Père Marquette/Chapter 9

The amazing thing about the little party that left St. Ignace on the 17th of May, 1673, was the simplicity of its preparations. In these days when few explorers sally forth without motion-picture cameras to show them climbing mountains, crossing deserts, shooting lions, or driving dog teams, it is amusing to note the rigid economy with which the two young Frenchmen and their five assistants cut down their outfit to sheer necessities. Two canoes had to carry the adventurers, their arms and ammunition, their food, their extra clothing, their carefully protected materials for reports and map making, and what gifts they could add for friendly Indians by the way. The canoes were made after the Canadian fashion, of birch bark, cedar splints, and ribs of spruce roots covered with yellow pine pitch. They were light and strong. ​Four men could carry them across portages, and in smooth water they could be paddled at the rate of four miles an hour.

Indian corn and smoked meat constituted the provisions—the corn being an essential, the smoked meat a luxury. Great care had been taken, however, to ascertain routes, and ensure as much protection as the nature of the voyage permitted. "Because we were going to seek strange countries," wrote Père Marquette in his journal, "we took every precaution in our power, so that if our undertaking were hazardous, it should not be foolhardy. We obtained what information we could from savages who had frequented those regions, and we traced out from their reports a map of the unknown lands. On it we indicated the rivers we were to navigate, and the tribes we were to visit. Also the course of the Great River, and the direction we were to follow when we reached it. Above all, I placed our expedition under the care of the Holy and Immaculate Virgin."

Thus equipped, and with light hearts beating bravely, the travelers started on a fair May morning, while the faithful Indians of St. Ig​nace lined the shores to bid them farewell. The canoes went skimming through the straits of Michillimackinac, and skirted the northern shores of Lake Michigan. So delightful was it to be at last adventuring that the men paddled all day long without fatigue and with no cessation of pleasure. When night fell they landed on the edge of a forest, drew up their canoes, built a fire, and discussed over their evening meal their plans for the next day, and the fashion in which they had best approach the first Indians whose villages lay along their route.

These savages bore a good name for friendliness, and for the simple decencies of life. They were known as the Malhoumines, or Maloumineks, or Oumaloumineks; but as all three words were equally distressful to French ears, the traders had christened them la Nation de Folle-Avoine, because of the so-called wild oats—which Parkman identifies as wild rice—which grew abundantly in their land, and formed their staple diet.

It must be confessed that the rice interested Père Marquette more keenly than did the Indians. The monotonous insipidity of saga​mité made a new dish almost as exciting as a new river. He describes at length in his journal the laborious method of preparing the grain, and its excellence as food. It grew in swamps and in shallow, muddy streams, emerging from the water in June, and rising several feet above the surface. Early in September the savages pushed their canoes through the ricefields and shook down the long slender grains, which made up in size what they lacked in plumpness. These were dried for days upon a wooden grating under which smouldered a slow fire, then packed in skin bags and trodden long and vigorously under foot. When winnowed and fairly clean, the rice was either boiled in water and seasoned with fat, or pounded into flour and eaten as porridge. It will be remembered that a Sioux chief gave Père Hennepin a mess of wild rice boiled with whortleberries, and that the famished priest thought he had never eaten anything so good. Père Marquette was equally pleased with this simple and nourishing fare. He held, with reason, that savages who would take pains to procure and prepare their food had in them an essential element of civilization.

​Except the rice, however, the Folle-Avoine had no help or encouragement to give their visitors; only words of terrified warning. The unknown, which is ever a lure and a stimulus to civilized man, holds for the savage nothing but superstitious fear. The Indians implored the Frenchmen to go no farther on their perilous quest. They said that the surrounding tribes were unfriendly and warlike; that each and all of them were on bad terms with their neighbors; and that the braves who roamed the forests would kill any white man they met. Also that the heat on the banks of the great river was heavy and pestilential, dealing death to strangers. Also that the river itself—did they ever reach it—was full of strange monsters, huge enough to overturn their canoes, and voracious enough to devour the canoeists. And, as if this were not enough, its shores were defended by a demon whose dreadful voice could be heard for miles, and who slew both men and beasts that ventured in his path.

These terrible tales were received by Père Marquette with soothing words, and by Joliet with unrestrained laughter. The young men ​promised, however, to be always on their guard. They bargained for as much rice as they could carry (the new crop being on its way), bade farewell to the Folles Avoines and turned their canoes into the mouth of Green Bay, then known as la Baye Salée, and also as la Baye des Puants, because of rank odors usually associated with salt marshes. Père Marquette concluded that the vapors arising from mud banks must be held accountable for this pungent smell. Still another and a more somber name had been given to the stormy estuary by the French who called it la Porte de la Mort, because of the high winds and roughened waters which had overturned many canoes and drowned many traders. It was with infinite precaution that the adventurers skirted the shores, noticing the rhythmic rise and fall of a tide which they could ascribe to no cause, and about which Père Marquette writes rather charmingly in his journal:

"The mouth of the Bay is thirty leagues in depth and eight in width. It narrows gradually to a point, and we could easily observe the movements of a tide that ebbs and flows like that of the sea. Whether or not there are winds, the ​precursors of the Moon and attached to her suite, which agitate the waters and set them in motion, I do not know. All I can say is that when the Bay is smooth, and the Moon mounts above the horizon, the little waves rise and fall in obedience to her laws."

There was ample time in which to make these observations, for the voyagers tarried a while in the vicinity of Green Bay, finding there both friends and matters of interest. The Fox River emptied into the Bay, and nothing could be more beautiful than the broad, slow stream, spreading into vast marshes where fields of wild rice swayed and glistened in the sun. Flocks of birds—ducks, teal, and brant that were busy stealing the harvests, rose in clouds and whirled around the canoes which had disturbed their feast. Some miles beyond, where the river narrowed and ran swiftly over jagged rocks, and between high wooded banks, was the Mission of St. François Xavier, founded by Père Allouez in 1669. It was not easy to reach, because in shallow places the rocks cut the canoes, and wounded the feet of the men, who were constantly compelled to lift their little boats into ​deeper water. Very different work this from the smooth paddling through rice swamps; but bit by bit the rapids were passed, the banks sloped gently to the river's edge, a tall cross caught Joliet's eager eye, and the third section of Père Marquette's journal begins triumphantly: "Here we are at the village of the Maskoutens."

The "Fire Nation" (so the word Maskouten is usually translated) was one of three tribes inhabiting this pleasant spot. The Miamis were a trifle more intelligent, the Kickapoos a trifle less. None of the three were warlike, although the Miamis bore the reputation of being good fighters. They were also good-looking for savages, tall, strong, and shapely. The long lovelocks they wore falling over their foreheads gave them, in Père Marquette's opinion, a pleasing appearance. They had a charming habit of listening attentively and with seeming intelligence to all the missionaries told them. Sometimes, indeed, they were so interested in the instructions of Père Allouez, who had the gift of eloquence, that they would not let him go to bed at night, but sat in solemn circles waiting to hear more; and the sleepy priest could not in con​science resist this gratifying thirst for enlightenment.

The heathen gods worshipped by these Indians were numerous and diversified. The Sun and the Thunder, gods of the first water, were aloof, mysterious, and all-powerful, benignant or death-dealing according to their will. But there were also hosts of lesser deities, friendly for the most part, and not unlike the multitudinous little gods of Rome. They looked after the beasts, birds, and fishes, thus providing food for men. The Indians, like the Europeans, naturally considered their own wants to be of more importance, and better worth the consideration of heaven, than the welfare of the brute creation.

As hunters and fishers the tribes that dwelt near Green Bay were exceptionally fortunate. The winters were, indeed, very severe; but bears and wildcats (the latter big, fierce, famished, and defiant) inhabited the woods, which were free from underbrush and easily traversed. Deer though few and shy, were occasionally found stealing by night to the water's edge. With summer came berries in abundance. With autumn, ​wild plums and wild grapes, which, to the distress of the missionaries, were often gathered and eaten before they were ripe; the Indians being too impatient or too hungry to wait on the leisurely processes of nature. The thought of the excellent wine which might have been made out of these highly flavored grapes caused Père Marquette a pang of regret. He had the Frenchman's natural taste for horticulture.

Flocks of wild fowl, as hungry and as greedy as the savages, dived into the river to snatch the unripe rice before it showed its head above the water, and were caught by cunningly spread nets. It was no infrequent matter to see birds and fish ensnared in the same toils. "This kind of fishing is both pleasant and profitable," wrote Père Dablon with the heartless enthusiasm of the sportsman. "It is wonderful to see a duck and a pickerel, a bass and a teal, entangled in the same meshes. The Indians live royally on this manna for nearly three months of the year."

The weirs built across the Fox River were also enthusiastically praised by Père Dablon, who held with reason that nature and necessity can make the rudest savages experts in the art of ​keeping alive. These weirs, as he describes them, seem to have been not unlike those so ingeniously contrived by the fisherman prince in The Misfortunes of Elphin. A palisade of stakes was erected across the stream, leaving room for little fishes to pass freely, but imprisoning the bigger ones between rude hurdles. Alongside of these hurdles a light scaffolding was raised—like Prince Elphin's little bridge—and, clinging to it, the Indians scooped up the fish with the usual pocket-shaped nets. "They coax the fish into the mouths of their nets," is the priest's way of intimating that they were uncommonly adroit at the business.

What with the hunting, the fishing, and the ricefields, the mission of St. François Xavier was as well placed as that of the Sault de Ste. Marie. In the autumn, neighboring tribes of Indians came to share in the abundance, and to all who could understand them the missionaries preached with fervor. Perhaps the beauty of the wooded slopes pleased the savages as well as they did the Frenchmen, for there were legends to the effect that the first Indians of North America, the single tribe from which had sprung ​such infinite diversity, lived on these green and fertile banks, secure and happy as were Adam and Eve in Paradise. "It is delightful to see the village and its surroundings," wrote Père Marquette in his journal. "On every side are fields of maize, stretches of prairie, and groves of noble trees. The huts are made of rushes, pleasant enough at this season, but woefully inadequate when winter brings heavy rain and snow. The best that can be said of such building material is that it is very light. Huge bundles of rushes are carried by the hunters into the woods, and woven into some sort of shelter. In the center of the village stands the cross, a beautiful and consoling sight. At its feet the savages have heaped bows and arrows, pelts and dyed snakeskins, as offerings to the Christian God."

Two more treasures the Maskoutens possessed: a mineral spring, the waters of which Père Marquette drank freely, though without any especial knowledge of their qualities; and a plant which was held to be a sovereign remedy for snake bite. This plant had been shown to Père Allouez as a mark of confidence. It bore several ​stalks, about a foot high, with long leaves, and a white blossom which Père Marquette likened to a wallflower. "The root," he wrote, "is very pungent, and tastes like powder when crushed by the teeth. It must be masticated, and laid upon the bitten part. Snakes have so great a horror of this flowering weed that they writhe away from any Indian who has so much as handled it."

The historian, Shea, in a note to his translation of Père Marquette's journal, identified this weed as a plant called by the French Serpent à Sonnettes. He was of the opinion that it really served as an antidote to snake bite, whether applied as a poultice or taken internally; and he added that a drop or two placed in a snake's mouth killed the creature instantly. Editors of the Relations, however, admit that such remedies were common among the Indians, that it is not possible to distinguish one from another, and that the virtues of all have been greatly exaggerated. Long familiarity with the methods of medicine men had probably accustomed the patient savages to inefficacious treatment. More​over, the North American continent, while sufficiently endowed with venomous serpents, has had very few deadly varieties. Consequently a fair proportion of bitten Indians recovered, and attributed their cure to incantations or to poultices, according to the custom of the tribe.

The first necessary proceeding on the part of the two adventurers was to summon the headsmen of the Maskouten village to a pow-wow. They knew well that nothing could be done to advance their expedition without grave argument and dignified persuasion. Next to talking themselves, the Indians adored listening to talk. When hunting or on the warpath, when pursuing or pursued, when journeying amid perils and privations, they were sullen, taciturn, and preoccupied. But on all state occasions they were as long-winded as are modern committees and subcommittees, conclaves and conferences. The Maskoutens accepted Père Marquette's invitation with alacrity. They gathered in attentive groups to hear what the Frenchmen had to say, and—incidentally—to receive what gifts they had to offer.

​Joliet was the spokesman of the occasion. He was as familiar with the Algonquin language as was his companion, and very eager and animated. He told his audience that he had been sent on a quest by the powerful Governor of Quebec, who represented the all-powerful King of France; that Père Marquette, like Père Allouez, was preaching the word of God; and that it behooved them to give him what help they could in his mission. He asked for guides who would conduct the party to the Meskousing (Wisconsin) River, which flowed into the Mississippi. He assured them that this assistance would promote friendly relations with the French, and he ceremoniously presented them with gifts, the nature of which is not mentioned in the journal. Like all journals that ever were written, it is disposed to be mute whenever our curiosity is aroused.

The Indians made a lengthy and appropriate reply to Joliet's speech. They expressed their good-will, and also their astonishment that the white men should have sent so small an expedition on so big an errand. They promised the asked-for guides, and—not to be outdone in ​generosity—they gave to the two young leaders a mat of finely woven rushes, which served them as a bed for the remainder of the voyage.

On the 10th of June the little party left the pleasant village which had harbored them so kindly. A third canoe accompanied them, bearing two Miami Indians who knew the narrow channels through reed beds and rice swamps, and who gave much needed help in the difficult portage that lay between the Fox River, which had shrunk to a sluggish creek, and the Wisconsin, which was to carry them to their destination. This done, the savages returned home, and the Frenchmen, well supplied with food, turned their canoes into the unknown stream. "We left behind us the waters that flowed toward Quebec," wrote Père Marquette, "and entered those that flowed toward the Mississippi. Before we embarked we began all together a fresh novena to the blessed and Immaculate Virgin, promising to say it daily, and placing ourselves and our voyage under her loving care. Then, with a few words of encouragement to our men, we set gaily forth."

The goal was nearly won.