Père Marquette/Chapter 15

Prior to 1650 no French missionary had been received by any Indian tribe as an angel from heaven. The priests who were sent to the New World were compelled to encounter and, if possible, to overcome the natural hostility with which all men, savage and civilized, regard the interloper. To none of us is it given to welcome strange neighbors, strange tongues, strange customs, strange and intrusive points of view. The Indians proved no exception to this rule. They were fairly well satisfied with themselves, tolerant of their own shortcomings, and rigidly faithful to traditions. Their attitude toward the priests varied from superstitious fear and senseless hatred to sullen hostility and contemptuous indifference. At worst this meant for the early Jesuits a cruel death; at best hard labor and sorrowfully scant returns.

​Time, however, works wonders, and patience rules the world. Little by little the savages grew accustomed to the presence of the black-robes from whom they had nothing to fear, whose ways were the ways of order and seemliness, and whose unknown God might perhaps do as well by them as the manitous in which they had placed a somewhat fluctuating confidence. The religious beliefs of the American Indians were not deep-rooted, their religious fervor went no farther than a pathetic demand for the immediate necessities of life. Parkman says that they swore no oaths, "probably because their mythology held no being sufficiently distinct to swear by." Nevertheless, we glimpse occasionally in their legends a significance which is purely spiritual. An Algonquin warrior told the Récollet priest, Père Chrétien Le Clerc, the story of a great chief who, after strange and terrible adventures, won back from the spirit world the soul of his dead son. It was given to him enclosed in a small globular wallet, and was to be inserted into the breast of the lad. On regaining his village the chief entrusted this precious treasure into the keeping of a squaw, who, Pandora-like, opened the wallet; where​upon the soul, scorning the joys of living, fled back to the happier realms of Death.

The tale bears a singular resemblance to the far famed miracle of St. Philip Neri, who in 1584 brought back to life the young son of Prince Fabrizio Massimo. The boy was but fourteen years old. He came of an ancient race that traced its line back to the days of pagan Rome. St. Philip looked at him lying childlike on his pillows, his eyes, open, the red color creeping back into his waxen face, and asked him pityingly, "Will you stay here, or will you return whence you came?" The boy answered, "I will return whence I came." And when the saint had blessed him, his soul, like the soul of the young Algonquin savage, took flight a second time for eternity.

If the Indians were slow to understand and accept the preaching of the missionaries, they were quick to observe their superior husbandry, and the increased comfort that came of decent living. It had never been their custom to fertilize the ground on which the squaws raised a scanty harvest of corn, beans, and squash. When the exhausted soil could bear no longer, the village moved on and cleared a fresh space. Now they ​saw with amazement the fertile fields which surrounded every mission. Père Le Jeune raised rye and barley with great success, and even succeeded in growing a little wheat. Two rows of apple and pear trees he planted, and most of them lived to bear fruit. Père Marquette's watchful concern for his harvests is evidenced in all his letters, in the delight with which he attended the pumpkin feasts of St. Ignace, in his prayers of thanksgiving for the abundant crops.

As for such ingenious contrivances as clocks, hand mills for grinding corn, sharp knives which opened and shut, needles and thread for the repair of garments, these things seemed to the savages perfected miracles of craft. Even habits of cleanliness and decency had in their eyes something unnatural, something which appertained to beings of another order. When a feasting Indian found his fingers to be uncomfortably coated with grease, he wiped them on the hair of the nearest dog, or on his own hair if there were no dog at hand. That the priest should cleanse his soiled hands, or wipe them dry with a piece of stuff, was absurd but noteworthy, a great deal of trouble, ​but not without pleasing results. The Seventeenth Century was not, like the Twentieth, an age of ritualistic ablutions. In fact, from the time that the Roman baths fell into disrepair until the English rediscovered and vaunted to the skies the physical benefit and moral significance of tubbing, nobody in Europe washed much. It will be remembered that in 1712, thirty-seven years after Père Marquette's death in the wilderness, Addison's "Citizen of London" notes on alternate days in his diary: "Tuesday. Washed hands and face." "Wednesday. Washed hands, but not face." Thus carefully avoiding extremes.

There is all the difference in the world, however, between washing now and then and not washing at all. The Indians, save for a few sick Sioux who had their ailments sweated out of them, considered bathing as a summer experience. In hot weather they plunged into the streams and pools. In cold weather they just as naturally kept out of them. It was part of the Jesuit discipline to take no notice of this or of other savage idiosyncrasies; and the studied politeness of the missionary's bearing found favor in the eyes of a ​proud and sensitive race which was never without an understanding and appreciation of dignity.

The dominant motive underlying all these minor considerations was, of course, fear of the Iroquois. Only France was able to cope with this terrible foe who conquered, not by means of superior numbers, but by sheer force of will and ferocity. So overwhelming was the terror they inspired that when the trembling Hurons asked Père Le Jeune if the Iroquois could ever be admitted into the Christian Paradise, and he said yes, they refused to be baptized. The happy hunting ground of the savage was purely parochial. No outsiders were admitted. The Hurons would not risk Heaven in company with their ancient enemy.

Fear was forgotten and hope was paramount when Père Marquette entered Kaskaskia, his last mission, and one that rivaled in beauty St. François Xavier and the Sault de Ste. Marie. Here were no glittering cascades like the Sault, no steep rocks and wooded banks like those of St. François; but a quiet river and broad prairies, broken here and there with groves of oak and chestnut. The village lay back from the shore, ​sheltered and half hidden by trees, well built, and very populous even for an Indian settlement. It comprised—counting as Indians count—six hundred fires, that is six hundred families, all well stocked with children. The braves numbered fifteen hundred. The fishing was fair, the hunting good. Pelts were bartered for guns, tobacco, hardware, and coveted finery.

Happy to have reached his destination, and conscious that the sands of his life ran fast, Père Marquette lost no time in getting to work. He went from wigwam to wigwam, ascertaining the temper of the savages, their intelligence, and their good-will. He conversed with the elders smoking in small and solemn circles, with the squaws diligently weaving rush mats like the one which had been sent him in the woods, with the young men enacting, in Indian fashion, the rôles of idle and industrious apprentices. The industriously disposed fashioned arrowheads (guns were costly and rare), bound them to their shafts with buffalo sinews, and polished their well-oiled bows. The idle gambled like Hogarth's youths, using pebbles or cherry stones instead of coins, and staking all they possessed—including occa​sionally their docile wives. It was a noteworthy circumstance of village life that the savages seldom quarreled among themselves. Their quarters were close, and they must have been continually in one another's way. We cannot imagine councils without dissension, hunting and courtship without rivalry, games of chance without occasional discord. But these untutored redskins could have given to any nation of Europe a lesson in harmonious relations. Being always threatened with danger from without, they knew the need of unity within.

Having acquainted himself in some measure with his flock, Père Marquette proceeded to give a series of conférences, simple instructions to small groups of braves, usually men of mature years and seeming importance. Finding them well disposed, he took heart and arranged for a great council to be held with all the pomp and ceremony that Indians prize. His preparations were the more lavish because this meeting was meant as a prelude to the work his successor must carry on. He was breaking the ground and sowing the seed. The harvest, he was aware, would be gathered by other hands than his.

​A wide, unsheltered prairie was chosen as the site for the council. It was held at Easter time, under clear skies, and with the promise of summer in the mild air. All the rush mats and deerskins the village afforded were spread upon the ground. Pieces of Chinese taffeta, to which were attached four large pictures of the Blessed Virgin, were raised on high, and gazed at with fond delight by their possessor who had brought them from St. François Xavier's, had protected them from the rains and snows of winter, and had saved them from the floods of spring. Now Our Lady smiled down upon a curious and impressive scene. Five hundred sachems sat in a circle around the priest. A thousand young braves stood in a larger circle beyond. The squaws and children pressed as close as they could. The dogs, to their own wonderment, found themselves excluded. Père Marquette spoke to this concourse of the Faith, of its beauty and holiness, of France as the upholder of the Faith, of his own affection for the Illinois which had brought him so far to serve them. He was the simplest of men, but he must have had the art to make his meaning clear and his words persuasive. The Indians lis​tened attentively. Ten gifts he made them, parting with the last of his stores to lend emphasis to this great occasion. Several of the chiefs replied with assurances of welcome and regard. They expressed their desire for the protection of France, their readiness to listen to the preacher, their hope that he would remain and befriend them.

On Easter Sunday Père Marquette said Mass in the open air with the savages gathered about him. He may have been heavy-hearted to think that this field of work so long desired and so full of promise was to be snatched from his failing hands. Doubtless he recalled the two villages of Illinois that he had striven to reach from La Pointe, before the anger of the Sioux had driven him and his flock into exile; and the great village on the banks of the Mississippi, where he and Joliet had met so warm a welcome. This was his third experience with the Indians whom he had proudly called les hommes, and it was destined to be as fleeting as its predecessors. He knew himself to be a dying man. The last remnant of his strength had been expended upon the council. He would ​never preach again. He greatly desired to confess and receive extreme unction before the end came. He greatly desired to see the face of a fellow priest by his bedside. And with all his heart he longed to plead the cause of the Illinois and of the new mission, which he had christened the Immaculate Conception, before his superiors. It was, he felt sure, worthy of their utmost endeavors.

The chiefs were reluctant to see him go. Again and again he told them of the good-will of France. Again and again he adjured them to remember his words, and to receive with kindness the successor whom he promised to send them. They listened silently to all he said. They appointed a bodyguard to accompany him as far as possible on his way. They gave him as much food as his canoe could carry. They bade him farewell with serious and respectful solicitude.

Père Dablon's account of the homeward journey, taken of course from the reports of the two boatmen, is detailed without being explicit. We know that Michillimackinac was their destination, and that the eastern shore of Lake Michigan ​was unfamiliar to any of the party. Parkman says it was a savage and desolate land. Père Dablon says nothing whatever about it. The sick priest could give no help in paddling. He lay prostrate in the canoe, saying now and then a few words of encouragement, and rallying his spiritual forces for the end. Every day he murmured the rosary, and every night one of the men read to him the exercise of his order. The care with which they tended him proved his hold upon their hearts. They ardently desired to escape from the solitude that hemmed them in; but, strive as they might, their progress was slow, and death was bound to outstrip them in the race.

On the 18th of May the canoe passed the mouth of a small and rapid stream with sloping banks. On the left shore was a gentle eminence crowned by oaks. Père Marquette asked his companions to land. His hour had come, and the little hill would make a fitting site for his grave. Quickly they beached the canoe, and with the practised dexterity of woodsmen built a shed of saplings, branches, and bark. To this poor shelter they carried the dying man, and laid him on a mat by the side of a freshly lighted fire. When he had ral​lied a little he gave them a few simple directions for his burial, thanked them for the care and devotion they had shown him ("the charities which they had exercised in his behalf"), and confessed them both—his last priestly function. Then he bade them sleep, saying he would call them, or ring his little mass bell, when he grew worse. Three hours later they heard the summons and hastened to his side. He whispered to one of them to take the crucifix from his neck, and hold it before his eyes. Faintly he breathed familiar words of prayer: "Sustinuit anima mea in verbo ejus." "Mater Dei, memento mei." When he ceased, and the watchers thought the spirit had fled, one of them cried in a loud voice, "Jesus, Mary." At the sound of those beloved names Père Marquette's eyes opened wide. Distinctly he repeated them: "Jesus, Mary," and died.

It was a fitting end to a life of unostentatious sacrifice. And it was an end crowned, as life had been, by all that makes the value of existence. Père Marquette was a humble toiler in the field, but that which had been given him to do he had accomplished. He had surrendered in ​youth those natural ties that bind men happily to earth, but he had won affection wherever he went. He died on the bare ground in a savage solitude; but grief watched by his bed, and tears of sorrow fell upon his grave.