EssayInstructions:
This is a 5-page paper (GOOGLE DOC LENGTH.) Submissions should be no shorter
than five pages and no longer than five pages. Document formatting should be as
follows: 1” (one inch) margins on all sides, double spacing, 12-point type, no title page,
no “works cited”/bibliography/footnotes. Remember to proofread your work,
eliminating any spelling or grammatical errors before submitting your paper. It is in your
best interest to make an outline of your response prior to writing, since your papers will
be judged on their clarity and coherence. In general, it is best to begin each paragraph
of your paper with a topic sentence and conclude each paragraph with a citation of
evidence that supports the assertion you made in your topic sentence. No outside
sources can be used for this project—students who employ information found
elsewhere will be suspected of plagiarism. You must cite (= put in quotes) material
from all of the primary sources mentioned in each question, and only material from the
primary sources (Attention! Do not cite the professor’s lectures, the introductory material
in our books, or the footnotes to the source texts). Parenthetical references must be
used: e.g. (Mancall, 7).
Essay Question:
Read closely the selections of our sources which refer to the indigenous peoples of
North America (Mancall, Bogaert, and Greer). In all of these texts, we read about
peoples whose cultures were unknown to Europeans and whose communities have
long since disappeared or been wholly transformed. Although they are most known for
their disparaging views of native peoples, Europeans did not have uniquely negative
views about the indigenous inhabitants that they encountered. In your reading, make an
inventory of the various positive assessments of native cultures that are found in these
sources. In other words: What do the European authors see as praiseworthy in
indigenous societies? Be sure to identify excerpts from all three texts (but do not refer to
the pictures in any of them, since visual representations are often not primary sources in
these works). Construct an argument that presents what you consider to be the reasons
for greatest praise on behalf of the European authors of the seventeenth century whom
we have read. NB: Remember the sources do not discuss all indigenous peoples
collectively; they discuss specific groups. Your answer should likewise be
specific, not generic. Do not make generalizations that are not supported by the
sources!
Sources of the Three Readings:
1. Peter Mancall, Envisioning America https://archive.org/details/envisioningameri0000unse/page/n7/mode/2up
2. Harmen van den Bogaert, A Journey into Mohawk and Oneida Country,
1634-1635 https://archive.org/details/journeyintomohaw0000boga_f8i2/page/n3/mode/2up
3. Allan Greer, The Jesuit Relations – **PDF ATTACHED**
Other Notes:
–
You DO NOT have to completely read all of them entirely, very easy to skim
through it and easy to look up summaries online as well just in case.
–
Doesn’t have to be perfect, I’m going to read through it once completed and edit
things myself.
–
Please only use the sources I gave you and not others when referencing in case
it is a different version or wrong etc.
–
If you have any questions or concerns regarding the essay or if the links don’t
work etc., feel free to message me and I will help figure it out!
*Please have this completed by TUESDAY NIGHT since it is due Wednesday morning*
THANK YOU!
UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH LIBRARIES
Related Titles in
THE BEDFORD SERIES IN HISTORY AND CULTURE
Advisory Editors: Natalie Zemon Davis, Princeton University
Ernest R. May, Harvard University
Envisioning America: English Plans for Colonization of North America,
1580-1640
Edited with an Introduction by Peter C. Mancall, University of Kansas
Louis XIV and Absolutism: A Brief Study with Documents
William Beik, Emory University
The World Turned Upside Down: Indian Voices from Early America
Edited with an Introduction by Colin G. Calloway, Dartmouth College
The Cherokee Removal: A Brief History with Documents
Edited with an Introduction by Theda Perdue and Michael D. Green,
both of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
The French Revolution and Human Rights: A Brief Documentary History
Edited, Translated, and with an Introduction by Lynn Hunt, University of
California, Los Angeles
The Lewis and Clark Expedition: Selections from the Journals Arranged
by Topic
Edited with an Introduction by Gunther Barth, University of California,
Berkeley
Our Hearts Fell to the Ground: Plains Indian Views of How the West
Was Lost
Colin G. Calloway, Dartmouth College
Talking Back to Civilization: Indian Voices from the Progressive Era,
1890-1920
Edited with an Introduction by Frederick E. Hoxie, University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign (forthcoming)
THE BEDFORD SERIES IN HISTORY AND CULTURE
The Jesuit Relations
Natives and Missionaries
in Seventeenth-Century North America
Edited with an Introduction by
Allan Greer
University of Toronto
BEDFORD/ST. MARTIN’S
Boston • New York
To Eleanor
For Bedford/St. Martin’s
Executive Editor for History and Political Science: Katherine E. Kurzman
Developmental Editor: Molly E. Kalkstein
Production Supervisor: Cheryl Mamaril
Marketing Manager: Charles Cavaliere
Project Management: Books By Design, Inc.
Text Design: Claire Seng-Niemoeller
Indexer: Books By Design, Inc.
Cover Design: Richard Emery Design, Inc.
Cover Art: Inset from a 1657 illustrated map of New France, Novae Franciae Accurata
Delineatio, attributed to Francesco-Giuseppe Bressani. Courtesy of the University
of Western Ontario.
Composition: G&S Typesetters, Inc.
Printing and Binding: Haddon Craftsmen, an R. R. Donnelley & Sons Company
President: Charles H. Christensen
Editorial Director: Joan E. Feinberg
Director of Marketing: Karen R. Melton
Director of Editing, Design, and Production: Marcia Cohen
Manager, Publishing Services: Emily Berleth
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 99-62389
Copyright © 2000 by Bedford/St. Martin’s
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording, or otherwise, except as may be expressly permitted by the applicable copyright statutes or in writing by the Publisher.
Manufactured in the United States of America.
5 4 3 2 10
f e d c b a
For information, write: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 75 Arlington Street, Boston, MA 02116
(617-3994000)
ISBN: 0-312-16707-5 (paperback)
0-312-22744-2 (hardcover)
Foreword
The Bedford Series in History and Culture is designed so that readers
can study the past as historians do.
The historian’s first task is finding the evidence. Documents, letters,
memoirs, interviews, pictures, movies, novels, or poems can provide
facts and clues. Then the historian questions and compares the sources.
There is more to do than in a courtroom, for hearsay evidence is welcome, and the historian is usually looking for answers beyond act and
motive. Different views of an event may be as important as a single verdict. How a story is told may yield as much information as what it says.
Along the way the historian seeks help from other historians and perhaps from specialists in other disciplines. Finally, it is time to write, to
decide on an interpretation and how to arrange the evidence for readers.
Each book in this series contains an important historical document or
group of documents, each document a witness from the past and open to
interpretation in different ways. The documents are combined with
some element of historical narrative — an introduction or a biographical
essay, for example — that provides students with an analysis of the primary source material and important background information about the
world in which it was produced.
Each book in the series focuses on a specific topic within a specific
historical period. Each provides a basis for lively thought and discussion about several aspects of the topic and the historian’s role. Each is
short enough (and inexpensive enough) to be a reasonable one-week
assignment in a college course. Whether as classroom or personal reading, each book in the series provides firsthand experience of the challenge — and fun — of discovering, recreating, and interpreting the past.
Natalie Zemon Davis
Ernest R. May
iii
Preface
Over the last hundred years, the Jesuit Relations have provided source
material for countless studies in history, anthropology, religious studies,
geography, and other fields. These missionary reports, first published in
French in the seventeenth century, became more widely available to researchers in the 1890s thanks to the monumental seventy-three-volume
compilation, The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents, published under
the editorship of Reuben Gold Thwaites. Thwaites and his team of editors and translators assembled all the Relations, together with other Jesuit materials from the period, and presented them in bilingual format,
with original French and English translation facing each other on alternating pages. The impact of this editorial project on the world of scholarship was immense, and its influence in stimulating historical studies
of Europeans and North American Indians has by no means been exhausted. And yet the Relations themselves, highly readable and intrinsically interesting though they may be, are available only in major research libraries, and even there they are too bulky to be of much use to
students and nonspecialist readers. This book of selections from the Jesuit Relations is meant to open up that textual treasure chest to a wider
audience.
It was not easy to make a choice from among the more than twentyone thousand pages of material that the Thwaites collection comprises.
I ended up focusing on the native nations that the Jesuits knew best: the
Montagnais, the Hurons, and the Mohawks. I also assembled writings
on certain themes—war, medicine, and nature — that preoccupied
those missionaries. To give readers a real feel for the Relations, I favored
comparatively long texts and tried to avoid the pastiche approach.
The Thwaites edition is not the only modern edition of the Jesuit Relations. Since 1967 the Jesuit historian Lucien Campeau has produced
eight volumes of Jesuit documents, including the Relations and much
more. This collection sets a new standard for completeness and rigorous
editing. It reproduces texts only in their original language (mostly
vi
PREFACE
French, though there are some Latin and Italian documents), however,
and so far it covers only the early decades of the Jesuit missions. I consulted Campeau’s edition extensively, both to verify the accuracy of the
Thwaites texts and to benefit from the editor’s learned annotations.
Though basically sound, Thwaites’s hundred-year-old translation is
frequently awkward and occasionally incomprehensible. In revising the
English text, I did my best to untangle convoluted sentences, update archaic vocabulary (for example, translating the French tu as “you” rather
than “thou”), and correct the occasional error. The most problematic
term proved to be sauvage, which the Thwaites team rendered as “savage.” I decided that the English term Indian gives a better sense of the
connotations of sauvage, except in a few cases where the Jesuits wanted
to emphasize savagery.
Readers should be aware of thorny issues connected to another term,
demon. Quoting or paraphrasing Indians, the Jesuits often referred to a
person, object, or unseen force as a demon. This was their way of conveying what the Hurons would have called oki and the Algonquins manitou, by which they meant the soul or spirit that gave a thing or a feature
of the landscape, such as a rock or a waterfall, the power to influence human affairs. Some exceptional people also possessed such supernatural
abilities. The Jesuits took such claims to supernatural power seriously,
but since they knew that this power had nothing to do with Christianity,
they assumed that these were diabolical forces, thus the use of the word
demon. Rather than translate this word as “spirit,” which might give a
better sense of what the natives were talking about, I opted to leave it as
demon to remain true to the historical text, with its characteristic blend
of ethnographic reporting and religious judgment.
Finally, there is the vexed problem of what to call the original inhabitants of North America. The terms Indians and Native Americans, commonly used in the United States, sometimes raise objections in Canada,
whereas the favored Canadian terms, natives, aboriginal people, and
First Nations Peoples, seem awkward and unfamiliar to most Americans.
In my introductory sections, I decided to compromise (by definition, a
compromise is less than a perfect solution) by alternating between natives and Indians.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
In addition to acknowledging the work of Thwaites and Campeau, I
would like to take this opportunity to thank some people who made more
immediate contributions to this book. Over the years, my students at the
PREFACE
Vil
University of Toronto have read and discussed selections from the Jesuit
Relations with passion and insight, and their reactions have done much
to shape this collection. One student, Jeff d’Hondt, acted as an able and
resourceful research assistant on this project. Jeff’s forbearance was put
to the test by the tone of some of the missionaries’ comments about
his native ancestors, but his good humor and dedication to history always carried the day. Recognition also is due to Naida Harris-Morgan
for her anthropologically informed word processing services. And to
Gary W. Kronk, my thanks for helping me understand Jesuit astronomical observations.
The Newberry Library, Chicago, provided the ideal setting in which
to annotate the chapter on Father Marquette’s explorations. I am grateful to the Newberry staff and to library fellow Helen Tanner.
It has been a great pleasure working with the staff at Bedford/St.
Martin’s. I particularly appreciated development editor Molly Kalkstein’s
ability to combine editorial rigor with warm enthusiasm. I also want to
thank Katherine Kurzman for getting the project off on the right foot and
Melissa Lotfy and Emily Berleth for guiding it to completion. I am indebted to the following readers for their thoughtful criticism of the draft
manuscript: Colin G. Calloway, Catherine Desbarats, James D. Rice,
Gordon Sayre, Timothy J. Shannon, and Laurier Turgeon. Finally, my
thanks go to series editor Natalie Zemon Davis for her encouragement
and her helpful editorial suggestions.
Allan Greer
University of Toronto
Contents
Foreword
iii
Preface
v
LIST OF MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS
xiii
Introduction: Native North America and the
French Jesuits
The Society of Jesus in Europe and Abroad
Iroquoians and Algonquians
The Colonization of New France
The Canadian Missions
The Jesuit Relations and Their Readers
Confronting the Other: The Problem of Cultural
and Historical Difference
1.
1
3
6
9
11
14
16
Montagnais Hunters of the Northern Woodlands
20
Paul Le Jeune Winters with Mestigoifs Band,
1633-1634
Paul Le Jeune, Journal [of a Winter Hunt], 1634
Paul Le Jeune, On Their Hunting and Fishing, 1634
21
23
26
The Montagnais Described
Paul Le Jeune, On the Beliefs, Superstitions, and Errors
of the Montagnais Indians, 1634
Paul Le Jeune, On the Good Things Which Are Found
among the Indians, 1634
ix
28
28
32
X
2.
CONTENTS
How to Settle Disputes and Discipline Children
Paul Le Jeune, What Occurred in New France in the
Year 1633,1633
36
Jean de Brébeuf on the Hurons
37
Language
38
Jean de Brébeuf, Of the Language of the Hurons, 1636
38
Religion, Myth, and Ritual
Jean de Brébeuf, What the Hurons Think about Their
Origin, 1636
Jean de Brébeuf, That the Hurons Recognize Some Divinity;
Of Their Superstitions and of Their Faith in Dreams, 1636
Jean de Brébeuf, Concerning Feasts, Dances… and What
They Call Ononharoia, 1636
41
Law and Government
Jean de Brébeuf, Of the Polity of the Hurons and of Their
Government, 1636
Jean de Brébeuf, Of the Order the Hurons Observe in Their
Councils, 1636
The Huron Feast of the Dead
Jean de Brébeuf, Of the Solemn Feast of the Dead, 1636
3.
35
41
46
48
50
51
59
61
61
Disease and Medicine
70
Huron Medical Practices
72
Jean de Brébeuf, [Cure by Lacrosse], 1636
Jérôme Lalemant, [Cure by Gambling], 1639
Jérôme Lalemant, [Satisfying the Soul’s Desires], 1639
72
73
75
The Influenza Epidemic of 1637
78
François Le Mercier, The Malady with Which Our Little
Household Has Been Afflicted, 1637
François Le Mercier, The Help We Have Given to the Sick
of Our Village, 1637
81
François Le Mercier, Ossossané Afflicted with the
Contagion, 1637
82
79
CONTENTS
xi
François Le Mercier, Of the Hurons Baptized This Year,
1638, 1638
89
Smallpox among the Hurons, 1639
89
Jérôme Lalemant, Of the Persecutions Excited against
Us, 1640
90
A Medical Duel: Father Allouez and the Potawotamis
91
Claude Allouez, Of the Mission to the Potawotamis, 1666-1667 92
4.
Diplomacy and War
94
Peace Negotiations at Three Rivers, 1645
Barthélémy Vimont, Treaty of Peace between the French,
Iroquois, and Other Nations, 1644-1645
95
96
Iroquois Attacks on the Algonquins, 1647
106
Jérôme Lalemant, Some Iroquois Surprised after Defeating the
Algonquins; A Woman Kills an Iroquois and Escapes, 1647 106
The Hurons Annihilated, 1649
111
Paul Ragueneau, Of the Capture of the Villages of the Mission
of St. Ignace, in the Month of March of the Year 1649,
1648-1649
112
5.
Writings on the Natural Environment
119
Montagnais Explanations of a Solar Eclipse
Paul Le Jeune, Of Their Customs and Their Belief, 1637
119
120
The Moral Qualities of Animals
122
Jérôme Lalemant, Various Matters, 1647-1648
122
Earthquakes, Comets, and Other Prophetic Signs
Jérôme Lalemant, Three Suns and Other Aerial Phenomena
Which Appeared in New France, 1662-1663
123
Jérôme Lalemant, Universal Earthquake in Canada and Its
Marvelous Effects, 1662-1663
François Le Mercier, Of the Comets and Extraordinary
Signs That Have Appeared at Quebec and in Its Vicinity,
1664-1665
124
126
131
xii
6.
7.
8.
CONTENTS
Nature as a Storehouse of Resources
132
François Le Mercier, Of the Condition of Canada over the
Last Two Years, 1666-1667
132
Missions to the Iroquois
136
Mission to the Mohawk Country, 1667
François Le Mercier, Of the Mission ofSte. Marie among
the Mohawk Iroquois, 1667-1668
137
The Mohawks Converted
Jean Pierron, Of the Mission of the Martyrs in the Country
of the Mohawks, or the Lower Iroquois, 1669-1670
140
141
The Iroquois Mission of Sault St. Louis/Kahnawake
146
Claude Chauchetière, Letter of October 14, 1682,1682
147
Martyrs and Mystics
155
The Ordeal of Isaac Jogues
155
Jérôme Lalemant, How Father Isaac Jogues Was Taken by
the Iroquois, and What He Suffered on His First Entrance
into Their Country, 1647
157
137
A Native Saint
P. F. X. de Charlevoix, Catherine Tegahkouita: An Iroquois
Virgin, 1744
171
Exploring the Mississippi
186
172
Jacques Marquette, On the First Voyage by Father Marquette
toward New Mexico and How the Idea Was Conceived, 1674 188
APPENDICES
Chronology of Events Related to the Jesuit Relations
(1534-1773)
212
Questions for Consideration
Selected Bibliography 215
Index
218
214
Maps and Illustrations
MAPS
Native Nations and European Settlements, Mid-Seventeenth
Century
Map of Father Jacques Marquette’s Route
8
187
ILLUSTRATIONS
Title page for the Jesuit Relation of 1664
2
Portrait of Father Paul Le Jeune (1591-1664)
22
Indian Women and Children
34
General Feast of the Dead among the Huron and Iroquois
62
A Huron Wampum Belt
95
Novae Franciae Accurata Delineatio, 1657
98
La Guerre (War)
114
Confirmation in the Faith
148
Scenes of Jesuit Martyrdom
161
Catherine [Kateri] Tegahkouita
173
Captain of the Illinois Nation
198
xiii
Introduction:
Native North America and the French Jesuits
The Jesuit Relations constitute the most important set of documentary
materials on the seventeenth-century encounter of Europeans and native North Americans. The Relations are, in essence, annual reports of
French missionaries of the Society of Jesus on their efforts to convert the
“pagan savages” to Catholic Christianity. Published in Paris between
1632 and 1673, these yearly chronicles always included much more than
a simple account of the business of evangelizing. Each fat volume was
crammed with news about the progress of colonization, the devastation
of epidemics, the outbreak of war, and other important events affecting
the Indians of the Northeast. There were also narratives of voyages to
distant lands. The key to the popularity of the Relations then and now,
however, is the detailed description of the customs, habits, and cultures
of various native nations. The unparalleled richness of this ethnographic
detail has made the Relations a precious resource for modern scholars
interested in culture contact and the experience of Amerindian peoples
in the early phases of colonization.
There are two main reasons why the Jesuit Relations are so illuminating in this connection. First, the Jesuits knew what they were talking
about. Admittedly, there were many aspects of aboriginal culture they
did not understand and did not wish to understand, but even when these
missionaries disapproved of “diabolical pagan ceremonies” and misconstrued their purpose, they were still capable of describing them accurately. Because they lived in native villages for years on end, learned the
local languages, got to know the people, and took their place on the margins of Amerindian society, they came to know native peoples as few
other Europeans did. Also, they were inveterate writers. Unlike most of
the French Canadian fur traders and coureurs de bois,1 who also knew ab’Men of French origin who traded with and lived among the Indians of the interior,
adopting a way of life shaped by native culture.
1
Title page for the Jesuit Relation of 1644
Written in New France, the Relations were shipped to France annually and published in Paris the following year.
Courtesy of the Newberry Library, Chicago.
2
3 INTRODUCTION
original America intimately, the Jesuits were literate; indeed, their training made them masters of the written word. Writing was part of the general clerical culture of the period, but these missionaries belonged to a
religious order that was renowned for using the power of the printing
press to its best advantage. Thus the Jesuit Relations can be seen as the
combined product of immersion in Native American society and an unparalleled ability to communicate with European audiences.
To gain full benefit from this historical document, some background
is required on both the native nations mentioned in its pages and on the
Jesuit chroniclers themselves. Even though the Relations are written, for
the most part, in clear, down-to-earth prose, the transition from the mental and textual world of the seventeenth century to that of the present entails a certain amount of “decoding.” I will begin with the Jesuits and the
early modern Christian world that produced them.
THE SOCIETY OF JESUS IN EUROPE AND ABROAD
The Jesuits were members of a religious order, the Society of Jesus, and
like the monks, nuns, and friars of other orders, they took special vows
of poverty and obedience that distinguished them from regular parish
priests. They were men who sought personal Christian perfection in a
tightly organized association with branches (provinces) across Catholic
Europe and headquarters in Rome. Whereas some orders specialized in
teaching, hospital work, or monastic contemplation, the Jesuits’ activities were multifaceted, encompassing education, literary and scientific
activities, pastoral care, and overseas missions.
Founded by the Spanish ex-soldier Ignatius of Loyola in 1534, the
Society of Jesus was firmly and powerfully established in Catholic Europe by the time it began sending missionaries to Canada. And yet it
still exhibited a certain youthful dynamism in keeping with the reforming current then sweeping the church. The late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries saw a religious revival sometimes known as the
Counter Reformation or the Catholic Reformation. This tendency within
Catholicism can, in some senses, be seen as a reaction to the abstract,
Bible-centered religion of Protestantism. Thus it emphasized rituals
and sacraments, the cult of the saints and of the Virgin Mary, clerical celibacy, religious orders, and the authority of the pope. In other
aspects, this reinvigorated Catholicism seemed to run parallel to the Reformation. Reforming forces within the church fought against corruption
and slackness among the clergy, as well as superstition and indifference
on the part of their flocks. The Catholic Reformation summoned up a
4
INTRODUCTION
great spirit of idealism, for it called on believers to renounce complacency and remake the world.
The mood was at once grim and enthusiastic, with an inclination to
view conflict as part of a monumental struggle between good and evil.
“Heresy” (Protestant Christianity) and “paganism” (non-Christian religion) were external threats, but Christians also had to battle internal enemies: pride and other classic vices, as well as various evil temptations
associated with “the flesh.” The suppression of sexuality, the exaltation
of celibacy, and the use of fasting, self-flagellation, and other ascetic
practices as a favored means of doing penance for sins while gaining
mastery over carnal temptation were all part of the struggle. For Catholics who sought to transcend the narrow limits of human existence,
heroic self-denial could be a means of making contact with the divine.
Such asceticism tended to be associated with mysticism — the celebration of the subjective experience of union with God — and in the seventeenth century mysticism had found a home in Catholic France, especially within the ranks of the Society of Jesus.
The Jesuits of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries embodied
some of the central paradoxes of their day. Mystical and contemplative,
they could also be active, worldly, and ruthlessly rational in pursuit of
their goals. Instead of taking refuge from profane influences by retreating, after the fashion of medieval monks, behind protective monastic
walls, they went out to conquer the secular world. They started with the
young, particularly the sons of Europe’s elite, who were attracted to the
order’s colleges because of their high academic standards. Every Jesuit
was a college teacher at some point in his career, and each was well
equipped for the job thanks to his thorough training in classical learning
and rhetoric. (The allusions to ancient Greek and Roman literature scattered throughout the Jesuit Relations came naturally to missionaries educated in this way.) Parents also appreciated the Jesuit colleges as highly
effective agencies of character formation. Precociously modern in their
sensitivity to the development of personality among children and adults,
the Jesuits specialized in human engineering.
In addition to operating schools, they also sponsored devotional societies for laypeople. They preached to illiterate peasants and gave spiritual advice to kings. For example, two Jesuits, Père La Chaise and Père
Le Tellier, were the confessors of Louis XIV. So effective was the order
that it quickly aroused the jealousy of rivals within the church and outside it. Blaise Pascal2 and others connected with the Jansenist3 faction
2 Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) was a French scientist and writer. His Lettres Provinciales
(Provincial Letters, 1656) attacked the Jesuits, arguing that their casuistry (resolving of
5 INTRODUCTION
of French Catholicism denounced the Jesuits as political schemers, always ready to compromise on matters of doctrine in order to gain fame
and influence. In Protestant Europe, the term Jesuitical became synonymous with devious ruthlessness.
Missions abroad to convert the “heretics” and “heathens” were part
of the Jesuit program from the start. One of Ignatius of Loyola’s first disciples, a young Portuguese priest named Francis Xavier, set the pattern.
Following the maritime routes of Portugal’s commercial empire in the
East, Francis Xavier traveled first to India, where he baptized thousands
of converts, and then to Japan and China, where he died a martyr’s death.
His letters to his colleagues back in Europe helped make the nascent Jesuit order famous. Widely circulated, these letters were read at least as
much for their tales of exotic lands and strange customs as for their inspiring religious messages. (In this respect, they provided a model for
the Jesuit Relations of New France.) After Francis Xavier came a succession of Jesuit missionary enterprises encompassing the globe and extending in time from the sixteenth century until the pope dissolved the
Society of Jesus in 1773.
Some of the most interesting experiments in cross-cultural evangelizing occurred in the original mission field of Asia. There were spectacular, though short-lived, successes in Japan, but elsewhere progress was
slow and limited. The Italian Jesuits Mateo Ricci (1552-1610) and Roberto di Nobili (1577-1656) are especially celebrated for devoting their
lives to infiltrating the civilizations of China and India, respectively. Jesuits in these two countries accepted the daunting challenge of acquiring the languages and the cultural accoutrements necessary to gain acceptance in mandarin and Brahman circles. They also had to find ways
to convey their Christian message to Asian audiences, a task that inevitably required some adaptation and compromise on points of doctrine
and ritual. Their enemies in Europe made the most of the occasion to accuse the Jesuits of heterodoxy.
In Latin America, where they were also active, the Jesuits had less
need to adapt to foreign cultures. There they accompanied the conquering empires of Spain and Portugal and consequently were in a better position to compel natives to adapt to their requirements. By the time Portuguese Jesuits arrived in Brazil in the sixteenth century, it had become
specific cases of conscience through interpretation of religious principles) was too permissive.
3 Jansenists were Catholics who followed the Augustinian doctrines of Cornelis Jansen.
Especially influential in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century France, they opposed the Jesuits theologically and politically.
6
INTRODUCTION
a hell for Indians, who were routinely slaughtered and enslaved by rapacious settlers. The missionaries were courageous in denouncing oppression even as they gathered beleaguered natives together in special
mission settlements for protection and indoctrination. Spanish Jesuits
adopted a broadly similar approach in other parts of South America and
Mexico. When the violence of, and exploitation by, fellow Spaniards
posed the greatest obstacle to the spread of Christianity, it seemed essential to place Indians in protective mission settlements, called reducciônes in Spanish. The term implied that the resident natives had been
“reduced” from their proud and untamed independence to a proper obedience to God’s laws. Thus the success of the reduction system of Latin
America, though it was established in opposition to colonialist oppression, depended on that same oppression to pressure natives into joining mission communities and to ensure that they stayed there. The Jesuits had their greatest success in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century
Paraguay, where the Guarani people faced exceptionally brutal Spaniards to the west and Brazilian slave raiders to the east. The missionaries here were able to impose an exacting regime of Christian prayers,
sexual repression, and European-style agriculture on the natives, who
found this disciplinary utopia preferable to the alternatives.
Coming to North America in the early seventeenth century, the
French Jesuits could draw on the institutional memory of their order for
guidance in this unfamiliar territory. Following the lead of Ricci and others, they began patiently studying the languages and cultures of the native peoples they encountered. Like the Jesuits of South America, they
could be critical of colonialist exploitation and yet appreciative of the
“secular sword” for its help in making “proud” and resistant Indian nations receptive to the Christian message. They set up reducciônes inspired by those in Latin America but never attained the degree of control
exercised by the Jesuits of Paraguay. Lastly, they borrowed Francis
Xavier’s practice of writing letters for publication as their favored means
of communicating their exploits to readers back home.
IROQUOIANS AND ALGONQUIANS
When they arrived on the banks of the St. Lawrence River in 1625,
French Jesuits were entering a continent still very much under Indian
control, even though the effects of European colonization were being felt
all along the Atlantic coast and into the Great Lakes region. Dozens of independent native nations, each with its own distinctive culture, inhabited
present-day eastern Canada and the northeastern United States.
7 INTRODUCTION
Ethnohistorians (scholars who combine the methods of history and
anthropology) tend to group the different peoples of the eastern woodlands into two main classifications, the Algonquians and the Iroquoians.
The Jesuits had dealings with nations representing both these groups,
and they soon learned that a wide linguistic gap separated the two. The
Algonquians spoke various related dialects, but their grammatical structures and vocabularies bore no resemblance to those of the Iroquoian
peoples. They also discovered a basic difference in their ways of life.
Whereas the northern Algonquians generally depended on hunting, foraging, and fishing — and consequently lived in small, mobile bands —
the Iroquoians cultivated corn and other crops, a practice that allowed
them to live in concentrated, year-round settlements. The Iroquoian villages of what we now call northern New York and southern Ontario were
quite populous, whereas small Algonquian bands ranged over much
wider territories in the Canadian Shield region to the north and east.
Even though some of the Iroquoian nations emerged as deadly enemies
of the French, the Jesuits considered their mode of existence superior to
that of the Algonquians, as it corresponded more closely to European
cultural ideals.
Over the course of nearly two centuries of missionary work, the Jesuits had dealings with almost every Indian nation of the Northeast, but
in the 1600s they directed most of their evangelizing efforts toward a
handful of groups. Accordingly, the selection of texts in this book concentrates mainly on four nations: the Montagnais and Algonquins, both
Algonquian speakers; and the Hurons and Iroquois, both Iroquoian
peoples. The nomenclature can be confusing, since the name for a broad
cultural/linguistic cluster is taken from the name of a particular ethnic
group. Thus the Algonquins are only one of many Algonquian nations,
as the Iroquois are one of several Iroquoian peoples.
To complicate matters further, the terms Huron and Iroquois actually
designate confederacies formed prior to the arrival of the Europeans,
when several distinct nations joined forces. Four tribes constituted
the Huron confederacy: the Arendarhonons, Attignawantans, Attigneenongnahacs, and Tahontaenrats. They lived in close proximity to one another and had intermingled considerably by the time the Jesuits arrived.
Consequently, the Relations usually refer to the Hurons as though they
were a single entity with a uniform way of life. (I will follow their lead in
this introduction.) By contrast, the Jesuits frequently referred to the Five
Nations of the Iroquois League individually: the Mohawks, Oneidas,
Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas. These peoples lived in widely separated locations across northern New York, and although their culture
9 INTRODUCTION
was essentially the same, they had rather different relations with the
French over the course of the seventeenth century. The selections in
this book deal primarily with the Mohawks, the easternmost Iroquois
tribe and the one that had the closest engagement with the French, both
as deadly enemies and as devoted friends. From the beginning, New
France posed a strategic threat to the Mohawks, and as the French
forged an alliance with their traditional enemies, the Algonquins, the
Mohawks became increasingly hostile. After decades of intermittent
war, the Jesuits managed to convert many Mohawks, as well as some
other Iroquois peoples, to Catholicism, and these Christian converts
moved to live close to the French at Montreal. By about 1670, there were
Iroquois settlements in Canada that were closely aligned with the
French, as well as the five original Iroquois tribes, still occupying their
New York homeland and unconnected with the French.
It is worth noting that, in a general sense, the lines of conflict and
alliance had little to do with ethnic and cultural affinity. The Hurons
and the Iroquois, though quite similar culturally, were militarily at odds
through most of the period covered by the Jesuit Relations, whereas the
Hurons, Algonquins, Montagnais, and French remained allies in spite of
the great differences between them.
THE COLONIZATION OF NEW FRANCE
Long before the Jesuits appeared on the North American scene, French
fishermen, explorers, and fur traders had already had extensive contact
with the natives of the Northeast. The first year-round settlement was established in Acadia (present-day Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and
northern Maine) in 1604, and two Jesuits tried to establish a mission
there between 1611 and 1613. By that time, the main thrust of French
colonization had shifted farther west to the St. Lawrence River Valley,
where Samuel de Champlain founded Quebec in 1608. When the Jesuits
returned in 1625, they made Quebec their headquarters. Missionaries
also followed the fur trade routes west to the land of the Hurons. From
the beginning, then, the Jesuits appeared to native North Americans as
part of a broader French presence. Accordingly, the relationships that
developed between the Jesuits and the Iroquoians and Algonquians
must always be seen as one aspect of a wider process of colonization.
However much the Jesuits may have tried to shield converts from secular European influences, the whole missionary enterprise was affected
by the larger pattern of relations between Indians and French.
10
INTRODUCTION
The French had a unique approach to colonization. Partly because
they came to the New World in comparatively small numbers and partly
because they made their fortunes in Canada by trading for furs with native hunters, they had to come to terms with native cultures and interact
extensively with Indian peoples. The French fully occupied only a narrow territory in the St. Lawrence Valley centering on the forts (later
towns) of Quebec (1608), Three Rivers (1634), and Montreal (1642).
Trade with peoples living far to the west was facilitated by the waterways
of the Great Lakes, and because natives generally traded only with
friends, this commercial penetration led to the formation of militarydiplomatic alliances that helped extend French influence over vast regions. A great inland empire took shape in the second half of the seventeenth century, but it was an empire not of domination and subjection,
but of multistranded commercial/diplomatic links between France and
the different Indian nations of the Canadian hinterland.
Farther to the south, the English settled in larger numbers, and they
came to depend heavily on agriculture for their food supply and export
commodities. The New England and Chesapeake colonies developed a
voracious appetite for Indian lands, an appetite that eventually led to war,
extermination, and displacement. Whereas antagonism between natives
and settler societies was a fundamental feature of colonization in English
North America, in New France there were patterns of both cooperation
and conflict. The French were not inherently kinder empire builders
than the English, but their settlement of Canada did not require any substantial appropriation of Indian lands.
Nor was New France built on the subjugation of Indians through military conquest, as the Spanish colonies of South and Central America
were. In Spain’s New World empire, Indians owed the colonizers labor
service and other forms of tribute as both a symbol of their subjection
and a contribution to the Spanish economy. But in New France, the Indians were never really conquered. Violence and war were by no means
absent from the colony’s history, since military alliance naturally entailed conflict with nations outside the alliance, but the French were
never in a position to impose their will by force of arms on the Indians in
general. Allies, trading partners, and even, to some extent, defeated enemies, remained autonomous, though many of them came to recognize
a certain French hegemony. Consequently, Jesuit missionaries had to
work with natives who generally retained a high degree of independence, regardless of how entangled they became in the French network
of alliance and trade.
11 INTRODUCTION
Even though they were not displaced or conquered, the Indian nations of the eastern woodlands certainly experienced profound and
wrenching change in the seventeenth century, and the Jesuit Relations
bear witness to the powerful forces that swept the region as a result of
the French presence. There were terrible epidemics of old-world diseases, as unfamiliar viruses and germs ravaged the Indians’ vulnerable
immune systems. Native economies were transformed by the demands
of the fur trade, and metal implements and weapons brought from
Europe gradually replaced traditional technologies. Political instability,
conflict, and deadly wars were among the many indirect consequences
of European intrusion. And, of course, the Jesuits themselves were determined to reshape native thinking and behavior in conformity with
Christian principles. The overall impact of this program of “directed assimilation” may have been rather limited when compared to that of the
undirected forces unleashed by the economic, technological, and biological forces of colonization. The Jesuit missionaries were witnesses to
these profound historical processes, even though they did not control or
fully understand them.
THE CANADIAN MISSIONS
There were two abortive beginnings to the Jesuit enterprise in New
France—the Acadian expedition and a second, short-lived establishment at Quebec (1625-29) — both of them wrecked by English raiders.
Two Jesuits returned to Quebec when the French reasserted control in
1632, with reinforcements following over the course of the decade. For
more than a century beginning in the 1640s, the total number of Jesuits
hovered between thirty and forty, with a larger, more variable number of
donnés4 and other laymen attached to the order as construction workers,
canoeists, and artisans. Almost all the missionary priests were recruited
from the Jesuit colleges of France. Service among the “savages” of North
America was not an appealing prospect for most Jesuits, but a minority
were inspired by what they had heard and read of this daunting assignment in a forbidding land and became desperate to “sacrifice themselves” (for that is how they generally understood the gesture) in New
France. The majority of those who left France never returned, either
4
Donnés were individuals, usually young men or boys, who helped the Jesuits with nonreligious duties. By the terms of their contracts, they had to remain chaste and serve without any pay other than their room and board.
12
INTRODUCTION
because they finished their long careers in Canada or because (seven
cases before 1663) they were killed in the Iroquois wars.
Although the Society of Jesus was never without powerful rivals, it
was always the preeminent religious order in New France. The Jesuits
operated a college for French Canadian boys at Quebec and eventually
founded small establishments at Three Rivers and Montreal. They were
well financed by revenues from their extensive seigneurial landholdings
in Canada, supplemented by government subsidies and donations from
benefactors. Aided by powerful friends at the center of France’s empire,
they took a leading role in the political life of the colony, particularly in
the early decades. Even though colonial officials frequently opposed the
Jesuits’ interests from the 1660s on, the Jesuits managed to hold their
own. They even survived the British conquest of 1760, as well as the
storms raised by Enlightenment monarchies, which led to the expulsion
of the Society of Jesus from the Portuguese and Spanish empires.
During the first few decades, missionary efforts had a dual focus:
While some Jesuits tried to convert the Montagnais and Algonquins who
frequented the posts at Quebec and Three Rivers, others traveled far
into the interior to proselytize the Hurons, a populous nation that had
emerged as the dominant force in the French system of trade and alliance. The natives clearly perceived the missionaries as emissaries
from France and welcomed them because they already valued the
French as suppliers of goods and as allies in their wars against the Iroquois. At first many were also interested in the Jesuits’ stories of the origin of the universe and about the extraordinary life and teachings of Jesus. Some asked to be baptized, believing the ritual would initiate them
into a curing society. Trouble arose when it became clear that Christianity was an exclusive and intolerant religion, one that branded other
spiritual practices “diabolical” and declared various normal ways of behaving “immoral.” When epidemics struck, the Hurons tended to blame
the Jesuits, whose mysterious and antisocial behavior seemed to match
the profile of malevolent sorcerers.
For many years, the Jesuit mission to New France was fraught with
disappointment and frustration. In other parts of the world, Jesuits were
used to working with a captive audience, such as vulnerable children in
Europe and defeated Indians fleeing enslavement in Latin America. Here
they lacked coercive power and so had to content themselves with learning the native languages, writing about their “superstitions,” and performing surreptitious baptisms on ailing and dying infants, secure in the
knowledge that the latter would go straight to heaven since they had not
13 INTRODUCTION
had time to sin. It was the absence of coercive authority, as much as anything, that made New France a hardship posting, though the colony’s
reputation was not enhanced by the dangers of incessant war. By the
1640s, the Iroquois, supplied with guns by the Dutch traders of Fort Orange (Albany, New York), were wreaking havoc with the Hurons, the Algonquins, and their French allies. One incidental result was that several
missionaries were captured, tortured, and killed. All this pain and adversity was not without meaning for the Jesuits: It allowed them to identify
with Christ on the cross and to assure themselves that out of affliction
would come glory.
The missions did begin to show signs of success in the 1640s, when
substantial numbers of adult natives accepted Catholicism. This was
only, as the Jesuits readily admitted, because the Algonquins, Montagnais, and Hurons were being “crucified” themselves by the combined
blows of epidemic disease, Iroquois attacks, and growing economic dependency. The desperate and often leaderless survivors of these disasters tended to be more open to proselytism. Just before the Hurons were
effectively wiped out in 1649, whole villages had converted. Meanwhile,
some of the Montagnais and Algonquin bands that frequented Quebec and Three Rivers also accepted baptism and came to live in highly
regulated settlements that the Jesuits set up after the model of the South
American reducciônes. This experiment in authoritarianism proved
short-lived, however, since the natives involved either died off or deserted. Thereafter, the missionaries were careful to allow their converts
a wide margin of independence, for the Indians of New France would not
tolerate regimentation.
In the middle decades of the century, recurrent war with the Iroquois
was crucial to the fate of the Jesuits and their missions. Finally, peace
was secured in the 1660s, when, one by one, the Five Nations came to
terms with the French and their native allies. King Louis XIV sent military forces to invade the country of the Mohawks, the last Iroquois holdouts, and the Jesuits used the threat of further offensives to persuade
many Mohawks to adopt Christianity and move to loosely run mission
communities near Montreal.
From that time on, there was less desperate drama in the chronicles
of the Indian missions in North America. Some Jesuits tended to the
spiritual needs of Iroquoian converts at mission settlements in the St.
Lawrence Valley, while others took their message to the Algonquian
bands of the Great Lakes hinterland. Jesuits were involved, to some extent, in late-seventeenth-century expeditions from Lake Michigan into
14
INTRODUCTION
the Mississippi River system, and they played a role after 1700 in the colonization of Louisiana. By that time, however, the Jesuit Relations were
no longer being published.
THE JESUIT RELATIONS AND THEIR READERS
Through the most eventful years of their Canadian mission, the Jesuits
published annual Relations for the benefit of audiences back home in
France: pious well-wishers, potential donors, and simply curious readers. After some initial improvisation, a pattern emerged by which raw
missionary reports were shaped into a finished volume. It began with detailed letters from priests in the field, the most important usually being
the one brought down by the summer canoe brigade from the Huron
country. The superior at Quebec would compile and edit these letters,
paraphrasing some parts, copying others verbatim, and forwarding the
whole package to France. When they reached Paris, headquarters for
the Jesuit province of France, further editorial changes would be made,
and then the texts would be sent to the printer, about a year after most
of them had originally been drafted. In spite of the Jesuits’ reputation as
an international body directly in the service of the pope, the publication
process, like the New France mission itself, was almost entirely a French
operation. Some commentators make much of the fact that the Relations
in their final form do not correspond to the unmediated reports of the
missionaries in the field. This may be true, but all published works bear
the marks of both author and editor. There is no reason to suppose that
the Jesuit superiors and provincials altered the sense of the texts that
passed through their hands.
European writings about the New World generally divide into two distinct genres, each with its own roots in classical literature: the travel narrative (récit de voyage), a personal chronicle of firsthand experience; and
the ethnographic description, an impersonal, encyclopedic catalog of
the customs and beliefs of some unfamiliar culture.5 One of the peculiarities of the Jesuit Relations is that they combine both types of writing:
Jacques Marquette’s personal narrative of his trip down the Mississippi,
for example, shares space with Jean de Brébeuf’s systematic description
of Huron society. Moreover, the Jesuits added another set of religious
genre types. Drawing on the literary traditions of Christianity, they
5 Gordon M. Sayre, Les Sauvages Américaines: Representations of Native Americans in
French and English Colonial Literature (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press,
1997).
15 INTRODUCTION
framed many of their texts as works of witness, prophecy, and hagiography. Moving with ease from one set of literary conventions to another,
the Jesuits tried to appeal to a wide variety of tastes and interests. As Father François Le Mercier put it in the Relation of 1669-70, “I hope that
there will be found here material to satisfy the curiosity of those who
take pleasure in learning what occurs in foreign nations, and at the same
time material to edify the piety and animate the zeal of apostolic men.”6
There is very little hard data on the circulation and readership of the
Jesuit Relations. We do know that the appearance of each successive volume was eagerly anticipated in some circles, as priests, nuns, and pious
laypeople throughout France read them avidly. But how extensive was
the readership among the more secular-minded? It’s impossible to say
for certain, though many scholars have speculated on the impact of the
Relations on French views of North America and its native peoples. It has
been suggested that they provided the ethnographic raw material, as
well as a basically positive view of “uncivilized” humanity, that helped
eighteenth-century thinkers such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau work out a
revolutionary conception of human nature. However, few intellectual historians would now accept any direct connection between the Jesuit Relations and the Enlightenment’s view of “savage man” in a state of nature.
Travel writings by secular or Protestant figures such as Jean de Léry,
Marc Lescarbot, and Baron Lahontan probably had a more immediate
influence on Rousseau and his contemporaries. In general terms, however, it is fair to say that the Relations made a great and lasting contribution to European knowledge of Amerindian cultures.
The Jesuit Relations certainly had their critics at the time. Enemies of
the Society of Jesus were legion: Protestants who viewed the Jesuits as
the epitome of devious papist malevolence, secular deists who saw them
as defenders of superstition, and, within the Catholic Church, Jansenists
who differed on theological issues. Some rival religious orders also resented the fame and influence of the Jesuits. It was only natural that
the Canadian mission reports would be attacked from these various hostile quarters. Friars of the Recollet order were particularly scathing, as
the Jesuits had shouldered these pioneer missionaries out of the North
American field between 1629 and 1670. Recollet writers such as Chrestien Le Clercq and Louis Hennepin mocked as extravagant “fictions”
the tales of martyrdom and mystic visionaries that punctuate the Relations. Above all, they attacked the claim that Canadian natives had truly
6Quoted in J. H. Kennedy, Jesuit and Savage in New France (New Haven, Conn.: Yale
University Press, 1950), 79.
16
INTRODUCTION
converted to the Catholic faith. “There is scarce any Christianity among
the Savages at this day,” Hennepin wrote at the end of the seventeenth
century, “except some particular Persons, and those in small numbers,
very fickle and inconstant, ready at every moment for any small Interest
to abandon their Religion.”7 Recollets took a more consistently dim view
of the spiritual potential of Indians than did the Jesuits, and, like many
modern historians, they doubted that conversions were either numerous or genuine. But, in fact, the Jesuit Relations, a few triumphant passages excepted, never really claim that native Canada had been fully
Christianized. Indeed, they are filled with sighs of disappointment over
setbacks and failures in the missionary enterprise, though, to be sure,
these admissions of defeat are transformed, through the rhetorical skill
of the Jesuits, into triumphs of missionary devotion. Moreover, the Relations do manage to maintain a positive tone by dwelling at length on the
edifying piety of a few, obviously exceptional, converts. It was manipulative literary devices of this sort that the Recollets denounced; their critique seldom called into question the basic accuracy of Jesuit ethnography and historical chronicle.
CONFRONTING THE OTHER: THE PROBLEM
OF CULTURAL AND HISTORICAL DIFFERENCE
Modern readers will be more likely to regard the Jesuit Relations as
an instance of colonialist writing. Indeed, the missionaries’ judgmental
language may be shocking to students who have not been exposed to
historical documents of the period. Questions of tone apart, it is clear
that these texts about natives were written by Europeans for other Europeans. Thus, there is a great cultural gap separating observers and observed. Moreover, the Jesuits displayed their colonialist colors in assuming a one-way right to judge and evaluate various elements of the
Algonquian and Iroquoian ways of life; they allowed for no reciprocal
right of judgment over many European rules of doctrine and conduct
that were, for the Jesuits, beyond criticism. Some native ways were
considered bad, others good, but to these missionaries native society always remained an external object: the Other that defined itself by not
being Us.
7 Louis Hennepin, A New Discovery of a Vast Country in America, ed. R. G. Thwaites
(1698; reprint, Chicago: A. C. McClurg, 1903), 587. See also the Recollet work sometimes
attributed to Chrestien Le Clercq, First Establishment of the Faith in New France, trans. J. G.
Shea (New York: J. G. Shea, 1881), 2:24-25.
17 INTRODUCTION
A few qualifications are in order. The Relations are far too interesting
to be categorized as colonialist texts, pure and simple. For one thing,
these writings, though undoubtedly the work of Europeans, were generally the product of extensive consultation with Algonquians and Iroquoians. The native voice is by no means absent, even if it often comes
across in a garbled and distorted form. Sometimes Indians are quoted
extensively; more often their intellectual influence can be discerned in
the way the Jesuit recorders recount events and describe customs. The
missionaries were, of course, there to teach the Indians, not learn from
them, and yet it seems unlikely that the years of immersion in a different
culture would leave their outlook unaltered. Nowhere in the published
Relations do any Jesuits admit to compromising their European principles, but, reading between the lines, it is possible to detect evidence of
soul-searching and shifting points of view.
In addition to the cultural gap separating Jesuits and natives, we must
also keep in mind the chronological gulf dividing us as modern readers
from the seventeenth-century world in which these documents were
written. Otherwise, it may be difficult to avoid the temptation to accuse
the Jesuits of offenses (ethnocentrism is the most common charge) that
are meaningless in the context of their times. Some historians discuss
the missionaries and their writings in these ahistorical terms; others,
equally ahistorical in my view, congratulate them on their prematurely
“liberal” attitudes. It is true that the Jesuits were more likely than most
of their contemporaries to say positive things about Indians, but they
were not cultural relativists in anything resembling the manner of modern anthropology. Instead of trying to place them on some sort of single
scale of tolerance and intolerance, we might better recognize the fundamental discontinuity between their way of thinking about cultural difference and ours.
In the mental universe of the Jesuit Relations, pluralism is a problem,
a sign that something is amiss. Europeans of the seventeenth century
were not troubled by a certain diversity of customs and manners in the
different nations of the world; styles in costume and table etiquette were,
for them, largely unimportant. But on basic questions—whether people
lived in a fixed abode, how many husbands or wives they were permitted, their manner of worship—there were absolute rights and wrongs.
Civilization and religion were singular as far as Europeans of that period
were concerned.
As they attempted to understand the aboriginal societies of North
America, missionaries such as Jean de Brébeuf and Paul Le Jeune would
have been able to draw on ancient European traditions of ethnographic
18
INTRODUCTION
classification that went back to the early years of Christianity and, beyond that, to the pre-Christian world of classical antiquity. From the ancient Greeks came the polar opposition of civilization and barbarism or
savagery. For them, civilized peoples had permanent homes, cities, and
farming districts; they possessed some form of government, law, and
civic order. To be a barbarian or savage was to lack these attributes. In
the absence of law, savages tended to be utterly unrestrained in their behavior and disposed to violence. Civilization could take various forms,
but nations either had it or they did not.
For these seventeenth-century Europeans, there was also a parallel
religious dichotomy that opposed Christians and “pagans.” (Complicating the scheme somewhat were the monotheistic religions such as Islam
and Judaism—false but not pagan—but this was not an issue as far as
native North America was concerned.) For Catholics of this period,
Christianity was not just the best religion; it was the absolute truth. The
behavioral norms of Christianity were requirements laid down by the
creator of the universe, and therefore they were applicable to all humanity. God’s existence should have been apparent to any rational being,
and, in any case, He had revealed himself to everyone’s ancestors at
the time of creation and the Flood. Non-Christians were, therefore, “ignorant” or, depending on whether they had been exposed to Christian
teaching, criminally defiant. It was often supposed that immorality was
both a product of paganism and an obstacle to conversion.
Although terms such as savage and barbarian were generally accompanied by negative connotations, they also could have a positive implication. Since they represented the negation of Christian civilization, they
could appear as a superior alternative when Europe seemed decadent
and corrupt. The Jesuits, though uncritical of the ideals of their own society, were anything but complacent about the realities of nominally
Christian Europe. They were painfully familiar with the shortcomings of
civilization. Christian mythology provided them with an antidote to oversophisticated artificiality: This was the figure of the innocent, humanity
before Adam and Eve had tasted the fruits of the tree of knowledge. Natives were sometimes presented as naked, prelapsarian humanity: the
“noble savage” as a token of human possibilities before the Fall. Like
other colonialist writings of the time, the Jesuit Relations frequently dwell
on the natural virtues of American Indians, emphasizing their generosity, their bravery, their lack of affectation, and their immunity to greed
and ambition.
Were the Jesuits really talking about Europe whenever they described and commented, favorably or unfavorably, on Algonquian and
INTRODUCTION
19
Iroquoian societies? Were Indians merely a literary creation representing the opposite of the missionaries’ own culture? Or did the Jesuits
manage to overcome the limitations of their intellectual equipment and
begin to see the world, at least to some degree, as a Huron or a Mohawk?
These are some of the many issues likely to arise when you read and discuss the Jesuit Relations.
1
Montagnais Hunters
of the Northern Woodlands
The earliest published Jesuit Relations were written by Father Paul Le
Jeune (1592-1664), the first superior of the New France mission. Le
Jeune was raised as a Protestant but converted to Catholicism as a young
man. He later joined the Society of Jesus and acquired years of experience as an educator and administrator in various Jesuit colleges in
France before traveling to Canada at the age of forty. Administrative duties kept him at Quebec through most of his North American career, but
he still had extensive contact with the Montagnais and Algonquin bands
that spent the summer in the vicinity of the French fort. The earliest volumes of the Jesuit Relations are almost entirely Le Jeune’s work, and they
focus mainly on the Montagnais.
Thanks to half a century of fur trading, these hunting-gathering
people had experienced considerable contact with the French by the
time Le Jeune encountered them, and yet their ancestral way of life was
only beginning to show the effects of European colonization. The Montagnais had developed finely tuned strategies for deriving a living from
an inhospitable environment of spruce forests, low rocky hills, rivers,
lakes, and wetlands. In summer they gathered several hundred strong
along the St. Lawrence River, wherever the fishing and berrying were
good. But autumn found them dispersing to inland hunting grounds,
where they sought moose and other large mammals for their meat and
hides, as well as beavers, the pelts of which were central to trade with the
French.
The itinerant life of the Montagnais and Algonquins required not only
an intimate knowledge of the landscape and its seasonal resources but
also amazing technical sophistication. These peoples excelled above all
in the technology of transportation. In summer the birch bark canoe carried them and all their possessions along the intricate network of rivers
20
PAUL LE JEUNE WINTERS WITH MESTIGOIT’S BAND, 1633-1634
21
and lakes, yet it remained light enough for portages. When the waterways froze and snow covered the land, hunters donned their snowshoes
and pulled their cargo on wooden toboggans.
Algonquin-Montagnais spiritual beliefs and practices were naturally
of great interest to the Jesuits. Because these peoples saw different animals, as well as natural phenomena such as thunder and waterfalls, as
possessing their own spirits and personalities, some anthropologists
classify their religion as “animism.” These peoples assumed that spirits
could be helpful or harmful to humans, and the aim of Algonquian rituals was to propitiate these spirits — to deflect their malevolence or direct
their powers toward human ends. They told stories of supernatural creatures and magical heroes as a means of conveying an understanding of
the world. They consulted men or women known to possess special spiritual powers (shamans, or “jugglers,” as the Jesuits derisively called
them). They also looked for insight in their dreams and in ecstatic states
induced by ceremonies such as the “shaking tent.”
PAUL LE JEUNE WINTERS WITH
MESTIGOIT’S BAND, 1 6 3 3 – 1 6 3 4
In the fall of 1633, not long after arriving in Canada, Father Le feune
made a rather rash decision to follow a Montagnais band on its travels into
the interior in search of game. The party was led by Mestigoit—Le Jeune
calls him “my host”— and included a shaman, referred to by the missionary as “the sorcerer” and the shaman’s brother, Pastedechouan. Le Jeune
called the latter “the Apostate” because he had traveled to France several
years earlier, converted to Christianity, and then reverted to the Montagnais religion upon his return to Canada. Their destination was the hunting grounds of the northern Appalachians, east of Quebec and south of the
St. Lawrence. Le Jeune’s aim in accompanying the band was to improve
his knowledge of the native language and customs, while pressing his companions to abandon their “superstitions” and recognize the truth of Christianity. The missionary expedition ended up as an arduous struggle for
survival, and far from making converts, Le Jeune seems to have impressed
the Montagnais mainly with the incompetence and odd beliefs of the
French. Still, the Jesuit did get to know the natives intimately, as his writings demonstrate.
There is an engagingly naive quality to these early writings of Paul Le
Jeune. In retrospect, though the author does his best to maintain a stance of
Portrait of Father Paul Le Jeune (1591-1664)
Father Le Jeune was the first superior of the New France mission, and the pioneer author of the Relations.
National Archives of Canada/C-021404.
22
PAUL LE JEUNE WINTERS WITH MESTIGOIT’S BAND, 1633-1634
23
European superiority, he has difficulty disguising his own anxieties and uncertainties. It seems that the missionary found it unsettling to confront the
Montagnais way of life, very much on its own ground and far from any European presence.
PAUL LE JEUNE
Journal [of a Winter Hunt]1
1634
The Indians pass the winter in these woods, ranging here and there to
get their living. In the early snows, they seek the beaver in the small
rivers and porcupines upon the land; when the deep snows come, they
hunt the moose and caribou, as I have said. From the twelfth of November of the year 1633, when we entered these vast forests, to the twentysecond of April of this year 1634, when we returned to the banks of the
great river St. Lawrence, we camped at twenty-three different places.
Sometimes we were in deep valleys, then upon lofty mountains, sometimes in the low flat country; but always in the snow. These forests where
I was are made up of different kinds of trees, especially pines, cedars,
and firs. We crossed many torrents of water, some rivers, several beautiful lakes and ponds, always walking over the ice. But let us come down
to particulars and say a few words about each camping spot. My fear of
becoming tedious will cause me to omit many things that I have considered trifling, although they might throw some light upon these memoirs.
Upon entering these regions, there were three cabins in our company: nineteen persons being in ours, sixteen in the cabin of the Indian
named Ekhennabamate, and ten in that of the newcomers. This does not
include the Indians who were encamped a few leagues2 away from us.
We were in all forty-five persons, who were to be kept alive on what it
should please the holy providence of God to send us, for our provisions
were getting very low.
Selection titles are generally from the Jesuit Relations. Brackets indicate titles or parts
of titles that were added by the editor.
2A league (French lieue) was a distance of approximately four kilometers, or two and a
half miles.
JR 7:106-15, Paul Le Jeune, Relation of 1634.
(Source notes throughout use the abbreviation JR, followed by a volume and page reference, to designate Reuben G. Thwaites, ed., The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents,
73 vols. [Cleveland: Burrows Brothers, 1896-1900].)
24
MONTAGNAIS HUNTERS OF THE NORTHERN WOODLANDS
This is the order we followed in breaking up our camps, in tramping
over the country, and in erecting our tents and pavilions. When our
people saw that there was no longer any game within three or four
leagues of us, an Indian who was best acquainted with the way to the
place where we were going cried out in a loud voice outside the cabin
one fine day, “Listen, men, I am going to mark the way for breaking
camp tomorrow at daybreak.” He took a hatchet and marked some trees,
which guided us. They do not mark the way except in the beginning of
winter, for when all the rivers and streams are frozen and the snow is
deep, they do not take this trouble.
When there are a number of things to be carried, as often happens
when they have killed a great many moose,3 the women go ahead and
carry a portion of these things to the place where they are to camp the
following day. When the snow is deep, they make sledges of wood which
splits and which can be peeled off like leaves in very thin, long strips.
These sledges are very narrow, because they have to be dragged among
masses of trees closely crowded in some places; but to make up for this,
they are very long. One day, seeing the sledge of my host standing
against a tree, I could scarcely reach to the middle of it, stretching out
my arm as far as I could. They fasten their baggage upon these, and, with
a cord that they pass over their chests, they drag these wheel-less chariots over the snow.
But not to wander farther from my subject, as soon as it is day each
one prepares to break camp. They begin by having breakfast, if there is
any; for sometimes they depart without breakfasting, continue on their
way without dining, and go to bed without supping. Each one arranges
his own baggage, as best he can, and the women strike the cabin, to remove the ice and snow from the bark, which they roll up in a bundle.
Once packed, the baggage is thrown upon their backs or loins in long
bundles, which they hold with a cord that passes over their foreheads,
beneath which they place a piece of bark so that it will not hurt them.
When everyone is loaded, they mount their snowshoes, which are bound
to the feet so that they will not sink into the snow, and then they march
over plain and mountain. They make the children start early and go on
ahead, but even so they often do not arrive until quite late. These little
3 In the original French, Le Jeune refers to the main quarry of the Montagnais as les
eslans, which in the Thwaites edition is translated as “elk,” although it seems highly unlikely that the hunters would have encountered elk in this region. Europeans at this time
were still somewhat uncertain as to how to designate unfamiliar North American animals.
Le Jeune refers to caribou as “wild asses.”
PAUL LE JEUNE WINTERS WITH MESTIGOIT’S BAND, 1633-1634
25
ones have their packs, or their sledges, to accustom them early to fatigue; the adults try to stimulate them by making a contest to see who
will carry or drag the most.
To paint for you the hardships of the journey, I have neither pen nor
brush equal to the task. You would have to see them to understand, as
this is a meal that must be tasted to be appreciated. We did nothing but
go up and go down. Frequently we had to bend over double to pass under partly fallen trees, and step over others lying upon the ground whose
branches sometimes knocked us over, gently enough to be sure, but always coldly, for we fell upon the snow. If there happened to be a thaw, oh
God, what suffering! It seemed to me I was walking over a road of glass
that broke under my feet at every step. The frozen snow, beginning to
melt, would fall and break into blocks or big pieces, into which we often
sank up to our knees, and sometimes to our waists. Falling was painful
enough, but pulling oneself out was even worse, for our snowshoes
would be loaded with snow and so heavy that, when we tried to draw
them out, it seemed as if somebody were tugging at our legs to dismember us. I have seen some who slid so far under the logs buried in
the snow that they could pull out neither their legs nor their snowshoes
without assistance. So imagine someone on these paths, loaded down
like a mule, and you may judge how easy is the life of the Indian.
In the discomforts of a journey in France, there are villages where one
can refresh and fortify oneself, but the only inns that we encountered
were brooks. We even had to break the ice in order to get some water to
drink. It is true that we did not travel far each day, for that would indeed
have been absolutely impossible for us.
When we reached the place where we were to camp, the women went
to cut the poles for the cabin, and the men to clear away the snow. Now
a person had to work at this building, or shiver with cold for three long
hours upon the snow waiting until it was finished. Sometimes I put my
hand to the work to warm myself, but usually I was so frozen that fire
alone could thaw me. The Indians were surprised at this, for they were
working hard enough to sweat. Assuring them now and then that I was
very cold, they would say to me, “Give us your hands so that we may see
if you are telling the truth”; and finding them quite frozen, they were
touched with compassion and gave me their warm mittens and took my
cold ones. This went so far that my host, after having tried it several
times, said to me, “Nicanis,4 do not winter anymore with the Indians, for
4
Nicanis is the name the Montagnais gave to Father Le Jeune.
26
MONTAGNAIS HUNTERS OF THE NORTHERN WOODLANDS
they will kill you.” I think he meant that I would fall ill, and because I
could not be dragged along with the baggage, they would kill me. I began to laugh and told him that he was trying to frighten me.
When the cabin was finished, about nightfall or a little before, they began to talk about dinner and supper all in one, for as we had departed in
the morning with only a small morsel to eat, we had to have patience to
reach our destination and to wait until the hotel was erected, in order to
lodge and eat there. Unfortunately, on this particular day, our people did
not go hunting as usual, and so it was for us a day of fasting as well as a
day of work
PAUL LE JEUNE
On Their Hunting and Fishing
1634
The beaver is taken in several ways. The Indians say that it is the animal
well beloved by the French, English, and Basques: in a word, by the Europeans. I heard my host say one day, jokingly, Missi picoutau amiscou,
‘The beaver knows how to make all things to perfection: It makes
kettles, hatchets, swords, knives, bread; in short, it makes everything.”
He was making sport of our Europeans, who have such a fondness for
the skin of this animal and who fight to see who will give the most to
these barbarians to get it. They carry this to such an extent that my host
said to me one day, showing me a very beautiful knife, “The English have
no sense; they give us twenty knives like this for one beaver skin.”1
In the spring, the beaver is taken in a trap baited with the wood it eats.
The Indians are very clever in setting these traps, such that, when set off,
they cause a heavy piece of wood to fall upon the animal and knock it out.
Sometimes the dogs find a beaver outside its house, whereupon they will
pursue it and capture it easily. I have never seen this chase but have been
told of it; and the Indians highly value a dog which can scent and flush
out this animal.
1 The Montagnais had become acquainted with the English between 1629 and 1632,
when the Kirke brothers had captured and occupied Quebec.
JR 6:296-99, 210-13, Paul Le Jeune, Relation of1634.
PAUL LE JEUNE WINTERS WITH MESTIGOIT’S BAND, 1633-1634
27
During the winter they capture them in nets and under the ice. They
cut an opening in the ice near the beaver’s house and put into the hole a
net with some wood which serves as bait. The poor animal, searching for
something to eat, gets caught in a net made of good, strong, double
cord; it must be hauled out quickly before it cuts the net to bits. Once it
is taken from the water through the hole in the ice, they kill it with a
big club.
The other way of taking them under the ice is more noble. Not all the
Indians use this method, only the most skillful. With their hatchets, they
break apart the cabin or house of the beaver, which is indeed wonderfully made
The Indians do not throw to the dogs the bones of beavers or female
porcupines; at least, not certain specified bones. In general, they are
very careful that the dogs do not eat any bones of birds or of other animals that are caught in nets; otherwise they will never be able to catch
any more except with the greatest difficulty. Yet they make a thousand
exceptions to this rule, for it does not matter if the vertebrae or rump of
these animals be given to the dogs, though the rest must be thrown into
the fire. However, when a beaver has been taken in a net, it is best to
throw its bones into a river. It is amazing how they gather and collect
these bones, and preserve them with so much care, that you would say
their hunt would be destroyed if they violated their superstitions.
As I was laughing at them and telling them that beavers do not know
what is done with their bones, they replied: ‘You do not know how to
catch beavers, and yet you want to tell us about it. Before the beaver is
completely dead,” they told me, “its soul comes to visit the cabin of the
man who kills it, and looks very carefully to see what is done with his
bones. If they have been given to the dogs, the other beavers would be
warned, and so they would make themselves difficult to catch. But they
are very glad to have their bones thrown into the fire or into a river. The
trap which caught them is especially pleased with this.”
I told them that the Iroquois, according to one who was with us,
threw the bones of the beavers to the dogs, and yet they caught them
very often; and that our Frenchmen captured far more game than they,
though our dogs ate the bones. ‘You have no sense,” they said. “Do you
not see that you and the Iroquois cultivate the soil and gather its fruits,
and not we, and that therefore it is not the same?” I began to laugh when
I heard this irrelevant answer. The trouble is that I only stammer, I mix
my words up, I pronounce badly, and so everything usually ends in
laughter. What great difficulty there is in talking to a people without
28
MONTAGNAIS HUNTERS OF THE NORTHERN WOODLANDS
understanding their language. Furthermore, in their eat-all feasts it is
very important to prevent the dogs from tasting even the least of it, but
that is another subject….
THE MONTAGNAIS DESCRIBED
The following passage is part of Paul Le Jeune’s attempt to provide his readers with a systematic survey of Montagnais customs and culture. Normally,
European writers of the time stuck to a single literary genre when they
wrote about the natives of America: either an impersonal and “objective”
ethnographic description or a first-person travel account. Le Jeune’s Relation of 1634 tends to blur the boundaries. The traveler’s narrative featured
on pages 23-26 contains paragraphs of ethnographic description, while the
overview of Montagnais customs in this section keeps slipping into the personal narrative mode.
PAUL LE JEUNE
On the Beliefs, Superstitions, and Errors
of the Montagnais Indians
1634
I have already reported that the Indians believe that a certain being
named Atahocam created the world and that one named Messou restored it. When I questioned the famous sorcerer and the old man with
whom I passed the winter on this subject, they answered that they did
not know who was the first creator of the world: that it was perhaps Atahocam, but that was not certain; that they only spoke of Atahocam as one
speaks of a thing so far distant that nothing sure can be known about it;
and, in fact, the word Nitatachokan in their language means “I relate a fable; I am telling an old story invented for amusement.”
As to the Messou, they hold that he restored the world, which was destroyed in the Flood. Thus, it appears that they have some tradition of
that great universal deluge which happened in the time of Noah, but they
JR 6 : 1 5 6 – 6 9 , Paul Le Jeune, Relation of1634.
THE MONTAGNAIS DESCRIBED
29
have burdened this truth with a great many irrelevant fables. This Messou went hunting, and his lynxes, which he used instead of dogs, having
gone into a great lake, were held there. The Messou, seeking them
everywhere, was told by a bird that it had seen them in the midst of this
lake. He went in to get them out, but the lake overflowed, covering the
earth and swallowing up the world. The Messou, very much astonished,
sent a raven in search of a little piece of ground with which to rebuild this
element [the earth], but he could not find any. He made an otter descend
into the abyss of waters, but it could not bring back any. At last he sent
a muskrat, which brought back a little morsel, and the Messou used this
to rebuild this earth which we inhabit. He shot arrows into the trunks of
trees, which made themselves into branches. He performed a thousand
other wonders, avenged himself upon those who had detained his
lynxes, and married a muskrat, by whom he had children who have repopulated this world. This is the way in which the Messou restored all
things. I touched upon this fable last year, but, desiring to recapitulate
all I know about their beliefs, I have repeated many things. Our Indian
related to Father Brébeuf [see chapter 2] that his people believe that a
certain Indian had received from the Messou the gift of immortality in a
little package, with a strict injunction not to open it. While he kept it
closed, he was immortal, but his wife, being curious and incredulous,
wished to see what was inside this present. When she opened it, it all
flew away, and since then the Indians have been subject to death.
They also say that all animals, of every species, have an elder brother,
who is, as it were, the source and origin of all individuals, and this elder
brother is wonderfully great and powerful. The elder of the beavers, they
tell me, is perhaps as large as our cabin, although his younger brothers
(that is, the ordinary beavers) are not quite as large as our sheep. Now
these elder brothers of all the animals are the younger brothers of the
Messou. As elder brother to all the beasts, this worthy restorer of the
universe can certainly claim a distinguished lineage! If, while sleeping,
someone sees the elder brother or progenitor of an animal, he will have
a successful hunt; if he sees the elder brother of the beavers, he will take
beavers; if he sees the elder brother of the moose, he will take moose,
possessing the younger brothers through the favor of their senior,
whom he has seen in the dream. I asked them where these elder brothers were. “We are not sure,” they answered me, “but we think the elder
brothers of the birds are in the sky, and that the elder brothers of the
other animals are in the water.”
They recognize two progenitors of the seasons. One is called Nipinoukhe; it is this one that brings the spring and summer. This name
30
MONTAGNAIS HUNTERS OF THE NORTHERN WOODLANDS
comes from nipin, which in their language means “springtime.” The
other is called Pipounoukhe, from the word pipoun, which means “winter”; it therefore brings the cold season. I asked them if this Nipinoukhe
and Pipounoukhe were men or if they were animals of some other species, and in what place they usually dwelt. They replied that they did not
know exactly what form they had, but they were quite sure they were living, for they heard them, they said, talking or rustling, especially at their
coming, though they could not tell what they were saying. For their
dwelling place they share the world between them, one keeping on one
side, the other upon the other, and when the period of their stay at one
end of the world has expired, each goes over to the locality of the other,
reciprocally succeeding each other. Here we have, in part, the fable of
Castor and Pollux.1 When Nipinoukhe returns, he brings back with him
the heat, the birds, the verdure, and restores life and beauty to the world;
but Pipounoukhe lays everything to waste, being accompanied by the
cold winds, ice, snows, and other phenomena of winter. They call this
succession of one to the other Achitescatoueth, meaning that they exchange places.
Furthermore, they believe that there are certain spirits of light, or
spirits of the air, which they call Khichikouai, from the word khichikou,
which means “light” or “the air.” The spirits, or Khichikouai, are acquainted with future events. They see very far ahead. This is why the Indians consult them, not all of them but certain shamans, who know better than the others how to impose upon and fool these people. I have
chanced to be present when they consulted these fine oracles, and here
is what I have observed.
Toward nightfall, two or three young men erected a tabernacle in the
middle of our cabin. They stuck six poles deep into the ground in the
form of a circle, and to hold them in place they fastened to the tops of
these poles a large ring, which completely encircled them. This done,
they enclosed this edifice with blankets, leaving the top of the tent open.
It was all that a tall man could do to reach to the top of this round tower,
capable of holding five or six men standing upright Once this house was
made, the fires of the cabin were entirely extinguished and the brands
were thrown outside lest the flame frighten away the spirits, or Khichikouai, who were to enter this tent. A young shaman slipped in from below,
turning back the covering which enveloped it, then replacing it when he
had entered, for they must be very careful that there be no opening in
1
Castor and Pollux are twin brothers of ancient Greek mythology.
THE MONTAGNAIS DESCRIBED
31
this fine palace except from above. The shaman, having entered, began
to moan softly as if complaining. He shook the tent gently at first; then,
gradually becoming more animated, he began to whistle in a hollow tone
as if from afar; then to talk as if speaking into a bottle; to cry like the owls
of this country, which it seems to me have stronger voices than those of
France; then to howl and sing, constantly varying the tones; ending by
these syllables, “ho ho, hi hi, gui gui, nioué,” and other similar sounds,
disguising his voice so that it seemed to me I was hearing puppets such
as those that showmen use in France. Sometimes he spoke Montagnais,
sometimes Algonquin, retaining always the Algonquin intonation, which
is as vivacious as the Provençal dialect. At first, as I have said, he shook
this edifice gently, but as he grew more animated, he fell into so violent
an ecstasy that I thought he would break everything to pieces, shaking
his house with so much force and violence that I was astonished at a man
having so much strength. For, after he had once begun to shake it, he
did not stop until the consultation was over, which lasted about three
hours. Whenever he would change his voice, the Indians would at first
cry out, Moa, moa, “Listen, listen,” and then, as an invitation to these
spirits, they said to them, Pitoukhecou, pitoukhecou, “Enter, enter.” At
other times, as if they were replying to the howls of the shaman, they
drew this aspiration from the depths of their chests, ho, ho. I was seated
like the others looking on at this wonderful mystery, and though forbidden to speak, I had not vowed obedience to them, and so I did not fail to
intrude a little word into the proceedings. Sometimes I begged them to
have pity on this poor shaman who was killing himself in this tent; at
other times I told them they should cry louder, for the spirits had gone
to sleep.
Some of these barbarians imagined that this shaman was not inside,
that he had been carried away, without knowing where or how. Others
said that his body was lying on the ground and that his soul was up above
the tent, where it spoke at first, calling these spirits and throwing from
time to time sparks of fire. Now to return to our consultation. The Indians, having heard a certain voice that the shaman counterfeited, uttered
a cry of joy, saying that one of these spirits had entered; then addressing
themselves to him, they cried out, Tepouachi, tepouachi, “Call, call”; that
is, “Call your companions.” Thereupon the shaman, pretending to be one
of the spirits and, changing his tone and his voice, called them. In the
meantime our sorcerer, who was present, took his drum and began to
sing with the shaman who was in the tent, and the others answered.
They made some of the young men dance, among others the Apostate,
who did not wish to hear of it, but the sorcerer made him obey.
32
MONTAGNAIS HUNTERS OF THE NORTHERN WOODLANDS
At last, after a thousand cries and howls, a thousand songs, and having danced and thoroughly shaken this fine edifice, the Indians believed
that the spirits, or Khichikouai, had entered, and the sorcerer consulted
them. He asked them about his health — for he was sick—and about
that of his wife, who was also sick. These spirits, or rather the shaman
who counterfeited them, answered that, as to his wife, she was already
dead, that it was all over with her. I could have said as much myself, for
one needed not be a prophet or a sorcerer to guess that, inasmuch as the
poor creature was already visibly on death’s door. In regard to the sorcerer, they said that he would live to see another spring. Now, knowing
his disease —which was pain in the abdomen, or rather an infirmity resulting from his licentiousness and lewdness, for he is vile to the last degree—I said to him, seeing that he was otherwise healthy and that he
drank and ate very heartily, that he would not only see the spring but
also the summer, if some other accident did not overtake him. I was not
mistaken.
After these interrogations, these fine oracles were asked if there
would soon be snow, if there would be much of it, if there would be
moose, and where they could be found. They answered — or rather the
shaman, always disguising his voice — that they saw a little snow and
some moose far away, without indicating the place, having the prudence
not to commit themselves
PAUL LE JEUNE
On the Good Things Which Are Found among the Indians
1634
If we begin with physical advantages, I will say that they possess these
in abundance. They are tall, erect, strong, well proportioned, agile; there
is nothing effeminate in their appearance. Those little fops that are seen
elsewhere are only painted images of men, compared with our Indians. I
was once inclined to believe that pictures of the Roman emperors represented the ideal of the painters rather than men who had ever existed,
so strong and powerful are their heads; but I see here upon the shoulders of these people the heads of Julius Caesar, of Pompey, of Augustus,
JR 6:228-35, Paul Le Jeune, Relation of 1634.
THE MONTAGNAIS DESCRIBED
33
of Otto, and of others that I have seen in France, either drawn upon paper or in relief on medallions.
As to the mind of the Indian, it is of good quality. I believe that
souls are all made from the same stock and that they do not differ substantially. Hence, the well-formed bodies and well-regulated and wellarranged organs of these barbarians suggest that their minds too ought
to function well. Education and instruction alone are lacking. Their soul
is a naturally fertile soil, but it is loaded down with all the evils that a land
abandoned since the birth of the world can produce. I naturally compare
our Indians with [European] villagers, because both are usually without education, although our peasants are slightly more advanced in this
regard. Nevertheless, people who come to this country always confess
and frankly admit that the Indians are more clever than our ordinary
peasants.
Moreover, if it is a great blessing to be free from a great evil, our Indians should be considered fortunate. For there are two tyrants, ambition and avarice, who distress and torture so many of our Europeans but
have no dominion over these great forests. Because the Indians have neither civil regulation, nor administrative offices, nor dignities, nor any positions of command — for they obey their chief only through goodwill toward him — they never kill one another to acquire these honors. Also,
they are content with basic subsistence, and so not one of them gives
himself to the Devil to acquire wealth.
They profess never to get angry, though not because of the beauty of
this virtue, for which they have not even a name, but rather for their own
contentment and happiness. In other words, they want only to free themselves from the bitterness caused by anger. The sorcerer said to me one
day, speaking of one of our Frenchmen, “He has no sense, he gets angry;
as for me, nothing can disturb me. Let hunger oppress us, let my nearest relations pass to the other life, let the Iroquois, our enemies, massacre our people; I never get angry.” What he says cannot be taken as an
article of faith, for as he is haughtier than any other Indian, so I have
seen him annoyed more often than any of them. It is true also that he often restrains and governs himself by force, especially when I expose his
foolishness. I have only heard one Indian pronounce this word, Ninichcatihin, “I am angry,” and he said it only once. But I noticed that people
were wary of him, for when these barbarians are angry, they are dangerous and unrestrained.
Whoever professes not to get angry ought also to make a profession
of patience. The Indians surpass us to such an extent in this respect that
we ought to be ashamed. I saw them, in their hardships and in their
Indian Women and Children
As imagined by a European illustrator who probably never set foot in North
America.
Courtesy of the Newberry Library, Chicago.
34
HOW TO SETTLE DISPUTES AND DISCIPLINE CHILDREN
35
labors, suffering cheerfully. My host, wondering at the great number of
people who I told him were in France, asked me if the men were good, if
they did not become angry, if they were patient. I have never seen such
patience as is shown by a sick Indian. Others may yell, storm, jump, and
dance, but he will scarcely ever complain. When I was with them and
there was danger of great suffering, they would say to me, “We shall be
sometimes two days, sometimes three, without any food to eat. Take
courage, Chibiné, let your soul be strong to endure the pain and the
hardship; try not to feel sad, as otherwise you will fall sick. Watch us. See
how we keep laughing even though we have little to eat.” One thing
alone casts them down: That is when they see the approach of death,
for they fear it beyond measure. Take away this apprehension from the
Indians, and they will endure all kinds of degradation and discomfort
and all kinds of trials and suffering very patiently
They are very much attached to each other and cooperate admirably.
You do not see any disputes, quarrels, enmities, or reproaches among
them. Men leave the household arrangements to the women without interfering with them. The women cut up and divide the food, deciding
how much to give to each member of the family as they please, without
any objections or anger on the part of the husband. When our provisions
were disappearing rapidly under the management of a thoughtless
young woman who accompanied my host, I never heard him ask her to
explain what had happened to the food. I never heard the women complain because they were not invited to the feasts, because the men ate
the good pieces, or because they had to work continually, gathering firewood, erecting the cabins, dressing the skins, and busying themselves
with other hard work. Everyone does his own chores, gently and peacefully, without any disputes. It is true, however, that they have neither
gentleness nor courtesy in their utterance; and a Frenchman could not
assume the accent, the tone, and the sharpness of their voices without
getting angry. Yet they do not become irritated.
HOW TO SETTLE DISPUTES
AND DISCIPLINE CHILDREN
Paul Le Jeune received an early lesson in how the Algonquians handled assaults and injuries and how their children were disciplined. It was in 1633,
on the occasion of a visit by a party of Algonquins and Nipissings who had
traveled down the Ottawa and St. Lawrence rivers to trade with the French
at Quebec.
PAUL LE JEUNE
What Occurred in New France in the Year 1633
1633
. . . One of them was looking very attentively at a little French boy who
was beating a drum. As the Indian approached close to see him better,
the little boy struck him a blow with one of his drumsticks and made his
head bleed badly. Immediately all the people of his nation who were
looking at the drummer took offense upon seeing this blow given. They
went and found the French interpreter and said to him: “One of your
people has wounded one of ours. You know our custom well; give us
presents for this wound.” As there is no government among the Indians,
when one among them kills or wounds another, he is (assuming he escapes immediate retaliation) released from all punishment by giving a
few presents to the friends of the deceased or wounded one. Our interpreter said: ‘You know our custom: When any of our number does
wrong, he is punished. This chi…