“Bad Things” and “Good Hearts”: Mediation, Meaning, and the Language of Illinois Christianity

Abstract

A delegation of Illinois Indians on a diplomatic mission astonished the residents of New Orleans in 1730 with their ardent participation in the Catholic ritual life of the colonial capital. The Jesuit Mathurin le Petit observed that during their three–week stay “[the Illinois] charmed us by their piety, and by their edifying life. Every evening they recited the rosary … and every morning they heard me say Mass.” People crowded into the church to witness the spectacle of “savage” Indians worshiping and singing before the altar. The highlight for the audience was a responsive Gregorian chant in which Ursuline nuns “chanted the first Latin couplet, … and the Illinois continued the other couplets in their language in the same tone.” The Illinois appeared to be very well educated in Catholic practice, pausing during their daily activities to recite a variety of prayers. “To listen to them,” concluded the missionary, “you would easily perceive that they took more delight and pleasure in chanting these holy Canticles, than the generality of the Savages.” Le Petit was correct in a sense. The performance that so delighted the people of New Orleans represented the results of more than a generation of intercultural and linguistic exchange between the Illinois and the French.