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The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century

F >> Francis Parkman >> The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century




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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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




CHAPTER VI.

1634, 1635.

BRÉBEUF AND HIS ASSOCIATES.


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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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