Footnote # 1

The first missionaries to the Wendats were R袯llets, a reform branch of the Franciscan order. The R袯llets wore grey, hooded habits and wooden sandals; in England, they were nicknamed the "Greyfriars." The Jesuits, who later replaced the R袯llets among the Wendats, wore black cassocks; Native peoples called them the Black Robes. We imagine Soranhes calling Father Viel by his first name because that seems to have been the Wendats' custom with Europeans; e.g., they called Father Jean de Br补uf "Echon," a Wendat transliteration for Jean (as pronounced by the French).

Footnote # 2

Champlain's statement is paraphrased from the Father Le Jeune's report to his superiors in The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents, edited by Reuben Gold Thwaites (Cleveland, OH: The Burrows Brothers Company, 1896-1901), 6:249-50.

Footnote # 3

The last two sentences of this paragraph are paraphrased from the Jesuit Relations. Jean de Br补uf's report to his superior, Father Le Jeune, in The Jesuit Relations, 8:149.

Footnote # 4

Br补uf writes of this visit that Amantacha was "not such as he ought to be, and as we had wished" (Jesuit Relations, 8:148), but does not supply a reason. Curing societies were traditional groups that performed special dances and other rituals, such as handling hot coals, to drive out sickness. Many Wendats viewed Christianity as a French curing society, and were baptized in hopes of surviving the epidemics of European diseases that devastated their people.

Footnote # 5

The next to last sentence of this paragraph paraphrases Jean de Br补uf's 1636 report to his superior, Father Le Jeune, in The Jesuit Relations, 10:62-63.

Footnote # 6

Le Mercier's report on the Huron mission in 1636-37, in The Jesuit Relations, 13:26-27.

Further Reading

Thwaites, Reuben Gold. The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents. Cleveland, OH: The Burrows Brothers Company, 1896.

Trigger, Bruce G. The Children of Aataentsic: A History of the Huron People to 1660. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1976.

Online Jesuit Relations - http://puffin.creighton.edu/jesuit/relations/
This site contains the entire English translation of the The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents, originally compiled and edited by Reuben Gold Thwaites and published by The Burrows BrothersCompany, Cleveland, throughout the latter part of the nineteenth century. Each file represents the total English contents of a single published volume. The original work has facing pages in the original French, Latin or Italian, depending on the author.