Within a lodge of broken bark the tender Babe was found,
A ragged robe of rabbit skin enwrapped His beauty ‘round.
And as the hunter braves drew nigh, the angel song rang loud and high:
“Jesus your king is born, Jesus is born; in excelsis Gloria!”
In a letter to fellow Jesuit Pierre-Joseph Chaumonot in Lorette, near Quebec, Brebeuf described the Hurons building “a small chapel of cedar and fir branches in honour of the manger of the Infant Jesus. Even those at a distance of more than two days’ journey [includes Muskoka and Parry Sound districts] met to sing hymns in honour of the new-born Child.”
The earliest moon of wintertime is not so round and fair
As was the ring of glory on the helpless Infant there,
While Chiefs from far before Him knelt, with gifts of fox and beaver pelt,
“Jesus your king is born, Jesus is born; in excelsis Gloria!”
Centuries later, children in our schools and churches were taught about the missionaries, visited the replica Saint Marie-among-the-Hurons village, and a 1950s Christmas pageant in Bracebridge United Church’s was performed as Brebeuf restaged it, music and all.
O children of the forest free, O sons of Manitou,
The Holy Child of earth and heav’n 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!”
Generations of non-Indigenous people were taught these missionaries sought to spread Christian civilization to pagans. However, the Black Robes’ full role was to extend, under cover of their heavenly king, the fur trade’s benefits for their secular king in France. In 1634 the Jesuits aimed to convert the entire Huron Confederacy, as a base from which to convert all Indigenous peoples of the region. To ease their work, so Hurons would more happily embrace the fur trading alliance with the French, the Jesuits replaced the debauching French traders in this region with their own lay employees, whom they controlled. By the early 1630s the Hurons, to increase the furs they could exchange for desired French goods, had expanded their own trade with northern hunting peoples, including Algonquins of this area.
By 1646 some 500 Huron/Wendat Christians had been converted, whom Jesuits prohibited from attending traditional rituals. That barred most community functions, including feasts, cleansing rituals, and funerals. By the decade’s end the weakened Huron fell to Seneca and Mohawk war parties. In a March 1649 Iroquois raid on the Huron village of St. Ignace, 55-year old Jean de Brebeuf was murdered.
His “Huron Christmas Carol” endures, is even celebrated on postage stamps. You’ll hear it now, perhaps sing it yourself. But the wider history of rival European powers and hostile Indigenous nations meshing along the fur trade’s high-stakes battlelines is the bigger stage upon which the carol was first given voice, hereabouts, three and three-quarter centuries ago.
