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ELLIOTT ELLIOTT
ELLIOTT ELLIOTT
OPTICIANS ILLY
OPTICIANS
P••PERTN ••E
Piccadilly Arcade Penh
John fll'Ioll N Ex-TV&rizi Bros: Sluded Tel.
Tel. B7988
87989
PERT$ WEDNEr4DAY,JANUARY 24, 1816.
NO.
PRWE TSREEPE1fCE.
3EVENTY8EOOIQD MLR. .
.Ideal of aNative Clergy Takes Root" Among Iroquois Indians. Full.-Blooded Mohawk Priest, Ministers to Tribes which Massacred Canadian Martyrs .. . .
reverently upon a new statue of their patron saint,St. Regis, for whdtn they have great reverence and whose relic 1 reposes there in a reliquary which is a replica of the main altar in the basilica of Lalouvese, France. They spoke in whispers as they gazed upon the new statue. Some blessed themselves and all seemed just a little proud be. cause they had all contributed toward its purchase out of their meagre means. Within a few days they were to coinmence a novena to the patron saint •x• of Aheir parish, But the women didn't enter the office, for an appraisal of the By R. A. JEFERY. The Only One is the World , new statue; they had gone home to The St. Regis Indian reservation is in prepare the evening meal, which somehow reminded one of the Jesuits' RelaIt masn't long after his arrival in Canada on the south shore of the St. tions describing the early bartering New France that Father Jean Brebeuf, Lawrence in a remote but*beautiful while the women were attending to the the subsequent Jesuit Martyr, baptised setting where the historic river runs drudgery of the camp and boiling their an Indian child and exclaimed, "I rapidly to the sea. When we swept sagamite." would willingly have come out from over the river from the mainland, How is it explained that Father France and crossed the ocean to gain skirted St. o Regis Island and landed at Jacob is the only'Indian priest of all this one little soul to Our Lord." Then the mission, In first impressions of the Five Nations? Probably Father he went on from there to his glory and this peaceful Indian village were of an Jacob doesn't know the full answer. his doom, to be hacked to pieces or elderly with Indiana plaid womanshawl entering the church over her He says it is due solely to the grace burned at the stake with his seven Dead, a black-haired, tousle-headed boy of God. Obviously an Indian priest martyred companions by the fren zi ed of ten playing lacrosse and a Jesuit was needed for the Indian people; in Iroquois. priest pacing slowly up and down the fact more, many more, are needed, but One wonders what his thoughts or shore reading his breviary. It was an just why this boy was chosen out of reactions would be were he present in eventide's quiet hour, when the last the many is known to God alone. He CANADIAN JESUIT MARTYRS. person at St. Regis, Quebec, on the golden rays of the sun were sinking be. was one of a family of eleven children, Feast of Corpus Christi in June, 1944, hind those historic islands of the St. living in the manner of all reservation Are now venerated by the Indian to witness the deep religious fervour of Lawrence that once knew Frontenac, Indians, accepting government treaty tribes which massacred them. the pure-blooded Iroquois, lineal deCartier and LaSalle; preparat i ons were money and finding work where and scendants of those same primitive underway 'for the morrow's [east of Father Jacob seemed to us to repre• when they could. The Indians are people of the forests who only three Corp us' Christi, confessional hour was sent the perfect answer to the prostill expert weavers, they still like to hundred years ago came hurtling f rom over and out of the centuiy-and-a-half blems of Church and State; give the hunt and trap, but the facilities are their places of shelter along the Otold stone church of Gothic architecture Indians their own spiritual leaders and few and the art is becoming forgotten; tawa, screaming their incantations, to strode a tall, striking athletic figure in there just will not be any , problems, they farm considerably, still fish a torture and tomahawk the blackrobes Jesuit garb—one of my most unforgetprovided the leaders have the capabiligreat deal, especially the older ones. and the cross, to uproot, if possible, the table characters. ties of vision and tact of " KathaienThe younger men find employment in sturdy seed planted amid pain and ton," tribal name of this priest, most nearby industries and, during their suffering and death by those valiant He was Father Ignatius Jacob, a fullbeloved personage of all the dusky spare time ,excel in the game of ]asoldiers of Christ—Brebeuf, Daniel, Lalblooded Mohawk of the Iroquois napriest men, women and children of Cornwall Crosse, the game that was popular even ament, Gamier, Chabanel, Jogues, Gouthe , the donly Indi is andirparish ect in Island, St. Regis and Caughnawaga— in Huronia among the Five Nations pil and de la Lande. of the Iroquois Confederacy of Five nt the only .Iroquois who is also a Jesuit. and was still the redman's national In those far-off days, the Iroquois q y The average Indian is still reticent pastime when Chief Pontiac of the Otshouted their taunts at the cross the Tribes—Mohawks, Oneidas, feet tall , and taciturn : he speaks softly and tawas led his powerful confederacy Jesuits urged them to accept; today Cayugas and Senecas. Six feet tall, there is still a certain stoicism in his west of the Allegheny Mountains. . at St. Regis their descendants reach keen of eye, muscular and graceful in demeanor. But Father Jacob is a out tenderly towards the crucifix held his movements, one could easily imag• Sent to Jesuit Semainary. natural leader with a good sense of before them by their Iroquois parish ine his like leading a band of painted The names of the Thomases and humour. Part of his parish is in the priest and penitently and with emo - lithe-limbed warriors amid the wood\Moors of St. Regis and Whites of CornAlexandria diocese, part in Valleyfield tion kiss the cross held high in the ed fastnesses of Osw•egatchie or Hia• wall Island still dominate Canada's ladiocese, part in Canada, and some of it hand of Brebeuf,central figure in an watha's domain . But he appears crosse world,Indians have played on across the highway which is the United unusual statue of the eight Jesuit Marmuch more attractive in a chasuble practically every world champion team States and the diocese of Ogdensburg, tyrs. The significance of the whole and stole, and in the soft, modulated from Vancouver to Montreal and, in In answer to the writer's situation is so striking as to be awe- Iroquois tongue his was as eloquent a New York. 1890,an all-Indian Canadian champion questioning glance he smiled expan• some and probably nowhere else in sermon on the Eucharist as we' ve ever team went to England to play an exo. lively and said, " You see, we dwell in the entire world could an eager Chris- listened st hibition game before Her Majesty two provinces,in two countries, and tian soul, questing from cause to effect , His mastery of Indian ,English and Queen Victoria. They still rank among under three Bishops, yet, strange as it find more ample or satisfying answer French diction is perfect. He's a rethe greatest lacrosse experts in the may seem, we live in tranquillity and than here at St . Regis among these markable personage and he has accom• world and prominent in that milepeace." In all of this strange and simple, lovable, God-fearing descendplished some remarkable things for his widelv:scattered parish there isn't a long frorpus Christi procession, with its ants of the bravest and most warring people who are as devout as any you three repositories,were several of those white man or woman. of all tribes. Here is found abund• will find is they silently recite their fleet-footed exponents of a game that And as we sat before a desk that was ant answer to the prayer of those rosaries, burn their votive lights, pray goes further back in history than the covered with rosaries and pictures and Tesuit Martyrs whose constant plea to silently at the foot of the statue of era of Champlain or the Canadian Sfar• the other odds and ends that usually God was that the seed might fall upon those martyrs put to death by their tyre. clutter a parish priest's desk ,Indians fruitful ground even though the soil ancestors, nv hile choristers sing their came in twos, threes and fours to gaze was nurtured with their own blood. Masses in the Indian tongue.
Blood of the Saints Has Nurtured Profound Catholic Spirit Among Fierce Warriors —
Guilfoyle's
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Cover.) (Continued on Back
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Ro=istered at the O.P.O. Perth, for transmission ba pat As a mwspaDar•
Murray St., Perth
Eat. 45 years