Hurons

“ In every Huron town were shrivelled 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 xxxvi war, hunting, fishing, and trade. There was an established system of traffic between the Hurons and the Algonquins of the Ottawa and Lake Nipissing: the Hurons exchanging wampum, fishing-nets, and corn for fish and furs. ”

“ The merciless bailiff had now grown so furious that he even asked the Huron what religion he was of; whether he had chosen the English, the French, or that of the Huguenots?
"I am of my own religion," said he, "just as you are of yours."
"Lord!" cried Miss Kerkabon, "I see already that those wretched English have not once thought of baptizing him!"
"Good heavens!" said Miss St. Yves, "how is it possible? How is it possible the Hurons should not be Roman Catholics? Have not those reverend fathers, the Jesuits, converted all the world?" ”

“ 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 wondering over the relics of a lost people. In the damp shadow of what xxv seems a virgin forest, the axe and plough bring strange secrets to light: huge pits, close packed with skeletons and disjointed bones, mixed with weapons, copper kettles, beads, and trinkets. ”

“ Joseph or Christian Island, near Collingwood, and gather the terror-stricken Hurons together again, ended the following spring in another dreadful massacre on the mainland, by the Iroquois, where the Hurons had come in search of food for their starving families. Ten thousand Hurons had perished, a few came to Quebec with the missionaries, the rest were scattered far and wide among other tribes in the north, east and west. The once powerful, brave and intelligent Hurons, as a nation, ceased to exist ”

“ Before day dawn had tipped the branches of the leafless trees with shafted sunlight, the enemy were hacking furiously at the palisades. Trapped and cornered, the most timid of animals will fight. With such fury, reckless from desperation, cherishing no hope, the Hurons now fought, but they were handicapped by lack of guns and balls. Thirty Iroquois had been slain, a hundred wounded, and the assailants drew off for breath. ”

“ At these spots the fiercest fighting occurred, and those Iroquois who had not already bathed their faces in the gore of victims at St. Ignace were soon enough dyed in their own blood. Here, there, everywhere, were Brébeuf and Lalemant, fighting, administering last rites, exhorting the Hurons to perish valiantly. Then the rolling clouds of flame and smoke told the Hurons that their village was on fire. Some dashed back to die inside the burning wigwams. Others fought desperately to escape through the broken walls. ”

“ These gifted men living and dying in the wilderness were not without devoted followers, as can well be imagined; and many of their converts, the Christian Hurons, a now conquered race, dwelt with their old foes in the Long House. With the capture of those of the Hurons who had taken refuge at Isle Orleans the long struggle ended between two branches of a great Indian family or stock,—the Huron-Iroquois and the Iroquois of the League. ”

“ The effect on the Hurons was instantaneous. Discouraged by an assault from a quarter that left them no opportunity for cover, the warriors uttered a common yell of disappointment, and breaking off in a body, they spread themselves across the opening, heedless of every consideration but flight. Many fell, in making the experiment, under the bullets and the blows of the pursuing Delawares. ”

“ Never did Huron warriors fight better than in this conflict at the death-hour of their nation. Against the Hurons within the palisades came the Iroquois in force from St Ignace. All day long, in and about the walls of St Louis, the battle raged; and when night fell only twenty wounded and helpless Hurons remained to continue the resistance. In the gathering darkness the Iroquois rushed in and with tomahawk and knife dispatched the remnant of the band.
But the Iroquois had no mind for further fighting, and did not attack Ste Marie. ”

“ It was not long before nearly all the Hurons became converted to Christianity, and left off their heathen practices and habits. Two names will always be remembered in connection with these Huron missions, those of Father de Brébœuf and Father Lalement ; the first strong in frame, brave of heart, and capable of enduring any amount of hardship; the second, delicate, refined, loving, and unselfish. Other missionaries took their lives in their hands and went among the cruel and treacherous Iroquois, hoping to do some good to the fiercest enemies of the colony. ”

“ The Hurons, thus settled in their latter home, consisted of several “nations,” including their kinsmen to the south, as far as Lake Erie and the Niagara river. They had their own tribal divisions, still perpetuated among their descendants. The Rev. Prosper Vincent Sa∫∫atannen, a native Huron, and the first of his race admitted to the priesthood, informs me that the Hurons of Lorette still perpetuate their ancient classification into four grandes compagnies, each of which has its five tribal divisions or clans, by which of old all intermarriage was regulated. ”

“ They subsisted entirely by hunting, and looked with proud disdain on their neighbours who consented to bestow on the soil even the smallest cultivation. The Hurons were a numerous people, whose very extensive territory reached from the Algonquin frontier to the borders of the great lake bearing their name. ”

“ Field (Indian Bibliography, p. 146) says some curious, though perhaps not very authentic, information regarding the Hurons can be got from Sieur Gendron’s Quelques Particularitéz du Pays des Hurons, par le Sieur Gendron, which appeared in Davity’s Déscription Générale de l’Amerique, edited by Jean Baptiste de Rocoles, Troyes et Paris, 1660, and was reprinted in New York in 1868. Cf. Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no. 873; Lenox, p. 18; and Field, no. 598. A fac-simile of a corner map in Creuxius’s larger map, giving the Huron country, is given herewith. ”

“ At the time of the advent of the French, the Hurons (or Wyandots) , allied in origin and language to the Iroquois, numbered about 16,000 souls, and dwelt in several large villages in a narrow district on the high ground between Lake Simcoe and Georgian Bay of Lake Huron. Their dwellings were bark cabins, clustered within stoutly-palisaded walls, and near each fortified town were fields of corn, beans, pumpkins, and tobacco. Agricultural in habit, keen traders, and in the main sedentary, these semi-naked savages made short hunting and fishing expeditions, and laid up stores for the winter. ”

“ Other devoted missionaries shared his fate; the shepherds were slaughtered, and the survivors of the flock were scattered abroad. For the Hurons made little or no attempt to defend themselves; fear came upon them and trouble; they fell down, and there was none to help them. The fort at St. Marie stood, for even the Iroquois hesitated to attack armed walls; but its purpose was gone with the slaughter and dispersion of the Huron clans. The priests who still lived abandoned it, and spent a miserable winter with a crowd of Indian fugitives on a neighbouring island in Lake Huron. ”

“ The vengeance of the Hurons had now taken a new direction, and they prepared to execute it, with all that barbarous ingenuity, with which they were familiarized by the practice of centuries. Some sought knots, to raise the blazing pile; one was riving the splinters of pine, in order to pierce the flesh of their captives with the burning fragments; and others bent the tops of two saplings to the earth, in order to suspend Heyward by the arms between the recoiling branches. ”

“ There are some things in which they differ from our Hurons. They are larger, stronger, and better formed. They also entertain a great affection for the dead. * * * The Sonontonheronons [Senecas] , one of the Iroquois nations the nearest to and most dreaded by the Hurons, are not more than a day's journey distant from the easternmost village of the Neuter Nation, named Onguiaahra [Niagara] , of the same name as the river. ”

“ Popular tradition tells us that the Hurons and Iroquois, branches of the same family, speaking dialects of one common language, were living at one time in villages not far from each other—the Hurons probably at Hochelaga and the Senecas on the opposite side of the mountain. It was against the law of the two communities for their men and women to intermarry, but the potent influence of true love, so rare in an Indian's bosom, soon broke this command. A Huron girl entered the cabin of an Iroquois chief as his wife. ”

“ To-day there were some people of three Indian nations in this country with the governor-general, viz. Hurons, Mickmacks, and Anies68; the last of which are a nation of Iroquese, and allies of the English, and were taken prisoners in the last war.
The Hurons are some of the same Indians with those who live at Lorette, and have received the christian religion. They are tall, robust people, well shaped, and of a copper colour. They have short black hair, which is shaved on the forehead, from one ear to the other. None of them wear hats or caps. Some have ear-rings, others not. ”

“ One day they came upon a clearing in which some of the people of the neighboring villages were gathering corn and pumpkins.
Some of the impetuous young Hurons uttered their savage yell and rushed upon them. But the Iroquois seized their weapons and defended themselves so well that they drove back their assailants with some loss. Only the Frenchmen, opening fire, saved the Hurons from worse disaster. Then the attacking party moved on to the village. This Champlain found to be far more strongly defended than any he had ever seen among the Indians. ”

“ The destruction of the two towns of the mission of St. Joseph had left a wide gap, and in the middle of March they entered the heart of the Huron country, undiscovered. Common vigilance and common sense would have averted the calamities that followed; but the Hurons were like a doomed people, stupefied, sunk in dejection, fearing everything, yet taking no measures for defence. They could easily have met the invaders with double their force, but the besotted warriors lay idle in their towns, or hunted at leisure in distant forests ”

“ Panic reigned throughout Huronia. After burning fifteen villages, lest they should serve as a shelter for the Iroquois, the Hurons scattered far and wide. Some fled to Ste Marie, some toiled through the snows of spring to the villages of the Petuns, some fled to the Neutrals and Eries, some to the Algonquin tribes of the north and west, and some even sought adoption among the Iroquois. Ste Marie stood alone, like a shepherd without sheep: mission villages, chapels, residences, flocks—all were gone. The work of over twenty years was destroyed. ”

“ They guard their identity vigilantly. Every one, man or woman, who marries into the tribe, as they religiously call it, is from then on a Huron. And only those who have Huron blood may own land in Lorette. The Hurons were, as Parkman put it, 'the gentlemen of the savages,' and the tradition lasts. The half-breed of today is a good sort, self-respecting and brave, not progressive, but intelligent, with pride in his inheritance, his courage, and his woodscraft. ”

“ He had gone to Quebec for supplies and was returning to the Huron country with two young Frenchmen, Goupil and Couture, and a number of Hurons. Suddenly the war-whoop rang in their ears, and a fleet of Iroquois canoes bore down upon them from adjacent islands, with a terrific discharge of musketry. The Hurons for the greater part leaped ashore and fled. Jogues sprang into the bulrushes and could have got away. When he saw some of the converted Indians in the hands of their enemies, he determined to share their fate, came out from his hiding-place, and gave himself up. ”

“ Oh! it was an honorable old lodge, with more cracks in the birch-bark than you could count, all patched and smeared with pitch.
The chief had three sons too, but they were killed in a great fight with the Iroquois. When the brave Hurons used up all their arrows they threw down their bows and rushed on the Iroquois with their tomahawks. They screamed and howled like eagles and wolves, and the Iroquois were so frightened that they wanted to run away, but their own magic-man threw a spell upon them, so that they couldn’t turn round or run, and they had to stand and fight. ”

“ The path they have taken depends on many chances. If they have gone alone, they are quite as likely to move in a circle as straight, and they may be within a dozen miles of us; but if the Hurons, or any of the French Indians, have laid hands on them, 'tis probably they are now near the borders of the Canadas. ”

“ Among them, too, perished Jesuit priests, martyrs to the faith. Did some of the Hurons venture from the Christian Islands across to the mainland to hunt, they were beset by scalping parties and came back to the fort with tales that crazed Ragueneau's Indians with terror. The Hurons decided to abandon Georgian Bay. Some scattered to Lake Superior, to Green Bay, to Detroit. Others found refuge on Manitoulin Island. A remnant of a few hundreds followed Ragueneau and the French down the Ottawa to take shelter at Quebec. Their descendants may be found to this day at the mission of Lorette. ”