The Country of the Neutrals | Page 9

and only regretted the fate
of their little children, who might otherwise have been able to repeople
the earth."
The Neutrals intimidated the fathers with rumors of the Senecas, who
they were assured were not far off. They spoke of killing and eating the
missionaries. Yet in the four months of their sojourn Brebeuf and
Chaumonot never lacked the necessaries of life, lodging and food, and
amidst difficulties and inconveniences better imagined than described
they retained their health. Their food supply was bread baked under
ashes after the fashion of the country, and which they kept for thirty
and even forty days to use in case of need.
"In their journey, the fathers passed through eighteen villages (bourgs
ou bourgades), to all of which they gave a Christian name, of which we
shall make use hereafter on occasion. They stayed particularly in ten, to
which they gave as much instruction as they could find hearers. They
report about 500 Fires and 3,000 persons, which these ten bourgades
may contain, to whom they set forth and published the Gospel."
(Lalemant's Relation.)[4]
[4] In another place it is stated that there were 40 villages of the

Neutrals in all.
Disheartened, the fathers decided to return to Kandoucho or All Saints
to await the spring. Midway, however, at the village of Teotongniaton,
or S. Guillaume, (perhaps in the vicinity of Woodstock) the snow fell in
such quantities that further progress was impossible. They lodged here
in the cabin of a squaw, who entertained them hospitably and instructed
them in the language, dictating narratives syllable by syllable as to a
school boy. Here they stayed twenty-five days, "adjusted the dictionary
and rules of the Huron language to that of these tribes (the Neutrals),
and accomplished a work which alone was worth a journey of several
years in the country."
Hurons from the mission of La Conception volunteered to go to the
relief of the daring travellers. After eight days of travel and fatigue in
the woods the priests and the relief party arrived at Ste. Marie on the
very day of St. Joseph, patron of the country, in time to say mass,
which they had not been able to say since their departure.
Amongst the eighteen villages visited by them, only one, that of
Khioetoa, called by the fathers Saint Michel, gave them the audience
their embassy merited. In this village, years before, driven by fear of
their enemies, had taken refuge a certain foreign nation, "which lived
beyond Erie or the Cat Nation," named Aouenrehronon. It was in this
nation that the fathers performed the first baptism of adults. These were
probably a portion of the kindred Neutral tribe referred to above as
having fled to the Huron country from the Iroquois. Their original
home was in the State of New York. Sanson's map shows S. Michel a
little east of where Sandwich now stands.
Owing to their scanty number and the calumnies circulated amongst the
Indians respecting the Jesuits of the Huron Mission the latter resolved
to concentrate their forces. The Neutral mission was abandoned, but
Christian Indians visited the Neutrals in 1643 and spread the faith
amongst them with a success which elicits Lalemant's enthusiastic
praises. Towards the end of the following winter a band of about 500
Neutrals visited the Hurons. The fathers did not fail to avail themselves
of their opportunity. The visitors were instructed in the faith and

expressed their regret that their teachers could not return with them. A
different reception from that experienced by Brebeuf and Chaumonot
three years before was promised.
Lalemant relates that in the summer of 1643, 2,000 Neutrals invaded
the country of the Nation of Fire and attacked a village strongly
fortified with a palisade, and defended stoutly by 900 warriors. After a
ten days' siege, they carried it by storm, killed a large number on the
spot, and carried off 800 captives, men, women and children, after
burning 70 of the most warlike and blinding the eyes and "girdling the
mouths" of the old men, whom they left to drag out a miserable
existence. He reports the Nation of Fire as more populous than the
Neutrals, the Hurons and the Iroquois together. In a large number of
these villages the Algonkin language was spoken. Farther away, it was
the prevailing tongue. In remote Algonkin tribes, even at that early day,
there were Christians who knelt, crossed their hands, turned their eyes
heavenward, and prayed to God morning and evening, and before and
after their meals; and the best mark of their faith was that they were no
longer wicked nor dishonest as they were before. So it was reported to
Lalemant by trustworthy Hurons who went every year to trade with
Algonkin nations scattered over the whole northern part of the
continent.
Ragueneau