by Edith Cody-Rice
This is a serious book and a relatively heavy read but a fascinating and engrossing tale.
Most of us have heard of Jean de Brébeuf, the French Jesuit priest who, we were told at school, ministered to the Hurons for a little over two decades in the 17th century, in an area of Ontario between the Penetanguishene peninsula and Lake Couchiching and extending west to the edge of Georgian Bay (Huronia). The mission from which he served toward the end of his stay in Huronia has been rebuilt as a Martyrs’ shrine at Midland Ontario where it is known as Ste. Marie among the Hurons. Brébeuf was canonized in 1930 along with some fellow Jesuits, as a saint of the Catholic Church. The real story, compellingly told by Canadian historian and lawyer Mark Bourrie is not only more nuanced, but casts doubt on the concept of “ministering”.
Jean de Brébeuf was born of a minor noble family in Normandy in 1583, during the brutal French wars of religion. He became a Jesuit novice at the age of 26. Brébeuf was ordained as a priest in 1622 and three years later, in 1625, was sent to Canada. In 1626 he traveled with Huron fur traders up the St. Lawrence-Ottawa River- Lake Nipissing- French Riber canoe route to the Huron homeland. Brébeuf had a talent for languages and quickly masterws the Huron tongue.
The Jesuits, known as Black Robes, were accepted because the Hurons recognized that they were prized by the French, and they, in turn, prized their fur trading relationship with the French. But this acceptance did not last long. First it became mere tolerance and, over the years, open hostility.
The Jesuits, rigorous Christians, had an agenda: they were there to convert the Hurons to Christianity. This, for over ten years was an unmitigated failure. The Hurons had a fully developed, well integrated and sophisticated society with much shared activity: hunting, planting, feasting. It had its community councils, its war chiefs and civil chiefs, its healing societies and a well defined moral code, although not one which the Jesuits appreciated.
To become Christian, a Huron would have to give up many of his treasured community activities, his social status as participant or head of Huron societies and, of course, sex with anyone but his spouse and no divorce. Huron society was quite liberal: women had agency, individuals were respected and change of partners was not frowned upon unless a man abandoned his children. Perhaps a little more like our society today than 17th century Europe.
Along with trade, the fur trading French brought European diseases which devastated indigenous populations in great successive waves. The Hurons, not without reason, blamed the French and more specifically the Black Robes for the disease and death visited upon them. And cultural misunderstandings elevated the hostility. In their zeal, the Jesuits would baptize dying Hurons, which caused the community to believe that the sacrament was actually causing death. Rumours spread that the priests had come to wipe out the Hurons. On their side, the Jesuits believed that many of the feasts, and traditions of the Hurons were inspired by the devil. Brébeuf, who was called Echon by the Hurons came to be feared and his name was used as a threat to discipline children. Brébeuf himself actively sought martyrdom all his adult life and during his stay in Huronia experienced visions, related in Jesuit accounts, perhaps due to the stress of constant rejection and danger, which today would have marked him as mentally unbalanced.
After nearly ten years as head of mission, Jesuit superiors, concerned about the failure of the mission to convert natives to Christianity, replaced Brébeuf with a more strategic and stricter brother, Father Jerome Lalemant. While Brébeuf may not have admired Huron customs, he did not despise the Hurons, as did Lalemant. But Lalemant was an effective strategist and after a number of years, more Hurons became Christian, which split the community and contributed to their rout by the Iroquois.
Although the Jesuits were sometimes tolerated, sometimes hated and frequently in danger of being killed (being saved at times by the fear of French reaction), it was not the Hurons who martyred Brébeuf. He was caught, tortured and killed by invading Iroquois, along with another younger priest, in 1649.
Lest we think of indigenous peoples of what is now Ontario as peaceful “keepers of the land”, Mark Bourrie writes that they, like Europeans but on a smaller scale, fought over territory, razed their enemies’ villages and hated their enemies. European contact not only killed off a great number through disease, but the access to European guns tipped the social balance. The Iroquois were freely armed by the Dutch south of the Great Lakes while the French would provide arms only to Christians, which severely limited their distribution to the Hurons, but at the same time increased motivation to convert. In the final destruction of Huronia, this imbalance was decisive.
While the Hurons were generous to friends, strangers and refugees from other tribes, they, like the Iroquois, were brutally cruel to captured enemies. Torture was ritualistic and extremely gruesome and painful. One chapter describes the extended torture and death of an Iroquois warrior. It is hard to read but anticipates Brébeuf’s own martyrdom when he was killed by the Iroquois years later. And Hurons ate their tortured enemies. In the case of Brébeuf, his heart was torn out and consumed by an Iroquois warrior.
This is a meticulously researched book and many of its tales are taken from the Relations, Jesuit accounts of life in Huronia which were sent back to superiors in France on a yearly basis and published for consumption by the Parisian smart set. Apparently, they were best sellers.
I was totally engrossed by this book, although, as it occupies 438 pages, I had to take a breather from time to time. It told me, on nearly every page, something I did not know about the history of this province, of the lives lived here in the 17th century when it was principally an indigenous homeland before Europeans settled in numbers. And the presence of the black robe missionaries was not, as has frequently been assumed, a benefit to the Huron community, it was a destructive force. What was of benefit to that community was trade with the French who could provide communities with modern metal technology such as axes, cooking pots and guns.
Published by Biblioasis
438 pages before the index
Available at Mill Street Books in Almonte
