A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P R S T U V W X Z

The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century

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




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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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




CHAPTER V.

1633, 1634.

THE HURON MISSION.


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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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