1673
The Mission notably grew and has grown proportionately in the years following. This multitude was the occasion for greater evils, as we shall see hereafter. The Natives having been instructed in summer at the village went to preach our Faith in the woods in winter, while pursuing their hunting. The infidel Iroquois coming by chance while hunting about the cabins of our new Christians admired the change, which had occurred in these new apostles. The women, who from all time have been called the devout gender had learned the prayers sooner than the men, and they were the ones who said them aloud in the woods. One of those women who still say them now in the Church of the Sault, said them during the winter in the woods, where her husband had taken her at the hunt, in the side of Chambly. A famous warrior celebrated among the Agniers, because he defeated the Nation of the Cats, fortunately happened to enter the cabin of her of whom we speak. She did not fall into the inconvenience into which the Natives often fall that of human respect. Having no regard for the good or evil disposition of their guest, she always said her prayers. This warrior listened to them and took pleasure therein, admiring their meaning and words. He had taken taste for them and learned them by heart through hearing them repeated. He sometimes said, “The one who teaches you has much spirit, that is well found.” But, they told him that those prayers were made before the missionary Fathers were in the world. This remark still more increased his esteem, he learned them very well and did not leave those who taught them to him. In the following spring he came with the others to the village of La Prairie, he did like them, that is, according to the praiseworthy custom, which prevails here and that began at that time. He went to Church or before entering the cabin or immediately after laying down his load and recited his prayers with his guides that obliged Father Fremin to ask who that man was and where he came and who had taught him the prayers. They described to him this person, his thoughts and how he had spent the winter. The Father, judging of his intelligence, found in him only one failing, he was not married and there were as yet no girl to offer him. He then told him, partly to sound this spirit that he should go to his own country and take his comrade also, and there choose her who should please him most, and come back and that he would be baptized. This proposition pleased our man, who added that he would return and would show whether he had any influence. He went back, he spoke to many in secret and chooses a wife. Having gained many persons, he sets the day for the general departure. When the day came, he broke out the matter and in a loud voice said farewell in the midst of the village and orders his people to pack their bundles.
A Father, Father Boniface, even joins them to lead them away. The quality, the zeal and the spirit of God that this man possessed shut the mouths of all the elders, who were in their hearts enraged at seeing such boldness and not knowing whom to blame. They at once had broken the head of another man, who had less authority. This farewell being soon done, about forty persons are seen to depart, men, women and children leaving their fatherland to come to make themselves Christians at Montreal (Sault). This first shock gave to infidelity has depopulated the country of Agnier, for it succeeded so well that from that time people have come down from the Iroquois in great bands in order to live at La Prairie, and in less than seven years the warriors of Agnier have become more numerous at Montreal than they are in their country. That enrages both the elders of the villages and the Flemings of Manate and Orange. In a short time, less than a year or two, two hundred persons were thus added to the number of the Christians of La Prairie. That greatly rejoiced the French, who began all well to the trade and availing themselves of the ill will of Monsieur the Count of Frontenac, who had changed since last year, by introducing liquor at La Prairie. One especially, bolder than the others, located a tavern in the village itself. But the adroitness and the firmness of the spirit of Father Fremin, together with his zeal ended the progress of this cursed trade and saved his flocked the waves of the Red Sea which were to swallow them up, it was on this occasion that the Captains showed what they were by combating the vice of drunkenness, which they had abandoned in their own country for those who made their God.
This monster being felled was followed by another. In this great number of Natives, there were three different nations, very numerous: Agniers, Hurons and Onondagas and we regarded it as necessary to give to each one its own Chief. They then assembled for that purpose, but dissension arose in one faction. The Hurons were long in consultation, the Agniers and the Onondagas had immediately made their choice. Finally, the Hurons, being piqued in the contest, separated themselves and went to start a new Mission beyond the river. This separation was painful and did not fall to keep their spirits in disunion for some time. But, finally finding everywhere the same Faith and the same Gospel, and especially the union that prevails among all the missionaries in Canada, for a second time broke the efforts of the demon.
God himself afflicted this Mission by taking from it its support in the person of Catherine Ganneaktena, illustrious in virtue, whose memory is still in benediction at La Prairie, twelve years after her death. It was truly a great affliction, because the poor then lost their mother, the Christians their example, the French and the Natives their well beloved. A narrative is to be made of her virtues, which cause every one to say that she is in Heaven. She has left the heir to the Chapel of the ornaments of her youth, which have become precious through the consecration that she made of them during her lifetime and through the multitude of other presents, which one sees attached to the beams of the Chapel and to the front beam of the altar, which they have attracted in the years following.
This death gave occasion to a praiseworthy custom, which now prevails in the Mission. There is no doubt that the Natives, in the time of their infidelity had many superstitions in their burials as in everything else. The kingdom of God becoming established at La Prairie, Our Lord inspired the husband of the deceased Catherine to make a proposition. This poor afflicted man seeing his wife despaired, made a feast to his friends and addressed them as follows, “In the past, before we were Christians, we employed superstitions to cure our sick and sickness cast us into the utmost affliction. Now that we pray, we invoke the name of Jesus for their cure. If they die, we console ourselves in the hope of seeing them in Heaven. Let us then say our Rosary for the dying woman before we eat.” The same man after his wife’s death, behaved like a perfect Christian. It is the custom of the Natives to give all the goods of the deceased to their relatives and friends, to cry for their dead and to bury with them a portion of what they owed during their life and to set up tombs and paint thereon beasts and birds, which they call spirits or masters of life. But, the husband of our deceased woman, in his capacity of first Captain, assembled the council of the elders and told them that their former customs were of no profit to their died. He said that as for him his thought was since she was to rise again some day and to employ the rest of what had belonged to her in giving alms to the poor. This thought was followed by each one and it has become a sort of law that exactly since been observed. They even blamed him for covering his wife’s body. The have not imitated him in that, but give the most precious clothes to the poor and cover the body with their ordinary clothes, saying that the deceased will prefer to pray to God said for them out of their own riches. On the occasion of which we speak, they distributed to the poor three hundred livres in all and while making this praiseworthy distribution they said, “Pray for the dead woman.”
1674
It was a happy year was a blessed one for the Mission, because marriages in it were securely established in manner in which they are solemnized throughout the church. Some who had been married in the Native fashion had no other ceremonies than that of baptism at which they said that they would never leave their wives. The marriage ceremonies had not yet been established, but the Natives on becoming more instructed and better accustomed were married only according to the rites of the Church and God has given so great a blessing that divorce has thus far been very infrequent occurrence and the one who has effected it is held in abomination. It is fully twenty years since the Mission was founded, and one would not find twenty persons who have left their wives and those who have left them have always returned, after some years to die in the village. It is for the reason of this state where the Natives, which the power of God affirms the most lightly spirits than the wind and feather, that is to say the spirit of the Natives. Although many marriages have occurred in past years, the marriage records indicate still more this year. That if God has allowed some to break their word, it has been only to show the young women living alone like angels and thereby facilitating for many the way to perpetual virginity. This has happened in the case of two who have lately carried it to Heaven, as I noted in the following years.
1675
This increase of Faith and virtue among the Natives led to the belief that they were proper as fit for Christianity, as are the other peoples of the earth. There had been sown four years ago the seeds of a devotion that is great in this country, they call it, “The Holy Family.” Father Pierron had given Rosaries of the Holy Family to some elite persons, the first was Catherine Ganneaktena, but he had not made the explanation of the Rosary. This gave occasion to the Natives to ask for it the more urgently, because they knew that it had been taught to the Natives of Lorette. Father Fremin judging that if a selection were made of the most fervent people the multitude would not be injurious to the Mission to establish the Holy Family. This association began only this year to have some lustre, because in the preceding years it was but a small assembly, but the number of these chosen persons increased with the number of the Christians and with the Mission. This year was the last for a young man named Martin Skandegonrthaksen, aged twenty years, he died in the woods as one predestined. An account of this death will be given.
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