Représentations françaises du rôle des femmes dans l’univers cérémoniel Wendat à l’époque de la Nouvelle-France (1615-1744)

This thesis proposes to analyze the French representations of the role of women in the Wendat cerermonial universe at the time of New France. Divided into two parts, it first explores the representations of women in France’s Ancien Régime period, focusing on symbolic represen-tations on the one hand and, on the other hand, on the social perceptions of Ancien Régime women. To do this, we consult a vast repertoire of works of socioreligious history which makes it possible to penetrate the French episteme of Ancien Régime regarding the representation of women. The second part is devoted to the ethno-historical analysis of French representations of the role of women in the Wendat ceremonial universe during the New France era. All the French writings constituting Franco-Native contact literature are used to study these representations of rituals re-lated to “fertility”, “healing” and finally “funeral”. In the end, the analysis reveals that, while French observers attest to the “complementary” and “egalitarian” aspect of the gendered interac-tional dynamics governing the Wendat ceremonial universe, they were unable to capture the full extent and value of integration because they assessed the value of ceremonial wendat behaviors according to their degree of adequacy or inadequacy to the project of French colonization and Christian evangelization.