The object of Viele was to confirm the Iroquois in their very
questionable attitude of subjection to the British crown, and persuade
them to make no treaty or agreement with the French, except through
the intervention of Dongan, or at least with his consent. The envoy
found two Frenchmen in the town, whose presence boded ill to his
errand. The first was the veteran colonist of Montreal, Charles le
Moyne, sent by La Barre to invite the Onondagas to a conference. They
had known him, in peace or war, for a quarter of a century; and they
greatly respected him. The other was the Jesuit Jean de Lamberville,
who had long lived among them, and knew them better than they knew
themselves. Here, too, was another personage who cannot pass
unnoticed. He was a famous Onondaga orator named Otreonati, and called
also Big Mouth, whether by reason of the dimensions of that feature or
the greatness of the wisdom that issued from it. His contemporary,
Baron La Hontan, thinking perhaps that his French name of La Grande
Gueule was wanting in dignity, Latinized it into Grangula; and the
Scotchman, Colden, afterwards improved it into Garangula, under which
high-sounding appellation Big Mouth has descended to posterity. He was
an astute old savage, well trained in the arts of Iroquois rhetoric,
and gifted with the power of strong and caustic sarcasm, which has
marked more than one of the chief orators of the confederacy.
Pages:
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129