“The nation of Kiskakous, which for three years refused to receive the Gospel preached them by F. Allouez, resolved in the fall of 1668 to obey God. This resolution was adopted in full council, and announced to that father, who spent four winter months instructing them. The chiefs of the nation became Christians, and, as F. Allouez was called to another mission, he gave it to my charge to cultivate, and I entered on it in September, 1669.
“All the Christians were then in the fields harvesting their Indian corn; they listened with pleasure when I told them that I came to Lapointe for their sake and that of the Hurons; that they never should be abandoned, but be beloved above all other nations; and that they and the French were one. I had the consolation of seeing their love for the prayer and their pride in being Christians. I baptized the new-born infants, and instructed the chiefs whom I found well disposed. The head chief having allowed a dog to be hung on a pole near his cabin, which is a kind of sacrifice the Indians make to the sun, I told him that this was wrong, and he went and threw it down.
“Having invited the Kiskakous to come and winter near the chapel, they left all the other tribes, to gather around us so as to be able to pray to God, be instructed, and have their children baptized. They all call themselves Christians; hence in all councils and important affairs I address them, and, when I wish to show them that I really wish what I ask, I need only address them as Christians; they told me even that they obeyed me for that reason. They have taken the upper hand, and control the three [pg 691]other tribes. It is a great consolation to a missionary to see such pliancy in savages, and to live in such peace with the Indians, spending the whole day in instructing them in our mysteries, and teaching them the prayers. Neither the rigor of the winter nor the state of the weather prevents their coming to the chapel; many never let a day pass, and I was thus busily employed from morning till night, preparing some for baptism, some for confession, disabusing others of their reveries. The old men told me that the young men had lost their senses, and that I must stop their excesses. I often spoke to them of their daughters, urging them to prevent their being visited at night. I knew almost all that passed in two tribes near us; but, though others were spoken of, I never heard anything against the Christian women, and when I spoke to the old men about their daughters, they told me that they prayed to God. I often inculcated this, knowing the importunities to which they are constantly exposed, and the courage they need to resist. They have learned to be modest, and the French who have seen them perceive how little they resemble the others from whom they are thus distinguished.
“After Easter, all the Indians dispersed to seek subsistence; they promised me that they would not forget the prayer, and earnestly begged that a father should come in the fall when they assemble again. This will be granted, and, if it please God to send some father, he will take my place, while I, to execute the orders of my father-superior, will go and begin my Illinois mission.
“The Illinois are thirty days' journey by land from Lapointe by a difficult road; they lie south-southwest of it. On the way you pass the nation of the Ketchigamins, who live in more than twenty large cabins; they are inland, and seek to have intercourse with the French, from whom they hope to get axes, knives, and ironware. So much do they fear them that they unbound from the stake two Indian captives, who said, when about to be burned, that the Frenchman had declared that they wished peace all over the world. You pass then to the Miamiwek, and by great deserts reach the Illinois, who are assembled chiefly in two towns containing more than eight or nine thousand souls. These people are well enough disposed to receive Christianity. Since F. Allouez spoke to them at Lapointe to adore one God, they have begun to abandon their false worship; for they adored the sun and thunder. Those seen by me are apparently of good disposition, and they are not night-runners, like the other Indians. A man kills his wife if he finds her unfaithful. They are less prodigal in sacrifices, and promise me to embrace Christianity, and do all I require in their country. In this view, the Ottawas gave me a young man recently come from their country, who initiated me to some extent in their language during the leisure given me in the winter by the Indians at Lapointe. I could scarcely understand it, though there is something of the Algonquin in it; yet I hope, by the help of God's grace, to understand and be understood if God by his goodness leads me to that country.
“No one must hope to escape crosses in our missions, and the best means to live happily is not to fear them, but, in the enjoyment of little crosses, hope for others still greater. The Illinois desire us, like Indians, to share their miseries and suffer all that can be imagined in barbarism. They are lost sheep, to be sought amid woods and thorns, especially when they call so piteously to be rescued from the jaws of the wolf. Such, really, can I call their entreaties to me this winter. They have actually gone this spring to notify the old men to come for me in the fall.
“The Illinois always come by land. They sow maize, which they have in great plenty; they have pumpkins as large as those of France, and plenty of roots and fruit. The chase is very abundant in wild cattle, bears, stags, turkeys, duck, bustard, wild pigeon, and cranes. They leave their towns at certain times every year to go to their hunting-grounds together, so as to be better able to resist if attacked. They believe that I will spread peace everywhere if I go, and then only the young will go to hunt.
“When the Illinois come to Lapointe, they pass a large river almost a league wide. It runs north and south, and so far that the Illinois, who do not know what canoes are, have never yet heard of its mouth; they only know that there are very great nations below them, some of whom raise two crops of maize a year. East-southeast of the country is a nation they call Chawawon, which came to visit them last summer. They wear beards, [pg 692]which shows intercourse with Europeans; they had come thirty days across land before reaching their country. This great river can hardly empty in Virginia, and we rather believe its mouth is in California. If the Indians, who promise to make me a canoe, do not fail to keep their word, we shall go into this river as soon as we can, with a Frenchman and this young man given me, who knows some of these languages, and has a readiness for learning others; we shall visit the nations which inhabit it, in order to open the way to so many of our fathers who have long awaited this happiness. This discovery will give us a complete knowledge of the southern or western sea.
“The Illinois are warriors; they make many slaves, whom they sell to the Ottawas for guns, powder, kettles, axes, and knives. They were formerly at war with the Nadouessi, but, having made peace some years since, I confirmed it, to facilitate their coming to Lapointe, where I am going to await them, in order to accompany them to their country.”
Much as he loved his children at Lapointe, and faithfully as he had served them, the voice of his superior had ordered him to this new, vaster, and more laborious field, which to his true Jesuit obedience was a task of love. The Illinois at once become dear to his heart as his future children; he studies their language, loses no opportunity of learning all about their country, its tribes and their customs, sends them presents of pious pictures and the loving messages of a father, welcomes every member of their nation who might visit Lapointe with open arms, and presses him to his heart, and devotes every moment of leisure afforded him from his labors to sedulous preparation for the contemplated mission of the Immaculate Conception. His intelligent mind fully comprehended the vast importance of the undertaking in its relations to the church and the civilized world, and conceived at once the bold and daring project of a thorough exploration of the great river around which so much mystery, intermingled with romantic fables and dim traditions, still hung. It is with equal truth and justice that Bancroft writes: “The purpose of discovering the Mississippi, of which the tales of the natives had published the magnificence, sprang from Marquette himself.”