 INTRODUCTION Part 1 of the Jesuits in North America. The Jesuits in North America in the 17th century by Francis Parkman. INTRODUCTION Part 1 Native tribes, divisions. America, when it became known to Europeans, was, as it had long been, a scene of widespread revolution. North and South, tribe was giving place to tribe, language to language. For the Indian, hopelessly unchanging in respect to individual and social development, as regarded tribal relations and local haunts, mutable as the wind. In Canada and the northern section of the United States, the elements of change were especially active. The Indian population, which, in 1535, Cartier found at Montreal and Quebec, had disappeared at the opening of the next century, and another race had succeeded in language and customs widely different. While in the region now forming the state of New York, a power was rising to a ferocious vitality, which, but for the presence of Europeans, would probably have subjected, absorbed, or exterminated every other Indian community east of the Mississippi and north of the Ohio. The vast tract of wilderness from the Mississippi to the Atlantic, and from the Carolinas to Hudson's Bay, was divided between two great families of tribes, distinguished by a radical difference of language. A part of Virginia and of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, southeastern New York, New England, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and lower Canada were occupied, so far as occupied at all, by tribes speaking various Algonquin languages and dialects. They extended moreover along the shores of the upper lakes and into the dreary northern wastes beyond. They held Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, and Indiana, and detached bands ranged the lonely hunting ground of Kentucky. Like a great island in the midst of the Algonquins lay the country of tribes speaking the generic tongue of the Iroquois. The true Iroquois, or five nations, extended through central New York from the Hudson to the Genesee. Southward lay the Andastes, on or near the Susquehanna, westward the Eries, along the southern shore of Lake Erie, and the Neutral Nation, along its northern shore from Niagara toward the Detroit, while the towns of the Hurons lay near the lake to which they have left their name. Of the Algonquin populations, the densest, despite a recent epidemic which had swept them off by thousands, was in New England. There were Mohicans, Pikwats, Nurengnesets, Wampenogs, Massachusetts, Pinnecooks, thorns in the sides of the Puritan. On the whole these savages were favorable specimens of the Algonquin stock, belonging to that section of it which tilled the soil and was thus in some measure spared the extremes of misery and degradation to which the wandering hunter-tribes were often reduced. They owed much, also, to the bounty of the sea, and hence they tended toward the coast. Which before the epidemic Champlain and Smith had seen, at many points studded with wigwams and waving with harvests of maize. Fear too drove them eastward, for the Iroquois pursued them with an inveterate enmity. Some paid yearly tribute to their tyrants, while others were still subject to their inroads, flying in terror at the sound of the Mohawk war cry. Northward the population thinned rapidly, northward it soon disappeared. Northern New Hampshire, the whole of Vermont, and western Massachusetts, had no human tenants but the roving hunter or prowling warrior. We have said that this group of tribes was relatively very populace, yet it is more than doubtful whether all of them united, had union been possible, could have mustard eight thousand fighting men. To speak further of them is needless, for they were not within the scope of the Jesuit labors. The heresy of heresies had planted itself among them, and it was for the Apostle Elliot, not the Jesuit, to assay their conversion. Landing at Boston, three years before a solitude, let the traveler push northward past the river Piscatois and the Pentecox, and across the river Sackle. Here a change of dialect would indicate a different tribe, or group of tribes. These were the Ibeniqui, found chiefly along the course of the Kennebec and other rivers, on whose banks they raised their rude harvests, and whose streams they ascended to hunt the moose and bear in the forest desert of northern Maine, or descended to fish in the neighboring sea. Crossing the Penobscot, one found a visible descent in the scale of humanity. In Maine and the whole of New Brunswick were occupied by a race called Etchamans, to whom agriculture was unknown, though the sea, prolific of fish, lobsters and seals, greatly enlightened their miseries. The Surakwa, or McMax of Nova Scotia, closely resembled them in habit and condition. From Nova Scotia to the St. Lawrence there was no population worthy of the name. From the Gulf of St. Lawrence to Lake Ontario, the southern border of the Great River had no tenants but hunters. Northward, between the St. Lawrence and Hudson's Bay, roamed the scattered hordes of the Papua, Betsyamites, and others included by the French under the general name of Montigny. When in spring the French trading ships arrived and anchored in the port of Tedoussac, they gathered from far and near toiling painfully through the desolation of forests, mustering by hundreds at the point of traffic, and setting up their bark wigwams along the strand of that wild harbor. They were of the lower Algonquin type, their ordinary sustenance was derived from the chase. Though often, goaded by deadly famine, they would subsist on roots, the bark and buds of trees, or the foulest oval, and in extreme even cannibalism was not rare among them. During the St. Lawrence it was seldom that the sight of a human form gave relief to the loneliness, until at Quebec the roar of Champlain's cannon from the verge of the cliff announced that the savage prologue of the American drama was drawing to a close, and that the civilization of Europe was advancing on the scene. Ascending further, all with solitude, except at three rivers, a noted place of trade were a few Algonquins of the tribe called Atacamangues might possibly be seen. The fear of the Iroquois was everywhere, and as a voyager passed some wooded point, or thicket covered island, the whistling of a stone-headed arrow proclaimed, perhaps, the presence of these fierce marauders. At Montreal there was no human life, saved during a brief space in early summer when the shore swarmed with savages, who had come to the yearly trade from the great communities of the interior. Today there were songs, dances, and feastings. Tomorrow all again with solitude, and the Ottawa was covered with the canoes of the returning warriors. Along this stream, a main route of traffic, the silence of the wilderness was broken only by the splash of the passing paddle. To the north of the river there was indeed a small Algonquin band called La Petite Nation, together with one or two other feeble communities. But they dwelt far from the banks, through fear of the ubiquitous Iroquois. It was nearly three hundred miles by the windings of the stream, before one reached that Algonquin tribe, Lanashon de Lisle, who occupied the great island of the Allumet. Then after many a day of lonely travel, the voyager found a savage welcome among the Nipissings, on the lake which bears their name. And then circling west and south for a hundred and fifty miles of solitude he reached for the first time a people speaking a dialect of the Iroquois tongue. Here all was changed. Populous towns, rude fortifications, and an extensive though barbarous tillage indicated a people far in advance of the famished wanderers of the Saganay, or the less abject kindred of New England. These were the Hurons, of whom the modern Wyandots are a remnant. Both in themselves and as a type of their generic stock, they demand more than a passing notice. End of Introduction, Part 1 Recording by David Lawrence in Brampton, Ontario, November 2009. Introduction, Part 2 of the Jesuits in North America. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Jesuits in North America in the 17th century by Francis Parkman. Introduction, Part 2, the Hurons. More than two centuries have elapsed since the Hurons vanished from their ancient seats, and the settlers of this rude solitude stand perplexed and wandering over the relics of a lost people. In the damp shadow of what seems a virgin forest, the axe and plow bring strange secrets to light. Huge pits, close packed with skeletons and disjointed bones, mixed with weapons, copper kettles, beads and trinkets. Not even the straddling Algonquines, who linger about the scene of Huron prosperity, can tell their origin. Yet, on ancient worm-eaten pages between covers of begrimmed parchment, the daily life of this ruined community, its firesides, its festivals, its funeral rites, are painted with a minute and vivid fidelity. The ancient country of the Hurons is now the northern and eastern portion of Simcoe County, Canada West, and is embraced within the peninsula, formed by the Notava Saga and Machadash bays of Lake Huron, the River Soverne and Lake Simcoe. Its area was small, its population comparatively large. In the year 1639, the Jesuits made an enumeration of all its villages, dwellings and families. The result showed 32 villages and hamlets, with 700 dwellings, about 4,000 families and 12,000 adult persons of a total population of at least 20,000. The region whose boundaries we have given was an alternation of meadows and deep forests interlaced with footpaths leading from town to town. Of these towns, some were fortified, but the greater number were open and defenseless. They were of a construction common to all tribes of Iroquois lineage and peculiar to them. Nothing similar exists at the present day. The permanent bark villages of the Dakota of the St. Peters are the nearest modern approach to the Huron towns. The whole Huron County abounds with evidence of having been occupied by a numerous population. On a close inspection of the forest, Dr. Tash writes to me, the greatest part of it seems to have been cleared at former periods and almost the only places bearing the character of the primitive forests are the low grounds. They covered a space of from one to ten acres, the dwellings clustering together with little or no pretension to order. In general, these singular structures were about 30 or 35 feet in length, breadth and height, but many were much larger and a few were of prodigious length. In some of the villages, there were dwellings 240 feet long, though in breadth and height, they did not much exceed the others. Brebeuf relaysion des Hurons 1635-31. Champlain says that he saw them in 1615, more than 30 phathems long, while Vandedonk reports the length from actual measurement of an Iroquois house at 180 yards or 540 feet. In shape, they were much like an arbor overarching a garden walk. Their frame was of tall and strong saplings planted in a double row to form the two sides of the house bent till they meet and lash together at the top. To these other poles were bound transversely and the hole was covered with large sheets of the bark of the oak, elm, spruce or white cedar, overlapping like the shingles of a rope upon which, for their better security, split poles were made fast with cords of linden bark. At the crown of the arch along the entire length of the house, an opening of foot wide was left for the admission of light and the escape of smoke. At each end was a close porch of similar construction and here were stored casks of bark filled with smoked fish, Indian corn and other stores not liable to injury from frost. Within on both sides were wide scaffolds four feet from the floor and extending the entire length of the house like the seats of a colossal omnibus. Often, especially among the Iroquois, the internal arrangement was different. The scaffolds or platforms were raised only a foot from the earthen floor and were only 12 or 13 feet long with intervening spaces where the occupants stored their family provisions and other articles. Five or six feet above was another platform often occupied by children. One pair of platforms sufficed for a family and here during summer they slept palmel in the clothes they wore by day and without pillows. These were formed of thick sheets of bark supported by posts and transverse poles and covered with mats and skins. Here in summer was the sleeping place of the inmates and the space beneath served for storage of their firewood. The fires were on the ground in a line down the middle of the house. Each sufficed for two families who in winter slept closely packed around them. Above, just under the walled roof, were a great number of poles like the perches of a hen roost and here were suspended weapons, clothing, skins and ornaments. Here too, in harvest time, the squaws hung the years of unshelled corn till the rude abode through all its length seemed decked with a golden tapestry. In general, however, its only lining was a thick coating of soot from the smoke of fires with neither draft, chimney nor window. So, pungent was the smoke that had produced inflammation of the eyes, attended in old age with frequent blindness. Another annoyance was the fleas and the third, the unbridled and unruly children. Privacy there was none. The house was one chamber, sometimes lodging more than twenty families. He who entered on a winter night beheld a strange spectacle, the vista of fires lighting the smoky concave, the bronzed groups encircling each, cooking, eating, gambling or amusing themselves with idle badanage, shriveled squaws hideous with three-score years of hardship, grisly old warriors scarred with the Iroquois war clubs, young aspirants whose honours were yet to be won, damsels gay with ochre and wampum, restless children pel-mel with restless dogs. Now a tongue of resinous flame painted each wild feature in vivid light. Now the fitful gleam expired and the group vanished from sight as their nation has vanished from history. The fortified towns at the Hurons were all on the side exposed to Iroquois incursions. The fortifications of all this family of tribes were like their dwellings in essential points alike. A situation was chosen favourable to defence, the bank of a lake, the crown of a difficult hill or a high point of land in the fork of confluent rivers. A ditch several feet deep was dug around the village and the earth thrown up on the inside. Trees were then felled by an alternate process of burning and hacking the burnt part with stone hatchets and by similar means were cut into lengths to form palisades. These were planted on the embankment in one, two, three or four concentric rows, those of each row inclining towards those of the other rows until they intersected. The hole was lined within to the height of a man with heavy sheets of bark and at the top where the palisades crossed was a gallery of timber for the defenders together with wooden gutters by which streams of water could be poured down on fires kindled by the enemy. Magazines of stones and rude ladders for mounting the rampart completed the provision for defence. The forts of the Iroquois were stronger and more elaborate than those of the Hurons and to this day large districts in New York are marked with frequent remains of their ditches and embankments. Among these tribes there was no individual ownership of land but each family had for the time exclusive right to as much as it saw fit to cultivate. The clearing process a most toilsome one consisted in hacking off branches piling them together with brushwood around the foot of the standing trunks and setting fire to the hole. The squas working with their hose of wood and bone among the charred stumps soared their corn, beans, pumpkins, tobacco, sunflowers and Huron hemp. No manure was used but at intervals of from 10 to 30 years when the soil was exhausted and firewood distant the village was abandoned and a new one built. There was little game in the Huron country and here as among the Iroquois the staple of food was Indian corn cooked without salt in a variety of forms each more odious than the last. Venison was a luxury found only at feasts. Dog flesh was in high esteem and in some of the towns captive bears were fattened for festive occasions. These tribes were far less improvident than the roving Algonquins and stores of provisions were laid up against a season of want. Their main stock of corn was buried in caches or deep holes in the earth either within or without the houses. In respect to the arts of life all these stationary tribes were in advance of the wandering hunters of the north. The women made a species of earthen pot for cooking but these were supplanted by the copper kettles of the French traders. They wove rush mats with no little skill. They spun twine from hemp by the primitive process of rolling it on their thighs and of this twine they made nets. They extracted oil from fish and from the seeds of the sunflower the latter apparently only for the purposes of the toilet. They pounded their maize in huge mortars of wood hollowed by alternate burnings and scrapings. Their stone axes, spear and arrowheads and bone fish hooks were fast giving place to the iron of the French but they had not laid aside their shields of raw bison hide or of wood overlaid with plated and twisted thongs of skin. They still used to their primitive breast plates and greaves of twigs interwoven with cordage. Some of the northern tribes of California at the present day where a sort of breast plate composed of thin parallel battens of very tough wood woven together with a small cord. The masterpiece of Huron handiwork however was the birch canoe in the construction of which the Algon queens were no less skillful. The Iroquois in the absence of the birch were forced to use the bark of the elm which was greatly inferior both in lightness and strength. Of pipes than which nothing was more important in their eyes the Hurons made a great variety some of baked clay others of various kinds of stone carved by the men during their long periods of monotonous leisure often with great skill and ingenuity but their most mysterious fabric was Wampum. This was at once their currency, their ornament, their pen, ink and parchment and its use was by no means confined to tribes of the Iroquois stock. It consisted of elongated beads white and purple made from the inner part of certain shells. It is not easy to conceive how with their rude implements the Indians can try to shape and perforate this intractable material. The art soon fell into disuse however for Wampum better than their own was brought them by the traders besides abundant imitations in glass and porcelain. Strung into necklaces or wrought into collars, belts and bracelets it was the favorite decoration of the Indian girls at festivals and dances. It served also a graver purpose no compact, no speech or clause of a speech to the representative of another nation had any force unless confirmed by the delivery of a string or belt of Wampum. Beaver skins and other valuable furs were sometimes on such occasions used as a substitute. The belts on occasions of importance were wrought into significant devices suggestive of the substance of the compact or speech and design as aids to memory. To one or more old men of the nation was assigned the honorable but very honorous charge of keepers of the Wampum. In other words of the national records and it was for them to remember and interpret the meaning of the belts. The figures on Wampum belts were for the most part simply mnemonic. So also with those carved on wooden tablets or painted on bark and skin to preserve in memory the songs of war, hunting or magic. Engravings of many specimens of these figured songs are given in the voluminous reports on the condition of the Indians published by government under the editorship of Mr. Skolkraft. The specimens are chiefly Algonquin. The Hurons had however in common with other tribes a system of rude pictures and arbitrary signs by which they could convey to each other with tolerable precision, information touching the ordinary subjects of Indian interest. Their dress was chiefly of skins cured with smoke after the well known Indian mode. That of the women according to the Jesuits was more modest than that of our most pious ladies of France. The young girls on festival occasions must be accepted from this commendation as they wore merely a kilt from the waist to the knee besides the Wampum decorations of the breast and arms. Their long black hair gathered behind the neck was decorated with discs of native copper or grey pendants made in France and now occasionally unearthed in numbers from their graves. The men in summer were nearly naked, those of a kindred tribe wholly so with the sole exception of their moccasins. In winter they were clad in tunics and leggings of skin and at all seasons on occasions of ceremony were wrapped from head to foot in robes of beaver or autophers sometimes of the greatest value. On the inner side these robes were decorated with painted figures and devices or embroidered with the dyed quills of the Canada Hedgehog. In this art of embroidery however, the Hurons were equalled or surpassed by some of the Algonquin tribes. They wore their hair after a variety of grotesque and startling fashions. With some it was loose on one side and tight braided on the other with others close shaped leaving one or more long and cherished locks. While with others again it bristled in a ridge across the crown like the back of a hyena. Selajun, Relation 1638-35 Khela Hurra exclaimed some astonished Frenchmen. Hence the name Hurons. Then in full dress they were painted with ochre, white clay, soot and the red juice of certain berries. They practiced tattooing sometimes covering the whole body with indelible devices. When of such extent the process was very severe and though no murmur escaped the sufferer he sometimes died from its effects. Female life among the Hurons had no bright side. It was a youth of license and age of drudgery. Despite an organization which, while it perhaps made them less sensible of pain, certainly made them less susceptible of passion than the higher races of men. The Hurons were notoriously disillute, far exceeding in this respect the wandering and starving Algonquines. Marriage existed among them and polygamy was exceptional, but divorce took place at the will or caprice of either party. A practice also prevailed of temporary or experimental marriage lasting a day, a week or more. The seal of the compact was merely the acceptance of a gift of wampum made by the suitor to the object of his desire or his whim. These gifts were never returned on the dissolution of the connection and as an attractive and enterprising damsel might and often did make twenty such marriages before her final establishment. She thus collected a wealth of wampum with which to add on herself for the village dances. This provisional matrimony was no bar to a license boundless and apparently universal unattended with loss of reputation on either side. Every instinct of native delicacy quickly vanished under the influence of Huron domestic life, eight or ten families and often more crowded into one undivided house where privacy was impossible and where strangers were free to enter at all hours of the day or night. Once a mother and married with a reasonable permanency, the Huron woman from Ovanton became a drudge. In March and April she gathered the year's supply of firewood. Then came sowing, tilling and harvesting, smoking fish, dressing skins, making cordage and clothing, preparing food. On the March it was she who bore the burden for in the words of Champlain, their women were their mules. The natural effect followed. In every Huron town were shriveled hags, hideous and despised who in vindictiveness, ferocity and cruelty far exceeded the men. To the men fell the task of building the houses and making weapons, pipes and canoes. For the rest, their home life was a life of leisure and amusement. The summer and autumn were their seasons of serious employment, of war, hunting, fishing and trade. There was an established system of traffic between the Hurons and the Algonquins of the Otava and Lake Nipissing, the Hurons exchanging vampum, fishing nets and corn for fish and furs. From various relics found in their graves, it may be inferred that they also traded with tribes of the Upper Lakes as well as with tribes far southward towards the Gulf of Mexico. Each branch of traffic was the monopoly of the family or clan by whom it was opened. They might, if they could, punish interlopers by stripping them of all they possessed unless the latter had succeeded in reaching home with the fruits of their trade, in which case the outraged monopolists had no further rights of redress and could not attempt it without a breaking of the public peace and exposure to the authorized vengeance of the other party. Their fisheries too were regulated by customs having the force of laws. These pursuits with their hunting in which they were aided by a wolfish breed of dogs unable to bark, consumed the autumn and early winter, but before the new year the greater part of the men were gathered in their villages. Now followed their festal season for it was the season of idleness for the men and of leisure for the women. Feasts, gambling, smoking and dancing filled the vacant ours. Like other Indians, the Hurons were desperate gamblers staking their all ornaments, clothing, canoes, pipes, weapons and wives. One of their principal games was played with plumb stones or wooden lozenges black on one side and white on the other. These were tossed up in a wooden bowl by striking it sharply upon the ground and the players betted on the black or white. Sometimes a village challenged a neighboring village. The game was played in one of the houses. Strong poles were extended from side to side and on these sat upwards the company, party facing party while two players struck the bowl on the ground between. Bets ran high and Brebeuf relates that once in midwinter with the snow nearly three feet deep the men of his village returned from a gambling visit bereft of their leggings and barefoot yet in excellent humour. Lodacris as it may appear these games were often medical prescriptions and designed as a cure of the sick. Their feasts and dances were of various character social, medical and mystical or religious. Some of their feasts were on a scale of extravagant profusion a vain or ambitious host through all his substance into one entertainment inviting the whole village and perhaps several neighboring villages also. In the winter of 1635 there was a feast at the village of Contarrera where thirty kettles were on the fires and twenty dear and four bears were served up. The invitation was simple the messenger addressed the desired guest with the concise summons come and eat and to refuse was a grave offence. He took his dish and spoon and repaired the scene of festivity. Each as he entered greeted his host with the guttural ejaculation ho and ranged himself with the rest squatted on the earthen floor or on the platform along the sides of the house. The kettles were slung over the fires in the midst. First there was a long prelude of lugubrious singing then the host who took no share in the feast proclaimed in a loud voice the contents of each kettle in turn and at each announcement the company responded in unison ho the attendant's scores filled with their ladles the bowls of all the guests there was stalking laughing jesting singing and smoking and at times the entertainment was protracted throughout the day. When the feast had a medical or mystic character it was indispensable that each guest should devour the whole of the potion given him however enormous should he fail the host would be outraged the community shocked and the spirits roused of engines disaster would befall the nation death perhaps the individual in some cases the imagined efficacy of the feast was proportioned to the rapidity with which the wines were dispatched prizes of tobacco were offered the most rapid feeder and the spectacle then became truly porcine these festines were much dreaded by many of the Hurons who however were never known to decline them invitation to a dance was no less concise than to a feast sometimes a cryoplautramed the approaching festivity through the village the house was crowded old men old women and children thronged the platforms or clung to the poles which supported the sides and roof fires were raked out and the earthen flow cleared two chiefs sang at the top of their voices keeping time to their song with tortoiseshell rattles the men danced with great violence and gesticulation the women with a much more measured action the former were nearly divested of clothing in mystical dances sometimes wholly so and from a superstitious motive this was now and then the case with the women both however were abundantly decorated with paint oil beads vampum trinkets and feathers religious festivals councils the entertainment of an envoy the inauguration of a chief were all occasions of festivity in which social pleasure was joined with matter of grave import and which at times gathered nearly all the nation into one great and harmonious concourse war-like expeditions too were always preceded by feasting at which the warriors wanted the fame of their ancestors and their own past and prospective exploits a hideous scene of feasting followed the torture of a prisoner like the torture itself it was among the herons partly an act of vengeance and partly a religious right if the victim had shown courage the heart was first roasted cut into small pieces and given to the young men and boys who divided to increase their own courage the body was then divided thrown into the kettles and eaten by the assembly the head being the portion of the chief many of the herons joined in the feast with reluctance and horror while others took pleasure in it this was the only form of cannibalism among them since unlike the wandering Algonquins they were rarely under the desperation of extreme famine a great knowledge of symbols for the cure of disease is popularly ascribed to the Indian here however as elsewhere his knowledge is in fact scanty he rarely reasons from cause to effect or from effect to cause disease in his belief is the result of sorcery the agency of spirits or supernatural influences undefined and indefinable the Indian doctor was a conjurer and his remedies were to the last degree preposterous, ridiculous or revolting the well-known Indian sweating bath is the most prominent of the few means of cure based on agencies simply physical and this with all the other natural remedies was applied not by the professed doctor but by the sufferer himself or his friends the Indian doctor beat, shook and pinched his patient howled, whooped, rattled a tortoise shell at his ear to expel the evil spirit bit him till blood flowed and then displayed in triumph a small piece of wood bone or iron which he had hidden in his mouth and which he affirmed was the source of the disease now happily removed sometimes he prescribed a dance feast or game and the whole village bestowed themselves to fulfill the injunction to the letter they gambled away their all they gorged themselves like vultures they danced or played ball naked among the snow drifts from morning till night at a medical feast some strange or unusual act was commonly enjoined as vital to the patient's cure as for example the departing guest in place of the customary monosyllable of thanks was required to greet his host with an ugly grimace sometimes by prescription half the village would throng into the house where the patient lay led by old women disguised with the heads and skins of bears and beating with sticks on sheets of dry bark here the assembly danced and whooped for hours together with a din to which a civilized patient would promptly have succumbed sometimes the doctor wrought himself into a prophetic fury raving through the length and breadth of the dwelling snatching firebrands and flinging them about him to the terror of the squaws with whom in their combustible tenements fire was a constant bug there among the Hurons and Kindred tribes disease was frequently ascribed to some hidden wish ungratified hence the patient was overwhelmed with gifts in the hope that in their multiplicity the desideratum might be supplied kettles, skins, auls, pipes, wampums, fish hooks, weapons objects of every conceivable variety were piled before him by a host of charitable contributors and if as often happened a dream the Indian Oracle had revealed to the sick man the secret of his cure his demands were never refused however extravagant, idle, nauseous or abominable hence it is no matter of wonder that sudden illness and sudden cures were frequent among the Hurons the patient reaped profit and the doctor both profit and honor End of Introduction Part 2 Introduction Part 3 of the Jesuits in North America This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org The Jesuits in North America in the 17th century by Francis Parkman Introduction Part 3 The Huron Iroquois Family And now, before entering upon the very curious subject of Indian social and tribal organization it may be well to briefly observe the position and prominent distinctive features of the various communities speaking dialects of the generic tongue of the Iroquois In this remarkable family of tribes occur the fullest developments of Indian character and the most conspicuous examples of Indian intelligence If the higher traits popularly ascribed to the race are not to be found here they are to be found nowhere A palpable proof of the superiority of this stock is afforded in the size of the Iroquois and Huron brains In average internal capacity of the cranium they surpassed with few and doubtful exceptions all other aborigines of North and South America not accepting the civilized races of Mexico and Peru In the woody valleys of the Blue Mountains south of the Nadawasaga Bay of Lake Huron and two days journey west of the frontier towns lay the nine villages of the tobacco nations or Tianantates In manners as in language they closely resemble the Hurons Of old they were their enemies but were now at peace with them and about the year 1640 became their close confederates Indeed in the ruin which befell that hapless people the Nantates alone retained a tribal organization and their descendants with a trifling exception are to this day the sole inheritors of the Huron or Wyandot name Expatriated and wandering they held for generations a paramount influence among the western tribes In their original seats among the Blue Mountains they offered an example extremely rare among Indians of a tribe raising a crop for the market for they traded in tobacco largely with other tribes Their Huron confederates, heen traders would not suffer them to pass through their country to traffic with the French preferring to secure for themselves the advantage of bartering with them in French goods at an enormous profit Journeying southward five days from the Tianantate towns the forest traveler reached the border villages of the Atta-Wanderons or neutral nation As early as 1626 they were visited by the Franciscan friar La Roche d'Alion who reports a numerous population in 28 towns besides many small hamlets Their country, about 40 leagues in extant embraced wide infertile districts on the north shore of Lake Erie and their frontier extended eastward across the Niagara where they had three or four outlying towns Their name of neutrals was due to their neutrality in the war between the Hurons and the Iroquois proper The hostile warriors meeting in a neutral cabin were forced to keep the peace though once in the open air the truce was at an end Yet this people were abundantly ferocious and while holding a pacific attitude betwixt their warring kindred waged deadly strife with the Muscautons an Algonquin horde beyond Lake Michigan Indeed it was but recently that they had been at blows with seventeen Algonquin tribes They burned female prisoners a practice unknown to the Hurons Their country was full of game and they were bold and active hunters In form and stature they surpassed even the Hurons whom they resembled in their mode of life and from whose language their own though radically similar was dialectically distinct Their licentiousness was even more open and shameless and they stood alone in the extravagance of some of their usages They kept their dead in their houses till they became insupportable then scraped the flesh from the bones and displayed them in rows along the walls there to remain till the periodical feast of the dead or general burial In summer the men wore no clothing whatever but were usually tattooed from head to foot with powdered charcoal The sagacious Hurons refused them a passage through their country to the French and the neutrals apparently had not sense a reflection enough to take the easy and direct route of Lake Ontario which was probably open to them though closed against the Hurons by Iroquois and Midy Thus the former made excellent profit by exchanging French goods at high rates for valuable furs of the neutrals Southward and eastward of Lake Erie dwell to kindred people the Eries or Nation of the Cat Little besides their existence is known of them They seem to have occupied southwestern New York as far east as the Genesee the frontier of the Seneca's and inhabits in language to have resembled the Hurons They were noted warriors fought with poisoned arrows and were long a terror to the neighboring Iroquois On the lower Susquehanna dwelt the formidable tribe called by the French Andasties Little is known of them beyond their general resemblance to their kindred in language, habits, and character Fierce and resolute warriors they long made head against the Iroquois of New York and were vanquished at last more by disease than by the Tomahawk In central New York stretching east and west from the Hudson to the Genesee lay that redoubted people who have lent their name to the tribal family of the Iroquois and stamped it indelibly on the early pages of American history Among all the barbarous nations of the continent the Iroquois of New York stand paramount Elements which among other tribes were crude, confused, and embryonic were among them systematized and concreted into an established polity The Iroquois was the Indian of Indians A thorough savage, yet a finished and developed savage he is perhaps an example of the highest elevation which man can reach without emerging from his primitive condition of the hunter A geographical position, commanding on one hand the portal of the Great Lakes and on the other the sources of the streams flowing both to the Atlantic and the Mississippi gave the ambitious and aggressive Confederates advantages which they perfectly understood and by which they profited to the utmost Patient and politic as they were ferocious, they were not only conquerors of their own race but the powerful allies and the dreaded foes of the French and English colonies flattered and caressed by both, yet too sagacious to give themselves without reserve to either Their organization and their history evinced their intrinsic superiority Even their traditionary lore, amid its wild puerilities shows at times the stamp of an energy and force in striking contrast with the flimsy creations of Algonquin fancy that the Iroquois left under their institutions to work out their destiny undisturbed whatever have developed a civilization of their own, I do not believe These institutions, however, are sufficiently characteristic and curious and we shall soon have occasion to observe them Social and political organization In Indian social organization, a problem at once suggests itself In these communities, comparatively populous, how could spirits so fierce and in many respects so ungoverned live together in peace without law and without enforced authority Yet there were towns where savages lived together in thousands with the harmony which civilization might envy This was in good measure due to peculiarities of Indian character and habits This intractable race were, in certain external respects the most pliant and complacent of mankind The early missionaries were charmed by the docile acquiescence with which their dogmas were received but they soon discovered that their façile auditors neither believed nor understood that to which they had so promptly assented They assented from a kind of courtesy which, while it vexed the priests tended greatly to keep the Indians in mutual accord That well-known self-control, which originating in a form of pride covered the savage nature of the man with a veil opaque, though thin, contributed not a little to the same end Though vain, arrogant, boastful and vindictive the Indian bore abuse and sarcasm with an astonishing patience Though greedy and grasping, he was lavish without stint and would give away his all to soothe the mains of a departed relative gain influence and applause or ingratiate himself with his neighbors In his dread of public opinion he rivaled some of his civilized successors All Indians, and especially those populace and stationary tribes had their code of courtesy whose requirements were rigid and exact nor might any infringe it without the ban of public censure Indian nature, inflexible and unmalliable was peculiarly under the control of custom Established usage took the place of law was in fact a sort of common law with no tribunal to expound or enforce it In these wild democracies democracies in spirit, though not informed a respect for native superiority and a willingness to yield to it were always conspicuous All were prompt to aid each other in distress and a neighborly spirit was often exhibited among them When a young woman was permanently married the other women of the village supplied her with firewood for the year each contributing an armful When one or more families were without shelter the men of the village joined in building them a house In return the recipients of the favor gave a feast if they could if not their thanks were sufficient Among the Iroquois and Hurons and doubtless among the kindred tribes there were marked distinctions of noble and base prosperous and poor Yet while there was food in the village the meanest and the poorest need not suffer want He had but to enter the nearest house and seed himself by the fire when without a word on either side food was placed before him by the women Contrary to the received opinion these Indians, like others of their race when living in communities were of a very social disposition Besides their incessant dances and feasts great and small they were continually visiting spending most of their time in their neighbor's houses chatting, joking, bantering one another with witticisms sharp, broad, and in no sense delicate yet always taken in good part Every village had its adepts in these wordy tournaments while the shrill laugh of young squaws untaught to blush echoed each hardy jest or rough sarcasm In the organization of the savage communities of the continent one feature more or less conspicuous continually appears Each nation or tribe to adopt the names by which these communities are usually known is subdivided into several clans These clans are not locally separate but are mingled throughout the nation All the members of each clan are or are assumed to be closely joined in consenuinity Hence it is an abomination for two persons of the same clan to intermarry and hence again it follows that every family must contain members of at least two clans Each clan has its name as the clan of the hawk, of the wolf, or of the tortoise and each has for its emblem the figure of the beast, bird, reptile, plant, or other object from which its name is derived This emblem, called totem by the Algonquins is often tattooed on the clansman's body or rudely painted over the entrance of his lodge The child belongs in most cases to the clan not of the father but of the mother In other words, descent, not of the totem alone but of all rank, titles, and possessions is through the female The son of a chief can never be the chief by hereditary title though he may become so by force of personal influence or achievement Neither can he inherit from his father so much as a tobacco pipe All possessions alike pass of right to the brothers of the chief or the sons of his sisters since these are all sprung from a common mother This rule of descent was noticed by Champlain among the Hurons in 1615 That excellent observer refers to it an origin which is doubtless its true one The child may not be the son of his reputed father but must be the son of his mother a consideration of more than ordinary force in an Indian community This system of clanship with the rule of descent usually belonging to it was a very wide prevalence Indeed it is more than probable that close observation would have detected it in every tribe east of the Mississippi while there is positive evidence of its existence in by far the greater number It is found also among the Dakota and other tribes west of the Mississippi and there is reason to believe it universally prevalent as far as the Rocky Mountains and even beyond them The fact that with most of these hordes there is little property worth transmission and that the most influential becomes chief with little regard to inheritance has blinded casual observers to the existence of this curious system It was found in full development among the creeks Choctaws, Cherokees and other southern tribes including that remarkable people, the Natchez who, judged by their religious and political institutions seem a detached offshoot of the Toltec family It is no less conspicuous among the roving Algonquins of the extreme north where the number of totems is almost countless Everywhere it formed the foundation of the polity of all the tribes where a polity could be said to exist The Franciscans and the Jesuits close students of the languages and superstitions of the Indians were by no means so zealous to analyze their organization and government In the middle of the 17th century the Hurons as a nation had ceased to exist and their political portraiture as handed down to us is careless and unfinished yet some decisive features are plainly shown The Huron Nation was a confederacy of four distinct contiguous nations afterwards increased to five by the addition of the Tienantates It was divided into clans It was governed by chiefs whose office was hereditary through the female The power of these chiefs, though great was wholly of a persuasive or advisory character There were two principal chiefs one for peace, the other for war There were chiefs assigned to special national functions as the charge of the great feast of the dead the direction of trading voyages to other nations, etc There were numerous other chiefs equal in rank but very unequal in influence since the measure of their influence depended on the measure of their personal ability Each nation of the confederacy had a separate organization but at certain periods grand councils of the United Nations were held at which were present, not chiefs only but also a great concourse of the people and at these and other councils the chiefs and principal men voted on proposed measures by means of small sticks or reeds the opinion of the plurality ruling End of Introduction Part 3 Introduction Part 4 of the Jesuits in North America This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org The Jesuits in North America in the 17th century by Francis Parkman Introduction Part 4, The Iroquois The Iroquois were a people far more conspicuous in history and their institutions are not yet extinct In early and recent times they have been closely studied and no little light has been cast upon a subject as difficult and obscure as it is curious By comparing the statements of observers, old and new the character of their singular organization becomes sufficiently clear Both reason and tradition point to the conclusion that the Iroquois formed originally one undivided people Sundered, like countless other tribes by dissension, caprice or the necessities of the hunter life they separated into five distinct nations Cantoned from east to west along the center of New York in the following order There was discord among them Wars followed and they lived in mutual fear each ensconced in its palisaded villages At length, says tradition, a celestial being incarnate on earth counseled them to compose their strife and unite in a league of defense and aggression Another personage, wholly mortal yet wonderfully endowed a renowned warrior and a mighty magician stands with his hair of writhing snakes grotesquely conspicuous through the dim light of tradition at this birth of Iroquois nationality This was a Tataro, a chief of the Anandagas and from this honored source has sprung a long line of chieftains heirs not to the blood alone but to the name of their great predecessor A few years since there lived in Anandagahalo a handsome Indian boy on whom the dwindled remnant of the nation looked with pride as their destines atotaro With earthly and celestial aid the league was consummated and through all the land the forest trembled at the name of the Iroquois The Iroquois people was divided into eight clans When the original stock was sundered into five parts each of these clans was also sundered into five parts and as by the principle already indicated the clans were intimately mingled in every village hamlet and cabin each one of the five nations had its portion of each of the eight clans When the league was formed these separate portions readily resumed their ancient tie of fraternity Thus of the turtle clan all the members became brothers again nominal members of one family whether Mohawks, Onidas, Anandagas, Cayugas or Seneca and so too of the remaining clans All the Iroquois, respective of nationality were therefore divided into eight families each tracing its descent to a common mother and each designated by its distinctive emblem or totem This connection of clan or family was exceedingly strong and by it the five nations of the league were linked together as by an eight-fold chain The clans were by no means equal in numbers, influence or honor So marked were the distinctions among them that some of the early riders recognized only the three most conspicuous those of the tortoise, the bear and the wolf To some of the clans in each nation belonged the right of giving a chief to the nation and to the league Others had the right of giving three or in one case four chiefs while others could give none As Indian clanship was but an extension of the family relation these chiefs were in a certain sense hereditary but the law of inheritance, though binding, was extremely elastic and capable of stretching to the farthest limits of the clan The chief was almost invariably succeeded by a near relative always through the female, as a brother by the same mother or a nephew by the sister's side But if these were manifestly unfit they were passed over and a chief was chosen at a council of the clan from among remote or kindred In these cases the successor is said to have been nominated by the matron of the late chief's household Be this as it may the choice was never adverse to the popular inclination The new chief was raised up or installed by a formal council of the saccums of the league and on entering upon his office he dropped his own name and assumed that which since the formation of the league had belonged to this special chieftainship The number of these principal chiefs or as they have been called by way of distinctions, saccums varied in the several nations from eight to fourteen The saccums of the five nations, fifty and all assembled in council formed the government of the Confederacy All met as equals but a peculiar dignity was ever attached to the autotaro of the onondagas There was a class of subordinate chiefs in no sense hereditary but rising to office by address, ability or valor Yet the rank was clearly defined and the new chief installed at a formal council This class embodied, as might be supposed the best talent of the nation and the most prominent warriors and orators of the Iroquois have belonged to it In its character and functions, however, it was purely civil Like the saccums, these chiefs held their councils and exercised an influence proportionate to their number and abilities There was another council between which and that of the subordinate chiefs the line of demarcation seems not to have been very definite The Jesuit Lafiteau calls it the Senate Familiar with the Iroquois at the height of their prosperity he describes it as the central and controlling power so far at least as the separate nations were concerned In its character it was essentially popular but popular in the best sense and one which confined its application only in a small community Any man took part in it whose age and experience qualified him to do so It was merely the gathered wisdom of the nation Lafiteau compares it to the Roman Senate in the early and rude age of the Republic and affirms that it loses nothing by the comparison He thus describes it, it is a greasy assemblage sitting sur le derrière crouched like apes their knees as high as their ears or lying, some on their bellies, some on their backs each with a pipe in his mouth discussing affairs of state with as much coolness and gravity as the Spanish Yunta or the Grand Council of Venice The young warriors had also their councils so too had the women and the opinions and wishes of each were represented by means of deputies before the Senate or the Council of Old Men as well as before the Grand Confederate Council of the Sockums The government of this unique Republic resided wholly in councils By councils all questions were settled all regulations established all political, military, and religious The Warpath, the Chase, the Council Fire in these was the life of the Iroquois and it is hard to say to which of the three he was most devoted The Great Council of the Fifty Sockums formed, as we have seen, the government of the League Whenever a subject arose before any of the nations of importance enough to demand its assembling the Sockums of that nation might summon their colleagues to their centers, bearing messages and belts of wampum The usual place of meeting was the Valley of Onondaga the political as well as geographical center of the Confederacy thither if the matter were one of deep and general interest not the Sockums alone, but the greater part of the population gathered from east to west swarming in the hospitable lodges of the town were bivouacked by thousands in the surrounding fields and forests While the Sockums deliberated in the council house the chiefs and old men, the warriors and often the women were holding their respective councils apart and their opinions, laid by their deputies before the council of Sockums were never without influence on its decisions The utmost order and deliberation reigned in the council with rigorous adherence to the Indian notions of parliamentary propriety The conference opened with an address to the spirits or the chief of all the spirits There was no heat in debate no speaker interrupted another each gave his opinion in turn supporting it with what reason or rhetoric he could command but not until he had stated the subject of discussion in full to prove that he understood it repeating also the arguments, pro and con of previous speakers Thus their debates were excessively prolics and the consumption of tobacco was immoderate The result, however, was a thorough sifting of the matter in hand while the practice to stuteness of these savage politicians was a marvel to their civilized contemporaries It is by a most subtle policy, says Lafitao, that they have taken the ascendant over the other nations divided and overcome the most warlike made themselves a terror to the most remote and now hold a peaceful neutrality between the French and English courted and feared by both Unlike the Hurons, they required an entire unanimity in their decisions The ease and frequency with which a requisition seemingly so difficult was fulfilled afforded a striking illustration of Indian nature on one side, so stubborn, tenacious and impracticable on the other, so pliant and acquiescent An explanation of this harmony is to be found also in an intense spirit of nationality for never since the days of Sparta were individual life and national life more completely fused into one The soccums of the League were likewise, as we have seen soccums of their respective nations yet they rarely spoke in the councils of the subordinate chiefs and old men except to present subjects of discussion Their influence in these councils was, however, great and even paramount, for they commonly succeeded in securing to their interests some of the most dexterous and influential of the conclave through whom, while they themselves remained in the background, they managed the debates There was a class of men among the Iroquois always put forward on public occasions to speak the mind of the nation or defend its interests Nearly all of them were of the number of the subordinate chiefs Nature and training had fitted them for public speaking and they were deeply versed in the history and traditions of the League They were, in fact, professed orators high in honour and influence among the people To a huge stock of conventional metaphors the use of which required nothing but practice they often added an astute intellect an astonishing memory and an eloquence which deserved the name In one particular the training of these savage politicians was never surpassed They had no art of writing to record events or preserve the stipulations of treaties memory, therefore, was tasked to the utmost and developed to an extraordinary degree They had various devices for aiding it such as bundles of sticks and that system of signs, emblems and rude pictures which they shared with other tribes Their famous wampum belts were so many mnemonic signs each standing for some act, speech, treaty or claws of a treaty These represented the public archives and were divided among various custodians each charged with the memory and interpretation of those assigned to him The meaning of the belts was from time to time expounded in their councils In conferences with them nothing more astonished the French, Dutch and English officials than the precision with which, before replying to their addresses, the Indian orators repeated them point by point It was only in rare cases that crime among the Iroquois or Hurons was punished by public authority Murder, the most heinous offence except witchcraft, recognized among them was rare If the slayer and the slain were of the same household or clan, the affair was regarded as a family quarrel to be settled by the immediate kin on both sides This, under the pressure of public opinion was commonly affected without bloodshed by presence given in atonement But if the murderer and his victim were of different clans or different nations still more, if the slain was a foreigner the whole community became interested to prevent the discord or the war which might arise All directed their efforts not to bring the murderer to punishment but to satisfy the injured parties by a vicarious atonement To this end, contributions were made and presence collected Their number and value were determined Among the Hurons, thirty presents of very considerable value were the price of a man's life That of a woman's was fixed at forty by reason of her weakness and because on her depended the continuance and increase of the population This was when the slain belonged to the nation If of a foreign tribe his death demanded a higher compensation since it involved the danger of war These presents were offered in solemn counsel with prescribed formalities The relatives of the slain might refuse them if they chose and in this case the murderer was given them as a slave but they might by no means kill him since in so doing they would incur public censure and be compelled in their turn to make atonement Besides the principal gifts there was a great number of less value all symbolical and each delivered with a set form of words as by this we place him in his grave and so in endless prolixity through particulars without number The Hurons were notorious thieves and perhaps the Iroquois were not much better though the contrary has been asserted Among both the robbed was permitted not only to retake his property by force if he could but to strip the robber of all he had This apparently acted as a restraint in favor only of the strong leaving the weak a prey to the plunderer but here the tie of family and clan intervened to aid him Relatives and clansmen espoused the quarrel of him who could not write himself witches with whom the Huron and Iroquois were grievously infested were objects of utter abomination to both and anyone might kill them at any time If any person was guilty of treason or by his character and conduct made himself dangerous or obnoxious to the public the council of chiefs and old men held a secret session on his case condemned him to death and appointed some young man to kill him The executioner, watching his opportunity brained or stabbed him unawares usually in the dark porch of one of the houses Acting by authority he could not be held answerable and the relatives of this lane had no redress even if they desired it The council, however, commonly obviated all difficulty in advance by charging the culprit with witchcraft thus alienating his best friends The military organization of the Iroquois was exceedingly imperfect and derived all its efficiency from their civil union and their personal prowess There were two hereditary war chiefs both belonging to the Seneca's but except on occasions of unusual importance it does not appear that they took a very active part in the conduct of wars The Iroquois lived in a state of chronic warfare with nearly all the surrounding tribes except a few from whom they accepted tribute Any man of sufficient personal credit might raise a war-party when he chose He proclaimed his purpose through the village sang his war-songs struck his hatchet into the war-post and danced the war-dance Any who chose joined him and the party usually took up their march at once with a little parched corn-meal and maple sugar as their sole provision On great occasions there was concert of action the various parties meeting at a rendezvous and pursuing the march together The leaders of war parties, like the Orators belonged in nearly all cases to the class of subordinate chiefs The Iroquois had a discipline suited to the dark and tangled forest where they fought Here they were a terrible foe In an open country, against a trained European force they were, despite the ferocious fowler far less formidable In observing this singular organization one is struck by the incongruity of its spirit and its form A body of hereditary oligarchs was the head of the nation yet the nation was essentially democratic Not that the Iroquois were levelers none were more prompt to acknowledge superiority and to defer to it whether established by usage and prescription or the result of personal endowment Yet each man, whether of high or low degree had a voice in the conduct of affairs and was never for a moment divorced from his wild spirit of independence Where there was no property worthy of the name authority had no fulcrum and no hold The constant aim of saccums and chiefs was to exercise it without seeming to do so They had no insignia of office They were no richer than others Indeed they were often poorer spending their substance in largesces and bribes to strengthen their influence They hunted and fished for subsistence They were as foul, greasy and unsavory as the rest Yet in them, with all was often seen a native dignity of bearing which ochre and bear's grease could not hide and which comported well with their strong symmetrical and sometimes majestic proportions To the institutions, traditions, rights, usages and festivals of the league the Iroquois was inseparably wedded He clung to them with Indian tenacity and he clings to them still His political fabric was one of ancient ideas and practices crystallized into regular and enduring forms In its component parts it has nothing peculiar to itself All its elements are found in other tribes Most of them belong to the whole Indian race Undoubtedly there was a distinct and definite effort of legislation but Iroquois legislation invented nothing Like all sound legislation it built of materials already prepared It organized the chaotic past and gave concrete forms to Indian nature itself The people have dwindled and decayed but banded by its ties of clan and kin The league in feeble miniature still subsists and the degenerate Iroquois looks back with a mournful pride to the glory of the past Would the Iroquois left undisturbed to work out their own destiny ever have emerged from the savage state? Advanced as they were beyond most other American tribes there is no indication whatever of a tendency to overpass the confines of a wild hunter and warrior life They were inveterately attached to it impracticable conservatists of barbarism and in ferocity and cruelty they matched the worst of their race Nor did the power of expansion apparently belonging to their system ever produced much result Between the years 1712 and 1715 the Tuscaroras, a kindred people were admitted into the league as a sixth nation but they were never admitted on equal terms Long after, in the period of their decline several other tribes were announced as new members of the league but these admissions never took effect The Iroquois were always reluctant to receive other tribes or parts of tribes collectively into the precincts of the long house Yet they constantly practiced a system of adoptions from which, though cruel and savage they drew great advantages Their prisoners of war, when they had burned and butchered as many of them as would serve to sate their own ire and that of their women they provided man by man, woman by woman and child by child adopted into different families and clans and thus incorporated into the nation It was by this means and this alone that they could offset the losses of their incessant wars Early in the eighteenth century and ever long before a vast proportion of their population consisted of adopted prisoners It remains to speak of the religious and superstitious ideas that deeply influenced Indian life