The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century Part 28

Ragueneau, who remarks that this harangue is a proof that eloquence is the gift of Nature rather than of Art, made a reply, which he has not recorded, and then gave the speaker a bundle of small sticks, indicating the number of presents which he required in satisfaction for the murder.

These sticks were distributed among the various tribes in the council, in order that each might contribute its share towards the indemnity.

The council dissolved, and the chiefs went home, each with his allotment of sticks, to collect in his village a corresponding number of presents.

There was no constraint; those gave who chose to do so; but, as all were ambitious to show their public spirit, the contributions were ample.

No one thought of molesting the murderers. Their punishment was their shame at the sacrifices which the public were making in their behalf.

The presents being ready, a day was set for the ceremony of their delivery; and crowds gathered from all parts to witness it. The a.s.sembly was convened in the open air, in a field beside the mission-house of Sainte Marie; and, in the midst, the chiefs held solemn council. Towards evening, they deputed four of their number, two Christians and two heathen, to carry their address to the Father Superior. They came, loaded with presents; but these were merely preliminary. One was to open the door, another for leave to enter; and as Sainte Marie was a large house, with several interior doors, at each one of which it behooved them to repeat this formality, their stock of gifts became seriously reduced before they reached the room where Father Ragueneau awaited them.

On arriving, they made him a speech, every clause of which was confirmed by a present. The first was to wipe away his tears; the second, to restore his voice, which his grief was supposed to have impaired; the third, to calm the agitation of his mind; and the fourth, to allay the just anger of his heart. [ 1 ] These gifts consisted of wampum and the large sh.e.l.ls of which it was made, together with other articles, worthless in any eyes but those of an Indian. Nine additional presents followed: four for the four posts of the sepulchre or scaffold of the murdered man; four for the cross-pieces which connected the posts; and one for a pillow to support his head. Then came eight more, corresponding to the eight largest bones of the victim's body, and also to the eight clans of the Hurons. [ 2 ] Ragueneau, as required by established custom, now made them a present in his turn. It consisted of three thousand beads of wampum, and was designed to soften the earth, in order that they might not be hurt, when falling upon it, overpowered by his reproaches for the enormity of their crime. This closed the interview, and the deputation withdrew.

[ 1 Ragueneau himself describes the scene. Relation des Hurons, 1648, 80. ]

[ 2 Ragueneau says, "les huit nations"; but, as the Hurons consisted of only four, or at most five, nations, he probably means the clans.

For the nature of these divisions, see Introduction. ]

The grand ceremony took place on the next day. A kind of arena had been prepared, and here were hung the fifty presents in which the atonement essentially consisted,--the rest, amounting to as many more, being only accessory. [ 1 ] The Jesuits had the right of examining them all, rejecting any that did not satisfy them, and demanding others in place of them. The naked crowd sat silent and attentive, while the orator in the midst delivered the fifty presents in a series of harangues, which the tired listener has not thought it necessary to preserve. Then came the minor gifts, each with its signification explained in turn by the speaker. First, as a sepulchre had been provided the day before for the dead man, it was now necessary to clothe and equip him for his journey to the next world; and to this end three presents were made. They represented a hat, a coat, a shirt, breeches, stockings, shoes, a gun, powder, and bullets; but they were in fact something quite different, as wampum, beaver-skins, and the like. Next came several gifts to close up the wounds of the slain. Then followed three more. The first closed the chasm in the earth, which had burst through horror of the crime.

The next trod the ground firm, that it might not open again; and here the whole a.s.sembly rose and danced, as custom required. The last placed a large stone over the closed gulf; to make it doubly secure.

[ 1 The number was unusually large,--partly because the affair was thought very important, and partly because the murdered man belonged to another nation. See Introduction. ]

Now came another series of presents, seven in number,--to restore the voices of all the missionaries,--to invite the men in their service to forget the murder,--to appease the Governor when he should hear of it,--to light the fire at Sainte Marie,--to open the gate,--to launch the ferry boat in which the Huron visitors crossed the river,--and to give back the paddle to the boy who had charge of the boat. The Fathers, it seems, had the right of exacting two more presents, to rebuild their house and church,--supposed to have been shaken to the earth by the late calamity; but they forbore to urge the claim. Last of all were three gifts to confirm all the rest, and to entreat the Jesuits to cherish an undying love for the Hurons.

The priests on their part gave presents, as tokens of good-will; and with that the a.s.sembly dispersed. The mission had gained a triumph, and its influence was greatly strengthened. The future would have been full of hope, but for the portentous cloud of war that rose, black and wrathful, from where lay the dens of the Iroquois.

CHAPTER XXV.

1648, 1649.

SAINTE MARIE.

THE CENTRE OF THE MISSIONS.--FORT.--CONVENT.--HOSPITAL.--CARAVANSARY.-- CHURCH.--THE INMATES OF SAINTE MARIE.--DOMESTIC ECONOMY.--MISSIONS.-- A MEETING OF JESUITS.--THE DEAD MISSIONARY.

The River Wye enters the Bay of Glocester, an inlet of the Bay of Matchedash, itself an inlet of the vast Georgian Bay of Lake Huron.

Retrace the track of two centuries and more, and ascend this little stream in the summer of the year 1648. Your vessel is a birch canoe, and your conductor a Huron Indian. On the right hand and on the left, gloomy and silent, rise the primeval woods; but you have advanced scarcely half a league when the scene is changed, and cultivated fields, planted chiefly with maize, extend far along the bank, and back to the distant verge of the forest. Before you opens the small lake from which the stream issues; and on your left, a stone's throw from the sh.o.r.e, rises a range of palisades and bastioned walls, inclosing a number of buildings. Your canoe enters a ca.n.a.l or ditch immediately above them, and you land at the Mission, or Residence, or Fort of Sainte Marie.

Here was the centre and base of the Huron missions; and now, for once, one must wish that Jesuit pens had been more fluent. They have told us but little of Sainte Marie, and even this is to be gathered chiefly from incidental allusions. In the forest, which long since has resumed its reign over this memorable spot, the walls and ditches of the fortifications may still be plainly traced; and the deductions from these remains are in perfect accord with what we can gather from the Relations and letters of the priests. [ Before me is an elaborate plan of the remains, taken on the spot. ] The fortified work which inclosed the buildings was in the form of a parallelogram, about a hundred and seventy-five feet long, and from eighty to ninety wide. It lay parallel with the river, and somewhat more than a hundred feet distant from it.

On two sides it was a continuous wall of masonry, [ 1 ] flanked with square bastions, adapted to musketry, and probably used as magazines, storehouses, or lodgings. The sides towards the river and the lake had no other defences than a ditch and palisade, flanked, like the others, by bastions, over each of which was displayed a large cross. [ 2 ]

The buildings within were, no doubt, of wood; and they included a church, a kitchen, a refectory, places of retreat for religious instruction and meditation, [ 3 ] and lodgings for at least sixty persons. Near the church, but outside the fortification, was a cemetery. Beyond the ditch or ca.n.a.l which opened on the river was a large area, still traceable, in the form of an irregular triangle, surrounded by a ditch, and apparently by palisades. It seems to have been meant for the protection of the Indian visitors who came in throngs to Sainte Marie, and who were lodged in a large house of bark, after the Huron manner. [ 4 ] Here, perhaps, was also the hospital, which was placed without the walls, in order that Indian women, as well as men, might be admitted into it.

[ 5 ]

[ 1 It seems probable that the walls, of which the remains may still be traced, were foundations supporting a wooden superstructure. Ragueneau, in a letter to the General of the Jesuits, dated March 13, 1650, alludes to the defences of Saint Marie as "une simple palissade." ]

[ 2 "Quatre grandes Croix qui sont aux quatre coins de nostre enclos."-- Ragueneau, Relation des Hurons, 1648, 81. ]

[ 3 It seems that these places, besides those for the priests, were of two kinds,--"vne retraite pour les pelerins (Indians), enfin vn lieu plus separe, ou les infideles, qui n'y sont admis que de iour au pa.s.sage, y puissent tousiours receuoir quelque bon mot pour leur salut."--Lalemant, Relation des Hurons, 1644, 74. ]

[ 4 At least it was so in 1642. "Nous leur auons dresse vn Hospice ou Cabane d'ecorce."--Ibid., 1642, 57. ]

[ 5 "Cet hospital est tellement separe de nostre demeure, que non seulement les hommes et enfans, mais les femmes y peuuent estre admises."--Ibid., 1644, 74. ]

No doubt the buildings of Sainte Marie were of the roughest,--rude walls of boards, windows without gla.s.s, vast chimneys of unhewn stone. All its riches were centred in the church, which, as Lalemant tells us, was regarded by the Indians as one of the wonders of the world, but which, he adds, would have made but a beggarly show in France. Yet one wonders, at first thought, how so much labor could have been accomplished here.

Of late years, however, the number of men at the command of the mission had been considerable. Soldiers had been sent up from time to time, to escort the Fathers on their way, and defend them on their arrival.

Thus, in 1644, Montmagny ordered twenty men of a reinforcement just arrived from France to escort Brebeuf, Garreau, and Chabanel to the Hurons, and remain there during the winter. [ 1 ] These soldiers lodged with the Jesuits, and lived at their table. [ 2 ] It was not, however, on detachments of troops that they mainly relied for labor or defence.

Any inhabitant of Canada who chose to undertake so hard and dangerous a service was allowed to do so, receiving only his maintenance from the mission, without pay. In return, he was allowed to trade with the Indians, and sell the furs thus obtained at the magazine of the Company, at a fixed price. [ Registres des Arrets du Conseil, extract in Faillon, II, 94. ] Many availed themselves of this permission; and all whose services were accepted by the Jesuits seem to have been men to whom they had communicated no small portion of their own zeal, and who were enthusiastically attached to their Order and their cause. There is abundant evidence that a large proportion of them acted from motives wholly disinterested. They were, in fact, _donnes_ of the mission, [ 3 ]

--given, heart and hand, to its service. There is probability in the conjecture, that the profits of their trade with the Indians were reaped, not for their own behoof, but for that of the mission. [ 4 ] It is difficult otherwise to explain the confidence with which the Father Superior, in a letter to the General of the Jesuits at Rome, speaks of its resources. He says, "Though our number is greatly increased, and though we still hope for more men, and especially for more priests of our Society, it is not necessary to increase the pecuniary aid given us."

[ 5 ]

[ 1 Vimont, Relation, 1644, 49. He adds, that some of these soldiers, though they had once been "a.s.sez mauvais garcons," had shown great zeal and devotion in behalf of the mission. ]

[ 2 Journal des Superieurs des Jesuites, MS. In 1648, a small cannon was sent to Sainte Marie in the Huron canoes.--Ibid. ]

[ 3 See ante, chapter 16 (page 214), "donnes". Garnier calls them "seculiers d'habit, mais religieux de cur."--Lettres, MSS. ]

[ 4 The Jesuits, even at this early period, were often and loudly charged with sharing in the fur-trade. It is certain that this charge was not wholly without foundation. Le Jeune, in the Relation of 1657, speaking of the wampum, guns, powder, lead, hatchets, kettles, and other articles which the missionaries were obliged to give to the Indians, at councils and elsewhere, says that these must be bought from the traders with beaver-skins, which are the money of the country; and he adds, "Que si vn Iesuite en recoit ou en recueille quelques-vns pour ayder aux frais immenses qu'il faut faire dans ces Missions si eloignees, et pour gagner ces peuples a Iesus-Christ et les porter a la paix, il seroit a souhaiter que ceux-la mesme qui deuroient faire ces despenses pour la conseruation du pays, ne fussent pas du moins les premiers a cond.a.m.ner le zele de ces Peres, et a les rendre par leurs discours plus noirs que leurs robes."--Relation, 1657, 16.

In the same year, Chaumonot, addressing a council of the Iroquois during a period of truce, said, "Keep your beaver-skins, if you choose, for the Dutch. Even such of them as may fall into our possession will be employed for your service."--Ibid., 17.

In 1636, La Jeune thought it necessary to write a long letter of defence against the charge; and in 1643, a declaration, appended to the Relation of that year, and certifying that the Jesuits took no part in the fur-trade, was drawn up and signed by twelve members of the company of New France. Its only meaning is, that the Jesuits were neither partners nor rivals of the Company's monopoly. They certainly bought supplies from its magazines with furs which they obtained from the Indians.

Their object evidently was to make the mission partially self-supporting.

To impute mercenary motives to Garnier, Jogues, and their co-laborers, is manifestly idle; but, even in the highest flights of his enthusiasm, the Jesuit never forgot his worldly wisdom. ]

[ 5 Lettre du P. Paul Ragueneau au T. R. P. Vincent Carafa, General de la Compagnie de Jesus a Rome, Sainte Marie aux Hurons, 1 Mars, 1649 (Carayon). ]

Much of this prosperity was no doubt due to the excellent management of their resources, and a very successful agriculture. While the Indians around them were starving, they raised maize in such quant.i.ties, that, in the spring of 1649, the Father Superior thought that their stock of provisions might suffice for three years. "Hunting and fishing," he says, "are better than heretofore"; and he adds, that they had fowls, swine, and even cattle. [ 1 ] How they could have brought these last to Sainte Marie it is difficult to conceive. The feat, under the circ.u.mstances, is truly astonishing. Everything indicates a fixed resolve on the part of the Fathers to build up a solid and permanent establishment.

[ 1 Lettre du P. Paul Ragueneau au T. R. P. Vincent Carafa, General de la Compagnie de Jesus a Rome, Sainte Marie aux Hurons, 1 Mars, 1649 (Carayon). ]

It is by no means to be inferred that the household fared sumptuously.

Their ordinary food was maize, pounded and boiled, and seasoned, in the absence of salt, which was regarded as a luxury, with morsels of smoked fish. [ Ragueneau, Relation des Hurons, 1648, 48. ]

In March, 1649, there were in the Huron country and its neighborhood eighteen Jesuit priests, four lay brothers, twenty-three men serving without pay, seven hired men, four boys, and eight soldiers. [ 1 ]

Of this number, fifteen priests were engaged in the various missions, while all the rest were retained permanently at Sainte Marie. All was method, discipline, and subordination. Some of the men were a.s.signed to household work, and some to the hospital; while the rest labored at the fortifications, tilled the fields, and stood ready, in case of need, to fight the Iroquois. The Father Superior, with two other priests as a.s.sistants, controlled and guided all. The remaining Jesuits, undisturbed by temporal cares, were devoted exclusively to the charge of their respective missions. Two or three times in the year, they all, or nearly all, a.s.sembled at Sainte Marie, to take counsel together and determine their future action. Hither, also, they came at intervals for a period of meditation and prayer, to nerve themselves and gain new inspiration for their stern task.

[ 1 See the report of the Father Superior to the General, above cited.

The number was greatly increased within the year. In April, 1648, Ragueneau reports but forty-two French in all, including priests.

Before the end of the summer a large reinforcement came up in the Huron canoes. ]

Besides being the citadel and the magazine of the mission, Sainte Marie was the scene of a bountiful hospitality. On every alternate Sat.u.r.day, as well as on feast-days, the converts came in crowds from the farthest villages. They were entertained during Sat.u.r.day, Sunday, and a part of Monday; and the rites of the Church were celebrated before them with all possible solemnity and pomp. They were welcomed also at other times, and entertained, usually with three meals to each. In these latter years the prevailing famine drove them to Sainte Marie in swarms. In the course of 1647 three thousand were lodged and fed here; and in the following year the number was doubled. [ Compare Ragueneau in Relation des Hurons, 1648, 48, and in his report to the General in 1649. ]

Heathen Indians were also received and supplied with food, but were not permitted to remain at night. There was provision for the soul as well as the body; and, Christian or heathen, few left Sainte Marie without a word of instruction or exhortation. Charity was an instrument of conversion.

Such, so far as we can reconstruct it from the scattered hints remaining, was this singular establishment, at once military, monastic, and patriarchal. The missions of which it was the basis were now eleven in number. To those among the Hurons already mentioned another had lately been added,--that of Sainte Madeleine; and two others, called St. Jean and St. Matthias, had been established in the neighboring Tobacco Nation.

[ 1 ] The three remaining missions were all among tribes speaking the Algonquin languages. Every winter, bands of these savages, driven by famine and fear of the Iroquois, sought harborage in the Huron country, and the mission of Sainte Elisabeth was established for their benefit.

The next Algonquin mission was that of Saint Esprit, embracing the Nip.i.s.sings and other tribes east and north-east of Lake Huron; and, lastly, the mission of St. Pierre included the tribes at the outlet of Lake Superior, and throughout a vast extent of surrounding wilderness.

[ 2 ]