The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents, Vol. 8: Quebec, Hurons, Cape Breton, 1634-1636
History
The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents, Vol. 8: Quebec, Hurons, Cape Breton, 1634-1636
Canada -- History -- To 1763 (New France); Indians of North America -- Canada; Jesuits -- Missions; Jesuits -- North America
Quant à eux, pour ce qui est du corps, ils n'ont rien de monstrueux;
vous y voyez des gẽs bien-faits, d'vn beau visage, & d'vne riche
taille, forts & puissans. Leur charnure est blanche naturellement,
comme en font foy les petits enfans; mais le hasle du Soleil, & les
frictions d'huile de Loup marin, & de graisse d'Orignac, les rend fort
bazanez, à mesure qu'ils croissent. Ils vont la plus-part la teste nuë,
& portent de longs cheueux noirs, auec fort peu ou point de barbe,
tellement que les femmes n'y sont recogneües, [211] qu'en ce qu'elles
se seruent d'vne ceinture, & qu'elles sont moins découuertes que les
hommes; tout au rebours de ce qui se prattique en plusieurs lieux de la
Chrestienté, à la honte du Christianisme. On void icy des vieillards
de quatre-vingts & cent ans, qui n'ont presque pas vn poil gris. Pour
le regard de l'esprit, s'il en faut iuger de leurs deportemens, & de
leurs façons de traitter auec nos François, ils ne l'ont pas mauuais.
Vous ne voyez paroistre en leurs gestes & démarches aucune sottise ou
niaiserie, mais plutost vne certaine grauité & modestie naturelle, qui
les rend aimables. Ils sont bien si industrieux, que de déguiser leur
langage, adioustans à chaque mot vne syllabe, qui ne sert qu'à troubler
l'imagination de ceux, dont ils ne veulent point estre entendus.
As to the people, there is nothing anomalous in their physical
appearance; you see well-formed men, good-looking, of fine figures,
strong and powerful. Their skin is naturally white, for the little
children show it thus; but the heat of the Sun, and the rubbing
with Seal oil and Moose fat, make them very swarthy, the more so as
they grow older. Most of them go bareheaded, and they have long,
black hair, with very little or no beard, so that the women cannot
be distinguished, [211] except that they use a girdle and are less
naked than the men; quite the reverse of what is practiced in many
Christian lands, to the shame of Christianity. One sees here old
men, of eighty and a hundred years, who have hardly a gray hair.
As to their intelligence, if we may judge from their conduct and
from their way of dealing with the French, they are not at a great
disadvantage. You do not see in their gestures and bearing any
foolishness or nonsense, but rather a certain gravity and natural
modesty, which makes them agreeable. They are indeed so clever
that, in order to disguise their language, they add to every word a
syllable, which only serves to confuse the minds of those by whom
they do not wish to be understood.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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