06 Description of some Sepulchral Pits of Indian Origin. 



Hogg Bay was the settlement of St Louis ; the former is spoken of as 

 surrounded with palisades and entrenchments, and it is likely that they 

 were all fortified in some way. 



" During the years 1648-9, the Mohawks extended their conquests to 

 these settlements, surprised each in succession, with the exception of St 

 Marie, massacred all the inhabitants they found in them, and tortured 

 the priests, among whom are mentioned Jean de Brabeuf and Gabriel 

 Lallemand. (It is said that the head of the former is still preserved in 

 Quebec by the Jesuits with great veneration.) A great number of hu- 

 man beings perished in these massacres ; for the Huron tribe then num- 

 bered from forty to fifty thousand, and the villages are said to have been 

 of considerable size." 



Besides these, three other villages, St Jean Batisti, St Matthew, 

 and St Michel, are noticed by the same author. The first was de- 

 stroyed, the others joined the Mohawks. Their exact situations are 

 not recorded. 



" The settlement of St Marie was the last to yield. It was not de- 

 stroyed, but the inhabitants becoming straitened for provisions, and in 

 constant terror of their enemies, deserted it, and went, in the year 1649, 

 to the island of St Joseph, which is mentioned as being not far from the 

 mainland. Here they built a large village of one hundred houses, and 

 the priests are said to have baptized three thousand people. St Joseph, 

 in the old maps, corresponds to one of the Christian islands ; and it is 

 likely, or even certain, that they received that name from the above cir- 

 cumstance. 



" On this island are the remains of a quadrangular enclosure, of which 

 the walls, still eight or nine feet high, remain in good preservation. 

 No signs, however, of the original clearing are to be seen, and some of 

 the trees growing within it are of the largest forest growth. It is situ- 

 ate about fifty yards from the beach of a large sandy bay on the south 

 side of the island, and there can be little doubt of its having been built 

 by the Indians, under the directions of the Jesuit priests, for a tempo- 

 rary protection against their persevering enemy. 



" At the island of St Joseph the Hurons sutfered from want of food ; 

 and so straitened were they for provisions, that mothers exhumed their 

 children and devoured them. Still pursued by the Mohawks, from this 

 place they dispersed in all directions. Some were drowned while at- 

 tempting to cross the ice to the mainland ; some concealed themselves in 

 the woods, or dispersed among the neighbouring tribes ; some went to 

 the Menitoulin island ; others to the States ; and the last remnant ac- 

 companied their prssts down the Ottawa to Quebec, where they formed 

 the settlement of Lorette." 



The mode of disposing of their dead, in use among many tribes of 

 Indians of that time which was just now referred to, is thus de- 

 cribed by the same author : — 



" This grand ceremony, the most curious and celebrated of all con- 

 nected with Indian religion," as he calls it, " took place every eight 



