[lighthall] HOCHELAGANS AND MOHAWKS 203 



he was shown five scalps of a race called Toudamans from the south, with 

 whom they were constantly at war, and who had killed about 200 of 

 their people at Massacre Island, Bic, in a cave, while they were on the 

 way to Honguedo to fish. All these names must of course be given the 

 old French pronunciation. 



Proceeding up the river near Hochelaga he found " a great number 

 of dwellings along the shore " inhabited by fisherfolk, as was the custom 

 of the Huron-Iroquois in the summer season. The village called Hoche- 

 lay was situated about forty-five miles above Stadacona, at the Eichelieu 

 rapid, between which and Hochelaga, a distance of about 135 miles, he men- 

 tions no village. This absence of settlements I attribute to the fact that 

 the intermediate Three-Rivers region was an ancient special appurtenance 

 of the Algonquins, with whom the Hoehelagans were to all appearance 

 then on terms of friendly sufferance and trade, if not alliance. In later 

 days the same region was uninhabited, on account of Iroquois incursions 

 by the Eiver Richelieu and Lake Champlain. In the islands at the head 

 of Lake St. Peter, Cartier met five hunters who directed him to Hoche- 

 laga. " More than a thousand" persons, he says, received them with joy 

 at Hochelaga. This expression of number however is not very definite. 

 It is frequently used by Dante to signify a multitude in the Divina Conié- 

 dia. The town of Hochelaga consisted of " about fifty houses, in length 

 about fifty paces each at most, and twelve or fifteen paces wide," made 

 of bark on sapling frames in the manner of the Iroquois long houses. 

 The round " fifties" are obviously approximate. The plan of the town 

 given in Ramusio shows some forty-five fires, each serving some five 

 families, but the interior division differs so greatly from that of early 

 Huron and Iroquois houses, and from his phrase " fifty by twelve or 

 fifteen," that it appears to be the result of inaccurate drawing. There is* 

 therefore considerable room for difference as to the population of the town, 

 ranging from say 1,200 to 2,000 souls, the verbal description which is 

 much the more authoritative, inclining in favour of the latter. Any 

 estimate of the total population of the Hochelagan race on the river, 

 must be a guess. If, however, those on the island of Montreal be set at 

 2,000, and the " more than 500 " of Stadacona be considered as a fair aver- 

 age for the principal town and 300 (which also was the average estimated 

 by Père Lalemant for the Neutral nation) as an average for the eight or 

 so villages of the Quebec district, (the absentees, such as the 200 at 

 Gaspé from Stadacona being perhaps offset by contingents from the 

 places close to Stadacona) we have some 4,900 accounted for. Those on 

 all the hills to the south and east of Mount Royal would add anywhere 

 from say 3,000 to an indefinitely greater number more. Perhaps 5,000, 

 however, should not be exceeded as the limit for these hills and Lake 

 Champlain. We arrive therefore at a guess of from Y,900 to 9,900 as 

 the total. As the lower figures seem conservative, compared with the 



