Champlain's journal: Indian burial customs

By Joel Banner Baird, Free Press Staff Writer • May 12, 2009

During the harsh winter of 1608–1609, French explorers shared their stored provisions with the native Montagnais people, who had suffered a shortfall of game.

Europeans and Indians lived in close proximity and, Samuel de Champlain wrote, in some degree of harmony along the narrows in the St. Lawrence River, at what became the site of Quebec City.

Extreme weather prevented much travel but might have prompted greater familiarity between the cultures. In his journals, Champlain describes Montagnais mythologies and religion, their hunting and fishing methods, and their political alliances and marriage rites.

Deaths were common that summer — among the Abenaki and his own men. As ever, Champlain showed a keen interest:

“In regard to their burials: When a man or a woman dies, they dig a pit, in which they put all their property, as kettles, furs, axes, bows, arrows, robes, and other things.

“Then they place the body in the pit and over it with earth, putting on top many large pieces of wood, and another upright, painted red on the upper part.

“They believe in the immortality of the soul, and say they shall be happy in other lands with their relatives and friends who are dead. In the case of captains or others of some distinction, they celebrate a banquet three times a year after their death, singing and dancing about the grave.”

The “Voyages of Samuel de Champlain,” translated by Charles Pomeroy Otis and published in Boston in 1878, is in the public domain. It can be found at http://www.gutenberg.org .

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