The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century | Page 5

in spring, the French trading-ships
arrived and anchored in the port of Tadoussac, they gathered from far
and near, toiling painfully through the desolation of forests, mustering
by hundreds at the point of traffic, and setting up their bark wigwams
along the strand of that wild harbor. They were of the lowest
Algonquin type. Their ordinary sustenance was derived from the chase;
though often, goaded by deadly famine, they would subsist on roots,
the bark and buds of trees, or the foulest offal; and in extremity, even
cannibalism was not rare among them.
Ascending the St. Lawrence, it was seldom that the sight of a human
form gave relief to the loneliness, until, at Quebec, the roar of
Champlain's cannon from the verge of the cliff announced that the
savage prologue of the American drama was drawing to a close, and
that the civilization of Europe was advancing on the scene. Ascending
farther, all was solitude, except at Three Rivers, a noted place of trade,
where a few Algonquins of the tribe called Atticamegues might
possibly be seen. The fear of the Iroquois was everywhere; and as the
voyager passed some wooded point, or thicket-covered island, the
whistling of a stone-headed arrow proclaimed, perhaps, the presence of
these fierce marauders. At Montreal there was no human life, save
during a brief space in early summer, when the shore swarmed with
savages, who had come to the yearly trade from the great communities
of the interior. To-day there were dances, songs, and feastings;
to-morrow all again was solitude, and the Ottawa was covered with the
canoes of the returning warriors.
Along this stream, a main route of traffic, the silence of the wilderness
was broken only by the splash of the passing paddle. To the north of
the river there was indeed a small Algonquin band, called _La Petite
Nation_, together with one or two other feeble communities; but they
dwelt far from the banks, through fear of the ubiquitous Iroquois. It was
nearly three hundred miles, by the windings of the stream, before one

reached that Algonquin tribe, _La Nation de l'Isle_, who occupied the
great island of the Allumettes. Then, after many a day of lonely travel,
the voyager found a savage welcome among the Nipissings, on the lake
which bears their name; and then circling west and south for a hundred
and fifty miles of solitude, he reached for the first time a people
speaking a dialect of the Iroquois tongue. Here all was changed.
Populous towns, rude fortifications, and an extensive, though barbarous
tillage, indicated a people far in advance of the famished wanderers of
the Saguenay, or their less abject kindred of New England. These were
the Hurons, of whom the modern Wyandots are a remnant. Both in
themselves and as a type of their generic stock they demand more than
a passing notice.
[ The usual confusion of Indian tribal names prevails in the case of the
Hurons. The following are their synonymes:--
Hurons (of French origin); Ochateguins (Champlain); Attigouantans
(the name of one of their tribes, used by Champlain for the whole
nation); Ouendat (their true name, according to Lalemant); Yendat,
Wyandot, Guyandot (corruptions of the preceding); Ouaouakecinatouek
(Potier), Quatogies (Colden). ]
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 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. Not even the
straggling Algonquins, who linger about the scene of Huron prosperity,
can tell their origin. Yet, on ancient worm-eaten pages, between covers
of begrimed parchment, the daily life of this ruined community, its
firesides, its festivals, its funeral rites, are painted with a minute and
vivid fidelity.
The ancient country of the Hurons is now the northern and eastern
portion of Simcoe County, Canada West, and is embraced within the
peninsula formed by the Nottawassaga and Matchedash Bays of Lake
Huron, the River Severn, and Lake Simcoe. Its area was small,--its
population comparatively large. In the year 1639 the Jesuits made an
enumeration of all its villages, dwellings, and families. The result

showed thirty-two villages and hamlets, with seven hundred dwellings,
about four thousand families, and twelve thousand adult persons, or a
total population of at least twenty thousand.
[ Lalemant, Relation des Hurons, 1640, 88 (Cramoisy). His words are,
"de feux enuiron deux mille, et enuiron douze mille personnes." There
were two families to every fire. That by "personnes" adults only are
meant cannot be doubted, as the Relations abound in incidental
evidence of a total population far exceeding twelve thousand.