I 



190Q] The Ottawa Naturalist. 97 



throvigh the gloomy pine forests of old Huronia, the mourners 

 tittering, at intervals, dismal wailing cries, supposed to resemble 

 those of disembodied spirits wending their way to the land of 

 souls, and thought to have a soothing effect on the consciousness 

 still residing in the bundles of bones, which each man carried. 



The Jesuits had been invited, by the chiefs of the Nation of 

 the Bear, to come to Ossossane and witness the rite. This great 

 town of the Hurons lay some distance back from the eastern 

 margin of Nottawassaga Bay, in the midst of a pine forest. What 

 a sight it must have been to those Europeans, as, one after 

 another, the weird funeral corteges, converging from the various 

 towns of the Bear, issued from the surrounding forest. 



During the delay, in awaiting the complete assemblage of the 

 nation's dead, the squaws ladled out food for the inevitable 

 feast, while the younger members of both sexes contended for 

 prizes, donated bv mourners in honor of departed relatives. 

 So great was the assemblage that the houses were crowded to 

 suft'ocation and large numbers had to camp out, in the adjacent 

 forest. The bundles of dead were hung from the cross-poles in 

 the houses, and in the one where the Jesuits were housed up- 

 wards of one hundred packages of mortalit}' decorated the 

 interior of the building. The Jesuits passed the night in one 

 of these places, and endured the ordeal with Christian fortitude. 



Finally, the signal was given, by the chiefs, for the con- 

 summation of the concluding rite. The packages ~'of dead were 

 opened and tears and lamentations lavished upon their contents. 

 Brebeuf refers to one woman in particular, whose ecstasies of 

 grief, over the bones of her father and children, were pathetic 

 in the extreme. She combed her father's hair, and fondled his 

 bones as if thev had been alive. She made bracelets of beads 

 for the arms of her children, and bathed their bones with her 

 tears. It was the same divine Hght of motherhood, which thus 

 irradiated the savage dens of the Hurons, as that which shines 

 in the eyes of the Christian mother, as she weeps over the cold 

 form of one whose brows have been sealed with the sign of the 

 Cross. 



The various processions now re-formed and proceeded to a 

 spot in the forest, where a clearing of several acres had been 

 made. In the centre of this open space a huge pit had been 

 dug, ten feet in depth and thirtv feet in diameter. Around this 

 pit a rude scaffold had been 'erected, very high and strong. 

 Above this scaffold rose a number of upright poles with others 

 crossed between, upon which to hang the funeral g^*"*^ 'nd 

 remains of the dead. 



The different groups of mourners were assigned places 

 around the edge of the clearing. The funeral gifts were now 



