Пионеры Креста

(Essay on the missionary activities of the Jesuits among the Indians in the 17th and early 18th centuries) The wide stream of the Hudson River, washing one side of New York, makes its way to the ocean among the picturesque mountains. Along its very shore, obeying all its capricious convolutions, runs a railway along which trains rumble tirelessly with American speed. Driving once along this wonderful line inland, I admired both the beauty of nature and the dizzying exuberance of life and movement - on land and on water. Oncoming and parallel trains thunder along the shore every now and then, an endless caravan of ships and steamships stretches along the river, and pretty dachas and farms nestle along the charming coastal hills and Gothic church towers rise to the sky with slender spires. Seeing this seething vitality all around, my thoughts involuntarily transported me to several centuries ago. Just two centuries ago there was a desert here: instead of three-story steamships, the wretched birch bark shuttles of savages occasionally glided; instead of the coastal railway track, barely noticeable paths wound through the forest thicket, and instead of the noise of the current industrial bustle, silence reigned, broken only occasionally by the war cry of the Indians. What an immeasurable contrast! The same change occurred with the other main streams of the North American continent - the St. Lawrence and Mississippi Rivers. Who first brought Christian civilization here? This is a very interesting question and its study opens one of the amazing pages of American history. Exploration and colonization of the country was slow. At the end of the 16th and beginning of the 17th centuries, European colonies began timidly to populate the coast of North America. Colonization was carried out from the south by the Spaniards, from the north by the French and from the east by the Dutch and English. On the site of present-day New York in the 17th century stood the wretched Dutch colony of New Amsterdam, and to the north on the river. St. Lawrence is an insignificant French fort in Quebec. Beyond the coastal strip lay an unknown country inhabited by unknown people. Behind the walls of the colonies, impenetrable forests began, into the depths of which the settlers did not dare to go, no matter how great their greed for profit from the expensive furs that they saw among the Indians. The first pioneers who carried Christian civilization into the interior were the Christian missionaries, the Jesuits, or "black robes," as the Indians called them from their long black robe, and to them belongs solely the honor of exploring the interior of the continent of North America. The most valiant of them were the French Jesuits. Their exploits constitute an almost fabulous epic in the history of the country, and all the more remarkable since all its features are made up of real historical facts 63. If this missionary activity is not unparalleled in the strength of Christian self-sacrifice, then it is still unique in the environment in which the Jesuits had to act. Here Christianity encountered the lowest level to which humanity could fall in religious and moral terms, and the highest Christian culture in the person of the highly educated Jesuits encountered its antipode - in the person of the bestial savages of the Indians. I. Now and two centuries ago. The First Civilizers of North America. Indians. Features of their social and everyday life. Their mental, moral and religious state The Indians who inhabited North America consisted of many small tribes that were scattered throughout the continent. The main ones among them were the tribes that lived in the vicinity of the great lakes, in the basins of the St. Lawrence, Hudson and Mississippi rivers, namely the tribes: the Hurons, who lived in the southern reaches of Canada, the Iroquois, who occupied the space of the present state of New York, and the Illinois, who lived along the Mississippi River. All of them were at the lowest stage of development, in a state of primitive savagery and barbarism. Some of them led a wandering life across immeasurable forests and plains, moving from one place to another and carrying all their property on their backs. Others were already showing the beginnings of settling down. The Hurons and Iroquois lived in villages consisting of a fairly large number of huts, the most primitive construction, although sometimes quite large in size, like a barn, only with an opening at the top to let out the smoke from a fire lit in the middle of the hut. Men were exclusively engaged in hunting, fishing and war, and women ran the entire household, which consisted of sowing corn and tobacco, feeding children, sewing leather clothes using threads of roots and preparing various things necessary in the wretched everyday life of a wild economy. With special skill they prepared canoes from birch bark, so light that the Indians usually carried them on their shoulders from one river to another. The clothes were prepared not without decorations with fringes, instead of which porcupine bristles were used. Men, however, cared little about clothing in the summer and are usually described by the Jesuits as “as naked as your arm” 64 . Children resorted to clothing only in extreme need during the winter cold, but the women were always dressed, and always as modestly as “the most pious ladies in France.” War was considered the most honorable occupation. The weapons of the Indians consisted of bows and arrows, spears, clubs and tomahawks. Since the Indians were not familiar with the use of iron until the 17th century, their arrows and spears had tips made of sharpened stone, and the tomahawks themselves were something like stone axes. They used this primitive weapon with amazing dexterity. However, the Indians did not know united battles. Their war consisted of parties of brave men unexpectedly attacking enemies or hostile villages, burning and killing, capturing scalps and taking away prisoners. All the glory and valor of the warriors was based on the number of scalps taken from the heads of killed enemies 65. The prisoners were subjected to brutal torture 66 . They were tortured with all sorts of torments, their limbs were gradually chopped off, burned with a slow fire, and finally, they were cut into pieces, boiled in cauldrons and eaten. The torment and screams of the sufferers delighted the tormentors, and the stubborn silence infuriated them. Sometimes, however, no amount of torture could cause a sound of pain in the chest of the unfortunate victim. Until their last breath among the flames, the sufferers continued to revile their tormentors and sing their war songs. This drove the tormentors into despair, as it was considered an unfortunate omen for the people. When a village was attacked, everything was subjected to fire and destruction, women and children were killed indifferently, and sometimes the latter were eaten in front of their mothers. After a successful raid, only piles of ashes and dead bodies remained from the village. The wars became especially destructive in the middle of the 17th century, when the coastal tribes received firearms from the Europeans, which gave them an advantage over other tribes that did not know how to use them. Some of the latter were literally wiped off the face of the earth by their opponents. Morally, the Indians were completely barbaric, and the unwritten, natural moral law barely made itself felt under the dominance of animal passions. They knew no law and this independence, in the words of one Jesuit, “gave them over to slavery to the crudest passions. 67 “They are lazy, treacherous, flighty and fickle, deceitful and natural thieves, so that theft is considered glory among them; cruel, dishonest, ready to promise everything to those who are generous to them, and at the same time ungrateful. Generosity and goodwill towards them only enhances their natural audacity. He is afraid of me, they say, because he is courting me. Gluttony and the love of pleasure are stronger than all the vices that prevail among the Indians. They indulge in the most shameful way of life, even before they are old enough to understand the shame of what they are doing." 68 Polygyny was the predominant custom, although not among all tribes. The marriage consisted of simply giving a gift to the bride or her parents. The divorce was carried out at the whim of one of the parties. Between the Hurons there was a form of temporary marriage, or trial, lasting two to three days or a week. Some beauties changed up to twenty husbands before the final choice 69. The woman's position was most pitiful. Before marriage, her life was mired in animal passions, and after that it turned into a life of tireless hard work. “Their women were their mules,” says a modern observer 70 . Despite all the wretchedness of life of the Indians, they nevertheless had cheerful feasts, consisting of songs, dances, competitions of various kinds and treats with the meat of a killed buffalo, bear or dog. Smoking tobacco was the highest pleasure. Often the grievances were of a religious nature. Then the guests were given a certain portion, which everyone had to eat, no matter how big it was 71. Otherwise, the owner was in danger of disaster. Gluttony was considered a virtue and there was often a competition between eaters for a pack of tobacco. The Indians did not stockpile food; they ate what they could get from hunting; therefore, sometimes they drowned in contentment, and sometimes, especially in winter, they died of hunger, eating bark and roots 72. In the moral character of the Indians, however, there were also some bright features that shaded human nature. So they had their own code of courtesy, the rules of which could not be violated without fear of public censure. A defenseless and unarmed wanderer could, in most cases, count on cordial hospitality, and captives who distinguished themselves by special bravery in defense were sometimes given the privilege of being free from burning, if not from torture. When needed, they willingly helped each other. When a family found itself homeless, the villagers together built a hut for it. When a young woman got married, the other women of the village supplied her with firewood for the whole year, thus freeing her from one of the hardest jobs of an Indian woman - collecting firewood in the forest for a fire. They had a division into noble and simple, rich and poor; but the very last and poorest Indian, in case of lack of his own food, could consider himself provided for from hunger. He had only to enter the nearest wealthy hut, sit by the fire, and the women would give him food without a word 73 . But these human-like features were sparkles among the whirlpool of bestial life. Their religious worldview stood on the same level as their moral one, and represented a crude fetishism. For the Indian’s childish worldview, the whole world was an animated being, all objects were spirits (Oki or Manitou), which could, by their disposition, bring him harm or show mercy. River, mountain, lake, forest, animal, bird, snake - everything was filled with spirits, everything could listen to the Indian’s requests and fulfill them. Often a hunter, having wounded an animal, humbly asked for his forgiveness. The fisherman, before lowering the net into the water, addressed an ornate speech both to the net itself, so that it would catch fish, and to the fish, so that it would not be afraid to fall into the net, assuring that its bones would be shown the greatest respect. Each Indian has his own special guardian spirit, in the form of some animate or inanimate object, which is acquired through dreams, and to which he turns in prayer, making a sacrifice in the form of tobacco or booty. “It would be difficult to say, says Jesuit Maret, what the religion of our Indians consists of. It consists entirely of superstitions that feed their faith. Since all their knowledge is limited to acquaintance with animals and the necessary needs of life, their idolatry is also limited to them 74. But they also showed traces of abstract religious thought. Spirits were not considered inseparable from objects, but, on the contrary, constituted a special kingdom and only manifested themselves in the form of different objects. Mostly they are embodied in animal forms, sometimes they also take human form, and sometimes they live in stones; but they take all their forms freely, by their own choice, and therefore often change them. The savage's thought noticeably tried to rise higher along the path of distraction; but here she became lost in uncertainties and blurred into fog. The idea of ​​monotheism was vaguely dormant in the minds of the Indian, and with all the successes of his thinking ability could not rise above the crude form of the chief of all animals or the so-called Great Hare (Monabozho), to whom the world owes its origin 75 . The idea regarding the essence of this Great Hare varied among different tribes; Either he is a real hare of enormous size, or he is some kind of extraordinary person. According to one legend, after the creation of the world, he flew to heaven, from where he influences the destinies of people 76 . Here the theistic idea is already visible with great certainty, although for the Jesuits it seemed so vague that they denied the Indians any concept of God 77 . In any case, it is a remarkable fact that among the Indians the missionaries did not find words with which to express the idea of God and therefore they resorted to a descriptive form: “The Great Chief of people”, “He who lives in heaven”, etc. But at the same time, the structure of the Indian worldview, according to which each group of creatures had its own head or chief, made it possible for the missionaries to bring the consciousness of the savages to the concept of God as the Great Chief of all things 78, so that they could easily develop the concept of that Great Spirit, by which they still understand the idea of ​​God. In the area of ​​other religious issues, the Indian's thought also seemed to be groping in the dark. Although the creation of the world was attributed to the Great Hare, it was not creation in the absolute sense, but rather the transformation of an unsettled world, or even destroyed by a flood. The Indians derived their own existence not from the common Creator of the world, but from animals, the different breeds of which different tribes considered their ancestors. Thus, some derived themselves from the bear, others from the carp or carp fish, etc. 79, and found in themselves the virtues and qualities that characterize these animal ancestors. They believed in the immortality of the soul, in a future life - with reward and punishment, the first being assigned to the best hunter and warrior who killed the largest number of animals and hostile people, and the second awaiting sloths, and was direct between people and spirits. everyone himself worshiped his patron spirit and made a sacrifice to him. An organized class of mediators or priesthood did not yet exist; but the beginnings of this class were already noticeable in the form of healers who acted as people closest to the spirits, and thanks to this close connection with the higher world, they owned special means for ridding people of various evils and diseases. These healers very often turned out to be the worst enemies of the missionaries, especially since the latter, in their preaching, first of all tried to undermine trust in these self-proclaimed intermediaries between them and the spirits 80 . This is the soil on which the Jesuits had to sow the seeds of Christianity. It was rocky soil, which, in order to bring it into a state to accept and grow the seeds sown on it, required not only long and persistent work, but also skillful and tireless workers. “Nothing could be more difficult than converting these Indians. They must first be transformed into people, and then made into Christians,” wrote one of the workers who had this task 81. “The minds of this people are completely stifled and they are almost incapable of submitting to the yoke of the Gospel. But the further they are from the kingdom of God, the stronger our zeal should be to bring them closer to it and give them the opportunity to enter it, says the same zealous missionary” 82. And indeed, the missionaries set to work with the zeal that only the power of Christian genius could inspire, and accomplished feats that make the fabulous exploits of the heroes of everyday culture pale in comparison 83 . At the same time, these exploits show that the famous order can serve its motto Ad majorem Dei Gloriam - and beyond the political intrigue with which it mainly gained historical fame. II. Black Robes among the Indians. Study of the Indian language and the first attempt at missionary work. Wild life. Hunger that subdues the wild nature. Rocky soil. Jesuits in the main fortress of Satan. Bloodthirsty orgy. Mission successes and anxiety in the kingdom of Satan. The starting point of the Jesuit missionary activity was Fort Quebec. Around him lived Indians, more or less accustomed to the French 84 . The Jesuits began their preaching with them. The first step was to learn the Indian language, and this was not an easy task. In the absence of any literary aids, given the originality and fragmentation of the Indian language, it was difficult to begin to study it, it was difficult to make oneself understood by the Indians. But the Jesuits were accustomed to overcoming all sorts of difficulties and began learning the language through Indian children. They lured these humanoid animals, naked and red-skinned, to themselves, caressed them and through them collected the necessary vocabulary 85. By a happy accident, one Indian turned out to be in the fort, who had previously been captured by the French and taken to Paris, where he managed to become acquainted with the French language. The Jesuits turned to him as an instrument of the special Providence of God, sent to them to acquaint them with the Indian language; but the French savage was extremely lazy and flighty, so his attention could only be maintained by packs of tobacco 86 . Having barely had time to collect a meager vocabulary, the Jesuits immediately began translating the most necessary prayers into the Indian language and set off to preach 87 . The first missionary experience among the Indians was made by the head of the mission, Jesuit Lejon. At the end of October 1633, a party of twenty Indians set off on the usual winter migration to support themselves by hunting. The Jesuit went with her. The birch bark shuttles quickly slid along the St. Lawrence River and three weeks later arrived at its headwaters, where the party hid them in the bushes and began a wandering life in the surrounding area. It was already about halfway through November, deep snow had fallen and rather severe frosts had set in. All around was a desert covered with impenetrable forests and hills. Indians, men, women and children, streamed through it, carrying all their belongings or carrying them on long sleighs. Accustomed to such a wandering life, the Indians easily endured its difficulties, deftly glided across the snow on their skis, climbed hills, made their way through thickets of forests, and climbed over piles of dead wood. But for the Jesuit, such a life was torture. Like others, burdened with a burden, he kept falling from unaccustomed use on his skis, or drowning in deep snow; his skis became heavy from the snow sticking to them, and he could barely drag his feet with pain and suffering 88 . Having walked a certain distance, the party stopped, the men cleared the place of snow and the women hastily built a hut covered with bark and leather. A fire was lit among it and the party warmed up its numb members. Here they remained until it was possible to find game for food in the vicinity of about ten miles. The entire hut occupied a space of about thirteen square feet, and in it the entire pariah of twenty people fit, ate and slept in one continuous mass around the fire, and together with the dogs. A cold wind blew through the cracks of the hut, and on the other side the flames of the fire burned unbearably, spreading choking smoke at the same time. During snow storms, which prevented the smoke from escaping into the upper hole, it filled the hut so much that the Indians could hardly breathe, tears flowed in streams from their red eyes, and the very letters of the prayer book for the Jesuit seemed written in blood. “Unhappy unbelievers,” exclaims the Jesuit, they spend their lives in smoke and their eternity in flames!” 89. Unable to bear such a room, the Jesuit left the hut to read his prayer book, and there a furious storm roared in the forest and the trees cracked from the frost. The missionary had to move away from the hut not only from the smoke, but from the Indian society itself. When there was no smoke in the tent, the Indians, having eaten a freshly killed deer or dog, lounged around the tent and had animated conversations among themselves. Such cases could have been convenient for the Jesuit to instill in the Indians the rudiments of Christianity, but he did not even dare to begin preaching in this conversational party. She often conducted such dirty conversations and everyone, not excluding women and children, used such indecent words that the missionary could not bear, and therefore he again retired into the forest 90. But the worst thing for the Jesuit was the healer accompanying the party. He was a cunning Indian who found it more convenient to live at the expense of others than to earn his own food by hunting. He presented himself as a man who was in close relationships with various spirits and with his charms could heal from illnesses and give good luck in hunting. The Indians believed him and, before setting off on a hunt, turned to him for assistance, which he provided, begging the spirits with songs, dances and various cries. The Jesuit saw in him his main obstacle to the conversion of the Indians and therefore tried, at every opportunity, to show the absurdity of his lamentations and the invalidity of his mediation, at the same time proving the power of the cross and helping with illnesses with medical means. The medicine man, for his part, saw his worst enemy in the Black Robe and did not miss an opportunity to cause him trouble, turned the Indians against him, made him laugh and even threatened him with death. One day, as if overcome by madness, he shouted that all weapons should be taken away from him, as the spirit was telling him to kill someone. His eyes glanced so angrily and furiously at the Jesuit that he had to retire into the forest 91 . Another time he pretended to be a friend of the Jesuit and began to teach him the language. The missionary rejoiced at this change in his enemy and, under his leadership, compiled a translation of the most important Christian prayers. But when he began to instruct the Indians in these prayers, at every word of his the whole pariah burst into furious laughter, and the Jesuit understood the trick of the healer, who, under the guise of words of piety, taught him the worst words of the Indian language. Sometimes he simply began to mock the Jesuit and the whole party joined him, making the Black Hoodie the target of their witticisms and ridicule. “Look at him! - said the healer, - he has a face like a dog! The Indians picked up on this joke and took the Jesuit apart piece by piece. “And his head is like a pumpkin!” “And the beard is like a hare!” – the Jesuit could only sadly retire from the witty company and in solitude find solace in his prayer book 92 . Days after days passed like this. Hunters went out every day to hunt and what they caught was immediately boiled in cauldrons and eaten. But the further winter progressed, the scarcer and scarcer the prey became. The Indians began to move more often from place to place, but this only tired and exhausted them more. Often the hunters came empty-handed for several days, and then the whole party was mortally hungry. Women collected acorns and tree bark, and prepared food from them. But the feast of the Nativity of Christ approached, and the Indians were starving worse than before. In vain the healer intensified his lamentations, they went mad and screamed, calling on the spirits for help; hunters constantly returned empty-handed. Finally, the hunger reached such a degree that all the Indians, including the medicine man, turned to the Black Hoodie to ask his Great Spirit for them. Hope illuminated the Jesuit and he hurried to take advantage of the opportunity to instruct them in the truths of Christianity. He placed a cross in front of the hut, forced all the Indians to kneel before him with their hands raised and crossed, and read a prayer translated by him, forcing the Indians to repeat it after themselves, with a promise to renounce their superstitions and obey Christ, whose image they saw before them, if only He would give them food and save them from starvation. Then, having blessed the hunters, the Jesuit released them to hunt. One must imagine his joy when they returned with good booty. Everything instantly came to life, the boilers began to boil, and the Indians lighted their pipes cheerfully and contentedly, forgetting about the terrible need they had just experienced. The missionary rejoiced and began to prove the validity of Christian prayer and the cross; but the well-fed Indians turned out to be worse than the hungry, they did not listen to the Jesuit, and the healer even shouted at him menacingly: “Hold your tongue! You don’t make sense!” The whole party took up the words of the medicine man and attacked the missionary with the usual ridicule and witticisms, while he, with heavy sadness in his heart, silently looked at his prayer book 93 . During the winter there were several more such cases of terrible famines and the Jesuit again tried to bring the Indians under the yoke of the Gospel, but it was all in vain, so he lost all hope of the success of the mission. Moreover, from the hardships of this life, transitions and hunger, he himself became exhausted to the last degree, became ill and took the first opportunity to return to Quebec. From the experience of the head of the mission, the Jesuits saw that the wandering tribes were too rocky soil for sowing the seeds of Christianity and that missionary activity among them, with all the difficulties and dangers associated with it, did not promise any significant fruits. Then they decided to direct their activities to settled tribes, and it was the tribe, the Hurons, who lived in large villages in the upper reaches of the St. River. Lawrence, in the vicinity of the great lakes. There was no less work here, and incomparably more dangers, but there were more missionary benefits, since the missionaries could settle in villages and, constantly having the Indians under their supervision, could gradually introduce and instill Christianity in them both by word and example. The Indians of this tribe sailed annually on their birch bark canoes to the fort to sell furs. The Jesuits took advantage of one of these opportunities and, three in number, went on a holy mission to the country of savages 94 . After a long and tedious journey in canoes, the Jesuits arrived at their destination, in the country of the Hurons, where they settled in one of the main settlements of the tribe. The Indians welcomed them cordially and with their joint efforts erected huts for them, like other Indian huts. But the Jesuits themselves made innovations in it that amazed the Indians. They divided the huts into three compartments, connected by wooden doors; one was an entrance hall, another a hall and the third a chapel, where an altar was built, icons were hung and sacred vessels were placed. Indians from neighboring villages came to look at such a wonderful and unprecedented innovation. But they were even more surprised by the various things brought by the Jesuits and placed in the hut. The watch seemed especially wonderful to them. They considered them a spirit that lives, eats, hears and speaks 95. The hand mill was another miracle, and the Indians never tired of turning it. The Jesuits also had other things, such as a microscope, a prism, a magnet, and all this surprised the Indians to the extreme, instilling in them the idea that black robes were the greatest sages and stronger than any healers. The Jesuits, of course, took advantage of this opinion and took full advantage of it for their direct purpose. The Hurons were in constant enmity with the Iroquois, who often raided their villages and ravaged them. The Jesuits advised them to build walls around the villages; The Indians eagerly took up this task and, under the leadership of the Jesuits, erected something like a fortress, according to the rules of the then military art. Having sufficiently secured their position and become familiar with the language, the Jesuits began missionary work. They started with children, as they were more accessible and free. They gathered them around their homes, showed them various interesting things and at the same time did not miss an opportunity to teach them prayers and the sign of the cross. Translating the prayers Pater Foster, Ave, Credo and the Ten Commandments into a language they understood, the Jesuits forced the children to repeat them after themselves and, at the end of certain hours, released them to play, giving the best of them pears, peas or apples. The Jesuits knew how to organize this training in such a way that the children liked it. They watched with pleasure as the children made crosses on the ground in games among themselves and sang memorized prayers. Adult Indians often came to these conversations and also listened attentively and repeated the Jesuits’ prayers. The missionaries took advantage of this, explained to them the rudiments of Christian teaching, and showed them pictures depicting heaven and hell. The Indians made signs of approval of the missionaries' words, but when they exhorted them to be baptized, they usually replied that all this was good only for the French, and the Indians were a completely different people. The Jesuits, however, did not insist and continued to patiently prepare the ground for the adoption of Christianity. But they did not miss the opportunity to baptize the dying, especially children, and were filled with joy when they were able to thus “transform little savages into little angels” 96 . The Jesuits especially tried to influence the imagination of the Indians, and for this purpose they gave their meetings a possibly solemn character. When teaching the truths of religion, paintings were extremely important. With a picture in hand, the Jesuits solemnly appeared at the meetings of the Indians, showed the astonished savages the torment of sinners and the bliss of the righteous, and offered them a choice 97 . The special strength of the Jesuits as missionaries was their ability to adapt to any circumstances and use them to win over the Indians. They lived exactly the same as the Indians, and tried to meet all their needs, rejoiced in their joys and shared their sadness. In addition to missionary work, they were also involved in charity work and works of mercy on a large scale. Having divided the huts among themselves, they constantly walked around them and looked after the sick. Their medical knowledge, which gave them the opportunity to often successfully cure the sick, inspired the Indians with a special affection for them. And when one day a Jesuit predicted an eclipse of the sun for them and the prediction came true, the Indians looked at him as an incarnate spirit 98 . Among the continuous work, they also found time for academic studies. In the evenings, by the light of a fire, they kept their notes, sometimes, for lack of paper, simply on birch bark. Little by little, new Jesuits arrived to the first three, settled in neighboring villages and with their combined forces overcame the “stronghold of the devil” 99 . Neither the inconveniences of the smoky and cold housing, nor the hunger that they often had to endure, nor the rudeness and savagery of the surrounding society embarrassed the Jesuits or weakened their jealousy. They gave in to nothing just to snatch at least one soul from the power of the devil, and sometimes snatched it out among the most terrible bacchanalia of the devil’s slaves. Parties of Hurons continually went to the country of their enemies, the Iroquois, attacked their villages, burned them and took away prisoners. One day a prisoner was brought to the village where the Jesuits were. He suffered terribly, his arms were broken and mutilated. Upon his arrival in the village, they began to show him noticeable kindness, he was offered the best food and he was given, according to Indian custom, to a warrior whose nephew had been killed, so that he could take his place in the place of the lost one. But the actual fate of the prisoner was beyond any doubt. Huron received him with visible love and affectionately addressed him: “My nephew, when I heard that you were coming to me, I was very happy, thinking that you would stay with me and take the place of the one whom I lost. But now I see that your hands are broken and mutilated so that you can never use them, and I change my mind. Therefore, be of good courage, and prepare to die this night, like a brave man.” The prisoner coldly asked what kind of death would be his. “Through the fire,” he answered. “That’s good,” said the prisoner. The Jesuits looked with horror at the fate awaiting the captive, but were unable to save him. Then they tried to save him from eternal fire. They spoke to him with sincere compassion and affection, and when he was attentive to their instructions, they baptized him. Having ensured his eternal salvation, they more or less calmly awaited the execution of his execution. Meanwhile, night had fallen and huge crowds of Indians were gathering from all sides. A row of bonfires flared, surrounded by rows of warriors with lit sticks in their hands. The prisoner had to walk across these fires, driven by burning sticks. Smoke, heat, the furious screams of the tormentors and the wild cry of the tortured prisoner - all this presented a living picture of hell, which the Jesuits looked at with horror. But when the day dawned and the last spark of life died out in the martyr, they breathed more freely and consoled themselves with the thought that the martyr had finally found peace in the bliss of paradise. The mutilated remains of the prisoner were then eaten by the torturers 100 . The Jesuits more than once witnessed such and similar scenes in this dark kingdom of savage barbarism. All their labors and efforts to bring a ray of light into this dark environment were apparently in vain. They had not yet had any converts at all, and so far they had only succeeded in baptizing those who were passing from their deathbed into eternity. But then suddenly an unexpected thing happened. One adult Huron, influential and respected in his tribe, was inclined to the beliefs of the Jesuits and agreed to be baptized. This was an event of extraordinary importance, and the Jesuits hastened to take advantage of it as much as possible for their mission, deciding to perform the baptism with the pomp and solemnity that their means allowed. And now the truly wild desert had to witness an unprecedented spectacle. The Indians gathered in crowds around the Jesuits' hut: young and old warriors, with unkempt manes on their heads and painted faces; dressed up maidens and wrinkled old women, wrapped in dirty deer skins, all looked with superstitious curiosity at the rite of the sacrament of baptism, and at the black robes themselves, who were now dressed in shiny church vestments. Their genuflections, the mysterious ringing of the bell, the movement of the censer spreading pleasant smoke, unlike the smoke from fires in Indian huts, the excited state of the person being baptized - all this made an overwhelming impression on the savages 101 . The missionaries rejoiced and anticipated a great harvest. A breach was finally made in the devil's fortress, the darkness of paganism finally began to give way to the light of Christianity. The baptism described was followed by several others, and the triumph of faith seemed certain. But the prince of darkness did not want to give up his possession without a fight and, in order to retain it, he put into action all the machinations of his satanic wisdom, just to take revenge on the black robes who invaded his kingdom 102 . III. Suspicion about the Black Robes. The calling of thunderbirds, the epidemic and the horrors it spread. Heaven and hell. Jesuit methods of saving the perishing. Danger for the Jesuits. Death sentence and farewell feast, Missionaries among humanoid animals. "The narrow gates of heaven." The life of two martyrs. Torment and deliverance. Life, consisting of continuous wars with neighboring tribes and filled with real and imaginary dangers, developed among the Indians a strict suspicion of everything that went beyond the limits of their everyday vision. For a while it could be suppressed by actions in which the Indians saw direct benefit for themselves, but on any other occasion it could manifest itself with even greater force. The Jesuits, in any case, seemed strange people to them. Where did they come from and what do they want, the Indians involuntarily asked themselves. It was a mystery to them. Based on their actions, the Indians could only guess that the black robes were great healers and could cause harm or benefit to people. They were convinced that every nation has its own healers, and the healers of tribes hostile to them brought down all kinds of disasters on them. Were the black robes also sent to harm them? - This vague suspicion quickly found support in their own healers, who most of all disliked the Jesuits for their denunciation of their lamentations. Circumstances soon gave them the opportunity to actually prove their suspicion about the black robes. Due to a terrible drought, the corn sown by the Indians completely died. The healers continually climbed onto the roofs and screamed lamentations, luring the “thunderbirds”; but the sky was cloudless. Seeing all their efforts in vain, the healers then blamed the Jesuits for this. There was a red cross in front of their hut, and the healers announced that it was scaring the “thunderbirds.” The Indians became very worried and decided to cut down the cross. All the exhortations of the Jesuits, who were frightened by the desecration that threatened the cross, were in vain; the wild crowd stood its ground. Then the Jesuits were rescued by their usual ingenuity. “You say,” said one of them, that the red color of the cross frightens the thunderbirds. Then make it white and see if the thunder comes." The Indians obeyed and the cross was painted white; but there were still no thunderbirds. The Jesuits took advantage of this opportunity. “Your spirits cannot help you,” they said; and your healers deceive you with their lies. Now ask for help from the One who created the world, and perhaps He will hear you.” To this the Jesuits added that if the Indians renounce their sins and obey the true Great Spirit, then they themselves will ask Him for them. The Indians obeyed to do whatever the black robes wanted. Then the Jesuits organized several processions and celebrated nine masses for their main patron, St. Joseph, and to their great joy, heavy rain soon fell, which convinced the Indians of the power of the “witchcraft” of black robes 103 . But fate was already preparing even greater troubles for them in the future. Epidemics raged quite often among the Indians. The uncleanliness of their life, poor diet, and the replacement of gluttony with horrific hunger strikes provided all the conditions for the development of diseases, and they sometimes devastated entire villages and even tribes. One of these epidemics broke out among the Indians at the end of 1637. Death moved from one village to another and caused devastation everywhere. The huts of the Indians became places of crying and dying cries. Everything was struck with horror; Only black robes were not afraid of death. They fearlessly walked around the huts and everywhere consoled and reassured the despairing savages, giving Christian farewells and baptizing the dying. Gloomy figures of Indians, wrapped in dirty leathers, sat in huts around dim fires. Some screamed about the dead, others uttered dying cries. The Jesuits had some medicines and, as far as possible, alleviated the suffering of the sick, but most of all they cared about the salvation of their souls. “This life is short and miserable,” they told the hopelessly ill. It doesn't matter much whether we live or die." And then they explained the future life, showing a picture of heaven and hell. The Indians easily understood the torments of hell, but they did not particularly highly value the bliss of heaven. When asked by the Jesuits where they would like to go, the Indians answered in such a way that they often confused the missionaries. “I want to go where all my ancestors and relatives have gone,” they usually answered. “This paradise is good for the French,” said one; “but I want to be among the Indians, because the French will not give me anything to eat when I get there.” “Where would you rather go – to heaven or to hell”? the Jesuit asked the dying Indian woman. “To hell, if, as you say, my children are there,” answered the unhappy mother. “And they hunt there in the sky, go to war and have feasts?” asked the dying warrior. "Oh no!" - “Then I don’t want to go there; “It’s not good to be lazy,” answered the savage 104. Those who answered such questions satisfactorily were immediately baptized by the Jesuits, by touching them with a wet handkerchief or by dropping a drop of water and pronouncing sacred words. Meanwhile, the epidemic continued its devastating work. The Indians, in desperation, resorted to all sorts of means to appease the spirit of the plague; they sacrificed tobacco and roasted dogs to it. One healer, who fasted for seven days, received a revelation that the plague would be driven away if straw scarecrows were placed on all the huts, and indeed all the huts were quickly decorated with scarecrows. The Indians also suggested that the Jesuits put a scarecrow on their huts, but they declared that their cross protected them better than any scarecrows. The healers cast spells, climbed into huts and shouted to the invisible spirit of the plague: “If you want meat, go to our enemies; go to the Iroquas!” But it was all in vain. Seeing the futility of all their remedies for the ulcer, the Indians then turned to the Jesuits. “What should we do so that your God will have mercy on us?” they said to the Jesuits. This incident was favorable for missionary work and one of the missionaries, Ez. Brebeuf immediately answered: “Believe in Him: keep His commandments; give up your belief in dreams; take only one wife at a time and be faithful to her; abandon your superstitious celebrations; stop your violent meetings; do not eat human flesh; never make sacrifices to demons and make a vow that if God delivers you from this plague, you will build a chapel to bring thanksgiving and praise to Him." 105 The savages listened carefully to these conditions, but they seemed difficult to them. Having held a meeting among themselves, they decided to ask the Jesuits if it was possible to limit themselves to only building a chapel. But Brebeuf decisively rejected this proposal and the matter ended in nothing. In one village, however, the Indians accepted all the conditions. Struck by horror, they were ready to make all kinds of promises just to get rid of the ulcer. Even the chief healer leaned towards the side of the Jesuits: walking through the streets, he loudly proclaimed that the God of the black robes was their boss and that therefore they must live according to His will 106. The Jesuits celebrated and rejoiced at the success of the mission, but soon their joy turned into horror. Among the Indians there appeared a medicine man who enjoyed unlimited influence among the savages and for the Jesuits seemed to be the embodiment of Satan himself, as he himself considered himself. After several unsuccessful lamentations, he began to blame the black robes for the cause of the ulcer, and everything instantly changed in relation to them. A fatal thought spread through the Indian villages with the speed of lightning. The baptism that the Jesuits performed on the dying was considered by the Indians to be medical medicine; now they began to consider it a killing potion. Everything now among the Jesuits was a subject of horror for the Indians. They had a picture of the Last Judgment at the door of their hut; to the Indians it now seemed like a potion: dragons and snakes seemed to them like demons of plague devouring the Indians. At the top of a nearby tree, the Jesuits had a weather vane to determine the direction of the wind; The Indians looked at him with horror and thought that he was spreading disease and death to all directions of the world. The clock itself, which had previously been an object of curiosity, became an object of horror, and the Jesuits had to stop it, since the Indians suspected that their fight heralded death. The usual singing of the Jesuits while celebrating Mass was considered hostile lamentations that spread plague 107 . If such suspicions had been directed at the Indian healers, the Indians would have quickly dealt with them; but the Jesuits seemed to them such sorcerers that they were afraid. Therefore, they began to passively oppose them at first, and gathered for nightly meetings. The boys began throwing sticks and stones at them as they approached the huts. The patients locked themselves in and did not let them in. But nothing could stop the Jesuits from doing good to the sick and edifying the dying, especially children. Hearing the cry of a sick child through the cracks, they boldly pushed and entered the hut; they asked to buy something, talked about hunting, war, everything except ulcers and a sick child. Then, having somewhat calmed the suspicion, they asked to look at the sick child and, feeling his pulse, as if accidentally touched him with the tip of a handkerchief previously moistened with water, whispered the words of baptism and - the salvation of the child was completed. The Jesuits performed many such secret baptisms without arousing the suspicion of adults, who forbade them to perform it. One day a young Indian woman was walking through the village, carrying a sick child on her back. Two Jesuits approached her and while one of them occupied the Indian woman with his rosary, the other quietly baptized the child 108 . But “the devil was furious that we had brought many of these innocent babies to heaven,” says Lemercier 109. The Indians' suspicion of the Jesuits grew more and more, they gathered more often for night meetings and began to talk more boldly about how black robes were ruining the people. Some said that the Jesuits hid a human body in their huts, which infected the country (the result of their false concept of the Body of Christ, sacrificed during the celebration of the Mass; others attributed the ulcer to a snake; others attributed the ulcer to a snake; others said that the Jesuits allegedly carried in a gun they had; others said that black robes stabbed a child in the forest with an awl in order to kill the Huron with spells children; some suspected that the Jesuits had enchanted clothing, which was the cause of the disasters of the people 110. In August 1638, a general people's council met to discuss the state of affairs. The councils usually met at night, by the light of fires. The Indians gathered for this council from all the Huron tribes, writes the Jesuit Lemercier. They looked at each other like corpses, or like people who are already feeling horror. death. When they spoke, they spoke only with sighs, listing the sick and dead in their families. All this was in order to arouse the poison of rage against us 111. The Jesuits were called to the council, and then, one before the other, the Indians began to blame them for the death of the people. The Jesuits made excuses and tried to explain the cause of the ulcer; but the more they justified themselves, the more the rage of the Indians flared up against them, who finally stopped listening to their answers and, with screams and threats, demanded that they be given those enchanted clothes that were ruining their country. It was in vain that the Jesuit said that they did not have such clothes. The noise and fury increased. “If you don’t believe me,” said one of the most intrepid and courageous missionaries, the Jesuit Brebeuf, then go to our house, search everything, and if you don’t know which clothes are enchanted, take all our clothes and throw them into the lake.” Such determination of the Black Robe somewhat confused the savages, and this time the Jesuits avoided the danger that threatened them. The Indians finished the meeting and left the Jesuits alone, although one old warrior, passing by Brebeuf, remarked to him: “if one of our guys breaks your head, we will not say anything against it.” And the missionary continued to undauntedly preach to the remaining congregation about the need to obey the Great Spirit and the danger of offending Him 112 . The danger for the Jesuits, however, was not over. The decision of the general meeting regarding them remained uncertain only because among the Indians there were those who took the side of the Jesuits and moderated the rage of the party hostile to them. The latter, however, did not abandon her view of the Jesuits as the main culprits of the national disaster and began to hold secret meetings separately. After one of these meetings, some converts secretly informed the Jesuits that their death had been decided at it. A harbinger of this was the private insolence of the savages towards them, so that whenever they left the hut they had to expect a tomahawk or a stone. The Jesuit Ragueneau wore a cross with a crucifix and an image of a skull on his chest. The Indian, thinking it was a spell, tore the cross off him. The missionary tried to take it back, but the Indian grabbed the ax and raised it over the Jesuit. Ragueno stood motionless, waiting for the blow. This fortitude had such an effect on the savage that he muttered and lowered the ax and walked away. An Indian with a burning brand attacked the Jesuit Lemercier and, poking him in the face, said that he should be burned alive; and one young warrior openly said: “I have eaten enough of the colored meat of our enemies; now I want to try white meat, and I will eat yours.” In view of this state of affairs, the Jesuits clearly saw their danger. They, a handful of brave souls thrown into the wild desert, could not expect help from anywhere but from above, and they, preparing for death, prayed only that their blood would serve as the seed of Christianity. Brebeuf had a vision of a cross that was slowly moving towards them across the sky from the country of the Iroquas. “How big is this cross?” asked the other Jesuits. “Oh, big enough to crucify us all on it,” he answered 113. Anticipating imminent death, Ez. Brebeuf wrote a farewell letter to Quebec to the head of the mission, Lejon, entrusting his delivery, in the event of death, to some of the converts. The letter breathes with the indestructible Christian zeal and selfless selflessness that distinguished these missionaries 114. In view of the terrible danger, the Jesuits, however, did not lose their presence of mind and tried to try one measure to console the fury of the Indians. The Hurons had a custom in which those condemned to death gave a farewell feast. Such a feast was organized by the Jesuits, calling savages to it, who came to the feast sullenly and with sidelong glances and, having eaten their share, silently left the feast. The effect of this measure was at first glance uncertain, but in fact it turned out to be beneficial; the Indians liked the feast, which gave new strength and vigor to the followers of the missionaries. After the feast, the whole week passed calmly for the Jesuits 115 and the Indians looked cheerful, which was also facilitated by the weakening of mortality. Little by little, the terrible danger completely passed, the Jesuits got rid of death, although they took this as a bad sign for the mission, since only the blood of martyrs serves as the seed of Christians 116. The mission among the Hurons was an outpost of civilization and Christianity, abandoned in the middle of the desert, separated from the European coastal colonies by an impassable space of thousands of miles. The only means of communication between them was the St. Lawrence River with its various tributaries; but this path was convenient only for the Indians, who, with their birch bark canoes, either sailed on the river, or made their way through the thicket of the forest, bypassing rapids or hiding from hostile parties who scoured the forests hunting not so much for animals as for people. Missionaries only set out on this journey in extreme need, when they were depleted of all the funds necessary to continue the mission. Since the opening of the mission among the Hurons, the Jesuits have made significant progress, had many converts and even more catechumens; with the increase in business, the need for funds to conduct it increased, and meanwhile they were depleted to the extreme. Clothes and paintings were worn out, the paper was worn out, bread for the mass was barely obtained through the meager sowing of wheat, and there was so little wine that the Jesuits consumed it only a drop after mass 117. By 1642, the mission had fallen into such disrepair in this regard that the Jesuits decided to send one of their members to Quebec to acquire the necessary funds and supplies for the mission. The order fell to Isaac Jogues, who set off with a party of Hurons who brought their furs for barter with the French. The journey was extremely tiring; up to thirty times it was necessary to drag the shuttles and all their contents on the dry road on the back; but the travelers were still very glad and considered themselves lucky when they arrived in Quebec, having avoided the main danger of this path, the meeting with the military pariahs of the brutal Iroquois, who were the mortal enemies of the Hurons and guarded them on the river. Having finished his business, Fr. Isaac and his party set off on the return journey. The path against the flow of water was even more difficult, but the party cheerfully and cheerfully worked with the oars, satisfied with the successful execution of the task. Everything was quiet all around and only the splash of water could be heard, cut by the oars of twelve canoes. Suddenly the coastal forest trembled from a wild military cry, a hail of bullets and arrows rained down on the travelers, and a flotilla of shuttles of Iroquois warriors sailed out of the bushes to meet them. The Hurons, struck by horror and surprise, landed on the shore and, abandoning everything, fled, leaving the missionary with two young Frenchmen who voluntarily agreed to serve the Jesuits, and several baptized Indians. Soon the entire party was partly killed, and most were captured; Among the latter were the French and the missionary. Considering them to be the leaders of the party, the Iroquois attacked them with particular fury, stabbing them with knives, beating them with clubs and gnawing their fingers with their teeth. Then the victors, with wild rejoicing, loading their canoes with booty and prisoners, set off for home, deep into the present state of New York. Thirteen days later they arrived at the first Iroquois village. The cries of the victors announced their arrival and crowds of old and young Indians ran out of the village with clubs in their hands. At the entrance to the village, everyone lined up in two rows, forming a narrow passage, and through this “narrow path of paradise,” as Jogues puts it, the prisoners had to pass one by one amid the cries of the jubilant Iroquois, who gave them blows from their clubs. One blow knocked o. Isaac was knocked down, but other blows immediately forced him to get up and he staggered across the entire row. Then began a series of torments and torments too outrageous even to describe. They gnawed their hands, cut their fingers, and plucked the hair on their heads and beards. Finally, when they were brought to an unconscious state from exhaustion of blood, they were tied for the night to stakes driven into the ground, stretching their limbs so that they, lying on their backs, could not move at all. Having had enough of their brutality, the Indians assigned their children to “cool” the French, and these little demons took hot coals from the fires and laid them on the naked bodies of the prisoners, sprinkled hot ash on them, amused by its hissing on the bloody bodies of the sufferers 118 . The cruelty of the Iroquois was not only brutal, but also subtle. They tortured and tyrannized the captives so as not to take life and prolong it for further torment. After the first attack of atrocity, they allowed the prisoners to recover somewhat and then led them to neighboring villages, and in each the sufferers again had to endure a series of the same torments. Meanwhile, Iroquois military parties brought new captured Hurons, among whom were even Jesuits converted to Christianity. The missionary martyr did not miss the opportunity to convert others to the truth amidst the most suffering. Once he managed to persuade two Huron captives to accept Christianity, but there was no water for baptism. An ear of corn was thrown to them for food and there were a few drops of dew on it. With these drops o. Isaac baptized them. Three of the captured Hurons were burned alive, and the missionary and the French awaited the same fate. But the assembled council of Indians decided to leave them alive, although one of the French soon paid with his life for teaching an Indian boy to make the sign of the cross, which seemed like magic to his father. Private assassination attempts constantly threatened Isaac, and he lived hourly in anticipation of a tomahawk, the blow of which he would consider deliverance from suffering. But death seemed to be running away from him. Over time, the Indians, seeing his humility, gave him considerable freedom. Late in the fall, a party of Iroquois went on their usual winter hunt and took the Jesuit with them. Hungry and almost uncovered, he followed the Indians through impenetrable forests, carrying heavy loads piled on him. In the parking lots about. Isaac collected wood, lit fires, and cooked game. But since the Indians had previously dedicated all their game to the god of the hunt (Areskui), Fr. Isaac did not dare to touch the demonic sacrifice and thus starved in the midst of contentment and supplemented himself with bark and roots. He slept in a smoky hut with his dogs, but sometimes in the middle of the night he went out into the forest to pray and re-read the passages of St. that remained in his memory. scriptures. In a secluded place, he carved the shape of a cross on the bark and, bending down on his knees, among the snow and ancient pines, half dressed in dirty leather, he prayed with tears, and in this he found his only consolation. The Indians soon became weary of him and sent him back to the village, where he was given to an Indian family. There he was a constant witness to the atrocities of the Iroquas. War parties continually brought prisoners, tyrannized them and burned them. Life became unbearable for him and he longed for death. His only consolation in the midst of this nest of barbarity and inhumanity was that he secretly talked with children, instructed them in the truths of Christianity and baptized many, while at the same time expecting death from a tomahawk or fire. But he was not destined to die there. A party of Iroquois, setting off with furs to the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam (present-day New York), took him with them, hoping to receive a good ransom for him. The Dutch offered them a ransom, but the Indians asked so much that the matter seemed hopeless; the sufferer again had to return to the country of his tormentors. Then a Dutchman took pity on him and offered him a means to escape from the Indians. Isaac hesitated for a long time to accept this method of salvation, but finally decided to escape. The Dutchman hid it in his house and hid it until the Indians left the colony. Then the Jesuit boarded a ship and left for France, where he was greeted like a ghost, as he was considered dead. The fame of him reached the royal court and Queen Anna of Austria, calling him to her, kissed his hands crippled by Iroquois. The selfless missionary, however, was not captivated by this glory and honor; he threw himself at the feet of the abbot and asked permission to return to the missionary field again. But here one difficulty presented itself. His hands were so crippled that according to the canon he could not celebrate the Eucharist. The case was submitted to the discretion of the pope 119 . Having listened to the presentation of the case, the pope exclaimed enthusiastically: Indignum esse Christi martyrem Christi non bihere sanguinem, and the missionary the next spring went to the missionary field, but never to return. Having set off as an envoy for peace negotiations with the Iroquois, who declared an inclination to conclude peace with the French, he died from the treacherous tomahawk of his former tormentors 120 . Meanwhile, the mission remained in a disastrous and abandoned state. When the news of the unfortunate outcome of the embassy of Isaac Jogues reached its abbot in Quebec, he equipped another expedition and sent the Jesuit Bressani to deliver letters and necessities to the missionaries. He was given six Hurons, recently converted, and French boys to serve. It was early spring, when the path was not yet so dangerous from attacks by the Iroquas; and the travelers hoped to pass it safely. Before departure, however, they confessed and prepared for death. The spring journey along the river was difficult, and on the very first day of the voyage one canoe capsized and Bressani almost drowned. On the third day a snowstorm arose and slowed down their journey, and the next day they met what they most feared - a military party of Iroquois, who, like demons, jumped out of the bushes and captured the entire party along with Bressani, killing one Huron. This was at the end of April, and in mid-July Bressani wrote a letter to the Jesuit general in Rome, which among other things says: “I do not know whether your patronymic (paternite) recognizes the handwriting of one of those whom you previously knew very well. This letter is dirty and poorly written; for the one who writes it has only one finger left intact on his right hand, and he cannot protect himself from burying the paper in the blood that flows from the wounds that are still open. His ink is gunpowder mixed with water, and his table is earth 121. Then he describes all his torments. After successfully capturing the prisoners, the Iroquois thanked the sun for their victory and robbed the captured shuttles; then, taking the dead Huron, they cut it into pieces, fried it and ate it, before the eyes of the captives. The next day they went home and there the prisoners, especially Bressani, had to endure all the torments and torments that the brutal instinct of the Iroquois could devise. They cut his hands in pieces, beat him with sticks until he was covered in blood, and then put him on a raised platform, like a scaffold, for the ridicule of the crowd. Here he was stripped naked, and while he was shivering from the cold, he was forced to sing. Having satisfied their brutal instincts themselves, the Iroquois, as usual, gave the captives to be tormented by children, and these latter, in imitation of adults, forced the Jesuit to dance and sing, urging them with sharp sticks and plucking out the hair on his head and beard, “Sing,” one shouted. “No, be silent,” objected another, and when the unfortunate Jesuit obeyed one, the other burned him with a red-hot iron, and everyone shouted to him tirelessly; “We will burn you; we will eat you; I will eat your leg, and I will eat your hand" 122. These scenes were repeated every evening for a week. Every evening the chief walked around the camp and shouted: “Go, go, children, tenderize our captives,” and the imps began their tenderness again, applying hot coals and hot stones to the bodies of the prisoners, biting off their fingers and nails with their teeth, etc. The poor boy who accompanied the Jesuit was only 13 or 14 years old. was subjected to the same tortures as adults. Over the Jesuit himself, the Iroquois exhausted all their brutal ingenuity: they hung him by his legs from a tree, placed food on his naked body for the dogs so that they would gnaw him together, and finally brought him to such a state of exhaustion that they themselves were horrified. “I couldn’t think,” writes the unfortunate sufferer, that it would be so difficult to kill a person” 123. Finally, a council met to decide the final fate of the Jesuit. He longed for death, but to his surprise the council decided to let him live and gave him to an old Indian woman in place of her relative killed in the war. The old woman, however, found him useless in her household and, with the very first shipment sent to New Amsterdam, sent him for sale to the Dutch. To the credit of the latter, they did not skimp on ransoming the sufferer from the hands of his tormentors, dressed him and sent him to the French fort. Having recovered somewhat from the torture there, the crippled Jesuit in the spring of the following 1645 again ventured on a journey to the Hurons and this time arrived safely in the early autumn of the same year 124. During their missionary work, the Jesuits had to fear not only the brutal gangs of the Iroquas, but also the severity of nature itself. When they moved from one village to another, they were in danger of either getting lost in the forest and dying of hunger, or even freezing in winter. The last fate in 1646 befell the elderly Jesuit Noe. Having once gone to a fort newly built by the French to celebrate mass there, he got lost in the forest. He did not have warm clothes, and meanwhile a strong snow blizzard arose. Exhausted, he fell to his knees and sought the only refuge in prayer. This was his last prayer. They found him later; he was on his knees, with his eyes open and his arms crossed on his chest, and was a frozen corpse" 125. Such are the dangers and difficulties with which the Jesuits had to contend. But these particular cases were only the beginning of disasters, harbingers of the terrible fate of the entire mission among the Hurons and this tribe of Indians itself. IV. Successes of the mission, "Scourge of the Infant Church", Raids of the Irequas. The Undaunted Missionary. Death and destruction. The destruction of the tribe converted to Christianity and the death of the mission. The epidemic caused terrible devastation in the Huron villages. “Where eight years ago,” writes ies. Vimon, there were a hundred huts, now five or six are barely visible. The leader who once had eight hundred warriors now has only thirty or forty; and instead of fleets of three or four hundred shuttles, we see less than a tenth of that number 126 . Such a disaster had a depressing effect on the moral state of the Hurons. They became weak and cowardly. They suffered constant failures both in hunting and in clashes with hostile tribes. But the weaker they were, the bolder and more daring their worst enemies, the Iroquois, became. They began to raid neighboring Huron villages more often and more boldly attacked their parties along the St. River. Lawrence, constantly capturing and taking away prisoners, sometimes in the hundreds 127. A special advantage over the Hurons was given to them by the weapons they received from the Dutch in exchange for furs, and with which they became accustomed with remarkable speed. They were, as Vimont put it, “a scourge for the infant church” of the Huron 128. Winter was still more or less a safe time; but as soon as the ice passed along the rivers, the Iroquois appeared everywhere on their fast shuttles and spread death and destruction. Soon they penetrated into the Huron country and the story of their deeds there is a story of horror and terrible atrocities. By 1645, the Jesuits had spread their mission throughout the Huron country. There wasn't a village that didn't have one or two missionaries. Dejected by the disasters, the Hurons turned out to be more pliable, more willingly inclined to the beliefs of the Jesuits and were baptized. In the main villages the population was already half Christian and in all of them chapels were built and divine services were performed correctly, with the ringing of a bell. The most important point of the mission was the village of Ossosane or, as the Jesuits called it, the Mission of Conception, not far from Lake Huron. Other missions were located in the villages of St. Joseph, St. Ignatius, St. Michael and St. John the Baptist, so named by the Jesuits in honor of the saints in whose name the missions were founded 129. Christianity was not only nominal, but also touched the moral life of the Indians. Thus, converts rarely took part in the burning of prisoners, and sometimes even protested against it 130. The pagan party was still strong and at times made outbursts of rage against the Jesuits, blaming them for the misfortunes of the people. “Your prayer 131 is killing us,” said the pagans. Your books and your rosary laces have cast a spell on our country. Before you, we were happy and prosperous. You are wizards. Your spells are killing our corn and bringing diseases and Iroquois. Sometimes they resorted to inventions to stir up hostility against the Jesuits and spread monstrous rumors that found faith in gullible savages 132 . In 1648, the rage of the pagan party increased to the point that one Frenchman, a novice of the Jesuits, fell victim to it, who was killed by the Indians 133. But this was the last outbreak of paganism, and the Indians themselves subsequently solemnly repented before the Jesuits and asked them for forgiveness and help in disasters 134. After this, the Jesuits could calmly continue their missionary activities. Having distributed the Huron settlements among themselves, they celebrated masses in all of them, taught the savages the truths of the faith and rejoiced at the rich harvest. But their joy was short-lived. The “scourge of the new church” soon struck her as a fatal blow. In the southern reaches of the Huron country there was a fairly large settlement, called by the Jesuits the city of St. Joseph. It consisted of four hundred families and was one of the strongest strongholds against the attacks of the Iroquas. In the summer of 1648, all the soldiers of the settlement went to booty and war with the Iroquois. Only women and children remained in the village, and between them was the Jesuit Daniel. On the morning of July 4th he celebrated mass in the birch bark chapel. The mass was already over and the Indian population was kneeling listening to the last blessing, when suddenly a terrible cry was heard: “Iroquas! Iroquois!” Everything instantly fell into confusion. Daniel ran out of the church and, seeing the Iroquois who were climbing over the fence, gathered several soldiers for protection, and he himself rushed back to the church, where trembling and crying crowds of women and children had gathered, some of them had not yet been baptized, and the missionary was in a hurry to ensure eternal salvation for them in view of their inevitable earthly death. He wetted his handkerchief and, splashing it on the crowd, pronounced the words of baptism. “Brothers,” he said, “today we will be in heaven.” And the Iroquois, having knocked down the weak defense, burst into the village. The air was filled with a wild cry of triumph. “Run,” shouted the missionary to his unfortunate flock, “I will stay here and we will meet again in heaven.” The congregation fled and many managed to make their way into the forest through secret passages. A wild band of humanoid animals was approaching the chapel. Daniel courageously and calmly went to meet them. When they saw him in a shiny church vestment, with a fearless gaze directed at them, they stopped in amazement; but then they recovered, drew their bows, and a swarm of arrows pierced him through, and as he fell he muttered the name of Jesus. With a cry, the savages rushed at him, tore off his clothes, chopped up his body and, collecting handfuls of his blood, washed their brutal faces with it in order to borrow the fearless courage of the murdered man. The entire settlement was then engulfed in flames and the next day all that was left was a pile of ashes and a mass of burnt bodies, and the Iroquois returned home in triumph and with seven hundred prisoners for bloody orgies 135 . Settlement with St. Joseph was, so to speak, a protective fortress for the entire Huron country. With its destruction, an open entrance into the country was presented to the Iroquois, and they resumed their raid the following spring. Inside the country, not far from one another, there were settlements of St. Ignatius, St. Louis and St. Maria. The first of them, after the destruction of the settlement of St. Joseph, was most open to attack, and therefore the Jesuits surrounded it with strong and high palisades, according to the rules of military engineering, so that, with more or less fortitude of the soldiers, it could easily withstand the attack of the Iroquois. But the Iroquas were just as brutal as they were prudent warriors. They waited for the most favorable moments to attack. Residents of St. Ignatius, frightened by the fate of the settlement of St. Joseph, throughout the winter they were on guard and the soldiers did not go out to prey. Having exhausted their meager supplies and not expecting an invasion by the Iroquois, in the spring they went hunting, leaving only women, children and old people in the village. This is just what the Iroquois were waiting for. On March 16, before dawn, a war cry of the Iroquois was suddenly heard outside the walls, and barely the sleepy population had time to wake up when knives and tomahawks began their bloody work. Of the total population of 400 people, only three managed to escape, who rushed half-naked into the forest and managed to bring terrible news to the neighboring settlement with St. Louis. Most of the warriors there were hunting, but about one and a half hundred people remained for protection, and they decided to die in the fight against the Iroquas. There were two missionaries here - Brebeuf and Lallemant. The converts begged them to flee while they could. But the courageous soldiers of the cross wanted to live and die with their spiritual children, and consoled them with their instructions and conversations. Meanwhile, the sun had barely risen when the well-known cry of the Iroquas was heard outside the walls and these demons, mad with bloody rapture, made a terrible attack on the walls of the settlement. The Hurons met them bravely and withstood the onslaught. Twice they attacked and twice they were forced to retreat. Then they crowded at the base of the wooden wall and began to desperately hack at it until they made several breaks. A desperate struggle ensued between them. Life, death - everything depended on its outcome. Behind the fighting Hurons stood the Jesuits; they encouraged with their presence and blessing, baptized the catechumens and gave absolution to the dying. Finally, the Hurons could not stand it, the Iroquois burst in and the entire population, along with the Jesuits, was captured. The entire settlement was immediately set on fire, and the surviving captives were taken to the ashes of St. Ignatius and the usual torture began there. The fury of the Iroquois fell with particular force on the Jesuits, and especially Brebeuf, who with his courageous figure irritated their brutality. They tied him to a stake and began to cut his limbs, while he consoled his spiritual children with a firm voice and imperiously threatened the tormentors with eternal flame. To keep him silent, the Iroquois cut off his lips and gagged him with a hot iron; and he at least made one sound of pain. Lallement was brought to him, tied with tarred birch bark. When the latter saw the state of his boss, he shouted in a broken voice: “we are making a spectacle for the world, for angels and for people,” and then threw himself at Brebeuf’s feet. But the Iroquois tore it off and lit birch bark on it. For Brebeuf, his own suffering was difficult, and the suffering of his first assistant and collaborator was also difficult, but it was even more difficult for him to hear how some of the converted and baptized Hurons, in order to save their own lives, abandoned Christianity and their teachers and, together with the Iroquois, were sophisticated in inventing tortures for the Jesuits. One of these apostates stated that the black robes poured a lot of cold water on the heads of others (baptized) and therefore it would not hurt to reward them with hot water. And then they really quickly boiled the water and began to pour it on Brebeuf’s head. “We baptize you so that you will be happy in heaven!” they shouted. After many similar tortures, they scalped him, cut his chest and came to drink his blood to drink his courage. Finally the chief tore out his heart and devoured it. Thus died one of the most valiant missionaries, the heroic Brebeuf. He came from a high Norman family and had a brilliant career before him, but left it for the cause of Christ, and died the death of a martyr, a death that was a subject of amazement for his brutal tormentors 136 . When the settlements of St. Ignatius and Louis burned and died from the Iroquois, smoke was visible in the settlement of St. Mary, where the main camp of the mission was located, under the leadership of Ragueneau, Bressani and their employees. In mortal trepidation they awaited the same fate; but the Iroquois, having had their fill of brutality, retired to their own country. Nevertheless, the mission suffered a fatal blow. Settlement of St. It was now completely open to Mary and the Iroquois could destroy him at the first opportunity. The horror of their invasion swept through all the small Huron villages, and their inhabitants themselves burned them and went into inaccessible forests. Then the Jesuits, having formed a council, decided to move the mission camp to one of the islands of Lake Huron, considering it less accessible to the Iroquas. But there we had to fight another enemy - hunger. Together with the Jesuits, many Hurons arrived on the island, fleeing from the Iroquas, but there was nothing to eat. Having suffered through the winter and eating roots and acorns, the Jesuits no longer saw the opportunity to stay there any longer and decided to completely leave the mission. “It was not without tears that we left the country of our hopes and our hearts, where our brothers gloriously shed their blood,” the missionary notes on this occasion 137. The scourge of the Iroquas once again swept through the unfortunate country and put an end to the entire Huron people. “When, writes the Jesuit Ragueneau, only thirteen years ago I arrived at the headwaters of this great river (Ottawa, a tributary of the St. Lawrence River), I found its banks inhabited by Huron 138 tribes who did not know God and, in their unbelief, considered themselves gods on earth; because they had everything they wanted: an abundance of fish and game, and profitable trade with neighboring nations. Moreover, they were a fear to their enemies. But from the time they accepted faith and began to worship the cross of Christ, He gave them the heavy part of this cross and made them the prey of poverty, torment and cruel death. In a word, they, as a people, were wiped off the face of the earth. Our only consolation is that she died as Christians, having a share in the inheritance of the true sons of God, who punishes and loves him” 139. Thus ended the heroic attempt of a handful of missionaries to bring the light of Christianity and civilization into the depths of a land of savage barbarism. V. Happy surprise. In the land of cannibals. Taming the wild nature. Indian piety. Removal of Jesuits from New York Territory. In view of the terrible and bloody end of the first attempt of the missionaries, did their zeal for the holy cause weaken? It even got stronger. “The Jesuits never retreated a step; but just as in a brave army new troops take the place of the fallen, so they never lacked heroism and enterprise for the cause of the cross and French rule” 140. Having failed in the country of the Hurons, they decided to transfer their mission to the midst of the most terrible and bloodthirsty savages of the Iroquas and try to bring this indomitable scourge of the entire mission under the gentle yoke of the gospel. After the final ruin of the Huron country, the Iroquois scoured it for several more years, finishing off the scattered remnants of the unfortunate tribe and taking them into captivity. Their insolence now knew no bounds, and they seriously threatened the French colonies themselves. The settlers did not dare to go beyond the walls of the forts, because the Iroquois, like wild beasts of prey, guarded human game in the forest. Finally, however, whole years of continuous wars had significantly exhausted their bloodthirsty instincts, and when they once suffered a minor setback in a skirmish with the French, they decided to enter into peace negotiations with them. The French were delighted and hastened to take advantage of the opportunity to free themselves from such dangerous enemies. They accepted the peace proposal and sent envoys to negotiate peace. The ambassadors were, of course, fearless Jesuits. In 1654, the Jesuit Lemoine went to the country of the Iroquas, the Onondaga tribe 141. His path followed the bloody trail of the Jesuits of Jogues, Bressani and thousands of Huron captives and martyrs, but no fears could stop the Jesuit from the feat of missionary work. He boldly came to the tribal village and was rewarded for his courage. There he met thousands of Huron captives, most of whom were Christians, knew him personally and therefore welcomed him with joy. He immediately celebrated Mass for them, gave communion to many, and baptized the children, as well as the adults who had not yet been baptized. The Jesuit saw a wonderful sight. These Christian captives, whom the Jesuits mourned as dead, proved to be a fruitful seed of Christianity among the ferocious Iroquois. Thanks to them, Christianity managed to pave the way into the wild consciousness of the ferocious victors and, to the amazement of the Jesuit, they were inclined to accept baptism. With the good news, Lemoine returned to Quebec and outlined his plans for the conversion of the Iroquois. The following year, the Jesuits Dabdon and Shomono went to the Iroquois and founded a permanent missionary camp. The Indians welcomed them cordially, and the Huron captives gave them the opportunity to quickly build a chapel, in which worship began. “Instead of marble and precious metals,” Dablon writes in his diary, we used only bark; but the path to heaven is just as open through a roof of bark as through arches of gold and silver 142 . Little by little, other tribes began to accept Christianity, and Jesuits constantly arrived from Quebec, establishing new camps in various savage settlements. Apparently the pagan darkness was afraid of the light and scattered everywhere before it. But paganism was still strong in the Iroquois, and at any opportunity it could take revenge on the bearers of Christianity. When many baptisms had already been performed on the Iroquois, their healers began to preach to the people that baptism is a sorcery that kills children. “What these French black robes call baptism,” they said, is an evil sorcery performed for the consumption of our children. Our salvation lies in their immediate death. Dark night is the most convenient time for this. This idea spread with the speed of lightning among the Iroquois, and in a secret night meeting they decided to kill all the black robes. The hellish plan would undoubtedly have been fulfilled if the Jesuits had not learned in time about the danger that threatened them. Their resourcefulness saved them from certain death. They, as had happened before, arranged a feast for their executioners. The gluttonous savages, of course, did not refuse to come to the feast offered to them by their doomed victims, and while they were thus busy eating, the Jesuits quietly boarded canoes prepared in advance and disappeared, going to Quebec, which was their only protection. It was March 20, 1658, three years after the missionaries penetrated into the Iroquois country 143 . This event was the reason for the war between the Iroquas and the French, and it continued for two years with brutal ferocity. The Iroquas captured the French and their Indian allies and, according to custom, burned them, for which the French, for their part, responded with cruelty towards the captured Iroquas. But for all that, the war did not have the makings of duration. Among the Iroquois the Christian party was already strong, which sympathized with the French and desired peace with them. One important leader was a Christian and, in any case, protested against the burning of prisoners, did not allow the missionary chapel to be destroyed, and gave the Huron prisoners the opportunity to fearlessly pray in it and sing sacred hymns. As a result, one of the most peaceful tribes (Onondaga) inclined to peace with the French; Other tribes followed them, with the exception of the fierce Mohawks, who continued the war for several more years, when finally left alone they were also forced to make peace, signed at Quebec on August 31, 1666. The Jesuits were looking forward to this moment and again entered the holy field. A year after the conclusion of peace, three Jesuits went to the country of the most indomitable and terrible enemies of Christianity - the Mohawks, who, more than other Iroquois tribes, were hostile to Christianity and the French and who, more than others, burned and tortured Christian captives, among whom were the Jesuits Jogues and Bressani. But the blood of the martyrs does not disappear without a trace; it was the fruitful seed of Christianity. The Mohawks, with all the outward indomitability of their wild nature, turned out to be amenable to the persuasion of the missionaries, and conversions between them became so frequent that the Jesuits demanded assistants from Quebec. Little by little the network of missionary work was spread throughout the country of the Iroquois, and in the heart of the present state of New York, in a country of the most terrible barbarism and cannibalism, the correct celebration of the Roman Catholic Mass began. In 1670, sixteen years after the opening of missionary work among the Iroquois, the cross was already rising high above the entire country of these savages, and especially among the Mohawks, who were apparently the most hopeless and obdurate barbarians. Among them, the process of spiritual rebirth was especially noticeable. The old wild nature struggled mightily with the new beginning and succumbed. From among the converted Iroquois, several emerged who were ready to endure all sorts of torments from their pagan brothers for their faith and endured them patiently. There were even examples of virtue that were a source of surprise to the missionaries themselves. In the latter respect, the Iroquois maiden Catherine Tegavita, whom the Jesuits call the New Genevieve 144, became especially famous. The Jesuits did not have long to enjoy the fruits of their labors. In 1664, the territory of the present New York state passed into the hands of the British, who brought with them a new policy towards the Indians and the Jesuits. The English rulers began to look jealously at the influence that France, with the help of the Jesuits, had over the Indians, and their first order of business was to undermine this influence. Ruler Dungan turned out to be especially zealous in this regard. From the very moment he took office (1683), he decided to expel the French Jesuits from his territory and for this purpose began to incite the Indians against the Jesuits, promising them to give them “the best fathers” of the English Jesuits, and to complete the construction of churches for them. His efforts were not fruitless; the French Jesuits began to be subjected to insults and violence and finally had to retire from the field of their many years of work 145. Thus ended missionary work among the New York staff of French missionaries. They were the first to have the honor of enlightening this dark country of savage barbarism. They were the first to pave the way here for Europeans. It was a bloody and dangerous path, but with their self-sacrifice they achieved that from the fierce cannibals, whose pleasure and occupation was hunting people and burning them, they turned into obedient Christians. The fruits of their labors are still visible today. The remnants of the ancient Indian tribe, still living in the state of New York, retain the faith of their first teachers and remain adamant to all the convictions of the Protestant missionaries 146. VI. Missionaries in the Far West. Discovery of the Mississippi River. Feast among the Indians. Christianity in the valley of the “father of waters”. Life of the Indian Converts. - Conclusion. Meanwhile, when the wild nature of the Iroquois had not yet been broken and they were a scourge for all neighboring tribes, the Jesuits penetrated into distant countries with their preaching of Christianity and civilization. Remote tribes, constantly threatened by the brutal Iroquas, turned out to be inclined to an alliance with the French, in whom they expected to find support in the fight against the Iroquas. These countries were still completely unknown. But if the Iroquois penetrated there to quench their bloodthirstiness, then why not the peaceful messengers of the cross? Among the Jesuits of Quebec there were several zealous missionaries who declared their readiness to go preaching to these peoples. The Bishop of Quebec Laval himself intended to go to this missionary field, but the lot fell on the Jesuit Rene Meignard. In 1660, he set out on a journey with almost no great preparations, relying, in his own words, “on Providence, which feeds the birds of the desert and clothes the wild flowers of the forests” 147 . After a long and weary journey, he arrived at the ruined ashes of the Huron missions and then set out for the far west, never to return. It is believed that he got lost in the impenetrable forests and died of hunger. Some of his things were later found among the savages of the Sus 148. Thus ended the first attempt at missionary work in the far west. But her fate did not frighten the courageous preachers of the cross. In 1665, a new missionary, Allouez, set out on the same path, and he more successfully achieved the goal of his appointment. Having passed through the great lakes, he arrived in the country of the Chippewas, who had never seen a white man and from all the surrounding villages gathered to look at him, the Jesuit assembled a popular council, offered trade with the French and help against the Iroquas. For a year he lived between them, built a chapel and taught the savages to sing Pater and Ave. Moving from one tribe to another, he met the Illinois, who aroused his curiosity with stories about the great river along the banks of which they lived. “They have no forests,” he says, but instead there are vast prairies, where herds of deer and buffalo and other animals graze on the tall grass. Their country, he notes, is the best field for the gospel" 149. Having penetrated further to the west, he reached the country of the Sius, and from them he also heard about the great river, and the first of the Europeans learned its name, writing it down in his report in a somewhat abbreviated form: Messipi 150. However, the final discovery and exploration of this river did not belong to him. It belongs to another Jesuit, Market, who was the first to sail along almost its entire length in a fragile canoe and was the first to determine its direction and its mouth. Jesuit Marquette arrived in Quebec in 1666, worked for several years as a missionary among the tribes scattered in the vicinity of the great lakes, and there he also first heard about the great river, the “father of waters.” He decided to penetrate its shores and fervently prayed that he would be the first to have the honor of discovering and spreading the gospel among the peoples living along its shores. To his great happiness, he found support in the ruler of Canada, who warmly reacted to his idea, gave him the French scientist Joliet as an assistant, with whom Marquette began making preparations for the expedition, sketched out a map of the river based on inquiries from the Indians, and on May 17, 1673, two shuttles with Marvet, Joliet and five companions set off across Lake Michigan on an unknown journey. The Indians told all sorts of horrors about this remote country and said: “These peoples never spare foreigners; their mutual wars fill the banks of the river with bands of warriors; The Great River is rife with monsters that devour both people and shuttles; excessive heat causes death.” But the courageous Jesuits responded to all these warnings: “I will joyfully lay down my life for the salvation of souls” 151. A month later, the travelers finally entered the long-desired Mississippi River, “with such joy,” Market notes, “that I cannot express.” The learned Jesuit was a very observant person and in his letter he records all the features of the river and its banks, and this record is of the greatest natural historical interest. Their shuttles quickly rushed down the course of the great river, passing through the desert, “terrible due to the complete absence of man.” Finally, on June 25, they saw on the shore a trace of human feet and a path leading to a lovely prairie. Here they landed and went to look for the village. These were the first white men who ever set foot on the soil of the present state of Illinois. In the distance they saw an Indian village. Having entrusted themselves to the protection of God, they decided to make themselves known by shouting. The Indians heard and an old Indian came out to meet them and greeted them with signs. But the language of this tribe turned out to be incomprehensible to Market. The Indian invited the travelers into his hut and they passed under the devouring gaze of a crowd of savages. Market announced that he was the messenger of the Great Spirit, who instructed him to teach him to know Him, and his companion (Joliet) was the representative of the great leader of the French people in Canada, who punished the Iroquois and granted peace to all nations. The Indian chief listened attentively and himself addressed them with a magnificent speech, which was recorded by Market and represents an interesting example of Indian natural eloquence 152. After this reception the Indians prepared a great feast for the guests. “It consisted of four changes,” writes the Jesuit, and we had to take part in it according to all their rules. The first dish was a large dish of sagamit - an Indian dish boiled in water and seasoned with fat. The head of the ceremonies, having grabbed the sagamita with a spoon, brought it three or four times to my mouth, as we do with children. He did the same in relation to Joliet. For the second change he brought a dish containing three fish; he tried to select bones from them and, blowing on them to cool them, he put a piece in my mouth, just as we feed birds. For the third break, they brought in a large dog that they had just killed; but when they learned that we did not eat it, they removed it. Finally, the fourth change consisted of a piece of wild bull, and the fattest parts of it were put into my mouth” 153. The Indians liked the white people so much that six hundred of them accompanied them to the shuttles. The travelers sailed further and, after many adventures and dangers, reached the mouth of the Arkansas River. Here they met Indians who already knew the Europeans and were trading with the Spaniards, and could finally determine where the mouth of the Mississippi was. At first they assumed that this river flows into the Gulf of California, but now they are convinced “that the Mississippi undoubtedly has its mouth in the Gulf of Mexico. This is all they were looking for, and therefore they decided to return, especially since by continuing further, they could fall into the hands of the Spaniards, who were then at war with the French. On July 17, they turned their canoes back and began the difficult journey against the river's current. This whole journey, fraught with many difficulties and dangers, is remarkable even for its length alone. These travelers traveled more than 2,700 miles on fragile shuttles. “If this whole journey, says Market, led to the salvation of at least one soul, then I would consider all the hardships rewarded; and I have reason to think so, because when I was returning and passed the Indians of Peoria, they brought to me to the shore a dying child, whom I baptized a little before he died” 154. The fame of Market's discovery spread throughout the world and aroused the ambition of the French, who rushed to extract commercial and political benefits from it. But for the missionary himself, the most important thing was the salvation of his soul. He soon returned to the newly discovered country, preached the gospel to the Indians, who turned out to be a peaceful and simple-hearted tribe, and died there in 1675. “The good missionary,” says the historian on this occasion, died on the banks of the stream that bears his name. Near the mouth, the rowers dug a grave for him in the sand. But even after that, the forest wanderers, being in danger, called on his name. The people of the West will erect a monument to him 155. After Market, a number of other missionaries came forward who, using the already paved path, could boldly preach the message of the cross. Among them, especially remarkable is Gravier, who was the first to found an organized mission, studied the language of the Illinois and brought it under grammatical rules 156. Thanks to the efforts of a number of missionaries, the Illinoisans already at the beginning of the 18th century were in the majority Christians, zealously performing the rites of the Roman Catholic Church. In a letter dated 1712, Jesuit Maret wrote the following about them, which at the same time generally characterizes the missionary techniques of the Jesuits: “Christianity has softened the wild morals of the Illinois and their behavior is now characterized by pleasantness and purity, so that some Frenchmen began to marry their daughters. We also find in them obedience and zeal for the fulfillment of Christian virtues. In our mission, we follow the following order every day. Early in the morning we gather the catechumens to church, where they pray, receive instruction and sing some hymns. When they have retired, the mass begins, at which all the Christians are present, the men on one side and the women on the other; then they pray, they are offered a lesson, after which everyone goes to their work. We then spend our time visiting the sick, giving them the medicine they need, instructing them, and comforting those who are in distress. In the afternoon there is catechetical teaching, in which everyone is present, Christians and catechumens, men and children, young and old, and everyone, without distinction of age or position, answers the questions proposed by the missionary. Since these people do not have books and are careless by nature, they would soon forget the principles of religion if they were not reminded of them by these almost continuous instructions. Our visits to the huts take up the rest of the day. In the evening, everyone gathers again in church, listens to the instructions offered to them, prays and sings some hymns. On Sundays and holidays, in addition to the usual pious exercises, there is instruction given after Vespers. The zeal with which these good neophytes go to church at all hours is amazing. They interrupt their work and run from distant places just to make it to the proper time. They usually end the day with private meetings, which take place in their own homes, the men apart from the women, and there they repeat prayers with singing, singing hymns, until late at night. These hymns are the best instruction for them, which they can most easily retain, since the words are set to tunes with which they are familiar and which they like. They often approach the sacraments, and between them it is customary to confess and receive communion once every two weeks. We were forced to appoint special days on which they should confess, otherwise they would not give us leisure to fulfill our own duties. It is Friday and Sunday of every week when we listen to them, and on these days we are besieged by a crowd of penitents. The care we take for the sick inspires them to trust us, and at such moments we especially reap the fruits of our labors. Their obedience is perfect, and we generally have the consolation of seeing them die in peace and with the firm hope of soon being united with God in heaven” 157. So Christianity managed to transform the savages, the very ones about whom the same Jesuit says that “they must first be turned into people, and then work to make Christians out of them” 158. By the beginning of the 18th century, Roman Catholicism, thanks to the extraordinary energy and enterprise of the sons of Loyola, had thus spread among most of the tribes inhabiting the mainland of North America. It seemed that this vast continent was forever brought under the subordination of the Roman Curia, which sought reward for the lost countries in Europe, and it hoped to rely on it during the volcanic movements that shook its historical throne in the Old World. But this hope was not destined to come true. Soon the intensive resettlement of Europeans to the new continent began, a fierce struggle began between the newcomers and the natives, and for the latter it was fatal. Relying on their superiority in the fight, the colonists mercilessly exterminated the Indians, so that entire tribes either died from bullets or retreated into the wilds 159. Along with the Indians, the fruits of the missionary labors of the Jesuits also perished. Finally, a difficult time came for the Jesuits themselves. With the strengthening of the Protestant population, which made up the majority of the settlers, and with the establishment of English rule in the country, harsh legalizations began to apply against Roman Catholicism in general and against the Jesuits in particular, which completely deprived them of the possibility of activity, so that it was not only impossible to develop missionary activity, but it was even impossible to preserve the fruits obtained by previous labors. The history of this remarkable era, but due to some strange accident, has been very little developed in American literature. Until now, only one special study has been devoted to it, namely Parkman's work - The Jesuits in North America in the 17th century (Boston 1867), which constitutes the second part in his large work entitled: France and England in North America. Then some random research in various large American history courses, e.g. in Bancroft’s History of the United States (12th edition 1850 Vol. III), Shea’s Catholic missions, several articles and monographs in Catholic journals - and nothing more. Meanwhile, this era represents a mass of raw material that is waiting to be processed. These are reports, notes and letters left by the leaders themselves in the missionary field. Almost every missionary has kept records of his life and work, and all annually furnish valuable material for acquaintance with the life, manners and beliefs of the Indians. Some of them have been published in English translation, e.g. In Kip's The early iesuit missions in North America 1846 (the entire book consists of a simple translation of the Jesuit letters) and Shea’s Discovery and Exploration of the Mississipi Valley; but the majority still remain in the French original, and, moreover, in publications that are not widely distributed. We had at our fingertips both translated and original editions, which we had the opportunity to use in the best libraries in New York - the Astor Library and the Mercantile Library. The original is under the general title: Relations des. jesuites. Quebec 1858. In three volumes. Lalement Relation des Hurons, 1639, 82. Mareth's letter in Kip's edition, p. 218. Letter from the Jesuit Reid to his brother, dated 1723, in Kipp's edition, pp. 40 and 41. Letter from the Jesuit Maret. to his friend from 1712. Transl. in Kip's work p. 194. Champlain, 1627, 90. Parkman, introd. XXXV. Parkman, Jesuits in N. A. introduction, XXXV. Le June, Relation, 1634, 74. Brebeuf, Relation des Hurons, 1636, 118; Ragueneau, Relation, 1650, 28. Marquette Narrative in Shea’s Discovery and Exploration of the Mississipi Valley, pp. 22, 23 et seq. Letter of the Jesuit Maret to the Jesuit Germont, dated November 9, 1712, translated by Kip, pp. 199, 200. An Indian legend tells about the creation of the world: “At the beginning of all things, Monabozho in the form of the Great Hare was on a raft, surrounded by animals, which recognized him as their head. There was no land in sight. Wanting to create peace, the Great Hare persuaded the beaver to dive for mud, but the beaver soon floated to the surface dead. The otter tried after him and also without success. Then the muskrat volunteered to perform this task. She dived, remained under water day and night, and finally appeared on the surface of the water, overturning her back down, and seemed dead, with her paws tightly clenched. When other animals opened her paws, one of them contained a grain of sand. It was from this that the Great Hare created the world.” Parrot, Memoire sur les Moeurs, coustumes et Religion de l’Amerique Septentrionale, Chap.1 Letter ez. Ralia to her brother from October 12. 1723 translated by Kip, p. 32. “The people of these countries did not receive any knowledge of God from their ancestors,” says Jesuit Ragueneau. - Ragueneau, Relation des Hurons, 1648, 77. Letter ez. Mareta in ed. Kippah, page 202, provides an interesting example of this. Rahl's letter of 1723, translated by Kip, gives an interesting exposition of this Indian Darwinism. “The influence of these charlatans,” says Ez. Maret, serves as a great obstacle to the conversion of the Indians. I cannot tell you how many times I should have perished under their blows, if only the special protection of God had not protected me from their fury. In one case, among many, one of them would have split my head with his ax if I had not dodged at the same time his hand rose to strike me.” Letter of 1712, translated by Kip, p. 201. Mareth's letter of 1712, translated by Kip, p. 194. We have widely circulated well-known stories by Mine Reed and Fenimore Cooper, in which the exploits of various pioneers in America are depicted with romantic features. The exploits of Christian missionaries were not included in these stories, but they, despite their historical lack of coloration, are undoubtedly more interesting and greater than the exploits of fairy-tale heroes. The Indians of this part of the continent had no idea about white people until the 17th century, and when they first saw them in front of them, they thought that they had fallen from the clouds. Parhman's Pioneers of France, p. 348. When studying the language, the Jesuits wrote down the words they were collecting on paper, which greatly amazed the Indians. They looked with superstitious fear at the “white thing” into which the Jesuits looked when checking words and, when asked by the Indians, called things with Indian words. “When we ask the Black Hoodie, he will not answer us, but will look at the white one and tell us his thoughts. This white must be a spirit who tells him everything,” the Indians reasoned among themselves. J. G. Shea's, Discovery and Exploration of the Mississipi Valley, notes of the Jesuit Hennepin, countries. 128. Interesting information about the study of the Indian language is found in the report of the head of the mission, Jesuit Lejon. “How grateful I am to those,” writes the Jesuit, who supplied me with tobacco last year. Whenever there is a difficulty, I give a packet to my teacher to make him more attentive. God’s Providence is amazing and His mercy is limitless.” Le Jeune, Relation 1633, 7. The Jesuits were the first to become acquainted with Indian dialects, evaluate their linguistic features and put them under grammatical forms. “It cannot be denied,” writes the Jesuit Rahl, that the Indian language has its own real beauties and is distinguished by extraordinary strength in its circulation and method of expression. Let me give you an example. If I asked you: why did God create you, then you would answer: so that I could know Him, love Him and serve Him, and thus achieve eternal glory. But if I were to give this same question to an Indian, he would, according to their way of expressing it, answer in this way: This is what the Great Spirit thought about us: let them know Me, let them love Me, let them honor Me and obey Me, so that then I can allow them to enter into My wonderful bliss.” Letter from the Jesuit Rahl to his brother, in the translation, Kip's edition, p. 28. “Oh my God, what a torment!” he exclaims. “The snow fell under our feet and we sank waist-deep. Your skis and legs were so weighed down by snow that when you pulled them out of the snowdrifts it felt like someone was tearing out your limbs. Or imagine a man laden like a mule, and then judge how pleasant the life of savages is. Relation, 1634, 67. “If pigs and dogs could speak, then they would use more decent language. The girls and young women are quite decently covered, but their conversations among themselves are as dirty as sewers,” notes the Jesuit. Relation 1634. p 32. Relation, 1634, p 201–207. “They constantly annoyed me with thousands of ridicule and troubles,” says the Jesuit, “And I, in order not to irritate them any more, spent whole days without opening my mouth.” Relation 1634, 207. It is remarkable, however, that all these ridicule were not of a malicious nature and passed without a trace, as happens with spoiled or bad children, so that the Jesuit could soon begin his work again. The Indians constantly used such ridicule and nicknames among themselves, and they were never accompanied by serious hostility. The Jesuits were introduced to the Indians by the commander of the Fort, Champlain, who among other things said: “These are our fathers. We love them more than we love ourselves. The entire French people revere them. They are not coming to you for your furs. They left their friends and their country to show you the way to heaven. If you love the French, as you say you love them, then love and honor these fathers of ours.” The Indians listened attentively to this speech, looking around at the Black Robes, and then responded with magnificent speeches, exhausting the entire stock of their flowery rhetoric, and one before the other they invited the Jesuits into their shuttles. Le Jeune, Relation 1633, 274. “They thought they understood the clock, especially when one of us, as a joke, hit the hammer at the last blow of their fight, saying that it was enough to ring. And the ringing stopped. They called them the chief of the day. When they strike, the Indians think that it is they who are speaking and ask how many times the chief has already spoken. They also ask us what he eats. They wait patiently for hours to hear the boss speak. Brebeuf's Report 1635, 33. The paintings were chosen by the Jesuits to suit the tastes of the Indians. Interesting in this regard is the letter from Ez. Garnier to his friend in France. “Send me,” he writes, “an image of Christ without a beard.” The Indians' dislike for beards is well known. Then he asks for several other pictures, depicting the torments of hell in various forms and the bliss of heaven in some one form. The faces in the paintings should be full, not in profile, with open heads directed towards the viewer. All paintings should be of bright colors, but without any plants or animals, as these divert the attention of the Indians from the main subject. – All these features of Indian tastes are noticed among Indians to this day. A certain painter once caused a bloody quarrel between a party of Sius, when he depicted one of them in profile, for which his comrades began to tease him as half-human. Letter ies. Garnier in Op. Parkman, b. 133. Parkoman, Jesuits in. N, A. p. 118. The Jesuits considered the country of the Hurons to be one of the strongest strongholds of the kingdom of the devil, “It was, as the ies put it, Lalmant - one of the main fortresses and, as it were, a castle of demons.” Relation des Hurons 1639.100. Report ez. Le Mercier, 1637, 114. Another time, during a similar cannibalistic celebration, the Indians threw the hand of a roasted captive into the Jesuits’ hut, thereby inviting them to participate in the feast. Lallemand's report, 1639, 70. Parkman, France and England in N.A., II 112. “The devil felt constrained,” says Ezek. Lemercier; he could not bear the solemn baptism of several of the most distinguished savages. Report 1638, 33. The Jesuit Garnier, in a letter to his brother, hints at the alarm caused in the kingdom of darkness by the successes of the mission, and adds: “You cannot imagine what a comfort it is for us to see how the devil arms himself against us and uses his slaves to attack us and tries to destroy us through hatred of I. X” Parkman, Jesuits in. N.A. p. 113. Reports. Lemercier and Brebeuf, 1637. Lemercier's Report, 1636, 114, 116, 150, etc. “What a consolation,” exclaims Ez. Lemercier, to see how God is glorified through the mouth of the spawn of Satan.” Report 1637, 127 and 128. Parkman, Jesuits in N.A. r. 115. The Jesuits used all sorts of methods to baptize children without being noticed by their parents, who would never voluntarily agree to allow them to be baptized. Their reports are filled with similar cases. The following two cases described by the Jesuit Lemercier are not without interest: “On the third day of May, he says, Father Pierre Pijard baptized a small child of two months in Anonatea, in obvious danger of death, unnoticed by the parents, who would not have given their consent. He used this method. Sugar does wonders for us. He said that he wanted to give the child some sugared water to drink, and at the same time he dipped his finger in it. When the child’s father began to suspect something and shouted at him not to baptize, he gave the spoon to the woman standing next to him and told her: “Give it to him yourself.” She went to the child and found him sleeping, and at that very time Father Pijar, under the pretext of seeing if he was really asleep, touched his face with his moistened finger and baptized him. Forty-eight hours later the child went to heaven. A few days earlier this missionary had used the same method to baptize a boy of six or seven years old. His father, who was very ill, refused to be baptized several times; and when asked if he did not want his son to be baptized, they answered: no. “At least, Father Pijar said, you won’t resist my giving him some sugar.” “No, but you shouldn’t baptize him.” The missionary gave the child sugar once, then again; and on the third spoon, before putting sugar into the water, he dripped it onto the child, pronouncing at the same time the words of the sacrament. A little girl looking at him shouted, “Father, he is baptizing him.” The child's father was greatly alarmed, but the missionary said to him: “Didn't you see that I only gave him sugar?” The boy soon died afterwards; but God showed His mercy to his father, who is now in perfect health.” Report of Lemercier, 1637, 165. Lemercier's Report, 1638 Ch. II. Parkman, pp. 109, 118–121 144 145 et al. This letter states, among other things: “We may have to give our blood and our lives for the cause of our Master, Jesus Christ. It seems that His goodness will accept this sacrifice, as far as I am concerned, for the atonement of my great and countless sins, and that He will thus crown the service and ardent desires of all our fathers here... Blessed be His name forever, that He has chosen us, among many who are better than us, to help Him bear His cross in this land. Let His holy will be done in everything. If you hear that God has crowned our labors, then bless Him; for for Him we live and die... After all, we ask you and all our fathers not to forget us in prayers and in bloodless sacrifice.” Jean de Brebeve, François Lemercier, Pierre Castellain, Charles Garnier and Paul Ragueneau signed. The letter is dated October 28, 1637, at Ossosan, or the Residence of the Conception. See Parkman pp. 122 and 123 French. original letter. Lemercier attributes this change to the intercession of St. Joseph, to whom they began to serve a series of masses on November 6. 1638, 44. Lallemand's report, 1639, 56 and 57. The Jesuits, however, soon learned to make wine from wild grapes that grew in abundance in the forests. As a real proof of the poverty of the mission, there are some letters of the Jesuits written on birch bark. Letters from Piron and Shomono in ed. Carayon. Parkman, 130. In the Catholic magazine The Catholic World, in the October issue of 1872, there is a detailed biography of Isaac Jogues: “Father Igaac Jogues, S J.” It describes in detail all these atrocities of the Iroquois, which, however, were common among all Indians in relation to captives. See also the Protestant writer Parkman in the decree. book ch. XVI pp. 211–240. The Catholic W. 1872 oct. – Historian Shea suggests that the decision of this case belongs to Pope Urban VII Shea p.310 Details of the life of Isaac Jogues can be found in Relation des Hurons 1647; decree. monograph in The Catholic World 1872, October; Parkman I. s. Ch. XVI; Bancroft's History of the U.S. III, ch. X. X. Relation abregee, chap. II, Parkman, ch. XVII, b. 252. etc. Relation abregee, p, 122. Report of Ragueneau, 1646, 73. The life and travails of the Jesuit Bressani are described in the report of Vimont for 1644, in his own report, entitled Relation abregee, and in various letters of the Jesuits. See also about him Parkman, I. p. XVII, Bancroft, I. p. XX and others The fate of the Jesuit Noe is described in the reports of Lallemant (1646, 9) and Bressani. When ie Isaac. Zhog was captured by the Iroquois; they brought a party of prisoners of one hundred people, and most of them were burned. Parkman, I. c. P. 223. The baptized Indian Stefan Totiri, seeing the tortures with which his compatriots tortured the captive Iroquas, boldly denounced them and threatened them with eternal fire and demons. He baptized the unfortunate man amid the indignation of his tormentors, who pushed him during baptism and shouted: “Don’t baptize him! Let the devils burn him after we burn him!” Report of Ragueneau, 1646, 56; 1648, 53. The Indians used to call Christianity prayer. The healers spread a rumor that one girl, baptized by the Jesuits and died soon, was resurrected and told how she was received in the “French” sky. As soon as she appeared there, she was seized, chained and subjected to all sorts of tortures. This is what they do there with all converts. The French and especially the Jesuits spend their time doing this. This means that the Jesuits, when baptizing the Indians, have in mind nothing more than to prepare people for heaven for torture,” Ragueneau’s Report 1646, 65. Ragueneau reported this and presents a wonderful example of Indian eloquence. At the council that met on this occasion, the old Indian addressed the Jesuit Ragueneau with the following speech: “My brother,” began the colored speaker. Look, all our tribes have gathered here. (He listed them by name). There are only a handful of us; You are the support and stronghold of this people. Thunder fell from the sky and the earth cracked. We will fall into the chasms if you do not support us. Have pity on us. We are here not so much to talk as to cry about our and your losses. Our country is only a skeleton, without meat or veins, and its bones hang by threads. The demon of hell put a tomahawk in the hand of the killer. Is it you, the sun, whose rays shine above us, who led him to such a thing? Why didn’t you darken your light so that it would be struck with horror from your crime? Were you his accomplice? No, because he walked in the dark and couldn’t see where he was hitting. He thought, this unfortunate murderer, that he was aiming at the Frenchman's head, and the blow fell on his country, and inflicted a mortal wound on it. The earth opens to receive the blood of an innocent victim, and its chasm will swallow us. We are all to blame. The Iroquois rejoice at his death and rejoice; they see that our weapons have been turned against ourselves, and they know well that our people are near the end. Brother, have pity on these people. You alone can bring him back to life. You can collect his scattered bones and close the chasm that has opened to swallow us. Have pity on your country. I call her yours because you are her master; and we came here as criminals to receive your favor if you do not have mercy on us. Have pity on those who condemn themselves and come to ask for forgiveness. You gave strength to the people by settling among them; and if you leave us, we will be like a piece of straw that is torn off the ground and carried by the wind. This country is like an island, flooded by waves until the first storm, which completely engulfs it. Strengthen it at its foundation and posterity will never cease to praise you. When we first heard about this murder, we could do nothing but cry; and now we are ready to accept your orders and fulfill your demands. Speak and ask for whatever satisfaction you want; our life and our property are all yours. And even if we have to rob our children to satisfy you, we will tell them that they should not complain about you, but about the one whose crime made us all guilty. Ours, anger against him; but we have only love for you. He has ruined our life, and you will restore it if you will only speak and tell us what we must do for you.” - Ragueneau, citing this speech, says that he represents a simple translation of it. If so, then his remark that eloquence is more a gift of nature than art is beyond doubt. Report 1648, 8–17. Ragueneau's Report 1649, 3–5. Bressani 247. Ragueneau's report 1649, 13. The remains of both missionaries were later found in a disfigured and half-burnt state. Bressani, Report abbr. 288. Literally - Algonquin, the general name of the tribes to which the Hurons belonged. Bancroft, History of the U.K. Vol. III, 141. The Iroquois were divided into five tribes: Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga and Seneca. The name of the first tribe is still preserved in the name of one river, and the names of the last four are called four counties of the state of New York. Journal de Dablon, 1655, Nov. 18. Shea, History of the Catholic Church in the U.S. p. 315. The Jesuit Cholonec describes in detail her virtues and holiness in a long letter dated August 27, 1715 to the procurator of Canadian missions, Augustin Leblanc. Her father was a pagan and her mother a Christian, who baptized her when she was four years old. In her twentieth year, she suffered from smallpox, which so mutilated her face that she almost lost her sight. From that time on, she locked herself in a hut and became a hermit, occupied solely with matters of mortification. It is remarkable that the practice of mortification became widespread among the Indians, especially among women. “They even went to such extremes,” writes Szolonek, that when it came to our attention, we were forced to moderate their jealousy. In addition to the usual instruments of killing that they used, they invented a thousand new means for inflicting suffering on themselves. Some lay down in the snow in the bitterest cold; others went naked in secluded places and remained there for a long time, exposing themselves to the rigors of the season, on the banks of a frozen river and in places where the wind blew especially hard. There were even those who, having cut through the ice in the lakes, sank up to their necks, remaining there for as long as was necessary for a tenfold list of rosaries. One of them did this for three nights in a row, and this caused such a severe fever that they thought she would die. Another struck me with its simplicity when I learned that she, dissatisfied with the use of this means of mortification for herself, plunged her three-year-old daughter with her into a frozen river, from where she pulled her out half-dead. When I strictly reproached her folly, she answered with a naivety that amazed me, that she did not think that she had done anything wrong, but that knowing that her daughter would probably someday sin before the Lord, she wanted to inflict on her in advance the punishment that her sin would deserve. The letter is replete with characteristic features from the life of Indian converts. It is translated in Kip's edition, pp. 81–116 Shea, History, p. 321–325. There are currently up to 2,500 Iroquois in New York State, all of whom are Catholic. Letter from Meignard, in Bancroft History, Vol, III, 146. Bancroft's, History, Vol. III, 148. Allouez's report. 1666 b. 105–110. Bancroft. Vol. III, 151. Market in the letters of Thivenot and Hennepin, English. ed. 1696. Bancroft, Vol. III. 156. He said casually: “Thank you, black robe, that you bothered to come and visit us. The earth has never been so beautiful, the sun has never been so bright for us as it is today. Never has our land been so calm, or so free from the rocks that have been moved by your shuttles. Never has our tobacco had such a pleasant smell, our corn has never been so tasty, Here is my son, whom I give to you so that you may know my heart (at the same time, the Indian brought the young slave whom he was giving to him to Market). I ask you to have mercy on me and my people. You know the Great Spirit who created us all. You talk to Him and hear His word. Ask Him to give me life and health, to come and live with us so that we may know Him.” Market's letter part VI. The French original and English translation are found in Shea, Discovery and Exploration of the Mississipi Valley 1852. N.Y. Market's narrative in the said work of Shea, p. 24. This narrative is replete with very interesting details regarding the life and morals of these sons of the American prairies. Market in storytelling, p. 30. Bancroft's History Vol. III, 162. Letter (of the Jesuit Maret in Kip's edition, pp. 205 et seq. Mareth's letter of 1712 November 9, pp. 204, 205 ed. Kippah. The war of extermination against the Indians by the white population is still being waged in the United States. The inhumanity of this American attitude towards the natives is outlined in harsh colors in a book recently published in New York: A Century of dishonour. The book made a strong impression on society. You might be interested in: