The Huron Carol - Canadian Christmas Chant

Vocals and arrangement by Farya Faraji. Many thanks to Luigi Alberga for having introduced me to this song. This is known as the oldest Christmas chant in Canada, and may very well be one of its oldest songs, if not the oldest. The piece has a very interesting history: it was first noted down in the 18th century in Québec, and it is said that it was written and composed by Jean Brébeuf, a French missionary who had traveled to New France in 1625. Brébeuf was nothing short of a linguistic genius, and had an extraordinary ability for languages. He learned the Wendat language, a member of the Iroquoian family of languages in North America, and even mastered it to the point of poetic and oratory fluency. According to this story, he then wrote what is known in French as the Noël Huron, or Jesous Ahatonnia, in the Wendat language. The song would then have been translated into French and noted down in the 18th century. It was later translated into English. I&personally dubious as to the veracity of the story when it comes to the melody: it was supposedly composed by Brébeuf himself, based on the melody of a pre-existing French song called “Une Jeune Pucelle”, but the descending pattern into the Aeolian mode is highly uncharacteristic of European music in the 17th century, and is found far more often in French Canadian music of the past two centuries. I think it&a possibility that the melody we now associate with the text isn&exactly the one sung by Brébeuf&converts in the 1600&if...