The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents, Vol. 5: Quebec, 1632-1633
History
The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents, Vol. 5: Quebec, 1632-1633
Canada -- History -- To 1763 (New France); Indians of North America -- Canada; Jesuits -- Missions; Jesuits -- North America
60 (p. 259).--_La Rochelle._ Sagard mentions (_Canada_, p. 208)
"Tequeunoikuaye, also named Quieuindohian; by the French called La
Rochelle, and by us [the Récollets] the town of St. Gabriel ... the
chief town of that region, and the guardian and rampart of all the
towns of the Bear Nation, where they generally decide all affairs of
great importance." This town was afterwards known as Ossossané; and
the Jesuit mission established there was named for the Immaculate
Conception.
A. F. Hunter supplies the following information regarding La Rochelle:
"There is scarcely any doubt as to its location. It was on the
frontier toward the Iroquois, near the pass between Cranberry Lake
and Nottawasaga Bay. Du Creux's map places it (under the name of
Conception) at a short distance from Nottawasaga Bay, in the S. W. part
of the Huron territory; and there is, within and adjoining the sixth
concession of Tiny township, a group of remains of village sites and
ossuaries corresponding exactly with this position. All the references
in Champlain, Sagard, and the _Relations_, seem to indicate the same
locality. The identity is so evident, that this group has been regarded
as Ossossané since the first discovery of remains there, several years
ago. When first visited by Champlain, it was well palisaded, as it also
was when, twelve years later, the Récollets conducted there the mission
of St. Gabriel. Afterwards, its position was changed; and again, in
1636, five villages were consolidated into one. The 'feast of the
dead,' witnessed by Brébeuf in that year, was held at this place. These
data, and the discovery of ossuaries, indicate the existence of various
village sites in one neighborhood. From the earliest visit of Champlain
(1615) until the dispersion of the Hurons, it was the capital of their
confederacy,--the place where the most important councils were held.
Pijart founded the mission of the Conception there in 1637; and it was
the headquarters of the entire Huron mission, after the destruction of
Ihonatiria by a pestilence, in 1638, until the establishment of Ste.
Marie-on-the-Wye. At a meeting of the Canadian Institute on March 19,
1887, the Reverend Father Laboreau, of Penetanguishene, presented to
the Provincial Archæological Museum a brass finger-ring found in one of
the ossuaries at Ossossané. On the seal of this ring are engraved the
letters I. H. S., with a cross standing on the bar of the H."
(See Hunter's "Archæological Research in the Huron Country," at end of
this volume.)
61 (p. 263).--This abandoned village was known among the Hurons as
Toanché. As stated in _note_ 58, _ante_, Étienne Brulé was murdered
there in 1633. The Indians, dreading lest the French should take
revenge upon them for this deed, hastily abandoned Toanché, and fixed
their dwellings at a spot two or three miles distant naming their new
village Ihonatiria (see vol. iv., _note_ 30). A. F. Hunter writes,
concerning the locality of these towns:
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