1636-37.] PRIESTS AND SORCERERS. 91 



gain to be let oif with building the chapel alone ; 

 but Brebeuf would bate them nothing, and the 

 council broke up in despair. 



At Ossossane, a few miles distant, the people, 

 in a frenzy of terror, accepted the conditions, and 

 promised to renounce their superstitions and reform 

 their manners. It was a labor of Hercules, a 

 cleansing of Augean stables ; but the scared sav- 

 ages were ready to make any promise that might 

 stay the pestilence. One of their principal sor- 

 cerers proclaimed in a loud voice through the 

 streets of the town, that the God of the French 

 was their master, and that thenceforth all must 

 live according to His will. " What consolation," 

 exclaims Le Mercier, " to see God glorified by the 

 lips of an imp of Satan ! " ^ 



Their joy was short. The proclamation was on 

 the twelfth of December. On the twenty-first, a 

 noted sorcerer came to Ossossane. He was of a 

 dwarfish, hump-backed figure, — most rare among 

 this symmetrical people, — with a vicious face, and 

 a dress consisting of a torn and shabby robe of bea- 

 ver-skin. Scarcely had he arrived, when, with ten 

 or twelve other savages, he ensconced himself in a 

 kennel of bark made for the occasion. In the midst 

 were placed several stones, heated red-hot. On 

 these the sorcerer threw tobacco, producing a sti- 

 fling fumigation ; in the midst of which, for a full 

 half-hour, he sang, at the top of his throat, those 

 boastful, yet meaningless, rhapsodies of which In- 

 dian magical songs are composed. Then came 



1 Le Mercier, Relation des Hurons, 1637, 127, 128 (Cramoisy). 



