Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 9.djvu/409

 LOUIS 368 LOUIS

or Cros9-Eyed Ones, being the particular tribe, be- braced Protestantism eventually resulted in the Cath-

tween the headwaters of the Porcupine and Fort olic Loucheux having to leave Fort McPherson (wha%

McPherson, which gave rise to the French name of the priest's house was burnt down by their Protestant

Loucheux now applied to all those related Arctic ab- compatriots) for the environs of the Arctic Red

origines; the Han-kut'qin, or River People, above the River, where a Catholic mission was built for Lou-

Kotlo River, on both banks of the Yukon; the utsone- cheux and Eskimos. An Episcopalian clenryman,

kut'qin, or Crow People, from the sources of the Por- Rev. W. W. Kirkby, had already crossed the Rockies

cupine and the Peel to those of the Liard; the to prosel>i;i3se amone the western Loucheux. In 1862

Tehanin-kut'qin, from the upper branches of the Yu- and 1870 respectively, P athers Seguin and Petitot fol-

kon almost to the Pacific coast; the Thet'Iet-kut'qin, lowed him tnither, going as far as Fort Yukon, but

on Peel River; the Nakotco-ondjig-kut'ciin,or People without any appreciable results, owing to the calum-

of the Mackenzie, and the Kwit'(^a-kut qin, who in- nies disseminated by the minister, who had preceded

habit the dreary steppes bordering on the Arctic them in every village. Two years later. Bishop Glut,

Ocean, barring a strip of land along the coast between O.M.I., accompanied bv Father Lecorre, walked in

the Mackenzie and the Anderson Rivers. The desin- their footsteps and reached the Pacific, meeting along

ence -kiU^qin in these tribal names means inhabitants the Yukon with some slight success. Father Lecorre

of (as well as *tenne in other D6n6 denominations) even remained on that stream until 1874, when he

and not men, as American ethnologists have freely learned that Alaska had been entrusted to the Bishop

stated. of Vancouver Island. The latter advanced in 1877

The total population of the Loucheux tribes is to- as far as Nuiato from the coast, but in Nov., 1886, he

day about 5500 souls. They are as a rule superior, was murdered in the course of another apostolic tour

physically and mentally, to the majority of the north- in the valley of the Yukon (see Seghers, Charles).

ern D^nds. Tall and of a rather pleasing appearance, Nevertheless the efforts of the two .bishops had not

they are more manly than their southern neighbours, been in vain. They paved tiie way for the establish-

Owing to the large extent of their habitat, their man- ment by the Jesuits of a mission in 1887 among the

ners and customs cannot be represented as uniform, westernmost Loucheux. The following year a little

East and west of the Rocky Mountains they were band of Sisters of St. Anne arrived there, who im-

originally remarkable for their fine beaded and be- mediately opened a school for the Loucheux and

fringed leather costume, the most conspicuous part of Eskimo girls, while lay brothers of the Society of

which was a coat with a peaked appendage in front Jesus were doing the same on behalf of the boys of

and behind. Their footgear was made of one piece both nations. Most of the eastern Loucheux are now

with the leggings, the counterpart among most Ameri- excellent Catholics.

can aborigines of the white man's trousers. During Richardson. Arctic Searching ExvediHon, 2 vob. (London,

the winter they lived in semi-spherical skin lodges, not 1851 ) ; Hoopbr, Ten Months among the Tents of the TuMki (Lon-

unlike those of the Tuskis of the eastern Asiatic coast, ^1?^*}^^ • 7"^*??^^ ^'S'^ and. Adventure %n the Territory oj

uu^xn.^ wixvo^vi vi*^ xvwi^»vrx t/u^«;«wt/^t«» ^oM»vi^/^vrc»v, ^i^gf^a (London, 1868); Petitot, op. c%t., and Monographu

and m summer they replaced these by shelters usually des Dfnf-Dindii^ (Pans. 1876); Dall, Tribes of the Extreme

aiiu III ouimnci i,iicv icpinvcu t;uc»c uj oucii^cio uauaiijr tf„ tjene-utnottf (rans, i»7fj;; LiALL. Trtoes Of uie JSxtreme

made of coniferous boughs, generally erected in pairs of North-west (WashiniKton, 1877); Scbwatka, AUmg Alaska's

face to face dwellings so that a single fire on the out- S"^ 5**^ ^^^^^ .X?^^- ^^i* ^?"?c^^ -K"tS!LP^^'i


 * »Y^ w i»vv. v*»»-t»»* i(^o ^vi^w <*o.ug<^ ****. v»* VKE.K. v^^iT" ^j^^^ MonncTS and Ctutoms (Toronto, 1890); The Oreat Deni

Side served for both. Their tribal organization varies Race (in cooxae of publication. Vienna. Austria); Dzvinb.

according to their environment. While east of the Across Widest America (New York, 1906).

Rocky Mountains they have preserved the original A. G. Morice. patriarchy of the D^n^ in all its primitive simplicity,

some of the western tribes have adopted a sort of Louis IX, Saint, King of France, son of Loiiis VIII matriarchy, with chiefs, clans, totems and other con- and Blanche of Castile, b. at Poissy, 25 April, 1215; d. sequent institutions. Their religion originally con- near Tunis, 25 August, 1270. He was eleven ^ears of sisted in the shamanism common to all the northern a^e when the death of Louis VIII made him king, and D^n^s, and their traditions clearly point to the west, nineteen when he married Marguerite of Provence that is, Asia, as the region whence they migrated, by whom he had eleven children. The regency of Their wars were, as usual, series of ambuscades and Blanche of CJastile (1226-1234) was marked by the massacres, of which the Eskimos were often the vie- victorious struggle of the Crown against Raymond tims. Several of these are on record, as for instance VII in Languedoc, against Pierre Mauclerc in Brit- the treacherous slaying of five or six Eskimos on the tany, against Philip Hurepel in the He de France, and Lower Mackenzie, in the spring of 1850, and, in Octo- by indecisive combats against Henry III of England, ber of the same year, the murder by the (Doyukons of In this period of disturbances the queen was power- Lieutenant Barnard with his body servant,* and then fully supported bythe legate Frangipani. Accredited the destruction bv fire and arrows of an almost entire to Louis VlII by Honorius III as early as 1225, Frangi- village of the Nuiato Indians, on the Yukon. Early wini won over to the French cause the sympathies ©f the following spring the same party likewise encom- Gregory IX, who was inclined to listen to Ilenry III, passed the death of the Russian commander with one and through his intervention it was decreed that all of his men, whereby we see that the assertion of the chapters of the dioceses should pay to Blanche of Father Petitot that ** the Loucheux never imbrued Castile tithes for the southern crusade. It was the their hands in the blood of Europeans" (Traditions legate who received the submission of Raymond VII, Indiennes du Canada Nord-Ouest, p. 14) is unreliable. Count of Languedoc, at Paris, in front of Notre-Dame, The Loucheux are of all the northern D6n^ tribes and this submission put an end to the Albigensian war that which has been the least influenced by CathoH- and prepared the union of the southern provinces to cism. The Catholic missionaries had secured a firm France by the Treaty of Paris (April, 1229). The in- footing among their neighlx)uring congeners when the fluence of Blanche de Castile over the government ex- Protestant preachers reached the Mackenzie and tended far beyond St. Louis's minority. Even later, directed their steps towards the Ix)ucheux, especially in public business and when anibassadors were offi- those whose habitat lav west of the Rocky Mountains, cially received, she appeared at his side. She died in who had not as vet l)een visited. There being no 1253. In the first years of the king's personal govem- priests to oppose them, they practicallv had the field ment, the Oown had to combat a fresh rebellion to themselves. East of that range, the Oblate Fath- against feudalism, led by the Count de la Marche, in ers Seguin and Petitot, liailing from the Missions of league with Henry III. St. Louis's victory over this Good Hope antl Fort McPherson. long devoted them- coalition at Taillebourg, 1242, was followed by the selves to the salvation of the Loucheux, not without Peace of I^rdeaux which annexed to the French realm success. But the fanaticism of those who had em- a part of Saintonge.