1638-1640.
PRIEST AND PAGAN.
Du Peron's Journey • Daily Life of the Jesuits • Their Missionary
Excursions • Converts at Ossossané • Machinery of Conversion •
Conditions of Baptism • Backsliders • The Converts and their Countrymen
• The Cannibals at St. Joseph
We have already touched on the domestic life of the Jesuits. That we may
the better know them, we will follow one of their number on his journey
towards the scene of his labors, and observe what awaited him on his
arrival.
Father François Du Peron came up the Ottawa in a Huron canoe in
September, 1638, and was well treated by the Indian owner of the vessel.
Lalemant and Le Moyne, who had set out from Three Rivers before him, did
not fare so well. The former was assailed by an Algonquin of Allumette
Island, who tried to strangle him in revenge for the death of a child,
which a Frenchman in the employ of the Jesuits had lately bled, but had
failed to restore to health by the operation. Le Moyne was abandoned by
his Huron conductors, and remained for a fortnight by the bank of the
river, with a French attendant who supported him by hunting. Another
Huron, belonging to the flotilla that carried Du Peron, then took him
into his canoe; but, becoming tired of him, was about to leave him on a
rock in the river, when his brother priest bribed the savage with a
blanket to carry him to his journey's end.
It was midnight, on the twenty-ninth of September, when Du Peron landed
on the shore of Thunder Bay, after paddling without rest since one
o'clock of the preceding morning. The night was rainy, and Ossossané was
about fifteen miles distant. His Indian companions were impatient to
reach their towns; the rain prevented the kindling of a fire; while the
priest, who for a long time had not heard mass, was eager to renew his
communion as soon as possible. Hence, tired and hungry as he was, he
shouldered his sack, and took the path for Ossossané without breaking
his fast. He toiled on, half-spent, amid the ceaseless pattering,
trickling, and whispering of innumerable drops among innumerable leaves,
till, as day dawned, he reached a clearing, and descried through the
mists a cluster of Huron houses. Faint and bedrenched, he entered the
principal one, and was greeted with the monosyllable "Shay!"--"Welcome!"
A squaw spread a mat for him by the fire, roasted four ears of Indian
corn before the coals, baked two squashes in the embers, ladled from her
kettle a dish of sagamite, and offered them to her famished guest.
Missionaries seem to have been a novelty at this place; for, while the
Father breakfasted, a crowd, chiefly of children, gathered about him,
and stared at him in silence. One examined the texture of his cassock;
another put on his hat; a third took the shoes from his feet, and tried
them on her own. Du Peron requited his entertainers with a few trinkets,
and begged, by signs, a guide to Ossossané. An Indian accordingly set
out with him, and conducted him to the mission-house, which he reached
at six o'clock in the evening.
Here he found a warm welcome, and little other refreshment. In respect
to the commodities of life, the Jesuits were but a step in advance of
the Indians. Their house, though well ventilated by numberless crevices
in its bark walls, always smelt of smoke, and, when the wind was in
certain quarters, was filled with it to suffocation. At their meals, the
Fathers sat on logs around the fire, over which their kettle was slung
in the Indian fashion. Each had his wooden platter, which, from the
difficulty of transportation, was valued, in the Huron country, at the
price of a robe of beaver-skin, or a hundred francs. [1] Their food
consisted of sagamite, or "mush," made of pounded Indian-corn, boiled
with scraps of smoked fish. Chaumonot compares it to the paste used for
papering the walls of houses. The repast was occasionally varied by a
pumpkin or squash baked in the ashes, or, in the season, by Indian corn
roasted in the ear. They used no salt whatever. They could bring their
cumbrous pictures, ornaments, and vestments through the savage journey
of the Ottawa; but they could not bring the common necessaries of life.
By day, they read and studied by the light that streamed in through the
large smoke-holes in the roof,--at night, by the blaze of the fire.
Their only candles were a few of wax, for the altar. They cultivated a
patch of ground, but raised nothing on it except wheat for making the
sacramental bread. Their food was supplied by the Indians, to whom they
gave, in return, cloth, knives, awls, needles, and various trinkets.
Their supply of wine for the Eucharist was so scanty, that they limited
themselves to four or five drops for each mass. [2]
[1] "Nos plats, quoyque de bois, nous coûtent plus cher que les vôtres;
ils sont de la valeur d'une robe de castor, c'est à dire cent
francs."--Lettre du P. Du Peron à son Frère, 27 Avril, 1639.--The
Father's appraisement seems a little questionable.
[2] The above particulars are drawn from a long letter of François Du
Peron to his brother, Joseph-Imbert Du Peron, dated at La Conception
(Ossossané), April 27, 1639, and from a letter, equally long, of
Chaumonot to Father Philippe Nappi, dated Du Pays des Hurons, May 26,
1640. Both are in Carayon. These private letters of the Jesuits, of
which many are extant, in some cases written on birch-bark, are
invaluable as illustrations of the subject.
The Jesuits soon learned to make wine from wild grapes. Those in Maine
and Acadia, at a later period, made good candles from the waxy fruit of
the shrub known locally as the "bayberry."
Their life was regulated with a conventual strictness. At four in the
morning, a bell roused them from the sheets of bark on which they slept.
Masses, private devotions, reading religious books, and breakfasting,
filled the time until eight, when they opened their door and admitted
the Indians. As many of these proved intolerable nuisances, they took
what Lalemant calls the honnête liberty of turning out the most
intrusive and impracticable,--an act performed with all tact and
courtesy, and rarely taken in dudgeon. Having thus winnowed their
company, they catechized those that remained, as opportunity offered. In
the intervals, the guests squatted by the fire and smoked their pipes.
As among the Spartan virtues of the Hurons that of thieving was
especially conspicuous, it was necessary that one or more of the Fathers
should remain on guard at the house all day. The rest went forth on
their missionary labors, baptizing and instructing, as we have seen. To
each priest who could speak Huron [3] was assigned a certain number of
houses,--in some instances, as many as forty; and as these often had
five or six fires, with two families to each, his spiritual flock was as
numerous as it was intractable. It was his care to see that none of the
number died without baptism, and by every means in his power to commend
the doctrines of his faith to the acceptance of those in health.
[3] At the end of the year 1638, there were seven priests who spoke
Huron, and three who had begun to learn it.
At dinner, which was at two o'clock, grace was said in Huron,--for the
benefit of the Indians present,--and a chapter of the Bible was read
aloud during the meal. At four or five, according to the season, the
Indians were dismissed, the door closed, and the evening spent in
writing, reading, studying the language, devotion, and conversation on
the affairs of the mission.
The local missions here referred to embraced Ossossané and the villages
of the neighborhood; but the priests by no means confined themselves
within these limits. They made distant excursions, two in company, until
every house in every Huron town had heard the annunciation of the new
doctrine. On these journeys, they carried blankets or large mantles at
their backs, for sleeping in at night, besides a supply of needles,
awls, beads, and other small articles, to pay for their lodging and
entertainment: for the Hurons, hospitable without stint to each other,
expected full compensation from the Jesuits.
At Ossossané, the house of the Jesuits no longer served the double
purpose of dwelling and chapel. In 1638, they had in their pay twelve
artisans and laborers, sent up from Quebec, [4] who had built, before
the close of the year, a chapel of wood. [5] Hither they removed their
pictures and ornaments; and here, in winter, several fires were kept
burning, for the comfort of the half-naked converts. [6] Of these they
now had at Ossossané about sixty,--a large, though evidently not a very
solid nucleus for the Huron church,--and they labored hard and anxiously
to confirm and multiply them. Of a Sunday morning in winter, one could
have seen them coming to mass, often from a considerable distance, "as
naked," says Lalemant, "as your hand, except a skin over their backs
like a mantle, and, in the coldest weather, a few skins around their
feet and legs." They knelt, mingled with the French mechanics, before
the altar,--very awkwardly at first, for the posture was new to
them,--and all received the sacrament together: a spectacle which, as
the missionary chronicler declares, repaid a hundred times all the labor
of their conversion. [7]
[4] Du Peron in Carayon, 173.
[5] "La chapelle est faite d'une charpente bien jolie, semblable
presque, en façon et grandeur, à notre chapelle de St. Julien."--Ibid.,
183.
[6] Lalemant, Relation des Hurons, 1639, 62.
[7] Lalemant, Relation des Hurons, 1639, 62.
Some of the principal methods of conversion are curiously illustrated in
a letter written by Garnier to a friend in France. "Send me," he says,
"a picture of Christ without a beard." Several Virgins are also
requested, together with a variety of souls in perdition--âmes
damnées--most of them to be mounted in a portable form. Particular
directions are given with respect to the demons, dragons, flames, and
other essentials of these works of art. Of souls in bliss--âmes
bienheureuses--he thinks that one will be enough. All the pictures must
be in full face, not in profile; and they must look directly at the
beholder, with open eyes. The colors should be bright; and there must be
no flowers or animals, as these distract the attention of the Indians.
[8]
[8] Garnier, Lettre 17me, MS. These directions show an excellent
knowledge of Indian peculiarities. The Indian dislike of a beard is well
known. Catlin, the painter, once caused a fatal quarrel among a party of
Sioux, by representing one of them in profile, whereupon he was jibed by
a rival as being but half a man.
The first point with the priests was of course to bring the objects of
their zeal to an acceptance of the fundamental doctrines of the Roman
Church; but, as the mind of the savage was by no means that beautiful
blank which some have represented it, there was much to be erased as
well as to be written. They must renounce a host of superstitions, to
which they were attached with a strange tenacity, or which may rather be
said to have been ingrained in their very natures. Certain points of
Christian morality were also strongly urged by the missionaries, who
insisted that the convert should take but one wife, and not cast her off
without grave cause, and that he should renounce the gross license
almost universal among the Hurons. Murder, cannibalism, and several
other offences, were also forbidden. Yet, while laboring at the work of
conversion with an energy never surpassed, and battling against the
powers of darkness with the mettle of paladins, the Jesuits never had
the folly to assume towards the Indians a dictatorial or overbearing
tone. Gentleness, kindness, and patience were the rule of their
intercourse. [9] They studied the nature of the savage, and conformed
themselves to it with an admirable tact. Far from treating the Indian as
an alien and barbarian, they would fain have adopted him as a
countryman; and they proposed to the Hurons that a number of young
Frenchmen should settle among them, and marry their daughters in solemn
form. The listeners were gratified at an overture so flattering. "But
what is the use," they demanded, "of so much ceremony? If the Frenchmen
want our women, they are welcome to come and take them whenever they
please, as they always used to do." [10]
[9] The following passage from the "Divers Sentimens," before cited,
will illustrate this point. "Pour conuertir les Sauuages, il n'y faut
pas tant de science que de bonté et vertu bien solide. Les quatre
Elemens d'vn homme Apostolique en la Nouuelle France sont l'Affabilité,
l'Humilité, la Patience et vne Charité genereuse. Le zele trop ardent
brusle plus qu'il n'eschauffe, et gaste tout; il faut vne grande
magnanimité et condescendance, pour attirer peu à peu ces Sauuages. Ils
n'entendent pas bien nostre Theologie, mais ils entendent parfaictement
bien nostre humilité et nostre affabilité, et se laissent gaigner."
So too Brébeuf, in a letter to Vitelleschi, General of the Jesuits (see
Carayon, 163): "Ce qu'il faut demander, avant tout, des ouvriers
destinés à cette mission, c'est une douceur inaltérable et une patience
à toute épreuve."
[10] Le Mercier, Relation des Hurons, 1637, 160.
The Fathers are well agreed that their difficulties did not arise from
any natural defect of understanding on the part of the Indians, who,
according to Chaumonot, were more intelligent than the French peasantry,
and who, in some instances, showed in their way a marked capacity. It
was the inert mass of pride, sensuality, indolence, and superstition
that opposed the march of the Faith, and in which the Devil lay
intrenched as behind impregnable breastworks. [11]
[11] In this connection, the following specimen of Indian reasoning is
worth noting. At the height of the pestilence, a Huron said to one of
the priests, "I see plainly that your God is angry with us because we
will not believe and obey him. Ihonatiria, where you first taught his
word, is entirely ruined. Then you came here to Ossossané, and we would
not listen; so Ossossané is ruined too. This year you have been all
through our country, and found scarcely any who would do what God
commands; therefore the pestilence is everywhere." After premises so
hopeful, the Fathers looked for a satisfactory conclusion; but the
Indian proceeded--"My opinion is, that we ought to shut you out from all
the houses, and stop our ears when you speak of God, so that we cannot
hear. Then we shall not be so guilty of rejecting the truth, and he will
not punish us so cruelly."--Lalemant, Relation des Hurons, 1640, 80.
It soon became evident that it was easier to make a convert than to keep
him. Many of the Indians clung to the idea that baptism was a safeguard
against pestilence and misfortune; and when the fallacy of this notion
was made apparent, their zeal cooled. Their only amusements consisted of
feasts, dances, and games, many of which were, to a greater or less
degree, of a superstitious character; and as the Fathers could rarely
prove to their own satisfaction the absence of the diabolic element in
any one of them, they proscribed the whole indiscriminately, to the
extreme disgust of the neophyte. His countrymen, too, beset him with
dismal prognostics: as, "You will kill no more game,"--"All your hair
will come out before spring," and so forth. Various doubts also assailed
him with regard to the substantial advantages of his new profession; and
several converts were filled with anxiety in view of the probable want
of tobacco in Heaven, saying that they could not do without it. [12] Nor
was it pleasant to these incipient Christians, as they sat in class
listening to the instructions of their teacher, to find themselves and
him suddenly made the targets of a shower of sticks, snowballs,
corn-cobs, and other rubbish, flung at them by a screeching rabble of
vagabond boys. [13]
[12] Lalemant, Relation des Hurons, 1639, 80.
[13] Ibid., 78.
Yet, while most of the neophytes demanded an anxious and diligent
cultivation, there were a few of excellent promise; and of one or two
especially, the Fathers, in the fulness of their satisfaction, assure us
again and again "that they were savage only in name." [14]
[14] From June, 1639, to June, 1640, about a thousand persons were
baptized. Of these, two hundred and sixty were infants, and many more
were children. Very many died soon after baptism. Of the whole number,
less than twenty were baptized in health,--a number much below that of
the preceding year.
The following is a curious case of precocious piety. It is that of a
child at St. Joseph. "Elle n'a que deux ans, et fait joliment le signe
de la croix, et prend elle-même de l'eau bénite; et une fois se mit à
crier, sortant de la Chapelle, à cause que sa mère qui la portoit ne lui
avoit donné le loisir d'en prendre. Il l'a fallu reporter en
prendre."--Lettres de Garnier, MSS.
As the town of Ihonatiria, where the Jesuits had made their first abode,
was ruined by the pestilence, the mission established there, and known
by the name of St. Joseph, was removed, in the summer of 1638, to
Teanaustayé, a large town at the foot of a range of hills near the
southern borders of the Huron territory. The Hurons, this year, had had
unwonted successes in their war with the Iroquois, and had taken, at
various times, nearly a hundred prisoners. Many of these were brought to
the seat of the new mission of St. Joseph, and put to death with
frightful tortures, though not before several had been converted and
baptized. The torture was followed, in spite of the remonstrances of the
priests, by those cannibal feasts customary with the Hurons on such
occasions. Once, when the Fathers had been strenuous in their
denunciations, a hand of the victim, duly prepared, was flung in at
their door, as an invitation to join in the festivity. As the owner of
the severed member had been baptized, they dug a hole in their chapel,
and buried it with solemn rites of sepulture. [15]
[15] Lalemant, Relation des Hurons, 1639, 70.