The Huron-Wendat Feast of the Dead: Indian-European Encounters in Early North America

172 Pages·2011·25.99 MB·English

by  Erik R. Seeman

The Huron-Wendat Feast of the Dead
Witness to History
Peter Charles Hoffer and Williamjames Hull Hoffer, Series Editors
also in the series:
Williamjames Hull Hoffer, The Caning of Charles Sumner: Honor, Idealism,
and the Origins of the Civil War
Tim Lehman, Bloodshed at Little Bighorn: Sitting Bull, Custer, and the
Destinies of Nations
Daniel R. Mandell, King Philip’s War: Colonial Expansion, Native Resistance,
and the End of Indian Sovereignty
http://avaxhome.ws/blogs/ChrisRedfield
THE HURON-WENDAT
FEAST OF THE DEAD
Indian-European Encounters
in Early North America
ERIK R. SEEMAN
The Johns Hopkins University Press | Baltimore
© 2011 The Johns Hopkins University Press
All rights reserved. Published 2011
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Seeman, Erik R.
The Huron-Wendat feast of the dead : Indian-European encounters in
early North America / Erik R. Seeman.
p. cm. — (Witness to history)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn-13: 978-0-8018-9854-9 (hardcover : alk. paper)
isbn-10: 0-8018-9854-4 (hardcover : alk. paper)
isbn-13: 978-0-8018-9855-6 (pbk. : alk. paper)
isbn-10: 0-8018-9855-2 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Wyandot Indians—Funeral customs and rites—Ontario—History—
17th century. 2. Wyandot Indians—Ontario—Social life and customs—17th
century. 3. Indians of North America—First contact with Europeans—
Ontario. 4. Jesuits—Ontario—History—17th century. I. Title.
e99.h9s44 2011
971.3004'97—dc22
2010022273
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CONTENTS
Prologue: Encounters with Bones and Death 1
one The Origins of Wendake 6
two Catholicism and Colonization 23
three First Encounters 38
four The Feast of the Dead 59
five Epidemic Tensions 80
six Conversion and Conflict 100
seven Destruction 117
Epilogue: Bones of Contention, Bones of Consolation 133
Acknowledgments 145
Notes 147
Suggested Further Reading 155
Index 159

The Huron-Wendat Feast of the Dead

Prologue
•
Encounters with Bones and Death
•
one The Origins of Wendake
• On May 12, 1636, two thousand Wendat (Huron) Indians stood
on the edge of an enormous burial pit. Near the village of Ossossané in what
is today Ontario, Canada, they held in their arms the bones of roughly seven
hundred deceased friends and family members. The Wendats had lovingly
•
scraped and cleaned the bones of corpses that had decomposed on scaffolds.
They awaited only the signal from the master of the ritual to place the bones
Catholicism and
itnwto othe pit. This was the great Feast of the Dead.
Also standing near the burial pit was a French Catholic missionary named
• Colonization
Jean de Brébeuf. One might assume that he was horrified by this non-Chris-
tian ritual with its unfamiliar cries and chants, and by the earlier preparation
of the corpses, some only partially decomposed and seething with maggots.
Yet not only was Brébeuf fascinated by the Feast of the Dead, but he also
•“admired” this “magnificent” ritual. He described it in great detail for French
readers, telling them that it was “heartening to see” the Wendats show such
devotion to their dead.1
three First Encounters
Brébeuf’s largely sympathetic portrayal of the Feast of the Dead drew on
•parallel Catholic and Wendat understandings of death and human remains.
•
four The Feast of the Dead
•
2 The Huron-Wendat Feast of the Dead
Both groups adhered to religions that focused on the mysteries of death and
the afterlife. Both believed that a dead person’s soul traveled to the afterlife.
Both believed that careful corpse preparation and elaborate mortuary rituals
helped ensure the safe transit of the soul to the supernatural realm. And both
believed in the power of human bones.
Today, when most North Americans consider human bones, we think in
terms structured by modern science. Bones as deposits of calcium and other
minerals surrounding living tissue. The 206 bones of the adult human skele-
ton. The site of the production of red blood cells. Cranium, coccyx, clavicle.
Four hundred years ago, when Wendats and French Catholics met in
North America, their associations with human bones differed greatly from
our own—but closely resembled one another’s. Bones to heal the sick and to
tie together far-flung villages. Bones invested with supernatural power. The
site of connection between this world and another world. Community, cur-
ing, condolence.
These similarities, and other death-related ones, helped facilitate commu-
nication between Wendats and the French. Even though the two groups spoke
different languages, they shared a common tongue based on the veneration of
human remains and the centrality of mortuary practices.
Building on this insight, it is possible to use the Feast of the Dead—or
more precisely, the meeting of Wendats and Frenchmen on the edge of the
Ossossané burial pit in 1636—as a metaphor for Indian-European encoun-
ters in North America. When native peoples met Europeans in the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries, parallel customs, and especially parallel mortuary
practices, allowed for understanding across cultural boundaries. When each
side saw the other performing funerals, they realized that their counterparts
were neither gods nor demons but humans like themselves. Because both
indigenous peoples and Europeans placed so much weight on proper burials,
they were curious about the other’s practices. And tragically, because the en-
counter caused countless deaths due to warfare and epidemics, both groups
had numerous opportunities to witness the other’s funeral practices. Indeed,
many of the Wendats buried in Ossossané (pronounced uh-SOSS-uh-nee)
had succumbed to European diseases.
As a result of these parallel practices, the French and Wendats often com-
municated with one another in the language of deathways, a term that en-
compasses deathbed scenes, burial practices, funerals, mourning rituals, and
commemoration of the dead. Yet cross-cultural communication could be put