The Jesuit Missions : A Chronicle of the Cross in the Wilderness

by Thomas Guthrie Marquis

The vessels appeared at Quebec on the 23rd of May, and landed their passengers amid shouts of welcome from the settlers, soldiers, and Indians. Presently Champlain's lieutenant, Duplessis-Bochart, on behalf of the Hundred Associates, received the keys of the fort and habitation from Emery de Caen; and at that moment ended the regime of the Huguenot traders in Canada. Thenceforth, whether for good or for evil, New France was to be Catholic.

During the English occupation the Indians had almost ceased to visit Quebec. At first the fickle savages had welcomed the invaders, for they ever favoured a winner, and had thronged about the fort, expecting presents galore from the strong people who had ousted the French. But instead of presents the English gave them only kicks and curses; and so they held aloof. Now, however, on hearing that Champlain had returned, the Indian dwellers along the Ottawa river and in Huronia flocked to the post. Hardly more than two months after his arrival, a fleet of a hundred and forty canoes, with about seven hundred Indians, swept with the ebb tide to the base of the rock that frowned above the habitation and the dilapidated warehouses. Drawing their heavily laden craft ashore, the chiefs greeted Champlain and proceeded to set up their camp-huts on the strand. Among them were many warriors, now grown old, who had been with him in the attack on the Iroquois in 1615. There were some, too, who had listened to the teaching of Brebeuf. For the eager missionaries this was an opportunity not to be lost; and, resolved to go up with the Hurons, who willingly assented, Brebeuf, Daniel, and Davost got ready for the journey to Huronia. On the eve of departure the three missionaries brought their packs to the strand, and lodged for the night in the traders' storehouse, hard by the Indian encampment. But they had an enemy abroad. All in this party were not Hurons; some were Ottawas from Allumette Island, under a one-eyed chief, Le Borgne. This wily redskin wished for trouble between the Hurons and the French, in order that his tribe might get a monopoly of the Ottawa route, and carry all the goods from the nations above down to the St Lawrence. At this time an Algonquin of La Petite Nation, a tribe living south of Allumette Island, was held at Quebec for murdering a Frenchman. His friends were seeking his release; but Champlain deemed his execution necessary as a lesson to the Indians. Le Borgne rose to the occasion. He went among the Hurons, urging them to refuse passage to the Jesuits, warning them that, since Champlain would not pardon the Algonquin, it would be dangerous to take the black-robes with them. The angry tribesmen of the murderer would surely lay in wait for the canoes, the black-robes would be slain or made prisoners, and there would be war on the Hurons too. The argument was effective; Champlain would not release the prisoner; and the Jesuits were forced to return to their abode, while the Indians embarked and disappeared.

There were now six fathers at Notre-Dame-des-Anges. They kept incessantly active, improving their residence, cultivating the soil, studying the Indian languages, and ministering to the settlers and to the red men who had pitched their wigwams along the St Charles and the St Lawrence in the vicinity of Quebec. In spite of Noue's failure among the Montagnais, the courageous Le Jeune resolved personally to study the Indian problem at first hand; and in the autumn of 1633 he joined a company of redskins going to their hunting ground on the upper St John. During five months among these savages he suffered from 'cold, heat, smoke, and dogs,' and bore in silence the foul language of a medicine-man who made the missionary's person and teachings subjects of mirth. At times, too, he was on the verge of death from hunger. Early in the spring he returned to Quebec, after having narrowly escaped drowning as he Crossed the ice-laden St Lawrence in a frail canoe. He had made no converts; but he had gained valuable experience. It was now more evident than ever that among the roving Algonquins the mission could make little progress.

In 1634 the Hurons visited the colony in small numbers, for Iroquois scalping parties haunted the trails, and a pestilence had played havoc in the Huron villages. Those who came to trade this year gathered at Three Rivers; and thither went Brebeuf, Daniel, and Davost to seek once more a passage to Huronia. The Indians at first stolidly refused to take them; but at length, after a liberal distribution of presents, the three priests and four engages were permitted to embark, each priest in a separate canoe. They had the usual rough experiences. Davost and Daniel, who had no acquaintance with the Huron language, fared worse than Brebeuf. Davost was abandoned among the Ottawas of Allumette Island, his baggage plundered and his books and papers thrown into the river. Daniel, too, was deserted by his savage conductors. Both, however, found means to continue the journey. When Brebeuf reached Otouacha, on the 5th of August, his Indian guides, in haste to get to their villages, suddenly vanished into the forest. But he knew the spot well; Toanche, his old mission, was but a short distance away. Thither he hurried, only to find the village in ruins. Nothing remained of the cabin in which he had spent three years but the charred poles of the framework. A well-worn path leading through the forest told him that a village could not be far distant, and he followed this trail till he came to a cluster of cabins. This was a new village, Teandeouiata, to which the inhabitants of his old Toanche had moved. It was twilight as the Indians caught sight of the stalwart, black-robed figure emerging from the forest, and the shout went up, 'Echon has come again!' Presently all the inhabitants were about him shouting and gesticulating for joy.

Daniel and Davost arrived during the month, emaciated and exhausted, but rejoicing. The missionaries found shelter in the spacious cabin of a hospitable Huron, Awandoay, where they remained until the 19th of September. Meanwhile they had selected the village of Ihonatiria, a short distance away near the northern extremity of the peninsula, as a centre for the mission. There a cabin was quickly erected, the men of the town of Oenrio vying with the men of Teandeouiata in the task. This residence, called by Brebeuf St Joseph, was thirty-five feet long and twenty wide and contained a storehouse, a living-room and school, and a chapel.

For three years this humble abode was to be the headquarters of the missionaries in Huronia. During the first year of the mission all went smoothly. To the Indians the fathers were medicine-men of extraordinary powers; moreover, the hired men who came with them had arquebuses that would be valuable in case of attack in force by the Iroquois. Objects which the missionaries possessed inspired awe in the savages; a handmill for grinding corn, a clock, a magnifying lens, and a picture of the Last Judgment were supposed to be okies of the white man. For a time eager audiences crowded the little cabin. Few converts were made, however; for the present the savages were too firmly wedded to their customs and superstitions to accept the new okies. Unfortunately, in 1635, a drought smote the land, and the medicine-men used this calamity to discredit their rivals the black-robes. According to these fakirs, it was the red cross on the Jesuit chapel which frightened away the bird of thunder and caused the drought. Brebeuf, to disarm suspicion, had the cross painted white; yet the thunder-bird still held aloof, and the incantations and drummings of the sorcerers availed not to bring rain. Brebeuf then advised the Indians to try the effect of an appeal to his God. In despair they consented. A procession was formed and the priests said Masses and prayers. The result was dramatic. Almost immediately a sudden refreshing rain deluged the ground; the crops were saved and the medicine-men humiliated. Still, no perceptible religious progress was made. Though children came to the residence to be instructed by the black-robes, they were attracted more by the 'beads, raisins, and prunes' which they received as inducements to come back than by the lessons in Christian truth. For the most part the elders listened attentively to the missionaries, but to the question of laying aside their superstitions and accepting Christianity they replied: 'It is good for the French; but we are another people, with different customs.'

Winter was the season of greatest trial. The cabins, crowded to suffocation, were made the scenes of savage mirth and feasting. The Hurons were inveterate gamblers; sometimes village would challenge village; and, as the game progressed, night would be made hideous with the beating of drums and the hilarious shouts of the spectators. Feasts were frequent, since any occasion afforded an excuse for one, and all feasts were accompanied by gluttony and uproar. The Dream Feast was a maniacal performance. It was agreed upon in a solemn council of the chiefs and was made the occasion of great licence. The guests would rush about the village feigning madness, scattering fire-brands, shouting, leaping, smiting with impunity any they encountered. Each one would seek some object which he pretended to have learned about in a dream. Only when this object was found would calmness follow; if it was not found, there would be deepest despair. Feasts, too, were prescribed by the medicine-men as cures for sickness; the healthy, not the sick, would take the medicine, and would take it till they were gorged. To leave a scrap of food on their platters might mean the death of the patient.

Only one of the social customs of the Hurons had any real religious significance. Every ten or twelve years the great Feast of the Dead took place. It was the custom of the Hurons either to place the dead in the earth, covering them with rude huts, or, more commonly, on elevated platforms. The bodies rested till the allotted time for final interment came round. Then at some central point an immense pit would be dug as a common grave. In 1636 a Feast of the Dead was held at Ossossane. To this place, from the various villages of the Bear clan, Indians came trooping, wailing mournful funeral songs as they bore the recently dead on litters, or the carefully prepared bones of their departed relatives in parcels slung over their shoulders. All converged on the village of Ossossane, where a pit ten feet deep by thirty feet wide had been dug. There on scaffolds about the pit they placed the bodies and bones, carefully wrapped in furs and covered with bark. The assembled mourners then gave themselves up to feasting and games, as a prelude to the final act of this drama of death. They lined the pit with costly furs and in the centre placed kettles, household goods, and weapons for the chase, all these, like the bodies and bones, supposed to be indwelt by spirits. They laid the dead bodies in rows on the floor of the pit, and threw the bundles of bones to Indians stationed within, who arranged the remains in their proper places.

The Jesuits were witnesses of this weird ceremony. They saw the naked Indians going about their task in the pit in the glare of torches, like veritable imps of hell. It was a discouraging scene. But a greater trial than the Feast of the Dead was in store for them. By a pestilence, a severe form of dysentery, Ihonatiria was almost denuded of its population. In consequence the priests, who had now been reinforced by the arrival of Fathers Francois Le Mercier, Pierre Pijart, Pierre Chastelain, Isaac Jogues, and Charles Garnier, had to seek a more populous centre as headquarters for their mission in Huronia. The chiefs of Oenrio invited the Jesuits to their village. But Brebeuf's demands were heavy. They should believe in God; keep His commandments; abjure their faith in dreams; take one wife and be true to her; renounce their assemblies of debauchery; eat no human flesh; never give feasts to demons; and make a vow that if God would deliver them from the pest they would build a chapel to offer Him thanksgiving and praise. They were ready to make the vow regarding the chapel, but the other conditions were too severe—the pest was preferable. And so the Jesuits turned to Ossossane, where the people agreed to accept these conditions.

Formerly Ossossane had been situated on an elevated piece of ground on the shore of Nottawasaga Bay; but the village had been moved inland and, under the direction of the French, a rectangular wall of posts ten or twelve feet high had been built around it. At opposite angles of the wall two towers guarded the sides. A platform extended round the entire wall, from which the defenders could hurl stones on the heads of an attacking party, or could pour water to extinguish the blaze if an enemy succeeded in setting fire to the palisades.