The Orenda by Joseph Boyden (review)

The Wendat people and their neighbours, the Haudenosaunee and the Anishinabeg, have long been inspiration for inquiries into North American Indigenous culture, contact zones, and colonialism as well as for the nation-state narratives of Canada and the United States. Beginning in the seventeenth century with missionary and explorer reports, their histories have been recorded, published, and circulated throughout the world. Recently, there has been a revival of academic and public interest in Wendat studies. A number of works speak to this trend, including my book, Dispersed but Not Destroyed (ubc Press, 2013), Georges Sioui’s Seawi (Dialogos, 2013), John Steckley’s The Eighteenth-Century Wyandot (Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2014), Emma Anderson’s The Death and Afterlife of the North American Martyrs (Harvard University Press, 2013), and Charles Garrad’s Petun to Wyandot (Ottawa University Press, 2014). Among these scholars is also the award-winning Canadian writer Joseph Boyden and his novel The Orenda.

Without diminishing the important contributions that this group as a whole has made to Wendat studies, it is fair to say that Boyden’s book has brought the people and events of Wendake ehen (old Wendat country) back to the centre stage of popular culture. Extending beyond the historical, anthropological, and archaeological studies, Boyden captures the imagination through his sophisticated telling of a make-believe seventeenth-century Wendat world. Through the perspectives of three main characters – Bird (a Wendat warrior), Snow Falls (a young Haudenosaunee captive), and Father Christophe (a French Jesuit priest) – Boyden fashions a narrative that covers all of the main components of a provocative and page-turning fictional account. And, yet, ever since its publication, the number one question people want to know is how “real” is it? Indeed, in my conversations at history conferences, workshops, and book launches, The Orenda is ever present, and the question is often asked: “As a Wendat historian, what do you think about the book?”

It seems that people are not satisfied to accept The Orenda as a purely fictional piece. As someone whose career and passion are rooted in Wendat history, I am excited to see the kind of interest Boyden’s book has generated. I am equally encouraged by the number of readers who have taken it upon themselves to research further and find out the details behind the characters and events of The Orenda. In this short review, I want to focus on two of the most frequently asked questions concerning Boyden’s book, demonstrating that although The Orenda is clearly an imaginative work, it is, in my opinion, a fair representation of the history that inspired it.

Many people want to know the “truth” behind Boyden’s graphic depictions of warfare and ceremonial torture. Early in the novel, Boyden introduces a survivor of a Haudenosaunee attack. Readers cringe as the “war-bearer” is described: “The strip of hair that once ran down the centre of his head has been removed with a sharpened clamshell or knife . . . what were once his ears . . . are now just bloody holes . . . They removed his left eye . . . a thin line of oozing red . . . The three longest fingers of his left hand have also been removed” (71). The experience was not a pleasant one, and Boyden does cultural and historical justice by not holding back on the details. This was the reality for many captives in the early-modern Great Lakes region, and it remains a critical piece in understanding the dynamics of those cultures. There are many examples similar to the “war-bearer’s” experience within the historical records. In 1642, for instance, the Haudenosaunee captured the acclaimed war chief Ahatsistari. His torture was replete with all of the same intricate details of ceremonial suffering. His body was slashed, hot cinders thrown on his bare stomach, both thumbs were cut off, while thorns and sharp sticks were jabbed into old wounds to continue the bleeding.

Boyden’s descriptions of warfare and torture, although graphic, are representative of the primary source depictions. The Jesuit Relations, which were published reports by French...