This one might need some explaining...

[grav_ity]

This is a sad story.

Once upon a time there was a native tribe in Canada who called themselves Wyandot. The Iroquoians called them Wendat. The French settlers thought that their hairstyle was reminiscent of a boar's bristles, hure, and called them the Huron Indians. Lake Huron, and the county I grew up in, is named for them.

The Wendat had the misfortune of getting caught on the wrong side of European Imperialism. The Jesuits corralled them, basically, most famously at St. Marie-Among-The-Hurons, which is north of Toronto, and attempted to convert them to Catholicism. About half converted. Smallpox crept into the camp, killing both Christian and non-Christians alike.

And then the English decided they'd rather have the Iroquois than a native group with French support, so they strongly encouraged the Iroquois to take them out. The Iroquois obliged them, wiping out entire settlements and showing mercy to none. North America has eight Catholic martyrs, and all of them are the Jesuits who were tortured. The Wendat were dispersed, the language nearly obliterated, and the culture shoved into such strange places as Oklahoma.

But there's a song.

Brébeuf wrote it in the Wendat language. He was the first (and probably only) European to master it fully. It was translated into French and English over the years. This version has different English lyrics than usual, but it's Heather Dale which only makes it more amazing.

Jesus your king is born, Jésu est né. Jesous Ahatonhia

This is Canada. Our beginnings. Our cultures. Our epic, epic failures. Our chance.


(um, if someone would rip that for me, I'd be eternally grateful)


ETA: Here is the album (sache8), if anyone (sache8) wants to have a gander (sache8).

Comments

[grav-ity.livejournal.com]

Oh, so there's a reason it's Oklahoma? Was it just "outside" as of the late 1600's?

If you ever come to visit me (uh, in Ontario, obviously), I will take you to St. Marie-Among-the-Hurons. It's not always an easy history, but it's too important to sweep under the rug.

[melyanna.livejournal.com]

Yeah, there's a reason it's Oklahoma. The Indian Removal Act of 1830 essentially forced the vast majority of tribes east of the Mississippi to move west of it. A lot of tribes wound up in eastern Oklahoma and Kansas. Most of the focus of that act was on the five "civilized" tribes who were in Southern states, but it happened everywhere. Some tribes just went more easily than others.

[grav-ity.livejournal.com]

I figured it might be something like that. I know most of the Wendat nation died after the Iroquoian attacks (starvation and exposure for the most part), and their relocation to Quebec makes sense but I was fuzzier on Oklahoma.

(They're not really the same "tribe", but six groups that speak similar languages, so the Ontario one pretty much got wiped out completely at the end of the 1600s.)

[melyanna.livejournal.com]

It looks like the Wendat were settled for a while in southern Michigan and Ohio. As I said, most of the focus when you learn about Indian relocation is about the five civilized tribes getting kicked out of the South and the Seminole wars, but it did happen everywhere in the country.

[grav-ity.livejournal.com]

Hey, we were talking about google-fu and mine has, uh, failed me.

Do you think you could find the version of this song translated by Fr. H. Kierans? Just the words are fine, but if you happened to find the actual song, that would be AMAZING.

Edit: beyond the two verses on the Heather Dale site.

Edited again: never mind me! I'm an idiot who forgot to google by the lyrics instead of the title of the song. *head desk*