Le Lundy sur le midy, on vint auertir qu'on se tinst prest, qu'on alloit commencer la ceremonie; on détache en mesme temps ces pacquets d'ames, les parens les déueloppent derechef pour dire les derniers adieux; les pleurs recommencerent de nouueau. I'admiray la tendresse d'vne femme enuers son pere, & ses enfans; elle est fille d'vn Capitaine, qui est mort fort agé, & a esté autrefois fort considerable dans le Pais; elle luy peignoit sa cheuelure elle manioit ses os les vns apres les autres, auec la mesme affection que si elle luy eust voulu rendre la vie; elle luy mit aupres de luy son Aetaonesay, c'est à dire son pacquet de buchettes de Conseil, qui sont tous les liures & papiers du Pais. Pour ses petits enfans elle leur mit des brasselets de Pourcelaine & de rassade aux bras, & baigna leurs os de ses larmes; on ne l'en pouuoit quasi separer, mais on pressoit, & il fallut incontinent partir. Celuy qui portoit le corps de ce vieux Capitaine marchoit à la teste, les hommes suiuoient, & puis les femmes, ils marchoient en cét ordre, iusques à ce qu'ils arriuerent à la fosse. Voicy la disposition de cette place, elle estoit enuiron de la grandeur de la place Royale à Paris. Il y auoit au milieu vne grande fosse d'enuiron dix pieds de profondeur, & cinq brasses de diametre; tout autour vn échaffaut & vne espece de theatre, assez bien fait de neuf à dix brasses de diamettre, & de dix à neuf pieds de hauteur; au dessus du theatre il y auoit quantité de perches dressées, & bien arrangées, & d'autres en trauers pour y pendre, & attacher tous ces pacquets d'ames. Les corps entiers comme ils deuoient estre mis au fond de la fosse estoiét dés le iour precedent souz l'échaffaut, étendus sur des écorces, ou des nattes dressées sur des pieux de la hauteur d'vn homme aux enuirons de la fosse. Sur ces entrefaites chaque Capitaine par ordre donna le signal, & tout incontinent chargez de leurs paquets d'ame[s] courans comme à l'assaut d'vne ville, monterent sur ce Theatre à la faueur des échelles qui estoient tout autour, & les pendirent aux perches: chaque Village y auoit son departement. Cela fait, on osta toutes les échelles, & quelques Capitaines y demeurerent, & passerent tout le reste de l'apresdinée iusques à sept heures à publier des presens qu'ils faisoient au nom des defuncts à quelques personnes particulieres. Voila, disoient ils, ce qu'vn tel defunct donne à vn tel son parent. Enuiron les cinq à six heures ils pauerent le fond de la fosse, & la borderét de belles grãdes robes neufues de dix Castors, en telle façon qu'elles s'estendoient plus d'vn pied au dehors de la fosse. Sur les sept heures ils descendoient les corps entiers dans la fosse: nous eusmes toutes les peines du monde d'en aborder; iamais rien ne m'a mieux figuré la confusion qui est parmy les damnez. Vous eussiez veu décharger de tous costez des corps à demy pourris, & de tous costez on entendoit vn horrible tintamarre de voix confuses de personnes qui parloient & ne s'entendoient pas: dix ou douze estoient en la fosse & les arrangeoient tout autour les vns aupres les autres. Ils mirent tout au beau milieu trois grandes chaudieres qui n'estoient bonnes que pour les ames; l'vne estoit percée, l'autre n'auoit point d'anse, & la troisiéme ne valloit gueres mieux: i'y vis fort peu de colliers de Pourcelaine; il est vray qu'ils en mettent beaucoup dans les corps. Voila tout ce qui se fit cette iournée. Tout le monde passa la nuit sur la place, ils allumerent force feux, & firent chaudiere. Nous autres nous nous retirasmes au vieux Village auec resolution de retourner le lendemain au poinct du iour qu'ils deuoient ietter les os dans la fosse; mais nous ne peusmes quasi arriuer assez à temps, nonobstant toute la diligence que nous apportasmes, à raison d'vn accident qui arriua. Vne de ces ames qui n'estoit pas bien attachée, ou peut estre trop pesante pour la corde qui la portoit, tomba d'elle mesme en la fosse: ce bruit éueilla la Compagnie, qui courut & monta incontinent à la foule sur l'échaffaut, & vuida sans ordre chaque paquet dans la fosse, reseruant neantmoins les robbes desquelles elles estoient enueloppées. Nous sortions pour lors du Village, mais le bruit estoit si grand, qu'il nous sembloit quasi que nous y estions. Approchans nous vismes tout à fait vne image de l'Enfer: cette grande place estoit toute remplie de feux & de flammes, & l'air retentissoit de toutes parts des voix confuses de ces Barbares: ce bruit neantmoins cessa pour quelque temps, & se mirent à chanter, mais d'vn ton si lamentable & si lugubre, qu'il nous representoit l'horrible tristesse & l'abysme du desespoir, dans lequel sont plongées pour iamais ces ames malheureuses. Tout estoit presque ietté quand nous arriuasmes, car cela se fit quasi en vn tour de main; chacun s'estoit pressé, croyant qu'il n'y eust pas assez de place pour toutes ces ames; nous en vismes neantmoins encore assez pour iuger du reste. Ils estoient cinq ou six dans la fosse auec des perches à arrãger ces os. La fosse fut pleine à deux pieds prés: ils renuerserent par dessus les robbes qui la débordoient tout autour, & couurirent tout le reste de nattes, & d'écorces. Pour la fosse ils la comblerent de sable, de perches, & de pieux de bois qu'ils y ietterent sans ordre. Quelques femmes y apporterẽt quelques plats de bled, & le mesme iour & les suiuants plusieurs Cabanes du Village en fournirent des manes [manets?] toutes pleines qui furent iettées sur la fosse.

On Monday around noon, word came that people should be ready: the ceremony was about to begin. At once the bundles of souls were untied, and the relatives unwrapped them again to say their last farewells. The weeping began all over again. I admired the tenderness of one woman toward her father and her children. She is the daughter of a chief who died very old and was once very important in the country. She combed his hair and handled his bones one by one, with as much love as if she had wanted to bring him back to life. Beside him she placed his Aetaonesay, his bundle of council sticks, which are all the books and papers of the country. On the arms of her little children she put bracelets of shell beads and glass beads, and she bathed their bones with her tears. She could hardly be pulled away from them, but people were pressing them to hurry, and they had to leave at once. The man carrying the body of the old chief walked at the head. The men followed, and then the women. They marched in this order until they reached the pit. This is how the place was laid out. It was about the size of the Place Royale in Paris. In the middle was a great pit about ten feet deep and five fathoms across. All around it stood a scaffold, a kind of stage, quite well built, nine or ten fathoms across and nine or ten feet high. Above the stage stood many poles, set up in good order, with others laid across them, for hanging and tying all the bundles of souls. The whole bodies were to be placed at the bottom of the pit. Since the day before, they had been lying under the scaffold around the pit, stretched out on sheets of bark or on mats set on stakes as high as a man. Then each chief in turn gave the signal. At once, loaded with their bundles of souls, they ran as if to storm a town and climbed onto the stage by the ladders all around it, and they hung the bundles on the poles. Each village had its own section. When this was done, all the ladders were taken away. Some chiefs stayed up there and spent the rest of the afternoon, until seven o’clock, announcing gifts that they gave in the name of the dead to particular people. “This,” they would say, “is what this dead man gives to that one, his relative.” Around five or six o’clock they lined the bottom of the pit and its edges with fine, large, new robes of ten beaver skins each, laid so that they reached more than a foot over the edge. Around seven o’clock they lowered the whole bodies into the pit. We had all the trouble in the world getting near it. Nothing has ever shown me more clearly the confusion among the damned. On every side you would have seen half-rotted bodies being let down. On every side you heard a horrible din of voices, people talking and not hearing each other. Ten or twelve men were in the pit, laying the bodies all around it, side by side. In the very middle they put three big kettles that were good only for souls: one had a hole in it, another had no handle, and the third was hardly any better. I saw very few shell collars there. It is true that they put many with the bodies. That is all that was done that day. Everyone spent the night on the square. They lit many fires and cooked. We went back to the old village, meaning to return at daybreak the next day, when they were to throw the bones into the pit. But we barely arrived in time, for all our haste, because of an accident. One of the souls, which was not tied on well, or was perhaps too heavy for the cord that held it, fell into the pit by itself. The noise woke the whole company. They ran and climbed onto the scaffold in a crowd, and emptied every bundle into the pit in no order, though they kept back the robes the bones had been wrapped in. We were just leaving the village, but the noise was so loud that it seemed almost as if we were already there. As we came closer, we saw a perfect picture of hell. The great square was full of fires and flames, and the air rang on every side with the confused voices of these barbarians. Then the noise stopped for a while, and they began to sing, but in a tone so sorrowful and mournful that it showed us the horrible sadness and the bottomless despair in which these unhappy souls are plunged forever. Almost everything had been thrown in by the time we arrived, for it was done in no time at all. Everyone had hurried, thinking there would not be room enough for all the souls. Still, we saw enough to judge the rest. Five or six men were in the pit with poles, arranging the bones. The pit was filled to within two feet of the top. They folded the robes that hung over the edge back over the bones and covered the rest with mats and bark. Then they heaped up the pit with sand, poles, and wooden stakes, thrown in any which way. Some women brought dishes of corn, and that day and the days after, several households of the village brought whole baskets of it, which were thrown onto the pit.