Hochelega (village)
| Hochelaga | |
|---|---|
| Village | |
| Coordinates: 45°30′N 73°40′W / 45.500°N 73.667°W | |
| Country | Canada |
| Province | Quebec |
| Region | Montreal |
| Established | ? |
| Dissolved | 16th century |
| Highest elevation | 233 m (764 ft) |
| Lowest elevation | 6 m (20 ft) |
| Time zone | EST (UTC−5) |
| • Summer (DST) | EDT (UTC−4) |
| Official name | Hochelaga National Historic Site of Canada |
| Designated | 1920 |
Hochelaga was a St. Lawrence Iroquoian 16th century fortified village at the heart of, or in the immediate vicinity of Mount Royal in present-day Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Jacques Cartier arrived by boat on October 2, 1535; he visited the village on the following day. He was greeted well by the Iroquians, and named the mountain he saw nearby, Mount Royal. Several names in and around Montreal and the Hochelaga Archipelago are due to him.
A stone marker recalling the former village was placed in 1925 on land adjacent to McGill University, believed to be in the vicinity of the location of the village visited by Cartier in 1535. The site of the marker is designated a National Historic Site of Canada.
Most linguists accept the word Hochelaga as a French corruption of an Iroquoian term — either osekare, meaning "beaver path" or "beaver dam", or osheaga, meaning "big rapids" in reference to the nearby Lachine Rapids. An alternative explanation has been proposed in which "Osheaga" meant "people of the shaking hands"; in some versions of this story, the Iroquoian people were bewildered by Cartier waving his hands wildly to attract their attention as he first approached the settlement in his boat, while in others they were bewildered by his European custom of greeting them with a handshake. These latter explanations are favoured by the Mohawk people further downriver at Kahnawake, but are not easily supported by the Mohawk language's significant dissimilarities to what is known of the only distantly related Laurentian language that was spoken by the Iroquoian people at Hochelaga.
The primary source of documentation that allows us to appreciate both the configuration and position of this village is Bref Récit et succincte narration de la navigation faite en 1535 et 1536, which Cartier handed to Francis I in 1545. We know of a plan titled La Terra de Hochelaga nella Nova Francia illustrating, in the European manner of the period, Cartier's visit. Drawn by Giacomo Gastaldi (~1500–1566), he illustrates volume III of Delle Navigationi et viaggi, a work done in Venice between 1550 and 1556 by Giovanni Battista Ramusio (1485–1557). The perfect, regular arrangement of the houses, conforming to the urban ideal of the Italian Renaissance, was probably his own invention; as well as the boards covering the palisade, which was unknown to the indigenous people. In fact, if the plan faithfully illustrates the notes of the French explorer, it offers little resemblance to the ethno-historical reality. A reproduction of La Terra de Hochelaga by Paul-Émile Borduas decorates the walls of the Grand Chalet of Mount Royal Park.
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