La Salle and the discovery of the great West - North Central ...

1680.] THE ILLINOIS TOWN. 228or over the bordering hills still green with the foliageof summer. 1This, or something like it, one may safely affirm,was the aspect of the Illinois village at noon of thetenth of September. 2 In a hut apart from the rest,you would probably have found the Frenchmen.Among them was a man, not strong in person, anddisabled, moreover, by theloss of a hand, yet in thisden of barbarism betraying the language and bearingof one formed in the most polished civilization ofEurope. This was Henri de Tonty. The otherswere young Boisrondet, the seivant L'Espdrance,and a Parisian youth named fitienne Renault. The1The Illinois were an aggregation of distinct though kindredtribes, — the Kaskaskias, the Peorias, the Kahokias, the Tamaroas,the Moingona, and others. Their general character and habitswere those of other Indian tribes ; but they were reputed somewhatcowardly and slothful. In their manners, they were more licentiousthan many of their neighbors, and addicted to practices which aresometimes supposed to be the result of a perverted civilization.Young men enacting the part of women were frequently to be seenamong them. These were held in great contempt. Some of theearly travellers, both among the Illinois and among other tribes,where the same practice prevailed, mistook them for hermaphrodites.According to Charlevoix {Journal Historique, 303), this abusewas due in part to a superstition. The Miamis and Piankishawswere in close affinities of language and habits with the Illinois.The firstAll these tribes belonged to the great Algonquin family.impressions which the French received of them, as recorded in theRelation of 1671, were singularly favorable ; but a closer acquaintancedid not confirm them. The Illinois traded with the laketribes, to whom they carried slaves taken in war, receiving inexchange guns, hatchets, and other French goods. Marquette inRelation, 1670, 91.2This is Membre's date. The narratives differ ai to the daythough all agree as to the month.