They Wrap Their
Legs In Leggings With A Fringe Three Or Four Inches Long.
Their shoes
consist of socks, with plaits round the toe, covering the foot.
All
this has its charm in their eyes; they are as vain of dress as any
Frenchman. The pagan tribes, whenever love is felt, marry without any
ceremonial. The pair will discover whether they love one another in
silence, Indian-like. One of the caresses consists in throwing to the
loved one a small pebble, or grains of Indian corn, or else some other
object which cannot hurt. The swain, on throwing the pebble, is bound
to look in the opposite direction, to make believe he did not do it.
Should the adored one return it, matters look well, else, the game is
up.
"The Christianized Indians are married in face of the church, without
any contract of marriage and without stipulations, because an Indian
cannot own real estate and cannot bequeath to his children. The
wealthiest is the mightiest hunter. This favored individual, in his
village, passes for a grand match. Bravery and great warriors they
think much of - they constitute the latter their chiefs. Poverty is no
disgrace at the council board, and an orator in rags will speak out as
boldly, as successfully, as if he were decked out in gold cloth. They
come thus poorly habited in the presence of the Governor, indulge in
long harangues, and touch his hand fearlessly. When ladies are present
at these interviews, they honor them thus - seize their hand and shake
it in token of friendship. Before I became a nun I was present at some
of these ceremonies, and having won their good opinion, they would
extend to me a hand which was disgusting in the extreme, but which I
had cheerfully to accept for fear of offending them. They are
sometimes asked to dine at the Governor's table. Unlucky are their
neighbors, especially when they happen to be ladies, they are so
filthy in their persons. - 1730." - Revue Canadienne, page 108-9.
Such the Montreal Indians in 1730.
The Lorette Chapel dates back, as well as the Old Mill, to 1731. In
1862 the Chapel suffered much by fire. The tribe occupies land reserved by
Government, under the regulations of the Indian Bureau of Ottawa. "Indian
Lorette comprises from forty to fifty cottages, on the plateau of
the falls - spread out, without design, over an area of about twenty square
acres. In the centre runs the kings highway, the outer half sloping down,
towards the St. Charles. The most prominent objects are the church, a
grist mill and Mr. Reid's paper mill; close by a wooden fence encloses
'God's acre,' in the centre of which a cross marks the tomb of Chief
Nicholas." [318] It is indeed, "a wild spot, covered with the primitive
forest and seamed by a deep and tortuous ravine, where the St. Charles
foams, white as a snow drift, over the black ledges, and where the
sunshine struggles through matted boughs of the pine and the fir, to bask
for brief moments on the mossy rocks, or flash on the hurrying waters....
Here, to this day, the tourist finds the remnants of a lost people,
harmless weavers of baskets and sewers of mocassins, the Huron blood fast
bleaching out of them."
Of "free and independent electors" none here exist, the little Lorette
world goes on smoothly without them. "No Huron on the Reserve can vote. No
white man is allowed to settle within the sacred precincts of the Huron
kingdom, composed, 1st, of the lofty Plateau of the village of
Indian Lorette, which the tribe occupy. 2nd. Of the forty square acres,
about a mile and a half to the north-west of the village. 3rd. Of the
Rocmont settlement, in the adjoining County of Portneuf, in the very heart
of the Laurentine Mountains, ceded to the Hurons by Government, as a
compensation for the Seigniory of St. Gabriel, of which Government took
possession, and to which the Hurons set up a claim.
"In all that which pertains to the occupation, the possession and the
administration of these fragments of its ancient extensive territory, the
usages and customs of the tribe have force of law. The village is governed
by a Council of Sachems; in cases of misunderstandings an appeal lies to
the Ottawa Bureau, under the control of the Minister of the Interior (our
"Downing street" wisely abstaining from interference except on very urgent
occasions). Lands descend by right of inheritance; the Huron Council alone
being authorized to issue location tickets; none are granted but to Huron
boys, strangers being excluded. Of course, these disabilities affect the
denizens of the reserve only; a Huron (and there are some,
Tahourenche, Vincent and others) owning lands in his own right
elsewhere, and paying taxes and tithes, enjoys the rights and immunities
of any other British subject."
From the date of the Lorette Indian settlement in 1697, down to the year
of the capitulation of Quebec - 1759 - the annals of the tribe afford but
few stirring incidents: an annual bear, beaver, or cariboo hunt; the
return of a war party, with its scalps - English, probably - as the tribe
had a wholesome terror of the Iroquois; an occasional pow wow as to
how many warriors could be spared to assist their trusted and brave
allies, the French of Quebec, against the heretical soldiers of Old or New
England.
We are in possession of no facts to show that these Christianised Hurons
differed much from other Christianised Indians; church services, war
councils, feasting, smoking, dancing, scalping, fishing and hunting,
filling in, agreeably, socially, or usefully, the daily routine of their
existence. Civilization, as understood by christianised or by pagan
savages, has never inspired us with unqualified admiration. The various
siege narratives we have perused, whilst they bring in the Indian allies,
at the close of the battle, to "finish off" the wounded at Montmorency, in
July, 1759; at the plains of Abraham, in September 1759; at St. Foye, in
April, 1760, generally mention the Abenaquis for this delicate office of
friseurs.
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