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.