The interpreters

Yesterday I listened to a talk given by Tania about 17th century French "truchements" in Canada. I hadn't met the word before; it means "interpreter," "translator," "go-between."

Porte-parole ou personne qui exprime la pensée, les intentions, d'une ou plusieurs autres personnes.

(a spokesperson who expresses the thoughts or intentions of others).

Mathieu de Costa was one such, a gifted polyglot from Benin who worked for Samuel de Champlain––de Costa is said to have been the first black person to set foot in Canada.

Tania called her talk Interprètes de la Nouvelle France and it was from old France they mostly came, the court of Louis XIV being very keen to establish a colony in the new world, then known as New France. In order to be successful they had to talk to the Basque fishermen or whalers, who had already established themselves along the coasts of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and to the native tribes. So translators hired by Champlain had to swear allegiance to the King of France and be able to speak the Basque (or pidgin Basque) and Algonquin languages. The good relations between these various peoples of the region was largely due to the work of the truchements.

In 1695 two Montagnais traders were taken across the Atlantic to the court of Versailles with a view to training them as interpreters, teaching them French and the French ways; they were well treated, apparently. On their return to Canada, landing at Tadoussac, they were able to tell their French companions what was happening at a native gathering to celebrate a victory over the Iroquois. But it was more commonplace to use Frenchmen or half-castes in that sort of role. Many children were born of liaisons between the Frenchmen and the native women, or the Frenchmen would adopt native children as theirs, so these youngsters grew up familiar with at least two languages and had early training as interpreters. Champlain himself had three Montagnais, adopted daughters whom he named Faith, Hope and Charity (Fois, Espérance, Charité) as well as a native godson (filleuil), Bonaventure, who was present at his death. The French leaders of those days encouraged mixed marriages; that way they were convinced their colony would become stable and grow. The descendants of these people became the coureurs des bois of 18th and 19th century fame.

Aspiring linguists from France were sent into the backwoods to learn what they could and of course needed to be ethnographers and cartographers as well as interpreters. These were free spirits and adventurers. Some ventured as far west as the Mississippi, engaging in the fur trade and either making their fortune or going native (... d'autres se sont indianisés, as Tania put it).

Etienne Brûlé was a young man whose talent was spotted by Champlain, who went on expeditions to explore not only the Great Lakes but also the Potomac and Ohio Rivers. He may have been the first European to paddle up the Ottawa River and discover the Ottawa valley. At one point he disappeared for two years. The missionaries were suspicious of him, having the reputation of a lady killer; one called him un vicieux. He was captured by the English and dispatched to London, became a turncoat, wanted for treachery, returned to Canada and withdrew into Huron territory, was ordered to leave but refused. The Hurons murdered him.

Some of the interpreter-translators were women, who also lived dangerously. Sometimes a woman doing this work would disappear.

On the other hand, Olivier le Tardif (1603-65) from Honfleur who, like Champlain, had three adopted daughters, was an interpreter who eventually became a pillar of the colonial community.

Nicholas Marsolet de Saint Aignan likewise grew to be well respected and lived to an old age, having fathered 10 children. Later in life this man translated native languages for the English as well as for the French.

On s'arrange entre nous

Yesterday morning I heard a talk in French given by the novelist and translator Daniel Poliquin: he was speaking about a book he has recently translated entitled Le Rêve de Champlain, written originally in English by the American historian David Hackett Fisher––Champlain's Dream, 2008; in the hardcover version it is 848 pages long.

It would have been interesting to hear M. Poliquin say more about the challenges of translating such a weighty book, and he did tell us a little about this (making the nice little aside that he thinks the French version is probably better than the original; he had been able to correct some mistakes in the English version!), how his research into nautical vocabulary had taken him three days work with an expert mariner and so on, but mostly we learned about what an impressive man Samuel de Champlain must have been, and how his vision for New France (i.e. Canada) was way ahead of his time (Champlain died in 1635). Poliquin compared his policies with those of Willi Brandt and Helmut Schmidt who advocated a peaceable (pacifique) reunification of Germany in the 1980s. "Wandel durch Handel" (change through commerce; Poliquin made the striking remark that the Berlin Wall was brought down by fax machines).

The explorer-diplomat Champlain, who crossed the Atlantic 27 times during his 16th / 17th century lifetime, had the difficult task of having to work with the "Amérindiens" on behalf of France without being too confrontational about it. His attitude mattered. He was respectful and non-judgemental. He asked the native people about their beliefs and their politics and found them as intelligent and "evolués" as the Europeans. He considered their kayaks, for example, to be one of the greatest of human inventions. Champlain having paddled (or been paddled) along the lakes and rivers from Detroit to Montreal, this was not just a casual turn of phrase.

The word "sauvage" (savage, wild), as Poliquin pointed out, comes from the Latin silva, forest, so les sauvages were actually "people of the forest."

The word caucus, used in N. American politics today, is said by some to come from an Algonquin word cau´cau-as´u, although there's some debate about this. Champlain liked the way the native Americans arrived at their decisions by consensus, after giving everyone a chance to speak his mind freely. Because of his deference to the native way, there has been no genocide perpetrated by Europeans in this northern part of the Americas. When a Frenchman was murdered by one of the native people, Champlain played for time and would not countenance a knee-jerk, vengeful reaction. He entered into discussions, persuaded the tribesmen to make amends, effected an exchange of hostages and gifts. Poliquin said that this foreshadowed typical present day Canadian behaviour:

S'il y a du trouble avec des voisins, on n'appelle pas la police, ou seulement en dernier recours. On se débrouille entre nous, on s'arrange entre nous.

Poliquin calls Champlain's vision for Canada "un rêve modeste ... et fou." But Champlain's legacy, his influence upon Canada, and his dream of a peaceful new world remains. Champlain was a Renaissance man, a humanist, a botanist, a writer, an expert navigator and cartographer, not just a governor. "Il pouvait lire la forêt" and his maps, as modern tools confirm, were astonishingly accurate. As a scientist he did make some mistakes, however, convinced that the goal of his explorations –– China –– lay not so far from Montreal. There's a suspicion he may have been a Protestant, not a Catholic, although the French régime that supported his endeavours was Catholic, and very right wing at that. He was a failure in one aspect of his life. Married at 40 to a girl of twelve, she left him when she grew up and joined a convent.