Читать книгу Canada and its Provinces - Various - Страница 22

Table of Contents

This is not the place to describe the work of the Jesuits on Georgian Bay except in so far as it bears on discovery and exploration. Their centre of operations was near the mouth of the little River Wye, where it is crossed by the main highway from Midland, a little north of the expansion called Mud Lake. From this central station of Sainte Marie the devoted ‘Black-robes,’ as they were called by the natives, went forth two by two to open new missions.

Brébeuf and Chaumonot were selected for the mission to the Neutrals—Brébeuf, the elder of the two, on account of his mastery of native tongues; Chaumonot, a young man of twenty-seven, because he was an apt student of languages. As the Neutrals were reckoned at twelve thousand souls, scattered among forty villages, it was proposed to organize the new ‘Mission of the Angels’ with a fixed and permanent central residence, such as Sainte Marie constituted for the Huron missions. Two successive winters, 1639 and 1640, were spent in futile attempts to carry out the plan. The priests passed through eighteen villages, to all of which Christian names were assigned. In ten they sojourned for a time, and preached to the inhabitants, the total number of hearers being estimated at three thousand. The result, however, was disheartening from the missionaries’ standpoint.

The priests adopted d’Aillon’s plan to secure a safe passage, and his experiences were repeated. French traders had travelled freely among the Neutrals. Brébeuf took with him two French domestics, who pretended to be traders. This ensured a hospitable reception for a time, but the friendly attitude ceased the moment the pseudo-traders returned to Sainte Marie. Thenceforth the missionaries were regarded with suspicion and hatred, tempered only by the native dread of Brébeuf’s skill in sorcery. Wherever they went the cry arose, ‘Here come the Agwa; bar your doors!’ Agwa was a name given to their greatest enemies.

Lalemant’s Relation of 1641 gives a detailed account of the mission, and Sanson and du Creux published maps intended to show the extent of the discoveries made. Leaving the last Huron village, the priests slept four nights in the woods. On the fifth day they reached the nearest Neutral village, Kandoucho, to which they gave the name of All Saints. It was probably in the township of Nelson, where, on the shore of little Lake Medad, main trails from all directions met.

The names Niagara, in its original form Onguiaahra, and Lakes Erie and Ontario appear for the first time in the Relations. Three or four Neutral villages lay east of the Niagara, the nearest, Onguiaahra, being situated at the Falls. The five principal Neutral villages were scattered from Burlington Bay to the St Clair and Detroit Rivers. Talbot Road, running nearly parallel with Lake Erie at a distance of a few miles, follows an earlier forest trail. The priests appear to have followed this trail to the chief western villages. The most central village was not far from the Southwold Earthwork in the county of Elgin, a few miles west of St Thomas.

The name given by the Hurons to the Neutrals, Attiwandaronk, or ‘people speaking a slightly different language,’ was also applied by the latter to the former. The people, although neutral in wars, were more inclined to the Iroquois, the stronger party. The three nations were of one stock. The Neutrals were more brutal than other tribes, for they alone burned women prisoners. They differed in manner and customs but little from surrounding tribes. They wore skins, but in a slovenly and indecent manner. Women were more licentious and shameless than among the Hurons. Lunatics were a specially privileged class, indulged to an extreme degree. In their treatment of the dead, the Neutrals were singular. Bodies were kept in the cabins for a long time, until the periodical Feast of the Dead, when, stripped of flesh, the bones were buried in huge pits.

The principal chief was called Tsohahissen (possibly d’Aillon’s Souharissen), a title rather than a personal name. His village was ‘in the middle of the country,’ and the fathers were obliged to pass through many other villages to reach it. As he was away on a warlike expedition when the Jesuits arrived, the attempt to make a treaty failed. The natives would do nothing in his absence, but allowed Brébeuf to preach. Once more, however, as in d’Aillon’s case, Huron intrigues and calumnies blocked the way to direct trade between the French and the Neutrals. The Neutrals were excited to frenzy by continuous rumours of Brébeuf’s malicious sorceries. Colour was lent to these tales by the missionaries’ unusual garb, their gait, their postures and prayers. Breviary, inkstand and writing filled the savage with terror. They threatened to kill and eat their guests.

The mission was a failure. Midway between Tsohahissen’s village and Kandoucho, the disheartened fathers, toiling painfully along the winter trail homeward, were snow-bound at Teotongniaton, in the cabin of a friendly and hospitable native woman. This was Chaumonot’s opportunity. With the aid of his hostess and her children he prepared, during his sojourn of twenty-five days, a comparative dictionary and grammar of the Neutral language in its relation to the Huron. This achievement alone, in Lalemant’s view, was well worth a sojourn of several years in the country. To complete the story of failure, the dictionary itself has since disappeared.

Ten years later the Neutrals were exterminated or dispersed by the Senecas. Numbers escaped to the upper lakes, where we shall hear of them again under the name of Hurons or Wyandots.

The cartographical results of this expedition appear in Sanson’s maps of 1650, 1656 and 1657, and in du Creux’s of 1660. In Jean Boisseau’s map of 1643 the name Lake Erie makes its first appearance, but the lake is wrongly shown as the upper of Champlain’s two slight expansions of the river between Lakes Huron and Ontario. The map of 1650 shows a distinct advance on all predecessors. Lake Erie appears as a great lake, but is unnamed. The Neutrals’ country is indicated. Lake Ontario and the river St Lawrence are named for the first time. Several streams are shown, including the Humber, Grand River, Kettle Creek and the Maitland. Lake Superior is named, and Lake Michigan and Manitoulin Island are charted, the latter unnamed, the former under the designation Lac des Puants (Lake of the Winnebagoes). Only the lower ends of the upper lakes, however, are shown. The Ottawa, unnamed by Champlain, and called in Boisseau’s map of 1643 the River of the Algonquins, is now Rivière des Prairies. A Frenchman named des Prairies had discovered the branch which lies north of Montreal Island, and the name was now extended to the main stream, which for many years was known indifferently by any of the designations, Grand River, River of the Algonquins, or Rivière des Prairies.

In Sanson’s map of 1656 the river now known as the Thames is first indicated. Two Petun and five Neutral missions are shown. All bear saints’ names, and represent important villages.