Hyrum Sutton's Reviews > The Orenda

This is a fantastic book. The story is told from three different perspectives that represent three different cultures: a Huron warrior, a young Haudenasaunee girl who has been captured by the Hurons, and a French priest trying to convert the “sauvages”. I will say that the perspective shifting makes the beginning kind of confusing while you’re trying to figure out who everyone is, but for the rest of the book, it provides a great way of seeing the past through the eyes of the different cultures. Often we will read the same event two or three times, getting each perspective and seeing how it looks different from their own eyes.

The interesting thing about The Orenda, I think, is that it doesn’t necessarily give you a complete picture of the contact between the Natives and the French. We enter the story after they’ve begun relations, and the story ends before the conflict between them is resolved. Instead, we get to see a more personal story of the events going on at that time, and through it we begin to understand some of the motivations that drove each society.

The story itself is intriguing, and the historical aspect made me learn and think a lot. I would recommend The Orenda to anyone interested in the history of Canada pre-Confederation.