The Jesuit Missions | Page 9

the work. Noue, no longer young, was frequently faint
from toil. Brebeuf not only sustained him, but at many of the portages,
of which there were thirty-five in all, carried a double load of baggage.
The packs contained not only clothing and food, but priestly vestments,
requisites for the altar, pictures, wine for the Mass, candles, books, and
writing material. The course lay over the route which Le Caron had
followed eleven years before, up the Ottawa, up the Mattawa, across
the portage to Lake Nipissing, and then down the French River.
Arrived in Penetanguishene Bay, they landed at a village called
Otouacha. They then journeyed a mile and a half inland, through
gloomy forests, past cultivated patches of maize, beans, pumpkins,
squashes, and sunflowers, to Toanche, where they found Viel's cabin
still standing. For three years this was to be Brebeuf's headquarters.

Huronia lay in what is now the county of Simcoe, Ontario, comprising
the present townships of Tiny, Tay, Flos, Medonte, and Oro. On the
east and north lay Lakes Simcoe and Couchiching, the Severn river,
and Matchedash Bay; on the west, Nottawasaga Bay. Across the bay, or
by land a journey of about two days, where now are Bruce and Grey
counties, lived the Petuns, and about five days to the south-west, the
Neutrals. The latter tribe occupied both the Niagara and Detroit
peninsulas, overflowed into the states of Michigan and New York, and
spread north as far as Goderich and Oakville in Ontario. All these
nations, and the Andastes of the lower Susquehanna, were of the same
linguistic stock as the Iroquois who dwelt south of Lake Ontario.
Peoples speaking the Huron-Iroquois tongue thus occupied the central
part of the eastern half of North America, while all around them, north,
south, east, and west, roamed the tribes speaking dialects of the
Algonquin.
Most of the Huron [Footnote: The name Huron is of uncertain origin.
The word HURON was used in France as early as 1358 to describe the
uncouth peasants who revolted against the nobility. But according to
Father Charles Lalemant, a French sailor, on first beholding some
Hurons at Tadoussac in 1600, was astonished at their fantastic way of
dressing their hair--in stiff ridges with shaved furrows between--and
exclaimed 'Quelles hures!'--what boar-heads! In their own language
they were known as Ouendats (dwellers on a peninsula), a name still
extant in the corrupted form Wyandots.] towns were encircled by log
palisades. The houses were of various sizes and some of them were
more than two hundred feet long. They were built in the crudest fashion.
Two rows of sturdy saplings were stuck in the ground about
twenty-five feet apart, then bent to meet so as to form an arch, and
covered with bark. An open strip was left in the roof for the escape of
smoke and for light. Each house sheltered from six to a dozen families,
according to the number of fires. Two families shared each fire, and
around the fire in winter clustered children, dogs, youths, gaily
decorated maidens, jabbering squaws, and toothless, smoke-blinded old
men. Privacy there was none. Along the sides of the cabin, about four
feet from the ground, extended raised platforms, on or under which,
according to the season or the inclination of the individual, the inmates

slept.
The Huron nation was divided into four clans--the Bear, the Rock, the
Cord, the Deer--with several small dependent groups. There was
government of a sort, republican in form. They had their deliberative
assemblies, both village and tribal. The village councils met almost
daily, but the tribal assembly--a sort of states-general--was summoned
only when some weighty measure demanded consideration. Decisions
arrived at in the assemblies were proclaimed by the chiefs.
Of religion as it is understood by Christians the Hurons had none,
nothing but superstitions, very like those of other barbarous peoples. To
everything in nature they gave a god; trees, lakes, streams, the celestial
bodies, the blue expanse, they deified with okies or spirits. Among the
chief objects of Huron worship were the moon and the sun. The oki of
the moon had the care of souls and the power to cut off life; the oki of
the sun presided over the living and sustained all created things. The
great vault of heaven with its myriad stars inspired them with awe; it
was the abode of the spirit of spirits, the Master of Life. Aronhia was
the name they gave this supreme oki. This would show that they had a
vague conception of God. To Aronhia they offered sacrifices, to
Aronhia they appealed in time of danger, and when misfortune befell
them it was due to the anger of Aronhia. But all this had no influence
on their conduct; even in their worship they were often astoundingly
vicious.
To such dens of barbarism