THE SECOND VOYAGE--STADACONA
At the time when Cartier ascended the St Lawrence, a great settlement
of the Huron-Iroquois Indians existed at Quebec. Their village was
situated below the heights, close to the banks of the St Charles, a
small tributary of the St Lawrence. Here the lodges of the tribe gave
shelter to many hundred people. Beautiful trees--elm and ash and maple
and birch, as fair as the trees of France--adorned the banks of the
river, and the open spaces of the woods waved with the luxuriant growth
of Indian corn. Here were the winter home of the tribe and the wigwam
of the chief. From this spot hunting and fishing parties of the savages
descended the great river and wandered as far as the pleasant country
of Chaleur Bay. Sixty-four years later, when Champlain ascended the St
Lawrence, the settlement and the tribe that formerly occupied the spot
had vanished. But in the time of Cartier the Quebec village, under its
native name of Stadacona, seems to have been, next to Hochelaga, the
most important lodgment of the Huron-Iroquois Indians of the St
Lawrence valley.
As the French navigators wandered on the shores of the Island of
Orleans, they fell in with a party of the Stadacona Indians. These,
frightened at the strange faces and unwonted dress of the French, would
have taken to flight, but Cartier's two Indians, whose names are
recorded as Taignoagny and Domagaya, called after them in their own
language. Great was the surprise of the natives not only to hear their
own speech, but also to recognize in Taignoagny and Domagaya two
members of their own tribe. The two guides, so far as we can judge from
Cartier's narrative, had come down from the Huron-Iroquois settlements
on the St Lawrence to the Gaspe country, whence Cartier had carried
them to France. Their friends now surrounded them with tumultuous
expressions of joy, leaping and shouting as if to perform a ceremonial
of welcome. Without fear now of the French they followed them down to
their boats, and brought them a plentiful supply of corn and of the
great pumpkins that were ripening in their fields.
The news of the arrival of the strangers spread at once through the
settlement. To see the ships, canoe after canoe came floating down the
river. They were filled with men and women eager to welcome their
returned kinsmen and to share in the trinkets which Cartier distributed
with a liberal hand. On the next day the chief of the tribe, the lord
of Canada, as Cartier calls him, Donnacona by name, visited the French
ships. The ceremonial was appropriate to his rank. Twelve canoes filled
with Indian warriors appeared upon the stream. As they neared the
ships, at a command from Donnacona, all fell back except two, which
came close alongside the Emerillon. Donnacona then delivered a powerful
and lengthy harangue, accompanied by wondrous gesticulations of body
and limbs. The canoes then moved down to the side of the Grande
Hermine, where Donnacona spoke with Cartier's guides. As these savages
told him of the wonders they had seen in France, he was apparently
moved to very transports of joy. Nothing would satisfy him but that
Cartier should step down into the canoe, that the chief might put his
arms about his neck in sign of welcome. Cartier, unable to rival
Donnacona's oratory, made up for it by causing the sailors hand down
food and wine, to the keen delight of the Indians. This being done, the
visitors departed with every expression of good-will.
Waiting only for a favourable tide, the ships left their anchorage,
and, sailing past the Island of Orleans, cast anchor in the St Charles
river, where it flows into the St Lawrence near Quebec. The Emerillon
was left at anchor out in the St Lawrence, in readiness for the
continuance of the journey, but the two larger vessels were moored at
the point where a rivulet, the Lairet, runs into the St Charles. It was
on the left bank of the Lairet that Cartier's fort was presently
constructed for his winter occupancy. Some distance across from it, on
the other side of the St Charles, was Stadacona itself. Its site cannot
be determined with exactitude, but it is generally agreed that it was
most likely situated in the space between the present Rue de la
Fabrique and the Cote Sainte-Genevieve.
The Indians were most friendly. When, on September 14, the French had
sailed into the St Charles, Donnacona had again met them, accompanied
by twenty-five canoes filled with his followers. The savages, by their
noisy conduct and strange antics, gave every sign of joy over the
arrival of the French. But from the first Cartier seems to have had his
misgivings as to their good faith. He was struck by the fact that his
two Indian interpreters, who had rejoined the ranks of their
countrymen, seemed now to receive him with a sullen distrust, and
refused his repeated invitations to re-enter his ships. He asked them
whether they were still willing to go on with him to Hochelaga, of
which they had told him, and which it was his purpose to visit. The two
Indians assented, but their manner was equivocal and inspired Cartier
with distrust.
The day after this a great concourse of Indians came again to the river
bank to see the strangers, but Donnacona and his immediate followers,
including Taignoagny and Domagaya, stood apart under a point of land on
the river bank sullenly watching the movements of the French, who were
busied in setting out buoys and harbour-marks for their anchorage.
Cartier, noticing this, took a few of his sailors, fully armed, and
marched straight to where the chief stood. Taignoagny, the interpreter,
came forward and entered upon a voluble harangue, telling the French
captain that Donnacona was grieved to see him and his men so fully
armed, while he and his people bore no weapons in their hands. Cartier
told Taignoagny, who had been in France, that to carry arms was the
custom of his country, and that he knew it. Indeed, since Donnacona
continued to make gestures of pleasure and friendship, the explorer
concluded that the interpreter only and not the Indian chief was the
cause of the distrust. Yet he narrates that before Donnacona left them,
'all his people at once with a loud voice cast out three great cries, a
horrible thing to hear.' The Indian war-whoop, if such it was, is
certainly not a reassuring sound, but Cartier and Donnacona took leave
of one another with repeated assurances of good-will.
The following day, September 16, the Indians came again. About five
hundred of them, so Cartier tells us, gathered about the ships.
Donnacona, with 'ten or twelve of the chiefest men of the country,'
came on board the ships, where Cartier held a great feast for them and
gave them presents in accordance with their rank. Taignoagny explained
to Cartier that Donnacona was grieved that he was going up to
Hochelaga. The river, said the guide, was of no importance, and the
journey was not worth while. Cartier's reply to this protest was that
he had been commanded by his king to go as far as he could go, but
that, after seeing Hochelaga, he would come back again. On this
Taignoagny flatly refused to act as guide, and the Indians abruptly
left the ship and went ashore.
Cartier must, indeed, have been perplexed, and perhaps alarmed, at the
conduct of the Stadacona natives. It was his policy throughout his
voyages to deal with the Indians fairly and generously, to avoid all
violence towards them, and to content himself with bringing to them the
news of the Gospel and the visible signs of the greatness of the king
of France. The cruelties of the Spanish conquerors of the south were
foreign to his nature. The few acts of injustice with which his memory
has been charged may easily be excused in the light of the
circumstances of his age. But he could not have failed to realize the
possibilities of a sudden and murderous onslaught on the part of
savages who thus combined a greedy readiness for feasting and presents
with a sullen and brooding distrust.
Donnacona and his people were back again on the morrow, still vainly
endeavouring to dissuade the French from their enterprise. They brought
with them a great quantity of eels and fish as presents, and danced and
sang upon the shore opposite the ships in token of their friendship.
When Cartier and his men came ashore, Donnacona made all his people
stand back from the beach. He drew in the sand a huge ring, and into
this he led the French. Then, selecting from the ranks of his
followers, who stood in a great circle watching the ceremony, a little
girl of ten years old, he led her into the ring and presented her to
Cartier. After her, two little boys were handed over in the same
fashion, the assembled Indians rending the air with shouts of
exultation. Donnacona, in true Indian fashion, improved the occasion
with a long harangue, which Taignoagny interpreted to mean that the
little girl was the niece of the chief and one of the boys the brother
of the interpreter himself, and that the explorer might keep all these
children as a gift if he would promise not to go to Hochelaga.
Cartier at once, by signs and speech, offered the children back again,
whereupon the other interpreter, Domagaya, broke in and said that the
children were given in good-will, and that Donnacona was well content
that Cartier should go to Hochelaga. The three poor little savages were
carried to the boats, the two interpreters wrangling and fighting the
while as to what had really been said. But Cartier felt assured that
the treachery, if any were contemplated, came only from one of them,
Taignoagny. As a great mark of trust he gave to Donnacona two swords, a
basin of plain brass and a ewer--gifts which called forth renewed
shouts of joy. Before the assemblage broke up, the chief asked Cartier
to cause the ships' cannons to be fired, as he had learned from the two
guides that they made such a marvellous noise as was never heard before.
'Our captain answered,' writes Cartier in his narrative, 'that he was
content: and by and by he commanded his men to shoot off twelve cannons
into the wood that was hard by the people and the ships, at which noise
they were greatly astonished and amazed, for they thought the heaven
had fallen upon them, and put themselves to flight, howling, crying and
shrieking, so that it seemed hell was broken loose.'
Next day the Indians made one more attempt to dissuade Cartier from his
journey. Finding that persuasion and oratory were of no avail, they
decided to fall back upon the supernatural and to frighten the French
from their design. Their artifice was transparent enough, but to the
minds of the simple savages was calculated to strike awe into the
hearts of their visitors. Instead of coming near the ships, as they had
done on each preceding day, the Indians secreted themselves in the
woods along the shore. There they lay hid for many hours, while the
French were busied with their preparations for departure. But later in
the day, when the tide was running swiftly outward, the Indians in
their canoes came paddling down the stream towards the ships, not,
however, trying to approach them, but keeping some little distance away
as if in expectation of something unusual.
The mystery soon revealed itself. From beneath the foliage of the river
bank a canoe shot into the stream, the hideous appearance of its
occupants contrasting with the bright autumn tints that were lending
their glory to the Canadian woods. The three Indians in the canoe had
been carefully made up by their fellows as 'stage devils' to strike
horror into Cartier and his companions. They were 'dressed like devils,
being wrapped in dog skins, white and black, their faces besmeared as
black as any coals, with horns on their heads more than a yard long.'
The canoe came rushing swiftly down the stream, and floated past the
ships, the 'devils' who occupied the craft making no attempt to stop,
not even turning towards the ships, but counterfeiting, as it were, the
sacred frenzy of angry deities. The devil in the centre shouted a
fierce harangue into the air. No sooner did the canoe pass the ships
than Donnacona and his braves in their light barques set after it,
paddling so swiftly as to overtake the canoe of the 'devils' and seize
the gunwale of it in their hands.
The whole thing was a piece of characteristic Indian acting, viewed by
the French with interest, but apparently without the faintest alarm.
The 'devils,' as soon as their boat was seized by the profane touch of
the savages, fell back as if lifeless in their canoe. The assembled
flotilla was directed to the shore. The 'devils' were lifted out rigid
and lifeless and carried solemnly into the forest. The leaves of the
underbrush closed behind them and they were concealed from sight, but
from the deck of the ship the French could still hear the noise of
cries and incantations that broke the stillness of the woods. After
half an hour Taignoagny and Domagaya issued from among the trees. Their
walk and their actions were solemnity itself, while their faces
simulated the religious ecstasy of men who have spoken with the gods.
The caps that they had worn were now placed beneath the folds of their
Indian blankets, and their clasped hands were uplifted to the autumn
sky. Taignoagny cried out three times upon the name of Jesus, while his
fellow imitated and kept shouting, 'Jesus! the Virgin Mary! Jacques
Cartier!'
Cartier very naturally called to them to know what was the matter;
whereupon Taignoagny in doleful tones called out, 'Ill news!' Cartier
urged the Indian to explain, and the guide, still acting the part of
one who bears tidings from heaven, said that the great god, Cudragny,
had spoken at Hochelaga and had sent down three 'spirits' in the canoe
to warn Cartier that he must not try to come to Hochelaga, because
there was so much ice and snow in that country that whoever went there
should die. In the face of this awful revelation, Cartier showed a
cheerful and contemptuous scepticism. 'Their god, Cudragny,' he said,
must be 'a fool and a noodle,' and that, as for the cold, Christ would
protect his followers from that, if they would but believe in Him.
Taignoagny asked Cartier if he had spoken with Jesus. Cartier answered
no, but said that his priests had done so and that Jesus had told them
that the weather would be fine. Taignoagny, hypocrite still, professed
a great joy at hearing this, and set off into the woods, whence he
emerged presently with the whole band of Indians, singing and dancing.
Their plan had failed, but they evidently thought it wiser to offer no
further opposition to Cartier's journey, though all refused to go with
him.
The strange conduct of Donnacona and his Indians is not easy to
explain. It is quite possible that they meditated some treachery
towards the French: indeed, Cartier from first to last was suspicious
of their intentions, and, as we shall see, was careful after his return
to Stadacona never to put himself within their power. To the very end
of his voyage he seems to have been of the opinion that if he and his
men were caught off their guard, Donnacona and his braves would destroy
the whole of them for the sake of their coveted possessions. The
stories that he heard now and later from his guides of the horrors of
Indian war and of a great massacre at the Bic Islands certainly gave
him just grounds for suspicion and counselled prudence. Some writers
are agreed, however, that the Indians had no hostile intentions
whatever. The new-comers seemed to them wondrous beings, floating on
the surface of the water in great winged houses, causing the thunder to
roll forth from their abode at will and, more than all, feasting their
friends and giving to them such gifts as could only come from heaven.
Such guests were too valuable to lose. The Indians knew well of the
settlement at Hochelaga, and of the fair country where it lay. They
feared that if Cartier once sailed to it, he and his presents--the red
caps and the brass bowls sent direct from heaven--would be lost to them
for ever.
Be this as it may, no further opposition was offered to the departure
of the French. The two larger ships, with a part of the company as
guard, were left at their moorings. Cartier in the Emerillon, with Mace
Jalobert, Claude de Pont Briand, and the other gentlemen of the
expedition, a company of fifty in all, set out for Hochelaga.