Colonial Canada (17th century)
Feast: October 19
A six-foot-tall Norman who learned Huron so well he wrote a Christmas carol in it — 'Twas in the Moon of Wintertime' — and was killed by Iroquois warriors who admired his courage so much they ate his heart.
Jean de Brébeuf was big — tall and powerfully built — which impressed the Huron people he lived among for over two decades. He arrived in New France in 1625 and threw himself into learning the Huron language, eventually mastering it well enough to write a catechism, a dictionary, and the Huron Carol, still sung in Canadian churches at Christmas. He lived in longhouses, ate sagamité, traveled by canoe, and endured winters that nearly killed him. He respected Huron culture in ways unusual for his era, even as he tried to convert them. When the Iroquois wars intensified, Brébeuf refused to leave. In March 1649, an Iroquois war party overran the mission of Saint-Louis. They captured Brébeuf and fellow Jesuit Gabriel Lalemant and tortured them for hours — pouring boiling water over them in mockery of baptism, hanging red-hot hatchets around their necks, and cutting strips of flesh. Brébeuf never cried out. According to Iroquois tradition, they ate his heart after death to absorb his courage. He was fifty-five.