Leahey JesuitMissionariesLanguageNewFrance 1995

"Comment peut un muet prescher l'vangile?
" Jesuit Missionaries and the Native

Languages of New France
Author(s): Margaret J. Leahey
Source: French Historical Studies, Vol. 19, No. 1 (Spring, 1995), pp. 105-131
Published by: Duke University Press
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"Comment peut un muet prescher 1e'vangile?"
Jesuit Missionaries and the Native
Languages of New France
MargaretJ. Leahey
In the introduction to his analysis of "Des Cannibales," Michel de

Certeau writes that what Montaigne considers in his essay is "pre-
cisely the status of the strange: Who is 'barbarian'? What is 'savage'?
In short, what is the place of the other?"' Alterite', that "otherness"
which de Certeau says is "the difference which a cultural break puts
forward,"2 is represented with dazzling variety in the travel litera-
ture of the early modern period; marvels become "the visible marks
of alterity."3 Many of the marks of otherness that had fascinated
sixteenth-century travelers are woven, unchanged, into the texture
of narratives about the Americas by seventeenth-century writers.
This is certainly the case with much of the published writing about
New France and its people. Yet, in the French Jesuit missionaries'
descriptions of their struggles to understand and to make themselves
understood in the indigenous languages of Canada we can find some
of the most unique and compelling accounts of the psychology of
encounter ever written.
MargaretJ. Leahey is director of programs and grants at the New Hampshire College & Uni-
versity Council. She is currently preparing an article on Peter Stephen Duponceau and the
nineteenth-century "Indian Republic of Letters."
The research for this article was supported in part by a Newberry Library fellowship. I
would like to express my thanks to Nancy S. Struever and Richard Donato for their comments
on an earlier version of the article. I am also very grateful to the editors and anonymous
readers for their suggestions.
1 Michel de Certeau, "Montaigne's 'Of Cannibals': The Savage 'I,"' Heterologies: Discourse
on the Other, trans. Brian Massumi (Minneapolis, Minn., 1986), 67.
2 Michel de Certeau, The Writing of History, trans. Tom Conley (New York, 1988), 209.
3 Ibid., 227. De Certeau, interestingly enough, entered the Society of Jesus with the
idea of becoming a missionary to China. See Luce Giard, "Epilogue: Michel de Certeau's Het-
erology and the New World," trans. Katharine Streip, in Representations, Special Issue: The New
World 33 (Winter 1991): 215.
French Historical Studies, Vol. 19, No. 1 (Spring 1995)

Copyright (C 1995 by the Society for French Historical Studies
106 FRENCH HISTORICAL STUDIES
Products of what was perhaps the best educational system on

the Continent, French Jesuit missionaries found themselves among
preliterate cultures in Canada. Charged with the task of evangelizing
people whose languages and behaviors were new to them, the Jesuits
struggled to fulfill their mission. Some were more successful than
others, but the strategy in each case was keyed to learning the native
languages. How did the early missionaries go about acquiring the in-
digenous languages? What roles were played by native people? How
did these missionaries respond to their particular language learning
situation? What innovations were developed in the field? Can we ac-
count for differences in the missionaries' levels of fluency? These are
questions I will attempt to answer in this article. Another and far
more difficult question concerns what becoming competent in the
languages may have meant for the Jesuits' assumptions about "the
status of the strange," and to this question I can offer only some very
tentative answers.4
Between 1632 and 1672 the superior of the Jesuit missions in
Canada prepared an annual report to the Jesuit provincial in Paris.
The reports, or relations, were printed with the expectation that they
would encourage the support-financial and otherwise-of readers
in Europe for missionary activity in New France.5 They were not
reprinted until 1858, when the Canadian government published a
three-volume edition. Some forty years later Reuben Gold Thwaites
edited the seventy-three volumes we know as The Jesuit Relations and
Allied Documents,6 and Lucien Campeau, S.J., is preparing critical edi-
tions of all of the papers from the missions in the series Monumenta
Novae Franciae, of which six volumes have been published to date.7
4 In the past several years interdisciplinary scholarship on the Jesuit relations has broad-
ened our understanding of these texts considerably. Some of the most original work has been
done by French Canadian literary scholars influenced by de Certeau. See, for example, a
collection of essays edited by Gilles Therien, entitled Les Figures de l'indien (Montreal, 1988),
and also his L'Indien imaginaire: Materiaux pour une recherche (Montreal, 1991). John Steckley
has examined Huron language texts composed by Jesuits in the seventeenth century. For a
recent example, see his "The Warrior and the Lineage: Jesuit Use of Iroquoian Images to
Communicate Christianity," Ethnohistory 39 (1992): 478-509. See also, Gerald L. McKevitt,
S. J., "Jesuit Missionary Linguistics in the Pacific Northwest: A Comparative Study," Western
Historical Quarterly 21 (1990): 281-304. Other recent studies include Marthe Faribault, "Les
Oeuvres linguistiques des missionnaires de la Nouvelle France (XVIIe et XVIIIe siecles),"
paper presented at the Fifteenth International Congress of Linguists, 1992; and Remi Fer-
land, Les "Relations" des frsuites: Un Art de la persuasion. Procidds de rhitorique et fonction conative
dans les "Relations" du Pare Paul Lejeune (Quebec, 1992).
5 The relations were originally published by Sebastien Cramoisy in Paris.
6 Reuben Gold Thwaites, ed., The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents, 73 vols. (Cleve-
land, 1896-1901) There are seventy-one volumes of text; volumes 72 and 73 are the index.
The relations were essentially "lost" for two hundred years-even longer for those who did not
read French.
7 Lucien Campeau, S.J., ed., Monumenta Novae Franciae (Rome and Quebec, 1967-). In
this article I will quote from the Campeau edition wherever possible but will also give the
JESUIT MISSIONARIES IN NEW FRANCE 107
These documents from the Jesuit missions are critical for the
history of North America, especially for our understanding of early
contact between Europeans and indigenous peoples. The relations
are also important for the history of the study of language. Three
of the reports are particularly significant because they contain ex-
tensive descriptions of the native cultures. These same reports also
contain fairly detailed descriptions of how their missionary authors
went about learning the native languages.
Though the Jesuits' previous training in languages, prescribed
by the Ratio Studiorum,8 was fairly uniform, no two missionaries in the
field went about the task of acquiring the languages in quite the same
way. Their levels of mastery (as reported in the relations) differed
considerably. In this article I will focus on the experiences of three
of these early missionaries: Pierre Biard, Jean de Brebeuf, and Paul
Le Jeune, all of whom left detailed accounts of their efforts to learn
the native languages and all of whom also wrote extended essays on
the native cultures.
The founder of the Society of Jesus, Ignatius of Loyola (1491-
1556), wrote in the Constitutions of the order that Jesuit schools
offer not only Latin and Greek, but "Hebrew, Chaldaic, Arabic, and
Indian when these will be necessary or useful."9 Furthermore, Igna-
tius said, members of the Society must strive to learn the vernacular
well and "to avail themselves of all appropriate means to perform
it better and with greater fruit for souls." '0 Ignatius could not have
anticipated what "all appropriate means" would entail when it came
to mastery of the native languages of the New World, but the educa-
tional system he and his followers devised prepared members of the
Society to look for those means and to have every confidence that
they could be found.
For many years, for reasons that are related to problems in the
citation for the more readily available Thwaites edition, which has an English translation on
the facing page. A new edition with a revised translation, notes, and index would be a fitting
tribute to the one hundredth anniversary of the Thwaites project; at the very least, a new
index should be compiled, because many of our categories have changed since the turn of the
century.
8 Ratio atque Institutio Studiorum Societatis Jesus, usually called the Ratio Studiorum, is the
code of regulations for officials and teachers in the Jesuit education system. In 1584 a group
of six Jesuits of different nationalities and provinces drafted a report on regulations and cur-
ricula, which was then sent to each province to be studied by experienced educators. The first
Ratio, incorporating their recommendations, was printed in 1591. Revised in 1599, it was in
use in this form until the suppression of the Jesuits in France in 1673. J. W. Donohue, "Ratio
Studiorum," New Catholic Encyclopedia (New York, 1967), 12:89-90.
9 Ignatius of Loyola, Constitutions of the Society of Jesus, trans. George E. Ganss, S.J. (St.
Louis, Mo., 1970), [447], 214. "Indian," in this case, of course, refers to the languages of
South Asia.
10 Quoted in Ganss, St. Ignatius' Idea of a University, 48.
historiography of linguistics, the language work of the Jesuits was

thought to be of little value." It was not until relatively recently that
a major reassessment of the missionaries' work was undertaken by
a linguist.'2 For his project, Victor E. Hanzeli studied the printed
and manuscript grammars, grammatical sketches, dictionaries, and
radical ("root") lists of French missionaries who worked among the
native peoples of New France. Hanzeli proposed to "examine his-
torically and critically a representative sample of early descriptions
of 'exotic' languages in order to determine how far they display
the shortcomings generally imputed to all linguistic labor of their
period." 13 He looked specifically at the missionaries' practice rather
than at theory and concluded that despite their training in what
he calls the "universal grammar tradition," the utilitarian nature of
their linguistic work "gave them a preponderantly empirical orien-
tation."'14 Furthermore, Hanzeli found that the missionaries' field
methods "deviated little from our modern field methods as far as
basic procedure was concerned." '5 He argued that the missionary
linguists succeeded insofar as they were able to "transcend labori-
ously" the notions and categories derived from their grammatical
training 16
Hanzeli's essentially positive evaluation of the Jesuits' linguistic
work was long overdue. The difficulties that the missionaries encoun-
tered when they tried to fit the data of the native language into
Latin-based categories were very real. There were, however, wider
variations in their learning strategies as well as their levels of success
than it would appear from Hanzeli's study, and those differences are
important.
Two of the first Jesuits to arrive in New France were Pierre Biard
11 See, for example, Mary R. Haas, "Grammar or Lexicon? The American Indian Side
of the Question from Duponceau to Powell," International Journal of American Linguistics 25
(1969): 239-55; Harry Hoijer, "History of American Indian Linguistics," in Native Languages
of the Americas, ed. Thomas A. Sebeok (New York, 1976); H. Christoph Wolfart, "Notes on the
Early History of American Indian Linguistics," Folia Linguistica 1 (1967): 153-71; Franklin
Edgerton, "Notes on Early American Work in Linguistics," Proceedings of the American Philo-
sophical Society 97 (1943): 25-34 (hereafter PAPS); and Clark Wissler, "The American Indian
and the American Philosophical Society," PAPS 86 (1942), 189-204.
12 Victor E. Hanzeli, Missionary Linguistics in New France: A Study of Seventeenth and
Eighteenth-Century Descriptions of American Indian Languages (The Hague, 1969). More recently,
Hanzeli published an article entitled "De la Connaissance des langues indiennes de la Nouvelle
France aux dix-septieme et dix-huitieme siecles," in a special issue (numrro 6) of Amerindia:
Revue d'ethnolinguistique amerindienne, "Pour Une Histoire de la linguistique amerindienne en
France," an "hommage" for Bernard Pottier. (1984): 209-25.
13 Hanzeli, Missionary Linguistics, 15.
14 Ibid., 100.
15 Ibid., 50-51.
16 Ibid., 99.
(c. 1567-1622) and Enemond Masse (1575-1646). They landed at

Port-Royal, Acadia, in 1611. Discovering that the native people who
had been baptized by their predecessor, a secular priest named Jesse
Fleche (?-1611?), knew nothing of their new religion, Biard said,
"nous resolusmes, des nostre arrivee, de ne point baptiser aucun
adulte, sans que prealablement il ne fust bien catechise . . . catechiser
ne pouvons-nous avant que siavoir le langage." 17 Recalling their opti-
mistic agenda prepared before they had encountered the realities
of Canada, Biard would write, "O Dieu, que nous devisons bien 'a
nostr'aise en France!" 18 The language was proving to be a formidable
obstacle indeed.19
Biard, nonetheless, was determined to learn Micmac. But how?
The French of the settlement, he said, knew very little of the lan-
guage, and what they did know they were unable to teach by means
of rules. There remained, he determined, only one alternative: to
learn "ab stupidis indigenis," not through lessons, but by constant
practice.20 Biard, therefore, employed a Micmac as a teacher, but the
lessons came to an abrupt halt when a shortage of supplies made it
impossible for him to feed his tutor.21
Biard, Masse, and two more recent arrivals, Father Jacques
Quentin (1572-1647) and Gilbert du Thet (1575-1613), a Jesuit
brother, pooled their information. Biard wrote, for example, "nous
en sommes la' encor, apres plusieurs enquestes et travaux, 'a dis-
puter s'ilz ont aucune parolle qui corresponde droictement 'a ce mot:
Credo."22 If at this early stage in their language learning the discus-
sions appear to have consisted primarily of sharing lexical informa-
tion, it is also true that difficult semantic problems were puzzled over,
as the quotation above demonstrates. These meetings were also im-
portant for their psychological benefits-those derived from being
together in a French-speaking community, obviously, but also be-
cause the collaborative approach enhanced the value of even the least
fluent Jesuit's contribution.
TheJesuits continued their evangelization efforts and attempted
17 Campeau, Monumenta, 1:229; ThwaitesJesuit Relations, 2:8-9.

18 Campeau, Monumenta, 1:535; Thwaites,Jesuit Relations, 3:196-97.
19 Micmac is an Algonquian language, spoken by people who called themselves 3lnu.
Philip K. Bock, "Micmac," in Handbook of North American Indians, ed. William C. Sturtevant,
vol. 5, Northeast, ed. Bruce G. Trigger (Washington, D.C., 1978), 109.
20 Campeau, Monumenta, 2:17; Thwaites,Jesuit Relations, 2:218-19. This report is taken
from the Annuae Litterae Anni 1612, Institutum Historicum Societatis Iesus in Rome. See Campeau's
preface, 2:6-7.
21 Campeau, Monumenta, 2:24; Thwaites, Jesuit Relations, 2:240-4 1.
22 Campeau, Monumenta, 1:231; Thwaites, Jesuit Relations, 2:12-13.
to translate a few prayers into the native language. Masse, who seems
to have been better suited to missionary work (his nickname was
"Pere Utile") than Biard, lived among the Micmacs, even going on
an extended hunt with them.23 It was Biard, however, who, although
he had managed to learn only a smattering of the language, wrote
a fairly long treatise on native customs. This treatise was necessary,
he said, so that the superior general of the Society could direct the
missionaries' efforts.24
In Biard's writings, there is direct evidence of the link between
his ideas about the native languages and his view of the native people.
When the Jesuits first arrived, they had used an interpreter, Charles
de Biencourt de Saint-Just (c. 1591-1623 or 1624).25 Biencourt, Biard
wrote, "entend le sauvage le mieux de tous ceux qui sont icy, a pris
d'un grand zele et prend chaque jour beaucoup de peine 'a nous
servir de truchement."26 When it came to matters of religion, how-
ever, communication broke down, according to Biard, not because
Biencourt was deficient in his knowledge of the Micmac language,
but because "ces sauvages n'ont point de religion formee et point de
magistrature ou police, point d'arts, ou liberaux ou mechaniques,
point de commerce ou vie civile." 27 As a consequence, "les maux leur
defaillent des choses qu'ilz n'ontjamays veues ou apprehendees; ...
ilz ont toutes leurs conceptions attachees aux sens et 'a la matiere:
rien d'abstract, interne, spirituel ou distinct."28 Biard also reported
that the missionaries had to make "mille gesticulations et chimagrees
pour leur exprimer noz conceptions et ainsy tirer d'eux quelques
noms des choses qui ne se peuvent monstrer avec le sens." 29
What words was Biard trying to elicit? "Penser, oublier, se resou-
venir, douter."30 To learn these four words, he said, "il vous faudra
donner beau rire 'a noz messers, au moms tout'une apresdisnee, en
faisant le basteleur." 31 After all that, he added, "vous trouveres-vous
23 Masse, Biard writes, was chosen for this task because of "son industrie et engin practic,
idoine de trouver tous remedes a tous inconveniens." Campeau, Monumenta, 1: 556; Thwaites,
Jesuit Relations, 3:244-45.
25 Biencourt was the son of Jean de Biencourt de Poutrencourt et de Saint-Just (1557-
1615), lieutenant-governor of Acadia and commander of the settlement. Huia G. Ryder,
"Charles Biencourt de Saint Just," Dictionary of Canadian Biography, 1:96 (hereafter DCB).
26 Campeau, Monumenta, 1: 229-30; Thwaites, Jesuit Relations, 2:9.
28 Campeau, Monumenta, 1: 230; Thwaites, Jesuit Relations, 2:11.
29 Campeau, Monumenta, 1: 230-31; Thwaites, Jesuit Relations, 2 :10-1 1.
30 Campeau, Monumenta, 1:231; Thwaites, Jesuit Relations, 2:11. Charades or panto-
mimes, as Stephen Greenblatt observes, "depend upon a shared gestural language that can
take the place of speech." Marvelous Possessions: The Wonder of the New World (Chicago, 1991),
31 Campeau, Monumenta, 1: 23 1; Thwaites, Jesuit Relations, 2 :10-1 1.
tromp6 et mocqu% de nouveau."32 Still more unsettling, the Jesuits

occasionally discovered that instead of uttering "belles sentences de
l'evangile," they had in fact been uttering indecencies (paroles des-
honnestes) taught them by their not-so-innocent tutors.33
There are a number of subtexts here that are worth explor-
ing. It is obvious that Biard, the forty-four-year-old former theology
teacher, did not relish being an afternoon's amusement for "les sau-
vages." Patronized by "barbarians," he retaliated by characterizing
the people as "ces pauvres chetifs et enfans" who would not for the
world give up their stunted condition or their childishness.34 Anthony
Pagden writes that travelers went to America "with precise ideas
about what they could expect to find there;" the notion that the native
people of the new world were without religion, government, arts, and
civility are all marks of otherness attributed to them by sixteenth-
century travelers.35 Biard was no different. His experiences with the
language to a large extent simply confirmed what he already "knew."
On the other hand, it is very interesting that he did nonetheless try
to elicit the equivalents for abstract words, which suggests that there
was at least some degree of hypothesis testing associated with the
Jesuits' linguistic project from the very beginning.
We also find in Biard's text one of the earliest accounts of native
people taking advantage of the Jesuits' linguistic vulnerability, in this
case by deliberately teaching the missionaries vulgar words. This is a
persistent theme in the early relations. It is clear that even in the early
stages of encounter there were native people who were quite capable
of using language as an effective weapon in the power struggle with
Europeans, and they did not hesitate to do so.
In the final chapters of Biard's relation of 1616 ("Quel profit
a este faict quant 'a la religion chrestienne en la Nouvelle-France")
he summed up the missionary effort to date. Anticipating his Euro-
pean readers' disappointment with the low number of converts, he
reminded them that there were so few converts primarily because
the Jesuits had decided that they must first master the languages.
Toward that end, Biard wrote, "nous avions compose nostre cate-
chisme en sauvageois et commencions aucunement "a pouvoir jar-
32 Campeau, Monumenta, 1: 231; Thwaites, Jesuit Relations, 2 :10-1 1.

33 Campeau, Monumenta, 1: 535; Thwaites, Jesuit Relations, 2:196-97.
34 Campeau, Monumenta, 1: 231; Thwaites, Jesuit Relations, 12-13.
35 Anthony Pagden, The Fall of Natural Man: The American Indian and the Origins of
Comparative Ethnology (Cambridge, 1982; first paperback ed., 1986), 10. By the end of the six-
teenth century, the Jesuit Joseph Acosta's (1540-1600) Historia natural y moral de las Indias was
"the most widely read book on the New World." Margarita Zamora, Language, Authority, and
Indigenous History in the Comentarios reales de los Incas (Cambridge, 1988), 107.
gonner avec nos catechumenes."36 Although some historians of lin-

guistics have suggested that the missionaries were simply gathering
words,37 Biard's remarks indicate that even in the earliest days of
the mission the goal was far more sophisticated: clearly, all of their
efforts were directed toward meaning, that is, toward mutually intel-
ligible exchanges with native people. The mission at Port-Royal was
short-lived. In 1613 Samuel Argall of Virginia captured Acadia. Du
Thet was killed, Masse was set adrift in a rowboat (he was eventu-
ally rescued by fishermen from St. Malo), and Biard and Quentin
were taken prisoner but were able to make their way to France some
months later.38 Biard died in France in 1622 without ever returning
to Canada.
In 1625 the Jesuits were back in New France. Charles Lalemant
(1587-1674), Masse, and Jean de Brebeuf (1593-1649) arrived in
April of that year. Brebeuf spent the winter of 1625-26 with the
Montagnais at Quebec, and it quickly became apparent that he had
a remarkable facility for learning the language.39 It was therefore
decided that Brebeuf and Anne de Noue, SJ. (1587-1646; Noue ar-
rived in Canada in 1626) should go to live among the Huron people,40
a confederation of four tribes living in the area between Lake Simcoe
and Georgian Bay in what is now the province of Ontario. They were
a settled agricultural people, whose primary crop was corn.4'
Brebeuf was thirty-two years old. The descendant of rural Nor-
man nobility, he had not been a particularly distinguished student,42
yet he would become a highly effective language teacher, giving les-
sons to his fellow Jesuits and to French tradesmen as well. His com-
panion, Noue, on the other hand, had to return to Quebec after a
year, during which it had become clear that he simply was not able
36 Campeau, Monumenta, 1: 603; Thwaites, Jesuit Relations, 4:88-89. This document has
not survived.
37 Hanzeli, Missionary Linguistics, 40.
38 Gustave Lanctot, A History of Canada, Volume One: From Its Origins to the Royal Regime,
1663, trans. Josephine Hambleton (Cambridge, Mass., 1963), 99.
39 "Montagnais" refers to a group of closely related Algonquian tribes (the Astoure-
gamigoukh, Attikiriniouetch, Bersiamite, Chisedec, Escoumains, Espamichkon, Kakouchaki,
Mauthaepi, Miskouaha, Mouchaouaouastiirinioek, Nascapee, Nekoubaniste, Otaguottouemin,
Oukesestigouek, Oumamiwek, Papinachois, Tadousac, and Weperigweia) who lived in and
near the Laurentians. Carl Waldman, Encyclopedia of Native American Tribes (New York, 1988),
144, and Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico, part 1, ed. Frederick Webb Hodge
(Washington, D.C., 1907), 933.
40 "Huron" is a French term, derived from hure (boar's head); they called themselves
Wendat. See Bruce G. Trigger, The Children of Aataentsic: A History of the Huron People to 1660
(Kingston and Montreal, 1976; 1987), 27; for a discussion of the possible meaning of wendat,
see also 438, n. 3.
41 Trigger, The Children of Aataentsic, 26-32.
42 Camille de Rochemonteix, Lesfrsuites et la Nouvelle-France (Paris, 1895), 1:330.
to learn Huron. Brebeuf was left to continue the mission and his
language project alone. Why was Brebeuf successful whereas Noue
was not? Both had completed the same rigorous course of studies. As
the two men started out on their 800-mile journey to the Huron ter-
ritory, there was no reason to anticipate the great disparity in their
abilities to acquire the language.
Accounting for individual differences in second language acqui-
sition is an extremely complicated problem-or, more accurately,
set of problems. Aptitude is certainly an important factor, but the
fact that Noue had had successful language experiences in his Jesuit
training suggests that he was not lacking in ability. Aptitude, in any
case, tends to play a more important role when the student is in a
formal instructional situation-a classroom-than it does in direct
language experiences.43 It is clear that there are a number of affec-
tive variables operating in second language acquisition; what they
are and how they work are not well understood.44 Anecdotal infor-
mation from the relations illustrates the complexity of the process. It
does appear, however, that a student who learns a language primarily
as a tool (instrumental motivation) seems to be less successful than
one who is interested in becoming a member of the target language
community (integrative motivation).45 There are data that suggest
strongly that students who not only want to acquire the language
of the other but are also willing to "adopt appropriate features of
behavior which characterize members of another linguistic commu-
nity" learn much more quickly and efficiently than those who do not
have a strong positive attitude toward the language community.46
The most familiar examples in seventeenth-century Canada of
the integrative motivation type were the truchements, who were hired
by trading companies as interpreters and guides. The truchements,
43 John H. Schumann, "Affective Factors and the Problem of Age in Second Language
Acquisition," in Language Learning 25 (1975): 209. See also Language Aptitude Reconsidered, ed.
Thomas S. Parry and Charles W. Stansfield (Englewood Cliffs, N. J., 1990), especially Robert C.
Gardner's article, "Attitudes, Motivation, and Personality as Predictors of Success in Foreign
Language Learning," 179-221.
44 See Peter Skehan's 1989 study, Individual Differences in Second Language Learnin
don, 1989), for a thorough review of the current literature.
45 Robert C. Gardner and Wallace E. Lambert, Attitudes and Motivation in Second-Language
Learning (Rowley, Mass., 1972), 12. See alsoJ. C. Catford, "Learning a Language in the Field:
Problems of Linguistic Relativity," in Toward a Cognitive Approach to Second-Language Acquisi-
tion, ed. Robert C. Lugton and Charles H. Heinle (Philadelphia, Pa., 1971), 94; and Wolfgang
Klein, Second Language Acquisition (Cambridge, 1986), 38. In a more recent essay Gardner ar-
gues that "the evidence implicating attitudes and motivation in second language learning is
fairly substantial." Gardner, "Attitudes, Motivation, and Personality as Predictors," 213.
46 Gardner and Lambert, Attitudes and Motivation, 14; Schumann, "Affective Factors,"
213.
who lived with the native people, took native wives (learning the lan-
guage "sur l'oreiller"), and adopted native dress and habits, appear to
have become fluent in the language of commerce and social relations
within a comparatively short time.47
There was considerable variation in language learning among
the Jesuits, whose tasks were more complex. Not only were they ex-
pected to learn to speak and understand the languages, but they were
also required to develop grammars and dictionaries, instruct new
arrivals, and do translations that preserved both meaning and ortho-
doxy. At the less fluent end of the success scale is No&, who tried a
failed to learn Huron and later tried and failed to learn Montagnais.
It may well have been that adjusting to life in Canada was simply too
much for him; no amount of zeal for souls could compensate for the
physical and psychological hardships.
Research suggests that a learner in a foreign country usually
experiences three types of disorientation: language shock, culture
shock, and culture stress.48 Language shock occurs, for example,
when the learner is unable to name objects and ideas or when he
speaks poorly, so that he feels inadequate, shamed, perhaps even
guilty.49 Culture shock is defined as "anxiety resulting from the dis-
orientation encountered upon entering a new culture"; fear, anxiety,
and depression are common when the learner's coping- and problem-
solving strategies are not appropriate in the new situation.50 Culture
stress may continue for years, even after an acceptable level of mas-
tery has been reached. It usually centers around problems of iden-
tity-as, for example, in the case of someone who may have had a
very responsible position in his home country but finds himself as a
"foreigner" in a much less prestigious occupation.5' There are many
examples of these manifestations of alterity described in the relations,
they occur with varying degrees of intensity, and each missionary
47 In the view of Christian missionaries (Recollet as well as Jesuit), the interpreters were
not only immoral, but entirely too independent. They wanted Etienne Briule and Nicolas Mar-
solet sent back to France, but both were given reprieves when they agreed to tutor the Jesuits
in Huron and Montagnais, respectively. See Trigger, The Children of Aataentsic, 404-5.
48 Schumann, "Affective Factors," 211.
49 Erwin Stengal, "On Learning a New Language," InternationalJournal of Psychoanalysis
20 (1939): 471-79; summarized in Schumann, "Affective Factors," 211.
50 Schumann, "Affective Factors," 212. Lambert found that anomie-feelings of alien-
ation and homelessness-is experienced most deeply just as the learner begins to "master"
the language. This is a time when the learner feels as though he belongs neither to his native
culture nor to the new culture. H. Douglas Brown, Principles of Language Learning and Teaching,
2nd ed. (Englewood Cliffs, NJ., 1987), 130; see also Wallace Lambert, "A Social Psychology
of Bilingualism," The Journal of Social Issues 23 (1967): 91-109.
51 Schumann, "Affective Factors," 210.
uses somewhat different coping strategies with varying levels of suc-

cess.
The case of Noe Chabanel, S.J. (1613-49) is perhaps the most
striking incidence of linguistic failure in the relations. Of Chabanel,
Paul Ragueneau, S.J., wrote that even after three, four, and five years
of effort to learn Huron, "il s'y voyoit si peu auance, qu'at peine
pouuoit-il se faire entendre dans les choses les plus communes."52 In
consequence of this, Ragueneau continued, "son humeur, en suite
de cela, estoit si esloignee des faions d'agir des Sauuages, qu'il ne
pouuoit quasi rien agreer en eux, leur veue luy estoit onereuse,
leur entretien, & tout ce qui venoit de ce coste lA."53 Culture shock
and culture stress, modern research indicates, can induce "a whole
syndrome of rejection, and thus divert energy and attention from
learning; when the people of the host country are the primary target
of this rejection, the consequences for language learning are very
serious."54 This is clearly what happened to Chabanel. Ragueneau
reported that Chabanel could not get used to the food, and that life
in the Canadian missions "estoit si violente 'a toute sa nature, qu'il
y auoit des peines extraordinaires . .. au moins de celles qu'on ap-
pelle sensibles, tousiours coucher 'a plate terre, viure depuis le matin
iusqu'au soir dans un petit enfer de fumee, & dans vn lieu oui sou-
uent le matin on se trouue couuert de neiges, qui entrent de tous
costez dans les cabanes des Sauuages; oui on est remply de vermine;
ou tous les sens ont chacun leur tourment, & de nuict, & de iour."55
Most of the Jesuits who came to New France fell somewhere be-
tween the near-native fluency of the truchements and the near-zero
fluency of Noue and Chabanel; Jean de Brebeuf was at the upper end
of the mastery scale. During his two years with the Huron, Brebeuf
attained at least a modest level of fluency (or, at any rate, sufficient
confidence), which allowed him to prepare a translation from French
of Ledesma's catechism. This document was the first printed text in
52 Thwaites, Jesuit Relations, 35:150-5 1.

53 Ibid., 35:150-53.
54 Schumann, 'Affective Factors," 213.
55 ThwaitesJesuit Relations, 35:152-53. According to the relations, Chabanel was robbed
and murdered by Honareenhac, a Huron convert, who subsequently boasted that he had killed
the Jesuit "to avenge himself for the extraordinary misfortunes that had afflicted him and his
family after they had been baptized." Trigger, The Children of Aataentsic. Trigger writes, "It
was best for the Jesuits to close their eyes to what had happened," because they feared more
violence, 778. Thwaites,Jesuit Relations, 35:150-51. Guy Lafleche, in Les Saints Martyrs Canadi-
ens. Volume I, Histoire du Mythe (Quebec, 1988), 33, asserts that Chabanel was not murdered,
but that he either starved or froze to death. The murder story, he suggests, was an invention
of Jesuits in France, eager to have members of the order canonized as Roman Catholic saints;
martyrdom was the shortest route.
Huron.56 Brebeuf built on the language work of Recollet missionaries

who preceded him, but the Huron of his catechism was considerably
more advanced, particularly in his representations of the sounds.57
Brebeuf never minimized the difficulties inherent in acquiring
a knowledge of the native languages. He wrote an eloquent note
of warning to Jesuits in France who were thinking of joining the
Canadian mission: "II faut faire estat, pour grand maistre et grand
theologien que vous ayez este en France, d'estre icy petit escolier et
encor, o bon Dieu, de quels maistres! Des femmes, des petits enfans,
de tous les sauvages, et d'estre expose 'a leur risee."58 The Huron
language, he added, "sera vostre sainct Thomas et vostre Aristote." 59
This passage, while it echoes Biard's in its description of the mis-
sionaries' difficulties, was written by a very different sort of person.
Besides being unusually talented linguistically, by all accounts, Jean
de Brebeuf appears to have been a very approachable, humble, and
good-natured person; all of his Jesuit companions testified to his
superb missionary gifts. LeJeune wrote of him, "O l'excellent h
pour ces pays icy que le Pere Brebeuf! Sa memoire tres heureuse, sa
douceur tres aymable feront de grands fruicts dedans les Hurons." 60
Brebeuf's stay among the Hurons was cut short after three years
by the perilous situation at Quebec, and he and his companions
returned to France. By the terms of the Treaty of Saint-Germain-
en-Laye in 1632, however, the North American territories seized by
England were returned to France. With the French on their return
to Quebec were three Jesuits: Paul Le Jeune (1591-1664), Jean de
Brebeuf, and Anne de Noue. Later that same year, Antoine Daniel
(1601-48) and Ambroise Davost (1586-1643) arrived.
In 1634 Brebeuf, Daniel, and Davost set out with native traders
who had formally agreed to take them to the Huron villages to re-
establish the Jesuit mission base. The Jesuits each traveled in a dif-
ferent canoe, and each was required to paddle and portage all along
the route. The voyage was particularly hard for Daniel and Davost,
56 The catechism is reprinted in Campeau, Monumenta, 2:241-57. In the seventeenth

century, the volume was often bound in with Samuel de Champlain's Voyages. See John
Steckley's "Brebeuf's Presentation of Catholicism in the Huron Language: A Descriptive Over-
view," University of Ottawa Quarterly 48 (1978): 93-115. According to Steckley, the catechism
was an example of the way missionaries used such tracts "to impose a cognitive system upon
an American Indian people," 193.
57 The printers, however, did not reproduce the symbols that Brebeuf invented to repre-
sent these sounds. Campeau, Monumenta, 2:239.
58 Campeau, Monumenta, 3:335; Thwaites, Jesuit Relations, 10: 90-9 1.
59 Campeau, Monumenta, 3:335; Thwaites, Jesuit Relations, 10:90-91. These comments
are a nice gloss on "language stress."
60 Campeau, Monumenta, 2:649-50; Thwaites, Jesuit Relations, 7:32-33.
Brebeuf wrote, because of the "long et ennuyeux silence ou l'on est

reduit . . . [ius] n'ont parfois en leur compagnie personne de leur
langue et ne s4avent celle des sauvages.9961 Davost had a particularly
difficult time; some of his things were stolen, his Huron companions
forced him to throw away a little mill, almost all of the Jesuits' books,
and "une bonne partie du papier que nous portions, dont nous avons
grand besoin."62
At the close of his account of their journey, Brebeuf wrote that
anyone coming to Canada had to expect danger and great fatigue.
While Biard and Le Jeune seemed to blame the native people for
every hardship, Brebeuf did not; instead, he wrote, "J'attribue neant-
moins toutes ces difficultez extraordinaires 'a la maladie de nos sau-
vages. Car nous s;avons assez combien les maladies alterent les hu-
meurs et les complexions mesmes des plus sociables."63 There is, in
fact, almost no mention of Brebeuf's own trials, and what is per-
haps even more significant, no complaint about the way the Hurons
treated him personally.64 In striking contrast to Biard's patronizing
attitude toward the native people and to Chabanel's "inexpressible
loathing for the ways and customs of the Indians,"65 Brebeuf seems to
have gone out of his way to diminish the distance between the Jesuits
and the Hurons, focusing on what they had in common, rather than
on their differences.
Brebeuf's attention was fixed not on his hardships, but on the
task of learning the language. In his report to Le Jeune, he stated,
"Premierement, nous nous sommes employez en l'estude de la langue.
... On ne peut ... rien faire sans cet estude."66 He added that every-
one was applying himself eagerly, "ramenant l'ancien usage d'escrire
sur des escorces de bouleau, faute de papier."67 He also remarked
on the excellent progress of Davost and Daniel; about himself, he
said, "Si Dieu ne m'assiste extraordinairement, encor me faudra-[t]-
il aller longtemps 'a l'escole des sauvages, telle est la fecondite de
leur langue." 68 The Hurons, he wrote, can understand "mes concep-
tions, mesme dans l'explication de nos plus ineffables mysteres."69

63 Campeau, Monumenta, 3:91-92; Thwaites, Jesuit Relations, 8:86-87.
64 For example, Brebeuf had been left off by the Hurons at an abandoned settlement
and had had to make his way alone to the new one. Le Jeune's relations, by contrast, are a
catalog of his mistreatment at the hands of the Montagnais.
65 Leon Pouliot, "Noel Chabanel," DCB, 1: 184.
69 Campeau, Monumenta, 3:108; Thwaites,Jesuit Relations, 8:132-33. The catechism, for
Brebeuf's goal was always mutual intelligibility. Unlike Biard and Le

Jeune, who often seemed to be trying to recreate their structured
classroom experiences of language learning, Brebeuf's learning took
place through real dialogue with native people.
One of his contemporaries would write that Brebeuf devoured
"les difficultez de ces langues barbares, auec vn succes si heureux,
qu'il sembloit n'estre ne que pour ces pais."70 And, in fact, Brebeuf's
report to Paul Le Jeune at Quebec, glows with confidence. Though
it is probable that he overstated their abilities to some degree (almost
certainly in the matter of explaining their "most ineffable mysteries"-'),
he had obviously reached a point in the language-learning process
where he was comfortable conversing in Huron or at the very least,
had developed strategies to cope with his linguistic 4eficiencies.71
Brebeuf's description of the classes for the Hurons gives us some
insight into the way the Jesuits typically combined catechesis with
language learning and also into the way each missionary developed
his own style. He recorded how he would call the people together
"par le moyen du capitaine du village, qui les assemble tous chez nous
comme en conseil," 72 or sometimes by ringing a bell.73 He also added,
"Je me sers du surplis et du bonnet carre, pour donner plus de ma-
jeste."74 He described how Daniel, who had translated the Lord's
Prayer into Huron verse form, would chant a couplet alone, and then
they would all sing it together after him.75 The Hurons who knew the
prayer (principally the little ones, Brebeuf wrote), "prennent plaisir
de chanter avec nous."76
What we see here is a deliberate effort to adapt to the Huron
way of doing things: Brebeuf recruited the man whose regular task
it was to assemble the people of his community for important events
example, asks: "Tande ne aot Achincacha, tout aotan nondee?" (What is the Holy Trinity?). It
continues: "Tout ichien Aistan Aatio ihout?" (Is the Father God?); "Hoen Aatio tondi?" (Is the
Son God?); and "Dat aot Esken Aatio tondi?" (Is the Holy Spirit God?), to which the response
each time is "Aau" (yes). Then the student is asked "Achinc ichien ihenon Atattio?" (Are there
three Gods?), to which he or she is to answer: "Tastan, aerhon achinc ihenon iatae, onecichien
satat ara Aatio" (No; although there may be three persons, there is, however, only one God).
Campeau, Monumenta, 2:245-46; the catechism is printed with the Huron in one column, the
French in the other.
70 Thwaites, Jesuit Relations, 34:158-59.
71 In contrast to less successful learners, effective language students appear to use a
variety of strategies and are more expert in their choice and use of strategies. See Anna Uhl
Chamot and Lisa Kupper, "Learning Strategies in Foreign Language Instruction," Foreign
Language Annals 22 (1989): 13-24.
or meetings, and thus, when the Hurons were gathered in the mis-
sionaries' house it was, as Brebeuf described it, "as for a council,"
which is to say for an occasion of some importance, run, to some
degree at least, according to Huron "rules of order." Brebeuf was a
large man (punning on his name, he sometimes referred to himself
as "vrai boeuf"); so it was not to lend "majesty" to his own person
that he put on the surplice and "bonnet carre," but rather to empha-
size the ceremonial nature of the occasion. Brebeuf clearly was trying
to make his message more intelligible to his listeners, by reducing
the distance between himself and the Hurons and by accomodating
whenever he could to their customs.77 Unlike Biard and Chabanel
(and perhaps Noue, as well), Brebeuf does not appear to have found
living with the native people distasteful. His colleagues were clearly
in awe of the ease with which he was able to adjust culturally to living
with them. Ragueneau, for example wrote that Brebeuf was adept at
"accommodant son nature, & son humeur aux fa~ons d'agir de ces
peuples, auec tant de conduite."78
It is also apparent that under Brebeuf's direction the mission-
aries' language skills continued to improve. Fran~ois-Joseph Le Mer-
cier, S.J. (1604-90), in his 1637 report from the Huron mission,
wrote that Brebeuf had already "compose quelque discours qui nous
avoient grandement faconne dans l'instruction des sauvages."79 The
Hurons were, understandably, impatient with the Jesuits' halting at-
tempts to speak their language; memorizing some pieces, in more
or less grammatical Huron, allowed the new missionaries to sound
more proficient than they really were. The use of this strategy is an
example of Brebeuf's focus on contextualizing language learning as
77 It is useful here to recall Gardner and Lambert's description of a learner with an

integrative motivation as one who is willing to "adopt appropriate features of behavior which
characterize members of another linguistic community." "Attitudes and Motivation," 14. See
alsoJohn Steckley's "Brebeuf's Presentation of Catholicism in the Huron Language." Therien,
as well, has found evidence for Brebeuf's efforts to adapt "a la facon huronne" when he was
attempting to influence native leaders to reunify certain villages. See Therien, "Pour une lec-
ture autobiographique des &crits de Jean de Brebeuf," in LIndien imaginaire, 79. In Le Jeune's
relations, on the other hand, we find many instances when he deliberately acted in ways con-
trary to native practices-throwing his food to dogs, for example, although he knew that native
people believed that this action would make it impossible for them to have a successful hunt.
See Campeau, Monumenta, 2:707; Thwaites,Jesuit Relations, 7:162-63.
78 Thwaites, Jesuit Relations, 34:158-59. Later missionaries also report efforts to acco-
modate to native practices. Francois Mercier, S.J. (1604-90), the author of the relation of
1667-68, wrote that "le Pere [Jacques] Fremin harangua devat toute cette grande assemblke,
s'accommodant pour les discours & pour les postures a la facon de faire de leurs plus celebres
Orateurs, qui ne parlent pas moins par gestes que de la langue." Thwaites, Jesuit Relations,
51:204-5. Claude Dablon, S.J. (1619-97), said in 1678, after the death of a native Christian,
"Je gardai le grand deuil pendant huit jours a la facon du pays." Thwaites, Jesuit Relations,
61:30-31.
well as of his continuing efforts to make himself and his fellow mis-
sionaries appear less "different" to the native people. Moreover, as
Le Mercier's comment suggests, these "discours" increased the mis-
sionaries' confidence, which, in turn, increased their motivation to
learn. In the reports from the Huron mission, we can also see evi-
dence of the priority that language had in the Jesuits' daily lives:
"Apres nos exercices de devotion nous n'avons point de plus grande
consolation que de vaquer 'a cette estude. Ce sont nos entretiens les
plus ordinaires et nous recueillons tous les mots de la bouche des
sauvages comme autant de pierres precieuses."80
Brebeuf's report of 1636 also contains a brief but instructive ac-
count of how he and his colleagues went about preparing themselves
for intensive work on a dictionary and grammar of Huron. During
the summer, when the Huron men were away on trading expedi-
tions and the women were busy with farming operations, he wrote,
"nous nous recueillismes tous par les exercices spirituels 'a la fa~on
de nostre Compagnie."98' "Nous en avons d'autant plus besoin," he
explained, "que l'excellence de nos fonctions requiert plus d'union
avec Dieu et que nous sommes contraints de vivre continuellement
dans le tracas." 82 It seems that Brebeuf, as both mission superior and
language mentor, was trying to nurture a balance between the Jesuit
and Huron communities so that the new missionaries did not fear
separation from their own culture, on the one hand, and were suffi-
ciently immersed in Huron society to be able to learn the language,
on the other. The Ignatian exercises, with their intense application of
all the senses in meditation, were well-suited to the missionaries' lan-
guage acquisition project, because the systematic use of multisensory
images in prayer directed toward dialogue and action is appropriate
not only for Jesuit catechetical methodology, but also for the lan-
guage acquisition process. Thus, when the spiritual exercises were
concluded, the reenergized missionaries immediately began work on
the Huron dictionary and grammar.83
Paul Ragueneau, Brebeuf's contemporary biographer, wrote
that Brebeuf "ne trouuoit point de difference entre l'estude des sci-
ences plus hautes . . . & les difficultez espineuses d'vne langue bar-

81 Campeau, Monumenta, 3:322; Thwaites, Jesuit Relations, 10: 52-53.
83 Rene Latourelle writes that Brebeuf represented "pour 1'6glise canadienne 1'un des
premiers mystiques connus de la Nouvelle-France." Etudes sur les r&its de saint Jean de Brebeuf
(Montreal, 1952), 1:7. See also Therien's "Pour une lecture autobiographique des 6crits de
Jean de Brebeuf," in L'Indien imaginaire.
bare,"84 and this approach is evident in Brebeuf's description of how

the missionaries went about learning the Huron language. To compile
the dictionary, they first made what he called "un memorial confus"
of the new words they had learned, and then they outlined a dictio-
nary, which he expected would be very helpful.85 So important were
the linguistic works to Brebeuf that when their lives were in danger,
he gave instructions to remove to the house of a Christian convert
"tout ce qui est de la sacristie, surtout qu'on ait un soin particulier
de mettre en lieu d'asseurance le dictionnaire et tout ce que nous
avons de la langue." 86 Next, Brebeuf continued his description, "nous
nous occupasme 'a reformer, ou plutost 'a ranger une grammaire."87
He feared that they would often have to make similar revisions, for
"tous les jours nous allons descouvrans de nouveaux secrets en ceste
science, ce qui nous empesche d'envoyer rien 'a imprimer pour le
present." 88
Brebeuf's choice of "to arrange" in place of "to revise" is an
interesting one. If the grammar the Jesuits were preparing was being
"arranged," it suggests that its pieces were being moved around,
calling to mind Saussure's (1857-1913) image of language as chess
pieces.89 The grammar was in process; in other words, it was not
something that could be fitted comfortably into existing paradigms.
Brebeuf's reference to their grammatical project as "this science"
has a modern resonance: here we see even more direct evidence of
the hypothesis testing that was going on as various paradigms -and
explanations were tried and abandoned or verified.90
What did Brebeuf say about the language itself? The fourth
chapter of his report for 1636 is entitled "De la langue des Hurons." It
is quite short (about five pages in the original Cramoisy edition) and
was designed, according to Brebeuf, to give a little foretaste ("avant-
84 Thwaites,Jesuit Relations, 34:154-55. For a thorough discussion of the term barbarous

as applied to the native peoples of the Americas, see Pagden, The Fall of Natural Man, esp.
chap. 2.
86 Campeau, Monumenta, 4:152; Thwaites, Jesuit Relations, 15:64-65; my emphasis.
88 Campeau, Monumenta, 3:323; Thwaites, Jesuit Relations, 154-55. As late as 1665, the
superior of the Canadian mission (Jerome Lalemant, in this case) was still requesting a printing
press, but none was ever sent.
89 Ferdinand de Saussure, Cours de linguistique generale, ed. Tullio de Mauro (Paris, 1981),
43. Saussure uses the image of chess to illustrate his point that it makes no difference whether
the pieces are of ivory or wood; increasing the number of pieces, however, does make a dif-
ference. In the latter case, the "grammar" of the game (la "grammaire" du jeu) is radically
changed.
90 "Transcription," Pagden writes, "is the all-important characteristic of true language
of scientia." The Fall of Natural Man, 183.
goust") of the language, taking note of some of its peculiarities, "at-

tendant une grammaire et un dictionnaire entier"-a remark which
again reinforces the tentative nature of their grammatical project.9'
In his discussion of the sounds of the language, Brebeuf noted that
the Huron had a sound which had no parallel in French, adding,
"nous l'exprimons par Khi."92 He went on to write about the mor-
phology and syntax of Huron, in which "les mots composez leur sont
plus en usage.... La variete de ces noms composez est tres grande
et c'est la clef du secret de leur langue."93
At this point in his report, Brebeuf's prose becomes brighter:
"La merveille," he wrote; "ce qui est de plus remarquable," and a few
paragraphs later, "Ce que je trouve de plus rare."94 Brebeuf clearly
was exhilarated by his findings, particularly of the compound words,
which, he wrote, were the "clef du secret" of the language. This
feature is, in fact, "the most outstanding structural feature" of not
only the Iroquoian languages, but of many other Indian languages
as well. Two centuries later, Peter Stephen Duponceau invented the
classification "polysynthetic" for languages of this type.95 Brebeuf's
discovery was a tremendous breakthrough for the missionary lin-
guists; all of their subsequent achievements rested on it. For example,
in the relation of 1641, there is an account of a visit by Brebeuf and
Pierre-Joseph-Marie Chaumonot, S.J. (1611-93), to the Neutrals (an
Iroquoian people living in southern Ontario).96 The two were tutored
in the Neutral language by a woman, and according to Jerome Lale-
mant, the author of the relation, while studying with her, they were
able to "ajuster le dictionnaire et les principles de la langue huronne
a celle de ces peuples."97 Lalemant also remarked that the mission-
91 Campeau, Monumenta, 3:343; Thwaites,Jesuit Relations, 10: 116-17.

92 Campeau, Monumenta, 3:343; Thwaites,Jesuit Relations, 10: 116-17.
94 Campeau, Monumenta, 3:344-45; Thwaites, Jesuit Relations, 10: 116-17.
95 Hanzeli, Missionary Linguistics, 59. See Floyd G. Lounsbury, "Iroquoian Languages,"
in Handbook of North American Indians, ed. William C. Sturtevant, vol. 15: Northeast, ed. Bruce G.
Trigger, 334-43. "Polysynthetic" languages typically have words which have a number of com-
ponent parts that have no meaning out of context. The order of the part is determined. On
page 337, Lounsbury gives an example from Oneida, an Iroquoian language: "the verb root -
yetho- 'to plant', as in layethos 'he plants', may occur with the incorporated stems of the nouns
o.neste? 'corn' and ohneni ta? 'potatoes': lanfstayethos 'he plants corn'; lahnfnatayethos 'he plants
potatoes'." The choice between the "alternative possibilities of incorporating noun roots into
the verbs or expressing them separately in any given sentence," he adds, is governed by rules
of "syntax, emphasis, and style, as well as lexical conventions." Some linguists do not regard
languages with this feature as belonging to a separate typological category. See David Cystal,
The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language (Cambridge, 1987), 293.
96 Chauminot was born at Chatillon-sur-Seine (Burgundy) and died at Quebec. Inspired
by Brebeuf's relation of 1636, he entered the Jesuit novitiate at Florence. The author of a
grammar of Huron, he was one of the most linguistically proficient missionaries. See Andre
Surprenant, "Pierre-Joseph-Marie Chaumonot," DCB, 1: 205-7.
aries' collaborative project with the Neutral woman allowed them to

"faire un ouvrage qui seul meritoit qu'on fist un voyage de plusieurs
annees dans le pais."98
As the Jesuits became more fluent, the nature of their collabo-
ration with native people became more sophisticated. The Neutral
woman, Lalemant reported, "took [remarkable] pleasure in teaching
them the language, dictating the words to them, syllable by syllable,
as a teacher would do to a little pupil; she even dictated to them en-
tire Narrations."99 Children from the village also served as language
tutors.'00 These experiences of language learning were strikingly dif-
ferent from those that Biard had described.
Once the language acquisition task became less onerous, mis-
sionaries were able to develop all sorts of innovative methods of
teaching and learning in the field. One later missionary used books,
composed after the native manner: mnemonic devices, which appar-
ently had both symbols to trigger memory and some writing.'0' One
of the most creative of the later missionaries was Jean Pierron, S.J.
(1631-1700), who refined the technique, in practice since the earli-
est days of the missions, of using pictures both for catechesis and for
learning the languages. Pierron painted his own pictures, and he ex-
plained to his readers that this was the secret to his teaching himself
the language, because he learned a good deal from listening to the
native people talk about the pictures.'02 Pierron also invented a card
game, which he called "du point au point," the cards for which he
painted to illustrate "nos Mysteres." 103

99 Campeau, Monumenta, 5:200; Thwaites, Jesuit Relations, 21:224-25. "Elle prenoit un
singulier plaisir de les instruire en la langue, leur dictant syllabe par syllabe les mots, comme
feroit un maistre a un petit escolier, leur dictant mesme des narrations entieres, telles qu'ils
les desiroient." There is a similar story in a much later relation. Pierre Laure, SJ., in his re-
port of 1703, wrote that he sought out a woman (whom he identified as a former Christian),
who "directed my studies in a masterly manner; and, at the very first word that she heard me
pronounce, she said to the others: 'That will do; our father has spoken our language; I will
no longer speak french to him.' Notwithstanding my entreaties, she kept her word." Thwaites,
Jesuit Relations, 68:54-55. "Elle conduisit mes estudes et des le premier ot qu'elle mentendit
prononcer, cen est fait, dit elle aux autres, notre pere a parle notre language, je ne lui parlerai
plus francois. [M]algre mes instances elle garda sa parole."
100 Campeau, Monumenta, 5:200; Thwaites, Jesuit Relations, 21:224-27. "A son exemple
les petits enfans, qui ailleurs partout s'enfuyoient ou se cachoient en leur presence, icy a l'envy
des uns des autres leur rendoient mille bons offices et ne se pouvoient lasser de les entretenir
et leur donner tout contentement, soit pour la langue, soit pour quoy que se fust."
101 Thwaites, Jesuit Relations, 29:138-43.
102 "Le secret de m'instruire; car en les entendant raconter nos Mysteres, j'apprens
beaucoup de la langue, par le moyen de ces Images." Thwaites,Jesuit Relations, 52:118-19.
103 Thwaites, Jesuit Relations, 53:208-13. Here he was following the example of Michel
de Nobletz, who had used the technique in rural France. Biard, Brebeuf, Le Jeune, and others
also used pictures both to evangelize and to learn the native languages. Francois-Marc Gagnon,
in his La Conversion par l'image: Un Aspect de la mission des Jesuites aupres des indiens du Canada,
XVIIe siecle (Montreal, 1975), discusses the former use, but not the latter.
Brebeuf and his colleagues had the assistance of a bilingual in-

formant, a young Huron named Amantacha (1609-36). During Bre-
beuf's first stay with the Huron, Amantacha, with the permission of
his father, was taken to France; he was about seventeen years old.104
On 27 December 1627, he was baptized at the cathedral of Rouen by
the archbishop in a grandiose ceremony before an overflow crowd
(the rumor was that he was the son of the king of Canada).'05 Amana-
tacha (who was given the name "Louis de Sainte-Foi") spent two
years with the Jesuits in France, where he learned to read and write
in French. Amantacha translated a number of catechetical works for
the Jesuits. These works, none of which has survived, were a critical
piece of the language project. They were used to teach the native
people, of course, but Brebeuf also used them extensively to teach
his fellow Jesuits the Huron language.'06
Some of his contemporaries (Champlain, for example) and mod-
ern scholars (Bruce Trigger) are somewhat dubious about the au-
thenticity of Amantacha's conversion.'07 Whatever his motives, how-
ever, he seems to have collaborated willingly with Brebeuf and the
others as they developed a grammar, compiled a dictionary, trans-
lated prayers and catechetical documents, and instructed newcomers
in the language. Amantacha also had an extremely able partner in
Brebeuf.
If Brebeuf seems to have had a particular facility for languages,
one of his colleagues, Paul Le Jeune, was perhaps a more typical
language learner. Le Jeune was thirty-one when he came to Canada.
He had been born in the province of Champagne of Calvinist par-
ents. At sixteen, he became a Roman Catholic, and six years later,
in 1613, he entered the Jesuit novitiate in Paris.'08 He was study-
ing at the Jesuit college at La Fleche when Enemond Masse returned
104 Kidnapping, Greenblatt reminds us, was from the fifteenth century onward, "the
principal means chosen by the Europeans to establish linguistic contact." Marvelous Possessions,
106. This was certainly the case in Canada in the sixteenth century, as well. Therien points
out that the first captivity narrative from New France is the story of the capture of Donnacona
and his family, which occurred during the second voyage of Jacques Cartier. Gilles Therien,
"Le Topos de la captivite au dix-septieme sicle," Canadian LiteratureILittirature Canadienne
131:39. By the seventeenth century Europeans and native people tended to negotiate such
arrangements, though not always.
105 Bruce Trigger, "Amantacha," DCB, 1: 58-59.
106 Campeau, Monumenta, 3:768. "Le Pere Superieur nous avoit deja compose quelque
discour qui nous avoient grandement faconne dans l'instruction des sauvages. Et pendant le
caresme [Lent], il nous a expliqu6 quelques catechismes que Louys de Sancte-Foy nous avoit
tourn6 I'an passe sur les mystere de la vie, mort et passion de Nostre-Seigneur, qui nous ont
encor grandement ayde, nommement [by name] en ce point."
107 Campeau, Monumenta, 2:373.
108 Leon Pouliot, "Paul Le jeune," DCB, 1:453.
from New France, an ardent recruiter for the Canadian mission. Le

Jeune was not one of those La Fleche alumni who asked to be sent
to Canada; however, when assigned to the mission (he was in charge
of the Jesuit residence at Dieppe at the time, after having taught
rhetoric at Nevers and at Caen), he accepted it, later writing that
he had felt "no particular affection for the Savages, but the duty of
obedience was binding." 109
Le Jeune and Anne de Noue, en route to Canada, had sought
to find "les moyens de s'adonner 'a l'estude de la langue.""110 The
voyage was rough and unpleasant, but Le Jeune said he left off all
other cares and began to leaf through "un petit dictionnaire escrit 'a
la main." "'Fides ex auditu,"' he wrote, "la foy entre par l'aureille.
Comment peut un muet prescher l'evangile?""'I After a few weeks
in Canada, Le Jeune found that he was making very little progress
in learning the language of the Montagnais people, so he decided
to visit the natives' cabins-"me faire l'oreille 'a leur langue.""12 He
reported to his readers that he had begun to make "des conjugai-
sons, declinaisons, quelque petite syntaxe, un dictionnaire, avec une
peine incroyable," and in a remark that recalls Biard, he continued,
"car il me falloit quelquefois demander vingt questions pour avoir
la cognoissance d'un mot, tant mon maistre, peu duit 'a enseigner,
varioit." 3 His teacher was a Montagnais, Pastedechouan, and there
were a number of reasons why his tutor's methods may have seemed
changeable, not the least of which was the fact that Pastedechouan
was an unwilling tutor, as we shall see below. Ultimately, however,
the explanation probably lay in Le Jeune's notion, based on Latin
models, of what languages were like. A few lines later, Le Jeune
explained: "II m'a fallu, avant que de s~avoir une langue, faire des
livres pour lapprendre ... quand je compose quelque chose, je me fay
bien entendre aux sauvages." 114 He added, "Le tout gist 'a composer
souvent, a apprendre quantite de mots, 'a me faire 'a leur accent."5
109 Quoted in Pouliot, ibid. Dominique Deslandres, in a paper presented at the May
1992 meeting of the French Colonial Historical Society, notes that missionaries generally were
more interested in going to Constantinople or the Indies than to Canada. See Dominique Des-
landres, "Mission et alterit6: Les Missionnaires francais et la definition de l"Autre' au XVIIe
si&le." In Proceedings of the Eighteenth Meeting of the French Colonial Historical Society, Montre
ed. James Pritchard (Cleveland, Ohio: French Colonial Historical Society, 1993).
111 Campeau, Monumenta, 2:408, 2:447; Thwaites, Jesuit Relations, 5:86-87, 5:190-92.
The reference is to Romans 10.17.
114 Campeau, Monumenta, 2:418; Thwaites,Jesuit Relations, 5:112-13; my emphasis.
Le Jeune's Montagnais project was not off to an auspicious start.

First of all, studying the little dictionary was not a good idea be-
cause it was full of errors, as he quickly discovered. Going to visit
the natives' cabins in order to learn the language more quickly might
have worked for someone else (Masse and Brebeuf, for example),
but not for the rhetoric professor from Paris: getting there took so
much out of him physically and emotionally that he quickly-and
wisely-abandoned this approach.
The next strategy, employing a native tutor, was used by other
missionaries in the field (Biard and Brebeuf, among others) and
might have advanced his language learning had he not chosen as
his teacher Pierre Pastedechouan, a Montagnais whom the Recollet
missionaries had sent to France as a young child to learn Latin and
French."6 After six years in France, however, Pastedechouan either
had forgotten his native language or, more likely, he did not want
to speak it. Sent back to his family to recover the use of his mother
tongue, he had no survival skills for life as a hunter. Pastedechouan,
as Bruce Trigger has written, was reduced to a "parasitic existence,
which led him to be dependent on, and ultimately to loathe, both his
own people and the French.""l7 Given his physical, emotional, and
linguistic dislocation, he would not and probably could not perform
in the role of teacher, Le Jeune's little rewards of tobacco notwith-
standing."18
Le Jeune, after only a few weeks in Canada, had become con-
vinced that someone who knew the Indians' languages well would be
all-powerful among them ("tout puissant parmy eux")."19 This was
so, he said, because "il n'y a lieu au monde oui la rhetorique soit plus
puissante qu'en Canadas.... Car leur capitaine n'est esleu que pour
sa langue et il est autant bien obey qu'il l'a bien pendue. Ils n'ont
point d'autres loix que sa parole." 120 This being the case, Le Jeune
116 See Thomas Grassmann, "Pastedechouan (Patetchoanen, Ahinsistan, Atetkouanon),

Pierre-Antoine," DCB 1:533.
117 Trigger, The Children of Aataentsic, 461. See also Campeau, 2:712 or Thwaites, 7:172-
75. A succession of wives left Pastedechouan, and he became an alcoholic. He died of starva-
tion in 1636, as Grassman says, an "early victim of French-Indian cultural conflict." "Paste-
dechouan," DCB 1:533.
118 "A toutes les difficultez que je rencontrois, j'en donnois un bout a mon maistre,
pour le rendre plus attentif" (Campeau, Monumenta, 2:418; Thwaites, Jesuit Relations, 5:112-
13). The fact that Pastedechouan spoke French fluently may well have inhibited Le Jeune's
progress. There are instances where Le Jeune asked the Montagnais "me prester sa parole,"
for example, instead of speaking for himself. Campeau, Monumenta, 2:682, 2:690; Thwaites,
Jesuit Relations, 7:104-5, 7:122-23.
would try yet another strategy to master the language: a winter with
the Montagnais.
Le Jeune opened his account of what he learned of the language
during that period ("De la langue des sauvages Montagnais") with a
few remarks on the Montagnais lexicon, followed by some informa-
tion on the parts of speech. He distinguished three verb types. The
first, he called "absolute," explaining that the verb nimitison "signi-
fie absolument je mange, sans dire quoy." 121 If, however, one were
to specify what is to be eaten, "il se faut servir d'un autre verbe." 122
Moreover, "ils ont des verbes differents pour signifier l'action envers
une chose animee et envers une chose inanimee." 123 His example is
Niouapaman iriniou (I see a man), but niouabaten (I see a stone).'24
It appeared to him that "il faut .. . changer de verbe . .. l'on ne
peut se servir des verbes ... sans parler improprement." 125 Again,
this is an example of the sort of remark that prompted modern lin-
guists' complaints about the word-centeredness of Jesuit writers and
suggested to them that the missionaries did not see the native lan-
guages as rule-governed.'26 The verbs are not, as Le Jeune thought,
"different" lexical entries, but the same verb incorporates (by af-
fixing, suffixing, and infixing) different morphological elements.'27
This is, of course, the "polysynthetic" feature-Brebeuf's "clef du
secret." Yet it certainly is not difficult to understand why Le Jeune
was confused or why, as he wrote, "les sauvages ne m'entendront pas.
Que s'ils m'entendent, ils se mettront 'a rire, pource qu'ils ne parlent
pas comme cela." 128 Le Jeune noted ruefully, "D'ou provient que je
les fais souvent rire en parlant, en voulant suivre l'oeconomie de la
langue latine ou fran~oise." 129
LeJeune also describes situations in which native people appear
to be using "foreigner talk," clearly enunciated, simplified, unin-
121 Campeau, Monumenta, 2:645; Thwaites, Jesuit Relations, 7:22-23. Actually, the word
should be mitisoun; see Campeau, Monumenta, 2:645 n. 1.
126 Hanzeli, Missionary Linguistics, 40, 43; Hanzeli says that the grammars from which
the Jesuits learned Latin were "word-centered," and that these texts "governed their outlook
upon language."
127 Hanzeli, Missionary Linguistics, 56-57, 57 n. 7. The differences, Hanzeli says, "are
created by gender markers and instrumental particles which are regularly added to the typical
Algonquian verb root." Modern scholars know that the Algonquian verbal core includes infor-
mation not only about the actor, but also about the goal of the action; both subject and object
are expressed by incorporated pronominal forms.
flected forms of words that they knew were in his vocabulary, so that
he could follow the conversation.l30 If so, this is another example of
the willingness of some native people to collaborate in the language
project, purposefully choosing to diminish the semantic distance be-
tween themselves and Le Jeune.
The first five pages of Le Jeune's chapter on the language con-
tain some sound observations, but for the most part it was intended to
be a little curiosity shop for European collectors of New World odd-
ments, very much in the "marvelous" tradition of sixteenth-century
travel writers. The last five pages, however, are a confession of failure:
"Peuplez vostre memoire de tous les mots qui signifient chaque chose
en particulier; apprenez le noeud ou la syntaxe qui les allie, vous
n'estes encor qu'un ignorant." 131 His failure, Lejeune wrote, could be
attributed to six factors: his defective memory, the sorcerer's malice,
the treachery of Pastedechouan, lack of food, his poor health, and
the difficulty of the language.'32 Still, for all this, he said, "jejargonne
neantmois et, 'a force de crier, je me fais entendre." 133 Understand-
ably, Le Jeune was bitterly disappointed in himself, confessing, "J
ne croy quasi pas pouvoirjamais parler les langues des sauvages." 134
How can a mute preach the gospel?
Most modern scholars (as Le Jeune himself did) make much
of the power struggle between the missionary and the shaman, and
there is no question that this was quite real.'35 Carigonan, a very
clever man who knew at least as much about successfully manipulat-
ing people as Le Jeune did, attacked the missionary where he knew
he was most vulnerable: language. Le Jeune gave us an example:
On one occasion, Carigonan taught him some Montagnais words,
which he then told the Jesuit to read aloud. Some women ("quelques
femmes"), however, warned LeJeune that these were foul words ("vi-
laines paroles"), and he refused to continue speaking.'36Just as some
130 Le Jeune wrote that he would not understand the native speakers, "s'ils n'ont de
l'esprit pour varier et choisir les mots plus communs." "Foreigner talk," like "motherese," its
first language equivalent, is a simplified register. See C. Ferguson, "Baby Talk as a Simplified
Register," Talking to Children, ed. C. Snow and C. Ferguson (Cambridge, 1977).
133 Campeau, Monumenta, 2:650; Thwaites, Jesuit Relations, 7:32-33. The notion that
shouting at a speaker of another language will somehow make the message intelligible, appar-
ently, is not a phenomenon peculiar to twentieth-century native speakers of English.
135 See for example: Lafleche, Le Missionnaire; Kenneth M. Morrison, "Discourse and
the Accomodation of Values: Toward a Revision of Mission History," Journal of the American
Academy of Religion 53 (1987): 365-82; and James Axtell, The Invasion Within: The Contest of
Cultures in Colonial North America (New York, 1981), 95, 98.
Micmacs had taught the Jesuits "paroles d's-honnestes," a Canadian

native used a missionary's ignorance of the language to his own ad-
vantage; but, this time, interestingly enough, we also see that strategy
being undermined by native women.
Le Jeune did eventually acquire a working knowledge of Mon-
tagnais, though he never reached the level of mastery that Brebeuf
and other more linguistically gifted Jesuits achieved. In 1634, how-
ever, when Le Jeune wrote his lengthy ethnography of the Montag-
nais people, his knowledge of the language, by his own admission,
was still very much at the beginner level (he said that he returned
from his Montagnais winter "peu siavant en leur langue.") 137 This
being the case, how authentic are his descriptions of Montagnais
culture, particularly those aspects of the culture that are immaterial?
Learning the native languages was the preeminent task of the
early Jesuit missionaries to New France. Their basic strategies were
very similar: nearly all used bilingual informants (often native
people); all used pictures and charades to elicit vocabulary; several
opted for what would today be called "immersion" experiences; all
authored or contributed to manuscript dictionaries and grammars;
many translated prayers and catechisms into the native languages.
Some were more successful language learners than others for rea-
sons that seem to be related both to aptitude and to personality:
the more successful learners tended to make an effort to accom-
modate to native practices whenever possible. All subsequent Jesuit
linguistic work built on Jean de Brebeuf's discovery of the polysyn-
thetic feature of the native languages-the "clef du secret." In the
field, missionaries developed innovative strategies, using both ma-
terials at hand (the native memory sticks) and inventing new ones
(Pierron's game).
The truly remarkable accomplishments of the Jesuit missionary
linguists depended in no small way upon the contributions of native
people who served more or less willingly as informants, tutors, and
translators. What value did these experiences have for the native
people? There are in the relations a number of instances, some of
which we have already seen, of indigenous people who seem to have
had a very sophisticated appreciation of the relationship between
language and power, and most particularly between written language
and power. Carigonan, obviously is an example of someone who used
137 Campeau, Monumenta, 2:508; Thwaites, Jesuit Relations, 6:39-41. The remark ap-
pears in a letter, dated August 1634, from LeiJeune to Bartholomew Jacquinot, Jesuit Provin
cial at Paris.
the Jesuits' (or, more specifically, Le Jeune's) linguistic insecurity to

his own advantage.
The "positive" examples, however, cannot be explained so
simply. The Neutral woman who tutored Brebeuf and Chaumonot,
her people said, was the daughter of a sorcerer, and they claimed
that this was the reason why she welcomed sorcerers (the Jesuits) to
her cabin.'38 There is, no doubt, some truth to this, but surely her
motives were more complex. Is it not likely, for example, that she
"dictated entire narratives" because she wanted to see her own and
her people's stories preserved in writing? This motivation can clearly
be ascribed to the efforts of the Huron convert Chiwahtenwha. Chi-
wahtenwha patiently served as an oral model for the Jesuits, who had
difficulty hearing the initial and final letters of words.'39 In exchange,
he asked them to teach him to write. The Jesuits reported that he
struggled valiantly at what was for him an extremely difficult task in
order to be able to "set down the affairs of his country." 140
It is also not unreasonable to assume that native people, no less
than the more linguistically adept Jesuits, were interested in lan-
guage for its own sake. They, too, after all, were hearing unfamiliar
sounds; they were also for the first time seeing their own words writ-
ten down and hearing those words read back to them.'4' Moreover,
the native people who willingly collaborated with the French Jesuits
on their translation projects entered with them into a semantic space
that was not without a certain mystical fascination for all concerned.
Some of the French Jesuits and some of the native people were
better able than others to bridge the gap created by cultural differ-
ences; certainly, Brebeuf, whom Therien describes as being "lost in
the alterity of the Indian," 142 is a particularly powerful example on

139 Campeau, Monumenta, 4:169; Thwaites, Jesuit Relations, 15:94-95. "Quand nous luy
demandons les initiales ou finales des mots, ce qui est quelquefois quasi imperceptible, il
[Chiwahtenwha] nous les dit fort distinctement."
140 Campeau, Monumenta, 4:168-69; Thwaites, Jesuit Relations, 15:94-95. "[he wished
to learn how to write] . . . non seulement pour pouvoir coucher par escrit ce qui regarde
l'avancement de son ame, mais aussi les affaires du pais." These writings, unfortunately, have
not survived.
141 Native people referred to the bark on which the Jesuits wrote as "talking bark"
(ecorce parlante): Thwaites, Jesuit Relations, 61:248-49; 254-55. Another relation has an ac-
count of a Montagnais who looked at a piece of paper one of the Jesuits had been reading
and exclaimed, "'Tap de Nama Nitirinisin, Nana Ninisitawabaten-,''In truth, I have no sense;
I do not hear with [my] eyes."' The author of the relation continues, "It is an excellent word
that they have employed to signify that one knows how to read, Ninisitawabaten; this correctly
means, 'I hear with [my] eyes.' This word is composed of Ninisitouten, 'I hear,' and Niwabaten,
'I see;' from these two words they compose one which signifies 'I hear by seeing."' Thwaites,
Jesuit Relations, 29:224-25.
142 Therien, "Pour une lecture autobiographique des ecrits de Jean de Brebeuf," in
L'Indien imaginaire, 87.
the French side. But there are many others-the Neutral woman,
Amantacha, Pierron-who, if they do not entirely offset the fail-
ures of Biard, Pastedechouan, Le Jeune, and Carigonan, do serve
to remind us that on the linguistic frontier, at least, there was more
reciprocity in the exchanges between Europeans and native people
than we have imagined.

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"Comment peut un muet prescher l'vangile?

" Jesuit Missionaries and the Native

Languages of New France

In the introduction to his analysis of "Des Cannibales," Michel de

French Historical Studies, Vol. 19, No. 1 (Spring 1995)

Products of what was perhaps the best educational system on

historiography of linguistics, the language work of the Jesuits was

(c. 1567-1622) and Enemond Masse (1575-1646). They landed at

17 Campeau, Monumenta, 1:229; ThwaitesJesuit Relations, 2:8-9.

tromp6 et mocqu% de nouveau."32 Still more unsettling, the Jesuits

32 Campeau, Monumenta, 1: 231; Thwaites, Jesuit Relations, 2 :10-1 1.

gonner avec nos catechumenes."36 Although some historians of lin-

uses somewhat different coping strategies with varying levels of suc-

52 Thwaites, Jesuit Relations, 35:150-5 1.

Huron.56 Brebeuf built on the language work of Recollet missionaries

56 The catechism is reprinted in Campeau, Monumenta, 2:241-57. In the seventeenth

Brebeuf wrote, because of the "long et ennuyeux silence ou l'on est

61 Campeau, Monumenta, 3:89; Thwaites,Jesuit Relations, 8:78-79.

Brebeuf's goal was always mutual intelligibility. Unlike Biard and Le

77 It is useful here to recall Gardner and Lambert's description of a learner with an

80 Campeau, Monumenta, 3:768; Thwaites,Jesuit Relations, 14:10-12.

bare,"84 and this approach is evident in Brebeuf's description of how

84 Thwaites,Jesuit Relations, 34:154-55. For a thorough discussion of the term barbarous

goust") of the language, taking note of some of its peculiarities, "at-

91 Campeau, Monumenta, 3:343; Thwaites,Jesuit Relations, 10: 116-17.

aries' collaborative project with the Neutral woman allowed them to

98 Campeau, Monumenta, 5:201; Thwaites, Jesuit Relations, 21:228-31.

Brebeuf and his colleagues had the assistance of a bilingual in-

from New France, an ardent recruiter for the Canadian mission. Le

Le Jeune's Montagnais project was not off to an auspicious start.

116 See Thomas Grassmann, "Pastedechouan (Patetchoanen, Ahinsistan, Atetkouanon),

Micmacs had taught the Jesuits "paroles d's-honnestes," a Canadian

the Jesuits' (or, more specifically, Le Jeune's) linguistic insecurity to

138 Campeau, Monumenta, 5:201; Thwaites, Jesuit Relations, 21:226-27.

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