HURON
568
HURON
imparts new interest to .Sagard's works and the
Jesuit Relations, the only contemporaneous chron-
icles of these tribes from the first decades to the
middle of the seventeenth century. The table on page
571 is the result of the very latest researches, and
gives in alphabetical order the Huron villages etc.
mentioned in Champlain, Sagard, the Relations, or
by Ducreux. When their sites have been determined
by measurements based on documentary evitlence
only, and where forest growth or other hindrances
have prevented, for the time being, serious attempts
to discover vestiges of Indian occupancy, the site is
marked under the heading, "Near", v. g. "Ihonatiria,
Tiny 6. XX, XXI", which should be read: "Ihona-
tiria stood near lot six of the twentieth and twenty-
first concessions of Tiny township." But when remains
of an Indian village have been unearthed on the
spot indicated, the site is set down under the heading
On", v. g., Cahiague Landing, Oro, E.J 20, X, that
is: "Cahiagufi Landing occupied the east half of lot
20 in the tenth concession of Oro Township."
In the Neutral country there were about forty vil-
from the Iroquois; and the second, Oimonti.'iaston,
which was the sixth in order journeying from the
Petun country. With this all is said that can be .«aid
of the documentary data concerning the towns of the
Neutral Nation and of their respective positions.
4. Population. — Father Jean de Brebeuf, writing from Ihonatiria, 16 July, 1636, says: "I made mention last year of twelve nations, all being sedentary and populous, and who understand the language of the Hurons; now our Hurons make, in twenty villages, about thirty thousanil souls. If the remainder is in proportion, there are more than three hundred thou- sand of tlie Huron tongue alone." This, no doubt, is a very rough estimate, and included the Iroqu<iis and all others who spoke some one of the Huron dialects. In his Relation of 1672 Father Claude Dalilon in- cludes a eulogium of Madam de la Peltrie. In it there is a statement for which he is responsible, to the effect that in the country of the Hurons the population was reckoned at more than eighty thousand souls, includ- ing the Neutral and Petun nations. No man had a more perfect knowledge of the Canatla missions than
'etun Village Sites
Name
Ehouae
or St-Pierre-et-St-Paul
Ekarenniondi or St-Mathias
Etharita
or St- Jean of the Petuns
St-Mathieu
St-Simon-et-St-Jude
St-Thomas
Probably in Arran Township, Bruce County, to the north-east of Mount
Hope.
Very little west or south of Standing Rock, lot .30, concession XII, of Notta- wasaga Townsiiip, Simcoe County. The village shoukl be in Grey County.
About twelve miles in a southerly or south-westerly direction from Ekaren- niondi or St. Mathias. No certain traces of it have as yet been discovered.
Probably less than six miles from St. Mathias in the direction of St. Jean, or Etharita.
Probably on lots marked 46 in concession X and XI, Lindsay Township, Bruce County; but certainly somewhere in the north-east part of this township.
.\bout 32 miles from Onsossanr, measuring around Nottawasaga Bay, either near the meridian of Loree, CoUingwood Township, Cirey, or that of Meaford, but in Euphrasia Township.
lages, but all that Ducreux has set down on his map
are the following: St. Michael, which seems to have
stood near the shore of Lake St. Clair, not far from
where Sandwich and Windsor now stand; Ongiara,
near Niagara Falls; St. Francis, in Lamlrton County,
east of Sarnia ; Our Lady of the Angels, west of the
Grand River, between Cayuga, in Haldimand County,
and Paris, in Brant; St. Joseph, in Essex or Kent; St.
Alexis, in Elgin, east of St. Thomas; and the canton
of Otontaron, a little inland from the shore line in
Halton County. Beyond the Niagara River, and
seemingly between the present site of Buffalo and the
Genesee, he marks the Ondieronon and their villages,
which Neutral tribe seems to have comprised the
Ouenrohronon, who took refuge in Huronia in 1638.
When de Brebeuf and Chaumonot sojourned with the Neutrals in 1640-1641, they visited eighteen vil- lages, to each of which they gave a Christian name, but the only ones mentioned are Kandoucho, or .\11 Saints, the nearest to the Hurons proper; Onguiaahra, on the Niagara River; Teotongniaton or St. William, situated about in the centre of the covmtry; and Khioetoa, or St. Michael, already enumerated above.
Add to this list the two villages mentioned by the Recollect, Father Joseph de la Roche de Daillon, though it is quite possible that they may be already included in the list under a somewhat different appel- lation. The first, Oiiaroronon, was located the far- thest towards the east, and but one day's journey
Dablon, and, as this was written fully a score of years
after the dispersion of the Hurons, he made the state-
ment with all the contemporaneous documents at
hand upon which a .safe estimate could be based. The
highest figure given for the population of Huronia
proper was thirty-five thousan<l, but the more gener-
ally accepted computation gave thirty thousand as the
approximate number, occupying about twenty vil-
lages. The method adoptcMl in eonijiuting the popu-
lation was that of counting the cabins in each village.
The following (|uotations will give a clear idea of the
proce.-is followed: " .\s for the Huron country it is
tolerably level, with much meadow-land, many lakes
and many villages. Of the two where we are sta-
tioned, one contains eighty cabins, the other forty.
In each cabin there are five fires, and two families to
each. Their cabins are made of great sheets of bark in
the sha[)e of an arbour, long, wide, and high in pro-
portion. Some of them are seventy feet long" (Cara-
yon. Premiere Mission, 170; Cleveland edition, XV,
l.i3). The dimensions of the lodges or cabins as given
by Champlain and .Sagard are. for length, twenty-five
to thirty toisex (i. e. I.iO to 180 feet), more or less, and
six toises (about 36 feet) in width. In many cabins there
were twelve fires, which meant twenty-four families.
As to the number of persons in a family, it may be
inferred from a pas,sage, in the Relation of 1640, relat-
ing to the four missions then in operation among the
Hurons and the one among the Petuns: "In conse-
