184 ROMANCE OF THE BEAVER 
The value of these skins was about 8,000 livres, 
and the size of the church (which was probably the 
original Parish Church. of Quebec) was 30 by 100 
feet. ‘The churches were furnished indirectly by 
the beaver, for we find that “in the year 1642 
Monsieur de I’Isle, lieutenant of Monsieur the 
Governor, gave a robe of beaver skins with which 
were purchased the two pieces of carpet that lie 
around the altar.” From the same source (The 
Jesuit Relations in Canada) there is given a pathetic 
account of the early Christianity (1659) of the 
Indians in which the beaver robes are mentioned. 
“ A good Christian Algonkin (also in other places 
spelled Algonquin) woman named Cecile Koue- 
koueaté, falling sick in the midst of the woods and 
seeing herself in extremity without being able to 
confess, she believed that she might make up for 
this in some fashion with a present of beaver skins 
which she bequeathed to the Church at Three 
Rivers,” sending this by her kinsmen who came 
after her death to the priest. They spoke thus: 
“‘ Black Gown (as they called the priests), listen to 
the voice of the dead and not to that of the living. 
It is not we who speak to thee; it is a departed 
woman who before dying enclosed her voice in this 
package. She charged it to declare to thee all her 
sins, as she herself could not do by word of mouth. 
Your handwriting enables you to speak to the 
absent ; she intends to do so by these beaver skins 
what you do with your papers,” etc. A few years 
