96 LA BARRE AND THE IROQUOIS. [1684. 



or those of his people might require. He could 

 use bold and loud words in public, and then secretly 

 make his peace with those he had denounced. 

 He was so given to rough jokes that the intenclant, 

 Meules, calls him a buffoon ; but his buffoonery 

 seems to have been often a cover to his craft. 

 He had taken a prominent part in the council of 

 the preceding summer at Montreal ; and, doubt- 

 less, as he stood in full dress before the governor 

 and the officers, his head plumed, his face painted, 

 his figure draped in a colored blanket, and his 

 feet decked with embroidered moccasins, he was a 

 picturesque and striking object. He was less so 

 as he squatted almost naked by his lodge fire, with 

 a piece of board laid across his lap, chopping rank 

 tobacco with a scalping-knife to fill his pipe, and 

 entertaining the grinning circle with grotesque 

 stories and obscene jests. Though not one of the 

 hereditary chiefs, his influence was great. " He 

 has the strongest head and the loudest voice 

 among the Iroquois," wrote Lamberville to La 

 Barre. a He calls himself your best friend. . . . 

 He is a venal creature, whom you clo well to keep 

 in pay. I assured him I would send him the jerkin 

 you promised." 1 Well as the Jesuit knew the 

 Iroquois, he was deceived if he thought that Big 

 Mouth was securely won. 



Lamberville's constant effort was to prevent a 

 rupture. He wrote with every opportunity to the 

 governor, painting the calamities that war would 



1 Letters of Lamberville in N. Y. Col. Docs., IX. For specimens of 

 Big Mouth's skill in drawing, see ibid., IX. 886. 



