Father Jean de Brebeuf went out from France to New France (Quebec) in 1625 as a Jesuit missionary. He was genuinely interested in the native culture and spirituality he encountered there. He wrote extensively about the Huron culture and created a dictionary of the language, which was not at that time a written language. Father Brebeuf learned shamanistic ways and attempted to incorporate and reconcile them with the christian religion he was trying to win converts for.
Wikipedia tells us that:
“His efforts to develop a complete ethnographic record of the Huron has been described as ‘the longest and most ambitious piece of ethnographic description in all the Jesuit Relations.”
Perhaps that is why he didn’t make many converts to christianity. Dare we think he was too respectful and understanding of his many friends among the Huron to try to impose his religion on them?
In 1649, an Iroquois war party raided and destroyed the Huron mission village where Father Brebeuf was living and teaching. The Iroquois took the priests and Huron converts captive, ritually torturing them, before killing them. Brebeuf was sanctified as a christian martyr by the Catholic Church.
In the course of his life among the Hurons, Father Brebeuf composed a Christmas carol in the Huron/Wendat language and set it to the music of a lovely old French folksong.
“Twas in the moon of winter-time
When all the birds had fled,
That mighty Gitchi Manitou
Sent angel choirs instead;
Before their light the stars grew dim,
And wandering hunters heard the hymn:
“Jesus your King is born, Jesus is born,
In excelsis gloria.”
Within a lodge of broken bark
The tender Babe was found,
A ragged robe of rabbit skin
Enwrapp’d His beauty round;
But as the hunter braves drew nigh,
The angel song rang loud and high…
“Jesus your King is born, Jesus is born,
In excelsis gloria.”
The earliest moon of wintertime
Is not so round and fair
As was the ring of glory
On the helpless infant there.
The chiefs from far before him knelt
With gifts of fox and beaver pelt.
Jesus your King is born, Jesus is born,
In excelsis gloria.
O children of the forest free,
O sons of Manitou,
The Holy Child of earth and heaven
Is born today for you.
Come kneel before the radiant Boy
Who brings you beauty, peace and joy.
“Jesus your King is born, Jesus is born,
In excelsis gloria.”
John Howison, in his 1821 “Sketches of Upper Canada,” relates that an Indian told him that “…on Christmas night all deer kneel and look up to Great Spirit…”. Surely that is an echo of Father Brebeuf’s work.
It was still being sung in church when I was younger – in English of course – and, I imagine, still is today, almost 400 years on (from the writing of the carol – not from when I was younger). More significantly, Tom Jackson, an aboriginal Metis Canadian, is famous for his series of Christmas concerts which are actually called “Huron Carole”. Mr Jackson always features this very piece. But as I listened to the “Jesous Ahatonia” this Christmas season, I felt uncomfortable.
The church of which Father Brebeuf was a member, along with the Government of Canada and a number of major Protestant christian churches were guilty of horrific abuse of aboriginal peoples, particularly in the Residential Schools, which resulted in the displacement of up to 150,000 indigenous children and the deaths of as many as 6,000 children.
This is not an ancient and forgotten issue. The last Residential School didn’t close until 1996. In 2008, in accordance with one of the recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the Government of Canada issued a formal apology to aboriginal peoples on behalf of all Canadians. The Catholic Church has never done so, although various Bishops and individuals have expressed remorse and regret. Prime Minister Trudeau has asked the Pope to travel to Canada to rectify this omission.
So, I asked myself before composing this post, is it culturally insensitive to be sharing Father Brebeuf’s carol?
Here’s the thing. Father Brebeuf was not a fanatic burning heretics at the stake. This was not a person who advocated or participated enthusiastically in the wholesale destruction of ancient indigenous cultures, as was the case with the Spanish missionaries in South and Central America. Father Brebeuf as an individual, actually helped to preserve the native culture which later came under such terrible attack.
I have posted this carol – along with these dark historical footnotes – because I think there is some room within the Great Spirit for forgiveness and understanding, healing and reconciliation. Perhaps, especially, at this time of year.
But only if we acknowledge the past and accept the truth of history, both the beautiful and the ugly.