Part 1. The First Steps of Roman Catholicism on the Continent of North America (Cont.) (4)

The Jesuits exulted and rejoiced at the success of the mission, but soon their joy turned to horror. Among the Indians appeared a medicine man who enjoyed unlimited influence over the savages and to the Jesuits seemed the very embodiment of Satan, as he himself believed himself to be. After several failed incantations, he began to accuse the black robes of causing the plague, and everything instantly changed in regard to them. With the speed of lightning a fateful thought spread through the Indian villages. The baptism which the Jesuits performed on the dying was considered by the Indians as healing magic; now they began to consider it a killing potion. Everything about the Jesuits now became an object of terror to the Indians. They had a picture of the Last Judgment at the door of their shelter; the Indians now thought it was a potion: dragons and serpents seemed to them demons of the plague, devouring the Indians. On top of a neighboring tree the Jesuits had a weather vane for determining wind direction; the Indians watched it with horror and thought it spread disease and death in all directions. The clocks themselves, which had formerly been objects of curiosity, became objects of terror, and the Jesuits had to stop them, since the Indians suspected their ticking announced death. The usual chanting of the Jesuits at mass was considered hostile incantations spreading the plague.[1] If such suspicions had been directed at the Indian medicine men, the Indians would quickly have done away with them, but the Jesuits seemed to them sorcerers whom they feared. Therefore, they began first to oppose them passively and held night meetings. Boys began throwing sticks and stones at them when they approached the shelters. The sick would lock themselves in and not admit them. But nothing could stop the Jesuits from their charitable work with the sick and instruction of the dying, especially children. Hearing the cries of a sick child through cracks, they would boldly push in and enter the shelter; they would ask to buy something, talk about hunting, war, everything except the plague and the sick child. Then, having quieted their suspicion somewhat, they would ask to see the sick child and, feeling his pulse, would seem to accidentally touch him with a corner of cloth moistened beforehand with water, whisper the words of baptism and—the child was saved. The Jesuits performed many such secret baptisms without arousing suspicion among the adults who forbade them to perform it. Once a young Indian woman was walking through the village carrying a sick child on her back. Two Jesuits approached her and while one of them occupied the woman with his rosary beads, the other secretly baptized the child.[2] But the devil came into fury because we brought many of these innocent infants to heaven, says Lemercier.[3] The Indians’ suspicion of the Jesuits continued to intensify; they held night meetings more frequently and became bolder in saying that the black robes were destroying the people. Some said that the Jesuits had hidden a human body in their shelters which had infected the country (a result of their misunderstanding of the Body of Christ offered in sacrifice during mass); others attributed the plague to a serpent; others to a demon which the Jesuits supposedly carried in a gun they once had; some said that the black robes had killed a child in the forest with an awl in order to kill Huron children through sorcery; others suspected that the Jesuits had enchanted clothes which were the cause of the people’s calamities.[4] In August 1638, a general popular council was assembled to discuss the situation. Councils were ordinarily held at night, by firelight. Indians from all the Huron tribes gathered for this council. “I never saw anything darker,” writes the Jesuit Lemercier. “They looked at each other like corpses, or like men who already feel the terror of death. When they spoke, they spoke only in sighs, recounting the sick and dead in their families. All this was to stir up the poison of rage against us.”[5] The Jesuits were summoned to the council, and there one after another the Indians began to accuse them of the destruction of the people. The Jesuits defended themselves and tried to explain the cause of the plague; but the more they defended themselves, the more fiercely the rage of the Indians burned against them, until finally they ceased to listen to their answers and with cries and threats demanded that they hand over the enchanted clothes that were destroying their country. In vain the Jesuits said they had no such clothes. The noise and rage intensified. “If you do not believe me,” said one of the most fearless and courageous missionaries, the Jesuit Brébeuf, “then go into our house, search everything, and if you do not know which clothes are enchanted, take all our clothes and throw them into the lake.” Such resolution of the Black Robe somewhat confused the savages, and this time the Jesuits avoided the danger threatening them. The Indians ended the meeting and left the Jesuits in peace, although an old warrior, passing by Brébeuf, remarked to him: “if someone of our boys splits your head, we will say nothing against it.” And the missionary continued fearlessly to preach to the remaining assembly about the necessity of obeying the Great Spirit and the danger of offending Him.[6]

The danger for the Jesuits, however, did not pass. The decision of the general assembly regarding them remained undecided only because among the Indians were some who took the Jesuits’ side and moderated the rage of the hostile party. The latter, however, did not abandon their view of the Jesuits as the principal culprits of the people’s calamity and began to conduct secret councils separately. After one of such councils, some of the converts secretly informed the Jesuits that their death had been decided upon. A sign of this was the increasing boldness of the savages toward them, so that whenever they left their shelter they had to expect a tomahawk or a stone. The Jesuit Rageneaux wore on his chest a cross with a crucifix and the image of a skull. An Indian, thinking it was sorcery, tore this cross from him. The missionary tried to take it back, but the Indian seized an axe and raised it over the Jesuit. Rageneaux stood motionless, awaiting the blow. This firmness so affected the savage that, muttering, he lowered the axe and departed. An Indian attacked the Jesuit Lemercier with a burning brand and, thrusting it at his face, said that he should be burned alive; and one young warrior openly said: “I have eaten enough of the colored flesh of our enemies; now I wish to taste white flesh, and I will eat yours.” In view of such a situation, the Jesuits clearly saw their danger. They, a handful of brave men thrown into a wild wilderness, could expect help from nowhere save above, and they, preparing for death, prayed only that their blood would be the seed of Christianity. Brébeuf had a vision—of a cross which slowly moved toward them across the sky from the land of the Iroquois. “How large is this cross?” asked the other Jesuits. “Oh, large enough to crucify all of us on it,” he answered.[7] Foreseeing inevitable destruction, Father Brébeuf wrote a farewell letter to Quebec to the mission superior Lejeune, entrusting its delivery, in case of death, to some of the converts. The letter breathes unconquerable Christian zeal and complete self-sacrifice, which distinguished these missionaries.[8] In view of the threatening danger, the Jesuits, however, did not lose their composure and tried to apply one measure to placate the rage of the Indians. The Hurons had a custom by which those condemned to death gave a farewell feast. The Jesuits held such a feast, inviting the savages, who came gloomy and with sidelong glances, ate their portion, and left silently. The effect of this measure seemed at first undecided, but in reality it proved beneficial. The Indians were pleased with the feast, which gave new strength and courage to the supporters of the missionaries. After the feast a whole week passed peacefully for the Jesuits[9] and the Indians’ mood brightened, which was also aided by the decrease in mortality. Gradually the threatening danger completely passed; the Jesuits were delivered from death, although they took this as a bad sign for the mission, since only the blood of martyrs serves as the seed of Christians.[10]

The mission among the Hurons was an outpost of civilization and Christianity, thrown into the midst of a wilderness separated from the European coastal colonies by an impassable distance of thousands of versts. The only route of communication between them was the St. Lawrence River with its various tributaries; but even this route was convenient only for the Indians, who with their birch canoes would sometimes float down the river, sometimes push through the forest, bypassing rapids or hiding from hostile parties roaming the forests hunting not so much beasts as people. Missionaries undertook this journey only when absolutely necessary, when they had exhausted all the means needed to continue the mission. Since the opening of the mission among the Hurons, the Jesuits had made considerable progress, had many converts and even more catechumens; with the increase of the work, the need for means to conduct it increased, but meanwhile their means were exhausted to the extreme. Clothes and pictures wore out, paper ran short, bread for mass was barely obtained through meager cultivation of wheat, and wine was so scarce that the Jesuits used it only drop by drop at mass.[11] By 1642 the mission had fallen into such a desperate state in this respect that the Jesuits decided to send one of their members to Quebec to acquire the necessary means and items for the mission. The task fell to Isaac Jogues, who set out with a party of Hurons bringing their furs for trade with the French. The journey was extremely tiring; they had to carry the canoes and all their contents on their backs over dry land thirty times; but the travelers were nonetheless very glad and considered themselves fortunate when they arrived in Quebec, having avoided the main danger of this journey—meeting the war parties of the savage Iroquois, who were the mortal enemies of the Hurons and watched for them on the river.

Having completed his business, Father Isaac set out with his party on the return journey. The journey against the current was even harder, but the party worked cheerfully and eagerly with their oars, pleased at the successful completion of their task. All was quiet around and only the sound of water being parted by the oars of twelve canoes was heard. Suddenly the riverside forest shook with a wild war cry, a hail of bullets and arrows poured down on the travelers, and from the bushes there paddled out toward them a flotilla of Iroquois war canoes. The Hurons, seized by terror and surprise, made for the shore and, abandoning everything, fled, leaving the missionary with two young Frenchmen who had voluntarily agreed to serve the Jesuits and several baptized Indians. Soon part of the party was killed and most were taken captive; among the latter were the Frenchmen and the missionary. Considering them leaders of the party, the Iroquois attacked them with particular fury, stabbed them with knives, beat them with clubs, and gnawed their fingers with their teeth. Then the victors, with wild exultation, loaded their canoes with booty and captives and set out for home, into the present-day state of New York. After thirteen days they arrived at the first Iroquois village. The cries of the victors announced their arrival and from the village there ran out crowds of old and young Indians with clubs in their hands. Before the entrance to the village they formed themselves in two rows, making a narrow passage, and through this “narrow path of paradise,” as Jogues expresses it, the captives had to pass one by one amid the cries of exulting Iroquois who struck them with clubs. One blow knocked Father Isaac to the ground, but other blows immediately forced him to rise and he made his way through the entire row unsteadily. Then began a series of tortures and sufferings too abominable even for description. They gnawed his hands, cut his fingers, plucked hair from his head and beard. Finally, when he had been brought to unconsciousness from loss of blood, they tied him at night to stakes driven in the ground, stretching his limbs so that, lying on his back, he could not move in the slightest. Having sated their savagery, the Indians set their children to “pet” the Frenchmen, and these little demons took hot coals from the fires and placed them on the naked bodies of the captives, scooping hot ashes on them, reveling in their hissing on the bloody bodies of the sufferers.[12]