July 25, 2025 • 32 mins
Embark on a historical journey through the early narratives of the discovery and exploration of the Mississippi Valley. This podcast brings to life Marquettes authentic maps and voyages as they were originally documented. Listen to the stories of the missionaries who accompanied La Salle on his expedition, previously unpublished and now accessible for the first time. This detailed study of the life of Marquette and the exploration itself is the culmination of years of research into early Spanish and French sources, many of which have never before been publicly explored.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Section nineteen of Discovery and Exploration of the Mississippi Valley.
This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please
visit LibriVox dot org. Recording by Patrick mc caffee, Chicago.
Discovering an Exploration of the Mississippi Valley by John Gilmery Shay,
(00:23):
Part two narrative of a voyage to the Upper Mississippi
by Father Louis Annapan. These Indians at times sent their
fleetest by land to chase the buffalo on the water side.
As these animals crossed the river, they sometimes killed forty
or fifty merely to take the tongue and most delicate morsels,
(00:46):
leaving the rest with which they would not burthen themselves,
so as to go on more rapidly. We sometimes indeed
eat good pieces, but without bread, wine, salt, or other seas.
During our three years travels we had lived in the
same way, sometimes in plenty, at others compelled to pass
(01:08):
twenty four hours and often more without eating, because in
these little bark canoes you cannot take much of a load,
and with every precaution you are for most part of
the time, deprived of all necessaries of life. If a
religious in Europe underwent many hardships and labors and abstinences
(01:31):
like those we were often obliged to suffer in America,
no other proof would be needed for his canonization. It
is true that we do not always merit in such cases,
and suffer only because we cannot help it. During the night,
some old men came to weep piteously, often rubbing our
(01:52):
arms and whole bodies with their hands, which they then
put on our head. Besides being hindered from sleep by
these tears, I often did not know what to think,
nor whether these Indians wept because some of their warriors
would have killed us, or out of pure compassion at
the ill treatment shown us. On another occasion, Accuipacquetin relapsed
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into his bad humor. He had so gained most of
the warriors that one day, when we were unable to
encamp near our protector, Naritoba, we were obliged to go
to the very end of the camp the Indians, declaring
that this chief insisted positively on killing us. We accordingly
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drew from a box twenty knives and some tobacco, which
we angrily flung down amid the malcontents, the wretch, regarding
all his soldiers one after another, hesitated, asking their advice
either to refuse or take our present. And as we
bowed our head and presented him with an axe to
kill us, the young chief, who was really or pretendedly
(03:02):
our protector, took us by the arm, and all in fury,
led us to his cabin. One of his brothers, taking
some arrows, broke them all in our presence, showing us
by this action that he prevented their killing us. The
next day they left us alone in our canoe, without
putting in any Indians to help us, as they usually did,
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all remained behind us. After four or five leagues sail,
another chief came to us, made us disembark, and, pulling
up three little piles of grass, made us sit down.
He then took a piece of cedar full of little
round holes, in one of which he put a stick,
which he spun round between his two palms, and in
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this way made fire to light the tobacco in his
great calumet. After weeping some time, and putting his hands
on my head, he gave me his piece calumet to
and showed us that we should be in his country
in six days. Having arrived on the nineteenth day of
our navigation, five leagues below Saint Anthony's Falls, these Indians
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landed us in a bay and assembled to deliberate about us.
They distributed us separately and gave us to three heads
of families in place of three of their children who
had been killed in war. They first seized all our
property and broke our canoe to pieces, for fear that
we should return to their enemies their own They hid
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in some alders to use when going to hunt. And
though we might easily have reached their country by water,
they compelled us to go sixty leagues by land, forcing
us to march from daybreak to two hours after nightfall,
and to swim over many rivers. While these Indians, who
are often of extraordinary height, carried our habit on their head,
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and our two boatmen, who were smaller than myself, on
their shoulders, because they could not swim as I could.
On leaving the water, which was often full of sharp ice,
I could scarcely stand. Our legs were all bloody from
the ice which we broke as we advanced in lakes
which we forded and as we eat only once in
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twenty four hours, some pieces of meat which these barbarians
grudgingly gave us. I was so weak that I often
lay down on the way, resolved to die there, rather
than follow these Indians, who marched on and continued their
route with a celerity which surpasses the power of the Europeans.
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To oblige us to hasten on. They often set fire
to the grass of the prairies where we were passing,
so that we had to advance or burn. I had
then a hat which I reserved to shield me from
the burning rays of the sun in summer, but I
often dropped it in the flames which we were obliged
to cross. As we approached their village, they divided among
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them all the merchandise of our two canoemen, and were
near killing each other for our role of French tobacco,
which is very precious to these tribes and more esteemed
than gold among Europeans, and more humane. Showed by signs
that they would give many beaver skins for what they took.
The reason of the violence was that this party was
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made up from two different tribes, the more distant of
whom fearing lest the others should retain all the goods
in the first villages which they would have to pass.
Wished to take their share in advance. In fact, some
time after they offered peltries in part payment, but our
boatmen would not receive them until they gave the full
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value of all that had been taken. And in course
of time, I have no doubt they will give entire
satisfy to the French, whom they will endeavor to draw
among them to carry on trade. These savages also took
our brocade, Chaussabaal and all the articles of our portable chapel,
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except the chalice, which they durst not touch, for seeing
that glittering silver gilt, they closed their eyes, saying that
it was a spirit which would kill them. They also
broke a little box with lock and key, after telling
me that if I did not break the lock, they
would do so themselves with sharp stones. The reason of
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this violence was that from time to time on the
route they could not open the box to examine what
was inside, having no idea of locks and keys. Besides,
they did not care to carry the box, but only
the goods which were inside, and which they thought considerable.
But they found only books, and papers. After five days
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march by land, suffering hunger, thirst and outrages, marching all
day long without rest, fording lakes and rivers, we descried
a number of women and children coming to meet our
little army, all the elders of this nation assembled on
our account. And as we saw cabins and bundles of
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straw hanging from the posts of them, to which these
savages bind those whom they take as slaves and burn them.
And seeing that they made the picard du Gai sing
as he held and shook a gourd full of little
round pebbles, while his hair and face were filled with
paint of different colors, and a tuft of white feathers
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attached to his head. By the Indians, we not unreasonably
thought that they wished to kill us, as they performed
many ceremonies usually practiced when they intend to burn their enemies.
The worst of it was too, that not one of
us three could make himself understood by these Indians. Nevertheless,
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after many vows which every Christian would make in such straits,
one of the principal Iciati chiefs gave us his peace
calumet to smoke and accepted the one we had brought.
He then gave us some wild rice to eat, presenting
it to us in large bark dishes, which the Indian
women had seasoned with whortleberries, which are black grains which
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they dry in the sun in summer and are as
good as currants. After this feast, the best we had
had for seven or eight days. The heads of families
who had adopted us instead of their sons killed in
war conducted us separately, each to his village, marching through
marshes knee deep in water for a league, after which
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the five wives of the one who called me Michinchi,
that is to say, his son, received us in three
bark canoes and took us a short league from our
starting place to an island where their cabins were. On
our arrival, which was about Easter April twenty first, sixteen eighty,
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one of these Indians, who seemed to me decrepit, gave
me a large calumet to smoke, and, weeping bitterly rubbed
my head and arms, showing his companion at seeing me
so fatigued that two men were often obliged to give
me their hands to help me to stand up there
was a bear skin near the fire, on which he
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rubbed my legs in the soles of my feet with
wild cat oil. Footnote this is somewhat vague. Easter Sunday
in sixteen eighty fell on the twenty first of April.
He was taken on the eleventh of April, traveled nineteen
days in canoe and five by land, which brings him
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to the fifth of May. He perceived this afterward, and
in the English edition he says that he arrived some
time in May, but he there falls into a worse
error by putting Easter back to the twenty third of March.
And footnote. Acchipagaetin's son, who called me his brother, paraded
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about with our brocade chasubu on his bare back, having
rolled up in it some dead man's bones, for whom
these people had a great veneration. The priest's girdle, made
of red and white wool, with two tassels at the end,
served him for suspenders, carrying thus in triumph what he
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called pere luis Chenien, which means the robe of him
who is called the Sun. After the use these Indians
had used this tasubo to cover the bones of their dead.
They presented it to some of their allies tribes situated
about five hundred leagues west of their country, who had
(12:13):
sent them an embassy, and danced the calumet. The day
after our arrival, Accipagaetin, who was the head of a
large family, covered me with a robe made of ten
large dressed beaver skins trimmed with porcupine quills. This Indian
showed me five or six of his wives, telling them
(12:36):
as I afterward learned that they should in future regard
me as one of their children. He set before me
a bark dish full of fish, and ordered all those
assembled that each should call me by the name I
was to have in the rank of our near relationship.
(12:56):
And seeing that I could not rise from the ground,
but by the help of two others, he had a
sweating cabin made in which he made me enter naked
with four Indians. This cabin he covered with buffalo skins,
and inside he put stones red to the middle. He
made me a sign to do as the others before
(13:20):
beginning to sweat, But I merely concealed my nakedness with
a handkerchief. As soon as these Indians had several times
breathed out quite violently. He began to sing in a
thundering voice. The others seconded him, all putting their hands
on me and rubbing me while they wept bitterly. I
(13:42):
began to faint, but I came out and could scarcely
take my habit to put on. When he had made
me sweat thus three times a week, I felt as
strong as ever. I often spent sad hours among these savages,
for besides, there only giving me a little wild rice
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and smoked fish rose five or six times a week,
which they boiled in earthen pots. Occipagatin took me to
a neighboring island with his wives and children to till
the ground in order to sow some tobacco seed and
seeds of vegetables that I had brought, and which this
Indian prized extremely. Sometimes he assembled the elders of the village,
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in whose presence he asked me for a compass that
I always had in my sleeve, seeing that I made
the needle turn with the key, and believing justly that
we Europeans went all over the habitable globe guided by
this instrument, This chief, who was very eloquent, persuaded his
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people that we were spirits and capable of doing anything
beyond their reach. At the close of his address, which
was very animated, all the old men wept over my head,
admired in me what they could not understand. I had
an iron pot with three lion paul feet, which these
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Indians never dared touch unless their hand was wrapped up
in some robe. The women hung it to the branch
of a tree, not daring to enter the cabin where
it was. I was some time unable to make myself
understood by these people, but feeling myself gnawed by hunger,
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I began to compile a dictionary of their language by
means of their children, with whom I made myself familiar,
in order to learn. As soon as I could catch
the word taquetche a bien, which means in their language,
how do you call that? I became in a little
while able to converse with them on familiar things. At first, indeed,
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to ask the word run in their language, I had
to quicken my steps from one end of their large
cabin to the other. The yafts of these savages, seeing
my desire to learn, often made me right, naming all
the parts of the human body. As I would not
put on paper certain indelicate words at which they do
(16:12):
not blush, It afforded them an agreeable amusement. They often
put me questions, but as I had to look at
my paper to answer them, They said to one another,
when we ask Pere Louis, For so they had heard
our two frenchmen call me, he does not answer us.
But as soon as he has looked at what is white,
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for they have no word to say paper, he answers
us and tells us his thoughts. That white thing said,
they must be a spirit which tells Peer Louis all
we say. They concluded that our two frenchmen were not
as great as I, because they could not work like
me on what was white. In consequence, the Indians believed
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that I could do everything. When the rain fell in
such quantities as to incommode them or prevent their going
to hunt. They told me to stop it, but I
knew enough to answer them by pointing to the clouds,
that he was great, chief of heaven, was master of everything,
and that they bid me to do did not depend
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on me. These Indians often asked me how many wives
and children I had, and how old I was, that
is how many winters, for so these nations always count.
These men, never illumined by the lights of a faith,
were surprised at the answer I made them, for pointing
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to our two frenchmen, whom I had then gone to visit,
three leagues from our village, I told them that a
man among us could have only one wife till death.
That as for me, I had promised the Master of
life to live as they saw me, and to come
and live with them, to teach them that he would
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have them to be like the French. That this great
Master of life had sent down fire from heaven and
destroyed a nation given to enormous crimes like those committed
among them. But that gross people till then, lawless and faithless,
turned all I said into ridicule. How said they would
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you have those two men with thee have wives. Ours
would not live with them, for they have hair all
over the face, and we have none there or elsewhere.
In fact, they were never better pleased with me than
when I was shaved, and from a complaisance certainly not criminal,
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I shaved every week all our kindred, seeing that I
wished to leave them, made a packet of beaver skins
worth six hundred livres among the French. These peltries they
gave me to induce me to remain among them, to
introduce me to strange nations that were coming to visit them,
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and in restitution of what they had robbed me of.
But I refused these presents, telling them that I had
not come among them to gather beaver skins, but only
to tell them the will of the great Master of life,
and to live wretchedly with them after having left a
most abundant country. It is true, said they, that we
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have no chase in this part, and that thou sufferest.
But wait till summer. Then we will go and kill
buffalo in the warm country. I should have been satisfied
had they fed me as they did their children, But
they eat secretly at night, unknown to me. Although women
are for the most part more kind and compassionate than men,
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they gave what little fish they had to their children,
regarding me as a slave made by their warriors in
their enemy's country, and they reasonably preferred their children's lives
to mine. There were some old men who often came
to weep over my head in a sighing voice, saying
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son or nephew. I feel sorry to see thee without eating,
and to learn how badly our warriors treated thee on
the way. They are young braves without sense, who would
have killed thee and have robbed thee of all thou
hast hadst thou wanted buffalo or beaverobes, we would wipe
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away thy tears. But thou wilt have nothing of what
we offer thee wsi Kande, that is the pierced pine.
The greatest of all the Asati chiefs, being very indignant
at those who had so maltreated us, said in open
council that those who had robbed us of all we
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had were like hungry curs that stealthily snatch a bit
of meat from the bark dish and then fly. So
those who had acted so toward us deserved to be
regarded as dogs, since they insulted men who brought them
iron and merchandise which they had never had. That he
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would find means to punish the one who had so
outraged us. This is what the brave chief showed to
all his nation, as we shall see hereafter. As I
often went to visit the cabins of these last nations,
I found a sick child, whose father's name was mam
and NITHI, having a moral certainty of its death, I
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begged our two Frenchmen to give me their advice, telling
them I believed myself obliged to baptize it. Michael Acco
would not accompany me. The picard du Gai alone followed
me to act as sponsor or rather as witness of
the baptism. Footnote this is a curious affair a missionary
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consulting two canoemen as to the expediency of conferring a
sacrament and footnote. I christened the child Antoinette, in honor
of Saint Anthony of Padua, as well as from the
picard's name, which was Anthony Algerre. He was a native
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of Amiens and a nephew of mister de CAWROI, Procurator
General of the pre Monstratensians, both now at Paris. Having
poured natural water on the head of this Indian child
and uttered these words creature of God, I baptize thee
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in the name of the Father and of the and
of the Holy Ghost. I took half an altar cloth
which I had wrested from the hands of an Indian
who had stolen it from me, and put it on
the body of the baptized child. For as I could
not say mass for want of wine and vestments, this
piece of linen could not be put to a better
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use than to enshroud the first Christian child among these tribes.
I do not know whether the softness of the linen
had refreshed her, but she was the next day smiling
in her mother's arms, who believed that I had cured
her child. But she died soon after, to my great consolation.
(23:41):
During our stay among the Isati or nadu Athieu, we
saw Indians who came as ambassadors from about five hundred
leagues to the west. They informed us that the Assenipua
Yaks were then only seven or eight days distance to
the northeast of us. Footnote. This name Asenepoulach has now
(24:06):
been softened to Assiniboi. It is the algonquin epithet for
a large branch of the Dakota family, long hostile to
the Sioux, written also simply Puellach In footnote. All the
other known tribes on the west and northwest inhabit immense
plains and prairies abounding in Buffalo and peltries, where they
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are sometimes obliged to make fires with buffalo dung for
want of wood. Three months after all these nations assembled,
and the chiefs having regulated the places for hunting the buffalo,
they dispersed in several bands so as not to starve
each other. Accipagaetin, one of the chiefs, who had adopted
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me as his son, wished to take me to the
west with about two hundred families. I made answer that
I awaited spirits. So they called frenchmen at the River Wisconsin,
which empties into the River Colbert, who were to join
me to bring merchandise, and that if he went that way,
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I would continue with him. He would have gone but
for those of his nation. In the beginning of July
sixteen eighty, we descended in canoe southward with the great
chief named Onasikande, that is to say, the pierced Pine,
with about eighty cabins, composed of more than one hundred
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and thirty families and about two hundred and fifty warriors.
Scarcely would the Indians give me a place in their
little fleet, for they had only old canoes. They went
four leagues lower down to get birch bark to make
some more, having made a holy ground to hide our
silver chalice and our papers till we returned from the hunt,
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and keeping only our breviary so as not to be loaded.
I stood on the bank of a lake formed by
the river we had called Saint Francis, and stretched out
my hand to the canoes as they rapidly passed in succession.
Our Frenchmen also had won for themselves which the Indians
had given them. They would not take me in, Michael Acco,
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saying that he had taken me long enough to satisfy him.
I was hurt at this answer, seeing myself thus abandoned
by Christians, to whom I had always done good, as
they both often acknowledged. But God, having never abandoned me
in that painful voyage, inspired two Indians to take me
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in their little canoe, where I had no other employment
than to bail out with a little bark tray the
water which entered by little holes. This I did not
do without getting all wet. This boat might indeed be
called a death box from its lightness and fragility. These
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canoes do not generally weigh over fifty pounds. The least
motion of the body upsets them unless you are long
habituated to that kind of navigation. On disembarking in the evening,
the Picard, as an excuse, told me that their canoe
was half rotten, and that had we been three in it,
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we should have run a great risk of remaining on
the way. In spite of this excuse, I told him
that being Christians, they should not act so, especially among Indians,
more than eight hundred leagues from the French settlements, that
if they were well received in this country, it was
only in consequence of my bleeding some asthmatic Indians, and
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my giving them some or Vietan and other remedies which
I kept in my sleeve, and by which I had
saved the lives of some Indians bit by rattlesnakes, And
because I had neatly made their tonsure, which Indian children
wear to the age of eighteen or twenty, but have
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no way of making except by burning the hair with
red hot flat stones. I reminded them that by my
ingenuity I had gained the friendship of these people who
would have killed us or made us suffer more, had
they not discovered about me those remedies which they prized
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When they restore the sick to health. However, the Picard
only as he retired to his hosts, apologized to me.
Four days after our departure for the buffalo hunt, we
halted eight leagues above Saint Anthony of paste to us
falls on an eminence opposite the mouth of the river
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Saint Francis. Here the Indian women made their canoe frames
while waiting for those who were to bring bark to
make canoes. The young men went to hunt stag, deer
and beaver, but killed so few animals for such a
large party that we could very rarely get a bit
of meat, having to put up with a broth once
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in every twenty four hours. The Picard and myself went
to look for haws, gooseberries, and little wild fruit, which
often did us more harm than good. This obliged us
to go alone, as Michael Acco refused in a wretched
canoe to Wisconsin River, which was more than one hundred
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leagues off, to see whether the Sieux de la Salle
had sent to that place a reinforcement of men with powder,
lead and other munition, as he had promised us on
our departure from the Illinois footnote. This is the first
we hear of this promise, or of LaSalle's having sent
(30:13):
him to the Wisconsin, or given him a rendezvous there.
And footnote. The Indians would not have suffered this voyage
had not one of the three remained with them. They
wished me to stay, but Michael Acco absolutely refused. Our
whole stock was fifteen charges of powder, a gun, a
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wretched earthen pot which the Indians had given us, a knife,
and a beaver robe to make a journey of two
hundred leagues, thus abandoning ourselves to Providence. As we were
making the portage of our canoe at Saint Anthony of
Padua's Falls, we perceived five or six of our Indians
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who had taken the start. One of them was up
in an oak opposite the great fall, weeping bitterly, with
a well dressed beaver robe, whitened inside and trimmed with
porcupine quills, which he was offering as a sacrifice to
the falls, which is in itself admirable and frightful. I
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heard him, while shedding copious tears, say, as he spoke
to the great Cataract, thou who art a spirit, grant
that our nation may pass her quietly without accident, may
kill buffalo in abundance, conquer our enemies, and bring in slaves,
some of whom we will put to death before thee
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The Messenichith so they call the tribe named by the
French Wattuagamis, have killed our kindred grant that we may
avenge them. In fact, after the heat of the buffalo hunt,
they invaded their enemies, killed some, and brought others as slaves.
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If they succeed a single time, even after repeated failures,
they adhere to their superstition. This robe, offered in sacrifice,
served one of our Frenchmen, who took it as we returned.
End of section nineteen. Recording by Patrick mccaffee, Chicago,
Section nineteen of Discovery and Exploration of the Mississippi Valley.
This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please
visit LibriVox dot org. Recording by Patrick mc caffee, Chicago.
Discovering an Exploration of the Mississippi Valley by John Gilmery Shay,
(00:23):
Part two narrative of a voyage to the Upper Mississippi
by Father Louis Annapan. These Indians at times sent their
fleetest by land to chase the buffalo on the water side.
As these animals crossed the river, they sometimes killed forty
or fifty merely to take the tongue and most delicate morsels,
(00:46):
leaving the rest with which they would not burthen themselves,
so as to go on more rapidly. We sometimes indeed
eat good pieces, but without bread, wine, salt, or other seas.
During our three years travels we had lived in the
same way, sometimes in plenty, at others compelled to pass
(01:08):
twenty four hours and often more without eating, because in
these little bark canoes you cannot take much of a load,
and with every precaution you are for most part of
the time, deprived of all necessaries of life. If a
religious in Europe underwent many hardships and labors and abstinences
(01:31):
like those we were often obliged to suffer in America,
no other proof would be needed for his canonization. It
is true that we do not always merit in such cases,
and suffer only because we cannot help it. During the night,
some old men came to weep piteously, often rubbing our
(01:52):
arms and whole bodies with their hands, which they then
put on our head. Besides being hindered from sleep by
these tears, I often did not know what to think,
nor whether these Indians wept because some of their warriors
would have killed us, or out of pure compassion at
the ill treatment shown us. On another occasion, Accuipacquetin relapsed
(02:18):
into his bad humor. He had so gained most of
the warriors that one day, when we were unable to
encamp near our protector, Naritoba, we were obliged to go
to the very end of the camp the Indians, declaring
that this chief insisted positively on killing us. We accordingly
(02:39):
drew from a box twenty knives and some tobacco, which
we angrily flung down amid the malcontents, the wretch, regarding
all his soldiers one after another, hesitated, asking their advice
either to refuse or take our present. And as we
bowed our head and presented him with an axe to
kill us, the young chief, who was really or pretendedly
(03:02):
our protector, took us by the arm, and all in fury,
led us to his cabin. One of his brothers, taking
some arrows, broke them all in our presence, showing us
by this action that he prevented their killing us. The
next day they left us alone in our canoe, without
putting in any Indians to help us, as they usually did,
(03:25):
all remained behind us. After four or five leagues sail,
another chief came to us, made us disembark, and, pulling
up three little piles of grass, made us sit down.
He then took a piece of cedar full of little
round holes, in one of which he put a stick,
which he spun round between his two palms, and in
(03:48):
this way made fire to light the tobacco in his
great calumet. After weeping some time, and putting his hands
on my head, he gave me his piece calumet to
and showed us that we should be in his country
in six days. Having arrived on the nineteenth day of
our navigation, five leagues below Saint Anthony's Falls, these Indians
(04:13):
landed us in a bay and assembled to deliberate about us.
They distributed us separately and gave us to three heads
of families in place of three of their children who
had been killed in war. They first seized all our
property and broke our canoe to pieces, for fear that
we should return to their enemies their own They hid
(04:36):
in some alders to use when going to hunt. And
though we might easily have reached their country by water,
they compelled us to go sixty leagues by land, forcing
us to march from daybreak to two hours after nightfall,
and to swim over many rivers. While these Indians, who
are often of extraordinary height, carried our habit on their head,
(05:00):
and our two boatmen, who were smaller than myself, on
their shoulders, because they could not swim as I could.
On leaving the water, which was often full of sharp ice,
I could scarcely stand. Our legs were all bloody from
the ice which we broke as we advanced in lakes
which we forded and as we eat only once in
(05:22):
twenty four hours, some pieces of meat which these barbarians
grudgingly gave us. I was so weak that I often
lay down on the way, resolved to die there, rather
than follow these Indians, who marched on and continued their
route with a celerity which surpasses the power of the Europeans.
(05:42):
To oblige us to hasten on. They often set fire
to the grass of the prairies where we were passing,
so that we had to advance or burn. I had
then a hat which I reserved to shield me from
the burning rays of the sun in summer, but I
often dropped it in the flames which we were obliged
to cross. As we approached their village, they divided among
(06:06):
them all the merchandise of our two canoemen, and were
near killing each other for our role of French tobacco,
which is very precious to these tribes and more esteemed
than gold among Europeans, and more humane. Showed by signs
that they would give many beaver skins for what they took.
The reason of the violence was that this party was
(06:29):
made up from two different tribes, the more distant of
whom fearing lest the others should retain all the goods
in the first villages which they would have to pass.
Wished to take their share in advance. In fact, some
time after they offered peltries in part payment, but our
boatmen would not receive them until they gave the full
(06:52):
value of all that had been taken. And in course
of time, I have no doubt they will give entire
satisfy to the French, whom they will endeavor to draw
among them to carry on trade. These savages also took
our brocade, Chaussabaal and all the articles of our portable chapel,
(07:14):
except the chalice, which they durst not touch, for seeing
that glittering silver gilt, they closed their eyes, saying that
it was a spirit which would kill them. They also
broke a little box with lock and key, after telling
me that if I did not break the lock, they
would do so themselves with sharp stones. The reason of
(07:38):
this violence was that from time to time on the
route they could not open the box to examine what
was inside, having no idea of locks and keys. Besides,
they did not care to carry the box, but only
the goods which were inside, and which they thought considerable.
But they found only books, and papers. After five days
(08:02):
march by land, suffering hunger, thirst and outrages, marching all
day long without rest, fording lakes and rivers, we descried
a number of women and children coming to meet our
little army, all the elders of this nation assembled on
our account. And as we saw cabins and bundles of
(08:24):
straw hanging from the posts of them, to which these
savages bind those whom they take as slaves and burn them.
And seeing that they made the picard du Gai sing
as he held and shook a gourd full of little
round pebbles, while his hair and face were filled with
paint of different colors, and a tuft of white feathers
(08:47):
attached to his head. By the Indians, we not unreasonably
thought that they wished to kill us, as they performed
many ceremonies usually practiced when they intend to burn their enemies.
The worst of it was too, that not one of
us three could make himself understood by these Indians. Nevertheless,
(09:08):
after many vows which every Christian would make in such straits,
one of the principal Iciati chiefs gave us his peace
calumet to smoke and accepted the one we had brought.
He then gave us some wild rice to eat, presenting
it to us in large bark dishes, which the Indian
women had seasoned with whortleberries, which are black grains which
(09:33):
they dry in the sun in summer and are as
good as currants. After this feast, the best we had
had for seven or eight days. The heads of families
who had adopted us instead of their sons killed in
war conducted us separately, each to his village, marching through
marshes knee deep in water for a league, after which
(09:57):
the five wives of the one who called me Michinchi,
that is to say, his son, received us in three
bark canoes and took us a short league from our
starting place to an island where their cabins were. On
our arrival, which was about Easter April twenty first, sixteen eighty,
(10:20):
one of these Indians, who seemed to me decrepit, gave
me a large calumet to smoke, and, weeping bitterly rubbed
my head and arms, showing his companion at seeing me
so fatigued that two men were often obliged to give
me their hands to help me to stand up there
was a bear skin near the fire, on which he
(10:43):
rubbed my legs in the soles of my feet with
wild cat oil. Footnote this is somewhat vague. Easter Sunday
in sixteen eighty fell on the twenty first of April.
He was taken on the eleventh of April, traveled nineteen
days in canoe and five by land, which brings him
(11:05):
to the fifth of May. He perceived this afterward, and
in the English edition he says that he arrived some
time in May, but he there falls into a worse
error by putting Easter back to the twenty third of March.
And footnote. Acchipagaetin's son, who called me his brother, paraded
(11:28):
about with our brocade chasubu on his bare back, having
rolled up in it some dead man's bones, for whom
these people had a great veneration. The priest's girdle, made
of red and white wool, with two tassels at the end,
served him for suspenders, carrying thus in triumph what he
(11:51):
called pere luis Chenien, which means the robe of him
who is called the Sun. After the use these Indians
had used this tasubo to cover the bones of their dead.
They presented it to some of their allies tribes situated
about five hundred leagues west of their country, who had
(12:13):
sent them an embassy, and danced the calumet. The day
after our arrival, Accipagaetin, who was the head of a
large family, covered me with a robe made of ten
large dressed beaver skins trimmed with porcupine quills. This Indian
showed me five or six of his wives, telling them
(12:36):
as I afterward learned that they should in future regard
me as one of their children. He set before me
a bark dish full of fish, and ordered all those
assembled that each should call me by the name I
was to have in the rank of our near relationship.
(12:56):
And seeing that I could not rise from the ground,
but by the help of two others, he had a
sweating cabin made in which he made me enter naked
with four Indians. This cabin he covered with buffalo skins,
and inside he put stones red to the middle. He
made me a sign to do as the others before
(13:20):
beginning to sweat, But I merely concealed my nakedness with
a handkerchief. As soon as these Indians had several times
breathed out quite violently. He began to sing in a
thundering voice. The others seconded him, all putting their hands
on me and rubbing me while they wept bitterly. I
(13:42):
began to faint, but I came out and could scarcely
take my habit to put on. When he had made
me sweat thus three times a week, I felt as
strong as ever. I often spent sad hours among these savages,
for besides, there only giving me a little wild rice
(14:02):
and smoked fish rose five or six times a week,
which they boiled in earthen pots. Occipagatin took me to
a neighboring island with his wives and children to till
the ground in order to sow some tobacco seed and
seeds of vegetables that I had brought, and which this
Indian prized extremely. Sometimes he assembled the elders of the village,
(14:27):
in whose presence he asked me for a compass that
I always had in my sleeve, seeing that I made
the needle turn with the key, and believing justly that
we Europeans went all over the habitable globe guided by
this instrument, This chief, who was very eloquent, persuaded his
(14:47):
people that we were spirits and capable of doing anything
beyond their reach. At the close of his address, which
was very animated, all the old men wept over my head,
admired in me what they could not understand. I had
an iron pot with three lion paul feet, which these
(15:07):
Indians never dared touch unless their hand was wrapped up
in some robe. The women hung it to the branch
of a tree, not daring to enter the cabin where
it was. I was some time unable to make myself
understood by these people, but feeling myself gnawed by hunger,
(15:27):
I began to compile a dictionary of their language by
means of their children, with whom I made myself familiar,
in order to learn. As soon as I could catch
the word taquetche a bien, which means in their language,
how do you call that? I became in a little
while able to converse with them on familiar things. At first, indeed,
(15:52):
to ask the word run in their language, I had
to quicken my steps from one end of their large
cabin to the other. The yafts of these savages, seeing
my desire to learn, often made me right, naming all
the parts of the human body. As I would not
put on paper certain indelicate words at which they do
(16:12):
not blush, It afforded them an agreeable amusement. They often
put me questions, but as I had to look at
my paper to answer them, They said to one another,
when we ask Pere Louis, For so they had heard
our two frenchmen call me, he does not answer us.
But as soon as he has looked at what is white,
(16:34):
for they have no word to say paper, he answers
us and tells us his thoughts. That white thing said,
they must be a spirit which tells Peer Louis all
we say. They concluded that our two frenchmen were not
as great as I, because they could not work like
me on what was white. In consequence, the Indians believed
(16:58):
that I could do everything. When the rain fell in
such quantities as to incommode them or prevent their going
to hunt. They told me to stop it, but I
knew enough to answer them by pointing to the clouds,
that he was great, chief of heaven, was master of everything,
and that they bid me to do did not depend
(17:20):
on me. These Indians often asked me how many wives
and children I had, and how old I was, that
is how many winters, for so these nations always count.
These men, never illumined by the lights of a faith,
were surprised at the answer I made them, for pointing
(17:42):
to our two frenchmen, whom I had then gone to visit,
three leagues from our village, I told them that a
man among us could have only one wife till death.
That as for me, I had promised the Master of
life to live as they saw me, and to come
and live with them, to teach them that he would
(18:03):
have them to be like the French. That this great
Master of life had sent down fire from heaven and
destroyed a nation given to enormous crimes like those committed
among them. But that gross people till then, lawless and faithless,
turned all I said into ridicule. How said they would
(18:27):
you have those two men with thee have wives. Ours
would not live with them, for they have hair all
over the face, and we have none there or elsewhere.
In fact, they were never better pleased with me than
when I was shaved, and from a complaisance certainly not criminal,
(18:50):
I shaved every week all our kindred, seeing that I
wished to leave them, made a packet of beaver skins
worth six hundred livres among the French. These peltries they
gave me to induce me to remain among them, to
introduce me to strange nations that were coming to visit them,
(19:12):
and in restitution of what they had robbed me of.
But I refused these presents, telling them that I had
not come among them to gather beaver skins, but only
to tell them the will of the great Master of life,
and to live wretchedly with them after having left a
most abundant country. It is true, said they, that we
(19:36):
have no chase in this part, and that thou sufferest.
But wait till summer. Then we will go and kill
buffalo in the warm country. I should have been satisfied
had they fed me as they did their children, But
they eat secretly at night, unknown to me. Although women
are for the most part more kind and compassionate than men,
(20:00):
they gave what little fish they had to their children,
regarding me as a slave made by their warriors in
their enemy's country, and they reasonably preferred their children's lives
to mine. There were some old men who often came
to weep over my head in a sighing voice, saying
(20:20):
son or nephew. I feel sorry to see thee without eating,
and to learn how badly our warriors treated thee on
the way. They are young braves without sense, who would
have killed thee and have robbed thee of all thou
hast hadst thou wanted buffalo or beaverobes, we would wipe
(20:42):
away thy tears. But thou wilt have nothing of what
we offer thee wsi Kande, that is the pierced pine.
The greatest of all the Asati chiefs, being very indignant
at those who had so maltreated us, said in open
council that those who had robbed us of all we
(21:04):
had were like hungry curs that stealthily snatch a bit
of meat from the bark dish and then fly. So
those who had acted so toward us deserved to be
regarded as dogs, since they insulted men who brought them
iron and merchandise which they had never had. That he
(21:25):
would find means to punish the one who had so
outraged us. This is what the brave chief showed to
all his nation, as we shall see hereafter. As I
often went to visit the cabins of these last nations,
I found a sick child, whose father's name was mam
and NITHI, having a moral certainty of its death, I
(21:50):
begged our two Frenchmen to give me their advice, telling
them I believed myself obliged to baptize it. Michael Acco
would not accompany me. The picard du Gai alone followed
me to act as sponsor or rather as witness of
the baptism. Footnote this is a curious affair a missionary
(22:14):
consulting two canoemen as to the expediency of conferring a
sacrament and footnote. I christened the child Antoinette, in honor
of Saint Anthony of Padua, as well as from the
picard's name, which was Anthony Algerre. He was a native
(22:36):
of Amiens and a nephew of mister de CAWROI, Procurator
General of the pre Monstratensians, both now at Paris. Having
poured natural water on the head of this Indian child
and uttered these words creature of God, I baptize thee
(22:57):
in the name of the Father and of the and
of the Holy Ghost. I took half an altar cloth
which I had wrested from the hands of an Indian
who had stolen it from me, and put it on
the body of the baptized child. For as I could
not say mass for want of wine and vestments, this
piece of linen could not be put to a better
(23:20):
use than to enshroud the first Christian child among these tribes.
I do not know whether the softness of the linen
had refreshed her, but she was the next day smiling
in her mother's arms, who believed that I had cured
her child. But she died soon after, to my great consolation.
(23:41):
During our stay among the Isati or nadu Athieu, we
saw Indians who came as ambassadors from about five hundred
leagues to the west. They informed us that the Assenipua
Yaks were then only seven or eight days distance to
the northeast of us. Footnote. This name Asenepoulach has now
(24:06):
been softened to Assiniboi. It is the algonquin epithet for
a large branch of the Dakota family, long hostile to
the Sioux, written also simply Puellach In footnote. All the
other known tribes on the west and northwest inhabit immense
plains and prairies abounding in Buffalo and peltries, where they
(24:31):
are sometimes obliged to make fires with buffalo dung for
want of wood. Three months after all these nations assembled,
and the chiefs having regulated the places for hunting the buffalo,
they dispersed in several bands so as not to starve
each other. Accipagaetin, one of the chiefs, who had adopted
(24:53):
me as his son, wished to take me to the
west with about two hundred families. I made answer that
I awaited spirits. So they called frenchmen at the River Wisconsin,
which empties into the River Colbert, who were to join
me to bring merchandise, and that if he went that way,
(25:16):
I would continue with him. He would have gone but
for those of his nation. In the beginning of July
sixteen eighty, we descended in canoe southward with the great
chief named Onasikande, that is to say, the pierced Pine,
with about eighty cabins, composed of more than one hundred
(25:39):
and thirty families and about two hundred and fifty warriors.
Scarcely would the Indians give me a place in their
little fleet, for they had only old canoes. They went
four leagues lower down to get birch bark to make
some more, having made a holy ground to hide our
silver chalice and our papers till we returned from the hunt,
(26:04):
and keeping only our breviary so as not to be loaded.
I stood on the bank of a lake formed by
the river we had called Saint Francis, and stretched out
my hand to the canoes as they rapidly passed in succession.
Our Frenchmen also had won for themselves which the Indians
had given them. They would not take me in, Michael Acco,
(26:29):
saying that he had taken me long enough to satisfy him.
I was hurt at this answer, seeing myself thus abandoned
by Christians, to whom I had always done good, as
they both often acknowledged. But God, having never abandoned me
in that painful voyage, inspired two Indians to take me
(26:51):
in their little canoe, where I had no other employment
than to bail out with a little bark tray the
water which entered by little holes. This I did not
do without getting all wet. This boat might indeed be
called a death box from its lightness and fragility. These
(27:11):
canoes do not generally weigh over fifty pounds. The least
motion of the body upsets them unless you are long
habituated to that kind of navigation. On disembarking in the evening,
the Picard, as an excuse, told me that their canoe
was half rotten, and that had we been three in it,
(27:34):
we should have run a great risk of remaining on
the way. In spite of this excuse, I told him
that being Christians, they should not act so, especially among Indians,
more than eight hundred leagues from the French settlements, that
if they were well received in this country, it was
only in consequence of my bleeding some asthmatic Indians, and
(27:59):
my giving them some or Vietan and other remedies which
I kept in my sleeve, and by which I had
saved the lives of some Indians bit by rattlesnakes, And
because I had neatly made their tonsure, which Indian children
wear to the age of eighteen or twenty, but have
(28:19):
no way of making except by burning the hair with
red hot flat stones. I reminded them that by my
ingenuity I had gained the friendship of these people who
would have killed us or made us suffer more, had
they not discovered about me those remedies which they prized
(28:42):
When they restore the sick to health. However, the Picard
only as he retired to his hosts, apologized to me.
Four days after our departure for the buffalo hunt, we
halted eight leagues above Saint Anthony of paste to us
falls on an eminence opposite the mouth of the river
(29:04):
Saint Francis. Here the Indian women made their canoe frames
while waiting for those who were to bring bark to
make canoes. The young men went to hunt stag, deer
and beaver, but killed so few animals for such a
large party that we could very rarely get a bit
of meat, having to put up with a broth once
(29:27):
in every twenty four hours. The Picard and myself went
to look for haws, gooseberries, and little wild fruit, which
often did us more harm than good. This obliged us
to go alone, as Michael Acco refused in a wretched
canoe to Wisconsin River, which was more than one hundred
(29:50):
leagues off, to see whether the Sieux de la Salle
had sent to that place a reinforcement of men with powder,
lead and other munition, as he had promised us on
our departure from the Illinois footnote. This is the first
we hear of this promise, or of LaSalle's having sent
(30:13):
him to the Wisconsin, or given him a rendezvous there.
And footnote. The Indians would not have suffered this voyage
had not one of the three remained with them. They
wished me to stay, but Michael Acco absolutely refused. Our
whole stock was fifteen charges of powder, a gun, a
(30:36):
wretched earthen pot which the Indians had given us, a knife,
and a beaver robe to make a journey of two
hundred leagues, thus abandoning ourselves to Providence. As we were
making the portage of our canoe at Saint Anthony of
Padua's Falls, we perceived five or six of our Indians
(30:58):
who had taken the start. One of them was up
in an oak opposite the great fall, weeping bitterly, with
a well dressed beaver robe, whitened inside and trimmed with
porcupine quills, which he was offering as a sacrifice to
the falls, which is in itself admirable and frightful. I
(31:20):
heard him, while shedding copious tears, say, as he spoke
to the great Cataract, thou who art a spirit, grant
that our nation may pass her quietly without accident, may
kill buffalo in abundance, conquer our enemies, and bring in slaves,
some of whom we will put to death before thee
(31:42):
The Messenichith so they call the tribe named by the
French Wattuagamis, have killed our kindred grant that we may
avenge them. In fact, after the heat of the buffalo hunt,
they invaded their enemies, killed some, and brought others as slaves.
(32:03):
If they succeed a single time, even after repeated failures,
they adhere to their superstition. This robe, offered in sacrifice,
served one of our Frenchmen, who took it as we returned.
End of section nineteen. Recording by Patrick mccaffee, Chicago,
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