The Orenda

The Orenda is a historical novel by Canadian author Joseph Boyden. It was published by Hamish Hamilton in 2013.

Summary

The novel takes place in what was to become Canada in the early 17th century and is narrated by a Huron warrior named Bird, a young Iroquois girl named Snow Falls, and a French Jesuit missionary named Christophe.

Part one

Bird's family has been murdered by members of the Haudenosaunee tribe. In retaliation he vows to kill at least a hundred members of that tribe per victim. During one of his retaliatory attacks he captures Snow Falls, whom he decides to raise as his own daughter. Snow Falls cannot shake the knowledge that he murdered her family and rejects him as an adoptive father. Christophe is another captive that Bird calls Crow, keeping him in the belief that he will be of use in future trades with other colonialists. Christophe feels that the Hurons who captured him are savage and godless and tries to convert them to Christianity. While Christophe's initial efforts are mocked because of his physical frailty and poor understanding of their language, Bird begins to grow suspicious when his lover, Gosling, warns Bird that Christophe will soon begin converting members of the tribe.

Orenda

Orenda /ˈoʊrɛndə/ is an Iroquois name for a spiritual power inherent in people and their environment., Activities of nature were seen to be a "ceaseless struggle of one orenda against another, uttered and directed by the beings or bodies" in the environment. Orenda was deemed a motive force behind miracles, soothsaying, divination, prophecy, blessing, cursing, prayer, worship, and superstitions. Orenda is not a collective power and does not have a personification. 19th and 20th century scholars compared the concept of orenda to that of mana.

Anthropologist J. N. B. Hewitt notes intrinsic similarities between the Iroquoian concept of Orenda and that of the Siouxan wakd or mahopa; the Algonquin manitowi, and the pokunt of the Shoshone. Across the Iroquois tribes, the concept was referred to variously as orenna or karenna by the Mohawk, Cayuga, and Oneida; urente by the Tuscarora, and iarenda or orenda by the Huron. A related term, otgon, denoted a specifically "malign, deadly, lethal, or destructive use" of orenda. Hewitt notes that orenda was regarded by Iroquoian peoples as distinct from concepts of life, soul, ghost, and mind.

Orenda (disambiguation)

Orenda may refer to