OAS ARCH NOTES 87-5:7-11
John Steckley
While we know that the Huron wore a kind of armour, the knowledge we have is quite limited. The sources traditionally used are restricted basically to two, a picture in Champlain’s writings (Figure 1) and the following quote from Sagard:
“They wear also a sort of armour and cuirass, which they call Aquientor, on their back and legs and other parts of the body to get protection from arrow-shots; for it is made proof against those sharp-pointed stones, yet not against our Québec iron heads when the arrows fitted with them are shot by a stout and powerful arm, such as that of a savage. These cuirasses are made of white rods cut to the same length and pressed against one another sewn and interlaced with little cords, very tightly and neatly. Then (they have) a buckler or shield and the ensign or flag, which is (at least those which I have seen are) a round piece of tree-bark, with the armorial bearings of their town or province painted upon it, and fastened to the end of a long stick, like a cavalry pennant.” (Sagard 1939:154)
In this short work I will augment these sources, help fill out the picture with material from several Huron dictionaries, primarily from two lists of the names for the various pieces that comprised Huron armour. The earliest list appears in the French-Huron-Onondaga dictionary (FHO), and the later list is found in a French-Huron dictionary of the late 1690s (FHL).
1.0 Atient8r – Armour
To begin with the term for armour that occurs in the quote from Sagard, “Aquientor”, is made up of the noun, “aenta” meaning ‘wood, pole, or stick’ (Potier 1920:446) and the verb “ori”, meaning ‘to cover, be covered’ (Potier 1920:431), with the meaning in combination of ‘covered with sticks, wood’.
Dictionary entries with this combination are the following:
1.1 “Leur cuirasse de corde. Aquientor.” (Sagard 1866, dictionary p.59)
1.2 “Atient8r armures … hondatientorechon a8eti” tous sont armes, ont des armures / Huron: ‘they are all covered with sticks’; French: ‘Everyone is armed, has armour’/ (FHO)
1:3 “atientori / S’armer ou etre arme … quasi dicas: se couvrir ou etre couverte de bois / to arm or be armed … as if to say to cover oneself or be covered with wood/” (Potier 1920:431)
The term ‘cuirass’ is used generally in literature about armour to refer to the part of the ‘suit of armour’ that goes from the waist to the shoulders, often made of a front and back piece. The French who used this term to refer to Huron slat armour did so accurately, as Huron protective clothing had both front and back pieces, as we will see.
2.0 O,achia – Chest Protector
In the two dictionary lists the second term (following the term for ‘helmet’) was o,achia. The French word used, “le poitral”, could be the term that is variously presented in armour literature in both French and English as “poitrail”, “poitrel” and ..peytral”, and refers to the frontal armour on a horse that hangs from the neck and withers.
The Huron term o,achia is typically translated as “poitrine” in the dictionaries (Potier 1920:446), meaning ‘chest’. As we will see, naming a piece of armour after the part of the body protected (sometimes in a slightly different form) is a common feature of these names.
In the Champlain picture, this piece of armour is depicted as hanging from the shoulders.
3.0 Asx8a – Back Protector
Following the entry above in the two lists is the term for back protector. In French the word used was “Ie dossier”, a puzzling usage as “la dossiere” was the usual French term for the backplate of a cuirass, while “le dossier” typically referred to the head of a bed or the back of a seat.
The Huron term “asx8a” that is listed in the two dictionaries appears to be a slightly different form for “,ask8a”, which is generally used to denote the trunk of the body, as can be seen from the following dictionary entry:
3.1 ,ask8a sein…ventre…coffre de l’a/nim/al /bosom, breast; stomach; chest/” (Potier 1920:453)
It is debatable whether or not the back protector is portrayed in the Champlain picture. The alternative interpretation is that the piece illustrated as extending from around the buttocks to the top of the head is the large shield (see section 7).
4.0 Andhecra – Thigh Cover
The French term for this piece of armour, – les cuissards”, used generally at the time to refer to armour covering the thighs. The term, in fact, is related to the term for thighs: “les cuisses”.
There is more question about the Huron term, “andhecra”. One interpretation could be that it is “andera”, meaning ‘body’ (Potier 1920:449). In my opinion, a better interpretation is that, as with the French “cuissards” and “cuisses”, the armour part has a name that is related to that of the body part, in this case “andhechia” meaning ‘thigh’ (FHL239).
This part of the armour seems to have two parts i.e., front and back. There are two reasons for believing this. One reason is the French use of the plural “Ies cuissards”, unlike the singular that was used in the previous two examples. Secondly, and more importantly, is the use of the dualic morpheme (a dual or ‘two’ indicator)[1] in the Huron of the following dictionary entry. The dualic is underlined:
4.1 “les cuissards andhecra te hotindheronto ,a8eti [2] /they have (two) thigh covers tied to all of them/”
(FHO)
In the Champlain picture the thigh covers appear to be joined at the side to form a skirt.
5.0 Atiocharonk8at – Arm Protector
The French term used to refer to this piece of armour is “les brassards”, based, like term discussed earlier, on the name for the protected body part: “le bras”. The French piece of armour referred to by this name typically was comprised of an assemblage including a piece for the upper arm, one for the elbow and another for the upper arm. The Huron case is somewhat different.
The Huron term appears to be made up of the noun for elbow, “aiochia” (FHL238) and the verb “aron” meaning ‘to be at such a distance’ (Potier 1920:329 #8). The combined meaning could be something like ‘it reaches the elbow’. The entry in the FHO dictionary is as follows:
5.1 “les brassards atiocharonk8at ,a8eti te hondatiocharonnion /they all put it on to reach their two elbows/” (FHO)
There are two possible interpretations of the pieces that go over the arms in the Champlain picture. One possibility is that the arm protector or guard portrayed only reaches half-way down the upper arm. The other interpretation is that in the picture there are straps attaching the piece covering the back (either shield or back protector) to the arms.
6.0 Atrenchia – Leg Coverings
The analysis of this piece of armour is a bit problematic. The French is straightforward with “Ies jamoes meaning ‘legs’. However, problem arise from the Huron term”Atrenchia”. It could be related to the obscure Huron word for ‘leg’, “,arenta” (“atrenchia” with the semireflexive prefix). This word is obscure in that, to the best of my knowledge, it occurs in only one dictionary (Potier 1920:452). Having the name for the armour be a variant of the term for the protected body part would fit it in with the other terms presented above. These could have origins in different dialects and move from having the same meaning to one that is different. This is a common linguistic process, and is what produced different meanings for the two English words ‘skirt’ and ‘shirt’.
Curiously, there is no dualic in the FHO entry:
6.1 “hondatrenchehiaronnion /they wear it to such a distance on their legs/” (FHO)
In Champlain’s picture we see what appear to be leggings, although the usual Huron word for leggings was “,aricha” (Potier 1920:346 and 453).
7.0 Andie8ara and O,are8a – Shield
Sagard referred to there being two kinds of shields used by the Huron. The following quote is taken from his “Long Journey to the Country of the Huron”, with additions from his “Histoire”:
“They make … shields /of cedar/ which cover almost the whole body /and others, smaller, made of boiled leather/..” (Sagard 1939:98)
In the lists on armour there is reference to just one Huron term “andie8ara”. The French term for this presents the researcher with a humourous dilemma. The term is “les fesses”, meaning ‘buttocks’. I think that the answer to this dilemma can be reached without having recourse to Freudian analysis of the celibate Jesuits.
The reference is probably to where the shield was attached, possibly when the warriors were travelling, so they would not have to carry the shield. The evidence for this is twofold. Firstly, the entry for shield comes between the word for back protector and that for the thigh cover. Secondly, in the entry in the FHO there is reference to the shield being tied to people:
7.1 “les fesses andie8ars ahotindie8arontonj ,a8eti /they all have shields tied to them/” (FHO)
The other term for shield is “o,are8a”. While the evidence is contradictory, I feel that this is the smaller shield, a round one, more typical of Algonkians (see below)[3]. The following are the entries that present pertinent evidence:
7.2 “Rondache, Pauois. ouahoira.[4] /round shield, shield/” (Sagard 1866, dictionary, p.59)
7.3 ” o,are8a bouclier a l’algonquine” (Potier 1920:447)
7.4 “Bouclier gagacre8a: en porter un /bouclier/ gagacre8a,ecte” (FHCH40)
The contrary evidence comes from the following entry:
7.5 “Bouclier a la huron. oare8a. a l’algonquine ,andeara” (FHL25)
As stated above (section 3), the object strapped to the back of the Huron warrior in the Champlain picture may be a shield rather than a back protector. The evidence presented above for the attachment of the shield, plus what appears to me to be an excess of size (i.e., height) of the object if it were a back protector, suggest that it is more likely to be a shield than a back protector.
8.0 Onnonh8arocha – Helmet
The first entry in both lists is the following:
8.1 “le casque onnonh8arocha” /the helmet/ (FHO)
The Huron term is not helpful in telling us anything about the nature of the helmet. This can be seen in the following illustrations of the generic nature of the term:
8.2 “Bonnet, chapeau. Onouirocha.”
8:3 “,annonh8ar8cha. chapeau, bonnet, tout ce qui couvre la tete.” (Potier 1920:451)
Footnotes
[1] The dualic has an implicit or explicit sense of ‘twoness’ about it. Typical examples of the use of the dualic are the following (with the dualic underlined):
tendi – ‘two’ (Potier 1920:393 #18)
karon – ‘to cross’ (Potier 1920:348 #46)
kande,en – to join’ (Potier 1920:281 #67)
[2] The verb here is “ont”, meaning ‘to tie, be tied’ (Potier 1920:422).
[3] See Champlain’s use of the French word ‘rondache’ (Champlain 1929: vol. 3, pp.44-45 and vol. 2, pp.130, 253 and 279).
[4] I suspect that this term– probably more accurately written as ‘oa8era’–has been through
metathesis, or reversal of sounds (i.e., from oare8a to oa8era), a common process that often occurs with -r- sounds (e.g., ‘bird’ comes from the Middle English ‘brid’,).
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Alison, who has always made me feel brilliant.
References Cited
Champlain, Samuel de
1929 The works of Samuel de Champlain
FHCH
c 1690-1693 French-Huron dictionary, ms.
FHL
c 1696 French-Huron dictionary, ms.
FHO
c 1656 French-Huron Onondaga dictionary, ms.
Potier, Pierre
1920 Fifteenth Report of the Bureau of Archives for the Province of Ontario, Toronto, C. W. James.
Sagard, Gabriel
1866 Histoire du Canada, Edwin Tross, Paris
1939 The Long Journey to the Country of the Huron, The Champlain Society, Toronto.
Trigger, Bruce
1976 The Children of Aataentisic, 2 vols., McGill-Queen’s University Press, Montreal.