Ahuntsic (missionary)

Ahuntsic (died June 25, 1625) was a Huron, converted by the French Recollet missionary to the Hurons, Nicolas Viel in the 1620s.

Ahuntsic
Ahuntsic and Visitation Church in background
Born
unknown
DiedJune 25, 1625
Sault-au-Récollet
Cause of deathdrowning, possibly assassination
OccupationMissionary
Known forHis death
For other usages of the name, please refer to Ahuntsic (disambiguation).

Biography
Cross in honour of Nicolas Viel and Ahuntsic at Parc de l'Île de la Visitation

After almost two years spent in the Huron territory, Nicolas Viel decided to return to Quebec City in May 1625. Ahuntsic accompanied him during this trip. After a long period of travel, they drowned when their canoe capsized near present-day Sault-au-Récollet on June 25, 1625.

The Montreal district of Ahuntsic and the borough of Ahuntsic-Cartierville are named for him.

Contested history

Almost nothing is known about the life of Ahunsic before his death. In his definitive history of the Huron people, Canadian ethnohistorian Bruce Graham Trigger wrote "Auhaitsique [Ahunsic] was not a Huron, but the nickname the Huron had given to a young Frenchman who was probably a servant of the Recollets." Assertions that Nicolas Viel and Auhaitsique were murdered continue to persist. That they might have drowned when their canoe accidentally flipped in a rapid is entirely likely according to Trigger, and the myth of martyrdom was likely a "tendentious fabrication" to leverage Indian alliances.[1]

References
  1. See Bruce G. Trigger, The Children of Aataentsic: A History of the Huron People to 1660 (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1987): 396.


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