72 THE FEAST OF THE DEAD. [1636. 



measured wail of the mourners ; the speeches in 

 praise of the dead, and consolation to the living; 

 the funeral feast ; the gifts at the place of burial ; 

 the funeral games, where the young men of the 

 village contended for prizes ; and the long period 

 of mourning to those next of kin. The body was 

 usually laid on a scaffold, or, more rarely, in the 

 earth. This, however, was not its final resting- 

 place. At intervals of ten or twelve years, each 

 of the four nations which composed the Huron 

 Confederacy gathered together its dead, and con- 

 veyed them all to a common place of sepulture. 

 Here was celebrated the great " Feast of the 

 Dead," — in the eyes of the Hurons, their most 

 solemn and important ceremonial. 



In the spring of 1636, the chiefs and elders of 

 the Nation of the Bear — the principal nation 

 of the Confederacy, and that to which Ihonatiria 

 belonged — assembled in a general council, to pre- 

 pare for the great solemnity. There was an 

 unwonted spirit of dissension. Some causes of 

 jealousy had arisen, and three or four of the Bear 

 villages announced their intention of holding their 

 Feast of the Dead apart from the rest. As such 

 a procedure was thought abhorrent to every sense 

 of propriety and duty, the announcement excited 

 an intense feeling ; yet Brebeuf, who was present, 

 describes the debate which ensued as perfectly 

 calm, and wholly free from personal abuse or re- 

 crimination. The secession, however, took place, 

 and each party withdrew to its villages to gather 

 and prepare its dead. 



