Tooker] ETHNOGRAPHY OF THE HURON 7 



arranging the text to suit liis purpose. He was learned, he knew the 

 source and used it to his advantage ; but he was not scholarly, he did 

 not engage in arguments on the validity of Champlain's data. 



The Jesuits ignored these earlier accounts, apparently preferring to 

 make their own more extensive study of Huron culture. Their schol- 

 arly attention is apparent not in the use of such sources as Champlain 

 and Sagard (the Jesuits were in a position to learn more than either 

 of these men) but in the treatment of the data they received, for they 

 often carefully noted the source of each item of information, and 

 whether it was actually observed or was hearsay. (This can be noted 

 in the number of examples that are given to illustrate a general state- 

 ment.) Sagard and Champlain were not as careful. In the most 

 striking instance, Sagard implies that the Huron medicine man isolates 

 a sick person (S 198) and later says that he observed this among the 

 Algonquin (S 263) . This should not lead us to question too seriously 

 the validity of Sagard's statements. For example, the distinction 

 Sagard made between the "wandering" and "sedentary" tribes (i.e., 

 between the Algonquian- and Iroquoian-speaking groups) resembles 

 the kind of distinction a modern student of North American Indians 

 would make and indicates his knowledge of what he writes. 



Although these documents should not be read uncritically, the 

 cautions are few. By omitting the obvious biases of the writers (for 

 example, their tendency to see the hand of the devil in the beliefs of 

 the Indians) and by not reading the descriptions so literally that the 

 reading is at variance with what one would expect in such a North 

 American culture, a probably quite accurate picture of Huron culture 

 is obtained. (The Jesuits, Sagard, and Champlain are akin to inform- 

 ants whose descriptions must be weighed against the ethnographer's 

 knowledge of anthropology.) The footnotes, which were compiled 

 after the etlinography was written, indicate the effectiveness of this 

 method in obtaining an accurate picture of Huron culture. With few 

 exceptions, they confirm the probable accuracy of the descriptions. 



The authors of the various Eelations are listed in Appendix 4. 



With few exceptions, I have omitted statements that refer spe- 

 cifically to the behavior of Indians toward the French priests : There 

 is no way of ascertaining whether such behavior was the customai^ 

 Huron behavior toward other Huron or an appropriate modification 

 of such behavior for use with the French. Similarly, behavior of the 

 French which is obviously not within French culture but derived 

 from Huron culture is omitted: There is no way of ascertaining 

 the degree, if any, the Huron cultural adjustments were ■ modified 

 to fit the French needs. In a sense, then, this is a conservative read- 

 ing and more information could be gleaned from these documents. 



The generally recognized definitive sources were used in compiling 

 this ethnography. Each of these contains both the French text and 



