Chute turns life of priest into verse Poet to give reading at Bar Harbor church

THIRTEEN MOONS, by Robert Chute, preface by Robert Alan Burns, The Cider Press, Poland, Maine, 95 pages, paperback, $25.

John Francis Sprague’s 1906 biography of Sebastian Rale (1657-1724), the Jesuit priest who lived with the Abenaki in Norridgewock, bears a grim epigraph from Voltaire: “History is little else than a picture of human crimes and misfortunes.” The period when the French and English vied for possession of Acadia provides ample testimony to the truth of Voltaire’s statement. It also bears out a remark cited by Sprague, made by a Massachusetts man, one William M. Evart: “The Pilgrim Fathers were good men, and when they landed at Plymouth Rock they praised God – that is, they fell on their knees, then they fell on the aborigines.”

Father Rale belonged to the Jesuit order, the Society of Jesus founded by Ignatius Loyola in the 1500s (“the strongest and most potent religious order ever known in the world,” according to Sprague). He was sent to New France in 1689; aside from two years among the Illinois Indians, he spent the rest of his life converting the Abenaki to Catholicism. He lived among them, writes Sprague, “as a tribesman and became one of them in all of their interests, wants and sympathies.” In 1724, the English, with Indian allies, raided the Norridgewock settlement, murdering Father Rale and members of the tribe.

This story of a Jesuit living among the Indians and his martyrdom has captured the attention of many writers, including poet John Greenleaf Whittier, who included Father Rale in his famous “Mogg Megone.” A century or so after that poem was written, Robert Chute, a master at transforming history into verse, composed “Thirteen Moons,” based on the life of Rale among the Abenaki.

At 2 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 17, Chute will read from “Thirteen Moons” at St. Saviour’s Episcopal Church in Bar Harbor. Helene Harton, a Bar Harbor innkeeper and Quebec native, will read selections from the book-length poem in French while Passamaquoddy elder and educator Wayne Newell will read passages in Passamaquoddy. The reading is sponsored by the Abbe Museum.

As he has done so admirably with other pieces of history (such as “Sweeping the Sky,” a nonfiction poem series inspired by Soviet women combat flyers in World War II), Chute represents the context of lives once lived in an act of profound imagination and empathy in “Thirteen Moons.” He describes the last year of Rale’s life among the Indians using the first-person narrative of the priest (including actual excerpts from his letters) interwoven with Abenaki tales.

As Robert Alan Barnes so eloquently writes in his preface, “Out of these two traditions of poetry and prayer, Chute weaves through the cycle of the seasons a gleaming pattern of light and dark, warmth and chill, plenty and dearth, Edenic joy and sudden, bloody death.” The language is rich in American Indian imagery, such as the thirteen moons of the title, a reference to “counting months as moons.” Chute’s retelling of the Abenakis creation myth and “The Story of Partridge and His Wonderful Wigwam” is exquisite.

Throughout the book, Father Rale responds to the wilderness in imagery inspired by the church. “The ravens croak their liturgy of life eternal,” the missionary observes in one poem. In another, he refers to the returning salmon as “God’s prodigal of food” and regards the Maine archipelago as a “dark rosary of islands.”

Blackberry Press in Nobleboro published an early version of “Thirteen Moons” in 1978. Two years later, Chute completed the text, and two years after that, “Thirteen Moons/Treize Lunes” was published by Penumbra Press, with a rendering in French by Charles Bedard. The new edition, printed and bound by Wolfe Editions and Ascensius Press in Portland, adds a Passamaquoddy translation by David Francis, Sr., of Pleasant Point. Quite ingeniously, the pages fold out into “triptychs” to present the trilingual text.

Admission to the reading costs $5 for Abbe Museum members and $10 for nonmembers. Reservations are required. For information, call 288-3519 or e-mail abbe@midmaine.com. Visit the Abbe Museum’s Web site at www.abbemuseum.org.