NOTE I
THE SITE OF HOCHELAGA
Where did Jacques Cartier land on the island of Montreal in 1535? We should very much like to know this. All we know is the naming of the mountain. There is a portion of Montreal called Hochelaga, being to the southwest of the present city, but there is no contention that this is the original part of the island, on which Jacques Cartier landed. The "Bref Récit" of Cartier's voyage states that he landed two leagues from the Indian town, which was a quarter of a league from the mountain. Hakluyt makes the latter distance a league. The Abbé Faillon in "La Colonie Française" thinks that Cartier ascended the river to the Lachine Rapids. There is more reason to believe he stayed on his way opposite Nun's Island. A theory advanced in November 19, 1860, by Sir William Dawson, principal of McGill College, in a discourse before the Natural History Society of Montreal, locates the site of Hochelaga in the space between Metcalfe and Mansfield streets in one direction and Burnside Place and Sherbrooke Street in the other.
"Doctor Dawson founded his opinion after the examination of some Indian relics excavated by some workmen in November, 1860, near Mansfield Street, in the sandy ridge of a terrace immediately north of Sherbrooke Street. They exhumed two skeletons, and with them or near them were found jawbones of a beaver and of a dog, with a fragment of an earthen vessel and of a hollow cylinder of red clay. The skeletons were in a sitting or crouching posture, as was the mode of burial with certain early Indian tribes. Among other relics previously found and exhibited on this occasion was an instrument made of bone, found among the remains, which exactly fitted the marks on some of the pottery, the large end having been fashioned like a cup, and the small end artificially tapered to a point. There were also several knives and chisels of sharpened bone, in tolerable preservation and some singular counters which are supposed to have been used in play, the Indians being inveterate gamblers. The most interesting relics were tobacco pipes, handsomely fashioned in the shape of lotus flowers, with the hole through the stem perfectly preserved. I have thought it well to enumerate these finds because they are now at the Natural History Museum of the city, and several gentlemen, antiquarians and archæologists have also private collections of their own. May not they serve the reader's imagination to conjure up and reconstruct for himself a picture of the village life of the earliest known inhabitants of Montreal in place of a labored description of the present writer." [20]
Describing Cartier's walk toward Hochelaga Mr. Stanley Bagg (Numa), in the "Canadian Antiquarian and Numismatic Journal, July, 1873, Vol. II, p. 14, says: "Where the brook crosses McGill College ground, he was met by a deputation of the aborigines; afterwards he came into the presence of their king, was conducted through corn-fields to the town and subsequently ascended the mountain. Cartier's description of the locality, taken in connection with the statement of the missionaries, and the discovery of Indian antiquities, place the Town of Hochelaga on the space between Mansfield Street to a little west of Metcalfe Street in one direction and in the other from a little south of Burnside Place to within sixty yards of Sherbrooke Street. In this area, several skeletons, hundreds of old fireplaces, indications of huts, bones of wild animals, pottery and implements of stone and bone have been found."
NOTE II
HOCHELAGA CIVILIZATION
In order to present a picture of these early settlers around Mount Royal the following description from Jacques Cartier's second voyage may be of avail:
"OF THE MANNER OF LIVING OF THE PEOPLE OF THE SAID LAND, AND OF CERTAIN CONDITIONS, BELIEF, AND MANNER OF MAKING WHAT THEY HAVE
"The said people have not any belief in God which may avail, for they believe in one whom they call Cudouagny, and they say that he speaks frequently to them and tells them what the weather should be. They say also that when he is angry with them he throws dirt in their eyes. They believe also that when they depart they go to the stars, then go declining to the horizon like the said stars, then pass into fair fields toward plains of beautiful trees, flowers and sumptuous fruits. After they had given us to understand these things we showed them their error and said that their Cudouagny is an evil spirit who abuses them, and said that there is only one God, who is in heaven, who gives us all things necessary, and is the Creator of all things, and that in Him only should we believe, and that it was necessary to be baptised or go to hell. Many other things of our faith were shown them which they readily believed, and called their Cudouagny, Agojuda, so that many times they prayed our captain to have them baptised. And the said Lord Taignoagny, Dom Agaya, and all the people of their town, came there for the purpose of being baptised; but because we knew not their intention and sincerity and that there was none that could show them the faith there, excuse was made to them, and it was told Taignoagny and Dom Agaya that they should make them understand that we should return another voyage, and would bring priests and holy oil, giving them to understand for excuse that one could not be baptised without the said holy oil, which they believed because they saw several children baptised in Brittany, and of the promise that the captain made them to return they were very joyous and thanked him.