"Who, then, is responsible for the Voyages in their present form, and for the appended glossaries of Iroquoian terms? The original manuscripts of Iroquoian terms? The original manuscripts were lost, and the Bigger version is edited from two or three manuscripts, one of them in Italian by Ramusio, from as many hands. The Third Voyage is known only in the abbreviated English version of Richard Haklyut in the 1580’s. “Cartier’s Relations,” according to H.P. Biggar, his historian, “must originally have taken the form of an ordinary day by day ship’s log. On his return to St. Malo, these journaux de bord would be worked up into the present Relations. Traces of this process can still be discovered…”"

For those were the days of an El Dorado. Charles V of Spain, with the help of Fernando Cortes and the Conquistadors, was busy draining the fabulous wealth of Mexico, Yucatan, and Peru. Francis I, his great rival to the north, also wanted a share in the bounty. And the target of his ambition was India, Cathay (China), and Cipangu (Japan).

If these Gaspesians proved a disappointment to the Breton pilot, they were promptly dismissed for a further search through the islands supposedly obscuring the passage to the Orient. But before continuing his course to the west, he must now stake this landmark, barren though it seemed. So he erected a wooden cross thirty feet high. Under the cross-bar, he fixed a shield with the three royal “fleurs-de-lys”; above it, a board engraved in Gothic characters with the significant inscription: “Long live the King of France!”

While the natives on the shore marked this occurrence by harangues, songs, and dances, the sea captain observed that they “Were engaged in fishing mackerel with nets, and part of their food was Indian corn, “the same as in Brazil.” He knew that this was “Brazil corn,” for he had twice visited the coasts of that country far to the south, and escorted Verazzano in his 1524 exploration of the North American coast from Florida to Labrador. To complete his record, he jotted down a few native, words with their apparent meaning.

These we now recognize as Iroquoian. Should he fail, this season, to bring back anything else, his King might not believe his story: “a beau mentir qui vient de loin.” So he must secure more tangible evidence of his accomplishments, for he still believed that France was now standing on the threshold of momentous events, in a new golden age. After he had lured aboard his vessel the “King” and his henchmen, he dismissed- him with a few presents for “good cheer”, and detained as captives two young men, known thereafter under the names or nicknames of Taignoagny and Dom Agaya.

What progress was achieved in the study of the new language can be surmised only in the light of Cartier’s narrative and its appendix. While on shore, at Peninsula in Gaspé, the discoverer may have jotted down a few words in a hurry presumably in his log-book: Hungedo (their name for Gaspé), honnesta (apples, plums,squashes), sahe (beans), caheya (fruit) ... ; all of them Iroquoian. We find them in the text of his First Voyage.

The short vocabulary - less than sixty words - appended with translations at the end of the First Voyage could have been compiled only after the two captives had learned a little French, or sign language alone at first could bridge the gap. This list obviously was made by a scholar rather than by a sea-wolf like Cartier whose knowledge was limited to his own calling on the sea. The caption is: “Langaige de la Terre Nouvellement découverte nommée la Nouvelle France” (Language of the recently-discovered land called New France). No other source for this information could have been available but Taignoagny and Dom Agaya, the young henchmen of Donnacona, “King” of the Stadacona tribe, then camping at Gaspé. (3)

More extensive and accurate is the next linguistic effort. It contains about 160 words and expressions which figure at the end of the Second Voyage (1535-1536), and its entitled “Ensuit le Langaige... Here follows the language of the Countries and Kingdoms of Hochelaga and Canada, otherwise called New France.” Numerals head this repertory, which goes on to mention the various parts, of the body, the costume, food, animals and natural phenomena; also some nouns and verbs, adjectives, and kinship terms. The list concludes with the names of twelve distinct tribes of Iroquoians.

From whom were secured these 230 items contained in the two vocabularies of 1535 and 1536? It the first went back to the two young captives, the second may be ascribed to Donnacona, the “King” of the Stadaconas, who was captured with seven others at the end of the second voyage and brought to France; there he learned the language, told tall tales about his homeland, was baptized and a few years later died in exile.

None or the Iroquoian terms in the two lists could belong to Hochelaga, now Montreal, up the river, for Cartier had stopped there only from Saturday to Monday, October 2 to 4. All he could do during his one short visit was to visit the palisaded town and climb Mount Royal, hastily observe the people and their habitations, and walk through corn fields. Welcomed by the “King” or head chief, a hunchback, he accepted gifts of corn, bread, and distributed trivial presents. Once more he jotted down a few native words - also Iroquoian: aguyase (a term for joy or salutation), carracony (corn bread), esnoguy (grains of wampum), agouhanna (chief or king), agojuda (enemies or bad people to the west), caignetdazé (copper). In the absence of interpreters, Taignoagny and Dom Agaya having refused to escort him up the river, his only resort was to sign language; or as he stalled, “they explained by signs.”

The long lists of words and translations appended to the First and the Second Voyages were the fruit of prolonged and expert home work with representatives of the Stadacona tribe only, since no captive was taken at Hochelaga. Several expressions may be singled out as the touch mark of the, Stadaconas, as they reveal a knowledge or the sea: - this knowledge did not exist among an inland folk like the Hochelagas. These saltwater terms are ajunehonné (whale), agougasy (sea), coda (sea waves); “Note that their chief is named Donnacona. When they wish to call him chief, they say Agouhanna.” In the first list we find: aganie (sail), gadogourseré (codfish), amet (sea - a word different from the above), casaomy (ship), agedoneta (mackerel).

Jacques Cartier; like the sailors or his day, could not have been a chronicler or a linguist. But his schaiing enabled him to keep a log book, sign his name at the bottom of baptismal certificates on the church records, as he often did in later years. He could not have penned the unique Voyages in the lucid and literary language embodying them, which is unlike the Breton French of a sailor from St. Malo. Indeed, they read much like the Loire River French immortalized by Francis Rabelais in the five books of his famous Pantagruel.

Who, then, is responsible for the Voyages in their present form, and for the appended glossaries of Iroquoian terms? The original manuscripts of Iroquoian terms? The original manuscripts were lost, and the Bigger version is edited from two or three manuscripts, one of them in Italian by Ramusio, from as many hands. The Third Voyage is known only in the abbreviated English version of Richard Haklyut in the 1580’s. “Cartier’s Relations,” according to H.P. Biggar, his historian, “must originally have taken the form of an ordinary day by day ship’s log. On his return to St. Malo, these journaux de bord would be worked up into the present Relations. Traces of this process can still be discovered…”

Cartier may never have seen his Voyages in anything near their pressnt form, still less the “Langaige de la Terre Nouvellement. Découverte,” which may not at first have formed part of the Voyages. Every chance there is that a “ghost writer” (as such is named today) served the King of France in preparing a formal report on his pilot’s discoveries.

François Rabelais journeyed to St. Malo in Brittany, after the first of the second voyage, and stayed with Jacques Cartier long enough to familiarize himself with the knowledge and terminology of the sea. This much we have learned from Abbé Doremet, a Breton chronicler writing about fifty years, after ‘the event’, in a forgotten document recently discovered by Jouon des Longrais and quoted by Abel Lefranc in his book on the wonderful navigations of Pantagruel. (4)

After Rabelais had become acquainted with the adventures of the Breton sailor, he drastically changed the orientation of his own work. In his next books the Fourth and the Fifth - he sent his Pantagruel sailing westward from St. Malo just like Cartier, and he planted the St. Malo captain in this humorous story under the nickname of Kamet (a folk equivalent of Jacques). The seaport, from which, Jamet sailed is here called Thalasse (the Greek name for port, which had belonged for a millennium or more to the old village opposite St. Malo). The progress of Pantagruel on the Western seas is much the same as Cartier’s own. Rabelais’ narrative is truly a brilliant satire of the Voyages, or rather of the hair-raising stories which the sea captain must have told him during his visit. The official report in the Voyages rather brief and discreet, was a record for the King and his advisers. The yarns were meant for whoever would listen to them, by the fireside in the winter. And Rabelais must have been a keen listener, for we detect some of Cartier’s experiences expressed in Pantagruel only.

In Book Four of Pantagruel - Chapter of “Ouidire” - we read a paraphrase of the Pilot’s encounter with the hunchback chief. And the very name of Jacques Cartier figures almost as a signature in the long list of famous liars who from remote antiquity and from behind a tapestry have entertained their readers with incredible tales. Elsewhere Rabelais, tongue in cheek, described the Percé Rock of Gaspé under the caption of “Manoir de Gaster.” This famous rock was well known to Cartier, since he had anchored behind it in a storm but it is not mentioned in his Voyages.” The number or close parallels between the Voyages and Pantagruel reaches a score but it does not enter into the picture here.

Whatever may be the sources of the vocabularies now loosely attached to Cartier’s Voyages, it is obvious that they are most valuable for both linguist and historian. Over four hundred years old now, they still call for an analysis and a final identification within the family of lroquoian dialects.