archaeological and textual records - eCommons@Cornell - Cornell ...

Chapel, in order to pray with them there, — a proceeding which obliged their fathers
and mothers to come and see what they were doing, and sometimes to follow their
example, in order not to be put to confusion by being outdone” (JR 54:85). This
passage suggests that the Jesuits, even as much as they preached and made house
visits, were also willing to let Christianity take hold gradually as people, acting on
their own accord, grew more curious.
Of course, this is not to suggest that the preaching of the Jesuits was always
unopposed or that the Jesuits themselves were always welcome. Toward the end of
Fremin’s 1669 letter, he recounts how a drunken man tried to assassinate Father
Garnier in the first of many such attempts that Garnier experienced during his career:
Departing from Onnontagué [Onondaga], we arrived on the seventh of
September at Gandachiragou. While we were calling at Gandagaro, a drunken
man seized Father Garnier with one hand, and raised the other two different
times to stab him with a knife; but, by good luck, a woman who chanced to be
not very far from this Barbarian, took the knife out of his hand and prevented
him from carrying his brutality farther. I admired on this occasion the firmness
and resoluteness of the Father, who did not even change color. (JR 54:115)
With that episode behind them, Fremin concluded his letter by assuring his
Superiors that he was now fully installed at St. Michael “at a Village called
Gandagarae” (JR 54:119), while Garnier worked diligently “in the Village of
Gandachiragou” (JR 54:119).
While incidental mentions of the Seneca may occur elsewhere in the Relations,
volumes 56-59 contain the most information on the missions during peak years Jesuit
of activity. Volume 56, which dates from 1671-1672, contains a July 1672 letter from
28