FOOTNOTES:[55]Amsterdam is the point at which the Mohawk so bends its course to the southeast that any further advance by the river would have taken the fugitives away from rather than towards their destination. To have left the river sooner would have carried them over a rough and difficult country.[56]See "Indian Trails in Saratoga County,"Appendix, Note D.[57]This custom is mentioned in the Jesuit "Relations."[58]Chauchetière says 1678, but this is evidently a mistake. The date given by Cholenec is 1677.[59]"Catherine Tegakwita goes to dwell at the Sault. I pray you to take the charge of her direction. You will soon know the treasure that we give you. Guard it, then, well! May it profit in your hands to the glory of God, and to the salvation of a soul that is assuredly very dear to Him."
[55]Amsterdam is the point at which the Mohawk so bends its course to the southeast that any further advance by the river would have taken the fugitives away from rather than towards their destination. To have left the river sooner would have carried them over a rough and difficult country.
[55]Amsterdam is the point at which the Mohawk so bends its course to the southeast that any further advance by the river would have taken the fugitives away from rather than towards their destination. To have left the river sooner would have carried them over a rough and difficult country.
[56]See "Indian Trails in Saratoga County,"Appendix, Note D.
[56]See "Indian Trails in Saratoga County,"Appendix, Note D.
[57]This custom is mentioned in the Jesuit "Relations."
[57]This custom is mentioned in the Jesuit "Relations."
[58]Chauchetière says 1678, but this is evidently a mistake. The date given by Cholenec is 1677.
[58]Chauchetière says 1678, but this is evidently a mistake. The date given by Cholenec is 1677.
[59]"Catherine Tegakwita goes to dwell at the Sault. I pray you to take the charge of her direction. You will soon know the treasure that we give you. Guard it, then, well! May it profit in your hands to the glory of God, and to the salvation of a soul that is assuredly very dear to Him."
[59]"Catherine Tegakwita goes to dwell at the Sault. I pray you to take the charge of her direction. You will soon know the treasure that we give you. Guard it, then, well! May it profit in your hands to the glory of God, and to the salvation of a soul that is assuredly very dear to Him."
AT THE SAULT ST. LOUIS.
FROM the time of her arrival in Canada, in the autumn of the year 1677, Tekakwitha was invariably called by her baptismal name of Katherine, or Kateri; and that the reader may better understand her new life at the Sault with its surroundings, we will endeavor to draw a picture of it, gathering the details from all available sources.
In the cabin of Anastasia Tegonhatsihongo, Kateri already feels at home. It is a hospitable lodge; for there her adopted sister also dwells, busy with the care of her family. The new-comer is quite free to follow her own inclination, and spends day after day at the feet of the zealous and well-instructed Anastasia. This good woman takes great delight in teaching her all she herself knows of the beliefs and ways of the Christians. In the glow of the autumn days Kateri sits and listens with rapt attention to every word that drops from the lips of Anastasia. The hands of both are busily employed on moccasin or skirt, or close-woven mat of rushes; and the minds of both are keenly active in the realm of spiritual and religious thought. When they glance out at the broad St. Lawrence, they see before them the tossing rapids, foaming round the wooded Island of the Herons. They themselves are high above the movingwaters, but not far away. The bank at the mission village is steep and grassy. Kateri's sister has need to watch her children closely, for if they play too near the falling ground by the river, a careless lurch might quickly send a dark-skinned little Jean Baptiste or newly christened Joseph rolling down to the water's edge. A slender islet partly breaks the swash of the eddying waters against the mainland. On the bank of the river, overlooking the islet, stands a tall cross which can be seen from every side. Kateri saw its outstretched arms showing above the bark roofs when she first arrived. St. François Xavier du Sault (in 1677) is close to the mouth of the river Portage,[60]a small but deep-bedded stream, which protects the village on its western side. This high ground in the angle of the Portage and St. Lawrence rivers was chosen for the people of the mission when they removed from the meadow-lands at La Prairie. A score or more of Indian cabins have been built on the new site; it is in one of these recently erected lodges that Kateri sits listening to the words of Anastasia. This is the very year in which Cholenec, the Jesuit Father, who lives in the priest's house near the chapel, writes to his superior that there are twenty-two of these cabins. Most of them, it must be remembered, are the long-houses of the Iroquois, containing several families. They are more comfortable than the lodges abandoned at La Prairie. The fields they are cultivating this year are not so damp, and the corn grows better here by the Portage. Anastasia tells Kateri that the temporary chapel of wood which they use now will soon give place to a splendid stone church, sixty feet long, asfine as any in that part of Canada. The foundations are already laid, and the work goes steadily on. The French colonists, across the river and beyond the Sault, are also making plans to build a grand parish church at Montreal. So far the only places of worship at Ville Marie are the chapels of the Hôtel Dieu and the fort, and the small stone church of Our Lady of Bon Secours, just erected. Montreal has been in existence for thirty-five years, and has about a thousand inhabitants. At the Sault there are between two and three hundred permanent Indian residents and three Jesuit Fathers; but other missionaries and many travelling Indians are accustomed to stop there in passing. The people at the Sault are famous for their hospitality, and so anxious to make converts to Christianity that they put everything they possess at the disposal of their guests. They have even been known to give up their freshly made corn-fields to new-comers, to induce them to dwell at the Praying Castle. They willingly take upon themselves the work of a second planting to supply their own households. Give the Indian a sufficient motive for hard work, and how completely the charge of idleness against his race falls to the ground!
Map showing the Migrations of the Mission Village of the Sault
Father Cholenec writes (1677) that there are four captains or chiefs, two Iroquois and two Huron, who govern the village at the Sault. He has "reason to hope, though," he says, "that they will soon have four Iroquois captains." Of one of these, Hot Ashes, we already know something. This friend of Kateri Tekakwitha is not only a governing chief, but famous also as a dogique, or catechist. The dogique Paul is another ofthese chiefs, chosen among the very first, and famous for his eloquence. Hot Ashes having separated from Kateri and his two companions at Caughnawaga on the Mohawk, and given her the use of his canoe, has now gone on to preach Christianity among the Oneidas, and has not yet returned. In the mean time Anastasia has many questions to ask Kateri about her recent long journey and about this same great chief. How was he received in the Mohawk villages? What did the old men think of him, and how was this one or that one of her friends or relatives disposed towards the Christians at the Sault? Then, too, she has more personal inquiries to make; for she wishes to find out who have been Kateri's intimate friends, and how she has conducted herself on certain trying occasions. Keenly the shrewd old matron watches the young face to see if she answers her frankly, and to read, if possible, her inmost thoughts and wishes. She has taken a strong interest in the girl. She recognizes in her many a trait and feature of her gentle Algonquin mother; and if at times, as Kateri recalls the scenes of her past life and the indignities she has suffered, a flash of Mohawk spirit gleams in her eye, Tegonhatsihongo loves her none the less for it. "She has her father's courage and endurance; she will make a noble Christian," is the matron's thought; and she spares no pains to give Kateri the benefit of her carefully garnered little store of Christian knowledge. She claims a mother's confidence from the girl, and in return treats her like a daughter. But there is, after all, a sternness, a severity about the Christianity of this Mohawk woman which, though it gives power and efficacy to her exhortations and instructions to the otheryoung people at the Sault, who respect and reverence her, is perhaps in Kateri's case to be regretted. Anastasia is accustomed to dwell so much and at such length on the heinousness of sin and its terrible consequences, here and hereafter, that Kateri from being constantly near her, though more spiritual and pure-hearted already than any of her companions, soon begins to inflict upon herself severe penances to atone for what she considers great wickedness on her part. This wickedness consists chiefly in having adorned herself in past years with beads, trinkets, and Indian ornaments, which she did oftener to please her aunts than to gratify her own vanity.
One day soon after her arrival, Anastasia noticed that Kateri had wampum beads around her neck and in her hair; and the elder woman questioned her to find out if she really cared for these things. It cost Kateri nothing to lay them aside the moment she thought that it might be pleasing to "the true God" if she did so. Her only motto henceforward was, "Who will teach me what is most pleasing to God, that I may do it?"
It was love for Rawenniio, and a desire to prepare herself as soon as possible for her first communion, that kept Kateri so close to the side of her instructress. Says Chauchetière,—
"She learned more in a week than the others did in several years. She never lost a moment, either in the cabin, in the fields, or in the woods. She was always to be seen, rosary in hand, with her dear instructress, going or coming with her bundle of firewood. She never left Anastasia, because she learned more from her when they two were alone, gathering fagots in the woods, than in any otherway. Her actions made Anastasia say of her that she never lost sight of God. Their talk was about the life and doings of good Christians; and as soon as she heard it said that the Christians did such and such things, she tried to put what she heard into practice. She was like a holy bee, seeking to gather honey from all sorts of flowers. She had few companions, even of her own sex, because she wished no other ties than those that would bring her nearer to a perfect life, in which respect her prudence was admirable. She separated herself from a certain person with whom she had associated, because she noticed that she had a false pride; but she accomplished the separation without appearing to despise the person she left."
"She learned more in a week than the others did in several years. She never lost a moment, either in the cabin, in the fields, or in the woods. She was always to be seen, rosary in hand, with her dear instructress, going or coming with her bundle of firewood. She never left Anastasia, because she learned more from her when they two were alone, gathering fagots in the woods, than in any otherway. Her actions made Anastasia say of her that she never lost sight of God. Their talk was about the life and doings of good Christians; and as soon as she heard it said that the Christians did such and such things, she tried to put what she heard into practice. She was like a holy bee, seeking to gather honey from all sorts of flowers. She had few companions, even of her own sex, because she wished no other ties than those that would bring her nearer to a perfect life, in which respect her prudence was admirable. She separated herself from a certain person with whom she had associated, because she noticed that she had a false pride; but she accomplished the separation without appearing to despise the person she left."
When Anastasia spoke to Kateri of the necessity of avoiding slander,—a vice to which the squaws were much addicted,—Kateri asked her what that meant. It is not surprising that she did not know what evil speaking was, for she was never known to say a word against any one, not even against those who calumniated her. One day her amiability was put to the proof. A young man passed through the cabin where she sat with Anastasia, and roughly pulled aside her blanket with these words: "They say this one has sore eyes; let's see." Kateri flushed deeply, but made no retort. She gathered her blanket about her, and continued the conversation with her friend.
She learned from Anastasia the order of religious exercises at the Praying Castle, and never failed in regular attendance at the chapel. She became the most fervent spirit in that devout community; indeed the lives of the Indian converts at the Sault seem to have been more like the lives of the early Christians and martyrs,in fervor and heroic devotion, than any that history has elsewhere recorded. At the first dawn of day, after having said their private morning prayers in the cabins, they were accustomed to assemble at the chapel, to visit the Blessed Sacrament. If there happened to be a Mass at that hour, they stayed to hear it, and then returned to their cabins. At sunrise the regular daily Mass of the Indians was said. At this they all assisted, chanting Iroquois hymns and other prayers, including the Creed and the Ten Commandments. These sacred songs were intoned by the dogique, or catechist, and sung by alternate choirs of men and women. The Indians never tired of singing, and the hymns prepared for them in their own language were full of instruction. In this way they learned in a very short time the laws of Christian morality and the mysteries of the Faith.
The missionaries at the Sault were accustomed to hold frequent conferences on religion. Objections to doctrine were raised by one of the audience, and answered either by the priest or dogique. Instead of referring to books, which the Indians could not read or understand, sets of pictures were shown to them, such as had been used successfully in France to instruct the ignorant peasantry of Bas Breton. These proved exceedingly useful among the unlettered Indians, and they soon learned to carry on conferences among themselves in the absence of the missionary. Many converts from paganism were made in this way; and being already well instructed by the dogiques, they had only to be brought to the Fathers to be baptized.
The method of the Jesuit missionaries when devotingthemselves to the redmen, was to begin their instruction in religion at once. To use the words of Shea,—
"They did not seek to teach the Indians to read and write as an indispensable prelude to Christianity. That they left for times when greater peace might render it feasible, when long self-control should make the children less averse to the task. The utter failure of their Huron seminary at Quebec, as well as of all the attempts made by others at the instance of the French Court, showed that to wait till the Indians were a reading people would be to postpone their conversion forever; and, in fact, we see Eliot's Indian Bible outlive the pagan tribes for whom it was prepared."
"They did not seek to teach the Indians to read and write as an indispensable prelude to Christianity. That they left for times when greater peace might render it feasible, when long self-control should make the children less averse to the task. The utter failure of their Huron seminary at Quebec, as well as of all the attempts made by others at the instance of the French Court, showed that to wait till the Indians were a reading people would be to postpone their conversion forever; and, in fact, we see Eliot's Indian Bible outlive the pagan tribes for whom it was prepared."
The people of the Sault, though unable to read or write, were well and thoroughly instructed Christians; and on more than one occasion the white men were put to shame by the greater integrity, morality, and piety of these fervent converts. The public sentiment was so strong there in favor of temperance that on one occasion when a drunkard appeared in their village, he was by common consent stabled with the pigs, and the next day was chased out of the settlement.
After the morning Mass, when the men and women went off to work in the fields or cabins, the children were gathered into the chapel and instructed orally.
Many of the Indians objected to having their children taught to read and write, on the ground that it left them no time to become expert at hunting, and to gain other acquirements more useful to them; but it must not be inferred, therefore, that the children had no schooling. On the contrary, their parents were wellpleased to have them assembled at regular hours and taught many things by the blackgowns, though without giving up to it the greater part of the day. Besides this, there was a zealous young Indian in the village, named Joseph Rontagorha, who gathered the children about him in the evenings to catechise them and to teach them singing. A pathetic story is told by Father Cholenec of one of Joseph's pupils,—a little child who was dying. He would not be satisfied till they had called together his young friends to sing the Iroquois hymns they had been learning. The dying child joined his voice with theirs, till his strength failed him. He breathed his soul away to Heaven on the solemn strains of his favorite hymn. The sweet voices of the awe-stricken children died away into a silence which was broken only by their sobs, when they realized that the voice of their companion would join with theirs no more.
The Bishop of Quebec, Monseigneur Laval, had journeyed up the St. Lawrence and visited the mission of St. François Xavier shortly before Kateri's arrival, and while the village was still at La Prairie. He had been received at the landing there with rustic pomp, and the dogique Paul made an eloquent address of welcome. The bishop administered confirmation to a hundred of the Indians on that occasion, and made a stay of several days among them. He was greatly edified by what he saw; and the Indians, on their part, were deeply impressed by ceremonies they then witnessed for the first time.
Again in 1685 they were visited by the newly appointed bishop Monseigneur de Saint-Valier.
While Kateri lived among them, however, no episcopalvisitation is recorded; probably none occurred. Though she did not receive confirmation, she had more spiritual advantages than she had hoped for. She was much pleased to find that many of the pagan festivals which were observed each year in the Mohawk country were discontinued by her tribesmen at the Sault. Her superior intellect as well as her love of purity had caused her to avoid taking part in the dissolute and superstitious rites which accompanied many of these Iroquois feasts.
Only two of the old national festivals were retained at the Sault. These were the Planting Festival and the joyous Harvest Festival, at the gathering and husking of the corn. But even these were hallowed and sanctified by the prevailing spirit of religion. The seed was brought to the missionaries to be blessed for sowing, and the first fruits of the harvest were laid upon the altar.
After Kateri's long sojourn among pagans, what a joy it was to her to share in the ideal Christian life of these Iroquois converts!
Three times a day the Angelus sounded from the little belfry; and each time the beaders of moccasins and the tillers of corn-fields, the hunter starting out with his weapons or bringing in the trophies of the chase, the children, the warriors, and the wrinkled squaws bowed their heads in prayer. They knew the Angelus by heart, and said it faithfully. Kateri knew this and more. She had already learned the Litanies of the Blessed Mother, and recited them at night. All carried the rosary, wearing it around their necks, or wound about the head like a coronet. Hers was oftenest inher hands. These Indians understood only their own language; but the ordinary prayers were all translated for them from the French or Latin, into Iroquois. Father Cholenec, to whose care Kateri Tekakwitha had been so particularly commended, watched her actions closely during the first few months of her life at the Sault. He was the one to decide how soon she should be permitted to receive communion,—a decision of great importance to the happiness of Kateri. To gain this privilege, she had nerved herself to undergo threats, privations, and persecutions, and had become an exile; now she cared for nothing so much in all the world as to hasten, by every means in her power, the long-looked-for day of her first communion.
After commenting on her attendance at the daily Masses and her morning devotions, Cholenec speaks of her as follows:—
"During the course of the day she from time to time broke off from her work to go and hold communion with Jesus Christ at the foot of the altar. In the evening she returned again to the church, and did not leave it until the night was far advanced. When engaged in her prayers, she seemed entirely unconscious of what was passing about her; and in a short time the Holy Spirit raised her to so sublime a devotion that she often spent many hours in intimate communion with God."To this inclination for prayer she joined an almost unceasing application to labor.... She always ended the week by an exact investigation of her faults and imperfections, that she might efface them by the sacrament of penance, which she underwent every Saturday evening. For this she prepared herself by different mortifications with which she afflicted her body; and when she accused herself of faults,even the most light, it was with such vivid feelings of compunction that she shed tears, and her words were choked by sighs and sobbings. The lofty idea she had of the majesty of God made her regard the least offence with horror; and when any had escaped her, she seemed not able to pardon herself for its commission."Virtues so marked did not permit me for a very long time to refuse her the permission which she so earnestly desired, that on the approaching festival of Christmas she should receive her first communion. This is a privilege which is not accorded to those who come to reside among the Iroquois, until after some years of probation and many trials; but the piety of Katherine placed her beyond the ordinary rules. She participated, for the first time in her life, in the Holy Eucharist, with a degree of fervor proportioned to the reverence she had for this grace, and the earnestness with which she had desired to obtain it."
"During the course of the day she from time to time broke off from her work to go and hold communion with Jesus Christ at the foot of the altar. In the evening she returned again to the church, and did not leave it until the night was far advanced. When engaged in her prayers, she seemed entirely unconscious of what was passing about her; and in a short time the Holy Spirit raised her to so sublime a devotion that she often spent many hours in intimate communion with God.
"To this inclination for prayer she joined an almost unceasing application to labor.... She always ended the week by an exact investigation of her faults and imperfections, that she might efface them by the sacrament of penance, which she underwent every Saturday evening. For this she prepared herself by different mortifications with which she afflicted her body; and when she accused herself of faults,even the most light, it was with such vivid feelings of compunction that she shed tears, and her words were choked by sighs and sobbings. The lofty idea she had of the majesty of God made her regard the least offence with horror; and when any had escaped her, she seemed not able to pardon herself for its commission.
"Virtues so marked did not permit me for a very long time to refuse her the permission which she so earnestly desired, that on the approaching festival of Christmas she should receive her first communion. This is a privilege which is not accorded to those who come to reside among the Iroquois, until after some years of probation and many trials; but the piety of Katherine placed her beyond the ordinary rules. She participated, for the first time in her life, in the Holy Eucharist, with a degree of fervor proportioned to the reverence she had for this grace, and the earnestness with which she had desired to obtain it."
She made her communion on Christmas day. Her fervor did not slacken afterward. Whenever there was a general communion among the Indians at the Sault, the most virtuous neophytes endeavored with emulation to be near her, because, said they, the sight alone of Kateri served them as an excellent preparation for communing worthily. She was allowed to make her second communion at Easter time. Father Fremin, her former guest of the Mohawk Valley, soon admitted her, without the customary delay, into the Confraternity of the Holy Family. This honor was accorded only to well-tried and thoroughly instructed Christians. The meetings of the Confraternity filled up the hours of each Sunday afternoon, and the members of it wereexpected to reproduce in their own homes, as far as possible, the family life of the three who dwelt together in the Holy House at Nazareth,—Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. Saint Joseph was held up as a model for the men, the Blessed Virgin for the women, and the child Jesus for the children.
Kateri had no sorrows at this time save one, which was that her nearest kindred still rejected and scorned the faith that was dearer to her than life. The ties of blood are strong in a noble heart. Anastasia, her own good friend and instructress, was there at the Sault; the adopted sister was there, a relative in name if nothing more; the "great Mohawk" was there, and he was a host in himself. But after all, what a handful were these compared to the brave men and women of her tribe in the Mohawk Valley,—those who had shared in the defence of Caughnawaga Castle against the Mohegans, and who still dwelt in her native land, and were bound to her by so many ties! Her uncle, her kindred, her nation, were against her in her Christian faith; and the struggle that wrung her own heart foreshadowed a great struggle that was yet to come between the haughty nations of the Iroquois League and their exiled Christian tribesmen,—one that would make martyrs, glorious Iroquois martyrs. At Onondaga, the capital of the League, it was indeed proved, in course of time, that these children of the forest could give up their lives as nobly as the early Christians who were torn to pieces in the Amphitheatre at Rome.
With sympathetic insight, Kateri felt the gathering storm. She foresaw it more or less clearly from thefirst. And as if in anticipation of what was in store for the Christian Iroquois, her short life at the Sault became, as we shall see, a holocaust of prayer and self-torture. It must be remembered that in her day the laws of hygiene were not made prominent and taught to the young people as they are now; nor were the missionaries in authority over her aware at the time of all her practices, which their wise counsels might have better directed. So Kateri, unchecked, passed her life at the Sault in a ceaseless, tireless effort to lift her nature high above the lawless passions to which the people of her race were subject. For their sins and for her own she suffered and prayed. Five times a day she knelt in the mission chapel and pleaded with God for the infidel Indians, her friends and her kindred.
What wonder, then, that after her life on earth was ended, and her life with Christ began, the Christian Indians should continue even till now to think of her as interceding with God in their behalf!
FOOTNOTES:[60]See map, Les Cinq Stations du Village, etc. The circle enclosing a figure 2, and surmounted by a cross, marks the site here described.
[60]See map, Les Cinq Stations du Village, etc. The circle enclosing a figure 2, and surmounted by a cross, marks the site here described.
[60]See map, Les Cinq Stations du Village, etc. The circle enclosing a figure 2, and surmounted by a cross, marks the site here described.
THE HUNTING-CAMP.
KATERI came to Canada when the woods were rich in color, but now the winter had set in. The Christmas ceremonies are over at the Mission of St. François Xavier du Sault, and the village is almost deserted. The Fathers are indeed there,—Fremin, Cholenec, and Chauchetière; but they lead a quiet, studious life in the absence of their spiritual children. The snow lies heavy on the ground, and only a few stray Indians occupy the desolate cabins. What has become of the zealous band of Christian Iroquois that so lately dwelt there, answering every call of the chapel bell, and chanting back and forth at the daily Mass? Have the Fathers lost their dusky flock? Will they ever come back? They have gone far into the heart of the forest, but the blackgowns have no fear. They will all return at Easter time, and the chapel will ring again with the sound of their voices; the men in motley attire will gather on one side of the aisle, and the women shrouded in their blankets on the other.
The Indians of the Sault have no thought as yet of giving up their forest life, nor do the missionaries ask it of them. Food becomes scarce as the snow deepens, so they depart with their women and children to some good hunting-ground and locate a camp for the wintermonths. They like this sojourn in the forest. The freedom from restraint accords well with their wild tastes and old habits of life. But Kateri would willingly have stayed in the village if her sister had favored such an arrangement. She knows the life of the hunting-camp right well. She has been on these expeditions before with her aunts in the Mohawk country. Among these Christians it must of course be different from the life she led in the camp at Saratoga; and so it is. The dogiques go with the mission Indians to the forest, and during the time of the hunt they retain, as far as possible, the religious exercises of the Sault. They call the Indians together for morning and evening prayers, and a spirit of sobriety and good order prevails. This is in marked contrast to the excesses indulged in by the pagan Mohawks at their hunting-camps, where they generally take a keg or more of Fort Orange liquor to keep them warm.
The Canadian winter seems bitter cold to Kateri. This band of Indians from the mission are camping northward of the Adirondacks; but most of them are used to the frosty atmosphere, and have made themselves quite cosey and comfortable in their hunting-lodges of bark and close-woven boughs. They have a full supply of furs and skins to wrap about them or to hang over the openings and cracks in their temporary houses. Kateri is poorer than the rest in this respect, for she has no hunter to provide these things for her. Her brother-in-law is willing to do what he can; but he has a large family of his own, and is not as active in the chase as formerly, being past middle age. There are enough young hunters among the relatives andfriends of the venerable Anastasia to provide her with all she needs. The elder woman would gladly have made a match between Kateri and one of these young braves, but the least allusion to such a thing annoys Kateri. The girl never complains of the cold, but Anastasia can see that though closely enveloped in her blanket, she is not so warmly clothed as the rest. She has spoken to her several times of the advantages of the married state. On one occasion she pressed the matter so far that Kateri, from a spirit of mischievous fun rather than ill-humor, retorted by telling Anastasia that she had better marry again herself, if she thought so much of marriage. As for her, if they could convince her that marriage was necessary to salvation, she would embrace it, but she doubted much if there were not something more perfect. She did not see the necessity of it in her case, as she could provide for her own wants by the labor of her hands. If this Mohawk maiden had known anything about convent life, she would soon have discovered that she had a vocation for it, and would have become a nun. But thus far no Indian had ever taken the vows, and Anastasia could not understand why Kateri should not marry, as she was now more than twenty years old. There was no denying, however, that she did add very much to the resources of the family, and to the general comfort of the lodge by her industry and dexterity at every kind of Indian handicraft practised by the women. Had she been less generous in giving, and preferred to bargain away what she made, she would soon have grown rich in wampum money on account of her skill, and then she could have bought all the furs she needed. But having no fear ofpoverty, she worked freely for all, and so was always poor. She kept only what was necessary for her own support. She was never a burden to those with whom she dwelt. On the contrary, she helped to enrich them while denying herself everything but a bare subsistence. She often fasted till evening even when hard at work, and then, if unobserved, would mingle ashes with her food, that it might be devoid of everything that could afford pleasure to the taste.
It may be well to describe the way in which she spends her day at the hunting-camp. The women are supposed to have a very easy time in the forest, whereas the men have hard work. They are gone all day long, tracking animals over the snow and into their burrows. It is when the hunters come in bringing their game, and drop off to sleep from sheer exhaustion, that the task of the women begins, for they have to prepare the flesh of the animals for food, and take care of the skins. But this done, they have plenty of time left for gossip and fancy-work. When they are in the village, they have more of household cares to fill up each day, besides working in the fields and attending daily services at the chapel. If these women all followed the example of Kateri while in the forest, they would have fewer sins to confess when they go back to the village at Easter time.
The quiet retreat which Kateri has chosen for herself is near the pathway leading to the stream, and made by the women of the hunting-camp in tramping back and forth for water. There, in her rustic oratory, she is accustomed to kneel amid the snow. She does not raise her head except to look at the cross she has cuton the trunk of a tree. Her hands are crossed on her breast, and her blanket hangs loosely down from her head and shoulders in many a careless fold. The rivulet close beside her is crusted with ice, and the bushes are heavy with snow. The water runs freely and swiftly a little beyond her where there is a break in the line of bushes along the brink of the stream. They have been thrust aside, and the snow has fallen from them. Here it is that the women come to dip water for the camp. Kateri was there in the morning, and among the very first. She helped to prepare the breakfast for the hunters. She was present also at the morning prayers which were said in common. It was not until the men were busily engaged in eating a meal that would last them the greater part of the day, and the women, with nothing special to do, were hovering about seeking a chance to join in the good cheer and see the hunters off, that Kateri slipped away, and now is hiding among the trees, as though she were nothing else than a little white rabbit that makes his home in a snow-bank. One would scarcely notice the print of her moccasins where she passed along by the bushes. The snow is tufty and light. The long, low branches of Kateri's tree—the one on which she has marked the cross—are bowed with its weight. They almost touch the ground, and shelter her motionless figure on the side towards the moccasin-trail that leads to the water's edge. Little wavy lines on either side of the interlacing footprints of the women show where their blankets and skirts with shaggy fringe disturbed the even surface of the new-fallen snow as they passed along. Kateri brushed away the freshest of the snowy mass in front of her cross, before she beganher prayers. She kneels on the hard-packed snow that is fast frozen to the ground. Her figure is sharply outlined against a little white mound of feathery flakes. Her thoughts are many miles away, though her eyes are fixed on the cross, which is suddenly lit up by a flash from the rising sun. She knows that the moment has come for Mass to begin in the village chapel at the great rapid of the St. Lawrence. In spirit she kneels with the few who are gathered there, and follows the Mass from beginning to end with appropriate prayers. She begs her guardian angel to fly away to the chapel and bring her back the fruits of the sacrifice there being offered.
She will need the good spirit at her side more when the morning meal is over and plenty of fuel has been gathered in to keep the fires burning all day long. Then she will sit among the women, whose tongues are ever on the go, and whose hands are busy embroidering elk-skin belts and making little ornaments of various kinds. Kateri is able to give them many suggestions about their work. They often interrupt her with questions concerning the stitches and colors. The task she has set for herself while at the camp is of a more unusual kind than theirs. She is making wooden pack-pins and two ingenious boxes or chests from the wood of a tree. Her sister greatly admires these boxes, and would like to be able to make them as well herself. Kateri's good angel whispers to her, when the gossip reaches its highest point, and prompts her to ask a maiden beside her who has the sweetest of voices to sing an Iroquois hymn. Soon the tide of the women's talk is turned, and they are telling one another stories from the lives of thesaints. These they have learned from the Fathers, or heard at the conferences in the village. Kateri has been gleaning them all along in her talks with Anastasia. As told by the women at the hunting-camp, these edifying stories brought over from old Europe gain rather than lose in picturesqueness of detail. It would puzzle many of these Indians to know just how it comes about, but in some way whenever Kateri sits among them they seem to forget their neighbors' faults, and begin to talk of people who delighted in doing unselfish or heroic deeds. Little by little their thoughts drift off to a better world, and their fingers move all the faster for it. There is more of work going on and less noise of chattering tongues. When the shadows gather about them, they scatter well pleased with themselves and the work of the day. They assemble again when the hunters are all in and the last meal of the day is over. The evening prayers are recited together. Then they find their mats for the night, and drop off one by one to sleep. But Kateri is again on her knees, and prays for herself and for all in the silent darkness; and thus while the others are dreaming of beaver and marten, of venison and captured game, she is thinking only of how to please God. But one thing is certain: were she to eat more, sleep sounder, and pray less, there would have been a better promise of long life, and less occasion to excite the suspicions of that worthy squaw whose jealous eye is always open. Her well-meaning tongue could give a deeper stab than any Kateri has yet had to endure. Thus far she holds her peace well, has not breathed a word of what is in her mind, but yet would like to know just where the young Mohawk keeps herselfat the times when she does not see her among the women. This squaw found her husband sound asleep one morning not far from Kateri's place in the lodge. The hunter came in late, worn out by a long chase after a Canadian elk, and dropped to sleep in the first place he could find, as he crept in among the prostrate, sleeping Indians. He was a good man, and had never had any misunderstanding with his wife till a strange, sudden notion overcame her. She was possessed with the idea that Kateri was making mischief between herself and her husband. A second unfortunate incident which ordinarily would have passed unnoticed served to confirm this woman in her suspicion. As the time approached to return to the village, her husband said one day to the assembled women that he was working on a canoe which would have to be stitched. Then turning naturally enough to Kateri, whose skill with the needle was well known, he asked her if she would not do it for him. She had an obliging disposition, and did not hesitate to say that she would; but "Voilà qui donna encore à penser!" says Chauchetière. He continues thus:—
"The one who had these thoughts was wise enough not to speak of them till she got to the village. She went to find the Father, and told him her suspicion and the foundation for her judgment. The Father, who feared much in so delicate an affair, which seemed perhaps possible enough, spoke to Catherine as much to question as to exhort her. Whatever Catherine could say, however, she was not entirely believed; her instructress spoke to her also, either to remedy the evil in case there might be any or to prevent it. Never before did the blessed Catherine sufferso much as on this occasion. What grieved her was that the Father seemed not to believe her, and accused her as if she had been guilty; but God permitted it thus to purify her virtue, for nothing remained to so virtuous a girl, after leaving her country, her relations, and all the comforts she might have found in a good marriage, which she could not have failed to make if she wished,—nothing more remained for her to do than to practise abnegation in her honor, and to retain not a particle of rancor.... She said only what was necessary to make known the truth, and said not the least thing that could make it appear that she was displeased with any one of those who were with her at the chase."
"The one who had these thoughts was wise enough not to speak of them till she got to the village. She went to find the Father, and told him her suspicion and the foundation for her judgment. The Father, who feared much in so delicate an affair, which seemed perhaps possible enough, spoke to Catherine as much to question as to exhort her. Whatever Catherine could say, however, she was not entirely believed; her instructress spoke to her also, either to remedy the evil in case there might be any or to prevent it. Never before did the blessed Catherine sufferso much as on this occasion. What grieved her was that the Father seemed not to believe her, and accused her as if she had been guilty; but God permitted it thus to purify her virtue, for nothing remained to so virtuous a girl, after leaving her country, her relations, and all the comforts she might have found in a good marriage, which she could not have failed to make if she wished,—nothing more remained for her to do than to practise abnegation in her honor, and to retain not a particle of rancor.... She said only what was necessary to make known the truth, and said not the least thing that could make it appear that she was displeased with any one of those who were with her at the chase."
In the end her remarkable patience and her silence helped to vindicate her in this severest trial of her life. Compared to it, the lying tale of her malicious aunt was as nothing, for no one had believed what she said. In this case it was very different; and Kateri, unable to defend herself against the plausible suspicion of this woman, could only live down the calumny as bravely as possible, leaving God to clear her memory of every shadow of a doubt, as he would not fail to do in time. The good man who was accused with her never before or after gave his wife any occasion to complain of him. She became convinced that her own jealousy had led her into error; when Kateri was dead, she who had done the mischief could never speak of her without weeping to think how needlessly she had wronged and grieved her. But who can ever heal the wound of a reckless tongue? Alas that the Lily of the Mohawks, "the fairest flower that ever bloomed among the redmen," should have been thus accused! One result of this affair was Kateri's resolve never again to exchange thelife of the village for that of the hunting-camp, even at the cost of starvation.
Not long after the Indians returned to the mission, the ceremonies of Holy Week began in the chapel at the Sault. Kateri had never witnessed them before. She was deeply impressed and almost overpowered with emotion as the divine tragedy of Calvary unrolled itself before her. It was brought to her mind by degrees with every detail in the daily services, culminating on Good Friday, with mournful chants, the broken, mutilated Mass of the prophecies, and the slow unveiling of the crucifix.
These ceremonies of Holy Week, together with the fervent words of the missionaries who, like the first preachers of Christianity, spoke to the people in their "own tongues the wonderful works of God," made a profound impression on all the Indians of the Praying Castle. As the bells of Holy Saturday rang in the news of the resurrection, their joy broke forth into song. A thrill of emotion stirred the throng. Happy tears were in Kateri's eyes. On Easter Sunday the swell of glad Iroquois voices, singing from their inmost souls, wafted her responsive spirit to the opened gates of Paradise.
KATERI'S FRIEND,—THÉRÈSE TEGAIAGUENTA.
Ajoy was in store for Kateri Tekakwitha that would remain until the end of her life. No greater blessing can Heaven send us than a friend whose heart responds to our own in closest sympathy, and to whom we can unfold the hidden places of our soul with no fear of betrayal.
Had Kateri failed to find such a heart-friend before she died, we should never have learned what a wealth of strong human love and a craving for human companionship had been growing up within her through the lonely years she had lived until now.
Never before had she greater need of a friend to sustain her; never before had she been so cruelly mistrusted as on her return from the hunting-camp.
The gift of God was ready. The friend was close at hand; but the knowledge of this was kept from Kateri, until her desolate heart, turned in on itself, could find no refuge except in the bitterest self-condemnation. Knowing the goodness of God and finding herself unsatisfied at heart, she could find no reason for it except by magnifying her slightest faults into a dreadful wickedness for which she needed punishment. This tendency of her mind was encouraged constantly by Anastasia's instructions and exhortations. They were well-intentioned and suitable enough for lawless andpassionate natures, but too severe for the pure and sensitive soul of Kateri. The suffering that comes not from evil doing or thinking, but rather from well-meaning bluntness, can easily be utilized and undone in the far-reaching plans of God. Kateri's cruel self-reproach cannot be looked upon as a useless pain when we see how it pierced another heart, and bounded back to her own richly freighted with new-found friendship and much-needed, noble companionship.
What are Kateri Tekakwitha and Thérèse Tegaiaguenta doing there by the new stone chapel? Why do they stand apart in the life-giving sunlight? Why do they not speak to each other? Can it be that they have never before met? Both belong to the Praying Castle; both are Christians, both are Iroquois. Kateri came from the Mohawk country before the snow had fallen. Now it has melted away; the grass is green. Mount Royal, La Prairie, the village, the woods, the waters, are bathed in sunshine. The river is roaring and rushing tumultuously with the added wealth of the spring-time freshets. The mission chapel is nearly completed. The stones are all in place, and the roof has been reared. Kateri compares it, no doubt, with the Dutch church at Fort Orange, the most imposing structure of the kind she has ever had a chance to see. We need not ask her whether she prefers the bright little weather-cock there, or the cross on the belfry here; for we know how she cut the cross in the bark of a forest-tree, and how she carries it day by day buried deep in her heart.
Thérèse sees Kateri, and wonders what she is thinking about. Thérèse has the dress and the look of an Oneida.Her glance is freer and bolder than Kateri's. She is older and not so shy, and has seen the sunshine and shadow of twenty-eight summers. Health and beauty and vigor attend on the young Oneida; but all at once her face grows thoughtful and sad. The chill of a terrible winter comes up from the past, and strikes on her heart as she watches the face of Kateri, so quiet and so collected. It was only an idle curiosity that brought her to look at the building; but now she is led by a strange attraction, and follows the Mohawk girl as she enters the chapel. The floor has recently been laid, and a man is at work on the wainscoting round the wall. No benches or seats are yet to be seen, nor any kind of divisions. Kateri turns to Thérèse, and gives her an Iroquois greeting. She is about to ask a question. The Oneida returns the salutation graciously, and a conversation begins in two slightly different dialects. Though one is using the Mohawk language and one the Oneida, they understand each other perfectly. Kateri asks Thérèse if she knows which portion of the church will be set apart for the women. Thérèse points out to her the place where she thinks they will be, and the conversation continues. It is all about the new building in which they are standing. Their thoughts chime well together; but Kateri, whose mind, as she came from Anastasia's cabin and wandered into the chapel, was dwelling less on what she actually saw before her than on her own internal wretchedness and unworthiness, suddenly exclaims, with a heavy sigh: "Alas! it is not in this building of wood and stone that God most loves to dwell. Our hearts are the lodge that is most pleasing to him. But, miserablecreature that I am, how many times have I forced him to leave this heart in which he should reign alone! Do I not deserve that to punish me for my ingratitude, they should forever exclude me from this church, which they are raising to his glory?"
These words, with their spiritual thought and beautiful imagery, came rolling from the tongue of the Mohawk girl with all the eloquence of tone and gesture so natural to her race. They were spoken, too, with an added force that belongs only to the utterance of those who live in habitual silence concerning their inward life. Thérèse could not look upon them as a mere language of the lips, for she saw, as she watched the face of her companion, that the last words came like a sob from her very heart. They echoed strangely in her own soul. Her past life, that terrible winter in the woods, her vow to Heaven unfulfilled, conscience, remorse, an impulse of love and sympathy for the one who thus wailed out her sorrow in a direct appeal to her,—all this, and more disturbed the soul of Thérèse. She looked at Kateri, and then at the new-laid planks on the chapel floor. Her tongue was silent, but her eyes spoke out in a single glance, and said to the Mohawk girl, "If you only knew—if you only knew how it is with me!" And these were the words that she seemed to be reading along the boards that lay close to her feet: "She is better than I, or she would not speak like that. She can help me. God has sent her here. I will tell her what I have promised and left undone. She thinks she is wicked. I don't believe it; I want her to be my friend." She lifted her eyes again, and in a few quick words opened her heartto Kateri. "Insensibly the conversation led them," says Cholenec, "to disclose to each other their most secret thoughts. To converse with greater ease, they went and sat at the foot of a cross which was erected on the banks of the river." There, where the cross still stands as of old, near the great rapid, Thérèse told Kateri the story of her life; and there their souls were knit together in a friendship that would outlast death and time. Thérèse became a part of Kateri, and Kateri of Thérèse. Henceforth they were two souls leading but one life. The history of one is the history of the other, except that Kateri was necessarily, though often unconsciously, the leading spirit.
But what was the life of Thérèse Tegaiaguenta before she met her guiding spirit, and linked her soul to the soul of the Lily? What were the sins for which she resolved to do penance together with Kateri? What was the story she told, as they sat on the grassy bank at the foot of the tall wooden cross? The gloom of the evening fell about them before they could separate. When at last they turned their faces from the great river, and bent their footsteps toward the cluster of Iroquois lodges near the Portage, Kateri had learned much of what here follows concerning the life of her friend, and many secrets of her heart which have never been recorded.
Thérèse was baptized by Father Bruyas in the Oneida country. When that missionary first arrived among her people, he converted Kateri Ganneaktena, who served as interpreter while he was learning the language, and who afterwards with her husband went to Canada and founded the Praying Castle at La Prairie. Tegaiaguenta,like Ganneaktena, was a young married woman when Bruyas converted and baptized her. She had been united to an Oneida brave after the Iroquois fashion, but unlike Ganneaktena, she did not succeed in converting her husband. On the contrary, she herself was led away by the force of evil example about her, and almost lost her Christian faith.
In the history of the Iroquois missions it is related that a certain brave Christian woman literally fought with tooth and nail to keep some of her infidel tribesmen from pouring fire-water down her throat. If they succeeded in making any of the Christians drunk, they often managed to win them away from the influence of the blackgowns.
Thérèse, less resolute than Ganneaktena and the woman just mentioned, fell a victim to this persistent policy of the infidel Indians. After her baptism they beguiled her into the prevailing sin of intoxication, for which she afterwards shed bitter tears and suffered many self-inflicted torments in company with Kateri.
Before she could be fitted, however, for the friendship of so pure a soul as that of the Mohawk girl, she had to pass a terrible ordeal. When she left the Oneida country and went to live at the Praying Castle with her husband's family, only a partial change was brought about in her lax, easy-going life; for Thérèse Tegaiaguenta, though capable of deep religious convictions, had an impulsive, pleasure-loving nature, very different from the reserved, self-sacrificing spirit of Kateri. The Lily of the Mohawks, from the first moment of her life, had never ceased to be attentive to the lightest whisper of divine grace. Tegaiaguenta could not be brought tolisten to this voice till it spoke to her through the gaunt lips of bereavement and starvation. Then she forgot it again, till suddenly she recognized its echo in the looks and words of Kateri, when she met her at the chapel. The following is a brief account of the strange winter adventure of Thérèse Tegaiaguenta in the woods of Canada, as told by Cholenec:——
"She had gone with her husband and a young nephew to the chase, near the river of the Outaouacks [Ottawas]. On their way some other Indians joined them, and they made a company of eleven persons,—that is, four men and four women, with three young persons. Thérèse was the only Christian. The snow, which this year fell very late, prevented them from having any success in hunting; their provisions were in a short time consumed, and they were reduced to eat some skins, which they had brought with them to make moccasins. At length they ate the moccasins themselves, and finally pressed by hunger, were obliged to sustain their lives principally by herbs and the bark of trees. In the mean time the husband of Thérèse fell dangerously ill, and the hunters were obliged to halt. Two among them, an Agnié [Mohawk] and a Tsonnontouan [Seneca], asked leave of the party to make an excursion to some distance in search of game, promising to return, at the farthest, in ten days. The Agnié, indeed, returned at the time appointed; but he came alone, and reported that the Tsonnontouan had perished by famine and misery. They suspected him of having murdered his companion and then fed upon his flesh; for although he declared that he had not found any game, he was nevertheless in full strength and health. A few days afterwards the husband of Thérèse died, experiencing in his last moments deep regret that he had not received baptism. The remainder of the companythen resumed their journey, to attempt to reach the bank of the river and gain the French settlements. After two or three days' march, they became so enfeebled by want of nourishment, that they were not able to advance farther. Desperation then inspired them with a strange resolution, which was to put some of their number to death, that the lives of the rest might be preserved."
"She had gone with her husband and a young nephew to the chase, near the river of the Outaouacks [Ottawas]. On their way some other Indians joined them, and they made a company of eleven persons,—that is, four men and four women, with three young persons. Thérèse was the only Christian. The snow, which this year fell very late, prevented them from having any success in hunting; their provisions were in a short time consumed, and they were reduced to eat some skins, which they had brought with them to make moccasins. At length they ate the moccasins themselves, and finally pressed by hunger, were obliged to sustain their lives principally by herbs and the bark of trees. In the mean time the husband of Thérèse fell dangerously ill, and the hunters were obliged to halt. Two among them, an Agnié [Mohawk] and a Tsonnontouan [Seneca], asked leave of the party to make an excursion to some distance in search of game, promising to return, at the farthest, in ten days. The Agnié, indeed, returned at the time appointed; but he came alone, and reported that the Tsonnontouan had perished by famine and misery. They suspected him of having murdered his companion and then fed upon his flesh; for although he declared that he had not found any game, he was nevertheless in full strength and health. A few days afterwards the husband of Thérèse died, experiencing in his last moments deep regret that he had not received baptism. The remainder of the companythen resumed their journey, to attempt to reach the bank of the river and gain the French settlements. After two or three days' march, they became so enfeebled by want of nourishment, that they were not able to advance farther. Desperation then inspired them with a strange resolution, which was to put some of their number to death, that the lives of the rest might be preserved."
When they were eating the flesh of the first victim, who was an old man, they asked Thérèse if it was allowable to kill him, and what the Christian law said upon that point, for she was the only one among them who had been baptized. She dared not reply. They gave her their reasons, which were that the old man had given them the right that he had to his life, saying that he would cause them a great deal of suffering on the journey.[61]
The little nephew of Thérèse had already died from hunger and fatigue. When her husband lay at the point of death, she and the boy had remained with him till he breathed his last, and then she had hastened on through the woods, carrying her nephew on her shoulder, till she caught up with the band, who had journeyed on in advance of her. The child died a little later, in spite of her care; and when the man of the party was devoured before her eyes, misery and starvation rendered her speechless. She saw that they were determined to sustain life at the expense of those among them who were unable to resist.
"They, therefore, selected the wife of the Tsonnontouan [Seneca] and her two children, who were thus in succession devoured. This spectacle terrified Thérèse, for she had goodreason to fear the same treatment. Then she reflected on the deplorable state in which conscience told her she was; she repented bitterly that she had ever entered the forest without having first purified herself by a full confession; she asked pardon of God for the disorders of her life, and promised to confess as soon as possible and undergo penance. Her prayer was heard, and after incredible fatigues she reached the village with four others, who alone remained of the company. She did, indeed, fulfil one part of the promise, for she confessed soon after her return; but she was more backward to reform her life and subject herself to the rigors of penance."
"They, therefore, selected the wife of the Tsonnontouan [Seneca] and her two children, who were thus in succession devoured. This spectacle terrified Thérèse, for she had goodreason to fear the same treatment. Then she reflected on the deplorable state in which conscience told her she was; she repented bitterly that she had ever entered the forest without having first purified herself by a full confession; she asked pardon of God for the disorders of her life, and promised to confess as soon as possible and undergo penance. Her prayer was heard, and after incredible fatigues she reached the village with four others, who alone remained of the company. She did, indeed, fulfil one part of the promise, for she confessed soon after her return; but she was more backward to reform her life and subject herself to the rigors of penance."
This she did not undertake in earnest until she met Kateri. From that time they were inseparable. They went together to the church, to the forest, and to their daily labor. They told each other their pains and dislikes, they disclosed their faults, they encouraged each other in the practice of austere virtues. They agreed that they would never marry. An accident occurred in the early days of their friendship that gave their thoughts at once a serious turn. One day when Kateri was cutting a tree in the woods for fuel, it fell sooner than she expected. She had sufficient time, by drawing back, to shun the body of the tree, which would have crushed her by its fall; but she was not able to escape from one of the branches, which struck her violently on the head, and threw her senseless to the ground. They thought she was dead; but she shortly afterward recovered from her swoon, and those around her heard her softly ejaculating, "I thank thee, O good Jesus, for having saved me in this danger." She rose as soon as she had said these words, and taking her hatchet in her hand would have gone immediately to work again, ifthey had not stopped her and bade her rest. She told Thérèse that the idea in her mind at the time was that God had only loaned her what still remained to her of life in order that she might do penance; and that therefore it was necessary for her to begin at once to employ her time diligently.
Such words from such a source could not fail to stir the zeal and emulation of her warm-hearted, impetuous friend. Hand in hand, they now hastened to climb the thorny path of penance, guessing eagerly where certain information was denied them as to what might be the perfect Christian life they were seeking so earnestly to lead.