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Post 3 - Yegasetsi

(Stadacona, August 1551)

This past summer, Donnacona had died. A sickness had infected a number of Stadaconans, and, while many had been able to survive the illness, Donnacona had not. Yegasetsi remembered trying to keep her father away from the sick. “You're too old,” she had told him, “if you visit them, you will get sick too, and you will not be able to survive this illness.” But Donnacona hadn't been swayed. He had insisted that God would protect him from sickness this time, as He had done before. But, Donnacona had been wrong and had succumbed to the disease. It was now time for Yegasetsi to mourn her father's death.

As Père Jerome was saying the funeral rites inside the church, Yegasetsi could here a commotion outside of the church doors. It's probably Agona stirring up trouble again, she thought. Agona had become upset when the decision had been made to bury Donnacona in the small Christian cemetary that Père Jerome had established, rather than to bury him along with his ancestors in the traditianal Stadaconan burial ground. Agona had accused Père Jerome of desecrating Donnacona's corpse, and argued that unless Donnacona was buried in the traditional manner, his spirit would not be able to watch over his descendants. The controversy caused by Agona's accusations, and Agona's threat that he would break into the church and take Donnacona's body to be buried in the traditional way had scared many away from attending the funeral. There were fewer than 20 people here in the church today, and almost half were Frenchmen, carrying their arquebuses in case a conflict broke out.

“Henri,” Yegasetsi whispered to her husband, “can you check what's happening outside? I'm a little afraid of what may be going on out there.”

Henri disappeared, and the sound of a shot from his arquebus was heard from outside. He returned in a few minutes. “Things aren't going well out there. A number of those heathens are denouncing Christianity as a corrupting influence, and it sounds like some of them might want to burn the church down. I gave them a warning shot to keep them away, and they did scatter.” Henri paused for a moment. “You know, we really should have had this funeral in the chapel in Fort-St-Francis,” he continued, “but Père Jerome says if we are to have any chance of converting these people, we need to worship amongst them. He says that we need to show them that Christianity means them no harm. But, if they mean us harm, shouldn't we stay away? I don't want to have to actually shoot any of them...”

Yegasetsi realized what this meant. Henri was afraid. The Christians in the church were outnumbered by Agona's followers, and Henri had been afraid enough to warrant using his arquebus. If a fight broke out today, it could result in dozens or even a hundred dead. The Frenchmen, who had little respect for those they called “heathen”, would likely fire indiscriminantly. Yegasetsi couldn't let that happen. She pulled herself together, cemented her grief into resolve. My people need me now, just as they needed my father when he was alive, she thought. “I need to go,” she said, and was out of the chruch before Henri could stop her.

As Yegasetsi stepped outside, she realized that things were worse than Henri had said. There were over 100 of Agona's followers in a pack outside the church doors, chanting anti-Christian slogans. Yegasetsi could see that a number of the men were carrying axes, bows, and other weapons, and others were laying piles of sticks against the walls of the church. While Henri's shot may have dispersed the first crowd, a larger one had been drawn to the seen by the shot, and the people gathered here certainly didn't seem happy. Yegasetsi saw Agona in the middle of the pack.

“Agona,” she called out. “Do you really want this to end in bloodshed? If your people succeed at setting fire to the church or taking my father's body away, you know that my husband and his friends will take out their arquebuses. You've seen what those weapons can do; you remember when they helped defend out own during last year's raids. While you may eventually be able to drive the French away, there will be many dead before that point. Talk to me alone, and we can end this peacefully.”

Agona seemed interested. He beckoned Yegasetsi away, and walked her over to his longhouse. He invited her inside where the two of them could talk in private.

“So what do you have to offer me?” Agona asked.

“Well, what do you want? I know that Donnacona's burial doesn't mean that much to you. You're just making a point around it because Donnacona was a more popular leader than you ever were, and this way you attract some of his supporters to your side. I know that it's not the treatment of Donnacona's burial that you're worried about. What is it?”

“What? You can't see it? Well, I guess you wouldn't because you haven't been living on this side of the river for a few years now. [1] Christianity is tearing this town apart! Your priest is giving the young men of this town bad ideas. A number of them refused to marry my daughter because she is no longer a virgin. And now some of them have stopped supporting their Clan Mother; your priest has been teaching them to favour their birth parents over the head of the clan which they have married into! And, not only our our Clan Mothers being denied the respect of the young men, now women like you are leaving their clans to go live with Frenchmen, and their mothers are left with no one to care for them! The ways we have been doing things since time immemorial have worked because everyone has known their place. Now, with your priest Jerome spreading new ideas every Sunday, our people no longer know what their place is! This church of yours needs to go and Jerome with it!”

“And if I can convince Jerome to no longer preach on this side of the river, what will you be willing to offer in exchange? Will you let those who have already converted to Christianity move across the river and live with us, or will you continue to condemn them for abandoning their families? Will you continue to threaten to burn down our buildings and steal away our dead, or will you agree to let us live in peace?”

“We can let you live in peace as long as you can let us live in peace. We don't want anyone carrying arquebuses on this side of the river. And, yes, I will encourage those who have already converted to Christianity to move to your side of the river, as long as your priest doesn't try to encourage any more people to convert. You Christians can live however you want on your side of the river, as long as we can continue to follow the traditional ways on this side, and as long as no one tries to convince them to abandon their traditional ways. Once those who have already converted have moved, only men will leave their families to marry into another. That is the way it always has been, and the way it always must be.”

“We don't have as extensive fields on our side of the river as you have on yours. If we have a hundred more people moving over the river, we will need some way to feed them. Can we be sure that you will continue to trade us corn for our metal tools?”

“Well, can we be sure that your priest will stop his attempts to convert us? What leverage do you have over him?”

“Oh, I have enough. If I explain to him what it is that you want, and what will likely happen if you don't get it, he will likely agree with me. Besides, many of the Christian Kanatians respect me as Donnacona's daughter more than they will ever respect our foreign priest, and, if he doesn't agree, I will just bring myself and everyone I can get to follow me back here. If we can't make peace, I will renounce Christianity and condemn Père Jerome as a bringer of conflict. If he is unwilling to make peace with you then I fully agree with you that Christianity is nothing more than a source of strife. But, Père Jerome has taught me that there is more to Christianity than that. While many of its ideas are as backward as its views on men and women, there are other parts of Christianity which could free us from the strife that we say today. Christianity is a religion of peace, forgiveness, and compassion. If Père Jerome is as good a Christian as he says that he is, he will agree to make peace with you.”

* * * * *

(Stadacona, October 1564)

Yegasetsi watched as Père Jerome and her husband Henri negotiated with the trader down at the dock. In all the years since the traders had first started coming to Stadacona, she'd never been allowed to participate in the trading herself. Henri had told her that in France, traders looked down on women, and espetially on Kanatian women such as herself. He had told her that her participation in the trade negotiations would only make it harder for Henri to negotiate a fair deal. Henri had explained to her many times how the traders took advantage of the Innu in Tadoussac: [2] giving them worthless trinkets in exchange for great quantities of furs. He told her that the only reason the traders treated him fairly was because he was a Frenchman like most of them were, and that they wouldn't give him as good a deal if they knew he was married to a Kanatian.

At the same time, Yegasetsi had an important part to play in Stadacona's dealings with the traders. As the headwoman of New Stadacona, she was in charge of coordinating the other women to prepare a feast for the sailors of the trade ship. While the traders could get better deals at Tadoussac, the Innu at Tadoussac didn't have cows or chickens, bread or beer. It was the promise of fresh food and drink that resembled the meals they were used to having in Europe that kept the traders coming to Stadacona every year.

And, every year, Stadacona had more furs to give to the traders in exchange for European goods. At first, the Stadaconans had only been trading the furs they were able to trap themselves. Once it became clear to the neighbouring settlements that the traders preferred to stop at Stadacona, the neighbouring villages had started to trade their fur to Stadacona in exchange for European goods. Then, lacking any direct contact with Europeans, the Hochelagans upriver had starting sending their furs to Stadacona as well. Now, the Hochelagans were trading more furs then they could possibly be hunting themselves, so they must in turn be getting them from other people farther inland.

Even Agona's followers in Old Stadacona didn't try to deal with the traders directly. The Old Stadaconans trapped for furs, hunted, fished, and grew most of the crops. The New Stadaconans took care of the livestock, made metal tools, made beer, bread, and cheese, and dealt with the Europeans. This division of the Stadaconan economy had helped make peace between the Christians of New Stadacona and Agona's traditionalists by ensuring mutual dependence between the two halves of the town. Agona's people could carry on as they had before Cartier's arrival, while still benefitting from the French technology of New Stadacona. In particular, it was the manure from New Stadacona's cattle which had kept Old Stadacona's fields fertile, meaning that the town of Stadacona had not had to relocate like most of the neighbouring settlements had done.

By the time the trade negotiations were done, the food and drink were ready to be served. The feast hall where the Stadaconans received their guests was a long building, built in the shape of a longhouse, but made from boards nailed together rather than poles lashed together. Within the hall there were five hearths for cooking and heating with tables and benches between them. There was enough space in the hall to seat 500: the only time it had ever been full was when Hatideso from Old Stadacona had married a New Stadaconan woman, as the populations of both settlements had joined in the wedding feast.

The feast today would serve both the sailors of the trade ship and the residents of New Stadacona. Yegasetsi, along with her husband Henri, the other Stadaconan Frenchmen, and the other Kanatians who spoke French, would be seated closest to the sailors, to provide them with company and entertainment. While Père Jerome prohibited the Stadaconan women from sleeping with the sailors, Yegasetsi knew that many still did sneak away at night. Some of these women would be rewarded with gifts. More rarely, these midnight trysts resulted in an actual marriage, which usually meant that the Stadaconan woman involved returned to Europe on board the trade ship. Twice, there had been sailors who had stayed in Stadacona as a result of a marriage to a local woman. Both times, this was because their captain had marooned them in Stadacona once the captain had found out about the marriage.

Tonight, Yegasetsi was seated next to a sailor named Simon who was originally from Marseille, even though his current ship was based in La Rochelle. While Père Jerome had shown Yegasetsi many maps of Europe and had described a fair bit of geography to her, many European cities were still just names to her. While she was able to listen to Simon's stories about the various ports he'd visited, she became more interested when he started asking her about Stadacona.

“So, what's over there on the other side of the river?” he asked.

“Oh, that's Old Stadacona,” Yegasetsi replied “that's where I grew up. Back before Jacques Cartier came, when you Europeans were just rumours, that's where all of us here lived. Well, all of us except for Père Jerome, Henri and the other Frenchmen among us, of course.”

“And why did you move to this side of the river?”

“Well, do you remember the fort you saw behind this feast hall? That was Fort-St-Francis, the original building on this side of the river. It was built by Roberval back in 1541. Once he left, many of us who had converted to Christianity moved across the river. Over ten years ago, a conflict resulted in the division of the settlement. Père Jerome here only allows those of us who have fully converted to Christianity to live on this side of the river, while Agona, the chief of Old Stadacona allows no Christians on his side. We call this side `New Stadacona', although Père Jerome still refers to the whole settlement as Fort-St-Francis. He also calls me Marie-Claire, and he always called my father Jean-Paul. Even though he's learned our language, he still insists on giving us all French names. He thinks that to be good Christians, we have to be named after Saints.”

“Well, Marie-Claire is certainly an easier name to say than Egaseesee or whatever you told me your name was,” Simon replied as he burst out coughing.

Yegasetsi had noticed Simon wiping his nose periodically during their meal. “Are you ok?” she asked.

“Oh, I'm just a little sick. One of the other sailors was sick most of the voyage over, and I think I may have picked up what he had.”

“Excuse me,” Yegasetsi said, “I need to go talk to Père Jerome.”

* * * * * *

(Stadacona, December 1564)

Père Jerome's hospital was a small building set apart from the rest of New Stadacona. It had been built after the disease outbreak of 1551 that had killed 50 Stadaconans, the same one that had killed Donnacona. Its main purpose was to provide a place for those who were sick to seek care while separating them from their families so that they wouldn't spread the disease. During outbreaks, the Frenchmen, who seemed much less susceptible to disease than the Kanatians, took charge of taking care of those who were sick and no others were permitted to enter or leave the hospital. This policy had succeeded at preventing outbreaks as severe as that of 1551, at least so far.

This outbreak was proving worse than most. Rather than starting with one or two sick individuals, this outbreak had started with all those who had been sitting near Simon at the feast. The hospital was overcrowded, and, now that Yegasetsi herself had recovered, she was helping care for those who were still sick. Père Jerome would not let her leave the hospital yet, as there was a chance she was still contagious. We're lucky that our first priest had experience working at a hospital in France, Yegasetsi thought, we've certainly needed it over the years.

For the past few hours, Père Jerome had been gone assessing the situation outside the hospital. He usually wasn't gone this long. He returned as Yegasetsi was feeding some broth to a patient. “Marie-Claire, I need to talk to you alone,” he said.

“Where can we go to talk?” Yegasetsi asked. The hospital was a one-room building, and was filled with the sick. There was nowhere to go inside the building.

“Outside,” Père Jerome replied, “I think you're well enough to deal with the cold. I have some furs here for you to put on.”

Yegasetsi bundled up and stepped outside. “I thought I wasn't supposed to leave the hospital?”

“You don't have to worry about it too much now, I'm pretty sure you're not contagious anymore. This is one of the reasons I asked you to speak to me. You were one of the first to fall sick and one of the first to recover. You've been well for the past week, and I think that means that you won't spread the disease to anyone else, and that you won't be able to pick it up. At least I'm hoping that's the case. I need someone who's immune to the disease right now.”

“Immune – that means that I've been sick and recovered, so that I can't get this disease again right?”

“Yes, that's the reason that us Frenchmen don't get sick as much as you Kanatians do. It's not because we're any more holy, or that God protects us from disease any more than He protects you, despite what your father might have told everyone. We had all of these illnesses when we were children back in France, so we can't get them again. But none of you Kanatians have had them before.”

“But if you Frenchmen are all immune already, why do you need me?”

“Well, the problem is that I need someone who's not a Frenchman. Look over there, what do you see?”

“Nothing”, replied Yegasetsi. It was dark and snowing, and Yegasetsi couldn't see anything through the snow in the direction Jerome was pointing.

“Well, that's the problem. That's Old Stadacona over there. Usually at this time in the evening, we can see the glow from their fires lighting up the roofs of their longhouses. But, today there's nothing. When I noticed the lack of firelight, I grabbed a torch and crossed the ice on the river to take a look. Everyone was still there, huddled inside the longhouses, but they were all sick, every last one of them. While none of them had the strength to gather firewood, they did have the strength to keep me out of the longhouse, and prevent me from helping them. It seems that some of them think that I've lain a curse on them.”

“And you're worried that if you send another Frenchman over that they'll treat him with the same suspicion.”

“Exactly! I hope that they'll trust you more than they've trusted me. I need you to bring them food and firewood. Keep their fires lit, and feed them and care for them the same way you've cared for the sick here. It's going to get cold tonight, and I don't want any of them to die before morning. When the sun rises, come back and let me know how you're doing. Maybe we'll be able to send over some more people and supplies then.”

Soon Yegasetsi was making her way across the ice to Old Stadacona with a bundle of wood in her arms and a pack filled with food on her back. The snow had gotten thicker on the ground, but she had her snowshoes with her so she wasn't too worried. As she approached the palisade, she tripped over something on the ground. She reached down and realized it was a body. Someone had died out here, and no one had been able to come out and retrieve the body! Things must clearly be bad in Old Stadacona.

Yegasetsi tried to work out how the disease had spread to Old Stadacona. In all outbreaks since the first one in 1551, the interning of the sick in Père Jerome's hospital had prevented the spread of the disease beyond New Stadacona. Something had happened differently this time, and Yegasetsi was determined to figure out what it was.

Thinking back on the course of events since the feast, Yegasetsi suddely realized how the disease must of spread. Hatideso, a young man from Old Stadacona, had married a New Stadaconan woman a few years back, and had since lived with his wife and her family. He had fallen sick, and was currently well on his way to recovering, but was still weak. Yegasetsi had realized that, before he had fallen sick, Hatideso had made a trip to visit his family in Old Stadacona. He must have been sick already at that time, and must have not known it. Hatideso was the one responsible for spreading the disease to Old Stadacona.

Yegasetsi had now reached the first longhouse, and she crawled inside. It was almost as cold inside as it was outside. She needed to get that fire lit. There was a couple huddled together for warmth near the door, and Yegasetsi greeted them and offered them some dried meat. They took it, thanked her, and ate while Yegasetsi lit the fire. Once the fire was lit, Yegasetsi ventured again out into the cold to gather those in the other longhouses. She needed to get them all into the house with the fire if she was to keep them all warm. This is going to be a very long night, she thought to herself.

* * * * * * *

(Stadacona, April 1565)

Today was the day to bury the dead. Winter's snows had mostly melted, and the ground had been thawed for the past week. The grave had been dug, and now it was time for the burial ceremony.

Yegasetsi walked over to the longhouse where the dead had been stored. The bodies had been covered in snow to preserve them through the end of the winter, and the shade from the longhouse roof had kept the snow from melting. Now, the snow was being cleared off so that the bodies could be carried to their grave.

Yegasetsi watched the remaining Old Stadaconans as they worked with the bodies. For every one survivor there were three dead. The sickness, together with winter's cold and a shortage of food had killed off over 200 of Old Stadacona's 300 people. Many of them had already been dead by the time Yegasetsi had crossed the river back in December, but many more had died in the weeks after, as the New Stadaconans had struggled to keep everyone warm and fed. Père Jerome had been strict in only letting those who had already survived the illness cross the river to Old Stadacona to take care of the sick, and thus the New Stadaconans had been much luckier, only counting 30 souls among the dead. Once they were well enough to travel, Yegasetsi had esorted the Old Stadaconan survivors across the ice to New Stadacona's hospital, where they could be warmer and better cared for than they could in their longhouses. Thus, Old Stadacona was now an abandoned settlement, with all the longhouses empty.

The funeral procession had now begun, carrying the dead to their grave. There weren't enough Old Stadaconans left to carry the dead on their own, so many New Stadaconans joined in. A year ago, it would have been unthinkable for Christians to have participated in such a solemn ceremony alongside those who still followed the traditional ways. But now that there were so few Old Stadaconans left, and now that the survivors all knew they had only survived with the help of the Christians, the suspicion was mostly gone.

In fact, many of the Old Stadaconan survivors had decided to permanently join the New Stadaconan settlement, and convert to Christianity. Of those who were still determined not to convert, many had family in other villages, and would be departing soon after the funeral. Once it had become clear that there wouldn't be enough people left to resettle Old Stadacona, most of those who were still undecided had made up their mind to leave. While there were some who wanted to stay in New Stadacona but didn't want to convert, Père Jerome had declared that he wouldn't tolerate “unbaptised heathens” living in New Stadacona.

Once the funeral was over, Yegasetsi gathered those who were departing together in the feast hall. To each of them she gave a loaf of rye bread, a piece of dried meat, and skin filled with beer. To each of them she also gave a clay crucifix that she had made with the word “Remember” in Kanatian written on one side and “Stadacona” on the other. While Père Jerome had refused to teach Yegasetsi how to write Kanatian words or “pagan” names like “Stadacona”, Yegasetsi had figured it out on her own, and was proud of the work she had done.

As she handed out the crucifixes Yegasetsi spoke: “I know that many of you don't believe in the Christian God, and those of you who do don't believe strongly enough to heed His demand to give up worship of all other deities. If you were willing to call yourselves Christian, you likely would have wanted to stay with us here. Even if you don't believe in what these crosses stand for, please take them with you as a reminder of what happened here in Stadacona this winter.”

“While the Frenchmen from across the ocean have brought us many good things, they have also brought us disease,” Yegasetsi continued. “This new era that has dawned is the era of iron, but it is also the era of disease. This winter's plague has been the worst one we have faced so far, but we may face worse in the future. A sailor a few years ago told me stories of the devastation that has been unleashed by disease on nations far to the South of here, and compared to that devastation, we have been lucky. We need to remember what happened this winter, and we must vow to never let it happen again.”

“While the Europeans brought the disease from across their ocean, they also brought their God. Some of the Christians among us say that God will protect us from disease, and that if we truly believe in Him, we will not die. But they are wrong. My father believed more devoutly than any other Kanatian I have known, and while he survived the many plagues he faced in France, he died from the first he faced here. God alone cannot save us: God helps those who help themselves.”

“I do not give you this cross so that you will become Christians and pray to God to save you. While prayers may give us hope, prayers alone will not save us. What will save us is heeding the truths that God has taught Père Jerome, that Père Jerome has taught me, and that I am now teaching you.”

“The fact is that we do have the ability to save ourselves from disease: not through prayer, but through prevention. Those of us in New Stadacona suffered a lot less from disease than those of you in Old Stadacona, and it wasn't because we prayed to a different God. It was because we did things differently. We separated the sick from the well, confined those that were sick to the hospital, and allowed only those who were immune from the disease to care for the sick in the hospital. Thus those who were well didn't get sick, and those who were sick were able to be cared for without spreading the disease to their families. These practices worked for us, and they will work for anyone who follows them.”

“All of you have survived this disease, and thus all of you are now immune. If this disease strikes again, I want all of you to be ready. I want you to build a hospital in your new village, and I want you to do in your new village as we have done here. You must separate the sick from the well, and you yourselves must take care of the sick as you yourselves will be able to avoid getting sick yourselves.”

“When that disease has passed, you must teach the survivors as I have taught you. We must continue to spread the knowledge of how to combat disease and how to prevent ourselves from being devastated by plague from across the ocean. Until every village in Turtle Island [3] has a hospital, we will not be safe. I urge you to take this crucifix as a reminder of what has happened here in Stadacona this winter, and a reminder of what we have to do to stop it from happening in the future. If we work together, we can prevent this from ever happening again.”

I hope this will work, Yegasetsi thought. She wasn't sure if her understanding of how disease spread was entirely correct, but Père Jerome seemed to agree with her thoughts on the matter. Hopefully, these people would heed her words and spread the practices necessary to prevent disease and slow its spread. And even if some of them forgot, and some of them didn't pass her teachings on, at least some of them would. This should at least make a difference...


Footnotes:

[1] Remember that Donnacona, Yegasetsi, and a number of the other Christian converts moved into Fort-St-Francis when Cartier and Roberval left.

[2] In OTL, the vast majority of 16th-century fur trade in the St. Lawrence region took place at Tadoussac, which lies at the confluence of the St. Lawrence and Saguenay Rivers, downstream from Stadacona. It was a good spot for trade because it was reasonably accessible by ship and easily reached by both the Stadaconans coming down the St. Lawrence and the Innu coming down the Saguenay. ITTL, Tadoussac is still used as a trade post, but trade ships are also coming upriver to Stadacona.

[3] The legend of Sky Woman, which has dry land being built upon the back of a Turtle is Iroquoian in origin, and while I'm pretty sure that the term Turtle Island for North America (or for the Americas as a whole) is recent in origin I think it is very conceivable that the Stadaconans ITTL would come up with the term as a way of describing their own continent as opposed to Europe.