|
|
Mention has been made of those great depositories of human bones
found at the present day in the ancient country of the Hurons. [See
Introduction.] They have been a theme of
abundant speculation;1 yet their origin
is a subject, not of conjecture, but of historic certainty. The
peculiar rites to which they owe their existence were first
described at length by Brébeuf, who, in the summer of the year 1636,
saw them at the town of Ossossané.
The Jesuits had long been familiar with the ordinary rites of
sepulture among the Hurons; the corpse placed in a crouching posture
in the midst of the circle of friends and relatives; the long,
measured wail of the mourners; the speeches in praise of the dead,
and consolation to the living; the funeral feast; the gifts at the
place of burial; the funeral games, where the young men of the
village contended for prizes; and the long period of mourning to
those next of kin. The body was usually laid on a scaffold, or, more
rarely, in the earth. This, however, was not its final
resting-place. At intervals of ten or twelve years, each of the four
nations which composed the Huron Confederacy gathered together its
dead, and conveyed them all to a common place of sepulture. Here was
celebrated the great "Feast of the Dead,"--in the eyes of the Hurons,
their most solemn and important ceremonial.
In the spring of 1636, the chiefs and elders of the Nation of the
Bear--the principal nation of the Confederacy, and that to which
Ihonatiria belonged--assembled in a general council, to prepare for
the great solemnity. There was an unwonted spirit of dissension.
Some causes of jealousy had arisen, and three or four of the Bear
villages announced their intention of holding their Feast of the
Dead apart from the rest. As such a procedure was thought abhorrent
to every sense of propriety and duty, the announcement excited an
intense feeling; yet Brébeuf, who was present, describes the debate
which ensued as perfectly calm, and wholly free from personal abuse
or recrimination. The secession, however, took place, and each party
withdrew to its villages to gather and prepare its dead.
The corpses were lowered from their scaffolds, and lifted from their
graves. Their coverings were removed by certain functionaries
appointed for the office, and the hideous relics arranged in a row,
surrounded by the weeping, shrieking, howling concourse. The
spectacle was frightful. Here were all the village dead of the last
twelve years. The priests, connoisseurs in such matters, regarded it
as a display of mortality so edifying, that they hastened to summon
their French attendants to contemplate and profit by it. Each family
reclaimed its own, and immediately addressed itself to removing what
remained of flesh from the bones. These, after being tenderly
caressed, with tears and lamentations, were wrapped in skins and
adorned with pendent robes of fur. In the belief of the mourners,
they were sentient and conscious. A soul was thought still to reside
in them;2 and to this notion, very
general among Indians, is in no small degree due that extravagant
attachment to the remains of their dead, which may be said to mark
the race.
These relics of mortality, together with the recent corpses,--which
were allowed to remain entire, but which were also wrapped carefully
in furs,--were now carried to one of the largest houses, and hung to
the numerous cross-poles, which, like rafters, supported the roof.
Here the concourse of mourners seated themselves at a funeral feast;
and, as the squaws of the household distributed the food, a chief
harangued the assembly, lamenting the loss of the deceased, and
extolling their virtues. This solemnity over, the mourners began
their march for Ossossané, the scene of the final rite. The bodies
remaining entire were borne on a kind of litter, while the bundles
of bones were slung at the shoulders of the relatives, like fagots.
Thus the procession slowly defiled along the forest pathways, with
which the country of the Hurons was everywhere intersected; and as
they passed beneath the dull shadow of the pines, they uttered at
intervals, in unison, a dreary, wailing cry, designed to imitate the
voices of disembodied souls winging their way to the land of
spirits, and believed to have an effect peculiarly soothing to the
conscious relics which each man bore. When, at night, they stopped
to rest at some village on the way, the inhabitants came forth to
welcome them with a grave and mournful hospitality.
From every town of the Nation of the Bear,--except the rebellious
few that had seceded,--processions like this were converging towards
Ossossané. This chief town of the Hurons stood on the eastern margin
of Nottawassaga Bay, encompassed with a gloomy wilderness of fir and
pine. Thither, on the urgent invitation of the chiefs, the Jesuits
repaired. The capacious bark houses were filled to overflowing, and
the surrounding woods gleamed with camp-fires: for the processions
of mourners were fast arriving, and the throng was swelled by
invited guests of other tribes. Funeral games were in progress, the
young men and women practising archery and other exercises, for
prizes offered by the mourners in the name of their dead relatives.
[Funeral games were not confined to the Hurons and Iroquois: Perrot
mentions having seen them among the Ottawas. An illustrated
description of them will be found in Lafitau.] Some of the chiefs
conducted Brébeuf and his companions to the place prepared for the
ceremony. It was a cleared area in the forest, many acres in extent.
In the midst was a pit, about ten feet deep and thirty feet wide.
Around it was reared a high and strong scaffolding; and on this were
planted numerous upright poles, with cross-poles extended between,
for hanging the funeral gifts and the remains of the dead.
Meanwhile there was a long delay. The Jesuits were lodged in a house
where more than a hundred of these bundles of mortality were hanging
from the rafters. Some were mere shapeless rolls; others were made
up into clumsy effigies, adorned with feathers, beads, and belts of
dyed porcupine-quills. Amidst this throng of the living and the
dead, the priests spent a night which the imagination and the senses
conspired to render almost insupportable.
At length the officiating chiefs gave the word to prepare for the
ceremony. The relics were taken down, opened for the last time, and
the bones caressed and fondled by the women amid paroxysms of
lamentation.3 Then all the processions
were formed anew, and, each bearing its dead, moved towards the area
prepared for the last solemn rites. As they reached the ground, they
defiled in order, each to a spot assigned to it, on the outer limits
of the clearing. Here the bearers of the dead laid their bundles on
the ground, while those who carried the funeral gifts outspread and
displayed them for the admiration of the beholders. Their number was
immense, and their value relatively very great. Among them were many
robes of beaver and other rich furs, collected and preserved for
years, with a view to this festival. Fires were now lighted, kettles
slung, and, around the entire circle of the clearing, the scene was
like a fair or caravansary. This continued till three o'clock in the
afternoon, when the gifts were repacked, and the bones shouldered
afresh. Suddenly, at a signal from the chiefs, the crowd ran forward
from every side towards the scaffold, like soldiers to the assault
of a town, scaled it by rude ladders with which it was furnished,
and hung their relics and their gifts to the forest of poles which
surmounted it. Then the ladders were removed; and a number of
chiefs, standing on the scaffold, harangued the crowd below,
praising the dead, and extolling the gifts, which the relatives of
the departed now bestowed, in their names, upon their surviving
friends.
During these harangues, other functionaries were lining the grave
throughout with rich robes of beaver-skin. Three large copper
kettles were next placed in the middle,4
and then ensued a scene of hideous confusion. The bodies which had
been left entire were brought to the edge of the grave, flung in,
and arranged in order at the bottom by ten or twelve Indians
stationed there for the purpose, amid the wildest excitement and the
uproar of many hundred mingled voices.5
When this part of the work was done, night was fast closing in. The
concourse bivouacked around the clearing, and lighted their
camp-fires under the brows of the forest which hedged in the scene
of the dismal solemnity. Brébeuf and his companions withdrew to the
village, where, an hour before dawn, they were roused by a clamor
which might have wakened the dead. One of the bundles of bones, tied
to a pole on the scaffold, had chanced to fall into the grave. This
accident had precipitated the closing act, and perhaps increased its
frenzy. Guided by the unearthly din, and the broad glare of flames
fed with heaps of fat pine logs, the priests soon reached the spot,
and saw what seemed, in their eyes, an image of Hell. All around
blazed countless fires, and the air resounded with discordant
outcries.6 The naked multitude, on,
under, and around the scaffold, were flinging the remains of their
dead, discharged from their envelopments of skins, pell-mell into
the pit, where Brébeuf discerned men who, as the ghastly shower fell
around them, arranged the bones in their places with long poles. All
was soon over; earth, logs, and stones were cast upon the grave, and
the clamor subsided into a funereal chant,--so dreary and
lugubrious, that it seemed to the Jesuits the wail of despairing
souls from the abyss of perdition.7
For other descriptions of these rites, see Charlevoix, Bressani, Du
Creux, and especially Lafitau, in whose work they are illustrated
with engravings. In one form or another, they were widely prevalent.
Bartram found them among the Floridian tribes. Traces of a similar
practice have been observed in recent times among the Dacotahs.
Remains of places of sepulture, evidently of kindred origin, have
been found in Tennessee, Missouri, Kentucky, and Ohio. Many have
been discovered in several parts of New York, especially near the
River Niagara. (See Squier, Aboriginal Monuments of New York.) This
was the eastern extremity of the ancient territory of the Neuters.
One of these deposits is said to have contained the bones of several
thousand individuals. There is a large mound on Tonawanda Island,
said by the modern Senecas to be a Neuter burial-place. (See
Marshall, Historical Sketches of the Niagara Frontier, 8.) In Canada
West, they are found throughout the region once occupied by the
Neuters, and are frequent in the Huron district.
Dr. Taché writes to me,--"I have inspected sixteen bone-pits," (in
the Huron country,) "the situation of which is indicated on the
little pencil map I send you. They contain from six hundred to
twelve hundred skeletons each, of both sexes and all ages, all mixed
together purposely. With one exception, these pits also contain
pipes of stone or clay, small earthen pots, shells, and wampum
wrought of these shells, copper ornaments, beads of glass, and other
trinkets. Some pits contained articles of copper of aboriginal
Mexican fabric."
This remarkable fact, together with the frequent occurrence in these
graves of large conch-shells, of which wampum was made, and which
could have been procured only from the Gulf of Mexico, or some part
of the southern coast of the United States, proves the extent of the
relations of traffic by which certain articles were passed from
tribe to tribe over a vast region. The transmission of pipes from
the famous Red Pipe-Stone Quarry of the St. Peter's to tribes more
than a thousand miles distant is an analogous modern instance,
though much less remarkable.
The Taché Museum, at the Laval University of Quebec, contains a
large collection of remains from these graves. In one instance, the
human bones are of a size that may be called gigantic.
In nearly every case, the Huron graves contain articles of use or
ornament of European workmanship. From this it may be inferred, that
the nation itself, or its practice of inhumation, does not date back
to a period long before the arrival of the French.
The Northern Algonquins had also a solemn Feast of the Dead; but it
was widely different from that of the Hurons.--See the very curious
account of it by Lalemant, Relation des Hurons, 1642, 94, 95.]
Such was the origin of one of those strange sepulchres which are the
wonder and perplexity of the modern settler in the abandoned forests
of the Hurons.
The priests were soon to witness another and a more terrible rite,
yet one in which they found a consolation, since it signalized the
saving of a soul,--the snatching from perdition of one of that
dreaded race, into whose very midst they hoped, with devoted daring,
to bear hereafter the cross of salvation. A band of Huron warriors
had surprised a small party of Iroquois, killed several, and
captured the rest. One of the prisoners was led in triumph to a
village where the priests then were. He had suffered greatly; his
hands, especially, were frightfully lacerated. Now, however, he was
received with every mark of kindness. "Take courage," said a chief,
addressing him; "you are among friends." The best food was prepared
for him, and his captors vied with each other in offices of
good-will. [This pretended kindness in the treatment of a prisoner
destined to the torture was not exceptional. The Hurons sometimes
even supplied their intended victim with a temporary wife.] He had
been given, according to Indian custom, to a warrior who had lost a
near relative in battle, and the captive was supposed to be adopted
in place of the slain. His actual doom was, however, not for a
moment in doubt. The Huron received him affectionately, and, having
seated him in his lodge, addressed him in a tone of extreme
kindness. "My nephew, when I heard that you were coming, I was very
glad, thinking that you would remain with me to take the place of
him I have lost. But now that I see your condition, and your hands
crushed and torn so that you will never use them, I change my mind.
Therefore take courage, and prepare to die tonight like a brave
man."
The prisoner coolly asked what should be the manner of his death.
"By fire," was the reply.
"It is well," returned the Iroquois.
Meanwhile, the sister of the slain Huron, in whose place the
prisoner was to have been adopted, brought him a dish of food, and,
her eyes flowing with tears, placed it before him with an air of the
utmost tenderness; while, at the same time, the warrior brought him
a pipe, wiped the sweat from his brow, and fanned him with a fan of
feathers.
About noon he gave his farewell feast, after the custom of those who
knew themselves to be at the point of death. All were welcome to
this strange banquet; and when the company were gathered, the host
addressed them in a loud, firm voice: "My brothers, I am about to
die. Do your worst to me. I do not fear torture or death." Some of
those present seemed to have visitings of real compassion; and a
woman asked the priests if it would be wrong to kill him, and thus
save him from the fire.
The Jesuits had from the first lost no opportunity of accosting him;
while he, grateful for a genuine kindness amid the cruel hypocrisy
that surrounded him, gave them an attentive ear, till at length,
satisfied with his answers, they baptized him. His eternal bliss
secure, all else was as nothing; and they awaited the issue with
some degree of composure.
A crowd had gathered from all the surrounding towns, and after
nightfall the presiding chief harangued them, exhorting them to act
their parts well in the approaching sacrifice, since they would be
looked upon by the Sun and the God of War. [Areskoui (see Introduction).
He was often regarded as identical with the Sun. The
semi-sacrificial character of the torture in this case is also shown
by the injunction, "que pour ceste nuict on n'allast point folastrer
dans les bois."--Le Mercier, Relation des Huron, 1637, 114.] It is
needless to dwell on the scene that ensued. It took place in the
lodge of the great war chief, Atsan. Eleven fires blazed on the
ground, along the middle of this capacious dwelling. The platforms
on each side were closely packed with spectators; and, betwixt these
and the fires, the younger warriors stood in lines, each bearing
lighted pine-knots or rolls of birch-bark. The heat, the smoke, the
glare of flames, the wild yells, contorted visages, and furious
gestures of these human devils, as their victim, goaded by their
torches, bounded through the fires again and again, from end to end
of the house, transfixed the priests with horror. But when, as day
dawned, the last spark of life had fled, they consoled themselves
with the faith that the tortured wretch had found his rest at last
in Paradise.
| [Le Mercier's long and minute account of the torture
of this prisoner is too revolting to be dwelt upon. One
of the most atrocious features of the scene was the
alternation of raillery and ironical compliment which
attended it throughout, as well as the pains taken to
preserve life and consciousness in the victim as long as
possible. Portions of his flesh were afterwards
devoured.] |
1 Among those who have wondered and speculated
over these remains is Mr. Schoolcraft. A slight acquaintance with
the early writers would have solved his doubts.
2 In the general belief, the soul took flight
after the great ceremony was ended. Many thought that there were two
souls, one remaining with the bones, while the other went to the
land of spirits.
3 "I'admiray la tendresse d'vne femme enuers son
pere et ses enfans; elle est fille d'vn Capitaine, qui est mort fort
âgé, et a esté autrefois fort considerable dans le Païs: elle luy
peignoit sa cheuelure, elle manioit ses os les vns apres les autres,
auec la mesme affection que si elle luy eust voulu rendre la vie;
elle luy mit aupres de luy son Atsatone8ai, c'est à dire son pacquet
de buchettes de Conseil, qui sont tous les liures et papiers du Païs.
Pour ses petits enfans, elle leur mit des brasselets de Pourcelaine
et de rassade aux bras, et baigna leurs os de ses larmes; on ne l'en
pouuoit quasi separer, mais on pressoit, et il fallut incontinent
partir."--Brébeuf, Relation des Hurons, 1636, 134.]
4 In some of these graves, recently discovered, five
or six large copper kettles have been found, in a position
corresponding with the account of Brébeuf. In one, there were no
less than twenty-six kettles.]
5 "Iamais rien ce m'a mieux figuré la confusion qui
est parmy les damnez. Vous eussiez veu décharger de tous costez des
corps à demy pourris, et de tous costez on entendoit vn horrible
tintamarre de voix confuses de personnes qui parloient et ne
s'entendoient pas."--Brébeuf, Relation des Hurons, 1636, 135.]
6 "Approchans, nous vismes tout à fait une image de
l'Enfer: cette grande place estoit toute remplie de feux & de
flammes, & l'air retentissoit de toutes parts des voix confuses de
ces Barbares," etc.--Brébeuf, Relation des Hurons, 1636, 209
(Cramoisy).]
7 "Se mirent à chanter, mais d'un ton si lamentable
& si lugubre, qu'il nous representoit l'horrible tristesse &
l'abysme du desespoir dans lequel sont plongées pour iamais ces âmes
malheureuses."--Ibid., 210.
This site includes some historical
materials that may imply negative stereotypes reflecting the culture or language
of a particular period or place. These items are presented as part of the
historical record and should not be interpreted to mean that the WebMasters in
any way endorse the stereotypes implied.
The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century, 1867
Jesuits
in North America
 |
