Wendat lyricist helps reimagine Huron Carol through an Indigenous lens

Three women from across Canada say they're hoping their re-imagined version of Canada's oldest Christmas carol, originally crafted as a religious conversion tool, will inspire choir singers and directors to be more curious about the songs they sing.

Under its Wendat name, Iesous ahatonnia' (Jesus, he is newly made, just born), and with new lyrics written by Wendat poet Andrée Levesque Sioui, the re-imagined "Huron Carol" tells the nativity story from a Wendat perspective. 

"I cried like a baby," said Levesque Sioui about the first time she heard her version of the song live at the PODIUM choral conference in Montreal in the spring of 2024. "It's a mix between pride, but not for myself, pride for our people. It was a pride that people will dare sing this — this decolonized version."

The project started over a decade ago when choral composer Sarah Quartel began reflecting on how to apply the ideas of truth and reconciliation to her own work. 

Growing up in Southern Ontario, the Huron Carol was everywhere, even in schools, she said. As an adult, she realized the song was long overdue for a revamp. 

"It just really struck me. I had worked with the Huron Carol, I had created [this] arrangement of the English Jesse Middleton lyrics. But I had no idea what I'd done," she said. "I didn't know the story behind the piece."

So she reached out to ethnomusicologist Jeanette Gallant, who had criticized the song and its origins in her work. Gallant went on to write the foreword for Iesous ahatonnia', explaining the piece's history.

The song was reportedly first written by French Jesuit Jean de Brébeuf in the 1600s as a way to communicate new religious ideas to the Wendat in their own language. Over the centuries, it was translated twice into French and then English, losing some of its original meaning along the way.

The English lyrics make reference to Ojibwe language while using very few Wendat-language words. That version has "no relationship" to the original version of the song, says Gallant. 

"If you don't know these things, you look at the words and it's very pretty poetry; very, you know, romanticized, but that's kind of the point. It's romanticized. It's not the truth, right? So it white-washes the story of the Wendat people," she said.

LISTEN | Challenging the colonial roots of the Huron Carol:

Quebec AM16:49Wendat lyricist helps reimagine the Huron Carol through an Indigenous lens

What is being described as a "decolonized" version of the Huron Carol has been in the works for many years, and choirs have proudly been performing Iesous ahatonnia’. But it wasn't until October of this year was the first time Huron Wendat people were given an opportunity to hear the song, and ask the creators how and why they reimagined a song often referred to as "Canada's oldest Christmas song" in what they describe as "reconciliation in action." Host Julia Caron was there, and brings us that story.

When Andrée Levesque Sioui was first approached about the project, she was sceptical, wondering why they should give the song any more time, according to Gallant, who argued that the carol remained popular.

"People are singing the song, they are buying the music, they are singing it and they are believing what is written about this song," said Gallant. 

Gallant said the song still carries colonial undertones. It is still European choir music, after all, but she said it's become a cross-cultural collaboration, honouring the Wendat perspective.

In the new version, Levesque Sioui writes about Wendat traditional beliefs, how missionaries disrupted those beliefs, but ends on a message of hope. Levesques Sioui said she hopes the new lyrics will remind choir ensembles that "there's so much more than the song."

She also hopes they don't shy away from singing the Wendat lyrics she added. 

"When you do sing in our language, you acknowledge our presence, you acknowledge that [although] it's almost vanished, that it's not vanished so you make it live again," Levesque Sioui said.