The Jesuit Relations

Michael Fowkes

IntroductionTHE SOCIETY OF JESUS IN

EUROPE AND ABROAD

The Jesuits were members of a religious order, the Society of Jesus, and like the monks, nuns, and friars of other orders, they took special vows of poverty and obedience that distinguished them from regular parish priests.

After Francis Xavier came a succession of Jesuit missionary enterprises encompassing the globe and extending in time from the sixteenth century until the pope dissolved the Society of Jesus in 1773.

Coming to North America in the Early seventeenth century, the French Jesuits could draw on the institutional memory of their order for guidance in this unfamiliar territory.

IntroductionTHE COLONIZATION OF

NEW FRANCE.

Long before the Jesuits appeared on the North American scene, French fishermen, explorers, and fur traders had already had extensive contact with the native of the Northeast.

South the English settled in larger numbers, and they came to depend heavily on agriculture for their food supply and export commodities.

In Spain’s New World empire, Indians owed he colonizers labor service and other forms of tribute as both a symbol of their subjection and a contribution to the Spanish economy.

Jean de Brebeuf on the Hurons

Language

Thanks to Jesuits, there is probably no group of native North Americans whose culture and history in the period of initial contact with Europeans is better documented than that of the Hurons.

They have hardly any birtue or religion, or any learning or government, they have consequently no indiviual words suitable for signifying these things.

Compound words are more often used by them and have the same effect as an adjective and a noun.

Disease and MedicineHuron Medical Practices

The aoutaerohi is remedy for only one particular kind of disease, which they also call aoutaerhi.

Of the three types of games that are popular among these peoples lacrosse, dish, and straw the first two, are wonderful for the health.

Sometimes, one of the shamans will say that the whole country is sick, and he calls for a game of lacrosse to heal it.

Jean de Brebeuf on the Hurons

Religion, Myth, and Ritual

It is amazing to see so much blindness in regard to the things of Heaven, in a people who do not lack judgment and knowledge in reference to those of earth.

To begin with fundamental beliefs, most of them take pride in deriving their origin from heaven

There are some Hurons whose imaginations do not soar so high and who are not so ambitious as to believe that they derive their origin from Heaven.

Disease and medicineThe Influenza Epidemic of

1637

In the fall of 1636, the Huron villages where Jesuits resided were struck with a fever most likely a strain of influenza originating in New England.

The disease spread slowly over the course of the winter.

As the Hurons desperation increased, they followed their shamans urging to undertake extraordinary curative rituals.

Diplomacy and WarBarthelemy Vimont

On the fifth day of July, the Iroquois prisoner who had been set at liberty and sent back to his own country, as I have said in the foregoing chapter, made his appearance at Three Rivers.

When all had assembled and had taken their places Kiotseaaeton, a tall man, rose to his feet and regarded the sun.

He gave the towns people gifts and sang songs between his gifts, he danced for joy

Diplomacy and WarThe Hurons Annihilated,

1649

Armies were stepping up attacks against the Huron country farther west.

Winter was just coming to an end in March when the Hurons were taken by surprise by a large Iroquois invasions

The Hurons military over the years, strength had been reduced by population loss caused by the devastation epidemic described in chapter .

Writings on the Natural Environment.Paul Le Jeune

Tchakabech climbed a tree for he wished to go into the sky. When he had almost reached the top, he blew against this tree, which grew tall and large at the breath of this little dwarf.

He made it to the top and everything was delightful , the land was excellent, and the trees were beautiful.

Tchakabech went back to the snake and released the sun.

Writings on the Natural Environment

The Moral Qualities of Animals

What the poets have invented about the abduction of Ganymede has a basis of the boldness of eagles.

The French man fired an arquesbus at a crane and broke its wing, whereupon the bird ran straight at him on its long legs, thrusting it beak at his face like a lance.

God has gave anger to the animals so that they may repel what is hostile to them.