The White and the Gold (14 page)

Of all the Frenchmen who listened to the call of the wild, Etienne Brulé was perhaps the most rash but also the most daring and enterprising. The records do not supply a description of him, but it is not difficult to achieve a mental picture of this wild and unfortunate man. It is known that he was extraordinarily strong. In his last appearances among white men he was dressed like an Indian, his powerful torso bared to the waist and tanned as brown as walnut. His hair, it may be guessed, was shocky and coarse. His eyes, when he became angry, which was often, had a reddish glint in them. He had gone native, living as the Indians did, taking brown-skinned wives wherever he went and putting them away as his fancy dictated. Father Gabriel Sagard, who was his friend, acknowledged sadly that Brulé was “much addicted to women.”

After the failure of the expedition against the Iroquois, Brulé began on the travels which would have made him famous if his achievements had not been blotted out by a final act of treachery. He went down the Susquehanna and reached the northern tip of Chesapeake Bay. On his way back he was captured by the Iroquois but made his escape by a lucky accident. He had been the first to ascend the Ottawa, crossing to the Mattawa and following its course to Lake Nipissing and the French River, thus establishing the route to the Huron country. He had also been the first to set eyes on Georgian Bay. Making his way through the Inner Passage, he had reached Lake Huron.

His failure to return to Quebec convinced Champlain that his onetime servant had been killed. No one could have been more completely alive and active. Brulé’s first move after returning to the Huron country was to lead a party past Michilimackinac and so out to the waters of Lake Superior, the Grand Lac. Some historians believe that to his list of “firsts” should be added the discovery of Lake Michigan. If he failed to reach it, Michigan was the only one of the Great Lakes that he overlooked. He saw all the others first.

He took no notes, he drew no maps, he wrote no stories of his travels; but the verbal reports he gave of what he had seen left no doubts as to the truth of his statements. In all probability there was no serious purpose back of his wanderings. He liked to be on the
move, to have a paddle in his hands, his eyes fixed on the farthest horizon. Had he shared the scientific interest of the men who came after him and followed the trails he blazed, his name would have headed the list of early American explorers.

This phase of the life of Etienne Brulé is the bright side of the picture. There will be more to tell about him later, and it will be, unfortunately, a quite different story.

The six months which followed for Champlain, amounting to a form of detention, were lived through at first with the keenest distaste, but gradually the leader saw that the situation held compensations. He came to know the Indians with a thoroughness which would not have been possible under any other circumstances. His busy mind was never allowed to rest. While the disgruntled braves lolled on their lice-infested platforms and smoked the time away in uneasy speculation as to when and in what form the ire of the Iroquois would manifest itself, Champlain watched and talked and asked questions. What he learned was put down on paper, a wealth of information which makes possible an understanding of many phases of Canadian history.

It is probable that the long cold months were lived through at Cahiagué, where the blow, if it came at all, was most likely to fall. It has already been said that the village consisted of two hundred lodges, and the description that Champlain supplies makes it clear that they were community houses, some being as long as two hundred feet. They were made of roughhewn boards bent inward to form an arch. Inside they were regions of bedlam, with long platforms a few feet above the ground on each side and with a narrow open space between. These platforms were divided into spaces for the various families; and here they lived and ate and slept and performed all the natural functions with a lack of privacy equaling that of the animals in the Ark. Down the center of these malodorous caverns there was a series of family fires belching forth sparks and smoke which stubbornly refused to leave by the open space between the ends of the planks above and thus established a murkiness of atmosphere through which the brown skulls and fierce features of the inmates loomed dimly like denizens of the nether regions. In the dark and drafty upper reaches unshelled corn hung down on
long lines looped from section to section, with the family clothing, the skins, cured and uncured, the dried fish, the weapons, and the rather pitiful prized possessions of these primitive people.

Champlain’s first consideration, of course, was to improve the defenses, making sure that guards were always mounted on the galleries and that supplies were kept of stones and water to be used in case of attack. He realized by this time that he had espoused the weaker side in this agelong feud. Nothing the Hurons could do would ever put them on an equality with the Iroquois in the making of war. The men of the Long House were the great warriors of America, dauntless, hard, and with all the cunning of wild animals. Some authorities have advanced the opinion that the Iroquois brave, for courage and craft and power of endurance, has never had an equal, placing him even above the mounted bowmen of Genghis Khan, who were truly terrific fighters, and the inspired Ironsides of Cromwell.

The Iroquois reprisals did not materialize and the winter was spent in the most deadly monotony. The food, always flat because the Indian did not understand the use of salt or any form of seasoning, became so bad as the winter progressed that the civilized stomachs of the unwilling guests were revolted by the dreadful messes prepared by the toothless and quarrelsome squaws. There was always a shortage of the dog flesh which was a staple article, and very rarely did the hunters bring in venison or bear meat. Usually a meal consisted of heavy concoctions of dried corn, sometimes called sagamité and sometimes migan, the latter a combination of corn meal with smoked fish, which gave it a peculiarly offensive odor. Perhaps the Frenchmen witnessed something which later caused the missionaries the most extreme revulsion. The young boys of the tribe devoured the cooked hearts of captives who had died bravely at the stake, under the impression that they would acquire thereby some of the same brand of fortitude themselves.

Champlain had known before that in striking a balance between the virtues and faults of the red men their morals had to be placed on the debit side. The Huron men were lazy, they were natural thieves, they were treacherous and unpredictable. They were inefficient even in the few duties they took on themselves. The women, after a few years of unbridled license and passion, were hopeless drudges, busy all day at plodding tasks and becoming in time more cruel than the men. Jacques Cartier had reported a custom at Hochelaga of turning
all girls at puberty into a community brothel, where they remained until they chose a husband. The Huron custom was based on trial marriage. A girl, after receiving a gift of wampum, would live with a man for a long enough period to decide whether they suited each other well enough to make a permanent partnership of it. The more attractive of the dusky belles made as many as a dozen experiments before settling down, and gathered as a result a very handsome store of wampum and other gewgaws for the adornment of their plump brown bodies. This fickleness did not weigh against them. It was a recognized approach to matrimony and, if they never again allowed their fancy to stray after settling down, they were as well regarded as the young squaws who had been less adventurous.

The most interesting possession in all Indian tribes was wampum, belts or strips of skin covered with designs in small shells of many colors. Wampum was like money in the sense that it served as a commodity of exchange, but it was much more important than that. It was used as well as a means of recording historical events. In treaty making, wampum was employed as a pledge and proof of the decisions arrived at, each side carrying away strips which illustrated what had been decided. Champlain may have seen with his own eyes the first stage in the making of wampum. A dead body, usually that of an antagonist who had been killed in battle or had perished miserably under torture, was slashed with long deep cuts on the belly and buttocks and other fleshy parts. The body was then lowered into deep water and left there for a considerable length of time. When brought to the surface, it would be found that small shellfish had buried themselves in the cuts. From the inner surface of these barnacles the handsomely tinted pieces of shell were cut which served in the designing of the wampum.

Even at this early stage of relationship between white man and red the taciturnity of the latter was fully recognized. On most occasions the Indian had no more to say than the customary “Ho!” of greeting, but in the winter evenings it was a different matter. As they crowded around the fires and blinked with their smoke-filled eyes (most of them developed diseases of the eye early in life), their tongues unloosened and they cackled and laughed and boasted and lapsed into the broadest of humor. The elders orated and were given always an attentive hearing; the women sat about and listened, their fingers busy at some task. Champlain took full advantage of his opportunity, asking questions and making notes later of the answers.

It is not surprising that the shell of the Huron taciturnity cracked wide open, because this was the season of talk. It was, in fact, the only safe time for the braves to indulge themselves in loquacity. The gods were imprisoned in winter in blocks of ice and so lost all contact with living men, whereas in summer they roamed the woods and sat at the shoulders of men and heard everything that was said, so that it behooved everyone to speak warily because the gods took offense easily and were prone to wreak vengeance on anyone spreading tales about them.

The Hurons were prepared even to speak of their religious beliefs. Out of the information given him Champlain asserts that they had no conception of one god. In this he was misled. They had a conviction of the immortality of the soul, these benighted inhabitants of the deep and inhospitable forest, as well as a belief in one great god above all others (called by the Iroquois, who also believed, “He who lives in the sky”). The Hurons had a theory of their own, that the spirits of dead warriors took a long journey along the Milky Way, racing at top speed, so fast that no enemy could overtake them, the winds blowing fiercely at their backs to help them on, until they came to the Happy Hunting Ground. The Hurons were certain that their favorite dogs had souls but they would not concede as much to their women. The Algonquins, a gross and licentious race, were sure that after death the souls of warriors lived in a heaven where they feasted and danced through all eternity.

It is certain that the Hurons kept from the constantly questing Champlain a secret about themselves which was ascertained much later. They had an understanding of picture-writing. Racial legends and beliefs were set down in symbols on flat pieces of wood, and these were preserved and handed down from one generation to another. Among the stories thus preserved was a version of the beginning of things. A literal translation of the start of their saga of the making of the world ran as follows:

The arrow wound in Champlain’s leg had healed (fortunately only the Cat People used poisoned arrows in war) and so he was able to venture out into the open, where the air was sharp and damp and penetrating. It was a constant amazement to him that his hosts went about in semi-nakedness, oblivious of the cold which froze the ears
and noses of his Frenchmen. The women were not as hardy as this and preferred to bundle themselves up warmly in robes made of the skins of wild animals, the unmarried ones being particularly partial to this kind of luxury. It was not uncommon to meet young squaws looking very handsome in coats of fox or ermine or otter which would not have looked out of place on the backs of European princesses. They were openly flirtatious, and some of them did not seem to have a thought in their sleek brown heads of demanding wampum.

When spring came it was apparent to the Huron chiefs that the white men could not be kept as their guests forever if the friendship between them, which the northern nations prized above everything, was to be maintained. The Iroquois had not struck and it might be that they had decided not to attempt so bold a reprisal. At any rate, the canoes and the necessary crews were produced for the return trip, and early in April they set out. As they progressed at high speed down the rushing waters of the Ottawa, the mind of Champlain was busily at work. The defeat sustained provided him with plenty of reason for serious reflection, and it is possible that the specter of future wars was constantly before him. A more pleasant thought may have occupied his mind at intervals. This long thrust he had made into the unknown wilds must have appeared to him as the first of countless other ventures. Perhaps the certainty entered his thoughts that Frenchmen had a special liking, and a great natural capacity, for the adventurous kind of life. It is pleasant to assume that he had visions of what would follow: of Frenchmen, bold and gay, venturing out in long canoes of their own to open up the North and West, singing to the dip of the paddles, living and dying on the trails of the forest and the great waters, and creating legends which would never die.

It must not be assumed that while Champlain conducted his bold explorations all was plain sailing in France. It is true that the company began to make money, paying profits of 40 per cent one year. The new viceroy received his thousand crowns annually and a share of the profits without lifting one of his delicately white hands to earn such a reward. In fact, this rather stupid scion of an illustrious line
proceeded to destroy whatever value he had for the syndicate by getting at odds with the administration.

Condé had married Alice de Montmorenci, one of the great beauties of France, and in the last years of the life of the amorous Henry IV he had found it expedient to live in exile with his lovely mate. Only on Henry’s death did he venture back to pick up the threads of a normal life, and it might be thought that even an ordinary degree of caution would have prevented him from getting embroiled in the political feuds of the day. Unfortunately he had no political sagacity and became involved almost immediately in intrigues against the ministers of the young King. Soon after his appointment as viceroy of Canada he became deeply committed in these conspiracies. In 1616, at a time when his wife had decided to seek a divorce from him, he was placed under arrest and packed off to the Bastille. The fair Alice then decided it was her duty to stand by her spouse and she went to the great prison which held turbulent Paris in awe to share his rigorous confinement—with several body servants and footmen, a cook, a barber, and a confessor! Here they remained for three years, and the boy who became the great Condé was born as a result of this reconciliation.