1637-40.] TERROR OF THE HULONS. 115 



observes Father Le Mercier, ^' the Devil was en- 

 raged because we had placed a great many of these 

 little innocents in Heaven." ^ 



The picture of the Last Judgment became an 

 object of the utmost terror. It was regarded as a 

 charm. The dragons and serpents were supposed 

 to be the demons of the pest, and the sinners whom 

 they were so busily devouring to represent its vic- 

 tims. On the top of a spruce-tree, near their house 

 at Ihonatiria, the priests had fastened a small 

 streamer, to show the direction of the wind. This, 

 too, was taken for a charm, throwing off disease 

 and death to all quarters. The clock, once an 

 object of harmless wonder, now excited the wildest 

 alarm ; and the Jesuits were forced to stop it, 

 since, when it struck, it was supposed to sound the 

 signal of death. At sunset, one would have seen 

 knots of Indians, their faces dark with dejection 

 and terror, listening to the measured sounds which 

 issued from within the neighboring house of the 

 mission, where, with bolted doors, the priests were 

 singing litanies, mistaken for mcantations by the 

 awe-struck savages. 



Had the objects of these charges been Indians, 

 their term of life would have been very short. 

 The blow of a hatchet, stealthily struck in the 

 dusky entrance of a lodge, would have promptly 

 avenged the victims of their sorcery, and delivered 

 the country from peril. But the priests inspired 



1 " Le diable enrageoit peutestre de ce que nous avions 'place dans le 

 ciel quantite' de ces petits innocens." — Le Mercier, Relation des Hurons, 

 1638, 12 (Cramoisy). 



