 Introduction Part 5 of the Jesuits in North America This is a LibreVox recording. All LibreVox recording are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibreVox.org Recording by Aratinga The Jesuits in North America in the 17th century by Francis Parkman Introduction Part 5 Religion and Superstitions The religions belief of North American Indians seems on the first view anomalous and contradictory. It certainly so if we adopt the popular impression, romance, poetry and rhetoric point On the one hand to the August conception of one all ruling deity A great spirit, omniscient and omnipresent And we are called to admire the untultured intellect which could conceive a thought to vest to Socrates and Plato On the other hand, we find chaos of degrading, ridiculous and incoherent superstitions A close examination will show that the contradiction is more apparent than real We will begin with the lowest form of Indian belief and then trace it upward to the highest conception To which the unassisted mind of savage attain To the Indians, the material world is sentient and intelligent Birds, beasts and reptiles have ears for human prayers and are endowed with an influence on human destiny A mysterious and inexplicable power that resides in inanimate things They too can listen to the voice of man and influence his life for evil or for good Lakes, rivers and waterfalls are sometimes the dwelling place of spirits But more frequently they are themselves living beings To the propitiated by prayers and offerings The lake has a soul and so has the river and the cataract Each can hear the words of man and each can be pleased or offended In the silence of a forest, the gloom of a deep ravine resides a living mystery Indefined but redoubtable Through all the works of nature, all of man, nothing exists However, seemingly trivial, that may not be endowed with a secret power for blessing or forbind Man and animals are closely akin Each species of animal has its great archetype Its progenitor or king, who is supposed to exist somewhere Prodigious in size, though in shape and nature like his subjects A belief prevails vague but perfectly apparent That men themselves owe their first parentage to beasts, birds or reptiles As bears, wolves, tortoises or cranes And the name of the totemic plants borrowed in nearly every case from animals Are the reflection of this idea An Indian hunter was always anxious to propitiate the animal he sought to kill He has often been known to address a wooden bear in a long terrain of apology The bones of the beaver were treated with special tenderness And carefully kept from the dogs At least the spirit of the dead beaver or his surviving brethren should take offense This solicitude was not confined to animals but extended to inanimate things A remarkable example occurred among the Hurons People comparatively advanced who to propitiate their fishing nets And persuade them to do their office with effect Married them every year to two young girls of the tribe With a ceremony more formal than that observed in the case of a mere human wedlock The fish too, no less than the nets, must be propitiated And to this end they were addressed every evening from the fishing camp By one of the party chosen for that function Who exhorted them to take courage and be caught Assuring them that the ultimate respect should be shown to their bones The harangue which took place after evening meals was made in solemn form And while it lasted the whole party except the speaker were required to lie on their backs Silent and motionless around the fire Besides ascribing life and intelligence to the material world, animate and inanimate The Indian believes in supernatural existence Known among the Algokwins as Maniturs And among the Iroquois and Hurons as Orchis or Octons These words comprehend all forms of supernatural being From the highest to the lowest with the exception possibly of certain diminutive Fairies or hobgoblins and certain giants and anomalous monsters Which appear under various forms grotesque and horrible in the Indian fireside legend There are local monitor of streams, rocks, mountains, cataracts and forests The conception of these beings betrays for the most part a striking poverty of imagination In nearly every case, when they reveal themselves to mortal sight They bear the semblance of beasts, reptiles or birds in shapes unusual or distorted There are other Maniturs without local habitation, some good, some evil Countless in numbers and indefinite in attributes They feel the world and control the destinies of man That is to say of Indians For the primitive Indian holds that the white man lives under a spiritual rule Distinct from that which governs his own fate These beings also appear for the most part in the shape of animals Sometimes, however, they assume human proportion But more frequently they take the form of stones which being broken Are found full of living blood and flesh Each primitive Indian has his guardian, Manitur, to whom he looks for counsel, guidance and protection These spiritual lies are gained by the following process At the age of 14 or 15, the Indian boy blackens his face Retires to some solitary place and remains for days without food Superstition's expectance and the exhaustion of abstinence Finally fail of their results His sleep is haunted by visions and therefore, which first of most often appears Is that of his guardian, Manitur, a beast, a bird, a flesh, a serpent Awesome are the objects, animate or inanimate An eagle or a bear is the vision of destiny's warrior, a wolf of a successful hunter While a serpent foreshadows the future medicine man Or according to others, portends disaster The young Indian tends forth where's about his person the object revealed in his dreams Awesome portion of it as a bone, a feather, a snake's skin or a tuft of hair This in the modern language of the forest and prairie is known as his medicine The Indian yields to its sort of worship, propitiates it with offerings of tobacco Thanks it in prosperity and upgrades it in disaster If his medicine fails to bring the desire success, he will sometimes discard it and adopt another The superstition now becomes merry, fairish worship Since the Indian regards the mysterious object which he carries about him rather as an environment Than as a representative of a supernatural power Indian belief recognizes also another and very different class of beings Besides the giants and monsters of legendary lore, other conceptions may be discerned More or less distinct and of a character partly mythical On this the most conspicuous is that remarkable personage of Algonquin tradition Called Manabozoho, Mezu, Mihabo, Nanabush or the Great Hare As each species of animal has its archetype or king So among the Algonquins Manabozoho is king of all these animal kings Tradition is diverse as to his origin According to the most current belief, his father was the west wind and his mother a great-granddaughter of the moon His character is worthy of such parentage Sometimes he is a wolf, a bird or a gigantic hare surrounded by a court of quadrupedes Sometimes he appears in human shape, majestic in stature and wonders in endowment A might magician, a destroyer of serpents and evil monitors Sometimes he is vain and treacherous imp, full of childish whims and pretty trickery The butt and victim of man, beast and spirits His powers of transformations are without limits His curiosity and malice are insatiable And of the numberless legends of which he is the hero The greater part of all as trivial as they are incoherent It does not appear that Manabozoho was ever an object of worship Yet, despite his absurdity, tradition declares him to be chief among the monitors In short, the Great Spirit It was he who restored the world submerged by a deluge He was hunting company with a certain wolf, who was his brother, or by other count, his grandson When his quadruped relative fell through the ice of a frozen lake And was at once devoured by certain serpents lurking in the depths of the waters Manabozoho, intent on revenge, transformed himself into the stamp of a tree And by his artifice surprised the slough, the king of the serpents As he basket with the flowers in the non-tight sun The serpents, who were all monitor, cause in their rage the water of the lake to deluge the earth Manabozoho climbed a tree which, in answer to his entreaties, grew as the flood rolls around it And thus saved him from the vengeance of the evil spirits Submerged to the neck, he looked abroad on the waist of waters And at length described the bird known as the loon To whom he appealed for aid in the task of restoring the world The loon dived in search of a little mud as material for reconstruction But could not reach the bottom A masquerade made the same attempt, but soon reappeared floating on his back and apparently dead Manabozoho, however, on searching his paw, discovered in one of them a particle of desired mud And of these together with the body of the loon create the word anew There are various forms of this tradition, in some of which Manabozoho appears, not as the restorer But as the creator of the world, forming mankind from the carcass of beasts, birds and fishes Other stories represent him as marrying a female masquerade by whom he became the progenitor of the human race Searching for some higher conception of supernatural existence We find among a portion of the primitive Algonquins trace of a vague belief in a spirit dimly shadowed forth under the name of Atahokan To whom it does not appear that any attributes were ascribed or any worship offered And of whom the Indians professed to know nothing whatsoever But there is no evidence that this belief extended beyond certain tribes of the lower San Florence Others saw a supreme monitor in the sun The Algonquins believed also in a malignant monitor in whom the early missionaries failed not to recognize the devil But who was far less dreaded than his wife She wore a robe made of the hair of her victims, for she was the cause of death And she was whom, by yelling, drumming and stamping, they sought to drive away from the sick Sometimes at night she was seen by some terrified squall in the forest in shape like a flame of fire And when the vision was announced to the circle crouched around the large fire They burned a fragment of meat to appease the female fend The east and the west, the north and the south were vaguely personified as spirits of monitor Some of the winds, too, were personal existence The west wind, as we have seen, was Father Manabozo There was a summer maker and a winter maker And the Indians tried to keep the letter at bay by throwing firebends into the air When we turn from the Algonquins family of tribes to that of the Iroquois We find another cosmogony and other conceptions of spiritual existence While the earth was as yet a waste of waters There was, according to Iroquois and Polon's traditions, a heaven with lakes, streams, plains and forests inhabited by animals, by spirits, and as some affirm by human beings Here a certain female spirit named Atenski was once chasing a bear which, slipping through a hole, fell down to the earth Atenski's dog followed when she herself struck with despair, jumped after them Others declare that she was kicked out of heaven by the spirit of her husband for an armor with a man while others again hold the belief that she fell in the attempt together for her husband the medicinal leaves of certain tree Be this, as it may, the animal swimming in the watery waste below saw her falling and hastily met in council to determine what should be done The case was referred to the beaver The beaver commanded it to the judgment of the tortoise who thereupon called on the other animals to drive, bring up mud and place it on his back Thus was formed a floating island on which Atenski fell and here, being pregnant, she was soon delivered of a daughter who, in turn, bore two boys whose paternity is unexplained They were called Tauscaron and Joskecha and presently fell to blows Joskecha killing his brother with the horn of a stag The back of tortoise grew into a world full of verdure and life and Joskecha with his grandmother Atenski ruled over its destiny He is the sun, she is the moon He is beneficent, but she is malignant like the female demon of the algon queens They have bark howls made like those of the Iroquois at the end of the earth and they often come to feasts and dances in the Indian villages Joskecha raised corn for himself and makes plentiful harbests for mankind Sometimes he is seen thin as a skeleton with a spike of shivered corn in his hand or greatly gnawing a human limb and then the Indians know that a grievous famine awaits them He constantly interposes between mankind and the malice of his wicked grandmother whom, at times, he soundly coaches It was he who made lakes and streams for once the earth was parted and then all the water being gathered under the armpit of a colossal frog But Joskecha pierced the armpit and let out the water No prayers will offer to him His beloved nature hindering them superfluous The early writers call Joskecha the creator of the world and speak of him as corresponding to the big algon queen deity Atahokan, another deity, appears in Iroquois mythology with equal claims to be regarded as supreme He is called Areskoi or Agreskoi and his most prominent attributes are those of God of War He was often invoked and the flesh of the animals and of captive enemies was burned in his honor Like Joskecha, he was identified with the sun and he is perhaps to be regarded as the same being under different attributes Among the Iroquois proper of five nations there was also a divinity called Tareni Wagon or Tahroni Wagon whose place and character it is very difficult to determine In some traditions he appears as the son of Joskecha He had prodigious influence for it was he who spoke to men in dreams The five nations recognized is still another superhuman personage plainly a defied chief or hero This was Tahroni Wata or Hi Wata said to be a divinely appointed messenger who made his abode on earth for the political and social instruction of the chosen race and whose counterpart is to be found in the tradition of the Peruvians, Mexicans and other primitive nations Close examination makes it evident that the primitive Indians idea of a supreme being was a conception no higher than might have been expected The moment he began to contemplate this object of his faith and sought to close it with attributes it became finite and commonly ridiculous The creator of the world stood on the level of a barbarous and degraded humanity while a natural tendency became apparent to look beyond him to other powers sharing his dominion The Indian believed if developed would have developed into a system of politics In the primitive Indians conception of God the idea of moral good has no part His deity does not dispense justice for this world or the next but lives mankind under the power of subordinate spirits who feel and control the universe Nor is the good and evil of these inferior beings a moral good and evil The good spirit is the spirit that gives good luck and ministers to the necessities and desires of mankind The evil spirit is simply a malicious agent of disease, death and mischance In the Indian language could the early missionaries find a world to express the idea of God Monitor and all key meant anything endowed with supernatural powers from a snake skin or a Greece Indian conjure up to Manabozu and Joskeha The priests were forced to use a single location the great chief of man or he who lives in the sky Yet it should seem that the idea of a supreme controlling spirit might naturally rise from the peculiar character of Indian beliefs The idea that each race of animal has its archetype or chief would easily suggest the existence of a supreme chief of the spirits or of the human race A conception imperfectly shadow forth in Manabozu The Jesuits missionaries see this advantage If each sort of animal has its king, they urge so Two men and as man is above all the animals so is the spirit that rules over man, the master of all the other spirits The Indian mind readily accepted the idea The tribe in no sense Christian quickly rose to be believed in one controlling spirit The Great Spirit became a distinct existence, a prevading power in the universe and a dispenser of justice Many tribes now pray to him, though still clinging obstinately to their ancient superstitions And with some as the hidden portion of the modern Iroquois he is clothed with attributes of moral good The evil to be punished or moral evil Skinful hunters, brave warriors, men of influence and consideration went after death to be happy hunting ground while the slothful and cowardly and the weak were doomed to eat serpents and ashes in dreary regions of mist and darkness In the general belief, however, there was but one land of shades for all alike The spirits in form and feature of their head being light wended their way through dark forest to the village of the dead subsisting on bark and rotten wood On arriving they sat all day in the crouching posture of the sick and, when night came, hunted the shades of animals and the shades of balls and arrows among the shades of trees and rocks For all things, animate and inanimate were alike immortal and all passed together to the glooming country of the dead The belief respecting the land of souls varied greatly in different tribes and different individuals Among the Hurons, there were those who held that departed spirits pursued their journey through the sky along the Milky Way while the souls of dogs took other route certain constellations know as the way of dogs At intervals of 10 or 12 years, the Hurons, the Neutrus and other kinder tribes were accustomed to collect the bones of their dead and deposit them with great ceremony in a common place of burial The whole nation was sometimes assembled at the solemnity and hundreds of corpses brought from their temporary resting place were inhuman in one capricious pit From this hour, the immortality of their souls began They took wings as some affirmed in the shape of patients while the greater number declared that their journey on foot and their own likeness To the land of shades, buried and then the ghost of the wamping belts Beaver skins, bows, arrows, pipes, kettles, beads and rings buried with them in the common grave But as the spirits of the old and of children are too feeble for the march they are forced to stay behind, lingering near their earthly villages where they live in often hear the shouting of their invisible cabin doors and the weak voices of the disembodied children driving birds from their cornfields An endless variety of incoherent fences is connected with the Indian idea of a future life They commonly owe their origin to dreams, often to dreams of those in extreme sickness who on awaking suppose that they had visited the other world and related to their wandering bystander what they had seen The Indian land of souls is not always a region of shadows and gloom The Huron sometimes represented the souls of their dead, those of their dogs included as dancing joyously in the presence of Atean Tiske and Jos Kehra according to some Algo Queen tradition Heaven was a sense of endless festivity the ghost dancing to the sound of rattle and the drum and greeting with hospitable welcome the occasioned visitor from the living world for the spirit land was not far off and proven hunters sometimes passed its confines unawares Most of the tradition agree however that the spirits of their journey, heaven world will be set with difficulties and perils There was a swift river which must be crossed on a log that shook beneath their feet while a fierce dog opposed their passage and drove many into their abyss This river was full of sturgeon and other fish which the ghosts spared for their substances Beyond was a narrow path between moving rocks which each instant crashed together grinding to atoms and less nimble of the pilgrims who is saved to pass The Hurons believe that a personage named Oskar Tahrachi or the head peacer dwelt in a bark house besides the pet and that it was his office to remove the brains from the heads of all who went by is a necessary preparation for immortality This singular idea is found also in some algal queen tradition according to which however the brain is afterwards restored to its owner Dreams were to the India a universal oracle they revealed to him his guardian spirits thought him the cure for his diseases, warned him of the device of sorcerers guided him to the lurking place of his enemy or the hunts of gain and unfolded the secrets of good and evil destiny The dream was a mysterious and inoxerable power whose least behests must be obeyed to the letter a source in every Indian town of endless mischief and abomination There were professed dreamers and professed interpreters of dreams One of the most noted festival among the Hurons and Iroquois was the dream feast a scene of frenzy where the actors counterfeited madness and the town was like a bedlam turned loose Each pretended to have dreamed of something necessary to his welfare and rushed from house to house demanding of all he met to guess his secret requirement and satisfied Believing that the whole material world was instinct with powers to influence and control his fate that good and evil spirits and existence, nameless and undefiable filled all nature that a prevading sorcery was above, below and around him and that issues of life and death might be controlled by instruments the most unnoticeable and similarly the most feeble the Indian lived in perpetual fear the turning of a leaf, the crawling of an insect, the crying of a bird, the creaking of a bow might be to him the mystical sign of will or will An Indian community swarmed with sorcerers, medicine men and diviners whose functions were often united in the same person The sorcerer by charms, magic, songs, magic feasts and the beating of his drum had power over the spirits and those all called influence, inherit in animals and inanimate things He could call to him the souls of his enemies They appeared before him in the form of stones He chopped and bruised them with his hatchet Blood and flesh used to fall in the intense victim, however, distanced, languished and died Like the sorcerer of the middle age, he made images of those he wished to destroy and muttering incarnation punctured them with an awl whereupon the person represented sickness and pinned away The Indian doctor relied far more on magic than on natural remedies Dreams beating of the drum, songs, magic feasts and dancing and hauling to frighten the female demon from his patient were his ordinary methods of cure The prophet or diviner had various means of reading the secrets of futurity such as the flight of a bird and the movements of water and fire There was a peculiar practice of divination, very general in the algal queen family of tribes Among some of whom it still subsists a small conical lodge was made by planting poles in a circle lashing the poles together at the height of about 7 feet from the ground and closely covering them with hides The prophet crawled in and closed the aperture after him He then beat his drum and sang his magic songs to summon the spirits Whose weak trail voice were soon heard mingled with his logarithms chanting while at intervals the juggler paused to interpret their communication to the attentive crowd seated on the ground without During the whole scene the lodge swayed to and fro with a violence which has astonished many of civilized beholder and which some of the Jesuits explained by the ready solution of genuine diabolic intervention The sorcerers, medicine men and diviners did not usually exercise the function of priests Each man sacrificed for himself to the powers he wished to propitiate whether his guardian spirit, the spirits of animals or the other being of his belief The most common offering was tobacco throwing the fire or water scrapes of meat were sometimes burned to the monitor and on a few rare occasions of public solemnity a white dog, the mystical animal of many tribes was tied to the end of an upright hole as a sacrifice to some superior spirit or to the son with which the superior spirit was constantly confounded by the primitive India In recent times when Judaism and Christianity have modified his religious idea it has been and still is the practice to sacrifice dogs to the great spirit On these public occasions the sacrifice functioned is discharged by chiefs or warriors appointed for the purpose Among the Hurons and Iroquois and indeed all the stationery tribes there was an incredible number of mystic ceremonies, extravagant, poorly and often distinguished designed for the cure of the sick or for the general will of the community Most of their observance seem originally to have been dictated by dreams and transmitted as secret heritage from generation to generation They consisted in an endless variety of dances, masquerading and nondescript orgies and a scrupulous adherence to all the tradition forms was held to be of the last moment as the slightest failure in this respect might entire serious calamities If children were seen in their play imitating any of these mysteries they were grimly rebooked and punished Many tribes secret magical societies exist and still exist and which members are initiated with peculiar ceremonies These associations are greatly respected and feared They have charms for love, war and private revenge and exert a great and often a very mischievous influence The societies of the Metai and the Webeno, among the Northern Iroquois are conspicuous examples while other societies of similar character have for centuries been known to exist among the Dakota A nurse of the superstitions ideas of the Indians would be imperfect without a reference to the tradition tales through which these ideas are handed down from father to son Some of these tales can be traced back to the period of earliest intercourse with Europeans One at least of those recorded by the first missionaries on the lower St. Lawrence is still current among the tribes of Upper Lakes Many of them are curious combination of beliefs seriously entertained with strokes intended for human and drollery which never failed to awaken peals of laughter and the large circle Giants dwarf cannibals, spirits, beasts, birds and anomalous monsters transformation tricks and sorcery from the staple of the story Some of the Iroquois tales embody conception which, however, presposterous are of a bold and striking character but those of the Algoquins are to an incredible degree flimsy, silly and meaningless nor are those of the Dakota tribes much better In respect of this winged one, Lord, there is curious superstition of very wide prevalence The tales must not be told in summer Since at that season when all nature is full of life the spirits are awake and hearing what is said of them may take offense whereas in winter they are fast asleep, sealed up in snow and ice and no longer capable of listening It is obvious that the Indian mind has never seriously occupied itself with any of the higher themes of thought The beings of its belief are not impersonation of the first of nature the course of human destiny or the movements of human intellect will and passion In the midst of nature the Indian knew nothing of her laws his perpetual reference of her phenomena to occult agencies for stale inquiry and precluded inductive reasoning If the wind blew with violence it was because the water lizard which makes the wind had crawled out of his pole If the lightning was sharp and frequently it was because the young of the thunderbird were restless in their nest If a blight fell upon the corn it was because the corn spirit was angry and if the beavers were shy and difficult to catch it was because they had taken offense at seeing the bones of one of the arrays thrown to a dog Well, and even highly developed in a few instances I allude especially to the Iroquois with respect to certain points of material concern The mind of the Indian in other respects was and is hopelessly stagnate The very traits that raise him above the servile race are hostile to the kind and degree of civilization which those race so easily attain His intractable spirit of independence and the pride which forbids him to be an imitator reinforced but too strongly that savage lethargy of mind from which it is so hard to rouse him No race perhaps ever offered greater difficulties to those laboring for its improvement To sum up the result of this examination the primitive Indian was as savage in his religion as in his life He was divided between fetish worship and that next degree of religions Development which consists in the worship of deities and body in the human form His conception of their attribute was such as might have been expected His gods were no with better than himself Even when he borrows from Christianity the idea of a supreme and universal spirit His tendency is to reduce him to a local habitation and a bodily shape and his tendency disappears only in tribes that have been long in contact with civilized white men The primitive Indian yielding his untutored homage to one all-prevading and omnipotent spirit is a dream of poets with torturations and sentimentalists and of introduction part 5 recording by Aratinga Chapter 1 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 Recording by Mark Penfold The Jesuits in North America in the 17th century by Francis Parkman Chapter 1 1634 Notre-Dame d'Ange Opposite Quebec lies the tongue of land called Point Levis One who in the summer of the year 1634 stood on its margin and looked northward across the Saint Lawrence would have seen at the distance of a mile or more a range of lofty cliffs rising on the left into the bold heights of Cape Diamond and on the right sinking abruptly to the bed of the tributary river Saint Charles Beneath these cliffs at the brink of the Saint Lawrence he would have described a cluster of warehouses, sheds and wooden tenements immediately above along the verge of the precipice he could have traced the outlines of a fortified work with a flagstaff and a few small cannons to command the river while at the only point where nature had made the heights accessible a zigzag path connected the warehouses and the fort now embarked in the canoe of some Monteney's Indian let him cross the Saint Lawrence, land at the pier and passing the cluster of buildings climbed the pathway up the cliff pausing for rest and breath he might see ascending and descending the tenets of this outpost of the wilderness a soldier of the fort or an officer in slouched hat and plume a factor of the fur company owner and sovereign lord of all Canada a party of Indians a trader from the upper country one of the precursors of that hearty race of Kerou de bois destined to form a conspicuous and striking feature of the Canadian population next perhaps would appear a figure widely different the close black casque the rosary hanging from the waist and the wide black hat looping up at the sides proclaimed the Jesuit Father Lejeun superior of the residence of Quebec and now that we may better know the aspect and condition of the infant colony and incipient mission we will follow the priest on his way mounting the steep path he reached the top of the cliff some two hundred feet above the river and the warehouses on the left lay the fort built by Champlain covering a part of the ground now forming Durham Terrace and the Place d'Ahm its ramparts were of logs and earth and within was a turreted building of stone used as a barrack as officers quarters and for other purposes near the fort stood a small chapel newly built the surrounding country was cleared and partially cultivated yet only one dwelling house worthy the name appeared it was a substantial cottage where lived Madame Hebert widow of the first settler of Canada with her daughter her son-in-law Coulard and their children good Catholics all who two years before when Quebec was evacuated by the English wept for joy at beholding Lejeun and his brother Jesuit crossing their threshold to offer beneath their roof the long forbidden sacrifice of the mass there were enclosures with cattle near at hand and the house with its surroundings be tokened industry and thrift thence Lejeun walked on across the side of the modern marketplace and still onward near the line of the cliffs which sank abruptly on his right beneath lay the mouth of the Saint Charles and beyond the wilderness shore of Bupour swept in a wide curve eastward to where far in the distance the Gulf of Montmorency yawned on the great river the priest soon passed the clearings and entered the woods which covered the site of the present suburb of Saint John thence he descended to a lower plateau where now lies the suburb of Saint Roche and still advancing reached a pleasant spot at the extremity attract of Meadow land nearly enclosed by a sudden bend of the Saint Charles here lay a canoe or skiff and patting across the narrow stream Lejeun saw on the Meadow two hundred yards from the bank a square enclosure formed of palisades like a modern picket fort of the Indian frontier within this enclosure were two buildings one of which had been half burned by the English and was not yet repaired it served as storehouse, stable, workshop and bakery opposite stood the principal building a structure of planks plastered with mud and thatched with long grass from the Meadows it consisted of one story, a garret and a cellar and contained four principal rooms of which one served as chapel another as refectory, another as kitchen and the fourth as a lodging for workmen the furniture of all was plain in the extreme until the preceding year the chapel had had no other ornament than a sheet on which were glued two coarse engravings but the priests had now decorated their altar with an image of a dove representing the Holy Ghost an image of Loyola, another of Xavier and three images of the Virgin four cells opened from the refectory the largest of which was eight feet square in these lodged six priests while two lay brothers found shelter in the garret the house had been hastily built eight years before and now leaked in all parts such was the residence of Notre-Dame des Anges here was nourished the germ of a vast enterprise and this was the cradle of the great mission of New France of the six Jesuits gathered in the refectory for the evening meal one was conspicuous among the rest a tall, strong man with features that seemed carved by nature for a soldier but which the mental habits of years had stamped with the visible impress of the priesthood this was Jean de Brebufe, descendant of a noble family of Normandy and one of the ablest and most devoted zealots whose names stand on the missionary roles of his order his companions were Massé, Daniel, Davos, Dénu and the father superior, Lejoin Massé was the same priest who had been the companion of Father Biard in the abortive mission of Acadia by reason of his useful qualities Lejoin nicknamed him Le Père Utile at present his special function was the care of the pigs and cows which he kept in the enclosure around the buildings lest they should ravage the neighboring fields of Rye, Barley, Wheat and Maïs Dénu had charge of the eight or ten workmen employed by the mission who gave him at times no little trouble by their repinnings and complaints they were forced to hear Mass every morning and prayers every evening besides an exhortation on Sunday some of them were for returning home while two or three of a different complexion wished to be Jesuits themselves the fathers in their intervals of leisure worked with their men spayed in hand for the rest they were busy in preaching, singing vespers saying Mass and hearing confessions at the Fort of Quebec catechizing a few Indians and striving to master the enormous difficulties of the Huron and Algonquin languages well might Father Lejoin write to his superior the harvest is plentiful and the laborers few these men aimed at the conversion of a continent from their hovel on the St. Charles they surveyed a field of labor whose vastness might tire the wings of thought itself a scene repellent and appalling darkened with omens of peril and woe they were an advance guard of the great army of Loyola strong in a discipline that controlled not alone the body and the will but the intellect, the heart, the soul, and the inmost consciousness the lives of these early Canadian Jesuits attest the earnestness of their faith and the intensity of their zeal but it was a zeal bridled, curbed, and ruled by a guiding hand their marvelous training in equal measure kindled enthusiasm and controlled it roused into action a mighty power and made it as subservient as those great material forces which modern science has learned to awaken and to govern they were drilled to a factitious humility prone to find utterance in expressions of self-deprecation and self-scorn which one may often judge unwisely when he condemns them as insincere they were devoted believers not only in the fundamental dogmas of Rome but in those lesser matters of faith which heresy despises as idle and prairie superstitions one great aim engrossed their lives for the greater glory of God ad majorum dei glorium they would act or wait, dare, suffer, or die yet all an unquestioning subjection to the authority of the superiors in whom they recognized the agents of divine authority itself the end of chapter 1 recording by Mark Penfold Lincoln, Nebraska chapter 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 recording by Mark Penfold the Jesuits in North America in the 17th century by Francis Parkman chapter 2 Loyola and the Jesuits it was an evil day for newborn Protestantism when a French artilleryman fired the shot that struck down Ignatius Loyola in the breach of Pampaluna a proud noble, an aspiring soldier a graceful courtier an ardent and daring galant was metamorphosed by that stroke into the zealot whose brain engendered and brought forth the mighty society of Jesus his story is a familiar one how in the solitude of his sick room a change came over him up heaving like an earthquake all the forces of his nature how in the cave of Manresa the mysteries of heaven were revealed to him how he passed from agonies to transports from transports to the calm of a determined purpose the soldier gave himself to a new warfare in the forge of his great intellect heated but not disturbed by the intense fires of his zeal was wrought the prodigious enginery whose power has been felt to the uttermost confines of the world Loyola's training had been in courts and camps of books he knew little or nothing he had lived in the unquestioning faith of one born in bread in the very focus of Romanism and thus at the age of about thirty his conversion found him it was a change of life and purpose not of belief he presumed not to inquire into the doctrines of the church it was for him to enforce those doctrines and to this end he turned all the faculties of his potent intellect and all his deep knowledge of mankind he did not aim to build up barren communities of secluded monks aspiring to heaven through prayer, penance and meditation but to subdue the world to the dominion of the dogmas which had subdued him to organize and discipline a mighty host controlled by one purpose and one mind fired by a quenchless zeal or nerved by a fixed resolve yet impelled, restrained and directed by a single master hand the Jesuit is no dreamer he is emphatically a man of action action is the end of his existence it was an arduous problem which Loyola undertook to solve to rob a man of volition yet to preserve in him Nate to stimulate those energies which would make him the most efficient instrument of a great design to this end the Jesuit novitiate and the constitutions of the order are directed the enthusiasm of the novices urged to its intensest pitch then in the name of religion he is summoned to the utter abnegation of intellect and will in favor of the superior in whom he is commanded to recognize the representative of God on earth thus the young zealot makes no slavish sacrifice of intellect and will at least so he is taught for he sacrifices them not to man but to his maker no limit is set to his submission if the superior pronounces black to be white he is bound in conscience to acquiesce Loyola's book of spiritual exercises is well known in these exercises lies the hard and narrow path which is the only entrance to the society of Jesus the book is to all appearance a dry and superstitious formulary but in the hands of a skillful director of consciences it has proved of terrible efficacy the novice in solitude and darkness day after day and night after night ponders its images of perdition and despair he is taught to hear in imagination the howlings of the damned to see their convulsive agonies to feel the flames that burn without consuming to smell the corruption of the tomb and the fumes of the infernal pit he must picture to himself an array of adverse armies one commanded by Satan on the plains of Babylon one encamped under Christ about the walls of Jerusalem and the perturbed mind humbled by long contemplation of its own vileness is ordered to enroll itself under one or the other banner then the choice made it has led to a region of serenity and celestial peace ensued with images of divine benignity and grace these meditations last without intermission about a month and under an astute and experienced directorship they have been found of such power that the manual of spiritual exercises boasts to have saved souls more in number than the letters it contains to this succeed two years of discipline and preparation directed above all things else to perfecting the virtues of humility and obedience the novice is obliged to perform the lowest menial offices and the most repulsive duties of the sick room and the hospital and he is sent forth for weeks together to beg his bread like a common mendicant he is required to reveal to his confessor not only his sins but all those hidden tendencies, instincts and impulses which form the distinctive traits of character he is set to watch his comrades and his comrades are set to watch him each must report what he observes of the acts and dispositions of the others and this mutual espionage does not end with a novitiate but extends to the close of life the characteristics of every member of the order are minutely analyzed and methodically put on record this horrible violence to the noblest qualities of manhood joined to that equivocal system of morality which eminent casuists of the order have inculcated must it may be thought produced deplorable effects upon the characters of those under its influence whether this has been actually the case the reader of history may determine it is certain however that the society of Jesus has numbered among its members men whose fervent and exalted natures have been intensified without being abased by the pressure to which they have been subjected it is not for nothing that the society studies the character of its members so intently and by methods so startling it not only uses its knowledge to thrust into obscurity or cast out altogether those whom it discovers to be dull feeble or unwilling instruments of its purposes but it assigns to everyone the task to which his talents or his disposition may best adapt him to one the care of a royal conscience whereby unseen his whispered word may guide the destiny of nations to another the instruction of children to another a career of letters or science and to the fervent and the self-sacrificing sometimes also to the restless and uncompliant the distant missions to the heathen the Jesuit was and is everywhere in the school room in the library in the cabinets of princes and ministers in the huts of savages in the tropics in the frozen north in India in China in Japan in Africa in America now as a Christian priest now as a soldier a mathematician an astrologer a Brahmin a Mandarin under countless disguises by a thousand arts luring persuading or compelling souls into the fold of Rome of this vast mechanism for guiding and governing the minds of men this mighty engine reforce of doing the earth to the dominion of an idea this harmony of contradictions this moral proteus the faintest sketch must now suffice a disquisition on the society of Jesus would be without end no religious order has ever united in itself so much to be admired and so much to be detested unmixed praise has been poured on its Canadian members it is not for me to eulogize them but to portray them as they were end of chapter 2 recording by Mark Penfold Lincoln Nebraska chapter 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 chapter 3 1632 to 1633 Paul Lejeune in another narrative we have seen how the Jesuits supplanting the recalate friars their predecessors had adopted as their own the rugged task of Christianizing New France we have seen to how a descent of the English or rather of Huguenot's fighting under English colors had overthrown for a time the miserable little colony with the mission to which it was wedded and how Quebec was at length restored to France and the broken thread of the Jesuit enterprise resumed it was then that Lejeune had embarked for the New World he was in his convent at Dieppe when he received the order to depart and he set forth in haste for Avres filled he assures us with inexpressible joy at the prospect of a living or a living martyrdom at Rouen he was joined by De Noux with a lay brother named Gilbert and the three sailed together on the 18th of April 1632 the sea treated them roughly Lejeune was wretchedly seasick and the ship nearly foundered in a gale at length they came in sight of that miserable country as the missionary calls the scene of his future labors it was in the harbor of Tadousac that he first encountered the objects of his apostolic cares for as he sat in the ship's cabin with the master it was suddenly invaded by ten or twelve Indians whom he compares to a party of masquerades at the carnival some had their cheeks painted black their noses blue and the rest of their faces red others were decorated with a broad band of black across the eyes and others again with diverging rays of black red and blue on both cheeks their attire was no less uncouth some of them wore shaggy bearskins reminding the priest of the pictures of Saint John the Baptist after a vain attempt to save a number of Iroquois prisoners whom they were preparing to burn alive on shore Lejeune and his companions again set sail and reached Quebec on the fifth of July having said mass as already mentioned under the roof of Madame Ebert and her delighted family the Jesuits made their way to the two hovels built by their predecessors on the Saint Charles which had suffered woeful dilapidation at the hands of the English here they made their abode and applied themselves with such skill as they could command to repair the shattered tenements and cultivate the waste meadows around the beginning of Lejeune's missionary labors was neither imposing nor promising he describes himself seated with a small Indian boy on one side and a small Negro on the other the latter of whom had been left by the English as a gift to Madame Ebert as neither of the three understood the language of the others the pupils made little progress in spiritual knowledge the missionaries it was clear must learn Algonquin at any cost and to this end Lejeune resolved to visit the Indian encampments hearing that a band of Montagnier were fishing for eels on the Saint Lawrence between Cape Diamond and the Cove which now bears the name of Wolf he set forth for the spot on a morning in October as with toil and trepidation he scrambled around the foot of the Cape whose precipices with a chaos of loose rocks thrust themselves at that day into the deep tidewater he dragged down upon himself the trunk of a fallen tree which in its descent well nice swept him into the river the peril past he presently reached his destination here among the lodges of bark were stretched innumerable strings of hide from which hung to dry an incredible multitude of eels a boy invited him into the lodge of a withered squaw his grandmother who hastened to offer him four smoked eels on a piece of birch bark while other squaws of the household instructed him how to roast them on a forked stick over the embers all shared the feast together his entertainers using as napkins their own hair or that of their dogs while Lejeune intent on increasing his knowledge of Algonquin maintained an active discourse of broken words and pantomime the lesson however was too laborious and of too little profit to be often repeated and the missionary sought anxiously for more stable instruction to find such was not easy the interpreters Frenchman who in the interest of the fur company had spent years among the Indians were averse to Jesuits and refused their aid there was one resource however of which Lejeune would feign avail himself an Indian called Pierre by the French had been carried to France by the recollect friars instructed converted and baptized he had lately returned to Canada where to the scandal of the Jesuits he had relapsed into his old ways retaining of his French education little besides a few new vices he still haunted the fort at Quebec lured by the hope of an occasional gift of wine or tobacco but shunned the Jesuits of whose rigid way of life he stood in horror as he spoke good French and good Indian he would have been invaluable to the embarrassed priests at the mission Lejeune invoked the aid of the saints the effect of his prayers soon appeared he tells us in a direct interposition of providence which so disposed the heart of Pierre that he quarreled with the French commandant who thereupon closed the fort against him he then repaired to his friends and relatives in the woods but only to encounter a rebuff from a young squaw to whom he made his addresses on this he turned his steps towards the mission house and being unfitted by his French education for supporting himself by hunting begged food and shelter from the priests Lejeune gratefully accepted him as a gift vouch saved by heaven to his prayers persuaded a lackey at the fort to give him a cast-off suit of clothes promised him maintenance and installed him as his teacher seated on wooden stools by the rough table in the refectory the priest and the Indian pursued their studies how thankful I am writes Lejeune to those who gave me tobacco last year at every difficulty I give my master a piece of it to make him more attentive meanwhile winter closed in with the severity rare even in Canada the St. Lawrence and the St. Charles were hard frozen rivers forests and rocks were mantled alike in dazzling sheets of snow the humble mission house of Notre Dame des anges was half buried in the drifts which heaped up in front where a path had been dug through them rose two feet above the low eaves the priests sitting at night before the blazing logs of their wide-throated chimney heard the trees in the neighboring forest cracking with frost with a sound like the report of a pistol Lejeune's ink froze and his fingers were benumbed as he toiled at his declensions and conjugations or translated the Potter Noster into blundering Algonquin the water in the cask beside the fire froze nightly and the ice was broken every morning with hatchets the blankets of the two priests were fringed with the icicles of their congealed breath and the frost lay in a thick coating on the lozenge shaped glass of their cells by day Lejeune and his companion practiced with snowshoes with all the mishaps which attend beginners the trippings the falls and headlong dives into the soft drifts amid the laughter of the Indians their seclusion was by no means a solitude bands of Montagnier with their sledges and dogs often passed the mission house on their way to hunt the moose they once invited Danoux to go with them and he scarcely less eager than Lejeune to learn their language readily consented in two or three weeks he appeared sick famished and half dead with exhaustion not ten priests in a hundred writes Lejeune to his superior could bear this winter life with the savages but what of that it was not for them to falter they were but instruments in the hands of God to be used broken and thrown aside if such should be his will an Indian made Lejeune a present of two small children greatly to the delight of the missionary who had once set himself to teaching them to pray in Latin as the season grew milder the number of his scholars increased for when parties of Indians and camped in the neighborhood he would take his stand at the door and like Xavier at Goa ring a bell at this a score of children would gather around him and he leading them into the refectory which served as his schoolroom taught them to repeat after him the Potter I and cradle expounded the mystery of the trinity showed them the sign of the cross and made them repeat an Indian prayer the joint composition of Pierre and himself then followed the catechism the lesson closing with singing the pattern Oster translated by the missionary into Algonquin Rhines and when all was over he rewarded each of his pupils with a poor injure of peas to ensure their attendance at his next bell ringing it was the end of May when the priests one morning heard the sound of cannon from the fort and were gladdened by the tidings that Samuel de Champlain had arrived to resume command at Quebec bringing with him four more Jesuits Brebouf math Daniel and Davos Brebouf from the first turned his eyes towards the distant land of the Hurons a field of labor full of peril but rich in hope and promise legions duties as superior restrained him from wanderings so remote his apostleship must be limited for a time to the vagabond hordes of Algonquins who roamed the forests of the lower St. Lawrence and of whose language he had been so sedulous a student his difficulties had of late been increased by the absence of Pierre who had run off as lent drew near standing in dread of that season of fasting mass brought tidings of him from Tadusac wither he had gone and where a party of English had given him liquor destroying the last trace of legions late exhortations God forgive those writes the father who introduced heresy into this country if this savage corrupted as he is by these miserable heretics had any wit he would be a great hindrance to the spread of faith it is plain that he was given us not for the good of his soul but only that we might extract from him the principles of his language Pierre had two brothers one well-known as a hunter was named Mesticoit the other was the most noted medicine man or as the Jesuits called him sorcerer in the tribe of the montagne like the rest of their people they were accustomed to set out for their winter hunt in the autumn after the close of their eel fishery Lejeune despite the experience of De Noux had long signed to accompany one of these roving bands partly in the hope that in some hour of distress he might touch their hearts or by a timely drop of baptismal water dismissed some dying child to paradise but chiefly with the object of mastering their language Pierre had rejoined his brothers and as the hunting season drew near they all begged the missionary to make one of them as they thought out of any love for him but solely with a view to the provisions with which they doubted not he would be well supplied Lejeune distrustful of the sorcerer demured but at length resolved to go end of chapter 3 chapter 4 of the Jesuits in North America this is the LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org the Jesuits in North America in the 17th century by Francis Parkman chapter 4 1633 to 1634 Lejeune and the Hunters on a morning in the latter part of October Lejeune embarked with the Indians 20 in all men women and no other Frenchman was of the party. Champlain bad him an anxious farewell and commended him to the care of his red associates who had taken charge of his store of biscuit, flour, corn, prunes and turnips to which in an evil hour his friends had persuaded him to add a small keg of wine. The canoes glided along the wooded shore of the island of Orléans and the party on the small island immediately below. Lejeune was delighted with the spot and the wild beauties of the autumnal sunset. His reflections however were soon interrupted. While the squas were setting up their bark lodges and Mesticoit was shooting wild fowl for supper Pierre returned to the canoes tapped the keg of wine and soon fell into the mud helplessly drunk. Revived the immersion he next appeared at the camp foaming at the mouth threw down the lodges, overset the kettle and chased the shrieking squas into the woods. His brother Mesticoit rekindled the fire and slung the kettle anew when Pierre whom meanwhile had been raving like a madman along the shore reeled in a fury to the spot to repeat his former exploit. Mesticoit anticipated him, snatched the kettle from the fire and threw the scalding contents in his face. He was never so well washed before in his life, says Lejeune. He lost all the skin of his face and breast. Wood to God his heart had changed also. He roared in his frenzy for a hatchet to kill the missionary who therefore thought it prudent to spend the night in the neighboring woods. Here he stretched and all covered him with a sheet of birch bark. Though my bed he writes had not been made up since the creation of the world it was not hard enough to prevent me from sleeping. Such was his initiation into Indian winter life. Passing over numerous adventures by water and land we find the party on the 12th of November leaving their canoes on an island and waiting ashore at low tide over the southern bank of the St. Lawrence. As two other bands had joined them their number was increased to forty-five persons. Now leaving the river behind they entered those savage highlands whence issued the springs of the St. John a wilderness of rugged mountain ranges clad in dense continuous forests with no human tenant but this troop of miserable rovers and here and there some kindred band as well as they. Winter had set in and already dead nature was sheeted in funerial white. Lakes and ponds were frozen rivulets sealed up torrents encased with stalactites of ice. The black rocks and the black trunks of the pine trees were be plastered with snow and its heavy masses crushed the dull green boughs into the drifts beneath. The forest was a grave. Through this desolation the long file of Indians made its way all on snowshoes each man, woman and child bending under a heavy load or dragging a sledge narrow but of prodigious length. They carried their whole wealth with them on their backs or on their sledges kettles, axes, hides of meat if such they had and huge rolls of birch bark covering their wigwams. The Jesuit was loaded like the rest. The dogs alone floundered through the drifts unburdened. There was neither path nor level ground. Descending, climbing, stooping beneath half fallen trees, clamoring over piles of prostrate trunks, struggling through matted cedar swamps, threading chill ravines and crossing streams no longer visible. They toiled on till the day began to decline, then stopped to encamp. Burdens were thrown down and sledges unladen. The squaws with knives and hatchets cut long poles of birch and spruce saplings while the men with snowshoes for shovels cleared a round or square space in the snow which formed an upright wall three or four feet high and closing the area of the snow. On one side a passage was cut for an entrance and the poles were planted around the top of the wall of snow sloping and converging. On these poles were spread the sheets of birch bark. A bearskin was hung in the passageway for a door. The bare ground within and the surrounding snow were covered with spruce spows and the work was done. This usually occupied about Lejeune spent with travel and weakened by precarious and unaccustomed fare had the choice of shivering in idleness or taking part in a labour which fatigued without warming his exhausted frame. The sorcerer's wife was in far worse case though in the extremity of immortal sickness they left her lying in the snow till the wigwam was made without a word on her part and she fainted. Lejeune to the great ire of her husband sometimes spent the interval in trying to convert her but she proved intractable and soon died unbaptised. Thus lodged they remained so long as game could be found within a circuit of ten or twelve miles and then subsistence failing removed to another spot. Early in the winter they hunted the beaver and the canada porcupine and later in the season of deep snows chased the moose and the caribou. Put aside the bear skin and enter the hut. Here in a space some thirteen feet square were packed nineteen savages men, women and children with their dogs crouched, squatted coiled like hedgehogs or lying on their backs with knees drawn up perpendicularly to keep their feet out of the fire. Even always methodical arranges the grievances inseparable from these rough quarters under four chief heads cold, heat, smoke and dogs. The bark covering was full of crevices through which the icy blast streamed in upon him from all sides and the hole above at once window and chimney was so large that as he lay he could watch the stars in open air. While the fire in the midst fed with fat pine knots scorched him on one side on the other he had much adieu to keep himself from freezing. At times however the crowded hut seemed heated to the temperature of an oven. But these evils were light when compared to the intolerable plague of smoke. During a snowstorm and often at other times the wigwam fumed so dense, stifling and acrid that all its inmates were forced to lie flat on their faces breathing through mouths in contact with the cold earth. Their throats and nostrils felt as if on fire. Their scorched eyes streamed with tears and when Lejeune tried to read the letters of his breviary seemed printed in blood. The dogs were not an unmixed evil for by sleeping on and around him they kept him warm at night, but as an offset to this good service they walked ran and jumped over him as he lay, snatched the food from his birch and dish or in a mad rush at some bone or discarded morsel now and then overset both dish and missionary. Sometimes of an evening he would leave the filthy den to read his breviary in peace by the light of the moon. In the forest around sounded the sharp crack of frost-riven trees and from the horizon to the zenith shot up the silent meteors of the northern lights in whose fitful flashings the awestruck Indians beheld the dancing of the spirits of the dead. The cold nod him to the bone and his devotions over he turned back shivering. The illumined hut from many a chink and crevice shot forth into the gloom long strings of light a thwart the twisted boughs. He stooped and entered. All within glowed red and fiery around the blazing pine knots where, like brutes in their kennel, were gathered the savage crew. He stepped to his place over recumbent bodies and legged and moccasin'd limbs and seated himself on the carpet of spruce boughs. Here a tribulation awaited him, the crowning misery of his winter quarters, worse as he declares than cold, heat, and dogs. Of the three brothers who had invited him to join the party, one as we have seen was the hunter, Mesticoite. Another the sorcerer and the third Pierre whom by reason of his falling away from the faith Lejeune always mentions as the apostate. He was a weak-minded young Indian wholly under the influence of his brother the sorcerer who, if not more vicious, was far more resolute and wily. From the antagonism of their respective professions the sorcerer hated the priest who lost no opportunity of denouncing his incantations and who ridiculed his perpetual singing and drumming as puerility and folly. The former being an indifferent hunter and disabled by a disease which he had contracted depended for subsistence on his credit as a magician. And in undermining it Lejeune not only outraged his pride but threatened his daily bread. He used every device to retort ridicule on his rival. At the outset he had proffered his aid to Lejeune in his study of the Algonquin and, like the Indian practical jokers of Acadia in the case of Father Bayard, palmed off on him the foulest words in the language as the equivalent of things spiritual. Thus it happened that while the missionary sought to explain to the assembled weakwams some point of Christian doctrine, he was interrupted by peals of laughter from men, children, and squas. And now as Lejeune took his place in the circle the sorcerer bent upon him with his eyes and began that course of rude bantering which filled to overflowing the cup of the Jesuits' woes. All took their cue from him and made their afflicted guest the butt of their inane witticisms. Look at him, his face is like a dog's, his head is like a pumpkin. He has a beard like a rabbit's. The missionary bore in silence these and countless similar attacks. Indeed, so sorely was he harassed that, lest he should exasperate his tormentor, he sometimes passed whole days without uttering a word. Lejeune, a man of excellent observation, already knew his red associates well enough to understand that their rudeness did not of necessity imply ill-will. The rest of their party in their turn fared no better. They rallied and bantered each other incessantly with as little forbearance and as little malice as a troop of unbridled school boys. No one took offense. To have done so would have been to bring upon oneself genuine contumely. This motley household was a model of harmony. True, they showed no tenderness or consideration towards the sick and disabled, but for the rest each shared with all in wheel or woe. The famine of one was the famine of the whole, and the smallest portion of food was distributed in fair and equal partition. Upgradings and complaints were unheard. They bore each other's foibles with wondrous equanimity, and while persecuting Lejeune with constant importunity for tobacco and for everything else he had, they never begged among themselves. When the fire burned well and food was abundant, the conversation such as it was was incessant. They used no oaths for their language supplied none, doubtless because their mythology had no being sufficiently distinct to swear by. Their expletives were foul words of which they had a superabundance and which men, women and children alike used with a frequency and hardyhood that amazed and scandalized the priest. Nor was he better pleased with their postures in which they consulted nothing but their ease. Thus of an evening when the weakwam was heated to suffocation the sorcerer in the closest possible approach to nudity lay on his back with his right knee planted upright and his left leg crossed on it discoursing voluble to the company who on their part listened in postures scarcely less remote from decency. Thus prone to believe in the immediate presence of the netherpowers Lejeune watched the sorcerer with an eye prepared to discover in his conjurations the signs of a genuine diabolic agency. His observations however led him to a different result and he could detect in his rival nothing but a vile compound of imposter and dup. The sorcerer believed in the efficacy of his own magic continually singing and beating his drum to cure the disease from which he was suffering. Towards the close of the winter Lejeune fell sick and in his pain and weakness nearly succumbed under the nocturnal uproar of the sorcerer who hour after hour sang and drummed without mercy sometimes yelling at the top of his throat then hissing like a serpent then striking his drum on the ground as if in a frenzy then leaping up raving about the wake-warm and calling on the women and children to join him in singing. Now ensued a hideous din for every throat was strained to the utmost and all were beating with sticks or fists on the bark of the hut to increase the noise with the charitable object of aiding the sorcerer to conjure down his malady or drive away the evil spirit that caused it. An enemy, a rival sorcerer whom he charged with having caused by charms the disease that afflicted him he therefore announced that he should kill him. As the rival dwelt at Gaspe a hundred leagues off the present execution of the threat might appear difficult but distance was no bar to the vengeance of the sorcerer. Ordering all the children and all but one of the women to leave the wake-warm himself with the woman who remained on the ground in the center while the men of the party together with those from other wake-worms in the neighborhood sat in a ring around. Mesticoite the sorcerer's brother then brought in a charm consisting of a few small pieces of wood, some arrowheads a broken knife and an iron hook which he wrapped in a piece of hide. The woman next rose behind the hut, behind the company. Mesticoite and the sorcerer now dug a large hole with two pointed stakes the whole assembly singing, drumming, and howling meanwhile with a deafening uproar. The hole made the charm wrapped in the hide was thrown into it. Pierre the apostate then brought a sword and a knife to the sorcerer who seizing them leaped into the hole and with furious gesticulation hacked and stabbed at the charm yelling with the whole force of his lungs. At length he ceased, displayed the knife and sword stained with blood, proclaimed that he had mortally wounded his enemy and demanded if none present had heard his death cry. The assembly, more occupied in making noises than in listening for them, gave no reply till at length two young men declared that they had heard a faint scream as if from a great distance where at a shout of gratulation and triumph rose from all the company. There was a young prophet or diviner in one of the neighboring huts of whom the sorcerer took counsel as to the prospect of his restoration to health. The divining lodge was formed in this instance of five or six upright posts planted in a circle and covered with a blanket. The prophet ensconced himself within and after a long interval of singing the spirits declared their presence by their usual squeaking utterances from the recesses of the mystic tabernacle. Their responses were not unfavorable and the sorcerer drew much consolation from the invocations of his brother imposter. Besides his incessant endeavors to annoy Lejeune the sorcerer now and then tried to frighten him. On one occasion, when a period of starvation had been followed by a successful hunt the whole party assembled for one of the gluttonous feasts usual with them at such times. While the guests sat expectant and the squas were about to ladle out the banquet the sorcerer suddenly leaped up exclaiming that he had lost his senses and that knives and hatchets must be kept out of his way as he had a mind to kill somebody. Then, rolling his eyes towards Lejeune he began a series of frantic gestures and outcries then stopped abruptly and stared into vacancy silent and motionless. Then resumed his former clamor raged in and out of the hut and seizing some of its supporting poles broke them as if in an uncontrollable frenzy. The missionary, though alarmed, sat reading his breviary as before. When, however, on the next morning the sorcerer began again to play the maniac, the thought occurred to him that some stroke of fever might in truth have touched his brain. Accordingly he approached him and felt his pulse, which he found in his own words as cool as a fish. The pretended madman looked at him with astonishment and, giving over the attempt to frighten him, presently returned to his senses. Lejeune, robbed of his sleep by the ceaseless thumping of the sorcerer's drum and the monotonous cadence of his medicine songs, improved the time in attempts to convert him. I began, he says, by avancing a great love for him and by praises which I threw into the net of truth. But the Indian, though pleased with the father's flatteries, was neither caught nor conciliated. Nowhere was his magic in more requisition than in procuring a successful chase to the hunters, a point of vital interest since on it hung the lives of the whole party. They often, however, returned empty-handed, and for one, two or three successive days could be had than the bark of trees or scraps of leather. So long as tobacco lasted they found solace in their pipes which seldom left their lips. Unhappy infidels writes Lejeune who spend their lives in smoke and their eternity in flames. As Christmas approached their condition grew desperate. Beavers and porcupines were scarce and the snow was not deep enough to hunt the moose. Night and day the medicine drums and medicine songs resounded from the wigwams, mingled with the wail of starving children. The hunters grew weak and emaciated, and as after a forlorn march the wanderers encamped once more in the lifeless forest the priest remembered that it was the eve of Christmas. The Lord gave us for our supper a porcupine large as a and also a rabbit. It was not much it is true for eighteen or nineteen persons but the Holy Virgin and St. Joseph, her glorious spouse were not so well treated on this very day in the stable of Bethlehem. On Christmas day the despairing hunters again unsuccessful came to pray succor from Lejeune. Even the apostate had become tractable and the famished sorcerer was ready to try the efficacy of an appeal to the deity of his rival. A bright hope possessed the missionary. He composed two prayers which with the aid of the repentant Pierre he translated into Algonquin. Then he hung against the side of the hut a napkin which he had brought with him and against the napkin a crucifix and a reliquary and this done caused all the Indians to kneel and the Christians raised and clasped. He now read one of the prayers and required the Indians to repeat the other after him promising to renounce their superstitions and obey Christ whose image they saw before them if he would give them food and save them from perishing. The pledge given he dismissed the hunters with the benediction. At night they returned with game enough to relieve the immediate necessity. All was hilarity. The kettles were slung and the feasters assembled. Lejeune rose to speak when Pierre who having killed nothing was in ill humor said with a laugh that the crucifix and the prayer had nothing to do with their good luck. While the sorcerer, his jealousy reviving as he saw his hunger about to be appeased called out to the missionary hold your tongue you have no sense. As usual all took their cue from him. They fell to their repast with ravenous jubilation and the disappointed priest sat dejected and silent. Repeatedly before the spring they were thus threatened with starvation, nor was their case exceptional. It was the ordinary winter life of all those northern tribes who did not till the soil but lived by hunting and fishing alone. The desertion or the killing of the aged, sick and disabled, occasional cannibalism and frequent death from famine were natural incidents of an existence which during half the year was but a desperate pursuit of the mere necessities of life under the worst conditions of hardship, suffering and debasement. At the beginning of April after roaming for five months among forests and mountains the party made their last march and regained the bank of the St. Lawrence and waited to the island where they had hidden their canoes. Lejeune was exhausted and sick and Mestegoite offered to carry him in his canoe to Quebec. This Indian was by far the best of the three brothers and both Pierre and the sorcerer looked to him for support. He was strong, active and daring, a skillful hunter and a dexterous canoeman. Lejeune gladly accepted his offer, embarked with him and Pierre on the dreary and tempestuous river and after a voyage full of hardship during which the canoe narrowly escaped being ground to atoms among the floating ice landed on the island of Orléans six miles from Quebec. The afternoon was stormy and dark and the river was covered with ice sweeping by with the tide. They were forced to encamp. At midnight the moon had risen the river was comparatively unencumbered and they embarked once more. The wind increased and the waves tossed furiously. Nothing saved them but the skill and courage of Mestegoite. At length they could see the rock of Quebec towering through the gloom but piles of ice lined the shore while floating masses were drifting down on the angry current. The Indian watched his moment shot his canoe through them gained the fixed ice leaped out and shouted to his companions to follow. Pierre scrambled up but the ice was six feet out of the water and Lejeune's agility failed him. He saved himself by clutching the ankle of Mestegoite by whose aid he gained a firm foothold at the top and for a moment the three voyagers aghast at the narrowness of their escape stood gazing at each other in silence. It was three o'clock in the morning when Lejeune knocked at the door of his rude little convent on the St. Charles and the fathers springing in joyful haste from their slumbers embraced their long absence superior with ejaculations of praise and benediction.