W. D. Lighthall

“ The facts demonstrate incidentally a period of prosperity and dominance on the part of the Hurons themselves, for instead of a mere incursion, it exhibits, even if made by invitation of the Algonquins, a permanent breaking through of the barriers between the Huron country and the Montreal neighbourhood, and a continuance of their power long enough and sufficiently to press forward against the enemy even into Lake Champlain. It also shows that the Superior Iroquois were not then strong enough to confine them. ”

“ The name Saguenay may possibly be Saginaw,—the old Saguenam, the "very deep bay on the west shore of Lake Huron," of Charlevoix, (Book XI.) though it is not necessarily Saginaw Bay itself, as such names shift. "And they gave to understand that in that country the people are clothed with clothes like us, and there are many peoples in towns and good persons and that they have a great quantity of gold and of red copper. And they told us that all the land from the said first river to Hochelagea and Saguenay is an island surrounded by streams and the said great river (St. Lawrence) ”

“ It seems more likely that by 1560, settlements, at first mere fishing-parties, then fishing-villages, and later more developed strongholds with agriculture, had already been made on Lake Champlain by independent offshoots of the Hochelagan communities, of perhaps some generations standing, and not unlikely by arrangement with the Algonquins of the Lake similar to the understanding on the river St. Lawrence, as peace and travel appear to have existed there. The bonds of confederacy between village and village were always shifting and loose among these races until the Great League. ”

“ This absence of settlements I attribute to the fact that the intermediate Three Rivers region was an ancient special appurtenance of the Algonquins, with whom the Hochelagans were to all appearance then on terms of friendly sufferance and trade, if not alliance. In later days the same region was uninhabited, on account of Iroquois incursions by the River Richelieu and Lake Champlain. In the islands at the head of Lake St. Peter, Cartier met five hunters who directed him to Hochelaga. "More than a thousand" persons, he says, received them with joy at Hochelaga. ”

“ As the lower figures seem conservative, compared with the early average of Huron and Iroquois villages, the guess may perhaps be raised a little to say from 10,000 to 11,000. "This people confines itself to tillage and fishing, for they do not leave their country and are not migratory like those of Canada and Saguenay, although the said Canadians are subject to them, with eight or nine other peoples who are on the said river." Nevertheless the site of Hochelaga, unearthed in 1860, shows them to have been traders to some extent with the west, evidently through the Ottawa Algonquins. ”

“ At the mouth of the Saguenay River—so called because it was one of the routes to the Sagnenay of the Algonquins, west of the Upper Ottawa—he found four fishing canoes from Canada. Plenty of fishing was prosecuted from this point upwards. In "the Province of Canada," he proceeds, "there are several peoples in unwalled villages." At the Isle of Orleans, just below Quebec, the principal peace chief, or, Agouhanna of "Canada," Donnaconna, came to them with 12 canoes from the town (ville) of Stadacona, or Stadaconé, which was surrounded by tilled land on the heights. ”

“ All these hills deserve search for Huron-Iroquois town-sites. The general sense of this paragraph includes an implication also of settlements towards and on Lake Champlain, that is to say, when taken in connection with the landscape. (My own dwelling overlooks this landscape.) At the same time let me say that perhaps due inquiries might locate some of the sites of Ajoaste and the other villages in the Quebec district. In Cartier's third voyage he refers obscurely, in treating of Montreal, to "the said town of Tutonaguy." ”

“ Yet later, in chapter XIX., it is stated that old Donnaconna assured them he had been in the land of the Saguenay, where he related several impossible marvels, such as people of only one leg. It is to be noted that "the peoples in towns," who are apparently Huron-Iroquois, are here referred to as "good people," while the Hochelagans speak of them as "wicked." ”

“ According to him, although these people changed their sites every 25 or 30 years from failure of the wood supply and other causes, only four prehistoric sites have been discovered in that district, all the others containing relics of European origin. Mr. Beauchamp believes even this number too large. Both put forward the idea that the Mohawks were the ancient race of Hochelaga, whose town on the island of Montreal was visited by Jacques Cartier in 1535, and had disappeared completely in 1608 when Champlain founded Quebec. "What had become of these people?" ”

“ It seems to imply that the "Canada" people were not in such close communication with the town of Hochelaga as to have the same opinions and perhaps the Canada view of the Hurons as good persons was the original view of the early settlers, while the Hochelagans may have had unpleasant later experiences or echo those of the Ottawa Algonquins. But furthermore they told him of the Richelieu River where apparently it took a month to go with their canoes from Sainte Croix (Stadacona) to a country "where there are never ice nor snow ”

“ If to this we add that the old men appear not even to have derived such knowledge as they possessed from their parents but from strangers, then the average full life of aged parents should be added, or say sixty years more, making a total of at least one hundred and forty years since the immigration. ”

“ V., after describing the first mass at Ville Marie, in 1642, says: "The evening of the same day M. de Maisonneuve desired to visit the Mountain which gave the island its name, and two old Indians who accompanied him thither, having led him to the top, told him they were of the tribe who had formerly inhabited this country." "We were," they added, "very numerous and all the hills (collines) which you see to the south and east, were peopled. ”

“ On returning to Stadacona, Cartier, by talking with Donnaconna, learnt what showed this land of Saguenay so much talked of by these people, to be undoubtedly the Huron country. "The straight and good and safest road to it is by the Fleuve (St. Lawrence) , to above Hochelaga and by the river which descends from the said Saguenay and enters the said Fleuve (as we had seen) ; and thence it takes a month to reach." This is simply the Ottawa route to Lake Huron used by the Jesuits in the next century. What they had seen was the Ottawa River entering the St. ”

“ But there remains to account for the considerable population which had grown up in the land from apparently one centre. If the original intruders were four hundred, for example, then in doubling every twenty years, they would number 12,800 in a century. ”

“ Twenty-five canoes from Stadacona afterwards visited them; and later Donnaconna brought on board "10 or 12 other of the greatest chiefs" with more than 500 persons, men, women and children, some doubtless from the neighbouring settlements. If the same 200 persons as in the previous year were absent fishing at Gaspé, and others in other spots, these figures argue a considerable population. ”