fit bien voir que c'�tait une
+inspiration du ciel, nous pouvons r�pondre, avec un savant et pieux
+auteur, que nous ne devons point juger ceux que Dieu se charge lui-m�me
+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 �clat, which, with some women, is a ruling passion.
+When, in company with Berni�res, she passed from Alen�on 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. [10]
+
+[10] 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;
+[11] 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." [12]
+
+[11] 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.
+[12] "Allant � l'oraison, je tressaillois en moi-m�me, et disois: Allons
+dans la solitude, mon cher amour, afin que je vous embrasse � mon aise,
+et que, respirant mon �me en vous, elle ne soit plus que vous-m�me par
+union d'amour.... Puis, mon corps �tant bris� de fatigues, j'�tois
+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 apr�s cela consumer dans ses chastes et divins
+embrassemens.... O amour! quand vous embrasserai-je? N'avez-vous point
+piti� de moi dans le tourment que je souffre? helas! helas! mon amour,
+ma beaut�, ma vie! au lieu de me gu�rir, vous vous plaisez � mes maux.
+Venez donc que je vous embrasse, et que je meure entre vos bras sacr�z!"
+
+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
+Abb� Casgrain, refrains from quoting them, though he mentions them
+approvingly as evincing fervor. The Abb� Racine, in his Discours �
+l'Occasion du 192�me Anniversaire de l'heureuse Mort de la V�n. M�re 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. [13] Two years elapsed before her mind recovered
+its tone, when she soared once more in the seventh heaven of imaginative
+devotion.
+
+[13] Casgrain, 195-197.
+
+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. [14]
+
+[14] 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. [15]
+
+[15] 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 H�tel-Dieu, endowed by the famous niece of
+Richelieu, the Duchesse d'Aiguillon. [16] 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.
+
+[16] Juchereau, Histoire de l'H�tel-Dieu de Qu�bec, 4.
+
+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. [17] 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.
+
+[17] Juchereau, 14; Le Clerc, II. 33; Ragueneau, Vie de Catherine de St.
+Augustin, "Epistre d�dicatoire;" Le Jeune, Relation, 1639, Chap. II.;
+Charlevoix, Vie de Marie de l'Incarnation, 264; "Acte de Reception," in
+Les Ursulines de Qu�bec, I. 21.
+
+Noel Brulart de Sillery, a Knight of Malta, who had once filled the
+highest offices under the Queen Marie de M�dicis, 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.
+[18] 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." [19]
+
+[18] See Vie de l'Illustre Serviteur de Dieu Noel Brulart de Sillery;
+also �tudes et Recherches Bioqraphiques sur le Chevalier Noel Brulart de
+Sillery; and several documents in Martin's translation of Bressani,
+Appendix IV.
+[19] "... sans prendre garde si ces petits enfans sauvages estoient
+sales ou non; ... la loy d'amour et de charit� l'emportoit par dessus
+toutes les considerations humaines."--Relation, 1639, 26 (Cramoisy).
+
+The nuns of the H�tel-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." [20]
+
+[20] Lettre de la M�re Ste Claire � une de ses S�urs Ursulines de Paris.
+Qu�bec, 2 Sept., 1640.--See Les Ursulines de Qu�bec, 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. [21] 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. [22]
+
+[21] 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.
+[22] 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. [23] Protestants may see in her a
+Christian heroine, admirable, with all her follies and her faults.
+
+[23] 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 Qu�bec, 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. [24]
+
+[24] 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.
+
+Dauversi�re and the Voice from Heaven � Abb� Olier � Their Schemes � The
+Society of Notre-Dame de Montreal � Maisonneuve � Devout Ladies �
+Mademoiselle Mance � Marguerite Bourgeoys � 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 Fl�che, in Anjou, dwelt one J�r�me le Royer de la Dauversi�re,
+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. Dauversi�re
+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. [1] 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 H�tel-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. Dauversi�re 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. [2]
+
+[1] Fancamp in Faillon, Vie de Mlle Mance. Introduction.
+[2] Faillon, Vie de Mlle Mance, Introduction; Dollier de Casson, Hist.
+de Montreal, MS.; Les V�ritables 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 Abb�
+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.
+[3] Yet Olier's catholicity was past attaintment, and in his horror of
+Jansenists he yielded to the Jesuits alone.
+
+[3] Faillon, Vie de M. Olier, II. 188.
+
+He was praying in the ancient church of St. Germain des Pr�s, when, like
+Dauversi�re, 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; [4] 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 Dauversi�re 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.
+
+[4] M�moires Autographes de M. Olier, cited by Faillon, in Histoire de
+la Colonie Fran�aise, 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.
+
+Dauversi�re 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 be
+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 Dauversi�re 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 (Dauversi�re) 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. [5] 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." [6]
+
+[5] Faillon, Vie de Mlle Mance, Introduction, xxviii. The Abb� Ferland,
+in his Histoire du Canada, passes over the miracles in silence.
+[6] Ibid., La Colonie Fran�aise, 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. Dauversi�re 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 Dauversi�re 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; Dauversi�re 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. [7]
+
+[7] 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 Abb� 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 Abb�
+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. Dauversi�re 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. [8] 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.
+Dauversi�re 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.
+
+[8] 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 Doversi�re, MS.
+
+Concession d'une Partie de l'Isle de Montreal accord�e 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
+Dauversi�re n'ont stipul� 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
+Dauversi�re at La Fl�che, 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. [9]
+
+[9] Faillon, La Colonie Fran�aise, I. 409.
+
+Their scheme was ripening fast, when both Olier and Dauversi�re were
+assailed by one of those revulsions of spirit, to which saints of the
+ecstatic school are naturally liable. Dauversi�re, 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 Fl�che? 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 [10]
+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. [11]
+
+[10] Faillon, Vie de Mlle Mance, Introduction, xxxv.
+[11] 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 Dauversi�re, 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; [12] 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. [13] 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 R�collet, 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 Dauversi�re 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 Dauversi�re." [14] 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." [15]
+
+[12] Casgrain, Vie de Marie de l'Incarnation, 78.
+[13] Faillon, Vie de Mlle Mance, I. 3.
+[14] Faillon, Vie de Mlle Mance, I. 18. Here again the Abb� Ferland,
+with his usual good sense, tacitly rejects the supernaturalism.
+[15] La S�ur Morin, Annales des Hospitali�res 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, Dauversi�re, 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, [16] 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, [17]--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, Dauversi�re, and a maiden of Troyes,
+Marguerite Bourgeoys: the seminary to be consecrated to Christ, the
+H�tel-Dieu to St. Joseph, and the college to the Virgin.
+
+[16] Dollier de Casson, A.D. 1641-42, MS. Vimont says thirty five.
+[17] Vimont, Relation, 1642, 37. Compare Le Clerc, �tablissement de la
+Foy, II. 49.
+
+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 Abb� 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. [18]
+
+[18] 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. [19] 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!" [20]
+
+[19] Juchereau, 32; Faillon, Colonie Fran�aise, I. 423.
+[20] La Tour, M�moire 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. [21]
+
+[21] 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 Hospitali�res 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 f�te 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." [22]
+
+[22] Documents Divers, MSS., now or lately in possession of G. B.
+Faribault, Esq.; Ferland, Notes sur les Registres de N. D. de Qu�bec,
+25; Faillon, La Colonie Fran�aise, 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
+[23]--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. [24] 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. [25]
+
+[23] La Tour, M�moire de Laval, Liv. VIII.
+[24] Charlevoix, Vie de Marie de l'Incarnation, 279; Casgrain, Vie de
+Marie de l'Incarnation, 333.
+[25] 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 medi�val
+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
+[26]--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. [27] 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. [28] It was a tongue
+or triangle of land, formed by the junction of a rivulet with the St.
+Lawrence, and known afterwards as Point Calli�re. 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. [29]
+
+[26] Dollier de Casson, A.D. 1641-42, MS.
+[27] Le Clerc, II. 50, 51.
+[28] "Pioneers of France," 333. It was the Place Royale of Champlain.
+[29] 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 Barr�, decorated
+it with a taste which was the admiration of the beholders. [30] 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:--
+
+[30] Morin, Annales, MS., cited by Faillon, La Colonie Fran�aise, I.
+440; also Dollier de Casson, A.D. 1641-42, MS.
+
+"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." [31]
+
+[31] Dollier de Casson, MS., as above. Vimont, in the Relation of 1642,
+p. 37, 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. [32]
+
+[32] The Associates of Montreal published, in 1643, a thick pamphlet in
+quarto, entitled Les V�ritables Motifs de Messieurs et Dames de la
+Soci�t� de Notre-Dame de Montr�al, 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 Montr�al est d'une d�pense infinie, plus
+convenable � un roi qu'� quelques particuliers, trop faibles pour la
+soutenir; & vous all�guez encore les p�rils de la navigation & les
+naufrages qui peuvent la ruiner. Vous avez mieux rencontr� que vous ne
+pensiez, en disant que c'est une �uvre de roi, puisque le Roi des rois
+s'en m�le, lui � qui ob�issent 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 exp�dient pour sa gloire, que nous cherchons
+uniquement. Comment avez-vous pu mettre dans votre esprit qu'appuy�s de
+nos propres forces, nous eussions pr�sum� de penser � un si glorieux
+dessein? Si Dieu n'est point dans l'affaire de Montr�al, si c'est une
+invention humaine, ne vous en mettez point en peine, elle ne durera
+gu�re. Ce que vous pr�disez arrivera, & quelque chose de pire encore;
+mais si Dieu l'a ainsi voulu, qui �tes-vous pour lui contredire? C'�tait
+la reflexion que le docteur Gamaliel faisait aux Juifs, en faveur des
+Ap�tres; pour vous, qui ne pouvez ni croire, ni faire, laissez les
+autres en libert� 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?
+o� cela est-il �crit? J�sus-Christ assure, au contraire, que ceux qui
+auront autant de Foi qu'un grain de senev�, feront, en son nom, des
+miracles plus grands que ceux qu'il a faits lui-m�me. Depuis quand
+�tes-vous les directeurs des operations divines, pour les r�duire �
+certains temps & dans la conduite ordinaire? Tant de saints mouvements,
+d'inspirations & de vues int�rieures, qu'il lui pla�t de donner �
+quelques �mes dont il se sert pour l'avancement de cette �uvre, sont des
+marques de son bon plaisir. Jusqu'-ici, il a pourvu au n�cessaire; nous
+ne voulons point d'abondance, & nous esp�rons 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.
+[1] 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. [2] They were masters of the
+thunderbolts which, in the hands of Champlain, had struck terror into
+their hearts.
+
+[1] See "Pioneers of France," 318.
+[2] Vimont, Relation, 1643, 62. The Mohawks were the Agni�s, 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, [3] 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. [4] 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.
+
+[3] For the date, see Lalemant, Relation des Hurons, 1647, 18.
+[4] Lalemant, Relation des Hurons, 1642, 97.
+
+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. [5]
+
+[5] Buteux, Narr� de la Prise du P�re Jogues, MS.; M�moire touchant le
+P�re 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, Ren� Goupil and Guillaume Couture, donn�s
+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. [6] His
+companion, Couture, was a man of intelligence and vigor, and of a
+character equally disinterested. [7] Both were, like Jogues, in the
+foremost canoes; while the fourth Frenchman was with the unconverted
+Hurons, in the rear.
+
+[6] Jogues, Notice sur Ren� Goupil.
+[7] For an account of him, see Ferland, Notes sur les Registres de N. D.
+de Qu�bec, 83 (1863).
+
+The twelve canoes had reached the western end of the Lake of St. Peter,
+where it is filled with innumerable islands. [8] 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.
+
+[8] Buteux, Narr� de le Prise du P�re Jogues, MS. This document leaves
+no doubt as to the locality.
+
+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. [9]
+
+[9] 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 Narr� de la Prise du
+P�re 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.
+[10]
+
+[10] 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. [11]
+
+[11] 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. [12] 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.
+
+[12] This practice of forcing prisoners to "run the gauntlet" was by no
+means peculiar to the Iroquois, but was common to many tribes.
+
+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, [13] suffering at each a repetition of
+cruelties, the detail of which would be as monotonous as revolting.
+
+[13] 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, Asseru�, 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.
+[14]
+
+[14] Jogues in Tanner, Societas Militans, 519; Bressani, 216; Lalemant,
+Relation, 1647, 25, 26; Buteux, Narr�, MS.; Jogues, Notice sur Ren�
+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. [15]
+
+[15] 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. [16] 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.
+
+[16] 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. [17] 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. [18] 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. [19]
+
+[17] The site of the Ph�nix Hotel.--Note by Mr. Shea to Jogues's Novum
+Belgium.
+[18] 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.
+
+[19] 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. [20] 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.
+
+[20] See a French rendering of the letter in Vimont, Relation, 1643, p.
+75.
+
+He spent the night in great agitation, tossed by doubt, and full of
+anxiety lest his self-love should beguile him from his duty. [21] 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.
+
+[21] Buteux, Narr�, MS.
+
+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. [22] As he is
+described as one of the principal persons of the colony, it is clear
+that the civilization of Rensselaerswyck was not high.
+
+[22] Buteux, Narr�, MS.
+
+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." [23]
+
+[23] 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. [24] 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. [25] 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. [26]
+
+[24] Lettre de Jogues � Lalemant, Rennes, Jan. 6, 1644.--See Relation,
+1643, p. 79.--Goods were given the Indians to the value of three hundred
+livres.
+[25] Jogues, Novum Belgium.
+[26] 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. [27]
+
+[27] For Jogues's arrival in Brittany, see Lettre de Jogues � Lalemant,
+Rennes, Jan. 6, 1644; Lettre de Jogues �------, 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 NOU�.
+
+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 Nou� � 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 Abr�g�e, 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 Fran�ois
+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. [2] 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.
+
+[2] During his captivity, he wrote, on a beaver-skin, a letter to the
+Dutch in French, Latin, and English.
+
+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. [3] 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, [4] sailed for
+the Richelieu, in a brigantine and two or three open boats.
+
+[3] Faillon, Colonie Fran�aise, II. 2; Vimont, Relation, 1642, 2, 44.
+[4] Marie de l'Incarnation, Lettre, Sept. 29, 1642.
+
+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. [5] 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. [6]
+
+[5] 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.
+[6] The Relation of 1642 says three hundred. Jogues, who had been among
+them to his cost, is the better authority.
+
+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. [7] 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.
+
+[7] 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." [8]
+
+[8] Relation, 1644, 3.
+
+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." [9]
+
+[9] 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." [10]
+
+[10] 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. [11] At the Fall of
+the Chaudi�re, 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.
+
+[11] Vimont, Relation, 1642, 46.
+
+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. [12] 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.
+
+[12] "Cette pauure creature qui s'est sauu�e, 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. [13]
+
+[13] 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. [14] 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.
+
+[14] Vimont, Relation, 1644, 41.
+
+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." [15]
+
+[15] This letter is printed anonymously in the Second Part, Chap. II, of
+Bressani's Relation Abr�g�e. 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 est� tesmoin oculaire de tout ce qu'il a souffert pendant sa
+captiuit�."--Vimont, Relation, 1644, 43.
+
+Then follows a modest narrative of what he 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." [16] 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. [17] 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.
+
+[16] "Ils me r�p�taient sans cesse: Nous te br�lerons; nous te
+mangerons;--je te mangerai un pied;--et moi, une main," etc.--Bressani,
+in Relation Abr�g�e, 137.
+[17] "Chaque nuit apr�s m'avoir fait chanter, et m'avoir tourment� comme
+ie l'ai dit, ils passaient environ un quart d'heure � me br�ler un ongle
+ou un doigt. Il ne m'en reste maintenant qu'un seul entier, et encore
+ils en ont arrach� l'ongle avec les dents. Un soir ils m'enlevaient un
+ongle, le lendemain la premi�re phalange, le jour suivant la seconde. En
+six fois, ils en br�l�rent presque six. Aux mains seules, ils m'ont
+appliqu� le feu et le fer plus de 18 fois, et i'�tais oblig� de chanter
+pendant ce supplice. Ils ne cessaient de me tourmenter qu'� une ou deux
+heures de la nuit."--Bressani, Relation Abr�g�e, 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 fr�miroient, 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. [18]
+
+[18] 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'H�tel-Dieu, 53; and
+Martin, Biographie du P. Fran�ois-Joseph Bressani, prefixed to the
+Relation Abr�g�e.
+
+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 Abr�g�e.
+
+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, [19] and conspired with their native fierceness
+to form a character of unrelenting cruelty rarely equalled.
+
+[19] 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 Nou� 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 Nou� was sixty-three years old, and had come to
+Canada in 1625. [20] 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. [21]
+
+[20] See "Pioneers of France," 393.
+[21] 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 Nou�
+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
+Nou�. 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 Nou�, 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. [22]
+
+[22] Lalemant, Relation, 1646, 9; Marie de l'Incarnation, Lettre, 10
+Sept., 1646; Bressani, Relation Abr�g�e, 175.
+
+One of the Indians who found the body of De Nou� was killed by the
+Iroquois at Ossossan�, 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 � 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 H�tel-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. [1]
+
+[1] 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." [2]
+
+[2] 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. [3]
+
+[3] 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. [4]
+
+[4] 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. [5] 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.
+
+[5] V�ritables Motifs, cited by Faillon, I. 453, 454.
+
+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. [6] 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. [7] 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.
+
+[6] Chaulmer, 101; Juchereau, 91.
+[7] Juchereau, Histoire de l'H�tel-Dieu de Qu�bec, 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. [8] 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. [9] 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. [10] 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.
+
+[8] Archives du S�minaire de Villemarie, cited by Faillon, I. 466. The
+amount of the gift was not declared until the next year.
+[9] 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.
+[10] Journal des Sup�rieurs des J�suites, 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 S�minaire de
+Villemarie, cited by Faillon.
+
+Dauversi�re, 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. [11] 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. [12] 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. [13] 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. [14]
+
+[11] Morin, Annales de l'H�tel-Dieu de St. Joseph, MS., cited by
+Faillon, I. 457.
+[12] Marguerite Bourgeoys, �crits Autographes, MS., extracts in Faillon,
+I. 458.
+[13] 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.
+[14] It was the usual practice to give guns to converts, "pour attirer
+leur compatriotes � 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. [15] 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.
+
+[15] Dollier de Casson, MS.
+
+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. [16]
+
+[16] 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 scent, 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 na�vet�, that, while this was her duty,
+"her natural inclination was for hunting squirrels." [17]
+
+[17] Lalemant, Relation, 1647, 74, 75. "Son attrait naturel estoit la
+chasse aux �curieux." 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?" [18]
+
+[18] 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, [19] 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.
+
+[19] 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. [20]
+
+[20] 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. [1]
+
+[1] 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. [2] 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. [3] 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. [4] 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. [5]
+
+[2] Relation, 1660, 6 (anonymous).
+
+Both Perrot 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.
+
+[3] "Simon Pieskaret ... n'estoit Chrestien qu'en apparence et par
+police."--Lalemant, Relation, 1647, 68.--He afterwards became a convert
+in earnest.
+[4] Both the Iroquois and the Hurons collected great quantities of wood
+in their villages in the autumn.
+[5] 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. [6]
+
+[6] 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. [7] 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. [8]
+
+[7] Vimont, Relation, 1645, 19-21.
+[8] 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, [9] 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!"
+[10]
+
+[9] 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.
+[10] 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. [11]
+
+[11] 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. [12]
+
+[12] 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, [13] 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.
+
+[13] 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." [14]
+
+[14] 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." [15]
+
+[15] 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. [16]
+
+[16] 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. [17] 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.
+
+[17] Vimont, Relation, 1645, 34.
+
+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. [1]
+
+[1] 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. [2] 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.
+
+[2] Lettre du P. Isaac Jogues au R. P. J�rosme L'Allemant. Montreal, 2
+Mai, 1646. MS.
+
+He felt a presentiment that his death was near, and wrote to a friend,
+"I shall go, and shall not return." [3] 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." [4] It would be well,
+if the application of the maxim had always been as harmless.
+
+[3] "Ibo et non redibo." Lettre du P. Jogues au R. P. No date.
+[4] Lalemant, Relation, 1646, 15.
+
+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. Hence
+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. [5]
+
+[5] 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. [6]
+
+[6] 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. [7] 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. [8] 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 donn�s of the
+missions; was scarcely behind the Jesuits themselves in devoted
+enthusiasm.
+
+[7] Journal des Sup�rieurs des J�suites. MS.
+[8] Ibid.
+
+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. [9] 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.
+[10] 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.
+
+[9] Lettre de Marie de l'Incarnation � son Fils. Qu�bec, ... 1647.
+[10] See Introduction.
+
+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." [11]--"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."
+[12] 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.
+
+[11] Lettre du P. De Quen au R. P. Lallemant; no date. MS.
+[12] Lettre de J. Labatie � 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, [13] 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. [14]
+
+[13] 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.
+[14] 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. [1]
+Two hundred or more kept on, divided into several bands.
+
+[1] Lettre du P. Buteux au R. P. Lalemant. MS.
+
+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. [2] All the hunters were soon
+after waylaid, overpowered by numbers, and killed or taken prisoners.
+
+[2] Lalemant, Relation, 1647, 4. Marie de l'Incarnation, Lettre � son
+Fils. Qu�bec, ... 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. [3]
+
+[3] 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. [4]
+
+[4] 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." [5]
+
+[5] 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. [1] 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.
+
+[1] Vimont, Relation, 1645, 16.
+
+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. [2] Their
+messengers were favorably received; and Druilletes was ordered to
+proceed upon the new mission.
+
+[2] Charlevoix, I. 280, gives this as a motive of the mission.
+
+He left Sillery, with a party of Indians, on the twenty-ninth of August,
+1646, [3] 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." [4] 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. [5]
+
+[3] Lalemant, Relation, 1647, 51.
+[4] Lalemant, Relation, 1647, 54. For an account of this mission, see
+also Maurault, Histoire des Abenakis, 116-156.
+[5] 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," [6] but, three years
+before, the Legislature of Massachusetts had enacted, that Jesuits
+entering the colony should be expelled, and, if they returned, hanged.
+[7]
+
+[6] 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.
+[7] 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. [8]
+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. [9] 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. [10] 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.
+
+[8] An account of him will be found in Palfrey, Hist. of New England,
+II. 225, note.
+[9] 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.
+[10] J. G. Shea, in Boston Pilot.
+
+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, [11]
+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. [12] 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, [13] 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.
+
+[11] 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.
+[12] 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).
+[13] 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.
+[14]
+
+[14] On Druilletes's visit to New England, see his journal, entitled
+Narr� du Voyage faict pour la Mission des Abenaquois, et des
+Connoissances tir�z de la Nouvelle Angleterre et des Dispositions des
+Magistrats de cette Republique pour le Secours contre les Iroquois. See
+also Druilletes, Rapport sur le R�sultat de ses N�gotiations, 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. [15] 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.
+
+[15] 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, [16] 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.
+[17] 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. [18]
+
+[16] The same who, with his wife, had joined the colonists of Montreal.
+See ante, (page 264).
+[17] He was one of the Governor's council.--Ferland, Notes sur les
+Registres, 67.
+[18] On Druilletes's second embassy, see Lettre �crite 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, 166. 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. [19]
+
+[19] Articles accord�s entre les Directeurs et Associ�s de la Compagnie
+de la Nelle France et les D�put�s 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. [20]
+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.
+
+[20] The Governors of Montreal and Three Rivers, when present, had also
+seats in the Council.
+
+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. [21]
+
+[21] 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 Dauversi�re, 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
+Ch�telets, 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." [22]
+
+[22] Journal des Sup�rieurs des J�suites, 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 Ch�telets was one of the earliest settlers, and
+connected by marriage with Giffard; Couillard was son-in-law of the
+first settler, H�bert; 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. [1]
+
+[1] 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 be
+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 Teanaustay�, 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. [2]
+
+[2] Lalemant, Relation des Hurons, 1639, 68. It was this chief whose
+severed hand was thrown to the Jesuits. See ante, (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. [3]
+
+[3] 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. [4]
+
+[4] 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. [5] 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." [6]
+Then he presented the wampum-belts and other gifts, saying that they
+were the voice of a dying country.
+
+[5] 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.
+[6] "Il leur dit qu'il venoit du pays des Ames, o� la guerre et la
+terreur des ennemis auoit tout desol�, o� les campagnes n'estoient
+couuertes que de sang, o� les cabanes n'estoient remplies que de
+cadaures, et qu'il ne leur restoit � eux-mesmes de vie, sinon autant
+qu'ils en auoient eu besoin pour venir dire � leurs amis, qu'ils eussent
+piti� d'vn pays qui tiroit � 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, [7] 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.
+
+[7] 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. [8]
+
+[8] 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 mid-summer, 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!" [9]
+
+[9] 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. [10] Here, then, is a ray of light out of
+Egyptian darkness. The principle of honor was not extinct in these wild
+hearts.
+
+[10] "Celuy qui l'auoit prise estoit Onnontaeronnon, qui estant icy en
+os tage � cause de la paix qui se traite auec les Onnontaeronnons, et
+s'estant trouu� auec nos Hurons � 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 � leur victoire; et ainsi en ce rencontre c�t 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 � les suiure, et qu'il
+auroit honte de reparoistre en son pays, les affaires qui l'auoient
+amen� 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 comport� en
+ennemy. Ainsi les Sonnontoueronnons luy permirent de s'en retourner et
+de ramener cette bonne Chrestienne, qui estoit sa captiue, laquelle nous
+a consol� 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 Ossossan�, 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 �tienne 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 �tienne 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!" [4]
+
+[4] 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. [5]
+
+[5] 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 pri�re 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 (Br�beuf) 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." [6]
+
+[6] 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. [7]
+
+[7] 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. [8]
+
+[8] 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, [9] 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. [10] 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.
+
+[9] Ragueneau, Relation des Hurons, 1648, 77. Compare Lettre du P. Jean
+de Br�beuf au T. R. P. Vincent Carafa, G�n�ral de la Compagnie de J�sus,
+Sainte Marie, 2 Juin, 1648, in Carayon.
+[10] 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, [11] 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."
+
+[11] 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. [12] 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. [13] 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.
+
+[12] Ragueneau himself describes the scene. Relation des Hurons, 1648,
+80.
+[13] 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. [14] 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.
+
+[14] 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. [1] 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, [2]
+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. [3]
+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, [4] 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.
+[5] 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. [6]
+
+[1] Before me is an elaborate plan of the remains, taken on the spot.
+[2] 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."
+[3] "Quatre grandes Croix qui sont aux quatre coins de nostre
+enclos."--Ragueneau, Relation des Hurons, 1648, 81.
+[4] It seems that these places, besides those for the priests, were of
+two kinds,--"vne retraite pour les pelerins (Indians), enfin vn lieu
+plus separ�, o� 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.
+[5] At least it was so in 1642. "Nous leur auons dress� vn Hospice ou
+Cabane d'�corce."--Ibid., 1642, 57.
+[6] "Cet hospital est tellement separ� 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 Br�beuf, Garreau, and Chabanel to the Hurons, and
+remain there during the winter. [7] These soldiers lodged with the
+Jesuits, and lived at their table. [8] 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. [9] 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, donn�s of the mission,
+[10]--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. [11] 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." [12]
+
+[7] Vimont, Relation, 1644, 49. He adds, that some of these soldiers,
+though they had once been "assez mauvais gar�ons," had shown great zeal
+and devotion in behalf of the mission.
+[8] Journal des Sup�rieurs des J�suites, MS. In 1648, a small cannon was
+sent to Sainte Marie in the Huron canoes.--Ibid.
+[9] Registres des Arr�ts du Conseil, extract in Faillon, II. 94.
+[10] See ante, (page 214). Garnier calls them "s�culiers d'habit, mais
+religieux de c�ur."--Lettres, MSS.
+[11] 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 re�oit ou en recueille quelques-vns pour ayder aux
+frais immenses qu'il faut faire dans ces Missions si �loign�es, et pour
+gagner ces peuples � Iesus-Christ et les porter � la paix, il seroit �
+souhaiter que ceux-l� mesme qui deuroient faire ces despenses pour la
+conseruation du pays, ne fussent pas du moins les premiers � condamner
+le zele de ces Peres, et � 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.
+
+[12] Lettre du P. Paul Ragueneau au T. R. P. Vincent Carafa, G�n�ral de
+la Compagnie de J�sus � 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. [13] 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.
+
+[13] Lettre du P. Paul Ragueneau au T. R. P. Vincent Carafa, G�n�ral de
+la Compagnie de J�sus � 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. [14]
+
+[14] 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. [15] 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.
+
+[15] 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. [16] 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.
+
+[16] Compare Ragueneau in Relation des Hurons, 1648, 48, and in his
+report to the General in 1649.
+
+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. [17] 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.
+[18]
+
+[17] 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.
+[18] 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, [19]--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.
+
+[19] 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 hall, 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. Br�beuf
+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
+Br�beuf'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. [20] 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.
+
+[20] "Ce bon Pere s'apparut apr�s sa mort � 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'�ge de
+quarante-huict.... Vne autre fois il fut veu assister � vne assembl�e
+que nous tenions," etc.--Ragueneau, Relation des Hurons, 1649, 5.
+
+"Le P. Chaumonot vit au milieu de l'assembl�e le P. Daniel qui aidait
+les P�res de ses conseils, et les remplissait d'une force surnaturelle;
+son visage �tait plein de majest� et d'�clat."--Ibid., Lettre au G�n�ral
+de la Compagnie de J�sus (Carayon, 243).
+
+"Le P. Chaumonot nous a quelque fois racont�, � la gloire de cet
+illustre confesseur de J. C. (Daniel) qu'il s'�toit fait voir � lui dans
+la gloire, � l'�ge d'environ 30 ans, quoiqu'il en eut pr�s de 50, et
+avec les autres circonstances qui se trouuent l� (in the Historia
+Canadensis of Du Creux). Il ajoutait seulement qu'� la vue de ce
+bien-heureux tant de choses lui vinrent � l'esprit pour les lui
+demander, qu'il ne savoit pas o� commencer son entretien avec ce cher
+d�funt. Enfin, lui dit-il: 'Apprenez moi, mon P�re, ce que ie dois faire
+pour �tre bien agr�able � Dieu.'--'Jamais,' r�pondit le martyr, 'ne
+perdez le souvenir de vos p�ch�s.'"--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. [1] 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.
+
+[1] Lalemant, Relation, 1648, 11. The Jesuit Bressani had come down with
+the Hurons, and was with them in the fight.
+
+The oft-mentioned town of Teanaustay�, 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 gunshot
+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. [2]
+
+[2] Ragueneau, Relation des Hurons, 1649, 3-5; Bressani, Relation
+Abr�g�e, 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.
+
+Teanaustay� 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 Teanaustay�. Never had the Huron nation received such a
+blow.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+1649.
+
+RUIN OF THE HURONS.
+
+St. Louis on Fire � Invasion � St. Ignace captured � Br�beuf 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, Br�beuf
+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, Br�beuf and Lalemant. Br�beuf'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
+Br�beuf 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 Br�beuf 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. [1]
+
+[1] 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. Tach�.
+
+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 � Br�beuf at the Stake � His
+Unconquerable Fortitude � Lalemant � Renegade Hurons � Iroquois
+Atrocities � Death of Br�beuf � 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 Br�beuf and Lalemant. [1]
+
+[1] "Ils y trouuerent vn spectacle d'horreur, les restes de la cruaut�
+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,--Br�beuf 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 Br�beuf 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 Br�beuf'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 Br�beuf'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." Br�beuf 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 Br�beuf, 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." [2] 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.
+
+[2] Charlevoix, I. 294. Alegambe uses a similar expression.
+
+Lalemant, physically weak from childhood, and slender almost to
+emaciation, was constitutionally unequal to a display of fortitude like
+that of his colleague. When Br�beuf 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. [3] 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
+Br�beuf 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.
+
+[3] "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'�tait l'homme le plus faible et le
+plus d�licat qu'on e�t 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 Br�beuf 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 H�tel-Dieu at Quebec. [4]
+
+[4] 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 (Br�beuf) 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."
+
+Br�beuf 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,
+(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 Br�beuf, 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 Br�beuf, as in all other notices of deceased
+missionaries in the Relations, the saintly qualities alone are brought
+forward, as obedience, humility, etc.; but wherever Br�beuf 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. [1]
+
+[1] Chaumonot, who was at Ossossan� 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." [2]
+
+[2] 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. [3] 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. [4] 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.
+
+[3] 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 G�n�ral de la Compagnie
+de J�sus, St. Joseph, 13 Mars, 1650.
+[4] 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 o� la mort nous eust est� 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 oppos�es qu'elles paroissent � nos
+desirs, � nos plus saintes esperances et aux plus tendres amours de
+nostre c�ur."--Lettre de Ragueneau au P. Provincial � Paris, in Relation
+des Hurons, 1650, 1.
+
+"Mais il fallut, � 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 cultiu�es, 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 est� 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 sainctet� et n'en prissent leur auantage, nous y
+mismes le feu nous mesmes, et nous vismes brusler � 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
+Ahoendo� 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. [5] Detached redoubts were
+also built near at hand, where French musketeers could aid in defending
+the adjacent Huron village. [6] 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.
+
+[5] 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.
+[6] Compare Martin, Introduction to Bressani, Relation Abr�g�e, 38.
+
+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. [7] 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. [8] 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. [9]
+
+[7] Ragueneau, Relation des Hurons, 1650, 3, 4. He reckons eight persons
+to a family.
+[8] "Ie voudrois pouuoir representer � toutes les personnes
+affectionn�es � nos Hurons, l'�tat pitoyable auquel ils sont reduits;
+... comment seroit-il possible que ces imitateurs de I�sus Christ ne
+fussent �meus � piti� � la veu� des centaines et centaines de veuues
+dont non seulement les enfans, mais quasi les parens ont est�
+outrageusement ou tuez, ou emmenez captifs, et puis inhumainement
+bruslez, cuits, d�chirez et deuorez des ennemis."--Lettre de Chaumonot �
+Lalemant, Sup�rieur � Quebec, Isle de St. Joseph, 1 Juin, 1649.
+
+"Vne m�re s'est veu�, n'ayant que ses deux mamelles, mais sans suc et
+sans laict, qui toutefois estoit l'vnique chose qu'elle eust peu
+presenter � 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 damn�e, 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.
+[9] Eight hundred sacks of this mixture were given to the Hurons during
+the winter.--Bressani, Relation Abr�g�e, 283.
+
+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. [10] An epidemic presently
+appeared, to aid the work of famine. Before spring, about half of their
+number were dead.
+
+[10] "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 � la pluspart, ce
+que seroient en France les mets les plus exquis. Les charognes mesme
+deterr�es, 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 donn� plus de lumiere qu'ils n'en auoient
+dans l'infidelit�, ne creussent pas commettre aucun pech� de manger
+leurs ennemis, aussi peu qu'il y en a de les tuer, toutefois ie puis
+dire auec verit�, 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 necessit� n'a plus de loy, et des dents fameliques ne discernent
+plus ce qu'elles mangent. Les m�res se sont repeu�s 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 Abr�g�e, 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. [11] 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. [12]
+
+[11] Lettre de Ragueneau au G�n�ral de la Compagnie de J�sus, Isle St.
+Joseph, 13 Mars, 1650.
+[12] Ragueneau, Relation des Hurons, 1650, 6, 7.
+
+Thus this miserable winter wore away, till the opening spring brought
+new fears and new necessities. [13]
+
+[13] 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 Abr�g�e of Bressani; the reports of the Father Superior to
+the General of the Jesuits at Rome; the manuscript of 1652, entitled
+M�moires touchant la Mort et les Vertus des P�res, 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. [2]
+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. [3] 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 everywhere, 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.
+
+[2] Bressani, Relation Abr�g�e, 264.
+[3] 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. (M�moires touchant la Mort et les Vertus des P�res 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. Br�beuf
+was the lion of the Huron mission, and Garnier was the lamb; but the
+lamb was as fearless as the lion. [4]
+
+[4] 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 Br�beuf and Lalemant, he
+writes to his brother:--
+
+"H�las! Mon cher fr�re, si ma conscience ne me convainquait et ne me
+confondait de mon infid�lit� au service de notre bon m�itre, je pourrais
+esp�rer quelque faveur approchante de celles qu'il a faites aux
+bienheureux martyrs avec qui j'avais le bien de converser souvent, �tant
+dans les m�mes occasions et dangers qu'ils �taient, 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. [5] 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. [6] 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. [7]
+
+[5] M�moires touchant la Mort et les Vertus des P�res, etc., MS.
+[6] Abr�g� de la Vie du P. No�l Chabanel. MS.
+[7] "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
+esloign�e, 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,
+No�l 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. [8]
+
+[8] 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 ruin� toutes nos esperances, et
+qui ont fait vn lieu d'horreur, vne terre de sang et de carnage, vn
+theatre de cruaut� et vn sepulchre de carcasses d�charn�es par les
+langueurs d'vne longue famine, d'vn pa�s de benediction, d'vne terre de
+Saintet� 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 arm�e
+d'Iroquois ayans march� prez de deux cents lieu�s de pa�s, � trauers les
+glaces et les neges, 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 dispers�es �a et l�, esloign�es les vnes des autres de six,
+sept et huit lieu�s, cent personnes en vn lieu, en vn autre cinquante;
+et mesme il y auoit quelques familles solitaires, qui s'estoient
+escart�es en des lieux moins connus et hors de tout chemin. Chose
+estrange! de tout ce monde dissip�, 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." [3]
+
+[3] 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." [4]
+
+[4] Ragueneau, Relation des Hurons, 1650, 25. It appears from the MS.
+Journal des Sup�rieurs des J�suites, 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." [5] 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." [6]
+
+[5] Compare Bressani, Relation Abr�g�e, 288.
+[6] 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. [7]
+
+[7] Compare Juchereau, Histoire de l'H�tel-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. [8]
+
+[8] 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. [9] 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. [10]
+
+[9] Iournal du Pere Iacques Buteux du Voyage qu'il a fait pour la
+Mission des Attikamegues. See Relation, 1651, 15.
+[10] 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. [1]
+
+[1] Compare Relation, 1651, 4; 1660, 14, 28; and 1670, 69. The Huron
+town among the Senecas was called Gandougara�. 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, at
+the northern extremity of the great peninsula of Michigan. 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. [2] 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. [3]
+
+[2] See "History of the Conspiracy of Pontiac."
+[3] 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
+F�itte des Hurons chass�s 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'Am�rique 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 �tienne 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. �tienne 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. �tienne 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. �tienne 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. �tienne'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 �tienne'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 �tienne a
+warning of their danger in time to make their escape. The year before,
+he had been captured, with Br�beuf 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. [4]
+
+[4] 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.
+[5] 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 �tienne Annaotaha, were
+slain, fighting side by side with the French, in the desperate conflict
+of the Long Sault. [6]
+
+[5] 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.
+[6] Relation, 1660 (anonymous), 14.
+
+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. [7] 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 St. 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.
+
+[7] 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.
+
+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. [8] 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." [9]
+
+[8] See ante, (p. 102).
+[9] "Les gr�ces qu'on y obtient par l'entremise de la M�re de Dieu vont
+jusqu'au miracle. Comme il faudroit composer un livre entier pour
+d�crire toutes ces faveurs extraordinaires, je n'en rapporterai que
+deux, ayant �t� t�moin 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. [10]
+
+[10] 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, M�urs des Sauvages, 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." [3] 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. [4]
+
+[3] Le Mercier, Relation, 1654, 9.
+[4] Ibid., 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. [5] 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. [6]
+
+[5] De Quen, Relation, 1656, 30.
+[6] 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. [7]
+
+[7] 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. [8] 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. [9]
+
+[8] Relation, 1660, 6 (anonymous).
+
+The Mohawks also suffered great reverses about this time at the hands of
+their Algonquin neighbors, the Mohicans.
+
+[9] Lalemant, Relation, 1663, 10.
+
+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.
+[10]
+
+[10] 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. [11] "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. [12] 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."
+[13]
+
+[11] Dablon, Relation, 1672, 24.
+[12] �tat Pr�sent des Missions, in Relations In�dites, II. 44. Relation,
+1676, 2. This is one of the Relations printed by Mr. Lenox.
+[13] "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. [14] 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.
+
+[14] 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.
+
+INDEX
+
+The Roman Numerals refer to the introduction.
+
+A.
+
+Abenaquis, where found, xxii; ask for a missionary, 321.
+Abraham, Plains of, whence the name, 335 note.
+Adoption of prisoners as members of the tribe, lxvi, 223, 309, 424, 444.
+Adventures and sufferings of an Algonquin woman, 309-313; of another,
+313-316.
+Agnier, a name for the Mohawks, xlviii note.
+Aiguillon, Duchess d', founds a H�tel-Dieu at Quebec, 181.
+Albany, formerly Rensselaerswyck, its condition in 1643, 229.
+Algonquins, a comprehensive term, xx; regions occupied by them in 1535,
+xx; the designation, how applied, ib. note; found in New England, xxi;
+their relation to the Iroquois, xxi; numbers, ib.; Algonquin missions,
+368.
+Allumette Island, xxiv, 45; its true position, 46.
+Amikouas, or People of the Beaver, lxviii note; supposed descent from
+that animal, ib.
+Amusements of the Indians, xxxvi; the Jesuits require them to be
+abandoned, 136.
+Andacwandet, a strange method of cure, xlii.
+Andastes, where found in the early times, xx, xlvi; fierce warriors,
+xlvi; identical with the Susquehannocks, ib. note; their aid sought by
+the Hurons, 341; the result unsatisfactory, 344 seq.; war with the
+Mohawks, 441; assisted by the Swedes from Delaware River, 442; repulse
+an attack of the Iroquois, ib.; a party of Andaste boys defeat the
+Senecas and Cayugas, 443; finally subdued by the Senecas, ib.
+Aquanuscioni, or Iroquois, xlviii note.
+Areskoui, the god of war, lxxvii; human sacrifices offered to him, ib.;
+a captive Iroquois sacrificed to him, 81.
+Armouchiquois, a name applied to the Algonquins of New England, xxi; a
+strange account of them given by Champlain, xxii note.
+Arts of life, as practised by the Hurons, xxxi.
+Assistaeronnons, or Nation of Fire. See Nation of Fire.
+Ataentsic, a malignant deity; the moon, lxxvi.
+Atahocan, a dim conception of the Supreme Being, lxxiv.
+Atotarho of the Onondagas, liv, lvii.
+Attendants of the Jesuits, 112 note, 132. See Donn�s.
+Atticamegues, xxiii, 286, 293; attacked by the Iroquois, 420.
+Attigouantans. See Hurons.
+Attiwandarons, or Neutral Nation, why so called, xliv; their country,
+ib.; ferocious and cruel, xlv; licentious, ib.; their treatment of the
+dead, ib. See Neutral Nation.
+
+
+B.
+
+Baptism of dying men, 89, 124; clandestine, of infants, 96, 97, 116,
+117; of an influential Huron, 112; conditions of baptism, 134; baptisms,
+number in a year, 136 note.
+Birch-bark used instead of writing-paper, 130.
+Bourgeoys, Marguerite, her character, 201; foundress of the school at
+Montreal, 202.
+Bradford, William, governor of Plymouth, kindly entertains the Jesuit
+Druilletes, 327.
+Br�beuf, Jean de, arrives at Quebec, 5, 20, 48; commences his journey to
+the Huron country, 53; suffers great fatigue by the way, 54; his
+intrepidity, 54 note, 56; arrives in the Huron country, 56; his previous
+residence there, ib.; his misgivings as to his future treatment by the
+Indians, 57 note; the Indians build a house for him, 59; the house
+described, 60; its furniture, ib.; Br�beuf witnesses the " Feast of the
+Dead," 75; witnesses a human sacrifice, 80 seq.; his uncompromising
+manner, 90; "the Ajax of the mission," 99; his dealings with beings from
+the invisible world, 108; sees a great cross in the air, 109, 144; his
+courage, 120; his letter in prospect of martyrdom, 122; harangues the
+Hurons at a festin d'adieu, 123; commences a mission in the Neutral
+Nation, 143; sees miraculous sights, 144; at the Huron mission, 370;
+taken by the Iroquois, 381; his appalling fate, 388; his intrepid
+character, 390; his skull preserved to this day at Quebec, 391; his
+visions and revelations, 392 note; a saint and a hero, ib.
+Bressani, Joseph, attempts to go to the Hurons, 251; taken by the
+Iroquois, 252; terrible sufferings from his captors, 253-255; his
+escape, 256; at the Huron Mission, 370.
+Brul�, �tienne, murdered by the Hurons, 56; the murder supposed to be
+avenged by a raging pestilence, 94.
+Bullion, Madame de, founds a hospital at Montreal, 266.
+Burning of captives alive, instances of, xlv note, 80-82; 249, 250; 309,
+339, 385; 436 note, 439, 441 note.
+Buteux, Jacques, his toilsome journey, 421; waylaid by the Iroquois and
+slain, 422.
+
+
+C.
+
+Cannibalism of the Hurons, xxxix, 137, of the Miamis, xl; other
+instances, 247.
+Canoes, Indian, xxxi.
+Capuchins, unsuccessful attempt to introduce them into Canada, 159 note;
+a station of them on the Penobscot, 322.
+Cayugas, one of the Five Nations, xlviii note, liv. See Iroquois.
+Cemeteries of Indians lately opened, 79; description of them, ib.
+Chabanel, No�l, joins the mission, 105; among the Hurons, 370; recalled
+from St. Jean, 408; his journey, ib.; murdered by a renegade Huron, 409;
+his vow, 410 note.
+Champfleur, commandant at Three Rivers, 277, 285.
+Champlain, Samuel de, resumes command at Quebec, 20; his explorations,
+45; introduces the missionaries to the Hurons, 48; assists the
+missionaries at their departure, 50; his death, 149.
+Chatelain, Pierre, joins the mission, 86; his illness, ib.; his peril,
+126.
+Chaumonot, Joseph Marie, his early life, 101-104; his gratitude to the
+Virgin, 103, 105; becomes a Jesuit, and embarks for Canada, 105, 181;
+narrowly escapes death, 124; goes with Br�beuf to convert the Neutrals,
+142; his extreme peril, 145; saved by the interference of Saint Michael,
+ib.; among the Hurons, 370; with a colony of Hurons, near Quebec, 431;
+builds Lorette, 432.
+Choctaws, like the Iroquois, have eight clans, lvi note.
+Clanship, system of, l-lii.
+Clock of the Jesuits an object of wonder to the Hurons, 61; an object of
+alarm, 115.
+Colonization, French and English, compared, 328, 329.
+Cond�, in his youth writes to Paul Le Jeune, 152.
+Conestogas. See Andastes.
+Converts, how made, 133, 162 seq.
+Couillard, a resident in Quebec, 3, 334, 335.
+Councils of the Iroquois, their power, lvii-lx.
+Council, nocturnal, of the Hurons, relative to the epidemic in 1637,
+118.
+Couture, Guillaume, a donn� of the mission, 214; a prisoner to the
+Iroquois, 216; tortured by them, 216, 223; adopted by them, 223; assists
+in negotiations for peace, 284, 287; returns with the Iroquois, 296.
+Crania of Indians compared with those of Caucasian races, lxiii.
+Credulity and superstition of the Indians, 301.
+Crime, how punished, lxi.
+Cruelties, Indian, xlv note, 80, 216 seq., 248, 253, 254, 277, 303 seq.,
+308 seq., 313, 339, 350, 377, 381, 385, 388 seq., 436 note, 439, 441
+note.
+Custom, with the Indians, had the force of law, xlix.
+
+
+D.
+
+Dahcotahs, found east of the Mississippi, xx note; their villages, xxvi.
+D'Ailleboust de Coulonges, Louis, lands at Montreal, 264; history, 265;
+fortifies Montreal, 266; becomes governor of Canada, 330, 332.
+Daily life of the Jesuits, 129; their food, ib.; how obtained, 130.
+Dallion, La Roche, visits the Neutral Nation in 1626, xliv; exposed to
+great danger among them, xlvi note, 146.
+Daniel, Antoine, 5, 20, 48; commences his journey to the Huron country,
+53; disasters by the way, 55; his arrival in the Huron country, 58; his
+peril, 126; returns to Quebec to commence a seminary, 168; labors with
+success among the Hurons, 374; slain by the Iroquois, 377.
+Dauversi�re, J�r�me le Royer de la, described, 188; hears a voice from
+heaven, 189; has a vision, 191; meets Olier, 192; plans a religious
+community at Montreal, ib.; one of the purchasers of the island, 195;
+his misgivings, 197.
+Davost at Quebec, 5, 20, 48; sets out on his journey to the Huron
+country, 53; robbed and left behind by his conductors, 54; his arrival
+among the Hurons, 58.
+De Nou�, Anne, a missionary, 5, 14; perishes in the snow, 257-260.
+Des Ch�telets, an inhabitant of Quebec, 334, 335.
+Devil, worshipped, lxxiv, lxxvi, lxxvii; his supposed alarm at the
+success of the mission, 113; consequences, 114 seq.
+Dionondadies. See Tobacco Nation.
+Disease, how accounted for, xl, xli; how treated, ib.
+Divination and sorcery, lxxxiv, lxxxv.
+Dogs sacrificed to the Great Spirit, lxxxvi; used at Montreal for
+sentinels, 271; very useful, 272.
+"Donn�s" of the mission, 112 note, 214, 364.
+Dreams, confidence of the Indian in, lxxxiii, lxxxiv, lxxxvi;
+"Dream-Feast," a scene of frenzy, 67.
+Dress of the Indians, xxxii; scarcely worn in summer, xxxiii.
+Druilletes, Gabriel, his labors among the Montagnais, 318; among the
+Abenaquis on the Kennebec, 321, 323; visits English settlements in
+Maine, 322; again descends the Kennebec, and visits Boston, 324, 325;
+object of the visit, 324; visits Governor Dudley at Roxbury, 326; and
+Governor Bradford at Plymouth, 327; spends a night with Eliot at
+Roxbury, ib.; visits Endicott at Salem, ib.; his impressions of New
+England, 328; failure of his embassy, 330.
+Dudley, Thomas, governor of Massachusetts, kindly receives the Jesuit
+Druilletes, 326.
+Du Peron, Fran�ois, his narrow escape, 124; his journey, 127; his
+arrival, 128; his letter, 130; at Montreal, 263.
+Du Quen, journeys of, xxv note, 318.
+Dutch at Albany supply the Iroquois with fire-arms, 211, 212; endeavor
+to procure the release of prisoners among the Mohawks, 230.
+
+
+E.
+Eliot, John, the "apostle," has a visit from the Jesuit Druilletes, 327.
+Endicott, John, visited by the Jesuit Druilletes, 327.
+Enthusiasm for the mission, 85 note.
+Erie, Lake, how early known as such, 143.
+Eries, or Nation of the Cat, xlvi; where found in the early periods, xx,
+xlvi; why so called, xlvi note; war with the Iroquois, 438; its cause,
+439; a sister's revenge, ib.; utter destruction of the Eries, 440.
+Etchemins, where found, xxii.
+Etienne Annaotaha, a Huron brave, destroys an Iroquois war-party,
+427-429; slain, 431.
+Exaltation, mental, of the priests, 146.
+Excursions, missionary, 132.
+
+
+F.
+Faillon, Abb�, his researches in the early history of Montreal, 193
+note; their value, ib.
+Fancamp, Baron de, furnishes money for the undertaking at Montreal, 193;
+one of the purchasers of the island, 195.
+Fasts among the Indians, lxxi.
+"Feast of the Dead," 72.
+Feasts of the Indians, xxxvii.
+Female life among the Hurons, xxxiii.
+"Festins d'adieu," 123.
+Festivities of the Hurons, xxxvii.
+Fire, Nation of, attacked by the Neutral Nation, 436.
+Fire-arms sold to the Iroquois by the Dutch, 211, 212; given to converts
+by the French, 269.
+Fish, and fishing-nets, prayers to them, lxix.
+Fortifications of the Hurons, xxix; of the Iroquois, ib. note; of other
+Indian tribes, xxx note.
+Fortitude, striking instances of, 81, 250, 339, 389.
+French and English colonization compared, 328, 329.
+Funeral among the Hurons, 75; funeral gifts, 76.
+Fur trade, xlv, 47, 155, 331.
+
+
+G.
+
+Gambling, Indian, xxxvii.
+Garnier, Charles, joins the Huron mission, 86; his sickness, ib.; his
+character, 99; his letters, 101, 133; his journey to the Tobacco Nation,
+140; at the Huron mission, 370; slain by the Iroquois, 405; his body
+found, 406 note; his gentle spirit, 370, 407; his absolute devotion to
+the mission, 407 note.
+Garnier, Julien, liv note.
+Garreau, missionary among the Hurons, his danger, 410.
+Gasp�, Algonquins of, their women chaste, xxxiv.
+George, Lake, its first discoverer, 219; its Indian name, ib. note;
+called St. Sacrament, 299; a better name proposed, ib. note.
+Gibbons, Edward, welcomes the Jesuit Druilletes to Boston, 325.
+Giffard, his seigniory of Beauport, 155, 157; at Quebec, 334.
+Gluttony at feasts, xxxviii; practised as a cure for pestilence, 95.
+Godefroy, Jean Paul, visits New Haven on an embassy from the governor of
+Canada, 330.
+Goupil, Ren�, a donn� of the mission, 214; made prisoner by the
+Iroquois, 216; tortured, 217, 221; murdered in cold blood, 224.
+Goyogouin, a name for the Cayugas, xlviii note.
+Great Hare, The. See Manabozho.
+Green Bay, visited by the French in 1639, 166.
+
+
+H.
+Habitations, Indian, xxvi; internal aspect in summer, xxvii; in winter,
+xxviii.
+Hawenniio, the modern Iroquois name for God, lxxviii.
+H�bert, Madame, an early resident of Quebec, 2, 15.
+Hell, how represented to the Indians, 88, 163; pictures of, 163.
+Hiawatha, a deified hero, lxxvii, lxxviii.
+Hodenosaunee, the true name of the Iroquois, xlviii note.
+H�tel-Dieu at Quebec founded, 181; one at Montreal, 266.
+Hundred Associates, the, a fur company, its grants of land, 156; their
+quit-claim of the island of Montreal, 195; transfer their monopoly to
+the colonists, 331.
+Hunters of men, 307.
+Huron mission proposed, 42; the difficulties, 43; motives for the
+undertaking, 44; route to the Huron country, 45; the missionaries
+baffled by a stroke of Indian diplomacy, 51; they commence their
+journey, 53; fatigues of the way, ib.; reception of the missionaries by
+the Hurons, 57; mission house, 60; methods taken to awaken interest, 61;
+instructions given, 62; the results not satisfactory, 64; the Jesuits
+made responsible for the failure of rain, 68; they gain the confidence
+of the Huron people, 70; the mission strengthened by new arrivals, 85;
+kindness of the Jesuits to the sick, 87; their efforts at conversion,
+88; the Hurons slow to apprehend the subject of a future life, 89; terms
+of salvation too hard, 90; an elastic morality practised by the Jesuits,
+97; conversions promoted by supernatural aid, 108; the new chapel at
+Ossossan� described, 111; first important success, 112; persecuting
+spirit aroused, 115; the Jesuits in danger, 116; their daily life, 129;
+number of converts in 1638, 132; backsliding frequent, 135; partial
+success, 147; great subsequent success of the mission, 349; the mission
+encounters slander and misrepresentation, 352, 353; prosperity, 366;
+successful agriculture, ib.; number of ecclesiastics and others in the
+Huron mission, 1649, ib.; the mission removed to an island in Lake
+Huron, 397; a multitude of refugees, 399; their extreme misery, 400; the
+priests fully occupied, 401; the mission abandoned, 415; failure of the
+Jesuit plans in Canada, 446; the cause, 447; the consequences, 448. See
+Jesuits.
+Hurons, origin of the name, xxxiii note; their country, xx, xxiv, xxv;
+had a language akin to the Iroquois, xxiv; their disappearance, ib.;
+vestiges of them still found, xxv; supposed population, xxv, xxvi; their
+habitations, xxvi, xxviii note; extravagant accounts, xxvi note;
+internal aspect of their huts in summer, xxvii; in winter, xxviii; their
+fortifications, xxix; their agriculture, xxx; food, ib.; arts of life,
+ib.; dress, xxxii; dress scarcely worn in summer, xxxiii; female life,
+ib., xxxv; an unchaste people, xxxiv; marriages, temporary, ib.;
+shameless conduct of young people, xxxv note; employments of the men,
+xxxvi; amusements, ib.; feasts and dances, xxxvii; voracity, xxxviii;
+cannibalism, xxxix; practice of medicine, xl; Huron brains, xliii; the
+Huron Confederacy, lii; their political organization, ib.; propensity of
+the Hurons to theft, lxiii, 131; murder atoned for by presents, lxi;
+proceedings in case of witchcraft, lxiii; their objects of worship, lxix
+seq.; their conceptions of a future state, lxxxi; their burial of the
+dead, ib.; hostility of the Iroquois, 45, 52, 62; visit Quebec, 46; the
+scene after their arrival described, 47; their idea of thunder, 69;
+Huron graves, 71; their origin, ib.; disposal of the dead, 73; "Feast of
+the Dead," 75 seq.; disinterment, 73; mourning, 74, 78; funeral gifts,
+76; frightful scene, 77; a pestilence, 87; cannibals, 137; attacked by
+the Iroquois, 212, 337; defeat them, 338; torture and burn an Iroquois
+chief, 339; on the verge of ruin, 341; apply for help to the Andastes,
+342; specimen of Huron eloquence, 355; Hurons defeat the Iroquois at
+Three Rivers, 374; fatuity of the Hurons, 379; their towns destroyed,
+379 seq.; ruin of the Hurons, 393; the survivors take refuge on Isle St.
+Joseph, 399; their extreme misery, 411 seq.; they abandon the island,
+415; endeavor to reach Quebec, 416; the Iroquois waylay them, 417; a
+fight on the Ottawa, ib.; they reach Montreal, 418; and Quebec, ib.; a
+Huron traitor, 419; a portion of the Hurons retreat to Lake Michigan and
+the Mississippi, 425; others become incorporated with the Senecas, 424;
+their country desolate, ib.; afterwards known as the Wyandots, 426; a
+body of the Hurons left at St. Joseph destroy a party of Iroquois,
+427-429; a colony of Hurons near Quebec, 430.
+
+
+I.
+Ihonatiria, a Huron village, 57; Br�beuf takes up his abode there, 59;
+ruined by the pestilence, 137.
+Immaculate Conception of the Virgin, 110.
+Incarnation, Marie de l', at Tours, 174; her unhappy marriage, 175; a
+widow, ib; self-inflicted austerities, ib.; mystical espousal to Christ,
+176; rhapsodies, ib.; dejection, 177; abandons her child and becomes a
+nun, 178; her talents for business, 179; her vision, 180; the vision
+explained as a call to Canada, 181; embarks for that country, ib.;
+perilous voyage, 182; her arduous labors at Quebec, 185; her
+difficulties, 186; extolled as a saint, 177, 186.
+Indian population mutable, xix; its distribution, xx; two great
+families, ib.; superstitions and traditions, lxvii-lxxxvii; dreamers,
+lxxxiii; sorcerers and diviners, lxxxiv, 93; their religion fearful yet
+puerile, lxxxviii, 94; an Indian lodge, 141; Indian manners softened by
+the influence of the missions, 319; Indian infatuation, 336.
+Indians, their arts of life, xxx; amusements, xxxvi; festivals, xxxvii;
+social character, xlviii; self-control, xlix; influenced by custom, ib.;
+hospitality and generosity, ib. note; fond of society, 1; their division
+into clans, li; the totem, or symbol of the clan, 39 ib.; Indian rule of
+descent and inheritance, ib.; vast extent of this rule, lii; their
+superstitions, lxvii et seq.; their cosmogonies, lxxiii, lxxv; degrading
+conceptions of the Supreme Being, lxxviii; no word for God, lxxix;
+obliged to use a circumlocution, ib.; their belief in a future state,
+lxxx; their conceptions of it dim, ib.; their belief in dreams, lxxxiii;
+the Indian Pluto, ib. note; the Indian mind stagnant, lxxxix; savage in
+religion as in life, ib.; no knowledge of the true God, ib.; scenes in a
+wigwam, 30; their foul language, 31; not profane, ib.; hardships and
+sufferings, 39; a specimen of their diplomacy, 51; an Indian masquerade,
+66; Indian bacchanals, 67; their idea of thunder, 69; Indian mind not a
+blank, 134; specimen of Indian reasoning, 135; Indians received benefit
+from the Jesuit missions, 164.
+Initiatory fast for obtaining a guardian manitou, lxxi.
+"Infernal Wolf," the, 117; a name for the Devil, ib. note.
+Influence of the missions salutary, 319.
+Instructions for the missionaries to the Hurons, 54.
+Intrepid conduct of the Jesuits, 125.
+Iroquois, or Five Nations, origin of the name, xlvii; where found in
+early times, xx, xlvi, 278 note; their dwellings, xxvii note., xxviii
+note; a licentious people, xxxiv note; have capacious skulls, xliii
+note; burn female captives, xlv; their character, xlvii; their eminent
+position and influence, ib.; their true name, xlviii note; divided into
+eight clans or families, lv; symbols of these clans, ib. note; the
+chiefs, how selected, lvi; the councils, lvii; how and when assembled,
+lviii; how conducted, lix; their debates, ib.; strict unanimity
+required, ib.; artful management of the chiefs, lx note; the professed
+orators, lxi; military organization, lxiv; and discipline, ib.; spirit
+of the confederacy, lxv; attachment to ancient forms, ib.; their
+increase by adoption, lxvi; population at different times, ib. note;
+have no name for God, lxxviii; a captive Iroquois sacrificed by the
+Hurons to the god of war, 80; supplied by the Dutch with fire-arms, 211;
+make war on the French in Canada, 212, 269 seq.; extreme cruelty to
+Jogues and other prisoners, 217-222, 228; cannibalism, 228, 250;
+audacity, 241; attack Fort Richelieu, 244; spread devastation and terror
+through Canada, 245, 251; horrible nature of their warfare, 246-250;
+torments inflicted on prisoners, 248 seq., 271; an Iroquois prisoner
+tortured by Algonquins, 277; treaty of peace with the French and
+Algonquins, 284 seq.; numbers of the Iroquois, 297 note; the Iroquois
+determination to destroy the Hurons, 336; their moral superiority, 337;
+a defeat sustained by them, 338; their shameless treachery, 339; invade
+the Huron country and destroy the towns, 379; their atrocious cruelty,
+385; their retreat, 386; they pursue the remnants of the Huron nation,
+412, 425; attack the Atticamegues, 420; attack the Hurons at
+Michilimackinac, 425; exterminate the Neutral Nation, 437; exterminate
+the Eries, 438-440; terrible cruelty, 441 note; their bloody supremacy,
+444; it cost them dear, ib.; tyrants of a wide wilderness, 445; their
+short-sighted policy, 434.
+
+
+J.
+
+Jesuits, their founder, 8; their discipline, 11; their influence, 12;
+salutary, 319; the early Canadian Jesuits did not meddle with political
+affairs, 323; denounced cannibalism, but faint in opposing the burning
+of prisoners, 351; were engaged in the fur-trade, 365 note; purity of
+their motives, 83, 85; benevolent care of the sick, 87, 98, 267; accused
+of sorcery, 120; in great peril, 121; their intrepidity, 125; their
+prudence, 134; their intense zeal, 146. See Huron Mission.
+Jogues, Isaac, his birth and character, 214; joins the mission, 86; his
+illness, ib.; his character, 106, 304; his journey to the Tobacco
+Nation, 140; visits Lake Superior and preaches to the Ojibwas, 213;
+visits Quebec, 214; taken prisoner by the Iroquois, 216; tortured by
+them, 217, 218, 221, 222; in daily expectation of death, 224, 225; his
+conscientiousness, 226, 229, 232; his patience, 226; his spirit of
+devotion, 227; longs for death, 228; his pious labors while a captive,
+ib.; visits Albany, 229; writes to the commandant at Three Rivers, 230;
+escapes, 234; voyage across the Atlantic, 236; reception in France, 237;
+the queen honors him, 238; returns to Canada, 239, 286; his mission to
+the Mohawks, 297; misgivings, 298; has a presentiment of death, ib.;
+goes as a civilian, ib; visits Fort Orange, 299; reaches the Mohawk
+country, ib.; his reception, ib.; returns to Canada, 300; his second
+mission to the Mohawks, 301; warned of danger, ib.; his cruel murder,
+304.
+Joseph, Saint, his interposition in a case of childbirth, 90; his help
+much relied on by the Jesuits, 70, 95, 96; fireworks let off in his
+honor, 160. See Saint Joseph.
+Jouskeha, a beneficent deity, the sun, the creator, lxxvi, lxxix.
+
+
+K.
+
+Kennebec, visited by a Jesuit, 322.
+Kieft, William, governor of New Netherland, his kindness to Jogues, 235;
+his letter to the governor of Canada, 304 note.
+Kiotsaton, envoy of the Iroquois, 284 seq.; his speech, 287 seq.; the
+French delighted with him, 291; another speech, 292.
+
+
+L.
+Lafitau, his book on the Iroquois, liv note; describes the council of
+the Iroquois, lvii, lviii.
+Lalande, an assistant in the mission, 301; tortured by the Mohawks, 303;
+killed by them, 304.
+Lalemant, Gabriel, at the Huron mission, 126, 371; taken by the
+Iroquois, 381; tortured with fire, 388; his death, 390.
+Lalemant, Jerome, brother of Gabriel, assailed by an Algonquin, 127;
+visits Three Rivers, 294; becomes Superior of the missions, 301.
+Lauson, president of the Canada Fur Company, 156; sells the island of
+Montreal to the Jesuits, 194.
+Le Berger, a Christian Iroquois, 304; endeavors to save Jogues, ib.
+Le Borgne, chief of Allumette Island, hinders the departure of the
+missionaries, 50; his motives, 51; converted, 268.
+Le Jeune, Paul, Father Superior, his voyage, 15; his arrival in Quebec,
+2, 15; begins his labors there, 16; joins an Indian hunting-party, 23;
+adventures in this connection, 25-39; his description of a winter scene,
+26 note; grievances in an Indian lodge in winter, 27; experience with a
+sorcerer, 30; suffers the rude banter of the Indians, ib.; doubts
+whether the Indian sorcerers are impostors or in league with the devil,
+32; relates what he had been informed of the devil's proceedings in
+Brazil, 33 note; attempts to convert a sorcerer, 37; disappointment, 39;
+returns to Quebec, 40; rejoices at the advent of the new governor, 150
+note; rejoices at the interest in the mission awakened in France, 151;
+has for a correspondent the future Cond�, 152; is invested with civil
+authority, 154; sends for pictures of the torments of hell, 163.
+Le Mercier, Francis Joseph, joins the mission, 85; his peril, 125.
+Le Moyne, among the Hurons, 126; among the Onondagas, 438, 440.
+Licentiousness of the Indians, xxxiv note; xxxv note, xlv.
+Life in a wigwam, 27-31.
+Loretto, in Italy, 102, 105, 432; Old Lorette, in Canada, 431; New
+Lorette, in Canada, 432; settlement of Hurons there, ib.
+Loyola, Ignatius, his story, 8; founds the order of Jesuits, 9; his book
+of Spiritual Exercises, 10.
+
+
+M.
+
+Maisonneuve, Chomedey, Sieur de, military leader of the settlement at
+Montreal, 196; spends the first winter at Quebec, 202; poorly
+accommodated there, 203; has a quarrel with the governor, 204; beloved
+by his followers, 205; compared to Godfrey, the leader of the first
+crusade, 207; lands at Montreal, 208, 261; plants a cross on the top of
+the mountain, 263; his great bravery, 275.
+Manabozho, a mythical personage, lxviii; the chief deity of the
+Algonquins, yet not worshipped, lxxii, lxxix; his achievements, lxxiii.
+Mance, Jeanne, devotes herself to the mission in Canada, 198; embarks,
+201; impressive scene before embarking, ib.; lands at Montreal, 208,
+261.
+Manitous, a generic term for super-natural beings, lxix; extensive in
+its meaning, lxx; process for obtaining a guardian manitou, ib.
+Marie, a Christian Algonquin, her adventures and sufferings, 309-313.
+Marriage among the Hurons often temporary and experimental, xxxiv.
+Mass, neglect of the, a punishable offence, 154, 157.
+Masse, 5, 20; "le P�re Utile," ib.; his death, 260.
+Medical practice among the Indians, xli, xlii note; lxxxiv, 66.
+"Medicine," or Indian charms, lxxi.
+"Medicine-bags," lxxi; "medicine-men," or sorcerers, lxxxiv, lxxxv,
+32-38; a "medicine-feast," 66; the religion taught by the Jesuits
+supposed to be a "medicine," 90.
+Megapolensis, Dutch pastor at Albany, 229; his account of the Mohawks,
+ib.; befriends Jogues, 235.
+Memory, devices for aiding the, lxi.
+Messou. See Manabozho.
+Mestigoit, an Indian hunter, 21, 24, 29, 34; his skill and courage, 40;
+helps Le Jeune to reach Quebec, ib.
+Mexican fabrics found in Indian cemeteries, 79 note.
+Miamis, cannibalism among them, xl.
+Michabou. See Manabozho.
+Micmacs in Nova Scotia, xxii.
+Minquas. See Andastes.
+Miracles in the Huron mission, 108; how to be accounted for, 109; why
+miracles were expected, 210 note.
+Miscou, mission at, 317.
+Mission to Hurons. See Huron Mission.
+Mission-house near Quebec described, 4.
+Mohawks, xlviii note, liv; number of warriors, 212, 297; their towns,
+222; make peace with the French, 296; credulity and superstition, 301;
+their causeless rage, 303; renew the war with the French, 306; their
+perfidy, 308; cruelty, ib.; torture of prisoners, 309; invade the Huron
+country, 379; furious battle near St. Marie, 384; war with the Andastes,
+441; and Mohicans, ib. note. See Iroquois.
+Montmagny, Charles Huault de, succeeds Champlain as governor of New
+France, 149; his zeal for the mission, 150, 161; meets the Ursulines at
+their landing, 182; quarrels with the leader of the Montreal settlement,
+204; delivers Montreal to Maisonneuve, 208; builds a fort at Sorel, 242;
+called Onontio by the Iroquois, 283; negotiates a peace with the
+Iroquois, 284 seq.
+Montagnais, an Algonquin tribe, where found, xxiii; their degradation,
+ib.; Le Jeune essays their conversion, 19; concerned in a treaty of
+peace, 286, 293; salutary changes from the influence of the mission,
+319.
+Montreal, island of, purchased for the site of a religious community,
+195; part of the money given by ladies, 198; consecrated to the Holy
+Family, 201; the enterprise compared with the crusades, 207; first day
+of the settlement, 209; motives of the enterprise, as stated by the
+leaders themselves, 210 note; infancy of the settlement, 261; rise of
+the St. Lawrence checked by a wooden cross, 263; arrival of D'Ailleboust
+and others, 264; pilgrimages, 267; hospital built, 266; Indians fed,
+268; attacks by the Iroquois, 269 seq.; sally of the French, 273;
+condition of Montreal in 1651, 333.
+Moon, the, worshipped, lxxvi.
+Morgan, Lewis H., his account of the Iroquois, liv note.
+Murder atoned for by presents, lxi, lxii, 354; a grand ceremony of this
+sort, 355 seq.
+
+
+N.
+
+Nanabush. See Manabozho.
+Nation of the Bear, liii.
+Nation of Fire, an Algonquin people, attacked by the Neutral Nation,
+436.
+Neutral Nation, their country, xx, xliv, 142; their cruelty and
+licentiousness, xlv; representations made to them respecting the French,
+xlvi note; a ferocious people, 143; their excessive superstition, ib.; a
+mission among them attempted, 142; but in vain, 146; kindness of a
+Neutral woman, ib.; destroy a large town of the Nation of Fire, 436;
+their ferocious cruelty, ib. note; themselves exterminated by the
+Iroquois, 437.
+New England, Indians in, xxi; a Jesuit's impressions of, 328.
+Niagara, called the River of the Neutrals, xliv; described by the
+Jesuits, 143 note.
+Nicollet, Jean, visits Green Bay in 1639, 166.
+Nipissings, xxiv.
+Notre-Dame des Anges, at Quebec, 5, 155; Notre-Dame de Montreal, 193.
+
+
+O.
+
+Ochateguins. See Hurons.
+Ojibwas, how differing in language from Algonquins, xx; visited by
+Jogues, 213.
+Okies, or Otkons, objects of worship among the Iroquois, lxix.
+Olier, Jean Jacques, Abb�, suspected of Jansenism, 189; has a
+revelation, 190; meets Dauversi�re, 192; their schemes, ib.
+Oneidas, or Onneyut, one of the Five Nations, xlviii note, liv. See
+Iroquois.
+Onondagas, or Onnontagu�, one of the Five Nations, xlviii note, liv (see
+Iroquois); their inroad on the Hurons, 343; their jealousy of the
+Mohawks, 344; their embassy to the Hurons, 345; suicide of the
+ambassador, 347.
+Ononkwaya, an Oneida chief, a prisoner to the Hurons, 338; his
+marvellous fortitude under torture, 339.
+Onontio, Great Mountain, name given to the Governor of Canada among the
+Iroquois, and why, 283.
+Ontitarac, a Huron chief, his speech, 119.
+Orators of the Iroquois, lx.
+Ossossan�, chief town of the Hurons, 74; great Huron cemetery there, 75;
+mission established there, 110, 129; abandoned, 139.
+Ouendats, or Wyandots. See Hurons.
+
+
+P.
+
+Parker, Ely S., an educated Iroquois, liv note.
+Passionists, convent of, a singular incident there, 108 note.
+Peace concluded between the French and Iroquois, 284-295; defects of the
+treaty, 296; the peace broken and why, 302.
+Peltrie, de la, Madame, her birth, 168; her girlhood, 169; a widow, ib.;
+religious schemes, 170; resolves to go to Canada, ib.; her sham
+marriage, 172; visits the Ursuline Convent at Tours, 173; results of
+that visit, 174; embarks for Canada, 181; perilous voyage, 182; her
+character, 186; thirst for admiration, 187; leaves the Ursulines and
+joins the Colony of Montreal, 206, 261; receives the sacrament on the
+top of the mountain, 264; at Quebec, 334.
+Penobscot, a station on it of Capuchin friars, 322.
+Pestilence among the Hurons, 87; its supposed origin, 94.
+Persecution of the Jesuits, 116 seq.
+Pictures requested for the mission, 133; of souls in perdition, many,
+ib.; of souls in bliss, one, ib.; how to be colored, ib.; Le Jeune
+describes the pictures of Hell which he wants, 163.
+Picture-writing by the Indians, 243.
+Pierre, an Algonquin, 17; teacher of Le Jeune, 18; runs away, 21;
+returns, 22; frantic from strong drink, 24; repents and assists Le
+Jeune, 38; another of this name, a converted Huron, 122.
+Pijart, Pierre, joins the mission, 85; his clandestine baptisms, 96, 97;
+establishes a mission at Ossossan�, 110.
+Piskaret, an Algonquin brave, 278; his exploits, 279; his successes
+against the Iroquois, 281; assists in a treaty of peace, 291; murdered
+by Mohawks, 308.
+Poncet, father, his pilgrimage to Loretto, 104; embarks for Canada, 181;
+his peril, 126.
+Price of a man's life, lxii; of a woman's, ib.
+Prisoners, cruel treatment of, xxxix, xlv, 80, 216 seq., 248 seq., 253,
+277, 339, 388 seq., 436 note, 439, 441 note.
+Processions, religious, at Quebec, 161.
+
+
+Q.
+
+Quatogies. See Hurons.
+Qualifications for success in an Indian mission, 134 note.
+Quebec in 1634, 1; its first settler, 3; condition in 1640, 154; its
+aspect half military, half monastic, 158; its very amusements acts of
+religion, 160; state of things in 1651, 331; New-Year's Day, 1646, 334.
+
+
+R.
+Ragueneau, Paul, missionary among the Hurons, 123, 124, 126; relates
+proceedings of a council held respecting a murder, 355; Father Superior,
+370.
+Raymbault, Charles, enters Lake Superior with Jogues, 213.
+Religion and superstitions of the Indians, lxvii et seq.; worship of
+material objects, inanimate no less than animate, ib.; the Indians
+attribute their origin to beasts, birds, and reptiles, lxviii; all
+nature full of objects of religious fear and dread, lxxxiv; sacrifices,
+lxxxvi.
+Remarkable instance of Indian forgiveness, 319.
+Rome, Church of, her strange contradictions, 84; self-denial of her
+missionaries, ib.
+
+
+S.
+
+Sacrifice, a human, by fire, witnessed by a missionary, 80 seq.
+Sacrifices of the Indians, lxxxv, lxxxvi note.
+St. Bernard, Marie de, a nun at Tours, 174; embarks for Canada, 181.
+St. Ignace, town, taken by the Iroquois, 380; furious battle with the
+Hurons, 384; the town and its inhabitants destroyed by fire, 385;
+vestiges still remaining, ib. note.
+St. Jean, town in the Tobacco Nation, attacked by the Iroquois, 405;
+destroyed by fire, 406.
+St. Joseph, a town in the Huron country, 137, 374; surprised by the
+Iroquois, 375; and destroyed, 377; another station of this name on an
+island, 395; the Huron refugees repair thither, 399; their extreme
+misery, ib.; famine, 400.
+St. Louis, town in the Huron country, attacked, 380; severe struggle,
+381; destroyed by the Iroquois, ib.
+Ste. Marie, in the Huron country, a mission established there, 139; the
+place described, 362 seq.; a bountiful hospitality exercised towards the
+converts and others, 367; alarm and anxiety at the Iroquois invasion,
+382; the station abandoned, 394; stripped of all valuables, and set on
+fire, 396.
+Schoolcraft, Henry R., his Notes on the Iroquois, liv note; his
+mistakes, lxxviii, lxxx; his collection of Algonquin tales, lxxxviii;
+his unsatisfactory speculations about Huron graves, 71.
+Seminary, Huron, at Quebec, 167.
+Senecas, one of the Five Nations, xlviii note, liv. See Iroquois.
+Sepulture among the Hurons, lxxxi, 71 seq.
+Sillery, No�l Brulart de, becomes a priest, 182; founds the settlement
+which bears his name, 183.
+Sioux punish adultery, xxxiv; harass the Hurons, 425.
+Sorcerer, a dwarfish, deformed one, troubles the Jesuits, 91; his
+account of his origin, 92; sorcerers, several, in time of mortal
+sickness, 93.
+Sorcery, as practised among the Indians, lxxxiv, 32-38.
+Speech-making, Indian, 287, 292-294.
+Sun worshipped, lxxvi.
+Supernaturalism of the Jesuits, 106; supposed efficacy of relics and
+prayers to relieve pain and cure disease, 107; conversions effected in
+this manner, 108; such views still entertained, as illustrated in a
+curious incident, ib.
+Superstitions of the Indians, lxvii seq., 68.
+Superstitious terrors, lxxxiv, 115, 141.
+Susquehannocks. See Andastes.
+Swedish colonists on the Delaware assist the Andastes, 442.
+
+
+T.
+
+Tarenyowagon, a powerful deity, lxxvii.
+Tarratines, the Abenaquis so called, xxii note.
+Tattooing practised, xxxiii; a severe process, ib.
+Teanaustay�, 137. See St. Joseph.
+Tessouat, or Le Borgne, converted, 268.
+Tionnontates. See Tobacco Nation.
+Tobacco Nation, or Tionnontates, in league with the Hurons, xliii;
+raised tobacco, 47; mission among them, 140; reception of the
+missionaries, 141; perils of the missionaries, 142; some of the Hurons
+seek an asylum there, 393, 404.
+Tobacco, none in Heaven, a sad thought to the Indian, 136.
+Totems, emblems of clans, li, lxviii, 375.
+Trade in furs, xlv, 47, 155.
+Traffic of the Indians, how conducted, xxxvi.
+Treatment of women, xxxiv, xxxv; of prisoners, xxxix, xlv, 80, 216 seq.,
+248 seq., 253, 254, 277, 339, 388, 439, 441 note.
+Tuscaroras, in Carolina, xxi; unite with the Five Nations, xxi, lxvi.
+
+
+U.
+
+Unchastity of the Indians, xxxiv note, xlv.
+Ursulines at Tours, 173; at Quebec, their labors, 184; their
+instructions, 185.
+
+
+V.
+
+Villemarie de Montreal, a three-fold religious establishment, 201, 261.
+Vimont, father, embarks for Canada, 181; makes a vow to Saint Joseph,
+182; visits Montreal, 208; Superior of the Canadian Mission, 286;
+assists in a treaty of peace, 292.
+Visions and visitations from Heaven and from Hell frequent occurrences
+in the lives of the missionaries, 108; the subject illustrated by a
+curious incident, ib. note.
+
+
+W.
+
+Wampum, its material and uses, xxxi; served the purpose of records,
+xxxii, lxi.
+War-dance, often practised for amusement, xxxix.
+Wigwam, how built, xxvii; inconveniences in one, 27, 28.
+Winnebagoes, their residence when first known to Europeans, xx; known to
+the Jesuits in 1648, 368.
+Winslow, John, kindly receives the Jesuit Druilletes at Augusta, 322,
+325; his name in the Relations, how spelled, 323 note.
+Winter in Canada, 18, 26, 28.
+Witchcraft, proceedings in case of, lxiii.
+Women, their condition, xxxiii, xxxiv, xxxv, xiv.
+Wyandots, a remnant of the Hurons, xxiv, 426. See Hurons.
+
+
+The End.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Francis Parkman
+
+
+France and England in North America
+
+1.  Pioneers of France in the New World (1865, 1885)
+2.  The Jesuits in North America in the seventeenth century (1867)
+3.  The Discovery of the West (1869)
+    La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West (1879)
+4.  The Old R�gime in Canada (1874, 1894)
+5.  Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV. (1877)
+6.  A Half Century of Conflict (1892)
+    Volume 1
+    Volume 2
+7.  Montcalm and Wolfe (1884)
+
+The year that each book was published is printed and enclosed by
+parenthesis after the title of each volume. In some cases, there are two
+years in parenthesis. These indicate that a volume with major revisions
+was published.
+
+The revised version of Pioneers of France contains new descriptions of
+Florida and some changes to the section on Samuel Champlain. Parkman
+revised Discovery of the West after obtaining access to Margry's
+collection. The revised version of The Old R�gime includes three new
+chapters regarding La Tour and D'Aunay.
+
+Volume 3 was not only revised, but the title was altered. Parkman first
+released Volume 3 as The Discovery of the West. His updated version of
+Volume 3 was entitled La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West.
+
+Other Principal Works
+
+�  The Oregon Trail (1849)
+�  The Conspiracy of Pontiac (1851)
+
+
+Appendix
+
+
+Transcription notes:
+
+This book was originally transcribed from Volume 20. While making a
+batch of corrections, a decision was made to base this etext on Volume 1
+for three reasons: 1) Parkman's subsequent revisions were virtually
+insignificant; 2) Volume 1, released in 1867, is available at the New
+York Public Library through Hathitrust, and thus, can readily be
+consulted for future claims of errata, and 3) In the Notes on the Texts
+prepared for the The Library of America reprint (1983), David Levin
+opined that using Volume 1 for this title was the best choice to
+approximate Parkman's own conception of France and England in North
+America.
+
+In resolving errors and questions that came up during transcription,
+Parkman's Seventh volume of The Jesuits in North America from 1872 was
+consulted (from the Library of Congress, available through Hathitrust),
+as well as the aforementioned The Library of America edition of this
+work. When these notes refer to a mistake in all the volumes, they refer
+to Volumes 1, 7, and 20. These volumes were produced during Parkman's
+lifetime, and assume that changes met with Parkman's approval.
+
+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.
+
+The footnotes have been produced using the Project Gutenberg� standard.
+Footnotes follow the paragraph in which they were mentioned. Footnotes
+have been set in smaller print and have larger margins than regular
+text. Footnotes are numbered sequentially and the numbers are reset
+after each change in chapter. There are a total of 548 footnotes in this
+book. Please note that we have made no emendations to the content of
+footnotes to preserve the antiquated orthography and accentuation of the
+contents.
+
+This text generally preserved the italicization of words, phrases, and
+the titles of references which are presented in italics in the printed
+book. The standard of the book is to use italics when citing Relations,
+1650; and not to use them when writing Relations of 1650. There were
+some cases that did not observe the standard: they were treated as
+errata, and changed. Small capitalization has also been retained--used
+primarily for the first word of each chapter.
+
+Detailed notes describe problems or issues in transcribing a specific
+portion of the text: the reconciliation of variances between the topics
+list in the contents and the topics list preceeding each chapter; other
+modifications applied while transcribing the printed book to an e-text;
+emendations; and other issues in transcribing the text.
+
+You will see changed text underlined by dotted silver lines. In some
+versions (like the HTML version) of this document, you can hover your
+cursor over the changed text and see details in a small box. Those
+details are repeated, and sometimes elaborated upon, in the Detailed
+Notes Section of this Appendix.
+
+
+Detailed Notes Section:
+
+
+Contents
+
+� Chapter 5: Capitalize Thwarted and Begun in the topics list.
+� Chapter 16: Capitalize Tortured in the topics list.
+� Chapter 19: Capitalize Confirmed in the topics list.
+� Chapter 26: Capitalize Destroyed in the topics list.
+
+
+Introduction:
+
+� Page xix, add Indian before "Social and Political Organization" to
+match topics list in Table of Contents.
+� Page xxxv, in footnote 0-18, the word "come" is printed with a
+straight line over the "o," not only in Volume 1, but also in Volume 7.
+The Library of America version of the book assumes that the line
+resulted from an imperfection in the plates. The assumption is not only
+reasonable but practical, and it is adopted here, too.
+� Page xlviii, place period after the clause "which they had so promptly
+assented" This period was also missing in Volume 7.
+� On Page li, Parkman added the qualifier "in most cases" to the clause
+"The child belongs to the clan," in the eighth volume of this title. The
+new clause is, "The child belongs, in most cases, to the clan,"
+� On Page lii, Parkman used the less precise "usually belonging to it"
+instead of "inseparable from it" in the eighth volume of this title. The
+new sentence reads, "This system of clanship, with the rule of descent
+usually belonging to it, was of very wide prevalence."
+� On Page lxv, Un doubtedly is not hyphenated and split between two
+lines as if two words, not just in Volume 1, but in Volume 7. There
+should have been a hyphen after Un-. The clause was transcribed:
+"Undoubtedly there was a distinct and definite effort of legislation;"
+
+
+Chapter 3:
+
+� Changed "Mission-house" to "Mission-House" in topics list beginning
+Chapter 3 to match topics list for Chapter 3 in the Contents.
+� Page 18: footnote 3-3 does not end the last sentence with a period:
+"et sa bont� n'a point de limites" The period was also missing in Volume
+7. We did not make an emendation because of Parkman's statement in the
+Preface.
+� Page 21: add period to end the sentence with the clause "sorcerer, in
+the tribe of the Montagnais" The period was added in Volume 7.
+
+
+Chapter 4:
+
+� Page 24: In footnote 4-1, add beginning quote before Iamais: "Iamais
+il ne fut ..."
+� Page 26: In footnote 4-2, text is missing a period after ceinture, in
+all volumes. This was not changed, as it was in the footnote.
+� Page 30-Page 31: Confirmed the spelling of "fume�" and "fum�e;" in
+footnote 4-5.
+� Page 31: Confirmed the spelling of "mais" in footnote 4-6.
+� Page 31: Confirmed the apostrophe in "qu'�" in footnote 4-6.
+� Page 33: In footnote 4-8: the correct word is "laisse," but "laiss"
+remains unchanged in accordance with Parkman's statement in the preface.
+� Page 37: footnote 4-11 in Volume 1 refers back to no page number in
+the introduction. Volume 7 & Volume 20 have the page number xliv. We
+replaced the blank space for the page number left in volume 1 with the
+page number specified in later volumes.
+
+
+Chapter 6:
+
+� On Page 62, Footnote 6-4 was not marked clearly in the original book
+used for transcription. The footnote appeared fine in Volume 1, and is
+rendered appropriately.
+
+
+Chapter 7:
+
+� Page 76, Footnote 7-5 contains the word "Atsatone8ai". The "spelling
+is correct." See The Old Regime in Canada for similar usage, such as
+"8ta8aks."
+
+
+Chapter 8:
+
+� Page 85, confirmed the spelling of "i'auo�e" and the phrase "qui ne
+cherche que Dieu," which were unclear in footnote 8-1 from the book
+originally used for transcription.
+� Page 87: small-pox is hyphenated and split between two lines for
+spacing. There are two other occurrences of the word, and the hyphen was
+used, so the hyphen was retained here, too.
+
+
+Chapter 9:
+
+� Page 105, Change gain to again in the clause "the offending limb
+became sound again." The text was incorrect in Volume 1, and corrected
+in Volume 7.
+
+
+Chapter 12:
+
+� Page 147: By volume 7, Parkman broke this long, compound sentence into
+two not-quite-as-long sentences. The colon before "or" was changed to a
+period, and Or began the next sentence: "... between him and the home of
+his boyhood. Or rather ..."
+
+
+Chapter 13:
+
+� Page 157: Near the end of the page, precarious is split between two
+lines without a hyphen. "All these were supported by a charity in most
+cases precari ous." The hyphen was missing, and the word was split for
+spacing. We transcribed the word without the hyphen, but omitted the
+space. This error was found in all volumes.
+
+
+Chapter 14:
+
+� Page 171-Page 172: In footnote 14-5, add quotation mark before Enfin.
+The leading quotation mark was missing in all volumes.
+� Page 175: See the sentence "Like Madame de la Peltrie, she married, at
+the desire of her parents. in her eighteenth year." The comma after
+parents was either malformed because of the quality of the plates, or
+mistyped as a period. We used a comma after parents. In volume 7, the
+punctuation mark after parents was visibly a comma.
+
+
+Chapter 15:
+
+� Changed Bourgeois in topics list of Chapter 15 to Bourgeoys. Not only
+does the correction match the spelling in the topics list for Chapter 15
+in the contents, but it matches the spelling of Marguerite Bourgeoys in
+seven other instances of Chapter XV. In no other instance in this book
+was her name spelled differently.
+� Page 195--Confirmed that year in footnote 15-8 is 1659.
+
+
+Chapter 16:
+
+� Page 237: By volume 7, the narrative describing the return of Jogues
+says "He reached the church in time for the early mass..." instead of
+the evening mass.
+
+
+Chapter 18:
+
+� Page 263: poorly printed word in footnote, appears to be "de."
+Footnote 18-3 has two uses of de in italics, and both appear clearly in
+Volume 1. We believe this issue is resolved.
+
+
+Chapter 19:
+
+� Page 281: fixed typo ("die", should be "dine"). Volume 7 also has the
+phrase "We must die before we run." This typo does not fall under
+Parkman's caveat in the Preface, and could confuse if preserved.
+Therefore, the spelling was corrected.
+� Page 281: Add missing comma after effect in the clause "and fired with
+such good effect, that, of seven warriors, all but one were killed."
+This comma was added by Volume 7.
+
+
+Chapter 22:
+
+� In Volume 1, Parkman cited page 166 in Hutchinson, Collection of
+Papers in Footnote 22-18, but changed the page number to 240 in later
+volumes.
+� Page 333: fixed typo ("Govornor"), spelled incorrectly in all volumes.
+
+
+Chapter 25:
+
+� Page 364: footnote 25-10, add missing close-quotes after c�ur.
+� Page 368: In footnote 25-18, add comma after Algonquin. There is a
+space reserved for the comma but it didn't appear in the text: "Besides
+these tribes, the Jesuits had become more or less acquainted with many
+others, also Algonquin  on the west and south of Lake Huron;" The comma
+was missing in all volumes.
+� Page 371: A colon appears at the end of the page, after "at least in
+the flesh:"
+� Page 372: In footnote 25-20, apr�s is correctly spelled with a grave
+accent, but the text had an acute accent, and this was preserved in
+accordance with Parkman's statement in the preface.
+� In footnote 25-20, verified the colon (":") after "dit-il" in the
+final paragraph. In three quotations that follow, we changed the double
+quotes to single quotes, because they were quotations embedded within a
+quotation.
+
+
+Chapter 28:
+
+� Changed "unconquerable" to "Unconquerable" in topics list beginning
+Chapter XXVIII to match topics list for Chapter 28 in the Contents.
+
+
+Chapter 29:
+
+� Page 397, footnote 29-4, add missing close-quotes after c�ur. Parkman
+put the quotes around the extract from the letter, but just omitted the
+closing quote after c�ur. This mistake does not come under the caveat of
+Parkman stated in the Preface, so we made the change. This error can be
+found in all volumes.
+� Page 401, footnote 29-10, add comma after Ragueneau in reference
+"Ragueneau Relation des Hurons, 1650." This comma is missing in all
+volumes.
+
+
+Chapter 30:
+
+� Page 407: "m�itre" (which should be ma�tre) is preserved with the
+wrong character circumflexed in the second paragraph of footnote 30-4,
+for reasons described in Parkman's Preface.
+
+
+Chapter 31:
+
+� Page 412: "neges" in footnote 31-2 should be "neiges," but it is part
+of quoted text from the Relations, so the spelling has been preserved.
+� Page 418-Page 419: war-party is split between the pages, and
+hyphenated, so the transcription can only be war-party or warparty. We
+chose the former.
+
+
+Chapter 32:
+
+� Page 426: By volume 7, Parkman described neighboring Point St. Ignace,
+"now Graham's Point, on the north side of the strait."
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE JESUITS IN NORTH AMERICA ***
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Jesuits in North America in the
+Seventeenth Century, by Francis Parkman #2 in the series France and
+England in North America.
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost
+no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
+under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
+eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+Title: The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century
+Volume 2 of the France and England in North America series
+Author: Francis Parkman
+Release Date: November, 2004 [EBook #6933]
+Updated: October 28, 2016.
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+This etext was produced by Ken Reeder.
+Thanks to Cyrille Héloir for French proofreading.
+Transcription notes are included as an appendix.
+Text corrections, formatting modifications, and index by Robert Homa.
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE JESUITS IN NORTH AMERICA
+***
+
+The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century
+by Francis Parkman
+
+
+France and England
+in North America
+
+A Series
+of Historical Narratives
+
+Part Second
+
+BOSTON:
+LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY.
+1867.
+
+Entered According to Act of Congress, in the year 1867, by
+Francis Parkman,
+In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of
+Massachusetts.
+
+CAMBRIDGE:
+STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY JOHN WILSON AND SON.
+
+
+
+
+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. [1]
+
+[1] 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
+
+The Jesuits in North America
+
+PREFACE.
+
+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 • Indian
+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 Bourgeoys • 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
+
+INDEX.
+APPENDIX.
+
+
+
+
+
+The Jesuits in North America
+in the Seventeenth Century
+
+by Francis Parkman
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+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 • Indian
+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-ground of Kentucky. [1]
+
+[1] 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. [2]
+
+[2] 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 1715 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.
+[3]
+
+[3] 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. 34.
+
+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. [4]
+
+[4] 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. [5]
+
+[5] 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. [6]
+
+[6] Lalemant, Relation des Hurons, 1640, 38 (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. [7] 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. [8] 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. [9] 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. [10]
+
+[7] 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."
+
+[8] 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!
+
+[9] 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.
+
+[10] 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, Mœurs 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. [11]
+
+[11] 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. [12] 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. [13] 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. [14] 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.
+
+[12] 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."
+[13] Beaver-skins and other valuable furs were sometimes, on such
+occasions, used as a substitute.
+[14] 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.
+
+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. [15] 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. [16] When of such extent, the process was very
+severe; and though no murmur escaped the sufferer, he sometimes died
+from its effects.
+
+[15] See Le Jeune, Relation, 1633, 35.--"Quelles hures!" exclaimed some
+astonished Frenchman. Hence the name, Hurons.
+[16] Bressani, Relation Abrégée, 72.--Champlain has a picture of a
+warrior thus tattooed.
+
+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. [17] 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. [18] 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.
+
+[17] 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.
+[18] "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, les
+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. [19] 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. [20] 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.
+
+[19] Champlain (1627), 84.
+[20] Brébeuf, Relation des Hurons, 1636, 156 (Cramoisy).
+
+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. [21] Ludicrous as it may
+appear, these games were often medical prescriptions, and designed as a
+cure of the sick.
+
+[21] 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.
+
+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. [22] 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.
+
+[22] Brébeuf, Relation des Hurons, 1636, 111.
+
+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. [23]
+These festins à manger tout were much dreaded by many of the Hurons,
+who, however, were never known to decline them.
+
+[23] 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.
+
+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. [24] 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.
+
+[24] 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. [25] This was the only form of cannibalism
+among them, since, unlike the wandering Algonquins, they were rarely
+under the desperation of extreme famine.
+
+[25] "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. [26]
+
+[26] 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. [27] 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.
+
+[27] 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.
+[28] 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.
+
+[28] "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. [29]
+
+[29] "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.
+[30] 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. [31] 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. [32]
+
+[30] Synonymes: Tionnontates, Etionontates, Tuinontatek, Dionondadies,
+Khionontaterrhonons, Petuneux or Nation du Petun (Tobacco).
+[31] "L'ame de tous les Conseils."--Charlevoix, Voyage, 199.--In 1763
+they were Pontiac's best warriors.
+[32] 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. [33] 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. [34] 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. [35] They burned female prisoners, a
+practice unknown to the Hurons. [36] 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.
+
+[33] Attiwandarons, Attiwendaronk, Atirhagenrenrets, Rhagenratka (Jesuit
+Relations), Attionidarons (Sagard). They, and not the Eries, were the
+Kahkwas of Seneca tradition.
+[34] 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.
+[35] Lettre du Père La Roche Dallion, 8 Juillet, 1627, in Le Clerc,
+Établissement de la Foy, I. 346.
+[36] Women were often burned by the Iroquois: witness the case of
+Catherine Mercier in 1651, and many cases of Indian women mentioned by
+the early writers.
+
+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. [37]
+
+[37] 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. [38] They were noted warriors, fought with
+poisoned arrows, and were long a terror to the neighboring Iroquois.
+[39]
+
+[38] Ragueneau, Relation des Hurons, 1648, 46.
+[39] 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. [40]
+
+[40] 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. [41]
+
+[41] 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. [42] 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. [43]
+
+[42] 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.
+[43] 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 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. [44]
+
+[44] "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 sœurs, 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 inseparable from 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. [45]
+
+[45] 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. [46]
+
+[46] 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, Mœurs des Sauvages Ameriquains comparées aux Mœurs
+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.
+[47] 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.
+
+[47] 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. [48] 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.
+
+[48] Lafitau, I. 471.
+
+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." [49]
+
+[49] 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." [50]
+
+[50] 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. [51] 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. [52]
+
+[51] Lafitau, I. 479.
+[52] 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."--Mœurs 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. [53] 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. [54] 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. [55]
+
+[53] 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.
+[54] Ragueneau, Relation des Hurons, 1648, 80.
+[55] 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. [56]
+
+[56] 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 even long before, a vast proportion of their population
+consisted of adopted prisoners. [57]
+
+[57] 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. [58]
+
+[58] 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 Mœurs, 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. [59] 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. [60]
+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. [61] 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. [62]
+
+[59] 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.
+[60] This superstition was very prevalent, and numerous examples of it
+occur in old and recent writers, from Father Le Jeune to Captain Carver.
+[61] 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.
+[62] 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. [63] 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.
+[64] 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.
+
+[63] 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.
+[64] 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.
+
+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. [65]
+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. [66] 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.
+
+[65] 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.
+[66] 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. [67] 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." [68] 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. [69]
+
+[67] 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.
+[68] "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.
+[69] 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. [70] Other
+stories represent him as marrying a female musk-rat, by whom he became
+the progenitor of the human race. [71]
+
+[70] 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.
+[71] 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;
+[72] 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. [73] 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.
+
+[72] Le Jeune, Relation, 1633, 16; Relation, 1634, 13.
+[73] 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.
+[74]
+
+[74] 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.
+[75]
+
+[75] 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. [76]
+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, [77] 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. [78]
+
+[76] 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, 5 Aug., 1643.
+[77] 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.
+[78] 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. [79]
+
+[79] 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."
+[80] 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. [81]
+
+[80] See "Divers Sentimens," appended to the Relation of 1635, § 27; and
+also many other passages of early missionaries.
+[81] 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, [82] 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.
+
+[82] 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." [83]
+
+[83] 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. [84] 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.
+[85] 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.
+
+[84] The practice of burying treasures with the dead is not peculiar to
+the North American aborigines. Thus, the London Times of Oct. 28, 1865,
+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."
+[85] Brébeuf, Relation des Hurons, 1636, 99 (Cramoisy).
+
+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. [86]
+
+[86] 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. [87]
+
+[87] 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. [88]
+
+[88] 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. [89]
+
+[89] 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. [90]
+
+[90] 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.
+
+
+
+
+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. [1] 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, [2] 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] Compare the various notices in Champlain (1632) with that of Du
+Creux, Historia Canadensis, 204.
+[2] 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.
+[3] 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. [4] 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. [5]
+
+[3] 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.
+[4] 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.
+[5] 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.
+[6] 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.
+[7] 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. [8] 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.
+
+[6] See "Pioneers of France in the New World."
+[7] "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."
+[8] The methodical Le Jeune sets down the causes of their discontent
+under six different heads, each duly numbered. Thus:--
+"1º. C'est le naturel des artisans de se plaindre et de gronder."
+"2º. 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. [1]
+
+[1] 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. [1]
+
+[1] "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. [2]
+
+[2] 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." [3]
+
+[3] 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. [4]
+
+[4] 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. [5]
+
+[5] "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, Ave, 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. [6]
+
+[6] "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. [7] 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." [8]
+
+[7] See "Pioneers of France."
+[8] 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."
+
+[1] "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, bales 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. [2] 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.
+
+[2] "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. [3] 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, [4] 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. [5]
+
+[3] "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'œil."--Relation, 1634, 56.
+[4] See "Pioneers of France," 268.
+[5] 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 fumeé & 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.
+[6] 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.
+
+[6] "Leur vie se passe à manger, à rire, 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. [7] 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.
+
+[7] "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." [8]
+
+[8] "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 laiss 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 que 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 vœu 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. [9]
+
+[9] "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. [10]
+
+[10] 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. [11]
+
+[11] The Indians, it is well known, ascribe mysterious and supernatural
+powers to the insane, and respect them accordingly. The Neutral Nation
+(see Introduction, (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." [12] But the
+Indian, though pleased with the Father's flatteries, was neither caught
+nor conciliated.
+
+[12] "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." [13]
+
+[13] "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. [1] 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.
+
+[1] "Une des principales forteresses & comme un donjon des
+Demons."--Lalemant, Relation des Hurons, 1639, 100 (Cramoisy).
+
+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. [2]
+Iroquois hostility left open but one avenue to their country, the long
+and circuitous route which, eighteen years before, had been explored by
+Champlain, [3]--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. [4] 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, [5] 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.
+
+[2] See Introduction.
+[3] "Pioneers of France," 364.
+[4] Ibid., 348.
+[5] 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, [6]--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.
+
+[6] "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. [7]
+
+[7] "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. [8]
+
+[8] 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." [9]
+
+[9] 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." [10] The mission was not doomed long to suffer from a
+dearth of these inestimable auxiliaries.
+
+[10] Relation, 1633, 38.
+
+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. [11] 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.
+
+[11] "Adioustez à ces difficultez, qu'il faut coucher sur la terre nuë,
+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. [12] 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.
+
+[12] "En ce voyage, il nous a fallu tous commencer par ces experiences à
+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; [13]
+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. [14] 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. [15] 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.
+
+[13] 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.
+[14] Concerning Brulé, see "Pioneers of France," 377-380.
+[15] "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. [1] 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.
+
+[1] See Introduction.
+
+There was no lack of visitors, for the house of the black-robes
+contained marvels [2] 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." [3]
+
+[2] "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.
+[3] 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. [4]
+
+[4] 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. [5]
+
+[5] 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. [6]
+
+[6] 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." [7]
+
+[7] "Le seiziesme du mesme mois, deux petits Sauvages furent changez 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." [8] 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. [9] 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."
+
+[8] Relation des Hurons, 1636, 116.
+[9] "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. [10]
+
+[10] 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. [11] 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.
+
+[11] 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
+is 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."
+[12]
+
+[12] "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. [13] 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.
+
+[13] Brébeuf preserves a speech made to him by one of these chiefs, as a
+specimen of Huron eloquence.--Relation des Hurons, 1636, 123.
+
+
+
+
+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. [1] They have
+been a theme of abundant speculation; [2] 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] See Introduction.
+[2] 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; [3] 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.
+
+[3] 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. [4] 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.
+
+[4] 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.
+
+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.
+[5] 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.
+
+[5] "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, [6] 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. [7] 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. [8] 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. [9]
+
+[6] 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.
+[7] "Iamais rien ne 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.
+[8] "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).
+[9] "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. [10] 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."
+
+[10] 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.
+
+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. [11] 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. [12]
+
+[11] 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.
+[12] 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. [1]
+
+[1] 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 cœur, 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
+cœur: 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,
+je 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 cœur selon le cœur 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. [2] 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.
+
+[2] "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 cœur 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.
+[3] 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.
+
+[3] Lettre de Brébeuf au T. R. P. Mutio Vitelleschi, 20 Mai, 1637, in
+Carayon, 157. Le Mercier, Relation des Hurons, 1637, 120, 123.
+
+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.
+[4] 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." [5] 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." [6]
+
+[4] 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.
+[5] 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.
+[6] 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; [7] 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:--
+
+[7] Brébeuf, Relation des Hurons, 1636, 89. Another woman was delivered
+on touching a relic of St. Ignatius. Ibid., 90.
+
+"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." [8]
+
+[8] 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!" [9]
+
+[9] 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. [10] 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.
+
+[10] Le Mercier, Relation des Hurons, 1637, 72 (Cramoisy). This "petit
+sorcier" is often mentioned elsewhere.
+
+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. [11] 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. [12] 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. [13]
+
+[11] See Introduction.
+[12] "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.
+[13] 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, [14] 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.
+
+[14] 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. [15]
+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.
+
+[15] 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. [16]
+
+[16] "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" [17] 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, [18] 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.
+
+[17] 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.
+[18] "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." [19]
+
+[19] 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. [1] 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. [2]
+
+[1] "C'est pourquoi j'ai bien gagne à quitter la France, où vous me
+fesiez la guerre de n'avoir point de barbe; car c'est ce qui me fait
+estimer beau des Sauvages."--Lettres de Garnier, MSS.
+[2] 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. [3]
+
+[3] "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. [4] 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.
+
+[4] 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. [5] 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.
+
+[5] "Je me recommandai à elle en lui promettant de la faire connoître
+dans toutes les occasions que j'en aurois jamais, si elle m'obtenoit de
+Dieu ma guérison."--Chaumonot, Vie, 46.
+
+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. [6]
+
+[6] 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. [7]
+
+[7] 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. [8] And he ascribed to the deceased
+Garnier's influence the mastery of that language which he afterwards
+acquired.
+
+[8] "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. [9]
+
+[9] 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 wild-cats. 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." [10] 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.
+
+[10] 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. [1] 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. [2]
+
+[1] The doctrine of the immaculate conception of the Virgin, recently
+sanctioned by the Pope, has long been a favorite tenet of the Jesuits.
+[2] 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. [3]
+
+[3] "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. [4]
+
+[4] 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 [5] 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.
+
+[5] 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. [6] Whether accepting it or not, let us examine the
+circumstances which gave rise to it.
+
+[6] 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."
+[7]
+
+[7] "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."
+[8] 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.
+
+[8] 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. [9] 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, [10] 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."
+
+[9] Le Mercier, Relation des Hurons, 1638, 38.
+[10] 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." [11]
+
+[11] 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. [12]
+
+[12] 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 meilleurs
+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 Piiart,
+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. [13]
+
+[13] "Tant y a que depuis le 6. de Nouembre que nous acheuasmes nos
+Messes votiues à 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. [14]
+
+[14] 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."
+[15] 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.
+
+[15] "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. [16] 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.
+
+[16] "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 Du 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. [1] 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. [2]
+
+[1] "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.
+[2] 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 [3] 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.
+
+[3] 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, [4] who had built, before
+the close of the year, a chapel of wood. [5] Hither they removed their
+pictures and ornaments; and here, in winter, several fires were kept
+burning, for the comfort of the half-naked converts. [6] 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. [7]
+
+[4] Du Peron in Carayon, 173.
+[5] "La chapelle est faite d'une charpente bien jolie, semblable
+presque, en façon et grandeur, à notre chapelle de St. Julien."--Ibid.,
+183.
+[6] Lalemant, Relation des Hurons, 1639, 62.
+[7] 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.
+[8]
+
+[8] 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. [9] 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." [10]
+
+[9] 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."
+[10] Le Mercier, Relation des Hurons, 1637, 160.
+
+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. [11]
+
+[11] 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. [12] 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. [13]
+
+[12] Lalemant, Relation des Hurons, 1639, 80.
+[13] 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." [14]
+
+[14] 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. [15]
+
+[15] 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. [1] 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.
+
+[1] See Introduction.
+
+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." [2]
+
+[2] 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."
+[3] 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.
+
+[3] Lalemant, Relation des Hurons, 1640, 96.
+
+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. [4] 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.
+
+[4] 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. [5]
+
+[5] See ante, (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." [6]
+
+[6] 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." [7]
+
+[7] 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. [8]
+
+[8] 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. [9]
+
+[9] 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. [1] 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. [2]
+
+[1] 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!"
+[2] 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." [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; [4] how "the Carmelites are all on fire, the Ursulines
+full of zeal, the sisters of the Visitation have no words to speak their
+ardor"; [5] 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. [6]
+
+[3] "C'est Dieu qui conduit cette entreprise. La Nature n'a pas les bras
+assez longs," etc.--Relation, 1636, 3.
+[4] Brébeuf, Relation des Hurons, 1636, 76.
+[5] Le Jeune, Relation, 1636, 6. Compare "Divers Sentimens," appended to
+the Relation of 1635.
+[6] "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. [7] 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.
+
+[7] 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.
+
+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. [8] 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." [9]
+
+[8] "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).
+[9] 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. [10] 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. [11] 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.
+
+[10] Le Clerc, Établissement de la Foy, Chap. XV.
+[11] Le Jeune, Relation, 1636, 153, 154 (Cramoisy).
+
+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. [12] 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.
+
+[12] 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. [13] 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.
+[14] 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. [15] Lauson sent out not a single colonist
+to these vast concessions.
+
+[13] See "Pioneers of France," 399.
+[14] This appears in many early grants of the Company. Thus, in a grant
+to Simon Le Maître, 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.
+[15] 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. [16] Of the origin of the convent, hospital, and
+seminary I shall soon have occasion to speak.
+
+[16] 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." [17] 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. [18] No favorable result followed; and the colony remained
+as before, in a pitiful state of cramping and dwarfing vassalage.
+
+[17] "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.
+[18] 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." [19]
+
+[19] "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. [20] 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. [21] 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. [22]
+
+[20] Relation, 1637, 8. The Relations, as originally published,
+comprised about forty volumes.
+[21] Histoire de la Colonie Française, I. 291, 292.
+[22] 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. [23] 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. [24] 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. [25]
+
+[23] Vimont, Relation, 1640, 6.
+[24] Le Jeune, Relation, 1638, 6.
+[25] 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. [26]
+
+[26] 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. [27]
+"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. [28] 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." [29]
+
+[27] Ibid., 1636, 119, and 1637, 32 (Cramoisy). "La crainte est l'auan
+couriere de la foy dans ces esprits barbares."
+[28] 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."
+[29] "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. [30]
+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. [31]
+
+[30] "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
+
+"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.
+
+[31] 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.
+
+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,
+[32] 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. [33] 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.
+
+[32] "Pioneers of France," 377.
+[33] 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. [1] 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. [2]
+
+[1] "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).
+[2] 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. [3] 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.
+
+[3] 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, [4] 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.
+
+[4] "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, [5] 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. [6] 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.
+
+[5] "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.
+[6] "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. [7] Bernières yielded, and went
+with Madame de la Peltrie to consult "the most eminent divines." [8] 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. [9]
+
+[7] "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.
+[8] "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.
+[9] 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. [10]
+
+[10] 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;
+[11] 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." [12]
+
+[11] 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.
+[12] "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. [13] Two years elapsed before her mind recovered
+its tone, when she soared once more in the seventh heaven of imaginative
+devotion.
+
+[13] Casgrain, 195-197.
+
+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. [14]
+
+[14] 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. [15]
+
+[15] 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. [16] 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.
+
+[16] Juchereau, Histoire de l'Hôtel-Dieu de Québec, 4.
+
+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. [17] 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.
+
+[17] 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.
+[18] 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." [19]
+
+[18] 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.
+[19] "... 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." [20]
+
+[20] Lettre de la Mère Ste Claire à une de ses Sœurs 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. [21] 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. [22]
+
+[21] 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.
+[22] 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. [23] Protestants may see in her a
+Christian heroine, admirable, with all her follies and her faults.
+
+[23] 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. [24]
+
+[24] 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.
+
+Dauversiére and the Voice from Heaven • Abbé Olier • Their Schemes • The
+Society of Notre-Dame de Montreal • Maisonneuve • Devout Ladies •
+Mademoiselle Mance • Marguerite Bourgeoys • 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. [1] 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. [2]
+
+[1] Fancamp in Faillon, Vie de Mlle Mance. Introduction.
+[2] 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.
+[3] Yet Olier's catholicity was past attaintment, and in his horror of
+Jansenists he yielded to the Jesuits alone.
+
+[3] Faillon, Vie de M. Olier, II. 188.
+
+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; [4] 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.
+
+[4] 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 be
+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. [5] 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." [6]
+
+[5] Faillon, Vie de Mlle Mance, Introduction, xxviii. The Abbé Ferland,
+in his Histoire du Canada, passes over the miracles in silence.
+[6] 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. [7]
+
+[7] 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. [8] 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.
+
+[8] 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. [9]
+
+[9] 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 [10]
+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. [11]
+
+[10] Faillon, Vie de Mlle Mance, Introduction, xxxv.
+[11] 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; [12] 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. [13] 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." [14] 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." [15]
+
+[12] Casgrain, Vie de Marie de l'Incarnation, 78.
+[13] Faillon, Vie de Mlle Mance, I. 3.
+[14] Faillon, Vie de Mlle Mance, I. 18. Here again the Abbé Ferland,
+with his usual good sense, tacitly rejects the supernaturalism.
+[15] La Sœur 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, [16] 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, [17]--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.
+
+[16] Dollier de Casson, A.D. 1641-42, MS. Vimont says thirty five.
+[17] Vimont, Relation, 1642, 37. Compare Le Clerc, Établissement de la
+Foy, II. 49.
+
+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. [18]
+
+[18] 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. [19] 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!" [20]
+
+[19] Juchereau, 32; Faillon, Colonie Française, I. 423.
+[20] 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. [21]
+
+[21] 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." [22]
+
+[22] 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
+[23]--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. [24] 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. [25]
+
+[23] La Tour, Mémoire de Laval, Liv. VIII.
+[24] Charlevoix, Vie de Marie de l'Incarnation, 279; Casgrain, Vie de
+Marie de l'Incarnation, 333.
+[25] 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 
+[26]--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. [27] 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. [28] 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. [29]
+
+[26] Dollier de Casson, A.D. 1641-42, MS.
+[27] Le Clerc, II. 50, 51.
+[28] "Pioneers of France," 333. It was the Place Royale of Champlain.
+[29] 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. [30] 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:--
+
+[30] Morin, Annales, MS., cited by Faillon, La Colonie Française, I.
+440; also Dollier de Casson, A.D. 1641-42, MS.
+
+"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." [31]
+
+[31] Dollier de Casson, MS., as above. Vimont, in the Relation of 1642,
+p. 37, 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. [32]
+
+[32] 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'à 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 œuvre 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 plaît de donner à
+quelques âmes dont il se sert pour l'avancement de cette œuvre, 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.
+[1] 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. [2] They were masters of the
+thunderbolts which, in the hands of Champlain, had struck terror into
+their hearts.
+
+[1] See "Pioneers of France," 318.
+[2] 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, [3] 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. [4] 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.
+
+[3] For the date, see Lalemant, Relation des Hurons, 1647, 18.
+[4] Lalemant, Relation des Hurons, 1642, 97.
+
+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. [5]
+
+[5] 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. [6] His
+companion, Couture, was a man of intelligence and vigor, and of a
+character equally disinterested. [7] Both were, like Jogues, in the
+foremost canoes; while the fourth Frenchman was with the unconverted
+Hurons, in the rear.
+
+[6] Jogues, Notice sur René Goupil.
+[7] For an account of him, see Ferland, Notes sur les Registres de N. D.
+de Québec, 83 (1863).
+
+The twelve canoes had reached the western end of the Lake of St. Peter,
+where it is filled with innumerable islands. [8] 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.
+
+[8] Buteux, Narré de le Prise du Père Jogues, MS. This document leaves
+no doubt as to the locality.
+
+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. [9]
+
+[9] 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.
+[10]
+
+[10] 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. [11]
+
+[11] 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. [12] 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.
+
+[12] This practice of forcing prisoners to "run the gauntlet" was by no
+means peculiar to the Iroquois, but was common to many tribes.
+
+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, [13] suffering at each a repetition of
+cruelties, the detail of which would be as monotonous as revolting.
+
+[13] 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.
+[14]
+
+[14] 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. [15]
+
+[15] 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. [16] 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.
+
+[16] 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. [17] 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. [18] 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. [19]
+
+[17] The site of the Phœnix Hotel.--Note by Mr. Shea to Jogues's Novum
+Belgium.
+[18] 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.
+
+[19] 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. [20] 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.
+
+[20] See a French rendering of the letter in Vimont, Relation, 1643, p.
+75.
+
+He spent the night in great agitation, tossed by doubt, and full of
+anxiety lest his self-love should beguile him from his duty. [21] 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.
+
+[21] Buteux, Narré, MS.
+
+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. [22] As he is
+described as one of the principal persons of the colony, it is clear
+that the civilization of Rensselaerswyck was not high.
+
+[22] Buteux, Narré, MS.
+
+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." [23]
+
+[23] 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. [24] 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. [25] 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. [26]
+
+[24] 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.
+[25] Jogues, Novum Belgium.
+[26] 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. [27]
+
+[27] 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. [2] 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.
+
+[2] During his captivity, he wrote, on a beaver-skin, a letter to the
+Dutch in French, Latin, and English.
+
+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. [3] 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, [4] sailed for
+the Richelieu, in a brigantine and two or three open boats.
+
+[3] Faillon, Colonie Française, II. 2; Vimont, Relation, 1642, 2, 44.
+[4] Marie de l'Incarnation, Lettre, Sept. 29, 1642.
+
+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. [5] 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. [6]
+
+[5] 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.
+[6] The Relation of 1642 says three hundred. Jogues, who had been among
+them to his cost, is the better authority.
+
+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. [7] 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.
+
+[7] 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." [8]
+
+[8] Relation, 1644, 3.
+
+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." [9]
+
+[9] 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." [10]
+
+[10] 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. [11] 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.
+
+[11] Vimont, Relation, 1642, 46.
+
+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. [12] 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.
+
+[12] "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. [13]
+
+[13] 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. [14] 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.
+
+[14] Vimont, Relation, 1644, 41.
+
+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." [15]
+
+[15] 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 souffert pendant sa
+captiuité."--Vimont, Relation, 1644, 43.
+
+Then follows a modest narrative of what he 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." [16] 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. [17] 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.
+
+[16] "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.
+[17] "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. [18]
+
+[18] 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, [19] and conspired with their native fierceness
+to form a character of unrelenting cruelty rarely equalled.
+
+[19] 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. [20] 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. [21]
+
+[20] See "Pioneers of France," 393.
+[21] 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. [22]
+
+[22] 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. [1]
+
+[1] 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." [2]
+
+[2] 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. [3]
+
+[3] 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. [4]
+
+[4] 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. [5] 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.
+
+[5] Véritables Motifs, cited by Faillon, I. 453, 454.
+
+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. [6] 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. [7] 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.
+
+[6] Chaulmer, 101; Juchereau, 91.
+[7] 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. [8] 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. [9] 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. [10] 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.
+
+[8] Archives du Séminaire de Villemarie, cited by Faillon, I. 466. The
+amount of the gift was not declared until the next year.
+[9] 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.
+[10] 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. [11] 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. [12] 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. [13] 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. [14]
+
+[11] Morin, Annales de l'Hôtel-Dieu de St. Joseph, MS., cited by
+Faillon, I. 457.
+[12] Marguerite Bourgeoys, Écrits Autographes, MS., extracts in Faillon,
+I. 458.
+[13] 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.
+[14] 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. [15] 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.
+
+[15] Dollier de Casson, MS.
+
+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. [16]
+
+[16] 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 scent, 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." [17]
+
+[17] 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?" [18]
+
+[18] 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, [19] 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.
+
+[19] 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. [20]
+
+[20] 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. [1]
+
+[1] 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. [2] 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. [3] 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. [4] 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. [5]
+
+[2] Relation, 1660, 6 (anonymous).
+
+Both Perrot 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.
+
+[3] "Simon Pieskaret ... n'estoit Chrestien qu'en apparence et par
+police."--Lalemant, Relation, 1647, 68.--He afterwards became a convert
+in earnest.
+[4] Both the Iroquois and the Hurons collected great quantities of wood
+in their villages in the autumn.
+[5] 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. [6]
+
+[6] 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. [7] 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. [8]
+
+[7] Vimont, Relation, 1645, 19-21.
+[8] 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, [9] 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!"
+[10]
+
+[9] 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.
+[10] 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. [11]
+
+[11] 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. [12]
+
+[12] 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, [13] 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.
+
+[13] 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." [14]
+
+[14] 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." [15]
+
+[15] 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. [16]
+
+[16] 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. [17] 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.
+
+[17] Vimont, Relation, 1645, 34.
+
+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. [1]
+
+[1] 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. [2] 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.
+
+[2] Lettre du P. Isaac Jogues au R. P. Jérosme L'Allemant. Montreal, 2
+Mai, 1646. MS.
+
+He felt a presentiment that his death was near, and wrote to a friend,
+"I shall go, and shall not return." [3] 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." [4] It would be well,
+if the application of the maxim had always been as harmless.
+
+[3] "Ibo et non redibo." Lettre du P. Jogues au R. P. No date.
+[4] Lalemant, Relation, 1646, 15.
+
+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. Hence
+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. [5]
+
+[5] 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. [6]
+
+[6] 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. [7] 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. [8] 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.
+
+[7] Journal des Supérieurs des Jésuites. MS.
+[8] Ibid.
+
+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. [9] 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.
+[10] 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.
+
+[9] Lettre de Marie de l'Incarnation à son Fils. Québec, ... 1647.
+[10] See Introduction.
+
+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." [11]--"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."
+[12] 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.
+
+[11] Lettre du P. De Quen au R. P. Lallemant; no date. MS.
+[12] 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, [13] 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. [14]
+
+[13] 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.
+[14] 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. [1]
+Two hundred or more kept on, divided into several bands.
+
+[1] Lettre du P. Buteux au R. P. Lalemant. MS.
+
+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. [2] All the hunters were soon
+after waylaid, overpowered by numbers, and killed or taken prisoners.
+
+[2] 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. [3]
+
+[3] 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. [4]
+
+[4] 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." [5]
+
+[5] 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. [1] 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.
+
+[1] Vimont, Relation, 1645, 16.
+
+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. [2] Their
+messengers were favorably received; and Druilletes was ordered to
+proceed upon the new mission.
+
+[2] Charlevoix, I. 280, gives this as a motive of the mission.
+
+He left Sillery, with a party of Indians, on the twenty-ninth of August,
+1646, [3] 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." [4] 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. [5]
+
+[3] Lalemant, Relation, 1647, 51.
+[4] Lalemant, Relation, 1647, 54. For an account of this mission, see
+also Maurault, Histoire des Abenakis, 116-156.
+[5] 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," [6] but, three years
+before, the Legislature of Massachusetts had enacted, that Jesuits
+entering the colony should be expelled, and, if they returned, hanged.
+[7]
+
+[6] 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.
+[7] 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. [8]
+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. [9] 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. [10] 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.
+
+[8] An account of him will be found in Palfrey, Hist. of New England,
+II. 225, note.
+[9] 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.
+[10] J. G. Shea, in Boston Pilot.
+
+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, [11]
+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. [12] 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, [13] 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.
+
+[11] 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.
+[12] 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).
+[13] 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.
+[14]
+
+[14] On Druilletes's visit to New England, see his journal, entitled
+Narré 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 de ses 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. [15] 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.
+
+[15] 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, [16] 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.
+[17] 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. [18]
+
+[16] The same who, with his wife, had joined the colonists of Montreal.
+See ante, (page 264).
+[17] He was one of the Governor's council.--Ferland, Notes sur les
+Registres, 67.
+[18] 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, 166. 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. [19]
+
+[19] 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. [20]
+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.
+
+[20] The Governors of Montreal and Three Rivers, when present, had also
+seats in the Council.
+
+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. [21]
+
+[21] 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." [22]
+
+[22] 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. [1]
+
+[1] 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 be
+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. [2]
+
+[2] Lalemant, Relation des Hurons, 1639, 68. It was this chief whose
+severed hand was thrown to the Jesuits. See ante, (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. [3]
+
+[3] 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. [4]
+
+[4] 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. [5] 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." [6]
+Then he presented the wampum-belts and other gifts, saying that they
+were the voice of a dying country.
+
+[5] 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.
+[6] "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, [7] 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.
+
+[7] 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. [8]
+
+[8] 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 mid-summer, 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!" [9]
+
+[9] 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. [10] Here, then, is a ray of light out of
+Egyptian darkness. The principle of honor was not extinct in these wild
+hearts.
+
+[10] "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!" [4]
+
+[4] 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. [5]
+
+[5] 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." [6]
+
+[6] 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. [7]
+
+[7] 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. [8]
+
+[8] 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, [9] 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. [10] 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.
+
+[9] 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.
+[10] 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, [11] 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."
+
+[11] 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. [12] 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. [13] 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.
+
+[12] Ragueneau himself describes the scene. Relation des Hurons, 1648,
+80.
+[13] 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. [14] 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.
+
+[14] 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. [1] 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, [2]
+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. [3]
+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, [4] 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.
+[5] 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. [6]
+
+[1] Before me is an elaborate plan of the remains, taken on the spot.
+[2] 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."
+[3] "Quatre grandes Croix qui sont aux quatre coins de nostre
+enclos."--Ragueneau, Relation des Hurons, 1648, 81.
+[4] 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.
+[5] At least it was so in 1642. "Nous leur auons dressé vn Hospice ou
+Cabane d'écorce."--Ibid., 1642, 57.
+[6] "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. [7] These soldiers lodged with the
+Jesuits, and lived at their table. [8] 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. [9] 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, 
+[10]--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. [11] 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." [12]
+
+[7] 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.
+[8] Journal des Supérieurs des Jésuites, MS. In 1648, a small cannon was
+sent to Sainte Marie in the Huron canoes.--Ibid.
+[9] Registres des Arrêts du Conseil, extract in Faillon, II. 94.
+[10] See ante, (page 214). Garnier calls them "séculiers d'habit, mais
+religieux de cœur."--Lettres, MSS.
+[11] 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.
+
+[12] 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. [13] 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.
+
+[13] 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. [14]
+
+[14] 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. [15] 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.
+
+[15] 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. [16] 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.
+
+[16] Compare Ragueneau in Relation des Hurons, 1648, 48, and in his
+report to the General in 1649.
+
+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. [17] 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.
+[18]
+
+[17] 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.
+[18] 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, [19]--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.
+
+[19] 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 hall, 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. [20] 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.
+
+[20] "Ce bon Pere s'apparut aprés 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. [1] 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.
+
+[1] Lalemant, Relation, 1648, 11. The Jesuit Bressani had come down with
+the Hurons, and was with them in the fight.
+
+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 gunshot
+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. [2]
+
+[2] 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. [1]
+
+[1] 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. [1]
+
+[1] "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." [2] 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.
+
+[2] Charlevoix, I. 294. Alegambe uses a similar expression.
+
+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. [3] 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.
+
+[3] "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. [4]
+
+[4] 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,
+(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. [1]
+
+[1] 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." [2]
+
+[2] 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. [3] 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. [4] 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.
+
+[3] 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.
+[4] 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 cœur."--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'œuure 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. [5] Detached redoubts were
+also built near at hand, where French musketeers could aid in defending
+the adjacent Huron village. [6] 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.
+
+[5] 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.
+[6] Compare Martin, Introduction to Bressani, Relation Abrégée, 38.
+
+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. [7] 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. [8] 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. [9]
+
+[7] Ragueneau, Relation des Hurons, 1650, 3, 4. He reckons eight persons
+to a family.
+[8] "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.
+[9] Eight hundred sacks of this mixture were given to the Hurons during
+the winter.--Bressani, Relation Abrégée, 283.
+
+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. [10] An epidemic presently
+appeared, to aid the work of famine. Before spring, about half of their
+number were dead.
+
+[10] "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. [11] 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. [12]
+
+[11] Lettre de Ragueneau au Général de la Compagnie de Jésus, Isle St.
+Joseph, 13 Mars, 1650.
+[12] Ragueneau, Relation des Hurons, 1650, 6, 7.
+
+Thus this miserable winter wore away, till the opening spring brought
+new fears and new necessities. [13]
+
+[13] 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. [2]
+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. [3] 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 everywhere, 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.
+
+[2] Bressani, Relation Abrégée, 264.
+[3] 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. [4]
+
+[4] 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 mâitre, je pourrais
+espérer quelque faveur approchante de celles qu'il a faites aux
+bienheureux 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. [5] 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. [6] 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. [7]
+
+[5] Mémoires touchant la Mort et les Vertus des Pères, etc., MS.
+[6] Abrégé de la Vie du P. Noël Chabanel. MS.
+[7] "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. [8]
+
+[8] 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 neges, 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." [3]
+
+[3] 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." [4]
+
+[4] 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." [5] 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." [6]
+
+[5] Compare Bressani, Relation Abrégée, 288.
+[6] 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. [7]
+
+[7] 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. [8]
+
+[8] 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. [9] 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. [10]
+
+[9] Iournal du Pere Iacques Buteux du Voyage qu'il a fait pour la
+Mission des Attikamegues. See Relation, 1651, 15.
+[10] 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. [1]
+
+[1] 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, at
+the northern extremity of the great peninsula of Michigan. 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. [2] 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. [3]
+
+[2] See "History of the Conspiracy of Pontiac."
+[3] 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. [4]
+
+[4] 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.
+[5] 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. [6]
+
+[5] 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.
+[6] Relation, 1660 (anonymous), 14.
+
+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. [7] 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 St. 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.
+
+[7] 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.
+
+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. [8] 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." [9]
+
+[8] See ante, (p. 102).
+[9] "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. [10]
+
+[10] 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, Mœurs des Sauvages, 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." [3] 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. [4]
+
+[3] Le Mercier, Relation, 1654, 9.
+[4] Ibid., 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. [5] 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. [6]
+
+[5] De Quen, Relation, 1656, 30.
+[6] 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. [7]
+
+[7] 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. [8] 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. [9]
+
+[8] Relation, 1660, 6 (anonymous).
+
+The Mohawks also suffered great reverses about this time at the hands of
+their Algonquin neighbors, the Mohicans.
+
+[9] Lalemant, Relation, 1663, 10.
+
+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.
+[10]
+
+[10] 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. [11] "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. [12] 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."
+[13]
+
+[11] Dablon, Relation, 1672, 24.
+[12] État Présent des Missions, in Relations Inédites, II. 44. Relation,
+1676, 2. This is one of the Relations printed by Mr. Lenox.
+[13] "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. [14] 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.
+
+[14] 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.
+
+INDEX
+
+The Roman Numerals refer to the introduction.
+
+A.
+
+Abenaquis, where found, xxii; ask for a missionary, 321.
+Abraham, Plains of, whence the name, 335 note.
+Adoption of prisoners as members of the tribe, lxvi, 223, 309, 424, 444.
+Adventures and sufferings of an Algonquin woman, 309-313; of another,
+313-316.
+Agnier, a name for the Mohawks, xlviii note.
+Aiguillon, Duchess d', founds a Hôtel-Dieu at Quebec, 181.
+Albany, formerly Rensselaerswyck, its condition in 1643, 229.
+Algonquins, a comprehensive term, xx; regions occupied by them in 1535,
+xx; the designation, how applied, ib. note; found in New England, xxi;
+their relation to the Iroquois, xxi; numbers, ib.; Algonquin missions,
+368.
+Allumette Island, xxiv, 45; its true position, 46.
+Amikouas, or People of the Beaver, lxviii note; supposed descent from
+that animal, ib.
+Amusements of the Indians, xxxvi; the Jesuits require them to be
+abandoned, 136.
+Andacwandet, a strange method of cure, xlii.
+Andastes, where found in the early times, xx, xlvi; fierce warriors,
+xlvi; identical with the Susquehannocks, ib. note; their aid sought by
+the Hurons, 341; the result unsatisfactory, 344 seq.; war with the
+Mohawks, 441; assisted by the Swedes from Delaware River, 442; repulse
+an attack of the Iroquois, ib.; a party of Andaste boys defeat the
+Senecas and Cayugas, 443; finally subdued by the Senecas, ib.
+Aquanuscioni, or Iroquois, xlviii note.
+Areskoui, the god of war, lxxvii; human sacrifices offered to him, ib.;
+a captive Iroquois sacrificed to him, 81.
+Armouchiquois, a name applied to the Algonquins of New England, xxi; a
+strange account of them given by Champlain, xxii note.
+Arts of life, as practised by the Hurons, xxxi.
+Assistaeronnons, or Nation of Fire. See Nation of Fire.
+Ataentsic, a malignant deity; the moon, lxxvi.
+Atahocan, a dim conception of the Supreme Being, lxxiv.
+Atotarho of the Onondagas, liv, lvii.
+Attendants of the Jesuits, 112 note, 132. See Donnés.
+Atticamegues, xxiii, 286, 293; attacked by the Iroquois, 420.
+Attigouantans. See Hurons.
+Attiwandarons, or Neutral Nation, why so called, xliv; their country,
+ib.; ferocious and cruel, xlv; licentious, ib.; their treatment of the
+dead, ib. See Neutral Nation.
+
+
+B.
+
+Baptism of dying men, 89, 124; clandestine, of infants, 96, 97, 116,
+117; of an influential Huron, 112; conditions of baptism, 134; baptisms,
+number in a year, 136 note.
+Birch-bark used instead of writing-paper, 130.
+Bourgeoys, Marguerite, her character, 201; foundress of the school at
+Montreal, 202.
+Bradford, William, governor of Plymouth, kindly entertains the Jesuit
+Druilletes, 327.
+Brébeuf, Jean de, arrives at Quebec, 5, 20, 48; commences his journey to
+the Huron country, 53; suffers great fatigue by the way, 54; his
+intrepidity, 54 note, 56; arrives in the Huron country, 56; his previous
+residence there, ib.; his misgivings as to his future treatment by the
+Indians, 57 note; the Indians build a house for him, 59; the house
+described, 60; its furniture, ib.; Brébeuf witnesses the " Feast of the
+Dead," 75; witnesses a human sacrifice, 80 seq.; his uncompromising
+manner, 90; "the Ajax of the mission," 99; his dealings with beings from
+the invisible world, 108; sees a great cross in the air, 109, 144; his
+courage, 120; his letter in prospect of martyrdom, 122; harangues the
+Hurons at a festin d'adieu, 123; commences a mission in the Neutral
+Nation, 143; sees miraculous sights, 144; at the Huron mission, 370;
+taken by the Iroquois, 381; his appalling fate, 388; his intrepid
+character, 390; his skull preserved to this day at Quebec, 391; his
+visions and revelations, 392 note; a saint and a hero, ib.
+Bressani, Joseph, attempts to go to the Hurons, 251; taken by the
+Iroquois, 252; terrible sufferings from his captors, 253-255; his
+escape, 256; at the Huron Mission, 370.
+Brulé, Étienne, murdered by the Hurons, 56; the murder supposed to be
+avenged by a raging pestilence, 94.
+Bullion, Madame de, founds a hospital at Montreal, 266.
+Burning of captives alive, instances of, xlv note, 80-82; 249, 250; 309,
+339, 385; 436 note, 439, 441 note.
+Buteux, Jacques, his toilsome journey, 421; waylaid by the Iroquois and
+slain, 422.
+
+
+C.
+
+Cannibalism of the Hurons, xxxix, 137, of the Miamis, xl; other
+instances, 247.
+Canoes, Indian, xxxi.
+Capuchins, unsuccessful attempt to introduce them into Canada, 159 note;
+a station of them on the Penobscot, 322.
+Cayugas, one of the Five Nations, xlviii note, liv. See Iroquois.
+Cemeteries of Indians lately opened, 79; description of them, ib.
+Chabanel, Noël, joins the mission, 105; among the Hurons, 370; recalled
+from St. Jean, 408; his journey, ib.; murdered by a renegade Huron, 409;
+his vow, 410 note.
+Champfleur, commandant at Three Rivers, 277, 285.
+Champlain, Samuel de, resumes command at Quebec, 20; his explorations,
+45; introduces the missionaries to the Hurons, 48; assists the
+missionaries at their departure, 50; his death, 149.
+Chatelain, Pierre, joins the mission, 86; his illness, ib.; his peril,
+126.
+Chaumonot, Joseph Marie, his early life, 101-104; his gratitude to the
+Virgin, 103, 105; becomes a Jesuit, and embarks for Canada, 105, 181;
+narrowly escapes death, 124; goes with Brébeuf to convert the Neutrals,
+142; his extreme peril, 145; saved by the interference of Saint Michael,
+ib.; among the Hurons, 370; with a colony of Hurons, near Quebec, 431;
+builds Lorette, 432.
+Choctaws, like the Iroquois, have eight clans, lvi note.
+Clanship, system of, l-lii.
+Clock of the Jesuits an object of wonder to the Hurons, 61; an object of
+alarm, 115.
+Colonization, French and English, compared, 328, 329.
+Condé, in his youth writes to Paul Le Jeune, 152.
+Conestogas. See Andastes.
+Converts, how made, 133, 162 seq.
+Couillard, a resident in Quebec, 3, 334, 335.
+Councils of the Iroquois, their power, lvii-lx.
+Council, nocturnal, of the Hurons, relative to the epidemic in 1637,
+118.
+Couture, Guillaume, a donné of the mission, 214; a prisoner to the
+Iroquois, 216; tortured by them, 216, 223; adopted by them, 223; assists
+in negotiations for peace, 284, 287; returns with the Iroquois, 296.
+Crania of Indians compared with those of Caucasian races, lxiii.
+Credulity and superstition of the Indians, 301.
+Crime, how punished, lxi.
+Cruelties, Indian, xlv note, 80, 216 seq., 248, 253, 254, 277, 303 seq.,
+308 seq., 313, 339, 350, 377, 381, 385, 388 seq., 436 note, 439, 441
+note.
+Custom, with the Indians, had the force of law, xlix.
+
+
+D.
+
+Dahcotahs, found east of the Mississippi, xx note; their villages, xxvi.
+D'Ailleboust de Coulonges, Louis, lands at Montreal, 264; history, 265;
+fortifies Montreal, 266; becomes governor of Canada, 330, 332.
+Daily life of the Jesuits, 129; their food, ib.; how obtained, 130.
+Dallion, La Roche, visits the Neutral Nation in 1626, xliv; exposed to
+great danger among them, xlvi note, 146.
+Daniel, Antoine, 5, 20, 48; commences his journey to the Huron country,
+53; disasters by the way, 55; his arrival in the Huron country, 58; his
+peril, 126; returns to Quebec to commence a seminary, 168; labors with
+success among the Hurons, 374; slain by the Iroquois, 377.
+Dauversière, Jérôme le Royer de la, described, 188; hears a voice from
+heaven, 189; has a vision, 191; meets Olier, 192; plans a religious
+community at Montreal, ib.; one of the purchasers of the island, 195;
+his misgivings, 197.
+Davost at Quebec, 5, 20, 48; sets out on his journey to the Huron
+country, 53; robbed and left behind by his conductors, 54; his arrival
+among the Hurons, 58.
+De Nouë, Anne, a missionary, 5, 14; perishes in the snow, 257-260.
+Des Châtelets, an inhabitant of Quebec, 334, 335.
+Devil, worshipped, lxxiv, lxxvi, lxxvii; his supposed alarm at the
+success of the mission, 113; consequences, 114 seq.
+Dionondadies. See Tobacco Nation.
+Disease, how accounted for, xl, xli; how treated, ib.
+Divination and sorcery, lxxxiv, lxxxv.
+Dogs sacrificed to the Great Spirit, lxxxvi; used at Montreal for
+sentinels, 271; very useful, 272.
+"Donnés" of the mission, 112 note, 214, 364.
+Dreams, confidence of the Indian in, lxxxiii, lxxxiv, lxxxvi; 
+"Dream-Feast," a scene of frenzy, 67.
+Dress of the Indians, xxxii; scarcely worn in summer, xxxiii.
+Druilletes, Gabriel, his labors among the Montagnais, 318; among the
+Abenaquis on the Kennebec, 321, 323; visits English settlements in
+Maine, 322; again descends the Kennebec, and visits Boston, 324, 325;
+object of the visit, 324; visits Governor Dudley at Roxbury, 326; and
+Governor Bradford at Plymouth, 327; spends a night with Eliot at
+Roxbury, ib.; visits Endicott at Salem, ib.; his impressions of New
+England, 328; failure of his embassy, 330.
+Dudley, Thomas, governor of Massachusetts, kindly receives the Jesuit
+Druilletes, 326.
+Du Peron, François, his narrow escape, 124; his journey, 127; his
+arrival, 128; his letter, 130; at Montreal, 263.
+Du Quen, journeys of, xxv note, 318.
+Dutch at Albany supply the Iroquois with fire-arms, 211, 212; endeavor
+to procure the release of prisoners among the Mohawks, 230.
+
+
+E.
+Eliot, John, the "apostle," has a visit from the Jesuit Druilletes, 327.
+Endicott, John, visited by the Jesuit Druilletes, 327.
+Enthusiasm for the mission, 85 note.
+Erie, Lake, how early known as such, 143.
+Eries, or Nation of the Cat, xlvi; where found in the early periods, xx,
+xlvi; why so called, xlvi note; war with the Iroquois, 438; its cause,
+439; a sister's revenge, ib.; utter destruction of the Eries, 440.
+Etchemins, where found, xxii.
+Etienne Annaotaha, a Huron brave, destroys an Iroquois war-party, 
+427-429; slain, 431.
+Exaltation, mental, of the priests, 146.
+Excursions, missionary, 132.
+
+
+F.
+Faillon, Abbé, his researches in the early history of Montreal, 193
+note; their value, ib.
+Fancamp, Baron de, furnishes money for the undertaking at Montreal, 193;
+one of the purchasers of the island, 195.
+Fasts among the Indians, lxxi.
+"Feast of the Dead," 72.
+Feasts of the Indians, xxxvii.
+Female life among the Hurons, xxxiii.
+"Festins d'adieu," 123.
+Festivities of the Hurons, xxxvii.
+Fire, Nation of, attacked by the Neutral Nation, 436.
+Fire-arms sold to the Iroquois by the Dutch, 211, 212; given to converts
+by the French, 269.
+Fish, and fishing-nets, prayers to them, lxix.
+Fortifications of the Hurons, xxix; of the Iroquois, ib. note; of other
+Indian tribes, xxx note.
+Fortitude, striking instances of, 81, 250, 339, 389.
+French and English colonization compared, 328, 329.
+Funeral among the Hurons, 75; funeral gifts, 76.
+Fur trade, xlv, 47, 155, 331.
+
+
+G.
+
+Gambling, Indian, xxxvii.
+Garnier, Charles, joins the Huron mission, 86; his sickness, ib.; his
+character, 99; his letters, 101, 133; his journey to the Tobacco Nation,
+140; at the Huron mission, 370; slain by the Iroquois, 405; his body
+found, 406 note; his gentle spirit, 370, 407; his absolute devotion to
+the mission, 407 note.
+Garnier, Julien, liv note.
+Garreau, missionary among the Hurons, his danger, 410.
+Gaspé, Algonquins of, their women chaste, xxxiv.
+George, Lake, its first discoverer, 219; its Indian name, ib. note;
+called St. Sacrament, 299; a better name proposed, ib. note.
+Gibbons, Edward, welcomes the Jesuit Druilletes to Boston, 325.
+Giffard, his seigniory of Beauport, 155, 157; at Quebec, 334.
+Gluttony at feasts, xxxviii; practised as a cure for pestilence, 95.
+Godefroy, Jean Paul, visits New Haven on an embassy from the governor of
+Canada, 330.
+Goupil, René, a donné of the mission, 214; made prisoner by the
+Iroquois, 216; tortured, 217, 221; murdered in cold blood, 224.
+Goyogouin, a name for the Cayugas, xlviii note.
+Great Hare, The. See Manabozho.
+Green Bay, visited by the French in 1639, 166.
+
+
+H.
+Habitations, Indian, xxvi; internal aspect in summer, xxvii; in winter,
+xxviii.
+Hawenniio, the modern Iroquois name for God, lxxviii.
+Hébert, Madame, an early resident of Quebec, 2, 15.
+Hell, how represented to the Indians, 88, 163; pictures of, 163.
+Hiawatha, a deified hero, lxxvii, lxxviii.
+Hodenosaunee, the true name of the Iroquois, xlviii note.
+Hôtel-Dieu at Quebec founded, 181; one at Montreal, 266.
+Hundred Associates, the, a fur company, its grants of land, 156; their
+quit-claim of the island of Montreal, 195; transfer their monopoly to
+the colonists, 331.
+Hunters of men, 307.
+Huron mission proposed, 42; the difficulties, 43; motives for the
+undertaking, 44; route to the Huron country, 45; the missionaries
+baffled by a stroke of Indian diplomacy, 51; they commence their
+journey, 53; fatigues of the way, ib.; reception of the missionaries by
+the Hurons, 57; mission house, 60; methods taken to awaken interest, 61;
+instructions given, 62; the results not satisfactory, 64; the Jesuits
+made responsible for the failure of rain, 68; they gain the confidence
+of the Huron people, 70; the mission strengthened by new arrivals, 85;
+kindness of the Jesuits to the sick, 87; their efforts at conversion,
+88; the Hurons slow to apprehend the subject of a future life, 89; terms
+of salvation too hard, 90; an elastic morality practised by the Jesuits,
+97; conversions promoted by supernatural aid, 108; the new chapel at
+Ossossané described, 111; first important success, 112; persecuting
+spirit aroused, 115; the Jesuits in danger, 116; their daily life, 129;
+number of converts in 1638, 132; backsliding frequent, 135; partial
+success, 147; great subsequent success of the mission, 349; the mission
+encounters slander and misrepresentation, 352, 353; prosperity, 366;
+successful agriculture, ib.; number of ecclesiastics and others in the
+Huron mission, 1649, ib.; the mission removed to an island in Lake
+Huron, 397; a multitude of refugees, 399; their extreme misery, 400; the
+priests fully occupied, 401; the mission abandoned, 415; failure of the
+Jesuit plans in Canada, 446; the cause, 447; the consequences, 448. See
+Jesuits.
+Hurons, origin of the name, xxxiii note; their country, xx, xxiv, xxv;
+had a language akin to the Iroquois, xxiv; their disappearance, ib.;
+vestiges of them still found, xxv; supposed population, xxv, xxvi; their
+habitations, xxvi, xxviii note; extravagant accounts, xxvi note;
+internal aspect of their huts in summer, xxvii; in winter, xxviii; their
+fortifications, xxix; their agriculture, xxx; food, ib.; arts of life,
+ib.; dress, xxxii; dress scarcely worn in summer, xxxiii; female life,
+ib., xxxv; an unchaste people, xxxiv; marriages, temporary, ib.;
+shameless conduct of young people, xxxv note; employments of the men,
+xxxvi; amusements, ib.; feasts and dances, xxxvii; voracity, xxxviii;
+cannibalism, xxxix; practice of medicine, xl; Huron brains, xliii; the
+Huron Confederacy, lii; their political organization, ib.; propensity of
+the Hurons to theft, lxiii, 131; murder atoned for by presents, lxi;
+proceedings in case of witchcraft, lxiii; their objects of worship, lxix
+seq.; their conceptions of a future state, lxxxi; their burial of the
+dead, ib.; hostility of the Iroquois, 45, 52, 62; visit Quebec, 46; the
+scene after their arrival described, 47; their idea of thunder, 69;
+Huron graves, 71; their origin, ib.; disposal of the dead, 73; "Feast of
+the Dead," 75 seq.; disinterment, 73; mourning, 74, 78; funeral gifts,
+76; frightful scene, 77; a pestilence, 87; cannibals, 137; attacked by
+the Iroquois, 212, 337; defeat them, 338; torture and burn an Iroquois
+chief, 339; on the verge of ruin, 341; apply for help to the Andastes,
+342; specimen of Huron eloquence, 355; Hurons defeat the Iroquois at
+Three Rivers, 374; fatuity of the Hurons, 379; their towns destroyed,
+379 seq.; ruin of the Hurons, 393; the survivors take refuge on Isle St.
+Joseph, 399; their extreme misery, 411 seq.; they abandon the island,
+415; endeavor to reach Quebec, 416; the Iroquois waylay them, 417; a
+fight on the Ottawa, ib.; they reach Montreal, 418; and Quebec, ib.; a
+Huron traitor, 419; a portion of the Hurons retreat to Lake Michigan and
+the Mississippi, 425; others become incorporated with the Senecas, 424;
+their country desolate, ib.; afterwards known as the Wyandots, 426; a
+body of the Hurons left at St. Joseph destroy a party of Iroquois, 
+427-429; a colony of Hurons near Quebec, 430.
+
+
+I.
+Ihonatiria, a Huron village, 57; Brébeuf takes up his abode there, 59;
+ruined by the pestilence, 137.
+Immaculate Conception of the Virgin, 110.
+Incarnation, Marie de l', at Tours, 174; her unhappy marriage, 175; a
+widow, ib; self-inflicted austerities, ib.; mystical espousal to Christ,
+176; rhapsodies, ib.; dejection, 177; abandons her child and becomes a
+nun, 178; her talents for business, 179; her vision, 180; the vision
+explained as a call to Canada, 181; embarks for that country, ib.;
+perilous voyage, 182; her arduous labors at Quebec, 185; her
+difficulties, 186; extolled as a saint, 177, 186.
+Indian population mutable, xix; its distribution, xx; two great
+families, ib.; superstitions and traditions, lxvii-lxxxvii; dreamers,
+lxxxiii; sorcerers and diviners, lxxxiv, 93; their religion fearful yet
+puerile, lxxxviii, 94; an Indian lodge, 141; Indian manners softened by
+the influence of the missions, 319; Indian infatuation, 336.
+Indians, their arts of life, xxx; amusements, xxxvi; festivals, xxxvii;
+social character, xlviii; self-control, xlix; influenced by custom, ib.;
+hospitality and generosity, ib. note; fond of society, 1; their division
+into clans, li; the totem, or symbol of the clan, 39 ib.; Indian rule of
+descent and inheritance, ib.; vast extent of this rule, lii; their
+superstitions, lxvii et seq.; their cosmogonies, lxxiii, lxxv; degrading
+conceptions of the Supreme Being, lxxviii; no word for God, lxxix;
+obliged to use a circumlocution, ib.; their belief in a future state,
+lxxx; their conceptions of it dim, ib.; their belief in dreams, lxxxiii;
+the Indian Pluto, ib. note; the Indian mind stagnant, lxxxix; savage in
+religion as in life, ib.; no knowledge of the true God, ib.; scenes in a
+wigwam, 30; their foul language, 31; not profane, ib.; hardships and
+sufferings, 39; a specimen of their diplomacy, 51; an Indian masquerade,
+66; Indian bacchanals, 67; their idea of thunder, 69; Indian mind not a
+blank, 134; specimen of Indian reasoning, 135; Indians received benefit
+from the Jesuit missions, 164.
+Initiatory fast for obtaining a guardian manitou, lxxi.
+"Infernal Wolf," the, 117; a name for the Devil, ib. note.
+Influence of the missions salutary, 319.
+Instructions for the missionaries to the Hurons, 54.
+Intrepid conduct of the Jesuits, 125.
+Iroquois, or Five Nations, origin of the name, xlvii; where found in
+early times, xx, xlvi, 278 note; their dwellings, xxvii note., xxviii
+note; a licentious people, xxxiv note; have capacious skulls, xliii
+note; burn female captives, xlv; their character, xlvii; their eminent
+position and influence, ib.; their true name, xlviii note; divided into
+eight clans or families, lv; symbols of these clans, ib. note; the
+chiefs, how selected, lvi; the councils, lvii; how and when assembled,
+lviii; how conducted, lix; their debates, ib.; strict unanimity
+required, ib.; artful management of the chiefs, lx note; the professed
+orators, lxi; military organization, lxiv; and discipline, ib.; spirit
+of the confederacy, lxv; attachment to ancient forms, ib.; their
+increase by adoption, lxvi; population at different times, ib. note;
+have no name for God, lxxviii; a captive Iroquois sacrificed by the
+Hurons to the god of war, 80; supplied by the Dutch with fire-arms, 211;
+make war on the French in Canada, 212, 269 seq.; extreme cruelty to
+Jogues and other prisoners, 217-222, 228; cannibalism, 228, 250;
+audacity, 241; attack Fort Richelieu, 244; spread devastation and terror
+through Canada, 245, 251; horrible nature of their warfare, 246-250;
+torments inflicted on prisoners, 248 seq., 271; an Iroquois prisoner
+tortured by Algonquins, 277; treaty of peace with the French and
+Algonquins, 284 seq.; numbers of the Iroquois, 297 note; the Iroquois
+determination to destroy the Hurons, 336; their moral superiority, 337;
+a defeat sustained by them, 338; their shameless treachery, 339; invade
+the Huron country and destroy the towns, 379; their atrocious cruelty,
+385; their retreat, 386; they pursue the remnants of the Huron nation,
+412, 425; attack the Atticamegues, 420; attack the Hurons at
+Michilimackinac, 425; exterminate the Neutral Nation, 437; exterminate
+the Eries, 438-440; terrible cruelty, 441 note; their bloody supremacy,
+444; it cost them dear, ib.; tyrants of a wide wilderness, 445; their
+short-sighted policy, 434.
+
+
+J.
+
+Jesuits, their founder, 8; their discipline, 11; their influence, 12;
+salutary, 319; the early Canadian Jesuits did not meddle with political
+affairs, 323; denounced cannibalism, but faint in opposing the burning
+of prisoners, 351; were engaged in the fur-trade, 365 note; purity of
+their motives, 83, 85; benevolent care of the sick, 87, 98, 267; accused
+of sorcery, 120; in great peril, 121; their intrepidity, 125; their
+prudence, 134; their intense zeal, 146. See Huron Mission.
+Jogues, Isaac, his birth and character, 214; joins the mission, 86; his
+illness, ib.; his character, 106, 304; his journey to the Tobacco
+Nation, 140; visits Lake Superior and preaches to the Ojibwas, 213;
+visits Quebec, 214; taken prisoner by the Iroquois, 216; tortured by
+them, 217, 218, 221, 222; in daily expectation of death, 224, 225; his
+conscientiousness, 226, 229, 232; his patience, 226; his spirit of
+devotion, 227; longs for death, 228; his pious labors while a captive,
+ib.; visits Albany, 229; writes to the commandant at Three Rivers, 230;
+escapes, 234; voyage across the Atlantic, 236; reception in France, 237;
+the queen honors him, 238; returns to Canada, 239, 286; his mission to
+the Mohawks, 297; misgivings, 298; has a presentiment of death, ib.;
+goes as a civilian, ib; visits Fort Orange, 299; reaches the Mohawk
+country, ib.; his reception, ib.; returns to Canada, 300; his second
+mission to the Mohawks, 301; warned of danger, ib.; his cruel murder,
+304.
+Joseph, Saint, his interposition in a case of childbirth, 90; his help
+much relied on by the Jesuits, 70, 95, 96; fireworks let off in his
+honor, 160. See Saint Joseph.
+Jouskeha, a beneficent deity, the sun, the creator, lxxvi, lxxix.
+
+
+K.
+
+Kennebec, visited by a Jesuit, 322.
+Kieft, William, governor of New Netherland, his kindness to Jogues, 235;
+his letter to the governor of Canada, 304 note.
+Kiotsaton, envoy of the Iroquois, 284 seq.; his speech, 287 seq.; the
+French delighted with him, 291; another speech, 292.
+
+
+L.
+Lafitau, his book on the Iroquois, liv note; describes the council of
+the Iroquois, lvii, lviii.
+Lalande, an assistant in the mission, 301; tortured by the Mohawks, 303;
+killed by them, 304.
+Lalemant, Gabriel, at the Huron mission, 126, 371; taken by the
+Iroquois, 381; tortured with fire, 388; his death, 390.
+Lalemant, Jerome, brother of Gabriel, assailed by an Algonquin, 127;
+visits Three Rivers, 294; becomes Superior of the missions, 301.
+Lauson, president of the Canada Fur Company, 156; sells the island of
+Montreal to the Jesuits, 194.
+Le Berger, a Christian Iroquois, 304; endeavors to save Jogues, ib.
+Le Borgne, chief of Allumette Island, hinders the departure of the
+missionaries, 50; his motives, 51; converted, 268.
+Le Jeune, Paul, Father Superior, his voyage, 15; his arrival in Quebec,
+2, 15; begins his labors there, 16; joins an Indian hunting-party, 23;
+adventures in this connection, 25-39; his description of a winter scene,
+26 note; grievances in an Indian lodge in winter, 27; experience with a
+sorcerer, 30; suffers the rude banter of the Indians, ib.; doubts
+whether the Indian sorcerers are impostors or in league with the devil,
+32; relates what he had been informed of the devil's proceedings in
+Brazil, 33 note; attempts to convert a sorcerer, 37; disappointment, 39;
+returns to Quebec, 40; rejoices at the advent of the new governor, 150
+note; rejoices at the interest in the mission awakened in France, 151;
+has for a correspondent the future Condé, 152; is invested with civil
+authority, 154; sends for pictures of the torments of hell, 163.
+Le Mercier, Francis Joseph, joins the mission, 85; his peril, 125.
+Le Moyne, among the Hurons, 126; among the Onondagas, 438, 440.
+Licentiousness of the Indians, xxxiv note; xxxv note, xlv.
+Life in a wigwam, 27-31.
+Loretto, in Italy, 102, 105, 432; Old Lorette, in Canada, 431; New
+Lorette, in Canada, 432; settlement of Hurons there, ib.
+Loyola, Ignatius, his story, 8; founds the order of Jesuits, 9; his book
+of Spiritual Exercises, 10.
+
+
+M.
+
+Maisonneuve, Chomedey, Sieur de, military leader of the settlement at
+Montreal, 196; spends the first winter at Quebec, 202; poorly
+accommodated there, 203; has a quarrel with the governor, 204; beloved
+by his followers, 205; compared to Godfrey, the leader of the first
+crusade, 207; lands at Montreal, 208, 261; plants a cross on the top of
+the mountain, 263; his great bravery, 275.
+Manabozho, a mythical personage, lxviii; the chief deity of the
+Algonquins, yet not worshipped, lxxii, lxxix; his achievements, lxxiii.
+Mance, Jeanne, devotes herself to the mission in Canada, 198; embarks,
+201; impressive scene before embarking, ib.; lands at Montreal, 208,
+261.
+Manitous, a generic term for super-natural beings, lxix; extensive in
+its meaning, lxx; process for obtaining a guardian manitou, ib.
+Marie, a Christian Algonquin, her adventures and sufferings, 309-313.
+Marriage among the Hurons often temporary and experimental, xxxiv.
+Mass, neglect of the, a punishable offence, 154, 157.
+Masse, 5, 20; "le Père Utile," ib.; his death, 260.
+Medical practice among the Indians, xli, xlii note; lxxxiv, 66.
+"Medicine," or Indian charms, lxxi.
+"Medicine-bags," lxxi; "medicine-men," or sorcerers, lxxxiv, lxxxv, 
+32-38; a "medicine-feast," 66; the religion taught by the Jesuits
+supposed to be a "medicine," 90.
+Megapolensis, Dutch pastor at Albany, 229; his account of the Mohawks,
+ib.; befriends Jogues, 235.
+Memory, devices for aiding the, lxi.
+Messou. See Manabozho.
+Mestigoit, an Indian hunter, 21, 24, 29, 34; his skill and courage, 40;
+helps Le Jeune to reach Quebec, ib.
+Mexican fabrics found in Indian cemeteries, 79 note.
+Miamis, cannibalism among them, xl.
+Michabou. See Manabozho.
+Micmacs in Nova Scotia, xxii.
+Minquas. See Andastes.
+Miracles in the Huron mission, 108; how to be accounted for, 109; why
+miracles were expected, 210 note.
+Miscou, mission at, 317.
+Mission to Hurons. See Huron Mission.
+Mission-house near Quebec described, 4.
+Mohawks, xlviii note, liv; number of warriors, 212, 297; their towns,
+222; make peace with the French, 296; credulity and superstition, 301;
+their causeless rage, 303; renew the war with the French, 306; their
+perfidy, 308; cruelty, ib.; torture of prisoners, 309; invade the Huron
+country, 379; furious battle near St. Marie, 384; war with the Andastes,
+441; and Mohicans, ib. note. See Iroquois.
+Montmagny, Charles Huault de, succeeds Champlain as governor of New
+France, 149; his zeal for the mission, 150, 161; meets the Ursulines at
+their landing, 182; quarrels with the leader of the Montreal settlement,
+204; delivers Montreal to Maisonneuve, 208; builds a fort at Sorel, 242;
+called Onontio by the Iroquois, 283; negotiates a peace with the
+Iroquois, 284 seq.
+Montagnais, an Algonquin tribe, where found, xxiii; their degradation,
+ib.; Le Jeune essays their conversion, 19; concerned in a treaty of
+peace, 286, 293; salutary changes from the influence of the mission,
+319.
+Montreal, island of, purchased for the site of a religious community,
+195; part of the money given by ladies, 198; consecrated to the Holy
+Family, 201; the enterprise compared with the crusades, 207; first day
+of the settlement, 209; motives of the enterprise, as stated by the
+leaders themselves, 210 note; infancy of the settlement, 261; rise of
+the St. Lawrence checked by a wooden cross, 263; arrival of D'Ailleboust
+and others, 264; pilgrimages, 267; hospital built, 266; Indians fed,
+268; attacks by the Iroquois, 269 seq.; sally of the French, 273;
+condition of Montreal in 1651, 333.
+Moon, the, worshipped, lxxvi.
+Morgan, Lewis H., his account of the Iroquois, liv note.
+Murder atoned for by presents, lxi, lxii, 354; a grand ceremony of this
+sort, 355 seq.
+
+
+N.
+
+Nanabush. See Manabozho.
+Nation of the Bear, liii.
+Nation of Fire, an Algonquin people, attacked by the Neutral Nation,
+436.
+Neutral Nation, their country, xx, xliv, 142; their cruelty and
+licentiousness, xlv; representations made to them respecting the French,
+xlvi note; a ferocious people, 143; their excessive superstition, ib.; a
+mission among them attempted, 142; but in vain, 146; kindness of a
+Neutral woman, ib.; destroy a large town of the Nation of Fire, 436;
+their ferocious cruelty, ib. note; themselves exterminated by the
+Iroquois, 437.
+New England, Indians in, xxi; a Jesuit's impressions of, 328.
+Niagara, called the River of the Neutrals, xliv; described by the
+Jesuits, 143 note.
+Nicollet, Jean, visits Green Bay in 1639, 166.
+Nipissings, xxiv.
+Notre-Dame des Anges, at Quebec, 5, 155; Notre-Dame de Montreal, 193.
+
+
+O.
+
+Ochateguins. See Hurons.
+Ojibwas, how differing in language from Algonquins, xx; visited by
+Jogues, 213.
+Okies, or Otkons, objects of worship among the Iroquois, lxix.
+Olier, Jean Jacques, Abbé, suspected of Jansenism, 189; has a
+revelation, 190; meets Dauversière, 192; their schemes, ib. 
+Oneidas, or Onneyut, one of the Five Nations, xlviii note, liv. See
+Iroquois.
+Onondagas, or Onnontagué, one of the Five Nations, xlviii note, liv (see
+Iroquois); their inroad on the Hurons, 343; their jealousy of the
+Mohawks, 344; their embassy to the Hurons, 345; suicide of the
+ambassador, 347.
+Ononkwaya, an Oneida chief, a prisoner to the Hurons, 338; his
+marvellous fortitude under torture, 339.
+Onontio, Great Mountain, name given to the Governor of Canada among the
+Iroquois, and why, 283.
+Ontitarac, a Huron chief, his speech, 119.
+Orators of the Iroquois, lx.
+Ossossané, chief town of the Hurons, 74; great Huron cemetery there, 75;
+mission established there, 110, 129; abandoned, 139.
+Ouendats, or Wyandots. See Hurons.
+
+
+P.
+
+Parker, Ely S., an educated Iroquois, liv note.
+Passionists, convent of, a singular incident there, 108 note.
+Peace concluded between the French and Iroquois, 284-295; defects of the
+treaty, 296; the peace broken and why, 302.
+Peltrie, de la, Madame, her birth, 168; her girlhood, 169; a widow, ib.;
+religious schemes, 170; resolves to go to Canada, ib.; her sham
+marriage, 172; visits the Ursuline Convent at Tours, 173; results of
+that visit, 174; embarks for Canada, 181; perilous voyage, 182; her
+character, 186; thirst for admiration, 187; leaves the Ursulines and
+joins the Colony of Montreal, 206, 261; receives the sacrament on the
+top of the mountain, 264; at Quebec, 334.
+Penobscot, a station on it of Capuchin friars, 322.
+Pestilence among the Hurons, 87; its supposed origin, 94.
+Persecution of the Jesuits, 116 seq.
+Pictures requested for the mission, 133; of souls in perdition, many,
+ib.; of souls in bliss, one, ib.; how to be colored, ib.; Le Jeune
+describes the pictures of Hell which he wants, 163.
+Picture-writing by the Indians, 243.
+Pierre, an Algonquin, 17; teacher of Le Jeune, 18; runs away, 21;
+returns, 22; frantic from strong drink, 24; repents and assists Le
+Jeune, 38; another of this name, a converted Huron, 122.
+Pijart, Pierre, joins the mission, 85; his clandestine baptisms, 96, 97;
+establishes a mission at Ossossané, 110.
+Piskaret, an Algonquin brave, 278; his exploits, 279; his successes
+against the Iroquois, 281; assists in a treaty of peace, 291; murdered
+by Mohawks, 308.
+Poncet, father, his pilgrimage to Loretto, 104; embarks for Canada, 181;
+his peril, 126.
+Price of a man's life, lxii; of a woman's, ib.
+Prisoners, cruel treatment of, xxxix, xlv, 80, 216 seq., 248 seq., 253,
+277, 339, 388 seq., 436 note, 439, 441 note.
+Processions, religious, at Quebec, 161.
+
+
+Q.
+
+Quatogies. See Hurons.
+Qualifications for success in an Indian mission, 134 note.
+Quebec in 1634, 1; its first settler, 3; condition in 1640, 154; its
+aspect half military, half monastic, 158; its very amusements acts of
+religion, 160; state of things in 1651, 331; New-Year's Day, 1646, 334.
+
+
+R.
+Ragueneau, Paul, missionary among the Hurons, 123, 124, 126; relates
+proceedings of a council held respecting a murder, 355; Father Superior,
+370.
+Raymbault, Charles, enters Lake Superior with Jogues, 213.
+Religion and superstitions of the Indians, lxvii et seq.; worship of
+material objects, inanimate no less than animate, ib.; the Indians
+attribute their origin to beasts, birds, and reptiles, lxviii; all
+nature full of objects of religious fear and dread, lxxxiv; sacrifices,
+lxxxvi.
+Remarkable instance of Indian forgiveness, 319.
+Rome, Church of, her strange contradictions, 84; self-denial of her
+missionaries, ib.
+
+
+S.
+
+Sacrifice, a human, by fire, witnessed by a missionary, 80 seq.
+Sacrifices of the Indians, lxxxv, lxxxvi note.
+St. Bernard, Marie de, a nun at Tours, 174; embarks for Canada, 181.
+St. Ignace, town, taken by the Iroquois, 380; furious battle with the
+Hurons, 384; the town and its inhabitants destroyed by fire, 385;
+vestiges still remaining, ib. note.
+St. Jean, town in the Tobacco Nation, attacked by the Iroquois, 405;
+destroyed by fire, 406.
+St. Joseph, a town in the Huron country, 137, 374; surprised by the
+Iroquois, 375; and destroyed, 377; another station of this name on an
+island, 395; the Huron refugees repair thither, 399; their extreme
+misery, ib.; famine, 400.
+St. Louis, town in the Huron country, attacked, 380; severe struggle,
+381; destroyed by the Iroquois, ib.
+Ste. Marie, in the Huron country, a mission established there, 139; the
+place described, 362 seq.; a bountiful hospitality exercised towards the
+converts and others, 367; alarm and anxiety at the Iroquois invasion,
+382; the station abandoned, 394; stripped of all valuables, and set on
+fire, 396.
+Schoolcraft, Henry R., his Notes on the Iroquois, liv note; his
+mistakes, lxxviii, lxxx; his collection of Algonquin tales, lxxxviii;
+his unsatisfactory speculations about Huron graves, 71.
+Seminary, Huron, at Quebec, 167.
+Senecas, one of the Five Nations, xlviii note, liv. See Iroquois.
+Sepulture among the Hurons, lxxxi, 71 seq.
+Sillery, Noël Brulart de, becomes a priest, 182; founds the settlement
+which bears his name, 183.
+Sioux punish adultery, xxxiv; harass the Hurons, 425.
+Sorcerer, a dwarfish, deformed one, troubles the Jesuits, 91; his
+account of his origin, 92; sorcerers, several, in time of mortal
+sickness, 93.
+Sorcery, as practised among the Indians, lxxxiv, 32-38.
+Speech-making, Indian, 287, 292-294.
+Sun worshipped, lxxvi.
+Supernaturalism of the Jesuits, 106; supposed efficacy of relics and
+prayers to relieve pain and cure disease, 107; conversions effected in
+this manner, 108; such views still entertained, as illustrated in a
+curious incident, ib.
+Superstitions of the Indians, lxvii seq., 68.
+Superstitious terrors, lxxxiv, 115, 141.
+Susquehannocks. See Andastes.
+Swedish colonists on the Delaware assist the Andastes, 442.
+
+
+T.
+
+Tarenyowagon, a powerful deity, lxxvii.
+Tarratines, the Abenaquis so called, xxii note.
+Tattooing practised, xxxiii; a severe process, ib.
+Teanaustayé, 137. See St. Joseph.
+Tessouat, or Le Borgne, converted, 268.
+Tionnontates. See Tobacco Nation.
+Tobacco Nation, or Tionnontates, in league with the Hurons, xliii;
+raised tobacco, 47; mission among them, 140; reception of the
+missionaries, 141; perils of the missionaries, 142; some of the Hurons
+seek an asylum there, 393, 404.
+Tobacco, none in Heaven, a sad thought to the Indian, 136.
+Totems, emblems of clans, li, lxviii, 375.
+Trade in furs, xlv, 47, 155.
+Traffic of the Indians, how conducted, xxxvi.
+Treatment of women, xxxiv, xxxv; of prisoners, xxxix, xlv, 80, 216 seq.,
+248 seq., 253, 254, 277, 339, 388, 439, 441 note.
+Tuscaroras, in Carolina, xxi; unite with the Five Nations, xxi, lxvi.
+
+
+U.
+
+Unchastity of the Indians, xxxiv note, xlv.
+Ursulines at Tours, 173; at Quebec, their labors, 184; their
+instructions, 185.
+
+
+V.
+
+Villemarie de Montreal, a three-fold religious establishment, 201, 261.
+Vimont, father, embarks for Canada, 181; makes a vow to Saint Joseph,
+182; visits Montreal, 208; Superior of the Canadian Mission, 286;
+assists in a treaty of peace, 292.
+Visions and visitations from Heaven and from Hell frequent occurrences
+in the lives of the missionaries, 108; the subject illustrated by a
+curious incident, ib. note.
+
+
+W.
+
+Wampum, its material and uses, xxxi; served the purpose of records,
+xxxii, lxi.
+War-dance, often practised for amusement, xxxix.
+Wigwam, how built, xxvii; inconveniences in one, 27, 28.
+Winnebagoes, their residence when first known to Europeans, xx; known to
+the Jesuits in 1648, 368.
+Winslow, John, kindly receives the Jesuit Druilletes at Augusta, 322,
+325; his name in the Relations, how spelled, 323 note.
+Winter in Canada, 18, 26, 28.
+Witchcraft, proceedings in case of, lxiii.
+Women, their condition, xxxiii, xxxiv, xxxv, xiv.
+Wyandots, a remnant of the Hurons, xxiv, 426. See Hurons.
+
+
+The End.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Francis Parkman
+
+
+France and England in North America
+
+1.  Pioneers of France in the New World (1865, 1885)
+2.  The Jesuits in North America in the seventeenth century (1867)
+3.  The Discovery of the West (1869)
+    La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West (1879)
+4.  The Old Régime in Canada (1874, 1894)
+5.  Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV. (1877)
+6.  A Half Century of Conflict (1892)
+    Volume 1
+    Volume 2
+7.  Montcalm and Wolfe (1884)
+
+The year that each book was published is printed and enclosed by
+parenthesis after the title of each volume. In some cases, there are two
+years in parenthesis. These indicate that a volume with major revisions
+was published.
+
+The revised version of Pioneers of France contains new descriptions of
+Florida and some changes to the section on Samuel Champlain. Parkman
+revised Discovery of the West after obtaining access to Margry's
+collection. The revised version of The Old Régime includes three new
+chapters regarding La Tour and D'Aunay.
+
+Volume 3 was not only revised, but the title was altered. Parkman first
+released Volume 3 as The Discovery of the West. His updated version of
+Volume 3 was entitled La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West.
+
+Other Principal Works
+
+•  The Oregon Trail (1849)
+•  The Conspiracy of Pontiac (1851)
+
+
+Appendix
+
+
+Transcription notes:
+
+This book was originally transcribed from Volume 20. While making a
+batch of corrections, a decision was made to base this etext on Volume 1
+for three reasons: 1) Parkman's subsequent revisions were virtually
+insignificant; 2) Volume 1, released in 1867, is available at the New
+York Public Library through Hathitrust, and thus, can readily be
+consulted for future claims of errata, and 3) In the Notes on the Texts
+prepared for the The Library of America reprint (1983), David Levin
+opined that using Volume 1 for this title was the best choice to
+approximate Parkman's own conception of France and England in North
+America.
+
+In resolving errors and questions that came up during transcription,
+Parkman's Seventh volume of The Jesuits in North America from 1872 was
+consulted (from the Library of Congress, available through Hathitrust),
+as well as the aforementioned The Library of America edition of this
+work. When these notes refer to a mistake in all the volumes, they refer
+to Volumes 1, 7, and 20. These volumes were produced during Parkman's
+lifetime, and assume that changes met with Parkman's approval.
+
+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--œ--will only display
+correctly if using Windows 1252.
+
+The footnotes have been produced using the Project Gutenberg™ standard.
+Footnotes follow the paragraph in which they were mentioned. Footnotes
+have been set in smaller print and have larger margins than regular
+text. Footnotes are numbered sequentially and the numbers are reset
+after each change in chapter. There are a total of 548 footnotes in this
+book. Please note that we have made no emendations to the content of
+footnotes to preserve the antiquated orthography and accentuation of the
+contents.
+
+This text generally preserved the italicization of words, phrases, and
+the titles of references which are presented in italics in the printed
+book. The standard of the book is to use italics when citing Relations,
+1650; and not to use them when writing Relations of 1650. There were
+some cases that did not observe the standard: they were treated as
+errata, and changed. Small capitalization has also been retained--used
+primarily for the first word of each chapter.
+
+Detailed notes describe problems or issues in transcribing a specific
+portion of the text: the reconciliation of variances between the topics
+list in the contents and the topics list preceeding each chapter; other
+modifications applied while transcribing the printed book to an e-text;
+emendations; and other issues in transcribing the text.
+
+You will see changed text underlined by dotted silver lines. In some
+versions (like the HTML version) of this document, you can hover your
+cursor over the changed text and see details in a small box. Those
+details are repeated, and sometimes elaborated upon, in the Detailed
+Notes Section of this Appendix.
+
+
+Detailed Notes Section:
+
+
+Contents
+
+• Chapter 5: Capitalize Thwarted and Begun in the topics list.
+• Chapter 16: Capitalize Tortured in the topics list.
+• Chapter 19: Capitalize Confirmed in the topics list.
+• Chapter 26: Capitalize Destroyed in the topics list.
+
+
+Introduction:
+
+• Page xix, add Indian before "Social and Political Organization" to
+match topics list in Table of Contents.
+• Page xxxv, in footnote 0-18, the word "come" is printed with a
+straight line over the "o," not only in Volume 1, but also in Volume 7.
+The Library of America version of the book assumes that the line
+resulted from an imperfection in the plates. The assumption is not only
+reasonable but practical, and it is adopted here, too.
+• Page xlviii, place period after the clause "which they had so promptly
+assented" This period was also missing in Volume 7.
+• On Page li, Parkman added the qualifier "in most cases" to the clause
+"The child belongs to the clan," in the eighth volume of this title. The
+new clause is, "The child belongs, in most cases, to the clan,"
+• On Page lii, Parkman used the less precise "usually belonging to it"
+instead of "inseparable from it" in the eighth volume of this title. The
+new sentence reads, "This system of clanship, with the rule of descent
+usually belonging to it, was of very wide prevalence."
+• On Page lxv, Un doubtedly is not hyphenated and split between two
+lines as if two words, not just in Volume 1, but in Volume 7. There
+should have been a hyphen after Un-. The clause was transcribed:
+"Undoubtedly there was a distinct and definite effort of legislation;"
+
+
+Chapter 3:
+
+• Changed "Mission-house" to "Mission-House" in topics list beginning
+Chapter 3 to match topics list for Chapter 3 in the Contents.
+• Page 18: footnote 3-3 does not end the last sentence with a period:
+"et sa bonté n'a point de limites" The period was also missing in Volume
+7. We did not make an emendation because of Parkman's statement in the
+Preface.
+• Page 21: add period to end the sentence with the clause "sorcerer, in
+the tribe of the Montagnais" The period was added in Volume 7.
+
+
+Chapter 4:
+
+• Page 24: In footnote 4-1, add beginning quote before Iamais: "Iamais
+il ne fut ..."
+• Page 26: In footnote 4-2, text is missing a period after ceinture, in
+all volumes. This was not changed, as it was in the footnote.
+• Page 30-Page 31: Confirmed the spelling of "fumeé" and "fumée;" in
+footnote 4-5.
+• Page 31: Confirmed the spelling of "mais" in footnote 4-6.
+• Page 31: Confirmed the apostrophe in "qu'à" in footnote 4-6.
+• Page 33: In footnote 4-8: the correct word is "laisse," but "laiss"
+remains unchanged in accordance with Parkman's statement in the preface.
+• Page 37: footnote 4-11 in Volume 1 refers back to no page number in
+the introduction. Volume 7 & Volume 20 have the page number xliv. We
+replaced the blank space for the page number left in volume 1 with the
+page number specified in later volumes.
+
+
+Chapter 6:
+
+• On Page 62, Footnote 6-4 was not marked clearly in the original book
+used for transcription. The footnote appeared fine in Volume 1, and is
+rendered appropriately.
+
+
+Chapter 7:
+
+• Page 76, Footnote 7-5 contains the word "Atsatone8ai". The "spelling
+is correct." See The Old Regime in Canada for similar usage, such as
+"8ta8aks."
+
+
+Chapter 8:
+
+• Page 85, confirmed the spelling of "i'auoüe" and the phrase "qui ne
+cherche que Dieu," which were unclear in footnote 8-1 from the book
+originally used for transcription.
+• Page 87: small-pox is hyphenated and split between two lines for
+spacing. There are two other occurrences of the word, and the hyphen was
+used, so the hyphen was retained here, too.
+
+
+Chapter 9:
+
+• Page 105, Change gain to again in the clause "the offending limb
+became sound again." The text was incorrect in Volume 1, and corrected
+in Volume 7.
+
+
+Chapter 12:
+
+• Page 147: By volume 7, Parkman broke this long, compound sentence into
+two not-quite-as-long sentences. The colon before "or" was changed to a
+period, and Or began the next sentence: "... between him and the home of
+his boyhood. Or rather ..."
+
+
+Chapter 13:
+
+• Page 157: Near the end of the page, precarious is split between two
+lines without a hyphen. "All these were supported by a charity in most
+cases precari ous." The hyphen was missing, and the word was split for
+spacing. We transcribed the word without the hyphen, but omitted the
+space. This error was found in all volumes.
+
+
+Chapter 14:
+
+• Page 171-Page 172: In footnote 14-5, add quotation mark before Enfin.
+The leading quotation mark was missing in all volumes.
+• Page 175: See the sentence "Like Madame de la Peltrie, she married, at
+the desire of her parents. in her eighteenth year." The comma after
+parents was either malformed because of the quality of the plates, or
+mistyped as a period. We used a comma after parents. In volume 7, the
+punctuation mark after parents was visibly a comma.
+
+
+Chapter 15:
+
+• Changed Bourgeois in topics list of Chapter 15 to Bourgeoys. Not only
+does the correction match the spelling in the topics list for Chapter 15
+in the contents, but it matches the spelling of Marguerite Bourgeoys in
+seven other instances of Chapter XV. In no other instance in this book
+was her name spelled differently.
+• Page 195--Confirmed that year in footnote 15-8 is 1659.
+
+
+Chapter 16:
+
+• Page 237: By volume 7, the narrative describing the return of Jogues
+says "He reached the church in time for the early mass..." instead of
+the evening mass.
+
+
+Chapter 18:
+
+• Page 263: poorly printed word in footnote, appears to be "de."
+Footnote 18-3 has two uses of de in italics, and both appear clearly in
+Volume 1. We believe this issue is resolved.
+
+
+Chapter 19:
+
+• Page 281: fixed typo ("die", should be "dine"). Volume 7 also has the
+phrase "We must die before we run." This typo does not fall under
+Parkman's caveat in the Preface, and could confuse if preserved.
+Therefore, the spelling was corrected.
+• Page 281: Add missing comma after effect in the clause "and fired with
+such good effect, that, of seven warriors, all but one were killed."
+This comma was added by Volume 7.
+
+
+Chapter 22:
+
+• In Volume 1, Parkman cited page 166 in Hutchinson, Collection of
+Papers in Footnote 22-18, but changed the page number to 240 in later
+volumes.
+• Page 333: fixed typo ("Govornor"), spelled incorrectly in all volumes.
+
+
+Chapter 25:
+
+• Page 364: footnote 25-10, add missing close-quotes after cœur.
+• Page 368: In footnote 25-18, add comma after Algonquin. There is a
+space reserved for the comma but it didn't appear in the text: "Besides
+these tribes, the Jesuits had become more or less acquainted with many
+others, also Algonquin  on the west and south of Lake Huron;" The comma
+was missing in all volumes.
+• Page 371: A colon appears at the end of the page, after "at least in
+the flesh:"
+• Page 372: In footnote 25-20, après is correctly spelled with a grave
+accent, but the text had an acute accent, and this was preserved in
+accordance with Parkman's statement in the preface.
+• In footnote 25-20, verified the colon (":") after "dit-il" in the
+final paragraph. In three quotations that follow, we changed the double
+quotes to single quotes, because they were quotations embedded within a
+quotation.
+
+
+Chapter 28:
+
+• Changed "unconquerable" to "Unconquerable" in topics list beginning
+Chapter XXVIII to match topics list for Chapter 28 in the Contents.
+
+
+Chapter 29:
+
+• Page 397, footnote 29-4, add missing close-quotes after cœur. Parkman
+put the quotes around the extract from the letter, but just omitted the
+closing quote after cœur. This mistake does not come under the caveat of
+Parkman stated in the Preface, so we made the change. This error can be
+found in all volumes.
+• Page 401, footnote 29-10, add comma after Ragueneau in reference
+"Ragueneau Relation des Hurons, 1650." This comma is missing in all
+volumes.
+
+
+Chapter 30:
+
+• Page 407: "mâitre" (which should be maître) is preserved with the
+wrong character circumflexed in the second paragraph of footnote 30-4,
+for reasons described in Parkman's Preface.
+
+
+Chapter 31:
+
+• Page 412: "neges" in footnote 31-2 should be "neiges," but it is part
+of quoted text from the Relations, so the spelling has been preserved.
+• Page 418-Page 419: war-party is split between the pages, and
+hyphenated, so the transcription can only be war-party or warparty. We
+chose the former.
+
+
+Chapter 32:
+
+• Page 426: By volume 7, Parkman described neighboring Point St. Ignace,
+"now Graham's Point, on the north side of the strait."
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE JESUITS IN NORTH AMERICA *** 
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