The Oneida chief stood on the platform, his body scalped, mutilated, and scorched from the fire and knives of his captors. Beside him, his eleven warriors had already died one by one, each baptized at his urging before succumbing to the torture. He alone remained. Then, as if inspired, he snatched firebrands from the hands of his Huron tormentors and attacked them with the red-hot irons, alone against the mob of villagers who had gathered to watch him die.
The Hurons had spent their summer in victory. Peace negotiations with the Iroquois had shattered, and war fever gripped every village of the four Huron nations. The red hatchet had been raised by the chiefs, the war hymns chanted, the war dance pounded into the earth, and fiery speeches delivered to bands of warriors who took the trails to the south, to the Great Lakes, to the rivers, to the dense forests, brandishing tomahawks and javelins. Never had the Hurons been more victorious.
Everywhere they had slaughtered and captured the Iroquois, and all the Huron villages resounded with songs of victory and glowed red with the fires of the tortures. The Oneida chief had listened to the black robes, Ondessonk and Echon, as they spoke of their God. He had declared he wished to be baptized and urged his followers to do the same. After the ordinary cruelties had been inflicted, just before the killing began, the chief was baptized Peter.
One by one, his companions were also baptized, and one by one they succumbed to the fire and the knives. Then Peter was alone. Now he slipped and fell from the platform to the earth, and the Hurons bound him. They threw him into a huge bonfire.
But he rose out of the flames with flaring torches in his hands and rushed at his enemies, who retreated as he ran toward the palisades, threatening to set the village itself on fire. They felled him with a club and cut off his feet and hands. Then they held him over nine different fires, turning him over and over, his blood nearly extinguishing the blazes. Finally, they crushed him under an overturned tree trunk that was all on fire.
Extricating himself, he crawled on elbows and knees, pulling himself a space of ten steps toward his persecutors. They fled before him as before a fiend. One man finally struck him down and slashed off his head. “Happy stroke which gave him his freedom,” de Brébeuf explained of that final blow, “for we have reason to believe that this brave spirit is now enjoying the freedom of the children of heaven since even his enemies exclaimed that there was something more than human in him and that without doubt baptism had given him strength and courage, which surpassed all that they had ever seen.
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The Hurons bitterly resented the granting of baptism and the happiness of heaven to their Iroquois enemies. That night they feasted on the flesh of Peter and their other roasted victims. To show their disdain, they threw the bones—notably the pierced hands of a Mohawk Indian who had been baptized Francis Xavier—into the black robes’ cabin. The fathers buried them in their chapel as the bones of Christians.
The war that summer of 1638 had come after a long winter of quiet in the Huron land. As autumn turned to winter and the new year of 1638 came in, a period of quietude hovered over the Huron country. Father Isaac Jogues, known to the Indians as Ondessonk, lived at Ihonatiria with Pierre Téna Chastellain. Their care was their own village and the hamlets in the neighborhood.
Daily they made their rounds of the cabins, entering the huts without remonstrance, though they were received stolidly and without enthusiasm. The men might grunt a formal greeting. The women would stare coldly through the slits of their eyes. The children scampered away, except those of the malicious age who mimicked the priests and played little tricks upon them.
The Hurons had recently seen many of their tribesmen die from an influenza epidemic that had spread through all their towns, and living among them were these French missionaries. As the epidemic progressed, the Hurons had begun to distrust the black robes, with some towns vowing to kill them for bringing the sickness upon the people. But as the Indians recovered, relations seemed to improve, and the priests set about their work with careful strategy. Their first point of attack was against the men, who dominated opinion entirely and ruled the lives of their families in all but the domestic affairs of the cabin.
The goodwill of the women was essential, and the friendliness of the children was an asset for the future. But the braves and chiefs were the ones who must first be convinced and converted. So the black robes sedulously set about the cabin fires and talked to the men during their winter inactivity. The Hurons loved arguments and the telling of wondrous tales.
They came to enjoy the talk of Ondessonk and the other black robes, who could now express themselves with some ease. As the fathers and the Indians grew in mutual esteem, one missioner could write: “They nearly all show more intelligence in their business, speeches, courtesies, intercourse, tricks, and subtleties than do the shrewdest citizens and merchants of France. ” Another averred: “I can say in truth that as regards intelligence, these savages are in no wise inferior to Europeans and to Frenchmen. I would never have believed that without instruction nature could have supplied a most ready and vigorous eloquence which I have admired in many Hurons or more clear-sightedness in affairs or more discreet management in things in which they are accustomed.
”
On occasions the fathers prepared feasts in their cabins. Always they were assured of a plentiful company, for never would a Huron refuse food. They used the opportunity to explain their beliefs and doctrines and to contradict the notions of the Indians. The guests were most content to smoke the calumets that the black robes filled with tobacco for them and to listen and question for further knowledge.
They began to be impressed. As the winter months wore on, the black robes gradually attracted a goodly number of the men into their cabin for more formal exercises. The assembly would begin with a prayer in the Huron language, spoken in the tone used in the council. Then would be chanted, in the native rhythm, the Apostles’ Creed.
There followed the catechism lesson, carried on by a staged dialogue or one that arose naturally. The Hurons enjoyed these displays of intelligence immensely. Thereafter, the fathers would sing a hymn in the French style and chant a closing prayer in the native cadence. The old men, more than others, even though they would not accept baptism themselves, proved great aids in pointing out the wisdom and reasonableness of the black robes’ words, and often urged the young men to pay heed to them.
All this, however, was by way of sowing the seed. The fathers proceeded very slowly and cautiously in receiving the natives into the church, for the danger of perversion through the nature as through the environments of the Hurons was always imminent. “The nature of the savage,” one missionary summarized, “is patient, liberal, hospitable, but it is importunate, visionary, childish, thievish, lying, deceitful, licentious, proud, lazy. ” Another sharply remarked: “All these barbarians have the law of wild asses.
They are born, live, and die in a liberty without restraints. They do not know what is meant by a bridle or a bit. With them, to conquer one’s passions is considered a great joke, while to give free rein to the senses is a lofty philosophy. ”
They lied brazenly and, the missionaries conjectured, for the pleasure of deceiving.
They not only stole but practiced thievery and boasted of their skill. “They used to steal with both of their hands and their feet, in the presence and in the absence of the owner. Not from actual utility but from pure vice,” one of the fathers stated with acerbity. A prospective chief was asked if, when he had the power, he would punish thievery by death as in France.
He answered with a smile: “In that case, the country would be very soon depopulated for it would be necessary to kill everyone. A Huron and a thief are almost the same. ”
In the matter of sexual relations, the Hurons were notorious among all the native nations for their immoralities. Outside of marriage, there was neither curb nor disapproval of any licentiousness on the part of either sex.
Marriage was seldom contracted because of romance or love but was entered into for utility. Polygamy was not usual, but divorce occurred for the most trivial of reasons. The utter lewdness, the free mingling of the sexes, the instability of the marriage tie, made the missioners most wary about administering baptism. That the Hurons were men of violence and cruelty, the black robes had tragic experience.
The spilling of blood, the smashing of skulls, the shooting with arrows, the stab of the knife or the spear, the giving of poison—they were accustomed to these things from childhood. Still, the murder of their own people was not overly prevalent. It was not punished by death through a community decree. It was a private affair, and the relatives of the slain person were free to kill the murderer or to condone the act by accepting presents.
For the killing of a sorcerer or of one suspected of weaving evil designs through witchery, there was universal approbation. Toward enemies of other nations, the traditional rule was that of diabolical cruelty. But the deadliest obstacles the missioners found to their efforts to civilize and Christianize the Hurons were the multitudinous forms of superstition, sorcery, and devil worship. Faith in dreams was the least harmful, but it led to dreadful crimes.
For a dream to the Huron was a revelation from a god that must be obeyed, no matter how fantastic, how impossible, or how woeful in its results. They placed implicit faith also in the unseen demons who were everywhere. The Oki were of a universal nature, such as the sun, or local, such as a demon of a lake or tree, or personal, attached to a family or an individual. These deities were believed to exercise perpetual influence and domination.
The Indians were craven under them or arrogant because of them. Controlling and an essential part of the system of preternatural influences were the sorcerers. They were usually men, and usually the more esteemed the more hideous their bodily deformity. They interpreted dreams, foretold the future, revealed the past, rendered favorable the deities of war and the chase and fishing, controlled the weather, cured the sick, and in general dispensed good luck.
For these blessings they were courted and revered. They were always feared for their malice and the evil they might concoct. Almost all of them claimed a preternatural origin and boasted of being in communication with the spirits. The missioners discovered that many of their practices were trickery and charlatanism but attributed others to the direct intervention of the devil.
The cabins and huts where they held their séances were oftentimes violently shaken. They themselves would stuff live coals into their mouths without being burned or would thrust their arms into boiling water without being scalded. The rites and ceremonies they conducted were so indecent and revolting that they surpassed unaided human invention. Quietly for the most part, the battle of forces waged that winter in the cabins of the Hurons.
Not many of the Indians were willing to submit to the religious demands of the black robes, and the fathers on their part were unwilling to accept those who sought baptism until they had absolute proofs of the understanding and the moral strength of the catechumens. In Ihonatiria, Jogues was highly edified by the piety and steadfastness of the first Christian, Peter. In Ossossane, there occurred a more notable conversion. Chiwatenwa was a man of about thirty-five, the nephew of the great chief of the Bear Nation.
Of superior mind, not only as compared with his countrymen but even, in the judgment of the missioner Mercier, he would pass as such in France. During the preceding August, when he was thought to be dying from the influenza, he had been baptized and given the name of Joseph. He recovered and continued faithful to his baptismal promises. During October, when the death decree was passed on the black robes, he was unfortunately absent.
His voice, the only one, would have been raised in their defense. That winter, he championed their cause. In the services and disputations, the chronicler records: “Our Joseph does wonders, for sometimes acting as objector, sometimes as ignoramus, and anon as doctor, he gives opportunity to our catechist to explain by dialogue and with more clearness what otherwise would be only half understood. ” In March 1638, his wife, Aonetta, was baptized together with Teresa, his daughter, and his little sons.
Then he and Mary Aonetta were solemnly married at the first such ceremony in the Huron lands. Through the icy months of winter, Jogues and his companions were seekers of souls in all the cabins and villages. For more than two years, the missioners had been planning to remove their cabins from Ihonatiria. The village had disintegrated.
The palisades were falling apart, the cabins beyond repair, the filth piled high, the stench unendurable. The fields and woods were exhausted. More than half the inhabitants had died during the epidemics, and the remaining people were demoralized. The residence of Saint Joseph was tumbling apart.
It was necessary either to build a new lodge or to seek a cabin in another village. Even from their first arrival, the missioners regarded Ihonatiria only as a temporary location, as a gateway where they might pause and plan their further penetration into the Huron lands. In 1638, they found a further reason to depart: the lack of inhabitants there and of people capable of profiting by their labors, nearly all being scattered or dead from the plague. “This would seem to be, not without reason, a punishment from heaven for the contempt that they showed for the favor of the visit that the divine goodness had procured for them.
”
“When we resolved to abandon the dwelling at Ihonatiria on account of its lack of inhabitants, the majority of them having been carried off or scattered by the disease,” says the chronicler, “we were not long in deciding to what place it would be wise to go. We believed that the village of Taenhatentaron was the most important in the whole country and one which, consequently, being once won to God, would give a strong impulse to the conversion of all the rest. ”
There was a grave difficulty. Taenhatentaron was the capital of the town Atiguenonhac, the most hostile of the four Huron nations.
The people who had gone to Ossossane in October had resolved to massacre the French. “What a poor prospect in undertaking this project and still less in succeeding in it,” the fathers remarked. “For this village, a little while before, had been one of the principal shops in which the blackest calumnies and the most pernicious plots were forged against us. Nevertheless, he to whom nothing is impossible made this enterprise easy both in the undertaking of it and in carrying it through, and that more than we could have ever dared to hope.
”
In April, de Brébeuf went to Taenhatentaron to explore the possibilities of settling in the town. The negotiations lasted through May. At last, Echon was accorded the favor of being allowed to address the council of chiefs. He adduced his arguments and spread before the council the presents of wampum, axes, and such like riches.
After consultation and secret councils, the chiefs accepted the presence of the black robes. Not only did they permit the palefaces to live in their village, but they offered them a cabin. Jogues and Chastellain were the last two to abandon Ihonatiria. They stripped the ruined cabin and chapel of all that was of worth and, with the help of some friendly Hurons, carried their possessions on their backs along the twenty-five-mile trail that wound through the forests and dipped through innumerable gullies.
Teanaustaye lay inland to the southeast of the peninsula, about fifteen miles from Ossossane. It was located on the spur of a hill whose sides had been carved into deep gorges by the twist of a turbulent stream. Appropriately, it was named the guardian of the beautiful little river. The cabin given to the black robes was not much better than the one abandoned at Ihonatiria.
“It is a fact that this cabin is so poor and so mean that if the savior of this world once upon a time in his necessity had not himself sought a lodging in the stable of Bethlehem, we would be ashamed to offer him each day at mass a new sort of birth in this place, which is covered only with paltry pieces of bark, through which the wind enters on all sides. ”
It was with high elation, nevertheless, that Father Jogues began his apostolate in the second St. Joseph’s at Teanaustaye and said there his first mass on June 25, 1638. He and the others were amazed.
They could hardly believe what they saw. So terrifically had this village abominated the black robes just a little time before. Now, Ondessonk, Echon, and the other French were actually welcome. Then came the summer of 1638, and the war fever gripped the Hurons.
The Oneida chief who became Peter was brought to Teanaustaye with his eleven warriors, and Jogues witnessed the torture and the conversion that surpassed anything human. When the Hurons feasted that night on the flesh of Peter and their other roasted victims and threw the pierced hands of the baptized Mohawk, Francis Xavier, into the black robes’ cabin, the fathers buried those bones in their chapel as the bones of Christians. The priests who recorded these events were themselves divided in their understanding of what they had seen. The strength Peter displayed after so much of his blood had poured out that it drenched the flames, after his hands and feet had been cut off, even as he crawled on elbows and knees toward his torturers—de Brébeuf had reason to believe that baptism had given him strength and courage that surpassed all the Hurons had ever seen.
The Hurons themselves exclaimed that there was something more than human in him. Whether that something was divine or otherwise, the fathers could not say with certainty, but they buried the bones of the baptized Iroquois as Christians and continued their work among a people who had shown them, in the same season, both their intelligence and their savagery. The Hurons were still a formidable tribe then, in the land of Huronia in present-day Ontario.
But about twelve years later, they would be conquered and dispersed by the Iroquois, and many of their descendants would move south into the present-day United States, where they would become known as the Wyandots.
