THE OHIO VALLEY-GREAT LAKES ETHNOHISTORY
ARCHIVES: THE MIAMI COLLECTION
It is noted that the following work from the Miami Archives should be read and
considered within the historical context in which it was composed and printed.
The opinions expressed and the language used do not reflect the opinions or
standards of the Glenn A. Black Laboratory of Archaeology, but are, rather,
indicative of thought in that historical moment during which the document was
published.
Journal of a Voyage to North America
(Letter XXVII, October 5, 1721)
Charlevoix, P. de in: Journal of a Voyage to North
America, vol. 2, London, 1761, pp. 197-213.
LETTER XXVII.
Voyage to Pimiteouy. Of the river of the Illinois; Reception of prisoners of war amongst that people. Manner of burning them. Some particulars of their manner of living.
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Pimiteouy, Oct. 5, 1721. |
Madam,
On the night between the 17th and 18th of last month, the frost, which for eight days before had been pretty sensible every morning, was considerably encreased; this was early for the climate in which we were, it being in 40 deg. 40 min. north latitude. The following days we continued our voyage, sailing from morning till night, being favoured by a pretty strong current, and sometimes by the wind; we made, indeed, a great deal of way, but yet advanced very little in our course; after having sailed ten or twelve leagues, we often found ourselves so near our last encampment, that from the one place to the other we could have seen one another, or even conversed together at least by means of a speaking trumpet.
We were a little comforted for this inconvenience by the extreme plenty of game on the river and its banks, which were fattened by the wild oats then in their maturity. I likewise gathered some ripe grapes, of the size and figure of a musket-ball, and sufficiently tender, but of a bad relish. These are, to all appearance, the same with what are called Prune Grapes in Louisiana. The river, by degrees, takes a straiter course, but its banks are not pleasant till at the distance of fifty leagues from its source. It is even throughout that whole space very narrow, and as it is bordered with trees which have their roots in the water, when any one happens to fall it bars up the whole river, and a great deal of time is lost in clearing a passage for a canoe.
All these difficulties being passed the river at the distance of fifty leagues from its source, forms a small lake, after which it grows considerably broader. The country becomes beautiful, consisting of unbounded meadows, where buffaloes are to be seen grazing in herds of two or three hundred; but here it is necessary to keep a good look out, for fear of being surprized by the Sioux and Outagamies, whom the neighbourhood of the Illinois, their mortal enemies draws hither, and who give no more quarter to those French whom they happen to meet in their way. The misfortune is, that the Theakiki loses in depth, in proportion as it encreases in breadth, so that we were often obliged to unload the canoe and travel on foot, which is never done without some danger, by which means I should have been greatly embarrassed, if I had not been furnished with an escorte at the river St. Joseph.
I was not a little surprized at seeing so little water in the Theakiki, notwithstanding it receives a good many pretty large rivers, one of which is more than 120 feet in breadth at its mouth, and has been called the River of the Iroquois, because some of that nation were surprized on its banks by the Illinois, who killed a great many of them. This check mortified them so much the more, as they held the Illinois in great contempt, who indeed for the most part are not able to stand before them.
The 27th of September we arrived at the Forks, that being the name given by the Canadians to the place where the Theakiki and the river of the Illinois join. This last, notwithstanding it is sixty leagues from its source is still so very shallow, that I have seen a buffalo cross it, without being up to the mid-leg in water. The Theakiki on the contrary, besides, that it brings its waters from the distance of a hundred leagues, is a most beautiful river. Here, however, it loses its name, without doubt, because the Illinois having settled it in several places from the other, have communicated to it their own. Being enriched all of a sudden with this junction, it does not yield in largeness to any of our rivers in France; and, I can assure you, Madam, it is not possible to behold a finer and a better country than this which it waters, at least as far as the place from whence I write. But it does not acquire a depth correspondent to its breadth, till fifteen leagues below the Forks; though in that interval many other rivers fall into it.
The largest of these is called Pisticoui, and proceeds from the fine country of the Mascotins. At its mouth is a fall, or a rapid stream, which is (page 200) called le Charboniere, or the Coal-pit, from the great quantity of sea coal found in the places adjacent. Nothing is to be seen in this course but immense meadows, interspersed with small copses of wood, which seem to have been planted by the hand; the grass is so very high that a man is lost amongst it, but paths are every where to be found as well trodden as they could have been in the best peopled countries, though nothing passes that way excepting buffaloes, and from time to time some herds of deer, and a few roe-buck.
A league below the coal pit you see a rock on the right, entirely round, extremely high, and its summit in the form of a terrass; this is called the Fort of the Miamis, because these Indians had formerly a village there. A league beyond this on the left, is seen another rock, quite similar to the former, and which has got the simple appellation of the Rock. This is the point of a very high terras, stretching the space of two hundred paces, and bending or winding with the course of the river which is very broad in this place. This rock is steep on all sides, and at a distance one would take it for a fortress. Some remains of a palisado are still to be seen on it, the Illinois having formerly cast up an entrenchment here, which might be easily repaired in case of any irruption of the enemy.
The village of these Indians stands at the foot of this rock in an island, which, together with several others, all of a wonderful fertility, divides the river in this place into two pretty large channels. I went ashore here in the evening about four o'clock, where I met with some of my countrymen, who were trading with the Indians. I had scarce landed (page 201) when I received a visit from the chief of the village, who is a man of about forty years of age, well-made, of a mild temper, a good countenance, and very well-spoken of by the French.
I afterwards went up to this rock by a pretty easy, but very narrow ascent. I found here a very level terras, and of a great extent, where twenty men might defend themselves against all the Indians of Canada, provided they had fire-arms, and could be supplied with water; but that is only to be had from the river, and to obtain it they would be obliged to expose themselves. They only resource of the besieged would be the natural impatience of those barbarians. In small parties they will wait with pleasure for eight or ten days behind a bush, in the hope that some one may pass, whom they may kill or take prisoner; but, in large bodies, if they do not succeed at the first, they are soon tired, and lay hold of the first pretence to retire, which is never wanting, a dream, real or pretended, being all that is necessary for that purpose.
The rain, and much more a spectacle which struck me with horror, prevented me from making the tour of these rocks, from whence I imagined I should discover an extensive country. I perceived at the extremity, and immediately above the village, the bodies of two Indians who had been burnt a few days before, and whom they had left according to custom, to be devoured by the birds, in the same posture in which they were executed. The manner of burning prisoners amongst these southern nations is somewhat singular, and they have some customs different from the others in their manner of treating those unhappy wretches.
When they have met with success in any military expedition, the warriors contrive their march in such a manner, that they always arrive at the village in the evening. As soon as they are come near it, they halt, and when night is come, depute two or three young people to the chief, to inform him of the principal events of the campaign. On the morrow at day-break they attire their prisoners in new robes, dress their hair with down, paint their faces with different colours, and put into their hands a white staff surrounded with the tails of deer. At the same time, the war-chief shouts, and the whole village assembles at the water-side, provided it happens to be near a river.
As soon as the warriors appear, four young persons well-dressed embark on board a Pirogue*, the two first carry each of them a calumet, and proceed singing at the same time to fetch the prisoners whom they conduct as in triumph to the cabbin where they are to be judged. The master to the cabbin, to whom it belongs to determine their fate, begins with giving them to eat, and holds a council during the repast. In case they grant any one his life, two young persons untie him, and take him each by a hand, and so make him run with all his might towards the river, into which they throw him headlong. They also throw themselves into it after him, and when they have well washed him, conduct him to the person whose slave he is to be.
As for those who are condemned to die, as soon as sentence is pronounced, the cry is made to assem- (page 203) ble the village, and the execution is put-off no longer than till the necessary preparations are made. They begin with stripping the suffered stark naked; they fix two posts in the ground, to which they make fast two cross pieces, one two foot from the ground, and the other six or seven feet higher, and this is what they call a square. They cause the person, who is to suffer to mount the first cross piece, to which they tie his feet at some distance from each other; they afterwards bind his hands to the two angles formed by the upper cross-piece, and in this posture they burn him in all the different parts of his body.
The whole village, men, women, and children crowd round him, every one being at liberty to insult and torment him at pleasure. If none of the spectators happen to have any particular reason to prolong his torments, his sufferings are soon over, and the common way is to dispatch him with arrows, or else they cover him with bark to which they set fire. They then leave him to himself in his square, and in the evening visit all the cabbins, striking with rods against the furniture, walls, and roof, in order to frighten the soul from harbouring there, to revenge the mischiefs they have done his body. The rest of the night passes in rejoicing.
If the party hath met with no enemy, or if they have been obliged to fly, they enter the village in the day-time, observing a profound silence; but if they have been beaten, they make their entry in the evening, after having given notice of their return by a death cry, and named all those they have lost, either by sickness or the sword of the enemy. Sometimes the prisoners are judged and executed before (page 204) they arrive at the village, and especially, if they have any grounds to fear their being rescued. Some time ago, a Frenchman having been taken by the Outagamies, these barbarians held a council on their march to determine what they should do with him. The result of their deliberation was to throw a stick upon a tree, and if it remained there to burn the prisoner, but not to throw it above a certain number of times. Happily for the captive, the stick fell always to the ground, though the tree was extremely bushy.
I remained twenty-four hours at the rock, and to oblige the savages, and to testify an entire confidence in them, though all my guides encamped on the other side of the river, I lay in a cabbin in the middle of the village. I passed the night quietly enough, but was very early awaked by a woman that dwelt in the neighbouring cabbin; on her awakening, she happened to call to mind the remembrance of a son she had lost some years before, and she immediately fell a weeping or singing in a very mournful tone.
The Illinois have the character of bold and dexterous thieves, which is the reason why I caused transport all the baggage to the other side of the river; but in spite of this precaution, and the watchfulness of my people, when we came to set out we found a musquet and some other trifles wanting, which we could never afterwards, by any means recover. The same evening we passed the last part of the river, where you are obliged to carry your canoe; from this place forwards, it is every where, both in breadth and deepness equal to most great rivers in Europe.
On this day, likewise, I saw parrots for the first time; there are some it is true, on the banks of the Theakiki, but only in the summertime; but these I now saw were only stragglers on their passage to the Mississippi, where they are found at all seasons of the year. They are no bigger than a blackbird, their head is yellow, with a red spot in the middle; in the rest of their plumage green is the predominant colour. The two following days we crossed a charming country, and on the third of October towards noon found ourselves at the entrance of Lake Pimiteouy; this is a widening of the river, which, for three leagues is a league in breadth. At the end of these three leagues you find on the right a second village of the Illinois, fifteen leagues distant from that of the rock.
Nothing can be more delightful than its situation; opposite to it is the prospect of a most beautiful forest, which was then adorned with all the variety of colours, and behind it is a plain of an immense extend, skirted with woods. The lake and river swarm with fish, and the banks of both with game. I likewise met in this village four French Canadians, who informed me, that I was between four parties of enemies, and that I could neither go backwards nor forwards with safety; they also told me, that on the way I had come there was an ambuscade of thirty Outagamies, that an equal number of the same Indians were hovering about the village of Pimiteouy, and that another body, to the number of fourscore, were posted lower down the river in two companies.
This account made me reflect on what we had past the evening before; we had stopt at the extremity of an island to look for bustards on which some of my guides had fired; and we heard somebody cutting wood in the middle of the island. They nearness of the village of Pimeteouy made us of opinion that this must be some of the Illinois, and we were pleased with this thought; but there is a strong likelihood that these were some Outagamies, who having discovered us, and not daring to attack us, as I had twelve men well armed, had a mind to draw some of us into the wood, concluding probably they would easily manage the rest; but our little curiosity saved us from this misfortune, which I should certainly not have shunned, if my escort had not been commanded by a man who had no mind to any idle delays.
What confirmed us still the more in the belief of the four Frenchmen, is that thirty warriors of Pemiteouy, and these too commanded by the chief of the village, were in the field, to try to get more certain information of the enemy, and that a few days before their departure, there had been a sharp action in the neighbourhood, in which the two parties had taken each one prisoner; the Outagami had been burnt at the distance of a musket-shot from the village, and was still in his square. The Canadians who were present at his execution, told me it had lasted six hours, and that this unhappy person maintained to his last breath that he was an Illinois, and had been taken when a child by the Outagamies, who had adopted him.
He had however fought with extreme valour; and had it not been for a wound he received in one (page 207) of his legs, he had not been taken; but as he could give no proofs for what he advance, and had been very near making his escape, they did not chuse to credit him on his word. In the midst of his torments he made it appear, that bravery and the courage to endure pain, are two very different virtues, and not always found in one and the same person; for he sent forth lamentable shrieks, which served only to animate his tormentors; it is true, an old Illinois woman, whose son had been formerly killed by the Outagamies, did him all the mischief that fury inspired by revenge could invent; at last, however, taking pity on his cries, they covered him with straw, to which they set fire, and as he was still found to breathe after this was consumed, he was pierced with arrows by the children: for the most part, when a victim does not die like a brave man, he receives his death's wound from a woman or from children; he is unworthy, say they, to die by the hands of men.
In the mean time, Madam, I found myself very much embarassed. On the one hand, my guides did not imagine it prudent to advance any farther; and on the other it was very inconvenient for me to winter at Pimiteouy. I should even have been obliged to follow the Indians to their winter encampment, by which means I should have lost a whole year. But at last two of the four Canadians I found at Pimiteouy, having offered to join our escort, every one took heart. I determined to set out on the morrow, being the 4th of October; but the rain and some other things that happened prevented me all that day.
In the afternoon the warriors who had gone out on the discovery returned, without raising any shouts, because they had seen nothing. They all filed off before me with a pretty fierce air, being armed only with arrows and a buckler of buffaloe's hide, and made not the least appearance of seeing me; for it is a custom among the warriors not to take notice of any body whilst they are in an armed body; but scarce had every one returned to his cabbin, when the chief came to pay me a visit of ceremony. He is a man of about forty years of age, of a good stature, a little thin, of a mild disposition, and extreme good sense. He is, besides, the best soldier of the nation, and there are none of the Illinois who better deserve the sirname of xodas exus, (?) which Homer gives by way of preference to the hero of his Iliad, than he. This is saying a great deal, for the Illinois are perhaps the swiftest footed people in the world; and there are none but the Missouris who can dispute this piece of excellence with them.
Perceiving a cross of copper and a small image of the Virgin suspended at the neck of this Indian, I imagined he had been a Christian, but was informed it was quite otherwise, and that he had dressed himself in that manner only to do me honour: I was likewise told a story, which I am now going to relate to you, without desiring you should give it any more credit than its authors deserve, who were Canadian travellers, who assuredly have not invented it, but have heard it affirmed for a certain fact.
The image of the Virgin which this Indian carried about with him having fallen into his hands, I (page 209) know not how, he was curious to know what it represented; he was told that it was the mother of God, and that the child she held in her arms was God himself, who had made himself man for the salvation of the human species; the mystery of this ineffable incarnation was explained to him in a few words, and he was further told, that in all dangers the Christians constantly addressed themselves to this holy mother, who seldom failed to extricate them. The Indian listened to this discourse with a great deal of attention, and sometime afterwards being hunting by himself in the woods, an Outagami, who had been lying in ambush came upon him just as he had discharged his piece, and levelled it at his head. Then recollecting what he had been told about the Mother of God, he invoked her protection, and the Outagami endeavouring to discharge his piece it missed fire. He cocked it a second time, but the same thing happened five times running. In the mean time, the Illinois having loaded his piece, levelled in his turn at the head of his enemy, who chose rather to surrender than to suffer himself to be shot. Ever since this adventure, the Illinois chief will never stir out of the village without carrying his safeguard with him, by means of which he believes himself invulnerable. If this fact be true, there is good reason to believe that it has only been thro' the neglect of the missionary that he has not as yet become a Christian, and that the Mother of God having thus preserved him from a temporal death, will likewise procure him the grace of a sincere conversion*.
Scarce had the chief left me, when going abroad myself, in order to visit the neighbourhood above the village, I perceived two Indians going about from cabbin to cabbin, and making lamentations nearly in the same manner with the woman of the rock, whom I have already mentioned to you. The one had lost his friend in the last expedition, and the other was the father of the deceased. They walked at a great rate, laying both their hands on the heads of all they met, probably to invite them to partake in their grief. Those who have fought for resemblances between the Hebrews and Americans, undoubtedly would not have failed to take notice of this manner of weeping, which from some expressions in the Scriptures, these hunters after conjectures might have had room to imagine had been in use amongst the people of God.
Towards evening the chief sent me an invitation to meet him at a house where one of the missionaries had lodged some years before, where probably they used to hold their councils; I went thither and found him with two or three of the elders. He began with telling me that he wanted to inform me of the greatness of the danger to which I should expose myself by continuing my journey; and that after having well considered every thing, he advised me to suspend my departure till the season of the year should be a little farther advanced, in the hopes that the parties of the enemy might in the meantime withdraw and leave the way open. Suspecting that he might have his views in detaining me at Pimiteouy, I gave him to understand that his reasons had no great weight with me, and added that I had still more cogent ones to hasten my departure. My answer seemed to give him pain, and (page 211) I soon perceived that it proceeded entirely from his affection to me, and his zeal for our nation.
Since your resolution is fixed, said he to me, I am of opinion that all the Frenchmen here should join you, in order to strengthen your convoy. I have already declared my sentiments to them on this head, and have represented to them in a very strong manner, that they should for ever lose their honour if they suffered their father to expose himself to such danger without partaking it with him. I earnestly wish I could accompany you myself at the head of all my soldiers, but you are not ignorant that my village is every day on the eve of being attacked, and it is not proper that in such a juncture I should either be able to absent myself, or leave it unprovided of defence. As to the French, nothing can detain them here but a piece of self interest, which they ought to sacrifice to the care of your preservation. This is what I have given them to understand, and I have added that if any one of them should fall into the hands of the enemy, it would only be the loss of a single man, whereas a Father is himself alone worth many, and that there is nothing which they ought not, to hazard, in order to prevent so great a misfortune.
I was charmed, Madam, with the good sense of this man, and still more with his generosity, which carried him so far as, out of regard for me, to dispense with the assistance of four men, which ought not to have been indifferent to him in the situation wherein he then was. I have not even doubted (page 212) that he wanted to keep me with him, in order to profit of my escort for his defence. I made him a great many acknowledgments for his care and good intentions towards me, and assured him that I was very well satisfied with the French, two of whom I should leave with him for his defence, and that the other two should accompany me till I should be in a place of safety, and that with this reinforcement I believed I was in a condition to travel over all the country without fear of anything. He insisted no farther, and I retired.
This morning he came to pay me a second visit, attended by his mother-in-law, who carried a little infant in her arms. "You see before you, said he, addressing himself to me, a father in great affliction. Behold my daughter who is a-dying, her mother having already lost her life in bringing her into the world, and none of our women have been able to succeed in making her take any nourishment. She throws up every thing she swallows, and has perhaps but a few hours to live: you will do me a great favour if you will baptize her, that she may see God after her death." The child was indeed very ill, and appeared to be past all hopes of recovery, so that without any hesitation I performed the ceremony of baptism on her.
Should my voyage in every other respect be entirely fruitless, I own to you, Madam, I should not regret all the danger and fatigue I have undergone, since, in all probability, had I not been at Pimiteouy, this child would never have entered into the kingdom of heaven, where I make no doubt but it will soon be. I even hope this little angel will obtain for her father the same grace which he has pro- (page 213) cured for her. I shall set out in an hour, and have given this letter to the two Frenchmen whom I leave here, and who are resolved to lay hold of the first opportunity to return to Canada.
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I am, &c. |
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* This is a long sort of boat made of the trunk of a single tree. Canoes of bark are seldom made use of in these parts.
* He has in reality been since converted.
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