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Pictures and Illustrations.
Pipe and Tomahawk Dance (Ojibwa)
Site of Perrot's Fort, 1685-1686
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Preface to the Original French edition
In 1671 France, already mistress of Acadia, and of Canada as far as Lake Ontario, took possession of all the regions, discovered or to be discovered, from the Northern Sea to the Southern Sea, and from the Western Sea to Lakes Huron and Superior. Thus by a stroke of the pen, and in the presence and with the consent of some fifteen tribes hastily called together, she appropriated to herself the exclusive dominion of all North America save the English colonies bordering on the Atlantic, and Mexico, which was subject to Spain. Soon afterward (1682 and 1689), the cession of Louisiana and the Sioux country, to which the natives gave more or less actual consent, confirmed, so far as the Mississippi Valley was concerned, the somewhat disputable rights originating in that first assumption of possession. Unfortunately, the actual occupation of the territory was not commensurate with this enormous extension of nominal sovereignty. There were seven or eight thousand Frenchmen, clustered in little settlements in the towns of Quebec, Three Rivers, or Montreal, or scattered along both banks of the St. Lawrence from Cap Tourmente to the infant village of La Chine; in such condition was the colonization of Canada, even after sixty years. Further up the river, toward the west, Fort Frontenac and four or five posts of less importance, a dozen missionaries, and a few hundred coureurs de bois,
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traveler that he was treading on French soil. On the other hand, and while the European population was receiving hardly perceptible accessions, the aboriginal race was continually diminishing with disheartening rapidity. The nourishing settlements in which Jacques Cartier in 1535 met so friendly a reception had already ceased to exist in the time of Champlain; and the numerous tribes of Hurons and Algonquins whose alliance the founder of Quebec accepted a century later [than Cartier] had, at the period of which we speak, been overwhelmed by the attacks of the Iroquois, or had entirely disappeared, or outlived their ruin only in scattered and miserable remnants. In order to find again, in the entire extent of the French possessions, even a faint image of the former power and prosperity of the savages, it was necessary in 1689 to search for it as far away as the Miamis and the Maskoutens, at the apex of the triangle which the valleys of the Mississippi and the St. Lawrence together form.It was there, in the midst of peoples of diverse races -- who had been always established in that region, the most remote from New France, or who had more recently fled thither as being an asylum inaccessible to their enemies -- that Nicolas Perrot,
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with the languages of the country, his natural eloquence, and the happy mingling of bravery, sangfroid, and generosity which formed the basis of his character -- these soon won for him the esteem, confidence, and even affection of the natives, at least so far as those people are accessible to this last feeling. The Poutéouatamis, the Maloumins, the Outagamis, the Miamis and Maskoutens, the Ayoës, and the Sioux accorded to him, with the honors of the calumet, the rights and prerogatives which their own chiefs enjoyed; and not less was his influence over the Outaouais and the Tionnontaté Hurons. We hasten to add to his praises the fact that he placed at the service of the [French] colony this influence, so legitimately acquired, as long as he was permitted to employ it -- that is, up to the time when the suppression of the French posts in Michigan and Wisconsin, and that of the [fur] trade,Those long years of intimate and daily intercourse with the western tribes had initiated Perrot in all the secrets of their customs, their traditions, and their history. Returning to private life, and becoming master of some leisure, he resolved to commit to writing this
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treasure of knowledge gradually gathered at the price of so many fatigues and dangers; and thus was composed the memoir which we are now publishing for the first time. In writing it, Perrot had in mind no other object than to enlighten confidentially the intendant of Canada29
at nearly all points the assertions of our author. One may be easily convinced of this, by glancing over the notes in which I have opposed the evidence of those relations to the criticisms which some anonymous person has written on the margins of our manuscript.It is, again, to those ancient and precious documents that I have had recourse, whenever there has been a question of elucidating or completing Perrot's narrative. I have followed the same course in the notices, more or less extensive, which it has seemed to me ought to be devoted, either to the author himself, or to such of the savage tribes as he mentions oftenest in his work. In these matters, the rôle of reporter is the only one which could be fitting for me. In order to be more faithful to this, I have frequently substituted the full citation of texts for the mere references whose exactness it would sometimes have been difficult to verify. The reader will thus have, in the more important questions, facilities for forming his judgment from the documents themselves.
There exists but one copy (of the last century) of Perrot's memoir, in all probability the same which was used by Father Charlevoix,
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am the author; nearly all of them appear written above the lines in the manuscript which I have employed for this edition.In conclusion, permit me to return thanks to my friend and former colleague in the University of Quebec, Monsieur the abbe Ferland; and to Monsieur Margry,
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I. Beliefs of the savage tribes of North America regarding the creation of the world, before Europeans had visited and associated with them
All the peoples who inhabit North America have no knowledge about the creation of the world save what they have learned from the Europeans who discovered them, and those with whom they have constant intercourse; and they give hardly any attention even to that knowledge. Among them there is no knowledge of letters or of the art of writing; and all their history of ancient times proves to be only confused and fabulous notions, which are so simple, so gross, and so ridiculous that they only deserve to be brought to light in order to show the ignorance and rudeness of those peoples.
They believe that before the earth was created there was nothing but water; that upon this vast extent of water floated a great wooden raft,
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all the animals, of various kinds, which exist on earth; and the chief of these, they say, was the Great Hare. He looked about for some spot of solid ground where they could land; but as nothing could be seen on the water save swans and other river -- birds, he began to be discouraged. He saw no other hope than to induce the beaver to dive, in order to bring up a little soil from the bottom of the water; and he assured the beaver, in the name of all the animals, that if he returned with even one grain of soil, he would produce from it land sufficiently spacious to contain and feed all of them. But the beaver tried to excuse himself from this undertaking, giving as his reason that he had already dived in the neighborhood of the raft without finding there any indication of a bottom. Nevertheless, he was so urgently pressed to attempt again this great enterprise that he took the risk of it and dived. He remained so long without coming to the surface that those who had entreated him to go believed that he was drowned; but finally he was seen appearing, almost dead, and motionless. Then all the other animals, seeing that he was in no condition to climb upon the raft, immediately exerted themselves to drag him up35
on it; and after they had carefully examined his claws and tail they found nothing thereon.Their slight remaining hope of being able to save their lives induced them to address the otter, and entreat him to make another effort to search for a little soil at the bottom of the water. They represented to him that he would go down quite as much for his own welfare as for theirs; the otter yielded to their just expostulations, and plunged into the water. He remained at the bottom longer than the beaver had done, and returned to them in the same condition as the latter, and with as little result.
The impossibility of finding a dwelling-place where they could maintain themselves left them nothing more to hope for; when the muskrat proposed that, if they wished, he should go to try to find a bottom, and said that he also believed that he could bring up some sand from it. The animals did not depend much on this undertaking, since the beaver and the otter, who were far stronger than he, had not been able to carry it out; however, they encouraged him to go, and even promised that he should be ruler over the whole country if he succeeded in accomplishing his plan. The muskrat then jumped into the water, and boldly dived; and, after he had remained there nearly twenty-four hours he made his appearance at the edge of the raft, his belly uppermost, motionless, and his four feet tightly clenched. The other animals took hold of him, and carefully drew him up on the raft. They unclosed one of his paws, then a second, then a third, and finally the fourth one, in which there was between the claws a little grain of sand.
The Great Hare, who had promised to form a broad and spacious land, took this grain of sand, and let it fall upon the raft, when it began to increase; then
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he took a part of it, and scattered this about, which caused the mass of soil to grow larger and larger. When it had reached the size of a mountain, he started to walk around it, and it steadily increased in size to the extent of his path. As soon as he thought it was large enough, he ordered the fox to go to inspect his work, with power to enlarge it still more; and the latter obeyed. The fox, when he had ascertained that it was sufficiently extensive for him to secure easily his own prey, returned to the Great Hare to inform him that the land was able to contain and support all the animals. At this report, the Great Hare made a tour throughout his creation and found that it was incomplete. Since then, he has not been willing to trust any of the other animals, and continues always to increase what he has made, by moving without cessation around the earth. This idea causes the savages to say, when they hear loud noises in the hollows of the mountains, that the Great Hare is still enlarging the earth; they pay honors to him, and regard him as the deity who created it. Such is the information which those peoples give us regarding the creation of the world, which they believe to be always borne upon that raft. As for the sea and the firmament, they assert that these have existed for all time."37
II. Belief of the savages regarding the creation of man
After the creation of the earth, all the other animals withdrew into the places which each kind found most suitable for obtaining therein their pasture or their prey. When the first ones died, the Great Hare caused the birth of men from their corpses, as also from those of the fishes which were found along the shores of the rivers which he had formed in creating the land. Accordingly, some of the savages derive their origin from a bear, others from a moose, and others similarly from various kinds of animals; and before they had intercourse with the Europeans they firmly believed this, persuaded that they had their being from those kinds of creatures whose origin was as above explained. Even today that notion passes among them for undoubted truth, and if there are any of them at this time who are weaned from believing this dream, it has been only by dint of laughing at them for so ridiculous a belief. You will hear them say that their villages each bear the name of the animal which has given its people their being -- as that of the crane, or the bear, or of other animals. They imagine that they were created by other divinities than those which we recognize, because we have many inventions which they do not possess, as the art of writing, shooting with a gun, making gunpowder, muskets, and other things which are used by [civilized] mankind.
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Those first men who formed the human race, being scattered in different parts of the land, found out that they had minds. They beheld here and there buffaloes, elks, and deer, all kinds of birds and animals, and many rivers abounding in fish. These first men, I say, whom hunger had weakened, inspired by the Great Hare with an intuitive idea, broke off a branch from a small tree, made a cord with the fibers of the nettle, scraped the bark from a piece of a bough with a sharp stone, and armed its end with another sharp stone, to serve them as an arrow; and thus they formed a bow [and arrows] with which they killed small birds. After that, they made viretons,
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As hunting is not practicable in the winter on account of the deep snows, they invented a sort of racket,They relate also that these men, formed as I have told, while hunting found the footprints of an enormously tall man, followed by another that was smaller. They went on into his territory, following up this trail very heedfully, and saw in the distance a large cabin; when they reached it, they were astonished at seeing there the feet and legs of a man so tall that they could not descry his head; that inspired terror in them, and constrained them to retreat. This great colossus, having wakened, cast his eyes on a freshly-made track, and this induced him to step toward it; he immediately saw the man who had discovered him, whom fear had driven to hide himself in a thicket, where he was trembling with dread. The giant said to him, "My son, why art thou afraid? Reassure thyself; I am the Great Hare, he who has caused thee and many others to be born from the dead bodies of various animals. Now I will give thee a companion." Here are the words that he used in giving the man a wife: "Thou, man," said he, "shalt hunt, and
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make canoes, and do all things that a man must do; and thou, woman, shalt do the cooking for thy husband, make his shoes, dress the skins of animals, sew, and perform all the tasks that are proper for a woman." Such is the belief of these peoples in regard to the creation of man; it is based only upon the most ridiculous and extravagant notions -- to which, however, they give credence as if they were incontestable truths, although shame hinders them from making these stories known.41
III. Commencement of wars among the savages
Each of these men inhabited a region that belonged to him; and there they lived with their wives, and gradually multiplied. They lived in peace, until they became very numerous; having, then, multiplied in the course of time, they separated from one another, in order to live in greater comfort. They became, in consequence of this expansion, neighbors to peoples who were unknown to them, and whose language they did not understand; but the Great Hare had given to each of them a different dialect when he drew them forth from the bodies of animals. Some of them continued to live in peace, but the others began to wage war. Those who were weaker abandoned their own lands, in order to escape from the fury of their enemies; and they retreated to more distant places, where they found tribes whom they must again resist. Some devoted themselves to the cultivation of the land and produced their food -- Indian corn, beans, and squashes. Those who lived by hunting were more skilful, and considered as more warlike by the others, who greatly feared and dreaded the hunters. However, neither class could dispense with the other, on account of the necessities of life [which each produced]. It was this which caused them to live much longer in peace; for the hunter obtained his grain from the tiller of the soil, and the latter procured his meat from the hunter. But eventually the young men, through
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a certain arrogance that is native to all the savages, and no longer recognizing any chief, committed murdersIV. First wars of the Irroquois who were neighbors to the Algonkins, with whom they lived in peace; and the occasion of their war
The country of the Irroquois was formerly the district of Montreal and Three Rivers;
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neighbors the Algonkins,Once it happened, during the peace that reigned between these peoples, that the Algonkins sent word to the Irroquois of the village nearest them that the latter should go to spend the winter among them; and that during the winter they would supply their guests with fresh meat, which made better soup than the dried meat, of which the principal flavor was that of the smoke. The Irroquois accepted the offer made to them. When the season permitted, they [all] set out on a hunting trip, and wandered far into the forests, where they succeeded in killing all the beasts that they encountered within the
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limits of the places where they could hunt in their vicinity; then they lacked provisions, and were obliged to break camp and go farther in search of game. But as the savages can accomplish only a very short march in a day -- because they have to carry with them their cabins, their children, and whatever is necessary to them, when they shift their quarters for hunting -- the Algonkins chose from their best hunters six young men to go to kill game for the coming of the people from both villages; and the Irroquois engaged to add to these six of their men, who should share the game which all together killed, and who should go ahead of the two tribes, with their meat. When these twelve young men reached a place where there were indications of game, some occupied themselves in making camp, while the others worked at clearing away the snow-drifts and looking for the elk-yards.On the next day, the Algonkins, each with an Irroquois, went out in various directions; they found many moose, which they failed to secure because at that time they used only arrows; and they were obliged to return
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to camp without having obtained any game. They went again to that place on the following day, but had no better success. But the Irroquois, who were careful to remember the manner in which the Algonkins made their approaches [on the game], demanded their consent to go and hunt by themselves. The Algonkins replied very haughtily that they were astounded that the Irroquois should presume to expect that they could kill beasts, since the Algonkins themselves had not been able to do so. But the Irroquois, without consulting them further on this point, set out on the morrow to do their own hunting, without the Algonkins; and finally arrived at their camp, laden with meat. The others, who had accomplished nothing, when they saw that those whom they had despised now had the advantage, resolved to take their lives, and did so; for one day, when the Irroquois were asleep, the Algonkins murdered them, and covered up their bodies with snow. As for the meat, they dried it, that it might be less heavy to carry, and went to meet their people. When they were asked what had become of their companions, they replied that the latter were all lost in the icy waters of a river which they had passed; and, in order to give more color to this falsehood, they broke a hole in a large ice-field in order to show inquirers the place where these men had been drowned. The Algonkins made a liberal division of the meat, and gave the greater part of it to the Irroquois. They encamped all together in that locality, and spent the rest of the winter there in hunting, without any tidings of the murder which had been committed there.When the snows began to melt toward spring, the bodies of those dead men caused an insupportable stench in the camp, which led to the discovery of the murders. The Irroquois made complaint of the crime to the chief
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of the Algonkins, who rendered them no justice therefor; but with a threatening countenance he told them that he was very near driving them out of their own country, and even entirely exterminating them, and that it was only through pity and compassion that he spared their lives. The Irroquois decided to retire quietly, without making any answer to this speech of the Algonkin chief; but they immediately sent information to the [other] Irroquois allied to them of the threats which had just been made against them, and of the murder that had been committed. They then resolved to take vengeance, and not long afterward they broke the heads of some Algonkins whom they met in a lonely place. But, not being able to avert the consequences which this deed drew upon them from the Algonkins, those Irroquois departed [from the Algonkins], and fled for refuge toward Lake Erien [i. e., Erie], where the Chaoüanons47
time carried terror among them. They have completed the destruction of the Algonkins, and many other tribes have proved the valor of these redoubtable enemies, who have compelled those peoples to abandon their own lands.V. Religion, or rather superstition, of the savage tribes
It cannot be said that the savages profess any doctrine; and it is certain that they do not, so to speak, follow any religion.
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customs,The savages -- I mean those who are not converted [to Christianity] -- recognize as principal divinities only the Great Hare, the sun, and the devils. They oftenest invoke the Great Hare, because they revere and adore him as the creator of the world; they reverence the sun as the author of light; but if they place the devils among their divinities, and invoke them, it is because they are afraid of them, and in the invocations which they make
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to the devils they entreat them for [the means of] life. Those among the savages whom the French call "jugglers" talk with the demon, whom they consult for [success in] war and hunting.They have also many other divinities, to whom they pray, and whom they recognize as such, in the air, on the land, and within the earth. Those of the air are the thunder, the lightning, and in general whatever they see in the air that they cannot understand -- as the moon, eclipses, and extraordinary whirlwinds. Those which are upon the land comprise all creatures that are malign and noxious -- especially serpents, panthers, and other animals, and birds like griffins; they also include in this class such creatures as have, according to their kind, unusual beauty or deformity. Lastly, those that are within the earth, [especially] the bears, who pass the winter without eating, and are nourished only by the substance which they obtain from their own navels, by sucking;
For invocations of this sort, they make a feast with victuals or with tobacco, to which the old men are invite ; and in the presence of these they declare the dream which they had when they promised this feast to him of whom they had dreamed. Then one of the old men makes a speech, and, naming the creature to whom the feast is dedicated, addresses to it the following words: "Have pity," he says, "on him who offers to thee" (and here he names each article of food); "have pity on his
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family, and grant him what he needs." All those who are present respond with one voice, "O! O!" many times, until the prayer is ended; and this word "O!" means among them the same as "Be it so!" [Eng. "Amen!"] among us. There are tribes who, in this sort of solemnities, oblige the guests to eat everything; other tribes do not thus compel you, but you eat what you wish to, and carry the rest to your home.Other feasts are made among these savages in which a sort of adoration is practiced, by not only consecrating to the pretended divinity the viands of the feast, but laying at his feet the contents of a leather pouch which they call their "warrior's pouch," or, in their language, their Pindikossan;
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snakes, of white swans, of perroquets and magpies, or of other animals that are very rare. They also carry therein roots or powders which serve them as medicines. Before the feast, they always fast, neither eating nor drinking until they have had a dream; and during their fast they blacken their faces, shoulders, and breasts with coals; however, they smoke tobacco. The assertion is made (but it seems incredible) that there are some of them who have fasted as long as twelve consecutive days, and others for less.52
is about a divinity which is either upon or within the ground, they continue to blacken themselves with coals, as has been stated; but if it is about the Great Hare, or the spirits of the air, they wash themselves, and then smear the skin with black dirt, and in the evening begin the solemnity of the feast.The person who offers it invites two companions to attend this entertainment; and they must sing with him, in order to incline toward him the divinity of whom he has dreamed, and who is the occasion of this ceremony. Formerly, when they had no guns, they uttered as many loud cries as there were large kettles on the fire for cooking the food. Afterward, he who gives the feast begins to sing, in concert with his two assistants, who are painted
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song is offered solely in honor of the divinity of whom the man has dreamed; for each creature, animate or inanimate, has its own special song. They continue during the evening to sing all the songs that belong to their other pretended divinities, until all the guests are assembled. When every one has arrived, the host alone recommences the song which is peculiar to the divinity of his dream.This feast is one of dog's flesh, which [among them] is ranked as the principal and most esteemed of all viands;
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When every one has taken his place, the director of this ceremony (who always remains standing),
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all the spirits whom they believe to be most powerful, and those who may be more propitious than the others to their side; and they even imagine that they cannot avert the evils which befall them -- from enemies, or sickness, or any other misfortune -- if they have omitted such invocations.When the master of the feast has ended his prayers -- in the attitude above -- mentioned, and [equipped] with his bow and quiver of arrows, his javelin or his dagger -- he assumes the most furious aspect that he possibly can, chants his war-song, and, with every syllable that he utters, makes the most frightful contortions with his head and body that you ever saw. All this, however, proceeds rhythmically; for the voice and the body are in accord at every moment with the demonstrations of his animosity, which make it evident that his courage is continually increasing, while he walks incessantly, in accord with the tones and the cadence of his song, from end to end of the place where the feast is given. Thus he goes and comes many times, meanwhile continuing his gesticulations, and when he passes in front of the guests -- who are seated flat on the ground, at both sides, and upon all spots where they can see him they respond to his song, keeping time with it, all shouting in guttural voices, Ouiy! Ouiy! But what is more agreeable in the measures of their song is, that at certain places therein the singer utters two or three syllables much faster than the others; all those present do the same by responding, Ouiy! Ouiy! more rapidly, in the same time as the singing requires. This is so regularly observed that among five hundred people together not one will be found who fails to do thus.
All the women and children, and in general all the
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persons in the village who are not invited to the feast, repair to it in order to be spectators of the solemnity; for this they lose their own food and drink, and often abandon their cabins, which they thus render liable to be plundered by other savages, who are naturally inclined to theft.When the master of the feast has finished his parade and song, he resumes his place, and remains in the same position which he had before. One of his companions now relieves him; he plays the same part and character which he has seen the former enact, and after he has ended it he goes to rejoin the master of the feast. The other companion also sings in his turn, and after him all the guests, one after another, who endeavor to rival one another in assuming the most furious aspect. Some while singing fill their dishes with red -- hot embers and burning coals, which they fling upon the spectators, who cry out with one voice (very loudly, but slowly), Ouiy! Others seize firebrands, which they hurl into the air; and there are some of them who pretend to break the heads of those present. These latter are obliged to make amends for this insult to the man whom they have feigned to strike, by making him a present of vermilion, or a knife, or some other article of like value. Only the warriors who have killed men, or have captured prisoners, are permitted to act in that fashion, those feigned attacks signifying that thus they have slain their enemies. But if it should occur that one of these actors did not give anything to the man whom he thus approached in the company, the latter would tell him before all the spectators that he had lied therein, and that he had never been able to kill any one, which would cover him with confusion.
While all these songs are going on, the warriors display --
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haughtiness, courage, and a readiness again to overcome all the perils which they have previously encountered in the various places where they have been engaged in war. At certain moments they stop singing, and those who are present shout all together, Ouiy! Then they continue singing, one after another in the assembly taking each his turn; sometimes three or four appear together, taking their places at each end and in the middle of the place where the feast is held. Marching from one end to the other, they meet [and pass] without losing the least cadence of their song, or changing the contortions in their faces and bodies, even though they may be singing different songs, and with different gesticulations. Those who look on follow the singing, and respond in their turn at the moment when the dancers pass before them. For it must be known that each man has his own peculiar song, and that he cannot sing that belonging to his comrade without thus offering him an insult, which would draw a blow from a club on him who had sung the war-song of another man -- which is the worst insult that can be offered to him in a gathering where he is present.58
to sing it before its owner on other than festal occasions, provided that the singer does not remain seated, and that it be known that in singing this song he was ignorant that it belonged to the other.When every one in the assembly has sung, those who have been assigned to serve the food at once take the dishes of those who are strangers, fill them, and place them before these guests; then they serve their chiefs; and to both these classes they give the best of the food. The other guests are served without order or distinction; they all are seated flat on the ground, which serves them for a table; and on it they set, between their legs, the dishes which are carried to them. Every person there must, above all, be furnished with his own dish; otherwise he will not have his share [of the food]. In this they hardly ever fail, the savage being naturally too fond of eating to be forgetful on any occasion when it is a question of filling his stomach well.
When it has been decided to make a general expedition, or to form small war -- parties, the commander of
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such gives a feast similar to that which has just been described. Those who desire attend it, in order to enroll their names with him; for he would not be accompanied by any persons unless he had previously entertained them. The expedition which must be made is carried out according to his orders; and while it lasts this commander has his face, shoulders, and breast blackened with clay or coals. He is careful also to sing his death-song every morning, when they break camp, and does not fail to do this until he gets beyond danger or returns to his own village -- where, if no misfortune has befallen him, he again gives a feast to thank the spirit who has been favorable to him on his journey; and to this feast are invited the chief men of the village, and those who have accompanied him in his enterprise.VI. Continuation of the superstitions of the savages
They honor as the god of the waters the Great Panther, whom the Algonkins and others who speak the same language call Michipissy.
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this Michipissy always dwells in a very deep cave, and that he has a large tail; and when he goes to drink the waving of his tail stirs up high winds, but when he switches it sharply it rouses great tempests. In the journeys which they have to make, whether small or great, they utter their invocations in this manner: "Thou who art the master of the winds, favor our voyage, and give us pleasant weather." This is said while smoking a pipe of tobacco, the smoke from which they fling into the air. But before they undertake voyages that are rather long they are careful to kill some dogs with their clubs, and to hang the bodies from a tree or a pole; sometimes also they suspend thus dressed skins of elk, or moose, or deer, which they consecrate to the sun or the lake, in order to obtain fair weather.61
to make some special journey over the ice, there is a certain spirit whom they invoke on that account, whom the62
Algonkins call Mateomek, to whom they give and offer tobacco-smoke in like manner, entreating him to be favorable and propitious to them in their journey. But that ceremony is practiced with much indifference, their little fervor being very far from that which is shown in their solemn feasts.The Nepissings (otherwise called Nepissiniens), Amikoüas, and all their allies assert that the Amikoüas (which term means "descendants of the beaver") had their origin from the corpse of the Great Beaver, whence issued the first man of that tribe; and that this beaver left Lake Huron, and entered the stream which is called French River. They say that as the water grew too low for him, he made some dams, which are now rapids and portages. When he reached the river which has its rise in [Lake] Nepissing, he crossed it, and followed [the course of] many other small streams which he passed. He then made a small dike of earth; but, seeing that the
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flood of the waters penetrated it at the sides, he was obliged to build dams at intervals, in order that he might have sufficient water for his passage. Then he came to the river which flows from Outenulkamé, where he again applied himself to building dams in the places where he did not find enough water -- where there are at the present time shoals and rapids, around which one is obliged to make portages. Having thus spent several years in his travels, he chose to fill the country with the children whom he left there, and who had multiplied wherever he had passed, laboriously engaged in the little streams which he had discovered along his route; and at last he arrived below the Calumets. There he made some dams for the last time, and, retracing his steps, he saw that he had formed a fine lake; and there he died. They believe that he is buried to the north of this lake toward the place where the mountain appears to view as in the shape of a beaver, and that his tomb is there; this is the reason why they call the place where he lies "the slain beaver." When those peoples pass by that place, they invoke him and blow [tobacco] smoke into the air in order to honor his memory, and to entreat him to be favorable to them in the journey that they have to make.64
this poor person, who has a memorial of their ancestors; and those in the villages willingly club together to make a present to him who has done them the honor of recalling to them their origin. They do not practice this with the Frenchmen, since these deride them and their superstition.VII. Marriage among the savages
Overview
There are some savage peoples among whom persons marry in order to live together until death; and there are others among whom married persons separate whenever it pleases them to do so. Those who observe this latter maxim are the Irroquois, the Loups, and some others. But the Outaoüas marry their wives in order to remain with them throughout life, unless some very forcible reason gives the husband occasion to put away his wife. For without such a reason the man would expose himself to be plundered and to a thousand humiliations, since she whom he had wrongfully quitted, in order to take another wife, would go at the head of her relatives and take from him whatever he had on his person and in his cabin; she would tear out his hair and disfigure his face. In a word, there is no indignity or insult which she would not heap upon him, and which she may not lawfully inflict on him, without his being able to oppose her therein if he does not wish to become the butt of ignominy in the village. When the husband does not take another wife, the one whom he has deserted may strip him when he comes back from hunting or trading, leaving to him only his weapons; and she takes away [even] these if he positively refuses to return with her. But when the man can prove on his side that she has been unfaithful to him, either before or since he has left her, he can take another wife without any one being
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able to raise objection. The woman cannot at her own whim abandon her husband, since he is her master, who has bought and paid for her; even her relatives cannot take her away from him; and if she leaves him custom authorizes him to kill her, without any one blaming him for it.66
The Irroquois, the Loups, and some other tribes do not act toward their women as the Outaouas do; there are among them, however, some men who never leave their wives and love no other woman during life. But the greater number, especially the young men, marry in order to leave their wives whenever they please. The man and wife take each other for a hunting or trading voyage, and share equally the profit they have made therein. The husband can even agree with the wife regarding what he will give her for such time as he desires to keep her with him, under condition that she remain faithful to him; she also, after having ended the voyage, can separate from him.
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I. Customs in use among the savages of both North and South who speak the Algonkin language, or those who spring from that stock, when they seek a girl in marriage
Those peoples make love secretly, during a rather long time. The youth makes the first beginning, by declaring his purpose to some one of his friends whose discretion and fidelity he knows; the girl does as much, on her side, and chooses as confidant one of her companions, to whom she discloses her secret. The youth, having with him the comrade whom alone he has informed of his love, approaches at an unseasonable hour the place where the girl is sleeping, and informs her that he wishes to visit her. If she consents to this, he sits down close to her, and makes known to her, in the most decorous manner, the affection that he feels toward her, and his intention of making her his wife. If the girl does not give a favorable reply on an occasion of this sort, after he has made his declaration, he then withdraws; but he returns on the next day, in the same manner as before. He continues to visit her every night, until he has gained her consent, given by her telling him that her mother is mistress of her person.
The young man then goes to his mother, and announces to her the name of the girl whom he is seeking
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in marriage, with the consent which the latter has given him. The mother then tells his father, or, if he has none, the uncle or nearest cousin; and the two go to visit the girl's family, in order to propose to them the alliance with their son. Sometimes it is sufficient to make this proposal to the brother of the girl, who will then discuss it with their mother; and, after having gained her consent, the relatives meet together in order to settle what amount, whether in furs or in other goods, they will give to provide for the young people. The mother of the young man carries to the girl's home the half of what shall be given her in marriage, and returns thither two or three times to carry something in order, as she says, to pay for the body of her future daughter-in-law. During that time all the goods are distributed among the relatives of the girl, who reimburse the mother-in-law for part of them with provisions, such as Indian corn and other kinds of grain; for it is the woman who takes care to furnish her husband with grain. The new bride is dressed as handsomely as possible, and is accompanied by her mother-in-law, who points out to the girl the place near herself which she must occupy with her husband, who is then strolling in the village. When the bride is seated, the mother-in-law takes from her all the garments which she has on her person, and gives her others, also some goods which she carries to the girl. The latter then returns to her mother, who again strips her of all her finery, and receives from her all the goods that she has; then having dressed the girl for the last time, the mother sends her back to her husband's house, making her a present of some sacks of grain. Repeated visits of this sort are sometimes made very often; but when it is desired to end them the girl is dressed in ragged garments, and it is by this means that the marriage ceremonies69
are terminated; for after that she lives with her mother-in-law, who has charge of her.Although the savages have not, at bottom, much esteem for modesty they nevertheless surpass the Europeans in external propriety; for in all their love-affairs they never utter in conversation a word which can wound chaste feelings. There are among them some who, after being married, have remained six months or even a year without intercourse, and others the same for more or less time. The reason which they give for this is, that they marry not because of lust, but purely through affection.
When the marriage has been consummated, the newly wedded go together to hunt and fish; and thence they return to the village, to the cabin of the girl's mother, and give her whatever they have brought. This mother takes a part of it to give to the mother of the youth, who is obliged to live with his mother-in-law and work for her during two years, for it is his duty to do so. During all that time, she alone is under obligation to feed and support him; and if he must give any feast she pays the expense of it.
After he has served his two years with his mother-in-law, he returns with his wife to his own mother; and
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when he comes back from hunting or fishing he gives his mother-in-law a part of what he has brought back for his mother. Similarly, when he returns from trading it is always the wishes of his mother-in-law to which he must pay regard;If the husband dies, the wife cannot marry again unless the man is one to the liking of the mother-in-law,
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to search for firewood. In the cabin she usually occupies the place which her husband had while living. In whatever place she may be, she must not show any indication of pleasure, and it is not without having to suffer pain that she must thus restrain herself; because the savages, when they see the women weeping for their departed husbands, mock them and say a thousand insulting things to them. She continues to render the same services to the parents of her husband, and yields as entire submission to all that they command her to do, as she did when he was alive. Those about her show, it is true, much consideration for her modesty and for the line of conduct which she is obliged to follow; for they take special pains not to give in the least thing any occasion for grief -- either giving her food, or sending to the house of her parents, out of respect to her, the best of what they have, without either herself or her family being expected to reciprocate the gift through politeness.When her two years of widowhood have expired, if she has strictly observed [the requirements of] her mourning, they take off her rags, and she again puts on handsome garments; she rubs vermilion on her hair and her face, and wears her earrings, her collar of glass and porcelain beads, and other trinkets which the savages consider most valuable. If one of the brothers or near relatives of her late husband loves her, he marries her; if not, she accepts [as husband]
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if they do not provide a husband for her she cannot be hindered from marrying some other man after the period of her widowhood is ended; and in leaving to her this liberty they are obliged to recognize her fidelity by presents.If any one of her relatives who already had one wife took the widow as his second one, his first wife would be the mistress [of the household]. If the widow were not his relative, and if he did not on his return from hunting or fishing give her a share of what he brought back, this would arouse so great jealousy between his two wives that they would begin to fight over it; and, the two families coming to mutual encounter, each to support the cause of the woman who belonged to it, very grievous accidents would occur, without any one being able to interfere to prevent them or to put an end to the quarrel. Some chief has the right only to quiet them, when he sees that in the fray there has been bloodshed. But very often settlements thus made are not of long duration; for on the first opportunity they remind each other of the quarrel, and finally one of the two wives is constrained to quit the husband, which in such case is permitted to her. But if he has any supplies, whether meat or fish, the wife who leaves him carries away from him, with the assistance of her mother, sisters, cousins, or nieces, all that he has, without his offering any opposition; and the quarrel begins afresh over this matter. Nevertheless, one sees among the savages many men who have two wives, and who yet live in quite harmonious manner, although not relatives -- for when the women are such they always live together without any strife, all that is furnished by their husband being for the common use of their family, who cultivate the land together. But when the wives are not of kin they work separately, and
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strive to be each richer than the other in grain and produce, in order with these to make presents on both sides and maintain friendly and pleasant relations.When the wife dies, the husband in like manner observes his mourning. He does not weep, but he refrains entirely from painting his face with vermilion, and puts only a very little grease on his hair. He makes presents to the parents of the deceased wife; if he does not lodge with them he sends them the best part of his game or fish, or of any other gains. It is not permitted to him to marry again until after his two years of mourning, and when he has spent them in the manner required. If he is a good hunter, or has some other accomplishment, his sister-in-law or one of her cousins is given to him in marriage; but if there are none of these he accepts a girl who is regarded as suitable, whom he is obliged to take for his wife, without the power of refusal; for he is prohibited from marrying again save with the knowledge and consent of his mother-in-law, in case she is alive, or at the will of her relatives if she is dead. If he disobeyed this rule all the relatives of his deceased wife would heap a thousand indignities on the woman whom he had taken without such consent; and if he had two wives, they would do the same to the other one. The relatives would carry their animosity so far that the brothers or the cousins of the deceased woman would league themselves with their comrades to carry away his new wife and violate her; and this act would be considered by disinterested persons as having been legitimately perpetrated. This is the reason why very few men are known to make such a mistake when they marry again, since this is the law among them, although it is not universal.
The chiefs of the villages are not under obligation to remain widowers after six months' time, because they
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cannot get along without women to serve them, and to cultivate the lands which produce their tobacco and all [else] that is necessary for them to be prepared to receive those who come to visit them, and strangers who have any business regarding the tribe to place before them. But it is not the same with the war-chiefs, who are, like the others, obliged to spend two years as widowers; and if such a man is not a good hunter, or if he does not please the family of the dead woman, they content themselves with making him a present and telling him to look for his comfort where he can find it.II. Practice or occupations of the men
Among the savages the men are obliged to hunt and fish. They usually live along the shores of the lake otherwise called "the fresh-water sea" [i.e., Lake Superior], and they repair to it in the evening to stretch their nets, and then in the morning to lift these out. They are obliged to bring their venison to the door of the cabin, and their fish to the landing-place, where they leave it in the canoe. It is their duty to go to find the wood and poles suitable for building the cabin, and roofing for the cabin which stands in the regular village, not out in the fields; also to make the canoes, if they are skilful enough, and to chop all the wood which they need, as it is taken for granted that this is somewhat rough work. When they are on the road, it is for the
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man to carry the load if the woman finds herself too heavily burdened, or the child if it is unable to follow them; when these difficulties do not occur, he marches at his ease, carrying only his weapons.III. Occupations of the woman
The obligations of the women are to carry into the cabin (of which she is the mistress) the meat which the husband leaves at the door, and to dry it; to take charge of the cooking; to go to get the fish at the landing, and clean it; to make twine, in order to provide nets for the men; to furnish firewood; to raise and harvest the grain; not to fail in supplying shoes for the entire family, and to dry those of her husband and give them to him when he needs them. The women also are obliged to go to bring water, if they have no servants in the house; to make bags
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for the cabin, if there is no canoe. They apply themselves to fashioning dishes of bark, and their husbands make the wooden dishes. They fabricate many curious little articles which are much in demand by our French people, and which they even send to France as rarities.IV. Of the children
When a child, either boy or girl, has reached the age of five or six months, the father and mother make a feast with the best provisions that they have, to which they invite a juggler with five or six of his disciples. This juggler is one of those who formerly offered sacrifices [to their divinities]; he will be described in the following pages. The father of the family addresses him, and tells him that he is invited in order to pierce the nose and ears of his child; and that he is offering this feast to the sun, or to some other pretended divinity whose name he mentions, entreating that divinity to take pity on his child and preserve its life. The juggler then replies, according to custom, and makes his invocation to the spirit whom the father has chosen. Food is presented to this man and his disciples, and if any is left they are permitted to carry it away with them. When they have finished their meal, the mother of the child places before the guests some peltries, kettles, or other wares, and
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places her child in the arms of the juggler, who gives it to one of his disciples to hold. After he has ended his song in honor of the spirit invoked, he takes from his pouch a flat bodkin made of a bone, and a stout awl,This child has for a cradle a very light piece of board, which is ornamented at the head with glass beads or bells, or with porcelain beads either round or long. If the father is a good hunter, he has all his adornments
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boy; and those of a woman, for her daughter. As soon as the child begins to walk, a little bow with stiff straws is given to a boy, so that he may amuse himself by shooting them. When he has grown a little larger, they give him little arrows of very light weight; but when he has once attained the age of eight or ten years he occupies himself with hunting squirrels and small birds. Thus he is trained and rendered capable of becoming some day skilful in hunting. Such is the method pursued by the upper tribes; those down here no longer use this sort of circumcisions, and do not call in jugglers to make them; the father, or some friend of the family, performs this ceremony without any further formality.VIII. Of funerals among the savages of the upper country, and the manner in which they perform the obsequies
I. Mourning of husbands and wives
When an Outaoüas, or other savage [of that region] is at the point of death, he is decked with all the ornaments owned by the family -- I mean, among his kindred and his connections by marriage. They dress his hair with red paint mixed with grease, and paint his body and his face red with vermilion; they put on him one of his handsomest shirts, if he has such, and he is clad with a jacket and a blanket, as richly as possible; he is, in a word, as properly garbed as if he had to conduct the most solemn ceremony. They take care to adorn the place where he is [lying] with necklaces of porcelain and glass beads (both round and long), or other trinkets. His weapons lie beside him, and at his feet generally all articles that he has used in war during his life. All his relatives -- and, above all, the jugglers -- are near him. When the sick man seems to be in agony, and struggles to yield up his last breath, the women
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and girls among his relations, with others who are hired [for this purpose], betake themselves to mourning, and begin to sing doleful songs, in which mention is made of the degrees of relationship which they have with the sufferer. But if he seems to be recovering, and to regain consciousness, the women cease their weeping; but they recommence their cries and lamentations whenever the patient relapses into convulsions or faintness. When he is dead (or a moment before he expires), they raise him to a sitting position, his back supported, [to look] as if he were alive. I will say here, in passing, that I have seen some savages whose death-agonies lasted more than twenty-four hours, the sick man making fearful grimaces and contortions, and rolling his eyes in the most frightful manner; you would have believed that the soul of the dying man beheld and dreaded some enemy, although he was lying there without recognizing us, and almost dead. The corpse remains thus sitting until the next day, and is kept in this position both day and night by the relatives and friends who go to visit the family; they are also assisted from time to time by some old man, who takes his place near the women who are relatives of the dead man. [One of them] begins her mournful song, while she weeps hot tears; all the others join her therein, but they cease to sing at the same time when she does; and then a present is given to her -- a piece of meat, a dish of corn, or some other article.As for the men, they do not weep, for that would be unworthy of them; the father alone makes it evident, by a doleful song, that there is no longer anything in the world which can console him for the death of his son. A brother follows the same practice for his elder brother, when he has received from the latter during his life visible
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marks of tenderness and affection. In such case, the brother takes his place naked, his face smeared with charcoal, mingled with a few red lines. He holds in his hands his bow and arrows, as if he intended at the start to go against some enemy; and, singing a song in a most furious tone, he runs like a lunatic through the open places, the streets, and the cabins of the village, without shedding a tear. By this extraordinary performance he makes known to all who see him how great is his sorrow for the death of his brother; this softens the hearts of his neighbors, and obliges them to provide among themselves a present, which they come to offer to the dead. In the speech with which they accompany this gift they declare that it is made in order to wipe away the tears of his relatives; and that the mat which they give him is for him to lie on, or [that they give] a piece of barkWhen the time comes for burying the corpse, they go to find the persons designated for this office; and a scaffold is erected seven or eight feet high, which serves the
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dead in place of a grave -- or, if he is placed in the ground, they dig for him a grave only four or five feet deep. During all this time, the family of him whose funeral is solemnized exert all their energies to bring him grain, or peltries, or other goods, [which they place] either on the scaffold or near the grave; and when one or the other is completed they carry thither the corpse, in the same position which it had at death, and clothed with the same fine apparel. Near him are his weapons, and at his feet all the articles which had been placed there before his death. When the funeral ceremonies have been performed and the body buried, the family make liberal payment to those who took part therein, by giving them a kettle or some porcelain necklaces for their trouble.82
All the people in the village are obliged to attend the funeral procession; and, when all is over, one man among them all steps forward, who holds in his hand a little wooden rod, as large as one's finger and some five inches long, which he throws into the midst of the crowd, for him who can catch it. When it has fallen into some person's hand the rest try to snatch it from him; if it falls on the ground every one tries to reach it to pick it up, pulling and pushing each other so violently that in less than half an hour it has passed through the hands of all those who are present. If at last any one of the crowd can get possession of it, and display it to them without any one taking it from him, he sells it for a fixed price to the first person who desires to buy it; this price will be very often a kettle, a gun, or a blanket. The bystanders are then notified to be present again, on some day appointed, for a similar ceremony; and this is done, sometimes quite often, as I have just related.
After this diversion, public notice is given that there is another prize, to be given to the best runner among the young men. The goal of this race is indicated, [and the course is marked out] from the place where the runners must start to that which they are to reach. All the young men adorn themselves, and form in a long row on the open plain. At the first call of the man who is to give the signal, they commence to run, at some distance from the village, and the first one who arrives there carries away the prize.
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A few days afterward the relatives of the dead man give a feast of meat and corn, to which are invited all the villagers who are not connected with them by marriage and who are descended from other families than their own -- and especially those persons who have made presents to the dead. They also invite, if any such are found, strangers who have come from other villages; and they inform all the guests that it is the dead man who gives them this feast. If it is one of meat, they take a piece of this, as well as of other kinds of food, which they must place upon the grave; and the women, girls, and children are permitted to eat these morsels, but not the grown men, for these must regard such act as unworthy of them. At this feast each is free to eat what he wishes, and to carry the rest [of his portion] home with him. Considerable presents in goods are given to all those strangers who have previously made presents to the dead person; but these are not given to his own tribesmen. The guests are then thanked for having remembered the dead, and congratulated on their charitable dispositions.
II. The mourning of the savages, in general
I have already described the mourning of husbands and of wives, each for the other; but not all the savages who are under obligation to observe the general mourning put grease or vermilion on the face and hair. If it
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is a chief who has died, his near relative may not converse, save in a very low tone with that one of his friends who is commissioned to express his wishes; he is obliged to avoid social intercourse and worldly conversation; he may, however, be present at feasts to which he is invited, but may not utter a word while there. When presents are brought to him for the dead man, that [official] friend receives them and returns thanks for him. It must be noted that the children and young people of both sexes are not under obligation to this general mourning; it is only adult persons who cannot excuse themselves from it. It lasts a whole year, at the end of which time the relatives assemble to adopt a person who is qualified to assume the office of the dead chief, and who must be of the same rank. As for women, girls, or boys, a similar usage prevails, [the adopted one being] of the same age and sex [as the dead]. Then they adorn themselves and paint themselves with vermilion, each person remaining in his place in the cabin. The parents of the departed man or woman are present therein, also clad with the best garments that they possess.At the outset, three persons are requested to sing, and to beat the drum,
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they present to him a blanket, shirt, or cloak; and they paint him with vermilion, and adorn him as handsomely as they can. When the dance is ended, they give him food, with various presents, in memory of him whose place he has taken, in whose behalf he danced and appeared on this solemn occasion. This man, or this woman, assures the family that he or she will always be ready to render them all the services which shall be within their power -- whether to cook and serve the food at their feasts, or to discharge any commissions which may be entrusted to them. In fine, these who are adopted yield themselves to serve as attendants or servants of the family; moreover, when they have anything of value they carry the greater part of it to their master; and they regard themselves as united to this family, as much as if they were actually kindred.86
III. The manner in which the savages celebrate the feast of their dead
If the savages intend to celebrate the feast of their dead, they take care to make the necessary provision for it beforehand. When they return from their trade with the Europeans, they carry back with them the articles which suit them for this purpose; and in their houses they lay in a store of meat, corn, peltries, and other goods. When they return from their hunting, all those of the village come together to solemnize this feast. After resolving to do so, they send deputies from their own people into all the neighboring villages that are allied with them, and even as far away as a hundred leagues or more, to invite those people to attend this feast. In entreating them to be present at it, they designate the time which had been fixed for its solemnization. The greater part of the men in those villages who are invited to this feast set out, a number in each canoe, and these together provide a small fund with which to offer a common present to the village which has invited them, on their arrival there. Those who have invited them make ready for their coming a large cabin, stoutly built and well covered, for lodging and entertaining all those whom they expect. As soon as all the people have arrived, they take their places, each nation separately from the others, at the ends and in the middle of the cabin, and, thus assembled, they offer their presents and lay aside their [outer] garments, saying that messengers have come to invite them to pay their respects to the shades and the memory of the departed in that village; and immediately they begin to dance to the noise of a drum and of a gourd which contains some small pebbles, both keeping the same time. They dance from one end to the other of the cabin, returning after one another, in single file, around three
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spruce-trees or three cornstalks which are set up there. During these dances, people are at work preparing the meal; they kill dogs, and have these cooked with other viands which are speedily prepared. When all is ready, they make the guests rest a little while, and after all the dances are ended the repast is served.I omitted to state that as soon as the hosts call for the dances to stop they take from their guests the presents which they have made, and all their garments; and in exchange for these the visitors are given, by those who invited them, other articles of clothing which are more valuable. If the hosts have just returned [from the trading],
When those who are invited from the other villages have all arrived, the same entry and the same reception are provided for the people of each village. When all are assembled, they are expected to dance all at the same time during three consecutive days; and during this period one of the hosts invites to a feast at his own house about twenty persons, who are chosen and sent out by their own people. But instead of serving food at this feast, it is presents which are offered to the guests, such as kettles, hatchets, and other articles from the trade; there is, however, nothing to eat. The presents which they have received belong in common to the tribesmen; if these were articles of food, they can eat them, which accordingly they do very punctually, for their appetites
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never fail them. Another of the hosts will do the same for other dancers, who will be invited to come to his house, and see how his people treat [their guests] -- until all those of the [entertaining] village have in turn given feasts of this sort. During [these] three days they lavish all that they possess in trade-goods or other articles; and they reduce themselves to such an extreme of poverty that they do not even reserve for themselves a single hatchet or knife. Very often they keep back for their own use only one old kettle; and the sole object for which they incur all this expenditure is, that they may render the souls of the departed more happy and more highly respected in the country of the dead. For the savages believe that they are under the strictest obligation to perform, in the honors which they pay to their dead, all that I have related, and that it is only this sort of lavish spending which can fully secure rest for the departed souls; for it is the custom among those people to give whatever they possess, without reservation, in the ceremonies of funerals or of other superstitions. There are still some of those savages who have sucked the milk of religion, who nevertheless have not wholly laid aside ideas of this sort, and who bury with the corpse whatever belonged to the person during his life. Solemnities of this kind for the dead were formerly celebrated every year, each tribe being alternately hosts and guests; but for several years past this has been no longer the custom, except among some few [villages]. The Frenchmen who have gone among them have made them realize that these useless extravagances of theirs were ruining their families, and reducing them to a lack of even the necessities of life.89
IX. Belief of the unconverted savages in regard to the immortality of the soul, and the place where the departed dwell forever
All the savages who are not converted believe that the soul is immortal;
They believe, furthermore, that as soon as the soul has left the body it enters this charming country,
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route a very rapid river, over which there is only a slender tree-trunk by way of bridge; and that in passing over this it bends so much that the soul is in danger of being swept away by the flood of waters. They assert that if unfortunately this mishap occurs, the soul will be drowned; but that all these perils are escaped when once the souls have reached the country of the dead. They believe also that the souls of young people, of either sex, have nothing to fear, because they are so vigorous; but it is not the same with those of the old people and the infants who have no assistance from other souls in this dangerous crossing, and it is this which very often causes them to perish.They relate to us, moreover, that this same river abounds with fish, more in number than can be imagined. There are sturgeons and other kinds of fish in great numbers, which the souls kill with blows of their hatchets and clubs, so that they can roast these fish while on their journey, for they no longer find therein any game. After they have traveled a long time, in front of them appears a very steep mountain, which closes their path and compels them to seek another; but they do not find any way open, and it is only after experiencing great suffering that they finally arrive at this fearful passage. There two pestles of prodigious size, which in turn rise and fall without ceasing, form an obstacle most difficult to overcome; for death is absolutely inevitable if while making the passage one is unfortunately caught under [them] -- I mean, while one of the two pestles is falling.
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moment when they can clear a passage so dangerous; yet many fail in it, especially those of old persons and little children, who are less vigorous and move through it more slowly.When the souls have once escaped from this peril, they enter a delightful country, in which excellent fruits are found in abundance; and the ground seems to be covered with all kinds of flowers, the odor of which is so admirable that it delights their hearts and charms their imaginations. The short remaining distance which they must traverse before arriving in the place where the sound of the drum and the gourds -- marking time for [the steps of] the dead, to give them pleasure -- falls agreeably on their ears, urges them on to hasten directly thither with great eagerness. The nearer they approach it, always the louder becomes this sound; and the joy which the dancers express by their continual exclamations serves to delight the souls still more. When they are very near the place where the ball is held, part of the dead men separate from the others in order to meet the newcomers, and assure them of the great pleasure which their arrival generally gives to the entire assembly. The souls are conducted into the place where the dance is held, and are cordially received by all who are there; and they find there innumerable viands, of all flavors, everything of the most delicious taste, and prepared in the best manner. It is for them to choose whatever pleases them, and to satisfy their appetites; and when they have finished eating they go to mingle with the others -- to dance and make merry forever, without being any longer subject to sorrow, anxiety, or infirmities, or to any of the vicissitudes of mortal life.
Such is the opinion of the savages in regard to the immortality of the soul. It is a mere dream, although one
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of the most absurd that can be invented; and they give [credit] to it with so much obstinacy that, when one tries to make them see its extravagance, they answer to Europeans who talk thus with them that we [white men] have a special country for our dead; and that they, having been created by spirits who dwelt together in friendly intercourse and were all good friends, had selected in the other world a country different from their own. They maintain that this is an undoubted truth, and that they have learned it from their ancestors. These forefathers once went so far in a military expedition that, after they had found the end and farthest limit of the earth, they passed through this gate of the pestles which I have just described, before entering that beautiful country; and then they heard at a little distance the sounds of beating the drums and rattling the gourds. Their curiosity having induced them to go forward, in order to ascertain what this was, they were discovered by the dead, who came toward them; and then, when they tried to flee, they were quickly overtaken and conducted into the cabins of these inhabitants of the other world, who received them with the utmost good-will. Afterward they escorted these men as far as the gateway of the pestles, which stopped their motion, to enable them to pass without danger; and the dead men, in leaving them there, told them not to come back again until after they should die, lest some evil should happen to them.93
X. The games and amusements of the savages
I. The game of crosse
The savages have several kinds of games, in which they take delight. They are naturally so addicted to these that they will give up their food and drink, not only to play but to watch the game. There is among them a certain game, called crosse,
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the part of conqueror; and that party which wins carries away what has been staked on the game.Men, women, boys, and girls are received into the parties which are formed; and they bet against one another for larger or smaller amounts, each according to his means.
These games usually begin after the melting of the winter's ice, and last until seed-time. In the afternoon all the players may be seen, painted with vermilion and decked with ornaments. Each party has its leader, who makes an address, announcing to his players the hour that has been appointed for beginning the games. All assemble in a body, in the middle of the place [selected], and one of the leaders of the two parties, holding the ball in his hand, tosses it into the air. Each player undertakes to send it in the direction in which he must drive it; if it falls to the ground, he endeavors to draw it toward him with his crosse; and, if it is sent outside the crowd of players, the more alert distinguish themselves from the others by closely following it. You will hear the din that they make by striking one another, while they strive to ward off the blows in order to send the ball in a favorable direction. If one of them keeps it between his feet, without allowing it to escape, it is for him to avoid the blows that his adversaries rain incessantly upon his feet; and, if he happens to be wounded in this encounter, that is his own affair. Some of them are seen who [thus] have had their legs or arms broken, and some even have been killed. It is very common to see among them men crippled for the rest of their lives, and who were hurt in games of this sort only as the result of their own obstinacy.
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who is so unfortunate as to be hurt retires quietly from the game, if he is in a condition to walk; but, if his injuries will not permit this, his relatives convey him to the cabin, and the game always goes on as if nothing were the matter, until it is finished.As for the runners, when the parties are equally strong they will sometimes spend an afternoon without either side gaining the advantage over the other; but sometimes, too, one of them will bear away the two victories which it must have in order to win the game. In this sport of racing, you would say that they looked like two opposing parties who meant to fight together. This exercise has much to do with rendering the savages agile, and ready to ward adroitly any blow from a club in the hands of an enemy, when they find themselves entangled in combat; and if one were not told beforehand that they were playing, one would certainly believe that they were fighting together in the open field.
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two parties, one of the players whom the blow does not favor would attack this man, demanding of him whether this were any of his business, and why he was meddling in it. They have often come to blows over this point, and if some chief did not reconcile them there would be bloodshed, and even some one would be killed. The best way to prevent this disorderly conduct is to begin the game over again, with the consent of those who are winning; for if they refuse to do so, the responsibility rests on them. But when some one of the influential men interposes, it is not difficult to adjust their dispute and induce them to conform to his decision.II. The game of straws
At the game of straws the savages lose not only all that they possess, but even that which belongs to their comrades. Here is an account of this game. They take for this sport a certain number of straws, or of the stems of a special plant, which is not so thick as the cord [used] for a salmon-net, and with these they make little sticks, all alike in length and thickness; the length is about eleven inches, and the number is uneven. After turning and mingling these in their hands, they lay them on a piece of skin or of blanket; and he who must begin the game, holding in his hand an awl (or more commonly a small pointed bone), makes contortions of his arms and body, continually saying Chok! Chok! -- a word which has no meaning in their language, but which serves to make known his desire to play well and to be fortunate in the game. Then with this awl or small pointed bone he thrusts into some part of the [pile of] straws, and takes away a number of them as he pleases; his opponent takes those which remain on the cloth, and with inconceivable quickness counts them, by tens, without making
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any mistake; then he who has the uneven number has made a lucky hit.Sometimes they play with seeds which grow on the trees, which closely resemble little beans.
When the players have made their bets, he who has been lucky often takes the straws and turns them endwise in his hands, and then places them on the table, saying Chank! which means "nine;" and the other, who has the awl or the little bone in his hand, draws off [part of] the straws, in such place as he prefers, and takes as many of them as he pleases, as has been already stated, and the other takes the rest of them. If the last to take them
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prefers to leave them, his adversary is obliged to take them; and, each counting them by tens, he who has the uneven number has won, and takes whatever has been staked. But if it happens that the winner has only one straw more than the other man, he takes only those seeds which represent that straw. For example, the number three is greater than two, by one; five is superior to three, and seven to five; but nine surpasses all.If several persons are playing and one of them finds five in his hand, they play four at a time, two against two, or fewer if they cannot make up the number of four players; one pair wins the seeds which stand for the five straws, and the other [the] seeds which are at stake for the three straws and for one. When any one has not in his hand the uneven number of those which remain on the cloth -- that is, one and three -- after they have carefully counted the straws by tens, when he has not the nine he is obliged to double what he has staked, even if he might have in his hand five or seven straws; and his play counts for nothing. He is obliged also to form two other piles of straws; in one he places five and in the other seven straws, with as many seeds as he pleases. When he has laid these on the cloth, his opponents in their turn prick off [straws], and then he takes those which are left; by that time there are some of the players who are lucky, nevertheless each one takes for himself only the seeds which are designated for the number of straws [which he has], and he who has nine takes only the seeds laid down for the nine straws. When another player draws away seven straws, he takes the rest; for three straws and for one it is all the same, but not for [numbers] higher than these.
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It should be noted that, after they have lost the game which lies before them, they continue playing upon their promises [to pay], if the players declare that they [still] have possessions, even though these are not in their hands. But when one continues to be unlucky, the winner may refuse [to accept] seeds from the loser for the value which he requires from the latter, and may oblige him to go to find the goods themselves, refusing to play any longer until he sees these, nor can any retort to this be made. The loser will immediately tell one of his comrades to bring the goods to him, and if his ill -- luck continues he will lose everything that he owns. One of his comrades then relieves him and takes his place, stating what he intends to risk on the game to the winner, who then accepts seeds for the value [of the bet].
This game lasts sometimes three or four days. When any one of the party who loses wins back all, and he who has hitherto been lucky in play comes to lose not only the profit which he had made but what of his own property he had staked, another of his comrades also takes his place, and everything goes on as before, until one of
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the two parties is entirely ruined. Thus the contest comes to an end among those people, it being a rule with the savages that they cannot quit the game until one side or the other has lost everything. It is for this reason that they cannot dispense with furnishing revenge to all those of a party, decisively, one after another, as I have just stated. In the game they have liberty to play on their own account, as they please; and if there happened to be a quarrel over this -- I mean between the winners and the losers, each supported by those of his own party -- they would come to blows, in which there would be bloodshed, and it would be very difficult to reconcile them. If the disposition of the winner is such as to be calm while he loses, and he feigns to overlook the many adroit tricks and the cheating which they very often practice in playing, he is praised and esteemed by every one; while he who has tried to cheat is blamed by every one, and there is no one who wishes to play with him, unless he ignominiously restores what he has unlawfully won.This game of straws is usually held in the cabins of chiefs, which are large and are, so to speak, the academy of the savages; and there are seen all the young men, making up opposing sides, and the older men as spectators of their games. If the player fancies that he has had luck in picking off the straws, and that he has on his side the uneven number, holding them in one hand he strikes [the table] with the other; and when he has made the count of them by tens, without saying a word he makes it known by a sign that he has won, by taking for himself the seeds which have been staked, when he sees that he against whom he is playing has not as many of them. If one of the players tries to object that the straws could not have been correctly counted, they hand them over to two of the spectators to count them; and the one who has
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really won always sweeps off his straws, without saying anything, and takes possession of the articles at stake. All of this passes without any dispute, and with great fairness. You will note that this game is not at all one for women, and that it is only the men who engage in it.III. Game of dice
The savages have also a certain game of dice, in which the dice-box is a wooden dish, quite round, empty, and very smooth on both sides. The dice are composed of six small flat bones, in shape closely resembling a plum-stone; these are quite smooth, with one of the sides colored black, red, green, or blue, and the other usually white, or of some other color than the former side. They place these dice in the dish, and, holding it by both sides, jerk it upward, causing the dice within to leap and bounce around. Then, having slammed the bottom of the dish against the table, while the dice are rolling about they immediately strike their own chests or shoulders with sharp blows, saying, "Dice! dice! dice!" until the dice stop moving. When five or six of these are found with the same color on the [upper] face, a player sweeps off the seeds which represent his agreement with the other party; if the loser and his comrades have nothing more to wager, the winning side takes all that is at stake. Entire villages have been known to wager each its entire wealth against another at this game, and to lose it all. They also present challenges;
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and women of the tribe that is backing them rise to their feet and dance, keeping time to the sound of the gourd rattles. The entire affair goes off without any dispute.The girls and women play at this game, but they very often have eight dice, and do not use the dish for it, as the men do; they only lay down a blanket, and throw the dice on it with their hands.
XI. The usual food of the savages, and their hunting
I. The usual food of the savages
The kinds of food which the savages like best, and which they make most effort to obtain, are the Indian corn, the kidney-bean, and the squash. If they are without these, they think that they are fasting, no matter what abundance of meat and fish they may have in their stores, the Indian corn being to them what bread is to Frenchmen. The Algonkins, however, and all the northern tribes, who do not cultivate the soil, do not lay up corn; but when it is given to them while they are out hunting they regard it as a [special] treat.
Those peoples commonly live only by hunting or fishing; they have moose, caribous, and bears, but the beaver is the most common of all their game. They consider themselves very fortunate in their hunting expeditions when they encounter some rabbits, martens, or partridges, from which to make a soup; and without what we call tripe de roche
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of gray moss, dry, and resembling oublies;The Chiripinons or Assiniboüalas sow in their marshes some wild oats,
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this grain to their homes only in the season of navigation. As their canoes are very small, and heavily loaded with their children and the produce of their hunting, they have very often been reduced almost to starvation on account of being too far distant from their cachesII. The manner in which the northern tribes hunt the beaver
The peoples of the north hunt for beaver in the winter, with an ice-chisel [tranche] and a snare made of cords of hide. They begin by breaking a hole in the lodge into
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which this animal goes for refuge; and they break down the dams106
break into their lodges to compel the animals to come out from them.The noise which the hunters make by sharply striking the handles of their tools [upon the ice] enables the beavers
III. Chase of the caribou, moose, and other animals
Hunting the caribous is usually practiced on the great flat plains [savanes];
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the game with trees and poles planted at intervals, in which they stretch snares of rawhide, which enclose a narrow passage purposely left. When all these snares have been prepared, they go far away, marching abreast and uttering loud yells; this unusual noise frightens the animals and drives them to flight on every side; no longer knowing which way to go, they encounter this obstruction which has been made ready in their course. Not being able to clear it, they are compelled to follow it until they reach the passage in which the snares are laid with running knots, which seize them by the neck. It is in vain that they strive to escape; rather, they tear up the stakes [of the snare] and drag these with them as far as the larger trees; in short, their utmost efforts to extricate themselves only serve to strangle them more quickly.The moose are hunted in about the same manner, especially when the savages are in a region where these animals are numerous; or else they endeavor to take them by surprise and kill them with guns or arrows. But in the winter, when the snows are deep, they have sharp blades on long handles for killing the moose by coursing them. On the other hand, the elk can be captured only with a snare.
The Kiristinons,
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the shores of Lake Superior and the great rivers, where moose are more commonly found, have another method of hunting them. First, they embark on the water, two men in each canoe, and keep at a certain distance from one another; their dogs are on the land, and enter a little distance into the depths of the forest to seek their game. As soon as the dogs have found the trail, they never quit it until they have found the moose; and the wonderful instinct which they possess of remembering in what place their masters are leads them to drive on the game directly to that quarter, continually pursuing them until the moose are constrained to dash into the water. The savages, who are [now] on the shore listening intently for the barking of their dogs, at once enter their canoes [again], and attack and slay the moose.The marten [skins] that are most valued and handsome are those from the north; the fur on them is more
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black than brown; and the trade in these is one of the best carried on in that country.The savages called Saulteurs
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other game, which they take by surprise with the discharge of guns and arrows.There are yet other tribes along Lakes Huron and Illinois who possess lands sufficiently cleared to obtain from them all the grain that they can need, and who live in great comfort with [this and] the produce of their fishing; but when they wish to go to hunt beaver or any other animal they are compelled to go to a great distance. The seasons which they usually take for hunting are the autumn and winter, because at that time the pelts of the animals are better than at others. For capturing these they use snares, in which for bait there is a branch of a tree which they call "the trembling tree;"
They hunt all the other beasts with guns, although they have also arrows, but they are not so skilful in using these weapons as are the people of the north and of the prairies, because the use of firearms is not so general among them as in those tribes; and because in the distant regions to which they are accustomed to go for
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hunting there are bears, elk, deer, wild-cats, beaver, some pekans,IV. Natural productions of the prairies; game and wild beasts that are encountered there
The savage peoples who inhabit the prairies have lifelong good-fortune; animals and birds are found there in great numbers, with numberless rivers abounding in fish. Those people are naturally very industrious, and devote themselves to the cultivation of the soil, which is very fertile for Indian corn. It produces also beans, squashes (both small and large) of excellent flavor, fruits, and many kinds of roots. They have in especial a certain method of preparing squashes with the Indian corn cooked while in its milk, which they mix and cook together and then dry, [a food] which has a very sweet taste. Finally, melons grow there which have a juice no less agreeable than refreshing.
The various kinds of animals that the country furnishes
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are: buffaloes, elk, bears, lynxes, raccoons, and panthers,The land birds are: turkeys, pheasants, quails, pigeons, and curlew
Toward the north, the animals all have very rich fur; but as one goes southward, where the winter does not last long, as soon as it is over the furs cease to be as valuable.
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In that region the heat is as great as in the islands of the south or in Provence; and it is a country abounding in parroquets. But if we push into the north, as far as the entrance to Ouisconching [i.e., Wisconsin River], the winter there is extremely cold and long. That is where the beaver-skins are the best, and where hunting lasts for a longer time in the year.The savages have in their country various kinds of roots. That which they call [blank in text], meaning "bear's root,"
Also in winter they dig from under the ice, or where there is much mud and little water, a certain root, of better quality than that which I have just mentioned; but it is only found in the Louisiana country, some fifteen leagues above the entrance to the Ouisconching. The savages call this root, in their own language, poke-koretch
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and the French give it no other name, because nothing at all resembling it is seen in Europe. It has the appearance of a root, about half as thick as one's arm, or a little more; it also has firm flesh, and externally resembles an arm; in one word, you would say at sight of these roots, that they are certainly great radishes. But cut it across the two ends, and it is no longer the same thing; for you find inside it a cavity in the middle, extending throughout its length, around which are five or six other and smaller cavities, which also run from end to end. To eat it, you must cook it over a brazier, and you will find that it tastes like chestnuts. The savages are accustomed to make provision of this root; they cut it into pieces and string them on a cord, in order to dry them in the smoke. When these pieces are thoroughly dry, and hard as wood, they put them into bags, and keep them as long as they wish. If they boil their meat in a kettle, they also cook therein this root, which thus becomes soft; and, when they wish to eat, it answers for bread with their meat. It is always better with considerable117
grease; for although this root is very sweet and has a good flavor, it sticks to the throat in swallowing and goes down with difficulty, because it is very dry. The women gather this root, and recognize it by the dried stem, which appears sticking up above the ice. The shape [of the flower] is like a crown, of red color; it is as large as the bottom of a plate, and is full of seeds in every way resembling hazelnuts; and when these are roasted under hot cinders they taste just like chestnuts.That country also produces potatoes; some are as large as an egg, others have the size of one's fist, or a little more. They boil these in water by a slow fire during twenty-four hours; when they are thoroughly cooked, you will find in them an excellent flavor, much resembling that of prunes -- which are cooked in the same way in France, to be served with dessert.
The tribes of the prairies also find in certain places lands that are fertile, and kept moist by the streams that water them, whereon grow onions of the size of one's thumb. The root is like a leek, and the plant which grows from it resembles the salsify. This onion, I say, is so exceedingly acrid that, if one tried to swallow it, it would all at once wither the tongue, the throat, and the inside of the mouth; I do not know, however, whether it would have the same injurious effect on the inside of the body. But this difficulty hardly ever occurs, for as
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soon as one takes it into the mouth he spits it out; and one imagines that it is a certain wild garlic, which is quite common in the same places, and has also an insupportable acridness.When the savages lay in a store of these onions, with which the ground is covered, they first build an oven, upon which they place the onions, covering them with a thick layer of grass; and by means of the heat which the fire communicates to them the acrid quality leaves them, nor are they damaged by the names; and after they have been dried in the sun they become an excellent article of food. Their abundance, however, counts for nothing, although the agreeable taste which one finds in them often induces him to satisfy his appetite with them; for nothing in the world is more indigestible and more [ sc. less?] nourishing. You feel a load on your chest, your belly as hard as a drum, and colic pains which last two or three days. When one is forewarned of this effect, he refrains from eating much of this root. I speak from experience, having been taken unawares by it; and after the distress which I experienced from it I have no longer any desire to taste it.
The prairies inhabited by the Illinois produce various fruits, such as medlars, large mulberries, plums, and abundance of nuts, as in France; and many other fruits.
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which are so bitter and oily that they are good for nothing for eating. There are also strawberries in abundance, raspberries, and potatoes. But the people further north, as far up as Ouisconching, have no longer these medlars, and those who are still farther away are without these nuts like those of France; with these exceptions, they have all the other fruits of which mention has just been made.V. Hunting the buffalo
I have already remarked that the savages of the prairies live in a happy land, on account of the great numbers of animals of all kinds that they have about them, and the grains, fruits, and roots which the soil there produces in abundance; but I have said nothing of the customs which they practice in their hunting expeditions or of the manner in which they pursue the chase, especially that of the buffalo.
The savages set out in the autumn, after they have gathered the harvest, to go hunting; and they do not return to their villages until the month of March, in order to plant the grain on their lands. As soon as this is done, they go hunting again, and do not return until the month of July, which is the time when the rutting season of the buffalo begins.
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The people of an entire village go together to this hunting, and, if there are not enough of them, they unite with those of another village, and that for two reasons: the first, in order to defend themselves against the attacks which their enemies might make against them; and the other, that thus they may be able to drive in a greater number of animals.
They assemble at nightfall on the eve of their departure, and choose among their number the man whom they consider most capable of being the director of the expedition. This is usually one of the more prominent war chiefs; he takes for adjutants all the other chiefs, and agrees with them on all the rules that should be laid down for the procedure that they must observe in order to hunt the buffaloes.
On the same day, one of the leading men makes a harangue before all the assembly, in which he makes known the orders that have been issued in regard to the limits which shall be observed in this hunt, and the punishments ordained for those persons who overstep them. He declares that these orders provide for depriving the disobedient of their weapons, breaking their bows and arrows, tearing down their cabins, and plundering them of property found therein; and this law is inexorable among them. The reason which obliges them to employ so much severity and strictness against those who fail to obey the rule is, that if any of them during the hunt were to pass beyond the prescribed limits all the game would escape them by flight, and the village would be in danger of perishing from hunger. All the chiefs are generally subject to this law; and even if he who is [appointed] over all the rest should commit this fault, he would be punished with the same rigor as any other man, without regard to his authority. In case he refused
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to submit to it, all the young men -- who are, so to speak, his prop -- would unite against him, and lay violent hands on all persons who should come forward to take his part.This headman of the chiefs, with his adjutants, forms the necessary detachments to go out scouting on the [various] routes; and if these men suspect that there is any danger for their people they come back over their path in order to cover their tracks and to prevent any attack by the enemy.
When the village has a large number of young men able to bear arms they divide these into three bodies: one takes its route to the right, another that to the left, and half of the third party is divided between the two former ones. One of these latter parties goes away [from its main column] a league or thereabout to the right, and the other remains on the left, both parties forming, each on its own side, a long file; then they set out, in single file, and continue their march until they judge that their line of men is sufficiently long for them to advance into the depths [of the forest]. As they begin their march at midnight, one of the parties waits until dawn, while the others pursue their way; and after they have marched a league or more another party waits again for daylight; the rest march [until] after another half-league has been covered, and likewise wait. When the day has at last begun, this third party which had separated to the right and the left with the two others pushes its way farther; and as soon as the rising sun has dried off the dew on the ground, the parties on the right and the left, being in sight of each other, come together in [one] file, and close up the end of the circuit which they intend to surround.
They commence at once by setting fire to the dried herbage which is abundant in those prairies; those who
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occupy the flanks do the same; and at that moment the entire village breaks camp, with all the old men and young boys -- who divide themselves equally on both sides, move away to a distance, and keep the hunting parties in sight so that they can act with the latter, so that the fires can be lighted on all four sides at once and gradually communicate the flames from one to another. That produces the same effect to the sight as four ranks of palisades, in which the buffaloes are enclosed. When the savages see that the animals are trying to get outside of it, in order to escape the fires which surround them on all sides (and this is the one thing in the world which they most fear), they run at them and compel them to reenter the enclosure; and they avail themselves of this method to kill all the beasts. It is asserted that there are some villages which have secured as many as fifteen hundred buffaloes, and others more or fewer, according to the number of men in each and the size of the enclosure which they make in their hunting.123
which they are accustomed to go and encamp for the purpose of drying their store of meat.The elk and the deer are quite often caught in these circles of fire, but make their escape; and the savages
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usually follow up only those animals that they are certain of killing or of capturing by surprise.The people of the village then encamp in the place [that they find] most convenient, and nearest to the scene of the carnage. This camp being established, the game is divided among the families, each receiving what its hunters have slain; some have more and others less, according to the number of men in each; but the whole is distributed by the decisions of the chiefs, with great equity and justice. Each of these families strips the hides from the animals that fall to its share, and the people remain in the camp until all their store of meat is thoroughly dried. They are very careful to gnaw the bones of the animals so clean that no meat whatever is left on them. They finish [skinning the game] before noon, and the rest of the day is sufficient for preparing the meat [for drying].
The Illinois and their neighbors have no lack of wood for drying their meat; but the Ayoës
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generally use only the well-dried dung of the buffaloes, as wood is extremely scarce among them.Thus you see how these tribes carry on their hunting expeditions, and they are always ready and able to defend their families against their enemies; for the families are always, on the march, placed on the flanks, which are protected on the right and the left by the warriors, and sheltered from the attacks that might be made on them. Besides that, there is nothing to fear behind them, for the men sent out to reconnoiter defend them at the rear, and on such occasions serve them as a rear-guard. It is impossible, therefore, for the enemy to appear without the entire troop knowing it, by means of the alarm-cry which each utters to the next one, and by the prompt assistance of the warriors, who immediately hasten to oppose the enemy. The women and children are out of danger; the warriors make a bold stand, and are very seldom driven back.
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In their winter hunts they follow the same rules; but the snow with which the ground is entirely covered prevents them from making the fires spread, and thus obtaining the same success as in other seasons of the year. As for their [hunting] laws, they are under the same obligation to observe them; but they are unavoidably compelled to arrange a much longer line of men to form the circuit with which it is necessary to surround the buffaloes. If any one of the animals finds an opening for forcing its way through them, they run to meet it to prevent its flight; or else they follow behind the game so swiftly that they always slay many of the beasts.
It is only the skin on the bellies of the cows and that of the yearling calves which the savages use for making their garments; but the hides of the bulls are used for [making] bucklers, with which they ward off their enemies' arrows and the blows of clubs. When they wish to dress this hide, they cut off a sufficient piece of it, and, after thoroughly scraping both sides of it, they boil it a moment in water, and then take it out of the kettle. Then they stretch it on a hoop of the same size as the buckler that they intend to make, and when it is entirely dry it becomes as hard as the heavy leather used for the soles of shoes. When the savages wish to cut it for stretching, they take pains beforehand to make it as nearly round in shape as they can; and when it is quite dry they remove the superfluous leather attached to the hoop [on the outer edge]. In this manner they make the bucklers which they carry to war.
VI. Manner in which the savages hunt the bear in winter
Toward the end of autumn the bears seek a place where they find shelter from the rigors of the winter
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season; it may be in a hollow place in a rock, or under the roots of a tree, or in a hollow log, or else in a hole that the bear digs in the ground. If the animal is very large, it will select the roots of the largest it can find among the fallen trees, and cover them over with a quantity of spruce-branches, in order to entrench itself therein.This animal is in rut in the month of July, at which time it becomes so lean, and the flesh so insipid and disagreeable in flavor, that it is impossible to eat it; but when that period has passed, the bear has instinctive knowledge of the fruits that can restore it to good condition -- such as raspberries, hazelnuts, walnuts, crabapples, plums, acorns, beechnuts, berries, and other fruits, each according to its season. As soon as the winter has come, the bear makes its retreat in a place least exposed to the cold; and although it eats nothing during all that season it is nevertheless able to retain the fat which has been supplied to it by the fruits on which it fed during the autumn.
The savages apply themselves to hunting the bear in the season when the elk and deer are lean. A war-chief will make up a party of young men, to whom he will give a feast; but note here that the givers of the feast
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he has decided to set out. It must be understood that this feast is sometimes preceded by a fast of eight days, without eating or drinking, in order that the bear may be favorable to the chief and those of his party -- meaning that he desires to find and kill some bears, without incurring any injury to himself or his people.The day of their departure having arrived, he assembles all his men, who, like himself, have their faces blackened with coal; and all remain fasting until evening, when they eat, but only a little. They set out the next morning, and at the start the chief of the party begins to station his men so as to make a circuit of about a quarter or a half of a league, and to complete the enclosing line which was planned at the very place from which they departed. They beat up and then range through the tract of land which is thus enclosed; and they carefully examine all the trees, roots, and rocky places which are within their circuit, and kill the bears which may be found there. As soon as they kill one, they light a pipe and, thrusting it into the animal's throat, they blow the smoke out through its nostrils. They cut the string that is under the tongue, and wrap it in a piece of cloth in order to keep it with great care. After they have carefully examined and traversed all the places within this enclosure, the chief forms still another circuit, if the weather permits; and his men search through this in the same manner as I have already described.
After that, they are occupied in skinning the bears, and the flesh they carry to their camp. If among these animals they find one that is unusually larger and longer than the others, it is roasted in the same manner as a pig is, and set aside for a solemn feast on their arrival at the village. When the animal is skinned, they remove
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all the fat, and cut it into quarters. When all the men have eaten at the camp, at evening each one takes from his pouch all the tongue-strings that he has, which are placed over a brazier with great respect and many invocations -- the hunters firmly believing that if these pieces while broiling make a squeaking sound (which never fails to occur), or curl and twist, they will kill more bears. If, on the contrary, no sound is made in the cooking, and the heat does not cause the strings to move, they say that their hunting will be worth little.It is their custom to hunt on the next day as on the first, to blacken themselves with coal, and to observe their fasting until evening. They also have the habit of washing themselves before their meal, with the notion that, if they failed to do so, they would transgress rules absolutely necessary for obtaining success in hunting bears; and that, these animals being hidden in their holes, the hunters could not discover them, or else would run great risk of being devoured by them. They conduct this hunt with arrows, and not with guns, because the noise [of the latter] would frighten those who were not far away, or prevent them from leaving their lairs.
This hunt lasts sometimes eight days or more; then they return to their village, to which they convey their meat -- I mean, the carcasses cut into quarters; and the whole is divided up among the families. If there is among them any stranger, or any of their allies, they also make a present of meat to such.
If the hunt is successful, they invite some near-by villages, and for that purpose they set aside two or three
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carcasses to give to these neighbors. A larger share in the spoils of the chase is given [to those persons] who receive the strangers at their houses to entertain them and to make special feasts for them.As for the great bear which they had roasted, as has already been stated, a solemn feast of it is made by the chief of the hunting party. This animal is carried to him entire, not even excepting its intestines, and twenty men are invited to this banquet. They cut off the hide of this beast in pieces three or four fingers long; they make a sort of dressing composed of chunks of fat; as for the intestines, both large and small, these remain as they are. They borrow the great kettles which are reserved for feasts of this sort -- which always remain outside, and are brought into the cabin only when used on such occasions. Those gentlemen take care to cook the flesh, the head, the haslet, and the entrails of the bear; but the blood is, prepared separately, seasoned with the grease from the fat of the animal, which is melted out beforehand. When all is cooked and ready to eat, the chief cooks take as many wooden sticks as there are persons to be invited, and demand from the giver of the feast the names of those whom he wishes to invite; and when he has named them one of these sticks is carried to each guest, with the declaration that he is invited to a feast at the house of [So-and-so], They do not fail to go thither, each carrying his own dish, and on their arrival take their places. If there are strangers in the room they are placed next to the giver of the feast; if not the chiefs have that place. The host has a divinity, supposed [to be chosen] at his pleasure, to whom he dedicates the feast; and his assistants serve all the guests present. There are only three or four who must without fail eat the head, blood, and haslet of the bear; and each
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of the others [must eat] a slice of the fat a brasseWhen the hunters arrive at the village, if they are loaded all the children, as far away as they can descry them, shout aloud their joy at the sight, with repeated exclamations of Kous! Kous! and do this without stopping until the hunters have laid down their loads at the doors of their cabins. Such is always the practice at the arrival of the hunters. For as soon as one [of the children] raises an outcry the rest run out of their houses in order to second him, and the fathers and mothers even strive to urge them on in their shouts.
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XII. Moral traits of the savages
Overview
There are both good and bad traits among the savages. The most praiseworthy are their hospitality and the harmony which prevails between them and the persons connected with them. They have also many faults: ambition, vengeance, self-interest, and vainglory entirely possess their hearts. They follow three principles which induce them to plunge with excess into all kinds of vices.
I. The hospitality of the savages
The hospitality that they exercise surpasses all that which is general among the Europeans. When any stranger asks it from them, they could not receive him more kindly, no matter how unknown he may be; it is on their side the most friendly of welcomes, and they even go so far as to spend all their means to entertain those whom they receive. A stranger as soon as he arrives [at a cabin] is made to sit down on a mat, of the handsomest [that they have], in order to rest from his fatigue; they take off his shoes and stockings, and grease his feet and legs; and the stones are at once put in the fire, and all preparations quickly made, in order to give him a sweat.
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other men who are prominent in the community, go with him into the place where the sweat is given, and allow him to lack for nothing therein. The kettle is over the fire, so as to provide food for him when he comes out of the sweat; and if the cabin in which he lodges is not very well supplied with provisions, search is made throughout134
the village for the best food for him. I mean here the best grain and the best quality of meat which can be found, for which the man in whose house the stranger is accommodated afterward pays, often at four times what it is usually worth. While the guest is eating, all the leading people come to pay him visits. If he is clad in cloth garments, they take from him his clothing, and instead they give him furs, of their handsomest and most valued, to clothe him from head to foot. He is invited to all the feasts that are given in the village, and in conversation they inquire of him for some news from his own part of the country. If he knows of nothing new, he draws on his imagination for it; and even if he lies no one would venture to contradict him, even supposing that they were quite certain of facts contrary to his stories. There is but one person alone of the entire assembly who converses with the stranger; all the rest keep silence, with the reserve and modesty that are prescribed for a novice in a religious order, in which he is obliged to maintain this behavior under penalty of the severe measures belonging to the most strict rule on this point. When the stranger shows a desire to return whence he came, they load him with what is most suitable for his journey; if he is inclined to prefer peltries to other goods, these are given to him. They are just as liberal toward those who give them nothing as to those who carry [presents] to them.This sort of reception is ordinary among the savages; in point of hospitality, it is only the Abenakis, and those who live with the French people, who have become somewhat less liberal, on account of the advice that our people have given them by placing before them the obligations resting on them to preserve what they have. At the present time, it is evident that these savages are fully as selfish and avaricious as formerly they were hospitable.
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Although they are no less haughty than they were before, they have fallen very low in sordidness, even so far as to beg; and notwithstanding all that, the most singular thing is, that they not only consider themselves so necessary to those who aid them to live, but regard those very persons as their inferiors and incapable of excelling them. Those of the savages who have not been too much humored [by the French] are attached to the ancient custom of their ancestors, and among themselves are very compassionate. If any one of them is in want, they at once unite their efforts to assist him. When there has been scarcity of grain among their allies, they have invited the latter to come to them for it. They are very tender-hearted in regard to sick people, for they employ all means in their power, and give all that they can, to relieve the sufferings of these. If there is any child captured from their enemies whose life has been spared, and whose master allows him to suffer for lack of food, they give him something to eat.When a stranger to whom they have given hospitality wishes to go home and is ready to depart, the host who has received him packs up his belongings, and gives him the best things that he has in his cabin -- whether in peltries, trade-goods, or provisions -- that may be necessary to the guest on his journey. Although such generosity may be astonishing, it must be admitted that ambition is more the motive for it than is charity. One hears them boast incessantly of the agreeable manner with which they receive people into their houses, and of the gifts that they bestow on their guests -- although it is not denied that this is done smilingly and with all possible graciousness.
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II. Of the harmony among the savages
The harmony which subsists among the savages is in truth displayed not only by their words, but in their actual conduct. The chiefs who are most influential and well-to-do are on an equal footing with the poorest, and even with the boys -- with whom they converse as they do with persons of discretion. They warmly support and [even] take in hand the cause of one another among friends; and when there are any disputes they proceed therein with great moderation. They expose themselves as little as possible to personal encounters and disputes together;
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affair; they contribute together to render satisfaction to the injured party, who finds no difficulty in laying aside the vengeance which he had proposed to take on the offender; and they seldom refuse to accept the decision of any prominent man who intervenes in the affair. Sometimes there are some of them who positively insist on the death of the guilty person; and if the old men come to an agreement about it those who are inclined to vengeance will not say a word, but will not fail, at the first opportunity, to break the head of some relative or tribesman of the murderer -- or of several, according to the number of people who have been slain. For if they killed more [than that number], that would be the means of arousing a war; instead, they only return blow for blow, and are quits for it by the presents which they make -- as they say, to wipe away the blood [that was shed]. If the first one slain was a man, his death will be avenged upon a son of the murderer. When affairs are settled, they are satisfied on both sides, as has been said.If any person encounters a grievous accident or a great misfortune, the entire village takes an interest in it, and goes to console him. The men perform this duty for the men, and the women fulfil it for one another among themselves. Visits of this sort are paid to the afflicted person without conversation. The visitor fills his pipe with tobacco and presents it to the other to smoke; after he has smoked it for a little while he returns it to the person who gave it to him, so that the latter also may smoke. This method of smoking by turns lasts for some time, and then he who came to console returns to his own house; and on his departure the sufferer thanks him for the kindly interest in his troubles which his visitor has shown. You must know that custom ordains
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that visits of this sort must be serious, and made in silence; the reason which they give for this is, that if they should use their voices for condolence on these occasions they would cause such agitation in the mind of him who was in affliction that it would excite him to vengeance for the injury, or on the person who had wronged him.III. Justice among the savages
When savages have committed theft and are discovered, they are compelled to make restitution, or to give satisfaction for the theft with other goods in case these stolen are spent. If there should be failure to render this satisfaction, the man who had been robbed would gather several of his comrades, and would go -- entirely naked, as if he were marching against his enemies, and carrying his bow and arrows -- into the cabin of the thief, where he plunders and seizes everything that belongs to him; nor does the guilty man dare to say a word, but keeps his head bowed down between his knees. But if he feels that he is innocent of the crime of which he is accused, he rushes to seize his weapons, and tries to oppose this pillage. The spectators who are present hold back those who are most hot-headed; but if there were only the parties concerned the affair would not pass by without bloodshed, or some one being killed. If, on the contrary, the accused were innocent and had killed his man [while defending his property], it would not be necessary for him to make satisfaction; for his innocence would shelter him from all evil results. But when he is really a criminal he himself utters his own condemnation, and never denies the fact, and he quietly suffers when three or four times the amount of what he stole is taken away from him. If among his goods there were any article that he had borrowed, its owner comes forward to reclaim
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what belongs to him, which is surrendered to him without any objection, the savages never appropriating anything of what does not pertain to them.When one of their connections commits a murder and is discovered to be its author, all the old men come together, make up among themselves a considerable present, and send it by deputies, in order to come to an agreement regarding means to arrest vengeance; for they all are involved in that vengeance, so far as it concerns in particular the leading persons of the offended tribe. The deputies, on their arrival at the place to which they were sent, enter with their presents the cabin of the murdered person; and the reception given to them is similar to that previously described when writing of the sweat-house. After the envoys have eaten what is offered to them, they produce their presents in the middle of the cabin, and demand that all the chiefs be called in to hear them; and when all have come they speak as follows:
"We are here to confess to you the crime committed by one of our young men upon So-and-so" (and then they name the man who was slain). "Our village does not approve the [act of the] murderer. You know that you have been our allies for a long time, and that your ancestors and ours presented the calumets to each other to smoke together" (they mention the year). "Since that time our villages have always aided each other against such and such a nation, with whom we were at war. You are not ignorant that our dead are in the other world, in the same place as yours; and if Heaven has permitted that one deluded man has overthrown or
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broken the union which our ancestors had with you, and which we have always maintained, we have therefore come with the design of averting your just resentment. While you are waiting for a more complete satisfaction, this present which we offer you is to wipe away your tears; that one is to lay a mat under the corpse of your dead; and this other, to lay on him a sheet of bark to cover him and shield him from the bad effects of the weather."If the relatives of the dead man should be unwilling to hear any talk of satisfaction, and should take the resolution of positively obtaining vengeance for their loss, several of the old men would intervene with presents, in order to become mediators. They would argue that the people were placing themselves on the verge of having a war, with most grievous consequences, and, entreating the afflicted ones to have pity on their land, would warn them that when war was once kindled there would no longer be safety in any place; that many innocent persons would be sacrificed; that warriors attack indiscriminately all whom they encounter while on the warpath; that there would be no longer any peace or confidence between neighbors; and that, in short, they would behold desolation so great that brother would slay brother and cousin slay cousin, and that they would be their own destroyers; for as the ties of marriage and alliance are so strongly knit together, each man considers himself as a member no longer of the village where he was born, but of that one in which he has settled.
If the distressed relatives steadily persist in trying to obtain vengeance, and if the village is a large one and inclined to support their contention, the chiefs are detailed to confer with the principal men among the murderer's
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relatives, who are continually on their guard. These envoys set forth, when there is no way of settling the difficulty, that they are in danger of the destruction, for the sake of one man, of an entire village, [and that] by allies who cease to be such when they declare themselves enemies, and who are certainly very strong. They therefore induce the relatives, by dint of presents, to deliver the guilty man to his own comrades, who break his head and then cut it off to send it to the dead man's relatives. After that, presents are made on both sides in order to complete the arrangement.IV. Of the ambition and vainglory of the savages
All the savages generally display much vainglory in their actions, whether good or bad. They are as vain of debauchery as of valor; of the excesses and insolent acts that they commit when drunken, as of the chase; and of lewdness, as of generosity. When they choose to glorify themselves for the good that they have done, or the services that they have rendered to any one, they use audacious taunts; and in order to praise themselves for things that are worthy of reproach, they employ language and a certain manner of speaking that are so ridiculous and intolerable that nothing more would be needed, among Europeans, to excite quarrels. You would be astonished at seeing them get ready [for some
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occasion]; they do not know what posture to assume; I believe that if they had a mirror before their eyesV. Of the vengeance of the savages
The vengeance of the savages is more often inspired by ambition than by courage, for there are no people in the world more cowardly than they are.
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sufficiently evident in their fits of passion by the trembling with which their bodies are seized, and the pallor which would appear upon their faces if these were not covered with black, red, or other colors. They expose themselves to danger with great rashness;144
passion for it does not carry them, even to desperation, and to treachery in order to take their revenge.VI. Among the savages, self-interest dominates [even] ambition and vengeance
Although ambition and vengeance are two passions which imperiously possess the minds of the savages, self-interest carries them still further, and has far more ascendency over them. There is no disgrace or injury which they do not overlook if those who have insulted them indemnify them with goods of sufficient value.
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besides glorying in such things they never fail to accomplish them, so far as is within their power, as will be seen by what follows.VII. Subordination is not a maxim among the savages
The savage does not know what it is to obey. It is more often necessary to entreat him than to command him; he nevertheless yields to all demands made upon him -- especially when he fancies that there is either glory or profit to be expected therefrom, and then he comes forward of his own accord and offers his aid. The father does not venture to exercise authority over his son, nor does the chief dare to give commands to his soldier -- he will mildly entreat; and if any one is stubborn in regard to some [proposed] movement, it is necessary to flatter him in order to dissuade him, otherwise he will go further [in his opposition]. If the chiefs possess some influence over them, it is only through the liberal presents and the feasts which they give to their men, and here is the reason which induces them to pay respect to their chiefs; for it is characteristic of the savages always to incline to the side of those who give them most and who flatter them most.
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XIII. Continuation of the war between the Algonkins and the Irroquois, which has been carried on against many other tribes
I have made remarks on the subject of the war by the Algonkins against the Irroquois, at the beginning of this memoir; and [have stated] that the Irroquois, having been compelled to abandon Lake Erie, had retired to Lake Ontario, which at present bears the name of Lake Frontenac; and that they had always remained there or in its vicinity, after they had driven out the Chaouanons and their allies toward Carolina.
In the raids which the Irroquois made in that period they carried away many families from among their enemies, and spared the lives of the children, who became, when grown, so many warriors in their service. The victories which they had gained over those tribes prompted some of the latter to take revenge for the murders which the Irroquois had committed on their people, in which they had been too shamefully treated. They marched therefore against the Irroquois and routed many of them, but the latter soon avenged themselves for this, for, as the Algonkins had attacked them only with small parties, their defeats had not been of great importance.
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which has always prevailed among that [Algonkin] people has been a reason why they have not destroyed that of the Irroquois; do we not see every day that the largest [war -- ] parties among them will not listen to any commands, and that the chiefs, each giving orders according to his own judgment, cause their plans to miscarry?This war lasted until the peace which Messieurs Tracy and de Courcelles granted [1666] to the Aniez when they went to make war on those peoples, whose courage had terrified the Irroquois;
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against the S[on]nontoans. However, Monsieur de la Barre afterward [1684] led an expedition against the Onontagues, with whom he concluded a peace.XIV. Defeat and flight of the Hurons, driven out of their own country
The French having discovered this country [of Canada], the news of their settlement [in it] spread from tribe to tribe. The Algonkins were living, as I have previously remarked, along the river of the Outaoüas,
This defeat spread terror among the Outaouas and their allies, who were at Sankinon, at Thunder Bay, and at Manitoaletz and Michillimakinak. They went
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to dwell together among the Hurons, on the island which we call Huron Island.150
who were called "Neutral Hurons," because they did not embrace the interests of their allies, but maintained an attitude of neutrality. The Irroquois, however, compelled these people to abandon Detroit and settle in the Irroquois country. Thus they augmented their own strength, not only by the many children whom they took captive, but by the great number of Neutral Hurons whom they carried to their own country; and it was at that time that they made so many raids against the Algonkins that the latter were compelled to seek shelter among the French of the [Canadian] colony. The Nipissings made a stand in their villages during several years; but they were finally obliged to flee far151
northward to Alimibegon [Nepigon]; and the savages who had been neighbors to the Hurons fled, with those along the Outaoüas River, to Three Rivers.The Irroquois, elated by the advantage which they had gained over their enemies in thus compelling them to take flight, and finding no other bones to gnaw, made several attacks upon the Algonkins and even upon the French, taking several captives who were afterward restored to their homes. That was succeeded by more than one treaty of peace, which proved to be of short duration. The early relations of these events describe them quite fully; accordingly I do not expatiate upon them here, but limit myself to an account of only such things as they have omitted, and which I have learned from the lips of the old men among the Outaoüa tribes.
The following year [1653], the Irroquois sent another expedition, which counted 800 men, to attack the Outaoüas; but those tribes, feeling sure that the enemy had ascertained the place where they had established themselves, and would certainly make another attack against them, had taken the precaution to send out one of their scouting parties, who went as far as the former country of the Hurons, from which they had been driven. These men descried the Irroquois party who were marching against them, and hastened back to carry the news of this incursion to their own people at that [Huron] Island. They immediately abandoned that place and retreated to Mechingan, where they constructed a fort, resolving to await there the enemy. The Irroquois [came to that region, but] were unable to accomplish anything during the first two years. They made further efforts to succeed, and put in the field a little army, as it were, intending to destroy the villages of that new settlement, at which a considerable extent of land had been
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already cleared. But the Outaouas had time enough to harvest their grain before the arrival of the enemy; for they were always careful to keep scouts on the watch, in order not to be taken by surprise, and the scouts saw the enemy in time. The Irroquois finally arrived one morning before the fort, which appeared to them impregnable. In their army were many Hurons who were the offspring of the people whom they had come to attack men whose mothers had escaped from the ruin of their tribe when the Irroquois had invaded their former country. The enemy had at the time not much food, because they found very little game on the route which they had thus far followed. Deliberations were held, and propositions for a treaty of peace were made. One of these was that the Hurons who were in the Irroquois army should be given up, which was heeded and granted. In order to settle upon the terms of the treaty, it was agreed that six of their chiefs should enter the fort of the Hurons, and that the latter should, in exchange, give six of their men as hostages. A treaty of peace was accordingly made and concluded between them. The Outaoüas and Hurons made presents of food to the Irroquois, and also traded with them for blankets and porcelain collars.The Outaoüas sent word to the Irroquois army before their departure that they wished to present to each of their men a loaf of corn-bread; but they prepared a poison to mix with the bread. When the loaves were baked, they were sent to the Irroquois; but a Huron
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woman who had an Irroquois husband knew the secret, and warned her son not to eat any of the bread, because it had been poisoned. The son immediately informed the Irroquois of this; they threw the bread to their dogs, who died after eating it. They needed no more to assure them of the conspiracy against them, and determined to go away without provisions. They concluded to divide their forces into two parties; one of these embarked from that place,154
found themselves among the buffaloes. If the Outaouas had been as courageous as the Hurons, and had pursued the enemy, they could without doubt have defeated them, considering their slender supply of food. But the Irroquois, when they had secured abundance of provisions, steadily advanced until they encountered a small Illinoët village;155
therein, for the men fled toward their own people, who were not very far from that place. The Illinoëts immediately156
assembled their forces, and hastened after the Irroquois, who had no suspicion of an enemy; overtaking the enemy at nightfall, the Illinoets later attacked them, and slew many of them. Other Illinoet villages, who were hunting at various places in that vicinity, having learned what had occurred, hastened to find their tribesmen, who had just dealt a blow at the Irroquois.157
Assembling all their warriors, they encouraged one another, made a hasty march, surprised the enemy, and utterly defeated them in battle; for there were very few of the Irroquois who returned to their own villages. This was the first acquaintance of the Illinoets with the Irroquois; it proved baneful to them, but they have well avenged themselves for it.XV. Flight of the Hurons and Outaouas into the Micissypy region
In the following year [1656] the Outaoüas descended in a body to Three Rivers. Missionaries were allotted to them: the Hurons had Father Garot, and the Outaoüas had Father Mesnard, with five Frenchmen who accompanied them. Father Garot was slain by the war-party of the Flemish Bastard,
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started] far behind the Hurons, defeated them, and took many of them captive. The Irroquois and the French were then at peace. The Flemish Bastard had the body of the father conveyed to Montreal, which at that time was already founded [in 1642]. As soon as he had arrived he was asked why he had fired on the father, but replied that neither he nor his people had killed him. He said that the murderer was a Frenchman, who, having deserted from Montreal, had come to join the Bastard's party at the time when he went to lay ambuscades for the Outaoüas, who intended to ascend the River des Prairies. This Frenchman was handed over to the governor and shot to death, for lack of an executioner.The Flemish Bastard brought many Huron prisoners, whom he tortured by burning their fingers, without any opposition from the side of the French; and when he returned to his own village he spared their lives. They will never forget the manner in which, on that occasion, we abandoned them to the mercy of their enemies. They also will remember forever how little effort the French made to oppose the Irroquois when the latter, in time of peace [May, 1656], carried away the Hurons who dwelt on Orleans Island, and made them pass in canoes before Quebec and Three Rivers, meanwhile [compelling them] to sing, in order to increase their mortification. But in revenge the Outaoüas have since then sought every opportunity to betray the French, although they pretend to be our devoted friends; they treat the French
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thus through policy and fear, for they do not trust any people, as will be more fully shown in the conclusion of this memoir.When all the Outaoüas were dispersed toward the [great] lakes, the Saulteurs and the Missisakis fled northward, and finally to Kionconan [i.e., Keweenaw], for lack of game. Then the Outaoüas, fearing that they were not strong enough to repel the incursions of the Irroquois, who had gained information of the place in which the former had established themselves, sought refuge in the Micissypy region, which is now called Loüisianna. They ascended that river to a place about twelve leagues from the Ouisconching, where they came to another river, which is named for the Ayoës [lowas], They followed this stream to its source, and there encountered peoples who received them cordially. But as they did not find, in all that region which they traversed, any place suitable for a settlement -- since the country was entirely destitute of woods, and contained only prairies and level plains, although buffaloes and other animals were found there in abundance -- they retraced the same route by which they had come; and, having again reached the shores of the Loüisianna River, they continued to ascend it. Before they had gone far, they dispersed in various directions to pursue the chase; I will mention only one of their bands, whom the Scioux encountered, captured, and carried away to their villages. The Scioux, who had no acquaintance with the firearms and other implements which they saw among the strangers -- for they themselves use only knives and hatchets of stone and flint
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the commodities which they possessed; and, believing that the latter were spirits, because they were acquainted with the use of iron -- an article which was utterly unlike the stone and other things which they used -- conducted them, as I have said, to their own villages, and delivered the prisoners to their own people.The Outaoüas and Hurons gave the Scioux, in turn, a friendly reception, but did not make them presents of much value. The Scioux returned to their own country, with some small articles which they had received from the Outaoüas, and shared these with their allies in other villages, giving to some hatchets, and to others knives or awls. All those villages sent deputies to those of the Outaoüas; as soon as they arrived there, they began, according to their custom, to weep over every person they met,
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in meeting them; and they entreated the strangers to have pity on them, and to share with them that iron, which they regarded as a divinity. The Outaoüas, see162
these people weeping over all who approached them, began to feel contempt for them, and regarded them as people far inferior to themselves, and as incapable even of waging war. They gave to the envoys163
a few trifles, such as knives and awls; the Scioux declared that they placed great value on these, lifting their eyes to the sky,The Outaoüas finally decided to select the island called Pelee
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Hastily returning to their village, to carry this sad news, they met on the way some Hurons, whom they made prisoners; but when they reached home the chiefs liberated the captives and sent them back to their own people. The Hurons, so rash as to imagine that the Scioux were incapable of resisting them without iron weapons and firearms, conspired with the Outaoüas to undertake a war against them, purposing to drive the Scioux from their own country in order that they themselves might thus secure a greater territory in which to seek their living. The Outaoüas and Hurons accordingly united their forces and marched against the Scioux. They believed that as soon as they appeared the latter would flee, but they were greatly deceived, for the Scioux sustained their attack, and even repulsed them; and, if they had not retreated, they would have been utterly routed by the great number of men who came from other villages to the aid of their allies. The Outaoüas were pursued even to their settlement, where they were obliged to erect a wretched fort; this, however, was sufficient to compel the Scioux to retire, as they did not dare to attack it.The continual incursions made by the Scioux forced the Outaoüas to flee.
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with a stream which is called Black River; they entered its waters and, ascending to its source, the Hurons found there a place suitable for fortifying themselves and establishing their village. The Outaouas pushed farther on, and proceeded as far as Lake Superior, where they fixed their abode at Chagouamikon [Chequamegon], The Scioux, seeing that their enemies had departed, remained quietly, without pursuing them farther; but the166
Hurons were not willing to keep the peace, and sent out several hostile bands against the Scioux. These expeditions had very little success; and, moreover, drew upon them frequent raids from the Scioux, which compelled them to abandon their fort, with great loss of their men, and go to join the Outaoüas at Chagouamikon.As soon as they arrived there, they planned to form a war-party of a hundred men, to march against the Scioux and avenge themselves. It is to be observed that the country where the latter dwell is nothing but lakes and marshes, full of wild oats; these are separated from one another by narrow tongues of land, which extend from one lake to another not more than thirty or forty paces at most, and sometimes five or six, or a little more. These lakes and marshes form a tract more than fifty leagues square, and are traversed by no river save that of Loüisianna [the Mississippi]; its course lies through the midst of them, and part of their waters discharge into it. Other waters fall into the Ste. Croix River, which is situated northeast of them, at no great distance. Still other marshes and lakes are situated to the west of the St. Pierre [Peter] River, into which their waters flow. Consequently, the Scioux are inaccessible in so swampy a country, and cannot be destroyed by enemies who have not canoes, as they have, with which to pursue them. Moreover, in those quarters only five or six families live together as one body, forming a small village; and all the others do the same, removed from one another at certain distances, in order to be near enough to be able to lend a helping hand at the first alarm. If any one of these little villages be attacked, the enemy can inflict very little damage upon it, for all its neighbors immediately assemble, and give prompt aid wherever it is needed. Their method of navigation in lakes of this kind
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is, to push throughThe hundred Hurons became involved among these swamps, and without canoes; they were discovered by some Scioux, who hastened to spread the alarm everywhere. That was a numerous people, scattered along all the borders of the marshes, in which they gathered abundance of wild oats; this grain is the food of those people, and tastes better than does rice. More than 3,000 Scioux came together from every side, and besieged the Hurons. The loud noise, the clamor, and the yells with which the air resounded showed them plainly that they were surrounded on all sides; and that their only resource was to make head against the Scioux (who were eagerly striving to discover their location), unless they could find some place by which they could retreat. In this straitened condition, they concluded that they could not do better than to hide among the wild oats, where the water and mud reached their chins. Accordingly, they dispersed in various directions, taking great pains to avoid noise in their progress. The Scioux, who were sharply searching for them, and only longed to meet them in battle, found very few of them, and were persuaded that they themselves were entirely hidden by the wild oats; but they were greatly astonished at seeing only the trail made in leaving the lake, and no trace of the Hurons' entrance.
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device: they stretched across the narrow strips of land [between the lakes] the nets used in capturing beavers; and to these they attached small bells, which they had obtained from the Outaoüas and their allies in the visits which they had made to those tribes, as above related. They divided their forces into numerous detachments, in order to guard all the passages, and watched by day and night, supposing that the Hurons would take the first opportunity to escape from the danger which threatened them. This scheme indeed succeeded; for the Hurons slipped out under cover of the darkness, creeping on all fours, not suspecting this sort of ambuscade; they struck their heads against the nets, which they could not escape, and thus set the bells to ringing.The captives were conducted to the nearest village, where the people from all the others were assembled in order to share among them the prey. It must be observed that the Scioux, although they are not as warlike
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or as crafty as the other tribes,170
they saw their own people burned, they resolved to do the same by way of reprisal; even in this, however, they do not behave with as much cruelty as do their enemies -- either because some motive of pity or compassion will not permit them to behold such suffering, or because they believe that only despair can make the captives sing during their torments with so much fortitude and bravery, if it may be so called. On this account they speedily kill their captives with clubs.The Scioux, having shared the prisoners, sent back part of them, and made the others objects for their sport -- delivering them, as I said, to their boys to be shot to death with arrows; their bodies were then cast upon the dung-heap. Those whose lives they spared were condemned to see their comrades die, and were then sent home. Having arrived there, they gave a faithful account of all that had occurred, and said that, having seen the numbers of the Scioux, they believed it impossible to destroy them. The Outaoüas listened very attentively to the relations of these new arrivals, but, as they were not very brave warriors, they were not willing to make any hostile attempt; and the Hurons, recognizing the smallness of their numbers, made up their minds to meditate revenge no longer, but to live peaceably at Chagouamikon, [which they did] during several years. In all that time they were not molested by the Scioux, who gave all their attention to waging war against the Kiristinons [Crees], the Assiniboules, and all the nations of the north; they ruined those tribes, and have been in turn ruined by them. For all those tribes are, at the present time, reduced to very small numbers: the Scioux, who formerly had more than seven or eight thousand men, seem to be those who travel by canoe,
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instead of which the other tribes of the prairies cannot all together form, to-day, a body of more than a hundred men or so, at most. It is true that the Renards, the Maskoutechs, and the Kikapous have greatly contributed to defend them, and not the other tribes.Father Mesnard,
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Outaoüas [1660] as a missionary, accompanied by some Frenchmen who were going to trade with that people, was abandoned by all the men whom he had with him -- excepting one, who even until death rendered to the father all the services and aid that he could look for. This father followed the Outaoüas to the lake of the Illinoëts, and in their flight into the Loüisianna region even beyond the Black River.It was there that only one solitary Frenchman remained as companion to this missionary, and that all the others left him. This Frenchman, I say, carefully followed the route and made portages in the same places as did the Outaoüas, never turning aside from the same river that they followed. One day [in August, 1661] he was in a swift current, which swept him away in his canoe; in order to aid him the father left his own canoe, and did not take the right path to reach him. The father entered a path that had been trodden by the [wild] animals, and, attempting to regain the right one, became entangled in a labyrinth of trees and lost his way. The Frenchman, after he had with great difficulty ascended that rapid, waited for the good father; and, as the latter did not come, he resolved to go in search of him. In the woods he called to the father, shouting as loudly as he could, for several days, hoping to find him, but without avail. On the way, however, he encountered a Sakis who was carrying the missionary's kettle, and who told his news to the Frenchman -- assuring the latter that he had found the father's tracks far inland [from the river], but that he had not seen the father himself. He said that he had also found the tracks of several other persons, who were going toward the Scioux; and he even declared that he thought the Scioux
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must have killed the father, or that he had been captured by them. In fact, the missionary's breviary and cassock were found, several years afterward, among that people, who displayed those articles at their feasts, consecrating to them their best viands.The Outaoüas, having settled at Chagouamikon, there applied themselves to the cultivation of Indian corn and squashes, on which, with the fish they could catch, they subsisted. They searched along the lake to find whether other tribes were there, and encountered the Saulteurs who had fled northwards, and with them some Frenchmen, who had followed them to Chagouamikon in order to settle there. Part of the Saulteurs had gone toward Kionconan [Keweenaw], and reported that they had seen many tribes; that beavers were exceedingly abundant there; that they did not all return together because they had left their people at the north; that the latter intended to dwell here, but without a fixed residence, purposing to roam in all directions; and that the Nepissings and Amikouets were at Alimibegon.
At these tidings, the Outaoüas went away toward the north, and sought to carry on trade
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knives, blunted awls, wretched nets, and kettles used until they were past service. For these they were most humbly thanked; and those people declared that they were under great obligations to the Outaoüas for having had compassion upon them and having shared with them the merchandise which they had obtained from the French. In acknowledgment of this, they presented to them many packages of peltries, hoping that their visitors would not fail to come to them every year, and to bring them the like aid in trade-goods. They assured the Outaoüas, at parting, that they would go on a hunting expedition [to make ready] for their coming; that they would be present, without fail, at the rendezvous agreed upon; and that they would surely wait for them there.In the following year [1663] the Outaoüas and all the
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other tribes who were trading with the French were going down in a body to Quebec. They did so not without fear, for they imagined that the Irroquois were in ambuscade everywhere. However, they did not encounter the enemy until they reached Cape Massacre (which is the locality of the latest land-grants), below Saint Ours; and in that place there were sixteen Irroquois, who carried away an [Algonkin] canoe, and eight men who were paddling it, in the sight of all the Outaoüa fleet. This fleet, I say, very far from giving chase to so weak an enemy, was on the point of returning home, and abandoning their own [cargo of] peltries as well as that which the Frenchmen had shipped with them. It is certain that the French had much difficulty in dissuading them from this idea, and that without [this effort] they would have carried out the resolution that they had made to return directly home. On their arrival at Quebec, the chief of the Outaoüas was put in prison, with irons on his feet, for having abandoned the missionary who had lost his way. All his people gave valuable presents in order to have him set at liberty; and as soon as they obtained him they traded their peltries and returned to their own village, with two Frenchmen whom they carried with them.At the end of two years [1665] they came down to the Colony to get the articles which they needed. They were overtaken, at the portage of the Calumets, by a party of Irroquois who were waiting for them, where the latter had built a wretched fort of stakes -- which might have been torn down with the hands if the Outaoüas had had the courage to approach it, since the stakes were not very heavy. Their only endeavor was to fell some trees upon the fort, but this was unsuccessful, so they invested it. After they had been thus besieged
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during five days, without being taken, the Irroquois held a parley with the Outaoüas, and told them to continue their journey in entire safety, protesting that they would not follow them. But the latter did not place much confidence in this, and came very near throwing their peltries on the ground, and likewise abandoning those of the Frenchmen who had embarked with them, whom the Outaoüas had carried [to the upper country] in the preceding years. They were exhorted to do nothing of that sort, and the men from the Colony induced them by liberal promises to carry their merchandise thither. By dint of urging, they consented to go down to Three Rivers, on the way casting into the river the greater part of their own peltries, in order to save those of the Frenchmen -- who, having received what belonged to them, hid themselves until the departure of the savages. This trick drew upon them a thousand reproaches and insults from the Outaoüas.In pointing out to you that the Hurons, when they abandoned their own country [dispersed] -- some to return to the [French] colony, and the others to find a refuge farther on -- I neglected to state that those who went down to the Colony [1650] had for their missionary, Father l'Allemand,
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Creuse River and the Calumets there is a large island, commonly named Isle du Borgne, otherwise called Isle des Allumettes. It is named Isle du Borgne because the chief of the Algonkin village which was established there was a one-eyed man. He had under his command there four hundred warriors, and was regarded as the terror of all the peoples, even of the Irroquois. This chief gathered a certain toll from all travelers who went down to the French colony, for permission to pass by that place, and without it he would not allow them to go any farther. It was therefore necessary to submit to his demands, whether ascending or descending [the river]; and in order to find him one was obliged to go by way of the main channel, which is toward the south of the island; the lesser channel, which is much shorter, is at the north. When the Hurons reached the upper end of the island, they intended to pass by the village, according to custom, to wait upon the chief and ask his permission to pass by [his village]; but Father l'Allemand told them that the French, being masters of the country, were not obliged to do that, and persuaded them to follow the small channel. Le Borgne was soon informed of this, and sent all his warriors to bring all the Hurons to the village; and after they were asked the reason why they had planned to pass without his permission they excused themselves by saying that it was Father l'Allemand who had prevented them from asking it, and that he had made them believe that the French were the masters of the nations. Le Borgne seized Father l'Allemand and had him suspended from a tree by the arm-pits, telling him that the French were not the masters of his country; and that in it he alone was acknowledged as chief, and they [all] were under his authority.178
In the following year he went down to the Colony, making his men carry him into and out of his canoe, and never taking a step without being escorted by his guards; but that did not prevent him from being arrested and placed in a dungeon. The savages of his following tried to make some disturbance, in order to get him out of prison; but the authorities immediately put themselves on the defensive, and sent word to the savages to behave themselves. In short, the only attitude that they could take was that of submission, and of humiliating themselves with offers of presents in order to obtain the freedom of their chief, who was released a few days afterward.
See what the French accomplished in the first establishment of the Colony, although it was then of very little importance in the world. They have been able to preserve and maintain the glory of the nation against the savages (who were incomparably stronger and more numerous at that time than they are now), since, if I dare say it, we were their masters. Did we not oblige them to recognize this by valuable presents, which were acknowledged only by very ordinary ones? and did not we even inform them, in offering these, that it was done only through compassion for their miserable condition? On the other hand, in this present time of ours they desire to dominate us and be our superiors; they even regard us as people who are in some manner dependent on them. I will explain what has given rise to this presumption [of theirs], and how it will be difficult to remove it from their minds.
The Outaoüas and other tribes lived peaceably for many years in the country where they had taken refuge to escape from being annoyed by the Scioux. An Irroquois party came one day to Sault-Sainte-Marie [1662],
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to look for a village to eat; they were confident that, having carried terror among all the other savages, whom they had driven from their native lands, they would make themselves feared as soon as they came in sight. The hundred Irroquois men who composed this party went above Sault-Sainte-Marie, and proceeded to encamp at the mouth of Lake Superior, five leagues or thereabout from the rapids; and there they descried fires along the high hills at the north, not far distant from them; they sent scouts in that direction, to ascertain who might be there.Some Saulteurs, Outaoüas, Nepissings, and Amikouëts had left their settlement and come hither to hunt elk in the neighborhood of this Sault, and to carry on their fishing for the great whitefish, or salmon, which they catch there in abundance, in the midst of the boiling waters of those rapids. Hardly any place is known where this fish is so large or so fat as those which are found here. These people were scattered about, hunting, when one of them perceived the smoke from the camp of the Irroquois. They gave warning to one another, and rallied together to the number of a hundred men. They elected for chief of their party a Saulteur, who well deserved to be thus honored; for he had a thorough knowledge of the region where they were, having lived in it before the war with the Irroquois.
This chief first of all sent out a canoe to reconnoiter, which was seen by the Irroquois who had been detailed for the same purpose; but the latter, believing that they had not been perceived, remained motionless, for fear of failing in their [intended] attack, and apprehensive that the Algonkins, if these happened to escape from their clutches, would go to warn the entire village, whose people would immediately take to flight. The
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Saulteurs advanced, and proceeded as far as the camp of the Irroquois without being discovered; a very dense forest favored them, so that they had opportunity to count the enemy and the women whom they had with them. The intention and plan of the people who were encamped there was, to carry away the [inhabitants of the] villages, one place after another, remaining in each [long enough] to consume the provisions which they would find there, and doing the same with regard to the others.The scouting party of the Saulteurs, having succeeded therein, returned to their camp to report the discovery that they had just made. Their people immediately embarked, and proceeded all night without being able to reach the place where the Irroquois were; they passed it, however, in a very thick fog, without being perceived by any one. They had gained knowledge of a little cove, quite deep, the head of which was in the rear of the [Irroquois] camp; they gained that location, and concluded that they must defer the attack on the enemy until the next day. During the night they made their approaches, and posted themselves on a small but steep bank of earth, some five or six feet high, at the base of which were the tents of the Irroquois, who were sleeping very tranquilly. Their dogs, scenting the ambushed Saulteurs, were beguiled by a little meat that was thrown to them, in order to prevent them from barking; and when the light of day began to appear sufficiently for discharging their arrows with effect, the assailants uttered their usual war-cries. The Irroquois awoke, and, trying to hasten to seize their arms, they were pierced by the shots that were fired at them from every side, and were forced to face about by the enormous number of arrows that were showered upon them. When
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the Saulteurs had finished shooting them (I mean the men), they leaped down from the bank, [and] entered the tents of their enemies, with clubs in their hands. It was then that the Saulteur youth gave way, and fled toward their canoes, while the men dealt their blows everywhere, and one could know by their yells whenever they killed an Irroquois. Those who tried to flee toward the shore were fiercely attacked; the Saulteur youth, who had not seconded their elders in the fight, regained their courage when they heard the cries of victory uttered by the latter, and rushed to meet those Irroquois who had been routed, and finished the slaughter, none of the enemy escaping. You see how complete their victory was.The Irroquois who had been sent out as scouts returned to their camp a few days after this defeat, expecting to join their people there; but when they found only headless corpses on the ground, and the bones of those whose flesh had been eaten, they made diligent haste to carry back to their own country this dismal news. It is said that the Irroquois have not dared since that time to enter the Lake Superior [country]; but in truth they have never set any limits [to their operations] in waging war, and, as pitiless man-eaters, they have always taken pleasure in drinking the blood and eating the flesh of all the different tribes, going to seek their prey even to the confines of America.
After the defeat of the Irroquois, the Saulteurs and their companions returned in triumph to Kionconan and Chagouamikon. They dwelt there in peace always, until some Hurons who had gone to hunt on the borders of the Scioux country (for Chagouamikon is not far away
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from there), cutting across the country in a straight line, [a distance of] fifty to sixty leagues, [captured some of the Scioux], whom they carried away to the [Saulteur] villages alive, as they were not desirous of killing them. The people received these captives very kindly, and especially the Outaoüas, who loaded them with presents, Although they did not seem very appreciative of their welcome, it is certain that they would have been thrown into the kettle if it had not been for the Outaoüas. When the Scioux wished to return home, Sinagos, the Outaoüa chief, accompanied them [1665-1666], with his men and four Frenchmen. On their arrival in the Scioux country, and during all the time that they spent there, many kind attentions were offered to them; but they did not bring back a large stock of peltries, because those people are accustomed to roast their beavers [whole], in order to eat them.Honors were heaped on Chief Sinagos, and they sang the calumet
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marks of distinction conferred by them, for they render him who has had that honor a son of the tribe, and naturalize him as such. When the calumet is presented and sung to him, obedience is due to him from the people of the tribe. The calumet constrains and pledges those who have sung it to follow to war the man in whose honor it has been sung; but the same obligation186
does not rest upon him. The calumet halts the warriors belonging to the tribe of those who have sung it, and arrests the vengeance which they could lawfully take for their tribesmen who have been slain. The calumet also compels the suspension of hostilities and secures the reception of deputies from hostile tribes who undertake to visit those whose people have been recently slain by theirs. It is, in one word, the calumet which has authority to confirm everything, and which renders solemn oaths binding. The savages believe that the sun gave it to the Panys, and that since then it has been communicated from village to village as far as the Outaoüas. They have so much respect and veneration for it that he who has violated the law of the calumet is regarded by them as disloyal and traitorous; they assert that he has committed a crime which cannot be pardoned. In former times this was the obstinate contention of the savages, and they are still of the same opinion; but that does not hinder them from committing acts of treachery while employing the calumet. Those of the prairies have the utmost attachment for it, and regard it as a sacred thing. Never did they betray the pledge that they had given to those who sang it, when that nation dealt a blow against their own -- unless he who had sung it should perfidiously take part in the attack made upon them. That would be the basest of all traitorous acts, because it would break the calumet in pieces and disrupt the union which had been contracted through its agency.I have just said that the Scioux sang the calumet to Chief Sinagos; this ceremony was performed in their villages with authority and solemnity. All the chiefs were present, and gave their consent to an inviolable peace. After that solemnity, Chief Sinagos, with his people and the Frenchmen who had gone with him, returned
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to Chagouamikon, assuring the Scioux that he would revisit them the following year. This he failed to do, even in the second year afterward; and the Scioux did not know what had caused him to break his promise. It happened, however [1669-1670], that some Hurons, having gone to hunt far toward the Scioux country, were captured by some young men of that nation, and taken to their village. The chief, who had sung the calumet to Sinagos, was greatly incensed at seeing these prisoners, and made it his business to protect them; he almost attacked those who had captured them, and nearly caused war between his villages and theirs. He took possession of the captives, and set them at liberty. On the next day, this chief sent one of them to Chagouamikon, in order to assure the Hurons that he had not been to blame in the late affair; that the attack had been made by some misguided young men, who were not even of his own tribe; and that in a few days he himself would conduct to their homes the captives whom he had retained in his village. That Huron, whom he had sent to Chagouamikon to assure his tribesmen of the Scioux chief's sincere good-will, told them -- either because he chose to lie, or because some one instigated him to do so that the Scioux had made prisoners of him and his companions; that he had fortunately escaped from their hands; and that he did not know, since his departure, whether his comrades were still alive or had been put to death.The Scioux chief who had sung the calumet to Sinagos chose to go in person to restore the Huron captives to their people. He departed from his village with them; but when they came near Chagouamikon they deserted him. Having reached their friends, they declared that they had just escaped from death by flight. The
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Scioux chief, not seeing those persons the next morning, was much surprised; he nevertheless persisted in his resolution and continued on his way, reaching the village on the same day. Not daring, however, to go among the Hurons, whom he distrusted, he entered the cabin of Chief Sinagos, to whom he had sung the calumet, who, with all the Outaoüas, received him very cordially. He explained to them that he had set the Hurons free; he had four companions, including a woman. The Hurons -- crafty, and the most treacherous of all the savage tribes -- when they could not persuade the Outaoüas to deliver the Scioux to them, concluded to see what could be done by presents; and by the agency of these they gained over Chief Sinagos, whose house the Scioux had entered. Such was their success that they corrupted him; and all the Outaoüas, following his example, were so carried away that they had the inhumanity to throw the Scioux into the kettle and eat them. At the same time, abandoning their villages, they went to live at Michillimakinak and Manitoaletz [1670-1671]. The next year they went down to Montreal, and bought, in exchange for their peltries, only guns and munitions of war -- intending to march against the Scioux, build a fort in their country, and wage war against them during the entire winter. Returning home after this trading expedition, they hastily gathered in their grain-crops, and all departed in a body to march against the Scioux. Their forces were increased along the route; for Chief Sinagos had for a brother-in-law the chief of the Sakis, who resided at the Bay; and the Poutéouatamis and the Renards were his allies. As the Outaoüas had brought with them all the goods which they had obtained in trade with the French, they made presents of these to the Poutéouatamis, Sakis, and Renards,189
who formed a body of over a thousand men, all having guns or other powerful weapons of defense.As soon as they arrived in the Scioux country, they fell upon some little villages, putting the men to flight and carrying away the women and children whom they found there. This blow was so quickly dealt that they had not time to reconnoiter or to erect fortifications. The fugitives quickly carried the alarm to the neighboring villages, the men of which hastened in crowds to fall upon their enemies, and so vigorously attacked them that they took to flight, and abandoned the fort which they had commenced. The Scioux pursued them without intermission, and slew them in great numbers, for their terror was so overwhelming that in their flight they had thrown away their weapons; besides, they were stripped of all their belongings, and some of them had only a wretched deerskin for covering. In a word, nearly all of them perished by fighting, by hunger, or by the rigor of the climate. The Renards, the Kiskaouets,
The two chiefs of the party were made prisoners, and Sinagos was recognized as the man to whom they had sung the calumet; they reproached him with his perfidy
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in having eaten the very man who had adopted him into his own nation. They were, however, unwilling to burn either him or his brother-in-law; but they made him go to a repast, and, cutting pieces of flesh from his thighs and all other parts of his body, broiled these and gave them to him to eat -- informing Sinagos that, as he had eaten so much human flesh and shown himself so greedy for it, he might now satiate himself upon it by eating his own. His brother-in-law received the same treatment; and this was all the nourishment that they received until they died. As for the other prisoners, they were all shot to death with arrows, except a PanysXVI. War of the Algonkins against the Irroquois
I. The Irroquois Attack the Algonkins and the French
I will here resume the detailed account which I interrupted, concerning the war of the Algonkins against the Irroquois.
The Irroquois, having routed the Hurons and driven away many tribes into distant regions, beheld themselves
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masters of all the surrounding territories, and had no more cause for fear, save the Algonkins. They therefore devoted themselves solely to the destruction of that people, and went down into their country in order to wage war there. But the Algonkins, as they did not feel strong enough to defend themselves against those who came to attack them, sought an asylum in the [French] colony; they were pursued thither. Then the French united with the Hurons who had escaped from the carnage which had been made in their ancient fatherland, and took up the cause of the Algonkins. During this entire war many detachments were sent out, both small and large, who sometimes were victorious and sometimes defeated. When the Irroquois, treacherous and crafty, saw that they could not easily succeed in their schemes, they demanded peace. But, even though the negotiations on this subject were well advanced, they did not cease to commit acts of hostility and to kill with clubs, when they were least expected; they took the ground that the peace concerned only one of their villages, and that consequently all the others could undoubtedly wage war as before. We have even known the people of a village with which we were at peace to become members of those villages who were not thus peaceable. If they found themselves captives, and were asked why they joined our enemies, they would say that, being present by chance in a village where a war-party was being formed, they had enlisted with the chief who commanded it. These reasons were only specious ones, and rendered it very evident that they were steadily persisting in their design of waging war.192
Many treaties of peace of this sort have been made, in which the Algonkins have never consented to be included, being persuaded of the malignancy and bad faith of the Irroquois, who have never had any other idea than that of absolutely destroying them. They have nevertheless consented to some peaces that have been made; but, to tell the truth, there has never been any real benefit from these, since the Irroquois have very often used them the better to cover up their game, and to deal their blows with more security.
II. Defeat of the Hurons
The treaty of peace being made between the Algonkins and the Irroquois, the latter made up from all their villages a large expedition to come to wage war in the Colony, and to carry away the Hurons settled in a village at the extremity of the island of Orleans, who had some cultivated lands there. It must be understood that there was not then any French settlement from Three Rivers to Cap Rouge; and that this party came down by the Richelieu River, which now is called Sorel. The Irroquois went past Three Rivers at night, without being discovered, and descended [the river] to Quebec, where they had the same fortune; and then they proceeded toward the lands of the Hurons, in order to prepare their ambuscades there. They resolved to wait until the next day [May 18, 1656], that they might more completely take the Hurons by surprise when the latter went out to work on their lands -- because at that time they would all be outside of their fort. Those poor people, who had not the least expectation of this blow, and who relied upon the peace which existed between them and the Irroquois, at the usual hour went out, both men and women, to work on their lands; for among that
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people, who are naturally industrious, the men assist the women in their work, contrary to the custom of the savages. As soon as the Irroquois thought that all of them had gone away, they took possession of the land between the fort and the Hurons, in order to prevent the latter from taking refuge within it, and made prisoners of nearly all the people of that village. The manner in which this affair took place was plainly seen from Quebec.The Irroquois, having thus rendered themselves masters of the Hurons, compelled them to embark in their canoes, and they passed in front of Quebec in open day, meanwhile obliging the captives to sing while passing, in order to humiliate them still more. That caused murmurings among the citizens, and every one was astonished that the French did not curb the insolence of the Irroquois by cannonading their canoes, which proceeded side by side, in military array; but they did not attempt to do anything, on account (as they said) of the missionaries who were among the Irroquois, whom they would certainly, on account of that, have handed over to the most cruel tortures. I will not dwell longer on this subject, the [Jesuit] Relations having made sufficient mention of it.
Meanwhile the Irroquois returned home triumphant; they put to death part of the prisoners, and granted life to the others -- who, with their posterity, will remember that they were abandoned by the French to the mercy of their enemies.
III. Defeat of the Algonkins by the Irroquois
The Irroquois no longer set their minds on anything so much as on the destruction of the Algonkins, who were of all their enemies the most formidable. They
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had reduced the Hurons to a condition in which they could no longer inspire fear, and regarded the French as a people who were not acquainted with their mode of warfare and were incapable of vanquishing them, not knowing [how to make] their way through the forests of the country.The friendly reception that was given to the Irroquois when they came in large bodies to Quebec to treat of peace led them to imagine that we feared them; if they came in small squads, the French gave them clothing, and spoiled them with the presents that they gave them. This idea induced them to conclude peace once more with the Algonkins. The two peoples exchanged collars with each other, and made solemn declaration of the inviolable union between them, promising that they would not fail, in the following winter, to meet together in order to cement the bond.
The Algonkins, all of whose villages were in the vicinity of Three Rivers, set out at the usual time for their winter hunt, and separated into two bands; one took its route along Nicolet River, and the other toward the Ouabmachis.
It is said that an AIgonkin named Piskaret, who was the terror of the Irroquois, and whose valor they knew well, entered one of his enemies' villages, killed an entire family with his club, and then took refuge in one of their woodpiles. The following night, he did the
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same in another house, and, having deprived the dead of their scalps, hid himself in the same retreat. But the third time when he attempted to perform an exploit like the two preceding, he was discovered, and obliged to flee. He was naturally agile and nimble, and steadily kept considerably in advance of his pursuers; and for this reason he took it into his head to wait for them until evening. Seeing that the night was approaching, he hid himself in the hollow of a tree. Those who had been running after him thought that he was far ahead, and, no longer hoping to overtake him, occupied themselves with making a fire not far from his retreat, and encamped there. When he saw that they were sound asleep, he broke the heads of them all, and came back laden with their scalps.It is also related that on another occasion he, with four other men, attacked five Irroquois canoes, which he capsized by firing, not at the men within them, but at the bottoms of their canoes, with bar-shot; these filled the canoes with water, and made them overset. Then rushing upon the enemies he killed them all, except some prisoners whom they were carrying away for the amusement of their village. This exploit was performed in the broad part of the mouth of Sorel River, in the middle of the stream. These extraordinary deeds, and many others of the same sort, rendered this man redoubtable among the Irroquois.
The Algonkins tell us that this Piskaret was a very brave man; and that he placed great confidence in [the strength of] his heart and his legs. He set out one day from the Nicolet River to go hunting beyond St. Francois River; and as he was returning home, laden with the muzzles and tongues of elks, he saw behind him six Irroquois, who had descried him before he saw them,
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and who carried a flag. As they marched they were singing the peace-song, by which they made it known that they were coming with the intention of confirming the peace. The Algonkin intrepidly approached them, and, sitting down with them, lighted his pipe and gave them some tobacco. In the conversation that they had together, he informed them that his village was on the Nicolet River, and in it were one-half of the Algonkins encamped in a body, the other half being on the Ouabmachis River. The Irroquois in turn informed him of what had brought them into the region where they then were, and told him that they were going to visit their father Ononthio, and to congratulate the Algonkins. After they had paid each other, on both sides, attentions and expressions of regard, they arose to continue their journey, and immediately one of the six Irroquois placed on his own shoulders the load that the Algonkin had to carry; it is the custom of the savages to act thus with those whom they greatly honor and respect. They all marched abreast, the Algonkin in the midst of them; but there was one of the company who lagged behind, and who, allowing them to go a little way ahead, afterward quickly rejoined them, and killed the Algonkin (who had no suspicion of him) with his club.These Irroquois of whom I have just spoken had been detached from a large party (of nearly a thousand men), to go scouting; having slain the Algonkin, they hastened with all speed to inform their people of all that they had learned. As soon as the Irroquois heard this, they resolved to divide their men into two bodies, of whom one should go to carry away the Algonkins at Nicolet, and the other to seize those on the Ouabmachis River; and this plan was carried out at daybreak the next morning. Some Algonkins escaped from their clutches, but the greater part of them were captured or massacred.
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After such an overthrow, the Irroquois had no longer anything to fear, finding themselves everywhere victorious; for the few Algonkins who still remained were not capable, [even if] united together, of destroying a single village of their enemies. All the harm that they could do to the Irroquois, therefore, was to knock on the head those whom they might encounter alone. They entreated the Poissons Blancs to aid them -- a tribe who, with other Algonkins, are settled above the river of Three Rivers; and they induced a village of Montagnais from the Saguenay to come to Sillery. The Mikmaks of Accadia promised to aid them; the Nepissings united with them; and all together formed parties who numbered four or five hundred men. But the dissensions which prevailed among them broke up all their measures, and caused the failure of everything that they had planned; for, as I have already remarked, the Algonkins have never been willing to endure any subordination. Courage and haughtiness alone inspire them to action in their battles, and these traits have prevented them from saving themselves in the losses that they have incurred; and although the Irroquois were much more numerous the Algonkins would have routed them if they had acted in full concert, as they are much better warriors than the Irroquois.This war continued until the arrival in this country of the regiment of Carignan [1665]. The late Monsieur Le Moine was captured in the same year by the Outaouas [sc Irroquois], and carried home by them.
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several years they had already contemplated putting him to death if he happened to be captured. He had great personal courage, and was feared by all the savages. People have related that one old [Irroquois] woman even dried pieces of bark for nearly ten years, in order to burn him. When he arrived [in their country] they sentenced him to the stake; but when they were going to burn him one of the leading men of their tribe arrived, who obtained his deliverance, and, accompanied by several other chiefs, brought him to Montreal.On their arrival there they saw Monsieur de Courcelles, governor-general of the country, and all the troops who had recently come from France; and the French were eagerly expecting Monsieur de Tracy, who had taken the route by the islands of Guadeloupe -- of which, as well as of this colony, his Majesty had appointed him viceroy. These Outaoüa [sc Irroquois] envoys were greatly astonished at seeing so many soldiers, to whom orders were given to divide their numbers among the settlements, in order to defend the inhabitants of New France; and in the same year the detachments were made that were necessary to work on the construction of the forts at Sorel and Chambly.
The Irroquois ambassadors reached Montreal at the same time, in order to make pretended negotiations for a peace similar to those which they had made before; but when they saw the reinforcements which had
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arrived in the country they changed their tune and talked more sincerely.This news spread throughout all the villages of the savage tribes. The Tsonontouans and the Goyogouans united with the Onontagues to make their peace with the French, and with the tribes down here, [which lasted] until the war which was waged against the Tsonontouans.
IV. Expeditions of the French against the Irroquois
The ambassadors of the Onontagues, the Goyogouans, and the Tsonontouans declared that their allies were not willing, ever since that same winter, to make peace with us; this compelled Monsieur de Courcelles to march against them, at the head of five hundred men and a considerable number of Canadians. The guides could not discover the road to their villages; they led the party to Corlard, where they found only one cabin of Irroquois [February, 1666]. The Flemish Bastard was also there, with a party of Aniez, whose chief he was. Some skirmishes took place with the advanced posts, and many gunshots were fired on both sides; but the enemy were repulsed. The commander of our troops left his post, trying to pursue those who had come to attack him; he was thus left with four men besides himself, without its being possible to succor him. Monsieur de Courcelles, finding that he was almost out of provisions, turned back in retreat for the first time, and was joined by a hundred Algonkins who, hunting in that vicinity, learned that he was there, and came to proffer him their services; but as he was not in a condition to be able to undertake anything against the enemy, he thanked them and continued his journey.
This expedition, although it made no progress, certainly
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intimidated the Aniez and Anoyés [i.e., Mohawks and Oneidas], who had with them some prisoners of ours -- among them Monsieur de Noirolle, a nephew of Monsieur de Tracy Monsieur de Chasy, his cousin,Monsieur de Tracy despatched in the following summer [May, 1666] a party of three hundred men, French and Algonkins, who met on the way the Flemish Bastard, having with him Monsieur de Noirolle and three other Frenchmen; one of these latter was wounded in the heel, and Monsieur de Courcelles recommended him, on departing, to Sieur Corlard.
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the main body of the troops had arrived on the scene -- who had hastened their pace at hearing the outcries and hootings of the Algonkins -- Monsieur de Sorel, the commander-in-chief, made them unbind the prisoners. The Algonkins showed their discontent at this, and were inclined to use insolent language to the commander; for they desired that these Irroquois should be burned: But Monsieur de Sorel answered them sharply, with so much spirit and firmness that they had no words with which to answer him. You will note that when these men were seized they declared that they were coming as ambassadors to treat of an adjustment [of their relations with us]; and that it was for this reason that Monsieur de Sorel dealt thus with them.He brought these ambassadors with him to Quebec, and presented them to Monsieur de Tracy, who sent one of them back to his own country with a letter for Monsieur Corlard -- in which he assured him of his promise [to the Irroquois], in order to induce them all to come in security to the colony, saying that they would be kindly received there.
A prominent war-chief left the country of the Aniez about the same time -- I mean, a month before the Flemish Bastard left it -- having under his command thirty warriors, who were bringing back to Montréal the French prisoners whom they had. He went with his men to encamp at the Prairie de la Magdeleine (where there was not yet any settlement), and found there some Onontagués who had been hunting during the winter, the better to persuade the French of the stability of that peace which they had just concluded together. They informed this newly-arrived party that the Flemish Bastard was at Quebec, in order to conclude the peace there.
When this chief heard that news, he would not go
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any farther; he allowed his party to rest themselves there, and embarked with the Onontagues, who carried him to Montreal. When he arrived there a batteau was despatched, in which he took his place to go to Quebec; on his arrival there, he found the peace concluded. Monsieur de Tracy received him very kindly, and often had him eat, with the Flemish Bastard, at his own table; for this chief was a man of high standing and esteem among the savages of his tribe.One day Monsieur de Tracy, giving a dinner, mentioned at the table how keenly he felt the loss of Monsieur his nephew, which had just occurred; but said that the public good had, notwithstanding, obliged him to grant to the Flemish Bastard the peace which he had asked for. That was enough to make this haughty chief of the Aniez understand the sorrow which Monsieur de Tracy felt at the death of Monsieur de Chasy (whom this chief had slain), and to constrain him, as a matter of propriety, to abate his arrogance. But, far from compassionating the grief which his host made evident, before him and all the company this chief raised his arm, loudly boasting that it was his hand that had broken the youth's head. This preposterous insolence broke off the peace that Monsieur de Tracy had granted to the Flemish Bastard; and, telling this talkative chief that he would never kill any more Frenchmen, he had him seized and bound. Then, without placing him in prison, he sent for the executioner, and gave orders that the murderer should be strangled in the presence of the Flemish Bastard; and a little while afterward he set out [October, 1666], at the head of fourteen hundred men -- soldiers, Canadians, and Algonkins -- accompanied by Monsieur de Courcelles, to march against the Aniez. He had left at Sorel, on the way, the Flemish Bastard
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(whom he sent home after this campaign), who was employed in burning and throwing into the river the Indian corn belonging to four villages; as a result, more than four hundred souls died from hunger during the winter. Those who survived wandered about here and there, and went to beg for food among the Onontagues; the latter refused to give it, and jeered at them, telling them that the wild northeast wind had destroyed their grain through their own fault.At the end of the campaign the Flemish Bastard was sent home; and when he arrived there he found entire desolation. The Aniez were continually imagining that they had the French in the neighborhood of their villages; they insisted that he should retrace his steps, and go back to entreat peace in earnest. With very little delay, then, he returned to Quebec, where he protested, with all the guarantees that the French wished to exact from him, that he desired to obtain peace; that he would remain as a hostage; and that he himself would come to live, with his family in the colony, in order to prove the sincerity which led him to come to ask for peace. These arguments were heard with favor; moreover, he did not fail to fulfil what he had promised, for many of the same tribe, following his example, came to settle at Montreal, without, however, cultivating any land there. They dispersed themselves from the river of the Outaoüas as far as Creuse River, where the hunting of beaver, otter, elk, and moose is very common; and they were seen in the spring and autumn seasons coming down to the colony, laden with so great a quantity of peltries that the price of these fell by more than a half in France.
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XVII. Murders committed against Irroquois
I. The first murder
Some soldiers of the Carignan regiment took it into their heads to range the woods with the Irroquois, and to follow them everywhere in their hunting expeditions. They provided themselves with plenty of brandy, and went away without telling this to any one, making known their departure to one of their officers only -- who even aided them in making their preparations for this trip, in the hope of securing some share [of the profits] therein.
Five of these soldiers, who were already accustomed to voyages of this sort, and who knew the route by this [Outaouas] river, and the places where the Irroquois were accustomed to hunt, set out at night, and arrived at Pointe Claire in Lake St. Louis; and there they found an Irroquois, who had his canoe full of mooseskins. These soldiers asked him if he would drink a draught of brandy, but he answered "no." Seeing, however, that they invited him to drink without paying for it, and without [apparent] selfish motive, he accepted the offer that they made him; that led him to drink more of the brandy, and, by dint of urging him, he took so much that he became dead-drunk. These soldiers, seeing that he had lost his reason and his senses, fastened a stone to his neck and flung him into the water, in the broad part of the lake. The other Irroquois who had been out hunting returned to Montreal, and some time afterward asked [these soldiers] if they had not seen him, but the latter answered "no;" his comrades therefore believed that he had been drowned along the rapids of the Outaoüas River.
These savages, however, when either going to or returning
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from a hunt, perceived a corpse floating on the water -- either because the cord which served to attach the stone to his neck had broken, or because the stone was not heavy enough. They went directly toward this corpse, and recognized the man of whom there were no tidings. They conveyed it to Montreal, and in the complaints that they made they set forth that in their hunting parties there had been no other savages besides themselves, and that consequently there were no others than Frenchmen who could have slain their comrade. Close search was made to find the authors of this deed, but without success.The soldiers, after committing this murder, carried the peltries in the night to their officer, and made him believe that they had been trading with some Irroquois who were returning from their hunt. This officer gave the hides in payment to some person; for it was the custom in the country to use peltries instead of money.
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and questioned to ascertain from whom he had received this hide; and he named the person who had given it to him. He too was sent for, and likewise named the person from whom he had received it; and by this means it was learned that the hide had come in the first place from the house where the officer lived. Search was made there, and many hides with the same mark were found in it, which were recognized as the property of the murdered savage. These proofs left no further reason to doubt that he had been slain by some soldiers. At that time, those soldiers had gone away again to trade in brandy on the Outaoüas River, after having repaid to the officer the first advance, also the last one, that he made them, by the remainder of the plunder from the Irroquois whom they had murdered. Orders were given to the officer to arrest these men as soon as they should return, or to notify [the commandant], in order to punish them and render justice to the Irroquois; for already the latter were heard to utter their discontent. They intimated that their indignation was great enough to renew the war, if there had been a failure to render them satisfaction for this murder.II. Justice rendered to the Irroquois for the above -- mentioned murder
The authors of this crime, not having any shelter more certain than the house of their officer, arrived there in the night; they were arrested there, and thrown into prison. The military council having assembled to try their case, they confessed at the first interrogation the crime of which they were accused; and all five were condemned to be put to death, in the presence of the Irroquois.
They were led out, and all five were bound each to a
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post. The Irroquois were astonished at the ample justice that was rendered to them, and entreated mercy for four of them; because, as they had lost only one man, it was not just, they said, to kill five for him, but one only [ought to die]. They were given to understand that the five were equally criminal, and without any exception merited death. The Irroquois, who were not expecting so extensive a satisfaction, redoubled their entreaties to obtain mercy for four, and for this purpose made presents of porcelain collars; but the French did not listen to them, and all five men were shot to death [1669].The justice which on this occasion was rendered to the Irroquois was published in all their villages, whose people [therefore] had great confidence in the French; and many of their families, influenced by so splendid a reparation, came down into the colony and remained there, [attracted] by the abundance of game and the other necessities of life that they found there for living comfortably.
III. Another murder
Some years afterward eleven Irroquois were hunting south of the Lake of Two Mountains, toward the end of the island of Montreal, and carried on trade with a merchant who went to find them there. This trader took with him a very intelligent Canadian, who was thoroughly acquainted with the language of the Irroquois, and was highly esteemed by them. These Irroquois, having found out where his lodging was, went to visit him; he entertained them, and assured them that he would not fail to visit them in their winter camp. He did not forget this; for he set out one day, accompanied by a merchant and his servant, and reached the camp. All three were very hospitably received, and all the
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more cordially because they had taken care to carry with them some brandy, of which they made a present to the savages. The Irroquois having drunk it until they had lost their wits, the Frenchmen murdered them for the sake of plundering them. This murder was discovered, and the murderers, having been warned by their friends to be gone, escaped so well, each in his own way, that it was impossible to arrest them.209
The Irroquois, [knowing] the close search that was being made everywhere in order to render them justice, and no longer doubting that the French were in earnest,
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on account of the complete satisfaction that had been made to them in the case of the preceding murder, manifested no resentment for this last crime. They still continued to hunt along the Outaoüas River, having with them some Frenchmen who carried on a good business [in trading with them], and of whom they took excellent care. They requested more Frenchmen from Monsieur de Courcelles, in order that, if some Outaoüas came down [to the colony] who were ignorant of the peace, no strife or bloodshed might occur.XVIII. Terror of the Outaoüas at the sight of the Irroquois who were hunting along the river
More than nine hundred Outaoüas came down to Montreal in canoes;
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news from the colony. They assured us that there were several bands of Irroquois, escorted by some Frenchmen, who were hunting in the vicinity of the river, and who had given them a very hospitable reception, offering them provisions to refresh themselves. That large body [of Outaoüas], in their apprehension, were already afraid of what has just been related, and even were ready to give up [their journey]; but, as the Outaoüas had great confidence in me and looked on me as their friend, I persuaded them to continue their voyage -- except some canoes of Saulteurs, Missisakis, and Kiristinons who slipped away and returned to their own homes. When we had descended the Calumets we met, a little below the [rapids of the] Chats, Monsieur de la Salle,That great fleet of Outaoüas appeared already shaking with terror at this sight, and desired to give up their voyage entirely on hearing the report made by the Frenchmen, who told them that there were still several other bands of Irroquois who were hunting farther down [the river]. I could not prevent myself then from reproaching them for their cowardice; and, having reassured them, they continued their route, for there was not room [in that place] for their camp. It was therefore
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necessary to paddle all night, and to leave all the loaded canoes afloat, in order that we might proceed the next morning. Two hours before daylight, all the fleet in departing took the broad part of the river, and slipped along about daylight without making any noise. We had in the early morning a heavy fog, so dense that it prevented us from seeing our canoes; but the sun in rising scattered it, and we observed opposite us a camp of seven Irroquois, with whom were five or six soldiers.At that time the greater part of the Outaoüas had already gone past [this camp]. The Irroquois did not move from their fires; it was only the Frenchmen who came toward us and called to us; but not one of the canoes would halt; on the contrary, they exerted themselves to paddle more vigorously. Nevertheless, I compelled the canoe in which I was to land. The soldiers made me eat and drink with them; my canoemen were continually urging me to embark, for it was a long day's work that we must perform. The sun was about to set when the main body came down in a line along the rapids. My canoe was among the foremost in our group of thirty -- of which some had come to land, and others were yet on the water. There were also some in the rapids, who could not ascend, or force their way against the current, for whom we must wait.
Two leagues farther down, repeated volleys of musket-shots were fired, the smoke from which we saw rise in the air. This alarm constrained all the Outaoüas to range themselves in a squadron, and those who had landed felt obliged to reëmbark, despite all that I could do to prevent them, and they overtook the main body. They made the resolution to abandon everything and take to flight; and I did all in my power to dissuade them from this course. The men in my canoe were already
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unnerved [by their terror]. I hastened to meet them all, and proposed to them to give me a canoe, so that I could take the lead and go to the place where the guns were fired; and I urged on the Frenchmen (who were no less overcome by fear than were the savages) to accompany me. I endeavored to make them recover from the terror that had seized them, by assuring them that the Irroquois, as a proof of their sincerity, had some Frenchmen with them. I gained the front of the main fleet, and managed so well that they consented to follow me. As my canoe neared land, toward evening, the Irroquois fired a last volley, in order to salute us. Most of the Outaoüas, on recognizing that it was only to pay us honors that the guns were fired, recovered their courage and came to land, but without unloading their peltries. This band was composed of twelve Irroquois, who had with them two soldiers from Montreal, whom I knew. The Outaoüas were still trembling, and were resolved to travel all night until they could reach the first French houses, not believing themselves safe among these dozen Irroquois -- who without doubt would have been very friendly and entertained them, if they had had some game to give them.When the Outaoüas saw the Irroquois asleep, they all embarked about midnight, and my canoe alone remained. My canoemen, however, did not cease to call me, in order that I should [also] embark; but I was sleeping so soundly, with those two Frenchmen, that I did not hear the summons. One of my canoemen ventured to come to awaken me, but so gently that you would have said that he was going to surprise a sentinel. He whispered in my ear that it was time to embark, and that the entire fleet was already far ahead. I immediately arose, in order to go with him; and at daybreak it was
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apparently [still] out of our sight. They all paddled vigorously, and did not wait for us until they reached the Grande Anse, in Lake St. Louis. About two hours after noon, we set out to go to Montreal, and then the Outaoüas began to take breath and, when we reached that place, to feel that they were entirely safe.XIX. Sedition stirred up, in an unexpected manner, by the Outaoüas at Montréal.
The trading of the Outaoüas with the French was well advanced (it was usually carried on in the town-hall of Montréal, where they are accustomed to display their merchandise), when it happened that a savage of the above-named people stole some article from a French soldier, without the latter being aware of it. The sentinel -- who had orders to keep watch on those who were trading, in order that they might not be molested, and that no mischief be done -- saw the theft committed; he notified the man to whom the wrong had just been done, who immediately rushed upon the thief and tried to snatch from him some fragments of beaver-skin that he held. The savage resisted him, the sentinel advanced in order to check those who had tried to strike the savage, and presented the end of his gun in order to hold back the people who were trying to rush on him in a crowd. The sentinel urged the savage to give back what he had seen him take. Many of the lookers-on thought that men had been wantonly knocked down, and undertook to rush headlong upon the soldier; and they actually took away his gun. When he saw that he was disarmed, he drew his sword. The man who had committed the theft tried to grasp him and take away his sword, but, as he could
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not accomplish this, he received a sword-blow on his arm. Then the soldier turned the point of his weapon toward every one who attempted to come near him. Immediately the Outaoüas came up, with their arms in their hands. I also hastened to the place as soon as I possibly could; several chiefs with whom I was acquainted joined me; and we checked the outbreak that was beginning.Monsieur de la Motte,
A [certain] person of high standing, who desired to go up to the Outaoüa country by availing himself of the return of this fleet, was present. Monsieur de la Motte asked him to inquire from these people, in their own
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language, what reason they had for stirring up such a tumult. They made their complaint, with an artless relation of the truth; but this new interpreter repeated it [to la Motte] otherwise, in order to gratify the savages, and made it appear that in reality the soldier was to blame for the whole affair. Monsieur de la Motte -- who had long been a captain, and whose services commanded respect -- ordered the second sergeant of his company to go to find the sentinel, and to have him immediately placed on the wooden horse,As I had heard that the savage blamed himself in what he had just related, and that he had frankly admitted how the affair had occurred, I could not refrain from making protest at this; and I stoutly declared that, according to the very deposition which the savage had just made, the soldier was innocent, and that he did not deserve the punishment that had been decreed, since the interpreter had explained the matter otherwise than it [really] was Monsieur de la Motte, irritated at the soldier, hastily walked into his own room without paying any attention to what I had just said. I repeated once more [the real truth of] the case, and made the ensign of the company listen to me. The interpreter, without seeming to hear me, mistrusted that the officer would not fail to relate and explain the matter to Monsieur de la Motte; so he immediately burst into a passion and inveighed against me, and demanded justice for
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the contradiction which I had just given him in regard to the false interpretation. I walked up to him, in the presence of Monsieur de la Motte, and maintained that he had wrongly explained the statement of the savage; that I understood the savage language; and that this person, in interpreting it, had not stated what the savage had just confessed.Monsieur de la Motte, who had suspended his judgment in regard to the soldier, sent for him and, after interrogating him, ordered him to state exactly how the whole affair had occurred. He made the same relation that the savage had given, and in the manner that I have just stated. Monsieur de la Motte then turned to the person who had not told the truth about it, and contented himself with making some remarks to humiliate him; and then he sent away the soldier and the chiefs whom he had placed under arrest.
The trading of the Outaoüas was nearing its end when a canoe arrived at Montréal sent by Monsieur de Courcelles, with orders to send down to Quebec all the chiefs of that people, and those of the Irroquois, in order to conclude the peace between them.
Monsieur de la Motte, having received these orders, sent for me and ordered me to embark with the Outaoüas, who made objections to going; but they were obliged to obey, against their will. The Irroquois did not seem to feel any repugnance to going.
When the Outaoüa chiefs found that they were forced to embark in the vessel assigned for their voyage, they sent all their people back to their homes, and had their own canoes follow them. An officer and twelve soldiers were commanded to escort them as far as the place where we made our first encampment after leaving Montreal. They entreated me to ask the officer that they might be
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permitted to embark in their own canoes, to which he consented; and we arrived safely at Quebec [July, 1670]. There the friends of the man to whom I had given the lie at Montréal made every effort to make trouble for me with Monsieur de Courcelles, and to prevent me from being the interpreter [in the peace conference]. But Monsieur de la Motte had written [to him] in my favor, and guaranteed my reliability and fidelity, so that my enemies received no hearing. There was some person who tried to find fault with the interpretation that I had made, and to insist that it was not correct; but he was entirely put to confusion in this attempt, for my version was generally received as truthful.XX. Arrival of the Intendant Monsieur de Talon, having orders to cause the insignia of France to be planted in the country of the Outaoüas, and to take possession of it in the name of the king
The first ships from France arrived at Quebec while all the chiefs were there. Monsieur de Courcelles received letters from Monsieur de Talon, who wrote to him how serviceable it was to secure some Frenchmen who had gone among the Outaoüas and knew their language, so that these could go up there and take possession of their country in the name of the king. Monsieur de Courcelles at once cast his eyes on me, and had me remain at Quebec until the return of Monsieur the intendant.
When he arrived there, he asked me if I would decide to go up to the Outaoüas in the capacity of an interpreter, and to escort a deputy whom he would station there to take possession of their country. I informed him that I was always ready to obey him, and offered him
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my services. I then set out with Sieur de Saint Lusson, his deputy, and we arrived at Montreal, where we remained until the beginning of the month of October [1670]. We were obliged, in this voyage, to spend the winter with the Amikoüets; the Saulteurs also wintered in the same quarter, and went hunting. They secured more than two thousand four hundred moose, in an island called Isle des Outaoüas,I notified these peoples to proceed to the Saulteur country in the springtime, as early as they could, in order to hear the message from the king that Sieur Saint Lusson was carrying to them and to all the tribes. I also sent some [Saulteur] savages to tell those in the north that they too must not fail to proceed to their country. I went with a sledge,
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a canoe from the other side of the island, in which I embarked; for it is to be noted that the lake never freezes, except on the coast where we wintered -- and not at all, out from the shore, on account of the continual waves which the wind causes there. We set out from that place to go toward the bay of the Renards and Miamis,On the fifth of the month of May I reached Sault Sainte Marie with the principal chiefs of the Poutéoüatamis,
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Sakis, Puans, and Malhominis; those of the Renards, Mascouetechs, Kikabous, and Miamis did not go farther than the Bay. Among these latter was the head chief of the Miamis, named Tetinchoua, who, as if he had been the king, kept in his cabin day and night forty young men as a body-guard.224
On my arrival [at Sault Sainte Marie], I found not only the chiefs from the north, but also all the Kiristinons, Monsonis, and whole villages of their neighbors. The chiefs of the Nepissings were also there, [with] those of the Amikoüets, and all the Saulteurs who were settled in the same quarter. The stake was planted in their presence, and the arms of France were attached to it with the consent of all the tribes -- who, as they could not write, gave presents for their signatures, affirming thus that they placed themselves under the protection of the king, and in subjection to him. The official report of this taking possession was then drawn up, on which I placed my signature as interpreter, with that of Sieur de Saint Lusson, the deputy; the reverend missionary fathers Dablon, Allouez, Dreuillette, and Marquet
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signed it farther down; and, below these, the Frenchmen who were then trading in those quarters. That [proceeding] was transacted according to the instructions given by Monsieur Talon. After that, all those peoples returned to their respective abodes, and lived many years without any trouble in any quarter.I have forgotten to mention that the Hurons and the Outaoüas did not arrive until after the taking of possession, because they had fled from Chagouamikon for having eaten the Scioux, as I have previously related. We conferred with them on what had just been done, and they, as the other tribes had done, consented to all that had been agreed and concluded.
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XXI. The Irroquois, being no longer at war with the French or with their allies, carry hostilities among the Andastes and the Chaoüanons
The Irroquois could no longer make war on their neighbors, having been compelled by force of arms to put an end to all their cruelties; they therefore sought to carry it into the country of the Andastes and the Chaoüanons,
Monsieur de Courcelles, having secured the general peace with the Irroquois, resolved to visit Lake Ontario. He went thither with a few men, and arrived [1671] at Kataracouy,
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is [now] called. He summoned the Irroquois, who had [orders] to assemble there all together, so that he might lay before them his intention to build a fort. They consented to this, and some presents were given to them, for which they gave others in return. In the same autumn, a little before this, Monsieur de Courcelles was recalled [to France], and relieved by Monsieur de Frontenac, who caused this fort to be built in the following summer, and bestowed on it his own name; and he did not fail to go thither to spend some months of the year. He summoned thither the chiefs of all the Irroquois nations, and always maintained harmony between them and the savages of the upper country -- until some Irroquois warriors who came from Chaoiianonk, where they had accomplished nothing, carried away five families of Renards, and a chief who had gone to solicit aid in the war which that tribe were then waging against the Illinois. That was the cause of the Irroquois destroying an Illinois village, and making attacks everywhere indiscriminately. I have written a memoir on the subject of these wars, which you, Monseigneur, have; and for that reason I have given no account of it in this memoir.All the unjust raids which the Irroquois made everywhere did not draw Monsieur de Frontenac into making war on them; he foresaw the evil results of that. As soon as a blow was struck he was notified of it by presents on the part of those who had first dealt it, and others from those who had been attacked. He was able to quiet all, although the Irroquois steadily became stronger and stronger by means of the great numbers of captives whom they continued to make among their enemies.
Monsieur de Frontenac gave to various persons permits
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through the favor and recommendation of Monsieur Bellinzani, secretary of Monsieur de Colbert.It was about the same time when Monsieur de Chesneau,
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intendant of the country, wrote letters against Monsieur de Frontenac, and sent word to the court that he was bestowing permissions upon his own dependants only. His letters obtained credence, and it was forbidden to issue these permits to any one thereafter.The Canadians, seeing themselves deprived of these privileges, grew lax [in their obedience to the government], and believed that the privileges were rightfully theirs; and that was the reason why most of the young men in the country left it, and returned only by stealth to obtain trade-goods, and bringing back peltries, which were secretly sold. This traffic opened the eyes of the merchants, who found it greatly to their own advantage; they advanced to these young men the goods that were necessary for their voyage, some of them being opposed to the issue of the orders mentioned above. As a result, these Canadians made themselves like unto the savages, whose dissolute conduct they copied so well that they forgot what was due from them to French subordination and discipline, and, if I may venture to say so, to even the Christian religion. In order to prevent this lawlessness when it commenced, punishment should have been administered from the beginning to such as committed
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offenses by transgressing the orders of the king. The court, having been informed that this evil was not diminishing, sent to Monsieur de Frontenac a decree of amnesty [for those offenders], which he made public in the Outaoüas country -- to which he sent Monsieur de Villeraye for this purpose, and stationed him there as commandant in those regions.The Irroquois then began to make raids on the Illinois and other tribes, for their forces were continually increasing. They even undertook to go against the Outaoüas and Nepissings, from whom they took many captives. Monsieur de Frontenac, having gone to visit the fort which he had caused to be built, as soon as he arrived there had all the Irroquois chiefs assembled; and he talked with them in such fashion that they surrendered their captives, and remained quiet, promising to make no more raids on our allies who are included in the peace. Nevertheless, Monsieur de Frontenac was continually urged to make war on them; but he foresaw that, if once it were kindled, it would not be extinguished very soon; he therefore contented himself with intimidating them by [threats of] war in his speeches to them, and succeeded therein.
Continual disputes arose between him and Monsieur du Chesneau through the suggestions made by their dependants on both sides. The king, having been informed of this, recalled both of them to France, and sent over Monsieur de la Barre to relieve Monsieur de Frontenac, and Monsieur de Meule in place of Monsieur du Chesneau. This recall, to the detriment of the country, was caused by the ill-considered counsel that was given to each of those officials.
Messieurs de la Barre and de Meules, having relieved them [1682], were persuaded by the ecclesiastics to
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make war against the Irroquois; the merchants also, who were considering not so much the destruction of that people as their own interests, on their side urged him on to declare war. They did not foresee that, in rendering the Irroquois their enemy, they could not bring those savages back to them when they pleased. They fancied that as soon as the French made their appearance the Irroquois would beg for mercy from them; that it would be easy to establish warehouses and construct vessels on Lake Ontario and in the Lake of the Outaoüas; and that the war was a means for finding wealth. All these counselors succeeded in causing this war to be undertaken.XXII. War undertaken by Monsieur de la Barre against the Irroquois
Monsieur de la Barre, having finally resolved on the war which he had been persuaded to make against the Irroquois [1684], sent presents to the Outaoüas tribes inviting them to come to join him at Fort Frontenac, in order that they might, united together, destroy the village of the Onontaguez. Monsieur de la Durantaye was ordered to command the Outaoüas, and for his second in command he was given Monsieur de Lude; he sent notification of this to the latter at Kamalastigouia,
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his people being brought together, he sent out the tomahawkMonsieur de la Barre had given me a permit to go to trade among the Outaoüas. On my way to the Bay I met, five leagues from Michillimakinak, the deputies who were going to invite the tribes of that Bay with the tomahawk and presents; but when they returned they reported that not one of the tribes had been willing to give their consent to the war, or to accept the presents that had been offered to them. The envoys went among the Hurons, who accepted the tomahawk; the Outaouas,
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the Kikapous, and the Sinagos refused to hear them speak.Monsieur de Lude arrived, the following night, from Kamalastigouia, and learned that none of the tribes, except the Hurons, had consented to go out on the warpath. In the morning he was told that I was at Michillimakinak; he sent for me, and told me that no one could, better than I, induce the tribes to unite with us in this war, [as he was] persuaded of the ascendency that I possessed over their minds. I set out therefore, one Sunday, after I had heard holy mass, to go among those peoples; they listened to me, and accepted the tomahawk and the presents. They only asked me for a few days to repair their canoes, and to make their preparations for joining us; they were given a week in which to get ready. At the end of that time they arrived [at Michillimakinak], and we all departed together; but the Outaoüas did not come until three hours later, at Sakinang [i.e., Saginaw] -- to the number of four hundred men, including the chiefs and old men. After their departure, a canoe was sent to inform the tribes at the Bay that we all had set out from Michillimakinak; and that I had induced peoples who had refused to accept the tomahawk and the presents to unite with us in the war. I told them that they had always looked on me as their father, and that I was to march at the head of the Outaoüas, who were doing quite right in following me. One of the chiefs then spoke, and declared to all the villages that it was their duty to take an interest in this war, and to go to it, since I was taking part in it. He declared that he and his family would not allow me to expose myself to danger unless they were there too, and he set out without making any preparations. He was followed by a hundred young men; all the rest would
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have accompanied him if there had been [enough] canoes.The Outaoüas having joined us, Messieurs our commanders gave them into my care. An unforeseen accident which occurred on the third day of our journey frightened them, and made them look on it as a bad omen for the war which we were going to carry on. There was a French soldier who unawares let his gun go off, and was killed by the shot; this sad occurrence filled their imaginations with notions unfavorable to our enterprise, but I beguiled them from these ideas.
When we arrived at the islands of the Détroit,
The people from the Bay whom I have previously mentioned joined us at two leagues' distance from Longue Pointe on Lake Erien; and they informed the Outaoüas that if they remained long absent from their women the latter would starve, as they did not know the method for catching fish. They desired therefore to
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return home; but I opposed this purpose, telling them that there was cowardice in such a resolution. At first they were angry at me, and roughly answered that they would show me what they could do. At that time we were detained in that place by bad weatherAt this reproach [of mine], the Outaoüas also sent out some of their men by land, who reached the region to which we had sent our men to get intelligence of the enemies; but they did not meet each other until some time later. The Outaoüas while marching amused themselves by whistling and counterfeiting the call of the elk, until the Frenchmen (who were not very far from them) believed that there really were elk there; and they went farther into the woods, going toward the place where they had heard the sounds. When they had come quite near, one of those at the front spied something white in a thicket, and thought that he saw the breast of an elk; this led him to fire his gun, with which he wounded an Outaoüa who was wearing a shirt, and pierced the shirt of the man behind this one.
This last blow gave the finishing stroke to their belief that they had good reason to abandon us; there were even some of them who were bold enough to say that they must fight against us, because we were already beginning
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to kill them. By my arguments I won over the wounded man and his uncle, who assured the Outaoüas that his nephew was not dead, although he had been wounded; that he wished to go further in order to die; and that he had left his own country with this design. He added, addressing them directly, that they could nevertheless give up the enterprise if they so wished; but that, as for himself and his nephew, they would follow the French everywhere. His speech produced so good an effect that they continued their march with us.At last we arrived at Niagara, where Monsieur de la Durantaye commissioned me to inform the Outaoüas, in presenting to them the tomahawk, that the three barks belonging to Fort Frontenac would be there at our arrival, laden with three hundred guns for arming them, and with other military supplies, and all the food they would want. I told him my opinion regarding this, which was, not to entangle himself with assurances of this sort, and that it would be time to say this when we reached that place, in case that such abundance were found there; because, if matters went otherwise and they found that they had been deceived, it would be no longer possible to keep them in hand. Despite all my arguments, he positively insisted that I must carry out his orders as above.
When we arrived there, we found no vessel; I diverted their minds, however, during two or three days, by making them believe [that contrary winds] had prevented the barks from coming. Time passed, and nothing came; that made them murmur. They began to tell me that I had deceived them, and that the French were intending to betray them and deliver them into the hands of the Irroquois, who would [now] have no difficulty in carrying away their wives and children. The commanders
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and the Frenchmen no longer knew what to say about it; they held consultations, and called together the chiefs and all the elders of the tribes, to whom they declared that it was necessary to take the route toward the north side of the lake [Ontario], and go straight to Fort Frontenac; that they would find Monsieur de la Barre there, or, if he had not yet arrived, they would wait there for him; and if they learned that he had advanced from that place, they would follow him, because his arrival would protect us from the attacks of the enemy. The savages, who are creatures of contradiction, always desiring to be masters of their own acts, said that it was necessary to take the [route to the] south, and march straight to the country of the Tsonontouans.241
whatever good arguments could be employed to make them change their resolution. I went into their camp to confer with all the chiefs, to whom I showed that it was too great a risk to expose themselves to, in such an enterprise, and that we would certainly be defeated, in place of securing our safety by taking the other course. I talked with all of them individually, one after another; and after the answers they gave me I saw that there were only a few men among them who stubbornly maintained that opinion; and the reason why they were so hard to move was, because of the reproach of cowardice which I had previously flung at them -- while as for the rest I was not wrong. All the savages likewise told me the same thing, even though I might say no more to them about it. I returned to Messieurs our commanders to tell them what I had just heard, and to assure them that terror242
abode in the camp of the Outaoüas, and that they were afraid we would take the route by way of the country of Tsonontouans. I proposed an expedient, which was, to publish in their camp that, as we had controlled the advance as far as Niagara, we would for the present confer on them the power of directing it; that we were ready to follow them in the direction that they [thought best]; and that we would regulate [our motions] by the first canoe that should depart. They agreed to what I have just stated, and immediately all the French canoes were launched, and the baggage was placed in them.When all that was accomplished, I called out in their camp, "Now do you direct the course;" and at once all those who were not numbered with the obstinate ones embarked, taking the route to the north, and followed us.
Thirty or thereabouts of the stubborn ones did not stir from their camp during the rest of the day; they sent two men out as scouts toward the country of the Irroquois. These men discovered a bark under sail, and immediately returned to notify their people, who sent us advice of it by a canoe.
The next day we reached Niagara, where the bark arrived; but it had nothing [for us] except letters from Monsieur de la Barre. In these he informed us that it had been necessary for him to make peace, on account of the disease which had broken out in his camp; this had caused the deaths of nearly nine hundred Frenchmen, and of as many more savages who had accompanied him.
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against him, and to declare that he was no longer capable of conducting a war. He was, in fact, recalled in the following year, and relieved by Monsieur [de] Denonville [August, 1685].I did not return to the Outaoüas immediately after the campaign; I did not go there until the following spring, in consequence of the news which were received through the voyageurs, who reported that the men of Monsieur de la Salle were making trouble for the Frenchmen who went [up there relying] on their permits from Bay des Puans as far as the Illinois; and that they even carried away the property of the traders.
XXIII. Campaign of Monsieur Denonville against the Irroquois
I was sent to that bay, carrying a commission to be commander-in-chief there, and in the regions further toward the west, and even of those which I might be able to discover.
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Monsieur de la Valtrie, Who had been commanding officer there in the Irroquois campaign.I had no sooner arrived in the region where I was to govern than I received orders from Monsieur Denonville to go back with all the Frenchmen whom I had. I was unable to do so without abandoning the goods which I had been compelled to borrow from the merchants
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for my voyage. At that time I was in the country of the Scioux, where the ice had broken up all our canoes, and I was compelled to spend the summer there; meanwhile I devoted myself to procuring boats so that I could go to Michillimakinak, but the canoes did not reach me until the autumn [1686].In the beginning of the winter I received other orders, to call together all the Frenchmen and savages whom I should find within my reach and along my route, in order to go with them to [a place] near the lake where the Tsonontouans are settled. Immediately I set out, and I invited the Miamis [to go] to this war, which they promised me to do; but the Loups, who were their neighbors, dissuaded them from it, making them believe that the French intended to betray them, and to make the Irroquois eat them when they joined the former.
I went by land to the village of the Miamis, who were about sixty leagues distant from my post; and I returned by land, the same as I had gone. I learned on the road, before arriving there, that a body of fifteen hundred men from the tribes of the Bay -- Renards, Maskouetechs, Kikapous -- who were going to war against the Scioux, intended to pillage my stock of merchandise, knowing that I was not there; and that they were planning to do the same to the Frenchmen further up, and to kill them. Some of them had come, therefore, as spies to my post, to find out the condition of affairs there, under the pretext of trading for powder; and they carried back to the camp [of the warriors above-mentioned] the information that within the fort
When I returned thither the next day, two others of
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those savages came to the fort, who found me there. I told them that I must talk with their chiefs, of whom I named to them seven or eight of the more prominent. They returned to their camp, and the very men whom I had named to them came to visit me.The sentinel who was on duty notified me of their arrival. I had always taken care to keep the gate of the fort closed; I had it opened in order that they might enter, and conducted them into my cabin. They saw there many guns in good condition, provided with good flints and locks. The two spies who had previously come had likewise seen the guns. I made them believe that we [Frenchmen] numbered forty men, not counting those whom I had sent out to hunt. They believed this, just as I said it, because the men whom they had seen there, going into a cabin, quickly changed their clothing and again appeared before them.
Site of Perrot's Fort, 1685-1686
I had some food given to them, and meanwhile I reproached them for their treacherous purpose of trying
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to plunder my goods and kill the Frenchmen. I told them of every point in their conspiracy. I also made them understand that they were at that moment at my disposal, but that I was not a traitor, like them; and that my only demand from them was, to give up the war that they were on the way to undertake, and rather to turn their arms against the Irroquois. [I added that] two sentinels were all the time stationed at the two bastions of the fort, both having many guns at hand, and relays were on duty all night long. These savages confessed to me that they had been plotting; I made them some presents, in order to induce them to obey me, and received from them, verbally, all sorts of amends.The next day the main body of that band arrived, and they thought that they could enter [the fort] all at once; I held the chiefs in my power within it, and I warned them that they were dead men at the first act of violence that their men should commit, for we would begin with them. My Frenchmen, under arms, kept well on their guard. There were some of the chiefs whom I detained, who climbed up on the gate of the fort, and called out to their men that matters were amicably settled between them and us. They entreated me to buy their peltries in exchange for ammunition, so that they could go hunting for buffalo. I had them enter by turns, and, after I had traded with them for what they had, they separated, each to his allotted place, to carry on their hunt. A few days afterward, I set out with two Frenchmen, to go across the country to the Bay; and at every turn I encountered some of those savages, who showed me the best roads and entertained me very hospitably. When I reached the Bay, I held conferences with the tribes there. In the spring [1687] I set out with all the young men, and arrived at Michillimakinak
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one afternoon. Monsieur de la Durantaye had gone away in the morning with the Frenchmen, who had not been able to make the Outaoüas resolve to go on the war-path. As soon as they saw me, they told me to wait for them a few days, since they were intending to go away with me; they said that their canoes were not in good condition, and that when these were ready they would follow the French. I believed them, and waited for them during a week. Monsieur de la Durantaye arrested thirty Englishmen who had come to trade with the Outaoüas, and confiscated all their goods; and he caused the best part of these, and especially their brandy, to be distributed among the Outaoüas. Those savages had preserved a keg of it, containing twenty-five pots,I embarked with my people, after I had sharply upbraided the Outaoüas; and I joined Monsieur de la Durantaye, who had met Monsieur de Tonty at the fort of Monsieur de Lude, located at Detroit. They had arrested thirty more Englishmen, and were on the point of going back [to Michillimakinak] if I had not arrived; for sixty Englishmen had already become too
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many enemies for them, and had narrowly escaped being killed by the very savages who had accompanied them, inasmuch as the Frenchmen had become intoxicated on the liquor that they had plundered from the Englishmen; and that would have occurred, if the officers had not kept the prisoners under guard. They feared that the Irroquois, having information of their advance, would prepare ambuscades for them; and that, if the English joined the enemy, they might be defeated. My arrival caused them to resume their voyage the next morning, without any fear, on account of the assistance furnished to them by my party; and at the end of two days we reached Niagara, where we threw up an intrenchment to defend ourselves from the Irroquois if they came to attack us. We spent several days in that place; the Outaoüas and Hurons joined us there, who reached us by land from Thehegagon, and left their canoes opposite, in Lake Huron. They decided to follow [us], when they saw that the tribes at the Bay had refused to believe them; for it would have been a cause for shame to them not to be present in an encounter with the enemy, if any such had occurred when they had seen their allies pass by their place of abode.We there received orders from Monsieur Denonville, and advanced toward the Tsonontouans; and our people arrived there at the same time when he did.
Monsieur Denonville, having caused an intrenchment to be constructed on the shore of the lake [Ontario], marched with his troops against the villages; and, at half a league from the nearest one, fought against eight hundred Irroquois, who were in ambuscade and were beaten back [July, 1687]. On the next day our people encamped in the village itself, and laid waste all the cleared lands about it. During that time
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the Hurons and Outaoüas led astray the savages down here [i.e., in Lower Canada], and induced them to consent to that notion [of not continuing the war].Monsieur Denonville ordered me to harangue them and reproach them for their cowardice in refusing to continue their victories. I induced them to follow us everywhere.
The campaign being accomplished, I went down to the colony with Monsieur Denonville in order that I might, as a mediator, ask from him peace for the Irroquois with the French and all the savage allies. Although word of this was sent to the Outaoüas, and they were forbidden, in the governor's name, to go to war, they did so, in spite of Monsieur de la Durantaye.
I have set down in the memoirs which I have presented to you, Monseigneur, what is of usual occurrence among those peoples, who always desire what we do not, and who take sides through [a spirit of] contradiction. In order to succeed with them, it is necessary to know how to manage them; otherwise it is difficult to do anything with them.
You will readily understand, by these memoirs, that the savages are by nature treacherous, above all the Hurons and the Outaoüas. I have related many examples of their treachery, and I would never come to an end if I undertook to expatiate thereon. It will be sufficient that I here cite a few more of such instances, which have not been hitherto set down.
XXIV. Huron treachery, rendered abortive, against all the Outaoüa tribes
The Rat,
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of the Outaoüa tribes [1689]. They agreed together that the Irroquois should come with a large force to Michillimakinak, and that they should send scouts ahead to observe and examine the places in which they could attack the Outaoüas. It was resolved that the Hurons should occupy the flank of the fort; that the Rat should confer with all the tribes at the Bay and the Saulteurs, and invite them, in behalf of the Irroquois (who would not fail to come there to see them), to repair to this fort in order to confirm more thoroughly the peace which they had made together, and which the governor had made them conclude; but that it was proper and even necessary to form another and a new one among themselves, independently of that one, which would be more substantial and assured [than the governor's]. The Irroquois, in order to persuade them more easily to this, had given presents of collars to the Rat, in order that he might offer them to the other Outaoüa254
tribes when they should be assembled. They furnished to the latter much stronger assurances besides, by sending them word that they could [thus] secure a good stronghold; for it was the purpose of the Irroquois, according to the measures that they had taken, to render the Hurons masters of a stockade which they were to undermine. By this method the assault was sure [of success], because the Hurons fired off only powder. This treachery was at last disclosed; for an Aniez who came to Michillimakinak to trade met at Sakinang some Amikoüets and other savages, who received him as a friend and even gave him some peltries. They were so kind to him that he could not refrain from revealing this conspiracy to the chief of the Amikoüets (whose name was Aumanimek), one of my good friends -- who, knowing that I was to go up from Montreal to the Outaoüas, waited for me, in order to winter with me at the place where, on those voyages, it is necessary to halt, so as to spend the winter there.I arrived at his place of abode, and immediately we set out to go to the bay of the Puans; and on the way to Michillimakinak he made known to me the treacherous plan [of the Hurons]. I informed the reverend Fathers [there] of what he had told me; and they employed me to tell the Rat -- but without naming the Aniez, or the chief of the Amikoüets -- that he was the author of this plot. They sent for him, and told him that they had learned, from the lips of the Irroquois themselves, the design that the latter entertained of destroying the Outaoüa peoples. The Fathers, in order to convict him more forcibly, told him the means which had been agreed upon for the success of his scheme, and all that he had planned in order the better to deceive them; he could not deny it, and the whole plan fell through.
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It is well known that the Hurons have always sought the destruction of the tribes in the upper country, and that they have never been strongly attached to the French; but they have not dared to declare their feelings openly. When they have had war with the Irroquois, it has been only in appearance, for in reality they were at peace with the latter; and they have protested to the Irroquois that we held them as captives in the colony, and that they carried arms against the Irroquois only by compulsion, without being able to do otherwise, since they were in the midst of the French and the Outaoüas, who would have caused them annoyance and trouble if they had refused to obey.
After the campaign of Monsieur Denonville against, the Tsonontouans, deputies [from the Hurons] arrived among them to make their excuses because they had accompanied the French army. The Tsonontouans made answer that the Hurons did not come until the grass had grown tall, and when only the tops of their heads could be seen -- meaning that they had not come to warn them of their misfortune until it had happened. The Hurons told them that they must have had information of it beforehand, through an Aniez whom they had sent. It is true, moreover, that two Aniez arrived at Michillimakinak, just as the [French] voyageurs were about to depart to join the army below, in the Tsonontouan country. The commanders had confidence in the fidelity of one of the two, against the opinion of all their followers; and this man deserted us when eight leagues from the [Tsonontouan] village. Without that, we would have found the enemy at home; for when we reached the shore of the lake they began to take flight and to burn their village.
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XXV. Another piece of Huron treachery
The Hurons, seeing that Monsieur de Louvigny (who was commander-in-chief
At that time I was at the Bay, from which place I sent sixty men (as I have set down in my other memoirs), who were followed by Hurons and Outaoüas, and who went rather to warn the Irroquois than to make
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war on them; they found, nevertheless, that they were compelled to fight, as I have previously related.Since the establishment of Détroit, have not the Hurons conspired to murder the Frenchmen who garrisoned that place, commanded by Monsieur de la Motte [1704 or 1707]? and if their plots have been eluded it is only by the vigilance [of the French] in keeping on their guard.
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XXVI. Treachery of the Outaoüas toward the French
Many times, also, have the Outaoüas been known to plot against the Frenchmen who were trading with them. Have they not, to my knowledge, presented the dagger to all the tribes of the upper country, in order to incite them to become accomplices in the foul attempt that they longed to make, and to urge them on to massacre those [Frenchmen] who were trading with them? I speak as an eyewitness, for I caused their enterprise to miscarry.
It is known that they murdered the Miami chiefs who had come to confer with the French at Détroit, and whom they attacked on that occasion [1706]. When the Illinois, aided by the French, fought against the Renards, were not they [i.e., the Hurons] ready to massacre the French, if the Renards had [not] been entirely defeated [1712]? It is an indisputable fact that they slew some Irroquois who had put themselves under the protection of the fort at Katarakouy [1704]. Have not we seen the Irroquois help to burn some Sakis who had been captured by them?
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The Miamis have slain Frenchmen, the Illinois likewise, the Saulteurs the same, as also the people of the north. On their part there has been only conspiracy against us, without our having made any movement to
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avenge ourselves. What conclusions may not one draw from the result? Ought we not to conjecture that [even] if the Renards were entirely overthrown (which they are not yet) still other wars would arise; and that the assistance which these traitors obtain from the colony, in order to aid in destroying them, will conduce only to the same destruction for the French? and then they will destroy one another. For there is not a savage tribe which does not bear ill -- will to some other. The Miamis and the Illinois hate each other reciprocally; the Irroquois have malicious feelings toward the Outaoüas and the Saulteurs; and it is the same with the other tribes. There is not one of those peoples that does not consider itself justified in waging war against the others; accordingly, we can only expect successive and inevitable wars, unless we [do something to] prevent them. But I fear that we are preparing too late to prevent these wars, and that the fire is kindled so brightly that it cannot be extinguished, on account of the aid which the French continue to furnish to other tribes out of consideration for that of the Hurons, who are more treacherous and crafty than all the others; for they would no [longer] be in existence if the French had not protected them, although they have many times incurred our indignation. Such, therefore, are the matters on which I can give you information; I would enlarge somewhat further on them if [my supply of] paper had permitted it. But you can, as a result of what I have [here] set down, easily understand what are the traits of the savages. The instance of the Tsonontouans will readily convince you that it is impossible to depend on any of the tribes; and that it is much better to let them settle their quarrels among themselves than to meddle therein, unless this is to reconcile them. Such arrangements as had [already] been261
adroitly made would have instilled in their minds notions of fear and subordination; because the Renards, who are almost destroyed, would have only waited for the disobedience of any one of their enemies to join themselves to the people whom the enemy had tried to attack. Thus the Renards, timorous and defeated, would have been forced to agree to the peace, and the others would find themselves compelled to accept it.It may be objected to this that all the tribes would be ranged on the side of the English. Alas! are not they [already] thus ranged? Where are the peoples who do not allow themselves to be attracted by cheap merchandise? Do the Hurons, in whom we have most confidence, furnish many peltries to Détroit and Montréal? Do not they prefer to carry their furs to the English, and do not they give them to the Miamis? Do not the Illinoetz go among those [English] who are established in Louysianne? It is, then, a weak argument to be brought forward, when one means that the tribes would go to give themselves up to the Irroquois; since the latter are more friendly toward the Renards (who are on good terms with the Irroquois) than to any other of the peoples whom they have ruined since the peace concluded between them and the French.
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argument that has no foundation, to try to maintain that the tribes will place themselves under the rule of the English because they carry their peltries to that people -- which it would have been easy to prevent if we had showed less condescension to them and had not been so ready to comply with their humors; it is this which is the source of their arrogant notion that the French cannot get along without them, and that we could not maintain ourselves in the Colony without the assistance that they give us.I hope that you will be pleased, Monseigneur, to examine this memoir and the others which I have had the honor to place before you;
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the Colony, we began at the outset to assert our authority over the savages (although at that time it contained very few Frenchmen), and we were careful to maintain ourselves in that superiority, despite all the changes that might occur -- notwithstanding that the savages were then more numerous and more barbarous -- I mean, more brutish -- than they now are. But to-day, when they are weaker and more humanized, they try to be masters over us; and already they push their insolence so far as to flatter themselves, if I may say so, that they have a right to lay down the law for us, for they see that we tolerate them and leave them in immunity. If the French, instead of that, had made them understand as they should the obligations under which they are to us, the assistance that we have given them, and that, in a word, the continuance of their maintenance and protection is in our power, they would feel more respect, regard, and obedience toward their benefactors.XXVII. Of the insolence and vainglory of the savages, and what has given rise to it
All the savages who trade with the French are such only in name; equally with ourselves, they are bent on availing themselves of everything that they see and understand can be to their advantage. Ambition and vainglory are, as I have already stated, the supreme passions that sway them. They see the French commit, through self-interest, a thousand mean acts before their
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eyes, every day, in order to be numbered among their friends and to acquire their peltries -- not only in the Colony, but also in their own country.265
people in the world. See how we have managed them for some time past!Some of them have become so haughty that it is necessary to treat them at the present time with a sort of submissiveness. If they talk with the authorities of the country, it is in a manner so lofty and imperious that the latter would not dare, as it were, [to refuse] what the savages have to demand; and if they did not obtain it they would not fear to display their resentment. In earlier days we did not let ourselves govern [them] in this fashion; we knew how to indulge them in a proper way, and when they deserved it, whether in the colony or in their own country; we were likewise strict in punishing them when they were in fault. I have cited several examples of this sort in this memoir. But how many times I have compelled them to submit, when they have spoken evil of Monsieur the governor, and to go to him with presents, confessing their fault! When they have undertaken to plot some undertaking against the [welfare of the] state, I have obliged them to desist from it. This memoir bears witness to this in many places; and if any one undertakes to find fault with what I advance I am ready to prove its truth-making them thoroughly understand that all which I have related is entirely accurate, by the testimony of two hundred persons worthy of confidence, who have seen and known what I have accomplished in their country -- I mean, that of the savage tribes -- for the glory and the benefit of the colony.
Do we not continually see Frenchmen, before our very eyes, who were only worthless menials -- but who, after having run away to the woods, amassed wealth which they as quickly dissipated -- thrust themselves forward to relate marvelous tales to the authorities, who
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have given credence to them, and, thinking to act for the best according to the statements made to them by such men, have brought all the affairs [of the frontiers] to ruin, and have reduced them to so pitiable a condition that it will be very difficult to restore them [to their former state]? It has been proposed, as a beginning, to destroy the Renards, in order to cause everything to flourish; I have presented to Monseigneur de Vaudreuil a memoir on this subject, which has been thwarted, since it has not produced its [intended] effect. He has recognized, by the consequences, that what I set forth therein has come to pass, to the detriment of the colony. I desire that all may go well, but I fear the contrary; and I dread lest the proverb used in the world may prove true -- that is, that the end will crown the work, to the advantage of some others than of the colony. I am unwilling to write down what I foresee, for fear of [causing] trouble to some persons who bear me ill-will, and who nevertheless would in the long run admit that I had told the truth.When I had the honor of being commissioned to take charge of the management of the savages, liberty was allowed me to tell them my opinions [frankly]; but there are some jealous persons who have accused me of being too harsh toward them. But when I have talked seriously to the savages they have been seen to come to render submission, and to show their repentance for their fault.
When seven of the Outaoüa tribes took sides with the Irroquois, Monsieur de Louvigny sent me to put a stop to that [1690 or 1694]. I made them understand that they were going to give themselves up to people who would eventually destroy them; and that, if their father Onontio had not sustained them, they would be all destroyed
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by this time.When the English have tried to entice them by presents (which they have accepted) I have made them understand that they were going to become allies of perfidious people, who had corrupted part of the tribes who came in their way; and that, after they had made the men tipsy, they had sacrificed and carried away their wives and children in order to send them into distant islands, from which they never came back.
In all their enterprises for evil, have they not yielded to my opinion that they should desist therefrom? In the absence of my superiors, I have always talked with
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the savages [as] in my own right; and it is this which has given opportunity to the envious to speak evil of me; moreover, it is from this [malicious interference] that have proceeded all the untoward events that have since occurred.If I had gone up with Monsieur de Louvigny [1716, 1717], I would have flattered myself that I could induce the Renards to ask for peace, even though our allies were not inclined to it.
XXVIII. Harangue which ought to have been made to all the Outaoüa Tribes, in order to bind them to the peace with the Renards and their allies
Listen, my children," says our father Onontio, "listen," he says: "I have the grief of hearing every year the reports and accounts of massacres that are committed in your country by your destroying one another; I look in horror at the blood that has been shed, and which will yet be spilled. If I do not put an end to it, I am certain that in a short time you all will be exterminated, and that I shall no longer have any children. I love you and your families, and I desire that they [continue to] live.
"Thou, Outaoüack, art making war on the Renard, who has spared thy life, taking thy part against the Miamis when thou didst go hunting on the upper Black River;
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"Thou, Saulteur, hast in the same time saved the lives of all the people who lived at Mamekagan, when Chingouabé entreated the Miamis to go to eat his dogs. He was ready to betray and eat thee if the Renard, whom thou regardest as thine enemy, had been willing to agree to thy destruction. Nevertheless, thou hast slain him; he has only taken vengeance when thou hast constrained him to do so; but he has willingly restored to thee thy people, and thou still detainest his men."Thou, Miamis, knowest that the Renard has never waged war against thee; but he sustained and aided thee in defending thyself when thou wast routed by the Scioux.
"Thou,
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on them. He won their good-will by presents, and confirmed the alliance that thou didst contract with him; and with him thou hast never had war, any more than with the Kikapou, who has always dwelt in the same village with thee. On the contrary, the other Miamis have slain the relatives of thy people, this winter."Thou, Illinoëts, hast never had war with the Renard, or with the Kikapou; thou didst, notwithstanding, attack him when he was at Détroit. He defended himself, and you have slain each other; thou didst take thy revenge when he was defeated at Détroit, and when he returned to his own country. He captured one of thy chiefs, whom he sent back; and thou didst break the heads of his envoys; thou shouldst be content.
"Thou, Pouteoüatamis, thy tribe is half Sakis; the Sakis are in part Renards; thy cousins and thy brothers-in-law are Renards and Sakis. Pirimon and Ouenemek, who are thy chiefs, and who weep over the murders that are committed in thy families, one against another, these men are of the Sakis. I love you all," says your father Onontio, "and I desire to extinguish the fires of war, which are burning so high that, besides those people who have been [already] consumed by them from all of you, they will not fail to consume all who remain, on both sides, if I do not extinguish them.
"Thou, Huron, be content; thou hast lost thy people, but thou shouldst [not?] be avenged. Thou art too
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cruel; remember what thou hast done against me and against my children thine allies, when I have come forward for thee against all, and when I protected thee -- and if I had not shielded thee thou wouldst no longer be alive. Thou didst endeavor to betray me on a certain occasion, and I pardoned thee, in order to secure thy gratitude."Thou, Outaoüack, didst slay the Miamis at Détroit, who were under my protection; and thou didst, at the same time, assassinate some Frenchmen there and elsewhere.
"Thou, Saulteur, hast likewise slain some Frenchmen; and thou, Missisakis, hast done the same. But I have swallowed the grief that I felt over my dead, and have not chastised thee; and thou, Miamis, likewise; I have pardoned all. Indeed, far from taking my vengeance, I have aided you against the Irroquois, who was one of my faithful children, whom you have slain; but he has never made any disturbance since the latest agreement of peace, which I obliged him to make with you, and without which all of you would have been destroyed. For he was quite able to ruin you, without obtaining from me more than my willingness and consent. On the contrary, in order to maintain you I have furnished not only the assistance of my military power, but also my young men, who have been everywhere slain for your sake. I have even aided you against the Renard, who has never slain my young men.
"I ordain, my children, that you put an end to this war; and if any one disobeys me I shall declare myself against him, and for the Renard."
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consented to peace. This is why we ought not to fear reproaching them for their faults, any more than to remind them of the services that we have rendered to them; for it is characteristic of the savage not to forget the benefit that has been conferred upon him, on the occasions that have arisen.Here then, Monseigneur, are my humble ideas, which would have had their good results if I had accompanied Monsieur de Louvigny. As for the Renards, I would certainly have managed affairs with them.
The scarcity of paper does not permit me to give fuller examples of this sort of harangue, as I would have been able to if I were not destitute of paper.
nts
Notes
Abbe J. B. A. Ferland, a prominent Canadian historian, is best known by his Cours d'histoire du Canada (Quebec, i86x, 1865), a valuable work displaying much historical ability, thoroughness, and conscientious scholarship. -- ED.
The annotations made by Tailhan on Perrot's narrative arc detailed and voluminous, so much so that they occupy more space than the text itself; he carefully examined the best early authorities on the history of New France and its peoples -- the Relations of the Jesuit missionaries; the works of Champlain. La Potherie, Charlevoix, Lafitau, and others; the Lettres édifiantes -- and cited from these very fully whatever might throw light on Perrot's memoir. At that time these works were less widely known and less accessible than they are now, and historical students had reason for much gratitude to this learned and scholarly priest for placing before them the fruits of his researches. Since Tailhan's day, the multiplication and greater publicity of libraries and the increased activity of private collectors have made those valuable works more accessible to students; and, moreover, editions of Charlevoix, parts of Lettres édifiantes, and especially of the Jesuit Relations, in English translation, have placed these within reach of readers unacquainted with the French language. In this new edition and translation of Perrot, therefore, the editor has deemed it best to omit most of the long citations from those works, retaining, however, full references to the volumes and pages. In reading the Jesuit Relations (of which full sets of the original editions are even now quite rare) Tailhan used the Quebec edition; but as the various Relations are therein separately paged, his references to them extend in the present edition only to the chapter, which can be consulted even more easily in the Cleveland reissue (1896-1901), entitled The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents. The latter edition is cited in the present annotations as Jesuit Relations; the former, simply as Relation of 1650, etc. By shortening Tailhan's annotations (in which, however, all that is really valuable has been carefully retained), more space has been secured for later and more scientific information. It may be added here that in the necessary condensation of Tailhan's notes, and of those obtained from the invaluable Handbook of American Indians, the exact language of each writer has been used when possible, and is enclosed in quotation marks. -- ED.
"Bacqueville de la Potherie says (Histoire de l'Amérique septentrionale, vol. i, 292), like Perrot: ‘The Iroquois grew impatient of restraint, and . . . returned, in the following spring, to their ancient domains, which were in the vicinity of Montreal and along the river on the way up to Lake Frontenac.’ The testimony of La Potherie is not to be disdained; we know, through one of his contemporaries, that he had drawn his information from the best sources. [For this] he addressed himself, by preference, to the savage chiefs in alliance with France; to Jolliet, who discovered the Mississippi; to the Jesuit fathers; and, above all, to Nicolas Perrot, whose various memoirs he has textually inserted in his second volume. (Cf. La Potherie's Histoire, vol. iv, 268, 269.) Here, however, has not La Potherie, following our author, confounded the Iroguets, anciently dwelling on the island of Montreal, with the Iroquois, changed into Iroqoués by the pronunciation then in use of the diphthong oi, of which frequent examples are found in Perrot -- as Illinoetz for Illinois, Amicoués for Amicouas or Amiquois?" -- TAILHAN.
The memoirs of Perrot above referred to as published by La Potherie are translated, in large part, in these volumes, immediately following the present text of Perrot. As for the Iroquets, they were an Algonquian tribe, named for their chief, who aided Champlain in his expeditions against the Iroquois (1609 and 1615); they were then living between the present Kingston and Ottawa. Formerly they had lived (1500-1530) on Montréal Island, but were driven out by the Iroquois and most of them adopted into the ranks of their conquerors. For history of this tribe, and sketch of changes in tribal supremacy on the St. Lawrence, see Jesuit Relations (Cleveland, 1896-1901), vol. v, 288-290; cf. other references found in index to that work. -- ED.
"This criticism is entirely justified; it was, in fact, the Chaoüanons who, conquered by the Iroquois, took refuge in Carolina, as Perrot himself affirms a little farther on." -- TAILHAN.
The letter by Beschefer above mentioned is published in the Jesuit Relations, vol. lxii; Tailhan's citation is on pages 204-207, the paragraph relating to the superstitions of the Miamis. -- ED.
The above-mentioned animals are, respectively, Arctomys monax and A. pruinosus. -- ED.
In Perrot's text occurs the word foignes, which appears to be a copyist's error, as it is not contained in the dictionaries; the original word was probably cygnes, and it has accordingly been translated "swans." Several species of swan (Cygnus) were found at that time about the great lakes and in the Mississippi Valley.
The Relation of 1661-1662 mentions (page II) among the birds of southern United States "little paroquets, which are so numerous that we have seen some of our Iroquois return from those countries with scarfs and belts which they had made from these birds by a process of interweaving." This reminds us of the feather ornaments and mantles of the Aztecs and Hawaiians. O. T. Mason says (Handbook Amer. Indians, art. "Feather-work"): "The feathers of birds entered largely into the industries, decorations, war, and worship of the Indians . . . The prominent species in every area were used . . . The most striking uses of feathers were in connection with social customs and in symbolism . . . The downy feather was to the mind of the Indian a kind of bridge between the spirit world and ours. Creation and other myths spring out of feathers. Feather technic in its highest development belongs to South America, Central America, and Polynesia, but there is continuity in the processes from the northern part of America southward." -- ED.
"Most revelations of what was regarded by the Indians as coming from the supernatural powers were believed to be received in dreams and visions. Through them were bestowed on man magical abilities and the capacity to foresee future events, to control disease, and to become able to fill the office of priest or of leader. It was the common belief of the Indians that these dreams or visions must be sought through the observance of some rite involving more or less personal privation . . . In general the initiation of a man's personal relations to the unseen through dreams and visions took place during the fast which occurred at puberty, and the thing seen at that time became the medium of supernatural help and knowledge, and in some tribes determined his affiliations. It was his sacred object . . . Any dream of ordinary sleep in which this object appeared had meaning for him and its suggestions were heeded . . . The dreams of a man filling an important position, as the leader of a war party, were often regarded as significant, especially if he had carried with him some one of the sacred tribal objects as a medium of supernatural communication. This object was supposed to speak to him in dreams and give him directions which would insure safety and success . . . The general belief concerning dreams and visions seems to have been that the mental images seen with closed eyes were not fancies but actual glimpses of the unseen world where dwelt the generic types of all things, and where all events that were to take place in the visible world were determined and prefigured." -- ALICE C. FLETCHER, in Handbook Amer. Indians.
"Among the Iroquois the orator delivered while standing, or walking about, the discourse which preceded certain solemn repasts (Letter of Father Millet, in Relation of 1674) . . . It was, perhaps, in the tribal councils that the orator spoke while seated, doubtless through respect for his hearers (Biard's Relation, chap. viii; cf. Relation of 1646, chap. v)." --TAILHAN.
"There was a somewhat similar practice among the Hurons; see the Relation of 1636, chap. iii." -- TAILHAN.
In the Jesuit Relations are many references to adoption for the purpose of preserving the dead person's name; see index to that work, vol. lxii, 351, under heading "Resuscitation." -- ED.
"Perrot has never denied that the savages were intrepid tasters when they had nothing to put into their mouths, or when superstition, with them more powerful than gluttony, imposed upon them the obligation of a temporary abstinence; but what he affirms, and what is true, is, that on every other occasion they ate with an appetite that the heroes of Homer might envy, and placed at the service of their hosts a voracity which did not wear out an entire day spent in satisfying it. On every page of the old relations is found the equivalent of what Perrot sets forth in this passage of his memoir." Citation is made from "an anonymous and unpublished history of New France, in Latin, written about 1637," which confirms (chap. xii) Perrot's statements. See also Relation of 1634, chap. vi; id. of 1635, chap. iv; and La Potherie's Histoire, vol. ii, 184. -- TAILHAN.
The relation by Gravier here cited was published in Jesuit Relations, vol. lxiv; the reference is to page 165. -- ED.
The signification and value of sacrifice are variously conceived by different peoples, and these ideas and their progress are thus concisely summed up by Tylor, in his Primitive Culture: "The ruder conception, that the deity takes and values the offering for itself, gives place on the one hand to the idea of mere homage expressed by a gift, and on the other to the negative view that the virtue lies in the worshiper depriving himself of something prized. These ideas may be broadly distinguished as the gift-theory, the homage-theory, and the abnegation theory." It will be seen that "the gift-theory was the dominant one among Indian tribes, yet the ordeals of such a ceremony as the Sun-dance show plainly that the abnegation-theory occupied a prominent position in the thought of some tribes; nor can we deny that the homage-theory was also entertained, however difficult it may be to isolate it thoroughly from the others. In all this the differences in point of view between North American Indians and the lower classes of so-called civilized races on the subject of sacrifice are not very great. A far greater distinction is that between the view that sacrifice produces a change in the deity beneficial to the worshiper, and the view that sacrifice produces a beneficial change in the worshiper himself."
Sacrifices were most commonly offered by individuals -- the person desiring to approach the deity, the father of a family, the oldest man in the village, or the leader of a war or hunting party. "Society and tribal rites and ceremonies were oftener than not themselves considered as sacrifices, and thus furnish us with examples of sacrifices participated in by large bodies of people. Not as frequently as in the Old World, and yet occasionally (witness for instance the White Dog ceremony of the Iroquois and the human sacrifice of the Skidi Pawnee), there is a special national sacrifice consummated by chosen individuals to whom the title of ‘priest’ may very properly be applied." All superhuman beings, and all material beings, objects, and forces which were supposed to possess the least supernatural power, were the recipients of sacrifices. "In the case of the natural objects mentioned it is to be understood that it was not the object in any case which was thus approached, but the animating soul of each." Offerings were also made to personal manitos, guardian spirits, etc. "In several cases, even by Christianized Indians, sacrifices were offered to missionaries, to the crosses which they carried or set up, and to the mission churches." Tobacco was most widely used for a sacrifice; another important article for this purpose was corn; next came articles of food, adornment, clothing, and implements for hunting and fishing. Animals were sacrificed -- dogs, buffalo, bears, deer, elk, etc. -- a white one being usually preferred; also various parts of their bodies. In the list must be placed fish, birds (especially the eagle) and their feathers, beans and other valued kinds of vegetal nature; also manufactured articles, as blankets, arrows, powder and lead, knives, guns, utensils, etc.; and red paint was used in sacrifices, in various ways. In some cases the funeral ceremonies of a chief or other person of rank included the killing of servants or others, in order that their spirits might serve the dead in the land of the departed. Mutilations were practiced (as in the Sun-dance) as sacrifices to the deity. Songs, dances, feasts, and ceremonies generally, are also regarded as a sort of sacrifice, since their object is to please the deity. Offerings were usually laid on or near a sacred object; on various occasions they were thrown into the water or into fire, or on the ground, and sometimes suspended from trees or poles. "In the case of food, the idea was usually present that supernatural beings partook only of the spirit of the food and man could very properly devour its substance . . . At most sacrificial feasts the food was devoured by all alike. Only occasionally do we find that function appropriated by shamans, priests, or some special class of persons, as was so frequently the case in the Old World." "Tobacco was sometimes offered loose, but oftener in a pipe, the stem of the pipe being presented to the deity, or whiffs of smoke directed toward him, a common formula being to offer it to the four cardinal points, zenith, and nadir successively . . . Not infrequently the sacrifice bore a symbolic resemblance to the object desired by the person sacrificing."
"The White Dog feast of the Iroquois was celebrated five days after the first appearance of the new moon following the winter solstice. The harvest feast of the Southern tribes and the corn-planting sacrifice of the Quapaw were in the same way dependent upon the succession of the seasons." Other times for sacrifices were determined by periods of want, war, or disease, or by other circumstances of the people, or by custom at certain seasons. As for the objects for which sacrifices were offered, "the sum and substance of all was, as usual, to escape evils and secure benefits;" they were chiefly for food and health, then came fair weather, rain, success in war, preservation of the family, etc.
The consideration of sacrifice also touches mortuary customs, "the shades of the dead being invoked and presented with food, clothing, etc., much as in the case of higher powers. There are many cases in which supernatural beings are said to have been men originally, but a real worship of ancestors as such appears to be altogether absent, in spite of the almost divine honors which were paid dead chiefs among the Natchez." Other related subjects are incense, taboos, confession, consecration, and atonement; also charms and magic formulae. JOHN R. SWANTON, in Handbook Amer. Indians.
Amikwa (or Beaver People): a small Algonquian tribe encountered by the French on the north shore of Lake Huron, and later driven to Lakes Superior and Michigan by the attacks of the Iroquois; but in 1740 a remnant of them had taken refuge in Manitoulin Island. -- ED.
"This contradiction is offered somewhat too lightly; for among the tribes that Perrot visited, there was at least one in which the unfaithful wife was punished by death." This was the Illinois (Relation of 1670, chap. xi); and other savage peoples punished adultery even more severely than did the Miamis. "It is well, however, to add that, even among the Illinois, cutting off the nose was the penalty most commonly inflicted." -- TAILHAN.
"East of the Mississippi the clan and gentile systems were most highly developed. The rules against marriage within the clan or gens were strictly enforced. Descent of name and property was in the female line among the Iroquoian, Muskhogean, and southeastern Algonquian tribes, but in the male line among the Algonquians of the north and west. Among some tribes, such as the Creeks, female descent did not prevent the subjection of women. As a rule, however, women had clearly defined rights. Gifts took the place of purchase. Courtship was practically alike in all the Atlantic tribes of the Algonquian stock; though the young men sometimes managed the matter themselves, the parents generally arranged the match. A Delaware mother would bring some game killed by her son to the girl's relatives and receive an appropriate gift in return. If the marriage was agreed upon, presents of this kind were continued for a long time. A Delaware husband could put away his wife at pleasure, especially if she had no children, and a woman could leave her husband. The Hurons and the Iroquois had a perfect matriarchate, which limited freedom of choice. Proposals made to the girl's mother were submitted by her to the women's council, whose decision was final among the Hurons. Iroquois unions were arranged by the mothers without the consent or knowledge of the couple. Polygamy was permissible for a Huron, but forbidden to the Iroquois. Divorce was discreditable, but could easily be effected. The children went with the mother. Monogamy is thus found to be the prevalent form of marriage throughout the continent. The economic factor is everywhere potent, but an actual purchase is not common. The marriage bond is loose, and may, with few exceptions, be dissolved by the wife as well as by the husband. The children generally stay with their mother, and always do in tribes having maternal clans." -- ROBERT H. LOWIE and LIVINGSTON FARRAMD, in Handbook Amer. Indians.
"Simultaneous plural marriage was, as a fact, practiced by the greater number of the peoples of New France. It was in vogue in the valley of the St. Lawrence (Biard's Relation, chap. vi Relation of 1644, chap. viii; Perrot, p. 27; La Potherie's Histoire, vol. ii, 31 Charlevoix's Histoire, vol. iii, 283), and, in the great valley of the Mississippi among the Illinois and the Sioux, and others (Lett, edif., vol. vii, 21, 22; Relation of 1660, chap. iii)." -- TAILHAN.
"This contradiction is no more deserved than that one which is questioned in the first note to this chapter. An Illinois could not separate from his wife when he had had children by her (Lett. edif., vol. vii, 21, 22). As for children taking the side of their mother against their father who had abandoned her, I read something of the same sort in Father Lafitau's Mœurs des sauvages Amériquains, vol. i, 189, 190." -- TAILHAN.
The reader will find in the Jesuit Relations (Cleveland, 1896-1901) abundant information and curious details regarding Indian customs in courtship, marriage, and divorce (see index of that work, in art. "Indians"), -- ED.
"But here is what I read in the Relation of 1652, chap. ii: ‘Those peoples ordinarily behave, during the first two, three, or four months of their married life, as if they were brother and sister, giving as a reason for their mode of conduct that they love each other with the affection of near relatives, who feel a horror of carnal actions. This love of relationship is among the pagans greater and stronger than the love of marriage, into which it degenerates. If in those first months they come to dislike each other, they part without any disturbance, remaining as they were before.’ Cf. La Potherie (Histoire, vol. ii, 20), Lafitau (Mœurs des sauvages, vol. i, 514), and Gravier (Relation de la mission de Notre Dame)." -- TAILHAN.
On this point, see Jesuit Relations, vol. ix, 308, vol. xviii, 177, vol. xix, 69, vol. xxxvii, 153-155, vol. xl, 229. Continence was also practiced to obtain favorable dreams (vol. xvii, 203). -- ED.
"Correct, according to Charlevoix (Histoire, vol. iii, 376) and Lafitau (Mœurs des sauvages, vol. ii, 439, 440)." -- TAILHAN.
The primitive tools and implements used by the aborigines were of course early replaced by the improved articles of European manufacture. -- ED.
Adoption was "an almost universal political and social institution which originally dealt only with persons but later with families, clans or gentes, bands, and tribes. It had its beginnings far back in the history of primitive society and, after passing through many forms and losing much ceremonial garb, appears to-day in the civilized institution of naturalization. In the primitive mind the fundamental motive underlying adoption was to defeat the evil purpose of death to remove a member of a kinship group, by actually replacing in person the lost or dead member." By a fiction of law, the personality as well as the political status might be changed by adoption, as when two sisters were adopted into different clans. "From the political adoption of the Tuscarora by the Five Nations, about 1726, it is evident that tribes, families, clans, and groups of people could be adopted like persons." The person adopted received a persona] name and a kinship name (as "son" or "uncle"), and even a fictitious age might be conferred on him. In the Iroquois League, there were various grades of adoption for other peoples admitted to the confederacy, by which they Were made probationers for citizenship, which would be granted after they had received sufficient tutelage. This adoption of tribes was practiced by the Iroquois in order to recruit the great losses incurred in their many wars. -- J. N. B. HEWITT, in Handbook Amer. Indians.
"Certainly; but it is not a question of finding a logical procedure in the assertions of savages. The real question reduces itself to ascertaining whether this belief actually existed among them, and not whether it is reasonable or absurd." -- TAILHAN.
"Between the anonymous writer and Perrot, who spent forty years of his life in the midst of the savages, the reader will pronounce sentence. I only add that Charlevoix Histoire, vol. iii, 319) applies to this game the epithet ‘dangerous;’" and that La Potherie, in describing its consequences (Histoire, vol. ii, 126, 127), borrows from Perrot the very sentences to which the anonymous writer objects. -- TAILHAN.
The Indians commonly use as dice, in the bowl-game, the flattish stones of the wild plum (Prunus americana). The Virginia Indians employed for this purpose the hard, flat seeds of the persimmon (Diospyros virginiana).
-- WM. R. GERARD.
The above citations will serve to explain any obscurity which may appear in Perrot's text. It has been translated as accurately as is possible; but the present editor can claim no further illumination for its difficulties than the above-cited authorities possessed. -- ED.
This "wild oats" refers to the grain known as wild rice (Zizania aquatica), which grows in marshes and shallow streams and lakes from the Rocky Mountains to the Atlantic, and from latitude 52° to the Gulf states; it is especially abundant in Wisconsin and eastern Minnesota. Its Algonquian name is manó min, meaning "good berry;" and there are many other names -- Indian, English, and French -- extant for this well-known grain. The Menomini tribe, found on the shore of Green Bay by Nicollet in 1634, have always been known as the "Wild-rice Indians," which is simply the translation of their own name, Omanominewak -- called by the French writers Malhominis, Maloumines, etc. The wild rice is claimed to be even more nutritious than any of our cereal grains, including even maize. The only full and thorough account of it yet published is A. E. Jenks's "Wild Rice Gatherers of the Upper Lakes," in 19th Report of the Bureau of Amer. Ethnology, 1011-1160: therein are given the history, description, habitat, and uses of this grain; the Indian tribes using it; methods of cultivating, harvesting, and cooking it; etc. The author says (p. 1019) of this study: "It has thrown light upon the almost constant warfare between the Dakota and Ojibwa Indians for two hundred and fifty years. It has shed light also upon the fur trade in a territory unexcelled in the richness of its furs, yet almost inaccessible had it not been for the wild rice which furnished such nourishing and wholesome support to the traders and hunters." Sec also the excellent paper of Gardner P. Stickney, "Indian Use of Wild Rice," in Amer. Anthropologist, vol. ix, 115-121. It appears that some efforts have been made to introduce wild rice into the market, as a cereal for American consumption; but these were unsuccessful, on account of the general (and somewhat foolish) prejudice against grains lacking in whiteness -- the wild rice being green or almost black in color. -- ED.
"It is really to the hunters, not to the beavers, that the resonance of the tool-handle [struck] against the ice indicates the cavities in which the animals have gone to seek refuge; moreover, I am much inclined to believe that the copyist has by mistake substituted here the word castors for chasseurs which was found in the original." -- TAILHAN.
In the Relation of 1634 (chap. ix) is "a more complete and especially a more intelligible description of the beaver-hunt;" cf. La Potherie, Histoire, vol. i, 134 -- TAILHAN.
"The Sauteurs of to-day apply to themselves no other name than that of Odgiboweke (Otjibwek, Odjibewais), from which the English have called them Chippewais. These peoples of AIgonquin stock have almost entirely abandoned their ancient dwelling at Saut-Sainte Marie. They form the most numerous part of the savage population dispersed through the vast British possessions of the Northwest, and dwell not far from the line that separates those possessions from the American territory. Their lives are spent in waging war against the Sioux, their neighbors on the south, in hunting the bison, and most of all in exploiting the liberality of the Bois-Brulés of the Red River (who are Canadian-Sauteur mixed-bloods). The tribe of Sauteurs, wrote in 1851 a missionary to those regions (Rapport sur les missions du diocÄse de Québec, no. 9, II; Québec), ‘is in general the most slothful and mendicant people whom I know. They are the scourge of the mixed-bloods, who are industrious in hunting, and courageous in enduring its fatigues; so the Sauteurs beset them, in order to live almost exclusively at their expense.’" -- TAILHAN.
Several clumps of Nelumbo lately grew (and may be still present) in Rice Lake and Mud Lake, two small isolated lakes west of Lake Koshkonong, Wis. They were there when the earliest settlers of that locality arrived, and are supposed to have been introduced by Indians, although no one knows when or by what tribe; and botanical works state that the plant was introduced in that region by Indians, although no actual proof of this is adduced. --ARLOW B. STOUT, Univ. of Wisconsin.
"‘The Pokékoretch of Perrot is without any doubt the Nelumbium luteum, an aquatic plant with a cylindrical and fleshy root; its flower measures from 6 to 20 pouces [the pouce = 1 1/8 inches], in diameter, and floats on the surface of the water. Both the roots and the seeds are eaten; the latter are of the size of a hazelnut, and have the taste of the chestnut; they are much sought by the savages.’ I owe this note and the two following to the courtesy of Monsieur [Ovide] Brunet, professor of botany in Laval University, Québec. This plant may be one described by Father Marquette in his Récit des voyages, section vii." -- TAILHAN.
There is no true potato native in Wisconsin; but Solanum jamesii is found west of the Rockies. The plant alluded to is probably Apios tuberosa. -- A. B. STOUT.
"The potato [pomme de terre] which is here mentioned is no other than the Psoralea esculenta, a plant of the leguminous family, which abounds in the elevated plains of the Missouri, and on the hills in the vicinity of Saint Louis. The Canadian voyageurs called it ‘prairie apple’ or ‘turnip’ [pomme ou navet de prairie]. The savages always boil it before eating it, although this root has not a disagreeable taste even when raw." -- BRUNET (cited by Tailhan).
"The data (too slight) which end the two preceding paragraphs, on the specific characteristics of the ‘onion’ of Perrot incline me to believe that he refers to a species of Allium, probably A. canadense. The Cherokees, who are neighbors of the Illinois, very willingly use it as food." -- BRUNET (cited by Tailhan).
This was probably the common wild garlic (AIlium canadense), Plants of the genus Allium found but little favor with the Indians as articles of food. -- WM. R. GERARD.
Mesles was the old French name for the fruit of the medlar, a tree not found in this country. Perhaps the fruit here mentioned by Perrot was the persimmon, which Capt. John Smith likened to a medlar. The nut mentioned by Perrot was possibly that of Carya porcina (the "pig-nut"), which attains a length of two inches; it is oily, and sweet at the first taste. The "bitter-nut" (C. amara; name applied also to C. cordiformis) is barely an inch long. -- WM. R. GERARD.
In the Chicago Record-Herald for Jan. 17, 1909, is an interesting account by William E. Curtis of the present numbers, habitat, and condition of the few buffalo yet remaining in North America, compiled from data obtained from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the American Bison Society -- an association organized at New York in December, 1905, to take measures to secure the preservation of the buffalo; its president is William T. Hornaday, superintendent of the zoological gardens in Central Park of that city. This officer has compiled a census of the American buffaloes known to exist on Jan. 1, 1908, which shows their numbers as follows: In Canada 476, in the United States 1,116, in Europe 130, all in captivity; and of wild animals 25 in the United States and 300 in Canada -- a total of 2,047 pure-blooded bison. Besides these, there are a considerable number of "cattaloes," the product of a cross between the bison and the domestic breed of cattle -- in the United States 260, in Canada 57, in Europe 28. As experience shows that the bison does not breed well in captivity, it has been thought best to provide for them a permanent open range, and a tract of land for this purpose was selected by the American Bison Society in Missoula County, Montana. -- ED.
Pani is but a variant of Pawnee, the name of a confederacy belonging to the Caddoan family, which migrated slowly toward the northeast, the Pawnee tribes finally establishing themselves "in the valley of Platte River, Nebraska, which territory, their traditions say, was acquired by conquest." In the nineteenth century, "the trail to the southwest, and later that across the continent, ran partly through Pawnee land, and the increasing travel and the settlement of the country brought about many changes. Through all the vicissitudes of the nineteenth century the Pawnee never made war against the United States," but often under severe provocation waited for the government to redress their wrongs, and their men served as scouts in the United States army during the Indian hostilities. By various treaties (1833-1876) they ceded their lands in Nebraska to the government; and in 1876 they "removed to Oklahoma, where they now live. In 1892 they took their lands in severalty and became citizens of the United States." Their numbers have steadily diminished since 1860, and in 1906 there were but 649 survivors. The name Pawnee "is probably derived from pariki, ‘a horn,’ a term used to designate the peculiar manner of dressing the scalp-lock, by which the hair was stiffened with paint and fat, and made to stand erect and look like a horn." The name was also applied to Indian slaves in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, perhaps because the Pawnees at first furnished most of these slaves. -- ALICE C. FLETCHER, in Handbook Amer. Indians.
"Few practices were so universal among the Indians as the sweat-bath, probably known to every tribe north of Mexico, although along the northwest coast south of the Eskimo territory it seems to have been superseded by bathing in the sea. The sweat-lodge is to this day common in most Indian villages and camps. The type of the ordinary sweat-house seems to have been everywhere the same. Willow rods or other pliant stems were stuck into the ground and bent and fastened with withes into a hemispherical or oblong framework, which usually was large enough to accommodate several persons. A hole conveniently hear the door was dug, into which stones, usually heated outside, were dropped by means of forked sticks. These were sprinkled with water to furnish steam. A temporary covering of blankets or skins made the inclosure tight. This was the sweat-house in its simplest form . . . In no tribe was the sweat-lodge made except according to prescribed rules. In permanent villages a more roomy and substantial house was made . . . Among the Indian tribes methods of sweating seem to have been everywhere very similar. After a half-hour or more spent in the steaming air of the sweat-house, the bather plunged into the cold water of a stream, when one was near, and thus the function ended."
"There seem to have been three distinct purposes for which sweating was practiced. First, it was a purely religious rite or ceremony for the purpose of purifying the body and propitiating spirits. A sweat-bath was always undergone by warriors preparing for war, among many tribes, by boys at the puberty age; and, perhaps generally, before any serious or hazardous undertaking. Such ceremonial baths were almost always attended by scarification or the mutilation of some part of the body . . . No doubt the offering of prayers in the sweat-house for success in various enterprises was a general custom. The religious motive probably gave rise to the practice, and it was by far the most important in the estimation of the Indian. Second, sweating was important in medical practice for the cure of disease. The underlying idea was doubtless analogous to its religious and ceremonial use, since it was intended to influence disease spirits, and was usually prescribed by the shaman, who sang outside and invoked the spirits while the patient was in the sweat-house . . . Third, it was often purely social and hygienic. A number of individuals entered the sweat-house together, apparently actuated only by social instinct and appreciation of the luxury of a steam bath." Among some tribes this was "an almost daily custom, frequently having no other purpose than to give pleasure. It is probable that this practice is modern and that the sweat-bath has lost something of its primitive importance and sacredness." -- H. W. HENSHAW, in Handbook Amer. Indians.
"Poisoners taken in the act, or those who were suspected of having by their sorceries caused the death of any one, were killed without any form of trial (Relation of 1635). As for other murderers, they were usually under obligation only to pay the price of blood to the relatives of the victim; and yet it was not they, but their village or their tribe, which must furnish this amount. Hardly ever was this price refused." See Relation of 1636, chap. vi; also that of 1648, chap. xvii; in the latter, Ragueneau says, "In one word, it is the crime that is punished." --TAILHAN.
It is said of the Outaouais that they always "carry a mirror in the hand, and very often gaze at themselves to admire their grotesque ornaments" (Annales de la propagation de la Foi, vol. iv, 543). "In order to witness similar ridiculous performances, it is not absolutely necessary to go so far as among the savages." -- TAILHAN.
"It is evident from the preceding note that the valor of the savage is sometimes accompanied by a daring which borders on temerity; farther on in Perrot's own account may be seen instances of this (chap. xvi);" see also Relation of 1670, chap. vi. -- TAILHAN.
"I would be quite inclined to think that this time the criticism is correct." -- TAILHAN.
"We see, however, even here (page 102), the Outaouais violating, for the sake of wretched lucre, the most sacred laws of hospitality, by delivering to the Hurons a Sioux chief who was united to their own chief by an alliance the most intimate that can exist between two Indians of different tribes. It would seem to me almost certain that Perrot, in drawing in his memoirs this portrait (certainly not a nattering one) of savages in general had especially in view the great family of the Illinois. In order to be convinced of this, one has only to compare with the text of our author what Father Marest wrote of this same people at the same period (Lett. édif; vol. vi, 322) . . . In short, it is evident that, generally speaking, the savages are neither brutes nor heroes, nor altogether men, but great children -- who most often allow themselves to be carried away by the first impression, good or bad, when self-interest does not decide them." -- TAILHAN.
"In the detailed narration of these events which we read farther on, Perrot has restored the order of the facts, here by oversight confused." -- TAILHAN.
See description of the Bay of Puans (Baie Verte, or Green Bay) and its apparent tides, in Marquette's Recit des voyages (chap. i), and an account of Father Andre's observations thereon in Relation of 1676. "Some recent observations have confirmed the truth of all that precedes. In fact, see what I find in the Correspondant of October, 1862 (vol. lvii of the collection, p. 257, note 2): ‘Mr. Graham has just verified the fact of lunar tides in Lake Michigan, in America.’" -- TAILHAN.
In 1849 Increase A. Lapham made observations which indicated regular tides in Lake Michigan, apparently the first scientific discovery of this phenomenon. (See G. G. Meade's Report of Survey of Northern Lakes, 1861, pp. 313, 361.) This matter again received attention in 1871, observations being made at Milwaukee which showed semi-diurnal tides at that point -- solar of 4/100 and lunar of 8/100 of a foot. At the same time was investigated the phenomenon of irregular oscillations (or seiches) in the surface-level; these appeared to be caused by "oscillations of the barometer, either local or general, and by the accompanying winds, periodicity arising in some cases by reflection from an opposite shore." (See detailed account by C. B. Comstock in id; 1872, pp. 7-16). -- ED.
"The Illinois [a name with many variants; signifying "the men"] were still, at this epoch, one of the most powerful peoples in New France. Their sixty villages contained twenty thousand warriors, and from one hundred to one hundred and twenty thousand inhabitants -- not including the Miamis, who could furnish a quota of eight thousand warriors (Relation of 1658, chap. v; id. of 1660, chap. iii). But from 1667 all was quite changed; those numerous and flourishing villages, dispeopled by war, had been reduced at first to ten, then to two (Relation of 1667, chap. xi; id. of 1670, chap. xi) -- or to eight, according to another Relation (that of 1671, third part) -- which counted no more than eight or nine thousand inhabitants (Relation of 1670, ut supra). They spoke a dialect of the Algonquin language, very different from the mother-tongue -- but not so much so that the Illinois and the Algonquins could not, with a little practice, understand each other (Relation of 1667, chap. xi; Voyage of Father Marquette). This great and powerful nation was subdivided into a certain number of tribes; here are the names of some among them:" the Kikabous, or Kikapous; the Kaskaskias; the Kaokia; the Tamarois, or Tamarohas; the Kouivakouintanouas; the Negaouichiriniouek (the Negaouich Illinois?), neighbors of the Poutéouatamis; the Peorias; the Moüingoüena; the Mitchigamias, who of all the Illinois were the most distant toward the south; the Kitchigamich, or Ketchegamins, "who spoke the same language as the Kikapou Illinois, and therefore with some probability can be regarded as belonging to the same stock;" the Maskoutens, or Fire People, classed among the Illinois for the same reason; the Miamis, or Oumiamis (the Algonquin prefix ou being equivalent to our article), composed of several distinct peoples. See various references to these peoples and tribes in the Jesuit Relations; also in Charlevoix's Histoire, vol. ii, 484, and vol. iii, 188, 392; La Potherie's Histoire, vol. ii, 261; and Annales de la propagation de la Foi, vol. x, 137, 138. "The Illinois extended their raids and their hunting over an immense territory, of which the present state of Illinois represents only a part;" it extended from the Fox River of Wisconsin and Lake Michigan to the Miami and the Ohio Rivers, and westward to the Mississippi, which they occupied from the thirty-third to the fortieth parallel (Marquette). "But these limits were never closely drawn; they varied, to the east and especially the west, at the dictation of events (see Relation of 1671, third part)." It was the Sioux (or Nadouessi) "whose continual hostilities seem to have forced the Illinois to their first migration toward Lake Michigan (see Relation of 1667, chap. xi)."
The war between the Iroquois and the Illinois (1656-1667) brought on the ruin of the latter people, and those who escaped took refuge beyond the Mississippi. Later (1666) the peace imposed on the Iroquois by the power of France reopened to the Illinois the doors of their own country; but many of them did not profit by the opportunity which was offered to them, or did so quite late. In 1674 there were, as yet, on the banks of the river of the Illinois, only the single tribe of Kaskaskias; they numbered seventy-four lodges and nearly three thousand souls (Marquette, Voyages). Seven other tribes rejoined the first one in 1676, and formed with it a village of three hundred and fifty lodges, which contained at least eleven thousand inhabitants (ibid.); for among the Illinois four or five fires were combined in each lodge, and each fire was always for two families (Lett. édif., vol. vi, 175). Toward 1693 or 1694 the Illinois people were divided among eleven villages, of which one alone contained three hundred cabins or twelve hundred fires (ibid.); but from 1712 these villages were reduced to three, situated at immense distances from one another, in a territory of two thousand square leagues (id., 325, 328). To-day one would seek in vain for a single Illinois savage in the greater part of those vast regions. By a cleverly combined mingling of violence and fraud the United States has taken possession of that territory, and brutally expelled from it its ancient owners (Letter of Father Thebaud, in Annales de la propagation de la Foi, vol. xvi, 450). Here again the Anglo-Americans have done what, according to the testimony of the missionaries, they do everywhere else; after having demoralized the savage, and deprived him of his possessions, they have driven him from his native land as if he were a wild beast (Missions du diocese de Quebec, no. xii, 70, iS59). I have previously cited the somewhat unfavorable judgment pronounced over our savages by one of their most zealous missionaries [Father Marest; see reference in note 115]; it is therefore my duty, in strict justice, to acknowledge here that their first apostles paint them in more flattering colors" (see mention of the traits of the Illinois in Relation of 1667, chap. xii; id. of 1671, chap. iv; Marquette's Voyages). In attempting to reconcile these varying opinions, we must "take into account the demoralization produced among these Indians, in half a century, by their relations with the Europeans and by the trade in brandy; and, in the lavish praises of the Illinois by Fathers Allouez and Marquette, must make allowance for the illusions of that charity which believeth all things, hopeth all things, and thinketh no evil, until the last extremity. One finds, nevertheless, in the relation of the second of these missionaries an indication, unfortunately too clear, of the immorality with which our Illinois were later reproached. To be convinced of this, it is sufficient to compare the ‘mystery’ described by Father Marquette (Voyages) with what is related of an identical custom, in vogue among other savage peoples, by many historians, both Spanish and French . . . But these moral infirmities of the Illinois, even as great ones as are supposed, ought not to make us Frenchmen forget the invariable fidelity of these savages to our country. Entering their hearts at the same time as did the Catholic faith, this devotion to France never once deviated, from the end of the seventeenth century to the treaty of Paris (1763), which handed over our North American colonies to England. When our cause was hopelessly lost, and when, in execution of this shameful treaty, the English commissary presented himself (1765) to take possession of Fort Chartres and the country of the Illinois, those Indians could not resign themselves to this peace and this change [of rulers]. The chief of the Kaskaskias, speaking in his own name, and in that of the Missourites and the Osages, his
allies, declared to the French commandant that in all their tribes there was not one man who willingly submitted to it." (See his speech in Bancroft's History of the United States, vol. iv, chap. xviii.) "Indeed, it was these faithful and devoted allies who, two years before, had sorrowfully repeated to the commandant of Fort Chartres, ‘Father, do not abandon thy children; not one Englishman will penetrate as far as this while the red man lives . . . Our hearts are with the French; we detest the English, and we will kill them all’ (id., chap. vii). Would not one say that a secret presentiment made them recognize in these newcomers the approaching authors of their final and irreparable ruin?" -- TAILHAN.
Axes of stone were in general use by the tribes of North America, save along the Pacific coast, where specimens are seldom found. They varied from thirty pounds to one ounce in weight, the majority ranging from one to six pounds; they were usually fastened to handles by withes and cords, which were kept in place by grooves or notches cut in the stone. These implements were quickly superseded by the iron axes introduced and furnished to the Indians by the Europeans. -- W. H. HOLMES and GERARD FOWKE, in Handbook Amer. Indians.
"The Sioux tilled the soil after the manner of the Hurons; but they cultivated hardly anything besides tobacco and a little maize (Relation of 1642, chap. xii) . . . In order that each man might gather his harvest in peace, without encroaching on any other, the Sioux divided among themselves the marshes and the lakes in which the wild oats grew (Relation of 1671, chap. iv). As their country was poorly supplied with trees, neither they nor the Poualaks covered their lodges with sheets of bark, as did the savages of the Saint Lawrence; but they used for this elk-skins very well dressed, and so skilfully sewed together that no cold penetrated through them. Some of them, more industrious, built for themselves ‘houses of sticky earth [terre grasse], very much as the swallows build their nests.’ They burned mineral coal (Relation of 1660, chap. iii; id. of 1667, chap. xii)." Polygamy was in great honor among them, each Sioux having seven or eight wives (Relation of 1660, chap. iii). Hardly any other worship was known to them than that of the calumet (Relation of 1670, chap. xi). In their battles they used almost exclusively the bow and arrows, and that with so much skill and rapidity that in a moment the air was full of their darts -- ‘especially when, after the manner of the Parthians, they turn about while fleeing; for it is then that they shoot their arrows so quickly that they are to be feared no less in their flight than in their attack’(Relation of 1671, chap. iv). Finally, their language differs in every way from that of the Hurons and that of the Algonquins (id. of 1670 and 1671, ut supra). All that has just been said is true of the Poualaks as well as of the Nadoüessioux or sedentary Sioux. Between these different divisions of the one people there never existed more than two points of unlikeness, and those purely accidental: one, that the Nadoüessioux lived in a territory of which the limits were nearly fixed (Perrot, 88); the other, that they had some knowledge of navigation, to which the Poualaks and the rest of the Siouan tribes were strangers." See Father Marest's account in 1712 (Lett. édif.; vol. vi, 372).
"Nothing is more difficult than to fix even approximately the figures of the Siouan population in the seventeenth century; all that can be said is, that it must have risen to a very high number. The Relations, indeed, assign to the Nadoüessioux forty villages, to the Poualaks at least thirty, and to the Assinipoualaks thirty (Relation of 1656, chap. xiv; id. of 1658, chap. v; id. of 1660, chap. iii; id. of 1671, third part) -- without mentioning the Ayoes, who very probably belonged to the Siouan people . . . That admitted, it would be necessary, as a very natural result, to include in the reckoning the Ouinipegous or Puans [i.e., the Winnebagoes], a people who were formerly very numerous (Relation of 1667, chap. x; id. of 1640, chap. x), but, later, almost entirely exterminated by the Illinois (Relation of 1670, chap. xii); and they spoke the same language as did the Ayoës or Aiouas (Relation of 1676). Even as concerns the eastern Sioux, or Nadoüessioux, the figures given by the Relations may be regarded as much below the real numbers . . . In 1829 a missionary computed at ten thousand the number of men able to bear arms among the Sioux residing in the vicinity of Fort Saint Peter on the upper Mississippi; and at twenty-five or thirty thousand the number of women and children. This latter figure is probably Inadequate; it is thirty or forty thousand that he must have meant (Annales de la propagation de la Foi, vol. iv, 536). Another missionary allows to the Sioux only eight thousand souls in all (id., vol. viii, 311, 312); and a third (id; vol. xxiv, 423), three thousand lodges and thirty thousand souls." -- TAILHAN.
The houses of earth mentioned in the Relation of 1660 probably refer to the earth lodges constructed by the Omaha, Osage, Pawnee, and other tribes; see description and illustrations of these in Handbook Amer. Indians, art. "Earth lodge" and "Habitations." In the northwest, and especially in the Dakotas, there are extensive beds of lignite, of good quality; the settlers obtain much fuel from these in some localities, where it can be easily dug from the ground, the strata often outcropping above the surface. -- ED.
Its location was at the upper end of Lake Pepin, opposite Red Wing, Minn. Charlevoix says (ut supra): "The French of Canada have often made it the center of their trade in those western regions." -- ED.
"Immediately in touch with the skin-boat countries all around the Arctic, from Labrador to Kodiak in Alaska and southward to the line of the white birch, eastward of the Rocky Mountains, and including the country of the great lakes, existed the birch-bark canoe. With framework of light spruce wood, the covering or sheathing of bits of tough bark sewed together and made watertight by means of melted pitch, these boats are interesting subjects of study, as the exigencies of travel and portage, the quality of the material, and traditional ideas produce different forms in different areas . . . From the northern boundary of the United States (at least from the streams emptying into the St. Lawrence), southward along the Atlantic slope, dugout canoes, or pirogues, were the instruments of navigation. On the Missouri River and elsewhere a small tub-shaped craft of willow frame covered with rawhide, with no division of bow or stern, locally known as the bull-boat, was used by Sioux, Mandan, Arikara, and Hidatsa women for carrying their goods down or across the rivers. It was so light that when one was emptied a woman could take it on her back and make her way across the land." -- OTIS T. MASON, in Handbook Amer. Indians.
The name Missouri is generally understood to mean "great muddy," referring to the turbid waters of the river Missouri; but an interesting statement is made by Thomas Forsyth on this point, among some scattered memoranda in the book containing his "Memoir on the Sac and Fox Indians" (q.v., post, vol. 11). He says: "Missouri is a corruption of the Indian word Miss-sou-ly i.e., Canoe, and that nation of Indians were called by other Indians (particularly the Ninne-ways [Illinois] Indians who resided east of the Mississippi) Miss-sou-li-au, that is ‘Canoe men,’ as they done all their travelling in canoes." -- ED.
Calumet (a Norman-French word, originally derived from Low Lat. calamellus, dimin. of calamus, "reed"): "Either one of two highly symbolic shafts of reed or wood, about two inches broad, one-fourth inch thick, and eighteen inches to four feet long -- the one representing the male, the other the female shaft, usually perforated for a pathway for the breath or spirit, painted with diverse symbolic colors and adorned with various symbolic objects, and which may or may not have a pipe bowl to contain tobacco for making a sacred offering of its benevolent smoke to the gods. In modem usage the term usually includes the pipe. Its coloring and degree of adornment varied somewhat from tribe to tribe, and were largely governed by the occasion for which the calumet was used. From the meager descriptions of the calumet and its uses it would seem that it has a ceremonially symbolic history independent of that of the pipe; and that when the pipe became an altar, by its employment for burning sacrificial tobacco to the gods, convenience and convention united the already highly symbolic calumet shafts and the sacrificial tobacco altar, the pipe-bowl; hence it became one of the most profoundly sacred objects known to the Indians of northern America . . . The calumet was employed by ambassadors and travelers as a passport; it was used in ceremonies designed to conciliate foreign and hostile nations and to conclude lasting peace to ratify the alliance of friendly tribes; to secure favorable weather for journeys; to bring needed rain; and to attest contracts and treaties which could not be violated without incurring the wrath of the gods. The use of the calumet was inculcated by religious precept and example. A chant and a dance have become known as the chant and the dance of the calumet; together they were employed as an invocation to one or more of the gods . . . The dance and the chant were rather in honor of the calumet than with the calumet . . . J. O. Dorsey asserts that the Omaha and cognate names for this dance and chant signify ‘to make sacred kinship,’ but not ‘to dance.’ This is the key to the esoteric significance of the use of the calumet. The one for whom the dance for the calumet was performed became thereby the adopted son of the performer . . . From Dorsey's account of the Omaha calumets it is evident that they are together the most highly organized emblems known to religious observances anywhere; and it is further in evidence that the pipe is an accessory rather than the dominant or chief object in this highly complex synthetic symbol of the source, reproduction and conservation of life . . . By smoking together in the calumet the contracting parties intend to invoke the sun and the other gods as witnesses to the mutual obligations assumed by the parties, and as a guaranty the one to the other that they shall be fulfilled. This is accomplished by blowing the smoke toward the sky, the four world-quarters, and the earth, with a suitable invocation . . . There were calumets for commerce and trade and for other social and political purposes, but the most important were those designed for war and those for peace and brotherhood . . . The use of the calumet, sometimes called ‘peace pipe’ and ‘war pipe,’ was widespread in the Mississippi Valley generally," from the Chippewa and Cheyenne in the north to the Choctaw and Natchez in the south; "in the Ohio and St. Lawrence Valleys and southward its use is not so definitely shown." -- J. N. B. HEWITT, in Handbook Amer. Indians.
A document written (1744) by the Jesuit missionary Jacques Eustache le Sueur states that the calumet dance was introduced in 1720 by emissaries from the Foxes among his Abenaki converts on the St. Lawrence, in order to seduce the latter from their French alliance; see Wis. Hist. Colls., vol. xvii, 194-200 -- ED.
The above conjecture and emendation by Tailhan are entirely correct. Charles le Moyne (who came to Canada about 1641) was captured by the Iroquois in 1665, and escaped death as here related. For his public services he was ennobled (1668) by Louis XIV. Among his children were Pierre, sieur d'Iberville, and Jean Baptiste, sieur de Bienville, famous for the exploration and first colonization of the present Louisiana and Mississippi. -- ED.
Monsieur de Tracy's cousin is called De Lérole in the "Journal des Jésuites." Perrot was at that time (1665, 1666) trading in Wisconsin, and, forty-two years after these events, he gives in this chapter of his memoir a brief recital of them, from memory; we should therefore not be surprised that he has fallen into some errors as to dates. -- TAILHAN (additional note, p. 341).
See Le Jeune's description of the most primitive type of Montagnais sledge (of the toboggan type), in Jesuit Relations, vol. vii, 109. From the Indians the sled was adopted, with variations and modifications, by the early settlers of Canada, who called this ‘conveyance train’, it is still in use in many parts of the Dominion. See Warburton Pike's description of it in his Barren Ground of Northern Canada (London, 1892), p. 90: "We used the ordinary traveling sleighs of the North: two smooth pieces of birch, some seven feet in length, with the front ends curled completely over and joined together with cross slats secured with babiche [strips of moose-hide] into a total width of sixteen inches." -- ED.
Claude Dablon (born in 1618 or 1619) entered the order at the age of twenty, and came to Canada in 1655. For two years he labored in the Iroquois mission, then spent a year among the Cree about Hudson Bay, and some six years in the settlements on the St. Lawrence; in 1668 he went with Marquette to the Algonkin tribes about Lake Superior. From 1671 he held responsible positions in his order, which called for his residence at Quebec -- where he died in 1697.
Claude Jean Allouez (born in 1622) became a Jesuit when seventeen years old, and joined the Canada mission in 1658. After seven years' labor in the St. Lawrence settlements, he went among the Ottawas of Lake Superior; and spent the rest of his life among the northwestern tribes. He died in August, 1689, while engaged in these missionary labors. The official announcement of his death credited him with having instructed more than 100,000 savages, over 10,000 of whom he baptized.
Jacques Marquette, who came to Canada (1666) at the age of twenty-nine, is especially notable for his voyage of exploration with Louis Joliet (1673-1674), in which they discovered the Mississippi River and followed its course as far as the Arkansas. Previously to this, Marquette had labored among the Ottawas at Chequamegon and the Hurons at Mackinac; and in October, 1674, he went to found a mission among the Kaskaskias of Illinois. He was forced by illness to abandon this work, and died (May 18, 1675) while on his way back to Mackinac. Wisconsin is represented in the Capitol at Washington, D.C., by a statue of Marquette. In the Jesuit Relations (vol. lxi, 400-403) may be found an illustration of a recently-discovered portrait which is thought to be that of the missionary-explorer; also (vol. lix) his journal and letters. -- ED.
The name Andastes included several tribes located south of the Iroquois Five Nations, in what is now Pennsylvania; they were akin to the Iroquois by race and language. The Dutch colonists of New York called these tribes Minquas; and the English, Susquehannocks or Conestogas. They were at war with the Iroquois during some seventy-five years, but were finally conquered and incorporated among their victors (about 1675). Regarding the Chaouanons, or Shawnees, see note 19 -- ED.
"‘These coureurs de bois are always young men in the prime of life; for advanced years cannot endure the fatigues of this occupation. Some of them are of good family, and others are merely habitants, or the sons of habitants; and still others have no vocation, and are called volunteers; but the desire for gain is common to all these men. Some carry their own merchandise among the savages; others borrow the goods from the merchants. Some of them carry on this trade in behalf of private persons who give them wages; others have an interest, and take risks, with the merchants. As all Canada is only one vast forest, without any roads, they could not travel by land; they make their voyages on the rivers and the lakes, in canoes which ordinarily contain each three men. These canoes are made of sheets of birchbark, smoothly stretched over very light and slender ribs of cedar wood; their structure closely resembles that of the Venetian gondolas. They are divided into six, seven, or eight sections by light wooden bars, which strengthen and hold together the two sides of the canoe . . . As an entire canoe cannot be made with a single sheet of bark, the pieces which compose it are sewed together with the roots of the sprucetree, which are more flexible and white than the osier; and these seams are coated with a gum which the savages obtain from the spruce . . . The savages, and especially their women, excel in the art of making these canoes, but few Frenchmen succeed in it . . . The coureurs de bois themselves propel their canoes, with small paddles of hard wood, very light and smooth; the man at the rear of the canoe guides it, which is the part of their calling that requires skill. The two other men paddle ahead . . . A canoe properly man aged can make more than fifteen leagues a day in still water; it goes farther if descending the current of a river, but a less distance when it ascends against the current . . . When they meet rapids or waterfalls which cannot be passed with the canoe, they go ashore, and unload the bales . . . these, as well as the canoe, are carried on their backs and shoulders . . . until they have passed the fall or rapids, and find the river suitable for again embarking on it; and this is called "making portages." . . When there is a favorable wind, this is a great help to the canoeman, who does not neglect to hoist a sail (with which each canoe is provided for use on such occasions), and to pitch his tent on shore, where he lands every evening in order to eat and sleep; that is called "cabining" [cabaner]. In such a canoe these three men embark, at Quebec or Montreal, to go 300, 400, and even 500 leagues from the colony, to procure beaver-skins among savages whom very often they have never seen. All their provisions consist of a small quantity of biscuit, with pease, Indian corn, and some kegs of brandy; and they are soon reduced to obtaining their food only from the game and fish that they find on their way. . . It often happens that the hunting and fishing are not successful, and they are reduced to very punctual fasting, and have nothing to eat save a kind of moss . . . which they call tripe de roche ["rock tripe"]. When they are returning from their voyages, or are going from one tribe to another, and have nothing to eat, they have recourse to their Indian moccasins and to the pelts which they have procured in trade, with which they make a paste for their food . . . As not much time is necessary for carrying on this traffic, the life of the coureurs de bois is a perpetual idleness, which leads them into all kinds of debauchery. They sleep, they smoke, they drink brandy at whatever cost; and often they seduce the wives and the daughters of the savages . . . Gambling, drunkenness, and women often consume both the capital and the profits of their voyages. They live in entire independence; they do not have to render account to any one for their actions; they recognize neither superior nor judge, neither laws nor police, nor any subordination.’ " -- TAILHAN.
About this time the court revoked the congés; these were a score of permissions which his Majesty had granted to the families of the poorer gentlemen to go trading among the Outaouaks, and which the governor-general distributed to the persons whom he thought most in need of them. A congé was, then, a permission for one year to take into the Outaouak country a canoe with eight men, loaded with merchandise. Those who did not care to go up thither would sell their congés for a sum varying from eight to twelve hundred francs. The buyer would choose three voyageurs, to whom he gave a thousand écus' worth of goods, which he rated high; these goods would produce about twelve thousand francs' profit. The owner of the congé had the half of this profit, besides his principal; and the voyageurs shared the rest. Those people usually resorted to Michilimakinak, or else went among those nations who, they believed, had most peltries. So many abuses crept in with all these favors from the Prince that persons who were entitled to but one year extended that term, and others went thither as they would. As a result, beaver-pelts became so abundant that the Farmers of the West [i.e., the Company of the West Indies] could with difficulty find sale for them in France, or a market in foreign countries. On the other hand. Monsieur de la Salle, seeing his projects thwarted by the disorderly commerce which some unauthorized Frenchmen were coming into those quarters to carry on, ordered his men to plunder them; and, at an assemblage of the savages convened by him, he begged them not to trade with any one who was not provided with one of the commissions issued by him. He took this action because the trade which he carried on was really the means of maintaining those peoples, and because he could not succeed in his discoveries if he did not attach them to himself. He took all necessary precautions to prevent the abuses which might be occasioned by the orders which he had given; but they were nevertheless certain to occur; for the savages, extending their range up to the places where trade was free, plundered all, indifferently, whom they found roving in those quarters. -- LA POTHERIE (Histoire, tome ii, 142, 143).
This place (the name also written Kaministiquoia) was near the present Port Arthur, Ont -- ED.
"Tomahawk" is the name applied to a sort of weapon in common use among the Algonquian tribes of the eastern United States, and probably came into English through the early colonists, from the dialect of Virginian tribes; it is common to widely scattered peoples, being found as far west as the Cree. "A common conception of the tomahawk is that it was the aboriginal representative of the European hatchet -- that is to say, a cutting tool -- and in colonial times and even later the name was generally applied, apparently through misapprehension, to the metal hatchet. The etymology of the word [meaning, an instrument to strike with] would seem, however, that the name was applied originally to a striking instrument or weapon of the club type, rather than to an edged implement. An examination of the literature of the subject confirms this conclusion." This weapon seems to have been originally a club, some three feet long, with a knob at the end, sometimes made more effective by inserting in it a spike of bone or flint. The French called it casse-tÄte, "head-breaker." After the Indians obtained metal hatchets from the Europeans the name tomahawk was often applied to these. -- W. H. HOLMES, in Handbook Amer. Indians.
In 1888 were discovered, at a spot about one mile north of the present Trempealeau, Wis., relics which apparently indicated the site of an early French post; and it is supposed that this was Perrots headquarters during the winter season of 1685-1686. (Cf. note 133 in this volume.) For location of forts erected by him in Wisconsin, see Wis. Hist. Colls., vol. x, 59-63, 299-372, 504-506; for view of the site near Trempealeau, see vol. xvi, 164. -- ED.
The discovery of the Mississippi in 1673, and the explorations of La Salle in Louisiana a few years later, opened the way for the French to establish trading-posts, military stations, and colonies in the great Mississippi Valley and the region of the Great Lakes. The trading-posts of the English were mainly in the great northwest beyond Lake Superior (under the control of the Hudson Bay company), and to the south of the French "sphere of influence;" but in this latter region trade gradually pushed its way to the west and north until there were frequent clashes and much jealousy between the French and English traders. "The trading post was generally a large square inclosed by a stockade;
diagonally at two corners were turrets, with openings for small cannon and rifles in each turret so as to defend two sides of the wall. Within the stockade were the store-houses, quarters for the men, and a room for general trade." -- ALICE C. FLETCHER, in Handbook Amer. Indians.
Adario, a Tionontate chief, was also known as Kondiaronk and Sastaretsi. The French authorities in 1688 persuaded him to lead an expedition against the Iroquois, but on the road he learned that the latter were on the point of concluding peace with the French. Exasperated at this, he captured the Iroquois envoys on their road to Montreal, and told them that the French had commissioned him to kill them; but he set them at liberty, save one, and told them to take revenge on the French. He then brought about the execution of this captive by the French commander at Michillimackinac. These transactions, with Adario's falsehoods, so angered the Iroquois that they planned and carried out the fearful massacre of the French at and near Montreal, Aug. 25, 1689, and ravaged the settlements on the St. Lawrence. In later years, however, Adario was converted to the Christian faith by a Jesuit missionary, and became a friend to the French. He died at Montreal in 1701, while he was negotiating a peace between the Iroquois and the tribes of the upper country. -- ED.
Antoine de la Mothe-Cadillac came to America when a young man, and settled in Acadia. Losing all his property there by English invasions (1690-1691), he removed to Quebec and entered the Canadian military service, receiving a command therein from Frontenac. During 1694-1697 he was commandant at Mackinac, and in 1701 established the post of Detroit, which he governed for ten years. From 1712 to 1715 he was governor of Louisiana; and he died in France, Oct. 18, 1730. His "Relation: Missilimakinak, etc." is printed in Margry's Decouvertes et etablissements des Francais (Paris, 1876-1886), vol. v, 75-132. -- ED.
When the great Huron confederacy of tribes dwelling around Lake Simcoe and south and east of Georgian Bay was ruined and dispersed by the Iroquois in 1649, a part of the fugitive Hurons took shelter with the Tionontati -- called by the French "Huron de Petun" ("Tobacco Hurons") because they cultivated the tobacco -- a people of kindred race who resided not far westward from the Huron country. They too were attacked in the same year by the fierce Iroquois, and one of their towns destroyed; the rest of the Tionontati, with the refugee Hurons, fled for safety westward from place to place, reaching northern Wisconsin (about 1657), and the Illinois country by 1659; they were kindly received by the Algonquian tribes, but soon incurred the hostility of the Sioux, and retreated to Chequamegon Bay, where they settled among the Ottawas. These fugitives were all classed by the French as "Hurons," and known by that name under the French regime-dwelling at Michillimackinac after 1670, from which place they gradually scattered to Detroit and various Places in the region of Lake Erie. After the English conquest of Canada, these Hurons became known as Wyandots (a corruption of their own original appellation, Wendat); and they acquired great influence among the northwestern tribes. In 1843 they removed to Kansas, and in 1867 were placed on a reservation still occupied by them in northeastern Oklahoma. -- J. N. B. HEWITT, in Handbook Amer. Indians, art. "Hurons."
Perrot here alludes to the Crane clan of the Miami, the principal division of that tribe; they are called Atchatchakangouen by Allouez (Jesuit Relations, vol. Iviii, 40, 41), and Tchidüakoüingoües by La Potherie, Histoire, vol. ii, 261). Mooney says of them (Handbook Amer. Indians, 107): "On account of the hostility of the Illinois they removed west of the Mississippi, where they were attacked by the Sioux; and they afterward settled near the Jesuit mission at Green Bay, and moved thence into Illinois and Indiana with the rest of the tribe." -- ED.