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It is, however, from ancient vestiges of Christianity found by the French discoverers about the Gulf of St. Lawrence, rather than from old historical records, that we may conclude the fact of an effectual and durable evangelization of our northeastern coasts before the late discoveries of America.

The northern historian Claudius Lyschander assures us that the faith planted in Vinland by Bishop Eric endured still at his time,' and that it lasted long after him in its civilizing effects and in some of its tenets and practices is evidenced by the testimony of several subsequent writers.

We have spoken of the extraordinary veneration paid to the Christian symbol, and of the superstitious confidence placed in it by some Gaspesians of New Brunswick, which made the first missionary of later times believe that the Gospel had been preached to them before.2

This ancient origin of the worship of the cross in New Brunswick, as related by Father Leclercq, is also set forth in a letter of de Saint Vallier, second bishop of Quebec, who about the same time, upon the evidence of the governor of that country, Richard Denis de Fronsac, and of another missionary priest, Father de Thury, has left us a report which both confirms and completes the former statements regarding the cross and its origin among the Indians of the Miramichi River.3

In the year 1635 Father Julian Perrault, a missionary of Cape Breton Island, wrote that the natives, after the example of the French, readily blessed themselves with the sign of the cross; they also, he adds, painted

1 Torfæus, Gronl. Ant., cap. xxix.

p. 240.

2 Supra, vol. i. p. 442, seq.; vol. ii. p. 274.

Estat présent de l'Église et de

la colonie française dans la Nouvelle France, par M. l'évêque de Québec, pp. 34-41, ap. Beauvois, Les Derniers Vestiges, pp. 11-16.

the cross on their faces, their breasts, arms, and legs, without being requested to do so, and, of course, without an example from the Europeans; most probably, therefore, as the "Cross-bearers," in imitation of their ancestors.1

Champlain, who in the year 1607 was exploring the coasts of Nova Scotia, writes that, in one of the havens of the Bay of Fundy, three or four leagues to the North of Cape Poitrincourt, they found a very old cross covered with moss and almost rotten,-an evidence, he observes, that Christians had been there in earlier days.2 Lescarbot remarks that the people among whom this cross was found "originated from some nation that had been taught the law of God." It is strictly possible, indeed, that, as Father Lafitau pretends, this cross had been "planted by the Europeans who had sailed to these coasts more than a hundred years before Champlain." This vague assertion may refer to the doubtful voyages of the Dieppe fishermen, of which we shall speak farther on; but all that was known of those regions in the beginning of the seventeenth century, when Pontgrave and Champlain first explored their coasts, consisted of a narrow margin of land along the shores; and it is evident, therefore, that no Europeans of the previous century had introduced the worship of the cross among the "Cross-bearers" of the Miramichi River.*

An incident of Jacques Cartier's first voyage in the year 1534 ought to be mentioned here. He was at some point of either the Chaleur- or the Gaspe Bay or of the

1 P. Julien Perrault, Relation de quelques particularités du lieu et des habitants du Cap Breton, ap. Beauvois, Les Derniers Vestiges, pp. 23, 24.

'Les voyages du Sr. de Champlain, liv. i. ch. xvi., ap. Beauvois, Les Derniers Vestiges, p. 18.

3 T. i. p. 22, ap. Gaffarel, Histoire, t. i. p. 291.

4

Lafitau, Moeurs des Sauvages Américains, t. i. p. 437; Moreau, Histoire de l'Acadie française, p. 54, ap. Beauvois, Les Derniers Vestiges, p. 19.

St. Lawrence River. "On the twenty-fourth day of July," he says, "we ordered a cross thirty feet high. It was made in the presence of the savages, and in their presence we afterwards planted it on the said headland. They gazed much at it, both when it was made and erected. After we had raised it aloft, we went on our knees and, folding our hands together, venerated it before them; and, looking up and pointing to heaven, we tried to make them understand that through the cross had come our redemption. At all this they were greatly amazed, turning around to one another and then again fixing their eyes on the cross. We had hardly returned to our ships when their captain came to us in a canoe, dressed in an old skin of a black bear and accompanied by three of his sons and a brother. Stopping at a somewhat greater distance from our vessel than they were used to, he made a long discourse, pointing at the cross and signifying it by crossing two of his fingers. And then he motioned with his hand to all the surrounding country, as if he had wanted to say that all that land was his, and we should not have planted a cross without his permission.'

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Cartier did not understand the words of the Indian chief, and we think he misunderstood his gestures, which evidently signified mainly the cross as a cross. There is no reason to suppose that he considered its erection as a taking possession of the country. If he had suspected this meaning and protested against it, he would undoubtedly have torn down the cross instead of keeping it erect, as the natives, also, promised to do. It is more likely that the chief simply intended to signify, by pointing at the cross and at the country around, that

1 Discours du Voyage fait par le capitaine Jacques Cartier en la terre neufve de Canada, ed. Miche

lant, p. 55, seq., ap. Gaffarel, Histoire, t. i. p. 441, and Beauvois, Les Derniers Vestiges, p. 17.

there were other crosses to be found all over that neighborhood.1

Father Perrault relates that the natives of Cape Breton not only blessed themselves with the sign of the cross and painted the sacred symbol on their faces and limbs, but also prayed, lifting up their eyes to heaven and invoking the names of "Jesus" and " Maria," thus rather in Latin than in French. 2

The Algonquin tribes worshipped the sun, and most of them gave it the name of "Jesus" or a name slightly different, as "Kizous" in the Abnaki dialect, "Jischi" in Chippewayan, and "Kesus" in the New England tongues.

3

Lescarbot tells of an Indian chief in Canada stating that "they believed in One God, One Son, a Mother, and the Sun four together, yet the One God being above all."

Sagard Théodat found in the year 1636 the Canadian mountaineers to be acquainted with the mystery of the Blessed Trinity. "They have," he says, "three deities: "Atahocan, his Son, and Messou [the Messiah ?]. Besides, they also admit a divine Mother, to whom they give no name, because she has no part in the government of this world." He also discovered among them certain notions of the universal deluge; in particular, that the world had been peopled again from only five persons who escaped the great flood." "Such ideas," he

1 Discours du Voyage, p. 58; Beauvois, Les Derniers Vestiges, p. 18; Gaffarel, Histoire, t. i. p.

442.

2 Julien Perrault, Relation de quelques particularités. . . du Cap Breton, in Relations des Jésuites, p. 43, ap. Beauvois, Les Derniers Vestiges, p. 23, and Gaffarel, Histoire, t. i. p. 443.

3 Beauvois, les Derniers Vestiges, p. 24 and n. 2, ibid.; Gaffarel, Histoire, t. i. p. 349, ref. to Charles Lallemant, Relation de la Nouvelle France, 1626, p. 4; see vol. i. p. 434.

Liv. iii. ch. xi. p. 294.

5 Traditions of the same kind are related by Lescarbot, liv. i. ch. iii.

adds, "are not far amiss from actual truth, and all the more surprising when we consider that these savages were never taught; for we read nowhere that the apostles, their disciples, nor any friar before us have ever visited this country to preach the word of God."1

The same author further speaks of a hymn, still sung in his time by Canadian tribes, one of the verses being, "Tameia Alleluia, tameia a don veni, hau hau hé hé." This was probably one of the songs which John Allefonsce, Roberval's companion in the year 1542, heard in Norumbega, and to him sounded like Latin.

3

2

"The natives of Norem bega, also called Gaspesia and Acadia, were remarkable," says Maltebrun, "for their civilized manners and their worship of the sun. They distinguished the rhumbs of the wind, knew some of the stars, and drew pretty correct maps of their country. A portion of them worshipped the cross. The inhabitants of their city, Norembega, were handsome and tall, dressed in mantles of rich furs, and nice people to deal with." 4 Lescarbot likewise speaks of their friendly relations with the French, and is of the opinion that they could easily be converted to Christianity; in fact, that many of them, although not baptized, were Christians at heart and performed the duties of Christians as best they could. Such was the social and religious condition not only of the Indians of St. John's River, but also of the Abnakis, Souriquois, Etchemins, and other neighboring tribes."

Considering all these particulars, testified to by a number of reliable witnesses, we may, with Maltebrun,®

1 Pp. 503-507, ap. Beauvois, Les Derniers Vestiges, p. 25.

'P. 311, ap. Gaffarel, Histoire, t. i. p. 350; Beauvois, Les Derniers Vestiges, p. 25, n. 1, ibid.

3 T. v. p. 290.

Cf. Gaffarel, Histoire, t. i. p. 348. 5 Lescarbot, ed. Tross, p. 666; ed. Paris, 1618, p. 714. ap. Gaffarel, Histoire, t. i. p. 442; Beauvois, Les Derniers Vestiges, p. 22. • T. v. p. 290.

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