OAS ARCH NOTES 89-1:7-8,14
John Steckley
In the most recent edition of Ontario Archaeology, Rob MacDonald wrote a comprehensive article about “Ontario Iroquoian Sweat Lodges” (MacDonald 1988: 17-26). He effectively drew together a broad variety of information-archaeological, historical and medical (concerning altered states of consciousness). In so doing, he presented a convincing case for his claim that archaeological researchers need to use such a breadth of sources to come to terms with what he calls “the symbolic and ideological components of culture” (op. cit., p.24). In this short paper, I will add linguistic material from the Huron language to broaden further the base of our understanding of Ontario Iroquoian sweat lodges.
In the Huron dictionaries of the 17th and 18th centuries, there is a twofold division of terms applied to sweat lodges:
a) words based on the verb root endeon and referring to sacred or spiritual contexts; and
b) words not based on endeon and referring to profane or non-spiritual contexts.
This can be seen in the following entry from a French-Huron dictionary of the late 17th century:
“f/air/e suerie, avec ceremonie. Endeon.
Endeondi … p/ou/r ou avec, ou a l’example de q/ue/Ig/u’un/.
Endeonsk8a suerie/ecorce de suerie f/air/e suerie sans superstition.
,arontonta8an, Atiatarihati. sueur, qui aime la suerie,
H a 8 e n d e o n s k 8 a , a 8 I” (FH c1693:201; addition mine)
1.0 Endeon: the Sacred Sweat Lodge
As above, endeon is typically presented as meaning:
1.1 “f/air/e suerie, avec ceremonie. /to make a sweat lodge, have a sweat,(1) with ceremony/” (op. cit., c.f. FHO and FH c1693:353)
The sacred connotation of endeon suggested here is reinforced by the fact that in 17th century Mohawk, a cognate (related term) –“Ennejon”– is given in separate entries as meaning both “suer, faire suerie/to sweat, to make a sweat lodge, have a sweat/” and “faire festin/to have a feast, ceremony/” (Bruyas 1970:108). This also points to the antiquity of the term, to its existing prior to the Huron’s move away from the Iroquoian speakers or what is now New York, and suggests that the use of the sweat lodge by the Huron dates back to before they came to Ontario.
The curative aspects of the sweat lodges were pointed out in at least one dictionary entry:
1.2 “la suerie est un bon remede. atetsens d’aia,endeon./The sweat lodge, having a sweat is a good remedy./ (from the French) It cures, when one would make or use a sweat lodge./ (from the Huron) (FH c1693:353). In the same entry we have reference to the sacred chanting that went on in the sweat lodge:
1.3 “je chantois a la suerie. e8a,atonrontak./I would chant, since in the sweat lodge./ (from the French) /I will chant, sing in such a place./ (from the Huron) (ibid., for the sacred nature of the chanting associated with the verb -atonront- see Steckley 1988:11)
The word endeondi adds a dative suffix to the verb root, a suffix which signifies ‘for,against, of, or pertaining to someone’.(2) In the example of the first entry presented above it is translated as:
1.4 “p/ou/r ou avec, ou a l’example de q’ue/lq/u’un/ — /for or with or as an example for someone/”.
We have three meanings given here, each with different connotations:
a) ‘pour/for’, suggesting that a shaman might try to have a curing vision for someone by having a session in the sweatlodge;
b) ‘avec/with’, suggesting, as does the ethnohistorical literature (see Sagard 1939:197-198), that people would have a sweat together; and
c) “a l’example de/as an example for/”, possibly suggesting that some people might have functioned as teachers or role models whose kind or amount of use of the sweat lodge might have been thought to be exemplary.
The noun derived from endeon takes the somewhat unusual form of endeonsk8a,(3) probably ancient in the language, as the Mohawk cognate takes the same form (Bruyas 1970:108). Taken by itself, it has two translations in the Huron dictionaries:
a) “suerie” – sweat or sweat lodge; and
b) “ecorce de suerie” – bark of a sweat lodge.
The only verb I have seen that this noun is incorporated into is -,a8i- meaning ‘to taste, smell or feel good’ (Potier 1920:236 #69). In the example in the first entry the combination was presented as:
1.5 sueur, qui aime Ia suerie / ha8endeonsk8a,a8i. ‘sweater’, one who likes the sweat lodge, having a sweat (from the French) / He finds having a sweat, the sweat lodge good/(from the Huron) (op.cit.)
Another entry with this noun-verb combination informs us that there were specialists, possibly the ‘teachers’ or ‘role models’ mentioned above, in this field:
1.6 “sueur de profession / a,a8endeonsk8a,a8i / ‘sweater’ by profession/ (from the French). One who finds having a sweat, the sweat lodge good. (from the Huron)” (FH c1693:353)
2.0 ,Arontonta8an and Atiatarihati
When sweat lodges are referred to with terms other than endeon and its derivatives, the reference is not spiritual. We see this with the following two entries for,arontonta8an:
2.1 “f/air/e suerie sans superstition. / ,arontonta8an. / to make a sweat lodge, have a sweat without superstition/” (op.cit.)
2.2 “,Arontonta8an la suerie sans festins … xxx pas ceremonie, n’y pas superstition / the sweat lodge, ‘sweat’ without feasts … no ceremony, no superstitions/.” (FHO; the xxx represents a part I cannot read)
The word appears to be derived from the incorporation of the noun -ront-, meaning ‘stone’ (Potier 1920:453) into the verb -ont-, meaning ‘to be in a fire’ (Potier 1920:421), with the verb root suffix -a8a-, which typically reverses or ‘undoes’ the meaning of the root.(4) The combined meaning is ‘stones taken out of a fire’, referring to the heat source of the sweat lodge. I don’t believe that this is a physically different sweat lodge than those where endeon was used. It is just the lodge used in a different context. The ethnohistorical literature (Champlain 1929:153; Sagard 1939:197-198; JR13:203, 14:65 and 26:175-177 and 245) does not suggest that one kind of sweat lodge involved the use of hot stoner, and another did not.
The same is true of the other term, atiatarihati. It, too, refers to nothing physically distinct about a specific kind of sweat lodge. The term is composed out of the verb root -atarih- meaning ‘to be warm’ (Potier 1920:181 #30). With the semi-reflexive -ati-, and the causative root suffix -t-, we get the meaning ‘one heats oneself’.
FOOTNOTES
1. I have translated ‘faire suerie’ throughout as both ‘to make a sweat lodge’ and ‘to have a sweat’, as it is not absolutely clear from the linguistic material which in the most correct.
2. See Potier 1920:52 #5. Examples are the following:
-hiaton- ‘to write’ becomes -hiatondi ‘to write for, to someone’ (Potier 1920:261 #20)
-atonront- to chant’ becomes – atonrontandi- ‘to chant to someone, in someone’s honour, in someone’s place’ (Potier 1920:200 #21)
3. Most nouns derived from verbs, as this noun is, take the suffix -ch- (sometimes -chr-) in the Jesuit Huron literature. Examxples are the following:
-henre- ‘to call out’ becomes -henrech- ‘a call’ (Potier 1920:259 #121 and 447)
-atarihen- ‘to be warm’ becomes -atarihench- ‘perspiration’ (Potier 1920:181 and 445)
4. Examples are the following:
-hiaton- ‘to write’ becomes -histon8an- ‘to erase writing’ (op.cit.)
-r- ‘to be with, among’ becomes -ra8an- ‘to choose, take away from a group’ (Potier 1920:331).
REFERENCES CITED
Bruyas,James
1970 Radices Verborum Iroquaeorum. New York, AMS Press.
Champlain, Samuel de
1929 The Works of Samuel de Champlain, vol. 3, (Biggar ed.) Toronto, The Champlain Society.
FH
c1693 French-Huron manuscript dictionary
FH
cI697 French-Huron manuscript dictionary
FHO
French-Huron-Onondaga manuscript dictionary
MacDonald, Robert
1988 “Ontario Iroquoian Sweat Lodges” in Ontario Archaeology 48, pp. 17-26
Potier, Pierre
1920 The Fifteenth Report of the Bureau of Archives for the Province of Ontario 1918-1919, Toronto, Clarkson W. James.
Sagard, Gabriel
1939 The Long Journey to the Country of the Hurons (Wrong ed.), Toronto, The Champlain Society.
Steckley, John L.
1988 “Enditenhwaen” in Arch Notes, pp.11-13.
Thwaites, Reuben G.(JR)
1896- The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents, 73 vols., Cleveland, The Burrows Bros.
1901