User:Garretthall17/Kateri Tekakwitha

Conversion and Kahnawake
Lamberville wrote in his journal in the years after her death about Tekakwitha. This text described her before she was baptized as a mild-mannered girl and behaved very well. Lamberville also stated that Kateri did everything she could to stay holy in a secular society, which often caused minor conflicts with her longhouse residents. These conflicts suggested that there was no violence, which contradicts future texts.

Judging that she was ready, Lamberville baptized Tekakwitha at the age of 19, on Easter Sunday, April 18, 1676. Tekakwitha was renamed "Catherine" after St. Catherine of Siena (Kateri was the Mohawk form of the name).

After Kateri was baptized, she remained in Caughnawauga for another six months. Some Mohawks opposed her conversion and accused her of sorcery. Lamberville suggested that she go to the Jesuit mission of Kahnawake, located south of Montreal on the St. Lawrence River, where other native converts had gathered. Catherine joined them in 1677.

Tekakwitha was said to have put thorns on her sleeping mat and lain on them while praying for her relatives' conversion and forgiveness. Piercing the body to draw blood was a traditional practice of the Mohawk and other Iroquois nations. She lived at Kahnawake the remaining two years of her life. She learned more about Christianity under her mentor Anastasia, who taught her about the practice of repenting for one’s sins. When the women knew of religious sisters, they wanted to form their convent and created an informal association of devout women.

Father Cholonec wrote that Tekakwitha said: "I have deliberated enough. For a long time, my decision on what I will do has been made. I have consecrated myself entirely to Jesus, son of Mary, I have chosen Him for husband, and He alone will take me for wife."

The Church considers that in 1679, with her decision on the Feast of the Annunciation, her conversion was truly completed, and she became the "first virgin" among the Mohawk.

Mission du Sault St. Louis: Kahnawake
The Jesuits had founded Kahnawake for the religious conversion of the natives. When it began, the natives built their traditional longhouses for residences. They also built a longhouse to be used as a chapel by the Jesuits. As a missionary settlement, Kahnawake was at risk of being attacked by the Iroquois Confederacy members who had not converted to Catholicism. (While it attracted other Iroquois, it was predominantly Mohawk, the prominent tribe in eastern New York.)

After Catherine's arrival, she shared the longhouse of her older sister and her husband. She would have known other people in the longhouse who had migrated from their former village of Gandaouagué (also spelled Caughnawaga). Her mother’s close friend, Anastasia Tegonhatsiongo, was clan matron of the longhouse. Anastasia and other Mohawk women introduced Tekakwitha to the regular practices of Christianity. ^^^^^ This was normal for the women in the village, with many of the missionaries being preoccupied with other religious tasks. Pierre Cholenec reported that "all the Iroquois who come here and then become Christians owe their conversion mainly to the zeal of their relatives". =====

^^^^^ Kahnawake was a village set-up like normal Iroquois villages, moving from location to location after running out of natural resources, such as timber and fresh game. The village was originally not wholly French but with northward migration towards Canada started by the Five Nations, the village was starting to gain more and more Native members. According to Greer, the happenstance of this village coming together and gaining traction was not due to any specific reason. The Five Nations all happened to start migrating north around the same time, without any communication between them. In Kahnawake, there was representation from multiple tribes and when the French came, there were people from different ethnicities. The village was recognized by New France as well, it was given autonomy to deal with the problems that would arise. They were also able to form a friendship with New York through this autonomy. [want to add more on the autonomy the village had]

The trade that occurred in Kahnawake was the standard in that area, with most of it being furs and pelts. The division between the French Church and the Natives was clear-cut in the village, with few interactions between the two groups. With the two groups being distanced from each other, Chauchetière noted the unity that the Native group seemed to have.

There was an outbreak of war between the different tribes that Kahnawake was dragged into that lasted around two and a half years. =====

Edit Summary
Copied from Kateri Tekakwitha  ]]