BULL. .30] 



HITRON 



587 



signed to ' ' c-over the death ' ' or to restore 

 peace were offereii to the ajigrieved party 

 by the offender and his kindred. The 

 greatest punishment that could be in- 

 flicted on a guilty ])erson by his kindred 

 was to refuse to defend him, thus placing 

 biin outside the rights of the blood feud 

 and allowing those whom he had offend- 

 ed the liberty to take vengeance on him, 

 but at their own risk and peril. 



The religion of these tribes consisted in 

 the worship of all material oijjects, the 

 elements and bodies of nature, and many 

 creatures of a teeming fancy, which in 

 their view directly or remotely affected 

 or controlled their well-being. These 

 objects of their faith and worship were 

 regarded as man-beings or anthropic per- 

 sons possessed of life, volition, and orenda 

 (q. v.) or magic power of different kind 

 and degree peculiar to each. In this reli- 

 gion ethics or morals as such received 

 only a secondary, if any, consideration. 

 The status and interrelations of the per- 

 sons of their jiantheon one to another 

 were fixed antl governed "hy rules and 

 customs assumed to he similar to those 

 of thesocialand the political organization 

 of the p^'ople, and so there was, therefore, 

 at least among the principal gods, a kin- 

 ship system patterned after that of the 

 people themselves. They expressed their 

 public religious worship in elaborate cere- 

 monies performed at stated annual festi- 

 vals, lasting from a day to fifteen days, 

 and governed by the change of seasons. 

 Besides the stated gatherings there were 

 many minor meetings, in all of which 

 there were dancing and thanksgiving for 

 the blessings of life. They V)elieved in a 

 life hereafter, which was but a reflex of 

 the present life, but their ideas regarding 

 it were not very definite. The bodies of 

 the dead were wrapped in furs, neatly 

 covered with flexible bark, and then 

 placed on a platform resting on four jiil- 

 lars, which was then entirely covered 

 with bark; or the body, after being pre- 

 pared for burial, was placed in a grave 

 and over it were laid small pieces of tim- 

 ber, covered with strong pieces of bark 

 and then with earth. Over the grave a 

 cabin was usually erected. At the great 

 feast of the dead, which occurred at in- 

 tervals of 8 or 10 years, the bodies of 

 those who had died in the interim, from 

 all the villages participating in the feast, 

 were brought together and buried in a 

 common grave with elaborate and solemn 

 public ceremonies. 



In 1615, when the Hurons were first 

 visited by the French under Champlain, 

 he estimated from the statements of the 

 Indians themselves that thev numbered 

 30,000, distributed in 18 towns and vil- 

 lages, of which 8 were palisaded; but in 

 a subsequent edition of his work Cham- 



j)lain reduces this estimate to 20,000. A 

 little later Sagard estimated their pop- 

 ulation at 80,000, while Brebeuf gave 

 their number as 35,000. But these fig- 

 ures are evidently only guesses and per- 

 hai)S much above rather than below the 

 actual population, which, in 1648, was 

 probably not far from 20,000. 



When the French established trading 

 posts on the St Lawrence at Three Rivers 

 and elsewhere, the Hurons and neighbor- 

 ing tribes made annual trijjsdown Ottawa 

 r. or down the Trent to these posts for 

 the purpose of trading both with the 

 Kuropeans and with the Montagnais of 

 the lower St Lawrence who came up to 

 meet them. The chief place of trade at 

 this time was, according to Sagard ( His- 

 toire, I, 170, 1866), in the harbor of Cape 

 Victory, in L. St Peter of St Lawrence r., 

 about 50 miles below Montreal, just above 

 the outlet of the lake, where, on Sagard's 

 arrival, there were "already lodged a 

 great number of savages of various na- 

 tions for the trade of beavers with the 

 French. The Indians who were not sec- 

 tarians in religion invited the mission- 

 aries into their country. In 1615 the 

 Recollect fathers accepted the invitation, 

 and Father Le Caron spent the year 1615- 

 16 in Huronia, and was again there in 

 1623-24. Father Poulain was among the 

 Hurons in 1622, Father Viel from 1623 

 to 1625, and Father De la Roche Daillion 

 in 1626-28. The labors of the Jesuits 

 began with the advent of Father Biebeuf 

 in Huronia in 1626, l)ut their missions 

 ended in 1650 with the destruction of the 

 Huron commonwealth by the Iroquois. 

 In all, 4 Recollect and 25 Jesuit fathers 

 had labored in the Huron mission during 

 its existence, which at its prime was the 

 most important in the French dominions 

 in North America'. As the first historian 

 of the mission, Fr. Sagard, though not a 

 priest, deserves honoraljle mention. 



From the Jesuit Relation for 1640 it is 

 learned that the Hurons had had cruel 

 wars with the Tionontati, but that at the 

 date given they had recently made peace, 

 renewed their former friendship, and en- 

 tered into an alliance against their com- 

 mon enemies. Sagard is authority for 

 the statement that the Hurons were in 

 the ha! lit of sending large war parties to 

 ravagt' the country of the Iroquois. The 

 well-known hostility and intermittent 

 warfare between the Iroquois and the 

 Huron tribes date from prehistoric times, 

 so that the invasion and destruction of 

 the Huron country and confederation in 

 1648-50 by the Iroquois were not a sud- 

 den, unprovoked attack, but the final 

 blow in a struggle which was already in 

 progress when the French under Cartier 

 in 1535 first explored the St Lawrence. 

 The acquirement of firearms by the Iro- 



