CAUGHNAWAGA ON THE MOHAWK.--FATHERS FREMIN AND PIERRON.
After Tekakwitha had lodged Fathers Fremin, Bruyas, and Pierron for
three days at Gandawague, on the bank of Auries Creek, they went to the
castle of Tionnontogen, which it must be remembered had been hastily
rebuilt some little distance west of its former site near the Nose,
though still on the south side of the river. There, when the pagan
festival and debauchery was over, a grand public reception of these
ambassadors took place. The people of all the Mohawk villages were
assembled for the occasion, Tekakwitha probably among them. In due time,
after a most ceremonious welcome, Fremin rose to address them. To render
his speech to the nation more impressive, he set up in their midst a
great pole forty or fifty feet in height, from the top of which a wampum
belt was suspended. He then declared, on the part of Onnontio, that in
like manner would hang the first Iroquois who should come to kill a
Frenchman or any one of their allies. At this all the Mohawks--men,
women, and children--bowed their heads in silent awe, not venturing to
look at such an extraordinary gift, nor to speak, until the most
accomplished of their orators, having recovered his senses, rose and
went through all imaginable mimicries to show his astonishment. As if
ignorant of its meaning, he gesticulated and declaimed in the liveliest
manner, though a man of more than sixty years of age. Then discovering
its true significance, he seized his throat "with both hands in a
frightful way, grasping it tightly to represent and at the same time
impress upon the multitude about him the horror of this kind of death.
After he had spoken, and at length, with a surprising eloquence,
exhibiting flashes of wit by no means common, he finished," as the
leading ambassador-priest tells us, "by delivering up the captives we
demanded, and giving us the choice of the place where we would build our
chapel, in the erection of which they proposed to go to work with all
despatch. They, moreover, delivered up to us a Frenchman whom they had
held captive for some time, and promised us the liberty of twelve
Algonquins, partly of the nation of the Nez Perces, partly of that of
the Outaouacs [Ottawas]."
Thus at Tionnontogen the labors of Father Fremin began. He was left
quite alone among the Mohawks for nearly a year, at the mission of St.
Mary's as it was henceforth called. He struggled earnestly during that
time to maintain peace and establish Christianity. His companion, Bruyas
(whose Mohawk dictionary is exceedingly valuable to students of the
Indian language), soon went west to the Oneidas, among whom, little by
little, he learned the Oneida dialect. Pierron, on the other hand, after
a short stay with Fremin, bent his steps eastward to Schenectady. He
visited the English and Dutch at Albany to renew the friendly
intercourse of former days; and then this messenger of peace in the
early part of the year 1668, travelled back over the great Mohawk
war-trail, leading northward. He returned to Quebec to report to
Governor de Courselle the progress of the embassy.
Fremin, left entirely to his own devices in the Mohawk Valley, gathered
together the captive Christian Hurons, and then went steadily on,
preaching, teaching, and baptizing. Once when the young warriors were
torturing an Ottawa captive and preparing to burn him, contrary to the
articles of peace, the Father by frantic efforts succeeded in saving
him; but it was only by dint of rushing through the streets of the
village with cries, threats, and entreaties. They could not withstand
his zeal. He scattered the assembled crowd. He called down the vengeance
of Rawenniio and Onnontio upon their castle of Tionnontogen, if they
persisted in thus breaking the peace. The older men, roused at last by
his words and actions, put a stop to the outrage. The unhappy victim was
rescued from a fiery death, but he fell into a lingering fever brought
on by the fright and the sufferings he had endured. In course of time he
died, but it was not till he had been fully instructed and baptized by
the courageous Father, who thus had the gratification of saving both
body and soul.
On the 7th of October, 1668, Pierron returned from his journey to
Quebec, and again passed through the lower Mohawk villages on his way to
the bark chapel of St. Mary's, which had been erected at Tionnontogen
during his absence. If Tekakwitha saw her former guest at that time, it
was only as one among a group of Mohawk villagers who watched the
missionary as he passed through the streets of the Turtle Castle. He was
hurrying on to meet and to replace Father Fremin. This spirited and
eloquent founder of the mission now went westward beyond Bruyas at
Oneida, in order to make a missionary opening among the Senecas, who
also desired a blackgown. This left Father Pierron alone in his turn in
charge of the Mohawk mission. His graphic letters to his superiors in
Canada during the next few years give many a vivid picture of what was
transpiring at that time in the valley.
He was something of an artist. Before he succeeded in mastering the
language, he spent much of his time in painting. He found that his
pictures stimulated the curiosity of the Mohawks. In their efforts to
get at the meaning of them and to explain them to one another, they
learned, without realizing it, the very things he wanted to teach them;
while he, by listening to their explanations, quickly acquired their
language. As the blackgown's pictures were much talked about in the
Mohawk villages at this time, and must have influenced the minds of
Tekakwitha and her relatives, it will be worth while to give Pierron's
description of one of his own productions. "Among these representations
I have made," he says, "there is one contrasting a good with a miserable
death. What led me to make this was that I saw the old men and the old
women would stop their ears with their fingers the moment I began to
speak to them of God, and would say to me, 'I do not hear.' I have
therefore represented on one side of my picture a Christian who dies a
saintly death, with the hands joined as of one holding the cross and his
rosary; then his soul is carried by an angel to heaven and the blessed
spirits appear awaiting it. On the other side, I have put, lower down, a
woman broken with age, who is dying, and unwilling to listen to a
missionary Father who points her to paradise; she holds both ears closed
with her fingers; but a demon from hell seizes her arms and hands, and
himself puts his fingers in the ears of the dying woman. Her soul is
carried by three demons; and an angel who comes out of a cloud, sword in
hand, hurls them into the bottomless pit. This representation," he
continues, "has furnished me an occasion to speak of the immortality of
our souls, and of the good and the bad of the other life; and when they
once catch the import of my picture, no one presumes to say any more, 'I
do not hear.'"
The "Relation" of the same year[40] tells us that Father Pierron
accompanied this saintly skill with severe labors making regularly each
month a visitation of the _seven large villages_, over a space of seven
and a half leagues in extent, in order that no infant or adult sick
person should die without receiving baptism.
Father Boniface now arrived at Quebec from France, and was immediately
selected to go to the Mohawk Valley to second Pierron's zeal. We learn
further, from the "Relation," that a bitter strife was then in progress:
"The war [between the Iroquois and the nine nations of the Loups]
humbles them by the loss of their people; but by preventing their
permanent stay in one place, it also multiplies obstacles to the
conversion of the warriors, who divide up into numerous bands to go
singly against the enemy. The Agniers [Mohawks] and the Loups [Mohegans]
have brought the war even close to New Orange; and when taken captive
they burn and eat one another." The Mohegans and their allies had
certain advantages over the Mohawks. They were more numerous; then, too,
they were a roving people, difficult to attack, whereas the Mohawks
lived in villages and had permanent homes. These last, in order to
defend themselves, took care thoroughly to fortify the castles they were
then building on the north side of the Mohawk River. As they seem to
have had seven villages at this time, which is an unusual number, it is
probable that they either had not entirely abandoned their old sites, or
else had recently added several villages of captives.
It was while affairs were still in this unsettled condition that
Tekakwitha went to live on the north bank of the Mohawk River, near the
Cayudutta Creek at Caughnawaga, or Fonda, a few miles west of her
earlier home. The French writers continued for some time after this to
call the new castle of the Turtles on the north bank by its old name of
Gandawague;[41] to prevent confusion, however, we will henceforth call
it Caughnawaga, meaning "At the Rapids." That name still clings to a
part of the present town of Fonda. The rapids of the Mohawk still ripple
there as of old under the sharp-cut hill where, as proved by relics and
historic references, the once famous castle stood. The Indians who went
forth later from this Caughnawaga in the Mohawk Valley to Canada,
carried with them the familiar word. Settling down beside the great
rapids of the St. Lawrence River, the sound of rushing water boomed
louder than before in their ears, and the name Caughnawaga grew into
history there, as well as here. But there it is still a living name,
and is passed from mouth to mouth as the well-known home of half the
Canienga race; for Caughnawaga in Canada holds to-day that part of the
Mohawk nation which in the wranglings of the white men--that is to say,
the old French and Indian wars--sided with the French. Brantford, also
in Canada, contains the other half of the same nation,--the descendants
of Sir William Johnson's Mohawk followers, who were stanch friends of
the English. To us Americans, falling heir to their lands, these Mohawks
have left no living trace of themselves, though some of their brothers,
the Onondagas and Senecas, still dwell in our midst. The Mohawks have
gone from us, indeed, leaving us only a memory, all inwrought in a thick
array of Indian names. Let us try at least to understand and to preserve
these names, in honor of the brave race that once peopled our hills and
valleys, our forests and streams.
In the Mohawk Valley, side by side with the name of Fonda, which comes
to us from the days of the early white settlers, there lingers the still
older name of Caughnawaga, which is dusky with the shadows of two
hundred years, and even more. The mere name in partial use there at the
present day has served to throw some light on the hill and the spring
near the Cayudutta,--enough, at least, to have called to our minds a
vision of Mohawk girls with their water-jugs, and to point in a misty
way to the almost forgotten home of the Lily of the Mohawks. It is
owing, however, to long, careful, critical research, and not to surmise,
that the haze of many years has been cleared away at last from the
actual site of Caughnawaga Castle. The map of Gen. John S. Clark (page
38) gives its position relative to other Mohawk villages. The plan here
given, which was drawn by Rev. C. A. Walworth, shows more especially
where this Indian fortress stood in reference to Fonda, on what are now
called the "Sand Flats," west of the Cayudutta Creek. The spring which
supplied the Mohawks with water is seen, distinctly marked in its cove,
half-way down the hill from the castle, towards the Cayudutta. With this
plan before us it is needless here to repeat the details of this
locality already given in the chapter entitled "Tekakwitha's Spring." In
our opening pages we journeyed all the way up the Mohawk Valley from
Albany, with here and there a passing glimpse at the scenery, till we
reached the castle site at Fonda, which was then fully described. Since
that time we have travelled together through the highways and in the
byways of history over about thirteen years of Tekakwitha's life. Here
we are again at Caughnawaga; and now that we are following up the course
of events in regular order from the birth of Tekakwitha, we find that
she also has but recently arrived here, having just come to her new home
from Gandawague. She can scarcely be called a child any longer, since
she takes upon herself so much of the household care, and yet she is
quite young. Her life is a busy one. She has taken an active part with
the women of her family and their neighbors in building the new bark
house which they occupy within the enclosure of palisades at
Caughnawaga. Now, at last, they are quite comfortable.
[Illustration: SITE OF CAUGHNAWAGA CASTLE.
(_Also called the "Mission of St. Peter's" of the Mohawks, where
Tekakwitha was baptized in 1676._)]
This is the way the Mohawks were accustomed to build their permanent
lodges. They first took saplings, and planted two rows of them firmly in
the ground. Then they bent the tops of them over across the
intervening space, and tied them together. The shape of the house
when finished was not unlike the top of an ambulance wagon. These arched
ribs were supported and held in place by poles put in horizontally
across the house, near the top. The whole was then neatly covered with
square, overlapping pieces of bark, held in place by poles that were
tied down over them. The holes in the roof for chimneys and windows were
not forgotten, nor the loose pieces of bark to pull over them in case of
rain. The Jesuits often found these cabins smoky and dark,--a severe
test of their patience when engaged in literary pursuits, or even in
reading their breviaries; but for the Mohawks, who had no such tastes,
they were good enough.
When the house was finished on which Tekakwitha worked with her aunts
and her neighbors, it made a secure shelter for a score of families, all
lodged under the same roof and all on one floor. That floor was the bare
ground. When the dwelling was fitted up into compartments on either
side, with spaces down the centre for fires alternating with spaces for
family gatherings at meal-time; when the matrons had assigned to each
and every member of the household certain lodge-seats; when mats of
rushes had been prepared, and robes of skins were in their places for
bed-clothes on bunks along the sides of the house; when plenty of dried
corn and smoked meat hung from the ridge-poles of the roof for instant
use; when the heavy wooden mortar and pestle were made and stood ready
for pounding the corn; when nice little dishes of bark and wooden bowls
were at hand, while tucked away in corners were baskets of wampum beads
all ready to be strung into belts at the proper time,--when all these
things were in order, then at last, after the move from Gandawague on
Auries Creek, Tekakwitha felt free to rest and breathe easily. Then she
might glance leisurely at the patch of sunlight falling on the floor of
the lodge through the doorway at the far end, and decide in her own mind
how much time she had before the next meal was to be prepared. Perhaps
she would go out to take a look at the strong new palisade that her
uncle and the warriors had planned so carefully for defence against the
dreaded Mohegans; or she may have preferred to sit quietly by the spring
for a while in the beautiful little cove. Being so near the castle, it
was comparatively safe from the lurking enemy, who might attack them at
any time.
Wentworth Greenhalgh, an Englishman, who went from Albany to Caughnawaga
in 1677, thus describes the castle: "Cahaniaga is double stockadoed
round; has four forts [ports?] about four foot wide apiece; conteyns
about twenty-four houses, and is situated upon the edge of an hill,
about a bow shott from the river side." He then gives the situation and
size of the other Mohawk towns at that time, and closes his remarks by
stating that their corn grew close by the river. The Mohawks chose the
flats or river-bottoms for corn-fields because they were fertile, and
besides, they were natural openings, with no trees to be cut down and
cleared away.
Much of Tekakwitha's time at certain seasons of the year was spent in
these corn-fields; and she must have witnessed, if not taken part in,
some of the exciting scenes described by Pierron, who was then making
his periodical rounds through the Mohawk villages. He frequently gives
incidents of Mohawk women who were waylaid and scalped or captured by
desultory bands of Mohegans and other tribes with whom they were at war.
The constant fear of death that overhung them gave to the minds of these
Mohawk squaws a serious turn, and made them more willing than they would
otherwise have been to listen to the warning words of the blackgown.
More than one of them, haunted perhaps by the remembrance of his
pictures and his morality games, which were no less ingenious for
gaining their attention, came and asked for baptism. Pierron succeeded
also in rousing the chiefs to a sense of the degradation into which the
constant purchase of brandy and rum at Albany was sinking them. He
reminded them that when once under its influence they were in no
condition to repel the attacks either of Satan or the Mohegans. Both he
and Fremin had themselves been sufferers during the drunken riots of the
Indians. While the two Fathers were together at Tionnontogen, they
wrote:--
"It seems sometimes as if the whole village had run mad, so
great is the license they take when they give up to drinking.
They have hurled firebrands at our heads; they have thrown our
papers into the fire; they have broken open our chapel; they
have often threatened us with death; and during the three or
four days that these debaucheries last, and which recur with
frequency, we must suffer a thousand insults without complaint,
without food or sleep. In their fury they upset everything that
comes in their way, and even butcher one another, not sparing
relative, friend, countryman, nor stranger. These things are
carried to such excess that the place seems to us no longer
tenable; but we shall leave it only with life.... When the
storm is over, we are left to go on with our duties quite
peaceably."
This state of things continued for some time, as did also the raids of
their enemies. It was in the midst of such bristling savage thorns as
these that the Lily of the Mohawks grew up from childhood into
womanhood. In her new home at Caughnawaga, during these stormy times she
lived a sweet, pure life, all uncontaminated. At last the Mohawk chiefs,
won by Pierron's reiterated arguments, began to realize that they had
among them, in intoxicating drink, "a foreign demon more to be dreaded
than those they worship in their dreams." They were induced to take
measures against this excess in public council, "and, advised by Father
Pierron that the most effectual means would be themselves to make their
appeal to the Governor-General of Manhattan, the more prominent among
them presented a petition which they had drawn for the purpose." This is
the answer which the Governor gave to the request of the Mohawks and the
letter of the Father which accompanied it:--
FATHER,--By your last, I am informed of your complaint, which
is seconded by that of the Iroquois chiefs, the Sachems, the
Indians, as appears more openly by their petition enclosed in
yours, respecting the large quantity of liquors that certain
ones of Albany have taken the liberty to sell to the Indians;
as a consequence, that great excesses are committed by them,
and the worst is feared unless we prevent it. In response, know
that I have taken, and will continue to take, all possible
care, under the severest penalties, to restrain and oppose the
furnishing any excess to the Indians. And I am delighted to see
such virtuous thoughts proceed from heathens, to the shame of
many Christians; but this must be attributed to your pious
instructions, for, well versed in strict discipline, you have
shown them the way of mortification both by your precepts and
practice.
Your very humble and affectionate servant,
FRANCIS LOVELACE.
At FORT JAMES, 18th of Nov. 1668.
Fremin and Pierron, during the two years 1668 and 1669, baptized one
hundred and fifty-one Indians, of which more than half were children or
aged persons who died shortly after baptism. Says the "Relation":--
"This should be considered a sufficiently abundant harvest in a
waste land, and we may hope for much from such beginnings. We
owe, under God, the birth of this flourishing church to the
death and blood of the Reverend Father Jogues. He shed it at
the very region where the new Christian church begins to arise;
and it seems as though we are to see verified in our days, in
his person, the beautiful words of Tertullian: 'The blood of
martyrs is the seed of Christians.'"
That Pierron was fired with the spirit of Jogues, who founded this
Mohawk mission in his blood, is proved by the following words, which he
wrote in a moment of discouragement:--
"I have attacked drunkenness and lewdness, which are divinities
of the country, so madly are these people devoted to them. I
have combated these vices.... I have employed gentleness and
vigor, threats and entreaties, labors and tears, to build up
this new church and to convert these poor savages. There
remains nothing more than to shed my blood for their salvation,
that which I long for with all the desires of my heart. But
after all, I have not yet observed in them those marked
amendments which the Holy Spirit effects in those of the
heathen whom he would put in the number of the faithful."
FOOTNOTES:
[40] An English translation of this "Relation" is given in the "Early
Chapters of Mohawk History," by Dr. Hawley.
[41] See Appendix, Note B.