arndt@lymph.DEC (07/06/85)
This novel by Brian Moore (Dutton, '85) was fun reading. It is about a French Jesuit priest in the wildnerness of 17th C Canada among the indians. Moore based his work on the largely on the RELATIONS which were voluminous letters that the Jesuits sent back to their superiors in France. It is not a romantic novel which makes it even more worth reading if one seeks to actually understand the people and the times. A few tidbits: From the author's note: "For, unlike the English, French, and Dutch traders and explorers, the Jesuits came to North America not for furs or conquest, but to save the souls of those whom they called 'the Savages'." "To succeed, they had to learn the 'Savages'' often scatological tongues and study their religious and tribal customs. These letters (the RELATIONS), the only real record of the early Indians of North America, introduce us to a peoplewho bear little relationship to the 'Red Indians' of fiction and folklore. The Huron, Iroquois, and Algonkin were a handsome, brave, incredibly cruel people who, at that early stage, were in no way dependent on the white man and, in fact, judged him to be their physical and mental inferior. They were warlike; they practiced ritual cannibalism and, for reasons of religion, subjected their enemies to prolonged and unbearable tortures. Yet, as parents they could not bear to strike or reprove their unruly children. They were pleasure-loving and polygamous, sharing sexual favors with strangers as freely as they shared their food and hearth. They despised the 'Blackrobes' for their habit of hoarding possessions. They also held the white man in contempt for his stupidity in not realizing that the land, the rivers, the animals, were all possessed of a living spirit and subject to laws that must be respected." pviii This novel plays the two worlds off against each other to good effect and without cheap tricks or a satisfying ending - could there be one? The reader can see the world from each viewpoint. (Of course the Indians were wrong!!) Anyway, after reading this novel I puke every time I see that Indian faker on his horse crying because I throw my trash along the highway. (Actually makes me want to hit him with it.) A good read. Regards, Ken Arndt
reiher@ucla-cs.UUCP (07/08/85)
I haven't read "Black Robe", but Francis Parkman wrote an interesting
series of histories of the French and English in the New World, one of which
deals specifically with the Jesuits. (An earlier one deals with, among other
things, the even earlier contacts with the Indians in what is today Canada.)
Parkman, who wrote in the mid to late 19th century, isn't totally free from
bias, but is a great deal more evenhanded than might be expected. Actually,
he shows more bias against the Roman Catholic Jesuits than against the Indians.
He writes very well (though his books are fairly long). His portrait of the
Indians of the Northeastern part of the continent sounds a great deal like
Moore's. They were largely warlike, very cruel, sometimes surprisingly
acquisitive and sometimes ridiculously generous. An interesting observation
by Parkman is their vague and changeable religion, which, in Parkman's
description, doesn't sound much like Ken's thumbnail version of Moore's
description.
The best edition of Parkman I've seen is the two volume Library of America
edition in hardback. The books are $25-$30 each, but of very high quality.
I don't know if these works of Parkman are available in paperback, but a
good college or city library should have copies of them.
--
Peter Reiher
reiher@ucla-cs.arpa
soon to be reiher@LOCUS.UCLA.EDU
{...ihnp4,ucbvax,sdcrdcf}!ucla-cs!reiher