The voyages of Jacques Cartier (review)

174 Short notices early Christianity, or of the Roman and Byzantine worlds, or even of sexuality in Christian cultures, it will surely be one of the shifting sands which form those histories. Peter Brennan Department of History University of Sydney Cook, Ramsay, ed. & trans., The voyages of Jacques Cartier, Toronto/Buffalo/London, University of Toronto Press, 1993; cloth and paper; pp. xli, 177; 8 illustrations; R.R.P. CAN$50.00 (cloth), $16.95 (paper). This is a useful collection of translations taken primarily from Biggar's work. The documents illustrate in various ways the problem of the language barrier—at the time and since. One can study the growth of the stereotype description of the native Americans. O n his first voyage Cartier used the word 'savages' and spoke of wild and savage folk, easy to convert. They were nomadic, the sorriest folk there could be in the world, naked and thieves. O n his second voyage he wrote of their immense numbers, kindliness and peacefulness, their lack of fear, convertability, and friendliness. At the same time he was suspicious of them. He noted that some were not nomadic and gave descriptions of their villages and way of life, near naked and miserably clothed. O n his third voyage he was even more suspicious of them despite their apparent friendliness. There was still some way to go, however, before the full stereotype of naked, pagan, infidel, superstitious, polygamous, cannibal, ignorant, brutish, deprived-of-reason, childlike, dirty, unreliable was reached. However, the progress was obvious and was not only the work of the professed explorers. Cartier provides clear evidence of earlier European traders in the area. Cartier's reports cast light on many other things: on geography and botanical/biological descriptions, on winds, tides, and currents, as well as directions, and especially on sailing practices: clewing up the mainsail and housing the topmasts in a storm, the ship falling off before the wind, drifting to leeward, using longboats with thirteen oars for exploration while the ship lay offshore, using the longboats to pull the ship out of danger. His success was undoubtedly in part due to the fact that there were at least a dozen cannon on the main ship and more on the others. Sybil M . Jack Department of History University of Sydney ...