In Front | The Huron Carol

In the forests of seventeenth century Ontario, Near Eastern spices like frankincense and myrrh would have been unknown to the Native American Huron tribe who lived there. Even more basic components of the biblical nativity would have been strange in this remote tribal setting. The shepherds and wise men and manger and swaddling clothes, familiar features of this story, were a world away in time and culture from the society and daily life of this American people. 

When the French Jesuit missionary Father Jean de Brébeuf wanted to tell the story of Jesus’ birth to the Huron people, he adapted the details of the story to fit their native environment and wrote it as a song in the Huron language to the tune of the French folk song, “Une jeune pucelle” (“A Young Virgin”). In Brébeuf’s telling, the humble beginnings of Jesus’ life are recast in the context of the American frontier, and the wise men who traveled to see Jesus are presented as visiting “chiefs.” Their gifts are not spices, but fox and beaver pelts. This hymn was later translated into English.