There are a number of excellent reviews of this book
available; this is not a review but are just some of my reflections after reading it during
Christmas week.
Forty or so years ago when my husband and I lived in
Manitowaning on Manitoulin Island, we became friendly with the Jesuit fathers
who ministered to the Anishinabek (Odawa) of Wikwemikong First Nation. I remember them telling us that it took 17
years for a man to become an ordained member of the Society of Jesus, and part
of that time – perhaps about one year – would be spent in a place like
Wikwemikong so the “scholastics”, as they were called, could learn how to
engage in their Roman Catholic ministry in places that were culturally
different from what they would have experienced when growing up.
So I was fascinated to read about Joseph Boyden’s
description of those early years of the Jesuit missionary work among the Huron,
recognizing the kind of faith position that motivated young men like Christophe
to leave comfortable homes in France in the 17th century to come to the New
World to Christianize the “sauvages”, Christophe’s word.
I have said, in recent years, that if we, as Christian
missionaries, had been able to listen to the “Indians” we met here when we
first came to this territory, we would not have found ourselves setting up
residential schools, but “The Orenda” points to my naiveté, for there is no
way, with the vast differences in our cultural understanding of who we were at
that time, whether First Peoples or settler/immigrant/missionaries, we could
ever have been able to listen to one another – not with a view to living
peaceably together, anyway, until we had spent a long time learning how to listen
effectively. And I suspect that the zeal
of those days simply would not have allowed for the kind of listening that
today, we know is crucial to our learning to live together.
For me, Joseph Boyden has written in masterful prose the
story of two separate cultures which were always going to struggle to find
common ground, as we still do today. Of
interest to me also is the way in which, as the two peoples begin to interact,
there is some willingness on the part of each to learn the language. I have studied the Ojibwe language for over
40 years, because out of that same naiveté, I suppose, I sensed that if I
wanted to know how to understand the First Peoples, I should learn the
language. And for me, that has been
true. Over the years I have gained
immeasurable knowledge about the humanity and the spirituality of Anishinabe
brothers and sisters, since in many ways, to me the language is the
people.
That does not seem to be the reason the Jesuits learned
the language. They had only one purpose
in mind, and that was to bring the “sauvages” souls to Christ, and they were
happy to die in the attempt. I find it
interesting to think of how I view my understanding of my Christian faith as I
live out my life into its ninth decade, compared to the purposeful way in which
Christophe and his fellow “crows” lived their lives in the 1700’s, according to
Boyden’s meticulous research, which incidentally, undergirds the whole book.
At least one book reviewer has admitted she could not
read in full the descriptions of torture, which was why I almost didn’t attempt
to read “The Orenda” at all. I had tried
to read Boyden’s earlier books: “Three Day Road” and “The Black Spruce” and I
could not read past the first two or three pages because I could not take the
descriptions of violence. I haven’t met
Boyden in person, but on TV he looks and sounds so gentle and kindly, I could
not imagine him as a violent person. And
yet, the images of torture are so exquisitely written as an integral part of
the whole story, so why can his mind write those descriptive passages and my
mind can’t let me read them? Then I
remember that doctors and soldiers and emergency workers on battlefields and
accident and terrorist sites also see the same kinds of damage done to the
human body, so I have to believe that the difficulty lies with me, the reader;
not with the author.
So while I find myself relating to the Jesuit characters
through my understanding of my Christian faith; my sense of relationship to the
First Peoples characters happens simply as human being to human being. As I know myself to be woman, daughter, wife,
mother, grandmother and great-grandmother, niece and aunt, and as I recognize
all the feelings of joy and pain, serenity and anxiety, satisfaction and hunger,
and of being once young and now old; so I relate directly to the women,
especially, but to the men as well, simply as fellow-human beings. As the lives of Snow Falls and Gosling, Bird
and Fox, and their families unfold, I feel the same kind of love, anger, trust,
hope and longing in my heart and mind as I feel it is in theirs. That is simply part of the human condition.
This is far too long, and does not do justice to this
elegantly crafted book, but I offer these thoughts just from my own reflections,
with my gratitude for the creative genius of writers like Joseph Boyden.
Jean Koning,
Peterborough ON,
December 30, 2013.
