Ahuntsic (missionary)
Ahuntsic | |
---|---|
Born | unknown |
Died | June 25, 1625 |
Cause of death | drowning, possibly assassination |
Occupation | Missionary |
Known for | His death |
- For other usages of the name, please refer to Ahuntsic (disambiguation).
Ahuntsic (died June 25, 1625) was a Huron, converted by the French Recollet missionary to the Hurons, Nicolas Viel in the 1620s.
Biography[]
After almost two years spent in the Huron territory, Nicolas Viel decided to return to Quebec City in May 1625. Ahuntsic accompanied him during this trip. After a long period of travel, they drowned when their canoe capsized near present-day Sault-au-Récollet on June 25, 1625.
The Montreal district of Ahuntsic and the borough of Ahuntsic-Cartierville are named for him.
Contested history[]
Almost nothing is known about the life of Ahunsic before his death. In his definitive history of the Huron people, Canadian ethnohistorian Bruce Graham Trigger wrote "Auhaitsique [Ahunsic] was not a Huron, but the nickname the Huron had given to a young Frenchman who was probably a servant of the Recollets." Assertions that Nicolas Viel and Auhaitsique were murdered continue to persist. That they might have drowned when their canoe accidentally flipped in a rapid is entirely likely according to Trigger, and the myth of martyrdom was likely a "tendentious fabrication" to leverage Indian alliances.[1]
References[]
- ^ See Bruce G. Trigger, The Children of Aataentsic: A History of the Huron People to 1660 (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1987): 396.
External links[]
- 1625 deaths
- 17th-century Native Americans
- Converts to Roman Catholicism from pagan religions
- Canadian Roman Catholic missionaries
- Deaths by drowning
- Roman Catholic missionaries in Canada
- Roman Catholic missionaries in New France
- Canadian Christian clergy stubs