Copy of 19th century log kept by Jesuit missionaries translated and published

CBC News: A 19th century diary of events at Wiikwemkoong written by Jesuit missionaries is back where it started.

Wiikwemkoong Unceded Territory is on Manitoulin Island in northern Ontario, the ancestral homelands of the Odawa, Potawatomi and Ojibway people also known as the Three Fires Confederacy.

The entries in the diary, spanning 1844 to 1873, document daily life of the missions from Owen Sound to Sault Saint Marie, with an emphasis on Manitoulin Island. They also reference the 1862 Manitoulin Treaty.  “It reasserts Wiikwemkoong’s position when treaty time was on the island, and our position that we have never ceded the island,” said Luke Wassegijig, who is Odawa from Wiikwemkoong and the manager for the Wiikwemkoong Tourism Board.

Shelley J. Pearen, who translated the diary, said the original documentwas kept in the Wiikwemkoong Mission Church until it was lost in a fire that destroyed the church in 1954. It turned out a photostatic copy had been made and stored in the Jesuit Mission Academy in Toronto in 1951. Ten years ago it resurfaced. “I kind of refer to it as a miracle because it was long lost and all of the sudden, it’s back,” said Pearen.

Pearen said a researcher friend was in the Jesuit Archives in Toronto and came across a bundle of scrolled up paperwork, with the date 1844 and the name Wiikwemkoong.

The researcher photographed 1,000 pages and as they were early photostatic copies, they were negative images. The negative images had to be transformed into positive images and then were put onto CD and given to a colleague Pearen was working with at the time. It took Pearen nearly 10 years to transcribe the text into 500 pages of writing separated into three volumes, each one covering a decade.

Mandated to keep a record, the Jesuits wrote primarily in French. There were also entries written in English by a German priest because it was easier for him and entries in Anishinaabemowin by priests who were trying to learn the local language. “It was like doing a 2,000 piece jigsaw puzzle,” Pearen said. “It had pieces missing and the dog had eaten some pieces. It’s handwritten French.”

Guided by her past research in the area, Pearen said she was familiar with the 19th century handwriting of priests and had the help of friends to translate the Anishnaabemowin.

Learning the language

The entries record events such as weather that took a roof off the church, epidemics, and grand council meetings held by the chiefs of the area. The first priest to arrive at the mission, Father Jean-Pierre Choné, was interested in the culture and the diary’s entries include references to weddings, customs, naming ceremonies and clothing. 

He was trying to master Anishinaabemowin, and Pearen could see how he struggled with it in his diary entries. Initially, she said, children were taught in Anishinaabemowin, but it was the government that pressured the priests to teach in English.

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Pearen said the autonomy of the Odawa, Potawatomi and Ojibway people is well-documented in the diary. “What I find most interesting is that it backs up many things that people have said and what I have found,” she said. 

Pearen’s family has been on Manitoulin Island since before the treaty, including an Anglican missionary and a trader. “I seriously inherited a sense of wrong-doing through all the family lines,” she said.

She gave the printing rights to the diary to the people of Wiikwemkoong to use for their benefit. The official launch for the three-volume diary was held in May during the Manitoulin Island History: 1836 & 1862 Treaties Gathering, where all 100 copies sold out. “In this time of reconciliation this is true reconciliation,” Wassegijig said of having the diary returned to the community.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Candace Maracle, Reporter

Candace Maracle is Wolf Clan from Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory. She has a master’s degree in journalism from Toronto Metropolitan University. She is a laureate of The Hnatyshyn Foundation REVEAL Indigenous Art Award. Her latest film, a micro short, Lyed Corn with Ash (Wa’kenenhstóhare’) is completely in the Kanien’kéha language.