Section II., [ 201 ] Trans. R. S. C. 



III. — The Jesuit Missions of Canada. 

 W. H. WiTHROw, D.D. 



(Read June 23, 1904.) 



The region between Georgian Bay and Lake Simcae, which is now 

 a rich agricultural district, was, three hundred years ago, the home of 

 the numerous and powerful Huron nation of Indians. Much of this 

 region is still covered with what seems to be a virgin forest, yet the 

 plough and the axe of the pioneer often bring to light the relics of a 

 former population, concerning whom local tradition is silent, and of 

 whom the lingering red men of the present know nothing. Yet in the 

 pages of history live the records of this lost race, written with a 

 fidelity and vigor that rehabilitate the past, and bring us face to face 

 witli the extinct nation. 



The forty annual volumes of Belations drs Jésuites contain a 

 minute and graphic account by men of scholastic training, keen insight, 

 and cultivated powers of observation, of the daily life, the wars and 

 conflicts, the social, and especially the religious condition, of this 

 strange people. As we read these quaint old pages, we are present at 

 the firesides and the festivals of the Huron nation; we witness their 

 superstitious rites and usages, their war and medicine dances, and their 

 funeral customs; and, at length, as the result of the pious zeal, of the 

 Jesuit missionaries, we behold their general adoption of Christianity 

 and their celebration of Christian worship. ^ 



In the region between the Georgian Bay, Lake Simcoe, and the 

 river Severn, in the year 1639, were no less than thirty-two Huron 

 villages, with an estimated population of about thirty thousand. These 

 villages were not mere squalid collections of wigwams, but consisted of 

 well-built dwellings, about thirty or thirty-five feet high, as many wide, 

 and sometimes thirty and even a hundred yards long. They were gen- 

 erally well fortified by a ditch, rampart, and three or four rows of 

 palisades, and sometimes had flanking bastions which covered the front 

 with a cross-fire. The inhabitants were not mere hunting nomads, but 

 an agricultural people, who laid up ample stores of provisions, chiefly 

 Indian corn, for their maintenance during the winter. 



As early as 1626, Jean de Brébeuf, the apostle of the Hurons, had 

 visited, and for three years remained among these savage tribes. On 

 Kirk's conquest of Quebec he was recalled, but in 163-1, accompanied 

 by Pères Daniel and Uavost, he returned under a savage escort to the 

 temporarily abandoned mission. By a tortuous route of nine hundred 



^ The statements of this paper are taken, for the most part literaUy, 

 from these Relations. 



