The Orenda by Joseph Boyden ✔✔✔✔✔

I could give this book more checkmarks, I would - it's a wonderful book! The third by Boyden, and although I thoroughly enjoyed them all, this was very special.

The Orenda is the story of the Huron Indians, the Jesuit priests who came to convert them in the early seventeenth century, and the Iroquois Indians, who were bitter enemies of both the Hurons and the Jesuits.  Bird is a Huron elder whose wife and family were killed by the Iroqouis many years earlier, and is the central Huron character in the story.  He captures and kills an Iroquois family, but saves their young daughter, and adopts her as his own, naming her Snow Falls.  And finally there is Christophe, the Jesuit priest referred to by the Hurons as Crow, because he wears a flapping black robe.  He has come to the Hurons, escorted by Bird when this killing takes place, and is later joined by other Jesuits.  Christophe's character is based on Jean de Brebeuf, the Jesuit martyr.


This isn't an easy book to read, because it is very brutal, both in the violence throughout, but also in the weather conditions, the illnesses, lack of proper food.  However, Boyden paints a clear picture of a way of life we can only wonder at, and describes many native rituals, including torture, in such a way that you could never say the violence was gratuitous.  And I couldn't put it down, and found myself thinking about it when I wasn't reading it. The rituals ands religious symbols of the Jesuits were a complete mystery to the natives, and to have these described from the native's vantage point  is masterful.

It's been nominated for the Giller, which Boyden won for Through Black Spruce a few years ago, so it'll be interesting to see if he's able to repeat.  And - as usual after I read a good historical novel like this one - I spent another half hour or so looking up information about the various tribes and the role of the Jesuits in these communities.

This may be a good book to recommend for Book Club another year.