Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 7.djvu/634

 HURON

568

HURON

imparts new interest to .Sagard's works and the Jesuit Relations, the only contemporaneous chron- icles of these tribes from the first decades to the middle of the seventeenth century. The table on page 571 is the result of the very latest researches, and gives in alphabetical order the Huron villages etc. mentioned in Champlain, Sagard, the Relations, or by Ducreux. When their sites have been determined by measurements based on documentary evitlence only, and where forest growth or other hindrances have prevented, for the time being, serious attempts to discover vestiges of Indian occupancy, the site is marked under the heading, "Near", v. g. "Ihonatiria, Tiny 6. XX, XXI", which should be read: "Ihona- tiria stood near lot six of the twentieth and twenty- first concessions of Tiny township." But when remains of an Indian village have been unearthed on the spot indicated, the site is set down under the heading ''On", v. g., Cahiague Landing, Oro, E.J 20, X, that is: "Cahiagufi Landing occupied the east half of lot 20 in the tenth concession of Oro Township."

In the Neutral country there were about forty vil-

from the Iroquois; and the second, Oimonti.'iaston, which was the sixth in order journeying from the Petun country. With this all is said that can be .«aid of the documentary data concerning the towns of the Neutral Nation and of their respective positions.

4. Population. — Father Jean de Brebeuf, writing from Ihonatiria, 16 July, 1636, says: "I made mention last year of twelve nations, all being sedentary and populous, and who understand the language of the Hurons; now our Hurons make, in twenty villages, about thirty thousanil souls. If the remainder is in proportion, there are more than three hundred thou- sand of tlie Huron tongue alone." This, no doubt, is a very rough estimate, and included the Iroqu<iis and all others who spoke some one of the Huron dialects. In his Relation of 1672 Father Claude Dalilon in- cludes a eulogium of Madam de la Peltrie. In it there is a statement for which he is responsible, to the effect that in the country of the Hurons the population was reckoned at more than eighty thousand souls, includ- ing the Neutral and Petun nations. No man had a more perfect knowledge of the Canatla missions than

'etun Village Sites

Name

Ehouae

or St-Pierre-et-St-Paul

Ekarenniondi or St-Mathias

Etharita

or St- Jean of the Petuns

St-Mathieu

St-Simon-et-St-Jude

St-Thomas

Probably in Arran Township, Bruce County, to the north-east of Mount Hope.

Very little west or south of Standing Rock, lot .30, concession XII, of Notta- wasaga Townsiiip, Simcoe County. The village shoukl be in Grey County.

About twelve miles in a southerly or south-westerly direction from Ekaren- niondi or St. Mathias. No certain traces of it have as yet been discovered.

Probably less than six miles from St. Mathias in the direction of St. Jean, or Etharita.

Probably on lots marked 46 in concession X and XI, Lindsay Township, Bruce County; but certainly somewhere in the north-east part of this township.

.\bout 32 miles from Onsossanr, measuring around Nottawasaga Bay, either near the meridian of Loree, CoUingwood Township, Cirey, or that of Meaford, but in Euphrasia Township.

lages, but all that Ducreux has set down on his map are the following: St. Michael, which seems to have stood near the shore of Lake St. Clair, not far from where Sandwich and Windsor now stand; Ongiara, near Niagara Falls; St. Francis, in Lamlrton County, east of Sarnia ; Our Lady of the Angels, west of the Grand River, between Cayuga, in Haldimand County, and Paris, in Brant; St. Joseph, in Essex or Kent; St. Alexis, in Elgin, east of St. Thomas; and the canton of Otontaron, a little inland from the shore line in Halton County. Beyond the Niagara River, and seemingly between the present site of Buffalo and the Genesee, he marks the Ondieronon and their villages, which Neutral tribe seems to have comprised the Ouenrohronon, who took refuge in Huronia in 1638.

When de Brebeuf and Chaumonot sojourned with the Neutrals in 1640-1641, they visited eighteen vil- lages, to each of which they gave a Christian name, but the only ones mentioned are Kandoucho, or .\11 Saints, the nearest to the Hurons proper; Onguiaahra, on the Niagara River; Teotongniaton or St. William, situated about in the centre of the covmtry; and Khioetoa, or St. Michael, already enumerated above.

Add to this list the two villages mentioned by the Recollect, Father Joseph de la Roche de Daillon, though it is quite possible that they may be already included in the list under a somewhat different appel- lation. The first, Oiiaroronon, was located the far- thest towards the east, and but one day's journey

Dablon, and, as this was written fully a score of years after the dispersion of the Hurons, he made the state- ment with all the contemporaneous documents at hand upon which a .safe estimate could be based. The highest figure given for the population of Huronia proper was thirty-five thousan<l, but the more gener- ally accepted computation gave thirty thousand as the approximate number, occupying about twenty vil- lages. The method adoptcMl in eonijiuting the popu- lation was that of counting the cabins in each village. The following (|uotations will give a clear idea of the proce.-is followed: " .\s for the Huron country it is tolerably level, with much meadow-land, many lakes and many villages. Of the two where we are sta- tioned, one contains eighty cabins, the other forty. In each cabin there are five fires, and two families to each. Their cabins are made of great sheets of bark in the sha[)e of an arbour, long, wide, and high in pro- portion. Some of them are seventy feet long" (Cara- yon. Premiere Mission, 170; Cleveland edition, XV, l.i3). The dimensions of the lodges or cabins as given by Champlain and .Sagard are. for length, twenty-five to thirty toisex (i. e. I.iO to 180 feet), more or less, and six toises (about 36 feet) in width. In many cabins there were twelve fires, which meant twenty-four families. As to the number of persons in a family, it may be inferred from a pas,sage, in the Relation of 1640, relat- ing to the four missions then in operation among the Hurons and the one among the Petuns: "In conse-