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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Life and Times of Kateri Tekakwitha, by
+Ellen H. Walworth
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Life and Times of Kateri Tekakwitha
+       The Lily of the Mohawks
+
+Author: Ellen H. Walworth
+
+Release Date: September 14, 2011 [EBook #37421]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LIFE AND TIMES OF KATERI ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Margo Romberg, Curtis Weyant and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+NOTES:
+
+1. On pp. 72-73 a passage from a document with many superscripts is
+quoted. These are indicated, for example, as "y^e" for "the", or
+"w^{th}" for "with".
+
+2. On p. 307 some letters have a diagonal strike-through to indicate
+letters omitted. These are indicated, for example, as [/A].
+
+
+
+    THE LIFE AND TIMES
+
+    OF
+
+    KATERI TEKAKWITHA,
+
+    The Lily of the Mohawks.
+
+    1656-1680.
+
+    BY
+
+    ELLEN H. WALWORTH,
+    AUTHOR OF "AN OLD WORLD, AS SEEN THROUGH YOUNG EYES"
+
+    BUFFALO:
+    PETER PAUL & BROTHER.
+
+    1891.
+
+
+
+
+    _Copyright, 1890_,
+    BY ELLEN H. WALWORTH.
+
+    PETER PAUL & BRO.,
+    PRINTERS AND BINDERS,
+    BUFFALO, N. Y.
+
+
+
+    To my Uncle,
+
+    THE REV. CLARENCE A. WALWORTH,
+
+    RECTOR OF ST. MARY'S CHURCH,
+    ALBANY, N. Y.,
+
+    THIS VOLUME IS MOST AFFECTIONATELY
+    DEDICATED.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+The life and surroundings of "The Lily of the Mohawks," as an
+undeveloped theme in literature, was first suggested to me by my uncle,
+the Rev. Clarence A. Walworth. My interest and enthusiasm were at once
+aroused. The thought of a mere Indian girl reared in the forest among
+barbarians, yet winning for herself such titles as "The Lily of the
+Mohawks" and "The Genevieve of New France," recurred to my mind again
+and again, until it led me to a fixed determination to explore so
+tempting a field of romance and archæology. The fact that it lay amongst
+the hills and valleys of my native State, and was little known except to
+solitary scholars and laborious historians, incited me still more to the
+task. I became ambitious to gather from the records of two centuries ago
+every detail relating in any way to my Indian heroine. While engaged in
+this work unexpected opportunities opened to gather exact information
+about her, and more especially concerning the localities connected with
+her early childhood, and her conversion and baptism in the Mohawk
+Valley.
+
+If this book, embodying the result of my researches, should fail to
+interest the reader, it will not be for any lack of enthusiasm on my
+part, or of kind encouragement and competent assistance from others.
+
+When beginning the work my first call for advice was upon Dr. John
+Gilmary Shea, so well versed in Indian annals, as also in the general
+history of this country. I found him full of interest in my subject.
+Guided by the information received from him, and also by the directions
+of the Rev. R. S. Dewey, S. J., who has long been familiar with the
+missionary and Indian traditions of the Mohawk Valley, I went to
+Montreal and secured from the courteous kindness of Father Turgeon, S.
+J., rector of the Jesuit College there, the use of all the manuscripts I
+desired. The Sisters of the Hôtel Dieu furnished me with a room in their
+hospital, to which the good Rector allowed me to transport the entire
+CARTON O. This contained all the unprinted materials relating to my
+subject that belonged to the college library.
+
+There, at the Hôtel Dieu, delightfully located with the sisters of an
+order whose history is closely bound up with that of Montreal, I copied
+at my leisure the manuscripts most valuable to me.
+
+In Montreal, also, my good fortune gave me interviews with M. Cuoq, the
+distinguished philologist of St. Sulpice, whose Indian dictionaries and
+grammars I had already seen in my uncle's library. Much I owe besides to
+Soeur St. Henriette, librarian and keeper of the archives at the Villa
+Maria. It was on the boat which shoots the Lachine Rapids that I met Mr.
+Hale of Philadelphia, the learned author of the "Iroquois Book of
+Rites," and enjoyed a long conversation with him on matters of deep
+interest to us both and to my work. My first visit to the Iroquois
+Village at Caughnawaga, P. Q., occurred at this time. Here my uncle and
+I found hospitable entertainment for several days at the Presbytery of
+the church, presided over by the Rev. Père Burtin, O. M. I. Besides the
+valuable information acquired from the library of books and manuscripts
+in his possession, I gathered much from the acquaintance then
+established with the Iroquois of the "Sault" and in particular with
+their grand chief, Joseph Williams.
+
+La Prairie was only nine miles distant, with its scholarly curé, Père
+Bourgeault, and his valuable collection of ancient maps; and about half
+way between Caughnawaga and La Prairie lay the grave of Tekakwitha, with
+its tall cross looking over the rapids of the St. Lawrence. An author
+with a theme like mine in such localities and with such guides was,
+indeed, in an enchanted land.
+
+In Albany I received valuable assistance and advice from Mr. Holmes and
+Mr. Howell, of the State Library, also from Mr. Melius, of the City
+Clerk's Office, and others.
+
+I have reserved for a most especial and grateful acknowledgment the name
+of Gen. John S. Clark, of Auburn, N. Y. My work is indebted to him for a
+treasure of information which he alone could give. In the knowledge of
+Iroquois localities in New York State, particularly those of two
+centuries ago, and the trails over which missionaries from Canada
+travelled so painfully to villages where they labored so hard and yet
+successfully,--he is the undoubted pioneer. Almost all we know in this
+branch of archæology is owing to him. It was my privilege in company
+with my uncle, and with Gen. Clark for pilot, to spend a memorable week
+in search of Indian localities along the Mohawk, from the mouth of
+Schoharie Creek to the farthest castle of the wolf clan opposite Fort
+Plain. We visited and verified, under the General's direction, no less
+than eleven sites in this one week. An account of the most important of
+these sites can be found in the contributions of Gen. Clark, as
+explanatory footnotes, to "Early Chapters of Mohawk History." This work
+consists of translations into English of selected letters from the
+_Relations Jesuites_. For these translations we are indebted to the
+lamented Dr. Hawley, late pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in
+Auburn. Guided by the wise advice of General Clark, I was able
+afterwards to make other independent journeys, and familiarize myself
+with Indian trails passing near my native town, above all those followed
+by Tekakwitha in her escape to the "Sault." I owe to Gen. Clark's
+kindness the valuable map of Mohawk Castle Sites, to be found in this
+book and drawn expressly for it by his hand.
+
+Lastly, I recall with pleasure a conversation with the Rev. Felix
+Martin, S. J., a well known authority in Canadian and Indian archæology.
+To this venerable author, the editor of the famous "Jesuit Relations,"
+the biographer of Isaac Jogues, of Chomonot and of Tekakwitha, I owe a
+large debt of gratitude. His biography of her, entitled "Une Vierge
+Iroquoise," is still in manuscript, never having been published. He was
+the first to gather and keep together all the manuscripts extant giving
+contemporary accounts of the Iroquois maiden. He laid a foundation of
+accumulated facts for others to build upon. I sought him out in Paris in
+1885, and found him with some difficulty. The hiding place of this
+learned old man was in an obscure corner of the city. The schools of his
+order all broken up, separated from his companions, his books and his
+manuscripts, and from his old beloved home in the New France, which he
+would never see again,--how his eyes glistened when I came to him from
+the western world, a child of the Hudson and Mohawk, to speak to him of
+Tekakwitha, bringing him even the latest news of archæological
+discoveries in those valleys! His face beamed with delight at every new
+detail. It pleased him much to know that Dr. Shea was, at that very
+time, translating into English his (Martin's) French Life of Jogues, and
+to learn that I was writing, and hoped soon to have published a full
+account of Kateri Tekakwitha for my own countrymen of the United States.
+He gave his blessing to me and to my work, a blessing which I prize most
+highly. His hearty approval is especially gratifying, since I have had
+occasion to use much of the material he had gathered for publication in
+French under his own name. Alas! scarcely had I recrossed the Atlantic,
+when the news of his death reached me.
+
+In conclusion, let me say: I am conscious of many defects in this work.
+Others may yet be found better able than I to do justice to my theme,
+but not any one, I think, who will come to the task more anxious to make
+known to all the whole truth of history concerning the rare and
+beautiful character of this lily of our forest.
+
+    ALBANY, N. Y., January 2, 1891.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+CHAPTER                                                           PAGE
+
+    I. TEKAKWITHA'S SPRING                                          1
+
+   II. THE MOHAWK VALLEY AND THE MOHAWKS AT THE TIME OF
+        TEKAKWITHA'S BIRTH                                         12
+
+  III. A CRADLE-SONG.--CAPTIVES TORTURED.--FLIGHT OF THE FRENCH
+        FROM ONONDAGA.--DEATH IN THE MOHAWK LODGES                 26
+
+   IV. TEKAKWITHA WITH HER AUNTS AT GANDAWAGUE                     36
+
+    V. TEKAKWITHA'S UNCLE AND FORT ORANGE, OR THE BEGINNINGS OF
+        ALBANY                                                     44
+
+   VI. AN ARMY ON SNOW-SHOES                                       62
+
+  VII. DE TRACY BURNS THE MOHAWK CASTLES.--FALL OF TIONNONTOGEN    75
+
+ VIII. TEKAKWITHA'S CHRISTIAN GUESTS.--RAWENNIIO                   85
+
+   IX. CAUGHNAWAGA ON THE MOHAWK.--FATHERS FREMIN AND PIERRON      96
+
+    X. THE MOHEGANS ATTACK THE NEW CASTLE.--BATTLE OF
+        KINAQUARIONES.--THE FEAST OF THE DEAD                     110
+
+   XI. WILL TEKAKWITHA MARRY?                                     128
+
+  XII. THE NEW COLONY OF CHRISTIAN INDIANS ON THE ST. LAWRENCE.
+        -- THE "GREAT MOHAWK" GOES TO CANADA                      142
+
+ XIII. TEKAKWITHA MEETS DE LAMBERVILLE.--IMPOSING CEREMONY IN THE
+        BARK CHAPEL                                               152
+
+  XIV. PERSECUTIONS.--HEROIC CALMNESS IN A MOMENT OF PERIL.
+        --MALICE OF TEKAKWITHA'S AUNT                             163
+
+   XV. HOT ASHES PLANS TEKAKWITHA'S ESCAPE                        174
+
+  XVI. FROM THE OLD TO THE NEW CAUGHNAWAGA                        183
+
+ XVII. AT THE SAULT ST. LOUIS                                     192
+
+XVIII. THE HUNTING-CAMP                                           206
+
+  XIX. KATERI'S FRIEND,--THÉRÈSE TEGAIAGUENTA                     216
+
+   XX. MONTREAL AND THE ISLE-AUX-HÉRONS, 1678                     226
+
+  XXI. "I AM NOT ANY LONGER MY OWN"                               243
+
+ XXII. KATERI'S VOW ON LADY DAY, AND THE SUMMER OF 1679           253
+
+XXIII. KATERI ILL.--THÉRÈSE CONSULTS THE BLACKGOWN.--FEAST OF
+        THE PURIFICATION.--THE BED OF THORNS                      260
+
+ XXIV. KATERI'S DEATH.--"I WILL LOVE THEE IN HEAVEN!"--THE
+        BURIAL.--HER GRAVE AND MONUMENT                           270
+
+  XXV. THE MEMORY AND INFLUENCE OF KATERI TEKAKWITHA AFTER HER
+        DEATH.--MODERN CAUGHNAWAGA                                285
+
+CONCLUSION                                                        293
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+APPENDIX.
+
+NOTES, TOPOGRAPHICAL AND HISTORICAL                               301
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
+
+                                                                 PAGE
+
+TEKAKWITHA'S SPRING                                               xiv
+
+THE MOHAWK VALLEY FROM FONDA, N. Y.                                 6
+
+MAP OF MOHAWK CASTLE-SITES, BY GENERAL CLARK                       38
+
+OLD ALBANY--DOMINIE SCHAATS' HOUSE                                 52
+
+SITE OF CAUGHNAWAGA CASTLE, FONDA, N. Y.                          103
+
+MAP SHOWING THE MIGRATIONS OF THE MISSION VILLAGE OF THE SAULT    194
+
+STREET SCENE AT CAUGHNAWAGA, IN CANADA                            279
+
+MODERN CAUGHNAWAGA, P. Q. (_from the Landing_)                    299
+
+
+[Illustration: TEKAKWITHA'S SPRING.]
+
+
+
+
+THE LIFE AND TIMES
+
+OF
+
+KATERI TEKAKWITHA.[1]
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] Pronounced _Kat'-e-ree' Tek-a-quee'-ta_. _Kateri_ is the Iroquois
+form of the Christian name _Katherine_. The meaning of _Tekakwitha_ is
+given in Chapter IV. For various ways of spelling the name, see
+Appendix, Note B.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+TEKAKWITHA'S SPRING.
+
+
+In the valley of the Mohawk, near the present great highways of the
+State of New York, is a quiet forest nook, where a clear, cold spring
+gurgles out from the tangled roots of a tree. Connected with this spring
+is the story of a short girl-life, pure, vigorous, sorrow-taught. It is
+written out in authentic documents; while Nature, also, has kept a
+record of an Indian maiden's lodge beside the spring. There on the banks
+of the Mohawk River, at Caughnawaga, now called Fonda, in Montgomery
+County, dwelt the Lily of the Mohawks two centuries ago, when the State
+had neither shape nor name. She saw her people build a strong, new
+palisaded village there. She saw, though at rare intervals, the peaceful
+but adventurous traders of Fort Orange, and the blackgowns of New
+France pass in and out on friendly errands. Mohegans came there also in
+her day to lay siege to the village, but only to be met with fierce
+defiance and to be driven back. Marks of that very Indian fort can still
+be found at Fonda, where the Johnstown Railway now branches from the New
+York Central, and turns northward along the margin of the Cayudutta
+Creek. The smoke of the engine, as it leaves the town of Fonda, mounts
+to the level of a plateau on which the Mohawk Castle[2] stood. The
+elevated land, or river terrace, at that point is singularly called the
+"Sand Flats."
+
+A rude fort of palisades, well equipped for defence, was completed about
+the year 1668 on a narrow tongue of this high terrace, between the
+Mohawk River and the creek. The approach to it is very steep; but in one
+place a wagon-road winds up the hill to what is now a field on Veeder's
+farm. Here unmistakable signs of Indian occupation are to be found. A
+spring is close at hand in a clump of trees. The castle at that spot was
+known as "Caughnawaga," meaning "At the Rapids,"--a name still applied
+to the eastern part of the present town of Fonda. The Mohawk River runs
+swiftly as it passes this spot, and large stones obstruct its course.
+The spring at the castle site on the west side of the creek is
+Tekakwitha's spring; for there beside it she grew to maidenhood, behind
+the shelter of the palisades, and beneath the shadow of the overarching
+forest. Tekakwitha was the Lily of the Mohawks, and afterwards known as
+"La Bonne Catherine."
+
+In the Mohawk Valley, the great artery of our nation's life, the tide of
+human travel now ebbs and flows with ever-swelling force; here the New
+York Central Railway levels out its course of four broad tracks; here
+the great canal bears heavy burdens east and west; here the West Shore
+Railway skirts the southern terrace; here the Mohawk River winds and
+ripples, smiling in an old-time, quiet way at these hurrying, crowded
+highways. They have wellnigh filled the generous roadway, cut through
+high plateaus and mountain spurs in ages past by this same placid river.
+That was in its younger, busier days. Now it idles on its way from side
+to side, among the flats or bottoms, with here and there a rapid, till
+at last it gathers force at far Cohoes for one great plunge before it
+joins the Hudson. Then the mingled waters of the two rivers sweep on
+past the stately Capitol, where once the Indian trading-post, Fort
+Orange, stood. From Albany, the broad-bosomed Hudson bears floating
+palaces and long lines of canal-boats strung together like great beads
+of wampum. Let its current move them southward, while we turn back to
+the valley whence these strings of wampum came. Let us follow up the
+windings of the Mohawk River westward. At Schenectady it lingers among
+islands in pretty, narrow ways, where college boys can take their
+sweethearts rowing. Right playfully it kisses the feet of the old Dutch
+town in summer, and in winter its frozen bosom sounds with the merry
+thud of the skater's steel. Farther west the valley narrows, and on a
+height near Hoffman's Ferry, Mohawk and Mohegan fought their last
+fierce battle. Tekakwitha heard their war-whoop at the castle of
+Caughnawaga, just before the final conflict came; but she never saw Fort
+Johnson, which is higher up the river. Old Fort Johnson is too modern
+for our story. Amsterdam now looms up an important factor in the valley.
+Two centuries ago a joyous stream cascading down to meet the Mohawk was
+its only landmark. Tekakwitha knew the spot, however, and had good
+reason to remember it, as we shall see. Westward still, and up the
+valley from Fort Johnson, a broader gleam of water comes in sight. It is
+where the Schoharie River creeps in from the south between the dripping
+archways of a bridge, over which canal-boats pass. Here the Mohawk shows
+its teeth in a ridge of angry rapids; and here we enter what was once
+the home country of its people, the fierce Mohawks. We are near the spot
+where brave Father Isaac Jogues, the discoverer of Lake George, was
+killed, in 1646. In the southwest angle of the Mohawk and Schoharie
+Rivers, on the upper terrace, higher than the modern hamlet of
+Auriesville, was the eastern castle of the Mohawks, known to Jogues as
+Ossernenon.[3] Here three times the hero-hearted blackgown came; first,
+a mangled, tortured captive, dragging out the weary months in slavery
+until the Dutchmen at Fort Orange ransomed him; next, as an ambassador
+of peace, bearing presents, making treaties; and lastly, as envoy of
+the Prince of Peace, and wedded to his "spouse of blood,"--for so
+Jogues styled his Mohawk mission. Never was a truer bridegroom, never
+stranger wedding rites. Bits of his flesh were cut off and devoured,
+while the savage high-priest cried, "Let us see if this white flesh is
+the flesh of an _otkon_ [spirit or devil.]" "I am but a man like
+yourselves," said Jogues, "though I fear not death nor your tortures."
+His head was placed on the northern palisade, looking toward the French
+frontier, and his body thrown into the stream; but his blood and his
+earnest words sank deep into the land and the hearts of its people. From
+Jogues' mystic union with the Mohawk nation, trooping from the "Mission
+of the Martyrs," came the Christian Iroquois. One of these--a bright
+soul in a dusky setting, and a flower that sprang from martyr's
+blood--was Tekakwitha. She grew up, says one who knew her, "like a lily
+among thorns." Ten years after Ondessonk[4] had shed the last drop of
+his blood to make these Mohawks Christians, she was born among the
+people who had seen the blackgown die, in the Village of the
+Turtles,--some say in the "cabin at the door of which the tomahawked
+priest had fallen."
+
+This same stronghold of the Turtles was rebuilt higher up the river
+during Tekakwitha's lifetime. Near Ossernenon, the earliest known site
+of the Turtle Castle, there is a great bend or loop in the Mohawk River
+and Valley. It extends from the mouth of the Schoharie River on the east
+to the "Nose" near Yost's and Spraker's Basin on the west. The Nose is
+at a point where river, railways, and canal are crowded in a narrow pass
+between two overlapping ridges of high land. "Two Mountains
+approaching," or Tionnontogen, the Indians called it; and there behind
+the shelter of the hills, they built their largest and best fortified
+town, the Mohawk capital or Castle of the Wolves. Other villages and
+their central Castle of the Bears, called Andagoron, they also built and
+rebuilt within the great bend. At its northern point, where the river
+now flows between the high-perched Starin residence and the town of
+Fonda, the next important railway-station west of Amsterdam, are the
+rapids and the large stones in the water which gave rise to the name of
+Caughnawaga. From the hills at Fonda one can see for miles both up and
+down the river.
+
+Here, as has already been said, just west of Fonda, on the north side of
+the Mohawk is the Indian village site where Tekakwitha lived. Here is
+the beautiful hill that was once crowned by the palisaded castle of
+Caughnawaga. It is a spot that any one who lived there must have loved.
+To-day the plough turns up the rich soil where long Indian cabins stood,
+and what we see are only darkened patches left to tell us where the
+hearthfires of the Mohawks burned two hundred years ago. These patches
+of dark soil still glisten with the pearly mussel-shells brought up by
+the Mohawks to their village from the river that still bears their name.
+The pipe-stems sold to them by the Dutch are strewn in fragments through
+the field. From graves near by, thrown out on the roadside by the spades
+of workmen loading their carts with sand, the author has seen Indian
+bones, more crumbled than the silly beads and rusty scissors buried with
+them, which they bought so dearly. In a wood near by, on the brow of a
+ravine, there is a row of hollow corn-pits where the Caughnawaga people
+stored their charred corn. Low down in the fertile river-flats,
+southward from the ancient village site, a sunburned farmer, owner of
+both hill and valley, still works with horses and with iron implements
+the very corn-fields that the squaws hoed with clumsy bone-tools. This
+once castled height breaks abruptly on its eastern side to let the
+Cayudutta Creek wind through. It hurries by on its way to meet the
+Mohawk, and then lags through the flat, lost to sight just long enough
+to pass round the skirts of the Ta-berg, or Tea Mountain. This in a
+grassy cone topped with pines, and so named by Dutch settlers who there
+in wartimes made a tea from a wild plant. It partly blocks the entrance
+to the pretty Cayudutta valley, and separates it from the modern town of
+Fonda; but the farmers' daughters and the village people who now live in
+sight of Fonda Court House know well the little valley of the Cayudutta.
+Any one of them can point out its brightest gem, the never failing
+spring that issues from a set-back in the hill and so regular in shape
+as to suggest an amphitheatre. This spring wells out from under an old
+stump hidden in a clump of trees, whose topmost branches are below the
+level of the castle site. Its waters rest a moment in a little shady
+pool, a round forest mirror; then brimming over, break away and wander
+down the steep descent to the creek. The path to the spring leads
+downward from the higher ground above it, known as the Sand Flats. The
+field where the castle stood is now often planted thick with grain; but
+when this has been cut and the ground again ploughed, the Indian relics
+are readily found. At any season of the year, however, the limpid spring
+that has not ceased to flow for centuries will serve to indicate the
+spot.
+
+[Illustration: THE MOHAWK VALLEY FROM FONDA, N. Y.
+
+(_Tekakwitha's Birthplace in the Distance._)]
+
+Standing then, at the brink of this spring in the Mohawk Valley, let the
+reader cast a look backward, and over the intervening space of two
+hundred years, to the days of Tekakwitha. Let it be understood, however,
+that while the imaginative faculty is thus to be called into play, it is
+not for the contemplation of an imaginative but of a real character. For
+whatever side lights may color the narrative, they are used to bring
+out, not to impair, the picture. Many details of time and place, of
+manners and customs, of dress and the arts of industry, will be woven
+into an actual scene, rather than given in a tedious enumeration.
+
+The scene about to be described and others which follow depicting the
+early life of Tekakwitha are not to be found actually recorded in so
+many words in the history of her life and times, yet they must have
+occurred; for they are based on the known facts of her life as related
+in various official and private documents, together with such inferences
+only as may fairly and reasonably be drawn from those facts when brought
+under the strong light of contemporaneous records.
+
+Above the spring at Fonda, on the high plateau where is now the
+well-tilled farm, stood, two centuries ago, the log-built palisades of
+ancient Caughnawaga. In tall and close-set ranks they serve to hide from
+view and shield from ambush the long, low Indian houses, twenty-four in
+number. "Double stockadoed round, with four ports," as when the
+traveller Greenhalgh saw the place in 1677, "and a bow-shot from the
+river," stands the strong Mohawk castle. The blackened stumps that now
+dot the sunny hillside of the Cayudutta change into the old-time, mighty
+forest, and present a scene that is full of life; for down a well-worn
+footpath come the Indian girls to fill their jugs at the
+spring,--afterwards to be known as Tekakwitha's Spring.
+
+These dusky Caughnawaga maidens have the well-known Indian features
+strongly marked,--the high cheek bones, the dull red skin, and soft dark
+eyes; but Tekakwitha shields hers with her blanket from the light.
+Unlike the rest, there is an air of thoughtfulness about her and a touch
+of mystery. Excessive shyness in the Lily of the Mohawks is strangely
+blended with a sympathetic nature; and with a quiet force of character
+she leads their chatter, half unconsciously, to channels of her own
+choosing.
+
+"A manuscript of the time," says Shea, "describes the Indian maiden with
+her well-oiled and neatly parted hair descending in a long plait behind,
+while a fine chemise was met at the waist by a neat and well-trimmed
+petticoat reaching to the knee; below this was the rich legging and then
+the well-fitted moccasin, the glory of an Iroquois belle. The neck was
+loaded with beads, while the crimson blanket enveloped the whole form."
+
+This, in general, is the costume of the merry group with Tekakwitha at
+the spring. The upper garment, however, is a kind of tunic or simple
+overdress; nor can it be said that all are equally neat in their
+appearance. Some have their dark, straight hair tied loosely back and
+hanging down, or else with wampum braided in it. A few are clothed in
+foreign stuff, bought from the Dutch for beaver-skins and worn in
+shapeless pieces hung about them with savage carelessness. On their dark
+arms the sunlight flashes back from heavily beaded wrist and arm bands,
+begged or borrowed from their more industrious companions. Not like
+theirs is Tekakwitha's costume. It is made of deer and moose skins,--all
+of native make, and stitched together by a practised hand, as every one
+of the pretty squaws well knew. Her needle was a small bone from the
+ankle of the deer, her thread the sinews of the same light-footed
+animal, whose brain she mixed with moss and used to tan the skins and
+make the soft brown leather which she shaped so deftly into tunic,
+moccasins, and leggings. Her own skirt was scarce so richly worked with
+quills of the porcupine as that of her adopted sister there beside her,
+though both were made by Tekakwitha's hands.
+
+The Indian girls about her like her for her generous nature and her
+merry, witty speeches. She makes them laugh right heartily while she
+stands waiting for her jug to fill up at the trickling spring.
+
+These daughters of the Iroquois are bubbling over with good spirits, and
+their pottery jugs with water, when all at once they spy a band of
+hunters coming homeward down the Cayudutta valley from the Sacondaga
+country. Knowing there is one among them who but waits his chance to lay
+his wealth of beaver-skins at Tekakwitha's feet and take her for his
+wife, they turn girl-like to tease her; but the quick and timid orphan,
+dreading the license of their tongues, has bounded up the hill, and
+hastens to her uncle's cabin with her jug, leaving her companions to
+bandy words with the young hunters as they stop beside the little pool
+for a draught of refreshing water.
+
+Of all the people in the ancient Caughnawaga village, the only story
+that has been written out in full and handed down in precious
+manuscript, brown with age, is the story of her who bounded up the hill
+and left her comrades at the spring. In a double sense she left them.
+She was far above them. She stands to-day upon a mystic height; and
+many, both of her race and our own in these our days, do homage to her
+memory.
+
+May her home at Caughnawaga, high above the stones that lie imbedded in
+the Mohawk River, and close beside the spring that trickles downward to
+the Cayudutta,[5] soon become familiar ground to all who honor
+Tekakwitha!
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[2] The Indian forts or palisaded villages, called "castles" by the
+early Dutch settlers of New York State, were stoutly built of logs and
+bark, and were effectual barriers of defence until the artillery of the
+white men was brought to bear upon them.
+
+[3] Megapolensis, the Dutch dominie at Fort Orange, who befriended
+Jogues, the French Jesuit, in his captivity, writes the name of this
+Mohawk town or castle, Asserue or Asserne. It was just at the spot where
+a shrine has been recently elected to honor the memory of Isaac Jogues
+and of his companion Réné Goupil, both of whom were tomahawked in that
+vicinity by the Mohawks.
+
+[4] Jogues' Indian name.
+
+[5] See Appendix, Note A, where in a letter dated March 3, 1885, Gen.
+John S. Clark, of Auburn, N. Y., the well-known archæologist, mentions
+this spring as marking the site of Gandawague (or Caughnawaga) on the
+Cayudutta Creek, northwest of Fonda, N. Y. For date of the removal from
+Auriesville to that site, see his letter of June 29, 1885, also given in
+Note A, with other proofs as to the location of Mohawk villages at the
+time of Jogues and Tekakwitha.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE MOHAWK VALLEY AND THE MOHAWKS AT THE TIME OF TEKAKWITHA'S BIRTH
+
+
+Father Jogues was put to death in the year 1646, on the south side of
+the Mohawk River, a few miles to the eastward of Fonda, and not far from
+the mouth of the Schoharie River. Close to the shrine which has been
+erected at Auriesville in his memory, is the very ravine in which,
+during his captivity there, he buried his friend and only companion,
+Réné Goupil.
+
+Réné, it will be remembered, was cruelly murdered for signing an Indian
+child with the sign of the cross. The description of the place where
+this occurred is very explicit in Father Jogues' published letters, and
+there is no other spot in the whole Mohawk Valley to which it can well
+be applied. He mentions a certain river which was a quarter of a league
+distant from the Indian town of Ossernenon, where he was held captive;
+this was undoubtedly the Schoharie. There in that same vicinity, after
+he had escaped from captivity and returned to the Mohawks as a
+missionary, he met his own tragic fate, or rather the glorious reward of
+his zeal. There, too, or very near there, ten years after his death,
+Tekakwitha was born. The exact location of her birthplace has not been
+determined. It was either at the Turtle Castle of Ossernenon described
+by Jogues, the name of which was afterwards changed, or at a later
+village site near Auries Creek, to which the people of that castle
+moved, and to which they gave the name of Gandawague.[6] In either case
+her birthplace was less than a mile from the present hamlet of
+Auriesville.
+
+There Kateri Tekakwitha was born in the year 1656. Her father was a
+Mohawk warrior, and her mother a Christian Algonquin captive, who had
+been brought up and baptized among the French settlers at Three Rivers
+in Canada. The Iroquois, or People of the Long House, including the
+Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas, were enemies of the
+Algonquin tribes and hostile to the French.
+
+The Mohawks especially were accustomed to make frequent raids on the
+settlements in Canada, leaving desolation behind them on the St.
+Lawrence, and bearing with them to their own valley rich booty, and also
+captives to be tortured and burned, or else adopted into the Five
+Nations of Iroquois to swell their numbers. If Frenchmen, these captives
+were often held as prisoners of war, and haughty terms made for their
+ransom. It happened on one of these raids into Canada that Tekakwitha's
+mother, the Algonquin, was thus captured. Torn suddenly from a peaceful
+home and the French friends who were teaching her "the prayer," she was
+hurried through the lakes and woods of a strange country, along the
+great war-trail that leads from the St. Lawrence to the Mohawk through
+northeastern New York. Fast following in the path of Jogues, the light
+canoe that bore her came southward with the braves, and their trophies
+of war, through Lake Champlain and then Lake George, the newly
+christened Lake St. Sacrament. Little did the captive dream that ever a
+child of hers would take that same long journey back again, an exile
+from the home that she was then approaching, all unconscious of her
+fate. A home, indeed, awaited her coming in the land of the Mohawks. She
+was saved from the torture and the fire by a fierce, pagan Mohawk
+warrior, who took the young Algonquin for his wife. The gentle girl had
+captured the heart of her conqueror.
+
+Their family consisted of one son and an infant daughter, known later as
+Kateri Tekakwitha. Père Claude Chauchetière, who wrote in 1695,[7] tells
+us that they dwelt at "Gandawague, a little village of the Mohawks."
+There they must have occupied one section of an Iroquois long-house,
+other kindred families filling up its entire length on both sides of an
+open space and passage-way through the centre. The occupants of every
+four sections or alcoves in these houses, two families being on each
+side of the passage, shared a common hearthfire,[8] with a hole above it
+in the roof to let in the daylight and let out the smoke. There were
+usually five of these fires and twenty families in a house about a
+hundred feet in length. These united households gave name and meaning to
+the Iroquois League of Kanonsionni, or People of the Long House.
+
+There is reason to believe that Tekakwitha's father took an active part
+in the affairs both of the Mohawk nation and the Iroquois League. We are
+told, indeed, that after his death her uncle, who seems to have taken
+her father's place and responsibilities, was one of the chief men of the
+Turtle Castle, whose deputies ranked higher in council than those of the
+Bear and Wolf Castles, Andagoron and Tionnontogen. This was because the
+turtle was created first, according to their genesis of things. These
+three palisaded strongholds and their outlying hamlets made up the
+Mohawk (or Canienga) nation. It was likened, in the beautiful figurative
+language of the Iroquois, to a group of families gathered round a hearth
+or council fire, and filling up one end of the Long House or Great
+League of the Five Nations, founded by Hiawatha and his friends. The
+duty of the Caniengas of the Mohawk Valley was to guard the eastern
+entrance of the Long House, or the door which looked out on the Hudson.
+Their privilege was to furnish the great war-chief that should lead the
+people of the League to battle.
+
+The proud Senecas, whose portion of the house extended from Seneca Lake
+to Niagara, were the western doorkeepers of this household of nations,
+waging fierce war on their neighbors near Lake Erie. The wily Onondagas,
+wise old politicians, in the middle of the Long House, at Onondaga Lake,
+led in council. Their leading chief, the elected president of this first
+American republic, lit the central council-fire and sat in state among
+the fifty oyanders (sachems) who formed the Iroquois senate. Ten of
+these were always Caniengas (or Mohawks), and fourteen were Onondagas.
+These two nations and the Senecas were called brothers; while the
+intermediate Oneidas and Cayugas were always spoken of as nephews,
+because they were younger and less important nations, with fewer
+oyanders.
+
+Tekakwitha's father may have been one of the ten Mohawk oyanders, but
+there is more reason to believe that he belonged to a class of
+war-chiefs who took part only in councils of war. In 1656 these
+war-chiefs were very influential, for the Iroquois had set out on a wild
+career of conquest, the warlike Mohawks as usual taking the lead. The
+very same year that the little Mohawk-Algonquin was born in their land,
+they swept like a tornado over Isle Orleans, near Quebec. They carried
+off to their castles the last remnant of the Huron people, who, far from
+their own land, had gathered near the French guns for protection. These
+Hurons from the shores of Lake Huron belonged to the Iroquois stock, as
+distinguished from the Algonquin races. In very early times they had
+come down to the settlements on the St. Lawrence to trade with the
+French, and zealous Jesuit missionaries had accompanied them on their
+return to their own country. After great hardships these missionaries
+had succeeded in making them Christians, when, as the final result of an
+old feud, these Huron-Iroquois, as they are often called, were driven
+from their homes in the Northwest by the Iroquois of the League, and
+wiped completely out of existence as a nation. Six of the Jesuits who
+dwelt among them, and whose strange isolated lives have furnished the
+theme for Parkman's glowing pages, were massacred, while others were
+cruelly tortured by the ubiquitous Mohawks during the period of ten
+short years that elapsed between Jogues' last captivity and Tekakwitha's
+birth. Could the father of the Mohawk Lily have reddened his hands in
+their blood? It is more than likely; for though Ondessonk or Jogues was
+the only one of these martyrs who had reached the Mohawk Valley, they
+were all slain by Mohawk braves,--Jogues, Daniel, Brebeuf, Lalemant,
+Garnier, and Garreau; nor is this a complete list of the victims. To use
+once more the words of John Gilmary Shea, historian of these and their
+fellow pioneers,--
+
+     "Fain would we pause to follow each in his labors, his trials,
+     and his toils; recount their dangers from the heathen Huron,
+     the skulking Iroquois, the frozen river, hunger, cold, and
+     accident; to show Garnier wrestling with the floating ice,
+     through which he sank on an errand of mercy; Chabanel
+     struggling on for years on a mission from which every fibre of
+     his nature shrunk with loathing; Chaumonot compiling his
+     grammar on the frozen earth; or the heroic Brebeuf, paralyzed
+     by a fall, with his collar-bone broken, creeping on his hands
+     and feet along the road and sleeping unsheltered on the snow
+     when the very trees were splitting with cold," and later, "as a
+     martyr, one of the most glorious in our annals for the variety
+     and atrocity of his torments."
+
+This last-mentioned blackgown, John de Brebeuf, called Echon by the
+Hurons, was a writer of valuable works on the Indian language and
+customs. He belonged to a noble family of Normandy; and on account of
+his great natural courage and soldierly bearing, his agony was prolonged
+by the savages with fiendish ingenuity, till finally, failing to wring a
+sigh of pain from his lips, they "clove open his chest, took out his
+noble heart, and devoured it," as a medicine to make them
+fearless-hearted.
+
+The fortitude of a brave man under torture was a spectacle as keenly
+appreciated by the Iroquois as were the gladiator fights and martyrdoms
+of old by the Romans. The women in this case, however, instead of
+decreeing death by turning down their own thumbs, were granted the less
+fatal and less dainty privilege of sawing off the thumb of the victim,
+as in the case of Jogues at Ossernenon. The human torches of Nero, who
+had the early Christians wrapped in straw and placed in his garden on
+the Palatine Hill, then set on fire to illuminate his evening revels,
+are vividly recalled by the death of Brebeuf's companion, the delicate
+and gentle Gabriel Lalemant. He was wrapped in pieces of bark which were
+put in a blaze. His writhing frame and quivering flesh contrasted finely
+with the stoic endurance of Brebeuf, and the Iroquois kept him alive
+till morning, leaving his body at last a black and shapeless mass.
+
+These gifted men living and dying in the wilderness were not without
+devoted followers, as can well be imagined; and many of their converts,
+the Christian Hurons, a now conquered race, dwelt with their old foes in
+the Long House. With the capture of those of the Hurons who had taken
+refuge at Isle Orleans the long struggle ended between two branches of a
+great Indian family or stock,--the Huron-Iroquois and the Iroquois of
+the League. Once victorious, it was the policy of the Five Nations of
+the League to quit all enmity, and to give the vanquished a home in
+their midst. Though the Hurons lost their national existence when thus
+adopted into the League, they did not lose their Christian faith. They
+clung to it in the midst of all the wild superstitions of their
+conquerors. They explained it to others as well as they could, and they
+welcomed with glad hearts any blackgown who was brave enough to tread in
+the footsteps of Jogues.
+
+Such an one was Father Lemoyne, who came and went five times among the
+Onondagas and the Mohawks between the years 1653 and 1658, even while
+they were at war with his countrymen on the St. Lawrence. On a hurried
+visit to Fort Orange, the nearest colony of Europeans, he told the
+people there of the salt springs which are now a source of wealth at
+Syracuse; but the worthy burghers were incredulous and put it down in
+their records as "a Jesuit lie." These early settlers of our State, in
+spite of such occasional indications of prejudice, were a kind-hearted
+and a peace-loving people, always ready to do friendly offices for men
+who, unlike their rivals the Canadian traders, seemed to value the souls
+of the Indians more than their beaver-skins. They had already rescued
+two Jesuits, Jogues and Bressani, from captivity; and they afterwards
+sent Father Lemoyne a bottle of wine with which to say Mass at Onondaga.
+This last missionary the Indians now called Ondessonk, in memory of
+Jogues. He visited the Mohawks in 1656 to console the Huron exiles from
+Isle Orleans, and at the same time he reproached the Mohawk warriors for
+their cruelty.
+
+This, of course, was little to the taste of Tekakwitha's pagan father,
+who took care, no doubt, that the blackgown should have no intercourse
+with his Algonquin wife, for in his opinion she was already too fond of
+the French Christians. He did not wish her to have his tiny, new-born
+daughter signed with the ill-omened cross, and to have the water of
+baptism poured on her head. So Ondessonk came and went, passing near,
+but not finding Tekakwitha's mother, who still cherished the Christian
+faith in her heart. When she knew that he was gone, it must have been
+with many a sigh and many a thought of her northern home, that she tied
+her baby to its cradle-board, all carved and curtained after the Indian
+fashion, and then loaded with the precious burden, went off as usual to
+her work in the corn-fields. From time to time she would pause for a
+moment to smile at her little breathing bundle as it swung from the
+branch of a tree near by, and we may be sure, too, that as she gathered
+in the harvest for the winter, she whispered many a prayer for peace and
+for the coming of the blackgown to dwell in the land, that her child
+might grow up a Christian. Let us hope some distant echo reached her in
+the Mohawk corn-field from the shores of Onondaga Lake. For there, where
+the city of Syracuse now sits among the hills, a crowd of Iroquois were
+gathered at that very time into the rough bark chapel of St. Mary's of
+Ganentaha, listening to the Christian law of marriage preached then for
+the first time in their land. Quick to understand the new dignity it
+gave them, the Onondaga women silently made up their minds to learn "the
+prayer," by which they meant Christianity. All the while that the
+blackgown was speaking, the captive Hurons who were in the throng gazed
+with pent-up joy at the face of their beloved Echon (Chaumonot, the
+namesake of Brebeuf), whose voice they had often heard at the mission
+forts in their own country. Soon after Echon's visit other fathers came
+among the Iroquois nations with a colony of Frenchmen; these last had
+been cordially invited to Onondaga. The reason for this invitation was
+that its people, hard pressed by their savage enemies, wanted peace with
+Onnontio, the French governor, and thought to secure it in this way; the
+Mohawks, however, took no part in this temporary peace. They were angry
+with the Onondagas for claiming their captives from the Isle Orleans,
+and they continued their raids on the French frontier regardless of a
+treaty made by their brother nation. It must be remembered, though, that
+these Indians, while warring with the French were then and always at
+peace with the Dutch of Fort Orange. From them they obtained the
+fire-arms that were used so effectively in their warfare in Canada.
+
+The wife of the Mohawk warrior at Gandawague may have heard rumors of
+the treaty made with Onnontio; but she saw the great kettle prepared as
+usual in the Turtle village for the annual war-dance, and all hope of a
+peace with the French died out once more from her heart.
+
+It was the custom of the Mohawks to set this kettle to boil in the early
+winter; and from time to time each warrior dropped something in to keep
+it going and thus to signify his intention of joining the next
+expedition. By February all was in readiness for the great dance of the
+nation. A war-dance among the Indians is conducted in some such way as
+this: Stripped of all but the breech-cloth, gay with war-paint and
+feathers, the dried head of a bear, if that be the totem of his clan,
+fastened on head or shoulder, and with rattling deer-hoofs strapped to
+his knees, each warrior springs to his place, and the wild dance begins,
+accompanied by the beating of a drum. Wilder and wilder grow their
+antics, and more boastful the words of their chant, as they catch the
+spirit of the dance, till at last they seem the very incarnation of war.
+With all the vividness of Indian pantomime, they act out the scenes of
+battle before the eyes of the crouching women and children gathered in
+silent awe to witness this great savage drama. At first the warriors
+seem to be creeping along the forest trail with every faculty alert; and
+then with fearful whoops they whirl their tomahawks through the air at a
+senseless post, springing back as if in self-defence, falling again upon
+the imaginary foe, hacking with violence, and mingling shrieks with
+their victorious shouts, till in the flickering light of the fire and
+the weird shadows of surrounding objects, the assembled crowd,
+completely carried away by the vividness of the pantomime, see human
+victims falling beneath their strokes.
+
+During the progress of the annual war-dance at Gandawague a group of
+Indian boys stand gazing with wide-open eyes at the heroes of the
+Kanienke-ha-ka whose past and future deeds are thus pictured before
+them. With swelling hearts they listen to the wild refrain, "Wah-hee!
+Ho-ha!" that comes at intervals. Among the smallest of the group we have
+in view is Tekakwitha's little brother, and her father is taking part in
+the dance. His voice, as it leads a louder swell of the war-song,
+startles her from her baby dreams, and she nestles close in her
+mother's arms. Later she hears the same voice in the lodge,--a few brief
+words rolling from the tongue[9] of the warrior in the low musical tones
+of the Mohawk language; and it only lulls her into sounder sleep. The
+dance is over, and the crowd scattered; but still we linger about to see
+what will happen next. A death-like silence reigns in the village. There
+is not one sentinel on watch. It would be well if they were more
+vigilant, but for the present they are safe. Their foes are far away,
+and the high palisade keeps off the prowling beasts. The darkness of
+night has closed over them. It is the hour for dreams, and dreams are
+the religion of the red-man. They are treasured up and told to the
+medicine-man or sorcerer, the influential being who is both priest and
+doctor in the village. When the excitement of the war-dance has subsided
+and the people are all sleeping soundly, this mysterious personage with
+stealthy tread may be seen to issue from the silent cluster of houses,
+and by the light of the moon he gathers his herbs and catches the
+uncanny creatures of the night with which to weave his spells. He knows
+that the young warriors will be coming to him for some inkling of their
+fate on the war-path, and besides he must supply a certain cure for
+their wounds. When he has found it for them he will gather them all in
+the public square at Gandawague, and after other exhibitions of his
+skill will perhaps cut his own lip, and when the blood is flowing
+freely, will stanch it and cure it in a moment by applying his magic
+drug. It will be well for his fame if there be not the keen eye of a
+French Jesuit in the crowd to watch him as he quickly sucks the blood
+into his mouth. He knows that the warriors are easily duped by his
+cunning, and will probably buy his mixture. Happy in its possession,
+they will fear no evil effects from their wounds. Their sweethearts too
+seek the sorcerer to have their fortunes told, and the old men and women
+come to him with their ailments. Even the orators are glad of a hint
+from his fertile brain; and the oyander or matron of rank who is about
+to nominate a new chief may perhaps consult him. If her choice has been
+already made, however, it is no easy task to persuade her to change her
+mind.
+
+With the month of March comes the Dream-Feast, and then the medicine-man
+is in his glory. For three days the town is in a hubbub, given up to
+every freak of the imagination. All the dreams of its people, no matter
+how foolish and unreasonable, must be fulfilled in some way to the
+dreamer's satisfaction. The wiser heads among them have to tax their
+ingenuity to the utmost to prevent the worst excesses of this crazy
+celebration. The Christian Indians, above all, dreaded its coming for if
+the sorcerer's interpretation pointed in their direction, they were sure
+to suffer. During the celebration of the Dream-Feast the Algonquin
+captive would not fail to hide herself and her children in the darkest
+corner she could find. She had a better chance to pass unnoticed,
+however, than the more numerous Huron Christians, who, like herself, had
+been captured by the Iroquois. Against these there was a growing enmity
+encouraged no doubt by the sorcerers, who profited least of all by their
+presence among the people. Some months after the time of the
+Dream-Feast the gathering storm burst over their heads. On the 3d of
+August, 1657, the Hurons, who dwelt at Onondaga, were suddenly
+massacred. The party that had been advocating friendship with the
+French, and which had taken the lead in establishing the French colony
+at Onondaga, headed by Garacontié ("The Sun that advances"), were fast
+losing ground. The situation, even of the French colonists who were
+there, was becoming critical; and in April, 1658, when Tekakwitha was in
+her second year, strange things happened in the Long House of the Five
+Nations.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[6] See Appendix, Note B,--the words "Gandawague" and "Tekakwitha."
+
+[7] Chauchetière's manuscript, "La Vie de la B. Catherine Tegakouita,
+dite a present La Saincte Sauuagesse," is still extant. It was copied by
+the author of this volume at Montreal in 1884, and was first printed in
+1887: "Manate, De la Presse Cramoisy de Jean-Marie Shea."
+
+[8] See Vol. IV., Contributions to American Ethnology, by Lewis H.
+Morgan, LL.D., giving description and ground plan of an Iroquois
+long-house.
+
+[9] "The Mohawk language is on the tongue; the Wyandot is in the
+throat."--SCHOOLCRAFT'S _Red Race_.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+     A CRADLE-SONG.--CAPTIVES TORTURED.--FLIGHT OF THE FRENCH FROM
+     ONONDAGA.--DEATH IN THE MOHAWK LODGES.
+
+
+Let the reader, in imagination, look into Tekakwitha's home at
+Gandawague on the Mohawk, as it appeared in the month of April, 1658,
+and learn if the news that is spreading from nation to nation has yet
+reached there. To find the lodge he wishes to enter, he will follow a
+woman who is passing along the principal street of the village with an
+energetic step. The corners of a long blanket, that envelops her head
+and whole form, flap as if in a breeze from her own quick motion, for
+the air is quite still. It is early spring-time. There are pools of
+frozen water here and there; but the dogs of the village have chosen a
+sunny spot to gnaw at the bones they have found near the cabin of a
+fortunate hunter, who gave a feast the night before to his more needy
+neighbors. All shared in his good cheer. So long as there is food in the
+village, no one is allowed to go hungry. Such is the Indian law of
+hospitality.
+
+Tegonhatsihongo, who will be better known by and by under the name of
+Anastasia, gathers her blanket about her, and with the usual greeting,
+"Sago!" she passes a matron at a neighboring doorway, who withdraws the
+heavy bear-skin curtain she has placed there for keeping out the cold,
+in order that she may see where to put away the snow-shoes, now no
+longer needed. She stores them high above her head among the poles that
+support the snug bark roof. The keen eye of Tegonhatsihongo notes at a
+glance what the matron is about; and as she turns her head for a second
+look, one can see by the lines in her face that she is already on the
+downward slope of middle age. She passes on through an open space where
+a scaffold is prepared for the exhibition of any captives the warriors
+may chance to bring back from their raid on Montreal. Tegonhatsihongo
+scarcely notices these familiar preparations for the torture, but
+directs her steps to the lodge of a chief opening on the square. She is
+about to visit her friend the Algonquin, whose brave is away on the
+war-path. The quiet ways of this younger woman have attracted her and
+won her friendship. As she lifts the hanging skin to enter, she pauses a
+moment. Surprised, perhaps, and well pleased too to find the Algonquin
+in a merry mood, romping with her baby, now more than a year old, she
+stands and watches her. Catching the child from the clean-swept earthen
+floor, the mother holds it laughing and struggling in her lap, while she
+sings the Algonquin "Song of the Little Owl."[10] A pretty picture she
+makes, seated by the nearest fire of faggots, in the dim, smoky light of
+the long-house; and these are the words of her cradle-song and their
+literal translation:--
+
+    Ah wa nain?       Who is this?
+    Ah wa nain?       Who is this?
+    Wa you was sa     Giving eye-light
+    Ko pwasod.        On the top of my lodge.
+
+Here the young mother looks up, as if she really saw the eyes of the
+little white owl glaring from among the rustic rafters or through the
+hole in the roof. The dark eyes of the dark little baby, which follow
+the direction of hers, are opening wide with wonder at this sudden break
+from song to pantomime; and now the Algonquin answers her own questions,
+assuming all at once the tone of the little screech-owl:--
+
+    Kob kob kob,      It is I, the little owl,
+    Nim be e zhau.    Coming, coming.
+    Kob kob kob,      It is I, the little owl,
+    Nim be e zhau.    Coming.
+    Kitche! kitche!   Down! down!
+
+With the last words, meaning "Dodge, baby, dodge!" she springs towards
+the child, and down goes the little head. This is repeated with the
+utmost merriment on both sides, till their laughter is interrupted by
+the entrance of Tegonhatsihongo, who seats herself near her friend,
+their talk soon taking a serious turn. Now for the first time the
+Algonquin notices that others in the same cabin are putting their heads
+together and talking in low voices. The very air seems full of mystery.
+The busy ones have dropped their accustomed occupations, and the idle
+ones have ceased their noisy talk and their games. All are wondering at
+the strange news from the Indian capital, telling of the unaccountable
+disappearance of the Frenchmen who formed the little colony at Onondaga.
+Mohawks who were there on a visit have returned with marvellous tales.
+The few facts of the history are soon known, but there is no end to the
+surmises that are afloat among the Iroquois. This is what they are all
+talking about. This is what happened. The French colonists whom we have
+already mentioned, fifty-three in number, had given a great feast at
+their small block fort on the east bank of Onondaga Lake.[11] All the
+Onondagas and their guests from other nations who chanced to be there at
+the time, were invited. Some of Tegonhatsihongo's friends from the
+Mohawk Valley were present among the rest, and knew all about it. They
+were completely carried away with admiration for their French hosts, who
+gave them a right royal feast. When it was over they fell into slumber
+and dreamed strange dreams. Then, awaking when the sun was high, the
+bewildered guests went about half dazed. Some of them, straggling near
+the French enclosure, heard the dogs bark and a cock crow within. As the
+day wore on, they gathered into groups and wondered why the foreign
+inmates slept so long. None of them were to be seen going to work; no
+voices were heard. Could they be at prayer or in secret council? No one
+answered when they knocked at the door. By afternoon there were strange
+whisperings and much misgiving among the Onondagas, till at last their
+curiosity outgrew their dread, and nerved a few to scale the palisade.
+With cautious step they entered, fearing some treacherous snare. The
+Frenchmen could not be asleep, they thought, for the noisy barking of
+the dog would almost wake the dead. Could they have slain one another
+in the night? No; all was peaceful as they entered,--no signs of a
+struggle, and the sunlight danced playfully in through utter vacancy.
+Every corner of the house and fort was searched; no human being, dead or
+living, was found, yet noisy and more noisy grew the barking of the
+fastened dog, and frightened chickens fluttered about. The Indians
+looked at one another, shuddering. What had happened? With guilty
+consciences they thought of their deep-laid treachery here brought to
+naught; for as the Algonquin now learned from the talk in the
+long-house, they had planned to massacre the colony invited to their
+land from policy. Having subjugated their savage foes of the Cat nation,
+they were ready to turn their arms once more against the French. They
+had felt quite sure of their prey; for even if warned, the colonists and
+missionaries could not have escaped, they thought, as the rivers were
+still frozen. Besides, it was out of the question to suppose they had
+gone by water, as no boat was missing. Had they taken to the woods, they
+would soon have perished in the cold, having no guides, or else they
+would have fallen again into the hands of their enemies, who could
+easily track and overtake them in the forest. No trace of them, however,
+was anywhere to be found. Never were the red men more completely
+baffled. Tegonhatsihongo and the others who talked it all over had two
+favorite explanations of the mystery,--either the Frenchmen had a magic
+power of walking on the lakes, or else strange creatures, seen by
+Onondagas in their dreams, had flown through the air bearing the
+pale-faces with them.
+
+While Tekakwitha's mother was still wondering at this unaccountable
+story, the Mohawk braves returned from their raid on Montreal, and the
+people of the village were soon hurrying out with little iron rods, to
+take their stand on either side of the path that led up the hill to the
+principal opening in the palisade. There they were, ready to beat the
+prisoners as they approached, "running the gauntlet." Then the crowd
+eagerly watched the progress of the tortures on the scaffold, after
+which the prisoners were handed over, bound hand and foot, to the tender
+mercies of the children. These juvenile savages amused themselves by
+putting red-hot coals on the naked flesh of the captives, and tormented
+them in every way their mischief-loving brains could devise. Thus early
+did the warrior's son begin his education.
+
+But this side of the Indian nature is too horrible to dwell on; let it
+pass. At times the Iroquois were like incarnate devils; and yet each
+tale of frightful cruelty that history preserves for us brings with it
+some redeeming trait, some act of kindness or humanity done in the face
+of savage enmity. There were always a few among them ready like
+Pocahontas to avert the threatened blow or to relieve the sufferers
+whenever it was possible. One of these in days gone by had administered
+to Jogues; and one of these in days now soon to come will prove to be
+our Tekakwitha.
+
+There is little more to say about her parents. Her mother may have
+learned from some of the captives brought to Gandawague from Canada the
+true ending of the French colony at Onondaga. At all events, the
+following explanation of their sudden disappearance has been given by
+Ragueneau, who shared the fate of the adventurous little band. He says
+in one of his letters:--
+
+     "To supply the want of canoes, we had built in secret two
+     batteaux of a novel and excellent structure to pass the rapids;
+     these batteaux drew but very little water and carried
+     considerable freight, fourteen or fifteen men each, amounting
+     to fifteen or sixteen hundred weight. We had moreover four
+     Algonquin and four Iroquois canoes, which were to compose our
+     little fleet of fifty-three Frenchmen. But the difficulty was
+     to embark unperceived by the Iroquois, who constantly beset us.
+     The batteaux, canoes, and all the equipage could not be
+     conveyed without great noise, and yet without secrecy there was
+     nothing to be expected, save a general massacre of all of us
+     the moment it would be discovered that we entertained the least
+     thought of withdrawing.
+
+     On that account we invited all the savages in our neighborhood
+     to a solemn feast, at which we employed all our industry, and
+     spared neither the noise of drums nor instruments of music, to
+     deceive them by harmless device. He who presided at this
+     ceremony played his part with so much address and success that
+     all were desirous to contribute to the public joy. Every one
+     vied in uttering the most piercing cries, now of war, anon of
+     rejoicing. The savages, through complaisance, sung and danced
+     after the French fashion, and the French in the Indian style.
+     To encourage them the more in this fine play, presents were
+     distributed among those who acted best their parts and who made
+     the greatest noise to drown that caused by about forty of our
+     people outside who were engaged in removing all our equipage.
+     The embarkation being completed, the feast was concluded at a
+     fixed time; the guests retired, and sleep having soon
+     overwhelmed them, we withdrew from our house by a back door and
+     embarked with very little noise, without bidding adieu to the
+     savages, who were acting cunning parts and were thinking to
+     amuse us to the hour of our massacre with fair appearances and
+     evidences of good will.
+
+     "Our little lake,[12] on which we silently sailed in the
+     darkness of the night, froze according as we advanced, and
+     caused us to fear being stopt by the ice after having evaded
+     the fires of the Iroquois. God, however, delivered us, and
+     after having advanced all night and all the following day
+     through frightful precipices and waterfalls, we arrived finally
+     in the evening at the great Lake Ontario, twenty leagues from
+     the place of our departure. This first day was the most
+     dangerous; for had the Iroquois observed our departure, they
+     would have intercepted us, and had they been ten or twelve it
+     would have been easy for them to have thrown us into disorder,
+     the river being very narrow, and terminating after travelling
+     ten leagues in a frightful precipice where we were obliged to
+     land and carry our baggage and canoes during four hours,
+     through unknown roads covered with a thick forest which could
+     have served the enemy for a fort, whence at each step he could
+     have struck and fired on us without being perceived. God's
+     protection visibly accompanied us during the remainder of the
+     road, in which we walked through perils which made us shudder
+     after we escaped them, having at night no other bed except the
+     snow after having passed entire days in the water and amid the
+     ice.
+
+     Ten days after our departure we found Lake Ontario, on which we
+     floated, still frozen at its mouth. We were obliged to break
+     the ice, axe in hand, to make an opening, to enter two days
+     afterwards a rapid where our little fleet had well-nigh
+     foundered. For having entered a great _sault_ without knowing
+     it, we found ourselves in the midst of breakers which, meeting
+     a quantity of big rocks, threw up mountains of water and cast
+     us on as many precipices as we gave strokes of paddles. Our
+     batteaux, which drew scarcely half a foot, were soon filled
+     with water, and all our people in such confusion that their
+     cries mingled with the roar of the torrent presented to us the
+     spectacle of a dreadful wreck. It became imperative, however,
+     to extricate ourselves, the violence of the current dragging us
+     despite ourselves into the large rapids and through passes in
+     which we had never been. Terror redoubled at the sight of one
+     of our canoes being engulfed in a breaker which barred the
+     entire rapid, and which, notwithstanding, was the course that
+     all the others must keep. Three Frenchmen were drowned there; a
+     fourth fortunately escaped, having held on to the canoe and
+     being saved at the foot of the _sault_ when at the point of
+     letting go his hold, his strength being exhausted....
+
+     "The 3d of April we landed at Montreal in the beginning of the
+     night."
+
+This escape, so wonderful to the Indian mind and so successful, made a
+profound impression at Gandawague as among all the Mohawks, and produced
+most important results in the neighborhood of Tekakwitha's home,
+interrupting the work of the missionary there.
+
+Ondessonk or Lemoyne, the namesake of Jogues, who made a third visit to
+the Mohawk Valley in the fall of 1657, was no longer even tolerated by
+its people. He was held half a hostage, half a prisoner, at
+Tionnontogen, during the time that the French colony were in peril at
+Onondaga, and was finally sent back to Canada. He left the Mohawk
+country for the last time, just after Onondaga was abandoned by the
+French. He reached his countrymen on the St. Lawrence in May, 1658, to
+be greeted there with a glad welcome and many inquiries from the newly
+arrived refugees from Onondaga, concerning his experiences among the
+Mohawks; they were anxious to hear whether he had fared any better than
+themselves.
+
+Not one blackgown was now left among the Five Nations of Iroquois. The
+Algonquin mother at Gandawague had been unable to profit by their brief
+stay in the land, and her life grew ever sadder towards its close. She
+was finally laid low by a terrible disease, the small-pox, which spread
+like wild fire through the Mohawk nation in 1659 and 1660. Her brave, an
+early victim to this redman's plague, soon lay cold in death, and with
+aching heart she too bade good-by to the world, leaving her helpless
+children alone and struggling with the disease in a desolate lodge in a
+desolate land.
+
+Chauchetière relates what he learned long afterwards from Anastasia
+Tegonhatsihongo,--that in leaving her two little children the mother
+grieved at having to abandon them without baptism; that she was a
+fervent Christian to the last, and that she met death with a prayer on
+her lips.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[10] Schoolcraft's Red Race.
+
+[11] The site of this fort is still pointed out between Salina and
+Liverpool, near the "Jesuit's Spring," or "Well," as it is called. For a
+plan of the fort made by Judge Geddes in 1797, from remains of it then
+in existence, see Clark's "Onondaga," p. 147. See also "Relations des
+Jésuites," and translations of the same in the "Documentary History of
+New York," vol. i., for a full account of the Onondaga Colony in 1658.
+
+[12] Onondaga Lake.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+TEKAKWITHA WITH HER AUNTS AT GANDAWAGUE.
+
+
+Tekakwitha's brother shared the fate of her parents. All three died
+within the space of a few days. Overshadowed by death and disease when
+she was only four years old, the little Indian child alone remained of
+the family. How she won her name is not known, though Indian names have
+always a meaning. They are never arbitrarily given. The word
+"Tekakwitha," as M. Cuoq, the philologist, translates it, means "One who
+approaches moving something before her." Marcoux, the author of a
+complete Iroquois dictionary, renders it, "One who puts things in
+order."[13]
+
+It has been suggested in reference to M. Cuoq's interpretation, that the
+name may have been given to her on account of a peculiar manner of
+walking caused by her imperfect sight; for it is related that the
+small-pox so injured her eyes that for a long time she was obliged to
+shade them from a strong light. It is possible that in groping or
+feeling her way while a child, she may have held out her hands in a way
+that suggested the pushing of something in front of her, and thus have
+received her name. On the other hand, the interpretation of M. Marcoux,
+as given by Shea, is thoroughly in keeping with her character. She
+indeed spent a great part of her life, as the record shows, in _putting
+things in order_.
+
+On the death of Tekakwitha's father, her uncle, according to the Indian
+laws of descent, would fall heir to the title of chief, after having
+been chosen by the matron or _stirps_ of the family,[14] and then duly
+elected by the men of the Turtle clan. Tekakwitha then became an inmate
+of her uncle's lodge,--which was quite natural, for indeed she was
+likely to prove a valuable acquisition to the household. This uncle was
+impoverished, no doubt, by the plague and also by the custom of making
+presents. A chief is expected to dispense freely, and is generally poor
+in spite of his honors. But daughters were always highly prized by the
+Iroquois; as they grew up they were expected to do a large part of the
+household work; and later, when wedded to some sturdy hunter, the lodge
+to which a young woman belonged, claimed and received whatever her
+husband brought from the chase. So the aunts and the uncle of Tekakwitha
+acted quite as much from worldly wisdom as from humanity when they
+decided to give the young orphan a home. Forethought was mixed with
+their kindness, and perhaps also a bit of selfishness. They had no
+children of their own, but they adopted another young girl besides
+Tekakwitha, thus giving to their niece a sister somewhat older than
+herself. The home of this family, after the small-pox had spent its
+force and when the distress it caused had forced the Mohawks to make a
+treaty of peace with the French, was at Gandawague,[15] on a high point
+of land in the angle between Auries Creek and the Mohawk River.
+
+[ILLUSTRATION]
+
+Here on the crest of the hill, in a wheat-field west of the creek, there
+still are signs of an Indian village, and just outside of the fence in a
+patch of woods Indian graves and corn-pits are to be seen. Well does the
+writer remember a bright summer day when that village site where
+Tekakwitha must have spent her early childhood was visited and examined
+for traces of Iroquois occupation. Three of us had driven over from the
+spring and castle-site of Caughnawaga at Fonda to the west side of
+Auries Creek. Leaving our carriage, we mounted the steep bank of the
+stream, eager to find the exact site of Gandawague, to which the people
+of Ossernenon moved before they crossed the river to Caughnawaga. We
+stood at last on the hard-won summit, and there lay the landscape in its
+tranquil beauty,--the Mohawk Valley, the river, a wheat-field against a
+dark wood, and off in the distance the court-house of Fonda, and dim
+Caughnawaga, all bathed in a glory of sunshine. Nearer at hand and
+toward the east, a little white steeple gleamed through the trees,
+marking the site of the modern village of Auriesville. We stood high
+above it, on the upper river terrace, where old Gandawague had once
+been; and though the rude Indian castle at that spot had long ago
+been trampled out of existence, we seemed to see it rise again from the
+ashes of its ancient hearthfires. Then, looking off toward the
+Schoharie, in our mind's eye we plainly saw on the broad, grassy plateau
+the still older village of Ossernenon, with its high palisade, that once
+upheld the ghastly head of the martyred Jogues. The scene was before us
+in all its details. The past had become like the present that day, and
+what was then present, all blended with sunshine that blotted out the
+tragic and left the heroic parts of the picture, has since become past.
+Those glorious hours at the castle-sites near Auriesville, so rich in
+awakened thought, contagious enthusiasm, and newly acquired information,
+are only a memory now; and mention is made of them here in the hope that
+others may feel a stir of interest in their hearts, and be roused to
+visit the Mohawk Valley, and the places so closely linked to the names
+of Jogues and Tekakwitha,--Ossernenon, where the shrine is built;
+Gandawague, on the bank of Auries Creek; and Caughnawaga,[16] five miles
+farther up the river.
+
+[Illustration: SITES OF MOHAWK CASTLES 1642 TO 1700, _as located by JOHN
+S CLARK, AUBURN NY_]
+
+Tekakwitha was only a little girl when she lived at Gandawague. It could
+hardly have been a large castle, on such a small bit of high land. They
+had little need at this time of a large castle, for many had died of the
+small-pox. The old Dutch records of the time relate that the Turtles, or
+people of the lower castle, were building a new palisade, in the latter
+part of the year 1659,--a task which would necessarily accompany a
+removal from Ossernenon; and they asked the Dutchmen, their neighbors,
+to help them. The friendship of these settlers for the Mohawks was put
+to rather a queer test when they proposed that the Dutch should not only
+furnish them with horses, but should drive them themselves, and drag the
+heavy logs up the hill for the palisade.[17] They were not used to such
+work; and it better became the settlers to do it, they thought, than
+Mohawk warriors!
+
+Some Dutchmen of Fort Orange were at the Turtle Castle on an embassy
+when this unpleasant proposal was made to them, and they thus shirked
+it. "Do you not see we are tired?" they said. "We have travelled far
+through the forest. Our men are few and weary; besides you have no
+roads. Our horses could never get up there. You must excuse us, our
+friends, and manage to do it without us. See, as a token of friendship,
+we have brought you fifty new hatchets." Then, giving the Indians
+knick-knacks and weapons, they bade them farewell and departed,
+journeying back in haste to their homes on the Hudson.
+
+Thus the Indians were left to finish their own palisade, or stockade,
+whichever one may choose to call it; and the uncle of Tekakwitha
+doubtless worked with the rest. When it was finished, it stood and
+protected them well for six uneventful years; that is to say, they were
+uneventful for Indians, though during the whole of that period they were
+making and breaking treaties of peace with the French, and were warring
+with other tribes. During this time, while the fighting was all carried
+on at a distance from the Mohawk castles, Tekakwitha lived in the
+greatest seclusion. She was cared for and taught by her aunts, in one of
+the cabins closed in by the palisade. She was learning the arts of the
+Indians, doing the daily work, and shrinking from all observation. This
+unsociable habit of hers (for so it must have seemed to her neighbors)
+was due in part to her own disposition,--modest, shy, and reserved,--but
+more than all, perhaps, to the fact that the small-pox had injured her
+eyesight. As she could not endure much light, she remained indoors, and
+when forced to go out, her eyes were shaded by her blanket. Little by
+little she grew to love a life of quiet and silence. Besides, she showed
+a wonderful aptness for learning to make all the curious bark utensils
+and wooden things that were used in the village. Much to her aunts'
+satisfaction, she had an industrious spirit. This they took care to
+encourage, as it made her very useful. These aunts were exceedingly
+vain; and a child of less sense than the young Tekakwitha would soon
+have been spoiled by their foolishness.
+
+Chauchetière has told us quaintly, in old-fashioned French, "what she
+did during the first years of her age." We cannot do better here than to
+follow his account, translating it almost word for word:---
+
+     "The natural inclination which girls have to appear well, makes
+     them esteem very much whatever adorns the body; and that is why
+     the young savages from seven to eight years of age are silly,
+     and have a great love for _porcelaine_ (wampum). The mothers
+     are even more foolish, for they sometimes spend a great deal of
+     time in combing and dressing the hair of their daughters; they
+     take care that their ears shall be pierced, and commence to
+     pierce them from the cradle; they put paint on their faces, and
+     fairly cover them with beads when they have occasion to go to
+     the dance.
+
+     "Those into whose hands Tegakoüita fell when her mother died,
+     resolved to have her marry very soon, and with this object they
+     brought her up in all these little vanities; but the little
+     Tegakoüita, who was not yet a Christian, in truth, nor
+     baptized, had a natural indifference for all these things. She
+     was like a tree without flowers and without fruit; but this
+     little wild olive was budding so well into leaf that it
+     promised some day to bear beautiful fruit; or a heaven covered
+     with the darkness of paganism, but a heaven indeed, for she was
+     far removed from the corruption of the savages,--she was sweet,
+     patient, chaste, and innocent. _Sage comme une fille française
+     bien élevée_,--As good as a French girl well brought up,--this
+     is the testimony that has been given by those who knew her from
+     a very young age, and who in using this expression gave in a
+     few words a beautiful panegyric of Catherine Tegakoüita.
+     Anastasia Tegonhatsihongo said of her that 'she had no faults.'
+
+     "Her occupation was to carry little bundles of wood with her
+     mother, that is to say, her aunt, the matron of the lodge, to
+     put wood on the fire when the mother told her, to go for water
+     when those in the cabin had need of it; and when they gave her
+     no further commands she amused herself with her little
+     jewels,--I mean she dressed herself up in the fashion of the
+     other young girls of her age, just to pass the time. She would
+     put a necklace about her throat; she would put bracelets of
+     beads on her arms, rings on her fingers, and ear-rings in her
+     ears. She made the ribbons and bands which the savages make
+     with the skins of eels, which they redden, and render suitable
+     for binding up their hair. She wore large and beautiful
+     girdles, which they call wampum belts."
+
+     [These decorations not only adorn the person, but they also
+     show the rank of the maiden who wears them.[18]]
+
+     "There was a sort of child-marriage in vogue among the
+     Iroquois. Certain agreements of theirs were called marriage,
+     which amounted to nothing more than a bond of friendship
+     between the parents, rendered more firm by giving away a child,
+     who was often still in the cradle; thus they married a girl to
+     a little boy. This was done at a time when Tegakoüita was still
+     very small; she was given to a child. The little girl was only
+     about eight years old; the boy was hardly older than herself.
+     They were both of the same humor, both very good children; and
+     the little boy troubled himself no more about the marriage than
+     did the girl."
+
+It was a mere formality; but it shows how early Tekakwitha's relatives
+began to think of establishing her in life.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[13] So cited by Shea in his translation of Charlevoix's "History of New
+France," vol. iv. For different ways of spelling Tekakwitha's name, see
+Appendix, Note B, where the grammatical explanation of it by M. Cuoq is
+also given.
+
+[14] Among the Iroquois descent was never reckoned through the male
+line, the _stirps_ being always a woman. A chief, therefore, derived his
+title from his mother. To her family, not his father's, he belonged; and
+back to her or to her mother at his death the title was referred, to be
+transmitted through her to some other descendant.
+
+[15] See General Clark's map herewith printed.
+
+[16] The castle of Caughnawaga at Fonda was also called Gandawague, long
+after its removal from Auries Creek. But it prevents confusion to give
+it always its more distinctive name of Caughnawaga.
+
+[17] See Appendix, Note A, Letter of June 29, 1885.
+
+[18] See Cholenec, who mentions this fact in the "Lettres Édifiantes,"
+translated by Kip in his work entitled "Early Jesuit Missions." What is
+said concerning child-marriage is from Chauchetière's manuscript.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+TEKAKWITHA'S UNCLE AND FORT ORANGE; OR THE BEGINNINGS OF ALBANY.
+
+
+Cholenec, the more concise of the two contemporary biographers of Kateri
+Tekakwitha, in speaking of her early life says: "She found herself an
+orphan under the care of her aunts, and _in the power of an uncle who
+was the leading man in the settlement_." This brief expression gives us
+an intimation both of the character and the rank of Tekakwitha's
+formidable Mohawk uncle. He was stern, unbending, fierce; and like many
+another chief reared in the Long House, was proudly tenacious of the
+customs of his race. He was often on the worst of terms with the French
+blackgowns because they interfered with the beliefs and manners of his
+people; but always on the best of terms with the Dutch traders, who, in
+exchange for the rich furs brought in so plentifully to Fort Orange,
+supplied the Mohawks of Gandawague (or, as the Dutch wrote it,
+Kaghnuwage) with muskets, iron tomahawks, pipes, tobacco, copper
+kettles, scissors, duffels, strouds for blankets, and more than all, the
+keenly relished, comforting "fire water."
+
+The influx of liquor to the Iroquois castles led to reckless debauches,
+fast following in the track of the small-pox, which stalked with
+unchecked violence through the Long House in 1660. During the course of
+the following year an important transaction took place between the
+white settlers on the Hudson and the Indians along the Mohawk, or
+Maquaas Kill. "A certain parcel of land," to use the words of the old
+deed, "called in Dutch the Groote Vlachte (Great Flatt), lying behind
+Fort Orange, between the same and the Mohawk country," was sold by
+Mohawk chiefs--Cantuquo (whose mark was a Bear); Aiadane, a Turtle;
+Sonareetsie, a Wolf; and Sodachdrasse--to Sieur Arent van Corlaer, July
+27, 1661. "A grant under the provincial seal was issued in the following
+year, but the land was not surveyed or divided until 1664." The Indian
+name of the Great Flatt was Schonowe, and the new village of white
+settlers which soon sprang up on the south bank of the Mohawk was called
+Schenectady by the Dutch and English; though the French, who did not for
+some time learn of its existence, first knew this little outpost of Fort
+Orange by the name of Corlaer,[19] the earliest settler.
+
+This founding of Schenectady was an event of deep interest to the
+Mohawks of Gandawague. It brought the dwellings of the white race closer
+than ever before to their own stronghold, almost in fact to the very
+door of the Kanonsionni, or People of the Long House. The settlers began
+at once to rear their wonderful wooden palaces, for such they must have
+seemed to the simple children of the forest. The wild banks of the
+Maquaas Kill had hitherto shown no prouder architecture than the long
+bark houses of the Mohawks, which nevertheless were much in advance of
+the wigwams or tents of the roving Algonquin tribes. The Indians of
+Gandawague must have hastened down in their canoes to watch the building
+of Schenectady, and listened with interest and curiosity to the strange
+buzz of the newly erected sawmill. These were already familiar sights
+and sounds, however, to Tekakwitha's uncle, for he had long been in the
+habit of trading with the Dutch and knew their ways. He often journeyed
+as far as their trading-house at Fort Orange. Let us follow in the
+footsteps of this Mohawk chief as he starts once again on the trail that
+leads eastward from Gandawague with furs he has been hoarding for some
+new purchase. Let us pass hurriedly on beyond the new abode of his
+friend Corlaer, and we shall then see the sights that greet him as he
+approaches the homes of the traders who dwell beside the Hudson,--or
+Cahotatea, as the chief of the Turtle Castle would call the great North
+River in his own language. He has other Indians of his nation with him.
+These Mohawks, says the first Dutch dominie, in the account he gives of
+them, have good features, with black hair and eyes, and they are well
+proportioned; they go naked in summer, and in winter they hang loosely
+about them a deer's, bear's, or panther's skin, or else they sew small
+skins together into a square piece, or buy two and a half ells of
+duffels from the Dutchmen. Some of them wear shoes and stockings of
+deer's skins; others of plaited corn-leaves. Their hair is left growing
+on one side of the head only, or else worn like a cock's comb or hog's
+bristles standing up in a streak from forehead to neck; some of them
+leave queer little locks growing here and there. Their faces are painted
+red and blue, so that they "look like the devil himself," continues the
+worthy Megapolensis. They carry a basket of bear's grease with which
+they smear their heads, and in travelling they take with them a
+maize-kettle and a wooden spoon and bowl. When it is meal-time they get
+fire very quickly by rubbing pieces of wood together; and they cook and
+devour their fish and venison without the preliminary cleaning and
+preparing considered necessary among civilized folks. When they feel
+pain they say, "Ugh! the devil bites," and when they wish to compliment
+their own nation they say, "Really the Mohawks are very cunning devils."
+They make no offerings to their good genius or national god,
+Tharonyawagon; but they worship the demon Otkon or Aireskoi, praying in
+this way, "Forgive us for not eating our enemies!" and in hot weather,
+"I thank thee, Devil, I thank thee, Oomke, for the cool breeze." They
+laugh at the Dutch prayers, the dominie tells us, and also at the
+sermon. They call the Christians of Fort Orange cloth-makers
+(_assyreoni_) and iron-workers (_charistooni_).
+
+These uncouth travellers from Gandawague, among whom is the uncle of
+Tekakwitha, are fast nearing the homes of these same cloth-makers and
+iron-workers. Let us hasten to overtake them, and find our way with them
+into the settlement of Rensselaerwyck. You who dwell in New York State
+and you who travel through it, come with us now to visit old Fort Orange
+and the little town of Beverwyck! You above all who love to trace your
+lineage to the staid old Dutchmen of New Netherlands, come! Let us see
+the homes of these grandsires whose names appear so often in the record
+and ancient annals of our oldest chartered city. Come, too, you sons of
+English colonists, and see the flag of England float strangely in the
+Hudson River breezes while they are still loaded with the cumbrous
+sounds of the Low Dutch language! We will stay and see the laws of
+England put an end to queer old wordy wars between the stately Dutch
+patroon Van Rensselaer and Peter Stuyvesant, the doughty old
+Director-general, last and greatest of the four Dutch governors,--the
+one called "Wooden Leg" by Indians, and "Hard-headed Pete" by Dutchmen;
+though the poets say he had a _silver leg_, and the artists love to
+paint him with a gallant flourish as he stumped it down the street
+beside some pretty, quaintly dressed colonial belle. His were the days
+of knee-breeches and gigantic silver buckles, of ruffles and queues, of
+broad, short petticoats bedecked with mighty pockets, and of scissors
+and keys that hung from the belt,--the days of demure tea-parties and
+hilarious coasting-parties, of negro slaves and of sugar-loaf hats. As
+for weapons of war, the muskets they carried were strange and clumsy
+arms, with long, portable rests and "two fathoms of match," which the
+soldier must needs have with him, besides the heavy armor and the queer
+tackle for ammunition. No wonder that the wearers of such gear dreaded
+wars with the nimble savages!
+
+Rip Van Winkle, after sleeping twenty years, awoke to painful changes;
+he was sadly out of date. It would surely then be cruel, even if we had
+the power, to wake old Peter Stuyvesant and the people of his day from
+full two hundred years of slumber in our graveyards just to criticise
+their dress and talk. Let us rather go to sleep ourselves and dream
+about them. Take a good strong dose of unassorted, crude, colonial
+history interspersed with annals, and the necessary drowsiness will
+surely follow. Have you tried it? Are you sure the spell is not upon you
+now, having stopped to look at Stuyvesant, and heard the dominie
+describe the Mohawks? The smoke of pipes and chimneys is at hand, for
+here we are at old Fort Orange in the times of Tekakwitha. Let us look
+about, before the power to do it fails us out of very sleepiness. We
+find ourselves within a wall of stockadoes. The chief and his friends
+from Kaghnuwage are undoing their packs of furs near the northern gate
+of the town. We stand in Albany, at the corner of Broadway and State
+Street,--but no! those names are not yet in vogue. We are in Beverwyck,
+at the point where the long, rambling Handelaer Street, running parallel
+with Hudson's River, crosses the broad, short Joncaer Street, which
+climbs some little distance up the hill. Before us is the old Dutch
+church. It stands by itself, at the intersection of the two streets,
+fronting south. It is a low, square, plain stone building, with a
+four-sided roof rising to a central summit surmounted by a small cupola
+or belfry containing the famous little bell just sent over from Holland
+by the Dutch West India Company; on this belfry is upreared a saucy
+little weathercock. The south porch or vestibule is approached by a
+large stone step before the principal door. If the church were not
+locked, we might take a look inside at the carved oaken pulpit with its
+queer little bracket for the dominie's hourglass. The burghers
+subscribed twenty-five beaver-skins to buy that pulpit, and a splendid
+one it was. It soon came sailing over the sea in a plump Dutch ship.
+The patrons of the colony finding the beaver-skins much damaged when the
+package was opened at Amsterdam had added seventy-five guilders
+themselves towards the purchase, besides presenting the bell outright.
+When Dominie Megapolensis first arrived in the colony, "nine benches"
+were enough to seat the whole congregation; but that was a generation
+ago. Now it has increased; and the church, which was then a wooden
+structure near the old fort by the river, has been rebuilt. The Van
+Rensselaers, the Wendels, the Schuylers and the Van der Blaas have the
+leading pews; they have already sent to Europe for stained glass windows
+blazoned with their family arms. Having seen the church, let us walk up
+Joncaer (State) Street to the dominie's. We pass through the
+market-place, which is out in the middle of the open, grassy space, on a
+line with the church. We stop a moment to look at the house of Anneke
+Janse, the heiress, and then move on to Parrell (Pearl) Street. There,
+on the northeast corner of Parrell and Joncaer Streets, gable end
+foremost, stands the comfortable abode of Dominie Schaats, which is the
+pride and envy of the town. Every part of this, the first brick house in
+the New World, is said to have been imported from Holland,--bricks,
+woodwork, tiles, and also the ornamental irons with which it is
+profusely adorned,--all expressly for the use of the Rev. Gideon Schaets
+(or Schaats), who came over in 1652. The materials of the house arrived
+simultaneously with the bell and pulpit in 1657.[20]
+
+From Schaats' house we see, instead of a solitary "old elm-tree" on the
+opposite corner, many trees of different kinds, one in front of each of
+the straggling houses on either side of Joncaer Street; and by the age
+of the tree one can tell pretty well the order in which the different
+settlers arrived and began to domesticate themselves. This was no sooner
+done than the inevitable shade-tree was planted to overshadow the
+dwelling, and beneath this tree they bring the cow each evening to be
+milked. Around every house is a garden with a well; and the stoop at the
+front door is supplied with wooden seats or benches. There old and young
+gather in the evening when the day's work is over.
+
+The upper half of the front door remains open all day in summer, while
+the lower half bars out the stray chickens and dogs. It is opened now
+and then, however, to let the children in and out, and once in a while a
+buxom _vrouw_ leans out to chat with a passer-by, or perhaps to scold
+the little ones or to bid them beware of straying near the trading-house
+for fear of encountering a tipsy Indian. This trading-house is outside
+the wall of stockadoes, or upright posts, encircling the town. The
+traders of Beverwyck are all obliged "to ride their stockadoes,"--that
+is to say, to furnish the pine posts, thirteen feet long and one foot in
+diameter, for repairing the wooden wall. This duty falls alike on every
+inhabitant, at the command of the burgomasters and schepens. They are
+furthermore bound to take turns in drawing firewood to the trading-house
+for the use of the Indians when they come there from the Maquaas country
+loaded with packs of furs.
+
+Above Dominie Schaats' house and on the same side of Joncaer Street is
+the Corps de Garde, a small block fort where a few soldiers are
+stationed. There the progress of our walk is checked by the stout wall
+of stockadoes. One of the six gates or openings, however, is near at
+hand, leading out on to the road to Schenectady. We wish to see more of
+the place, and are at a loss to find our way; so we accept the kindly
+offered guidance of a little Schuyler lad, named Pieter, who stands
+talking to one of the soldiers. Already in his boyish days this
+public-spirited Albanian takes an active interest in the military
+defence of the place. He knows where all the cannon are placed, and can
+tell us how they propose to improve the fort and barracks on Joncaer
+Street. He takes us out by the Parrell Street gate to a road leading
+southward toward the hamlet of Bethlehem. After the boy has shown us the
+mills on the Bever Kill (Buttermilk Creek) from which the village of
+Beverwyck was named, he takes us down to old Fort Orange by the
+river-side.[21] It has been a snug little fort in its day, built of
+logs with four bastions, each mounted by two guns for throwing stones,
+while in the enclosure stands a large cannon on wheels close to the old
+trading-house of the West India Company. Since the new one has been
+built, this is used as the vice-director's house. It is twenty-six feet
+long, two stories high, constructed of boards one inch thick, with a
+roof in the form of a pavilion covered with old shingles. The space on
+the second floor is one undivided room directly under the roof without a
+chimney, to which access can be had by a straight ladder through a
+trap-door.[22] Here the magistrates administer justice. This is for the
+time being the court-house of Beverwyck.
+
+[Illustration: OLD ALBANY.--DOMINIE SCHAATS' HOUSE.
+
+(_Corner of Joncaer and Parrell Streets._)]
+
+Fort Orange at the time of our visit is falling to decay; Fort
+Willemstadt, on the contrary, the military post at the head of Joncaer
+Street, is increasing in importance. Near Fort Orange is the great
+pasture or common where the cows of the burghers are grazing, and there,
+a short distance below the fort, we see the ferry-boat travelling slowly
+across the river to Greenbosch. We have caught sight of several deer and
+wild turkeys on the outskirts of the town, and we have passed several
+patriarchal "negers" (as the magistrates of Fort Orange spell the word):
+and here comes the special property of Pete Schuyler in the shape of a
+black boy of his own age, who is followed by a troop of sturdy children,
+some of whom are the brothers and sisters of our young guide. There, to
+be sure, are Guysbert, and Gertrude (who is destined to wed Stephanus
+van Cort) Alida (who will add to her own name of Schuyler the name of
+Van Rensselaer and afterwards Livingston);[23] while toddling after
+these juvenile belles of Fort Orange come Brant and Arent, their
+brothers, and still there are others to come. These are the numerous
+children of Philip Pietersen Schuyler, who came over in 1650, and of his
+fair _vrouw_ Margritta van Slichtenhorst. This good couple were married
+with great formality before Dominie Schaats arrived, by Antoni de
+Hooges, the secretary of the colony, whose nose has been immortalized in
+the Highlands of the Hudson. Their son Pieter, our little guide, is to
+be the first mayor of the city of Albany; while the distinguished Philip
+of a later date will carry the name of Schuyler to a height of glory
+that will linger round the shaft of the Saratoga monument at
+Schuylerville for ages to come, and make it glow with an added beauty!
+
+But while our thoughts are thus running away with us from Fort Orange, a
+farmer, Teunis van Vechten, coming from Greenbosch with supplies for the
+Beverwyck market, offers the children a ride into the town, which they
+accept with a shout. This rouses us from our reverie, and we follow the
+merry load as they jog along the country road from Fort Orange to the
+nearest gate in the stockade (about where the street now called Hudson
+Avenue crosses Handelaer Street, or Broadway). With a crack of the
+farmer's whip they drive rapidly down into a sort of ravine, cross the
+Rutten Kill[24] on a bridge, and ascend the opposite slope. The farmer
+soon passes the door of the Dutch Reformed Church, where our ramble
+began, and turning into Joncaer Street pulls up his horses at the
+market-place. The children scamper back across the Rutten Kill to the
+Schuyler store on Handelaer Street, opposite Beaver Street, and pass on
+down to the grassy river-side behind it, where a sloop is moored. Their
+father is there overseeing the men who are loading it with beaver-skins
+and other goods. The day's work is nearly over. The sunlight is fading
+from the hill-tops across the river. All will soon go in to supper. If
+we were not too tired we might in a few moments walk the whole length of
+Handelaer Street towards the north gate. In that case we would have a
+peep now and then through the half-open curtains of the scattered
+houses; for see! they are beginning to light up for the evening meal. In
+passing along we would probably startle the dogs from their kennels in
+the gardens, and hasten the farewells of the lovers who linger on the
+front stoops in the gathering dusk. Then issuing by the north gate
+(where Steuben Street comes into Broadway), we might go by moonlight to
+the Patroon's house, between which and Beverwyck are corn-fields where
+the burghers grow corn for their slaves and also for their horses, pigs,
+and poultry. We would then be not far from the Patroon's mills, where
+all the settlers are in duty bound to go, and not elsewhere, to have
+their sawing and grinding done. These mills are on the Fifth, or
+Patroon's Kill, counting from the Norman's Kill near Kenwood.
+
+We must not leave the neighborhood of Fort Orange and Beverwyck until we
+have been to a trading-house just outside of the stockade (Pemberton's
+was used for such a purpose at one time, and also the Glenn House).
+There we shall have an opportunity to listen to some such conversation
+as the following between a Dutch trader and an Indian.[25] Let us
+suppose that the trader on this occasion is one of the enterprising
+burghers whom we encountered during our walk on Joncaer Street, and the
+Indian a Mohawk warrior in the company of Tekakwitha's uncle, who, as we
+have seen, travelled from Gandawague for the purpose of bartering his
+furs at Beverwyck.
+
+     "_Indian._ Brother, I am come to trade with you; but I forewarn
+     you to be more moderate in your demands than formerly.
+
+     "_Trader._ Why, brother, are not my goods of equal value with
+     those you had last year?
+
+     "_Indian._ Perhaps they are; but mine are more valuable because
+     more scarce. The Great Spirit, who has withheld from you
+     strength and ability to provide food and clothing for
+     yourselves, has given you cunning and art to make guns and
+     provide scaura (rum), and by speaking smooth words to simple
+     men, when they have swallowed madness, you have by little and
+     little purchased their hunting-grounds and made them
+     corn-lands. Thus the beavers grow more scarce, and deer fly
+     farther back; yet after I have reserved skins for my mantle and
+     the clothing of my wife, I will exchange the rest.
+
+     "_Trader._ Be it so, brother; I came not to wrong you, or take
+     your furs against your will. It is true that the beavers are
+     fewer and you go farther for them. Come, brother, let us deal
+     fair first and smoke friendly afterwards. Your last gun cost
+     fifty beaver-skins; you shall have this for forty; and you
+     shall give marten and raccoon skins in the same proportion for
+     powder and shot.
+
+     "_Indian._ Well, brother, that is equal. Now, for two silver
+     bracelets, with long pendent ear-rings of the same, such as you
+     sold to Cardarani in the sturgeon month last year,--how much
+     will you demand?
+
+     "_Trader._ The skins of two deer for the bracelets and those of
+     two fawns for the ear-rings.
+
+     "_Indian._ That is a great deal; but wampum grows scarce, and
+     silver never rusts. Here are the skins.
+
+     "_Trader._ Do you buy any more? Here are knives, hatchets, and
+     beads of all colors.
+
+     "_Indian._ I will have a knife and a hatchet, but must not take
+     more. The rest of the skins will be little enough to clothe the
+     women and children, and buy wampum. Your beads are of no value;
+     no warrior who has slain a wolf will wear them.[26]
+
+     "_Trader._ Here are many things good for you which you have not
+     skins to buy; here is a looking-glass, and here is a
+     brass-kettle in which your woman may boil her maize, her beans,
+     and above all her maple sugar. Here are silver brooches, and
+     here are pistols for your youths.
+
+     "_Indian._ The skins I can spare will not purchase them.
+
+     "_Trader._ Your will determines, brother; but next year you
+     will want nothing but powder and shot, having already purchased
+     your gun and ornaments. If you will purchase from me a blanket
+     to wrap around you, a shirt and blue stroud for under-garments
+     for yourself and your woman, and the same for leggings, this
+     will pass the time, and save you the great trouble of dressing
+     the skins, making the thread, etc., for your clothing, which
+     will give you more fishing and hunting time in the sturgeon and
+     bear months.
+
+     "_Indian._ But the custom of my fathers!
+
+     "_Trader._ You will not break the custom of your fathers by
+     being thus clad for a single year. They did not refuse those
+     things which were never offered to them.
+
+     "_Indian._ For this year, brother, I will exchange my skins; in
+     the next I shall provide apparel more befitting a warrior. One
+     pack alone I will reserve to dress for a future occasion. The
+     summer must not find a warrior idle.
+
+     "The terms being adjusted and the bargain concluded, the trader
+     thus shows his gratitude for liberal dealing.
+
+     "_Trader._ Corlaer has forbid bringing scaura to steal away the
+     wisdom of the warrior, but we white men are weak and cold; we
+     bring kegs for ourselves, lest death arise from the swamps. We
+     will not sell scaura; but you shall taste some of ours in
+     return for the venison with which you have feasted us.
+
+     "_Indian._ Brother, we will drink moderately.
+
+     "A bottle was then given to the warrior by way of a present,
+     which he was advised to keep long, but found it irresistible.
+     He soon returned with the reserved pack of skins, earnestly
+     urging the trader to give him beads, silver brooches, and above
+     all scaura, to their full amount. This, with affected
+     reluctance at parting with the private stock, was at last
+     yielded. The warriors now, after giving loose for a while to
+     frantic mirth, began the war-whoop, and made the woods resound
+     with infuriate howlings.... A long and deep sleep succeeded,
+     from which they awoke in a state of dejection and chagrin such
+     as no Indian had felt under any other circumstances. They felt
+     as Milton describes Adam and Eve to have done after their
+     transgression."
+
+The news of a massacre of white settlers at Esopus (Kingston), by the
+River Indians or Mohegans, June 7, 1663, when Tekakwitha was seven years
+old, caused great excitement both at Gandawague and at Beverwyck. Fort
+Orange was put in a thorough state of defence, the treaty with the
+Mohawks was renewed, and three pieces of artillery, loaned by Van
+Rensselaer for the protection of Beverwyck, "were placed on the church."
+"Nevertheless so great was the alarm that the out-settlers fled for
+protection to the fort called Cralo, erected on the Patroon's farm at
+Greenbush, where they held night and day regular watch."
+
+A year later, in 1664, at the time when the juvenile betrothal of
+Tekakwitha, already mentioned, took place at Gandawague,--that having
+occurred, as we are told, when she was eight years old,--an entirely new
+order of things was brought about in the Dutch colony. The new
+settlement of Arent van Corlaer at Schenectady, the house where her
+uncle traded at Fort Orange, and the hamlet of Beverwyck, together with
+the whole of the New Netherlands, passed over into the hands of the
+English. Henceforth, instead of appealing to their High Mightinesses the
+Lords States General of Holland for redress of grievances, the settlers
+of the State of New York were to bow to the decisions of his Majesty
+King Charles II., who then sat securely on the throne of England, four
+years having elapsed since the downfall of the Commonwealth.
+
+This change in the colony from Dutch to English rule was accomplished
+quietly and peaceably, to the great disgust and indignation of the
+warlike governor, Peter Stuyvesant, who was ready to buckle on his heavy
+armor, take up his sword, and fight the "malignant English," were they
+as ten to one. But the settlers were matter-of-fact farmers and traders,
+lovers of peace, caring little for glory and not overmuch for their
+far-away fatherland. So long as their commercial, domestic, and
+religious rights were respected, they were willing enough to do homage
+to King Charles. So in 1664, New Amsterdam, into whose harbor, said a
+boastful inhabitant, as many as fifteen vessels were known to have
+anchored in the course of one year, became New York, taking its name
+from the title of the king's brother, afterward James II. Beverwyck,
+which had grown up under the guns of Fort Orange, was henceforth to be
+called Albany; and an English governor took the reins of colonial
+government from the hands of Peter Stuyvesant. The British flag floated
+gayly over fort and vessel, and before many years had passed it was
+found necessary to employ an English schoolmaster in Albany, and later
+to build an English church[27] on Joncaer Street.
+
+When young Pieter Schuyler was still learning his lessons in Dutch at
+Fort Orange, and the little Tekakwitha was stringing her wampum beads at
+Gandawague,--while her uncle journeyed frequently back and forth from
+the Mohawk castle to the trading-post on the Hudson, stopping sometimes
+at Schenectady to see his friend Corlaer, and taking his family with him
+now and then to fish at the mouth of the Norman's Kill (near the place
+called Tawasentha[28]),--unsuspected preparations for a surprise were
+going forward in Canada. A war-cloud was gathering in the north, soon to
+break with terrible effect on the three Mohawk castles, and to startle
+the Governor of the Province of New York into a protest against the
+advance of armed troops of King Louis XIV. of France into the colonial
+dominions of his Majesty Charles II. of England. These dominions had
+been so recently acquired by the English King that the French at Quebec
+thought they still belonged to the States General of Holland.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[19] Corlaer, or Van Curler, a brave and worthy man, was the most
+influential settler at Schenectady, and on excellent terms with the
+Mohawk Indians. He had visited them in 1642, on purpose to secure, if
+possible, the ransom of Father Jogues, and had manifested great sympathy
+for him in his captivity.
+
+[20] See Annals of Albany, vol. i. p. 288. The dominie's house here
+mentioned has since given place to the shop which is on the north-east
+corner of Pearl and State Streets. The house used by Megapolensis, who
+was at Beverwyck from 1642 to 1649, and who concealed Father Jogues from
+the Indians, was where Shield's tobacco-factory now stands, close to the
+site of old Fort Orange, and a little south of it. It was built entirely
+of oak, and was purchased on the arrival of Megapolensis for a hundred
+and twenty dollars.
+
+The patroon's first dominie wearied of his frontier work at Fort Orange,
+and went to live at New Amsterdam in 1649. Dominie Schaats was appointed
+to succeed him in the ministry of the church at Beverwyck, where he
+officiated from 1652 to 1683.
+
+[21] Fort Orange stood on Broadway, close to the modern steamboat
+landing of the "People's Line." A bi-centennial tablet, surrounded with
+iron pickets, marks its northeast bastion. It extended back (across the
+freight-tracks that now mar its site) to Church Street.
+
+[22] See O'Callaghan's History of New Netherland, vol. ii.
+
+[23] Alida married Robert Livingston, who was "secretary of Albany"
+under Pieter Schuyler, the first mayor; she was the great-grandmother of
+Robert R. Livingston, the first Chancellor of New York State.
+
+[24] This creek, with its ravine, has entirely disappeared in the
+grading of the modern street.
+
+[25] The dialogue here given is from Mrs. Grant's "Memoirs of American
+Lady." Mrs. Grant describes a later period of Albany history; but the
+way of trading with the Indians was about the same her day as at the
+time of Tekakwitha.
+
+[26] "The Indians have a great contempt, comparatively, for the beads we
+send them, which they consider as only fit for those plebeians who
+cannot by their exertions win anything better. They estimate them,
+compared with their own wampum, as we do pearls compared with paste."
+
+[27] This first English church was not far from the spot where St.
+Peter's Episcopal Church, on State Street, now uprears its beautiful
+square tower with projecting gargoyles. The original structure, however,
+stood out in the centre of the street, while the site of the present
+church was occupied by the earthworks and buildings of the second fort.
+
+[28] See Appendix, Note C.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+AN ARMY ON SNOW-SHOES.
+
+
+The year 1666 was, indeed, an eventful one. It opened with a heavy
+snow-storm, and others followed until the whole Mohawk Valley was
+covered with a depth of feathery whiteness. At its eastern end a dark
+pool lay at the foot of Cohoes Falls, where the frosty spray of the
+roaring cataract glistened on every tiny bush, and the black cliffs on
+either side frowned from under their snowy caps at the silent meeting of
+two frozen rivers; off to the west, at the distant Mohawk castle of
+Tionnontogen, the "Nose" lay frost-bitten at a sudden turn of the
+valley, its long, stiff point thrust down into the ice, and fastened
+there as if held in a vice. Throughout the length of the glittering,
+smooth depression between these two points, the Mohawk seemed to be fast
+asleep beneath its thick mantle of snow.
+
+In the whole valley there was only one hamlet of quiet Dutchmen, who had
+settled themselves at Corlaer (or Schenectady), while in the great bend
+were nestled the snug bark huts of the Indians with their surrounding
+palisades. A chain of Mohawk castles lay on the south side of the river,
+linked together by a single trail,--a narrow footpath through the snow
+along the lower terrace, which is now occupied by the West Shore
+Railway. This trail connected the lodges of the three great Mohawk
+clans,--the Bears of Andagoron in the centre, with the Turtles of
+Gandawague and the Wolves of Tionnontogen on either side. Then it
+extended eastward through dreary solitudes to Schenectady and, on the
+other hand, far westward through lonely passes to the castles of the
+Oneidas; thence on to the Onondagas, the Cayugas, and, last of all, to
+the Senecas. How cold and yet how secure those Iroquois Indians of the
+Five Nations felt in their fastnesses! For hundreds of miles to the
+north and to the south of them lay the all-covering snow, unmarked by
+other human footprints than their own in search of game. The lands of
+their Algonquin foes, though bordering their own domain, were long
+journeys off. The Dutch settlers at Schenectady and Albany were right
+within their grasp, should they choose to distress them; but they had
+solemnly pledged their friendship to them in the Tawasentha Valley ("At
+the Place of many Dead"), and they meant to keep their word. The French,
+however, they delighted to torment. The settlements at Quebec, Three
+Rivers, and Montreal were separated from the Five Nations by the great
+pathless Adirondack wilderness of mountains and forest, and yet two ways
+were open by which they might reach the French. One of their war-paths
+led from Onondaga Lake along the Oswego River and Lake Ontario; then
+through the Thousand Islands and down the rapids of the St. Lawrence
+River. The reverse of this route was taken by the venturesome French
+colonists who, as we have seen, endeavored to make a settlement in the
+heart of the Iroquois country about the time of Tekakwitha's birth.
+Their hairbreadth escape from Onondaga soon after by the same route put
+an end to all thought of settling what the French considered a part of
+New France. This was the region now known as Onondaga County, which the
+Onondaga Indians themselves have claimed from prehistoric times as their
+birthright, and hold yet under the name of the Onondaga Reservation; and
+here, now, in the heart of this great State, in spite of the
+encroachments of two hundred years of civilization, in spite of the
+teachings of Christianity all about them, in spite of the covetous
+longings of many a white man, they still keep a foothold, and maintain
+the practice of their old pagan rites and customs.
+
+The great western route through the Oswego and St. Lawrence rivers to
+Canada, belonging by first right to these Onondagas, was travelled many
+times during Tekakwitha's childhood by the Onondaga statesman
+Garacontié. He frequently restored captives to the French at Quebec, and
+tried often but in vain to keep peace between them and his own race.
+
+The second and more direct of the two great war-paths to Canada was the
+route of the Mohawks. No wonder the Caniengas tormented the French
+settlements on the St. Lawrence. Starting from their castles in the
+Mohawk Valley, and taking any one of three or more trails that crossed
+or skirted our present Saratoga County, they had but to strike Lake
+George, follow the lake to its outlet, traverse the length of Lake
+Champlain, and thence pass through the Richelieu, Sorel, or Iroquois
+River (it was known by all these names), and they were ready to destroy
+the grain, and tomahawk or take captive the wives and children of the
+Canadian settlers. The French had built three forts on this Richelieu
+(or Iroquois) River to check their inroads,--Fort Richelieu, Fort St.
+Louis, and Fort St. Thérèse,--and were now only waiting till spring
+opened to erect a fourth, to be called Fort St. Anne, on an island at
+the northern end of Lake Champlain.
+
+Samuel de Champlain, the first Frenchman who set foot on New York soil,
+was chiefly responsible for the long-continued wars between his
+countrymen and the Iroquois, he having fired without provocation on a
+band of Iroquois warriors, probably Mohawks, when he first sailed into
+the lake which bears his name. By repeated outrages on the Canadian
+frontier the Mohawks had amply revenged themselves for that first
+affront; and by the end of the year 1665 they had goaded the French into
+a determination to brave unheard of risks and frightful sufferings, that
+they might punish their savage enemies in a manner that would for once
+and all humiliate and subdue them. Thus it was that on the 9th of
+January, 1666, a heroic army composed of three hundred regular French
+troops of the regiment Carignan-Salières, veterans who had seen service
+in Turkey in the wars of Louis XIV., together with two hundred
+_habitans_, or hardy volunteers from the Canadian colony, all under the
+command of M. de Courselle, Governor of Canada, were fairly started on a
+march from Quebec to the Mohawk castles. They intended to push on
+without delay to their destination through snow and ice, over rivers and
+lakes, by the great Mohawk route. It had been travelled hitherto only by
+Indians, captives, and a few missionaries, with now and then perhaps a
+solitary adventurer; rarely, indeed, by any even of these in the depth
+of winter. This army of De Courselle's was the very first of a great
+succession of pale-face armies that have come tramping over the same
+route during the last two centuries. If Burgoyne's march to the Saratoga
+battle-field was the most famous of all these, De Courselle's march to
+the Mohawk was certainly the first and the most heroic in its struggle
+with unparalleled difficulties.
+
+"This march could not but be tedious, every one having snow-shoes on his
+feet, to the use of which none were accustomed; and all, not excepting
+the officers or even M. de Courselle himself, being loaded each with
+from twenty-five to thirty pounds of biscuit, clothing, and other
+necessaries."[29] It did, indeed, require a _French courage_ to
+undertake such an expedition. "Many had, as early as the third day,
+parts of the body frozen, and were so benumbed by the cold that they had
+to be carried to the place where they were to pass the night." The 25th
+of January was especially severe, and many soldiers were obliged to be
+taken back to the settlements, "of whom some had the legs cut by the
+ice, and others the hands or the arms or other parts of the body
+altogether frozen." The ranks were filled up again at Forts St. Louis
+and St. Thérèse, on the Richelieu River, where the troops assembled on
+the 30th of the same month; and being still five hundred strong, they
+pushed bravely on over the snow that lay so level and smooth on the
+frozen bosom of Lake Champlain. Here the route lay plainly before them,
+and they were counting on Algonquin guides to show them the way to the
+Mohawk castles after they got to the southern end of Lake St. Sacrament
+(Lake George). The snow was "hard frozen, though in most places four
+foote deep; and besides using Indian snow-shoes, which hath the very
+form of a Rackett tyed to each foote, whereby the body and feet are kept
+from sinking into the snow, ... the Governor caused slight sledges to be
+made in good number, and laying provisions upon them drew them over the
+snow with mastive doggs."
+
+The shivering troops wrapped their blankets tightly round them as they
+lay down to sleep on the snow at the foot of Mount Defiance, or threaded
+the narrow valley leading to Lake George. The awkward soldier striding
+over the snow fumbles with frost-bitten fingers in his knapsack for the
+last of his biscuits. As one might have foretold, he has stepped on the
+snow-shoe of his comrade, and both go plunging head-foremost into the
+snow. The dogs jogging on beside them, unchecked for a moment, run
+wildly on, barking aloud and scattering the load of the toboggan to
+which they are attached. The articles are rescued piecemeal by the
+soldiers all along the line. There is no time to stop, however,--they
+must march on or starve; so, giving their fallen comrades momentary help
+to set them on their feet again, they are left to fall into line as best
+they may and just in time to bring up the rear.
+
+As the army passes over Lake George, in the shadow of Black Mountain,
+how eagerly De Courselle looks back at his staggering column of men!
+Were he in a less serious mood, he might be inclined to smile at the
+efforts of the gallant troops of the regiment Carignan-Salières to
+maintain an orderly march on the unaccustomed snow-shoes; but the
+anxious commander has other thoughts than these. Where are his
+Algonquin guides? Have the rascals failed him? Calling the Jesuit
+chaplain, Father Raffeix, to his side, a consultation ensues. They are
+already nearing the future site of Fort William Henry, and there the
+trails divide. They scan the shores of the lake and search the islands,
+but neither Algonquin friend nor Iroquois foe is in sight. They know
+that if they march on until they reach the Hudson and follow it down,
+they will find the Dutch at Fort Orange, but that is not their object.
+They long for a chance to strike a decisive blow at the Mohawk castles.
+If they can once convince the Mohawks that they are not secure in their
+forest homes from the armies of France nor the strong revengeful arm of
+Onnontio,[30] a treaty will afterwards be of some value. The Jesuit
+Father who talks with De Courselle dreams already of a mission
+established among them as the result of that future treaty. With ardent
+enthusiasm he sees in anticipation an army of Jesuits march to a
+spiritual attack on the citadel of Satan upreared in the Iroquois
+country. His heart thrills at the thought of reaching the spot where
+Isaac Jogues was martyred. Father Lemoyne, the second Ondessonk, has
+died since then. The Onondagas that very year sent presents to Quebec to
+wipe away the tears shed for his death, thus expressing their sorrow and
+their admiration for his character. Father Raffeix cheers with zealous
+words the drooping spirits of the soldiers, then kneels amid the snows
+of Lake St. Sacrament, and in the true spirit of his order, prays in his
+heart for a share in the glorious work of continuing Ondessonk's
+mission.
+
+The army of De Courselle at the southern end of Lake George was
+uncertain which trail to follow. At the Turtle Castle on the Mohawk the
+Indians had no knowledge of the march of their enemies, else there would
+have been great alarm at Gandawague; for all the ablest warriors of the
+three castles, in company with the Oneidas, were making war on the tribe
+called Wampum-makers. Only boys and helpless old men were left in the
+lodges with the women. They knew nothing of De Courselle and his army so
+near at hand, but, like their Dutch neighbors at Schenectady, were
+earnestly fighting their nearer and more pitiless foe the bitter winter.
+All the fuel near their lodges had been burned long ago; and now they
+are searching the snow-drifts for fagots and branches fallen from the
+trees. The cold is intense. The wind that whistles through the palisades
+of the Turtle village is the same sharp blast that is pinching De
+Courselle's army.
+
+At Gandawague, outside of the palisade is a little girl on snow-shoes,
+only nine years old, who with imperfect sight is groping her way through
+the blinding storm. The snow is drifting wildly about. The one whom she
+calls mother is only an aunt, and the aunt is cold and cross to-day. She
+sits by the dying embers there in the lodge of the absent chief, and by
+turns she shivers and scolds. The other women beside her are equally
+cheerless. The little niece, who has missed the kindly look she knows
+well how to win from her Mohawk uncle by welcome services when he is
+there in the lodge, has taken it into her head this comfortless day to
+surprise her cross old aunts and her adopted sister. So she has quietly
+tied on her snow-shoes and ventured out. She is in the forest, alone,
+searching for fagots. On her forehead is a burden-strap, made from
+filaments of bass-wood bark, the ends twisted into a kind of Indian
+rope. With it she fastens the fagots together, bearing them on her back.
+Her hands are tingling with cold; but she plunges them deep into the
+snow in an effort to break the larger twigs, while she hurries on to
+increase her load. She is happier now in the howling storm than she was
+in the pent lodge, and smiles as she thinks of the blazing fire she will
+make to warm the feet and thaw the heart of her morose old aunt. Ah!
+Tekakwitha, that grim old squaw is training you, without knowing it, for
+heroic things. But after all, the aunt is not a neglectful guardian.
+After a while she misses the child, and questions all in the lodge; then
+peers out into the storm and shrinks back, shuddering. Has she indeed
+allowed Tekakwitha to wander out and perish in the cold? In that case
+what will she be able to say to the uncle when he returns; what will
+become of her own plans for the girl? As time goes on, there comes a
+faint scuffling at the door; the heavy curtain is lifted a little and
+falls again. No one has entered. Hurrying to the door, the old squaw
+thrusts the curtain aside, and there she beholds the child staggering
+under her load of wood, stiff and helpless from the cold. Leaving the
+fagots at the door, she lifts her gently in her arms and takes her to
+the fire, which is soon blazing brightly, fed by the new supply of wood
+quickly thrown upon it. But the glow of the fire, round which they all
+gather, is not half so cheering to the heart of the frostbitten child as
+the glow of love she has awakened in the lodge by her sweet unselfish
+care for their comfort. This once, at least, they give her the warmest
+seat, and fill her bowl brimful with the freshly made sagamite; then
+they question her about her walk, and wonder how she escaped being
+buried in the snow. Tekakwitha smiles with happy content, and answers
+their questions with a ready wit. She makes them laugh as she tells them
+a merry story of how the north-wind slapped her in the face and bound
+her fast to the hickory-tree against which she stumbled in the storm. In
+her heart she is saying all the time, as she watches the cheery light of
+the fire, "I will do it again."
+
+But where is De Courselle now and his army on snow-shoes? We left them
+at the southern end of Lake George. There they took the trail that met
+the Hudson at its great bend to the southward near Glenn's Falls. Then
+after crossing the river they followed a straight trail leading a little
+west of south, and passed between Saratoga Lake and Owl Pond or Lake
+Lonely. Next they followed up the valleys of Kayaderosseras Creek and
+the Mourning Kill to Ballston Lake; but there, happily for Tekakwitha's
+people, they made a mistake.[31] Instead of taking the trail that
+branched off to the west at the northern end of Ballston Lake, and led
+directly to the Mohawk castles, they followed the straight trail
+southward; so instead of surprising the Mohawks, they themselves were
+indeed surprised to find that it brought them to a hamlet, not of
+Indians, but of Dutchmen,--not subjects of Holland at all, but colonists
+subject to England. They were greatly bewildered. We are told in an old
+London document[32] at M. de Courselle encamped--
+
+     "upon the 9th of February within 2 myles of a small village
+     called Schonectade, lying in the woods beyond fort Albany in ye
+     territoryes of his Royall highness, and 3 dayes march from the
+     first castle of the Mohaukes.
+
+     "The French suposed they were then come to their designed
+     place, and the rather because y^t evening they did rancounter
+     w^{th} a party of the Mohaukes who made appearance of
+     retreating from the French, whereupon a party of 60 of their
+     best Fuzileers after them, but that small party drew the French
+     into an ambuscade of neare 200 Mohaukes planted behind trees,
+     (who taking their advantage as it fell into their hands) at one
+     volley slew eleuen French men whereof one was a Lieuten^t
+     wounded divers others, the french party made an honorable
+     retreit to their body, w^{ch} was marching after them close at
+     hand, w^{ch} gave the Mohawkes tyme and opportunity to march
+     off w^{th} the loss of only 3 slaine upon the plaice and 6
+     wounded, the report whereof was soone brought to Schonecktade
+     by those Indians, with the heads of 4 of the ffrench to the
+     Commissary of the Village who immediately despatched the newes
+     to Fort Albany, from whence the next day 3 of the principle
+     inhabitants were sent to Monsier Coursell the Governo^r of
+     Canada to inquire of his intention to bring such a body of
+     armed men into the dominions of his Ma^{tie} of Great
+     Brittaine, w^{th}out acquainting the Governo^r of these parts
+     w^{th} his designes. The Governo^r reply^d that he came to
+     seeke out and destroy his ennemyes the Mohaukes without
+     intention of visiting their plantations, or else to molest any
+     of his Ma^{ties} subjects, and that [he] had not heard of the
+     reducing those parts to his Ma^{ties} obedience, but desired
+     that hee and his soldiers might bee supplied with provisions
+     for their money, and that his wounded men might be sucoured,
+     and taken care for in Albany; To all which the Emissaryes
+     freely consented and made a small but acceptable present of
+     wine and provisions to him, further offering the best
+     accommodations y^e poore village afforded, w^{ch} was civilly
+     refus'd, in regard there was not accommodacón for his soldyers,
+     with whom he had marcht and campt under the blew canopye of the
+     heavens full six weekes, but hee prudently foresaw a greater
+     inconvenience if hee brought his weary and half starv'd people
+     within the smell of a chimney corner, whom hee now could keepe
+     from stragling or running away, not knowing whither to runn for
+     feare of y^e Indians; The next day Monsieur Corsell sent his
+     men to the village where they were carefully drest and sent to
+     Albany, being seaven in number, the Dutch bores carryed to the
+     camp such provisions as they had, and were too well payd for
+     it; Especially peaz and bread, of w^{ch} a good quantity was
+     bought; y^e Mohaukes were all gone to their Castles, with
+     resolution to fight it out against the ffrench, who being
+     refresht and supplyed w^{th} the aforesaid provisions made a
+     shew of marching towards the Mohaukes Castles, but with faces
+     about and great sylence and dilligence return'd towards
+     Cannada.... Those who observed the words and countenance of
+     Monsieur Coursell, saw him disturbed in minde that the king was
+     Master of these parts of the Country, saying that the king of
+     England did graspe at all America.... Two prisoners taken by
+     the Mohaukes in the retreate tell them y^t this summer another
+     attempt will be made upon their country, with a greater force
+     and supplyes of men, the truth or success of which I shall not
+     now discourse upon, having given the trew relation of what past
+     from ye 29^{th} December to the 12^{th} of February."
+
+Another and larger force did attack the Mohawk castles in the year 1666,
+as hinted at in the lines just quoted, but not until late in the autumn;
+and at that time Tekakwitha was disturbed and distressed far more than
+she had been by the misdirected march of the "army on snow-shoes."
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[29] See O'Callaghan's "Documentary History of New York," vol. i. for
+papers relating to this expedition of Governor de Courselle to the
+Mohawk River.
+
+[30] A name which the Indians gave to the Governor of Canada.
+
+[31] These facts are to be found in a note by Gen. J. S. Clark, given in
+the Appendix, Note D, "Mohawk Trails."
+
+[32] See O'Callaghan's "Documentary History," vol. i., from which are
+quoted all the passages here given referring to De Courselles and De
+Tracy's expeditions.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+DE TRACY BURNS THE MOHAWK CASTLES.--FALL OF TIONNONTOGEN.
+
+
+In the summer following De Courselle's expedition, ten deputies from the
+nations of the Iroquois League met at Quebec, and signed a treaty of
+peace. In addition to strange pictures which were the marks of the
+Indian chiefs, the document bears the signature of Daniel de Courselle,
+Governor of Canada, and that of "Lord de Tracy, member of his Majesty's
+councils and Lieutenant-General of his armies both in the Islands and
+mainland of South and North America." The treaty is also signed by the
+Jesuits, Le Mercier and Chaumonot, as interpreters of the Iroquois and
+Huron languages. It states that the orator and chief, called Soenres,
+announced "the object of the Embassy by ten talks expressed by as many
+presents," and also that he brought letters from the officers of New
+Netherland. The substance of his harangue was that the Indians wanted
+peace, and they asked that blackgowns might be sent to teach them. They
+promised to listen to their preaching and to adore the God of the
+French. They also offered to trade with the Canadians by way of Lake St.
+Sacrament, and assured them of a welcome in their lodges. What more
+could be desired? But, alas! scarcely were the ambassadors two or three
+days' journey from Quebec, when news came of the surprisal by the
+Mohawks of some Frenchmen belonging to Fort St. Anne who had gone to the
+chase, and of the murder of a captain in the Carignan regiment.
+
+The time for peace had not yet come. The Mohawks had not been fairly
+represented in the embassy; they were far from being awed by the
+fruitless march of De Courselle to the Mohawk Valley. The French had yet
+to strike the decisive blow. M. de Tracy resolved, "despite his advanced
+age, to lead in person against these Barbarians an army composed of six
+hundred soldiers drafted from all the companies, and of six hundred
+_habitans_ of the country," to which were added one hundred Huron and
+Algonquin savages. This was more than twice the number of the original
+army of De Courselle, who, still bent on victory, determined to
+accompany this second expedition. The general rendezvous was at Fort St.
+Anne, newly built, as had been planned, on an island in Lake Champlain.
+On the 3d of October, 1666, all were ready to start. Three hundred
+vessels were there to bear them over the placid bosom of the lake, whose
+wooded shores were now aglow with October coloring. The vessels were
+light batteaux and bark canoes, which could be carried from lake to lake
+and from stream to stream. There was great difficulty at the carries,
+however, with two small cannon which they took with them for the purpose
+of forcing the Iroquois fortifications. Grown wiser by experience, they
+also made sure of their guides.
+
+The expedition moved forward as secretly and noiselessly as possible
+through Lake Champlain and then Lake George; but the quick eye of an
+Iroquois hunter, high on a mountain, espied the fleet of batteaux on
+the lake, and bounding through the forest to the first, or Turtle,
+castle on the Mohawk, his cry of alarm startled the people of
+Gandawague, and Tekakwitha among the rest, from their accustomed
+occupations. Hastily gathering together their treasures, they fled at
+once to Andagoron, the Castle of the Bears. Thence, after spreading the
+alarm through the outlying hamlets and holding a hurried consultation,
+they all retired to Tionnontogen, the third, or Castle of the Wolves,
+hidden behind the Nose. There they stored an abundant supply of grain,
+and prepared to defend themselves. This castle of Tionnontogen was the
+strongest of their fortifications. It had a triple palisade. The spot
+where it stood can easily be found at the present day. One has but to
+leave the West Shore Railway at Spraker's Basin,--a small station on the
+south side of the Mohawk River, just east of Canajoharie and Palatine
+Bridge,--then follow a road which winds up the hill to a farm a few rods
+distant, which was owned in 1885 by Mitchell. Like the other
+village-sites, already described, it is on high ground, or the
+upper-river terrace. Near the farm-house is a large spring, surrounded
+by shade-trees, in the centre of a meadow. It is now frequented
+principally by thirsty cows; but it was once the chief water-supply of
+the Mohawk castle. Behind the house is a perfectly level plateau; from
+it the land descends on its northern side by steep terraces to the
+Mohawk, and to the west it sinks rapidly into a picturesque ravine,
+where strawberries, wintergreen berries, rare ferns, and little pink
+flowers grow in abundance. Flat Creek flows through the ravine. On this
+plateau many iron hatchets and wagon-loads of Indian relics of various
+kinds have been found.[33]
+
+There the castle of Tionnontogen stood at the time of De Tracy's
+expedition. The view up the river at that point is extensive
+and beautiful; but in the opposite direction, or down the river, a
+sharp turn of the valley shuts out from sight the narrow opening or
+pass between the Nose and the other similar mountain on the south
+side of the river, which, as one travels round the bend, seems to
+approach and finally to overlap it. The name of the castle was
+significant,--Tionnontogen, or "Two Mountains approaching." Where else
+could it possibly have been in the whole valley but right there by the
+Nose? Their friends, the Oneidas, lay to the westward of them, and their
+enemies mostly to the eastward; it was but natural, then, that they
+should build their principal fort far enough up the river to bring it
+behind the overlapping mountains. In order to reach Tionnontogen the
+army of De Tracy had to come through that narrow pass. The people who
+were lying in wait at the castle, though on high ground, would not
+therefore be able to see their enemies approaching till they had rounded
+the Nose, and were close upon them.
+
+After disembarking at the head of the lake, De Tracy led his army, by
+way of an Indian trail, southeasterly about nine miles to Glenn's
+Falls,[34] where he crossed the Hudson, thence passing south of Moreau
+Pond and east of Mount McGregor, through Doe's Corners, near Stiles
+Hill, and then near Glen Mitchell to Saratoga Springs, following
+substantially the present highway along the base of the ridge of hills
+south of Mount McGregor. From Saratoga the expedition passed near
+Ballston, and thence slightly curving seems to have proceeded in a very
+direct course to the Mohawk castles, which lay off to the westward. One
+of the trails leading in that direction struck the Mohawk River at
+Kinaquariones, or Hoffman's Ferry, and another at Amsterdam. From this
+latter point, a short march up the Mohawk Valley brought De Tracy to
+Gandawague. One after another, he captured the deserted towns of the
+Mohawks without striking a single blow. First Gandawague, then
+Andagoron,--both on the south side of the river,--with possibly one or
+more smaller towns, fell into his hands; and on he went to Tionnontogen,
+marching proudly up the valley with his two cannon, brought with such
+difficulty from Canada, and his Algonquin allies, who had faithfully
+guided him into the very heart of the Mohawk country, and his brave army
+of twelve hundred picked men, armed _cap-a-pie_ in all the panoply of
+civilized warfare. Never before was anything like it seen in that wild
+region. Only three or four hundred Mohawk warriors, all told, were
+gathered behind the palisades of Tionnontogen to oppose him. There was
+no time to summon their allies, the Oneidas, to their assistance. The
+movements of the French had been too rapid. They had only time to crowd
+together the women and children into their strongest fortress of
+defence, and there await the result, whatever it might be.
+
+Could the Mohawks soon forget the ruin that the French soldiers wrought
+on their way from Gandawague? Even the child Tekakwitha must have been
+stirred with a feeling of indignation and a cruel sense of wrong, as
+that foreign army came nearer and nearer to her place of refuge, moving
+steadily on through her own fair valley, with a march like the march of
+fate,--destroying all that came in its way, wreaking its vengeance on
+corn-field and cabin, in baffled fury at finding no foe to slay. With
+ever increasing horror and anxious bewilderment, she watched and waited
+with her people in the castle of Tionnontogen. Her uncle and all the
+Canienga warriors had staked everything they possessed on its defence.
+They had stored their provisions for the winter carefully away inside of
+its stout palisade. It was, as already mentioned, a triple palisade,
+twenty feet in height, and flanked by four bastions; that is to say,
+there were three distinct rows of upright posts encircling the town.[35]
+The main or central wall of thick-set overlapping palisadoes had an
+inner and an outer platform, or scaffolding, near the top, running all
+the way round. These platforms, being nineteen or twenty feet above the
+ground, extended horizontally from the central to the inner and outer
+walls of palisadoes. The latter were higher, and not so compact as the
+central wall. These outside palisadoes, reaching almost to a man's
+height above the platform, were set short spaces apart, and covered near
+the top with a solid surface of thick bark. This protected the warriors
+when they stood high on the outer platform to fire their guns and aim
+their arrows at the enemy over the top of this bark breastwork. Just
+behind them, on the inner and adjoining platform, were numerous bark
+tanks containing an abundant supply of water to be used in extinguishing
+any fire that might be started at the base of the palisade. This was the
+form of attack they most dreaded. To make the approach more difficult,
+they also dug trenches between the walls of palisadoes, and especially
+on the outer side, heaping up the earth at the base of the
+fortifications. Then, too, before the enemy could get at the palisade at
+all, they had to break through a low bark fence which stood some
+distance outside of the triple wall, built there for the purpose of
+breaking the force of an attack. If the foe succeeded in starting a fire
+at the base of the main wall, a flood of water was poured down at once
+through holes in the high platform by the warriors who were defending
+the castle. In cases of this kind the women assisted by keeping up the
+supply of water. Such were the methods of defence in use at Tionnontogen
+in 1666. They had proved effectual against all the efforts of savage
+foes. But let us see if they prove equally so against the skilful
+manoeuvres of De Tracy's civilized army, now close at hand? Tekakwitha's
+uncle may have had his doubts as to this; but nevertheless the bark
+tanks were well filled, and all was made ready to give the foe a defiant
+reception. The warriors were in fighting gear, and hourly waiting the
+attack.
+
+It was just at this time that several Indian captives of other tribes
+held by these Mohawks were brought out to be tortured and burned with
+solemn rites in the public square of Tionnontogen; thus they hoped to
+propitiate their war-god, Aireskoi. Tekakwitha would not on any account
+show herself during this ceremony, as she never had the cruel spirit
+which the savage women often showed. Chauchetière tells us that she
+could not endure to see harm done to any one, and that she thought it a
+sin to go to see a man burned.
+
+This heathen rite was scarcely over, when the women and children were
+suddenly withdrawn from Tionnontogen Castle; a council of war, it seems,
+had changed the plans of the braves. Those who could not fight were
+hurried off to the higher hills behind the fortified plateau, and
+concealed in the woods; the warriors alone remained in the town. As the
+advancing army of De Tracy came within reach of their bullets and
+arrows, they kept up a sharp fire from the palisade; but they no sooner
+saw the French soldiers deliberately pause, plant their cannon, and
+prepare to attack their wooden castle in regular form, than the utter
+hopelessness of the contest dawned fully upon them. Without waiting to
+receive the opening fire of the French cannon, they quickly deserted
+their primitive fortifications, leaving behind them a few helpless old
+men who did not wish to move and the half-roasted victims of the demon's
+sacrifice. De Tracy lost no time in taking possession of this last
+stronghold of the Canienga nation; without loss of life he and his army
+entered Tionnontogen Castle in triumph.
+
+The child Tekakwitha, concealed in the forest near at hand, must have
+heard the solemn swell of the _Te Deum_ as it rose with one accord,
+full, rich, and clear, from the ranks of the conquering army. Never
+before had she heard that strange, sweet chorus of sound. The Mohawk
+Valley had often echoed with the war-whoop and the shriek of the
+tortured captive; it had rung at times with the harvest-song, and had
+caught up the wailing chant of the League over many a dead chief's body.
+But the solemn music of the _Te Deum_ which now reached her ears was
+unlike any of these, and the tall cross that the soldiers of France
+raised over the ashes of Aireskoi's fire in the public square of
+Tionnontogen cast unfamiliar shadows on the long Mohawk cabins clustered
+silent and empty within the triple wall. Father Raffeix, the chaplain,
+said Mass there, thinking perhaps of Isaac Jogues, and praying for the
+heathen Indians who were hiding in the forest. He did not then know how
+soon the rustic chapel of St. Mary of the Mohawks would be standing
+there with open door to welcome them to prayer. While this first Mass
+was being said at Tionnontogen, the Mohawk warriors, moody and sullen,
+were gathered near their families. A low and mournful wail from the
+women called the attention of all to the blazing palisades of
+Tionnontogen. The crackling fire kindled by their enemies lit up with a
+lurid glare the now retiring army of De Tracy, for he speedily retraced
+his steps, and was soon hidden from view behind the mountains at the
+Nose. As he moved on down the valley whence he came, the armor of his
+twelve hundred men flashed back again and again the blaze of a ruined
+Mohawk town; all their castles were burned. At the "Fort of
+Andaraque,"--to use the words of an old document (probably meaning
+Gandawague),--De Tracy paused on the 17th of October to take solemn
+possession of the conquered country in the name of the King of France.
+In token thereof, he planted another cross, and near it a post, to which
+he affixed the arms of Louis XIV. Tekakwitha, with her aunts and her
+mother's friend Tegonhatsihongo, must have seen these emblems at the
+door of the smoking palisade when they went back to find what was left
+of their blackened lodges on the bank of Auries Creek.
+
+De Tracy, the gray-haired conqueror, now returned to Canada; and the
+unhappy Mohawks, in straggling bands, sought out their desolated
+homes,--secure in life and limb, to be sure, but bereft of all
+provisions for the winter. No golden ears of corn hung, as usual, from
+their lodge-poles. They had no furs, no beans, no nut-oil. They were
+forced to live in temporary huts, and to wait in hunger and cold for the
+coming of the spring-time. Thus, in sorrow and destitution, Tekakwitha
+passed a dreary winter among the ruins of Gandawague, doing her best as
+usual to put things in order. During this time she lived on what roots
+and berries could be found, and a scant allowance of the game her uncle
+caught. Spring came at last; and a busy one it was for the houseless
+Mohawks. With the genial warmth that quickly followed, there came also a
+strange, new gleam of light to the young Tekakwitha.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[33] The most interesting of these are in the collection of Mr. Frey, of
+Palatine Bridge.
+
+[34] The march of De Tracy as here given was traced out by General Clark
+from a copy which he has of a map relating to the expeditions of De
+Tracy and De Courselle. The original map is preserved in the Paris
+archives.
+
+[35] See Appendix, Note E, "Indian Defensive Works."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+TEKAKWITHA'S CHRISTIAN GUESTS.--RAWENNIIO.
+
+
+The year 1667 found Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas at
+peace with the Canadian settlers. This blessed peace crowned with
+success the persevering efforts of Garacontié, and brought the
+long-deferred answer to the prayer of Tekakwitha's mother. Onnontio was
+appeased; Frenchmen and Iroquois could now clasp hands, and the lovers
+of peace on either side--an ever increasing party--came boldly forward,
+asserting their claim to be heard, and holding all turbulent spirits in
+check. There was nothing to be lost, and much to be gained on both sides
+by peace. The French could now increase their trade, and the Iroquois
+were glad once more to turn their arms against aggressive Indian
+neighbors. The Mohegans, or Loups, on the Hudson, uniting with those of
+New England, were growing haughty and insolent to the Mohawk people,
+making raids on their hunting-grounds, and taking advantage of their
+temporary distress to settle old scores; this trouble, however, was
+still a side issue. It caused just uneasiness enough to make the Mohawks
+anxious for the speedy return of their deputies from Quebec, with full
+assurance of a permanent peace with the French. All through the spring
+of 1667, Tekakwitha's people were clearing new corn-fields on the north
+side of the Mohawk, and choosing new sites for their castles.
+Tionnontogen, the capital, claiming their first share of attention, was
+hastily rebuilt higher up the river and still on the south side, being
+now a quarter of a league from its old site. The populations of
+Gandawague and Andagoron were divided; some remained at the old
+half-ruined castles, and others moved across the river as rapidly as
+they could build cabins for themselves. This they began to do "after the
+bark would peel;"[36] that is, as soon as the season was far enough
+advanced for them to make use of that all-important material, in the use
+of which they were so expert. The task of building a palisaded Indian
+castle was slow and tedious,--the work of many long months, with their
+primitive methods. While they were in this transition state, the Mohawk
+deputies, having agreed on the terms of peace, returned from Quebec.
+They left that city in July, 1667, accompanied by three Jesuit Fathers.
+
+The story of the Jesuit Father and his work crowds the pages of our
+early history. Wherever the red man plays an important part, there close
+at hand is the blackgown with his crucifix and his works on the Indian
+language,--becoming a linguist that he may make known to the Indian,
+whatever his tribe, the "good tidings of great joy;" using the artist's
+brush that he may in some way represent to his neophytes the Christ;
+even taxing his ingenuity in the invention of games by means of which to
+hold the attention of the savages and teach them the simplest laws of
+morality; striving always to lead them step by step to a better
+understanding of the duties of a Christian life. Such were the men now
+on their way to the Mohawk from Quebec.
+
+Earnest, zealous, with a firm determination to overcome all the
+obstacles before them in their spiritual combat with the demons of
+paganism, came the three Fathers, Fremin, Bruyas, and Pierron, with the
+Mohawk deputies. They had been chosen by the French authorities from the
+ever ready ranks of Jesuit volunteers, who never lost an opportunity to
+gain the ear of the red man. Already they had acquired some knowledge of
+the language; Father Fremin, of the three, understood it best. Then,
+too, it was well known by all that the presence of French blackgowns in
+the Iroquois country, sent by the Governor of Canada, would be in itself
+a guarantee of peace. They were made the bearers of presents to insure
+them a welcome in the Mohawk lodges. On their journey to the castles
+they were delayed for a time by reports that the forest was alive with
+Mohegan war-parties; but when, in course of time, they did fall in with
+a band of warriors, it turned out to be a scouting-party of Mohawks,
+who, alarmed by the long absence of their deputies, began to suspect
+another French invasion. They were therefore well pleased to see the
+missionaries, and willingly led them from the vicinity of Lake George to
+the northern bank of the Mohawk. There they crossed the river in canoes,
+probably from the place now occupied by the De Graff house. Above them,
+on the crest of a hill, stood all that was left of Gandawague, the
+Turtle Castle, where Tekakwitha and her uncle the chief still dwelt.
+They had not yet moved to the new site "at the Rapids," near Fonda. The
+three French guests of the nation were conducted up the steep ascent to
+the town with great formality and many ceremonies of welcome, not with
+the strokes of iron rods and the bitter taunts with which some of these
+same old men and women when in their prime had received Father Jogues at
+their former castle of Ossernenon, a little more than twenty years
+before. But why were not Fathers Fremin, Bruyas, and Pierron at once
+conducted up the valley to be welcomed by the Bears, and thence on to
+the westward to be lodged in state by the Wolves at Tionnontogen, the
+capital, as had invariably been the custom of the Caniengas in receiving
+distinguished guests, or even important captives? The answer that
+history gives is simple enough. The Fathers "happened to arrive at a
+time when these people are accustomed to plunge into all kinds of
+debauchery, and found no one, therefore, in a fit state to receive
+them." A drunken riot of several days' duration was going on within the
+newly built palisades of Tionnontogen. The Mohawks had chosen to
+celebrate in that way their returning prosperity.
+
+So the Fathers were detained three days in the lodge of Tekakwitha's
+uncle at the Turtle Castle. Chauchetière and Cholenec, and all who have
+written of Tekakwitha find in this seemingly simple incident only one of
+many mystic links that make up the chain of her Christian life,--a sure
+effect of a potent cause,--the all-conquering love of the Spirit of God
+reaching toward its spirit-child, though clothed in the humble form of
+an Indian girl. Unknown, and therefore as yet unloved by her, the Great
+Father and Source of our spirit natures saw "His own image and likeness"
+expanding pure and fair in the untaught soul of Tekakwitha. All-knowing,
+all-powerful, planning the course of events without effort, He chose
+the surest way and the aptest time to make Himself known, thus securing
+at once the answer of love that was destined to lift and shield from all
+blemish this wondrous opening "Lily." He sent His messengers into the
+Mohawk Valley when Tekakwitha alone of her nation was ready and fit to
+receive them. Hers, then, was the privilege of lodging and entertaining
+them.
+
+At that time the Iroquois were thorough pagans, and practised a species
+of devil-worship. They believed in Tharonyawagon, the "Holder of the
+Heavens," a good genius of the Kanonsionni, who bestowed on them their
+hunting-grounds and fisheries,--a harmless deity, to whom they were
+grateful in a vague way for past favors; but they do not seem to have
+worshipped him with any formality. They reserved their sacrifices and
+solemn rites for Aireskoi, a demon of war, whom they greatly feared.
+Hiawatha, the "Wampum-Seeker,"[37] though sometimes confused with
+Tharonyawagon, was undoubtedly a real personage. He was one of the
+founders of the Iroquois League of Nations, which is called to this day
+the "Great Peace." He is said to have lived about fifty years, as nearly
+as can be reckoned, before the earliest white settlers came to America.
+His aspirations and his teachings prepared the Iroquois to some extent
+for the reception of Christian ideas, but the original teachings of
+Hiawatha seem to have been very soon distorted and strangely mingled
+with myths. The League of Nations which he labored to establish, with
+the grand idea of eventually uniting all men in a common bond of
+brotherhood and peace, became on the contrary, in the hands of the
+Iroquois chiefs who followed him, a great engine of war, crushing all
+tribes that refused to come under its laws. Just enough of its original
+spirit remained to cause the Iroquois thoroughly to incorporate and make
+one with themselves the captives of all those peoples whose separate
+existence they destroyed. Tharonyawagon, Aireskoi, and Hiawatha were all
+familiar words in the ears of the Mohawk girl. But Rawenniio, the true
+God[38] was still unknown to her.
+
+Charlevoix, the learned author of the "History of New France," who wrote
+an account of Kateri Tekakwitha about the year 1732, after mentioning
+the fact that "as soon as she was able to work she undertook the entire
+charge of the household," continues thus:--
+
+     "The first knowledge she received of Christianity was given her
+     by the Jesuit missionaries who were sent to the Iroquois
+     nations by M. de Tracy. They passed on their way through the
+     town where she lived, and lodged in her cabin. She was charged
+     with their entertainment, of which she acquitted herself in a
+     manner which surprised them. She had herself been struck at the
+     sight of them, and felt in her heart strange sentiments.... The
+     fervor and recollectedness of these Jesuit Fathers at their
+     prayers inspired her with the desire to pray with them; this
+     desire she expressed to them; indeed they quickly divined it
+     from her actions, and instructed her in the great truths of
+     Christianity as well as their short stay in the town permitted,
+     and quitted her with a regret fully reciprocated on her part."
+
+There are those, as we have said, who believe that the prayer of
+Tekakwitha's dying mother had guided the steps of these missionaries
+straight to the lodge of her child, and left them there three days to be
+waited on and cared for by the shy but capable little Mohawk
+housekeeper, the niece of the chief at Gandawague. His people, as we
+already know, were away on a debauch at Tionnontogen,--a revel too
+disgraceful for the admission of guests whom they wished to honor. The
+Mohawks must have been hard pushed indeed when they handed over the
+envoys of the Canadian Governor whom they were anxious just then to
+conciliate, to the care of a mere child, even though she were high in
+rank; but Tekakwitha's uncle knew she could be trusted to do her part
+well. How well she did it Cholenec tells us in the following words:--
+
+     "She was charged with the task of lodging the missionaries and
+     attending to their wants. The modesty and sweetness with which
+     she acquitted herself of this duty touched her new guests;
+     while she on her part was struck with their affable manners,
+     their regularity in prayer, and the other exercises into which
+     they divided the day."
+
+Had they remained longer in the village, she would probably have asked
+for baptism.
+
+As it was, she stole silently out of the lodge in the dusk of evening to
+bring water for the simple Indian repast she was preparing for her
+guests, and all the while her thought was alive with God,--the God she
+had never known, the God of the pale-face and of the Mohawk as well (for
+this much they had told her in their broken utterance of her own
+language); he was the God, too, of their Mohegan enemies. Here, indeed,
+was a new idea to the Mohawk girl. She had heard her people mention the
+God of the French, no doubt, and had wondered if he were kind like
+Tharonyawagon or cruel like Aireskoi; but this God whom the blackgowns
+told her of, was not _their_ Lord and "Master of Life" any more than
+_hers_. He was the God of all men, whether they worshipped him or
+not,--of pale-face and redskin, of Mohawk and Mohegan. He loved them all
+with a father's love,--alas! Tekakwitha knew what that meant, if only
+from observation and from the very lack of it in her own life. This
+Rawenniio, this true God, was everywhere; he could hear the whispered
+prayer of the blackgown there in the lodge, and he could speak to her
+inmost heart even if she were quite alone in the forest. How she was
+stirred at the thought! "Will he speak to me now?" she said. "Does he
+know I am thinking of him?" She stopped at the foot of a great tree,
+poising her jug on her shoulder, and listened with innocent simplicity.
+"God of the blackgown! God of my mother! Rawenniio!" was the cry of her
+heart,--"speak to me, here in the forest,--speak to me, if it is true
+what the blackgown says!" Lifting her hand and her eyes, she looked up
+through the branches of the giant tree, far beyond what her dim eyes
+saw, far as her simple thought could reach; and though Tekakwitha heard
+no audible voice in the forest answering to her new-found cry, there
+was a dim but rapturous hope in her heart, cheering with happy omen her
+budding faith and her growing love for something more than the world of
+Tharonyawagon could give her,--something more than fruitful corn-fields,
+sunshine on the running water of the Mohawks, a strong, true brave to
+love her, and the Happy Hunting-Grounds beyond. They could not be much
+fairer, after all, than were the hunting-grounds of her nation at
+Saratoga, where Father Jogues had cut a cross deep into the bark of a
+tree, and had almost perished with hunger because he would not eat the
+meat that was offered to Aireskoi. Tekakwitha was not long in choosing
+between Aireskoi and Rawenniio.
+
+While her mind was dwelling on such thoughts as these, she must have
+sought out the ravine near the Turtle Village where Isaac Jogues had
+buried his friend Réné Goupil. This young martyr was killed, as we have
+said, for making the sign of the cross on an Indian child. She may have
+knelt to pray on the very spot where Jogues himself was tomahawked at
+the door of the Bear Chief's deserted lodge. There she could ask
+Rawenniio most fervently for strength of will to follow the gleam of
+light that beckoned to her. The Mohawks of Gandawague had not forgotten
+these places so near at hand, nor how it had all happened. The Fathers
+Fremin, Bruyas, and Pierron, during their stay in the lodge with
+Tekakwitha, thought often of Jogues, and must have mentioned his name in
+her presence, as they afterwards did in their journal;[39] then, to be
+sure, Tegonhatsihongo would know of the murdered blackgown, so
+Tekakwitha could not fail to learn his story. She probably knew it
+already, but she thought of it now as she never had done before. Surely
+that first of the blackgowns who came to their village had something
+important to tell them. Why else had he laid down his life by coming
+among them a second and even a third time after his cruel captivity? Why
+else had he exerted himself to learn their language? The voice of
+Ondessonk's blood cried out to her from the ground, and besought her to
+hear what these others said who came to her now with his name on their
+lips, and the name of a greater than he,--of the One who was nailed to a
+cross, whose image they carried. A host of questions rose to her lips
+when she saw them again, but she had neither time nor courage to utter
+them. Only three days, and the blackgowns were gone. Tekakwitha was left
+alone once more with her aunts and her uncle, who had received these
+guests not from love, but policy.
+
+During their short visit an alarming incident had occurred. A band of
+Mohegans, dashing down upon the village, had scalped a wretched squaw at
+the very gates. "Fremin was one of the first to hasten to her, eager to
+save a soul where life was in so great peril; but she spurned his
+offers. Four times she turned away in scorn;" but the patient zeal of
+the missionary won her at last, and she died a Christian.
+
+There was another squaw in the town who had asked for baptism, an
+Iroquois woman of rank. We are not told whether this was
+Tegonhatsihongo, or some other, though we know that she did in time
+become a Christian. To test this woman's sincerity, Father Fremin gave
+her the thankless, unpopular task of calling to prayer, with a little
+bell, the Huron and Algonquin captives at Gandawague, who were already
+Christians. She did not shrink from this ordeal, but still her baptism
+was deferred till the missionaries should finish their embassy and
+return again to the town. In the mean time she wearied of their
+prolonged delay, and followed them to Tionnontogen, gaining from them
+there the necessary instruction for receiving the sacrament. The young
+Tekakwitha, on the contrary, either through natural timidity or by the
+express command of her uncle (we know not which, most likely both),
+waited with sealed lips for eight long years. During all that time she
+gave no sign or token, that has ever been recorded, of a wish to become
+a Christian; and yet the missionaries thenceforth were at work
+continuously in one or another of the Mohawk villages. Let us, then,
+follow the hurrying course of events in which the life of Tekakwitha was
+involved during these eight years of dim but dawning light, not
+forgetting that the seed which the Fathers had scattered in passing lay
+hidden yet treasured deep in the innermost heart of the Mohawk maiden.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[36] See Appendix, Note A, Letter of June 29, 1885.
+
+[37] Or "Peace-Maker," as wampum was the emblem and token of peace. For
+an interesting account of Hiawatha, or Hayenwatha, as founder of the
+League, and for other rare and valuable information concerning the
+people of the Five Nations, see Hale's Iroquois Book of Rites.
+
+[38] See M. Cuoq's Lexique de la Langue Iroquoise. This word
+"Rawenniio," also written "Hawennyiu," came into use when Christianity
+was first preached among the Iroquois. It is still used by them to
+designate the "Great Spirit," or "Father of all Men." The last part of
+the word, "niio" or "nyiu" (God), is said to be derived from the French
+word "Dieu."
+
+[39] See "Early Chapters of Mohawk History," no. xv., by Dr. Hawley, of
+the Cayuga County Historical Society, printed in the "Auburn
+Advertiser," and also to be issued in book form. These "Early Chapters"
+consist chiefly of translations from the Jesuit "Relations," with
+valuable notes and comments.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+CAUGHNAWAGA ON THE MOHAWK.--FATHERS FREMIN AND PIERRON.
+
+
+After Tekakwitha had lodged Fathers Fremin, Bruyas, and Pierron for
+three days at Gandawague, on the bank of Auries Creek, they went to the
+castle of Tionnontogen, which it must be remembered had been hastily
+rebuilt some little distance west of its former site near the Nose,
+though still on the south side of the river. There, when the pagan
+festival and debauchery was over, a grand public reception of these
+ambassadors took place. The people of all the Mohawk villages were
+assembled for the occasion, Tekakwitha probably among them. In due time,
+after a most ceremonious welcome, Fremin rose to address them. To render
+his speech to the nation more impressive, he set up in their midst a
+great pole forty or fifty feet in height, from the top of which a wampum
+belt was suspended. He then declared, on the part of Onnontio, that in
+like manner would hang the first Iroquois who should come to kill a
+Frenchman or any one of their allies. At this all the Mohawks--men,
+women, and children--bowed their heads in silent awe, not venturing to
+look at such an extraordinary gift, nor to speak, until the most
+accomplished of their orators, having recovered his senses, rose and
+went through all imaginable mimicries to show his astonishment. As if
+ignorant of its meaning, he gesticulated and declaimed in the liveliest
+manner, though a man of more than sixty years of age. Then discovering
+its true significance, he seized his throat "with both hands in a
+frightful way, grasping it tightly to represent and at the same time
+impress upon the multitude about him the horror of this kind of death.
+After he had spoken, and at length, with a surprising eloquence,
+exhibiting flashes of wit by no means common, he finished," as the
+leading ambassador-priest tells us, "by delivering up the captives we
+demanded, and giving us the choice of the place where we would build our
+chapel, in the erection of which they proposed to go to work with all
+despatch. They, moreover, delivered up to us a Frenchman whom they had
+held captive for some time, and promised us the liberty of twelve
+Algonquins, partly of the nation of the Nez Percés, partly of that of
+the Outaouacs [Ottawas]."
+
+Thus at Tionnontogen the labors of Father Fremin began. He was left
+quite alone among the Mohawks for nearly a year, at the mission of St.
+Mary's as it was henceforth called. He struggled earnestly during that
+time to maintain peace and establish Christianity. His companion, Bruyas
+(whose Mohawk dictionary is exceedingly valuable to students of the
+Indian language), soon went west to the Oneidas, among whom, little by
+little, he learned the Oneida dialect. Pierron, on the other hand, after
+a short stay with Fremin, bent his steps eastward to Schenectady. He
+visited the English and Dutch at Albany to renew the friendly
+intercourse of former days; and then this messenger of peace in the
+early part of the year 1668, travelled back over the great Mohawk
+war-trail, leading northward. He returned to Quebec to report to
+Governor de Courselle the progress of the embassy.
+
+Fremin, left entirely to his own devices in the Mohawk Valley, gathered
+together the captive Christian Hurons, and then went steadily on,
+preaching, teaching, and baptizing. Once when the young warriors were
+torturing an Ottawa captive and preparing to burn him, contrary to the
+articles of peace, the Father by frantic efforts succeeded in saving
+him; but it was only by dint of rushing through the streets of the
+village with cries, threats, and entreaties. They could not withstand
+his zeal. He scattered the assembled crowd. He called down the vengeance
+of Rawenniio and Onnontio upon their castle of Tionnontogen, if they
+persisted in thus breaking the peace. The older men, roused at last by
+his words and actions, put a stop to the outrage. The unhappy victim was
+rescued from a fiery death, but he fell into a lingering fever brought
+on by the fright and the sufferings he had endured. In course of time he
+died, but it was not till he had been fully instructed and baptized by
+the courageous Father, who thus had the gratification of saving both
+body and soul.
+
+On the 7th of October, 1668, Pierron returned from his journey to
+Quebec, and again passed through the lower Mohawk villages on his way to
+the bark chapel of St. Mary's, which had been erected at Tionnontogen
+during his absence. If Tekakwitha saw her former guest at that time, it
+was only as one among a group of Mohawk villagers who watched the
+missionary as he passed through the streets of the Turtle Castle. He was
+hurrying on to meet and to replace Father Fremin. This spirited and
+eloquent founder of the mission now went westward beyond Bruyas at
+Oneida, in order to make a missionary opening among the Senecas, who
+also desired a blackgown. This left Father Pierron alone in his turn in
+charge of the Mohawk mission. His graphic letters to his superiors in
+Canada during the next few years give many a vivid picture of what was
+transpiring at that time in the valley.
+
+He was something of an artist. Before he succeeded in mastering the
+language, he spent much of his time in painting. He found that his
+pictures stimulated the curiosity of the Mohawks. In their efforts to
+get at the meaning of them and to explain them to one another, they
+learned, without realizing it, the very things he wanted to teach them;
+while he, by listening to their explanations, quickly acquired their
+language. As the blackgown's pictures were much talked about in the
+Mohawk villages at this time, and must have influenced the minds of
+Tekakwitha and her relatives, it will be worth while to give Pierron's
+description of one of his own productions. "Among these representations
+I have made," he says, "there is one contrasting a good with a miserable
+death. What led me to make this was that I saw the old men and the old
+women would stop their ears with their fingers the moment I began to
+speak to them of God, and would say to me, 'I do not hear.' I have
+therefore represented on one side of my picture a Christian who dies a
+saintly death, with the hands joined as of one holding the cross and his
+rosary; then his soul is carried by an angel to heaven and the blessed
+spirits appear awaiting it. On the other side, I have put, lower down, a
+woman broken with age, who is dying, and unwilling to listen to a
+missionary Father who points her to paradise; she holds both ears closed
+with her fingers; but a demon from hell seizes her arms and hands, and
+himself puts his fingers in the ears of the dying woman. Her soul is
+carried by three demons; and an angel who comes out of a cloud, sword in
+hand, hurls them into the bottomless pit. This representation," he
+continues, "has furnished me an occasion to speak of the immortality of
+our souls, and of the good and the bad of the other life; and when they
+once catch the import of my picture, no one presumes to say any more, 'I
+do not hear.'"
+
+The "Relation" of the same year[40] tells us that Father Pierron
+accompanied this saintly skill with severe labors making regularly each
+month a visitation of the _seven large villages_, over a space of seven
+and a half leagues in extent, in order that no infant or adult sick
+person should die without receiving baptism.
+
+Father Boniface now arrived at Quebec from France, and was immediately
+selected to go to the Mohawk Valley to second Pierron's zeal. We learn
+further, from the "Relation," that a bitter strife was then in progress:
+"The war [between the Iroquois and the nine nations of the Loups]
+humbles them by the loss of their people; but by preventing their
+permanent stay in one place, it also multiplies obstacles to the
+conversion of the warriors, who divide up into numerous bands to go
+singly against the enemy. The Agniers [Mohawks] and the Loups [Mohegans]
+have brought the war even close to New Orange; and when taken captive
+they burn and eat one another." The Mohegans and their allies had
+certain advantages over the Mohawks. They were more numerous; then, too,
+they were a roving people, difficult to attack, whereas the Mohawks
+lived in villages and had permanent homes. These last, in order to
+defend themselves, took care thoroughly to fortify the castles they were
+then building on the north side of the Mohawk River. As they seem to
+have had seven villages at this time, which is an unusual number, it is
+probable that they either had not entirely abandoned their old sites, or
+else had recently added several villages of captives.
+
+It was while affairs were still in this unsettled condition that
+Tekakwitha went to live on the north bank of the Mohawk River, near the
+Cayudutta Creek at Caughnawaga, or Fonda, a few miles west of her
+earlier home. The French writers continued for some time after this to
+call the new castle of the Turtles on the north bank by its old name of
+Gandawague;[41] to prevent confusion, however, we will henceforth call
+it Caughnawaga, meaning "At the Rapids." That name still clings to a
+part of the present town of Fonda. The rapids of the Mohawk still ripple
+there as of old under the sharp-cut hill where, as proved by relics and
+historic references, the once famous castle stood. The Indians who went
+forth later from this Caughnawaga in the Mohawk Valley to Canada,
+carried with them the familiar word. Settling down beside the great
+rapids of the St. Lawrence River, the sound of rushing water boomed
+louder than before in their ears, and the name Caughnawaga grew into
+history there, as well as here. But there it is still a living name,
+and is passed from mouth to mouth as the well-known home of half the
+Canienga race; for Caughnawaga in Canada holds to-day that part of the
+Mohawk nation which in the wranglings of the white men--that is to say,
+the old French and Indian wars--sided with the French. Brantford, also
+in Canada, contains the other half of the same nation,--the descendants
+of Sir William Johnson's Mohawk followers, who were stanch friends of
+the English. To us Americans, falling heir to their lands, these Mohawks
+have left no living trace of themselves, though some of their brothers,
+the Onondagas and Senecas, still dwell in our midst. The Mohawks have
+gone from us, indeed, leaving us only a memory, all inwrought in a thick
+array of Indian names. Let us try at least to understand and to preserve
+these names, in honor of the brave race that once peopled our hills and
+valleys, our forests and streams.
+
+In the Mohawk Valley, side by side with the name of Fonda, which comes
+to us from the days of the early white settlers, there lingers the still
+older name of Caughnawaga, which is dusky with the shadows of two
+hundred years, and even more. The mere name in partial use there at the
+present day has served to throw some light on the hill and the spring
+near the Cayudutta,--enough, at least, to have called to our minds a
+vision of Mohawk girls with their water-jugs, and to point in a misty
+way to the almost forgotten home of the Lily of the Mohawks. It is
+owing, however, to long, careful, critical research, and not to surmise,
+that the haze of many years has been cleared away at last from the
+actual site of Caughnawaga Castle. The map of Gen. John S. Clark (page
+38) gives its position relative to other Mohawk villages. The plan here
+given, which was drawn by Rev. C. A. Walworth, shows more especially
+where this Indian fortress stood in reference to Fonda, on what are now
+called the "Sand Flats," west of the Cayudutta Creek. The spring which
+supplied the Mohawks with water is seen, distinctly marked in its cove,
+half-way down the hill from the castle, towards the Cayudutta. With this
+plan before us it is needless here to repeat the details of this
+locality already given in the chapter entitled "Tekakwitha's Spring." In
+our opening pages we journeyed all the way up the Mohawk Valley from
+Albany, with here and there a passing glimpse at the scenery, till we
+reached the castle site at Fonda, which was then fully described. Since
+that time we have travelled together through the highways and in the
+byways of history over about thirteen years of Tekakwitha's life. Here
+we are again at Caughnawaga; and now that we are following up the course
+of events in regular order from the birth of Tekakwitha, we find that
+she also has but recently arrived here, having just come to her new home
+from Gandawague. She can scarcely be called a child any longer, since
+she takes upon herself so much of the household care, and yet she is
+quite young. Her life is a busy one. She has taken an active part with
+the women of her family and their neighbors in building the new bark
+house which they occupy within the enclosure of palisades at
+Caughnawaga. Now, at last, they are quite comfortable.
+
+[Illustration: SITE OF CAUGHNAWAGA CASTLE.
+
+(_Also called the "Mission of St. Peter's" of the Mohawks, where
+Tekakwitha was baptized in 1676._)]
+
+This is the way the Mohawks were accustomed to build their permanent
+lodges. They first took saplings, and planted two rows of them firmly in
+the ground. Then they bent the tops of them over across the
+intervening space, and tied them together. The shape of the house
+when finished was not unlike the top of an ambulance wagon. These arched
+ribs were supported and held in place by poles put in horizontally
+across the house, near the top. The whole was then neatly covered with
+square, overlapping pieces of bark, held in place by poles that were
+tied down over them. The holes in the roof for chimneys and windows were
+not forgotten, nor the loose pieces of bark to pull over them in case of
+rain. The Jesuits often found these cabins smoky and dark,--a severe
+test of their patience when engaged in literary pursuits, or even in
+reading their breviaries; but for the Mohawks, who had no such tastes,
+they were good enough.
+
+When the house was finished on which Tekakwitha worked with her aunts
+and her neighbors, it made a secure shelter for a score of families, all
+lodged under the same roof and all on one floor. That floor was the bare
+ground. When the dwelling was fitted up into compartments on either
+side, with spaces down the centre for fires alternating with spaces for
+family gatherings at meal-time; when the matrons had assigned to each
+and every member of the household certain lodge-seats; when mats of
+rushes had been prepared, and robes of skins were in their places for
+bed-clothes on bunks along the sides of the house; when plenty of dried
+corn and smoked meat hung from the ridge-poles of the roof for instant
+use; when the heavy wooden mortar and pestle were made and stood ready
+for pounding the corn; when nice little dishes of bark and wooden bowls
+were at hand, while tucked away in corners were baskets of wampum beads
+all ready to be strung into belts at the proper time,--when all these
+things were in order, then at last, after the move from Gandawague on
+Auries Creek, Tekakwitha felt free to rest and breathe easily. Then she
+might glance leisurely at the patch of sunlight falling on the floor of
+the lodge through the doorway at the far end, and decide in her own mind
+how much time she had before the next meal was to be prepared. Perhaps
+she would go out to take a look at the strong new palisade that her
+uncle and the warriors had planned so carefully for defence against the
+dreaded Mohegans; or she may have preferred to sit quietly by the spring
+for a while in the beautiful little cove. Being so near the castle, it
+was comparatively safe from the lurking enemy, who might attack them at
+any time.
+
+Wentworth Greenhalgh, an Englishman, who went from Albany to Caughnawaga
+in 1677, thus describes the castle: "Cahaniaga is double stockadoed
+round; has four forts [ports?] about four foot wide apiece; conteyns
+about twenty-four houses, and is situated upon the edge of an hill,
+about a bow shott from the river side." He then gives the situation and
+size of the other Mohawk towns at that time, and closes his remarks by
+stating that their corn grew close by the river. The Mohawks chose the
+flats or river-bottoms for corn-fields because they were fertile, and
+besides, they were natural openings, with no trees to be cut down and
+cleared away.
+
+Much of Tekakwitha's time at certain seasons of the year was spent in
+these corn-fields; and she must have witnessed, if not taken part in,
+some of the exciting scenes described by Pierron, who was then making
+his periodical rounds through the Mohawk villages. He frequently gives
+incidents of Mohawk women who were waylaid and scalped or captured by
+desultory bands of Mohegans and other tribes with whom they were at war.
+The constant fear of death that overhung them gave to the minds of these
+Mohawk squaws a serious turn, and made them more willing than they would
+otherwise have been to listen to the warning words of the blackgown.
+More than one of them, haunted perhaps by the remembrance of his
+pictures and his morality games, which were no less ingenious for
+gaining their attention, came and asked for baptism. Pierron succeeded
+also in rousing the chiefs to a sense of the degradation into which the
+constant purchase of brandy and rum at Albany was sinking them. He
+reminded them that when once under its influence they were in no
+condition to repel the attacks either of Satan or the Mohegans. Both he
+and Fremin had themselves been sufferers during the drunken riots of the
+Indians. While the two Fathers were together at Tionnontogen, they
+wrote:--
+
+     "It seems sometimes as if the whole village had run mad, so
+     great is the license they take when they give up to drinking.
+     They have hurled firebrands at our heads; they have thrown our
+     papers into the fire; they have broken open our chapel; they
+     have often threatened us with death; and during the three or
+     four days that these debaucheries last, and which recur with
+     frequency, we must suffer a thousand insults without complaint,
+     without food or sleep. In their fury they upset everything that
+     comes in their way, and even butcher one another, not sparing
+     relative, friend, countryman, nor stranger. These things are
+     carried to such excess that the place seems to us no longer
+     tenable; but we shall leave it only with life.... When the
+     storm is over, we are left to go on with our duties quite
+     peaceably."
+
+This state of things continued for some time, as did also the raids of
+their enemies. It was in the midst of such bristling savage thorns as
+these that the Lily of the Mohawks grew up from childhood into
+womanhood. In her new home at Caughnawaga, during these stormy times she
+lived a sweet, pure life, all uncontaminated. At last the Mohawk chiefs,
+won by Pierron's reiterated arguments, began to realize that they had
+among them, in intoxicating drink, "a foreign demon more to be dreaded
+than those they worship in their dreams." They were induced to take
+measures against this excess in public council, "and, advised by Father
+Pierron that the most effectual means would be themselves to make their
+appeal to the Governor-General of Manhattan, the more prominent among
+them presented a petition which they had drawn for the purpose." This is
+the answer which the Governor gave to the request of the Mohawks and the
+letter of the Father which accompanied it:--
+
+     FATHER,--By your last, I am informed of your complaint, which
+     is seconded by that of the Iroquois chiefs, the Sachems, the
+     Indians, as appears more openly by their petition enclosed in
+     yours, respecting the large quantity of liquors that certain
+     ones of Albany have taken the liberty to sell to the Indians;
+     as a consequence, that great excesses are committed by them,
+     and the worst is feared unless we prevent it. In response, know
+     that I have taken, and will continue to take, all possible
+     care, under the severest penalties, to restrain and oppose the
+     furnishing any excess to the Indians. And I am delighted to see
+     such virtuous thoughts proceed from heathens, to the shame of
+     many Christians; but this must be attributed to your pious
+     instructions, for, well versed in strict discipline, you have
+     shown them the way of mortification both by your precepts and
+     practice.
+
+    Your very humble and affectionate servant,
+    FRANCIS LOVELACE.
+
+     At FORT JAMES, 18th of Nov. 1668.
+
+Fremin and Pierron, during the two years 1668 and 1669, baptized one
+hundred and fifty-one Indians, of which more than half were children or
+aged persons who died shortly after baptism. Says the "Relation":--
+
+     "This should be considered a sufficiently abundant harvest in a
+     waste land, and we may hope for much from such beginnings. We
+     owe, under God, the birth of this flourishing church to the
+     death and blood of the Reverend Father Jogues. He shed it at
+     the very region where the new Christian church begins to arise;
+     and it seems as though we are to see verified in our days, in
+     his person, the beautiful words of Tertullian: 'The blood of
+     martyrs is the seed of Christians.'"
+
+That Pierron was fired with the spirit of Jogues, who founded this
+Mohawk mission in his blood, is proved by the following words, which he
+wrote in a moment of discouragement:--
+
+     "I have attacked drunkenness and lewdness, which are divinities
+     of the country, so madly are these people devoted to them. I
+     have combated these vices.... I have employed gentleness and
+     vigor, threats and entreaties, labors and tears, to build up
+     this new church and to convert these poor savages. There
+     remains nothing more than to shed my blood for their salvation,
+     that which I long for with all the desires of my heart. But
+     after all, I have not yet observed in them those marked
+     amendments which the Holy Spirit effects in those of the
+     heathen whom he would put in the number of the faithful."
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[40] An English translation of this "Relation" is given in the "Early
+Chapters of Mohawk History," by Dr. Hawley.
+
+[41] See Appendix, Note B.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+THE MOHEGANS ATTACK THE NEW CASTLE.--BATTLE OF KINAQUARIONES.--THE FEAST
+OF THE DEAD.
+
+
+In the year 1669, in one of the long bark-houses at Caughnawaga on a
+summer morning before the dawn, Tekakwitha is turning uneasily in her
+sleep. Suddenly her aunt springs up beside her and speaks in a startled
+voice. In an instant all in the lodge are on the alert. Sharp, wild
+cries are heard; bullets pierce the stout palisade, and come whizzing
+through the bark sides of the new house. The warriors, roused from
+sleep, seize their nearest weapons, be they guns, war-clubs, tomahawks,
+or arrows. A hurried word to the women, a loud whoop, a few bounding
+steps, and they are on the platform of the palisade hurling defiance at
+an assaulting army of Mohegans. Before them are hundreds of the foe in
+war-paint and feathers, led by a stout man of middle age,--the wise and
+gallant Chickatabutt, the great sachem of the Massachusetts. His bearing
+makes him conspicuous among a score of famous sagamores who are leading
+the assault. In the motley ranks that follow are Hudson River Indians,
+mingled with the red-skin neighbors of the Puritans, grim old warriors
+of the Massachusetts tribe. There are also Narragansett braves and other
+New England Indians,--all united in a desperate attempt to crush the
+Mohawks, and thus break in through the eastern door of the Long House
+of the Five Nations. The assailants seek, now by open attack and now by
+strategy, to dislodge the defenders of Caughnawaga from their lofty
+scaffolds, and to fire the palisade. Four Mohawks drop from their places
+dead, and two are wounded; but the Mohegans make no perceptible headway
+against the defensive works of the Castle. The struggle continues with
+unabated fury. Among those who fall on the side of the enemy are pupils
+of the English missionary Eliot, who know something of the Bible which
+he has translated for them. Five of these converts to Puritanism are
+engaged in this expedition, of whom but one escapes with his life. They
+too, like the ever increasing neophytes of Pierron, are called "praying
+Indians." Their chief Chickatabutt--or Josiah, as he is often
+called--was himself a "praying Indian" once. That was when he lived with
+his pious uncle Kuchamakin, one of Eliot's favorite pupils. "He kept the
+Sabbath several years," says Gookin; "but after turned apostate, and for
+several years last past separated from the praying Indians, and was but
+a back friend to religion." Indeed the English, who had a good opinion
+of him in his early days, now thought him "a very vitious person,"
+though all acknowledged he was as brave as brave could be.
+
+The Puritans had tried in vain to dissuade their Indian neighbors from
+accompanying this chief on his adventurous march to the Mohawk Valley.
+In spite of every drawback, however, Chickatabutt, whose name means
+"A-house-afire," had succeeded in bringing his army all the way from the
+vicinity of Boston to the castle of Caughnawaga. After they were joined
+by their allies, they numbered six or seven hundred men.[42] True, they
+had spent much of their ammunition on the march,--"shooting away their
+powder in the air, ... boasting, vapouring, and prating of their
+valour," at the Indian villages where they had stopped for foraging
+purposes. It was their consequent lack of ammunition which determined
+them to carry the Mohawk Castle, if possible, by assault. But the brave
+Caniengas, or "People of the Flint," though taken by surprise in their
+sleep, were quick to grapple with the daring Mohegans, and fought like
+panthers. They were not to be easily overcome, by any roving Indian foe,
+in defence of their women and their homes. The squaws of Caughnawaga,
+with the well-known courage of their race, realized their perilous
+situation at the first alarm, and were "arming themselves with knives
+and defensive weapons in case a breach should be made." The youths of
+the village were, many of them, fighting their first important battle on
+this occasion. The sight of the Mohawk women and young girls, arming
+themselves as best they could to resist the Mohegan attack, was in
+itself an irresistible appeal to their tribesmen to exert themselves to
+the utmost in defending them against the well-known horrors of
+captivity, which would undoubtedly come upon them if the castle fell
+into the hands of the enemy. Many a young brave was nerved to desperate
+feats of valor on that morning and during the days that followed.
+Beginning with the sudden attack at dawn, the struggle continued for a
+long time with uncertain issue. News was carried to Tionnontogen that
+the whole country was lost; that Caughnawaga was besieged by an army of
+Mohegans; that all the youth had already fallen, and perhaps Gandagaro,
+the adjacent fort, was in extremity. These reports, though exaggerated,
+caused the Mohawk warriors of the other castles to gather as fast as
+possible at Caughnawaga. Even had they been all there at the very first,
+they would still have been fewer in numbers than the enemy; but before
+the sun was high, enough of them had assembled to warrant a sally on the
+foe. Father Pierron was now at the castle, and a witness of the stirring
+events taking place there. Tekakwitha, too, was taking her part among
+the young girls, whose fate now hung in the balance. The missionary thus
+describes what followed:--
+
+     "By eight o'clock in the morning our warriors without confusion
+     promptly arrayed themselves with all they have of greatest
+     value, as is their custom in such encounters, and with no other
+     leader than their own courage went out in full force against
+     the enemy. I was with the first to go to see if, amid the
+     carnage about the palisades of the village, where so many
+     unbelieving souls would perish, I might not be able to save
+     some one. On our arrival, we heard only cries of lamentation
+     over the death of the bravest of the village. The enemy had
+     retired after two hours of most obstinate fighting on both
+     sides. There was but a single warrior of the Loups [Mohegans]
+     left on the ground; and I saw that a Barbarian, after cutting
+     off his hands and feet, had flayed him, and was stripping the
+     flesh from the bones for a hateful repast."
+
+This was to honor Aireskoi! Tekakwitha, ever helpful and ready to assist
+others, would probably be where she was most needed at that time,--with
+the bereaved women who were seeking their dead, and with those who
+ministered to the wounded. No heart so quick as hers to turn with
+loathing from the hideous human sacrifice that was being prepared
+outside the castle walls. With the good deeds of the blackgown Pierron
+hourly before her, and the sound of his voice often in her ears,--for
+this missionary could doctor as well as preach,[43]--she must have had
+constantly in her mind the thought of Rawenniio during this time of
+peril and anxiety, and would not fail to call in spirit on the God of
+the Christians for assistance against the foe.
+
+The Mohegan army sat down before the castle, besieging it for some days
+without effect, though there was much firing back and forth. The
+provisions they had brought with them were about exhausted and their
+munition well spent. Some of their people were sick, and they saw the
+impossibility of getting the stronghold by assault. So they broke up the
+siege, to the great relief of the imprisoned Mohawks, and retreated
+twenty miles in the direction of the Dutch settlements. This brought
+them to Kinaquariones,[44] now called Towereune, a steep rocky hill on
+the north side of the Mohawk River. It is just above Hoffman's Ferry,
+nine English or three Dutch miles west of Schenectady; there they
+temporarily entrenched themselves. The Mohawks, who did not know of this
+camp, though secure for the time being in their castle, felt that in
+any case no time should be lost in following up the enemy as soon as
+they could make the necessary preparation. The women of Caughnawaga,
+having laid aside their weapons, began at once to assist the warriors in
+making ready the supply of meal which according to custom was to be
+carried on the war-path. This was soon done, as they had but to add a
+little maple-sugar or other seasoning to the pounded corn, which they
+had already twice charred or dried for use on just such expeditions. The
+warriors of the Mohawk nation were now all assembled to go in pursuit of
+the Mohegans. Every man was fully armed and equipped, and their deerskin
+pockets were well filled with the crushed corn. They put themselves
+under the leadership of the brave warrior Kryn, surnamed the "Great
+Mohawk." His home was at Caughnawaga, and his valor and good management
+on this expedition won for him a new title, that of "Conqueror of the
+Mohegans." He and his fellow tribesmen now hastily bade adieu to their
+families, who, together with the blackgown Pierron, were to remain at
+the castle; then they embarked in canoes on the Mohawk, and aided by the
+force of the current soon disappeared around the great bend of the river
+in the direction of old Ossernenon on the route to the pale-face
+settlements. Anxious eyes and thoughts followed them. The bravest of two
+warlike races were now likely at any moment to meet in a decisive
+conflict, and who dare foretell the result? Not Tekakwitha, who waited
+in silence and concern; nor her more voluble companions, whose anxiety
+took the form of restlessness. Having all done their share in defending
+the castle, they could now only watch and wait, looking often in the
+direction of the vanished braves, and hoping for news of the expedition
+from chance stragglers. In the mean-time the women were free to go back
+and forth to the spring, to care for the wounded, and to prepare the
+bodies of the dead for burial.
+
+The day after the departure of the warriors there were rumors of a
+desperate battle in progress about twenty miles away; and on the
+following day at three o'clock in the afternoon, came certain news of
+victory. It was a great triumph for the Mohawks or Caniengas, bravest of
+the bold Kanonsionni. Chickatabutt, the sachem of the Massachusetts, was
+slain. The noblest of the Mohegan warriors fell at his side. Those who
+escaped fled away to their distant kindred humbled and ashamed, with
+lamentations and mourning for the loss of most of their chief men. The
+Mohawks were greatly elated. The gloom that hung over Caughnawaga was
+changed to glad excitement. All prepared to welcome home the heroes of
+the battle of Kinaquariones. Father Pierron started at once and alone in
+the direction of the battle-field to visit the wounded. He wished also to
+manifest to the warriors his interest in their victory. He arrived on
+the spot before nightfall. The warriors were glad to see him, and eager
+to relate all the particulars of the fight. This proved to be the last
+great battle between the Mohawks and the Mohegans. Its deeds of valor
+were told and retold for many a day at the Turtle Village and in
+Tekakwitha's hearing with all the usual boastfulness of the Indian.
+Pierron wrote a full account of all that happened from the time the
+Mohawk war-party set out from the castle in their canoes till they
+returned to their homes in triumph. It is here given in his own
+words:--
+
+     "Night overtaking them [the Mohawks] in their pursuit, they
+     sent in advance certain of their number in quest of the enemy,
+     and quietly to discover the place where he was encamped. As the
+     scouts came within sight of the spot, desiring a better view of
+     the situation, they drew still nearer. But notwithstanding
+     their great caution, one of the Loups on guard close by,
+     hearing a noise, gave the customary challenge, _Koue, koue_
+     (this is the 'Who comes there?' of the savages); as there was
+     no response and he saw nothing, he did not deem it necessary to
+     give the alarm.
+
+     From the report given by the spies on their return of the
+     condition of the enemy, it was determined not to attack him in
+     his lodging-place, where he appeared too well entrenched, but
+     to prepare an ambush on the route it was believed he would
+     take. In the execution of this plan, the Iroquois made a wide
+     détour to lay their ambuscade in a cragged and most
+     advantageous pass which commanded the only route in the
+     direction of the Hollanders. In the morning the Loups decamped;
+     and as they marched in single file, after the Indian custom,
+     twelve of them fell unexpectedly into the ambuscade. A shower
+     of balls of which they were all at once made aware, immediately
+     put to flight those that the casualty had spared. Frightful
+     cries at once rang through the forest, and the Loups rallied at
+     the same place where they had encamped. The Iroquois pursued
+     them with vigor. On overtaking them, they made a fierce
+     assault. The Loups at first made a stout resistance; but the
+     cowardice of some among them forcing the main body to recede
+     before the fury of the Iroquois, ten of the whole band made a
+     stand within their works to defend themselves unto death. This
+     new entrenchment greatly harassed our _Agniés_ [Mohawks] but as
+     they are an indefatigable and brave people, they did not lose
+     courage nor the hope of driving out the enemy; and to succeed
+     in this with the least peril, they made use of an old tree,
+     which they found there, and which they carried in front of them
+     for protection. This they were able to do, instead of going up
+     one by one to the place where the enemy was fortified. Their
+     skill however did not avail them; for notwithstanding this
+     device, the Loups did not omit to open a heavy fire from all
+     sides, killing and wounding a number of our people; and the
+     fight without doubt would have been still more disastrous if
+     night had not terminated it. Our Indians captured at the outset
+     four women of the twenty-four who accompanied the expedition,
+     and six men subsequently in the heat of the combat.
+
+     The next morning as they were ready to renew the attack, they
+     found that the enemy had made their escape during the night,
+     and that they were left masters of the battle-field. The
+     victors, following the custom of the savages, tomahawked and
+     scalped the Loups left on the place, and then took care to bury
+     those of their own people who had been slain in the fight."
+
+The Mohawks declared that nearly a hundred warriors on the side of the
+enemy had perished, either by the sword in the fray or by water in
+flight. "This was probably an exaggeration," continues Pierron, "as only
+nineteen scalps were secured."[45] According to the story of the Mohegan
+captives, they lost fifty men on their side, thirteen falling on the
+field of battle; while they killed altogether nearly forty of the
+Mohawks.
+
+Pierron thus describes the triumphal march back to Caughnawaga from the
+field of action:--
+
+     "We left two days after the combat, in company with a large
+     number, both those who had taken part in the fight and those
+     who had come to look on. The victors bore the scalps well
+     painted, at the end of long batons made to support their
+     trophies. The captives, divided into several bands, marched
+     with singing; and as I perceived that one of the women had a
+     sick infant which she carried at the breast, I thought I would
+     do well to baptize it, seeing it was about to die."
+
+The blackgown accordingly took occasion to approach the mother as they
+were crossing a stream, caught up a handful of water, and saying the
+short baptismal words, poured it on the little head, which soon drooped
+in death. He had already instructed some of the captives, and in the
+course of a few days all of them asked for baptism. On first reaching
+the castle, the Mohegan prisoners of war were received and tortured in
+the usual manner. Pierron could do nothing for them while the heat of
+passion and enmity toward the victims lasted; but watching his chance he
+saw that they were left alone for a time on the torture scaffold, before
+being killed, surrounded still by the ghastly scalps of their
+companions. He at once led them down from the hateful platform, and took
+them into a cabin near by, to prepare them, if possible, for a Christian
+death. While he was speaking to them earnestly of their salvation, some
+of the Iroquois came and stood near, saying to one another, "Do you see
+how he loves our enemies?" Some among them added, "He ought to leave
+them to burn in hell,--people who have done us so much evil." Pierron,
+overhearing this, turned about, and seeing that a crowd of the villagers
+had assembled, caught up the words of the discontented Mohawks, and
+taking them for his text, explained so well and so forcibly the teaching
+of Christ on the Mount, that in a little while the Indians who had
+gathered about him were all of one mind, and declared that he did well
+to teach the captives. They no longer interfered with his self-imposed
+task, but gave him ample time to instruct them. Before the doomed
+Mohegans were finally put to death, they all received baptism; among
+them, we are told, was "one of the bravest and most celebrated warriors
+of that nation, who in the combat had slain with his own hand several
+Iroquois." Submitting to Pierron's influence, the fierce Mohawks did not
+grudge even to this warrior whatever happiness he might be able to
+secure, through the blackgown's ministrations, in another world. Little
+by little these Mohawks were veering round in the direction of
+Christianity, under the firm and steady but gentle guidance of their
+devoted missionary. Whether or not they were willing to listen, his
+stirring voice still rang in their ears; and whether or not they
+realized the fact, it was certainly true that he was treated every day
+with more and more of respect and trust.
+
+The next important event that took place at Caughnawaga was the Feast of
+the Dead. Here again, though Tekakwitha was certainly present and must
+have known all that was going on, her biographers have given no account
+of it. Pierron, however, has taken care to write out a full description
+of this great feast; it occurred only once in ten years. He, of course,
+in his important position as the representative among them both of
+Christianity and of his French countrymen, deals only with what
+concerned the whole Mohawk nation. He had little or no time to note the
+changes that were taking place in the young Tekakwitha; no word had
+passed between the two since his return from Quebec. If she had aught to
+say to him, she was forbidden to say it. Likely enough he did not even
+recognize her when he saw her, though he may have remembered the
+appearance of a little maiden who some years before had lodged him at
+Gandawague.
+
+We who have followed the course of her life more closely, can easily
+single out Tekakwitha from the crowd that has gathered to witness the
+strange ceremonies that are taking place in the woods not far from the
+castle. The bones of all the friends and relations of these people who
+have died within the last ten years have been carefully and reverently
+cleaned, scraped, and collected together to be deposited in a common pit
+prepared for their reception. The best and richest of beaver-skins and
+other furs are freely brought forward, that the pit may be lined with
+their beautiful warm surfaces. It is at night, amid the wailing chants
+of the women and the flaming of torches, that the relics of the dead,
+with many a last caressing touch, are deposited in the great pit; they
+are encased in separate robes with precious gifts. There are many tragic
+demonstrations of grief. A weird, pathetic scene it is; and it makes a
+strange and lasting impression on the minds of the young people who
+witness it for the first time. After the pit has been filled and covered
+over, the women are to be seen trudging back and forth to the village
+with hampers of food, to be deposited on the gigantic grave for the use
+of their departed friends. It is only after the Feast of the Dead is
+over that the soul is supposed to take its final journey to the
+spirit-land. Previous to this celebration they believe that it hovers
+near the body, which they expose on a bark scaffold, or else put in a
+sitting posture in a temporary grave covered lightly with bark or twigs.
+
+During the progress of this feast quite a dispute arises among the
+assembled chiefs concerning the treatment received by Pierron. He has
+been cordially invited to be present, and now stands among the
+dignitaries of the Mohawk nation in company with Tekakwitha's uncle and
+other chiefs. The blackgown lets no part of the ceremony escape his
+notice. Distinguished guests from Oneida and Onondaga have placed
+themselves in separate groups, according to custom. An Onondaga chief
+has risen to make a speech. Near enough to see and hear what is going on
+are the women of Caughnawaga, who so lately took part in the defence of
+the castle. Tekakwitha's blanket partly conceals her face, but she is
+quite as richly dressed as the other young squaws. What she does not see
+or hear directly she can quickly gather from the talk of those about
+her. When the Onondaga has finished speaking, the Mohawk chiefs recount
+in turn the leading superstitions and fables of the nation; they are
+well known already to most of the people, who only half listen to what
+is being said. Presently there is a stir among the Mohawk dignitaries,
+which centres the attention of all within earshot on the group. Pierron,
+it seems, has ceased to be a silent listener to what passes. He begins
+in his turn to tell fables, giving them here and there an extremely
+ridiculous turn. In the midst of it he is abruptly ordered by one of the
+chiefs to be silent. All are now eager to get at the truth of what has
+occurred. Some loudly upbraid the chief for his discourtesy; others
+bitterly accuse Pierron of an untimely interference with their customs.
+They say that he has been openly ridiculing their beliefs; his mouth
+must be stopped at once. But Pierron, knowing full well his influence
+with the people, and judiciously appealing to their love of fair play,
+boldly addresses the offending chief in these words, now distinctly
+heard by the listening throng: "Dost thou know, indeed, that thou hast
+given me the keenest affront I could have received? But who art thou to
+order me to be silent, and am I here to obey thee? If I had treated thee
+after this sort at Quebec, wouldst thou not have had cause to complain;
+but in what have I spoken evil, that my mouth should be closed? And if I
+speak the truth, why art thou not willing to hear?" The chief replied
+that it was their custom on these occasions to keep up their fables.
+Pierron stoutly rejoined: "It is your custom to get intoxicated;
+honestly, is it a good custom, and ought I to approve it? It is your
+custom to violate every law of reason, and to live as the beasts; think
+you it is not my duty to reprove you for all these vices? And yet you
+impose silence upon me when I would speak to you. Is this reasonable?"
+As Pierron and the chief could come to no agreement, the blackgown
+withdrew from among the Mohawks when the singing began, and took his
+place in the group of Onondaga guests, who received him with marked
+respect.
+
+The ceremony lasted five hours. When it was over Pierron returned at
+once to Caughnawaga village, leaving the Mohawks still in the forest on
+the spot where the solemnity was conducted. A rumor was circulated there
+to the effect that the blackgown meant to return to Quebec. It was not
+long before the brusque Mohawk chief who had given offence came to him
+in the village to offer an apology for his conduct, saying: "My brother,
+up to this hour we have acted toward each other as the two best friends
+in the world." Then placing his hand on his heart, he added: "Tell me
+then, frankly, in what humor is thy soul? They say that thou goest to
+Quebec, and will no more come to live with us. If this be so, I implore
+thee not to get us into difficulty with Onnontio; for this would bring
+trouble upon thyself, if so many, both old and young, who greatly love
+and honor thee, should for this reason receive ill-treatment. Tell me,
+then, what is in thy heart, and what are thy sentiments?"
+
+Pierron, in a grave and serious manner seldom assumed by him, replied:
+"It has been told thee that I have an irritated mind and a heart full of
+grief. This is true, and thou knowest well that thou art the cause; thou
+hast treated me with the greatest indignity. Thou hast even presumed to
+impose silence when I would speak of the faith, which is the thing of
+all else, as thou art not ignorant, I have most at heart. Did it not
+confuse thee to see me so well received by the Onondagas, whom I did not
+know, driven out by those who professed to be our friends?"
+
+After listening patiently till he was through, the chief said with
+earnestness: "My brother, I see what is at the bottom of this quarrel;
+it is that we are not yet Christians. But if thou wilt leave this
+important affair to me, I promise thee success. This is what thou must
+do: First convoke a council, and then having given three belts to our
+three families, at each present speak out thy mind. After this, leave me
+to act, and I trust all will go well."
+
+All did go well, to the great delight of Father Pierron. The old chief,
+who was high in authority, went to work so energetically, sending his
+nephews out in every direction, that he soon assembled all the grandees
+of the Mohawk nation in the cabin of Pierron. The blackgown did indeed
+speak out his mind with such decided effect that his words were received
+with loud cries of applause. He threw down a fathom of wampum, saying:
+"Agnié, my brother, if it is true that thou art willing to hear me,
+there is my voice, which warns thee and entreats thee wholly to renounce
+Agreskoue, and never speak to him, but to adore the true God and follow
+His law."
+
+He threw down a second fathom of wampum, to oblige the medicine men no
+more to invoke demons for the cure of diseases, but to use natural
+remedies. Again and again the speaker was applauded; even the medicine
+men who were present in the assembly showed their good will on this
+occasion. The last present to destroy the superstition of the dances was
+received with no less acclamation than the other two. It was Pierron's
+moment of triumph, the reward of his unceasing efforts in their behalf!
+The whole Mohawk nation seemed ready to do his will. The council which
+met some days after, included the delegation from Onondaga. These
+distinguished strangers had just returned from the visit they made to
+the Dutch after taking part in the Feast of the Dead.
+
+Garacontié, the chief of the Onondagas, himself soon to become a
+Christian, now raised his powerful voice in support of Pierron, saying
+to the people, "Take his word, for he has sacrificed all for you." The
+blackgown triumphed at last. The sorcerers of the village cast their
+turtle-shell rattles into the fire, the women no longer called in the
+medicine men to cure their diseases, no dances were allowed which were
+not approved by Pierron, and the oyanders (or nobles) brought their
+youth in crowds to the chapel to be instructed. What more could the
+blackgown wish? Alas! he knew the Indians too well; and he adds in the
+moment of his success, "Their natural inconstancy still divides my heart
+between fear and joy."
+
+So far as Tekakwitha was concerned, no fear as yet disturbed the calm
+content of her spirit. The Lily of the Mohawks, quite unnoticed in the
+retirement of her lodge, was taking note of all these things, and was
+waxing fairer every day in the sunny light of Rawenniio's presence in
+the land. The true God, the Great Spirit, they tell her, is now to be
+worshipped by all the people. She hears them cry out through the
+village, "Hail to Rawenniio! Down with sorcery! Down with Aireskoi!"
+These words are like sweet music in the ears of Tekakwitha. She is in a
+dream of happiness, a day-dream of the spirit. Her busy fingers drop
+their work, unconscious of this unaccustomed idleness; her thoughts are
+all of God. Tekakwitha's first and last and only love is Rawenniio. She
+hears his voice, she feels his presence in the purer air she breathes,
+for Aireskoi has fallen from his throne. In the quiet and seclusion of
+the long-house, all alone, she hears the noises of the crowd outside,
+like distant murmurs; but the name of "the true God" echoes in her ears,
+and she is happy. Why not leave her so? Let us not disturb her. Why
+should she be roused to suffer? Must the Lily droop her head and thirst
+and die, like the rest of Rawenniio's flowers? Alas! it must be so. But
+let us not forget that this Lily of the Mohawks has a soul, though it is
+still like a little bird that breathes and just begins to move, but has
+not tried its strength. In sorrow the wings of the soul are developed.
+When once they have grown strong, it will be easy for Tekakwitha to fly
+away through the door of death to Rawenniio.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[42] This is the number given by Gookin, who was an Indian agent and
+magistrate of the Massachusetts Colony at the time of this expedition.
+Pierron in his account mentions only three hundred.
+
+[43] Pierron had ridiculed the practices of the sorcerers and medicine
+men so effectually that they no longer attempted to use their charms and
+spells in his presence.
+
+[44] See note of J. S. Clark in "Early Chapters of Mohawk History," by
+Dr. Hawley (no. xx., as printed in the "Auburn Advertiser").
+
+[45] Gookin says of the Mohegans: "About fifty of their chief men, they
+confess, were slain in this fight; but I suppose more."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+WILL TEKAKWITHA MARRY?
+
+
+"It is time for Tekakwitha to marry," said her aunts. Her uncle was of
+the same opinion. "She will make a desirable wife," they thought, "a
+docile and a useful one. It will be easy to find a brave young hunter
+for her, who will be glad to live in the lodge of the leading chief at
+Caughnawaga. Then there will always be plenty of game brought to the
+lodge for food, and a good supply of furs to exchange at Albany for the
+goods of the _cloth-workers_." Thus the adopted parents of the young
+girl put their wise old heads together, and soon Tekakwitha's peace of
+mind was sadly disturbed by their new-laid plans. Until now she had been
+happy in her own way. Her uncommon skill and natural ingenuity developed
+and found vent in her daily tasks, though sometimes, to be sure, they
+must have become wearisome and monotonous. It was she who pounded the
+Indian corn and made the soup or sagamite, day after day. This sagamite
+took the place of bread with the Indians. She also distributed the food
+when prepared to the members of the family, and saw that each person's
+dish was properly filled at the right time. Like all generous natures,
+she was accustomed to take more than her share of the burden, and likely
+enough, less than her share of the sagamite. Chauchetière speaks more
+than once of her _esprit_, her ready wit, and also of her skill. He
+says:--
+
+     "Judging from the work which I have seen her do, it will be
+     easy for me to affirm that she worked delicately in porcupine
+     and in elk-skin. She made the belts (or burden-straps) with
+     which the Indian women and girls carry wood; she made those
+     which the old men use in conducting the affairs of the nation,
+     which are composed of beads of _porcelaine_ (wampum); and one
+     of the occupations of the squaws is also to sew, since they
+     have learned how to do it, either from those who have been
+     slaves among them or from the wives of Christians from Europe.
+     She knew well how to make certain ribbons which the savages
+     make with the skins of eels or strong bark. She prepared these
+     skins or this bark, and she reddened them, applying the color
+     with sturgeon paste, which is used very skilfully among the
+     Iroquois. She knew more than other Iroquois girls, for she
+     could make nets very well indeed and _quaisses_ (buckets which
+     the savages use to draw water); thus her dexterity furnished
+     her with plenty of occupation. Sometimes she was making a
+     pestle or pounder for crushing Indian corn, sometimes she was
+     forming a mat out of bark, and again she was preparing poles on
+     which to hang the ears of corn."
+
+Although she was the youngest in her uncle's family, and was delicate
+from the time her mother died, she was always the first one at work and
+the last to take a holiday. It was quite a trial to her, then, when she
+found--the first symptom of trouble to come--that she would no longer be
+allowed to spend her time as best pleased herself. Her aunts now
+insisted that she should wear her prettiest moccasins and all her
+ornaments, and that she should go with them to dances and feasts, for
+which she had a distaste and some features of which were loathsome to
+her. She was so accustomed, from an inborn sense of duty, to obey those
+who stood to her in the place of father and mother, that she went as far
+toward fulfilling their wishes in regard to her costume and her
+attendance at popular amusements as her extreme timidity and acute sense
+of modesty would allow. These last-mentioned qualities were among her
+most marked characteristics. Her aunts, whose natures were of a very
+different fibre from her own, could have had little or no thought how
+this compliance on her part out of respect for them distressed her.
+Although it could scarcely have cast the faintest shadow of a mist
+across the whiteness of her soul, she was known long afterwards to
+regret and to grieve bitterly for this indulgence in little vanities.
+
+Her aunts could not and did not try to understand her. They thought she
+was queer. It seemed strange to them that Tekakwitha took so little
+pleasure in the festive customs of the Mohawks. They decided that it was
+due to her Algonquin origin. In other words, she was like her mother. So
+much the worse for her. It would have pleased them better to have had
+her resemble her father's family. But after all, the Algonquins were a
+gentle, yielding race, and they thought they would soon bend her to
+their will. When they stated plainly the object they had in view in thus
+bringing her forward,--which was that she should marry,--Tekakwitha's
+whole nature was roused to resistance at the mere mention of such a
+thing, and every power of her soul was brought into action to thwart
+their plan. Though long accustomed to be docile and obey, she showed at
+this time a sudden development of will, with inherent force to mould
+its own fate, and a strength of character that had not before asserted
+itself. This must have proved to her aunts that after all there was
+something of the Mohawk in her nature. Sure of her own natural and
+inalienable right to decide for herself in this important question, she
+was unconquerable. This is clearly shown in the struggle of will against
+will, in which she was now enlisted and in which the odds were decidedly
+against her. But though her whole nature was roused at the well-meant,
+though in this case unwelcome and premature proposition of her aunts,
+Tekakwitha was too wise and too self-poised to break at once into open
+rebellion. She did not announce her secret determination to go through
+fire and water, if necessary, rather than submit to the plan of her
+relatives. Why she did not wish to marry was perhaps at that time as
+much a mystery to herself as to others; but the fact remained. She could
+not and would not think of it for a moment. "When, therefore, they
+proposed to establish her in life," says Cholenec, "she excused herself
+under different pretexts, alleging, above all, her extreme youth and the
+little inclination she had to enter into marriage. The relatives seemed
+to approve of these reasons;" but the matter was not allowed to rest for
+any length of time. Charlevoix tells us that she made an energetic
+resistance to all offers. For the moment it was not insisted upon; but
+soon they returned to the charge, and to spare themselves the trouble of
+listening to her remonstrances, engaged her without her knowledge to a
+young man. As his alliance appeared desirable to the family of the
+chief, the proposition was made, according to custom, both to him and
+to the members of his family; while Tekakwitha alone, the very one to
+whom it was of the utmost consequence, was kept in entire ignorance of
+the proceeding. This was easily done, owing to her habitual seclusion
+and the peculiar custom of the country.
+
+"Whenever marriage is in agitation," to use once more the words of
+Cholenec, "the business is to be settled by the parents, and the parties
+most interested are not even permitted to meet. It is sufficient that
+they are talking of the marriage of a young Indian with a young female
+to induce them with care to shun seeing and speaking with each other.
+When the parents on both sides have agreed, the young man comes by night
+to the wigwam of his future spouse and seats himself near her; which is
+the same as declaring that he takes her for his wife and she takes him
+for her husband." The bride then presents the young man with sagamite or
+corn-cakes and sometimes with wood, in token of what is to be her duty
+in the lodge. He, on his part, sends presents of beaver-skins to the
+family of the bride. Thus marriages were made among the Iroquois
+Indians.
+
+Tekakwitha's relations, not knowing the force of the young girl's will,
+decided among themselves that the shortest and easiest way to overcome
+her unaccountable opposition would be to take her by surprise. They did
+not even allow her to choose the person to whom she was to be united.
+They desired to entrap her unaware into the simple and silent ceremony
+of an Iroquois marriage. Thus her fate would be sealed and she forced to
+submit. Would she be able to thwart this wicked plan? And what effect
+would it be likely to have on her future conduct? Her aunts acted
+coldly and harshly in this momentous matter, quite disregarding her
+rights and her feelings. They felt too confident of success to look
+beyond the present moment, or else they presumed very far indeed on her
+well-known sweet temper and kindly disposition.
+
+Chauchetière, who received his information chiefly from Tegonhatsihongo,
+says of her character and reputation at this time:--
+
+     "She was neither vicious, nor a gad-about, nor a great
+     chatterer, nor idle, nor proud, which is a common vice among
+     the young savages. She was not attached to visions nor to
+     dreams, neither had she ever cared much to assist at dances or
+     games; and she had shown on several occasions that she was
+     prudent; but she was naturally timid, not daring to show
+     herself when there was need that she should."
+
+Tekakwitha sat one evening on a low seat by the fire,--her own
+lodge-seat, which had been assigned to her by the chief matron in her
+uncle's household. The light of the blazing fagots before her played on
+her beaded moccasins and showed off to advantage her richly embroidered
+skirt. In her sitting posture it hung far over and half concealed her
+pretty leggings. Strings of wampum beads in curious devices were about
+her neck, and the end of a long rich scarf or girdle which she wore lay
+on the ground beside her. Her work for the day was done, and she had
+donned these things in obedience to her aunt's desire. Why, she did not
+know, and little cared. They often had company; then why not to-night?
+One of her aunts had given the finishing touch to her costume, and
+dressed her hair with her own hands. It was not by any means the first
+time she had done so. The guests, whoever they might prove to be, seemed
+to have changed their minds and gone elsewhere, for she was now left
+quite to herself. She was just weary enough to enjoy fully the rest and
+quiet, and was thinking perhaps of a pattern which she intended to work
+into a wampum belt for her uncle to be used in making a treaty,--likely
+enough it would be for the treaty of peace between the Mohawks and
+Mohegans which was brought about after the battle of Kinaquariones, by
+the people of Albany. Or she may have had in mind, as she sat there
+musing by the fireside, one of the blackgown's pictures which she had
+lately seen. If she had noticed at all the rich gift of furs that had
+been brought to the lodge and carefully put away, she never suspected
+that it was meant for a wedding present from the family of a young man
+for whom her aunts had expressed great esteem. But now, while her
+thoughts are far from any such idea, the young man who desires her for
+his wife, and who has been kept by the laws of Indian decorum from
+approaching her for some time past or addressing her himself on the
+subject, enters the wigwam in holiday attire. He is accompanied by some
+of his relatives, whilst those of Tekakwitha step forward to receive
+them. The eye of the young Indian kindles with pleasure at sight of his
+bride so gayly bedecked with all the insignia of her rank. Her apparent
+unconcern at what is passing he easily attributes either to maiden
+coyness or Indian stoicism. Besides, all know that she is extremely shy.
+So, with ready assurance of a welcome, he walks quickly toward her, and
+seats himself in silence by her side. Tekakwitha, utterly taken by
+surprise, is for a moment bewildered, disconcerted. Her aunts now bid
+her present the young man with some sagamite.[46] In a moment she
+realizes what they are doing,--that in spite of herself she is taking
+part in her own wedding. The hot blood rushes to her face. She blushes,
+but gives no other sign of what is in her mind. What can she do? For an
+instant she is in an agony of suspense. Then, with quick determination,
+she rises abruptly, and all aflame with indignation, passes, quick as
+thought, out of the long-house. Could her relatives have fancied she had
+risen to do their bidding? Her aunts knew better. Unflinchingly she had
+met their scowling looks, and felt the keen, fierce eye of her uncle
+upon her as she moved toward the door. Had her path been over red-hot
+coals, it would have made no difference then to Tekakwitha. Her only and
+overmastering impulse was to escape at all hazards,--no matter how nor
+where. Once out of the stifling air of the cabin, she hurried on and on,
+taking an accustomed path, out of mere force of habit, till it brought
+her to the familiar corn-fields. There, breathless and trembling, she
+hid herself away, with a prayer to Rawenniio to save her from the young
+hunter whom she did not want, and also from the angry eyes of her
+relatives, which like burning irons pierced her heart. Soon they came to
+seek her, and urged her with threats and with entreaty to go back to the
+cabin. They had made excuses for her absence; and if she would but
+return with them now, all would yet be well. Tekakwitha, who was by
+this time calm and collected, replied quietly but firmly that she would
+not enter the lodge at all while the young man was there. Finding it
+impossible to move her, they returned and explained the affair as best
+they could to the relatives of the now indignant young hunter. He had
+been no less surprised at her strange conduct than she had been at his
+unexpected errand to the lodge. There was no course left for him but to
+withdraw. She then returned to the lodge, and having borne the brunt of
+angry words with which she was received, retired wearily to rest in the
+angry silence which followed.
+
+It was many and many a long day to Tekakwitha before the storm which she
+thus raised about her own head had spent its fury in a series of
+domestic persecutions, till at last it was lulled to rest by the calm
+endurance of her firm but gentle spirit. Several times after this her
+relatives tried to force her into marriage. On one occasion she adroitly
+hid behind a case of Indian corn. "In everything else," says
+Chauchetière, "she was good, industrious, peaceable, and agreeable. When
+she chose to give the word for a laugh, none ever had aught to complain
+of, and they liked her company. She never resented the raillery which
+was constantly aimed at her on account of her desire to remain
+unmarried. Her good-nature exempted her at this time from several
+difficulties into which she would have fallen if she had not been
+possessed of natural patience, and if she had not liked better to suffer
+everything herself rather than to make others suffer." Cholenec further
+says that the firmness of Tekakwitha rendered her relatives outrageous,
+for they felt as though they had received an insult.
+
+     "Artifice not having proved successful, they had recourse to
+     violence. They now treated her as a slave, obliging her to do
+     everything which was most painful and repulsive, and
+     malignantly interpreting all her actions, even when most
+     innocent. They reproached her without ceasing for the want of
+     attachment to her relations, her uncouth manners, and her
+     stupidity, for it was thus that they termed the dislike she
+     felt to marriage. They attributed it to a secret hatred of the
+     Iroquois nation, because she was herself of the Algonquin race.
+     In short, they omitted no means of shaking her constancy. The
+     young girl suffered all this ill treatment with unwearied
+     patience, and without ever losing anything of her equanimity of
+     mind or her natural sweetness; she rendered them all the
+     services they required with an attention and docility beyond
+     her years and strength. By degrees her relatives were softened,
+     restored to her their kind feelings, and did not further molest
+     her in regard to the course she had adopted."
+
+A custom of the Indians in which Tekakwitha must have taken part about
+this time, with the other Mohawk girls of her age, was the
+Corn-Feast.[47] On this supposition a brief description is here given of
+what was ever one of the merriest of their celebrations. The redmen,
+with the true poetic spirit of Nature's children, distinguished the
+various times of the year as the sturgeon month or moon, the
+beaver-month, the bear-month, and so on, according to the kind of
+hunting or fishing then in progress; while the different seasons were
+known as the time when strawberries or chestnuts blossom, or as the
+time of corn-planting and when it is ripe.
+
+It was when the corn was ripe that the Corn-Feast began. The plentiful
+crop of Indian maize was gathered together in one place, and the Mohawk
+girls assembled with laugh and song to celebrate the harvest. The
+festival took place in a field in the open air. The warriors and old
+men, not deigning to take part in this woman's frolic, sat at one side,
+though not far away, and lazily smoked their pipes. They only betrayed
+now and then, and by the merest twinkle of an eye, that they took any
+notice of what was going on. The aged squaws hung on the outskirts of
+the group of girls, urging them on with jests and shrill screams of
+laughter. The young squaws were busily employed husking the ears of
+corn, and throwing them together into heaps, after which they braided
+them into bunches of twenty[48] to be hung up and dried. This is
+preparatory to shelling, pounding, and making the corn into cakes of
+fine flour for future use. But the part of the whole process which
+pleases the young squaws best is the husking. They sing together
+snatches of song, and toss the ears of corn gayly from one to another.
+All the while they keep a keen eye on each separate ear as the soft husk
+is torn from it, and the silky tassels fall loosely away from the thick
+set rows of juicy kernels. But what has happened to Tekakwitha there in
+the midst of them? How they shout with laughter! Why is she blushing
+so? In her hand she holds a bright red ear of corn instead of a white
+one, and a saucy girl calls out the name of a young hunter,--most likely
+of the one from whom Tekakwitha so recently hid away. A red ear of corn
+is always the sign of a brave admirer. That is why it is watched for so
+eagerly. "Here he is," they say to the bashful girl; "see, he has come
+to woo you again!" She, who is easiest teased of them all on a subject
+like this, feels like running away once more to escape their jests, or
+throwing the ear of corn at the saucy girl. But she is brave though shy,
+and a maker of fun herself; so she does not move, but keeps her eyes
+well open and awaits her chance. As good fortune would have it, she soon
+spies her mischievous companion unsheathing a crooked ear of corn,
+tapering to a point and quite bent over, like a queer little man.
+"Wagemin! wagemin!" she calls out to the unlucky girl, "Wagemin!
+Paimosaid!" Although they have often plagued Tekakwitha in the lodge
+with being Algonquin rather than Mohawk, she does not hesitate on this
+occasion to recall the song of her mother's race, "Wagemin! wagemin!
+Paimosaid!"--which are the words sung in the North and West when a
+crooked ear of corn is found. Enough of Algonquin tradition, learned
+from their captives, lingered among the Mohawks for them to understand
+these words, which mean, "The little old corn-thief,--walker at night!"
+
+The laugh is now on the saucy girl who called attention to Tekakwitha.
+Then catching at the suggestion conveyed by the word "Wagemin!" they
+break forth gayly into the cereal chorus of the Algonquin Corn-Song.
+Playfully and with many gestures words like those which follow are
+recited by one of the girls, alternating again and again with the
+chorus.
+
+Schoolcraft's version of the merry Indian Corn-Song is as follows:--
+
+    _Cereal Chorus._ Wagemin! wagemin!
+                     Thief in the blade,
+                   Blight of the corn-field,
+                     Paimosaid!
+
+    _Recitative._ See you not traces while pulling the leaf,
+                Plainly depicting the taker and thief?
+                See you not signs by the ring and the spot,
+                How the man crouched as he crept in the lot?
+                Is it not plain, by this mark on the stalk,
+                That he was heavily bent in his walk?
+                Old man, be nimble! The old should be good,
+                But thou art a cowardly thief of the wood.
+
+                _Chorus._ Wagemin! wagemin! etc.
+
+                Where, little taker of things not your own,--
+                Where is your rattle, your drum, and your bone?
+                Surely a walker so nimble of speed,--
+                Surely he must be a juggler indeed.
+                See how he stoops as he breaks off the ear!
+                Nushka! he seems for a moment to fear.
+                Walker, be nimble,--oh, walker, be brief!
+                Hooh! it is plain the old man is the thief.
+
+                _Chorus._ Wagemin! wagemin! etc.
+
+                Wabuma! corn-taker, why do you lag?
+                None but the stars see you,--fill up your bag.
+                Why do you linger to gaze as you pull?
+                Tell me, my little man, is it most full?
+                A--tia! see, a red spot on the leaf,
+                Surely a warrior can't be a thief!
+                Ah, little night-thief, be deer your pursuit,
+                And leave here no print of your dastardly foot.
+
+                _Chorus_ Wagemin! wagemin!
+                         Thief in the blade,
+                       Blight of the corn-field,
+                              Paimosaid!
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[46] For marriage ceremonies see Lafitau,--"Moeurs des Sauvages," vol.
+i. p. 566; "De la Potherie," vol. iii. p. 14.
+
+[47] For an account of the Corn-Feast and its attendant merry-making,
+see Schoolcraft's "Red Race."
+
+[48] See Lewis H. Morgan on the Indian Collection in the State Cabinet
+of Natural History, etc. His Report for 1850 gives many details
+concerning the domestic customs and industries of the Iroquois. He
+mentions three varieties of corn,--white, red, and white flint,--and
+tells how they prepared it for use.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+THE NEW COLONY OF CHRISTIAN INDIANS ON THE ST. LAWRENCE.--THE
+"GREAT MOHAWK" GOES TO CANADA.
+
+
+Tekakwitha was quite old enough to have decided opinions of her own on
+whatever concerned her individual life. She had also proved in her
+recent struggle that she possessed sufficient strength of will to act
+upon her convictions. Some of these convictions she had never yet
+mentioned to any one, but she had for some time fully made up her mind
+to take a decided step. She was only waiting a favorable opportunity to
+declare her determination to become a Christian. She felt that this
+would not be an easy thing to do; for besides her strong propensity to
+shrink as much as possible from all observation, she saw that her uncle
+was becoming every day more bitter in his opposition to the teachings of
+the blackgowns.
+
+The Feast of the Dead in 1669 was closely followed by a public
+renunciation, in the Mohawk country, of Aireskoi, or demon-worship. This
+was accompanied by the burning of charms, turtle-shell rattles, and
+other badges used by the medicine-men. Similar ceremonies took place
+about the same time, among the Onondagas and in other parts of the Long
+House of the Five Nations. "Paganism had fallen. Aireskoi was disowned,
+and his name is not even known in our days among the Iroquois. The next
+step of the missionaries was to implant Christian truth and Christian
+feeling in their hearts."[49] This was another and more difficult task.
+Though the Iroquois Indians of the Five Nations have not since
+worshipped any other than the Great Spirit or true God, known in the
+Mohawk language as Rawenniio; and though the sacrifices to Aireskoi
+ceased in the Mohawk Valley after the great Feast of the Dead, in
+1669,--practically the life of the Mohawks was still pagan in almost
+every other respect. Father Pierron, at Tionnontogen, or Saint Mary's,
+and his assistant Father Boniface, who took charge of a small bark
+chapel called St. Peter's, which the Indians themselves built at
+Caughnawaga Castle, both continued their missionary labors with unabated
+zeal, but for some time they had only partial success. In 1670
+eighty-four baptisms were recorded. That same year, in June, the great
+Onondaga chief, Garacontié, was solemnly baptized at Quebec. It was
+hoped that other chiefs of the Iroquois would soon follow his example.
+
+Father Bruyas, who on first coming among the People of the Long House
+had been lodged three days in the cabin of Tekakwitha's uncle, came back
+from the Oneida country in 1671. He was made superior of the Mohawk
+mission in place of Pierron. This missionary, the painter of pictures
+and the inventor of games, received orders to return to Canada to take
+charge of a new village of Christian Indians which was then being formed
+on the south bank of the St. Lawrence. As the latter part of
+Tekakwitha's life was closely connected with the growth and development
+of this new Christian colony of Indians in Canada, and as we shall have
+occasion frequently to allude to it, some further account of it will not
+be out of place here. The site first chosen was at La Prairie de la
+Madeleine just across a broad swell of the river from Montreal on a
+tract of land belonging to the Jesuits and hitherto untenanted. The
+Canadians called this Indian settlement St. François Xavier _des Prés_;
+and a little later, when that same mission was moved up close to the
+great Lachine Rapids in the St. Lawrence River, it was known as St.
+François Xavier _du Sault_, which last is in reality nothing more than
+the Indian name of Caughnawaga put into French and still meaning "At the
+Rapids." This Christian settlement was started by the temporary sojourn
+at La Prairie of several Oneidas and Mohawks, who had been on a visit to
+Quebec and Montreal. They were attracted to the spot by Father Raffeix,
+who built a little chapel there. It grew by accessions from among the
+Five Nations, and was encouraged by the French government, in the hope
+of thus gaining useful allies. Indians who came first from curiosity or
+for temporary shelter and hospitality afterwards settled there, with
+their families and friends. The Jesuit Fathers on their part were much
+pleased with the growth of this village, and took occasion to make of it
+a distinct settlement of Christian Indians. It soon became a general
+rendezvous for their converts from among the different nations and
+tribes of Indians, many of whom by residing there were quite withdrawn
+from the contagious pagan influences which surrounded them in their own
+country. All who went to live at St. François Xavier _du Sault_ were
+obliged to renounce, with solemn promises, these three things,--first,
+the idolatry of dreams; second, the changing of wives, a practice in
+vogue at Iroquois feasts; and third, drunkenness. Any one among them
+known to have relapsed into any of these practices was expelled at once
+from the settlement by the ruling chiefs. These were chosen by the
+Indians themselves from among the more fervent Christians. They were
+generally men who had ranked high in their own country, and who were
+attracted to the Praying Castle, as it was called, either from motives
+purely religious or on account of some bereavement or disappointment
+experienced in their old homes. Several of these Christian chiefs were
+famous characters in the history of the time. Two of them, Kryn and Hot
+Ashes, are closely connected with the life of Tekakwitha.
+
+Kryn, the "great Mohawk," has already been mentioned in connection with
+the battle of Kinaquariones. His Christian name was Joseph, and his
+Indian name Togouiroui. He was also called the conqueror of the
+Mohegans. He dwelt with his wife at Caughnawaga on the Mohawk, and they
+had "an only daughter whose bright disposition made all in the town love
+her." After some difficulty with his wife on account of this child, he
+deserted her and went off for a long journey. The mother, it seems, had
+been converted by Father Boniface, and had declared herself a Christian
+just six months before she was thus deserted. Soon after the departure
+of her husband she was severely tried by the death of her daughter. This
+little girl had been her only consolation and hope after she was
+forsaken by Kryn. Her friends now blamed her for adopting strange
+customs, saying it was that which had made her husband leave her and
+which had caused the death of her child. In spite of all this, Kryn's
+wife became more devoted than ever to her new faith. She was seen going
+to the little bark chapel of St. Peter's every night and morning, and
+often received the sacraments from the hands of Father Boniface. First
+as assistant to Pierron, and now under Bruyas, he still carried on the
+mission at Caughnawaga. In course of time he became very successful in
+winning the Mohawks of that place to Christianity. Thirty adults were
+baptized within a short time. After the morning and evening prayers at
+the chapel, a choir of children sang hymns in the Iroquois language; and
+every Sunday the primitive Christian love-feast, or ceremony of blessed
+bread, took place in the cabin of a pious Mohawk woman.
+
+At Christmas time the little bark chapel at Caughnawaga was aglow with
+lights and bedecked with evergreens. All day long the people of the
+Turtle village, much changed in mind since the torture and murder of
+Isaac Jogues, stole silently in and out of St. Peter's rustic shrine.
+The cross, considered uncanny and strange in the days of Goupil, had at
+last become a familiar sign among the Turtles in the Mohawk Valley. The
+crowd that gathered at the chapel door on Christmas day looked up at it
+again and again as they stood out in the snow and the cold December
+blast, waiting patiently for an opportunity to enter. There in the
+chapel Father Boniface had placed a fair little statue of the infant
+Jesus lying in his wretched manger on the straw. This Christmas crib was
+a strange and wonderful sight to the simple Indians. Those who had
+become Christians told and retold the Bethlehem story in all its details
+to the curious people who gathered about the image of the little Christ
+child to gaze and wonder. Tekakwitha saw and heard all that was going on
+at the chapel, but said nothing; her aunts were there also, and her
+adopted sister. Tegonhatsihongo, whose Christian name was Anastasia,
+would of course be present on such an occasion, and also the family of
+Kryn. The wife of the "great Mohawk," having chosen her part and
+received baptism, now maintained her ground with courage. Deserted and
+childless, she held firmly to her new-found faith, notwithstanding the
+abuse she received from friends and neighbors. "Soon after this storm,"
+says good Father Boniface, "God rewarded her fidelity; for in place of
+the little girl whom he had taken from her, He gave her back her husband
+a Christian."
+
+Kryn, in his wanderings, had by chance strayed into the new village at
+La Prairie; there he met Father Fremin, who with Pierron and Bruyas had
+formerly been Tekakwitha's guests. Kryn listened to all that Fremin had
+to say to him, having known and respected him during his brief stay in
+the Mohawk country, when the mission was first begun after De Tracy's
+expedition. The "great Mohawk" resolved to become a Christian;
+furthermore, he decided that the best way for him to remain a Christian,
+and to become a good one, would be to join the new Indian settlement in
+the land of the French.[50] He was a natural leader of men, bold and
+uncompromising; he had a large following among his own people on the
+Mohawk. His next move, therefore, after becoming a Christian, was to
+return to his old home to find his forsaken wife, and to announce
+publicly the views he had embraced during his absence. The people
+gathered with interest and amazement to hear what their old leader had
+to say. None dared oppose him when he proclaimed his determination to
+leave everything that could draw him back to his old manner of life, and
+offered to lead all who would follow him to La Prairie, on the bank of
+the St. Lawrence. He gave his friends but brief time to consider his
+words and to make hurried preparations for a journey; then, at break of
+day, the wild gathering-cry of the "great Mohawk" resounded once more,
+as of old, through the streets of Caughnawaga Castle. All knew it well,
+for time and time again it had called them out to battle. With a strange
+thrill and start of alarm they heard it once more; but only those in the
+village who were baptized, both men and women, or who meant soon to
+become Christians, rallied about him now; nor even all of these, for in
+that case Tekakwitha would have been of the number. A band of thirty or
+forty gathered at his call, and with a sad, hurried farewell to their
+friends, their homes, and the valley, they turned and followed in the
+footsteps of Kryn, who thus led them away into exile. Shea well calls
+these Indians "a noble band of pilgrims for religion's sake."
+
+Tekakwitha's adopted sister probably went either with this band or with
+those who accompanied Father Boniface to Canada a little later; for soon
+after this event we learn that she was living at St. François Xavier du
+Sault with her husband; that they were both Christians, and that
+Anastasia Tegonhatsihongo also dwelt there and in the same cabin with
+them. The health of Father Boniface was completely broken down by the
+hardships he had undergone among the Mohawks; so he too left
+Caughnawaga. He went to Canada in June, 1673, taking many of his
+neophytes with him as far as the Sault; he died at Quebec the next year,
+surrounded by his old comrades and friends.
+
+The people of Albany and Schenectady, at the time of these migrations,
+had too much to do at home to give more than a sidelong glance at what
+was occurring at the neighboring Indian castle; otherwise the Dutch and
+English settlers of the province would probably have shown some
+inclination to resent on the part of the French their efforts to attract
+the Mohawks to the vicinity of Montreal, as it was likely to interfere
+with their influence among the redmen, and above all with their highly
+prized rights in the fur-trade. Some time before this, the Albanians had
+succeeded in bringing about a treaty of peace between the Mohegans and
+the Mohawks. Thereupon these last had begun to indulge very freely in
+the purchase of liquor at Fort Orange; they even carried kegs of it with
+them to their fishing-villages. This filled the pockets of the Dutch
+settlers, but it also brought on a severe form of illness among the
+Mohawks,--a quick and fatal fever,--which gave much occupation to the
+blackgowns, especially as the services of the medicine men were at this
+time often rejected; thus the influence of the missionaries was still
+further increased. Next, there was a disturbance in the government. The
+Dutch, taking the English by surprise, in 1673, regained possession of
+the province; that very year a large band of the Mohawks left for
+Canada. To make matters worse for the interests of the Albanians, a
+vessel with supplies for the Indian trade, which they were for a long
+while expecting from Holland, did not arrive; this caused them to put a
+higher price on the goods they were accustomed to sell to the Mohawks,
+many of whom on that account turned to Canada for their purchases.
+
+In 1674, when Tekakwitha was in her eighteenth year, and when Boniface,
+after having resigned his charge at Caughnawaga, was slowly dying at
+Quebec, the English came once more into power at Albany, and governed
+the city thenceforth. During these various changes Tekakwitha's uncle
+kept up his connection with his Dutch neighbors, invariably trading at
+Albany. He was angered almost beyond endurance at the departure of Kryn
+and of Boniface with so many of his townspeople. He joined with those
+who bitterly accused Bruyas, their only remaining blackgown, of a plan
+to break up the nation. Bruyas protested that he had had nothing at all
+to do with the affair, and threw the responsibility of the migration
+mainly upon their own chief the "great Mohawk," whose example so many
+had followed. He took occasion at the same time to remind those who
+remained of their vices, which he said were driving away the noblest of
+their tribesmen. He succeeded in pacifying them for a time; but soon
+Assendasé, an aged and important chief at the capital of the Mohawk
+country, delighted the heart of the missionary, and at the same time
+rearoused the hostility of the unbelieving Indians, by becoming a
+Christian. In 1675 Assendasé died at Tionnontogen, to the great grief
+of Father Bruyas. About the same time Father James de Lamberville
+arrived to take charge of St. Peter's chapel and the mission of
+Boniface; it included both the Turtle Castle of Caughnawaga on the
+Cayudutta and the adjacent Castle of the Bears called Andagoron. This
+castle was no longer on the south side of the river, but since De
+Tracy's expedition had been rebuilt on the north bank opposite to its
+old site. It was to Father de Lamberville that the niece of the Mohawk
+chief spoke out the words that had long lain nearest to her heart.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[49] Shea's History of the Catholic Missions, chap. xiv. p. 267.
+
+[50] Kryn became strongly attached to his Canadian friends. He sided
+with them in the war which broke out some years later between the French
+and the English colonies. The massacre at Lachine in 1689 roused the old
+warrior who had conquered the Mohegans (in 1669) to aid in avenging his
+white allies. On Schenectady, in 1690, fell the bloody act of
+retribution. Kryn was there. Later that same year, on a war-party near
+Salmon River, he was killed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+TEKAKWITHA MEETS DE LAMBERVILLE.--IMPOSING CEREMONY IN THE BARK CHAPEL.
+
+
+Tekakwitha was eighteen years old, and was still classed among the pagan
+or infidel Indians, as distinguished from the Christians. She had
+injured her foot severely; she could not now leave the cabin, and sat
+idle one bright sunny day while the other women were hard at work in the
+corn-fields down by the river. She was unable to walk as far as the
+spring in the cove just below the castle, and bring up the daily supply
+of water for the lodge; nor could she gather fagots enough to prepare
+the evening meal, though she knew that all would return at dusk hungry
+and weary from their work. A few women, with some old people burdened
+with ailments of various kinds, were also in the village. Two or three
+of these had strayed into the chief's cabin, and were sitting with
+Tekakwitha when Father de Lamberville, who had been only a short time in
+the Mohawk country, passed slowly along through the rows of long, low
+bark-covered houses forming the Turtle Village. Caughnawaga was
+well-nigh deserted by its people that day, and seemed fast asleep, so
+still were its streets. The missionary was taking advantage of this
+occasion to visit the old and the sick who chanced to be in their
+cabins, that he might instruct them at his leisure. He had no thought
+of entering the lodge of Tekakwitha. He knew that the chief who lived
+there disliked the Frenchmen who came down from Montreal; and besides,
+he supposed the house would be empty as usual at such times. Its
+inhabitants were known to be busy and thrifty people; they were
+doubtless at work in the fields. He passed close to the doorway of the
+cabin with eyes downcast, intent on his own quiet thoughts. He wore the
+long black cassock of his order, and carried a crucifix in his girdle
+like those worn by the three who had lodged with the chief when he lived
+at Gandawague on Auries Creek. The shadow of De Lamberville falling
+across the open doorway caused Tekakwitha to look up, and she saw him
+moving calmly on outside in the sunlight. Darkness brooded over the
+Mohawk girl where she sat, far back in the depths of the dreary cabin.
+Her heart was weary with waiting. It may have been that her mother's
+spirit hovered about just then, and renewed its prayer; or, whatever may
+have caused it, the blackgown's train of thought was disturbed. He
+raised his eyes; he stood a moment at the doorway, and "il fut poussé a
+y entrer," says the old manuscript,--a sudden irresistible impulse
+caused him to enter. Lo! at the blackgown's approach the petals of this
+Lily of Caughnawaga opened wider than ever before. Those who were
+present on that eventful day saw for the first time to the innermost
+depths of Tekakwitha's soul, far down to its golden centre, enfolded so
+long in shadowy whiteness that no one suspected its hidden growth of
+beauty. Chauchetière says:--
+
+     "There he found Tekakwitha. Never was an encounter more
+     fortunate on the side of the girl, who wished to speak to the
+     Father, and who dared not go to seek him; on the side of the
+     Father, who found a treasure where he expected to find no one."
+
+Charlevoix tells us that Tekakwitha--
+
+     "could not dissemble the joy which this visit caused her, and
+     hastened to open her heart to the Father in the presence even
+     of two or three women who were keeping her company, and to
+     testify to him her earnest desire of embracing Christianity.
+     She added that she would have great obstacles to overcome in
+     order to succeed in her intention, but that nothing should
+     deter her. The ardor with which she spoke, the courage she
+     evinced, and a certain air, at once modest yet resolute, which
+     appeared on her face, proved to the missionary that his new
+     proselyte would be a Christian of no common order; therefore he
+     instructed her in many things of which he did not speak to all
+     whom he was preparing for baptism. God doubtless establishes
+     between hearts, the possession of which he has specially
+     reserved to himself, a sort of spiritual sympathy which forms,
+     even in this life, the sacred bond which is to unite them
+     eternally in glory. Father de Lamberville, whom I well knew,"
+     continues Charlevoix, "was one of the holiest missionaries of
+     Canada, or New France, as it was then called, where he died at
+     Sault St. Louis, as it were in the arms of Charity, worn out
+     with toils, sufferings, and penance. He has often told me that
+     from the first interview he had with Tegahkouita, he thought he
+     perceived that God had great designs upon her soul; however, he
+     would not hasten her baptism, but took all those precautions
+     which experience had taught to be so necessary, in order to be
+     certain of the savages before administering to them the
+     sacrament of regeneration."
+
+As soon as Tekakwitha had recovered from the wound in her foot, which
+had occasioned her encounter with the blackgown, she began to attend
+the morning and evening prayers at the chapel, in accordance with Father
+de Lamberville's advice. As often and as regularly as the sun rose and
+set, she was now to be seen on her way to St. Peter's. Chauchetière
+says:--
+
+     "At first they did not give her any trouble; they let her go
+     and come to say her prayers like the others; and some have
+     believed that if this cabin was not opposed to prayer when
+     Catherine was in it, it might have come from the good custom
+     which the mother of Catherine, that good Algonquin of whom we
+     have spoken, retained there up to the time of her death, and
+     these infidels were accustomed to see praying."
+
+So far as Tekakwitha was concerned, the winter which followed these
+events passed quietly away in preparation for her baptism. She performed
+her usual duties in the cabin, and her aunts did not molest her on the
+subject of religion. According to one account, they had become
+Christians themselves, though this is contradicted elsewhere. The young
+girl was present at the instructions given to catechumens, and learned
+all the prayers with great facility and a marvellous avidity, in the
+hope that the Father would hasten her baptism.
+
+     "The missionaries before the baptism of adults took care to
+     inform themselves, secretly, of their manners and conduct.
+     Father de Lamberville questioned all who knew Tegahkouita, and
+     was greatly surprised to find that none, even among those who
+     ill-treated her, could say anything to her discredit. This was
+     the more flattering to her, since the savages are much addicted
+     to slander, and naturally inclined to give a malicious turn to
+     the most innocent actions."
+
+The missionary found no one who did not give a high encomium to the
+young catechumen. He hesitated no longer to grant what she so ardently
+asked. Easter Sunday, 1676, was appointed for the day of her baptism.
+The Christians of Caughnawaga Castle were pleased to learn that at last
+the blackgown had resolved to baptize Tekakwitha. Nearly a year had
+passed since she first asked to be made a Christian. All knew her worth.
+When the glad news of Father de Lamberville's decision was made known to
+Tekakwitha, her countenance became radiant with joy. Her aunts gave
+their consent to the step their niece was about to take. We are not told
+what her uncle said or did at the time. Perhaps he was intent on other
+important affairs just then, or he would probably have put some obstacle
+in her way. He certainly dreaded, above all things, the possibility of
+seeing his niece enticed away to Canada in the footsteps of her adopted
+sister. Perhaps he felt quite sure of keeping Tekakwitha with him, as
+she showed no desire to join a band of Kryn's followers who set out from
+the Mohawk Valley shortly before the appointed Easter day arrived. Like
+those who had gone with the "great Mohawk" on a former occasion, these
+pilgrims were bound for the Praying Castle on the St. Lawrence River. In
+the band were many friends and neighbors of Tekakwitha, so that in part
+at least her heart must have gone with them to Canada. The Praying
+Castle of St. François Xavier was no longer at La Prairie, as when Kryn
+first visited it, but had been moved this very year a few miles up the
+river close to the great Lachine Rapid or Sault St. Louis, and was
+henceforth called Caughnawaga. The older village of the same name in the
+Mohawk Valley was astir with expectation when Easter Sunday arrived, in
+the year 1676.[51] The young catechumen whom the blackgown De
+Lamberville esteemed so highly, the one of whom no word had been said in
+disparagement, every act of whose life was as clear and fair as the day,
+was eagerly awaiting the hour of her baptism.
+
+The Indian girls on that Easter morning, ready, as always, for a pageant
+or ceremonial of any kind, crowded about the door of the rustic chapel,
+inside and out. Some of them carried their little brothers or sisters
+tied to their backs on cradle-boards. Some were gorgeous with
+bright-colored blankets and beads. Proudly they tossed their heads,
+these Mohawk girls, sure at least of their share of admiration from the
+young braves, notwithstanding that the old chief's niece was for the
+moment attracting more attention in the town than usual. What did her
+wonderful reputation for virtue amount to, after all? Much hard work,
+some of them thought, and a scant allowance of fun or excitement. But
+for once all eyes were centred on the quiet maiden, as she issued from
+her uncle's lodge, and with two companions, also ready for baptism,
+neared the door of the chapel. It was easy to see that most of the
+people of Caughnawaga respected and honored her on account of her
+virtue. There was a time when the Iroquois had vaunted the chastity of
+their women, and on that account held their heads higher than any other
+race of Indians. On this glorious Easter day the Mohawks seemed to
+realize, at least in a general way, that the maiden Tekakwitha, whom
+they knew to be as strong in will as their own flint rock and as pure at
+heart as their crystal spring, had caught up the beautiful crown that
+was fast falling from them. They felt that she at least, while she
+lived, could be trusted to hold it securely above the mire into which
+they were sinking faster and faster.
+
+On the day of Tekakwitha's baptism, the light which the blackgown
+brought with him to the Mohawk country beamed with unquenchable
+brightness from her quiet but joyful face, and glimmered in scattered
+reflections on the faces of the crowd through which she passed. There
+men and women, warriors, hunters, jugglers, boys and girls of every
+age,--in a word, all who were in the village had gathered into groups to
+watch what was taking place at the chapel of St. Peter. The blackgown
+took care to render the baptism of an adult, and especially of such a
+noteworthy one as the niece of the chief, as impressive as possible; it
+was conducted with all due solemnity.
+
+Never before had the Christians of Caughnawaga been more generous with
+their gifts. They had offered their richest furs[52] to adorn the chapel
+in honor both of Easter day and of Tekakwitha's baptism. The walls were
+hung with beaver and elk skins. There were bear-skin rugs and buffalo
+hides, embroidered in many colors, both under foot and on every side.
+Belts of wampum festooned the rafters. Blossoming branches of shrubs and
+clusters of frail little wild-flowers that grew in the ravines near by,
+decorated the altar. The entrance door was embowered in green. The
+approach to the chapel was through an avenue of budding trees, which had
+been planted there by the missionaries, to give an air of seclusion and
+dignity to the sacred portal. In them the birds were building their
+nests, and kept up a continual fluttering, chirping, and trilling. The
+blackgown's well-trained choir of Indian boys and girls, already within
+the chapel, were watching for Tekakwitha to enter. When the three
+catechumens appeared at the door, Father de Lamberville, in surplice and
+violet stole, advanced to meet them. Sturdy Mohawk boys who had learned
+to serve at the altar, attended him. The ceremony began at the chapel
+door. Katherine was the Christian name to be given to Tekakwitha. Clear
+and distinct were the words of the priest, as he asked the following
+questions: "Katherine, what dost thou ask of the Church of God?" Then
+came the short sweet answer, "Faith." "What doth faith lead thee to?"
+"Life everlasting," was the response. The blackgown, still using the
+words of the time-honored ceremonial, continued: "If then thou wilt
+enter into life, keep the commandments. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God
+with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and thy
+neighbor as thyself." This exhortation sank deep into the soul of
+Tekakwitha. Fervent and recollected in spirit, she strove to catch the
+meaning of each word and sign. Father de Lamberville went on with the
+sacred rite. Breathing on her thrice, as she stood with head bowed down,
+he exorcised the Evil One, saying: "Go out of her, thou unclean spirit!
+give place to the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete!" She raised her head at
+these words, and he signed her forehead and breast with the cross. Then
+he blessed the salt, the symbol of wisdom, and laid it on her tongue.
+Again he bade Satan begone. They now entered the little church. They
+stood close by the font. He touched her ear with spittle, saying the
+mystic word of Christ: _Ephpheta_, that is, "Be opened!" Then she
+renounced the devil with all his works and pomps, and was anointed with
+the oil of the catechumens. She made her profession of faith in the
+words of the Apostles' Creed. After that the priest changed his violet
+stole for a white one, and poured the water of baptism on her head,
+saying at the same time the brief, essential words of the sacrament:
+"Katherine, I baptize thee in the name of the Father, and of the Son,
+and of the Holy Ghost. Amen."
+
+The people watched each of these ceremonies with rapt interest. When it
+was all over, Katherine Tekakwitha turned from the font with a white
+cloth on her head, which the priest placed there in token of innocence,
+bidding her carry it unsullied before the judgment-seat of God; and she
+bore in her hand a lighted taper, the symbol of faith. She seemed quite
+unconscious of earth, and bright with angelic joy. The Mohawks could
+almost believe they were looking at a blessed spirit rather than at one
+of themselves. The choir of Indian children, silently waiting their
+turn, now filled the chapel with joyous melody, and made it resound with
+the sweet words of an Iroquois hymn, prepared for them by their
+missionaries. The birds outside, stirred to blither singing by the sound
+of voices within, warbled their richest notes. The great forest that
+sheltered the bark-covered shrine was alive with music, strange and
+rapturous, like the strains heard by Saint Cecilia in her vision. De
+Lamberville, entranced, stood at the altar and listened, like one in a
+dream. Each breath he drew was a fervent prayer for his Indian flock. He
+was quite alone among them,--the only pale-face at Caughnawaga
+Castle,--but he felt no isolation. He had given his life to these
+people, and his heart vibrated in perfect accord with the Iroquois
+music. If he thought of his home in France and the glorious Easter
+anthems he had heard at St. Eustache and Notre Dame, it was not with
+vain regret, but only with the calm assurance that if his friends across
+the sea could hear these Indians singing in their forest chapel and
+could see the face of this Mohawk girl lit up with the joy of her
+baptism, they would not feel that he was throwing away his life and
+talents among barbarian tribes. The path of his duty lay clearly before
+him.
+
+"Go teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of
+the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." These words were ever ringing in the
+missionary's ears. It was in fulfilling this command that he had found
+the Lily of the Mohawks ripe for Christianity. He felt that he had
+gathered rich fruit with but little effort, and his next thought was how
+to keep it safe and bring it to its highest perfection for the Master of
+the Vineyard, whom he served.
+
+From the time of her baptism Katherine Tekakwitha's life resembled in
+many respects the lives of the early Christians. Chauchetière thus
+speaks of her baptismal name:--
+
+     "Several Indians bore this name before and after her, but not
+     one of them so worthily as the Blessed Catherine Tegakouita. La
+     Prairie de la Magdeleine possesses the precious remains of one
+     named Catherine Ganneaktena, from Oneida, who was the
+     foundation stone of the mission.... Another Catherine died at
+     the Sault at the age of thirteen, having lived innocent as an
+     angel, and died as a victim of virginity. These two Catherines
+     would have served as models for all the Christian Indian women
+     at the mission of the Sault, had not Catherine Tegakouita
+     arisen to shine like a sun among the stars."
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[51] Chauchetière mentions Easter Sunday, 1675, as the date of Kateri
+Tekakwitha's baptism. Cholenec and others give the date as above, 1676.
+
+[52] This description of the chapel at the time of Tekakwitha's baptism
+is taken principally from a manuscript of Rev. Felix Martin, entitled
+"Une Vierge Iroquoise."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+PERSECUTIONS.--HEROIC CALMNESS IN A MOMENT OF PERIL.--MALICE OF
+TEKAKWITHA'S AUNT.
+
+
+After her baptism, Katherine Tekakwitha was supremely happy. Her deft
+hands were as busy as before, providing for the general comfort in her
+uncle's lodge. Besides this she went back and forth twice each day to
+the chapel, where the blackgown assembled his dusky flock for morning
+and evening prayers. On Sundays she heard Mass at the same bark-covered
+shrine of St. Peter, and later on in the day she joined in chanting the
+prayers of the chaplet with alternate choirs of the Christian Indians.
+This was a favorite religious exercise at all the Iroquois missions.
+These people were gifted by nature with sweet voices, and sang well
+together. If at any time the Mohawk girl was beset with some difficulty
+or perplexity, she went at once to tell it with all simplicity to Father
+de Lamberville, who pointed out to her with great care the path which he
+believed would lead her most directly on to holiness of life. Once sure
+of her duty, Tekakwitha walked straight forward, with timid, downcast
+eyes, but joyous spirit, swerving neither to the right nor to the left.
+The rule of life that the Father prescribed for his other Christians to
+keep them from the superstitious, impure feasts and drunken
+debaucheries common among the Indians, was too general and not advanced
+enough for Tekakwitha. She had always avoided these excesses even in her
+heathen days, and now her craving for a higher and deeper knowledge of
+spiritual things was so great that the blackgown soon found himself
+called on to direct her in the way of special devotional exercises and
+unusual practices of virtue.
+
+In December, 1676, an event occurred of much interest to the Christian
+Indians. On the feast of the Immaculate Conception, the blessing of the
+statue of Notre Dame de Foye took place at Tionnontogen, or the Mission
+of St. Mary's. This statue was a fac-simile of a highly venerated one of
+the Blessed Virgin in Belgium. It was made of oak from the place where
+the first originated, and had been sent out from France to the Indians.
+Father Bruyas received it at Tionnontogen as a precious gift to his
+Christian Mohawks. All the neophytes of the neighboring villages
+assembled to see it unveiled and solemnly blessed. It was placed in the
+chapel in such a way that a bright ray of light falling through a small
+opening in the bark wall fell directly upon the Madonna. The Indians had
+not seen anything so beautiful and new to them since Boniface showed
+them on Christmas day at Caughnawaga the little statue of the
+Christ-child lying in a manger. Father Martin, speaking of the unveiling
+of this statue of the Madonna, says that Katherine Tekakwitha would not
+fail to be present at this pious rendezvous. She was baptized, it will
+be remembered, at Easter time; and the blessing of the statue of Notre
+Dame de Foye took place on the 8th day of the following December.
+
+Charlevoix says, alluding to Tekakwitha's Christian life:--
+
+     "From the first, her virtues gained admiration even from those
+     who were the furthest from imitating them; and those to whom
+     she was subject left her free to follow the promptings of her
+     zeal for a short time. The innocence of her life, and the
+     precautions she took to avoid all occasions of sin, and above
+     all her extreme reserve with regard to all which might in the
+     slightest degree wound modesty, appearing to the young people
+     of the village a tacit reproach to the licentious life which
+     they led, several endeavored to turn her astray, in the hope of
+     tarnishing the splendor of a virtue which dazzled them.
+
+     "On the other hand, although she neglected none of her domestic
+     labors and was ever ready to assist others, her relatives
+     murmured greatly at her spending all her free time in prayer;
+     and as she would not work on Sundays and feast-days, when
+     forbidden by the Church, they would deprive her of food the
+     entire day. Seeing that they gained nothing by this means, they
+     had recourse to more violent measures, often ill-treating her
+     in the most shameful manner: when she went to the chapel they
+     would send boys to throw stones at and calumniate her; while
+     drunken men, or those pretending to be such, would pursue her
+     and threaten her life; but fearless of their artifices, she
+     continued her exercises as if in the enjoyment of the most
+     perfect liberty and peace."
+
+She did not hesitate to say, when there was occasion for it, that she
+would die rather than give up the practice of the Christian religion.
+Her resolution was put to severe tests, but she never wavered.
+Chauchetière thus wrote concerning the persecutions she had to endure at
+this time:--
+
+     "There are those who dare not declare themselves when they are
+     the only Christians in their cabin; but Katherine showed an
+     extraordinary firmness of spirit against human respect. When
+     the children pointed their fingers at her, when they called her
+     no longer by her Indian name, but called her by the name of
+     _Christian_ in derision, as though they meant _dog_,--which
+     lasted so long that they forgot her name, giving her none other
+     at all but that of the _Christian_, because she was the only
+     one in the cabin who was baptized,--far from afflicting herself
+     on account of this scorn of which she was the object, she was
+     happy to have lost her name.
+
+     "She had much to suffer from the mockeries of the sorcerers, of
+     the drunkards, of all the enemies of 'The Prayer,' likewise of
+     her uncle."
+
+He too, as time went on, seems to have taken an active part in
+persecuting the young girl who was entirely dependent on him for
+protection from insult. When her own uncle, the chief man of the castle,
+turned against her, what could she expect from others but ill-treatment
+of every sort? Her firmness, which nothing could shake, irritated her
+heathen relatives more and more. They called her a sorceress. Whenever
+she went to the chapel they caused her to be followed by showers of
+stones, so that to avoid those who lay in wait for her, she was often
+obliged to take the most circuitous routes. Was it not strange that one
+so shy by nature as Tekakwitha should have had the strength of will to
+undergo all this without flinching? She seemed to be utterly devoid of
+fear; though timid as a deer, she had the courage of a panther at bay,
+and was no less quick to act when the time for action came.
+
+One day when she was employed as usual in her uncle's lodge, a young
+Indian suddenly rushed in upon her, his features distorted with rage,
+his eyes flashing fire, his tomahawk raised above his head as if to
+strike her dead at the least opposition. Tekakwitha did not cry out, or
+make an appeal for mercy, or promise to abandon the course she was
+taking in the midst of this ever increasing torrent of threats and
+abuse. With perfect composure, without the tremor or twitch of a muscle,
+she simply bowed her head on her breast, and stood before the wild and
+desperate young savage as immovable as a rock. Words were not needed on
+either side. With all the eloquent silence of the Indian sign language,
+her gesture and attitude spoke to the youth and said: "I am here, I am
+ready. My life you can take; my faith is my own in life or in death. I
+fear you not!" The rage in the Indian's eye died out, and gave place to
+wonder, then awe. He gazed as if spellbound. The uplifted tomahawk
+dropped to his side. Her firmness unnerved him. Admiration, then a
+strange fear, overmastered the young brave, whose brain perhaps had been
+somewhat clouded with liquor when he thus undertook to rid the old
+chief's niece of her Christian whims. Be that as it may, he could not
+have been more astonished at what he beheld if a spirit had appeared
+before him and ordered him out of the lodge. Cowed and abashed, he slunk
+away, as if from a superior being; or rather, in the words of
+Charlevoix, "he turned and fled with as much precipitation as if pursued
+by a band of warriors."
+
+Thinking Tekakwitha meant to join the Mohawks on the St. Lawrence, they
+had sought by threatening her life in this way to prevent her from
+carrying out her purpose. They now let her live in peace for a time. No
+stone had been left unturned to weary her out and break her spirit; it
+had all proved to be of no avail. They might as well have tried to
+frighten the stars from their accustomed course through the heavens as
+to turn this quiet Mohawk girl from the path her conscience marked out.
+Her hold on faith and virtue was stronger than torture or death. These
+first caprices of her tormentors were followed a little later by a more
+dangerous persecution, and to one possessed of Tekakwitha's
+sensibilities, the most cruel of all.
+
+It was the last trial she was called upon to endure in the land of her
+birth. It was the only one, perhaps, that could have estranged her from
+her nearest kindred and her beloved Mohawk Valley; for we are told that
+she was particularly sensitive to the reproach they made to her of
+having no natural affection for her relations and of hating her nation.
+Had this been true, she would never have remained in her uncle's lodge
+as she did, till its inmates hardened their hearts against her to the
+exclusion even of the commonest sentiments of humanity. This was
+particularly the case with one of her aunts, who succeeded only too well
+in making the life of her niece a torture. She was the direct cause of
+Tekakwitha's last and severest trial in the Mohawk country.
+
+In 1677 the Lily of the Mohawks accompanied her relatives on the usual
+spring hunt. They went in the direction of the Dutch, we are told, or in
+other words, towards the settlement at Schenectady. Had their object
+been to fish, they would most likely have gone on from there to the
+fishing village at the mouth of the Norman's Kill, near Albany, passing
+down through the "vale of Tawasentha." As these Indians went to hunt and
+not to fish, they probably took instead one of the many trails leading
+through the pine-forest of Saratoga, any one of which would quickly
+bring them to a region frequented by deer and game from the Adirondacks.
+There, at a certain spot known to the Mohawks from time immemorial, a
+strange medicine-spring bubbled over the top of a round, high rock, and
+scattered its health-giving waters at random over the ground. Then, and
+for a hundred years to come, its existence was known only to the
+Indians. No white man had ever been permitted to lift its pungent water
+to his lips.
+
+To this place, called "Serachtague" in his report of the colony,
+Governor Dongan tried in vain to recall the Iroquois Christians of
+Canada, by promising them English blackgowns,[53] and undisturbed
+possession of their favorite hunting-ground. With this interesting fact
+of early Saratoga history, however, we are not now concerned. As for the
+one involving Tekakwitha, here is Chauchetière's account of what
+occurred at the Mohawk hunting-camp, and of the report that was carried
+back from there to the village:--
+
+     "In the spring or during the time of the chase she had gone
+     with her relations towards the Dutch, with her uncle. The wife
+     of this hunter did not like Catherine, perhaps because the
+     good life of Catherine was a reproach to the contrary life led
+     by this infidel; this woman examined all the actions and all
+     the words of Catherine, that she might discover something with
+     which to find fault. It is a common thing among the Indians to
+     treat an uncle like a father, and to call him by the very name
+     of father. Catherine chanced one day, in speaking of this old
+     man in company with others, to let slip his name without using
+     the name of 'father' or 'my father;' this woman noticed that,
+     and judged rashly of Catherine, and said that Catherine had
+     sinned with her husband. She did not fail to seek out Father
+     Lamberville, and tell him that she whom he esteemed so much had
+     sinned. The Father wished to examine the reasons which this
+     woman had for treating in such a way this good Christian, and
+     having found out that the strongest was that which I have just
+     related, he sharply reproved this evil-speaking tongue; but he
+     did not neglect to speak to Catherine and to instruct her on
+     the sin, and the pains of hell that God has prepared for
+     punishing it, and then he questioned Catherine, who replied
+     with firmness and modesty that never had she fallen into this
+     sin either on this occasion or on any other, and that she did
+     not fear to be damned [for it]; but much sooner, for not having
+     courage enough to let them break her head rather than to go to
+     work in the fields on Sunday. She believed she had not done
+     enough by remaining whole days without eating, for when she did
+     not go to work in the fields on Sundays, they would hide
+     everything there was to eat in the cabin, and they left her
+     nothing of what had been prepared for that day. This was in
+     order that hunger might oblige her to go to the fields, where
+     they would have forced her to work."
+
+They declared that Christianity was making her lazy and worthless. Had
+she been accustomed to idle away as much of her time in amusement as
+the other young squaws, she would not have been so treated; but her
+ill-natured aunts, for whom she had worked industriously all her life,
+now begrudged her the one day of rest out of seven which she took for
+conscience' sake. Thus Sunday generally proved not a feast, but a
+fast-day to Tekakwitha. Her life was becoming intolerable. Her cruel and
+morose aunt, whom Martin rightly calls _un esprit bizarre_, had received
+from Father de Lamberville a reprimand which covered her with confusion.
+She visited her chagrin upon the head of her innocent victim. "Well!"
+she had said to the blackgown, "so Katherine, whom you esteem so
+virtuous, is notwithstanding a hypocrite who deceives you." As such her
+aunt now treated her. This evil-minded old squaw, who looked through the
+murky cloud of her own sins at the brightness and holiness of the young
+life so close to hers, disliked its radiance. It caused her to blink
+uncomfortably, and she refused to believe in its truth. She shrank back
+into the dark, which suited her better. In her fruitless efforts to hide
+from her wicked eyes the bright light that shone about the pathway of
+Tekakwitha, she tried by every means in her power to brand the virtue of
+her niece as a mere pretence, assumed to cover worse deeds than her own.
+
+There was no longer for the Lily of the Mohawks even a shadow of
+protection in her home at Caughnawaga Castle. Her uncle had beset her
+path with drunken men and taunting children; she had been deprived of
+food, she had been threatened with death, and last of all, her aunt had
+done what she could to defame her to the blackgown. He, however, was now
+her only friend; and his advice to her was to leave the country as soon
+as possible, and take refuge at the Praying Castle. What wonder, then,
+that Tekakwitha, after having thus spent a year and a half in her home
+as a Christian, began to look with longing eyes towards the new
+Caughnawaga on the St. Lawrence, whither her adopted sister and
+Anastasia Tegonhatsihongo had already gone. She turned to the mission
+settlement in her thoughts as to a land of promise and peace, an asylum
+where her religion and her innocence would be respected.
+
+Travelling Indians from the Sault came and went among their tribesmen in
+the Mohawk Valley. Sometimes they were joined by new recruits, who
+returned with them to Canada. Tekakwitha now greeted the arrival of each
+band of these Christian Indians with a hopeful smile; but again and
+again she saw them depart with a weary sigh, for when they were gone,
+she felt that her only chance of release from her trials had vanished
+with them. Thus far none of them had offered to take her to the Praying
+Castle, and indeed, she knew of no one with whom she would have cared to
+go had she been asked. She saw no way out of her troubles. Her uncle,
+grown harsh and unkind to her, was displeased with all that she did in
+the lodge, and yet he would not consent to her going away. The old chief
+was moody and sullen at sight of his half-untenanted castle. Who then
+would dare to tamper with his niece, or assist her in any way to escape?
+Who would ever be found willing to undertake so dangerous a venture?
+Tekakwitha sadly realized her position, and felt that she could only
+gather together the powers of her soul for patient and persistent
+endurance even unto death. She knew that if her relatives could once
+force her by long-continued persecution to yield to them, their old
+kindness would return; they would then be only too glad to choose a
+husband for her, and to give her a place among the oyanders, or noble
+matrons of the nation. But the national life of the Mohawks was still
+thoroughly heathen, and her part was already taken with the Christians.
+She would not retreat one step, nor entertain for a moment the thought
+of surrender, though she was cut off almost entirely from communication
+with those of her own faith. She stood apart from them all, and suffered
+and made no moan. During this time Tekakwitha was learning the bitterest
+lesson of life; she was daily sounding the depths and unlocking the
+secrets of unshared sorrow. In this the heart of the Lily was waxing
+strong; but alas! her very soul was athirst for the "living water" that
+was so cruelly denied her. She had scarcely as yet been allowed to taste
+of its sweetness. She knew that those who lived at the Sault were
+permitted to drink deep of the precious draught, and revelled in wealth
+of spiritual food. Thus checked and deprived of instruction, how could
+she ever hope to obtain the "bread of life" that was given out so freely
+at the mission village? Was she alone, of all the Iroquois Christians,
+to hunger and thirst for these things without relief till she died? Was
+she to be all her life "the only one in the lodge baptized"? And would
+she be always treated as now? She felt that she could not endure it much
+longer and live; for the Lily was left quite alone among thorns, and the
+thorns were pricking her almost to death.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[53] These promises were of no great account. Kryn, the great Mohawk
+warrior, said in 1687, "If a priest would settle at Saragtoga, many
+[Indians] would return; for they had longed and waited a long time for
+it." Colonial History, vol. iii. p. 436. As this hope failed, and
+neutrality was not possible, we find Kryn thenceforth in close alliance
+with the French.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+HOT ASHES PLANS TEKAKWITHA'S ESCAPE.
+
+
+The Indian chief Louis Garonhiagué, known to the English as Hot Ashes,
+and called by the French La Poudre Chaude or La Cendre Chaude, was, as
+his name implies, a quick-tempered, impulsive, and fiery man. He was an
+Oneida by birth, and was known to have been one of the executioners of
+the heroic missionary Brebeuf, who, with his companion Lalemant, was
+tortured and slain in the Huron country by Iroquois warriors. Since that
+time Hot Ashes had become a Christian. His career and character are
+interesting and characteristic of the times. As this impetuous chief,
+_dogique_, and apostle was bold enough to come forward and assist the
+Lily of the Mohawks to escape from her uncle's lodge to the Sault St.
+Louis, some further account of him may well be given.
+
+Hot Ashes had been betrothed to his wife in childhood. They had lived
+together from the time he was eight years old. The violence of his
+nature was held in check to a certain extent by the unalterable
+patience, the gentleness, and the yielding disposition of his worthy
+squaw. Their union was what Chauchetière calls one of the good marriages
+that are sometimes made among the savages. Hot Ashes was chief or
+captain of his village in the Oneida country, and was held in high
+esteem by his tribesmen. His own quick temper was the cause of his
+leaving them. At one time the question of moving the village to a new
+site--an event of frequent occurrence among the Indians--gave rise to a
+quarrel between the leading chiefs. While still angry on this account,
+Hot Ashes went off to the hunt. Thereupon a second event occurred, of so
+irritating a nature that he was enraged beyond all bounds. News came to
+him that his favorite brother had been killed. The bearer of the news
+did not tell him who had committed the fatal deed. The furious and
+excitable chief immediately persuaded himself that it had been done by
+the French. Without waiting to learn the particulars, he hurried off
+toward Montreal to wreak his vengeance on the Canadian settlers. On his
+way, however, he learned that his brother had been killed in an entirely
+different quarter, and not by these people at all. Hot Ashes was now in
+a quandary. What should he do next? He was near the Praying Castle on
+the St. Lawrence, whose hospitable doors were always open to travellers,
+and he paused there for a time to consider the situation. The Indians of
+that place liked him from the first; he soon made friends among them,
+and his wife was charmed with the quiet, orderly, and peaceful life of
+the Christian Indians who dwelt there. Hot Ashes thus had ample time to
+cool down and think matters over. Should he now decide to return to his
+own country, he would feel bound to avenge his brother's death,
+according to custom, on the people by whom he had been slain. He knew
+that this would involve his whole nation in a bloody war. This he
+disliked to do; for when not in a tempest of anger, Hot Ashes was a
+generous, good-hearted man. Then, too, the longer he remained at the
+Sault the more contented and calm he became. Won over by his wife
+Garhoit, he consented to be instructed and to be baptized with his whole
+family. The baptism of so important a chief was a great event for the
+mission. All his own people who were in the vicinity, and many even from
+the distant Oneida country, assembled at the Praying Castle for the
+occasion. A number of these remained and became Christians. There were
+soon so many Oneidas dwelling at the Sault that they needed a ruler of
+their own nation, and Hot Ashes was chosen to preside over them. He thus
+became the fourth _dogique_, or captain of the Praying Castle. He soon
+ranked first of all in importance, notwithstanding the ability of his
+stanch friend Kryn, the "great Mohawk." Still his unruly temper would
+break forth at times, as it did on the occasion of his reception as
+captain. The men of the Sault assembled in due form, lighted the fire
+for him, gave him the calumet to smoke, and went through all the
+ceremonies save one, which most unfortunately was forgotten. Hot Ashes,
+indignant at the oversight, went to Father Fremin, the missionary, and
+gave vent to his ire. He said that they had mocked him, that they had
+treated him like a child, that he was a chief without a mat, that he
+would be obliged to hold his council out of doors. In short, he could
+not be pacified till the old men reassembled, and the whole ceremony
+from beginning to end was gone over.
+
+Once duly installed, Hot Ashes ruled the village with ability and vigor
+up to the time of his death. He outlived Tekakwitha, and was finally
+killed in battle. Many incidents are told of his courage, piety, and
+zeal, his devotion to his religion and the good of the settlement, and
+also of his tenderness to his wife while suffering from grievous
+ailments which afflicted the later years of her life. He had a natural
+talent for exhorting and teaching. He won many of his own people to
+Christianity, and when war was threatened he did what he could to
+maintain peace between the Oneidas and the French. While thus engaged he
+was suspected of double dealing; but taking no notice of the evil things
+that were said of him, Hot Ashes held to his own disinterested course
+with head erect, confiding in his good wife, who alone remained true to
+him, till at last he succeeded in living down all suspicion of treachery
+on either side. He it was, more than all others, who opposed and
+prevented the introduction of the liquor traffic into the settlement at
+the Sault. A lively incident is given by Chauchetière to show his love
+of temperance. Soon after his baptism he chanced to be hunting at the
+end of the island of Montreal, when he fell in with a band of Oneidas.
+They were being supplied with liquor by an unscrupulous Canadian trader.
+They sat around a great bowl of fire water, from which they drank
+freely, and which was constantly replenished by the crafty Frenchman.
+Hot Ashes was asked to join them. He did so, through courtesy, and drank
+with the rest. Finding that he was expected and urged to take more than
+he ought, an expedient came into his ready brain for preventing further
+mischief. As there were older men than himself in the band, it would not
+have been considered proper for him to reprove them openly. This, then,
+is what he did. He stood up and began to sing like a drunken man, and to
+dance. Suddenly he pretended to take a false step, and at the same time
+gave the bowl a great kick with his foot. This scattered its contents
+over the ground. The Indians, not suspecting his intention, looked upon
+the accident as a good joke. They began to laugh uproariously and to
+make fun of Hot Ashes, who went on with his mimicry. In the mean time
+night came on, and they thought no more of drinking, but all fell
+asleep. Hot Ashes then retired, well pleased with having put a stop to
+the debauch.
+
+Other anecdotes might be given to show the character and spirit of this
+Indian; but it is enough to know that he was just the one to assist the
+Lily of the Mohawks in the accomplishment of her now well-defined
+purpose,--to escape at all hazards, and turn from her uncle's lodge to
+the Praying Castle.
+
+Tekakwitha's adopted sister, already in Canada, knew well the condition
+of affairs in the Mohawk country, and above all, in the lodge of the
+chief, with whom she had formerly lived at Caughnawaga. She was fully
+aware that Tekakwitha's life there as a Christian would necessarily be a
+thorny one. She and her husband often spoke of the unhappy condition in
+which the young Mohawk was placed, and of the desirability of having her
+with them. When it became known that Hot Ashes was about to visit the
+Long House of the Five Nations on an errand of zeal, they realized at
+once that the wished-for opportunity had come. They would now be able to
+assist Tekakwitha. The Oneida chief intended to speak to his people
+concerning the faith that was in him, and to persuade as many of them as
+possible to return with him to the Sault. Tekakwitha's brother-in-law,
+urged by his wife, resolved to accompany Hot Ashes on his proposed
+journey, and in order to make sure of carrying out his own immediate
+purpose,--which was to bring his sister-in-law back with him,--he took
+into his confidence a good friend of his from Lorette, a mission village
+of the Hurons, near Quebec. This Indian of Lorette and the
+brother-in-law of Tekakwitha consulted with Hot Ashes, and the three
+together planned their journey as best they could beforehand. Then they
+stepped lightly into a canoe, just large enough to hold them, and soon
+were speeding southward over Lake Champlain, and thence through Lake
+George on their way to the Mohawk Valley.
+
+Ah, Tekakwitha, why is your step so weary there in the village street?
+Why do you pause at the cabin door as though you did not care to enter?
+Why are you sad and faint? Have they hidden the food away from you
+again, lest you should find a morsel to eat, and will you be greeted
+with angry words if you enter your uncle's lodge? Is it no easier for
+you to bear it now than it was at first? Poor child! you are both hungry
+and hungry-hearted; human nature is strong within you to-day. The
+craving for peace and comfort and human love will not be hushed and
+trampled under by faith, and the hope of a far-away heaven. Has
+Rawenniio forgotten the Mohawk girl? She seems to be drifting away from
+the sound of his voice. The strength of her spirit is gone. She is sad
+unto death. Why not give up the struggle at once, go into the lodge, and
+consent to do like the rest? For one who has grown too weary to swim, it
+can scarcely be wrong to drift with the current. Are these your
+thoughts, Tekakwitha? See! They have startled her out of her weariness!
+With a sudden return of energy and a quick determination, as if afraid
+to trust herself in the lodge, she turns and takes the path to the
+chapel. She will find the blackgown, if it is possible to do so; she
+will tell him her wicked thoughts, and be guided by what he says. He is
+wise and good. He can tell her how to chase such thoughts away, and
+perhaps she can keep them from coming back. At all events, he will speak
+to her the comforting words of forgiveness and tell her to go in peace.
+Then she will be sure that Rawenniio loves her and is not angry. She
+knows the path so well that she quickly comes within sight of the
+chapel. As it is not her usual hour for prayer, no one is around to
+waylay or disturb her.
+
+Close at hand is De Lamberville's cabin. Tekakwitha does not find him at
+once, for the blackgown has guests. They are Christian Indians, who have
+come from the Sault, and there are three of them. Father de Lamberville
+is well pleased to have such visitors; he welcomes the Christians from
+the Sault who come to the Mohawk as if they were angels come from
+heaven. He gladly receives them into his cabin, and leaves them free to
+come and go as they please. "One could see the spirit of Christianity
+and the mortification of the passions depicted on the faces of these new
+apostles." The novelty of seeing and hearing them on this occasion has
+already attracted a crowd of Indians to the spot. One of the blackgown's
+guests has risen to make a speech.
+
+Tekakwitha finds herself in the midst of the old men and the chiefs of
+Caughnawaga who are assembled there, and she listens with eager interest
+to all that is said. Her uncle is away on a visit to the Dutch, which
+happens well for her. It is no less a personage than Hot Ashes who is
+addressing the people. In his impetuous, headlong way he tells them that
+"as they all know, he was formerly captain at Oneida, that he was a
+warrior, and that he acted like them in those days, but that after all
+he was only a dog; that he had begun to be a man a few months back and
+he said many touching things," continues Chauchetière, "but nobody
+profited by them at all except Catherine. The old men withdrew, one
+after another, and left the speaker almost entirely alone. Catherine
+could not separate herself from these new-comers. She declared to the
+Father that she must indeed go away, even at the cost of her life." She
+was too unhappy and distrustful of herself and her own powers of
+endurance to remain longer in the country where she was exposed to so
+many and such constant trials of her strength and her faith. Father de
+Lamberville, moved by her earnest words, spoke to Hot Ashes and his
+companions about her. He asked if it would be possible for them to take
+her back with them to Canada. "Certainly," they said. It was in the hope
+of assisting her to escape that they had come to Caughnawaga. Hot Ashes
+at once offered Tekakwitha his own place in the canoe. He said that he
+intended to go on to Oneida and to pass through all the Iroquois
+nations, preaching the faith. Her brother-in-law, therefore, and the
+Indian from Lorette, could take the canoe and return with Tekakwitha to
+the Praying Castle. God had provided a means of escape for her most
+unexpectedly. It was the very best opportunity she could have to go; her
+uncle was away, and her aunts, either through indifference or ignorance
+of the plan, put no obstacle in her path.
+
+Tekakwitha was never known to falter when the moment came for prompt
+decision and instant action. Chauchetière says: "The resolution was no
+sooner taken than it was carried into execution."
+
+The two companions of Hot Ashes put Tekakwitha secretly into the canoe
+with them, and immediately took the route leading towards the Dutch;[54]
+that is to say, they embarked on the Mohawk River and followed its
+course for some distance, before taking any one of the different
+woodland trails leading to Lake George.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[54] According to Cholenec's account of Tekakwitha's escape, her
+brother-in-law went on a hurried visit to the Dutch and back again to
+Caughnawaga, before he started with her at all. This he did in order to
+mislead her uncle, who would think he had come to that vicinity for no
+other purpose than to trade in beaver-skins. The minor details of her
+journey are somewhat confused in the two accounts of Cholenec and
+Chauchetière, but the main facts are the same in both.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+FROM THE OLD TO THE NEW CAUGHNAWAGA.
+
+
+As they left Caughnawaga Castle, and paddled around the sharp bends of
+the Mohawk River, the two Indians who were conducting this stirring
+adventure used the utmost caution to prevent an encounter between
+Tekakwitha and her uncle, who might be at that very time returning from
+Schenectady. This they dreaded above all things. If the old chief should
+meet her in company with them, he would suspect their purpose at once,
+and the lives of the three would be in danger. They followed the course
+of the river current, however, as it carried them in the general
+direction of their journey more swiftly than they could otherwise
+travel. They wished to make the most of their time before the uncle
+could be warned of their departure from the castle. It was probably not
+far from the spot where the Chuctanunda Creek at Amsterdam[55] comes
+tumbling down the hill into the Mohawk, or in that vicinity, that she
+and her two companions left the canoe by the river-side and took to the
+woods; as in the thickets along the less frequented trail by land, it
+would be easier for Tekakwitha to conceal herself quickly in case of
+alarm, than if they were to continue the journey further by way of the
+river. Had they followed the latter course, they would have been obliged
+to take a more easterly trail across Saratoga County.[56]
+
+As they feared, the uncle was soon on their trail; for shortly after the
+three mission Indians had disappeared from Caughnawaga Castle
+Tekakwitha's absence was noticed. It was quickly inferred that she had
+gone to Canada. She was not in the lodge, not in the chapel, nor with
+the girls at the spring. Instantly a runner was despatched to the Dutch
+settlement to warn the Turtle Chief of what had occurred. The news
+filled him with rage. Leaving his Dutch friends abruptly, he started
+homeward to learn if it were indeed true that his niece had vanished,
+and if so, speedily to follow her. On his way to the castle he passed an
+Indian travelling rapidly in the opposite direction from himself, whom
+he scarcely noticed and did not recognize. Nevertheless this Indian was
+no other than Tekakwitha's brother-in-law,--the very man he wanted to
+capture. The unrecognized relative knew the chief as soon as he saw him,
+but he was too near to avoid passing him without exciting suspicion. So,
+feigning an unconcern which he was far from feeling, he kept straight
+on, and passed the old man safely. He then continued his journey to
+Schenectady. The chief, on the other hand, was in quite as great a hurry
+to reach the Mohawk village. Perhaps he had doubts as to the
+truthfulness of what he had heard. At all events, when he arrived at
+Caughnawaga he went directly to his own lodge, and found that
+Tekakwitha was indeed not there, and had not been since the departure of
+Hot Ashes. Immediately he gathered what information he could at the
+castle, "loaded his gun with three balls, declaring that he would kill
+somebody," and started in pursuit of the fugitives. Once thoroughly
+roused, his unaided sagacity put him on the trail by which he might
+overtake them before they could reach Lake George.
+
+In the mean time what had become of Tekakwitha? Why was her
+brother-in-law travelling alone? Ah! she and the good Indian of Lorette
+were concealed in the bushes, either near the river-bank at Amsterdam or
+on the high ground to the northeast of that town. Her brother-in-law had
+left them there, while he made a brief trip to Schenectady and back in
+order to buy bread. They had started from Caughnawaga Castle in haste,
+without provision for the journey. He soon returned to the secluded spot
+where his companions were waiting for him. Tekakwitha was greatly
+relieved to see him. When he gave them a graphic account of his narrow
+escape from discovery, she looked upon it as a certain proof that God
+was watching over them. She resolved that on reaching the Sault, as she
+now hoped to do, she would endeavor in every way to show her gratitude
+to Him. Up to this time she had lived in great seclusion and subjection,
+and of late had suffered constant persecution and torture of spirit.
+This sudden freedom, then, from all the bonds that bound her to her
+lodge and tribe; the intense excitement attending her sudden departure;
+these days of concealment in the weird and gloomy forest; this
+unforeseen companionship with strangers, who proved to be as gentle and
+as solicitous for her safety as if she were indeed a beloved sister; and
+more than all the wonderful way in which everything seemed to concur in
+aiding her escape,--could not fail to make a deep and lasting impression
+on her sensitive soul. Every spiritual and religious tendency of her
+nature was intensified by this new and strange experience. In leaving
+her home and undertaking so perilous a journey she had thrown herself
+without reserve into the arms of Providence, and now resting there, she
+was carried almost without an effort through hair-breadth escapes from
+dangers that no earthly consideration would ever have nerved her to
+face. She felt that she could not henceforth do otherwise than devote
+her all to Rawenniio,--_the true God_.
+
+Their probable route to Lake George was through what is now the township
+of Galway in Saratoga County, and thence up the valley of the
+Kayaderosseras Creek, skirting the eastern side of the long
+mountain-ridge that carries Lake Desolation high on its back. Through
+this region one can travel almost in a straight line of open country
+from Amsterdam on the Mohawk to Jessup's Landing on the Hudson. There
+the river is fordable, just above Palmer's Falls and below the old
+scow-ferry. A well-worn trail followed the eastern bank of the river
+from there to Luzerne, and then turned northeast, through a beautiful
+valley, to the mountainous shores of Lake George. Somewhere on this
+direct route across the country, Tekakwitha's uncle overtook one of the
+two Indians who were escorting her to Canada. Apparently this Indian was
+engaged in hunting. Just as the chief approached, the hunter took aim as
+if at a bird and fired his gun. This was a preconcerted signal to his
+companion, who was some distance in advance, to conceal the Indian girl.
+It was so understood. In an instant Tekakwitha was hidden in a clump of
+thick undergrowth. Her ready-witted companion threw himself on the
+ground near her, took out his pipe, lit it, and lazily watched the
+curling smoke as he puffed it from his mouth. Tekakwitha's uncle, coming
+upon the second Indian in this attitude, was completely disconcerted.
+Where then was his niece? Assuredly not in company with these men. They
+were fully absorbed in their own affairs, and scarcely noticed his
+approach. She might be even then at work in the corn-fields down by the
+Mohawk, or saying her prayers in the woods behind the castle. In either
+case he would not have found her in the lodge. He had acted foolishly,
+and followed an idle rumor without sufficient thought. He would not
+expose his folly further by questioning these men about her. Having
+reached this determination, he turned without a word as to what was
+uppermost in his mind, and silently retraced his steps to the Mohawk
+Valley.
+
+As for Tekakwitha, she felt as sure just then of Rawenniio's direct
+protection and care, as if she had seen the Great Spirit himself
+standing in front of her hiding-place and concealing her from the
+suspicious eyes of her uncle. How else could the wise old chief have
+been so easily misled by such simple means? With a light heart she
+resumed her journey. Their worst danger was passed. When they reached
+the shore of Lake George, a little search among the bushes brought to
+light the canoe which her companions had left there on their journey
+southward with Hot Ashes. Once fairly launched, they felt secure; and
+as they paddled up the lake, hugging the westward or leeward side, where
+canoes find the smoothest water, they woke its echoes with the chanting
+of Iroquois hymns. Thus did the daughter, a voluntary exile from her
+home in the Mohawk Valley, retrace the path over land and water
+travelled years before by her captive Algonquin mother. In her ears had
+sounded not sacred hymns, but only the wild music of the war-song and
+the plaintive strains of the Indian love-song. In those days of war and
+bloodshed the Christian hymn of the Iroquois had not yet been sung. The
+Mohawk mission had been but recently founded. The blood of the martyred
+Jogues still lay fresh on the ground, and the soul of the Lily had not
+yet come into existence.
+
+During this long journey the many thoughts of Tekakwitha must have gone
+back to the dreary lodge on the banks of the Cayudutta, where her usual
+daily tasks were neglected, and where her baffled, deserted uncle now
+sat disconsolate by the hearth-fire. If these thoughts brought a pang to
+her warm heart, she could console herself with the remembrance that the
+blessing of her dead mother would not fail to follow her on the journey.
+As the three Christians left behind them "the tail of the lake"
+(Andiatorocte), and paddled past Ticonderoga, they did not pay the
+customary tribute to _the little people under the water_. Their heathen
+tribesmen might, if they chose, cast their tobacco into the lake to gain
+the good-will of the sprites who were said to prepare the well-shaped
+arrow-flints with which the shore just there is strewn;[57] for when the
+surface of the lake was rough they thought the little people were
+angry. But Tekakwitha and her companions had renounced these
+superstitions of their race. They knew that God alone was ruler of wind
+and wave. On no account could they be induced to pay homage to any such
+mischievous sprites of the lake. They asked Rawenniio instead to forgive
+the people, and to turn their thoughts away from all such foolish
+worship. "Her journey," says Chauchetière, "was a continual prayer, and
+the joy that she felt in approaching Montreal could not be expressed.
+Behold then our young savage, twenty-one years of age, who escapes holy
+and pure, and who triumphs over the impurity, the infidelity, and the
+vice which have corrupted all the Iroquois! Behold the Genevieve of
+Canada, behold the treasure of the Sault, who is at hand, and who has
+sanctified the path from Montreal to the Mohawk, by which other
+predestined souls have passed after her!" When she found herself far
+from her own country, and realized that she had nothing more to fear on
+the part of her uncle, she gave herself entirely to God, to do in the
+future whatever would please him best. She arrived in the autumn of the
+year 1677,[58] the desire that she had to get there as soon as possible
+was the reason for not stopping on the way. On her arrival, she put the
+letters that Father de Lamberville had written into the hands of the
+Fathers, who, having read them, were delighted to have acquired a
+treasure; for these were the words of the letter: "I send you a
+treasure; guard it well." Her face told more than the letters. Her joy
+was unspeakable on finding herself in the land of light, freed from the
+sorrows of spirit which she had endured from not being able to serve God
+as she wished to serve him, freed too from the persecutions which were
+inflicted upon her in her country and in her cabin.
+
+She was received at once into the lodge of Anastasia Tegonhatsihongo,
+her mother's old friend, with whom her sister and her sister's husband
+already dwelt.
+
+From the time of her arrival at the new Caughnawaga, Chauchetière and
+Cholenec, the two biographers of Kateri Tekakwitha, were both close and
+observant witnesses of her life. They were also present at her death.
+Henceforth, then, we will let them speak often and at length, telling in
+their own way of the rapid unfolding of spiritual life which took place
+in this untaught child of Nature. Transplanted from the heart of a
+heathen wilderness into a settlement of fervent souls,--for such from
+all accounts was the mission village at the Sault,--the Lily of the
+Mohawks caught up with keenest relish the inspiration in the air about
+her. She was lifted with marvellous rapidity to a height of holiness
+that drew all eyes in Canada towards her. It was there in the land of
+her adoption that she won the title of "La Bonne Catherine." Those who
+have patience to read on to the end of her biography will see how the
+brief life of this Indian girl was indeed radiant with love of the true
+God.
+
+The letter which she bore with her from the Mohawk Valley, written by
+Father de Lamberville, who had baptized her, and which was addressed to
+Father Cholenec, to whose flock she was henceforth to belong, is given
+in full by Martin, as follows:--
+
+     "Catherine Tegakouita va demeurer au Sault. Veuillez-vous
+     charger, je vous en prie, de sa direction. Vous connaîtrez
+     bientôt le trésor que nous vous donnons. Gardez le donc bien!
+     Qu'entre vos mains il profite à la gloire de Dieu, et au salut
+     d'une âme qui lui est assurément bien chère."[59]
+
+
+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."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+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 moving
+waters, 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, as fine 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!
+
+[Illustration]
+
+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 of these 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 other young 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 other way. 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 devoting themselves 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."
+
+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 well pleased 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 episcopal visitation 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 in her 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."
+
+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 were expected 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 the first. 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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+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 winter months. 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 and friends 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 of poverty, 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 cut on 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 began her 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 the saints. 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
+herself at 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
+     suffer so 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 the life 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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+KATERI'S FRIEND,--THÉRÈSE TEGAIAGUENTA.
+
+
+A joy 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 and passionate 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, miserable creature 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
+heart to 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 to listen 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 company then 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 good
+     reason 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, if
+they 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.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[61] See Chauchetière, livre ii. chapitre 2.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+MONTREAL AND THE ISLE-AUX-HÉRONS, 1678.
+
+
+It is certain that Kateri Tekakwitha visited the French settlement on
+the north side of the river; for Cholenec thus writes:--
+
+     "While passing some days at Montreal, where for the first time
+     she saw the nuns, she was so charmed with their modesty and
+     devotion that she informed herself most thoroughly with regard
+     to the manner in which these holy sisters lived, and the
+     virtues which they practised."
+
+Kateri and Thérèse--for the two were inseparable--with other Indians
+from the Sault, probably laden with goods to barter, must have crossed
+over to Montreal in canoes. They paddled out into the broad smooth
+waters of the St. Lawrence below the great rapid, where the river widens
+out like a lake. They left far behind them their village, with its tall
+wooden cross on the river-bank, and the wild Isle-aux-Hérons, bearing up
+its sturdy clump of foliage in the midst of the splashing foam. They
+passed at a distance the Jesuit chapel at La Prairie, where a few
+Frenchmen had built houses and formed the nucleus of a settlement, and
+then moved quietly and rapidly on in their light canoes until they
+neared the Isle St. Paul. The southern shore of the river swept away in
+a great curve as they left the Sault, and the prairie lands stretched
+away towards Lake Champlain, while Mount Royal blocked the northern
+horizon. Finally, after rounding the Isle St. Paul, they approached near
+enough to the northern bank to see where the first French fort had been
+built by the Sieur de Maisonneuve on level land at the mouth of a little
+stream. The spot is now called Custom-House Square; and the wild Ilot
+Normandin has been transformed into Island Wharf. This fort had fallen
+into disuse, and a second one was built on higher ground. The great
+French guns that were pointed toward the river meant no harm to the
+Christian Indians, who passed safely by, and landed on vacant ground in
+the rear of a cluster of fortified buildings fronting on the Rue St.
+Paul. This was the principal thoroughfare of the infant city of
+Ville-Marie. Every house on the island of Montreal was strongly built
+for defence. Each farm in the vicinity was connected with the town by a
+chain of redoubts. Not only the fort and the governor's mansion, but the
+mills, the brewery, the Hospital or Hôtel Dieu, and the chief residences
+had high walls and outlying defences. These buildings were so placed
+along the Rue St. Paul that a cross-fire from them and from the
+bastioned fort across the little stream (which has since disappeared in
+the maze of modern streets) could be maintained in a way to render the
+position of the colonists impregnable against an Indian assault. This
+had all been done under the leadership of the first governor. At the
+time of Kateri's visit, the chivalric De Maisonneuve had been recalled
+to France, and De Courselles was Governor-General. The Sulpicians, whose
+seminary was centrally located on the principal street, were lords of
+the _seigneurie_ of Montreal and could give grants of land, though the
+recently arrived officers of the King disputed their right to dispense
+justice, and to appoint the governor of Ville-Marie.
+
+Marguerite Bourgeois was still a leading spirit in the colony, and was
+actively engaged in founding and conducting her schools for the Indian
+and Canadian children. Her convent of Sisters of the Congregation of
+Notre Dame, after much delay and many trials, was at last successfully
+established opposite the Hôtel Dieu on the Rue St. Paul. Monseigneur de
+Laval, Bishop of Quebec, on his visit to Ville-Marie in 1676, had
+formally recognized and approved her new order. There were at this time
+ten nuns in all associated with her in the work of teaching. They taught
+day-scholars free of charge, and worked diligently out of school-hours
+to support themselves. In 1657 the Sieur de Maisonneuve had given
+Marguerite Bourgeois a tract of land near the Hôtel Dieu, on which was a
+well-built stable, which she used for her first school-house. The
+classes were assembled in the lower part of the building, while this
+indefatigable schoolmistress and her first assistants slept in the loft,
+to which they ascended by an outside staircase. As her school and
+community increased, she built a house that would shelter twelve
+persons. This also had proved insufficient, and she was now established
+in a fine large stone building, where a number of girls were safely
+housed, and taught to read, write, and sew. The King of France allowed
+her a certain amount each year for the support of her Indian pupils.
+These were mostly at the school of the newly founded Sulpician mission
+on the mountain-side. There the number of Indians was daily increasing.
+M. Belmont, a Sulpician, taught the boys, and two of the Congregation
+sisters had charge of the girls. Their favorite pupil, Marie Thérèse
+Gannensagwas (meaning, "She takes the arm"), was in a few years to
+become herself a successful teacher in the Indian school, and a gentle,
+lovable nun. At this time she was about eleven years old. When still
+younger, she had come with her aged grandfather from the Seneca country.
+He was a Christian, having been baptized in the Huron country by the
+great missionary Brebeuf. The little Gannensagwas was adopted by
+Governor de Courselles, and placed under the care of Marguerite
+Bourgeois in the convent on the Rue St. Paul. When the school at the
+Mountain was opened, in 1676, she was sent there. In one or other of
+these two places she spent the remainder of her life, as pupil, novice,
+and then schoolmistress. Her memory has sometimes been confused with
+that of Kateri Tekakwitha, though she was ten years younger than the
+Mohawk, and led a very different sort of life. Gannensagwas grew up,
+lived and died in a convent, and was the first real Indian nun. A tablet
+to her memory is preserved in one of the towers of the old fort at the
+mission on Mount Royal. This stone tower stands in the same enclosure
+with the costly modern buildings of the Sulpicians in a beautiful part
+of the present city of Montreal. At the time of Kateri's visit, however,
+this same tower and fort was in the woods; for the buildings of the old
+town extended no farther from the river than the Rue St. Jacques. From
+there to the Indian schools of the Mountain was a lonely road leading
+past a solitary fortified farm belonging to the Sulpicians,--La ferme
+St. Gabriel. It was there that a priest, M. Le Maistre, had been
+tomahawked, in August 1661. He was on guard while the laborers gathered
+in the harvest. His tragic death warned them to withdraw at once from
+the fields, and defend themselves within the farm-house. Such incidents
+as this were then fresh in the minds of the people, and gave pathetic
+interest to many a spot near Ville-Marie.
+
+In 1678 Rue Notre Dame was a new street, not yet built up, and the
+foundations of the parish church were uncompleted; but already the Hôtel
+Dieu had a long history. Just five years had passed since Mademoiselle
+Manse, the former friend of Marguerite Bourgeois, and the one who
+founded the Hôtel Dieu and brought the hospital nuns from France to
+conduct it, had been laid to rest. She died in 1673. Her last request
+was that her body might be buried at the Hôtel Dieu, and her heart be
+placed under the sanctuary lamp in the new church of the parish.[62] It
+was but right that this should be done, for she had given her whole life
+to founding not only the hospital but the city and colony at Mount
+Royal. Till the new church of Notre Dame should be finished, the heart
+of the brave lady, encased in a metal vase, was hung in the chapel of
+the Hôtel Dieu. It was there for many years; but the building of the
+church was delayed so long that the transfer of the precious deposit
+never took place. The relic was lost at the time of a fire that
+destroyed the old chapel and hospital in 1695. Kateri may have seen the
+metal vase in the chapel of the hospital, but could scarcely have had
+time to learn its significance. Mademoiselle Manse had fulfilled a
+twofold task. She had distributed guns and ammunition to the colonists,
+and had nursed the wounded soldiers and Indians. Her life was often in
+danger. At times she was quite alone in the hospital. Her courage,
+enthusiasm, and womanly care for the sick and suffering were a mainstay
+of the colony, all through what has well been called its heroic age.
+Founded in a spirit of religious zeal for the conversion of the savages,
+its struggle for existence in a wild country of warring races fills up a
+strange and interesting chapter in early American history. Quebec, Three
+Rivers, and Montreal were for a long time the only settlements of any
+consequence in Canada. Quebec was the great stronghold and
+starting-point of French trade and colonization. There too the Jesuit
+missionaries had their headquarters, and sent their reports, which were
+combined into the famous "Relations," so valuable now as history. Three
+Rivers, the next important trading-post, was a long stride up the St.
+Lawrence and into the wilderness. There, as elsewhere, the French sought
+to share their faith with the Indians. Kateri's Algonquin mother, it
+will be remembered, had been baptized at Three Rivers before her capture
+by the Iroquois. Beyond that point no permanent settlers had ventured
+until Montreal, the strange, solitary island city, was established for
+no other purpose than to convert the redmen to Christianity. The whole
+plan was made in France by a company of devout and wealthy persons. Two
+of the leading spirits, not yet mentioned, were M. Olier, an
+ecclesiastic, and M. de la Dauversière, a pious layman. The site for
+the city was chosen, and the island bought, by men who had no practical
+knowledge of the country. It was far inland, and dependent entirely on
+its own resources when the Indians were at war. The people of Quebec did
+not always know whether Montreal existed or not, so beset were its
+inhabitants at times by the unconverted, warlike kindred of Kateri. The
+raids of the Mohawks were checked by De Tracy, in 1666; but after all,
+they were only one of five unfriendly nations who were liable to
+brandish the tomahawk at any time against the French. In 1678 there was
+a general peace along the whole line, except for local and religious
+persecutions, such as Kateri had endured before coming to the Sault.
+
+The worst days for Montreal had been about twenty years before, when
+their allies the Hurons were annihilated as a nation by the terrible
+Iroquois. At that time the French lived in a whirlwind of war and havoc.
+The remnant of Hurons that remained with them after the war, were
+gathered together in the mission village of Lorette near Quebec.
+Sillery, in the same vicinity, was a settlement of the Christian
+Algonquins. In Kateri's time these two missions nestled under the
+protecting guns of Quebec; just as the Indians of the Praying Castle
+where Kateri lived, and the Iroquois of the Sulpician mission on the
+slope of Mount Royal, felt bound to maintain a close friendship for
+defence, as well as through inclination, with their French neighbors at
+Montreal. The people of the Sault and the people of the Mountain were
+always welcomed and graciously received by the colonists of Ville-Marie.
+There were many things for them to see and learn there; but if the
+Hôtel Dieu and the convent were at one end of the town, the brewery and
+the fort were at the other, and on the whole the Jesuit Fathers at the
+Sault liked it better when their Indians stayed at the mission. The
+trader of Montreal was much the same sort of man as the trader of Fort
+Orange. The early colonial town of the Frenchman, however, differed in
+many respects from the town of the Dutchman. It will be interesting,
+therefore, to follow Kateri as she leaves her canoe on the pebbly shore,
+and wander with her through the strange, new streets of the Canadian
+town, just as we followed her uncle long ago on his journey to Albany on
+the shore of the Hudson. His pack of beaver-skins was examined and
+handled by the well-to-do traders of Handelaer Street. So do the
+companions of Kateri dispose of their Indian wares with equal ease in
+the long and important Rue St. Paul. Like the Dutch thoroughfare, it
+runs parallel with the river; all the dwellings on one side have their
+backs turned to the water, but their gardens do not extend all the way
+to the water's edge, as at Albany; there are vacant building lots in the
+rear on the river-bank.
+
+     "The houses built of wood, _pièce sur pièce_, or of rounded
+     pebbles stuck together with cement, are all in the same
+     style,--a rectangle covered with a steep roof slightly
+     overtopped by the stone chimney; two skylights to admit light
+     into the garret on the long sides; a door set between two
+     windows, and the walls pierced with loop-holes for defence
+     against the Iroquois. The interior is not less simple,--one
+     large hall where all the family live, as in Bretagne; a bed or
+     lounge, a sort of long coffer or chest with a cover that is
+     opened out in the evening, into which a mattress is spread,
+     and where the children sleep; some chairs or small benches; the
+     extra clothing and the gun, hung up on the wall."[63]
+
+This extra clothing was as unpretentious in style as the dwelling. A
+plain woollen garment, with capot, girdle, and _tuque_, was the uniform
+of the Canadian colonist. Even the first governor, Sieur de Maisonneuve,
+wore it the greater part of the year, except on state occasions. Of
+course, in the hottest weather this warm outer garment was exchanged for
+a cooler shirt and a broad-brimmed hat; then the woollen coats with
+snow-shoes and other winter belongings of the settler were hung on pegs
+against the wall.
+
+The home-trained garrison of Montreal felt proud to hear the Viceroy de
+Tracy call them his "capots bleus," for they knew right well he could
+scarcely have triumphed over the Mohawks without their assistance. His
+veterans, scarred in the Turkish wars, were indeed a sorry sight to
+behold on the expedition of 1666, when they stumbled about in the snow,
+and lost their way in the forest of northern New York. Kateri remembered
+these soldiers well. She saw them in her childhood, when they were
+enemies and invaders of her home, and so she did not care to see them
+again. A glance at the fort and the fortified houses, the mills, the
+governor's house, and the _seminaire_ was enough for her. Already she
+stood at the corner of the Rue St. Paul and the Rue St. Joseph. If she
+chose to follow up the latter street, it would take her to the great
+square where the foundations of the new church of Notre Dame had been
+laid. But the chapel of the Hôtel Dieu was right before her, and she
+entered there. The hospital Sisters were chanting their office behind a
+wooden grating. Why were they out of sight? What did it all mean? She
+questioned her comrades, and they told her what little they themselves
+knew about the nuns. Not content with visiting the chapel, they gained
+permission to enter the hospital. What Kateri saw at the entrance on the
+Rue St. Paul was a great, heavy wooden door, opening into a small
+building. Behind this was a large enclosure or yard surrounded by a high
+stockade wall for defence, and containing several buildings, mostly of
+wood and somewhat out of repair. The hospital Sisters, though chiefly of
+noble rank, were poorly lodged and suffered many privations. The
+hospital was endowed by a lady of fortune in Paris, but it had been
+built and equipped under the eyes of Mademoiselle Manse, who cared for
+the sick herself till the Sisters came from France. After that she had
+dwelt close by them, and continued in charge of their financial affairs
+until her death. The nuns possessed some cows and other domestic
+animals. There was also a little bakery in one part of the enclosure. In
+another place Soeur de Brésoles had a garden marked off, where she
+cultivated medicinal drugs. It was all very simple and primitive, but
+strange and marvellous to the eyes of Kateri. She saw how good the
+Sisters were to the sick, and how simply and poorly they lived
+themselves. Their own beds were in a rough attic above the wards for the
+sick. Their linen was spotless, but the observant Kateri could not fail
+to see that their dresses were patched in many places. Though each of
+these ladies brought a _dot_ with her to the convent when she entered
+the order in France, they were often left with no resources save what
+their own industry brought them in the wilds of Canada, and even the
+hospital fund was lost to them through bad management over the sea; but
+no misfortune could daunt them in their work of curing and converting
+the Indians, and caring for the disabled colonists. They refused every
+overture to return to Europe, and shared in all the vicissitudes of the
+struggling colony, rich at least in the good-will of its people.
+
+In the convent across the street from the Hôtel Dieu, Kateri and her
+friend were warmly welcomed by Marguerite Bourgeois and the Sisters of
+the Congregation. It is probable that the two young Indian girls stayed
+over night at the convent, for Soeur Bourgeois delighted in entertaining
+just such guests, to shield them from all harm while in the city, and to
+win them to the practice of virtue and piety. There is every reason to
+believe that Kateri was much influenced and stimulated in her spiritual
+aspirations by what she saw there, and above all by coming in contact
+with the strong and saintly character of the woman who had founded so
+useful an order. Marguerite Bourgeois and her companions were successful
+in doing good from the very first; and to-day the great Villa-Maria,
+which is the outgrowth of her humble but earnest efforts, is set like a
+queenly diadem on the brow of Mount Royal. There the young girls of
+America are still attracted, sheltered, taught, and incited by the nuns
+of her order to a life of virtue and good deeds, in much the same spirit
+that the early colonial belles and Indian maidens were gathered
+together long ago by Marguerite Bourgeois herself, the very first
+schoolmistress of the town. She was accustomed to wear a plain black
+dress, with a deep pointed linen collar, almost a little cape; besides
+this, something that might be called either a short veil worn like a
+hood or a large black kerchief was drawn over her head and knotted
+loosely under her chin. In her later days the edges of a white cap which
+she wore under this sombre head-dress, showed about her face. Her nuns
+still wear a costume which she prescribed for them. There is nothing
+peculiar about their black dress or the usual nun's veil which falls in
+loose folds from the head and shoulders, but they wear an odd linen
+head-dress with three points, which is drawn together under the chin and
+projects downward in a stiff fold. Some of the sweetest of faces may be
+seen framed in this ungainly gear. The hooded kerchief of Marguerite
+Bourgeois was more pleasing, but she did not choose that it should be
+very comfortable. A sister of hers discovered one day that the cap she
+wore under this kerchief was all bristling with bent pins. She was,
+perhaps, allowing them to prick her into a remembrance of her sins at
+the very time she received Kateri and her friend with a gracious smile
+and led them into the convent. Several of the nuns were teaching their
+classes. Most of the children at the school were Canadians, but there
+were also Indian girls under her care, younger than Kateri, who could
+read and write and spin. Several of these were boarding pupils,
+supported by pensions from the King, Louis XIV. These became, under the
+care of the Sisters, like demure little convent girls, scarcely to be
+distinguished from the Canadian children, except by their Indian
+features. The studious and modest little Gannensagwas, though now sent
+to the new school at the Mountain for a time, felt more at home in the
+Rue St. Paul, where she had spent four or five years. An Onondaga girl,
+Attontinon, called Mary Barbara at her baptism, was nearer Kateri's age.
+She also aspired to join the sisterhood, but was as yet too recently
+converted from heathenism to be admitted.
+
+Kateri felt shy and out of place, no doubt, among the little scholars
+whom she saw at Ville-Marie, even though some of them were Indians. She
+felt, perhaps, as a wild deer of the forest might who chanced to stray
+into a park where petted fawns looked knowingly up at the
+half-frightened intruder, as they quietly nibbled grass from the hands
+of the keepers. If the young Mohawk girl did not turn suddenly about and
+take the nearest path to the woods and thickets, it was only because her
+timidity was held in check by a great eagerness to learn all she could
+about the life of those beautiful, quiet nuns. She knew they had come
+far away from their own country to teach the Iroquois and the Algonquins
+as well as the Canadian children to live like Christians. Kateri did not
+ask all the questions that came into her mind; but this much she
+certainly learned,--that the sisters lived unmarried, apart from the
+rest of the people, and spent much time in prayer. She had an
+opportunity also to observe some of their daily exercises and little
+practices of piety. It is more than likely that she went with them on a
+visit of devotion to the stone chapel of Bon Secours, a little way out
+of the town. It was just finished at that time; and a small statue of
+Our Lady, brought from France by Soeur Bourgeois, had been placed
+there. The officials of the town secured the garret of the church for a
+temporary arsenal to store their ammunition. There was no other place as
+yet in Ville-Marie that was fireproof. The Church of Bon Secours has
+always been a favorite shrine. Kateri's devotion to the Blessed Virgin
+would naturally lead her there before she left the city. She was both
+interested and attracted during her stay in Montreal by everything she
+saw at the Convent of Notre Dame and at the Hôtel Dieu. But she gave no
+intimation of a wish to remain with the nuns at either of these
+establishments. Her whole life had been the life of an untamed Indian.
+She had accepted Christianity in the only way in which under the
+circumstances it could possibly have been offered to her,--that is to
+say, Christianity pure and simple, with few of the trappings of European
+civilization. She was a living proof that an Indian could be thoroughly
+Christianized without being civilized at all in the ordinary sense of
+the word. She was still a child of the woods, and out of her element
+elsewhere. It was with scarce a regret, then, that she returned with her
+friend to the Sault, and resumed her usual life there. But her visit to
+Montreal had given her an intimation of something well known to the
+Christians of Europe, which had not been taught at the mission. The
+married state was frequently praised there, and always recommended to
+the Indians. The blackgowns did not venture to give the counsel of Saint
+Paul concerning virginity, to a people that were but just learning to
+walk in the way of the commandments. But Kateri had been struck by the
+example of the Jesuit Fathers themselves, and her penetrating mind had
+already guessed that something was withheld from her on this point;
+after her visit to the nuns at Montreal she was confirmed more than ever
+in her resolve to remain unmarried.
+
+Kateri and Thérèse talked the matter over when she returned to the
+Sault; and together they formed a plan for carrying out their idea of
+living a perfect life. It was a romantic rather than a practical
+project, but so quaint and beautiful that it is well worth telling. In
+the first place Thérèse was discreet enough to recommend that they
+should have an older woman with them who would know all about the affair
+from the first. She said she knew just the right sort of a person,--a
+good Christian, advanced in years, who had lived for some time at Quebec
+and also at Lorette, the older Huron mission which was conducted on the
+same plan as the Iroquois mission at the Sault. The name of this woman
+was Marie Skarichions. Kateri agreed to what her friend suggested, and
+on a certain day they all three assembled at the foot of the tall cross
+on the river-bank, that they might consult together without
+interruption. It was a quiet, dreamy spot, and always the favorite
+resort of Kateri for prayer and meditation, or confidential interviews
+with her friend. No sooner were they seated there, than the old woman
+began to talk, and to tell them that she also would gladly live as they
+wished to live; that she had been taken care of once by the Sisters at
+Quebec when she was sick; that she knew just how they lived, for she had
+noticed them particularly. She went on to say that she and Thérèse and
+Kateri must never separate, that they must all dress just alike, and
+live together in one lodge. Kateri listened eagerly to all this talk,
+hoping to gather some profit from it, and begging the woman not to
+conceal from her anything she knew that would make her soul more
+pleasing to God. As their imaginations grew more and more excited in
+picturing to one another the ideal life they would lead in their little
+community, shut off from everything that might distract them from prayer
+and holy thoughts, their eyes fell naturally enough upon the solitary
+unfrequented Isle-aux-Hérons which lay off in the midst of the rapids.
+"There!" they said, with sudden enthusiasm, as they pointed to the
+island,--"there is the place for our lodge of prayer!" and they began to
+portion it off in their thoughts, and to plan an oratory with a cross
+under the trees; they also tried to make out a rule of life for
+themselves. But all at once they remembered Father Fremin, the head of
+the mission, and wondered what he would think of their project. Kateri
+had great respect for authority, and a true spirit of obedience. They
+agreed to do nothing without the consent of the blackgown. One of them
+went at once to find him and told him why they were assembled, asking
+him at the same time if he did not approve of their plan. But alas! the
+unfortunate messenger came back to the other two covered with confusion.
+The blackgown, she said, had only laughed heartily at all their
+beautiful projects, and made light of them, saying that they were too
+young in the faith to think of such a thing as founding a convent. It
+was too much out of the ordinary way, and quite unsuitable. The
+Isle-aux-Hérons was altogether too far from the village. The young men
+going back and forth from Montreal would be always in their cabin. Upon
+further consideration, they concluded that, after all, what the Father
+said was reasonable, and _they thought no more of their convent of the_
+"_Isle-aux-Hérons_."
+
+But Kateri, for her part, was determined to see the Father herself a
+little later, and get from him, if possible, some further information
+about the life she wished to lead. Unforeseen circumstances obliged her
+much sooner than she expected to seek the counsel and advice of Father
+Cholenec on this very subject, for the adopted sister of Kateri was even
+then forming plans of her own for the disposal of her young relative.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[62] The parish church of Notre Dame, with its two square towers, is
+often called by mistake the Cathedral. This title belongs to St.
+Peter's,--a more modern structure, with a great dome shaped like that of
+St. Peter's at Rome.
+
+[63] Histoire et Vie de M. Paul de Chomedey, Sieur de Maisonneuve,
+1640-1672, par P. Rousseau.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+"I AM NOT ANY LONGER MY OWN."
+
+
+Kateri Tekakwitha had already refused to be united to a heathen brave.
+"But a Christian marriage," said her sister to Anastasia, "is a very
+different affair." The matchmakers were again lying in wait for her. It
+is Father Cholenec who gives us the best account of this final contest
+with Tekakwitha on the matrimonial question. He was her spiritual
+director at the time, and was consulted by the parties on both sides.
+While Fremin was absent in France, he had charge of the Mission, with
+Chauchetière as assistant. The following version of what occurred to
+disturb Kateri in the fall of 1678 is taken entire from Cholenec's
+letter (dated the 27th of August, 1715):--
+
+     "Interested views inspired her sister with the design of
+     marrying her. She supposed there was not a young man in the
+     Mission du Sault who would not be ambitious of the honor of
+     being united to so virtuous a female; and that thus having the
+     whole village from which to make her choice, she would be able
+     to select for her brother-in-law some able hunter who would
+     bring abundance to the cabin. She expected indeed to meet with
+     difficulties on the part of Catherine, for she was not ignorant
+     of the persecutions this generous girl had already suffered,
+     and the constancy with which she had sustained them, but she
+     persuaded herself that the force of reason would finally
+     vanquish her opposition. She selected, therefore, a particular
+     day, and after having shown Catherine even more affection than
+     ordinary, she addressed her with that eloquence which is so
+     natural to these Indians when they are engaged in anything
+     which concerns their interests.
+
+     'I must confess, my dear sister,' said she, with a manner full
+     of sweetness and affability, 'you are under great obligations
+     to the Lord for having brought you, as well as ourselves, from
+     our unhappy country, and for having conducted you to the
+     Mission du Sault, where everything is favorable to your piety.
+     If you are rejoiced to be here, I have no less satisfaction at
+     having you with me. You, every day, indeed, increase our
+     pleasure by the wisdom of your conduct, which draws upon you
+     general esteem and approbation. There only remains one thing
+     for you to do to complete our happiness, which is to think
+     seriously of establishing yourself by a good and judicious
+     marriage. All the young girls among us take this course; you
+     are of an age to act as they do, and you are bound to do so
+     even more particularly than others, either to shun the
+     occasions of sin, or to supply the necessities of life. It is
+     true that it is a source of great pleasure to us, both to your
+     brother-in-law and myself, to furnish these things for you, but
+     you know that he is in the decline of life, and that we are
+     charged with the care of a large family. If you were to be
+     deprived of us, to whom could you have recourse? Think of these
+     things, Catherine; provide for yourself a refuge from the evils
+     which accompany poverty; and determine as soon as possible to
+     prepare to avoid them, while you can do it so easily, and in a
+     way so advantageous both to yourself and to our family.'
+
+     There was nothing which Catherine less expected than a
+     proposition of this kind; but the kindness and respect she felt
+     for her sister induced her to conceal her pain, and she
+     contented herself with merely answering that she thanked her
+     for this advice, but the step was of great consequence, and she
+     would think of it seriously. It was thus that she warded off
+     the first attack. She immediately came to seek me, to complain
+     bitterly of these importunate solicitations of her sister. As I
+     did not appear to accede entirely to her reasoning, and for the
+     purpose of proving her, dwelt on those considerations which
+     ought to incline her to marriage, 'Ah, my Father,' said she,
+     '_I am not any longer my own._ I have given myself entirely to
+     Jesus Christ, and it is not possible for me to change masters.
+     The poverty with which I am threatened gives me no uneasiness.
+     So little is requisite to supply the necessities of this
+     wretched life, that my labor can furnish this, and I can always
+     find something to cover me.' I sent her away, saying that she
+     should think well on the subject, for it was one which merited
+     the most serious attention.
+
+     Scarcely had she returned to the cabin, when her sister,
+     impatient to bring her over to her views, pressed her anew to
+     end her wavering by forming an advantageous settlement. But
+     finding from the reply of Catherine, that it was useless to
+     attempt to change her mind, she determined to enlist Anastasia
+     in her interests, since they both regarded her as their mother.
+     In this she was successful. Anastasia was readily induced to
+     believe that Catherine had too hastily formed her resolution,
+     and therefore employed all that influence which age and virtue
+     gave her over the mind of the young girl, to persuade her that
+     marriage was the only part she ought to take.
+
+     This measure, however, had no greater success than the other;
+     and Anastasia, who had always until that time found so much
+     docility in Catherine, was extremely surprised at the little
+     deference she paid to her counsels. She even bitterly
+     reproached her, and threatened to bring her complaints to me.
+     Catherine anticipated her in this, and after having related the
+     pains they forced her to suffer to induce her to adopt a course
+     so little to her taste,[64] she prayed me to aid her in
+     consummating the sacrifice she wished to make of herself to
+     Jesus Christ, and to provide her a refuge from the opposition
+     she had to undergo from Anastasia and her sister. I praised her
+     design, but at the same time advised her to take yet three days
+     to deliberate on an affair of such importance, and during that
+     time to offer up extraordinary prayers that she might be better
+     taught the will of God; after which, if she still persisted in
+     her resolution, I promised her to put an end to the
+     importunities of her relatives. She at first acquiesced in what
+     I proposed, but in less than a quarter of an hour, came back to
+     seek me. 'It is settled,' said she, as she came near me; 'it is
+     not a question for deliberation; my part has long since been
+     taken. No, my father, I can have no other spouse but Jesus
+     Christ.' I thought that it would be wrong for me any longer to
+     oppose a resolution which seemed to me inspired by the Holy
+     Spirit, and therefore exhorted her to perseverance, assuring
+     her that I would undertake her defence against those who wished
+     henceforth to disturb her on that subject. This answer restored
+     her former tranquillity of mind, and re-established in her soul
+     that inward peace which she preserved even to the end of her
+     life.
+
+     Scarcely had she gone, when Anastasia came to complain, in her
+     turn, that Catherine would not listen to any advice, but
+     followed only her own whims. She was running on in this
+     strain, when I interrupted her by saying that I was acquainted
+     with the cause of her dissatisfaction, but was astonished that
+     a Christian as old as she was could disapprove of an action
+     which merited the highest praise, and that if she had faith,
+     she ought to know the value of a state so sublime as that of
+     celibacy, which rendered feeble men like to the angels
+     themselves. At these words Anastasia seemed to be in a perfect
+     dream; and as she possessed a deeply seated devotion of spirit,
+     she almost immediately began to turn the blame upon herself;
+     she admired the courage of this virtuous girl, and at length
+     became the foremost to fortify her in the holy resolution she
+     had taken.... [As for Catherine], feeble as she was, she
+     redoubled her diligence in labor, her watchings, fastings, and
+     other austerities. It was then the end of autumn, when the
+     Indians are accustomed to form their parties to go out to hunt
+     during the winter in the forests. The sojourn which Catherine
+     had already made there, and the pain she had suffered at being
+     deprived of the religious privileges she possessed in the
+     village, had induced her to form the resolution, as I have
+     already mentioned, that she would never during her life return
+     there. I thought, however, that the change of air and the diet,
+     which is so much better in the forest, would be able to restore
+     her health, which was now very much impaired. It was for this
+     reason that I advised her to follow the family and others, who
+     went to the hunting-grounds.[65]
+
+     "She remained, therefore, during the winter in the village,
+     where she lived only on Indian corn, and was subjected indeed
+     to much suffering. But not content with allowing her body only
+     this insipid food, which could scarcely sustain it, she
+     subjected it also to austerities and excessive penances,
+     without taking counsel of any one, persuading herself that
+     while the object was self-mortification, she was right in
+     giving herself up to everything which could increase her
+     fervor. She was incited to these holy exercises by the noble
+     examples of self-mortification which she always had before her
+     eyes. The spirit of penance reigned among the Christians at the
+     Sault. Fastings, discipline carried even unto blood, belts
+     lined with points of iron,--these were their most common
+     austerities. And some of them, by these voluntary macerations,
+     prepared themselves when the time came, to suffer the most
+     fearful torments.... One in particular among them, named
+     Etienne, signalized his constancy and faith. When environed by
+     the burning flames [at Onondaga], he did not cease to encourage
+     his wife, who was suffering the same torture, to invoke with
+     him the holy name of Jesus. Being on the point of expiring, he
+     rallied all his strength, and in imitation of his Master,
+     prayed the Lord with a loud voice for the conversion of those
+     who had treated him with such inhumanity. Many of the savages,
+     touched by a spectacle so new to them, abandoned their country
+     and came to the Mission du Sault, to ask for baptism, and live
+     there in accordance with the laws of the Gospel.
+
+     "The women were not behind their husbands in the ardor they
+     showed for a life of penance. They even went to such extremes
+     that when it came to our knowledge we were obliged to moderate
+     their zeal. Besides the ordinary instruments of mortification
+     which they employed, they had a thousand new inventions to
+     inflict suffering upon themselves. Some placed themselves in
+     the snow when the cold was most severe; others stripped
+     themselves to the waist in retired places, and remained a long
+     time exposed to the rigor of the season, on the banks of a
+     frozen river, and where the wind was blowing with violence.
+     There were even those who, after having broken the ice in the
+     ponds, plunged themselves in up to the neck, and remained there
+     as long as it was necessary for them to recite many times the
+     ten beads of their rosary. One of them did this three nights in
+     succession, and it was the cause of so violent a fever that it
+     was thought she would have died of it. Another one surprised me
+     extremely by her simplicity. I learned that, not content with
+     having herself used this mortification, she had also plunged
+     her daughter, but three years old, into the frozen river, from
+     which she drew her out half dead. When I sharply reproached her
+     indiscretion, she answered me with a surprising naiveté, that
+     she did not think she was doing anything wrong, but that
+     knowing her daughter would one day certainly offend the Lord,
+     she had wished to impose on her in advance the pain which her
+     sin merited.
+
+     "Although those who inflicted these mortifications on
+     themselves were particular to conceal them from the knowledge
+     of the public, yet Catherine, who had a mind quick and
+     penetrating, did not fail from various appearances to
+     conjecture that which they held so secret; and as she studied
+     every means to testify more and more her love to Jesus Christ,
+     she applied herself to examine everything that was done
+     pleasing to the Lord, that she might herself immediately put it
+     in practice."
+
+Chauchetière, alluding to the events of this same fall and winter (1678
+and 1679), gives some details of her life not mentioned by Cholenec. He
+says:--
+
+     "As soon as she learned from Father Fremin that God left every
+     Christian free to marry or not to marry, she lost no time in
+     choosing a state of life for herself, and furthermore, if the
+     fear that she had of appearing virtuous had not restrained her,
+     she would have cut off her hair; she contented herself with
+     dressing like those who were the most modest in the village.
+     Father Fremin gave her some rules of life more special than
+     those he gave to the others; he directed her to keep herself in
+     retirement, above all during the summer time, when the canoes
+     of the Ottawas came down, to remain in her cabin, and not go to
+     the water's edge to see them arrive, like the rest. She also
+     regarded what he said about not going to Montreal. In a word,
+     it was only necessary to tell her a thing once, and she put it
+     in practice. It was a common saying in the village that
+     Catherine was never elsewhere than in her cabin or in the
+     church; that she knew but two paths,--one to her field, and the
+     other to her cabin. But to come in particular to the rules that
+     she prescribed for herself, here are a few of them.
+
+     "Being a young Indian, twenty-two or twenty-three years old,
+     she must naturally have liked to be well and properly dressed
+     like the others, which consists in having the hair well oiled,
+     well tied, and well parted, in having a long braid [queue]
+     behind, and in adorning the neck with wampum. They like to have
+     beautiful blankets and beautiful chemises, to have the leggings
+     or mittens well made, and above all to have just the right kind
+     of a moccasin; in a word, vanity possesses them.
+
+     "Catherine thought she could do away with all that, without
+     eccentricity. But one could see by her dress what her thought
+     was. She was not looking for a husband; she gave up all bright
+     red blankets and all the ornaments that the Indian girls wear.
+     She had a blue blanket, new and simple, for the days when she
+     went to communion; but more than that, she had an interior,
+     very perfect, which was known only to God; but which she could
+     not hide so well but that her companion knew of it at the times
+     of their greatest fervor.... Marie Thérèse Tegaiaguenta once
+     told Catherine of certain movements of indignation that she had
+     against herself and her sins; and that when she was going one
+     day into the woods feeling herself oppressed with grief at the
+     thought of her sins, she had taken a handful of switches and
+     had given herself heavy strokes with them on her hands; and
+     that another time having climbed a tall tree to get birch-bark
+     for a piece of work, when she was at the top she was seized
+     with fear. Casting her eyes to the foot of the tree where there
+     were many stones, she believed with reason, that if she fell
+     she would break her head. But a good thought came to her then,
+     which confirmed her more than ever in all the good resolutions
+     she had already made to serve God; for reflecting on her fear,
+     she blamed herself for fearing to die and not fearing even more
+     than that to fall into hell. Tears came into her eyes as she
+     descended; and when she reached the ground, she sat down at the
+     foot of the tree, throwing her bark aside, and giving way to
+     the good feeling that had taken possession of her."
+
+Kateri did not forget what her companion told her about the switches,
+and resolved to make a daily practice for herself which she could keep
+up during the time of the chase.
+
+While her sister with her family were off at the hunting-camp, Kateri
+had as much time as she could wish to satisfy her devotion at the
+village chapel. She remained there so many hours on her knees in the
+coldest winter weather, that more than once some one or other of the
+blackgowns, moved with compassion at sight of her half-frozen condition,
+obliged her to leave the chapel and go warm herself. Kateri had at last
+learned, by repeated inquiries, all she wanted to know about the nuns
+whom she had seen at Montreal. She was now aware that they were
+Christian virgins consecrated to God by a vow of perpetual continence.
+
+Cholenec says:--
+
+     "She gave me no peace till I had granted her permission to make
+     the same sacrifice of herself, not by a simple resolution to
+     guard her virginity, such as she had already made, but by an
+     irrevocable engagement which obliged her to belong to God
+     without any recall. I would not, however, give my consent to
+     this step until I had well proved her, and been anew convinced
+     that it was the Spirit of God acting in this excellent girl,
+     which had thus inspired her with a design of which there had
+     never been an example among the Indians."
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[64] In another account of this interview given by Cholenec in his
+manuscript life of Kateri, which has never been published, but is still
+preserved by the Jesuits at Montreal, are the following words: "Ah, mon
+père, me répondit-elle sur le champ, et sans hésiter, 'Je ne l'aurois
+m'y rendre. Je haïs les hommes, j'ai la dernière aversion pour le
+mariage,--la chose m'est impossible!'"
+
+[65] Cholenec, in an older manuscript, gives further particulars
+concerning the life of this "Première Vierge Irokoise." In that account
+of the interview, after giving the above recommendation to Kateri about
+her health, her director goes on to describe the way in which his advice
+was received. "At these words she only laughed, and a moment after,
+taking that air so devout which was usual with her when she came to
+speak to me of her spiritual affairs, she made this beautiful reply,
+worthy of Catherine Tegakouita: 'Ah, my father, it is true that the body
+has good cheer in the woods, but the soul languishes there and dies of
+hunger; whereas in the village, if the body suffers a little from not
+being so well nourished, the soul finds its full satisfaction, being
+nearer to Our Lord. Therefore I abandon this miserable body to hunger,
+and to all that might happen to it afterwards, in order that my soul may
+be content, and may have its ordinary nourishment."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+KATERI'S VOW ON LADY DAY, AND THE SUMMER OF 1679.
+
+
+Kateri's soul was indeed of rarest and costliest mould. Of this Father
+Cholenec was now fully aware. He also knew her quiet determination of
+spirit, and he no longer resisted her pleadings to be allowed to
+consecrate herself to God by a vow of perpetual virginity. This she did,
+with all due solemnity, on the Feast of the Blessed Virgin, the 25th of
+March, 1679.
+
+However others might look upon her act, this solemn engagement with God
+gave her a feeling of freedom rather than of thraldom. At last she had
+an acknowledged right to live her own life in her own way. She was
+Rawenniio's bride. The blackgown had approved of her vow, and no
+relative of hers at the Sault ventured afterwards to question or disturb
+her. "From that time," says Cholenec, "she aspired continually to
+heaven, where she had fixed all her desires; ... but her body was not
+sufficiently strong to sustain the weight of her austerities and the
+constant effort of her spirit to maintain itself in the presence of
+God." She tested her powers of endurance to the utmost. Her constant
+companion, Thérèse, afterwards told of her that on one occasion, as they
+were coming from the field into the village, carrying each of them a
+heavy load of wood, Kateri slipped on the frozen ground and fell,
+causing the points of an iron belt which she was accustomed to wear to
+penetrate far into her flesh. When Thérèse advised her on account of
+this accident to leave her bundle of wood until another time, Kateri
+only laughed, and lifting it quickly, carried it to the cabin, where she
+made no mention of her hurt. When summer came and the others laid aside
+their blankets for a time, she continued to wear hers over her head even
+in the hottest weather. Anastasia said that she did this, not so much to
+shield her eyes from the light, as from modesty and a spirit of
+mortification.
+
+Kateri and Thérèse found a deserted cabin near the village, where they
+were now in the habit of going every Saturday afternoon to prepare
+themselves in a suitable manner, as they supposed, for receiving the
+sacrament of penance.
+
+Chauchetière relates how this custom of theirs originated, and how they
+employed themselves while in this retreat. It was only by questioning
+Thérèse after the death of Kateri that the full extent of their
+austerities became known, for they were careful to conceal them from the
+knowledge of all. Father Fremin was away at this time, having gone on a
+voyage to France, and Father Cholenec had full charge of the mission
+during his absence. As his time was filled with new cares and
+responsibilities, he had but little opportunity to notice or discover
+that Kateri Tekakwitha, the treasure confided to his keeping by Father
+de Lamberville, was in all simplicity and earnestness wrecking her
+health and strength by undergoing fearful penances. Suggested to her
+either by the remorseful and penitent mind of Thérèse, or the stern
+instructions of Anastasia, they were carried out with the utmost
+severity by Kateri on her frail and innocent self, as though she bore on
+her own shoulders the sins of the whole Iroquois nation.
+
+It may be well to give a full account of how she was accustomed to make
+her preparation for confession, and where the plan originated. One
+Saturday afternoon while waiting for the bell to ring for Benediction,
+she sat in the cabin of Thérèse, talking confidentially with her friend
+on matters of conscience. Thérèse happened to mention the bundle of
+switches with which she had scourged herself on a certain occasion; and
+Kateri, quick to put a pious thought into practice, hastened at once to
+the cemetery, which was near at hand, and returned with a handful of
+stinging little rods. These she hid adroitly under the mat on which she
+was sitting, and waited eagerly for the first stroke of the bell. Then
+hurrying the people of the cabin as fast as possible to the church, the
+two were no sooner alone than they fastened the lodge securely on the
+inside, and gave full vent to their devotion. Kateri was the first to
+fall upon her knees, and handing her companion the switches, begged her
+not to spare her in the least. When she had been well scourged, she in
+turn took the switches, and Thérèse knelt down to receive the blows.
+With bleeding shoulders, they said a short prayer together, and then
+hastened to the chapel, joyous and happy at heart. Never before had the
+prayers seemed shorter or sweeter to them than on that evening. Their
+next thought was to choose a place where they might continue this
+exercise. The unfrequented cabin already mentioned seemed to them a
+most favorable spot. It belonged to a French trader, who only came at
+long intervals to the village. It stood always open, and had become
+gradually surrounded by graves, so that it was now within the cemetery.
+There the two friends went every Saturday. After making an act of
+contrition, they proceeded as follows: They recited the Act of Faith,
+which they were accustomed to say at the church; then Kateri, who wished
+always to be the first in penitence, would kneel and receive the
+scourging, begging her companion all the while to strike harder, even
+though blood appeared at the third stroke. When they came to a pause,
+they recited the chaplet of the Holy Family, which they divided into
+several parts, at each of which a stroke was given with the switches.
+But towards the end of the exercise, their devotion knew no bounds. It
+was then that Kateri laid bare the sentiments of her heart in such words
+as these: "My Jesus, I must risk everything with you. I love you, but I
+have offended you. It is to satisfy your justice that I am here.
+Discharge upon me, O my God, discharge upon me your wrath." Sometimes
+tears and sobs choked her voice so she could not finish what she was
+saying. At these times she would speak of the three nails which fastened
+our Saviour to the cross as a figure of her sins. When Kateri was thus
+touched, she did not fail to move her companion, who with equal fervor
+underwent the same voluntary punishment.
+
+Thérèse assures us that the worst fault that Kateri could ever find to
+accuse herself of on these occasions when she opened her heart most
+freely, was the carelessness in which she had lived after her baptism.
+This consisted in not having resisted those who had forced her to go to
+work in the fields on Sundays and feast days; that is, in not having
+rather suffered martyrdom at their hands. She reproached herself with
+having feared death more than sin. That this saintly girl suffered
+everything short of absolute martyrdom in her efforts to keep holy the
+Lord's Day, we already know from the record of her life in the Mohawk
+Valley. It must be remembered, too, that at that time she had not made
+her first communion or been fully instructed.
+
+It would be a long and harrowing task to give a full account of all the
+austere fasts and penances that Kateri Tekakwitha underwent during the
+course of the year 1679. Many of them belong to the age and the place in
+which she lived, and were in common practice then and there. Others go
+to prove the rude, Spartan spirit of her race, which gloried in
+exhibitions of fortitude under torture. But the tortures that her people
+knew how to endure so well through pride, Kateri endured in a spirit of
+penance and atonement. Her greatest excesses of self-inflicted pain came
+like sparks of fire from her intense love of the crucified Redeemer. She
+wished to prove herself the slave of His love. She had seen the Iroquois
+warriors brand their slaves with coals of fire; so she could not resist
+the impulse which came to her one night to seize a red-hot brand from
+the hearthfire, and to place it between her toes. She held it there
+while she recited an Ave Maria. When the prayer was over, she was indeed
+branded. Such inflictions as these, by their incessant expenditure of
+energy, soon wore out her frail body, and brought of their own accord a
+speedy answer to her never-flagging prayer,--that Rawenniio, the
+beautiful God of the Christians, whom she had learned to love so well,
+would take her to His lodge!
+
+     "Kateri had great and special devotion both for the Passion of
+     our Saviour and for the Holy Eucharist. These two mysteries of
+     the love of the same God, concealed under the veil of the
+     Eucharist and His dying on the cross, ceaselessly occupied her
+     spirit, and kindled in her heart the purest flames of love. One
+     day, after having received the Holy Communion, she made a
+     perpetual oblation or solemn offering of her body to Jesus
+     attached to the cross, and of her soul to Jesus in the most
+     Holy Sacrament of the Altar."[66]
+
+As Kateri knew but two paths while she lived at the Sault,--one leading
+from her cabin to the field where she worked, and the other to the
+chapel where she prayed,--her friends could easily find her. There, at
+the church day after day, and many times a day, any one who chanced to
+stray in might see a muffled figure kneeling near the altar-rail, facing
+the tabernacle. At such times she saw nothing, heard nothing, of what
+was taking place around her or behind her. In front of her was the
+sacred Presence she could not leave unless for some urgent call of duty
+or charity.
+
+A touch on the shoulder, a whispered word, "You are wanted, Kateri," and
+no hand or heart was more willing than hers to assist or relieve, as the
+case might be. Often she did not wait for this. A sudden inspiration, an
+impulse of sympathy, carried her where she was needed. When the good
+deed was done, the love within her heart drew her again to the foot of
+the tabernacle. "When she entered the church in taking the blessed
+water she recalled her baptism, and renewed the resolution she had taken
+to live as a good Christian; when she knelt down in some corner near the
+balustrade for fear of being distracted by those who passed in and out,
+she would cover her face with her blanket, and make an act of faith
+concerning the real presence in the Blessed Sacrament. She made also
+several other interior acts of contrition, of resignation, or of
+humility, according to the inspiration which moved her, asking of God
+light and strength to practise virtue well. In the fourth place,"
+continues Chauchetière, "she prayed for unbelievers, and above all for
+her Iroquois relatives. She finished her devotion by saying her beads.
+She confided this exercise to her companion, who made it known. Except
+for her habit of hiding the beautiful practices taught her by the Holy
+Spirit, we might have occasion to admire still more the rapid progress
+which faith made in her soul. She had regulated the visits which she
+made to our Lord to five times a day without fail; but it can be said
+that the church was the place where she was ordinarily found."
+
+Spiritual writers are accustomed to divide the Christian life into three
+progressive grades; namely, the purgative, the illuminative, and the
+unitive. Chauchetière declares that Kateri's life at the Sault might
+well serve as an example to the most fervent Christians of Europe, and
+compares her spirit with that of Saint Catherine of Sienna; then he sums
+up in a few words her exalted spiritual attainments by saying that she
+was already in the "unitive way" before having well known the other
+two.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[66] Cholenec's letter.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+KATERI ILL.--THÉRÈSE CONSULTS THE BLACKGOWN.--FEAST OF THE
+PURIFICATION.--THE BED OF THORNS.
+
+
+Kateri's health was fast failing; and those with whom she lived,
+perceiving this, watched her more closely and sought to check her in her
+fasts and penances. They saw that on Wednesdays and Saturdays she ate
+nothing. At these times she would spend the whole day in the woods
+gathering fuel. They were careful after this to have the soup ready
+before she started out in the morning; but even then she would
+occasionally find an excuse to slip away without her breakfast. When it
+was the turn of one of the other women of the same lodge-fire to go for
+wood, Kateri sometimes interfered, saying that the woman in question had
+a baby to nurse and ought to stay in the cabin; as for herself, there
+was nothing to keep her, she could just as well go as not. Before they
+noticed that she had not yet taken a mouthful, she would be off to the
+woods and at work. When she could no longer fast without attracting
+notice, she still kept up the practice of mingling ashes with her food,
+or denying herself in some other way.
+
+About this time a child of her adopted sister died. As Kateri was
+assisting the other women to make a grave for her little nephew, one of
+them said to her, laughing, "Where is yours, Kateri?" "It is there,"
+she answered, pointing to a certain spot.[67] The incident was soon
+forgotten; but Kateri was not mistaken, as was proved later. The place
+she indicated was near the tall cross by the river, where she was
+accustomed to pray, and where she had her first long talk with Thérèse
+Tegaiaguenta.
+
+Her only pleasure now was in prayer or in spiritual conversations with
+her friend Thérèse or with Anastasia; for both of them spoke often of
+God. All other companionship had become distasteful to her. Her natural
+gift of ready and witty conversation, as well as her helpful
+disposition, won her many friends without effort. She was beloved as
+well as reverenced by the whole population, while careful to shun more
+and more all intercourse that did not help her heavenward. In her
+humility it did not occur to her that she on her part could perhaps do
+something towards lifting others to the high plane of her own thoughts.
+Chauchetière relates the following incident of how she was once called
+on for advice, much to her own surprise. Two young married
+people--François, the Seneca, and his wife Marguerite--had watched
+Kateri's way of life with much interest and admiration. They knew she
+had made a vow of virginity, and one day they called her into their
+cabin with the idea of learning from her how a good Christian ought to
+live in this world. In order that she might be less embarrassed and
+speak freely, they sent at the same time for her companion, Thérèse.
+When both were seated, the door was closed as a token that what they
+were about to ask Kateri was a great secret, and that they were ready to
+keep it sacred. François the Seneca (called by the French La Grosse
+Buche) began the conversation. He addressed himself both to Kateri and
+to Thérèse, saying first that he knew what they had done and the state
+of life they had embraced. This he said, that they might speak out. As
+for himself he wished to be a good Christian and to give himself
+entirely to God. His wife was of the same mind. He spoke for both.
+Kateri was much surprised at this discourse. She was silent for some
+time, and then asked her companion to speak. It would take too long to
+tell all that was said on both sides concerning the state of life that
+was most pleasing to God. It is enough to say that they gave no advice
+to the young married couple other than that they should go to the
+blackgown and propose their plan to him. The woman was not more than
+twenty, and the man scarcely older. This good François, it seems, wished
+to live with his wife as with his sister. He did so for some years, and
+would have continued to do so had he not been advised to the contrary.
+His wish was to repair as far as possible the evil he had done before
+his baptism. He was an excellent hunter and a good warrior. He was
+afflicted later in life with a painful disease, from which he suffered
+severely for fourteen years. Kateri was at all times his model. He
+endeavored to imitate her patience and resignation, as well as her other
+virtues. After death he wore about his neck a little chaplet, which he
+called Kateri's beads. Strung next to the cross on which the _Credo_
+was to be said were two beads, one for a _Pater_ and one for an _Ave_;
+then there were three other little beads on which he was accustomed to
+say the _Gloria Patri_ three times, to thank the Blessed Trinity for the
+graces bestowed upon Kateri. Always cheerful and contented himself, he
+consoled and encouraged his wife, who, although a great devotee, was apt
+to complain of her poverty. When his health no longer permitted him to
+go to the chase, he mended kettles, made pipes, and did what work he
+could about the village. He brought up his children strictly, taught
+them the catechism with care, and was always on hand to sing in the
+church. He had a book or scroll of pictures in which all the chief
+events recorded in the Old and New Testaments were depicted. Copies of
+this ingenious form of Indian Bible are still to be seen at Caughnawaga
+and elsewhere. François, the Seneca, by these means won many converts to
+Christianity. He was accustomed, however, to give Kateri the credit for
+his success. He besought her intercession with God in all his
+undertakings, and endeavored to imitate her as far as possible in his
+life and in his death, which occurred in 1695.
+
+As Kateri had a great love for virginity,--a fact of which her whole
+life is a proof,--she did not fail to cultivate a deep and tender
+devotion to the Virgin Mother of Christ, whom she regarded in a special
+manner as her queen and mistress. Each day in reciting the litany she
+had occasion to call upon her as the "Queen of Virgins." To Kateri this
+was one of the sweetest and dearest of her many beautiful titles. To
+prove herself a devoted follower of this virgin of all virgins, she
+would gladly have cut off her hair, as the nuns do; but the fear of
+appearing singular and eccentric deterred her. Though she thus tried as
+much as possible to hide from observation by accommodating herself to
+the ways and dress of those with whom she lived, there grew to be a
+something about her,--a "je ne scay quoy," says Chauchetière,--an
+atmosphere of purity and sanctity that almost amounted to a visible
+halo. Even her directors sometimes wondered at the impression of
+personal sanctity which she made upon the people. If we consider her
+lonely, long, and frequent prayers, not only in the chapel but at the
+foot of the tall cross by the river-bank, there is nothing to be
+wondered at. Even the roughest and giddiest of the young people of
+Caughnawaga were awed to a respectful demeanor as she passed near them.
+Not only Indians, but occasionally the French from La Prairie hovered
+about and watched for her as she came or went from her cabin or field,
+in order to get a look at the young Mohawk girl who, as they said, lived
+like "a religious." Of this reverential admiration, however, Kateri was
+quite unconscious. Unquestioned and undisturbed she followed her own
+course, the details of which were known only to her bosom friend,
+Thérèse.
+
+At last Kateri was seized with a dangerous illness. A violent fever came
+on, and she lay at the point of death. Thérèse, pale and trembling with
+alarm, now thought of their weekly scourgings in the deserted cabin; she
+feared to have her friend die without letting the blackgown know what
+they had been doing, and besought Kateri to allow her to go to Father
+Cholenec and tell him all. To this Kateri willingly assented. The
+blackgown concealed his astonishment at what he heard from Thérèse, and
+blamed both her and her friend for their want of discretion. Kateri,
+however, recovered from this attack. As soon as she was well she began
+at once and did not cease to importune her confessor to have pity on her
+and allow her at least some of her accustomed austerities, in order, as
+she said, that her body might not have the victory over her. Whether
+undergoing self-inflicted pains or those that come directly from the
+hand of God, her fortitude was extraordinary, even for an Indian. Though
+subject to many and frequent bodily infirmities, she never for a moment
+lost her patience, or uttered the least complaint. On the contrary, she
+seemed always desirous of increasing her sufferings rather than of
+alleviating them, but only from this one motive,--that she might bear a
+closer resemblance to the crucified Saviour. When she was ill, and her
+confessor had forbidden her to fast, she would put herself in a painful
+position. Anastasia, whom she called mother, perceiving this, reproached
+her, saying that she would kill herself. Kateri only reminded her, with
+a smile, that our Lord was much more ill at ease on the cross,--that she
+was not suffering at all in comparison with him!
+
+During the last winter of her life Kateri had frequent attacks of
+illness severe enough to keep her in the cabin. No sooner was she on her
+feet, however, than she was again at work. She did not spare herself or
+shorten her devotions. When she was too weak to kneel, she could still
+be seen at her prayers in the church, supporting herself against a
+bench. On one occasion when her health was restored for a time, she
+accompanied Thérèse to La Prairie, whither she was sent to carry certain
+articles from the village at the Sault. On the way there or back,
+Kateri, falling a little behind the others, took off her moccasins and
+walked barefooted on the ice. She was noticed and hastily put on her
+shoes again. She soon overtook the others, and would willingly have let
+them suppose she had been delayed by a little accident of some sort.
+Thérèse, who knew her best, thought otherwise.
+
+On the Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin most of the
+villagers were away at the hunting-camp. Kateri chose to walk through
+her field on that day with bare feet, as if in a sort of procession,
+while she recited her beads several times over, the snow being more than
+knee-deep.
+
+As Lent approached, she increased her austerities till at last she
+reached the climax of all. Thinking that she had not much longer to
+live, and must hasten to do penance while on earth, she looked about for
+some new instrument of pain. It was then the beginning of Lent, and she
+had been meditating on the Passion of our Lord. She was gathering wood.
+Near at hand, she saw a great thorny brier. In a transport of fervor she
+seized it. The thorns were sharp and cutting. Had she looked far and
+near, she could not have found anything better suited to her purpose.
+She eagerly and hurriedly conceals it in her bundle of fagots, then
+lifts the scraggy mass to her back, adjusts the burden strap on her
+forehead, and starts at once for the lodge of Anastasia. Finding her own
+lodge-seat, she loosens the thorny brier from the fagots, covers it
+quickly with a large mat, and then proceeds to stow the wood in its
+proper place. The evening drags, but at length the inmates all come in
+for the night, and soon the evening meal is over. The prayers have been
+said. The lodge-fires flicker and die out. The Indians fall asleep,--all
+but Kateri. She has no thought of rest. She prays far into the night.
+Her bed is made, and a cruel bed it is. At last she looks towards it.
+She lifts the rug that covers it, clasps tightly in her hand a little
+crucifix she always wears about her neck, and with a fervent aspiration
+of love to God, throws herself upon the thorns. As she rolls from side
+to side, she grows faint, and her lips are parched with thirst, but
+still she has no desire to leave her thorny couch. She murmurs prayer
+after prayer, and waits for the daylight to come before rising from her
+bed to hide the brambles, now flecked with blood. Kateri is as busy as
+usual the next day, and her blithe smile comes and goes as freely as
+ever. Still, when night settles down on the village, she does not sleep,
+but tosses again on her bed of thorns. On the following day Thérèse
+observes that Kateri is tired and weak. She draws her breath quickly, as
+they walk over the rough ground together, and her head droops low at her
+prayers. Her friend tries to coax her to take more rest, to leave this
+or that task for another day. But all in vain. To Kateri every moment is
+precious now, and not one daily duty is left undone when she retires for
+the third time to her bed of thorns. When day dawns, she is up as usual,
+and Thérèse comes early to see her. Gladly would she escape the
+searching eye of her friend, but it is of no use. Kateri is ghastly
+pale, and Thérèse, suspecting the truth, will not be put off. She espies
+the thorns, and Kateri confesses all. A pang went to the heart of
+Thérèse, when she thought of Kateri's innocence and of her own sins. How
+could she have slept while this pure-hearted one whom she loved so well
+was rolling upon thorns! The next thought of the impulsive, warm-hearted
+Thérèse was one of concern for the life of her friend. She spoke quickly
+and vehemently to Kateri, declaring that she would certainly offend God
+if she inflicted such sufferings on herself without the permission of
+her confessor. This aroused the scruples of Tekakwitha. "Catherine, who
+trembled at the very appearance of sin," says Cholenec, "came
+immediately to find me, to confess her fault and ask pardon of God. I
+blamed her indiscretion, and directed her to throw the thorns into the
+fire." This she did at once. When it was simply a question of obedience
+to one who held rightful authority over her, Kateri did not hesitate.
+Her confessor testifies that she never showed the least attachment to
+her own will, but was always submissive to his direction. "She found
+herself very ill," he continues, "towards the time that the men are
+accustomed to go out to the hunting-grounds in the forest, and when the
+females are occupied from morning until evening in the fields. Those who
+are ill are therefore obliged to remain alone through the whole day in
+their cabins, a plate of Indian corn and a little water having in the
+morning been placed near the mat." It was thus that Kateri Tekakwitha
+passed through her last illness, during the Lent of 1680. She lay
+helpless in the lodge of Anastasia, while the corn was being planted in
+the fields, and the birds were flying northward across the Mohawk River.
+These little friends of hers brought back to her many a thought of her
+native valley, as they stopped to dip their bills in the St. Lawrence,
+and to sing awhile to Kateri in her pain.
+
+The children, too, came in to see her now and then. The blackgown whose
+task it was to teach them, gathered them close to her mat one day. She
+was too ill to move; but when he unrolled the pictures of the Old and
+New Testaments which he had with him, and began to explain them to the
+eager, bright-eyed little ones, a glow of interest came into the weary
+eyes that were dull with suffering a moment before. Forgetting all else
+but her insatiable desire for true knowledge, Kateri with great effort
+raised herself on her elbow, that she might see and understand better
+what was going on. A question now and then from her drew out a fuller
+explanation from the blackgown. The children themselves, with quick
+sympathy, caught from her low, earnest tones, a keener relish for the
+truth, and listened with rapt attention to the lesson drawn from the
+sacred story. At the stroke of the Angelus the instruction was over, and
+also the children's visit. How quickly the time had passed! Kateri
+thanked the blackgown, and begged him to come again with his class to
+the lodge, that he might teach both her and them. "Farewell, Kateri,"
+the children cry, as they hasten out to their sports. Quickly they
+forget her, and she too has forgotten them; she has clasped her crucifix
+in her hands, and is still buried in prayer when the women begin to come
+in from the field.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[67] This incident is given by Cholenec in his manuscript entitled "La
+Vie de Catherine Tegakouita, Première Vierge Irokoise." He adds: "Père
+Chauchetière wanted her put in the church; but I put her in the place
+she had indicated, without knowing it till long afterwards."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+KATERI'S DEATH.--"I WILL LOVE THEE IN HEAVEN."--THE BURIAL.--HER GRAVE
+AND MONUMENT.
+
+
+For nearly a year Kateri had been slowly losing strength. She had a
+continuous low fever; but during the last two months of her life her
+sufferings were very acute, and she could not change her position
+without severe pain. It was in Passion Week that the children were
+instructed by the blackgown at her bedside for the last time. Anastasia
+and the other women of the lodge continued to attend to her few wants
+morning and evening, before and after their work in the fields. They
+knew, however, by this time, that the young girl could not recover.
+Anastasia drearily watched her sinking day by day. She had never fully
+understood Kateri, but she loved her very much, and did all that would
+have been expected of an Indian mother under the circumstances. The dish
+of Indian corn and a pot of fresh water were left beside her each day;
+and towards the last, women were appointed to watch with the sufferer at
+night. These watchers belonged to the Association of the Holy Family.
+Kateri was not more neglected than others who were ill at these busy
+times. She, however, was perfectly content, and even glad to be left
+alone with God. This relish for solitude did not prevent her from
+greeting with a smile or a gay, bright word any or all who came to her
+side. There was one in the village at whose coming her heart bounded. It
+is needless to say that this was Thérèse Tegaiaguenta. Of all hearts at
+the Sault St. Louis, hers was the saddest through the days that Kateri
+lay dying. It was hard to work in the corn-field; it was hard not to be
+with her in the lodge. On Palm Sunday, at least, they could have a few
+hours together between Mass and Benediction. Whenever Thérèse knelt at
+prayer in the chapel, she felt that Kateri, lying on her mat, joined her
+in spirit. But when she prayed for her friend's recovery, she knew that
+Kateri's lips were unresponsive. They murmured no amen. The only prayer
+they could form at such times was like unto this: "God pity Thérèse, and
+give her the strength she needs!"
+
+On Monday in Holy Week, she asked for permission to fast, in honor of
+our Saviour's passion. She wished to pass the whole day without food.
+They told her that this she could not do,--that she had not long to
+live, and that she ought to be thinking of other things. Not long to
+live? Was this in truth what they said? She could not conceal her
+happiness at the thought of death. The angel with shadowy wings was
+close at hand, waiting to show her the face of Rawenniio.
+
+On Tuesday she failed rapidly in strength. They feared she would die,
+and prepared to give her the last sacraments. Father Cholenec did not
+intend for a moment that she should be deprived of the Viaticum,--that
+strength of the wayfarer, and bread of angels, so needful to the dying.
+But just how it should be administered was a question. Thus far the
+Blessed Sacrament had never been carried to an Indian's cabin. The sick
+were put on a bark litter and borne to the door of the church, where
+they received Holy Communion. Kateri was too weak for this. The two
+Fathers at the mission consulted together, and quickly resolved to make
+an exception in her case. No one either then or afterwards murmured at
+this distinction accorded to the Lily of the Mohawks. Father Cholenec at
+once entered the sanctuary, took the sacred particle from the
+tabernacle, and passed out of the church, following the shortest road to
+Anastasia's cabin. All who were then in the village assembled to
+accompany him, and knelt about the door of the lodge, leaving a passage
+for the blackgown to enter. In the mean time Kateri heard of the honored
+Guest whom she was to receive; whose sacramental presence had been so
+long denied her, on account of her inability to drag herself to the
+chapel. This had not been possible since the first weeks of Lent. She
+was now overjoyed at the good news they brought her. Her face lighted up
+with happiness. Then all at once she remembered the miserable condition
+and great poverty to which long-continued sickness had reduced her. So
+she held fast to the hand of Thérèse, who was then at her side, and
+begged her earnestly not to leave her. As soon as they were left alone
+for a moment, she confided to her friend that she owned no decent
+garment in which to receive her Lord, who was about to visit her, having
+only those she now wore. Thérèse, touched at this avowal from one who
+knew so well how to care for herself and others when she had been able
+to work, quickly brought a chemise of her own for Kateri, and dressed
+her properly for the great event so near at hand. Kateri had hidden her
+poverty even from Anastasia. All is at last in readiness, both within
+the lodge and without; her heart's desire is at hand. "Behold He cometh,
+leaping over the mountains."
+
+The blackgown, with the sacred Viaticum, entered the rude bark cabin,
+which was crowded with kneeling Indians. The _Confiteor_ was recited.
+Kateri Tekakwitha renewed her baptismal vows and the solemn offering she
+had made of her body to Almighty God. She recalled the graces bestowed
+upon her, and especially such as had enabled her to preserve her
+chastity through life. She then received the Body and Blood of Christ,
+and after a few moments of silent adoration, all present joined with her
+in prayer. Throughout the afternoon other Indians of the village, as
+they came in from the hunt or the field, were constantly going back and
+forth to the lodge where she lay. All wished to see her and to hear her
+dying words. Not one was indifferent to the passing of her soul. Many
+were the signs of love and of reverence shown for her on that day. It
+would seem as if she had been to each one of them like a favorite
+sister. All were eager to gain a remembrance in her prayers.
+
+"The Father profited by this occasion," says Chauchetière, "and obliged
+Catherine to exhort some persons who needed to be encouraged in virtue."
+He adds that the words of the dying always had great effect at the
+mission in converting those who could not be brought otherwise to be
+baptized or to confess their sins. If this were the case ordinarily, how
+doubly effective must have been the words thus wrung from Kateri,
+despite her humility, by the command of her director! But after all, it
+was her example, in life and in death, that preached most forcibly to
+them. The effort she made to speak--for, indeed, it was more natural for
+her to be silent--exhausted her very much. Thinking she was about to
+expire, Father Cholenec wished to anoint her at once, and ran in haste
+as far as the church; but her calm assurance to Thérèse, to the Father,
+and to others that there was no occasion for hurry, caused them to
+believe afterwards that the hour of her death, as well as the place of
+her burial, had been privately revealed to her by God.
+
+During the evening of Tuesday Thérèse left her friend for a time. In the
+night she was again watching by Kateri's side with another woman.[68]
+The sufferer asked them to take turns in order to get more rest, or they
+would be too weary the next day. When Thérèse remained alone with her,
+Kateri, who had looked forward to this moment, said: "I know very well,
+my sister, what I am saying. I know the place from which you came, and I
+know what you were doing there. Take courage!" she continued with great
+tenderness; "you may be sure that you are pleasing in the eyes of God,
+and I will help you more when I am with Him." The eyes of Thérèse opened
+wide at these words, and then filled with tears. How could Kateri have
+known what she had done? She had stolen off to the woods without saying
+a word to any one, and had cruelly scourged herself as she prayed from
+her heart for her dying friend. But Kateri, it seems, did know about it;
+and in the morning early, when Thérèse wished to stay by her lest she
+should not be there at the last, she said in a decided tone: "You may go
+to the field, Thérèse; do not fear. You will be back in time." In this,
+too, she was not mistaken.
+
+Father Martin, in describing these last hours of Kateri, gives the
+following conversation which took place that same morning, and which
+shows the touching simplicity of her Indian friends. "If we must go,"
+they said to her, "ask God not to let you die while we are away." Kateri
+again assured them that there was time enough. "On your return you will
+find me still living," she said. They went away satisfied, and God
+blessed their confidence.
+
+It will be remembered that this was the morning of Wednesday in Holy
+Week. What follows is from Chauchetière, who says that the companion of
+the dying girl was sent for about ten o'clock that day.
+
+     "Marie Thérèse Tegaiaguenta arrived in the cabin shortly before
+     Extreme Unction was given. After she [Kateri] had received all
+     the sacraments, she conversed with her companion. She was
+     failing, however, all the time, and at last, speaking with
+     difficulty and unable to raise her voice, seeing her comrade
+     weeping bitterly, she bade her this last farewell: 'I leave
+     you,' said Catherine; 'I am going to die. Remember always what
+     we have done together since we knew one another. If you change,
+     I will accuse you before the judgment-seat of God. Take
+     courage; despise the discourse of those who have no faith. When
+     they would persuade you to marry, listen only to the Fathers.
+     If you cannot serve God here, go away to the mission of
+     Lorette. Never give up mortification. I will love you in
+     heaven,--I will pray for you,--I will help you--'
+
+     "The Father who was near by on his knees to say the prayers for
+     the dying, heard a little of what Catherine was saying. He kept
+     his eyes fixed upon the face of Catherine to notice what was
+     passing, and at the same time he encouraged them both.
+     Catherine had her face turned towards Heaven, and her companion
+     embraced her with one hand, having the other resting on the
+     cheek of Catherine, and listening with attention to the last
+     words of the dying one.
+
+     "This blessed girl in saying to her companion, 'I will love
+     thee in Heaven,' lost the power of speech. It had been a long
+     time since she closed her eyes to created things. Her hearing,
+     however, still remained, and was good to the last breath. It
+     was noticed several times that when some acts were suggested to
+     her she seemed to revive. When she was excited to the love of
+     God, her whole face seemed to change.[69] Every one wished to
+     share in the devotion inspired by her dying countenance. It
+     seemed more like the face of a person contemplating than like
+     the face of one dying. In this state she remained until the
+     last breath. Her breathing had been decreasing since nine or
+     ten o'clock in the morning, and became gradually imperceptible.
+     But her face did not change. One of the Fathers who was on his
+     knees at her right side noticed a little trembling of the nerve
+     on that side of her mouth, and she died as if she had gone to
+     sleep. Those beside her were for a time in doubt of her death.
+
+     "When they felt certain that all was over, her eulogy was
+     spoken in the cabin, to encourage others to imitate her. What
+     her father confessor said, together with what they had seen,
+     made them look upon her body as a precious relic. The
+     simplicity of the Indians caused them to do more than there was
+     need for on this occasion, as, for instance, to kiss her hands;
+     to keep as a relic whatever had belonged to her; to pass the
+     evening and the rest of the night near her; to watch her face,
+     which changed little by little in less than a quarter of an
+     hour. It inspired devotion, although her soul was separated
+     from it. It appeared more beautiful than it had ever done when
+     she was living. It gave joy, and fortified each one of them in
+     the faith he had embraced. It was a new argument for belief
+     with which God favored the Indians to give them a relish for
+     the faith!"
+
+Thus died Kateri Tekakwitha, on Wednesday, April 17, 1680. She was
+twenty-four years of age.
+
+The change in her countenance after death, mentioned by Chauchetière, is
+described at some length by Cholenec. He recalls the fact that when
+Kateri was four years old she was attacked by the small-pox, and that
+some marks of it were left on her face. It had been much more
+disfigured, however, by her austerities and by her last illness. "But
+this face," says Cholenec, "thus emaciated and marked, changed all at
+once, about a quarter of an hour after her death; and it became in an
+instant so beautiful and so fair that, having perceived it at once (for
+I was in prayer near her), I gave a great cry, so much was I seized with
+astonishment, and I had the Father called, who was working on the
+repository for Thursday morning. He ran to see it at once, and with him
+all the Indians, at the news of this prodigy, which we had leisure to
+contemplate until her burial. I must admit frankly," her confessor
+continues, "that the first thought which came to me was that Catherine
+might have indeed entered at that moment into heaven, and that on her
+virginal body was reflected in advance a small ray of the glory which
+was dawning on her soul!"
+
+The spirit of Kateri Tekakwitha rejoiced in leaving its casket of clay;
+but the friend who had known her best still lingered disconsolate by her
+mat, till at last the crowd was scattered and none remained but those
+who belonged to the cabin wherein she died. Then the body was cared for
+in the usual manner. Thérèse, whose loving task it was to bring the
+necessary garments, now assisted Kateri's adopted sister and the good
+matron, Anastasia, in their last sad duties to the gentle inmate of
+their lodge. Her hair was oiled and braided. New moccasins were put on
+her feet. She was tenderly laid out on a mat, and the entrances of the
+lodge were again left open for visitors. A moving throng passed in and
+out. Many lingered for a long, long time, unable to withdraw their eyes
+from the face of the Iroquois maiden so long hidden by her blanket, and
+now so wondrous fair to behold. It was aglow with a miraculous beauty
+that gave deep joy to those who looked upon it; with the joy came also a
+longing to be pure and holy, and to possess the happiness reflected on
+those noble features. As she lay thus motionless on her mat, two
+Frenchmen from La Prairie, who had come to the Indian village to be
+present at the services there on Holy Thursday, wandered idly into the
+cabin. They passed close to the body of Kateri. "How peacefully that
+young woman sleeps!" said one of them. It did not occur to them that
+she was dead, and they were about to pass on. "But they were very much
+surprised," writes Cholenec, "when they learned a moment after that it
+was the body of Catherine, who had just expired. They immediately
+retraced their steps, and casting themselves on their knees at her feet,
+recommended themselves to her prayers. They even wished to give a public
+evidence of the veneration they had for the deceased, by immediately
+assisting to make the coffin which was to enclose those holy relics."
+
+Thus it happened that Kateri's body, instead of being borne to the
+grave, according to the Indian custom, on an open bier of bark, covered
+only with a blanket, was enclosed in a wooden coffin after the custom of
+the white men. This made it easier to identify her remains later when
+they were carried to the new village site farther up the river, to which
+the Indians of the Sault moved some years later. They took Kateri's
+bones with them as their most precious treasure, and have kept them at
+the church ever since.[70]
+
+[Illustration: STREET SCENE AT CAUGHNAWAGA IN CANADA
+
+(_St. Lawrence River_) 1889 (_Church of St. François Xavier_)]
+
+When the two Frenchmen who had come to Caughnawaga for Holy Thursday had
+finished their self-imposed task, the body of Kateri was lifted from her
+mat into the coffin, but the lid was not adjusted at once over the
+face. The Indians continued to gaze upon it, and would not consent to
+have it covered until she had been lowered into the grave which they had
+prepared for her. This was on the side of the cemetery nearest to the
+river, at the foot of the tall cross, where she had loved to pray.
+There, on the afternoon of Thursday in Holy Week, the Lily of the
+Mohawks and the "Geneviève of New France" was laid to rest. So great was
+the fame of her sanctity that her grave soon became a much-frequented
+spot. Pilgrim after pilgrim has directed his footsteps to that cross and
+mound. In the long list of these we find the names of governors,
+bishops, military commanders, and well-known authors.[71] Even after her
+bones were removed, the place where Kateri had prayed, and where her
+body rested for a time, was looked upon as sacred ground. From the day
+of her burial in 1680 to the present time, it has been distinctly and
+unmistakably marked with a tall wooden cross. Whenever the old one
+crumbled away, a new one was erected to replace it. John Gilmary Shea
+gives the following graphic account of what occurred at her grave in
+1843:--
+
+     "The old cross was mouldering; and a new one, twenty-five feet
+     high, was prepared, in which were encased some relics of the
+     holy virgin of Caughnawaga. On Sunday, the 23d of July, 1843,
+     the Caughnawagas, headed by their missionary and chiefs,
+     repaired to the little river Portage, near which their former
+     church and village had stood, on a bluff between that little
+     stream and the lordly St. Lawrence. The space on the left was
+     soon filled by whites, drawn thither by interest or curiosity,
+     both of French and English origin. The banner of La Prairie and
+     the pennons of the Sault floated above the crowd on either side
+     of the highly adorned cross, at the foot of which was a
+     painting of the Christian heroine. At the signal given by the
+     discharge of artillery on the right and left, the clergy in
+     procession advanced into the centre, chanting the "Vexilla
+     Regis." At another discharge Father Felix Martin, one of the
+     first Jesuits to whom it was given to return to the land
+     enriched by the sweat and blood of his Society, rose to address
+     the assembled throng in French. Then, after a hymn in Iroquois,
+     the Rev. Joseph Marcoux,[72] the pastor of the tribe,
+     pronounced a discourse in the guttural language of his flock,
+     and gave place to the Rev. Hyacinth Hudon, Vicar-General of
+     Montreal, who delivered a third address in English, and then
+     performed the ceremony of blessing the cross. That sign of
+     faith was then slowly raised, amid the chants of the Church,
+     the thunder of the cannon, and the mingled shouts of men of
+     many climes and races who, differing in language, bowed to the
+     symbol of a common faith."
+
+In September, 1884, the author of this volume visited her grave, and
+found that the cross described above had been blown down in a recent
+storm. It was lying in broken fragments on the river-bank, near the
+little enclosure of wooden pickets surrounding the grave. Pious hands
+were soon at work there, however, and on Sunday, Oct. 5, 1884, another
+cross was raised. Again a large gathering of Canadians and Indians
+assembled to assist at the ceremony. Rev. Father Burtin, Oblate
+missionary, and successor to Father Marcoux, preached both in French and
+Iroquois. The following words of the preacher (which were translated
+into English and published in an Albany journal) must have made a
+profound impression upon his hearers, the Iroquois people of
+Caughnawaga. "There have been," he said, "in this village, chiefs
+renowned in war, who had dealings with governors of Canada, and were
+widely spoken of during their lives. Now that they are dead, their names
+are mostly forgotten, while the name of Catherine Tekakwitha is well
+known not only here, but throughout Canada and beyond the ocean."
+
+In the month of June, 1888, the author, having travelled by the
+ferry-boat from Montreal to La Prairie, and thence driven a few miles
+westward along the river-bank, was fortunate enough to stand once again
+by the grave of Tekakwitha.[73] There, in addition to the new cross,
+which stood firm and erect within the little enclosure, a large granite
+monument was to be seen lying close beside it, partially unboxed and
+ready to be placed upon the grave. It had been sent to Canada from the
+land of Tekakwitha's birth. It has since been set in place, and
+protected by a strong canopy and enclosure of wood. The initials of the
+two donors of this substantial token are carved on a lower corner of the
+monumental stone. It is a solid piece of Barre granite, in the shape of
+a sarcophagus,--six feet six inches long, two feet ten inches wide, two
+feet six inches high. On the top a cross is carved, and the following
+inscription in the Iroquois language:--
+
+    KATERI TEKAKWITHA.
+
+    Apr. 17, 1680.
+
+    _Onkwe Onwe-ke Katsitsiio Teiotsitsianekaron._[74]
+
+The French translation is the exact interpretation given by M. Cuoq, who
+composed the Iroquois inscription. He says that _Onkwe Onwe_ means
+literally, "The true men;" thus the Indians designate all who belong to
+their own race. _Katsitsiio_ means "beautiful flower," and is here
+applied to Tekakwitha, the Lily of the Mohawks. This title, given to her
+by the English, is altogether foreign to the Iroquois language, as they
+have no distinctive word for _Lily_ (nothing more definite than "white
+flower"); and _Mohawks_ is a name they dislike, because it was first
+given to them by their enemies; they prefer, therefore, their own term,
+_Caniengas_. Tekakwitha was a Canienga and an Iroquois, but she was
+also, on her mother's side, an Algonquin. Hence it is that the general
+name which applies to the whole red race is used in the
+inscription,--_Onkwe Onwe_! All "true men" are indeed akin to this
+beautiful flower that bloomed in our Mohawk Valley.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[68] For this incident see Cholenec, in "La Vie de Catherine
+Tegakouita," Carton O, Jesuit College Library, Montreal.
+
+[69] Father Martin, in his account of this scene, says that Kateri,
+after her last words to Thérèse, covered her crucifix with kisses and
+tears, and finally cried out three times, "Jesus, I love thee!"
+Chauchetière himself, in another place, mentions these as her last
+words. He and Cholenec were both eyewitnesses of her death. Cholenec
+says, "At three hours after midday, after having pronounced the holy
+names of Jesus and Mary, a slight spasm came on, when she entirely lost
+the power of speech."
+
+[70] They are now (1889) in a carefully secured chest of polished wood
+in the sacristy of the church of St François Xavier du Sault at the
+present village of Caughnawaga, about five miles up the river from their
+first resting-place. The old wall and priest's house connected with the
+above-named church date back to 1720, but the church itself is more
+modern. It was rebuilt in 1845. The desk at which Charlevoix and Lafitau
+wrote is still used by the missionary who occupies the _presbytère_. The
+exact site of this mission of St François Xavier du Sault at the present
+time and its four previous sites, also the position of Tekakwitha's
+grave, with her cross and monument, and its direction from the city of
+Montreal, are shown on the map in chapter xvii.
+
+[71] Among those who have shown special honor to the memory of Kateri
+Tekakwitha by visiting her grave and spreading her fame by means of
+their writings, and who have not been already quoted in this work, we
+find the following persons of note: the Marquis Denonville, Governor of
+Canada; Monseigneur de Saint-Valier, second Bishop of Quebec; Capt. J.
+du Luth, commander of Fort Frontenac in 1696; De la Potherie,
+Commissioner of the King, and author of the "Histoire de l'Amérique
+Septentrionale," and of verses in honor of Tekakwitha, written in 1722;
+Chateaubriand,--see "Les Natchez," livre iv., as follows: "Les vertus de
+Catherine (dit-il) resplendirait après sa mort. Dieu couvrit son tombeau
+de miracles riches et éclatants en proportion de la pauvreté et de
+l'obscurité de la Sainte ici-bas, et cette vierge ne cesse de veiller du
+salut de la Nouvelle France, et de s'intéresser aux habitants du
+désert." Poems on Kateri Tekakwitha have been written by the Abbé
+Rouquette, of New Orleans, and by Rev. C. A. Walworth, of Albany; and to
+crown all these efforts to do her honor, the touch of a gifted artist of
+New York State, Mr. Charles M. Lang, has been brought to bear on this
+ever-growing theme.
+
+[72] Author of a very complete Iroquois-French dictionary, preserved and
+still in use in manuscript form at the _presbytère_, or priest's house,
+at Caughnawaga in Canada.
+
+[73] Tekakwitha's cross and grave may also be reached by a drive of
+about five miles across the reservation from Caughnawaga, which is now a
+railroad station on the new Canadian Pacific road, and is connected by a
+steam-ferry with Lachme, where the steamers touch before going over the
+Great Rapid, and where trains arrive many times a day from Montreal.
+
+[74] English translation,--"_The fairest flower that ever bloomed among
+the redmen._" French translation,--"_C'est une belle fleur qui s'est
+épanouie parmi les Indiens._"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+THE MEMORY AND INFLUENCE OF KATERI TEKAKWITHA AFTER HER DEATH.--MODERN
+CAUGHNAWAGA.
+
+
+It has been seen how the waning yet ever-brightening spark of a saintly
+life went out among the Indians of the Sault, and the reader has learned
+where Kateri Tekakwitha was laid to rest; but her memory is still alive
+at the places where she lived and died, and even far away among the
+Indians of the North and West; and wherever she is known her influence
+is still a power for good. The Rev. P. Fouquet, a missionary who labors
+among the aborigines of British Columbia, in a letter addressed to the
+Rev. V. Burtin, Curé of Caughnawaga, P. Q., under date of July 22, 1888,
+says:--
+
+     "I have spoken to hundreds of Indian villages of your admirable
+     _Sauvagesse_ [thus he calls Tekakwitha].... Nothing is so
+     useful to our Indians; her example is a great encouragement to
+     them in the practice of Christian virtues."
+
+The Flathead (Kalispel) Mission in Montana, with its large Indian school
+and thriving settlement of industrious Christians, owes its origin in
+great part to the zeal of a few adventurous Iroquois who migrated to
+that region from Caughnawaga in Canada. Among these was a certain chief
+called Ignatius _the Iroquois_. He had grown up under the shadow of
+Tekakwitha's cross, and after living for a time among his new friends
+the Kalispel people, who gained from him and his comrades a favorable
+opinion of Christianity, he did not hesitate to undertake a dangerous
+journey across the great plains of the United States in order to obtain
+for them a missionary. It was in paving the way for Father De Smet, the
+Apostle of the Rocky Mountains, that the brave Iroquois lost his life.
+When that Father succeeded after many difficulties in accomplishing the
+long journey from St. Louis in the Mississippi Valley, to the Kalispels
+in Montana, he reaped a most unexpected harvest of Indian converts. This
+was because they still cherished the memory of Ignatius the Iroquois,
+who from his youth had reverenced that of Kateri Tekakwitha. May we not
+then justly claim for her a share in the success of that Kalispel
+mission? Was it not her strong, sweet influence for good that had
+spanned the continent at last, and raised the cross aloft among the
+redmen of the Rocky Mountains?
+
+Not alone among the Indians of the West, but far away to the East, and
+beyond the Atlantic Ocean, the name of Kateri Tekakwitha is often
+spoken. In April, 1888, the people of Caughnawaga joined with their
+missionary, Père V. Burtin, in celebrating the diamond wedding of his
+aged parents, who live at Metz, in Lorraine. The name the Caughnawagas
+have given to their beloved pastor is Takaronhianckon, which means "Two
+Skies Together," because he belongs to two countries,--the land of his
+adoption, and his fatherland over the sea. Père Burtin delights in
+praising the virtues of Kateri Tekakwitha, and often mentions her in his
+letters. Her name has become a household word in the missionary's old
+home on the banks of the Moselle, which he has not seen for more than
+thirty years. This double celebration of a diamond wedding on both sides
+of the Atlantic proves not only the strength of true domestic affection
+that neither time nor distance has been able to obliterate, but also the
+love and gratitude of the Indians to the man who forsook house and
+kindred so many years ago for their sake.
+
+Pictures of Kateri were painted by Chauchetière shortly after her death,
+and were distributed in many directions. They were first engraved and
+sent to Europe by order of Madame de Champigny in the year 1695. One or
+more of these reached the French Court, which was then at its most
+brilliant period under Louis XIV. The powdered and befrilled ladies of
+that time looked with wonder on the rough cut sent to them of a little
+squaw in blanket and moccasins, holding in her hand a cross, and worthy,
+they were told, to be held up as a model for the Christians of Europe.
+She had indeed lived as a light in the wilderness, and was looked upon
+by all who knew her as a lily of purity and star of faith.
+
+There is a very old, full-length portrait of Kateri Tekakwitha still
+hanging in the sacristy at Caughnawaga, P. Q. Others are to be seen at
+St. Mary's Church, Albany, and in the possession of the Jesuits at Troy,
+New York. An ideal portrait of her by Mr. Lang, completed in the early
+part of the year 1889, is by far the best representation of her now in
+existence. The same artist has also painted her, in a landscape of great
+beauty, as just moving away from her favorite place of prayer near the
+mission cross on the St. Lawrence. A Sister in the Hôtel Dieu at
+Montreal has a quaint colored print, representing her very much as she
+appears in the rude, uncolored engraving which accompanies the account
+given of her in "L'Amérique Septentrionale" by De la Potherie. The
+illustration in Chauchetière's life of her, published in quaint style by
+John Gilmary Shea, in 1887, is not unlike these two.
+
+What served far more than any pictorial representation ever made, to
+keep her saintly memory before the people of her own village, was the
+formation of Kateri's Band, or Les Soeurs de Catherine, as they were
+called. These were young Indian girls whom Thérèse Tegaiaguenta banded
+together after Kateri's death, and incited to imitate the virtues of her
+friend, who, as she firmly believed, was still loving her and helping
+her in heaven, according to her promise. It has already been said that
+Thérèse received by common consent the name of the one who while on
+earth had been her inseparable companion. Hence it is easy to account
+for the fact that in a "Life of Marguerite Bourgeois," published in
+1852, the author should have confused the identity of these two young
+Indians of the Sault, and given an account of the Lily of the Mohawks
+under the name of _Thérèse Tegakouita_. Their souls were locked together
+in life; their names in death.
+
+While Thérèse lived, the Caughnawagas gave her the name and a part
+of the love and reverence they had shown to Kateri herself. When
+once she had formed the band known as Kateri's Sisters, and had passed
+from among men, then indeed there was nothing left on earth of the
+Lily of the Mohawks save lifeless relics and what the old writers are
+pleased to call "an odor of sanctity." _Onkwe Onwe-ke Katsitsiio
+Teiotsitsianekaron._ These words, as we have already seen, may be read
+on the monument at the foot of Tekakwitha's Cross, but her bones do not
+rest there. They were carried to the modern village of Caughnawaga, and
+some fragments of them even still farther from her grave;[75] for at the
+time of the French and Indian War the Jesuits resolved to divide the
+Caughnawaga mission, and remove some of their flock farther away from
+the dangers of Montreal. The Tarbells--who as children had been captured
+at Groton, Connecticut, in Queen Anne's War, and afterwards became too
+thoroughly identified with the Caughnawagas to return to their Puritan
+relatives when the opportunity offered--headed this party sent westward
+from the Sault to form a new settlement. Choosing Aquasasne,--"the place
+where the partridge drums,"--a plain east of a slight hill, at one of
+the few spots where the rapid-vexed river glides calmly by, --they began
+the mission of St. Francis Regis, and threw up a log-cabin for the
+Jesuit Father Mark Anthony Gordon, who accompanied them, _bearing as a
+precious treasure part of the remains of Catherine Tehgahkwitha_.[76]
+
+This portion of her remains was lost in a fire which destroyed the log
+chapel and its contents shortly before the treaty of peace was signed
+between England and France, in 1763. A new wooden church soon replaced
+the rude chapel, and in 1791 this in turn gave way to the present
+massive stone church of that mission. The St. Regis settlement was found
+to be on the New York boundary line; so the village is now part British
+and part American. Methodist and Episcopal missions have been started
+there at different times, but most of the Indians of the place still
+adhere to the faith of Jogues and Tekakwitha.
+
+The Catholic Iroquois,--many of them famous as warriors,--naturally
+enough, sided with the French during the long period of our
+intercolonial wars;[77] but when the Revolution broke out they refused
+to take up arms against the people of the English Colonies at the
+instigation of their British oppressors, as did the Mohawk followers of
+Brant. Though urged and threatened by Sir Guy Carleton to do so, they
+maintained their neutrality. Some actually joined the American army of
+patriots. One of these, Atiatonharonkwen, or Louis Cook, rose to the
+rank of captain. During the stirring times of 1812 the settlement at
+Aquasasne was disturbed by incursions of both American and British
+troops; but since that war came to an end the missions of Caughnawaga
+and St. Regis have enjoyed peace and quiet. Their people have shared in
+the general prosperity and progress of this country and Canada. They
+support themselves by means of agriculture and the manufacture of
+baskets, sleds, moccasins, snow-shoes, and other articles ornamented
+with beads in the Indian fashion. The Caughnawagas, moreover, are noted
+for being especially brave and skilful in the use of every kind of
+river-craft. As raftsmen and pilots they are unequalled. The patriarchal
+figure of the famous Caughnawaga Indian, Jean Baptiste, with his
+swarthy face and bright-red shirt, seen year after year at the
+pilot-wheel of nearly every excursion-steamer that shot the Great Rapid
+of the St. Lawrence on its way to Montreal, will not soon be forgotten
+by the many travellers whom he steered safely to their destination.
+Others as skilful still dwell at the same Indian village, ready at any
+time to board the steamers as they pass along.
+
+When the Gordon expedition was being fitted out for Egypt in 1884, an
+urgent invitation was extended to the Caughnawaga raftsmen to join it.
+About one hundred of them did so, and dexterously carried the British
+troops through the rapids of the Upper Nile. On their return they were
+received in England with marked consideration, and were thanked by Queen
+Victoria in person for their services to the realm. They then recrossed
+the ocean to Caughnawaga, well pleased with their venture into foreign
+lands.
+
+Among these same people of the Sault are lineal descendants of those
+proud Mohawks with whom the fathers of Albany maintained so long the
+close alliance formed at Tawasentha, when the foundations of the city
+were first laid on land belonging to the most warlike of the Five
+Nations. Accordingly, when the Albanians, in 1886, prepared to celebrate
+the bi-centennial of their charter, a deputation of these Mohawks was
+formally invited from Caughnawaga by the Mayor of Albany. On their
+arrival they were publicly received at the City Hall as honored guests,
+the freedom of the city was extended to them, and they took a prominent
+part in the ceremonies accompanying the celebration. They were present
+in full Indian costume, both at the opening of the city gates, and at
+the grand military high mass celebrated on bi-centennial Sunday at St.
+Mary's, the oldest Catholic Church of the city. Their presence on that
+occasion recalled with touching interest the memory of their first
+apostle of Christianity, Isaac Jogues, who was sheltered from the
+cruelty of his captors by the kind-hearted burghers of Albany. The
+sacrifice of his life, which he offered for them when he returned to the
+Mohawk Valley, had brought these Indians to the Christian faith; and the
+example of Kateri--their "Little Sister," as they still call her--had
+helped to hold them to it through the vicissitudes of two centuries.
+
+The fervor of these Indian people of the Great Rapid, whose ancestors
+were converted from paganism in the valleys of New York State, has not
+abated since the days of Kateri, nor has the work of the Jesuit
+missionaries among them been fruitless in lasting results,
+notwithstanding the assertion of Kip to the contrary, in his
+introduction to "Early Jesuit Missions." The large congregation of
+Christian Iroquois still dwelling at the Sault is in itself a living
+proof of the success and continuance of the old mission work. No one
+could attend the religious observances there without being impressed by
+their sincere and heartfelt devotion to the Christian faith. The Corpus
+Christi procession, as witnessed by the author, in 1888, at the village
+of Caughnawaga, was picturesque and edifying beyond description.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[75] See Hough's History of St. Lawrence County.
+
+[76] Shea's History of the Missions, p. 339.
+
+[77] To this period belong the curious details concerning the
+traditional story of the Iroquois mission bell, and its connection with
+the raid on Deerfield in the winter of 1703-4, which have been collected
+by Judge N. B. Sylvester, in his "History of the Connecticut Valley."
+
+
+
+
+CONCLUSION.
+
+
+It is for the people of the United States, where many nationalities and
+many creeds are brought into daily contact, that this book has been
+written; and therefore certain occurrences which took place after the
+death of Kateri Tekakwitha, and which have been given at length in some
+memoirs and sketches of her life otherwise comparatively meagre, are
+here purposely omitted. Thus we pass by much that might be said of the
+devotion of people in various parts of Canada and elsewhere to her
+memory; as also the accounts of visits made from long distances to her
+grave, and to her early home in the Mohawk Valley. Steps have been taken
+towards public honors in the church, and even to her canonization as a
+saint.[78] Into these matters it has not been thought necessary to
+enter. One exception, however, should be made. Some things occurred soon
+after her death which are so closely connected with the personality of
+Kateri herself, and with those who were nearest to her on earth, that
+they seem properly to belong to a complete record of her life and times.
+These are given in an account of certain remarkable visions in which
+Kateri Tekakwitha appeared to Father Chauchetière and two of her friends
+in 1680, and twice afterwards to the same reverend father. The account
+of these apparitions is to be found in "Book Third" of the manuscript
+entitled, "La Vie de Catherine Tegakouita, Première Vièrge Irokoise,"
+written by Father Cholenec. It forms a part of the materials in Carton
+O,[79] at the Jesuit College Library, in Montreal. A translation of it
+is here given. Nothing is added, and nothing taken from the good
+father's account; nor is there any call to make an apology for the
+simple faith which glows in his language. It was his faith and that of
+many others who knew Tekakwitha, and thus makes a part, of her history.
+
+Cholenec's words are as follows:
+
+"The sixth day after the death of Catherine, this was Easter Monday, a
+virtuous person worthy of belief,[80] being in prayer at four o'clock in
+the morning, she appeared to him surrounded with glory, bearing a pot
+full of maize, her radiant face lifted towards heaven as if in ecstasy.
+This vision of joy so marvellous was accompanied by three circumstances
+which rendered it still more admirable. For in the first place it
+lasted two whole hours, during which this person had leisure to
+contemplate her at his ease. He did so with a joy and a pleasure that
+cannot be expressed, Catherine having wished by so signal a favor to
+acknowledge the great services she had received from him during her
+life. Furthermore, this same apparition was accompanied with several
+prophecies by as many symbols which were to be seen on each side of
+Catherine in her ecstasy; of which prophecies some have been already
+verified, others have not as yet. For example, at the right appeared a
+church overturned, and opposite at the left an Indian attached to a
+stake and burned alive. This happened in the month of April of the year
+1680; and in 1683, the night of the 20th of August, a storm, so terrible
+and with so much thunder and lightning that it could only have been
+caused by the evil spirit, took up the church of the Sault,--60 feet
+long, of stone masonry,--took it up, I say, at one corner with such
+violence that, contrary to all likelihood, it turned it over on to the
+opposite angle and dashed it to pieces. Two of our fathers who were at
+the church were carried off into the air. A third, who had run to the
+house to ring the bell, felt the cord suddenly wrenched from his hands,
+and was carried off like the other two. All three next found themselves
+on the ground under the _débris_, from which they were drawn forth with
+much difficulty; and instead of having their bodies all mangled by so
+violent a concussion, they came out of it with some slight hurts; this
+they attributed to the prayers of Catherine, when they all three came
+together again. As for me, said one, I said mass to-day in honor of
+Catherine. And for me, replied the other, I was this morning at her
+tomb, to recommend myself to her in a special manner. And as for me,
+added the third, having for a year past a strong idea that some
+misfortune was to befall the mission, I have been every day since then,
+and to-day again, to pray to Catherine at her tomb to deliver us, and I
+have not ceased during all that time to importune the superior of the
+mission to have Catherine's bones transported into our church, without
+knowing why I did it. Behold what has reference to the overturned
+church. As for the Indian seen in this apparition, attached to the stake
+and burned alive, that was sufficiently verified some years after, when
+an Indian of this mission was burned at Onondaga, and two women the two
+following years; and as we do not doubt at all that Catherine, who had
+made it known so long beforehand, obtained for these Indians the
+invincible constancy that they showed in their torments, we will speak
+of it at the end of this third book as a marvellous effect of the power
+she has in heaven.[81]
+
+"Finally, the third circumstance of this apparition, so remarkable, is
+that in the following year, 1681, on September 1st, and in the year
+1682, on April 21st, the same person had the same vision and under the
+same circumstances; with this only difference, that in the first
+apparition Catherine was shown to him as a rising sun, with these words
+which were audible to him: '_Adhuc visio in dies_;' instead of which,
+in the two following ones, she was shown to him as a sun at mid-day,
+with these other words: '_Inspice et fac secundum exemplar_,' God giving
+him to understand by this, that he wished pictures of Catherine to be
+painted, which have been worked upon for a long time, and which having
+been painted, have contributed wonderfully towards making her known;
+because, having been put on the heads of the sick, they have worked
+miraculous cures.
+
+"Two days after the first of these three apparitions, and eight days
+after the death of Catherine, she showed herself to her good mother
+Anastasia in this way. This fervent christian, after everybody had gone
+to bed in her cabin, remained alone in prayer on that evening; and
+feeling herself finally overcome by sleep she laid down on her mat to
+rest. But scarcely had she closed her eyes when she was awakened by a
+voice calling her with these words: 'Mother, arise.' She recognized the
+voice of Catherine, and at once without the least fear, she raised
+herself to a sitting posture and turning towards the side from which
+this voice came, she saw Catherine standing near her all brilliant with
+light. She had half of her body hidden to the waist in this brightness,
+and the other half, said this woman, was shining like a sun. She carried
+in her hand a cross, more brilliant yet than all the rest. So much light
+came from it that I do not believe one could see anything in the world
+more beautiful. I saw her, she continued, distinctly in this posture,
+awake as I was, and she spoke these words to me quite as distinctly:
+'Mother, look at this cross; oh! how beautiful it is! It has been my
+whole happiness during my life, and I advise you also to make it yours.'
+After these few words she disappeared, leaving her mother full of joy,
+and her spirit so filled with this vision that after many years she had
+still the memory of it as fresh as on the first day. It seems that
+Catherine, in gratitude for the assistance she had received from
+Anastasia, wished by the sight of that cross so beautiful and so
+ravishing, and by the words she added, to dispose her to bear generously
+the one that God was preparing for her; because she has lost since then
+three of her children killed in war, the eldest of whom was one of the
+captains of the village; a disaster which she bore with heroic
+constancy, so much had she been fortified within by this apparition of
+her dear daughter.
+
+"Catherine was seen also by her companion, one day when she was alone in
+her cabin. She sat down beside her on her mat, recalled to her something
+she had done, and after giving her some advice for her conduct, she
+withdrew. As for the rest, the great affection Catherine had for the
+cross, and the manner in which she appeared to her mother Anastasia,
+gave the idea of painting her with the cross in her hand as the posture
+most suitable to her.
+
+"But God has spoken still more clearly as to the sanctity and merit of
+Catherine, his spouse, by authentic testimony. I mean those prodigious
+graces, and so numerous, that he has already bestowed and continues to
+bestow through her intercession, on every sort of people."
+
+The record is ended; and yet one thought lingers. The moccasin trail of
+our "Little Sister" leads ever onward to the lodge of the true God.
+There, if we follow, though with steps not half so swift as hers, Kateri
+will not fail to greet us with her low, sweet, friendly Caughnawaga
+greeting: "Sago!"
+
+[Illustration: MODERN CAUGHNAWAGA, P. Q.
+
+(_From the Landing._)]
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[78] See Appendix--Note =F=, Indian Petition to Rome.--As recently as
+July 30, 1890, there was a large and enthusiastic gathering of
+Americans, Canadians and Indians at Tekakwitha's grave, presided over by
+the Bishops of Montreal, Albany and Nicolet, for the purpose of
+assisting at the solemn dedication and blessing of her newly placed
+monument.
+
+[79] Another manuscript contained in this same _Carton O_, which will
+doubtless be carefully examined by those who are interested in promoting
+the cause of canonization of Kateri Tekakwitha, is that of M. Rémy Curé
+of La Chine, dated March 12, 1696, and testifying to miracles worked
+through her intercession in his own parish.
+
+[80] This person was Father Chauchetière. He says in the Preface to his
+life of Catherine Tegakouita: "Catherine me porta dans une vision à
+faire des peintures pour l'instruction des sauvages, etc."
+
+[81] Some account of the Iroquois martyr, Etienne, who fulfilled this
+prophecy of the vision, has been already given in Chapter XXI. For
+further details see Kip's "Early Jesuit Missions," Pages 119-123.
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX.
+
+NOTES.
+
+
+A. LOCATION OF MOHAWK VILLAGES.
+
+There is much confusion and apparent discrepancy in the various accounts
+given of Mohawk villages in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, as
+may be seen by consulting the works of O'Callaghan, Parkman, Martin,
+Schoolcraft, Morgan, and others. A few prominent and unmistakable facts,
+however, are accepted by all. There were certainly three principal
+fortified towns in the Mohawk Valley all through the early colonial
+days, built and occupied by the _Caniengas_ (_Kanienkehaka_), or "People
+of the Flint," as they chose to call themselves, but who were known to
+the Dutch as _Maquaas_, to the French as _Agniés_, and to the English as
+_Mohawks_. These people were divided into three clans or _gentes_, each
+named for a certain animal, and each governing a town or castle of its
+own. Their three towns varied in name and location, but seem always to
+have borne the same relation to one another. As General Clark briefly
+expresses it: "The castles _first_, _second_, and _third_ (from the
+east) correspond to _Lower_, _Middle_, and _Upper_, and also to the
+_Turtle_, _Bear_, and _Wolf_." Kateri Tekakwitha dwelt at the first, or
+Turtle Castle, which was nearest to the Dutch settlers. These last
+worked their way up the Mohawk Valley from the Hudson; while the
+Indians on their part were also moving gradually westward, rebuilding
+their villages after short intervals, sometimes on the northern and
+sometimes on the southern bank of the Mohawk, but always in the same
+relative order,--that is, Turtles to the east, Bears in the centre, and
+Wolves to the west.
+
+The following extracts from letters of Gen. John S. Clark to the author
+of this volume will be of interest to all who wish to know what sort of
+proofs and arguments have been used in locating the sites of the Mohawk
+villages which were in existence during the times of Isaac Jogues and
+Kateri Tekakwitha:--
+
+    FEBRUARY 10, 1885.
+
+     The determination of the exact position of all the so-called
+     Mohawk Castles at definite dates can never be ascertained. This
+     you can readily understand by reading Father Pierron's account
+     in 1668 (Relation, 1669), where he speaks of seven large
+     villages extending over a space of seven and a half leagues
+     (nearly nineteen miles), and that from many causes they often
+     changed to new locations, where, according to circumstances,
+     they might remain five, ten, and in rare instances fifteen
+     years. I have identified in the neighborhood of forty different
+     sites occupied at some time between 1620 and 1750. Fortunately
+     the very particular account of Father Jogues' captivity and the
+     death of Goupil furnished a sufficient number of references to
+     the topography of the locality, to enable me, after many years'
+     study, to identify with almost absolute certainty the exact
+     site of this one castle, OSSERNENON. This gave the key to the
+     second and third. These determined, Father Pierron, in 1667
+     (the next year after the three castles were burned by the
+     French), speaks of visiting the third castle, which had been
+     _rebuilt a quarter of a league above_. This gave me a test
+     fact. In company with some friends living near there, and who
+     were well acquainted with all sites, as they supposed, where
+     Indian relics had ever been found, I pointed out the precise
+     point on the map, and said we must find a site here, or my
+     theory must fall to the ground. They answered that then my
+     theory must fail, for certainly if any Indian village had ever
+     existed at that point they would have heard something of it. My
+     answer was, "I have more confidence in Father Pierron than I
+     have in your opinion." We visited the spot, and on inquiring of
+     the farmer who owned the land, if any evidences existed, at the
+     particular point in question, of Indian occupation, he
+     answered: "We have found great quantities of relics, and you
+     can find plenty of them to-day,"--as we did. Since that they
+     have never questioned facts mentioned in the "Relations."
+
+     Greenhalgh visited all the castles in 1677, and found them on
+     the _north side_. His description gives sufficient facts to
+     warrant a _reasonable probability_ as to the locations of the
+     four principal castles at that date, but not absolutely
+     certain. Apparently at this date the lower castle, Kaghnawaga,
+     was on the west bank of the Cayudutta, near Fonda; and here my
+     conclusions must end for the present, until I collect all the
+     facts possible to be obtained having a bearing on the question.
+     These are references to topography, distances from other known
+     points, and anything that by hint or direct evidence can be
+     used in the solution of the problem.... My present opinion is
+     that your mission chapel of 1676 was northwest of Fonda, on the
+     west side of Cayudutta Creek....
+
+     You mention the fact of small-pox prevailing in her town in
+     1660, and ask, Would they be likely to move the site of the
+     village for that reason? Most certainly. I have evidence that
+     they did remove in 1659, but have never been able to ascertain
+     the cause. Quite possibly this may have been the reason. This
+     removal, as I suppose, was made to the west bank of Auries
+     Creek, on top of a high hill and about a mile west of
+     Ossernenon.
+
+     About 1649 the Iroquois entered on their policy of conquering
+     their neighbors and making of them one family and one people,
+     as they expressed it. From that date to 1675, great numbers
+     were added,--many more than could be provided for in the way of
+     adoption into families; consequently they were permitted to
+     settle in villages by themselves in the near vicinity of the
+     large ones. In this way was the number increased from three in
+     1640 to seven in 1668, and this also accounts for an apparent
+     discrepancy as to numbers in accounts of different writers.
+     One party finding a village in two parts near each other would
+     describe it as _two_; another would consider it as one.
+
+     I suspect your _petit village_, Gandawague, was one of this
+     character; that is, a small village near the greater one. One
+     other fact occurs to me, that may be of use to you. Gandawague
+     was a district along the river,--ordinarily meaning "at the
+     rapids." A slight variation may make it mean _above_ or _below_
+     or the _other side_; and so on in numerous relations of
+     localities to the rapids. It will be found exceedingly
+     difficult to determine the precise meaning of these words.
+
+In the early part of June, 1885, General Clark, in company with Rev. C.
+A. Walworth, of Albany, and the author of this biography, revisited all
+the castle-sites in the Mohawk Valley which were supposed to be in any
+way connected with the lifetime of Kateri Tekakwitha. What follows was
+written soon after this expedition.
+
+     AUBURN, N. Y., June 29, 1885.
+
+     Since my return home I have given my time to a review of all
+     the evidence relating to sites of first and second castles from
+     1640 to 1680, and have framed a theory that apparently
+     harmonizes _all the facts_, and shall be much obliged for any
+     argument or presentation of facts that will be inconsistent
+     with it.
+
+     First, I assume that in all the changes of the Bear clan during
+     this time, they did not remove more than a mile and a half from
+     their original position on the high hill;[82] second, that soon
+     after 1666 they removed to the opposite side of the river, on
+     the Fox farm, where Greenhalgh found them in 1677, "_on a flat
+     a stone's-throw from the river_." You will remember that this
+     site was on an elevated plain, unlike any other site visited.
+
+     Now after Ossernenon was abandoned, say about 1650 or 1655, all
+     subsequent descriptions place Gandawague _two leagues_ from
+     Andagoron until 1668, when the people of Gandawague removed to
+     the Cayudutta (Kaghnawaga), and when the accounts all place
+     the two castles near each other,--in Dr. Shea's translation
+     _two miles_. Theoretically, this makes a change of three miles
+     for the lower castle,--a distance exactly corresponding to that
+     between the high hill at Auries Creek and Kaghnawaga on the
+     Cayudutta,--the village Andagoron having remained substantially
+     stationary. I firmly believe that the site on the Fox farm was
+     the one visited by Greenhalgh. If this be correct, it
+     determines approximately the other; for they were near each
+     other, one chapel answering for both villages.
+
+     On applying the test of distance to the battle-ground,[83] this
+     is found correct; and measuring the four leagues as we did to
+     Teonnontogen, it also corresponds.
+
+     Now the removal from the west bank of Auries Creek was not made
+     bodily, but gradually. The villages were destroyed in October,
+     1666. They could do nothing in the way of establishing
+     themselves in a new position that year, having to make
+     themselves shelter for the winter. The next year, _after the
+     bark would peel_, they could commence building their new houses
+     on a new site, and during the spring clear new fields for corn,
+     and in the course of the year a partial removal could take
+     place. The palisading could be completed during the year, and
+     in 1668 the village could be said to have changed. The new
+     chapel was built in 1669, and in this year also they were
+     attacked by the Mohegans. When Gandawague was visited in 1667
+     no mention is made of a removal; but the fact is mentioned of
+     the removal of Teonnontogen a quarter of a league higher up. I
+     conclude that if Gandawague or Andagoron had either of them
+     been removed, the fact would have been mentioned, and that
+     indeed they returned temporarily to the old sites, which may
+     not have been so completely destroyed as was Teonnontogen. This
+     will reconcile all the facts, and I am unable to see any
+     material antagonism at any point. The name Gandawague must not,
+     however, be confounded with Caughnawaga, although for a time
+     it may have been transferred to the new site.
+
+     I have been unable to find any data from which to determine
+     when or about when Ossernenon was transferred to Auries Creek.
+     The asking of the Dutch for men and horses in 1659 to draw
+     palisades, _according to the translators_, was to repair their
+     castles, and in one case for the "castles which you are
+     building." They don't agree. The name on the Vanderdonck map,
+     1656, and that on Vischer's, 1659, of "Canagero," give a hint
+     that the transfer had been made as early as 1655; and the very
+     remarkable language of the Jesuit Fathers Fremin, Pierron, and
+     Bruyas, which describes Gandawague as "_the very place watered
+     by the blood of Jogues_," etc., almost leads one to think the
+     removal may have been made as early as 1646; but I conclude
+     that Ossernenon and Gandawague being only a mile apart, the
+     description "_this is the place_" would be sufficiently
+     specific as to locality, the village (people) being the same. A
+     critical study of the original Dutch may enable us to determine
+     whether in 1659 they were building a _new_ or repairing an _old
+     castle_.
+
+In a letter to Rev. C. A. Walworth, March 3, 1885, General Clark wrote
+as follows:--
+
+     "Gandawague was in 1677 unquestionably on the hill northwest of
+     Fonda, about a mile back from the river. A fine spring on the
+     west bank of the Cayudutta marks the central point of the
+     village, and the pits some distance to the north were their
+     granary where they stored their corn. A smaller village was
+     probably near Mr. Veeder's house."
+
+
+B. THE WORDS "GANDAWAGUE" AND "TEKAKWITHA."
+
+Gandawague may possibly mean, as General Clark has suggested, neither
+more nor less than "At the Turtle Village." In compound words the
+Indians frequently drop syllables, and certain letters are
+interchangeable as follows:
+
+    { KAN[/A]DA--[/A][/N][/A]WA[/R][/A]--KE }
+    { GAN----DA--------------WA----------GE }
+    { _Village_-----------_Turtle_------_At_}
+
+The name of this first, or Turtle, Castle of the Mohawks has been
+written in many different ways, as may be seen by a glance at the list
+here given:--
+
+    OSSERNENON
+    Asserue
+    Oneougoure
+    GANDAWAGUE
+    Gannaouagé
+    Gandahouague
+    Andaraque
+    Kachnuge
+    Kaghnuwagé
+    Kaghenewage
+    Kahnawake
+    Caghnawagah
+    Cahaniaga
+    CAUGHNAWAGA
+
+With all this variety of spelling, only three or four distinct names are
+represented. An Indian word had no written form of its own. Consequently
+an Englishman, a Dutchman, and a Frenchman, each putting it down in
+black and white for the first time, would naturally represent the sound
+of the word by very different letters. The three forms thus arising
+could not be identified at once as the same in meaning and sound without
+a knowledge of several languages. Since such scholars as Dr. O'Callaghan
+and M. Cuoq, however, have taken up the task, new light has been thrown
+on the subject, and much that at first sight seemed hopelessly confused
+in the early colonial accounts has been made clear and intelligible.
+
+There is quite as much variety in the different ways of spelling
+Tekakwitha's own name as in the case of her birthplace and early home.
+Here are some of the forms used:--
+
+    TEGAKOUITA
+    Tegahkouita
+    Tehgahkwita
+    Tehgakwita
+    TEGAKWITA
+    Tekakoüita
+    Tégahcouita
+    Tekahkouitha
+    Takwita
+    TEKAKWITHA
+
+A grammatical explanation of this name is given in a note to the
+"Lexique de la Langue Iroquoise," by J. A. Cuoq, _prêtre de
+Saint-Sulpice_, as follows:--
+
+     TEKAKWITHA est la 3 p. fem. sing, de prés. de l'ind. du v.
+     _tekkwitha_, cis-locatif de KKWITHA,[84] et conséquemment ce
+     mot signifie; _elle approche,--elle meut qq. ch. en avant._
+
+
+C. TAWASENTHA.
+
+Tawasentha, or "The Place of Many Dead," is near the mouth of the
+Norman's Kill, just south of Albany. Many Indians were buried there, as
+numerous bones and skulls brought to light from time to time bear
+witness. Schoolcraft once visited the spot, and examined these relics.
+It was there, too, that the Song of Hiawatha was sung, as Longfellow
+tells us:--
+
+    "In the vale of Tawasentha,
+    In the green and silent valley,
+    By the pleasant water-courses
+    Dwelt the singer Nawadaha.
+    There he sang of Hiawatha,
+    Sang the Song of Hiawatha."
+
+Another couplet might be added to the above, with less of poetry in it,
+to be sure, but quite as much or more of Indian history,--
+
+    There the Mohawks went a-fishing
+    In the days of Tekakwitha.
+
+
+D. MOHAWK TRAILS.
+
+In the summer of 1885 the Rev. C. A. Walworth, in company with the
+author, drove from Amsterdam on the Mohawk River to Jessup's Landing on
+the Hudson, following as closely as possible the route (described in
+Chapter XVI.) over which the Lily of the Mohawks probably passed in
+escaping from Caughnawaga to Lake George, and thence to Canada. An
+account of this drive was sent to General Clark, after which the
+following information was received from him:--
+
+     "The account of your journey is very interesting, especially
+     that part relating to the fords above and below Jessup's
+     Landing. I had rewritten my note relating to the trails from
+     head of Lake George, and enclose the same.... On the Upper
+     Susquehanna and Alleghany the present fords almost invariably
+     mark the crossing-places of the aboriginal trails; and without
+     doubt the two fords described above and below Jessup's Landing
+     were the places of crossing the Upper Hudson in that vicinity.
+     The same facts will apply also at Glenn's and Baker's Falls as
+     now known."
+
+A copy of the note on trails above mentioned as enclosed in the letter,
+is here given:--
+
+     "TRAILS FROM LAKE GEORGE--From the head of Lake George two
+     trails led to the Hudson. The first led southwest through a
+     valley about eleven miles to the _ford below_ the month of
+     Sacondaga, at present _Luzerne_, thence along the Sacondaga to
+     Northampton, striking the Mohawk at the lower castle in the
+     vicinity of Schoharie River. The dotted line from the head of
+     Lac du Saint-Sacrement on the map in 'Jesuit Relations,' 1665,
+     apparently was intended to represent this route. The curves
+     correspond to those of the Sacondaga in number and location.
+     From Luzerne a branch continued down the Hudson about five
+     miles to the vicinity of Jessup's Landing, where a crossing
+     was made _at the ford_ above the falls. This appears to have
+     been the route of Jogues at this time, as indicated by the
+     distance given of six leagues equal to fifteen miles.
+
+     "The second led southeasterly about nine miles, nearly on the
+     line of the present railway to Glenn's Falls, from whence were
+     several diverging lines. One led south along the west bank of
+     the Hudson. Another took almost an air-line for Schenectady on
+     the Mohawk, passing between Owl Pond and Saratoga Lake, and
+     west of Ballston Lake, at the north end of which a branch
+     diverged to the westward leading direct to the Mohawk Castles.
+     The French expedition in the winter of 1665 to 1666, in taking
+     this route, failed to follow the branch leading to the castles,
+     and consequently found themselves, much to their surprise, in
+     the near vicinity of the new Dutch settlement at Schenectady.
+     Southier's maps show this trail, and several others diverging
+     at different points. It is believed that from Glenn's Falls a
+     trail led nearly in a southwest direction, passing along the
+     base of Mt. McGregor, and somewhere in the Kayaderosseras
+     Valley united with the branch from Jessup's Landing, and from
+     thence struck the Mohawk at present Amsterdam."
+
+A year later the correspondence on Indian trails in Saratoga County at
+the time of Kateri Tekakwitha was resumed as follows:--
+
+     "Since my return from Saratoga, I have given all my leisure to
+     the study of Indian trails in your vicinity.... I have a
+     manuscript map, copied from the original in the Paris Archives,
+     relating to the two expeditions of Courselles and Tracy, 1666.
+     This map shows that the first, or winter expedition, after
+     leaving Lake George descended the valley of the Hudson to Fish
+     Creek, thence passed up that stream, over Saratoga Lake, and
+     over Ballston Lake to the vicinity of Schenectady. This is the
+     precise route taken (according to Mr. Sylvester) by Lieutenant
+     Le Moyne in his winter expedition of 1690 (Northern Wilderness,
+     p. 288), in which I agree with him.
+
+     "The second Courselles-Tracy Expedition, according to the map,
+     crossed the Hudson at Glenn's Falls, thence passing near and
+     south of a _small lake_ east of Mt. McGregor (now known as
+     Moreau Pond), through Doe's Corners, near Stiles' Hill, and
+     near Glen Mitchell to present Saratoga. This is my
+     understanding of the map; and as you will see they followed
+     near the base of Mt. McGregor, and hugging the bases of the
+     Greenfield (or Palmerstown) hills, followed substantially the
+     present highway all the way from Glenn's Falls. The fragment of
+     a trail mentioned by you was probably a portion of this
+     original Indian pathway.
+
+     "From Saratoga, if we take the map as our guide, the expedition
+     passed near Ballston, and thence slightly curving, proceeded on
+     its way in a very direct course to the Mohawk Castles. They may
+     have taken this route, but probably crossed the Kayaderosseras
+     about half-way between Ballston and Lake Saratoga, on a trail
+     leading direct to Schenectady. When a little north of Ballston
+     Lake, it crossed a path leading from Schuylerville along Fish
+     Creek and Saratoga Lake to the Mohawk at Kinaquariones
+     (Hoffman's Ferry). The map, however, makes the two distinct,
+     and without any connection.
+
+     "Three trails led southward from Jessup's Landing,--one in
+     almost an air-line to Kinaquariones. I suppose that Tegakwita
+     followed this.
+
+     A second branched off from South Corinth, and leading in almost
+     an air-line to Orange, passed near the western edge of Round
+     Lake. A third, taking a southeasterly course, curved around Mt.
+     McGregor, and led very direct to the great fishing-station, at
+     present Schuylerville, the ancient OSSARAGUE. Your Indian
+     samp-bowl [hollowed in the rock] was probably not far from the
+     crossing-place of the two trails."
+
+
+E. INDIAN DEFENSIVE WORKS.
+
+General Clark, in describing to the writer the defensive works of the
+Iroquois, mentioned one locality in New York State where he actually
+found the series of hollows in the ground left by the palisadoes of an
+Indian fortified village. They showed the exact arrangement of a triple
+wall. He also gave, in connection with this subject, several references
+to quaint and interesting works in the State Library at Albany, which
+were duly examined. Some of these are given below:--
+
+     "You will find in RAMUSIO, G. B., Venice, 1606, 'Navigatione et
+     Viaggi, volume Terzo, etc.,' relating to America, at p. 381, a
+     fine two-page illustration of Hochelaga and its surrounding
+     palisade. This, as I understand it, was a Huron village.
+     ARNOLDUS MONTANUS, America, Amsterdam, 1671, p. 136, gives a
+     Susquehanna fortified village, with the long houses somewhat
+     irregularly arranged, and enclosed by a single-line palisade
+     work. Documentary History of New York, vol. iii. p. 9, will
+     show you an Iroquois village surrounded by triple or quadruple
+     lines of palisades, with the elevated scaffolds. You will see
+     numerous streams of water descending to put out the fire, etc.
+     It will require a vivid imagination to make out all that was
+     intended to be shown by Champlain."
+
+
+F. INDIAN PETITION TO ROME.
+
+Among the most interesting papers forwarded to Rome during the last few
+years for the purpose of forwarding the cause of canonization of Kateri
+Tekakwitha, is the following petition. Copies of it were circulated
+among the Catholic mission Indians of the United States, who affixed to
+it their own peculiar signatures and marks. It is here given in the
+Latin, English and Flathead languages:
+
+     Noster Pater noster Papa:
+
+     Gentis Indicae nostrae, quamvis pauperrima sit et miserabilis,
+     valde tamen misertus est Conditor noster, nobisque dedit
+     religionem Catholicam. Nobis quoque iterata misericordia dedit
+     CATHARINAM TEGAKWITAM. Sancta haec virgo quae ut nos sumus
+     gentis Indicae fuit, cum multa fuerit gratia a JESU CHRISTO
+     donata, adolescentula facta est optima, magno erga Conditorem
+     nostrum amore tenebatur, et mortua est bona et sancta: nunc
+     autem gloriosa deget in coelis, ut credimus, et pro nobis
+     omnibus orat. Virgo haec, credimus, data nobis fuit magno Dei
+     favore; est enim soror nostra parvula. Nunc vero speramus fore
+     ut et tu quoque, noster Pater, qui Vicarius es JESU CHRISTI,
+     favorem nobis largiaris: te toto corde imploramus ut loquaris
+     dicens: "Vos Indi, filii mei, sumite vobis CATHARINAM in
+     ecclesia venerandam, quia sancta est et in coelis."
+
+     Sunt etiam alii duo, qui licet Galli fuerint, nobis tamen sunt
+     quasi Indi fuissent, eo quod Indos signum crucis edocuere et
+     viam coeli; ideoque a perversis Indis fuerunt occisi. Eorum
+     nomina sunt SACERDOS ISAAC JOGUES et FRATER RENATUS GOUPIL. Hos
+     quoque duos vellemus habere venerandos, ut protectores, ut
+     advocatos.
+
+     Quos tres si nobis indulgeas PATRONOS, futurum est ut corda
+     nostra sint laeta, conversatio nostra bona, et filii nostri
+     perfecti evadant; multique Indicae gentis nondum baptizati in
+     ecclesiam Catholicam ingrediantur, coeli visuri gloriam.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     Our Father the Pope:
+
+     Though we Indians are very poor and miserable, yet Our Maker
+     had great pity on us and gave us the Catholic religion.
+     Moreover He had pity on us again and gave us CATHERINE
+     TEGAKWITA. This holy virgin, an Indian like ourselves, being
+     favoured by JESUS CHRIST with a great grace, grew up very good,
+     had a great love for Our Maker, and died good and holy, and is
+     now glorious in heaven, as we believe, and prays for us all.
+     This virgin, we believe, was given to us from God as a great
+     favour, for she is our little sister. But now we hope that
+     thou, our Father, who art the Vicar of JESUS CHRIST, wilt grant
+     us a favour likewise; we beg thee with the whole of our hearts
+     to speak and say: "You Indians, my children, take CATHERINE as
+     an object of your veneration in the church, because she is holy
+     and is in heaven."
+
+     There are also two others who, though Frenchmen, yet are as if
+     they were Indians, because they taught the Indians the sign of
+     the Cross and the way to heaven; and for this they were killed
+     by bad Indians. Their names are BLACKGOWN ISAAC JOGUES and
+     BROTHER RENÉ GOUPIL. We wish to have these two also as objects
+     of our veneration, as our protectors and our advocates.
+
+     If thou givest us these three as our PATRONS, our hearts will
+     be glad, our behaviour will be good, and our children will
+     become perfect, also a great many unbaptized Indians will enter
+     into the Catholic Church and will see the glory of heaven.
+
+
+     Lingua _Kalispel_ (Anglice, _Flathead_.)
+
+     _L_u ku Pogot _l_u ku Lepape.
+
+     Ue mi_l_ kaekonkoint kaeskeligu, u kaeteie, u pen kutunt
+     kaenkonnemi_l_ils lu KaeKohnzuten _l_u kaeguize_l_ils _l_u
+     Sinchaumen Catholique. Negu kae_l_nkonnemi_l_ils _l_u
+     kaeguize_l_ils CATHERINE TEGAKWITA. Ye stuchemish pagpagt
+     chikuilze ezageil t kaempile _l_u kueis _l_u kutunt sinkonns
+     tel JESUS CHRIST, mi_l_ gest u pogtilsh, mi_l_ gamenchis
+     Kolinzuten, u _l_u Sinchaumis, gest u pagpagt u t_l_elil, u
+     yet_l_goa csimpiels 'ls chichemaskat, u kaesia kaes
+     chaushi_l_ils. Shei Stuchemish kaentels kutunt kaesinkonm tel
+     Kolmzuten ne_l_i kaempile _l_u kaep sinkusigu.
+
+     U pen yet_l_goa kaenmuselsi t-anui, _l_u ku Pogot,
+     kaeksnkonnemi_l_ils, _l_u ku Ni_l_kalshelpenzutis JESUS CHRIST,
+     t-esemilko t-kaepuus kaesgalitem kuks kolkoelt, u kuks zuti
+     "Igu kuisigusigult kuskeligu, akaespoteem _l_u CATHERINE
+     'lsinchaumen, ne_l_i pagpagt, u 'ls'chichemaskat u e_l_zi."
+
+     Negu telzi chesel ue Seme, u pen ezageil t-skeligu, ne_l_i
+     meyie_l_tem _l_u skeligu _l_u staktakenzut l'eseimeus, u _l_u
+     shushuel ch's'chichemaskat, gol shei u polstem t-kuaukot
+     skeligu shei _l_u eszustem KUAILKS ISAAC JOGUES, u SINSE RENE
+     GOUPIL. Komi ye chesel negu kaek_l_s'chitenzuten,
+     kaek_l_chaushizuten. _L_u ne kaeguize_l_ilt ye cheche_l_es
+     kaek_l_s'chitenzuten, nem lemt _l_u kaespuus, nem gestilsh _l_u
+     kaezuut, nem yopietilsh _l_u kaesigusigult, u nem chgoegoeit
+     skeligu lu estemskoli m kueis _l_u Sinchaumen Catholique, u nem
+     uichis _l_u'ls'chichemaskat _l_u simpielsten.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[82] See map in chap. iv. p. 38, showing the position of Andagoron, the
+Castle of the Bears, in 1642.
+
+[83] This was at Kinaquariones, or Hoffman's Ferry. See Pierron's
+account of that battle, translated into English by Dr. Hawley, of the
+Cayuga County Historical Society, in his "Early Chapters of Mohawk
+History." See also a topographical note to the same by Gen. J. S. Clark,
+referring to Dutch deeds which give the distance of that battle-ground
+from Schenectady.
+
+[84] KKWITHA,--eloigner, ou avancer qq. ch.; changer qq. ch. de place.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES
+
+Page reference for the illustration "Tekakwitha's Spring" has been
+corrected from xvi to xiv.
+
+Numerous missing periods have been silently restored.
+
+Inconsistent hyphenation and use of quotation marks at beginning of
+paragraphs have been retained as in the original.
+
+Six examples of [oe] ligature have been changed to "oe".
+
+The following typos have been corrected:
+
+p. vi -- "Hotel" twice amended to "Hôtel"
+
+p. viii -- "cotemporary" amended to "contemporary".
+
+p. 59 -- "Renssalaer" amended to "Rensselaer".
+
+p. 191 -- "Saut" amended to "Sault".
+
+p. 264 -- "Cholence" amended to "Cholenec".
+
+p. 294 footnote -- "une vision a" amended to "une vision à".
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Life and Times of Kateri Tekakwitha, by
+Ellen H. Walworth
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+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Life and Times of Kateri Tekakwitha, by
+Ellen H. Walworth
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Life and Times of Kateri Tekakwitha
+       The Lily of the Mohawks
+
+Author: Ellen H. Walworth
+
+Release Date: September 14, 2011 [EBook #37421]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LIFE AND TIMES OF KATERI ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Margo Romberg, Curtis Weyant and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+<h2>THE LIFE AND TIMES</h2>
+
+<p class="center">OF</p>
+
+<h1>KATERI TEKAKWITHA,</h1>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 516px;">
+<img src="images/a001a.png" width="516" height="72" alt="The Lily of the Mohawks" title="" />
+</div>
+<p class="center"><b>1656-1680.</b></p>
+
+<h4>BY</h4>
+
+<h3>ELLEN H. WALWORTH,</h3>
+<h6>AUTHOR OF "AN OLD WORLD, AS SEEN THROUGH YOUNG EYES"</h6>
+
+<p class="centerc">BUFFALO:<br />
+PETER PAUL &amp; BROTHER.</p>
+
+<p class="center">1891.
+</p>
+
+
+
+<p class="centerc"><i>Copyright, 1890</i>,<br />
+<span class="smcap">By Ellen H. Walworth</span>.</p>
+
+<p class="little"><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;PETER PAUL &amp; BRO.,<br />
+PRINTERS AND BINDERS,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;BUFFALO, N. Y.
+</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+<h3><b>To my Uncle,</b><br />
+
+THE REV. CLARENCE A. WALWORTH,</h3>
+
+<h5>RECTOR OF ST. MARY'S CHURCH,<br />
+ALBANY, N. Y.,<br /></h5>
+
+<p class="center4">THIS VOLUME IS MOST AFFECTIONATELY<br />
+DEDICATED.
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="PREFACE" id="PREFACE"></a>PREFACE.</h2>
+
+
+<p>The life and surroundings of "The Lily of the
+Mohawks," as an undeveloped theme in literature, was
+first suggested to me by my uncle, the Rev. Clarence A.
+Walworth. My interest and enthusiasm were at once
+aroused. The thought of a mere Indian girl reared in the
+forest among barbarians, yet winning for herself such
+titles as "The Lily of the Mohawks" and "The Genevieve
+of New France," recurred to my mind again and
+again, until it led me to a fixed determination to explore
+so tempting a field of romance and archæology. The
+fact that it lay amongst the hills and valleys of my
+native State, and was little known except to solitary
+scholars and laborious historians, incited me still more to
+the task. I became ambitious to gather from the records
+of two centuries ago every detail relating in any way to
+my Indian heroine. While engaged in this work unexpected
+opportunities opened to gather exact information
+about her, and more especially concerning the
+localities connected with her early childhood, and her
+conversion and baptism in the Mohawk Valley.</p>
+
+<p>If this book, embodying the result of my researches,
+should fail to interest the reader, it will not be for any
+lack of enthusiasm on my part, or of kind encouragement
+and competent assistance from others.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[Pg vi]</a></span>
+When beginning the work my first call for advice was
+upon Dr. John Gilmary Shea, so well versed in Indian
+annals, as also in the general history of this country. I
+found him full of interest in my subject. Guided by
+the information received from him, and also by the
+directions of the Rev. R. S. Dewey, S. J., who has long
+been familiar with the missionary and Indian traditions
+of the Mohawk Valley, I went to Montreal and secured
+from the courteous kindness of Father Turgeon, S. J.,
+rector of the Jesuit College there, the use of all the
+manuscripts I desired. The Sisters of the Hôtel Dieu
+furnished me with a room in their hospital, to which the
+good Rector allowed me to transport the entire CARTON
+O. This contained all the unprinted materials relating
+to my subject that belonged to the college library.</p>
+
+<p>There, at the Hôtel Dieu, delightfully located with
+the sisters of an order whose history is closely bound up
+with that of Montreal, I copied at my leisure the manuscripts
+most valuable to me.</p>
+
+<p>In Montreal, also, my good fortune gave me interviews
+with M. Cuoq, the distinguished philologist of St.
+Sulpice, whose Indian dictionaries and grammars I had
+already seen in my uncle's library. Much I owe besides
+to Soeur St. Henriette, librarian and keeper of the
+archives at the Villa Maria. It was on the boat which
+shoots the Lachine Rapids that I met Mr. Hale of Philadelphia,
+the learned author of the "Iroquois Book of
+Rites," and enjoyed a long conversation with him on
+matters of deep interest to us both and to my work.
+My first visit to the Iroquois Village at Caughnawaga,
+P. Q., occurred at this time. Here my uncle and I found
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[Pg vii]</a></span>
+hospitable entertainment for several days at the Presbytery
+of the church, presided over by the Rev. Père
+Burtin, O. M. I. Besides the valuable information
+acquired from the library of books and manuscripts in
+his possession, I gathered much from the acquaintance
+then established with the Iroquois of the "Sault" and
+in particular with their grand chief, Joseph Williams.</p>
+
+<p>La Prairie was only nine miles distant, with its
+scholarly curé, Père Bourgeault, and his valuable collection
+of ancient maps; and about half way between
+Caughnawaga and La Prairie lay the grave of Tekakwitha,
+with its tall cross looking over the rapids of the
+St. Lawrence. An author with a theme like mine in
+such localities and with such guides was, indeed, in an
+enchanted land.</p>
+
+<p>In Albany I received valuable assistance and advice
+from Mr. Holmes and Mr. Howell, of the State Library,
+also from Mr. Melius, of the City Clerk's Office, and
+others.</p>
+
+<p>I have reserved for a most especial and grateful
+acknowledgment the name of Gen. John S. Clark, of
+Auburn, N. Y. My work is indebted to him for a
+treasure of information which he alone could give. In
+the knowledge of Iroquois localities in New York State,
+particularly those of two centuries ago, and the trails
+over which missionaries from Canada travelled so painfully
+to villages where they labored so hard and yet
+successfully,&mdash;he is the undoubted pioneer. Almost all
+we know in this branch of archæology is owing to him.
+It was my privilege in company with my uncle, and
+with Gen. Clark for pilot, to spend a memorable week in
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[Pg viii]</a></span>
+search of Indian localities along the Mohawk, from the
+mouth of Schoharie Creek to the farthest castle of the
+wolf clan opposite Fort Plain. We visited and verified,
+under the General's direction, no less than eleven sites
+in this one week. An account of the most important of
+these sites can be found in the contributions of Gen.
+Clark, as explanatory footnotes, to "Early Chapters of
+Mohawk History." This work consists of translations
+into English of selected letters from the <i>Relations
+Jesuites</i>. For these translations we are indebted to the
+lamented Dr. Hawley, late pastor of the First Presbyterian
+Church in Auburn. Guided by the wise advice
+of General Clark, I was able afterwards to make other
+independent journeys, and familiarize myself with Indian
+trails passing near my native town, above all those followed
+by Tekakwitha in her escape to the "Sault."
+I owe to Gen. Clark's kindness the valuable map of
+Mohawk Castle Sites, to be found in this book and drawn
+expressly for it by his hand.</p>
+
+<p>Lastly, I recall with pleasure a conversation with the
+Rev. Felix Martin, S. J., a well known authority in
+Canadian and Indian archæology. To this venerable
+author, the editor of the famous "Jesuit Relations," the
+biographer of Isaac Jogues, of Chomonot and of Tekakwitha,
+I owe a large debt of gratitude. His biography
+of her, entitled "Une Vierge Iroquoise," is still in
+manuscript, never having been published. He was the
+first to gather and keep together all the manuscripts
+extant giving contemporary accounts of the Iroquois
+maiden. He laid a foundation of accumulated facts for
+others to build upon. I sought him out in Paris in 1885,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[Pg ix]</a></span>
+and found him with some difficulty. The hiding place
+of this learned old man was in an obscure corner of the
+city. The schools of his order all broken up, separated
+from his companions, his books and his manuscripts,
+and from his old beloved home in the New France, which
+he would never see again,&mdash;how his eyes glistened when
+I came to him from the western world, a child of the
+Hudson and Mohawk, to speak to him of Tekakwitha,
+bringing him even the latest news of archæological
+discoveries in those valleys! His face beamed with
+delight at every new detail. It pleased him much to
+know that Dr. Shea was, at that very time, translating
+into English his (Martin's) French Life of Jogues, and
+to learn that I was writing, and hoped soon to have
+published a full account of Kateri Tekakwitha for my
+own countrymen of the United States. He gave his
+blessing to me and to my work, a blessing which I prize
+most highly. His hearty approval is especially gratifying,
+since I have had occasion to use much of the
+material he had gathered for publication in French
+under his own name. Alas! scarcely had I recrossed the
+Atlantic, when the news of his death reached me.</p>
+
+<p>In conclusion, let me say: I am conscious of many
+defects in this work. Others may yet be found better
+able than I to do justice to my theme, but not any one,
+I think, who will come to the task more anxious to make
+known to all the whole truth of history concerning the
+rare and beautiful character of this lily of our forest.</p>
+
+<p class="bigfoot">
+<span class= "smcap">&nbsp;&nbsp;Albany</span>, N. Y., January 2, 1891.
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>CONTENTS.</h2>
+
+<table summary="Contents" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0">
+
+<tr><td align="right">CHAPTER</td>
+<td align="right"></td>
+<td align="right">PAGE</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="right">I.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">Tekakwitha's Spring</span></td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="right">II.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">The Mohawk Valley and the Mohawks at
+the Time of Tekakwitha's Birth</span></td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#Page_12">12</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="right">III.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">A Cradle-Song.</span>&mdash;
+<span class="smcap">Captives Tortured.</span>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Flight
+of the French from </span></td>
+<td align="right"></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right"></td>
+<td><span class="smcap">Onondaga.</span>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Death in the Mohawk Lodges</span></td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#Page_26">26</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="right">IV.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">Tekakwitha with her Aunts at Gandawague</span></td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#Page_36">36</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="right">V.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">Tekakwitha's Uncle and Fort Orange, or
+the Beginnings of Albany</span></td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#Page_44">44</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="right">VI.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">An Army on Snow-shoes</span></td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#Page_62">62</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="right">VII.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">De Tracy burns the Mohawk Castles.</span>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Fall
+of Tionnontogen</span></td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#Page_75">75</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="right">VIII.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">Tekakwitha's Christian Guests.</span>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Rawenniio</span></td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#Page_85">85</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="right">IX.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">Caughnawaga on the Mohawk.</span>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Fathers
+Fremin and Pierron</span> </td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#Page_96">96</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="right">X.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">The Mohegans Attack the New Castle</span>.&mdash;<span class="smcap">Battle of Kinaquariones</span>.&mdash;<span class="smcap">The
+Feast</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right"></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">of the Dead</span></td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#Page_110">110</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="right">XI.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">Will Tekakwitha Marry?</span></td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#Page_128">128</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="right">XII.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">The New Colony of Christian Indians On
+The St. Lawrence.</span>&mdash;<span class="smcap">The "Great Mohawk"</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right"></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">goes to Canada</span></td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#Page_142">142</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="right">XIII.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">Tekakwitha meets de Lamberville.</span>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Imposing
+Ceremony in the Bark Chapel</span></td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#Page_152">152</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="right">XIV.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">Persecutions.</span>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Heroic Calmness in a Moment
+Of Peril.</span>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Malice of Tekakwitha's</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right"></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">Aunt</span></td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#Page_163">163</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="right">XV.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">Hot Ashes plans Tekakwitha's Escape</span></td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#Page_174">174</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="right">XVI.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">From the Old to the New Caughnawaga</span></td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#Page_183">183</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="right">XVII.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">At the Sault St. Louis</span></td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#Page_192">192</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="right">XVIII.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">The Hunting-camp</span></td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#Page_206">206</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="right">XIX.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">Kateri's Friend</span>,&mdash;<span class="smcap">Thérèse Tegaiaguenta</span></td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#Page_216">216</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="right">XX.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">Montreal and the Isle-aux-Hérons, 1678</span></td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#Page_226">226</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="right">XXI.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">I am not any longer my own</span>"</td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#Page_243">243</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="right">XXII.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">Kateri's Vow on Lady Day, and the Summer Of 1679</span></td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#Page_253">253</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="right">XXIII.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">Kateri Ill.</span>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Thérèse consults the Blackgown.</span>&mdash;
+<span class="smcap">Feast of the Purification.</span>&mdash;<span class="smcap">The</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right"></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">Bed of Thorns</span></td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#Page_260">260</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="right">XXIV.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">Kateri's Death.</span>&mdash;"<span class="smcap">I will love thee in
+Heaven!</span>"&mdash;<span class="smcap">The Burial.</span>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Her Grave And</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right"></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">Monument</span></td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#Page_270">270</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="right">XXV.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">The Memory and Influence of Kateri
+Tekakwitha After Her Death.</span>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Modern</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right"></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">Caughnawaga</span></td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#Page_285">285</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="right"></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">Conclusion</span></td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#Page_293">293</a></td></tr>
+
+</table>
+
+<p class="center">APPENDIX</p>
+
+<table summary="Contents" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0">
+<tr><td align="right"> </td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">Notes, Topographical and Historical</span></td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#APPENDIX">301</a></td></tr>
+</table>
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.</h2>
+
+<table summary="Contents" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0">
+
+<tr><td align="left"></td>
+<td align="right">PAGE</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Tekakwitha's Spring</span></td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#Page_xiv">xiv</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">The Mohawk Valley from Fonda, N. Y.</span></td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#Page_6">6</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Map of Mohawk Castle-Sites, by General Clark</span></td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#Page_38">38</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Old Albany</span>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Dominie Schaats' House</span></td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#Page_52">52</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Site of Caughnawaga Castle, Fonda, N. Y.</span></td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#Page_103">103</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Map showing the Migrations of the Mission Village
+of the Sault</span></td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#Page_194">194</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Street Scene at Caughnawaga, in Canada</span></td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#Page_279">279</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Modern Caughnawaga, P. Q.</span> (<i>from the Landing</i>)</td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#Page_299">299</a></td></tr>
+
+</table>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xiv" id="Page_xiv">[Pg xiv]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
+<img src="images/a014-illus.png" width="500" height="404" alt="" title="" />
+<span class="caption">TEKAKWITHA&#39;S SPRING.</span>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><br /><a name="THE_LIFE_AND_TIMES" id="THE_LIFE_AND_TIMES"></a>THE LIFE AND TIMES</h2>
+
+<p class="center">OF</p>
+
+<h2><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1"></a>KATERI TEKAKWITHA.<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></h2>
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a>
+<a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Pronounced <i>Kat'-e-ree' Tek-a-quee'-ta</i>. <i>Kateri</i> is the Iroquois form
+of the Christian name <i>Katherine</i>. The meaning of <i>Tekakwitha</i> is given
+in Chapter IV. For various ways of spelling the name, see <a href="#APPENDIX_B">Appendix,
+Note B.</a></p></div></div>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER I.</h2>
+
+<p class="centerc"><b>TEKAKWITHA'S SPRING.</b></p>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">I</span>N the valley of the Mohawk, near the present great
+highways of the State of New York, is a quiet forest
+nook, where a clear, cold spring gurgles out from the
+tangled roots of a tree. Connected with this spring is
+the story of a short girl-life, pure, vigorous, sorrow-taught.
+It is written out in authentic documents;
+while Nature, also, has kept a record of an Indian
+maiden's lodge beside the spring. There on the banks
+of the Mohawk River, at Caughnawaga, now called
+Fonda, in Montgomery County, dwelt the Lily of the
+Mohawks two centuries ago, when the State had neither
+shape nor name. She saw her people build a strong,
+new palisaded village there. She saw, though at rare
+intervals, the peaceful but adventurous traders of Fort
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span>
+Orange, and the blackgowns of New France pass in and
+out on friendly errands. Mohegans came there also in
+her day to lay siege to the village, but only to be met
+with fierce defiance and to be driven back. Marks of
+that very Indian fort can still be found at Fonda, where
+the Johnstown Railway now branches from the New
+York Central, and turns northward along the margin of
+the Cayudutta Creek. The smoke of the engine, as it
+leaves the town of Fonda, mounts to the level of a
+plateau on which the Mohawk Castle
+<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> stood. The
+elevated land, or river terrace, at that point is singularly
+called the "Sand Flats."</p>
+
+<p>A rude fort of palisades, well equipped for defence,
+was completed about the year 1668 on a narrow tongue
+of this high terrace, between the Mohawk River and the
+creek. The approach to it is very steep; but in one
+place a wagon-road winds up the hill to what is now a
+field on Veeder's farm. Here unmistakable signs of
+Indian occupation are to be found. A spring is close at
+hand in a clump of trees. The castle at that spot was
+known as "Caughnawaga," meaning "At the Rapids,"&mdash;a
+name still applied to the eastern part of the present
+town of Fonda. The Mohawk River runs swiftly as it
+passes this spot, and large stones obstruct its course.
+The spring at the castle site on the west side of the
+creek is Tekakwitha's spring; for there beside it she
+grew to maidenhood, behind the shelter of the palisades,
+and beneath the shadow of the overarching forest.
+Tekakwitha was the Lily of the Mohawks, and afterwards
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span>
+known as "La Bonne Catherine."</p>
+
+<p>In the Mohawk Valley, the great artery of our nation's
+life, the tide of human travel now ebbs and flows
+with ever-swelling force; here the New York Central
+Railway levels out its course of four broad tracks; here
+the great canal bears heavy burdens east and west; here
+the West Shore Railway skirts the southern terrace;
+here the Mohawk River winds and ripples, smiling in
+an old-time, quiet way at these hurrying, crowded highways.
+They have wellnigh filled the generous roadway,
+cut through high plateaus and mountain spurs in
+ages past by this same placid river. That was in its
+younger, busier days. Now it idles on its way from
+side to side, among the flats or bottoms, with here and
+there a rapid, till at last it gathers force at far Cohoes
+for one great plunge before it joins the Hudson. Then
+the mingled waters of the two rivers sweep on past the
+stately Capitol, where once the Indian trading-post,
+Fort Orange, stood. From Albany, the broad-bosomed
+Hudson bears floating palaces and long lines of canal-boats
+strung together like great beads of wampum.
+Let its current move them southward, while we turn
+back to the valley whence these strings of wampum
+came. Let us follow up the windings of the Mohawk
+River westward. At Schenectady it lingers among
+islands in pretty, narrow ways, where college boys can
+take their sweethearts rowing. Right playfully it kisses
+the feet of the old Dutch town in summer, and in
+winter its frozen bosom sounds with the merry thud of
+the skater's steel. Farther west the valley narrows,
+and on a height near Hoffman's Ferry, Mohawk and
+Mohegan fought their last fierce battle. Tekakwitha
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span>
+heard their war-whoop at the castle of Caughnawaga,
+just before the final conflict came; but she never saw
+Fort Johnson, which is higher up the river. Old Fort
+Johnson is too modern for our story. Amsterdam now
+looms up an important factor in the valley. Two centuries
+ago a joyous stream cascading down to meet the
+Mohawk was its only landmark. Tekakwitha knew
+the spot, however, and had good reason to remember it,
+as we shall see. Westward still, and up the valley from
+Fort Johnson, a broader gleam of water comes in sight.
+It is where the Schoharie River creeps in from the
+south between the dripping archways of a bridge, over
+which canal-boats pass. Here the Mohawk shows its
+teeth in a ridge of angry rapids; and here we enter
+what was once the home country of its people, the fierce
+Mohawks. We are near the spot where brave Father
+Isaac Jogues, the discoverer of Lake George, was killed,
+in 1646. In the southwest angle of the Mohawk and
+Schoharie Rivers, on the upper terrace, higher than the
+modern hamlet of Auriesville, was the eastern castle of
+the Mohawks, known to Jogues as Ossernenon.
+<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> Here
+three times the hero-hearted blackgown came; first,
+a mangled, tortured captive, dragging out the weary
+months in slavery until the Dutchmen at Fort Orange
+ransomed him; next, as an ambassador of peace, bearing
+presents, making treaties; and lastly, as envoy of the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span>
+Prince of Peace, and wedded to his "spouse of blood,"&mdash;for
+so Jogues styled his Mohawk mission. Never was
+a truer bridegroom, never stranger wedding rites. Bits
+of his flesh were cut off and devoured, while the savage
+high-priest cried, "Let us see if this white flesh is the
+flesh of an <i>otkon</i> [spirit or devil.]" "I am but a man
+like yourselves," said Jogues, "though I fear not death
+nor your tortures." His head was placed on the northern
+palisade, looking toward the French frontier, and
+his body thrown into the stream; but his blood and
+his earnest words sank deep into the land and the hearts
+of its people. From Jogues' mystic union with the
+Mohawk nation, trooping from the "Mission of the
+Martyrs," came the Christian Iroquois. One of these&mdash;a
+bright soul in a dusky setting, and a flower that sprang
+from martyr's blood&mdash;was Tekakwitha. She grew up,
+says one who knew her, "like a lily among thorns."
+Ten years after Ondessonk
+<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> had shed the last drop of
+his blood to make these Mohawks Christians, she was
+born among the people who had seen the blackgown
+die, in the Village of the Turtles,&mdash;some say in the
+"cabin at the door of which the tomahawked priest
+had fallen."</p>
+
+<p>This same stronghold of the Turtles was rebuilt higher
+up the river during Tekakwitha's lifetime. Near Ossernenon,
+the earliest known site of the Turtle Castle, there
+is a great bend or loop in the Mohawk River and Valley.
+It extends from the mouth of the Schoharie River
+on the east to the "Nose" near Yost's and Spraker's Basin
+on the west. The Nose is at a point where river, railways,
+and canal are crowded in a narrow pass between
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span>
+two overlapping ridges of high land. "Two Mountains
+approaching," or Tionnontogen, the Indians called it;
+and there behind the shelter of the hills, they built their
+largest and best fortified town, the Mohawk capital or
+Castle of the Wolves. Other villages and their central
+Castle of the Bears, called Andagoron, they also built
+and rebuilt within the great bend. At its northern
+point, where the river now flows between the high-perched
+Starin residence and the town of Fonda, the
+next important railway-station west of Amsterdam, are
+the rapids and the large stones in the water which gave
+rise to the name of Caughnawaga. From the hills at
+Fonda one can see for miles both up and down the
+river.</p>
+
+<p class="bigfoot">Here, as has already been said, just west of Fonda,
+on the north side of the Mohawk is the Indian village
+site where Tekakwitha lived. Here is the beautiful
+hill that was once crowned by the palisaded castle
+of Caughnawaga. It is a spot that any one who lived
+there must have loved. To-day the plough turns up the
+rich soil where long Indian cabins stood, and what we
+see are only darkened patches left to tell us where the
+hearthfires of the Mohawks burned two hundred years
+ago. These patches of dark soil still glisten with the
+pearly mussel-shells brought up by the Mohawks to
+their village from the river that still bears their name.
+The pipe-stems sold to them by the Dutch are strewn
+in fragments through the field. From graves near by,
+thrown out on the roadside by the spades of workmen
+loading their carts with sand, the author has seen Indian
+bones, more crumbled than the silly beads and rusty
+scissors buried with them, which they bought so dearly.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span>
+In a wood near by, on the brow of a ravine, there is a
+row of hollow corn-pits where the Caughnawaga people
+stored their charred corn. Low down in the fertile
+river-flats, southward from the ancient village site, a
+sunburned farmer, owner of both hill and valley, still
+works with horses and with iron implements the very
+corn-fields that the squaws hoed with clumsy bone-tools.
+This once castled height breaks abruptly on its eastern
+side to let the Cayudutta Creek wind through. It hurries
+by on its way to meet the Mohawk, and then lags
+through the flat, lost to sight just long enough to pass
+round the skirts of the Ta-berg, or Tea Mountain. This
+in a grassy cone topped with pines, and so named by
+Dutch settlers who there in wartimes made a tea
+from a wild plant. It partly blocks the entrance to
+the pretty Cayudutta valley, and separates it from the
+modern town of Fonda; but the farmers' daughters and
+the village people who now live in sight of Fonda
+Court House know well the little valley of the Cayudutta.
+Any one of them can point out its brightest
+gem, the never failing spring that issues from a set-back
+in the hill and so regular in shape as to suggest an amphitheatre.
+This spring wells out from under an old
+stump hidden in a clump of trees, whose topmost
+branches are below the level of the castle site. Its
+waters rest a moment in a little shady pool, a round
+forest mirror; then brimming over, break away and
+wander down the steep descent to the creek. The path
+to the spring leads downward from the higher ground
+above it, known as the Sand Flats. The field where
+the castle stood is now often planted thick with grain;
+but when this has been cut and the ground again
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span>
+ploughed, the Indian relics are readily found. At any
+season of the year, however, the limpid spring that has
+not ceased to flow for centuries will serve to indicate
+the spot.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 468px;">
+<img src="images/p006-illus.png" width="468" height="296" alt="" title="" />
+<span class="caption">THE MOHAWK VALLEY FROM FONDA, N. Y.<br />
+
+(<i>Tekakwitha&#39;s Birthplace in the Distance.</i>)</span>
+</div>
+<p class="bigtop">
+Standing then, at the brink of this spring in the
+Mohawk Valley, let the reader cast a look backward,
+and over the intervening space of two hundred years,
+to the days of Tekakwitha. Let it be understood, however,
+that while the imaginative faculty is thus to be
+called into play, it is not for the contemplation of an
+imaginative but of a real character. For whatever side
+lights may color the narrative, they are used to bring
+out, not to impair, the picture. Many details of time
+and place, of manners and customs, of dress and the
+arts of industry, will be woven into an actual scene,
+rather than given in a tedious enumeration.</p>
+
+<p>The scene about to be described and others which follow
+depicting the early life of Tekakwitha are not to be
+found actually recorded in so many words in the history
+of her life and times, yet they must have occurred; for
+they are based on the known facts of her life as related
+in various official and private documents, together with
+such inferences only as may fairly and reasonably be
+drawn from those facts when brought under the strong
+light of contemporaneous records.</p>
+
+<p>Above the spring at Fonda, on the high plateau where
+is now the well-tilled farm, stood, two centuries ago,
+the log-built palisades of ancient Caughnawaga. In
+tall and close-set ranks they serve to hide from view
+and shield from ambush the long, low Indian houses,
+twenty-four in number. "Double stockadoed round,
+with four ports," as when the traveller Greenhalgh saw
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span>
+the place in 1677, "and a bow-shot from the river,"
+stands the strong Mohawk castle. The blackened
+stumps that now dot the sunny hillside of the Cayudutta
+change into the old-time, mighty forest, and present
+a scene that is full of life; for down a well-worn
+footpath come the Indian girls to fill their jugs at
+the spring,&mdash;afterwards to be known as Tekakwitha's
+Spring.</p>
+
+<p>These dusky Caughnawaga maidens have the well-known
+Indian features strongly marked,&mdash;the high cheek
+bones, the dull red skin, and soft dark eyes; but Tekakwitha
+shields hers with her blanket from the light. Unlike
+the rest, there is an air of thoughtfulness about her
+and a touch of mystery. Excessive shyness in the Lily
+of the Mohawks is strangely blended with a sympathetic
+nature; and with a quiet force of character she
+leads their chatter, half unconsciously, to channels of
+her own choosing.</p>
+
+<p>"A manuscript of the time," says Shea, "describes the
+Indian maiden with her well-oiled and neatly parted
+hair descending in a long plait behind, while a fine chemise
+was met at the waist by a neat and well-trimmed
+petticoat reaching to the knee; below this was the rich
+legging and then the well-fitted moccasin, the glory of
+an Iroquois belle. The neck was loaded with beads,
+while the crimson blanket enveloped the whole form."</p>
+
+<p>This, in general, is the costume of the merry group
+with Tekakwitha at the spring. The upper garment,
+however, is a kind of tunic or simple overdress; nor
+can it be said that all are equally neat in their appearance.
+Some have their dark, straight hair tied loosely
+back and hanging down, or else with wampum braided
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span>
+in it. A few are clothed in foreign stuff, bought from
+the Dutch for beaver-skins and worn in shapeless pieces
+hung about them with savage carelessness. On their
+dark arms the sunlight flashes back from heavily beaded
+wrist and arm bands, begged or borrowed from their
+more industrious companions. Not like theirs is Tekakwitha's
+costume. It is made of deer and moose
+skins,&mdash;all of native make, and stitched together by a
+practised hand, as every one of the pretty squaws well
+knew. Her needle was a small bone from the ankle of
+the deer, her thread the sinews of the same light-footed
+animal, whose brain she mixed with moss and used to
+tan the skins and make the soft brown leather which
+she shaped so deftly into tunic, moccasins, and leggings.
+Her own skirt was scarce so richly worked with quills
+of the porcupine as that of her adopted sister there
+beside her, though both were made by Tekakwitha's
+hands.</p>
+
+<p>The Indian girls about her like her for her generous
+nature and her merry, witty speeches. She makes
+them laugh right heartily while she stands waiting for
+her jug to fill up at the trickling spring.</p>
+
+<p>These daughters of the Iroquois are bubbling over
+with good spirits, and their pottery jugs with water,
+when all at once they spy a band of hunters coming
+homeward down the Cayudutta valley from the Sacondaga
+country. Knowing there is one among them who
+but waits his chance to lay his wealth of beaver-skins
+at Tekakwitha's feet and take her for his wife, they turn
+girl-like to tease her; but the quick and timid orphan,
+dreading the license of their tongues, has bounded up
+the hill, and hastens to her uncle's cabin with her jug,
+leaving her companions to bandy words with the young
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span>
+hunters as they stop beside the little pool for a draught
+of refreshing water.</p>
+
+<p>Of all the people in the ancient Caughnawaga village,
+the only story that has been written out in full and
+handed down in precious manuscript, brown with age,
+is the story of her who bounded up the hill and left her
+comrades at the spring. In a double sense she left
+them. She was far above them. She stands to-day
+upon a mystic height; and many, both of her race and
+our own in these our days, do homage to her memory.</p>
+
+<p class="bigfoot">May her home at Caughnawaga, high above the
+stones that lie imbedded in the Mohawk River, and
+close beside the spring that trickles downward to the
+Cayudutta,<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> soon become familiar ground to all who
+honor Tekakwitha!</p>
+
+
+<div class="footnotes center"><br />FOOTNOTES:
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> The Indian forts or palisaded villages, called "castles" by the
+early Dutch settlers of New York State, were stoutly built of logs and
+bark, and were effectual barriers of defence until the artillery of the
+white men was brought to bear upon them.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> Megapolensis, the Dutch dominie at Fort Orange, who befriended
+Jogues, the French Jesuit, in his captivity, writes the name of this Mohawk
+town or castle, Asserue or Asserne. It was just at the spot where
+a shrine has been recently elected to honor the memory of Isaac Jogues
+and of his companion Réné Goupil, both of whom were tomahawked in
+that vicinity by the Mohawks.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> Jogues' Indian name.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a>
+<a href="#APPENDIX">See Appendix, Note A</a>, where in a letter dated March 3, 1885,
+Gen. John S. Clark, of Auburn, N. Y., the well-known archæologist,
+mentions this spring as marking the site of Gandawague (or Caughnawaga)
+on the Cayudutta Creek, northwest of Fonda, N. Y. For date
+of the removal from Auriesville to that site, see his <a href="#APPENDIX1">letter of June 29</a>,
+1885, also given in Note A, with other proofs as to the location of Mohawk
+villages at the time of Jogues and Tekakwitha.</p><br /></div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER II.</h2>
+<p class="centerc">
+<b>THE MOHAWK VALLEY AND THE MOHAWKS AT THE TIME
+OF TEKAKWITHA'S BIRTH</b></p>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">F</span>ATHER Jogues was put to death in the year
+1646, on the south side of the Mohawk River,
+a few miles to the eastward of Fonda, and not far from
+the mouth of the Schoharie River. Close to the shrine
+which has been erected at Auriesville in his memory, is
+the very ravine in which, during his captivity there, he
+buried his friend and only companion, Réné Goupil.</p>
+
+<p>Réné, it will be remembered, was cruelly murdered
+for signing an Indian child with the sign of the cross.
+The description of the place where this occurred is
+very explicit in Father Jogues' published letters, and
+there is no other spot in the whole Mohawk Valley to
+which it can well be applied. He mentions a certain
+river which was a quarter of a league distant from the
+Indian town of Ossernenon, where he was held captive;
+this was undoubtedly the Schoharie. There in that
+same vicinity, after he had escaped from captivity and
+returned to the Mohawks as a missionary, he met his
+own tragic fate, or rather the glorious reward of his
+zeal. There, too, or very near there, ten years after
+his death, Tekakwitha was born. The exact location
+of her birthplace has not been determined. It was
+either at the Turtle Castle of Ossernenon described by
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span>
+Jogues, the name of which was afterwards changed, or
+at a later village site near Auries Creek, to which the
+people of that castle moved, and to which they gave
+the name of Gandawague.<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> In either case her birthplace
+was less than a mile from the present hamlet of
+Auriesville.</p>
+
+<p>There Kateri Tekakwitha was born in the year 1656.
+Her father was a Mohawk warrior, and her mother
+a Christian Algonquin captive, who had been brought
+up and baptized among the French settlers at Three
+Rivers in Canada. The Iroquois, or People of the Long
+House, including the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas,
+Cayugas, and Senecas, were enemies of the Algonquin
+tribes and hostile to the French.</p>
+
+<p>The Mohawks especially were accustomed to make
+frequent raids on the settlements in Canada, leaving
+desolation behind them on the St. Lawrence, and bearing
+with them to their own valley rich booty, and also
+captives to be tortured and burned, or else adopted into
+the Five Nations of Iroquois to swell their numbers.
+If Frenchmen, these captives were often held as prisoners
+of war, and haughty terms made for their ransom.
+It happened on one of these raids into Canada that
+Tekakwitha's mother, the Algonquin, was thus captured.
+Torn suddenly from a peaceful home and the
+French friends who were teaching her "the prayer,"
+she was hurried through the lakes and woods of a
+strange country, along the great war-trail that leads
+from the St. Lawrence to the Mohawk through north-eastern
+New York. Fast following in the path of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span>
+Jogues, the light canoe that bore her came southward
+with the braves, and their trophies of war, through
+Lake Champlain and then Lake George, the newly
+christened Lake St. Sacrament. Little did the captive
+dream that ever a child of hers would take that same
+long journey back again, an exile from the home that
+she was then approaching, all unconscious of her fate.
+A home, indeed, awaited her coming in the land of the
+Mohawks. She was saved from the torture and the fire
+by a fierce, pagan Mohawk warrior, who took the young
+Algonquin for his wife. The gentle girl had captured
+the heart of her conqueror.</p>
+
+<p>Their family consisted of one son and an infant
+daughter, known later as Kateri Tekakwitha. Père
+Claude Chauchetière, who wrote in 1695,<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> tells us that
+they dwelt at "Gandawague, a little village of the Mohawks."
+There they must have occupied one section of
+an Iroquois long-house, other kindred families filling up
+its entire length on both sides of an open space and
+passage-way through the centre. The occupants of
+every four sections or alcoves in these houses, two
+families being on each side of the passage, shared a
+common hearthfire,<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> with a hole above it in the roof to
+let in the daylight and let out the smoke. There were
+usually five of these fires and twenty families in a house
+about a hundred feet in length. These united households
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span>
+gave name and meaning to the Iroquois League
+of Kanonsionni, or People of the Long House.</p>
+
+
+<p>There is reason to believe that Tekakwitha's father
+took an active part in the affairs both of the Mohawk
+nation and the Iroquois League. We are told, indeed,
+that after his death her uncle, who seems to have taken
+her father's place and responsibilities, was one of the chief
+men of the Turtle Castle, whose deputies ranked higher in
+council than those of the Bear and Wolf Castles, Andagoron
+and Tionnontogen. This was because the turtle
+was created first, according to their genesis of things.
+These three palisaded strongholds and their outlying
+hamlets made up the Mohawk (or Canienga) nation. It
+was likened, in the beautiful figurative language of the
+Iroquois, to a group of families gathered round a hearth
+or council fire, and filling up one end of the Long
+House or Great League of the Five Nations, founded
+by Hiawatha and his friends. The duty of the Caniengas
+of the Mohawk Valley was to guard the eastern
+entrance of the Long House, or the door which looked
+out on the Hudson. Their privilege was to furnish
+the great war-chief that should lead the people of the
+League to battle.</p>
+
+<p>The proud Senecas, whose portion of the house extended
+from Seneca Lake to Niagara, were the western
+doorkeepers of this household of nations, waging fierce
+war on their neighbors near Lake Erie. The wily
+Onondagas, wise old politicians, in the middle of the
+Long House, at Onondaga Lake, led in council. Their
+leading chief, the elected president of this first American
+republic, lit the central council-fire and sat in state
+among the fifty oyanders (sachems) who formed the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span>
+Iroquois senate. Ten of these were always Caniengas
+(or Mohawks), and fourteen were Onondagas. These two
+nations and the Senecas were called brothers; while the
+intermediate Oneidas and Cayugas were always spoken
+of as nephews, because they were younger and less
+important nations, with fewer oyanders.</p>
+
+<p>Tekakwitha's father may have been one of the ten
+Mohawk oyanders, but there is more reason to believe
+that he belonged to a class of war-chiefs who took part
+only in councils of war. In 1656 these war-chiefs were
+very influential, for the Iroquois had set out on a wild
+career of conquest, the warlike Mohawks as usual taking
+the lead. The very same year that the little Mohawk-Algonquin
+was born in their land, they swept like a
+tornado over Isle Orleans, near Quebec. They carried
+off to their castles the last remnant of the Huron people,
+who, far from their own land, had gathered near the
+French guns for protection. These Hurons from the
+shores of Lake Huron belonged to the Iroquois stock, as
+distinguished from the Algonquin races. In very early
+times they had come down to the settlements on the St.
+Lawrence to trade with the French, and zealous Jesuit
+missionaries had accompanied them on their return to
+their own country. After great hardships these missionaries
+had succeeded in making them Christians, when,
+as the final result of an old feud, these Huron-Iroquois,
+as they are often called, were driven from their homes
+in the Northwest by the Iroquois of the League, and
+wiped completely out of existence as a nation. Six of
+the Jesuits who dwelt among them, and whose strange
+isolated lives have furnished the theme for Parkman's
+glowing pages, were massacred, while others were cruelly
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span>
+tortured by the ubiquitous Mohawks during the period
+of ten short years that elapsed between Jogues' last
+captivity and Tekakwitha's birth. Could the father of
+the Mohawk Lily have reddened his hands in their
+blood? It is more than likely; for though Ondessonk
+or Jogues was the only one of these martyrs who had
+reached the Mohawk Valley, they were all slain by
+Mohawk braves,&mdash;Jogues, Daniel, Brebeuf, Lalemant,
+Garnier, and Garreau; nor is this a complete list of the
+victims. To use once more the words of John Gilmary
+Shea, historian of these and their fellow pioneers,&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"Fain would we pause to follow each in his labors, his
+trials, and his toils; recount their dangers from the heathen
+Huron, the skulking Iroquois, the frozen river, hunger, cold,
+and accident; to show Garnier wrestling with the floating
+ice, through which he sank on an errand of mercy; Chabanel
+struggling on for years on a mission from which every
+fibre of his nature shrunk with loathing; Chaumonot compiling
+his grammar on the frozen earth; or the heroic
+Brebeuf, paralyzed by a fall, with his collar-bone broken,
+creeping on his hands and feet along the road and sleeping
+unsheltered on the snow when the very trees were splitting
+with cold," and later, "as a martyr, one of the most glorious
+in our annals for the variety and atrocity of his torments."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>This last-mentioned blackgown, John de Brebeuf,
+called Echon by the Hurons, was a writer of valuable
+works on the Indian language and customs. He belonged
+to a noble family of Normandy; and on account
+of his great natural courage and soldierly bearing, his
+agony was prolonged by the savages with fiendish ingenuity,
+till finally, failing to wring a sigh of pain from
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span>
+his lips, they "clove open his chest, took out his noble
+heart, and devoured it," as a medicine to make them
+fearless-hearted.</p>
+
+<p>The fortitude of a brave man under torture was a
+spectacle as keenly appreciated by the Iroquois as were
+the gladiator fights and martyrdoms of old by the
+Romans. The women in this case, however, instead of
+decreeing death by turning down their own thumbs,
+were granted the less fatal and less dainty privilege of
+sawing off the thumb of the victim, as in the case of
+Jogues at Ossernenon. The human torches of Nero,
+who had the early Christians wrapped in straw and
+placed in his garden on the Palatine Hill, then set on
+fire to illuminate his evening revels, are vividly recalled
+by the death of Brebeuf's companion, the delicate
+and gentle Gabriel Lalemant. He was wrapped in
+pieces of bark which were put in a blaze. His writhing
+frame and quivering flesh contrasted finely with the
+stoic endurance of Brebeuf, and the Iroquois kept him
+alive till morning, leaving his body at last a black and
+shapeless mass.</p>
+
+<p>These gifted men living and dying in the wilderness
+were not without devoted followers, as can well be
+imagined; and many of their converts, the Christian
+Hurons, a now conquered race, dwelt with their old
+foes in the Long House. With the capture of those
+of the Hurons who had taken refuge at Isle Orleans the
+long struggle ended between two branches of a great
+Indian family or stock,&mdash;the Huron-Iroquois and the
+Iroquois of the League. Once victorious, it was the
+policy of the Five Nations of the League to quit all
+enmity, and to give the vanquished a home in their
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span>
+midst. Though the Hurons lost their national existence
+when thus adopted into the League, they did not
+lose their Christian faith. They clung to it in the midst
+of all the wild superstitions of their conquerors. They
+explained it to others as well as they could, and they
+welcomed with glad hearts any blackgown who was
+brave enough to tread in the footsteps of Jogues.</p>
+
+<p>Such an one was Father Lemoyne, who came and
+went five times among the Onondagas and the Mohawks
+between the years 1653 and 1658, even while
+they were at war with his countrymen on the St. Lawrence.
+On a hurried visit to Fort Orange, the nearest
+colony of Europeans, he told the people there of the salt
+springs which are now a source of wealth at Syracuse;
+but the worthy burghers were incredulous and put it
+down in their records as "a Jesuit lie." These early
+settlers of our State, in spite of such occasional indications
+of prejudice, were a kind-hearted and a peace-loving
+people, always ready to do friendly offices for men
+who, unlike their rivals the Canadian traders, seemed
+to value the souls of the Indians more than their
+beaver-skins. They had already rescued two Jesuits,
+Jogues and Bressani, from captivity; and they afterwards
+sent Father Lemoyne a bottle of wine with
+which to say Mass at Onondaga. This last missionary
+the Indians now called Ondessonk, in memory of
+Jogues. He visited the Mohawks in 1656 to console
+the Huron exiles from Isle Orleans, and at the same
+time he reproached the Mohawk warriors for their
+cruelty.</p>
+
+<p>This, of course, was little to the taste of Tekakwitha's
+pagan father, who took care, no doubt, that the blackgown
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span>
+should have no intercourse with his Algonquin
+wife, for in his opinion she was already too fond of
+the French Christians. He did not wish her to have
+his tiny, new-born daughter signed with the ill-omened
+cross, and to have the water of baptism poured on her
+head. So Ondessonk came and went, passing near, but
+not finding Tekakwitha's mother, who still cherished
+the Christian faith in her heart. When she knew that
+he was gone, it must have been with many a sigh and
+many a thought of her northern home, that she tied her
+baby to its cradle-board, all carved and curtained after
+the Indian fashion, and then loaded with the precious
+burden, went off as usual to her work in the corn-fields.
+From time to time she would pause for a moment to
+smile at her little breathing bundle as it swung from
+the branch of a tree near by, and we may be sure, too,
+that as she gathered in the harvest for the winter, she
+whispered many a prayer for peace and for the coming
+of the blackgown to dwell in the land, that her child
+might grow up a Christian. Let us hope some distant
+echo reached her in the Mohawk corn-field from the
+shores of Onondaga Lake. For there, where the city of
+Syracuse now sits among the hills, a crowd of Iroquois
+were gathered at that very time into the rough bark
+chapel of St. Mary's of Ganentaha, listening to the
+Christian law of marriage preached then for the first
+time in their land. Quick to understand the new
+dignity it gave them, the Onondaga women silently
+made up their minds to learn "the prayer," by which
+they meant Christianity. All the while that the blackgown
+was speaking, the captive Hurons who were in
+the throng gazed with pent-up joy at the face of their
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span>
+beloved Echon (Chaumonot, the namesake of Brebeuf),
+whose voice they had often heard at the mission forts
+in their own country. Soon after Echon's visit other
+fathers came among the Iroquois nations with a colony
+of Frenchmen; these last had been cordially invited to
+Onondaga. The reason for this invitation was that its
+people, hard pressed by their savage enemies, wanted
+peace with Onnontio, the French governor, and thought
+to secure it in this way; the Mohawks, however, took no
+part in this temporary peace. They were angry with
+the Onondagas for claiming their captives from the Isle
+Orleans, and they continued their raids on the French
+frontier regardless of a treaty made by their brother
+nation. It must be remembered, though, that these
+Indians, while warring with the French were then and
+always at peace with the Dutch of Fort Orange. From
+them they obtained the fire-arms that were used so
+effectively in their warfare in Canada.</p>
+
+<p>The wife of the Mohawk warrior at Gandawague may
+have heard rumors of the treaty made with Onnontio;
+but she saw the great kettle prepared as usual in the
+Turtle village for the annual war-dance, and all hope
+of a peace with the French died out once more from
+her heart.</p>
+
+<p>It was the custom of the Mohawks to set this kettle
+to boil in the early winter; and from time to time each
+warrior dropped something in to keep it going and thus
+to signify his intention of joining the next expedition.
+By February all was in readiness for the great dance of
+the nation. A war-dance among the Indians is conducted
+in some such way as this: Stripped of all but
+the breech-cloth, gay with war-paint and feathers, the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span>
+dried head of a bear, if that be the totem of his clan,
+fastened on head or shoulder, and with rattling deer-hoofs
+strapped to his knees, each warrior springs to his
+place, and the wild dance begins, accompanied by the
+beating of a drum. Wilder and wilder grow their antics,
+and more boastful the words of their chant, as they
+catch the spirit of the dance, till at last they seem the
+very incarnation of war. With all the vividness of
+Indian pantomime, they act out the scenes of battle
+before the eyes of the crouching women and children
+gathered in silent awe to witness this great savage
+drama. At first the warriors seem to be creeping along
+the forest trail with every faculty alert; and then with
+fearful whoops they whirl their tomahawks through the
+air at a senseless post, springing back as if in self-defence,
+falling again upon the imaginary foe, hacking
+with violence, and mingling shrieks with their victorious
+shouts, till in the flickering light of the fire and the
+weird shadows of surrounding objects, the assembled
+crowd, completely carried away by the vividness of the
+pantomime, see human victims falling beneath their
+strokes.</p>
+
+<p>During the progress of the annual war-dance at Gandawague
+a group of Indian boys stand gazing with
+wide-open eyes at the heroes of the Kanienke-ha-ka
+whose past and future deeds are thus pictured before
+them. With swelling hearts they listen to the wild
+refrain, "Wah-hee! Ho-ha!" that comes at intervals.
+Among the smallest of the group we have in view is
+Tekakwitha's little brother, and her father is taking
+part in the dance. His voice, as it leads a louder swell
+of the war-song, startles her from her baby dreams, and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span>
+she nestles close in her mother's arms. Later she hears
+the same voice in the lodge,&mdash;a few brief words rolling
+from the tongue<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> of the warrior in the low musical
+tones of the Mohawk language; and it only lulls her
+into sounder sleep. The dance is over, and the crowd
+scattered; but still we linger about to see what will
+happen next. A death-like silence reigns in the village.
+There is not one sentinel on watch. It would be well
+if they were more vigilant, but for the present they are
+safe. Their foes are far away, and the high palisade
+keeps off the prowling beasts. The darkness of night
+has closed over them. It is the hour for dreams, and
+dreams are the religion of the red-man. They are
+treasured up and told to the medicine-man or sorcerer,
+the influential being who is both priest and doctor in
+the village. When the excitement of the war-dance
+has subsided and the people are all sleeping soundly,
+this mysterious personage with stealthy tread may be
+seen to issue from the silent cluster of houses, and by
+the light of the moon he gathers his herbs and catches
+the uncanny creatures of the night with which to
+weave his spells. He knows that the young warriors
+will be coming to him for some inkling of their fate on
+the war-path, and besides he must supply a certain cure
+for their wounds. When he has found it for them he will
+gather them all in the public square at Gandawague,
+and after other exhibitions of his skill will perhaps
+cut his own lip, and when the blood is flowing freely,
+will stanch it and cure it in a moment by applying
+his magic drug. It will be well for his fame if there
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span>
+be not the keen eye of a French Jesuit in the crowd to
+watch him as he quickly sucks the blood into his
+mouth. He knows that the warriors are easily duped
+by his cunning, and will probably buy his mixture.
+Happy in its possession, they will fear no evil effects
+from their wounds. Their sweethearts too seek the
+sorcerer to have their fortunes told, and the old men
+and women come to him with their ailments. Even the
+orators are glad of a hint from his fertile brain; and the
+oyander or matron of rank who is about to nominate
+a new chief may perhaps consult him. If her choice
+has been already made, however, it is no easy task to
+persuade her to change her mind.</p>
+
+<p class="bigfoot">With the month of March comes the Dream-Feast,
+and then the medicine-man is in his glory. For three
+days the town is in a hubbub, given up to every freak of
+the imagination. All the dreams of its people, no matter
+how foolish and unreasonable, must be fulfilled in some
+way to the dreamer's satisfaction. The wiser heads
+among them have to tax their ingenuity to the utmost
+to prevent the worst excesses of this crazy celebration.
+The Christian Indians, above all, dreaded its coming
+for if the sorcerer's interpretation pointed in their direction,
+they were sure to suffer. During the celebration
+of the Dream-Feast the Algonquin captive would not
+fail to hide herself and her children in the darkest
+corner she could find. She had a better chance to pass
+unnoticed, however, than the more numerous Huron
+Christians, who, like herself, had been captured by the
+Iroquois. Against these there was a growing enmity
+encouraged no doubt by the sorcerers, who profited least
+of all by their presence among the people. Some
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span>
+months after the time of the Dream-Feast the gathering
+storm burst over their heads. On the 3d of August,
+1657, the Hurons, who dwelt at Onondaga, were suddenly
+massacred. The party that had been advocating
+friendship with the French, and which had taken the
+lead in establishing the French colony at Onondaga,
+headed by Garacontié ("The Sun that advances"), were
+fast losing ground. The situation, even of the French
+colonists who were there, was becoming critical; and in
+April, 1658, when Tekakwitha was in her second year,
+strange things happened in the Long House of the Five
+Nations.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes center"><br />FOOTNOTES:
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a>
+See <a href="#APPENDIX_B">Appendix, Note B</a>,&mdash;the words "Gandawague" and "Tekakwitha."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> Chauchetière's manuscript, "La Vie de la B. Catherine Tegakouita,
+dite a present La Saincte Sauuagesse," is still extant. It was copied by
+the author of this volume at Montreal in 1884, and was first printed in
+1887: "Manate, De la Presse Cramoisy de Jean-Marie Shea."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> See Vol. IV., Contributions to American Ethnology, by Lewis H.
+Morgan, LL.D., giving description and ground plan of an Iroquois
+long-house.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> "The Mohawk language is on the tongue; the Wyandot is in the
+throat."&mdash;<span class="smcap">Schoolcraft's</span> <i>Red Race</i>.</p><br /></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER III.</h2>
+
+<p class="centerc"><b>A CRADLE-SONG.&mdash;CAPTIVES TORTURED.&mdash;FLIGHT OF THE
+FRENCH FROM ONONDAGA.&mdash;DEATH IN THE MOHAWK
+LODGES.</b></p>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">L</span>ET the reader, in imagination, look into Tekakwitha's
+home at Gandawague on the Mohawk,
+as it appeared in the month of April, 1658, and learn
+if the news that is spreading from nation to nation has
+yet reached there. To find the lodge he wishes to
+enter, he will follow a woman who is passing along the
+principal street of the village with an energetic step.
+The corners of a long blanket, that envelops her head
+and whole form, flap as if in a breeze from her own
+quick motion, for the air is quite still. It is early
+spring-time. There are pools of frozen water here and
+there; but the dogs of the village have chosen a sunny
+spot to gnaw at the bones they have found near the
+cabin of a fortunate hunter, who gave a feast the night
+before to his more needy neighbors. All shared in his
+good cheer. So long as there is food in the village, no
+one is allowed to go hungry. Such is the Indian law of
+hospitality.</p>
+
+<p>Tegonhatsihongo, who will be better known by and
+by under the name of Anastasia, gathers her blanket
+about her, and with the usual greeting, "Sago!" she
+passes a matron at a neighboring doorway, who withdraws
+the heavy bear-skin curtain she has placed there
+for keeping out the cold, in order that she may see<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span>
+where to put away the snow-shoes, now no longer
+needed. She stores them high above her head among
+the poles that support the snug bark roof. The keen
+eye of Tegonhatsihongo notes at a glance what the
+matron is about; and as she turns her head for a second
+look, one can see by the lines in her face that she is
+already on the downward slope of middle age. She
+passes on through an open space where a scaffold is
+prepared for the exhibition of any captives the warriors
+may chance to bring back from their raid on Montreal.
+Tegonhatsihongo scarcely notices these familiar preparations
+for the torture, but directs her steps to the lodge
+of a chief opening on the square. She is about to visit
+her friend the Algonquin, whose brave is away on the
+war-path. The quiet ways of this younger woman have
+attracted her and won her friendship. As she lifts the
+hanging skin to enter, she pauses a moment. Surprised,
+perhaps, and well pleased too to find the Algonquin in
+a merry mood, romping with her baby, now more than
+a year old, she stands and watches her. Catching the
+child from the clean-swept earthen floor, the mother
+holds it laughing and struggling in her lap, while she
+sings the Algonquin "Song of the Little Owl."<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> A pretty
+picture she makes, seated by the nearest fire of faggots,
+in the dim, smoky light of the long-house; and these
+are the words of her cradle-song and their literal
+translation:&mdash;</p>
+
+<table class="shrink">
+<tr><td>Ah wa nain?</td><td>Who is this?</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Ah wa nain?</td><td>Who is this?</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Wa you was sa</td><td>Giving eye-light</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Ko pwasod.</td><td>On the top of my lodge.</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span></p>
+<p>Here the young mother looks up, as if she really saw
+the eyes of the little white owl glaring from among the
+rustic rafters or through the hole in the roof. The
+dark eyes of the dark little baby, which follow the direction
+of hers, are opening wide with wonder at this
+sudden break from song to pantomime; and now the
+Algonquin answers her own questions, assuming all at
+once the tone of the little screech-owl:&mdash;</p>
+
+<table class="shrink">
+<tr><td>Kob kob kob,</td><td>It is I, the little owl,</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Nim be e zhau.</td><td>Coming, coming.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Kob kob kob,</td><td>It is I, the little owl,</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Nim be e zhau.</td><td>Coming.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Kitche! kitche!</td><td>Down! down!</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>With the last words, meaning "Dodge, baby, dodge!"
+she springs towards the child, and down goes the little
+head. This is repeated with the utmost merriment on
+both sides, till their laughter is interrupted by the entrance
+of Tegonhatsihongo, who seats herself near her
+friend, their talk soon taking a serious turn. Now for
+the first time the Algonquin notices that others in the
+same cabin are putting their heads together and talking
+in low voices. The very air seems full of mystery. The
+busy ones have dropped their accustomed occupations,
+and the idle ones have ceased their noisy talk and their
+games. All are wondering at the strange news from
+the Indian capital, telling of the unaccountable disappearance
+of the Frenchmen who formed the little colony
+at Onondaga. Mohawks who were there on a visit
+have returned with marvellous tales. The few facts of
+the history are soon known, but there is no end to the
+surmises that are afloat among the Iroquois. This is
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span>
+what they are all talking about. This is what happened.
+The French colonists whom we have already mentioned,
+fifty-three in number, had given a great feast at their
+small block fort on the east bank of Onondaga Lake.<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a>
+All the Onondagas and their guests from other nations
+who chanced to be there at the time, were invited. Some
+of Tegonhatsihongo's friends from the Mohawk Valley
+were present among the rest, and knew all about it.
+They were completely carried away with admiration for
+their French hosts, who gave them a right royal feast.
+When it was over they fell into slumber and dreamed
+strange dreams. Then, awaking when the sun was high,
+the bewildered guests went about half dazed. Some of
+them, straggling near the French enclosure, heard the
+dogs bark and a cock crow within. As the day wore
+on, they gathered into groups and wondered why the
+foreign inmates slept so long. None of them were to
+be seen going to work; no voices were heard. Could
+they be at prayer or in secret council? No one answered
+when they knocked at the door. By afternoon
+there were strange whisperings and much misgiving
+among the Onondagas, till at last their curiosity outgrew
+their dread, and nerved a few to scale the palisade.
+With cautious step they entered, fearing some treacherous
+snare. The Frenchmen could not be asleep, they
+thought, for the noisy barking of the dog would almost
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span>
+wake the dead. Could they have slain one another in
+the night? No; all was peaceful as they entered,&mdash;no
+signs of a struggle, and the sunlight danced playfully
+in through utter vacancy. Every corner of the house
+and fort was searched; no human being, dead or living,
+was found, yet noisy and more noisy grew the barking
+of the fastened dog, and frightened chickens fluttered
+about. The Indians looked at one another, shuddering.
+What had happened? With guilty consciences they
+thought of their deep-laid treachery here brought to
+naught; for as the Algonquin now learned from the talk
+in the long-house, they had planned to massacre the
+colony invited to their land from policy. Having subjugated
+their savage foes of the Cat nation, they were
+ready to turn their arms once more against the French.
+They had felt quite sure of their prey; for even if warned,
+the colonists and missionaries could not have escaped,
+they thought, as the rivers were still frozen. Besides,
+it was out of the question to suppose they had gone by
+water, as no boat was missing. Had they taken to the
+woods, they would soon have perished in the cold, having
+no guides, or else they would have fallen again into
+the hands of their enemies, who could easily track and
+overtake them in the forest. No trace of them, however,
+was anywhere to be found. Never were the red
+men more completely baffled. Tegonhatsihongo and the
+others who talked it all over had two favorite explanations
+of the mystery,&mdash;either the Frenchmen had a
+magic power of walking on the lakes, or else strange
+creatures, seen by Onondagas in their dreams, had flown
+through the air bearing the pale-faces with them.</p>
+
+<p>While Tekakwitha's mother was still wondering at
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span>
+this unaccountable story, the Mohawk braves returned
+from their raid on Montreal, and the people of the village
+were soon hurrying out with little iron rods, to
+take their stand on either side of the path that led
+up the hill to the principal opening in the palisade.
+There they were, ready to beat the prisoners as they
+approached, "running the gauntlet." Then the crowd
+eagerly watched the progress of the tortures on the
+scaffold, after which the prisoners were handed over,
+bound hand and foot, to the tender mercies of the children.
+These juvenile savages amused themselves by
+putting red-hot coals on the naked flesh of the captives,
+and tormented them in every way their mischief-loving
+brains could devise. Thus early did the warrior's son
+begin his education.</p>
+
+<p>But this side of the Indian nature is too horrible to
+dwell on; let it pass. At times the Iroquois were like
+incarnate devils; and yet each tale of frightful cruelty
+that history preserves for us brings with it some redeeming
+trait, some act of kindness or humanity done
+in the face of savage enmity. There were always a few
+among them ready like Pocahontas to avert the threatened
+blow or to relieve the sufferers whenever it was
+possible. One of these in days gone by had administered
+to Jogues; and one of these in days now soon to
+come will prove to be our Tekakwitha.</p>
+
+<p>There is little more to say about her parents. Her
+mother may have learned from some of the captives
+brought to Gandawague from Canada the true ending
+of the French colony at Onondaga. At all events, the
+following explanation of their sudden disappearance
+has been given by Ragueneau, who shared the fate of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span>
+the adventurous little band. He says in one of his
+letters:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"To supply the want of canoes, we had built in secret
+two batteaux of a novel and excellent structure to pass the
+rapids; these batteaux drew but very little water and carried
+considerable freight, fourteen or fifteen men each, amounting
+to fifteen or sixteen hundred weight. We had moreover
+four Algonquin and four Iroquois canoes, which were to
+compose our little fleet of fifty-three Frenchmen. But the
+difficulty was to embark unperceived by the Iroquois, who
+constantly beset us. The batteaux, canoes, and all the equipage
+could not be conveyed without great noise, and yet
+without secrecy there was nothing to be expected, save a
+general massacre of all of us the moment it would be discovered
+that we entertained the least thought of withdrawing.</p>
+
+<p>On that account we invited all the savages in our neighborhood
+to a solemn feast, at which we employed all our
+industry, and spared neither the noise of drums nor instruments
+of music, to deceive them by harmless device. He
+who presided at this ceremony played his part with so much
+address and success that all were desirous to contribute to
+the public joy. Every one vied in uttering the most piercing
+cries, now of war, anon of rejoicing. The savages,
+through complaisance, sung and danced after the French
+fashion, and the French in the Indian style. To encourage
+them the more in this fine play, presents were distributed
+among those who acted best their parts and who made the
+greatest noise to drown that caused by about forty of our
+people outside who were engaged in removing all our equipage.
+The embarkation being completed, the feast was concluded
+at a fixed time; the guests retired, and sleep having
+soon overwhelmed them, we withdrew from our house by a
+back door and embarked with very little noise, without bidding
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span>
+adieu to the savages, who were acting cunning parts
+and were thinking to amuse us to the hour of our massacre
+with fair appearances and evidences of good will.</p>
+
+<p>"Our little lake,<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a> on which we silently sailed in the darkness
+of the night, froze according as we advanced, and caused
+us to fear being stopt by the ice after having evaded the
+fires of the Iroquois. God, however, delivered us, and after
+having advanced all night and all the following day through
+frightful precipices and waterfalls, we arrived finally in the
+evening at the great Lake Ontario, twenty leagues from the
+place of our departure. This first day was the most dangerous;
+for had the Iroquois observed our departure, they would
+have intercepted us, and had they been ten or twelve it
+would have been easy for them to have thrown us into disorder,
+the river being very narrow, and terminating after
+travelling ten leagues in a frightful precipice where we were
+obliged to land and carry our baggage and canoes during
+four hours, through unknown roads covered with a thick
+forest which could have served the enemy for a fort, whence
+at each step he could have struck and fired on us without
+being perceived. God's protection visibly accompanied us
+during the remainder of the road, in which we walked
+through perils which made us shudder after we escaped
+them, having at night no other bed except the snow after
+having passed entire days in the water and amid the ice.</p>
+
+<p>Ten days after our departure we found Lake Ontario, on
+which we floated, still frozen at its mouth. We were obliged
+to break the ice, axe in hand, to make an opening, to enter
+two days afterwards a rapid where our little fleet had
+well-nigh foundered. For having entered a great <i>sault</i>
+without knowing it, we found ourselves in the midst of
+breakers which, meeting a quantity of big rocks, threw up
+mountains of water and cast us on as many precipices as
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span>
+we gave strokes of paddles. Our batteaux, which drew
+scarcely half a foot, were soon filled with water, and all our
+people in such confusion that their cries mingled with the
+roar of the torrent presented to us the spectacle of a dreadful
+wreck. It became imperative, however, to extricate
+ourselves, the violence of the current dragging us despite
+ourselves into the large rapids and through passes in which
+we had never been. Terror redoubled at the sight of one of
+our canoes being engulfed in a breaker which barred the
+entire rapid, and which, notwithstanding, was the course
+that all the others must keep. Three Frenchmen were
+drowned there; a fourth fortunately escaped, having held
+on to the canoe and being saved at the foot of the <i>sault</i>
+when at the point of letting go his hold, his strength being
+exhausted....</p>
+
+<p>"The 3d of April we landed at Montreal in the beginning
+of the night."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>This escape, so wonderful to the Indian mind and so
+successful, made a profound impression at Gandawague
+as among all the Mohawks, and produced most important
+results in the neighborhood of Tekakwitha's home,
+interrupting the work of the missionary there.</p>
+
+<p>Ondessonk or Lemoyne, the namesake of Jogues,
+who made a third visit to the Mohawk Valley in the
+fall of 1657, was no longer even tolerated by its people.
+He was held half a hostage, half a prisoner, at Tionnontogen,
+during the time that the French colony were in
+peril at Onondaga, and was finally sent back to Canada.
+He left the Mohawk country for the last time, just after
+Onondaga was abandoned by the French. He reached
+his countrymen on the St. Lawrence in May, 1658, to
+be greeted there with a glad welcome and many inquiries
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span>
+from the newly arrived refugees from Onondaga,
+concerning his experiences among the Mohawks; they
+were anxious to hear whether he had fared any better
+than themselves.</p>
+
+<p>Not one blackgown was now left among the Five Nations
+of Iroquois. The Algonquin mother at Gandawague
+had been unable to profit by their brief stay in
+the land, and her life grew ever sadder towards its close.
+She was finally laid low by a terrible disease, the
+small-pox, which spread like wild fire through the
+Mohawk nation in 1659 and 1660. Her brave, an
+early victim to this redman's plague, soon lay cold in
+death, and with aching heart she too bade good-by to
+the world, leaving her helpless children alone and
+struggling with the disease in a desolate lodge in a
+desolate land.</p>
+
+<p class="bigfoot">Chauchetière relates what he learned long afterwards
+from Anastasia Tegonhatsihongo,&mdash;that in leaving her
+two little children the mother grieved at having to
+abandon them without baptism; that she was a fervent
+Christian to the last, and that she met death with a
+prayer on her lips.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes center"><br />FOOTNOTES:
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> Schoolcraft's Red Race.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> The site of this fort is still pointed out between Salina and Liverpool,
+near the "Jesuit's Spring," or "Well," as it is called. For a plan
+of the fort made by Judge Geddes in 1797, from remains of it then
+in existence, see Clark's "Onondaga," p. 147. See also "Relations
+des Jésuites," and translations of the same in the "Documentary History
+of New York," vol. i., for a full account of the Onondaga Colony
+in 1658.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> Onondaga Lake.</p><br /></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER IV.</h2>
+
+<p class="centerc"><b>TEKAKWITHA WITH HER AUNTS AT GANDAWAGUE.</b></p>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">T</span>EKAKWITHA'S brother shared the fate of her
+parents. All three died within the space of a
+few days. Overshadowed by death and disease when
+she was only four years old, the little Indian child
+alone remained of the family. How she won her name
+is not known, though Indian names have always a
+meaning. They are never arbitrarily given. The word
+"Tekakwitha," as M. Cuoq, the philologist, translates
+it, means "One who approaches moving something
+before her." Marcoux, the author of a complete Iroquois
+dictionary, renders it, "One who puts things in
+order."<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a></p>
+
+<p>It has been suggested in reference to M. Cuoq's interpretation,
+that the name may have been given to her
+on account of a peculiar manner of walking caused by
+her imperfect sight; for it is related that the small-pox
+so injured her eyes that for a long time she was obliged to
+shade them from a strong light. It is possible that in
+groping or feeling her way while a child, she may have
+held out her hands in a way that suggested the pushing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span>
+of something in front of her, and thus have received
+her name. On the other hand, the interpretation of
+M. Marcoux, as given by Shea, is thoroughly in keeping
+with her character. She indeed spent a great part
+of her life, as the record shows, in <i>putting things in
+order</i>.</p>
+
+<p class="bigfoot">On the death of Tekakwitha's father, her uncle, according
+to the Indian laws of descent, would fall heir
+to the title of chief, after having been chosen by the
+matron or <i>stirps</i> of the family,<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a> and then duly elected
+by the men of the Turtle clan. Tekakwitha then became
+an inmate of her uncle's lodge,&mdash;which was quite
+natural, for indeed she was likely to prove a valuable
+acquisition to the household. This uncle was impoverished,
+no doubt, by the plague and also by the custom
+of making presents. A chief is expected to dispense
+freely, and is generally poor in spite of his honors. But
+daughters were always highly prized by the Iroquois; as
+they grew up they were expected to do a large part of
+the household work; and later, when wedded to some
+sturdy hunter, the lodge to which a young woman belonged,
+claimed and received whatever her husband
+brought from the chase. So the aunts and the uncle of
+Tekakwitha acted quite as much from worldly wisdom
+as from humanity when they decided to give the young
+orphan a home. Forethought was mixed with their
+kindness, and perhaps also a bit of selfishness. They<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span>
+had no children of their own, but they adopted another
+young girl besides Tekakwitha, thus giving to their
+niece a sister somewhat older than herself. The home
+of this family, after the small-pox had spent its force
+and when the distress it caused had forced the Mohawks
+to make a treaty of peace with the French, was
+at Gandawague,<a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a> on a high point of land in the angle
+between Auries Creek and the Mohawk River.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
+<img src="images/p038-illus.png" width="500" height="324" alt="" title="" />
+<span class="caption">Sites of Mohawk Castles 1642 TO 1700, as located by John S Clark, Auburn NY</span>
+</div>
+
+<p><br /><br />Here on the crest of the hill, in a wheat-field west of
+the creek, there still are signs of an Indian village, and
+just outside of the fence in a patch of woods Indian
+graves and corn-pits are to be seen. Well does the
+writer remember a bright summer day when that village
+site where Tekakwitha must have spent her early
+childhood was visited and examined for traces of Iroquois
+occupation. Three of us had driven over from the
+spring and castle-site of Caughnawaga at Fonda to the
+west side of Auries Creek. Leaving our carriage, we
+mounted the steep bank of the stream, eager to find the
+exact site of Gandawague, to which the people of Ossernenon
+moved before they crossed the river to Caughnawaga.
+We stood at last on the hard-won summit, and
+there lay the landscape in its tranquil beauty,&mdash;the
+Mohawk Valley, the river, a wheat-field against a dark
+wood, and off in the distance the court-house of Fonda,
+and dim Caughnawaga, all bathed in a glory of sunshine.
+Nearer at hand and toward the east, a little
+white steeple gleamed through the trees, marking the
+site of the modern village of Auriesville. We stood
+high above it, on the upper river terrace, where old
+Gandawague had once been; and though the rude Indian
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span>
+castle at that spot had long ago been trampled out of
+existence, we seemed to see it rise again from the ashes
+of its ancient hearthfires. Then, looking off toward the
+Schoharie, in our mind's eye we plainly saw on the
+broad, grassy plateau the still older village of Ossernenon,
+with its high palisade, that once upheld the ghastly
+head of the martyred Jogues. The scene was before us
+in all its details. The past had become like the present
+that day, and what was then present, all blended with
+sunshine that blotted out the tragic and left the heroic
+parts of the picture, has since become past. Those
+glorious hours at the castle-sites near Auriesville, so
+rich in awakened thought, contagious enthusiasm, and
+newly acquired information, are only a memory now;
+and mention is made of them here in the hope that
+others may feel a stir of interest in their hearts, and be
+roused to visit the Mohawk Valley, and the places so
+closely linked to the names of Jogues and Tekakwitha,&mdash;Ossernenon,
+where the shrine is built; Gandawague,
+on the bank of Auries Creek; and Caughnawaga,<a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a> five
+miles farther up the river.</p>
+
+<p>Tekakwitha was only a little girl when she lived
+at Gandawague. It could hardly have been a large
+castle, on such a small bit of high land. They had
+little need at this time of a large castle, for many
+had died of the small-pox. The old Dutch records of
+the time relate that the Turtles, or people of the lower
+castle, were building a new palisade, in the latter part of
+the year 1659,&mdash;a task which would necessarily accompany
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span>
+a removal from Ossernenon; and they asked the
+Dutchmen, their neighbors, to help them. The friendship
+of these settlers for the Mohawks was put to rather
+a queer test when they proposed that the Dutch should
+not only furnish them with horses, but should drive
+them themselves, and drag the heavy logs up the hill
+for the palisade.<a name="FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a> They were not used to such work;
+and it better became the settlers to do it, they thought,
+than Mohawk warriors!</p>
+
+<p>Some Dutchmen of Fort Orange were at the Turtle
+Castle on an embassy when this unpleasant proposal was
+made to them, and they thus shirked it. "Do you not
+see we are tired?" they said. "We have travelled far
+through the forest. Our men are few and weary; besides
+you have no roads. Our horses could never get
+up there. You must excuse us, our friends, and manage
+to do it without us. See, as a token of friendship,
+we have brought you fifty new hatchets." Then, giving
+the Indians knick-knacks and weapons, they bade them
+farewell and departed, journeying back in haste to their
+homes on the Hudson.</p>
+
+<p>Thus the Indians were left to finish their own palisade,
+or stockade, whichever one may choose to call it;
+and the uncle of Tekakwitha doubtless worked with
+the rest. When it was finished, it stood and protected
+them well for six uneventful years; that is to say, they
+were uneventful for Indians, though during the whole
+of that period they were making and breaking treaties
+of peace with the French, and were warring with other
+tribes. During this time, while the fighting was all
+carried on at a distance from the Mohawk castles, Tekakwitha
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span>
+lived in the greatest seclusion. She was cared
+for and taught by her aunts, in one of the cabins closed
+in by the palisade. She was learning the arts of the
+Indians, doing the daily work, and shrinking from all
+observation. This unsociable habit of hers (for so it
+must have seemed to her neighbors) was due in part to
+her own disposition,&mdash;modest, shy, and reserved,&mdash;but
+more than all, perhaps, to the fact that the small-pox
+had injured her eyesight. As she could not endure
+much light, she remained indoors, and when forced to
+go out, her eyes were shaded by her blanket. Little by
+little she grew to love a life of quiet and silence. Besides,
+she showed a wonderful aptness for learning to
+make all the curious bark utensils and wooden things
+that were used in the village. Much to her aunts' satisfaction,
+she had an industrious spirit. This they took
+care to encourage, as it made her very useful. These
+aunts were exceedingly vain; and a child of less sense
+than the young Tekakwitha would soon have been
+spoiled by their foolishness.</p>
+
+<p>Chauchetière has told us quaintly, in old-fashioned
+French, "what she did during the first years of her age."
+We cannot do better here than to follow his account,
+translating it almost word for word:&mdash;-</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"The natural inclination which girls have to appear well,
+makes them esteem very much whatever adorns the body;
+and that is why the young savages from seven to eight
+years of age are silly, and have a great love for <i>porcelaine</i>
+(wampum). The mothers are even more foolish, for they
+sometimes spend a great deal of time in combing and dressing
+the hair of their daughters; they take care that their
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span>
+ears shall be pierced, and commence to pierce them from the
+cradle; they put paint on their faces, and fairly cover them
+with beads when they have occasion to go to the dance.</p>
+
+<p>"Those into whose hands Tegakoüita fell when her mother
+died, resolved to have her marry very soon, and with this object
+they brought her up in all these little vanities; but the
+little Tegakoüita, who was not yet a Christian, in truth, nor
+baptized, had a natural indifference for all these things. She
+was like a tree without flowers and without fruit; but this
+little wild olive was budding so well into leaf that it promised
+some day to bear beautiful fruit; or a heaven covered
+with the darkness of paganism, but a heaven indeed, for she
+was far removed from the corruption of the savages,&mdash;she
+was sweet, patient, chaste, and innocent. <i>Sage comme une
+fille française bien élevée</i>,&mdash;As good as a French girl well
+brought up,&mdash;this is the testimony that has been given by
+those who knew her from a very young age, and who in using
+this expression gave in a few words a beautiful panegyric
+of Catherine Tegakoüita. Anastasia Tegonhatsihongo said
+of her that 'she had no faults.'</p>
+
+<p>"Her occupation was to carry little bundles of wood with
+her mother, that is to say, her aunt, the matron of the
+lodge, to put wood on the fire when the mother told her,
+to go for water when those in the cabin had need of it;
+and when they gave her no further commands she amused
+herself with her little jewels,&mdash;I mean she dressed herself up
+in the fashion of the other young girls of her age, just to
+pass the time. She would put a necklace about her throat;
+she would put bracelets of beads on her arms, rings on her
+fingers, and ear-rings in her ears. She made the ribbons and
+bands which the savages make with the skins of eels, which
+they redden, and render suitable for binding up their hair.
+She wore large and beautiful girdles, which they call wampum
+belts."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span>
+[These decorations not only adorn the person, but they
+also show the rank of the maiden who wears them.<a name="FNanchor_18_18" id="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a>]</p>
+
+<p>"There was a sort of child-marriage in vogue among the
+Iroquois. Certain agreements of theirs were called marriage,
+which amounted to nothing more than a bond of friendship
+between the parents, rendered more firm by giving away a
+child, who was often still in the cradle; thus they married
+a girl to a little boy. This was done at a time when Tegakoüita
+was still very small; she was given to a child. The
+little girl was only about eight years old; the boy was hardly
+older than herself. They were both of the same humor, both
+very good children; and the little boy troubled himself no
+more about the marriage than did the girl."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p class="bigfoot">It was a mere formality; but it shows how early
+Tekakwitha's relatives began to think of establishing
+her in life.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes center"><br />FOOTNOTES:
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> So cited by Shea in his translation of Charlevoix's "History of
+New France," vol. iv. For different ways of spelling Tekakwitha's
+name, see <a href="#APPENDIX_B">Appendix, Note B</a>, where the grammatical explanation of it
+by M. Cuoq is also given.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> Among the Iroquois descent was never reckoned through the male
+line, the <i>stirps</i> being always a woman. A chief, therefore, derived his
+title from his mother. To her family, not his father's, he belonged;
+and back to her or to her mother at his death the title was referred, to
+be transmitted through her to some other descendant.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_15_15" id="Footnote_15_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> See <a href="#Page_38">General Clark's map</a> herewith printed.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_16_16" id="Footnote_16_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> The castle of Caughnawaga at Fonda was also called Gandawague,
+long after its removal from Auries Creek. But it prevents confusion
+to give it always its more distinctive name of Caughnawaga.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_17_17" id="Footnote_17_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> See <a href="#APPENDIX1">Appendix, Note A</a>, Letter of June 29, 1885.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_18_18" id="Footnote_18_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> See Cholenec, who mentions this fact in the "Lettres Édifiantes,"
+translated by Kip in his work entitled "Early Jesuit Missions." What
+is said concerning child-marriage is from Chauchetière's manuscript.</p><br /></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER V.</h2>
+
+<p class="centerc"><b>TEKAKWITHA'S UNCLE AND FORT ORANGE; OR THE
+BEGINNINGS OF ALBANY.</b></p>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">C</span>HOLENEC, the more concise of the two contemporary
+biographers of Kateri Tekakwitha, in speaking
+of her early life says: "She found herself an orphan
+under the care of her aunts, and <i>in the power of an uncle
+who was the leading man in the settlement</i>." This brief
+expression gives us an intimation both of the character
+and the rank of Tekakwitha's formidable Mohawk uncle.
+He was stern, unbending, fierce; and like many another
+chief reared in the Long House, was proudly tenacious
+of the customs of his race. He was often on the
+worst of terms with the French blackgowns because
+they interfered with the beliefs and manners of his
+people; but always on the best of terms with the Dutch
+traders, who, in exchange for the rich furs brought in
+so plentifully to Fort Orange, supplied the Mohawks of
+Gandawague (or, as the Dutch wrote it, Kaghnuwage)
+with muskets, iron tomahawks, pipes, tobacco, copper
+kettles, scissors, duffels, strouds for blankets, and more
+than all, the keenly relished, comforting "fire water."</p>
+
+<p>The influx of liquor to the Iroquois castles led to reckless
+debauches, fast following in the track of the small-pox,
+which stalked with unchecked violence through the
+Long House in 1660. During the course of the following<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span>
+year an important transaction took place between
+the white settlers on the Hudson and the Indians along
+the Mohawk, or Maquaas Kill. "A certain parcel of
+land," to use the words of the old deed, "called in
+Dutch the Groote Vlachte (Great Flatt), lying behind
+Fort Orange, between the same and the Mohawk country,"
+was sold by Mohawk chiefs&mdash;Cantuquo (whose
+mark was a Bear); Aiadane, a Turtle; Sonareetsie, a
+Wolf; and Sodachdrasse&mdash;to Sieur Arent van Corlaer,
+July 27, 1661. "A grant under the provincial seal
+was issued in the following year, but the land was not
+surveyed or divided until 1664." The Indian name of
+the Great Flatt was Schonowe, and the new village of
+white settlers which soon sprang up on the south bank
+of the Mohawk was called Schenectady by the Dutch
+and English; though the French, who did not for some
+time learn of its existence, first knew this little outpost
+of Fort Orange by the name of Corlaer,<a name="FNanchor_19_19" id="FNanchor_19_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> the earliest
+settler.</p>
+
+<p>This founding of Schenectady was an event of deep
+interest to the Mohawks of Gandawague. It brought
+the dwellings of the white race closer than ever before
+to their own stronghold, almost in fact to the very door
+of the Kanonsionni, or People of the Long House. The
+settlers began at once to rear their wonderful wooden
+palaces, for such they must have seemed to the simple
+children of the forest. The wild banks of the Maquaas
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span>
+Kill had hitherto shown no prouder architecture than the
+long bark houses of the Mohawks, which nevertheless
+were much in advance of the wigwams or tents of the
+roving Algonquin tribes. The Indians of Gandawague
+must have hastened down in their canoes to watch the
+building of Schenectady, and listened with interest and
+curiosity to the strange buzz of the newly erected sawmill.
+These were already familiar sights and sounds,
+however, to Tekakwitha's uncle, for he had long been
+in the habit of trading with the Dutch and knew their
+ways. He often journeyed as far as their trading-house
+at Fort Orange. Let us follow in the footsteps of this
+Mohawk chief as he starts once again on the trail that
+leads eastward from Gandawague with furs he has been
+hoarding for some new purchase. Let us pass hurriedly
+on beyond the new abode of his friend Corlaer, and we
+shall then see the sights that greet him as he approaches
+the homes of the traders who dwell beside the
+Hudson,&mdash;or Cahotatea, as the chief of the Turtle Castle
+would call the great North River in his own language.
+He has other Indians of his nation with him. These
+Mohawks, says the first Dutch dominie, in the account
+he gives of them, have good features, with black hair
+and eyes, and they are well proportioned; they go naked
+in summer, and in winter they hang loosely about them
+a deer's, bear's, or panther's skin, or else they sew small
+skins together into a square piece, or buy two and a
+half ells of duffels from the Dutchmen. Some of them
+wear shoes and stockings of deer's skins; others of
+plaited corn-leaves. Their hair is left growing on one
+side of the head only, or else worn like a cock's comb or
+hog's bristles standing up in a streak from forehead to
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span>
+neck; some of them leave queer little locks growing
+here and there. Their faces are painted red and blue,
+so that they "look like the devil himself," continues
+the worthy Megapolensis. They carry a basket of bear's
+grease with which they smear their heads, and in travelling
+they take with them a maize-kettle and a wooden
+spoon and bowl. When it is meal-time they get fire
+very quickly by rubbing pieces of wood together; and
+they cook and devour their fish and venison without
+the preliminary cleaning and preparing considered necessary
+among civilized folks. When they feel pain
+they say, "Ugh! the devil bites," and when they wish
+to compliment their own nation they say, "Really the
+Mohawks are very cunning devils." They make no offerings
+to their good genius or national god, Tharonyawagon;
+but they worship the demon Otkon or Aireskoi,
+praying in this way, "Forgive us for not eating our
+enemies!" and in hot weather, "I thank thee, Devil,
+I thank thee, Oomke, for the cool breeze." They laugh
+at the Dutch prayers, the dominie tells us, and also at
+the sermon. They call the Christians of Fort Orange
+cloth-makers (<i>assyreoni</i>) and iron-workers (<i>charistooni</i>).</p>
+
+<p>These uncouth travellers from Gandawague, among
+whom is the uncle of Tekakwitha, are fast nearing the
+homes of these same cloth-makers and iron-workers.
+Let us hasten to overtake them, and find our way with
+them into the settlement of Rensselaerwyck. You
+who dwell in New York State and you who travel
+through it, come with us now to visit old Fort Orange
+and the little town of Beverwyck! You above all who
+love to trace your lineage to the staid old Dutchmen of
+New Netherlands, come! Let us see the homes of these
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span>
+grandsires whose names appear so often in the record
+and ancient annals of our oldest chartered city. Come,
+too, you sons of English colonists, and see the flag of
+England float strangely in the Hudson River breezes
+while they are still loaded with the cumbrous sounds
+of the Low Dutch language! We will stay and see the
+laws of England put an end to queer old wordy wars between
+the stately Dutch patroon Van Rensselaer and Peter
+Stuyvesant, the doughty old Director-general, last and
+greatest of the four Dutch governors,&mdash;the one called
+"Wooden Leg" by Indians, and "Hard-headed Pete"
+by Dutchmen; though the poets say he had a <i>silver leg</i>,
+and the artists love to paint him with a gallant flourish
+as he stumped it down the street beside some pretty,
+quaintly dressed colonial belle. His were the days of
+knee-breeches and gigantic silver buckles, of ruffles and
+queues, of broad, short petticoats bedecked with mighty
+pockets, and of scissors and keys that hung from the
+belt,&mdash;the days of demure tea-parties and hilarious
+coasting-parties, of negro slaves and of sugar-loaf hats.
+As for weapons of war, the muskets they carried were
+strange and clumsy arms, with long, portable rests and
+"two fathoms of match," which the soldier must needs
+have with him, besides the heavy armor and the queer
+tackle for ammunition. No wonder that the wearers of
+such gear dreaded wars with the nimble savages!</p>
+
+<p>Rip Van Winkle, after sleeping twenty years, awoke
+to painful changes; he was sadly out of date. It would
+surely then be cruel, even if we had the power, to wake
+old Peter Stuyvesant and the people of his day from
+full two hundred years of slumber in our graveyards
+just to criticise their dress and talk. Let us rather go
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span>
+to sleep ourselves and dream about them. Take a good
+strong dose of unassorted, crude, colonial history interspersed
+with annals, and the necessary drowsiness will
+surely follow. Have you tried it? Are you sure the
+spell is not upon you now, having stopped to look at
+Stuyvesant, and heard the dominie describe the Mohawks?
+The smoke of pipes and chimneys is at hand,
+for here we are at old Fort Orange in the times of Tekakwitha.
+Let us look about, before the power to do it
+fails us out of very sleepiness. We find ourselves within
+a wall of stockadoes. The chief and his friends from
+Kaghnuwage are undoing their packs of furs near the
+northern gate of the town. We stand in Albany, at
+the corner of Broadway and State Street,&mdash;but no!
+those names are not yet in vogue. We are in Beverwyck,
+at the point where the long, rambling Handelaer
+Street, running parallel with Hudson's River, crosses the
+broad, short Joncaer Street, which climbs some little distance
+up the hill. Before us is the old Dutch church.
+It stands by itself, at the intersection of the two streets,
+fronting south. It is a low, square, plain stone building,
+with a four-sided roof rising to a central summit
+surmounted by a small cupola or belfry containing the
+famous little bell just sent over from Holland by the
+Dutch West India Company; on this belfry is upreared
+a saucy little weathercock. The south porch or vestibule
+is approached by a large stone step before the
+principal door. If the church were not locked, we
+might take a look inside at the carved oaken pulpit
+with its queer little bracket for the dominie's hourglass.
+The burghers subscribed twenty-five beaver-skins
+to buy that pulpit, and a splendid one it was.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span>
+It soon came sailing over the sea in a plump Dutch
+ship. The patrons of the colony finding the beaver-skins
+much damaged when the package was opened at
+Amsterdam had added seventy-five guilders themselves
+towards the purchase, besides presenting the bell outright.
+When Dominie Megapolensis first arrived in the
+colony, "nine benches" were enough to seat the whole
+congregation; but that was a generation ago. Now it
+has increased; and the church, which was then a wooden
+structure near the old fort by the river, has been rebuilt.
+The Van Rensselaers, the Wendels, the Schuylers and
+the Van der Blaas have the leading pews; they have
+already sent to Europe for stained glass windows blazoned
+with their family arms. Having seen the church,
+let us walk up Joncaer (State) Street to the dominie's.
+We pass through the market-place, which is out in the
+middle of the open, grassy space, on a line with the
+church. We stop a moment to look at the house of
+Anneke Janse, the heiress, and then move on to Parrell
+(Pearl) Street. There, on the northeast corner of Parrell
+and Joncaer Streets, gable end foremost, stands the comfortable
+abode of Dominie Schaats, which is the pride
+and envy of the town. Every part of this, the first
+brick house in the New World, is said to have been
+imported from Holland,&mdash;bricks, woodwork, tiles, and
+also the ornamental irons with which it is profusely
+adorned,&mdash;all expressly for the use of the Rev. Gideon
+Schaets (or Schaats), who came over in 1652. The
+materials of the house arrived simultaneously with the
+bell and pulpit in 1657.<a name="FNanchor_20_20" id="FNanchor_20_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a></p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span></p>
+<p>From Schaats' house we see, instead of a solitary "old
+elm-tree" on the opposite corner, many trees of different
+kinds, one in front of each of the straggling houses
+on either side of Joncaer Street; and by the age of the
+tree one can tell pretty well the order in which the
+different settlers arrived and began to domesticate
+themselves. This was no sooner done than the inevitable
+shade-tree was planted to overshadow the dwelling,
+and beneath this tree they bring the cow each evening
+to be milked. Around every house is a garden with a
+well; and the stoop at the front door is supplied with
+wooden seats or benches. There old and young gather
+in the evening when the day's work is over.</p>
+
+<p class="bigfoot">The upper half of the front door remains open all
+day in summer, while the lower half bars out the stray
+chickens and dogs. It is opened now and then, however,
+to let the children in and out, and once in a while
+a buxom <i>vrouw</i> leans out to chat with a passer-by, or
+perhaps to scold the little ones or to bid them beware
+of straying near the trading-house for fear of encountering
+a tipsy Indian. This trading-house is outside the
+wall of stockadoes, or upright posts, encircling the town.
+The traders of Beverwyck are all obliged "to ride their
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span>
+stockadoes,"&mdash;that is to say, to furnish the pine posts,
+thirteen feet long and one foot in diameter, for repairing
+the wooden wall. This duty falls alike on every inhabitant,
+at the command of the burgomasters and
+schepens. They are furthermore bound to take turns
+in drawing firewood to the trading-house for the use of
+the Indians when they come there from the Maquaas
+country loaded with packs of furs.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 497px;">
+<img src="images/p052-illus.png" width="497" height="419" alt="" title="" />
+<span class="caption">OLD ALBANY.&mdash;DOMINIE SCHAATS&#39; HOUSE.<br />
+
+(<i>Corner of Joncaer and Parrell Streets.</i>)</span>
+</div>
+
+<p><br /><br />Above Dominie Schaats' house and on the same side
+of Joncaer Street is the Corps de Garde, a small block
+fort where a few soldiers are stationed. There the progress
+of our walk is checked by the stout wall of stockadoes.
+One of the six gates or openings, however, is
+near at hand, leading out on to the road to Schenectady.
+We wish to see more of the place, and are at a loss to
+find our way; so we accept the kindly offered guidance
+of a little Schuyler lad, named Pieter, who stands talking
+to one of the soldiers. Already in his boyish days
+this public-spirited Albanian takes an active interest in
+the military defence of the place. He knows where all
+the cannon are placed, and can tell us how they propose
+to improve the fort and barracks on Joncaer Street. He
+takes us out by the Parrell Street gate to a road leading
+southward toward the hamlet of Bethlehem. After
+the boy has shown us the mills on the Bever Kill
+(Buttermilk Creek) from which the village of Beverwyck
+was named, he takes us down to old Fort Orange
+by the river-side.<a name="FNanchor_21_21" id="FNanchor_21_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> It has been a snug little fort in its<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span>
+day, built of logs with four bastions, each mounted by
+two guns for throwing stones, while in the enclosure
+stands a large cannon on wheels close to the old trading-house
+of the West India Company. Since the new
+one has been built, this is used as the vice-director's
+house. It is twenty-six feet long, two stories high, constructed
+of boards one inch thick, with a roof in the
+form of a pavilion covered with old shingles. The
+space on the second floor is one undivided room directly
+under the roof without a chimney, to which access
+can be had by a straight ladder through a trap-door.<a name="FNanchor_22_22" id="FNanchor_22_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a>
+Here the magistrates administer justice. This
+is for the time being the court-house of Beverwyck.</p>
+
+<p>Fort Orange at the time of our visit is falling to decay;
+Fort Willemstadt, on the contrary, the military
+post at the head of Joncaer Street, is increasing in
+importance. Near Fort Orange is the great pasture or
+common where the cows of the burghers are grazing,
+and there, a short distance below the fort, we see the
+ferry-boat travelling slowly across the river to Greenbosch.
+We have caught sight of several deer and wild
+turkeys on the outskirts of the town, and we have passed
+several patriarchal "negers" (as the magistrates of Fort
+Orange spell the word): and here comes the special property
+of Pete Schuyler in the shape of a black boy of his
+own age, who is followed by a troop of sturdy children,
+some of whom are the brothers and sisters of our young
+guide. There, to be sure, are Guysbert, and Gertrude
+(who is destined to wed Stephanus van Cort) Alida
+(who will add to her own name of Schuyler the name of
+Van Rensselaer and afterwards Livingston);<a name="FNanchor_23_23" id="FNanchor_23_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a> while toddling
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span>
+after these juvenile belles of Fort Orange come
+Brant and Arent, their brothers, and still there are
+others to come. These are the numerous children of
+Philip Pietersen Schuyler, who came over in 1650, and
+of his fair <i>vrouw</i> Margritta van Slichtenhorst. This
+good couple were married with great formality before
+Dominie Schaats arrived, by Antoni de Hooges, the secretary
+of the colony, whose nose has been immortalized
+in the Highlands of the Hudson. Their son Pieter, our
+little guide, is to be the first mayor of the city of Albany;
+while the distinguished Philip of a later date will
+carry the name of Schuyler to a height of glory that
+will linger round the shaft of the Saratoga monument
+at Schuylerville for ages to come, and make it glow
+with an added beauty!</p>
+
+<p>But while our thoughts are thus running away with
+us from Fort Orange, a farmer, Teunis van Vechten, coming
+from Greenbosch with supplies for the Beverwyck
+market, offers the children a ride into the town, which
+they accept with a shout. This rouses us from our reverie,
+and we follow the merry load as they jog along the
+country road from Fort Orange to the nearest gate in
+the stockade (about where the street now called Hudson
+Avenue crosses Handelaer Street, or Broadway). With
+a crack of the farmer's whip they drive rapidly down
+into a sort of ravine, cross the Rutten Kill<a name="FNanchor_24_24" id="FNanchor_24_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a> on a bridge,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span>
+and ascend the opposite slope. The farmer soon passes
+the door of the Dutch Reformed Church, where our
+ramble began, and turning into Joncaer Street pulls up
+his horses at the market-place. The children scamper
+back across the Rutten Kill to the Schuyler store on
+Handelaer Street, opposite Beaver Street, and pass on
+down to the grassy river-side behind it, where a sloop is
+moored. Their father is there overseeing the men who
+are loading it with beaver-skins and other goods. The
+day's work is nearly over. The sunlight is fading from
+the hill-tops across the river. All will soon go in to
+supper. If we were not too tired we might in a few
+moments walk the whole length of Handelaer Street
+towards the north gate. In that case we would have
+a peep now and then through the half-open curtains of
+the scattered houses; for see! they are beginning to
+light up for the evening meal. In passing along we
+would probably startle the dogs from their kennels
+in the gardens, and hasten the farewells of the lovers
+who linger on the front stoops in the gathering dusk.
+Then issuing by the north gate (where Steuben Street
+comes into Broadway), we might go by moonlight to the
+Patroon's house, between which and Beverwyck are
+corn-fields where the burghers grow corn for their slaves
+and also for their horses, pigs, and poultry. We would
+then be not far from the Patroon's mills, where all the
+settlers are in duty bound to go, and not elsewhere, to
+have their sawing and grinding done. These mills are
+on the Fifth, or Patroon's Kill, counting from the Norman's
+Kill near Kenwood.</p>
+
+<p>We must not leave the neighborhood of Fort Orange
+and Beverwyck until we have been to a trading-house
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span>
+just outside of the stockade (Pemberton's was used for
+such a purpose at one time, and also the Glenn House).
+There we shall have an opportunity to listen to some
+such conversation as the following between a Dutch
+trader and an Indian.<a name="FNanchor_25_25" id="FNanchor_25_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a> Let us suppose that the trader
+on this occasion is one of the enterprising burghers
+whom we encountered during our walk on Joncaer Street,
+and the Indian a Mohawk warrior in the company of
+Tekakwitha's uncle, who, as we have seen, travelled from
+Gandawague for the purpose of bartering his furs at
+Beverwyck.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"<i>Indian.</i> Brother, I am come to trade with you; but I
+forewarn you to be more moderate in your demands than
+formerly.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Trader.</i> Why, brother, are not my goods of equal value
+with those you had last year?</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Indian.</i> Perhaps they are; but mine are more valuable
+because more scarce. The Great Spirit, who has withheld
+from you strength and ability to provide food and
+clothing for yourselves, has given you cunning and art to
+make guns and provide scaura (rum), and by speaking smooth
+words to simple men, when they have swallowed madness,
+you have by little and little purchased their hunting-grounds
+and made them corn-lands. Thus the beavers grow more
+scarce, and deer fly farther back; yet after I have reserved
+skins for my mantle and the clothing of my wife, I will exchange
+the rest.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Trader.</i> Be it so, brother; I came not to wrong you, or
+take your furs against your will. It is true that the beavers
+are fewer and you go farther for them. Come, brother, let
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span>
+us deal fair first and smoke friendly afterwards. Your last
+gun cost fifty beaver-skins; you shall have this for forty;
+and you shall give marten and raccoon skins in the same
+proportion for powder and shot.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Indian.</i> Well, brother, that is equal. Now, for two
+silver bracelets, with long pendent ear-rings of the same,
+such as you sold to Cardarani in the sturgeon month last
+year,&mdash;how much will you demand?</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Trader.</i> The skins of two deer for the bracelets and
+those of two fawns for the ear-rings.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Indian.</i> That is a great deal; but wampum grows
+scarce, and silver never rusts. Here are the skins.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Trader.</i> Do you buy any more? Here are knives,
+hatchets, and beads of all colors.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Indian.</i> I will have a knife and a hatchet, but must
+not take more. The rest of the skins will be little enough
+to clothe the women and children, and buy wampum. Your
+beads are of no value; no warrior who has slain a wolf will
+wear them.<a name="FNanchor_26_26" id="FNanchor_26_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a></p>
+
+<p>"<i>Trader.</i> Here are many things good for you which you
+have not skins to buy; here is a looking-glass, and here
+is a brass-kettle in which your woman may boil her maize,
+her beans, and above all her maple sugar. Here are silver
+brooches, and here are pistols for your youths.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Indian.</i> The skins I can spare will not purchase them.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Trader.</i> Your will determines, brother; but next year
+you will want nothing but powder and shot, having already
+purchased your gun and ornaments. If you will purchase
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span>
+from me a blanket to wrap around you, a shirt and blue
+stroud for under-garments for yourself and your woman, and
+the same for leggings, this will pass the time, and save you
+the great trouble of dressing the skins, making the thread,
+etc., for your clothing, which will give you more fishing and
+hunting time in the sturgeon and bear months.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Indian.</i> But the custom of my fathers!</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Trader.</i> You will not break the custom of your fathers
+by being thus clad for a single year. They did not refuse
+those things which were never offered to them.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Indian.</i> For this year, brother, I will exchange my skins;
+in the next I shall provide apparel more befitting a warrior.
+One pack alone I will reserve to dress for a future occasion.
+The summer must not find a warrior idle.</p>
+
+<p>"The terms being adjusted and the bargain concluded,
+the trader thus shows his gratitude for liberal dealing.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Trader.</i> Corlaer has forbid bringing scaura to steal away
+the wisdom of the warrior, but we white men are weak and
+cold; we bring kegs for ourselves, lest death arise from the
+swamps. We will not sell scaura; but you shall taste some
+of ours in return for the venison with which you have
+feasted us.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Indian.</i> Brother, we will drink moderately.</p>
+
+<p>"A bottle was then given to the warrior by way of a
+present, which he was advised to keep long, but found it
+irresistible. He soon returned with the reserved pack of
+skins, earnestly urging the trader to give him beads, silver
+brooches, and above all scaura, to their full amount. This,
+with affected reluctance at parting with the private stock,
+was at last yielded. The warriors now, after giving loose
+for a while to frantic mirth, began the war-whoop, and made
+the woods resound with infuriate howlings.... A long and
+deep sleep succeeded, from which they awoke in a state of
+dejection and chagrin such as no Indian had felt under any
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span>
+other circumstances. They felt as Milton describes Adam
+and Eve to have done after their transgression."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The news of a massacre of white settlers at Esopus
+(Kingston), by the River Indians or Mohegans, June
+7, 1663, when Tekakwitha was seven years old, caused
+great excitement both at Gandawague and at Beverwyck.
+Fort Orange was put in a thorough state of
+defence, the treaty with the Mohawks was renewed,
+and three pieces of artillery, loaned by Van Rensselaer
+for the protection of Beverwyck, "were placed on the
+church." "Nevertheless so great was the alarm that
+the out-settlers fled for protection to the fort called
+Cralo, erected on the Patroon's farm at Greenbush, where
+they held night and day regular watch."</p>
+
+<p>A year later, in 1664, at the time when the juvenile
+betrothal of Tekakwitha, already mentioned, took place
+at Gandawague,&mdash;that having occurred, as we are
+told, when she was eight years old,&mdash;an entirely new
+order of things was brought about in the Dutch colony.
+The new settlement of Arent van Corlaer at Schenectady,
+the house where her uncle traded at Fort Orange,
+and the hamlet of Beverwyck, together with the whole of
+the New Netherlands, passed over into the hands of the
+English. Henceforth, instead of appealing to their High
+Mightinesses the Lords States General of Holland for
+redress of grievances, the settlers of the State of New
+York were to bow to the decisions of his Majesty King
+Charles II., who then sat securely on the throne of England,
+four years having elapsed since the downfall of the
+Commonwealth.</p>
+
+<p>This change in the colony from Dutch to English
+rule was accomplished quietly and peaceably, to the great
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span>
+disgust and indignation of the warlike governor, Peter
+Stuyvesant, who was ready to buckle on his heavy
+armor, take up his sword, and fight the "malignant
+English," were they as ten to one. But the settlers
+were matter-of-fact farmers and traders, lovers of peace,
+caring little for glory and not overmuch for their far-away
+fatherland. So long as their commercial, domestic,
+and religious rights were respected, they were willing
+enough to do homage to King Charles. So in 1664,
+New Amsterdam, into whose harbor, said a boastful inhabitant,
+as many as fifteen vessels were known to have
+anchored in the course of one year, became New York,
+taking its name from the title of the king's brother,
+afterward James II. Beverwyck, which had grown up
+under the guns of Fort Orange, was henceforth to be
+called Albany; and an English governor took the reins
+of colonial government from the hands of Peter Stuyvesant.
+The British flag floated gayly over fort and
+vessel, and before many years had passed it was found
+necessary to employ an English schoolmaster in Albany,
+and later to build an English church<a name="FNanchor_27_27" id="FNanchor_27_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a> on Joncaer Street.</p>
+
+<p class="bigfoot">When young Pieter Schuyler was still learning his
+lessons in Dutch at Fort Orange, and the little Tekakwitha
+was stringing her wampum beads at Gandawague,&mdash;while
+her uncle journeyed frequently back and
+forth from the Mohawk castle to the trading-post on the
+Hudson, stopping sometimes at Schenectady to see his
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span>
+friend Corlaer, and taking his family with him now
+and then to fish at the mouth of the Norman's Kill
+(near the place called Tawasentha<a name="FNanchor_28_28" id="FNanchor_28_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a>),&mdash;unsuspected preparations
+for a surprise were going forward in Canada.
+A war-cloud was gathering in the north, soon to break
+with terrible effect on the three Mohawk castles, and to
+startle the Governor of the Province of New York into
+a protest against the advance of armed troops of King
+Louis XIV. of France into the colonial dominions of his
+Majesty Charles II. of England. These dominions had
+been so recently acquired by the English King that the
+French at Quebec thought they still belonged to the
+States General of Holland.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes center"><br />FOOTNOTES:
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_19_19" id="Footnote_19_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> Corlaer, or Van Curler, a brave and worthy man, was the most
+influential settler at Schenectady, and on excellent terms with the Mohawk
+Indians. He had visited them in 1642, on purpose to secure, if
+possible, the ransom of Father Jogues, and had manifested great sympathy
+for him in his captivity.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_20_20" id="Footnote_20_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> See Annals of Albany, vol. i. p. 288. The dominie's house here
+mentioned has since given place to the shop which is on the north-east
+corner of Pearl and State Streets. The house used by Megapolensis,
+who was at Beverwyck from 1642 to 1649, and who concealed
+Father Jogues from the Indians, was where Shield's tobacco-factory
+now stands, close to the site of old Fort Orange, and a little south of
+it. It was built entirely of oak, and was purchased on the arrival of
+Megapolensis for a hundred and twenty dollars.
+</p><p>
+The patroon's first dominie wearied of his frontier work at Fort
+Orange, and went to live at New Amsterdam in 1649. Dominie
+Schaats was appointed to succeed him in the ministry of the church at
+Beverwyck, where he officiated from 1652 to 1683.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_21_21" id="Footnote_21_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> Fort Orange stood on Broadway, close to the modern steamboat
+landing of the "People's Line." A bi-centennial tablet, surrounded
+with iron pickets, marks its northeast bastion. It extended back (across
+the freight-tracks that now mar its site) to Church Street.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_22_22" id="Footnote_22_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> See O'Callaghan's History of New Netherland, vol. ii.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_23_23" id="Footnote_23_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> Alida married Robert Livingston, who was "secretary of Albany"
+under Pieter Schuyler, the first mayor; she was the great-grandmother
+of Robert R. Livingston, the first Chancellor of New York State.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_24_24" id="Footnote_24_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> This creek, with its ravine, has entirely disappeared in the grading
+of the modern street.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_25_25" id="Footnote_25_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> The dialogue here given is from Mrs. Grant's "Memoirs of
+American Lady." Mrs. Grant describes a later period of Albany history;
+but the way of trading with the Indians was about the same
+her day as at the time of Tekakwitha.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_26_26" id="Footnote_26_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> "The Indians have a great contempt, comparatively, for the beads
+we send them, which they consider as only fit for those plebeians who
+cannot by their exertions win anything better. They estimate them,
+compared with their own wampum, as we do pearls compared with
+paste."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_27_27" id="Footnote_27_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> This first English church was not far from the spot where St.
+Peter's Episcopal Church, on State Street, now uprears its beautiful
+square tower with projecting gargoyles. The original structure, however,
+stood out in the centre of the street, while the site of the present
+church was occupied by the earthworks and buildings of the second
+fort.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_28_28" id="Footnote_28_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> See <a href="#APPENDIX_C">Appendix, Note C</a>.</p>
+<br /></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER VI.</h2>
+
+<p class="centerc"><b>AN ARMY ON SNOW-SHOES.</b></p>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">T</span>HE year 1666 was, indeed, an eventful one. It
+opened with a heavy snow-storm, and others followed
+until the whole Mohawk Valley was covered
+with a depth of feathery whiteness. At its eastern end
+a dark pool lay at the foot of Cohoes Falls, where the
+frosty spray of the roaring cataract glistened on every
+tiny bush, and the black cliffs on either side frowned
+from under their snowy caps at the silent meeting of
+two frozen rivers; off to the west, at the distant Mohawk
+castle of Tionnontogen, the "Nose" lay frost-bitten
+at a sudden turn of the valley, its long, stiff
+point thrust down into the ice, and fastened there as if
+held in a vice. Throughout the length of the glittering,
+smooth depression between these two points, the
+Mohawk seemed to be fast asleep beneath its thick
+mantle of snow.</p>
+
+<p>In the whole valley there was only one hamlet of
+quiet Dutchmen, who had settled themselves at Corlaer
+(or Schenectady), while in the great bend were
+nestled the snug bark huts of the Indians with their
+surrounding palisades. A chain of Mohawk castles lay
+on the south side of the river, linked together by a single
+trail,&mdash;a narrow footpath through the snow along the
+lower terrace, which is now occupied by the West Shore
+Railway. This trail connected the lodges of the three<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span>
+great Mohawk clans,&mdash;the Bears of Andagoron in the
+centre, with the Turtles of Gandawague and the Wolves
+of Tionnontogen on either side. Then it extended eastward
+through dreary solitudes to Schenectady and, on
+the other hand, far westward through lonely passes to the
+castles of the Oneidas; thence on to the Onondagas,
+the Cayugas, and, last of all, to the Senecas. How cold
+and yet how secure those Iroquois Indians of the Five
+Nations felt in their fastnesses! For hundreds of miles
+to the north and to the south of them lay the all-covering
+snow, unmarked by other human footprints than
+their own in search of game. The lands of their Algonquin
+foes, though bordering their own domain, were
+long journeys off. The Dutch settlers at Schenectady
+and Albany were right within their grasp, should they
+choose to distress them; but they had solemnly pledged
+their friendship to them in the Tawasentha Valley ("At
+the Place of many Dead"), and they meant to keep their
+word. The French, however, they delighted to torment.
+The settlements at Quebec, Three Rivers, and Montreal
+were separated from the Five Nations by the great pathless
+Adirondack wilderness of mountains and forest, and
+yet two ways were open by which they might reach the
+French. One of their war-paths led from Onondaga
+Lake along the Oswego River and Lake Ontario; then
+through the Thousand Islands and down the rapids of
+the St. Lawrence River. The reverse of this route was
+taken by the venturesome French colonists who, as we
+have seen, endeavored to make a settlement in the heart
+of the Iroquois country about the time of Tekakwitha's
+birth. Their hairbreadth escape from Onondaga soon
+after by the same route put an end to all thought of settling<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span>
+what the French considered a part of New France.
+This was the region now known as Onondaga County,
+which the Onondaga Indians themselves have claimed
+from prehistoric times as their birthright, and hold
+yet under the name of the Onondaga Reservation;
+and here, now, in the heart of this great State, in spite
+of the encroachments of two hundred years of civilization,
+in spite of the teachings of Christianity all about them,
+in spite of the covetous longings of many a white man,
+they still keep a foothold, and maintain the practice of
+their old pagan rites and customs.</p>
+
+<p>The great western route through the Oswego and
+St. Lawrence rivers to Canada, belonging by first right
+to these Onondagas, was travelled many times during
+Tekakwitha's childhood by the Onondaga statesman
+Garacontié. He frequently restored captives to
+the French at Quebec, and tried often but in vain to
+keep peace between them and his own race.</p>
+
+<p>The second and more direct of the two great war-paths
+to Canada was the route of the Mohawks. No
+wonder the Caniengas tormented the French settlements
+on the St. Lawrence. Starting from their castles
+in the Mohawk Valley, and taking any one of
+three or more trails that crossed or skirted our present
+Saratoga County, they had but to strike Lake George,
+follow the lake to its outlet, traverse the length of Lake
+Champlain, and thence pass through the Richelieu, Sorel,
+or Iroquois River (it was known by all these names),
+and they were ready to destroy the grain, and tomahawk
+or take captive the wives and children of the Canadian
+settlers. The French had built three forts on this
+Richelieu (or Iroquois) River to check their inroads,&mdash;Fort<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span>
+Richelieu, Fort St. Louis, and Fort St. Thérèse,&mdash;and
+were now only waiting till spring opened to
+erect a fourth, to be called Fort St. Anne, on an island
+at the northern end of Lake Champlain.</p>
+
+<p>Samuel de Champlain, the first Frenchman who set
+foot on New York soil, was chiefly responsible for the
+long-continued wars between his countrymen and the
+Iroquois, he having fired without provocation on a band
+of Iroquois warriors, probably Mohawks, when he first
+sailed into the lake which bears his name. By repeated
+outrages on the Canadian frontier the Mohawks
+had amply revenged themselves for that first affront;
+and by the end of the year 1665 they had goaded the
+French into a determination to brave unheard of risks
+and frightful sufferings, that they might punish their
+savage enemies in a manner that would for once and
+all humiliate and subdue them. Thus it was that on
+the 9th of January, 1666, a heroic army composed of
+three hundred regular French troops of the regiment
+Carignan-Salières, veterans who had seen service in
+Turkey in the wars of Louis XIV., together with
+two hundred <i>habitans</i>, or hardy volunteers from the
+Canadian colony, all under the command of M. de
+Courselle, Governor of Canada, were fairly started on
+a march from Quebec to the Mohawk castles. They
+intended to push on without delay to their destination
+through snow and ice, over rivers and lakes, by the
+great Mohawk route. It had been travelled hitherto
+only by Indians, captives, and a few missionaries, with
+now and then perhaps a solitary adventurer; rarely,
+indeed, by any even of these in the depth of winter.
+This army of De Courselle's was the very first of a great<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span>
+succession of pale-face armies that have come tramping
+over the same route during the last two centuries. If
+Burgoyne's march to the Saratoga battle-field was the
+most famous of all these, De Courselle's march to the
+Mohawk was certainly the first and the most heroic in
+its struggle with unparalleled difficulties.</p>
+
+<p>"This march could not but be tedious, every one
+having snow-shoes on his feet, to the use of which none
+were accustomed; and all, not excepting the officers or
+even M. de Courselle himself, being loaded each with
+from twenty-five to thirty pounds of biscuit, clothing,
+and other necessaries."<a name="FNanchor_29_29" id="FNanchor_29_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a> It did, indeed, require a <i>French
+courage</i> to undertake such an expedition. "Many had,
+as early as the third day, parts of the body frozen,
+and were so benumbed by the cold that they had to
+be carried to the place where they were to pass the
+night." The 25th of January was especially severe, and
+many soldiers were obliged to be taken back to the
+settlements, "of whom some had the legs cut by the
+ice, and others the hands or the arms or other parts of
+the body altogether frozen." The ranks were filled up
+again at Forts St. Louis and St. Thérèse, on the Richelieu
+River, where the troops assembled on the 30th of
+the same month; and being still five hundred strong,
+they pushed bravely on over the snow that lay so
+level and smooth on the frozen bosom of Lake Champlain.
+Here the route lay plainly before them, and
+they were counting on Algonquin guides to show them
+the way to the Mohawk castles after they got to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span>
+southern end of Lake St. Sacrament (Lake George).
+The snow was "hard frozen, though in most places four
+foote deep; and besides using Indian snow-shoes, which
+hath the very form of a Rackett tyed to each foote,
+whereby the body and feet are kept from sinking into
+the snow, ... the Governor caused slight sledges to be
+made in good number, and laying provisions upon them
+drew them over the snow with mastive doggs."</p>
+
+<p>The shivering troops wrapped their blankets tightly
+round them as they lay down to sleep on the snow at
+the foot of Mount Defiance, or threaded the narrow valley
+leading to Lake George. The awkward soldier striding
+over the snow fumbles with frost-bitten fingers in
+his knapsack for the last of his biscuits. As one might
+have foretold, he has stepped on the snow-shoe of his
+comrade, and both go plunging head-foremost into the
+snow. The dogs jogging on beside them, unchecked for
+a moment, run wildly on, barking aloud and scattering
+the load of the toboggan to which they are attached.
+The articles are rescued piecemeal by the soldiers all
+along the line. There is no time to stop, however,&mdash;they
+must march on or starve; so, giving their fallen
+comrades momentary help to set them on their feet
+again, they are left to fall into line as best they may
+and just in time to bring up the rear.</p>
+
+<p>As the army passes over Lake George, in the shadow
+of Black Mountain, how eagerly De Courselle looks back
+at his staggering column of men! Were he in a less
+serious mood, he might be inclined to smile at the
+efforts of the gallant troops of the regiment Carignan-Salières
+to maintain an orderly march on the unaccustomed
+snow-shoes; but the anxious commander has<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span>
+other thoughts than these. Where are his Algonquin
+guides? Have the rascals failed him? Calling the
+Jesuit chaplain, Father Raffeix, to his side, a consultation
+ensues. They are already nearing the future site
+of Fort William Henry, and there the trails divide.
+They scan the shores of the lake and search the islands,
+but neither Algonquin friend nor Iroquois foe is in
+sight. They know that if they march on until they
+reach the Hudson and follow it down, they will find
+the Dutch at Fort Orange, but that is not their object.
+They long for a chance to strike a decisive blow at the
+Mohawk castles. If they can once convince the Mohawks
+that they are not secure in their forest homes
+from the armies of France nor the strong revengeful
+arm of Onnontio,<a name="FNanchor_30_30" id="FNanchor_30_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a> a treaty will afterwards be of some
+value. The Jesuit Father who talks with De Courselle
+dreams already of a mission established among them
+as the result of that future treaty. With ardent enthusiasm
+he sees in anticipation an army of Jesuits march
+to a spiritual attack on the citadel of Satan upreared in
+the Iroquois country. His heart thrills at the thought
+of reaching the spot where Isaac Jogues was martyred.
+Father Lemoyne, the second Ondessonk, has died since
+then. The Onondagas that very year sent presents to
+Quebec to wipe away the tears shed for his death, thus
+expressing their sorrow and their admiration for his
+character. Father Raffeix cheers with zealous words
+the drooping spirits of the soldiers, then kneels amid
+the snows of Lake St. Sacrament, and in the true
+spirit of his order, prays in his heart for a share in the
+glorious work of continuing Ondessonk's mission.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span></p>
+<p>The army of De Courselle at the southern end of Lake
+George was uncertain which trail to follow. At the
+Turtle Castle on the Mohawk the Indians had no knowledge
+of the march of their enemies, else there would
+have been great alarm at Gandawague; for all the
+ablest warriors of the three castles, in company with
+the Oneidas, were making war on the tribe called Wampum-makers.
+Only boys and helpless old men were
+left in the lodges with the women. They knew nothing
+of De Courselle and his army so near at hand, but,
+like their Dutch neighbors at Schenectady, were earnestly
+fighting their nearer and more pitiless foe the
+bitter winter. All the fuel near their lodges had been
+burned long ago; and now they are searching the snow-drifts
+for fagots and branches fallen from the trees.
+The cold is intense. The wind that whistles through
+the palisades of the Turtle village is the same sharp
+blast that is pinching De Courselle's army.</p>
+
+<p>At Gandawague, outside of the palisade is a little girl
+on snow-shoes, only nine years old, who with imperfect
+sight is groping her way through the blinding storm.
+The snow is drifting wildly about. The one whom she
+calls mother is only an aunt, and the aunt is cold and
+cross to-day. She sits by the dying embers there in
+the lodge of the absent chief, and by turns she shivers
+and scolds. The other women beside her are equally
+cheerless. The little niece, who has missed the kindly
+look she knows well how to win from her Mohawk
+uncle by welcome services when he is there in the lodge,
+has taken it into her head this comfortless day to surprise
+her cross old aunts and her adopted sister. So
+she has quietly tied on her snow-shoes and ventured<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span>
+out. She is in the forest, alone, searching for fagots.
+On her forehead is a burden-strap, made from filaments
+of bass-wood bark, the ends twisted into a kind of
+Indian rope. With it she fastens the fagots together,
+bearing them on her back. Her hands are tingling
+with cold; but she plunges them deep into the snow in
+an effort to break the larger twigs, while she hurries on
+to increase her load. She is happier now in the howling
+storm than she was in the pent lodge, and smiles
+as she thinks of the blazing fire she will make to warm
+the feet and thaw the heart of her morose old aunt.
+Ah! Tekakwitha, that grim old squaw is training you,
+without knowing it, for heroic things. But after all,
+the aunt is not a neglectful guardian. After a while
+she misses the child, and questions all in the lodge;
+then peers out into the storm and shrinks back, shuddering.
+Has she indeed allowed Tekakwitha to wander
+out and perish in the cold? In that case what will she
+be able to say to the uncle when he returns; what will
+become of her own plans for the girl? As time goes
+on, there comes a faint scuffling at the door; the heavy
+curtain is lifted a little and falls again. No one has
+entered. Hurrying to the door, the old squaw thrusts
+the curtain aside, and there she beholds the child staggering
+under her load of wood, stiff and helpless from
+the cold. Leaving the fagots at the door, she lifts her
+gently in her arms and takes her to the fire, which is
+soon blazing brightly, fed by the new supply of wood
+quickly thrown upon it. But the glow of the fire,
+round which they all gather, is not half so cheering to
+the heart of the frostbitten child as the glow of love
+she has awakened in the lodge by her sweet unselfish<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span>
+care for their comfort. This once, at least, they give
+her the warmest seat, and fill her bowl brimful with the
+freshly made sagamite; then they question her about
+her walk, and wonder how she escaped being buried in
+the snow. Tekakwitha smiles with happy content, and
+answers their questions with a ready wit. She makes
+them laugh as she tells them a merry story of how the
+north-wind slapped her in the face and bound her fast
+to the hickory-tree against which she stumbled in the
+storm. In her heart she is saying all the time, as she
+watches the cheery light of the fire, "I will do it
+again."</p>
+
+<p>But where is De Courselle now and his army on
+snow-shoes? We left them at the southern end of Lake
+George. There they took the trail that met the Hudson
+at its great bend to the southward near Glenn's Falls.
+Then after crossing the river they followed a straight
+trail leading a little west of south, and passed between
+Saratoga Lake and Owl Pond or Lake Lonely. Next
+they followed up the valleys of Kayaderosseras Creek
+and the Mourning Kill to Ballston Lake; but there,
+happily for Tekakwitha's people, they made a mistake.<a name="FNanchor_31_31" id="FNanchor_31_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_31_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a>
+Instead of taking the trail that branched off to the west
+at the northern end of Ballston Lake, and led directly
+to the Mohawk castles, they followed the straight
+trail southward; so instead of surprising the Mohawks,
+they themselves were indeed surprised to find that it
+brought them to a hamlet, not of Indians, but of Dutchmen,&mdash;not
+subjects of Holland at all, but colonists subject
+to England. They were greatly bewildered. We<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span>
+are told in an old London document<a name="FNanchor_32_32" id="FNanchor_32_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_32_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a> at M. de
+Courselle encamped&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"upon the 9th of February within 2 myles of a small village
+called Schonectade, lying in the woods beyond fort Albany
+in ye territoryes of his Royall highness, and 3 dayes march
+from the first castle of the Mohaukes.</p>
+
+<p>"The French suposed they were then come to their designed
+place, and the rather because y<sup>t</sup> evening they did rancounter
+w<sup>th</sup> a party of the Mohaukes who made appearance
+of retreating from the French, whereupon a party of 60 of
+their best Fuzileers after them, but that small party drew
+the French into an ambuscade of neare 200 Mohaukes
+planted behind trees, (who taking their advantage as it fell
+into their hands) at one volley slew eleuen French men
+whereof one was a Lieuten<sup>t</sup> wounded divers others, the
+french party made an honorable retreit to their body,
+w<sup>ch</sup> was marching after them close at hand, w<sup>ch</sup> gave the
+Mohawkes tyme and opportunity to march off w<sup>th</sup> the loss
+of only 3 slaine upon the plaice and 6 wounded, the report
+whereof was soone brought to Schonecktade by those Indians,
+with the heads of 4 of the ffrench to the Commissary
+of the Village who immediately despatched the newes to
+Fort Albany, from whence the next day 3 of the principle
+inhabitants were sent to Monsier Coursell the Governo<sup>r</sup> of
+Canada to inquire of his intention to bring such a body of
+armed men into the dominions of his Ma<sup>tie</sup> of Great Brittaine,
+w<sup>th</sup>out acquainting the Governo<sup>r</sup> of these parts w<sup>th</sup> his designes.
+The Governo<sup>r</sup> reply<sup>d</sup> that he came to seeke out and
+destroy his ennemyes the Mohaukes without intention of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span>visiting their plantations, or else to molest any of his Ma<sup>ties</sup>
+subjects, and that [he] had not heard of the reducing those
+parts to his Ma<sup>ties</sup> obedience, but desired that hee and his
+soldiers might bee supplied with provisions for their money,
+and that his wounded men might be sucoured, and taken
+care for in Albany; To all which the Emissaryes freely
+consented and made a small but acceptable present of wine
+and provisions to him, further offering the best accommodations
+y<sup>e</sup> poore village afforded, w<sup>ch</sup> was civilly refus'd, in
+regard there was not accommodacón for his soldyers, with
+whom he had marcht and campt under the blew canopye of
+the heavens full six weekes, but hee prudently foresaw a
+greater inconvenience if hee brought his weary and half
+starv'd people within the smell of a chimney corner, whom
+hee now could keepe from stragling or running away, not
+knowing whither to runn for feare of y<sup>e</sup> Indians; The next
+day Monsieur Corsell sent his men to the village where
+they were carefully drest and sent to Albany, being seaven
+in number, the Dutch bores carryed to the camp such provisions
+as they had, and were too well payd for it; Especially
+peaz and bread, of w<sup>ch</sup> a good quantity was bought;
+y<sup>e</sup> Mohaukes were all gone to their Castles, with resolution
+to fight it out against the ffrench, who being refresht and
+supplyed w<sup>th</sup> the aforesaid provisions made a shew of marching
+towards the Mohaukes Castles, but with faces about
+and great sylence and dilligence return'd towards Cannada....
+Those who observed the words and countenance of
+Monsieur Coursell, saw him disturbed in minde that the
+king was Master of these parts of the Country, saying that
+the king of England did graspe at all America.... Two
+prisoners taken by the Mohaukes in the retreate tell them
+y<sup>t</sup> this summer another attempt will be made upon their
+country, with a greater force and supplyes of men, the
+truth or success of which I shall not now discourse upon,
+having given the trew relation of what past from ye 29<sup>th</sup>
+December to the 12<sup>th</sup> of February."</p></blockquote>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span></p>
+<p class="bigfoot">Another and larger force did attack the Mohawk
+castles in the year 1666, as hinted at in the lines just
+quoted, but not until late in the autumn; and at that
+time Tekakwitha was disturbed and distressed far more
+than she had been by the misdirected march of the
+"army on snow-shoes."</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes center"><br />FOOTNOTES:
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_29_29" id="Footnote_29_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> See O'Callaghan's "Documentary History of New York," vol. i.
+for papers relating to this expedition of Governor de Courselle to the
+Mohawk River.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_30_30" id="Footnote_30_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_30_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> A name which the Indians gave to the Governor of Canada.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_31_31" id="Footnote_31_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_31_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a> These facts are to be found in a note by Gen. J. S. Clark, given in
+the <a href="#APPENDIX_D">Appendix, Note D</a>, "Mohawk Trails."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_32_32" id="Footnote_32_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_32_32"><span class="label">[32]</span></a> See O'Callaghan's "Documentary History," vol. i., from which
+are quoted all the passages here given referring to De Courselles and
+De Tracy's expeditions.</p><br /></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER VII.</h2>
+
+<p class="center"><b>DE TRACY BURNS THE MOHAWK CASTLES.&mdash;FALL OF
+TIONNONTOGEN.</b></p>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">I</span>N the summer following De Courselle's expedition,
+ten deputies from the nations of the Iroquois
+League met at Quebec, and signed a treaty of peace.
+In addition to strange pictures which were the marks
+of the Indian chiefs, the document bears the signature
+of Daniel de Courselle, Governor of Canada, and that of
+"Lord de Tracy, member of his Majesty's councils and
+Lieutenant-General of his armies both in the Islands
+and mainland of South and North America." The
+treaty is also signed by the Jesuits, Le Mercier and
+Chaumonot, as interpreters of the Iroquois and Huron
+languages. It states that the orator and chief, called
+Soenres, announced "the object of the Embassy by ten
+talks expressed by as many presents," and also that he
+brought letters from the officers of New Netherland.
+The substance of his harangue was that the Indians
+wanted peace, and they asked that blackgowns might
+be sent to teach them. They promised to listen to their
+preaching and to adore the God of the French. They
+also offered to trade with the Canadians by way of Lake
+St. Sacrament, and assured them of a welcome in
+their lodges. What more could be desired? But, alas!
+scarcely were the ambassadors two or three days' journey<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span>
+from Quebec, when news came of the surprisal by
+the Mohawks of some Frenchmen belonging to Fort
+St. Anne who had gone to the chase, and of the murder
+of a captain in the Carignan regiment.</p>
+
+<p>The time for peace had not yet come. The Mohawks
+had not been fairly represented in the embassy; they
+were far from being awed by the fruitless march of
+De Courselle to the Mohawk Valley. The French had
+yet to strike the decisive blow. M. de Tracy resolved,
+"despite his advanced age, to lead in person against
+these Barbarians an army composed of six hundred soldiers
+drafted from all the companies, and of six hundred
+<i>habitans</i> of the country," to which were added one hundred
+Huron and Algonquin savages. This was more than
+twice the number of the original army of De Courselle,
+who, still bent on victory, determined to accompany this
+second expedition. The general rendezvous was at Fort
+St. Anne, newly built, as had been planned, on an island
+in Lake Champlain. On the 3d of October, 1666, all
+were ready to start. Three hundred vessels were there
+to bear them over the placid bosom of the lake, whose
+wooded shores were now aglow with October coloring.
+The vessels were light batteaux and bark canoes, which
+could be carried from lake to lake and from stream to
+stream. There was great difficulty at the carries, however,
+with two small cannon which they took with them
+for the purpose of forcing the Iroquois fortifications.
+Grown wiser by experience, they also made sure of their
+guides.</p>
+
+<p>The expedition moved forward as secretly and
+noiselessly as possible through Lake Champlain and
+then Lake George; but the quick eye of an Iroquois<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span>
+hunter, high on a mountain, espied the fleet of batteaux
+on the lake, and bounding through the forest to the first,
+or Turtle, castle on the Mohawk, his cry of alarm startled
+the people of Gandawague, and Tekakwitha among
+the rest, from their accustomed occupations. Hastily
+gathering together their treasures, they fled at once
+to Andagoron, the Castle of the Bears. Thence, after
+spreading the alarm through the outlying hamlets and
+holding a hurried consultation, they all retired to Tionnontogen,
+the third, or Castle of the Wolves, hidden behind
+the Nose. There they stored an abundant supply
+of grain, and prepared to defend themselves. This castle
+of Tionnontogen was the strongest of their fortifications.
+It had a triple palisade. The spot where it stood
+can easily be found at the present day. One has but to
+leave the West Shore Railway at Spraker's Basin,&mdash;a
+small station on the south side of the Mohawk River,
+just east of Canajoharie and Palatine Bridge,&mdash;then
+follow a road which winds up the hill to a farm a few
+rods distant, which was owned in 1885 by Mitchell.
+Like the other village-sites, already described, it is on
+high ground, or the upper-river terrace. Near the farm-house
+is a large spring, surrounded by shade-trees, in the
+centre of a meadow. It is now frequented principally
+by thirsty cows; but it was once the chief water-supply
+of the Mohawk castle. Behind the house is a perfectly
+level plateau; from it the land descends on its northern
+side by steep terraces to the Mohawk, and to the west
+it sinks rapidly into a picturesque ravine, where strawberries,
+wintergreen berries, rare ferns, and little pink
+flowers grow in abundance. Flat Creek flows through
+the ravine. On this plateau many iron hatchets and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span>
+wagon-loads of Indian relics of various kinds have been
+found.<a name="FNanchor_33_33" id="FNanchor_33_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_33_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a></p>
+
+<p>There the castle of Tionnontogen stood at the time
+of De Tracy's expedition. The view up the river at
+that point is extensive and beautiful; but in the opposite
+direction, or down the river, a sharp turn of the
+valley shuts out from sight the narrow opening or pass
+between the Nose and the other similar mountain on
+the south side of the river, which, as one travels round
+the bend, seems to approach and finally to overlap it.
+The name of the castle was significant,&mdash;Tionnontogen,
+or "Two Mountains approaching." Where else could it
+possibly have been in the whole valley but right there
+by the Nose? Their friends, the Oneidas, lay to the
+westward of them, and their enemies mostly to the eastward;
+it was but natural, then, that they should build
+their principal fort far enough up the river to bring it
+behind the overlapping mountains. In order to reach
+Tionnontogen the army of De Tracy had to come through
+that narrow pass. The people who were lying in wait
+at the castle, though on high ground, would not therefore
+be able to see their enemies approaching till they
+had rounded the Nose, and were close upon them.</p>
+
+<p>After disembarking at the head of the lake, De Tracy
+led his army, by way of an Indian trail, southeasterly
+about nine miles to Glenn's Falls,<a name="FNanchor_34_34" id="FNanchor_34_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_34_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a> where he crossed the
+Hudson, thence passing south of Moreau Pond and east<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span>
+of Mount McGregor, through Doe's Corners, near Stiles
+Hill, and then near Glen Mitchell to Saratoga Springs,
+following substantially the present highway along the
+base of the ridge of hills south of Mount McGregor.
+From Saratoga the expedition passed near Ballston, and
+thence slightly curving seems to have proceeded in a
+very direct course to the Mohawk castles, which lay off to
+the westward. One of the trails leading in that direction
+struck the Mohawk River at Kinaquariones, or Hoffman's
+Ferry, and another at Amsterdam. From this latter
+point, a short march up the Mohawk Valley brought De
+Tracy to Gandawague. One after another, he captured
+the deserted towns of the Mohawks without striking
+a single blow. First Gandawague, then Andagoron,&mdash;both
+on the south side of the river,&mdash;with possibly one
+or more smaller towns, fell into his hands; and on he
+went to Tionnontogen, marching proudly up the valley
+with his two cannon, brought with such difficulty from
+Canada, and his Algonquin allies, who had faithfully
+guided him into the very heart of the Mohawk country,
+and his brave army of twelve hundred picked men,
+armed <i>cap-a-pie</i> in all the panoply of civilized warfare.
+Never before was anything like it seen in that wild
+region. Only three or four hundred Mohawk warriors,
+all told, were gathered behind the palisades of Tionnontogen
+to oppose him. There was no time to summon
+their allies, the Oneidas, to their assistance. The movements
+of the French had been too rapid. They had
+only time to crowd together the women and children
+into their strongest fortress of defence, and there await
+the result, whatever it might be.</p>
+
+<p>Could the Mohawks soon forget the ruin that the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span>
+French soldiers wrought on their way from Gandawague?
+Even the child Tekakwitha must have been stirred with
+a feeling of indignation and a cruel sense of wrong, as
+that foreign army came nearer and nearer to her place of
+refuge, moving steadily on through her own fair valley,
+with a march like the march of fate,&mdash;destroying all
+that came in its way, wreaking its vengeance on corn-field
+and cabin, in baffled fury at finding no foe to slay.
+With ever increasing horror and anxious bewilderment,
+she watched and waited with her people in the castle of
+Tionnontogen. Her uncle and all the Canienga warriors
+had staked everything they possessed on its defence.
+They had stored their provisions for the winter carefully
+away inside of its stout palisade. It was, as already
+mentioned, a triple palisade, twenty feet in height,
+and flanked by four bastions; that is to say, there were
+three distinct rows of upright posts encircling the town.
+<a name="FNanchor_35_35" id="FNanchor_35_35"></a>
+<a href="#Footnote_35_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a>
+The main or central wall of thick-set overlapping palisadoes
+had an inner and an outer platform, or scaffolding,
+near the top, running all the way round. These platforms,
+being nineteen or twenty feet above the ground,
+extended horizontally from the central to the inner and
+outer walls of palisadoes. The latter were higher, and not
+so compact as the central wall. These outside palisadoes,
+reaching almost to a man's height above the platform,
+were set short spaces apart, and covered near the top
+with a solid surface of thick bark. This protected the
+warriors when they stood high on the outer platform to
+fire their guns and aim their arrows at the enemy over
+the top of this bark breastwork. Just behind them, on
+the inner and adjoining platform, were numerous bark<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span>
+tanks containing an abundant supply of water to be used
+in extinguishing any fire that might be started at the
+base of the palisade. This was the form of attack they
+most dreaded. To make the approach more difficult,
+they also dug trenches between the walls of palisadoes,
+and especially on the outer side, heaping up the
+earth at the base of the fortifications. Then, too, before
+the enemy could get at the palisade at all, they had
+to break through a low bark fence which stood some
+distance outside of the triple wall, built there for the
+purpose of breaking the force of an attack. If the foe
+succeeded in starting a fire at the base of the main wall,
+a flood of water was poured down at once through holes
+in the high platform by the warriors who were defending
+the castle. In cases of this kind the women assisted
+by keeping up the supply of water. Such were the
+methods of defence in use at Tionnontogen in 1666.
+They had proved effectual against all the efforts of savage
+foes. But let us see if they prove equally so against
+the skilful man&oelig;uvres of De Tracy's civilized army,
+now close at hand? Tekakwitha's uncle may have had
+his doubts as to this; but nevertheless the bark tanks
+were well filled, and all was made ready to give the foe
+a defiant reception. The warriors were in fighting gear,
+and hourly waiting the attack.</p>
+
+<p>It was just at this time that several Indian captives
+of other tribes held by these Mohawks were brought out
+to be tortured and burned with solemn rites in the public
+square of Tionnontogen; thus they hoped to propitiate
+their war-god, Aireskoi. Tekakwitha would not on
+any account show herself during this ceremony, as she
+never had the cruel spirit which the savage women<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span>
+often showed. Chauchetière tells us that she could
+not endure to see harm done to any one, and that she
+thought it a sin to go to see a man burned.</p>
+
+<p>This heathen rite was scarcely over, when the women
+and children were suddenly withdrawn from Tionnontogen
+Castle; a council of war, it seems, had changed the
+plans of the braves. Those who could not fight were
+hurried off to the higher hills behind the fortified
+plateau, and concealed in the woods; the warriors alone
+remained in the town. As the advancing army of De
+Tracy came within reach of their bullets and arrows,
+they kept up a sharp fire from the palisade; but they
+no sooner saw the French soldiers deliberately pause,
+plant their cannon, and prepare to attack their wooden
+castle in regular form, than the utter hopelessness of the
+contest dawned fully upon them. Without waiting to
+receive the opening fire of the French cannon, they
+quickly deserted their primitive fortifications, leaving
+behind them a few helpless old men who did not wish
+to move and the half-roasted victims of the demon's
+sacrifice. De Tracy lost no time in taking possession
+of this last stronghold of the Canienga nation; without
+loss of life he and his army entered Tionnontogen
+Castle in triumph.</p>
+
+<p>The child Tekakwitha, concealed in the forest near
+at hand, must have heard the solemn swell of the
+<i>Te Deum</i> as it rose with one accord, full, rich, and
+clear, from the ranks of the conquering army. Never
+before had she heard that strange, sweet chorus of
+sound. The Mohawk Valley had often echoed with
+the war-whoop and the shriek of the tortured captive;
+it had rung at times with the harvest-song, and had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span>
+caught up the wailing chant of the League over many
+a dead chief's body. But the solemn music of the <i>Te
+Deum</i> which now reached her ears was unlike any of
+these, and the tall cross that the soldiers of France
+raised over the ashes of Aireskoi's fire in the public
+square of Tionnontogen cast unfamiliar shadows on the
+long Mohawk cabins clustered silent and empty within
+the triple wall. Father Raffeix, the chaplain, said Mass
+there, thinking perhaps of Isaac Jogues, and praying for
+the heathen Indians who were hiding in the forest.
+He did not then know how soon the rustic chapel
+of St. Mary of the Mohawks would be standing there
+with open door to welcome them to prayer. While this
+first Mass was being said at Tionnontogen, the Mohawk
+warriors, moody and sullen, were gathered near their
+families. A low and mournful wail from the women
+called the attention of all to the blazing palisades of
+Tionnontogen. The crackling fire kindled by their enemies
+lit up with a lurid glare the now retiring army of
+De Tracy, for he speedily retraced his steps, and was
+soon hidden from view behind the mountains at the
+Nose. As he moved on down the valley whence he
+came, the armor of his twelve hundred men flashed
+back again and again the blaze of a ruined Mohawk
+town; all their castles were burned. At the "Fort of
+Andaraque,"&mdash;to use the words of an old document
+(probably meaning Gandawague),&mdash;De Tracy paused
+on the 17th of October to take solemn possession
+of the conquered country in the name of the King of
+France. In token thereof, he planted another cross,
+and near it a post, to which he affixed the arms of
+Louis XIV. Tekakwitha, with her aunts and her mother's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span>
+friend Tegonhatsihongo, must have seen these emblems
+at the door of the smoking palisade when they went
+back to find what was left of their blackened lodges on
+the bank of Auries Creek.</p>
+
+<p class="bigfoot">De Tracy, the gray-haired conqueror, now returned
+to Canada; and the unhappy Mohawks, in straggling
+bands, sought out their desolated homes,&mdash;secure in life
+and limb, to be sure, but bereft of all provisions for the
+winter. No golden ears of corn hung, as usual, from
+their lodge-poles. They had no furs, no beans, no nut-oil.
+They were forced to live in temporary huts, and
+to wait in hunger and cold for the coming of the spring-time.
+Thus, in sorrow and destitution, Tekakwitha
+passed a dreary winter among the ruins of Gandawague,
+doing her best as usual to put things in order. During
+this time she lived on what roots and berries could
+be found, and a scant allowance of the game her uncle
+caught. Spring came at last; and a busy one it was for
+the houseless Mohawks. With the genial warmth that
+quickly followed, there came also a strange, new gleam
+of light to the young Tekakwitha.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes center"><br />FOOTNOTES:
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_33_33" id="Footnote_33_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_33_33"><span class="label">[33]</span></a> The most interesting of these are in the collection of Mr. Frey, of
+Palatine Bridge.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_34_34" id="Footnote_34_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_34_34"><span class="label">[34]</span></a> The march of De Tracy as here given was traced out by General
+Clark from a copy which he has of a map relating to the expeditions of
+De Tracy and De Courselle. The original map is preserved in the Paris
+archives.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_35_35" id="Footnote_35_35"></a>
+<a href="#FNanchor_35_35"><span class="label">[35]</span></a>
+See <a href="#APPENDIX_E">Appendix, Note E</a>, "Indian Defensive Works."</p><br /></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER VIII.</h2>
+
+<p class="centerc"><b>TEKAKWITHA'S CHRISTIAN GUESTS.&mdash;RAWENNIIO.</b></p>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">T</span>HE year 1667 found Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas,
+Cayugas, and Senecas at peace with the
+Canadian settlers. This blessed peace crowned with success
+the persevering efforts of Garacontié, and brought
+the long-deferred answer to the prayer of Tekakwitha's
+mother. Onnontio was appeased; Frenchmen and Iroquois
+could now clasp hands, and the lovers of peace on
+either side&mdash;an ever increasing party&mdash;came boldly forward,
+asserting their claim to be heard, and holding all
+turbulent spirits in check. There was nothing to be lost,
+and much to be gained on both sides by peace. The
+French could now increase their trade, and the Iroquois
+were glad once more to turn their arms against aggressive
+Indian neighbors. The Mohegans, or Loups, on
+the Hudson, uniting with those of New England, were
+growing haughty and insolent to the Mohawk people,
+making raids on their hunting-grounds, and taking advantage
+of their temporary distress to settle old scores;
+this trouble, however, was still a side issue. It caused
+just uneasiness enough to make the Mohawks anxious
+for the speedy return of their deputies from Quebec,
+with full assurance of a permanent peace with the
+French. All through the spring of 1667, Tekakwitha's
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span>
+people were clearing new corn-fields on the north side
+of the Mohawk, and choosing new sites for their castles.
+Tionnontogen, the capital, claiming their first share of
+attention, was hastily rebuilt higher up the river and
+still on the south side, being now a quarter of a league
+from its old site. The populations of Gandawague and
+Andagoron were divided; some remained at the old
+half-ruined castles, and others moved across the river as
+rapidly as they could build cabins for themselves. This
+they began to do "after the bark would peel;"<a name="FNanchor_36_36" id="FNanchor_36_36"></a><a href="#Footnote_36_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a> that is,
+as soon as the season was far enough advanced for them
+to make use of that all-important material, in the use of
+which they were so expert. The task of building a
+palisaded Indian castle was slow and tedious,&mdash;the work
+of many long months, with their primitive methods.
+While they were in this transition state, the Mohawk
+deputies, having agreed on the terms of peace, returned
+from Quebec. They left that city in July, 1667, accompanied
+by three Jesuit Fathers.</p>
+
+<p>The story of the Jesuit Father and his work crowds
+the pages of our early history. Wherever the red man
+plays an important part, there close at hand is the blackgown
+with his crucifix and his works on the Indian language,&mdash;becoming
+a linguist that he may make known
+to the Indian, whatever his tribe, the "good tidings of
+great joy;" using the artist's brush that he may in some
+way represent to his neophytes the Christ; even taxing
+his ingenuity in the invention of games by means of
+which to hold the attention of the savages and teach
+them the simplest laws of morality; striving always to
+lead them step by step to a better understanding of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span>
+the duties of a Christian life. Such were the men now
+on their way to the Mohawk from Quebec.</p>
+
+<p>Earnest, zealous, with a firm determination to overcome
+all the obstacles before them in their spiritual
+combat with the demons of paganism, came the three
+Fathers, Fremin, Bruyas, and Pierron, with the Mohawk
+deputies. They had been chosen by the French authorities
+from the ever ready ranks of Jesuit volunteers, who
+never lost an opportunity to gain the ear of the red
+man. Already they had acquired some knowledge of
+the language; Father Fremin, of the three, understood
+it best. Then, too, it was well known by all that the
+presence of French blackgowns in the Iroquois country,
+sent by the Governor of Canada, would be in itself a
+guarantee of peace. They were made the bearers of
+presents to insure them a welcome in the Mohawk
+lodges. On their journey to the castles they were
+delayed for a time by reports that the forest was alive
+with Mohegan war-parties; but when, in course of time,
+they did fall in with a band of warriors, it turned out to
+be a scouting-party of Mohawks, who, alarmed by the
+long absence of their deputies, began to suspect another
+French invasion. They were therefore well pleased to
+see the missionaries, and willingly led them from the
+vicinity of Lake George to the northern bank of the
+Mohawk. There they crossed the river in canoes, probably
+from the place now occupied by the De Graff house.
+Above them, on the crest of a hill, stood all that was
+left of Gandawague, the Turtle Castle, where Tekakwitha
+and her uncle the chief still dwelt. They had
+not yet moved to the new site "at the Rapids," near
+Fonda. The three French guests of the nation were<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span>
+conducted up the steep ascent to the town with great
+formality and many ceremonies of welcome, not with
+the strokes of iron rods and the bitter taunts with which
+some of these same old men and women when in their
+prime had received Father Jogues at their former castle
+of Ossernenon, a little more than twenty years before.
+But why were not Fathers Fremin, Bruyas, and Pierron
+at once conducted up the valley to be welcomed by the
+Bears, and thence on to the westward to be lodged in
+state by the Wolves at Tionnontogen, the capital, as had
+invariably been the custom of the Caniengas in receiving
+distinguished guests, or even important captives? The
+answer that history gives is simple enough. The Fathers
+"happened to arrive at a time when these people are
+accustomed to plunge into all kinds of debauchery, and
+found no one, therefore, in a fit state to receive them."
+A drunken riot of several days' duration was going on
+within the newly built palisades of Tionnontogen. The
+Mohawks had chosen to celebrate in that way their
+returning prosperity.</p>
+
+<p>So the Fathers were detained three days in the lodge of
+Tekakwitha's uncle at the Turtle Castle. Chauchetière
+and Cholenec, and all who have written of Tekakwitha
+find in this seemingly simple incident only one of many
+mystic links that make up the chain of her Christian
+life,&mdash;a sure effect of a potent cause,&mdash;the all-conquering
+love of the Spirit of God reaching toward its spirit-child,
+though clothed in the humble form of an Indian
+girl. Unknown, and therefore as yet unloved by her,
+the Great Father and Source of our spirit natures saw
+"His own image and likeness" expanding pure and fair
+in the untaught soul of Tekakwitha. All-knowing, all-powerful,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span>
+planning the course of events without effort, He
+chose the surest way and the aptest time to make Himself
+known, thus securing at once the answer of love that
+was destined to lift and shield from all blemish this
+wondrous opening "Lily." He sent His messengers
+into the Mohawk Valley when Tekakwitha alone of her
+nation was ready and fit to receive them. Hers, then,
+was the privilege of lodging and entertaining them.</p>
+
+<p>At that time the Iroquois were thorough pagans, and
+practised a species of devil-worship. They believed in
+Tharonyawagon, the "Holder of the Heavens," a good
+genius of the Kanonsionni, who bestowed on them their
+hunting-grounds and fisheries,&mdash;a harmless deity, to
+whom they were grateful in a vague way for past favors;
+but they do not seem to have worshipped him with any
+formality. They reserved their sacrifices and solemn
+rites for Aireskoi, a demon of war, whom they greatly
+feared. Hiawatha, the "Wampum-Seeker,"<a name="FNanchor_37_37" id="FNanchor_37_37"></a><a href="#Footnote_37_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a> though
+sometimes confused with Tharonyawagon, was undoubtedly
+a real personage. He was one of the founders of
+the Iroquois League of Nations, which is called to this
+day the "Great Peace." He is said to have lived about
+fifty years, as nearly as can be reckoned, before the
+earliest white settlers came to America. His aspirations
+and his teachings prepared the Iroquois to some extent
+for the reception of Christian ideas, but the original
+teachings of Hiawatha seem to have been very soon<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span>
+distorted and strangely mingled with myths. The League
+of Nations which he labored to establish, with the grand
+idea of eventually uniting all men in a common bond
+of brotherhood and peace, became on the contrary, in
+the hands of the Iroquois chiefs who followed him, a
+great engine of war, crushing all tribes that refused to
+come under its laws. Just enough of its original spirit
+remained to cause the Iroquois thoroughly to incorporate
+and make one with themselves the captives of all
+those peoples whose separate existence they destroyed.
+Tharonyawagon, Aireskoi, and Hiawatha were all
+familiar words in the ears of the Mohawk girl. But
+Rawenniio, the true God<a name="FNanchor_38_38" id="FNanchor_38_38"></a><a href="#Footnote_38_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a> was still unknown to her.</p>
+
+<p>Charlevoix, the learned author of the "History of New
+France," who wrote an account of Kateri Tekakwitha
+about the year 1732, after mentioning the fact that
+"as soon as she was able to work she undertook the
+entire charge of the household," continues thus:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"The first knowledge she received of Christianity was
+given her by the Jesuit missionaries who were sent to the
+Iroquois nations by M. de Tracy. They passed on their way
+through the town where she lived, and lodged in her cabin.
+She was charged with their entertainment, of which she
+acquitted herself in a manner which surprised them. She
+had herself been struck at the sight of them, and felt in her
+heart strange sentiments.... The fervor and recollectedness
+of these Jesuit Fathers at their prayers inspired her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span>
+with the desire to pray with them; this desire she expressed
+to them; indeed they quickly divined it from her actions,
+and instructed her in the great truths of Christianity as
+well as their short stay in the town permitted, and quitted
+her with a regret fully reciprocated on her part."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>There are those, as we have said, who believe that the
+prayer of Tekakwitha's dying mother had guided the
+steps of these missionaries straight to the lodge of her
+child, and left them there three days to be waited on
+and cared for by the shy but capable little Mohawk
+housekeeper, the niece of the chief at Gandawague.
+His people, as we already know, were away on a debauch
+at Tionnontogen,&mdash;a revel too disgraceful for the
+admission of guests whom they wished to honor. The
+Mohawks must have been hard pushed indeed when
+they handed over the envoys of the Canadian Governor
+whom they were anxious just then to conciliate,
+to the care of a mere child, even though she were high
+in rank; but Tekakwitha's uncle knew she could be
+trusted to do her part well. How well she did it Cholenec
+tells us in the following words:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"She was charged with the task of lodging the missionaries
+and attending to their wants. The modesty and sweetness
+with which she acquitted herself of this duty touched
+her new guests; while she on her part was struck with their
+affable manners, their regularity in prayer, and the other
+exercises into which they divided the day."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Had they remained longer in the village, she would
+probably have asked for baptism.</p>
+
+<p>As it was, she stole silently out of the lodge in the
+dusk of evening to bring water for the simple Indian<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span>
+repast she was preparing for her guests, and all the
+while her thought was alive with God,&mdash;the God she
+had never known, the God of the pale-face and of the
+Mohawk as well (for this much they had told her in
+their broken utterance of her own language); he was
+the God, too, of their Mohegan enemies. Here, indeed,
+was a new idea to the Mohawk girl. She had heard
+her people mention the God of the French, no doubt,
+and had wondered if he were kind like Tharonyawagon
+or cruel like Aireskoi; but this God whom the blackgowns
+told her of, was not <i>their</i> Lord and "Master of
+Life" any more than <i>hers</i>. He was the God of all men,
+whether they worshipped him or not,&mdash;of pale-face and
+redskin, of Mohawk and Mohegan. He loved them all
+with a father's love,&mdash;alas! Tekakwitha knew what
+that meant, if only from observation and from the very
+lack of it in her own life. This Rawenniio, this true
+God, was everywhere; he could hear the whispered
+prayer of the blackgown there in the lodge, and he
+could speak to her inmost heart even if she were quite
+alone in the forest. How she was stirred at the thought!
+"Will he speak to me now?" she said. "Does he know
+I am thinking of him?" She stopped at the foot of a
+great tree, poising her jug on her shoulder, and listened
+with innocent simplicity. "God of the blackgown! God
+of my mother! Rawenniio!" was the cry of her heart,&mdash;"speak
+to me, here in the forest,&mdash;speak to me, if it is
+true what the blackgown says!" Lifting her hand and
+her eyes, she looked up through the branches of the
+giant tree, far beyond what her dim eyes saw, far as
+her simple thought could reach; and though Tekakwitha
+heard no audible voice in the forest answering<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span>
+to her new-found cry, there was a dim but rapturous
+hope in her heart, cheering with happy omen her budding
+faith and her growing love for something more
+than the world of Tharonyawagon could give her,&mdash;something
+more than fruitful corn-fields, sunshine on
+the running water of the Mohawks, a strong, true brave
+to love her, and the Happy Hunting-Grounds beyond.
+They could not be much fairer, after all, than were the
+hunting-grounds of her nation at Saratoga, where Father
+Jogues had cut a cross deep into the bark of a tree,
+and had almost perished with hunger because he would
+not eat the meat that was offered to Aireskoi. Tekakwitha
+was not long in choosing between Aireskoi and
+Rawenniio.</p>
+
+<p>While her mind was dwelling on such thoughts
+as these, she must have sought out the ravine near
+the Turtle Village where Isaac Jogues had buried his
+friend Réné Goupil. This young martyr was killed, as
+we have said, for making the sign of the cross on an
+Indian child. She may have knelt to pray on the very
+spot where Jogues himself was tomahawked at the door
+of the Bear Chief's deserted lodge. There she could ask
+Rawenniio most fervently for strength of will to follow
+the gleam of light that beckoned to her. The Mohawks
+of Gandawague had not forgotten these places so near
+at hand, nor how it had all happened. The Fathers
+Fremin, Bruyas, and Pierron, during their stay in the
+lodge with Tekakwitha, thought often of Jogues, and
+must have mentioned his name in her presence, as they
+afterwards did in their journal;<a name="FNanchor_39_39" id="FNanchor_39_39"></a><a href="#Footnote_39_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a> then, to be sure,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span>
+Tegonhatsihongo would know of the murdered blackgown,
+so Tekakwitha could not fail to learn his story. She
+probably knew it already, but she thought of it now
+as she never had done before. Surely that first of the
+blackgowns who came to their village had something
+important to tell them. Why else had he laid down
+his life by coming among them a second and even a
+third time after his cruel captivity? Why else had he
+exerted himself to learn their language? The voice of
+Ondessonk's blood cried out to her from the ground, and
+besought her to hear what these others said who came
+to her now with his name on their lips, and the name
+of a greater than he,&mdash;of the One who was nailed to a
+cross, whose image they carried. A host of questions
+rose to her lips when she saw them again, but she had
+neither time nor courage to utter them. Only three
+days, and the blackgowns were gone. Tekakwitha was
+left alone once more with her aunts and her uncle, who
+had received these guests not from love, but policy.</p>
+
+<p>During their short visit an alarming incident had occurred.
+A band of Mohegans, dashing down upon the
+village, had scalped a wretched squaw at the very gates.
+"Fremin was one of the first to hasten to her, eager to
+save a soul where life was in so great peril; but she
+spurned his offers. Four times she turned away in
+scorn;" but the patient zeal of the missionary won her
+at last, and she died a Christian.</p>
+
+<p class="bigfoot">There was another squaw in the town who had asked
+for baptism, an Iroquois woman of rank. We are not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span>
+told whether this was Tegonhatsihongo, or some other,
+though we know that she did in time become a Christian.
+To test this woman's sincerity, Father Fremin
+gave her the thankless, unpopular task of calling to
+prayer, with a little bell, the Huron and Algonquin
+captives at Gandawague, who were already Christians.
+She did not shrink from this ordeal, but still her baptism
+was deferred till the missionaries should finish
+their embassy and return again to the town. In the
+mean time she wearied of their prolonged delay, and followed
+them to Tionnontogen, gaining from them there
+the necessary instruction for receiving the sacrament.
+The young Tekakwitha, on the contrary, either through
+natural timidity or by the express command of her
+uncle (we know not which, most likely both), waited
+with sealed lips for eight long years. During all that
+time she gave no sign or token, that has ever been recorded,
+of a wish to become a Christian; and yet the
+missionaries thenceforth were at work continuously in
+one or another of the Mohawk villages. Let us, then,
+follow the hurrying course of events in which the life
+of Tekakwitha was involved during these eight years
+of dim but dawning light, not forgetting that the seed
+which the Fathers had scattered in passing lay hidden
+yet treasured deep in the innermost heart of the Mohawk
+maiden.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes center"><br />FOOTNOTES:
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_36_36" id="Footnote_36_36"></a>
+<a href="#FNanchor_36_36"><span class="label">[36]</span></a>
+See <a href="#APPENDIX">Appendix, Note A</a>, Letter of June 29, 1885.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_37_37" id="Footnote_37_37"></a><a href="#FNanchor_37_37"><span class="label">[37]</span></a> Or "Peace-Maker," as wampum was the emblem and token of
+peace. For an interesting account of Hiawatha, or Hayenwatha, as
+founder of the League, and for other rare and valuable information concerning
+the people of the Five Nations, see Hale's Iroquois Book of
+Rites.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_38_38" id="Footnote_38_38"></a><a href="#FNanchor_38_38"><span class="label">[38]</span></a> See M. Cuoq's Lexique de la Langue Iroquoise. This word
+"Rawenniio," also written "Hawennyiu," came into use when Christianity
+was first preached among the Iroquois. It is still used by them
+to designate the "Great Spirit," or "Father of all Men." The last
+part of the word, "niio" or "nyiu" (God), is said to be derived from
+the French word "Dieu."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_39_39" id="Footnote_39_39"></a><a href="#FNanchor_39_39"><span class="label">[39]</span></a> See "Early Chapters of Mohawk History," no. xv., by Dr. Hawley,
+of the Cayuga County Historical Society, printed in the "Auburn
+Advertiser," and also to be issued in book form. These "Early Chapters"
+consist chiefly of translations from the Jesuit "Relations," with
+valuable notes and comments.</p><br /></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER IX.</h2>
+
+<p class="centerc"><b>CAUGHNAWAGA ON THE MOHAWK.&mdash;FATHERS FREMIN
+AND PIERRON.</b></p>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">A</span>FTER Tekakwitha had lodged Fathers Fremin,
+Bruyas, and Pierron for three days at Gandawague,
+on the bank of Auries Creek, they went to the
+castle of Tionnontogen, which it must be remembered
+had been hastily rebuilt some little distance west of its
+former site near the Nose, though still on the south
+side of the river. There, when the pagan festival and
+debauchery was over, a grand public reception of these
+ambassadors took place. The people of all the Mohawk
+villages were assembled for the occasion, Tekakwitha
+probably among them. In due time, after a most ceremonious
+welcome, Fremin rose to address them. To
+render his speech to the nation more impressive, he set
+up in their midst a great pole forty or fifty feet in
+height, from the top of which a wampum belt was suspended.
+He then declared, on the part of Onnontio, that
+in like manner would hang the first Iroquois who should
+come to kill a Frenchman or any one of their allies. At
+this all the Mohawks&mdash;men, women, and children&mdash;bowed
+their heads in silent awe, not venturing to look at
+such an extraordinary gift, nor to speak, until the most accomplished
+of their orators, having recovered his senses,
+rose and went through all imaginable mimicries to show<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span>
+his astonishment. As if ignorant of its meaning, he
+gesticulated and declaimed in the liveliest manner,
+though a man of more than sixty years of age. Then
+discovering its true significance, he seized his throat
+"with both hands in a frightful way, grasping it tightly
+to represent and at the same time impress upon the
+multitude about him the horror of this kind of death.
+After he had spoken, and at length, with a surprising
+eloquence, exhibiting flashes of wit by no means common,
+he finished," as the leading ambassador-priest tells
+us, "by delivering up the captives we demanded, and
+giving us the choice of the place where we would build
+our chapel, in the erection of which they proposed to
+go to work with all despatch. They, moreover, delivered
+up to us a Frenchman whom they had held captive
+for some time, and promised us the liberty of
+twelve Algonquins, partly of the nation of the Nez
+Percés, partly of that of the Outaouacs [Ottawas]."</p>
+
+<p>Thus at Tionnontogen the labors of Father Fremin
+began. He was left quite alone among the Mohawks for
+nearly a year, at the mission of St. Mary's as it was
+henceforth called. He struggled earnestly during that
+time to maintain peace and establish Christianity. His
+companion, Bruyas (whose Mohawk dictionary is exceedingly
+valuable to students of the Indian language),
+soon went west to the Oneidas, among whom, little by
+little, he learned the Oneida dialect. Pierron, on the
+other hand, after a short stay with Fremin, bent his
+steps eastward to Schenectady. He visited the English
+and Dutch at Albany to renew the friendly intercourse
+of former days; and then this messenger of peace in
+the early part of the year 1668, travelled back over the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span>
+great Mohawk war-trail, leading northward. He returned
+to Quebec to report to Governor de Courselle
+the progress of the embassy.</p>
+
+<p>Fremin, left entirely to his own devices in the Mohawk
+Valley, gathered together the captive Christian
+Hurons, and then went steadily on, preaching, teaching,
+and baptizing. Once when the young warriors were
+torturing an Ottawa captive and preparing to burn him,
+contrary to the articles of peace, the Father by frantic
+efforts succeeded in saving him; but it was only by
+dint of rushing through the streets of the village with
+cries, threats, and entreaties. They could not withstand
+his zeal. He scattered the assembled crowd. He called
+down the vengeance of Rawenniio and Onnontio upon
+their castle of Tionnontogen, if they persisted in thus
+breaking the peace. The older men, roused at last by
+his words and actions, put a stop to the outrage. The
+unhappy victim was rescued from a fiery death, but he
+fell into a lingering fever brought on by the fright and
+the sufferings he had endured. In course of time he
+died, but it was not till he had been fully instructed
+and baptized by the courageous Father, who thus had
+the gratification of saving both body and soul.</p>
+
+<p>On the 7th of October, 1668, Pierron returned from
+his journey to Quebec, and again passed through the
+lower Mohawk villages on his way to the bark chapel
+of St. Mary's, which had been erected at Tionnontogen
+during his absence. If Tekakwitha saw her former
+guest at that time, it was only as one among a group of
+Mohawk villagers who watched the missionary as he
+passed through the streets of the Turtle Castle. He
+was hurrying on to meet and to replace Father Fremin.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span>
+This spirited and eloquent founder of the mission now
+went westward beyond Bruyas at Oneida, in order to
+make a missionary opening among the Senecas, who
+also desired a blackgown. This left Father Pierron
+alone in his turn in charge of the Mohawk mission.
+His graphic letters to his superiors in Canada during
+the next few years give many a vivid picture of what
+was transpiring at that time in the valley.</p>
+
+<p>He was something of an artist. Before he succeeded
+in mastering the language, he spent much of his time
+in painting. He found that his pictures stimulated the
+curiosity of the Mohawks. In their efforts to get at
+the meaning of them and to explain them to one
+another, they learned, without realizing it, the very
+things he wanted to teach them; while he, by listening
+to their explanations, quickly acquired their language.
+As the blackgown's pictures were much talked
+about in the Mohawk villages at this time, and must
+have influenced the minds of Tekakwitha and her relatives,
+it will be worth while to give Pierron's description
+of one of his own productions. "Among these
+representations I have made," he says, "there is one
+contrasting a good with a miserable death. What led
+me to make this was that I saw the old men and the
+old women would stop their ears with their fingers the
+moment I began to speak to them of God, and would
+say to me, 'I do not hear.' I have therefore represented
+on one side of my picture a Christian who dies
+a saintly death, with the hands joined as of one holding
+the cross and his rosary; then his soul is carried by an
+angel to heaven and the blessed spirits appear awaiting
+it. On the other side, I have put, lower down, a woman<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span>
+broken with age, who is dying, and unwilling to listen
+to a missionary Father who points her to paradise; she
+holds both ears closed with her fingers; but a demon
+from hell seizes her arms and hands, and himself puts
+his fingers in the ears of the dying woman. Her soul
+is carried by three demons; and an angel who comes
+out of a cloud, sword in hand, hurls them into the
+bottomless pit. This representation," he continues, "has
+furnished me an occasion to speak of the immortality
+of our souls, and of the good and the bad of the other
+life; and when they once catch the import of my
+picture, no one presumes to say any more, 'I do not
+hear.'"</p>
+
+<p>The "Relation" of the same year<a name="FNanchor_40_40" id="FNanchor_40_40"></a><a href="#Footnote_40_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a> tells us that Father
+Pierron accompanied this saintly skill with severe labors
+making regularly each month a visitation of the <i>seven
+large villages</i>, over a space of seven and a half leagues
+in extent, in order that no infant or adult sick person
+should die without receiving baptism.</p>
+
+<p>Father Boniface now arrived at Quebec from France,
+and was immediately selected to go to the Mohawk
+Valley to second Pierron's zeal. We learn further, from
+the "Relation," that a bitter strife was then in progress:
+"The war [between the Iroquois and the nine nations of
+the Loups] humbles them by the loss of their people;
+but by preventing their permanent stay in one place,
+it also multiplies obstacles to the conversion of the
+warriors, who divide up into numerous bands to go singly
+against the enemy. The Agniers [Mohawks] and the
+Loups [Mohegans] have brought the war even close to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span>
+New Orange; and when taken captive they burn and eat
+one another." The Mohegans and their allies had certain
+advantages over the Mohawks. They were more numerous;
+then, too, they were a roving people, difficult to
+attack, whereas the Mohawks lived in villages and had
+permanent homes. These last, in order to defend themselves,
+took care thoroughly to fortify the castles they
+were then building on the north side of the Mohawk
+River. As they seem to have had seven villages at this
+time, which is an unusual number, it is probable that
+they either had not entirely abandoned their old sites, or
+else had recently added several villages of captives.</p>
+
+<p>It was while affairs were still in this unsettled condition
+that Tekakwitha went to live on the north bank
+of the Mohawk River, near the Cayudutta Creek at
+Caughnawaga, or Fonda, a few miles west of her earlier
+home. The French writers continued for some time after
+this to call the new castle of the Turtles on the north
+bank by its old name of Gandawague;<a name="FNanchor_41_41" id="FNanchor_41_41"></a><a href="#Footnote_41_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a> to prevent confusion,
+however, we will henceforth call it Caughnawaga,
+meaning "At the Rapids." That name still clings to a part
+of the present town of Fonda. The rapids of the Mohawk
+still ripple there as of old under the sharp-cut hill where, as
+proved by relics and historic references, the once famous
+castle stood. The Indians who went forth later from
+this Caughnawaga in the Mohawk Valley to Canada,
+carried with them the familiar word. Settling down
+beside the great rapids of the St. Lawrence River, the
+sound of rushing water boomed louder than before in
+their ears, and the name Caughnawaga grew into history
+there, as well as here. But there it is still a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span>
+living name, and is passed from mouth to mouth as
+the well-known home of half the Canienga race; for
+Caughnawaga in Canada holds to-day that part of the
+Mohawk nation which in the wranglings of the white
+men&mdash;that is to say, the old French and Indian
+wars&mdash;sided with the French. Brantford, also in Canada,
+contains the other half of the same nation,&mdash;the descendants
+of Sir William Johnson's Mohawk followers,
+who were stanch friends of the English. To us Americans,
+falling heir to their lands, these Mohawks have
+left no living trace of themselves, though some of their
+brothers, the Onondagas and Senecas, still dwell in our
+midst. The Mohawks have gone from us, indeed, leaving
+us only a memory, all inwrought in a thick array of
+Indian names. Let us try at least to understand and to
+preserve these names, in honor of the brave race that once
+peopled our hills and valleys, our forests and streams.</p>
+
+<p class="bigfoot">In the Mohawk Valley, side by side with the name of
+Fonda, which comes to us from the days of the early
+white settlers, there lingers the still older name of
+Caughnawaga, which is dusky with the shadows of two
+hundred years, and even more. The mere name in partial
+use there at the present day has served to throw some
+light on the hill and the spring near the Cayudutta,&mdash;enough,
+at least, to have called to our minds a vision of
+Mohawk girls with their water-jugs, and to point in a
+misty way to the almost forgotten home of the Lily of
+the Mohawks. It is owing, however, to long, careful,
+critical research, and not to surmise, that the haze of
+many years has been cleared away at last from the actual
+site of Caughnawaga Castle. The map of Gen. John S.
+Clark (page 38) gives its position relative to other<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span>
+Mohawk villages. The plan here given, which was
+drawn by Rev. C. A. Walworth, shows more especially
+where this Indian fortress stood in reference to Fonda,
+on what are now called the "Sand Flats," west of the
+Cayudutta Creek. The spring which supplied the
+Mohawks with water is seen, distinctly marked in its
+cove, half-way down the hill from the castle, towards
+the Cayudutta. With this plan before us it is needless
+here to repeat the details of this locality already given in
+the chapter entitled "Tekakwitha's Spring." In our opening
+pages we journeyed all the way up the Mohawk Valley
+from Albany, with here and there a passing glimpse
+at the scenery, till we reached the castle site at Fonda,
+which was then fully described. Since that time we
+have travelled together through the highways and in the
+byways of history over about thirteen years of Tekakwitha's
+life. Here we are again at Caughnawaga; and
+now that we are following up the course of events in
+regular order from the birth of Tekakwitha, we find that
+she also has but recently arrived here, having just come
+to her new home from Gandawague. She can scarcely
+be called a child any longer, since she takes upon herself
+so much of the household care, and yet she is quite
+young. Her life is a busy one. She has taken an active
+part with the women of her family and their neighbors
+in building the new bark house which they occupy
+within the enclosure of palisades at Caughnawaga. Now,
+at last, they are quite comfortable.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 494px;">
+<img src="images/p103-illus.png" width="494" height="393" alt="" title="" />
+<span class="caption">SITE OF CAUGHNAWAGA CASTLE.<br />
+
+(<i>Also called the &quot;Mission of St. Peter&#39;s&quot; of the Mohawks, where Tekakwitha was baptized in 1676.</i>)</span>
+</div>
+
+<p><br /><br />This is the way the Mohawks were accustomed to
+build their permanent lodges. They first took saplings,
+and planted two rows of them firmly in the ground.
+Then they bent the tops of them over across the intervening<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span>
+space, and tied them together. The shape of the
+house when finished was not unlike the top of an ambulance
+wagon. These arched ribs were supported and
+held in place by poles put in horizontally across the
+house, near the top. The whole was then neatly
+covered with square, overlapping pieces of bark, held
+in place by poles that were tied down over them.
+The holes in the roof for chimneys and windows were
+not forgotten, nor the loose pieces of bark to pull
+over them in case of rain. The Jesuits often found
+these cabins smoky and dark,&mdash;a severe test of their
+patience when engaged in literary pursuits, or even in
+reading their breviaries; but for the Mohawks, who had
+no such tastes, they were good enough.</p>
+
+<p>When the house was finished on which Tekakwitha
+worked with her aunts and her neighbors, it made a
+secure shelter for a score of families, all lodged under
+the same roof and all on one floor. That floor was the
+bare ground. When the dwelling was fitted up into
+compartments on either side, with spaces down the
+centre for fires alternating with spaces for family gatherings
+at meal-time; when the matrons had assigned to
+each and every member of the household certain lodge-seats;
+when mats of rushes had been prepared, and
+robes of skins were in their places for bed-clothes on
+bunks along the sides of the house; when plenty of
+dried corn and smoked meat hung from the ridge-poles
+of the roof for instant use; when the heavy wooden
+mortar and pestle were made and stood ready for pounding
+the corn; when nice little dishes of bark and
+wooden bowls were at hand, while tucked away in
+corners were baskets of wampum beads all ready to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span>
+be strung into belts at the proper time,&mdash;when all
+these things were in order, then at last, after the
+move from Gandawague on Auries Creek, Tekakwitha
+felt free to rest and breathe easily. Then she might
+glance leisurely at the patch of sunlight falling on
+the floor of the lodge through the doorway at the far
+end, and decide in her own mind how much time she
+had before the next meal was to be prepared. Perhaps
+she would go out to take a look at the strong new
+palisade that her uncle and the warriors had planned so
+carefully for defence against the dreaded Mohegans; or
+she may have preferred to sit quietly by the spring for
+a while in the beautiful little cove. Being so near the
+castle, it was comparatively safe from the lurking
+enemy, who might attack them at any time.</p>
+
+<p>Wentworth Greenhalgh, an Englishman, who went
+from Albany to Caughnawaga in 1677, thus describes
+the castle: "Cahaniaga is double stockadoed round;
+has four forts [ports?] about four foot wide apiece;
+conteyns about twenty-four houses, and is situated
+upon the edge of an hill, about a bow shott from the
+river side." He then gives the situation and size of
+the other Mohawk towns at that time, and closes his
+remarks by stating that their corn grew close by the
+river. The Mohawks chose the flats or river-bottoms
+for corn-fields because they were fertile, and besides,
+they were natural openings, with no trees to be cut
+down and cleared away.</p>
+
+<p>Much of Tekakwitha's time at certain seasons of the
+year was spent in these corn-fields; and she must have
+witnessed, if not taken part in, some of the exciting
+scenes described by Pierron, who was then making his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span>
+periodical rounds through the Mohawk villages. He
+frequently gives incidents of Mohawk women who were
+waylaid and scalped or captured by desultory bands of
+Mohegans and other tribes with whom they were at
+war. The constant fear of death that overhung them
+gave to the minds of these Mohawk squaws a serious
+turn, and made them more willing than they would
+otherwise have been to listen to the warning words of
+the blackgown. More than one of them, haunted
+perhaps by the remembrance of his pictures and his
+morality games, which were no less ingenious for
+gaining their attention, came and asked for baptism.
+Pierron succeeded also in rousing the chiefs to a sense
+of the degradation into which the constant purchase of
+brandy and rum at Albany was sinking them. He
+reminded them that when once under its influence
+they were in no condition to repel the attacks either
+of Satan or the Mohegans. Both he and Fremin had
+themselves been sufferers during the drunken riots of
+the Indians. While the two Fathers were together at
+Tionnontogen, they wrote:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"It seems sometimes as if the whole village had run mad,
+so great is the license they take when they give up to drinking.
+They have hurled firebrands at our heads; they have
+thrown our papers into the fire; they have broken open our
+chapel; they have often threatened us with death; and
+during the three or four days that these debaucheries last,
+and which recur with frequency, we must suffer a thousand
+insults without complaint, without food or sleep. In their
+fury they upset everything that comes in their way, and
+even butcher one another, not sparing relative, friend, countryman,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span>
+nor stranger. These things are carried to such
+excess that the place seems to us no longer tenable; but we
+shall leave it only with life.... When the storm is over,
+we are left to go on with our duties quite peaceably."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>This state of things continued for some time, as did
+also the raids of their enemies. It was in the midst of
+such bristling savage thorns as these that the Lily of the
+Mohawks grew up from childhood into womanhood.
+In her new home at Caughnawaga, during these stormy
+times she lived a sweet, pure life, all uncontaminated.
+At last the Mohawk chiefs, won by Pierron's reiterated
+arguments, began to realize that they had among them,
+in intoxicating drink, "a foreign demon more to be
+dreaded than those they worship in their dreams."
+They were induced to take measures against this excess
+in public council, "and, advised by Father Pierron that
+the most effectual means would be themselves to make
+their appeal to the Governor-General of Manhattan,
+the more prominent among them presented a petition
+which they had drawn for the purpose." This is the
+answer which the Governor gave to the request of
+the Mohawks and the letter of the Father which accompanied
+it:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Father</span>,&mdash;By your last, I am informed of your complaint,
+which is seconded by that of the Iroquois chiefs, the Sachems,
+the Indians, as appears more openly by their petition enclosed
+in yours, respecting the large quantity of liquors that
+certain ones of Albany have taken the liberty to sell to the
+Indians; as a consequence, that great excesses are committed
+by them, and the worst is feared unless we prevent
+it. In response, know that I have taken, and will continue<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span>
+to take, all possible care, under the severest penalties, to
+restrain and oppose the furnishing any excess to the Indians.
+And I am delighted to see such virtuous thoughts proceed
+from heathens, to the shame of many Christians; but this
+must be attributed to your pious instructions, for, well versed
+in strict discipline, you have shown them the way of mortification
+both by your precepts and practice.</p>
+
+<p>
+Your very humble and affectionate servant,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 12em;"><span class="smcap">Francis Lovelace.</span></span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p><span style="margin-left: 2em;">At <span class="smcap">Fort James</span>, 18th of Nov. 1668.</span></p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Fremin and Pierron, during the two years 1668 and
+1669, baptized one hundred and fifty-one Indians, of
+which more than half were children or aged persons who
+died shortly after baptism. Says the "Relation":&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"This should be considered a sufficiently abundant harvest
+in a waste land, and we may hope for much from such
+beginnings. We owe, under God, the birth of this flourishing
+church to the death and blood of the Reverend Father
+Jogues. He shed it at the very region where the new Christian
+church begins to arise; and it seems as though we are
+to see verified in our days, in his person, the beautiful
+words of Tertullian: 'The blood of martyrs is the seed of
+Christians.'"</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>That Pierron was fired with the spirit of Jogues, who
+founded this Mohawk mission in his blood, is proved by
+the following words, which he wrote in a moment of
+discouragement:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p class="bigfoot">"I have attacked drunkenness and lewdness, which are
+divinities of the country, so madly are these people devoted
+to them. I have combated these vices.... I have employed
+gentleness and vigor, threats and entreaties, labors<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span>
+and tears, to build up this new church and to convert these
+poor savages. There remains nothing more than to shed
+my blood for their salvation, that which I long for with all
+the desires of my heart. But after all, I have not yet observed
+in them those marked amendments which the Holy
+Spirit effects in those of the heathen whom he would put in
+the number of the faithful."</p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="footnotes center"><br />FOOTNOTES:
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_40_40" id="Footnote_40_40"></a><a href="#FNanchor_40_40"><span class="label">[40]</span></a> An English translation of this "Relation" is given in the "Early
+Chapters of Mohawk History," by Dr. Hawley.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_41_41" id="Footnote_41_41"></a>
+<a href="#FNanchor_41_41"><span class="label">[41]</span></a>
+See <a href="#APPENDIX_B">Appendix, Note B</a>.</p><br /></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER X.</h2>
+
+<p class="centerc"><b>THE MOHEGANS ATTACK THE NEW CASTLE.&mdash;BATTLE OF
+KINAQUARIONES.&mdash;THE FEAST OF THE DEAD.</b></p>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">I</span>N the year 1669, in one of the long bark-houses at
+Caughnawaga on a summer morning before the
+dawn, Tekakwitha is turning uneasily in her sleep.
+Suddenly her aunt springs up beside her and speaks in
+a startled voice. In an instant all in the lodge are on
+the alert. Sharp, wild cries are heard; bullets pierce
+the stout palisade, and come whizzing through the
+bark sides of the new house. The warriors, roused from
+sleep, seize their nearest weapons, be they guns, war-clubs,
+tomahawks, or arrows. A hurried word to the
+women, a loud whoop, a few bounding steps, and they
+are on the platform of the palisade hurling defiance at
+an assaulting army of Mohegans. Before them are hundreds
+of the foe in war-paint and feathers, led by a stout
+man of middle age,&mdash;the wise and gallant Chickatabutt,
+the great sachem of the Massachusetts. His bearing
+makes him conspicuous among a score of famous sagamores
+who are leading the assault. In the motley ranks
+that follow are Hudson River Indians, mingled with the
+red-skin neighbors of the Puritans, grim old warriors of
+the Massachusetts tribe. There are also Narragansett
+braves and other New England Indians,&mdash;all united in
+a desperate attempt to crush the Mohawks, and thus
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span>
+break in through the eastern door of the Long House
+of the Five Nations. The assailants seek, now by open
+attack and now by strategy, to dislodge the defenders
+of Caughnawaga from their lofty scaffolds, and to fire
+the palisade. Four Mohawks drop from their places
+dead, and two are wounded; but the Mohegans make
+no perceptible headway against the defensive works
+of the Castle. The struggle continues with unabated
+fury. Among those who fall on the side of the enemy
+are pupils of the English missionary Eliot, who
+know something of the Bible which he has translated
+for them. Five of these converts to Puritanism are engaged
+in this expedition, of whom but one escapes with
+his life. They too, like the ever increasing neophytes
+of Pierron, are called "praying Indians." Their chief
+Chickatabutt&mdash;or Josiah, as he is often called&mdash;was
+himself a "praying Indian" once. That was when he
+lived with his pious uncle Kuchamakin, one of Eliot's
+favorite pupils. "He kept the Sabbath several years,"
+says Gookin; "but after turned apostate, and for several
+years last past separated from the praying Indians, and
+was but a back friend to religion." Indeed the English,
+who had a good opinion of him in his early days, now
+thought him "a very vitious person," though all acknowledged
+he was as brave as brave could be.</p>
+
+<p>The Puritans had tried in vain to dissuade their Indian
+neighbors from accompanying this chief on his adventurous
+march to the Mohawk Valley. In spite of every
+drawback, however, Chickatabutt, whose name means
+"A-house-afire," had succeeded in bringing his army all
+the way from the vicinity of Boston to the castle of
+Caughnawaga. After they were joined by their allies,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span>
+they numbered six or seven hundred men.<a name="FNanchor_42_42" id="FNanchor_42_42"></a><a href="#Footnote_42_42" class="fnanchor">[42]</a> True, they
+had spent much of their ammunition on the march,&mdash;"shooting
+away their powder in the air, ... boasting,
+vapouring, and prating of their valour," at the Indian
+villages where they had stopped for foraging purposes.
+It was their consequent lack of ammunition which determined
+them to carry the Mohawk Castle, if possible,
+by assault. But the brave Caniengas, or "People of the
+Flint," though taken by surprise in their sleep, were
+quick to grapple with the daring Mohegans, and fought
+like panthers. They were not to be easily overcome, by
+any roving Indian foe, in defence of their women and
+their homes. The squaws of Caughnawaga, with the
+well-known courage of their race, realized their perilous
+situation at the first alarm, and were "arming themselves
+with knives and defensive weapons in case a
+breach should be made." The youths of the village
+were, many of them, fighting their first important battle
+on this occasion. The sight of the Mohawk women and
+young girls, arming themselves as best they could to
+resist the Mohegan attack, was in itself an irresistible
+appeal to their tribesmen to exert themselves to the utmost
+in defending them against the well-known horrors
+of captivity, which would undoubtedly come upon them
+if the castle fell into the hands of the enemy. Many a
+young brave was nerved to desperate feats of valor on
+that morning and during the days that followed. Beginning
+with the sudden attack at dawn, the struggle continued
+for a long time with uncertain issue. News was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span>
+carried to Tionnontogen that the whole country was lost;
+that Caughnawaga was besieged by an army of Mohegans;
+that all the youth had already fallen, and perhaps
+Gandagaro, the adjacent fort, was in extremity. These
+reports, though exaggerated, caused the Mohawk warriors
+of the other castles to gather as fast as possible
+at Caughnawaga. Even had they been all there at the
+very first, they would still have been fewer in numbers
+than the enemy; but before the sun was high, enough
+of them had assembled to warrant a sally on the foe.
+Father Pierron was now at the castle, and a witness of
+the stirring events taking place there. Tekakwitha, too,
+was taking her part among the young girls, whose fate
+now hung in the balance. The missionary thus describes
+what followed:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"By eight o'clock in the morning our warriors without
+confusion promptly arrayed themselves with all they have of
+greatest value, as is their custom in such encounters, and
+with no other leader than their own courage went out in
+full force against the enemy. I was with the first to go
+to see if, amid the carnage about the palisades of the village,
+where so many unbelieving souls would perish, I might not
+be able to save some one. On our arrival, we heard only
+cries of lamentation over the death of the bravest of the
+village. The enemy had retired after two hours of most
+obstinate fighting on both sides. There was but a single
+warrior of the Loups [Mohegans] left on the ground; and I
+saw that a Barbarian, after cutting off his hands and feet,
+had flayed him, and was stripping the flesh from the bones
+for a hateful repast."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>This was to honor Aireskoi! Tekakwitha, ever helpful
+and ready to assist others, would probably be where<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span>
+she was most needed at that time,&mdash;with the bereaved
+women who were seeking their dead, and with those
+who ministered to the wounded. No heart so quick as
+hers to turn with loathing from the hideous human sacrifice
+that was being prepared outside the castle walls.
+With the good deeds of the blackgown Pierron hourly
+before her, and the sound of his voice often in her ears,&mdash;for
+this missionary could doctor as well as preach,<a name="FNanchor_43_43" id="FNanchor_43_43"></a><a href="#Footnote_43_43" class="fnanchor">[43]</a>&mdash;she
+must have had constantly in her mind the thought
+of Rawenniio during this time of peril and anxiety,
+and would not fail to call in spirit on the God of the
+Christians for assistance against the foe.</p>
+
+<p>The Mohegan army sat down before the castle, besieging
+it for some days without effect, though there was
+much firing back and forth. The provisions they had
+brought with them were about exhausted and their
+munition well spent. Some of their people were sick,
+and they saw the impossibility of getting the stronghold
+by assault. So they broke up the siege, to the great
+relief of the imprisoned Mohawks, and retreated twenty
+miles in the direction of the Dutch settlements. This
+brought them to Kinaquariones,<a name="FNanchor_44_44" id="FNanchor_44_44"></a><a href="#Footnote_44_44" class="fnanchor">[44]</a> now called Towereune,
+a steep rocky hill on the north side of the Mohawk
+River. It is just above Hoffman's Ferry, nine English
+or three Dutch miles west of Schenectady; there they
+temporarily entrenched themselves. The Mohawks, who
+did not know of this camp, though secure for the time<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span>
+being in their castle, felt that in any case no time should
+be lost in following up the enemy as soon as they could
+make the necessary preparation. The women of Caughnawaga,
+having laid aside their weapons, began at once
+to assist the warriors in making ready the supply of
+meal which according to custom was to be carried on
+the war-path. This was soon done, as they had but to
+add a little maple-sugar or other seasoning to the
+pounded corn, which they had already twice charred or
+dried for use on just such expeditions. The warriors of
+the Mohawk nation were now all assembled to go in
+pursuit of the Mohegans. Every man was fully armed
+and equipped, and their deerskin pockets were well filled
+with the crushed corn. They put themselves under the
+leadership of the brave warrior Kryn, surnamed the
+"Great Mohawk." His home was at Caughnawaga, and
+his valor and good management on this expedition won
+for him a new title, that of "Conqueror of the Mohegans."
+He and his fellow tribesmen now hastily bade
+adieu to their families, who, together with the blackgown
+Pierron, were to remain at the castle; then they
+embarked in canoes on the Mohawk, and aided by
+the force of the current soon disappeared around the
+great bend of the river in the direction of old Ossernenon
+on the route to the pale-face settlements. Anxious
+eyes and thoughts followed them. The bravest of two
+warlike races were now likely at any moment to meet
+in a decisive conflict, and who dare foretell the result?
+Not Tekakwitha, who waited in silence and concern;
+nor her more voluble companions, whose anxiety took
+the form of restlessness. Having all done their share
+in defending the castle, they could now only watch and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span>
+wait, looking often in the direction of the vanished
+braves, and hoping for news of the expedition from
+chance stragglers. In the mean-time the women were
+free to go back and forth to the spring, to care for the
+wounded, and to prepare the bodies of the dead for
+burial.</p>
+
+<p>The day after the departure of the warriors there were
+rumors of a desperate battle in progress about twenty
+miles away; and on the following day at three o'clock
+in the afternoon, came certain news of victory. It was
+a great triumph for the Mohawks or Caniengas, bravest
+of the bold Kanonsionni. Chickatabutt, the sachem
+of the Massachusetts, was slain. The noblest of the Mohegan
+warriors fell at his side. Those who escaped fled
+away to their distant kindred humbled and ashamed,
+with lamentations and mourning for the loss of most
+of their chief men. The Mohawks were greatly elated.
+The gloom that hung over Caughnawaga was changed
+to glad excitement. All prepared to welcome home the
+heroes of the battle of Kinaquariones. Father Pierron
+started at once and alone in the direction of the battle-field
+to visit the wounded. He wished also to manifest
+to the warriors his interest in their victory. He arrived
+on the spot before nightfall. The warriors were glad to
+see him, and eager to relate all the particulars of the
+fight. This proved to be the last great battle between
+the Mohawks and the Mohegans. Its deeds of valor
+were told and retold for many a day at the Turtle Village
+and in Tekakwitha's hearing with all the usual boastfulness
+of the Indian. Pierron wrote a full account of
+all that happened from the time the Mohawk war-party
+set out from the castle in their canoes till they returned<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span>
+to their homes in triumph. It is here given in his own
+words:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"Night overtaking them [the Mohawks] in their pursuit,
+they sent in advance certain of their number in quest
+of the enemy, and quietly to discover the place where he
+was encamped. As the scouts came within sight of the
+spot, desiring a better view of the situation, they drew still
+nearer. But notwithstanding their great caution, one of
+the Loups on guard close by, hearing a noise, gave the
+customary challenge, <i>Koue, koue</i> (this is the 'Who comes
+there?' of the savages); as there was no response and he
+saw nothing, he did not deem it necessary to give the
+alarm.</p>
+
+<p>From the report given by the spies on their return of the
+condition of the enemy, it was determined not to attack him
+in his lodging-place, where he appeared too well entrenched,
+but to prepare an ambush on the route it was believed he
+would take. In the execution of this plan, the Iroquois
+made a wide détour to lay their ambuscade in a cragged
+and most advantageous pass which commanded the only
+route in the direction of the Hollanders. In the morning
+the Loups decamped; and as they marched in single file,
+after the Indian custom, twelve of them fell unexpectedly
+into the ambuscade. A shower of balls of which they were
+all at once made aware, immediately put to flight those
+that the casualty had spared. Frightful cries at once rang
+through the forest, and the Loups rallied at the same place
+where they had encamped. The Iroquois pursued them
+with vigor. On overtaking them, they made a fierce assault.
+The Loups at first made a stout resistance; but the
+cowardice of some among them forcing the main body to
+recede before the fury of the Iroquois, ten of the whole
+band made a stand within their works to defend themselves<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span>
+unto death. This new entrenchment greatly harassed our
+<i>Agniés</i> [Mohawks] but as they are an indefatigable and
+brave people, they did not lose courage nor the hope of
+driving out the enemy; and to succeed in this with the
+least peril, they made use of an old tree, which they found
+there, and which they carried in front of them for protection.
+This they were able to do, instead of going up one
+by one to the place where the enemy was fortified. Their
+skill however did not avail them; for notwithstanding this
+device, the Loups did not omit to open a heavy fire from
+all sides, killing and wounding a number of our people; and
+the fight without doubt would have been still more disastrous
+if night had not terminated it. Our Indians captured
+at the outset four women of the twenty-four who accompanied
+the expedition, and six men subsequently in the heat
+of the combat.</p>
+
+<p>The next morning as they were ready to renew the attack,
+they found that the enemy had made their escape during
+the night, and that they were left masters of the battle-field.
+The victors, following the custom of the savages, tomahawked
+and scalped the Loups left on the place, and then
+took care to bury those of their own people who had been
+slain in the fight."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The Mohawks declared that nearly a hundred warriors
+on the side of the enemy had perished, either by
+the sword in the fray or by water in flight. "This was
+probably an exaggeration," continues Pierron, "as only
+nineteen scalps were secured."<a name="FNanchor_45_45" id="FNanchor_45_45"></a><a href="#Footnote_45_45" class="fnanchor">[45]</a> According to the story
+of the Mohegan captives, they lost fifty men on their
+side, thirteen falling on the field of battle; while they
+killed altogether nearly forty of the Mohawks.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span></p>
+<p>Pierron thus describes the triumphal march back to
+Caughnawaga from the field of action:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"We left two days after the combat, in company with a
+large number, both those who had taken part in the fight
+and those who had come to look on. The victors bore
+the scalps well painted, at the end of long batons made to
+support their trophies. The captives, divided into several
+bands, marched with singing; and as I perceived that one
+of the women had a sick infant which she carried at the
+breast, I thought I would do well to baptize it, seeing it
+was about to die."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The blackgown accordingly took occasion to approach
+the mother as they were crossing a stream, caught up a
+handful of water, and saying the short baptismal words,
+poured it on the little head, which soon drooped in
+death. He had already instructed some of the captives,
+and in the course of a few days all of them asked for
+baptism. On first reaching the castle, the Mohegan
+prisoners of war were received and tortured in the usual
+manner. Pierron could do nothing for them while the
+heat of passion and enmity toward the victims lasted;
+but watching his chance he saw that they were left
+alone for a time on the torture scaffold, before being
+killed, surrounded still by the ghastly scalps of their
+companions. He at once led them down from the hateful
+platform, and took them into a cabin near by, to
+prepare them, if possible, for a Christian death. While
+he was speaking to them earnestly of their salvation,
+some of the Iroquois came and stood near, saying to
+one another, "Do you see how he loves our enemies?"
+Some among them added, "He ought to leave them to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span>
+burn in hell,&mdash;people who have done us so much evil."
+Pierron, overhearing this, turned about, and seeing that
+a crowd of the villagers had assembled, caught up the
+words of the discontented Mohawks, and taking them
+for his text, explained so well and so forcibly the teaching
+of Christ on the Mount, that in a little while the
+Indians who had gathered about him were all of one
+mind, and declared that he did well to teach the captives.
+They no longer interfered with his self-imposed
+task, but gave him ample time to instruct them. Before
+the doomed Mohegans were finally put to death, they all
+received baptism; among them, we are told, was "one
+of the bravest and most celebrated warriors of that nation,
+who in the combat had slain with his own hand
+several Iroquois." Submitting to Pierron's influence,
+the fierce Mohawks did not grudge even to this warrior
+whatever happiness he might be able to secure, through
+the blackgown's ministrations, in another world. Little
+by little these Mohawks were veering round in the direction
+of Christianity, under the firm and steady but
+gentle guidance of their devoted missionary. Whether
+or not they were willing to listen, his stirring voice
+still rang in their ears; and whether or not they realized
+the fact, it was certainly true that he was treated every
+day with more and more of respect and trust.</p>
+
+<p>The next important event that took place at Caughnawaga
+was the Feast of the Dead. Here again, though
+Tekakwitha was certainly present and must have known
+all that was going on, her biographers have given no
+account of it. Pierron, however, has taken care to write
+out a full description of this great feast; it occurred
+only once in ten years. He, of course, in his important<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span>
+position as the representative among them both of
+Christianity and of his French countrymen, deals only
+with what concerned the whole Mohawk nation. He
+had little or no time to note the changes that were
+taking place in the young Tekakwitha; no word had
+passed between the two since his return from Quebec.
+If she had aught to say to him, she was forbidden to
+say it. Likely enough he did not even recognize her
+when he saw her, though he may have remembered the
+appearance of a little maiden who some years before
+had lodged him at Gandawague.</p>
+
+<p>We who have followed the course of her life more
+closely, can easily single out Tekakwitha from the
+crowd that has gathered to witness the strange ceremonies
+that are taking place in the woods not far from
+the castle. The bones of all the friends and relations
+of these people who have died within the last ten years
+have been carefully and reverently cleaned, scraped, and
+collected together to be deposited in a common pit prepared
+for their reception. The best and richest of beaver-skins
+and other furs are freely brought forward, that the
+pit may be lined with their beautiful warm surfaces.
+It is at night, amid the wailing chants of the women
+and the flaming of torches, that the relics of the dead,
+with many a last caressing touch, are deposited in the
+great pit; they are encased in separate robes with
+precious gifts. There are many tragic demonstrations
+of grief. A weird, pathetic scene it is; and it makes a
+strange and lasting impression on the minds of the
+young people who witness it for the first time. After
+the pit has been filled and covered over, the women are
+to be seen trudging back and forth to the village with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span>
+hampers of food, to be deposited on the gigantic grave
+for the use of their departed friends. It is only after
+the Feast of the Dead is over that the soul is supposed
+to take its final journey to the spirit-land. Previous to
+this celebration they believe that it hovers near the
+body, which they expose on a bark scaffold, or else put
+in a sitting posture in a temporary grave covered lightly
+with bark or twigs.</p>
+
+<p>During the progress of this feast quite a dispute
+arises among the assembled chiefs concerning the
+treatment received by Pierron. He has been cordially
+invited to be present, and now stands among the
+dignitaries of the Mohawk nation in company with
+Tekakwitha's uncle and other chiefs. The blackgown
+lets no part of the ceremony escape his notice. Distinguished
+guests from Oneida and Onondaga have placed
+themselves in separate groups, according to custom.
+An Onondaga chief has risen to make a speech. Near
+enough to see and hear what is going on are the women
+of Caughnawaga, who so lately took part in the defence
+of the castle. Tekakwitha's blanket partly conceals her
+face, but she is quite as richly dressed as the other
+young squaws. What she does not see or hear directly
+she can quickly gather from the talk of those about her.
+When the Onondaga has finished speaking, the Mohawk
+chiefs recount in turn the leading superstitions and
+fables of the nation; they are well known already to
+most of the people, who only half listen to what is being
+said. Presently there is a stir among the Mohawk
+dignitaries, which centres the attention of all within
+earshot on the group. Pierron, it seems, has ceased to
+be a silent listener to what passes. He begins in his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span>
+turn to tell fables, giving them here and there an extremely
+ridiculous turn. In the midst of it he is
+abruptly ordered by one of the chiefs to be silent.
+All are now eager to get at the truth of what has
+occurred. Some loudly upbraid the chief for his discourtesy;
+others bitterly accuse Pierron of an untimely
+interference with their customs. They say that he has
+been openly ridiculing their beliefs; his mouth must
+be stopped at once. But Pierron, knowing full well his
+influence with the people, and judiciously appealing to
+their love of fair play, boldly addresses the offending
+chief in these words, now distinctly heard by the listening
+throng: "Dost thou know, indeed, that thou
+hast given me the keenest affront I could have received?
+But who art thou to order me to be silent,
+and am I here to obey thee? If I had treated thee
+after this sort at Quebec, wouldst thou not have had
+cause to complain; but in what have I spoken evil,
+that my mouth should be closed? And if I speak the
+truth, why art thou not willing to hear?" The chief
+replied that it was their custom on these occasions to
+keep up their fables. Pierron stoutly rejoined: "It is
+your custom to get intoxicated; honestly, is it a good
+custom, and ought I to approve it? It is your custom
+to violate every law of reason, and to live as the beasts;
+think you it is not my duty to reprove you for all these
+vices? And yet you impose silence upon me when I
+would speak to you. Is this reasonable?" As Pierron
+and the chief could come to no agreement, the blackgown
+withdrew from among the Mohawks when the singing
+began, and took his place in the group of Onondaga
+guests, who received him with marked respect.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span>
+The ceremony lasted five hours. When it was over
+Pierron returned at once to Caughnawaga village, leaving
+the Mohawks still in the forest on the spot where
+the solemnity was conducted. A rumor was circulated
+there to the effect that the blackgown meant to return
+to Quebec. It was not long before the brusque Mohawk
+chief who had given offence came to him in the village
+to offer an apology for his conduct, saying: "My
+brother, up to this hour we have acted toward each
+other as the two best friends in the world." Then
+placing his hand on his heart, he added: "Tell me
+then, frankly, in what humor is thy soul? They say
+that thou goest to Quebec, and will no more come to
+live with us. If this be so, I implore thee not to get
+us into difficulty with Onnontio; for this would bring
+trouble upon thyself, if so many, both old and young,
+who greatly love and honor thee, should for this reason
+receive ill-treatment. Tell me, then, what is in thy
+heart, and what are thy sentiments?"</p>
+
+<p>Pierron, in a grave and serious manner seldom assumed
+by him, replied: "It has been told thee that
+I have an irritated mind and a heart full of grief. This
+is true, and thou knowest well that thou art the cause;
+thou hast treated me with the greatest indignity. Thou
+hast even presumed to impose silence when I would
+speak of the faith, which is the thing of all else, as thou
+art not ignorant, I have most at heart. Did it not confuse
+thee to see me so well received by the Onondagas,
+whom I did not know, driven out by those who professed
+to be our friends?"</p>
+
+<p>After listening patiently till he was through, the
+chief said with earnestness: "My brother, I see what<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span>
+is at the bottom of this quarrel; it is that we are not
+yet Christians. But if thou wilt leave this important
+affair to me, I promise thee success. This is what thou
+must do: First convoke a council, and then having
+given three belts to our three families, at each present
+speak out thy mind. After this, leave me to act, and I
+trust all will go well."</p>
+
+<p>All did go well, to the great delight of Father Pierron.
+The old chief, who was high in authority, went to
+work so energetically, sending his nephews out in every
+direction, that he soon assembled all the grandees of the
+Mohawk nation in the cabin of Pierron. The blackgown
+did indeed speak out his mind with such decided
+effect that his words were received with loud cries of
+applause. He threw down a fathom of wampum, saying:
+"Agnié, my brother, if it is true that thou art willing
+to hear me, there is my voice, which warns thee and
+entreats thee wholly to renounce Agreskoue, and never
+speak to him, but to adore the true God and follow His
+law."</p>
+
+<p>He threw down a second fathom of wampum, to oblige
+the medicine men no more to invoke demons for the cure
+of diseases, but to use natural remedies. Again and
+again the speaker was applauded; even the medicine men
+who were present in the assembly showed their good
+will on this occasion. The last present to destroy the
+superstition of the dances was received with no less
+acclamation than the other two. It was Pierron's
+moment of triumph, the reward of his unceasing
+efforts in their behalf! The whole Mohawk nation
+seemed ready to do his will. The council which met
+some days after, included the delegation from Onondaga.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span>
+These distinguished strangers had just returned from the
+visit they made to the Dutch after taking part in the
+Feast of the Dead.</p>
+
+<p>Garacontié, the chief of the Onondagas, himself soon
+to become a Christian, now raised his powerful voice in
+support of Pierron, saying to the people, "Take his word,
+for he has sacrificed all for you." The blackgown
+triumphed at last. The sorcerers of the village cast
+their turtle-shell rattles into the fire, the women no
+longer called in the medicine men to cure their diseases,
+no dances were allowed which were not approved by
+Pierron, and the oyanders (or nobles) brought their youth
+in crowds to the chapel to be instructed. What more
+could the blackgown wish? Alas! he knew the Indians too
+well; and he adds in the moment of his success, "Their
+natural inconstancy still divides my heart between fear
+and joy."</p>
+
+<p class="bigfoot">So far as Tekakwitha was concerned, no fear as yet
+disturbed the calm content of her spirit. The Lily of
+the Mohawks, quite unnoticed in the retirement of her
+lodge, was taking note of all these things, and was waxing
+fairer every day in the sunny light of Rawenniio's
+presence in the land. The true God, the Great Spirit,
+they tell her, is now to be worshipped by all the people.
+She hears them cry out through the village, "Hail to
+Rawenniio! Down with sorcery! Down with Aireskoi!"
+These words are like sweet music in the ears of Tekakwitha.
+She is in a dream of happiness, a day-dream
+of the spirit. Her busy fingers drop their work, unconscious
+of this unaccustomed idleness; her thoughts are
+all of God. Tekakwitha's first and last and only love is
+Rawenniio. She hears his voice, she feels his presence<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span>
+in the purer air she breathes, for Aireskoi has fallen
+from his throne. In the quiet and seclusion of the long-house,
+all alone, she hears the noises of the crowd outside,
+like distant murmurs; but the name of "the true
+God" echoes in her ears, and she is happy. Why not
+leave her so? Let us not disturb her. Why should
+she be roused to suffer? Must the Lily droop her head
+and thirst and die, like the rest of Rawenniio's flowers?
+Alas! it must be so. But let us not forget that this
+Lily of the Mohawks has a soul, though it is still like
+a little bird that breathes and just begins to move, but
+has not tried its strength. In sorrow the wings of
+the soul are developed. When once they have grown
+strong, it will be easy for Tekakwitha to fly away
+through the door of death to Rawenniio.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes center"><br />FOOTNOTES:
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_42_42" id="Footnote_42_42"></a><a href="#FNanchor_42_42"><span class="label">[42]</span></a> This is the number given by Gookin, who was an Indian agent
+and magistrate of the Massachusetts Colony at the time of this expedition.
+Pierron in his account mentions only three hundred.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_43_43" id="Footnote_43_43"></a><a href="#FNanchor_43_43"><span class="label">[43]</span></a> Pierron had ridiculed the practices of the sorcerers and medicine
+men so effectually that they no longer attempted to use their charms
+and spells in his presence.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_44_44" id="Footnote_44_44"></a><a href="#FNanchor_44_44"><span class="label">[44]</span></a> See note of J. S. Clark in "Early Chapters of Mohawk History,"
+by Dr. Hawley (no. xx., as printed in the "Auburn Advertiser").</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_45_45" id="Footnote_45_45"></a><a href="#FNanchor_45_45"><span class="label">[45]</span></a> Gookin says of the Mohegans: "About fifty of their chief men,
+they confess, were slain in this fight; but I suppose more."</p><br /></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XI.</h2>
+
+<p class="centerc"><b>WILL TEKAKWITHA MARRY?</b></p>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">"I</span>T is time for Tekakwitha to marry," said her aunts.
+Her uncle was of the same opinion. "She will
+make a desirable wife," they thought, "a docile and
+a useful one. It will be easy to find a brave young
+hunter for her, who will be glad to live in the lodge of
+the leading chief at Caughnawaga. Then there will
+always be plenty of game brought to the lodge for food,
+and a good supply of furs to exchange at Albany for
+the goods of the <i>cloth-workers</i>." Thus the adopted
+parents of the young girl put their wise old heads together,
+and soon Tekakwitha's peace of mind was sadly
+disturbed by their new-laid plans. Until now she had
+been happy in her own way. Her uncommon skill and
+natural ingenuity developed and found vent in her daily
+tasks, though sometimes, to be sure, they must have
+become wearisome and monotonous. It was she who
+pounded the Indian corn and made the soup or sagamite,
+day after day. This sagamite took the place of bread with
+the Indians. She also distributed the food when prepared
+to the members of the family, and saw that each person's
+dish was properly filled at the right time. Like all
+generous natures, she was accustomed to take more than
+her share of the burden, and likely enough, less than
+her share of the sagamite. Chauchetière speaks more<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span>
+than once of her <i>esprit</i>, her ready wit, and also of her
+skill. He says:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"Judging from the work which I have seen her do, it will
+be easy for me to affirm that she worked delicately in porcupine
+and in elk-skin. She made the belts (or burden-straps)
+with which the Indian women and girls carry wood;
+she made those which the old men use in conducting the
+affairs of the nation, which are composed of beads of
+<i>porcelaine</i> (wampum); and one of the occupations of the
+squaws is also to sew, since they have learned how to do it,
+either from those who have been slaves among them or from
+the wives of Christians from Europe. She knew well how to
+make certain ribbons which the savages make with the skins
+of eels or strong bark. She prepared these skins or this bark,
+and she reddened them, applying the color with sturgeon
+paste, which is used very skilfully among the Iroquois. She
+knew more than other Iroquois girls, for she could make nets
+very well indeed and <i>quaisses</i> (buckets which the savages use
+to draw water); thus her dexterity furnished her with plenty
+of occupation. Sometimes she was making a pestle or
+pounder for crushing Indian corn, sometimes she was forming
+a mat out of bark, and again she was preparing poles on
+which to hang the ears of corn."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Although she was the youngest in her uncle's family,
+and was delicate from the time her mother died, she was
+always the first one at work and the last to take a holiday.
+It was quite a trial to her, then, when she found&mdash;the
+first symptom of trouble to come&mdash;that she
+would no longer be allowed to spend her time as best
+pleased herself. Her aunts now insisted that she
+should wear her prettiest moccasins and all her ornaments,
+and that she should go with them to dances and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span>
+feasts, for which she had a distaste and some features of
+which were loathsome to her. She was so accustomed,
+from an inborn sense of duty, to obey those who stood
+to her in the place of father and mother, that she went
+as far toward fulfilling their wishes in regard to her
+costume and her attendance at popular amusements as
+her extreme timidity and acute sense of modesty would
+allow. These last-mentioned qualities were among her
+most marked characteristics. Her aunts, whose natures
+were of a very different fibre from her own, could have
+had little or no thought how this compliance on her
+part out of respect for them distressed her. Although
+it could scarcely have cast the faintest shadow of a
+mist across the whiteness of her soul, she was known
+long afterwards to regret and to grieve bitterly for this
+indulgence in little vanities.</p>
+
+<p>Her aunts could not and did not try to understand
+her. They thought she was queer. It seemed strange
+to them that Tekakwitha took so little pleasure in the
+festive customs of the Mohawks. They decided that it
+was due to her Algonquin origin. In other words, she
+was like her mother. So much the worse for her.
+It would have pleased them better to have had her
+resemble her father's family. But after all, the Algonquins
+were a gentle, yielding race, and they thought
+they would soon bend her to their will. When they
+stated plainly the object they had in view in thus bringing
+her forward,&mdash;which was that she should marry,&mdash;Tekakwitha's
+whole nature was roused to resistance at
+the mere mention of such a thing, and every power of her
+soul was brought into action to thwart their plan. Though
+long accustomed to be docile and obey, she showed at this
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span>
+time a sudden development of will, with inherent force
+to mould its own fate, and a strength of character that
+had not before asserted itself. This must have proved
+to her aunts that after all there was something of the
+Mohawk in her nature. Sure of her own natural
+and inalienable right to decide for herself in this important
+question, she was unconquerable. This is clearly
+shown in the struggle of will against will, in which she
+was now enlisted and in which the odds were decidedly
+against her. But though her whole nature was roused
+at the well-meant, though in this case unwelcome and
+premature proposition of her aunts, Tekakwitha was too
+wise and too self-poised to break at once into open
+rebellion. She did not announce her secret determination
+to go through fire and water, if necessary, rather
+than submit to the plan of her relatives. Why she did
+not wish to marry was perhaps at that time as much a
+mystery to herself as to others; but the fact remained.
+She could not and would not think of it for a moment.
+"When, therefore, they proposed to establish her in
+life," says Cholenec, "she excused herself under different
+pretexts, alleging, above all, her extreme youth and the
+little inclination she had to enter into marriage. The
+relatives seemed to approve of these reasons;" but
+the matter was not allowed to rest for any length of
+time. Charlevoix tells us that she made an energetic
+resistance to all offers. For the moment it was not
+insisted upon; but soon they returned to the charge,
+and to spare themselves the trouble of listening to her
+remonstrances, engaged her without her knowledge to a
+young man. As his alliance appeared desirable to the
+family of the chief, the proposition was made, according
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span>
+to custom, both to him and to the members of his family;
+while Tekakwitha alone, the very one to whom it
+was of the utmost consequence, was kept in entire
+ignorance of the proceeding. This was easily done, owing
+to her habitual seclusion and the peculiar custom
+of the country.</p>
+
+<p>"Whenever marriage is in agitation," to use once more
+the words of Cholenec, "the business is to be settled by
+the parents, and the parties most interested are not
+even permitted to meet. It is sufficient that they are
+talking of the marriage of a young Indian with a young
+female to induce them with care to shun seeing and
+speaking with each other. When the parents on both
+sides have agreed, the young man comes by night to
+the wigwam of his future spouse and seats himself near
+her; which is the same as declaring that he takes her
+for his wife and she takes him for her husband." The
+bride then presents the young man with sagamite or corn-cakes
+and sometimes with wood, in token of what is to
+be her duty in the lodge. He, on his part, sends presents
+of beaver-skins to the family of the bride. Thus marriages
+were made among the Iroquois Indians.</p>
+
+<p>Tekakwitha's relations, not knowing the force of the
+young girl's will, decided among themselves that the
+shortest and easiest way to overcome her unaccountable
+opposition would be to take her by surprise. They did
+not even allow her to choose the person to whom she
+was to be united. They desired to entrap her unaware
+into the simple and silent ceremony of an Iroquois
+marriage. Thus her fate would be sealed and she
+forced to submit. Would she be able to thwart this
+wicked plan? And what effect would it be likely to
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span>
+have on her future conduct? Her aunts acted coldly
+and harshly in this momentous matter, quite disregarding
+her rights and her feelings. They felt too confident
+of success to look beyond the present moment, or else
+they presumed very far indeed on her well-known
+sweet temper and kindly disposition.</p>
+
+<p>Chauchetière, who received his information chiefly
+from Tegonhatsihongo, says of her character and reputation
+at this time:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"She was neither vicious, nor a gad-about, nor a great
+chatterer, nor idle, nor proud, which is a common vice
+among the young savages. She was not attached to visions
+nor to dreams, neither had she ever cared much to assist at
+dances or games; and she had shown on several occasions
+that she was prudent; but she was naturally timid, not
+daring to show herself when there was need that she
+should."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Tekakwitha sat one evening on a low seat by the
+fire,&mdash;her own lodge-seat, which had been assigned to
+her by the chief matron in her uncle's household. The
+light of the blazing fagots before her played on her
+beaded moccasins and showed off to advantage her
+richly embroidered skirt. In her sitting posture it
+hung far over and half concealed her pretty leggings.
+Strings of wampum beads in curious devices were about
+her neck, and the end of a long rich scarf or girdle
+which she wore lay on the ground beside her. Her
+work for the day was done, and she had donned these
+things in obedience to her aunt's desire. Why, she did
+not know, and little cared. They often had company;
+then why not to-night? One of her aunts had given
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span>
+the finishing touch to her costume, and dressed her hair
+with her own hands. It was not by any means the
+first time she had done so. The guests, whoever they
+might prove to be, seemed to have changed their minds
+and gone elsewhere, for she was now left quite to herself.
+She was just weary enough to enjoy fully the
+rest and quiet, and was thinking perhaps of a pattern
+which she intended to work into a wampum belt for
+her uncle to be used in making a treaty,&mdash;likely
+enough it would be for the treaty of peace between the
+Mohawks and Mohegans which was brought about after
+the battle of Kinaquariones, by the people of Albany.
+Or she may have had in mind, as she sat there musing
+by the fireside, one of the blackgown's pictures which
+she had lately seen. If she had noticed at all the rich gift
+of furs that had been brought to the lodge and carefully
+put away, she never suspected that it was meant for
+a wedding present from the family of a young man for
+whom her aunts had expressed great esteem. But now,
+while her thoughts are far from any such idea, the
+young man who desires her for his wife, and who has
+been kept by the laws of Indian decorum from approaching
+her for some time past or addressing her
+himself on the subject, enters the wigwam in holiday
+attire. He is accompanied by some of his relatives,
+whilst those of Tekakwitha step forward to receive
+them. The eye of the young Indian kindles with
+pleasure at sight of his bride so gayly bedecked with
+all the insignia of her rank. Her apparent unconcern
+at what is passing he easily attributes either to maiden
+coyness or Indian stoicism. Besides, all know that she is
+extremely shy. So, with ready assurance of a welcome,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span>
+he walks quickly toward her, and seats himself in silence
+by her side. Tekakwitha, utterly taken by surprise,
+is for a moment bewildered, disconcerted. Her
+aunts now bid her present the young man with some
+sagamite.<a name="FNanchor_46_46" id="FNanchor_46_46"></a><a href="#Footnote_46_46" class="fnanchor">[46]</a> In a moment she realizes what they are
+doing,&mdash;that in spite of herself she is taking part in her
+own wedding. The hot blood rushes to her face. She
+blushes, but gives no other sign of what is in her mind.
+What can she do? For an instant she is in an agony
+of suspense. Then, with quick determination, she rises
+abruptly, and all aflame with indignation, passes, quick
+as thought, out of the long-house. Could her relatives
+have fancied she had risen to do their bidding? Her
+aunts knew better. Unflinchingly she had met their
+scowling looks, and felt the keen, fierce eye of her uncle
+upon her as she moved toward the door. Had her path
+been over red-hot coals, it would have made no difference
+then to Tekakwitha. Her only and overmastering
+impulse was to escape at all hazards,&mdash;no matter how
+nor where. Once out of the stifling air of the cabin,
+she hurried on and on, taking an accustomed path, out
+of mere force of habit, till it brought her to the familiar
+corn-fields. There, breathless and trembling, she hid
+herself away, with a prayer to Rawenniio to save her
+from the young hunter whom she did not want, and
+also from the angry eyes of her relatives, which like
+burning irons pierced her heart. Soon they came to
+seek her, and urged her with threats and with entreaty
+to go back to the cabin. They had made excuses for
+her absence; and if she would but return with them
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span>
+now, all would yet be well. Tekakwitha, who was by this
+time calm and collected, replied quietly but firmly that
+she would not enter the lodge at all while the young
+man was there. Finding it impossible to move her,
+they returned and explained the affair as best they
+could to the relatives of the now indignant young hunter.
+He had been no less surprised at her strange conduct
+than she had been at his unexpected errand to the
+lodge. There was no course left for him but to withdraw.
+She then returned to the lodge, and having
+borne the brunt of angry words with which she was
+received, retired wearily to rest in the angry silence
+which followed.</p>
+
+<p>It was many and many a long day to Tekakwitha
+before the storm which she thus raised about her own
+head had spent its fury in a series of domestic persecutions,
+till at last it was lulled to rest by the calm endurance
+of her firm but gentle spirit. Several times
+after this her relatives tried to force her into marriage.
+On one occasion she adroitly hid behind a case of Indian
+corn. "In everything else," says Chauchetière, "she
+was good, industrious, peaceable, and agreeable. When
+she chose to give the word for a laugh, none ever had
+aught to complain of, and they liked her company.
+She never resented the raillery which was constantly
+aimed at her on account of her desire to remain unmarried.
+Her good-nature exempted her at this time
+from several difficulties into which she would have
+fallen if she had not been possessed of natural patience,
+and if she had not liked better to suffer everything
+herself rather than to make others suffer." Cholenec
+further says that the firmness of Tekakwitha rendered
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span>
+her relatives outrageous, for they felt as though they
+had received an insult.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"Artifice not having proved successful, they had recourse
+to violence. They now treated her as a slave, obliging her
+to do everything which was most painful and repulsive, and
+malignantly interpreting all her actions, even when most innocent.
+They reproached her without ceasing for the want
+of attachment to her relations, her uncouth manners, and
+her stupidity, for it was thus that they termed the dislike
+she felt to marriage. They attributed it to a secret hatred
+of the Iroquois nation, because she was herself of the Algonquin
+race. In short, they omitted no means of shaking her
+constancy. The young girl suffered all this ill treatment
+with unwearied patience, and without ever losing anything
+of her equanimity of mind or her natural sweetness; she
+rendered them all the services they required with an attention
+and docility beyond her years and strength. By degrees
+her relatives were softened, restored to her their kind
+feelings, and did not further molest her in regard to the
+course she had adopted."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>A custom of the Indians in which Tekakwitha must
+have taken part about this time, with the other Mohawk
+girls of her age, was the Corn-Feast.<a name="FNanchor_47_47" id="FNanchor_47_47"></a><a href="#Footnote_47_47" class="fnanchor">[47]</a> On this supposition
+a brief description is here given of what was ever
+one of the merriest of their celebrations. The redmen,
+with the true poetic spirit of Nature's children, distinguished
+the various times of the year as the sturgeon
+month or moon, the beaver-month, the bear-month, and
+so on, according to the kind of hunting or fishing then
+in progress; while the different seasons were known as
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span>
+the time when strawberries or chestnuts blossom, or as
+the time of corn-planting and when it is ripe.</p>
+
+<p>It was when the corn was ripe that the Corn-Feast
+began. The plentiful crop of Indian maize was gathered
+together in one place, and the Mohawk girls assembled
+with laugh and song to celebrate the harvest.
+The festival took place in a field in the open air. The
+warriors and old men, not deigning to take part in this
+woman's frolic, sat at one side, though not far away, and
+lazily smoked their pipes. They only betrayed now and
+then, and by the merest twinkle of an eye, that they
+took any notice of what was going on. The aged squaws
+hung on the outskirts of the group of girls, urging them
+on with jests and shrill screams of laughter. The young
+squaws were busily employed husking the ears of corn,
+and throwing them together into heaps, after which they
+braided them into bunches of twenty<a name="FNanchor_48_48" id="FNanchor_48_48"></a><a href="#Footnote_48_48" class="fnanchor">[48]</a> to be hung up
+and dried. This is preparatory to shelling, pounding,
+and making the corn into cakes of fine flour for future
+use. But the part of the whole process which pleases
+the young squaws best is the husking. They sing together
+snatches of song, and toss the ears of corn gayly
+from one to another. All the while they keep a keen
+eye on each separate ear as the soft husk is torn from
+it, and the silky tassels fall loosely away from the thick
+set rows of juicy kernels. But what has happened to
+Tekakwitha there in the midst of them? How they
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span>
+shout with laughter! Why is she blushing so? In her
+hand she holds a bright red ear of corn instead of a
+white one, and a saucy girl calls out the name of a
+young hunter,&mdash;most likely of the one from whom Tekakwitha
+so recently hid away. A red ear of corn is
+always the sign of a brave admirer. That is why it is
+watched for so eagerly. "Here he is," they say to the
+bashful girl; "see, he has come to woo you again!" She,
+who is easiest teased of them all on a subject like this,
+feels like running away once more to escape their jests,
+or throwing the ear of corn at the saucy girl. But she
+is brave though shy, and a maker of fun herself; so she
+does not move, but keeps her eyes well open and awaits
+her chance. As good fortune would have it, she soon
+spies her mischievous companion unsheathing a crooked
+ear of corn, tapering to a point and quite bent over, like a
+queer little man. "Wagemin! wagemin!" she calls out
+to the unlucky girl, "Wagemin! Paimosaid!" Although
+they have often plagued Tekakwitha in the lodge with
+being Algonquin rather than Mohawk, she does not hesitate
+on this occasion to recall the song of her mother's
+race, "Wagemin! wagemin! Paimosaid!"&mdash;which are
+the words sung in the North and West when a crooked
+ear of corn is found. Enough of Algonquin tradition,
+learned from their captives, lingered among the Mohawks
+for them to understand these words, which mean,
+"The little old corn-thief,&mdash;walker at night!"</p>
+
+<p>The laugh is now on the saucy girl who called attention
+to Tekakwitha. Then catching at the suggestion
+conveyed by the word "Wagemin!" they break forth
+gayly into the cereal chorus of the Algonquin Corn-Song.
+Playfully and with many gestures words like those which
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span>
+follow are recited by one of the girls, alternating again
+and again with the chorus.</p>
+
+<p>Schoolcraft's version of the merry Indian Corn-Song
+is as follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2"><i>Cereal Chorus.</i> Wagemin! wagemin!<br /></span>
+<span class="i13">Thief in the blade,<br /></span>
+<span class="i11">Blight of the corn-field,<br /></span>
+<span class="i13">Paimosaid!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><i>Recitative.</i> See you not traces while pulling the leaf,<br /></span>
+<span class="i5">Plainly depicting the taker and thief?<br /></span>
+<span class="i5">See you not signs by the ring and the spot,<br /></span>
+<span class="i5">How the man crouched as he crept in the lot?<br /></span>
+<span class="i5">Is it not plain, by this mark on the stalk,<br /></span>
+<span class="i5">That he was heavily bent in his walk?<br /></span>
+<span class="i5">Old man, be nimble! The old should be good,<br /></span>
+<span class="i5">But thou art a cowardly thief of the wood.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i5"><i>Chorus.</i> Wagemin! wagemin! etc.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i5">Where, little taker of things not your own,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i5">Where is your rattle, your drum, and your bone?<br /></span>
+<span class="i5">Surely a walker so nimble of speed,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i5">Surely he must be a juggler indeed.<br /></span>
+<span class="i5">See how he stoops as he breaks off the ear!<br /></span>
+<span class="i5">Nushka! he seems for a moment to fear.<br /></span>
+<span class="i5">Walker, be nimble,&mdash;oh, walker, be brief!<br /></span>
+<span class="i5">Hooh! it is plain the old man is the thief.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i5"><i>Chorus.</i> Wagemin! wagemin! etc.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i5">Wabuma! corn-taker, why do you lag?<br /></span>
+<span class="i5">None but the stars see you,&mdash;fill up your bag.<br /></span>
+<span class="i5">Why do you linger to gaze as you pull?<br /></span>
+<span class="i5">Tell me, my little man, is it most full?<br /></span>
+<span class="i5">A&mdash;tia! see, a red spot on the leaf,<br /></span>
+<span class="i5">Surely a warrior can't be a thief!</span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a><br /></span>
+<span class="i5">Ah, little night thief, be dear your pursuit,</span>
+<span class="i5">And leave here no print of your dastardly foot.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i5"><i>Chorus.</i> Wagemin! wagemin!<br /></span>
+<span class="i13">Thief in the blade,<br /></span>
+<span class="i11">Blight of the corn-field,<br /></span>
+<span class="i15">Paimosaid!<br /><br /><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="footnotes center"><br />FOOTNOTES:
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_46_46" id="Footnote_46_46"></a><a href="#FNanchor_46_46"><span class="label">[46]</span></a> For marriage ceremonies see Lafitau,&mdash;"M&oelig;urs des Sauvages,"
+vol. i. p. 566; "De la Potherie," vol. iii. p. 14.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_47_47" id="Footnote_47_47"></a><a href="#FNanchor_47_47"><span class="label">[47]</span></a> For an account of the Corn-Feast and its attendant merry-making,
+see Schoolcraft's "Red Race."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_48_48" id="Footnote_48_48"></a><a href="#FNanchor_48_48"><span class="label">[48]</span></a> See Lewis H. Morgan on the Indian Collection in the State Cabinet
+of Natural History, etc. His Report for 1850 gives many details
+concerning the domestic customs and industries of the Iroquois. He
+mentions three varieties of corn,&mdash;white, red, and white flint,&mdash;and
+tells how they prepared it for use.</p><br /></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XII.</h2>
+
+<p class="centerc"><b>THE NEW COLONY OF CHRISTIAN INDIANS ON THE ST.
+LAWRENCE.&mdash;THE "GREAT MOHAWK" GOES TO CANADA.</b></p>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">T</span>EKAKWITHA was quite old enough to have decided
+opinions of her own on whatever concerned
+her individual life. She had also proved in her
+recent struggle that she possessed sufficient strength of
+will to act upon her convictions. Some of these convictions
+she had never yet mentioned to any one, but she
+had for some time fully made up her mind to take a
+decided step. She was only waiting a favorable opportunity
+to declare her determination to become a Christian.
+She felt that this would not be an easy thing to
+do; for besides her strong propensity to shrink as much
+as possible from all observation, she saw that her uncle
+was becoming every day more bitter in his opposition
+to the teachings of the blackgowns.</p>
+
+<p>The Feast of the Dead in 1669 was closely followed
+by a public renunciation, in the Mohawk country, of
+Aireskoi, or demon-worship. This was accompanied by
+the burning of charms, turtle-shell rattles, and other
+badges used by the medicine-men. Similar ceremonies
+took place about the same time, among the Onondagas
+and in other parts of the Long House of the Five Nations.
+"Paganism had fallen. Aireskoi was disowned,
+and his name is not even known in our days among the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span>
+Iroquois. The next step of the missionaries was to
+implant Christian truth and Christian feeling in their
+hearts."<a name="FNanchor_49_49" id="FNanchor_49_49"></a><a href="#Footnote_49_49" class="fnanchor">[49]</a> This was another and more difficult task.
+Though the Iroquois Indians of the Five Nations have
+not since worshipped any other than the Great Spirit
+or true God, known in the Mohawk language as Rawenniio;
+and though the sacrifices to Aireskoi ceased
+in the Mohawk Valley after the great Feast of the Dead,
+in 1669,&mdash;practically the life of the Mohawks was still
+pagan in almost every other respect. Father Pierron,
+at Tionnontogen, or Saint Mary's, and his assistant Father
+Boniface, who took charge of a small bark chapel called
+St. Peter's, which the Indians themselves built at Caughnawaga
+Castle, both continued their missionary labors
+with unabated zeal, but for some time they had only
+partial success. In 1670 eighty-four baptisms were recorded.
+That same year, in June, the great Onondaga
+chief, Garacontié, was solemnly baptized at Quebec. It
+was hoped that other chiefs of the Iroquois would soon
+follow his example.</p>
+
+<p>Father Bruyas, who on first coming among the People
+of the Long House had been lodged three days in the
+cabin of Tekakwitha's uncle, came back from the Oneida
+country in 1671. He was made superior of the Mohawk
+mission in place of Pierron. This missionary, the
+painter of pictures and the inventor of games, received
+orders to return to Canada to take charge of a new village
+of Christian Indians which was then being formed
+on the south bank of the St. Lawrence. As the latter
+part of Tekakwitha's life was closely connected with the
+growth and development of this new Christian colony<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span>
+of Indians in Canada, and as we shall have occasion
+frequently to allude to it, some further account of it
+will not be out of place here. The site first chosen was
+at La Prairie de la Madeleine just across a broad swell
+of the river from Montreal on a tract of land belonging
+to the Jesuits and hitherto untenanted. The Canadians
+called this Indian settlement St. François Xavier <i>des
+Prés</i>; and a little later, when that same mission was
+moved up close to the great Lachine Rapids in the
+St. Lawrence River, it was known as St. François Xavier
+<i>du Sault</i>, which last is in reality nothing more than the
+Indian name of Caughnawaga put into French and still
+meaning "At the Rapids." This Christian settlement
+was started by the temporary sojourn at La Prairie of
+several Oneidas and Mohawks, who had been on a visit to
+Quebec and Montreal. They were attracted to the spot
+by Father Raffeix, who built a little chapel there. It
+grew by accessions from among the Five Nations, and
+was encouraged by the French government, in the hope
+of thus gaining useful allies. Indians who came first
+from curiosity or for temporary shelter and hospitality
+afterwards settled there, with their families and friends.
+The Jesuit Fathers on their part were much pleased
+with the growth of this village, and took occasion to
+make of it a distinct settlement of Christian Indians.
+It soon became a general rendezvous for their converts
+from among the different nations and tribes of Indians,
+many of whom by residing there were quite withdrawn
+from the contagious pagan influences which surrounded
+them in their own country. All who went to live at
+St. François Xavier <i>du Sault</i> were obliged to renounce,
+with solemn promises, these three things,&mdash;first, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span>
+idolatry of dreams; second, the changing of wives, a
+practice in vogue at Iroquois feasts; and third, drunkenness.
+Any one among them known to have relapsed
+into any of these practices was expelled at once from
+the settlement by the ruling chiefs. These were chosen
+by the Indians themselves from among the more fervent
+Christians. They were generally men who had ranked
+high in their own country, and who were attracted to the
+Praying Castle, as it was called, either from motives
+purely religious or on account of some bereavement or
+disappointment experienced in their old homes. Several
+of these Christian chiefs were famous characters in the
+history of the time. Two of them, Kryn and Hot Ashes,
+are closely connected with the life of Tekakwitha.</p>
+
+<p>Kryn, the "great Mohawk," has already been mentioned
+in connection with the battle of Kinaquariones.
+His Christian name was Joseph, and his Indian name
+Togouiroui. He was also called the conqueror of the
+Mohegans. He dwelt with his wife at Caughnawaga on
+the Mohawk, and they had "an only daughter whose
+bright disposition made all in the town love her." After
+some difficulty with his wife on account of this child,
+he deserted her and went off for a long journey. The
+mother, it seems, had been converted by Father Boniface,
+and had declared herself a Christian just six months
+before she was thus deserted. Soon after the departure
+of her husband she was severely tried by the death of
+her daughter. This little girl had been her only consolation
+and hope after she was forsaken by Kryn. Her
+friends now blamed her for adopting strange customs,
+saying it was that which had made her husband leave
+her and which had caused the death of her child. In<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span>
+spite of all this, Kryn's wife became more devoted than
+ever to her new faith. She was seen going to the little
+bark chapel of St. Peter's every night and morning, and
+often received the sacraments from the hands of Father
+Boniface. First as assistant to Pierron, and now under
+Bruyas, he still carried on the mission at Caughnawaga.
+In course of time he became very successful in winning
+the Mohawks of that place to Christianity. Thirty
+adults were baptized within a short time. After the
+morning and evening prayers at the chapel, a choir of
+children sang hymns in the Iroquois language; and every
+Sunday the primitive Christian love-feast, or ceremony
+of blessed bread, took place in the cabin of a pious Mohawk
+woman.</p>
+
+<p>At Christmas time the little bark chapel at Caughnawaga
+was aglow with lights and bedecked with evergreens.
+All day long the people of the Turtle village,
+much changed in mind since the torture and murder of
+Isaac Jogues, stole silently in and out of St. Peter's
+rustic shrine. The cross, considered uncanny and strange
+in the days of Goupil, had at last become a familiar sign
+among the Turtles in the Mohawk Valley. The crowd
+that gathered at the chapel door on Christmas day looked
+up at it again and again as they stood out in the snow
+and the cold December blast, waiting patiently for an
+opportunity to enter. There in the chapel Father Boniface
+had placed a fair little statue of the infant Jesus
+lying in his wretched manger on the straw. This Christmas
+crib was a strange and wonderful sight to the simple
+Indians. Those who had become Christians told and
+retold the Bethlehem story in all its details to the curious
+people who gathered about the image of the little<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span>
+Christ child to gaze and wonder. Tekakwitha saw and
+heard all that was going on at the chapel, but said
+nothing; her aunts were there also, and her adopted
+sister. Tegonhatsihongo, whose Christian name was
+Anastasia, would of course be present on such an occasion,
+and also the family of Kryn. The wife of the
+"great Mohawk," having chosen her part and received
+baptism, now maintained her ground with courage.
+Deserted and childless, she held firmly to her new-found
+faith, notwithstanding the abuse she received
+from friends and neighbors. "Soon after this storm,"
+says good Father Boniface, "God rewarded her fidelity;
+for in place of the little girl whom he had taken from
+her, He gave her back her husband a Christian."</p>
+
+<p>Kryn, in his wanderings, had by chance strayed into
+the new village at La Prairie; there he met Father Fremin,
+who with Pierron and Bruyas had formerly been
+Tekakwitha's guests. Kryn listened to all that Fremin
+had to say to him, having known and respected him
+during his brief stay in the Mohawk country, when the
+mission was first begun after De Tracy's expedition.
+The "great Mohawk" resolved to become a Christian;
+furthermore, he decided that the best way for him to
+remain a Christian, and to become a good one, would be
+to join the new Indian settlement in the land of the
+French.<a name="FNanchor_50_50" id="FNanchor_50_50"></a><a href="#Footnote_50_50" class="fnanchor">[50]</a> He was a natural leader of men, bold and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span>
+uncompromising; he had a large following among his
+own people on the Mohawk. His next move, therefore,
+after becoming a Christian, was to return to his
+old home to find his forsaken wife, and to announce
+publicly the views he had embraced during his absence.
+The people gathered with interest and amazement to
+hear what their old leader had to say. None dared
+oppose him when he proclaimed his determination to
+leave everything that could draw him back to his old
+manner of life, and offered to lead all who would follow
+him to La Prairie, on the bank of the St. Lawrence.
+He gave his friends but brief time to consider his words
+and to make hurried preparations for a journey; then, at
+break of day, the wild gathering-cry of the "great Mohawk"
+resounded once more, as of old, through the streets
+of Caughnawaga Castle. All knew it well, for time and
+time again it had called them out to battle. With a
+strange thrill and start of alarm they heard it once
+more; but only those in the village who were baptized,
+both men and women, or who meant soon to become
+Christians, rallied about him now; nor even all of these,
+for in that case Tekakwitha would have been of the
+number. A band of thirty or forty gathered at his call,
+and with a sad, hurried farewell to their friends, their
+homes, and the valley, they turned and followed in the
+footsteps of Kryn, who thus led them away into exile.
+Shea well calls these Indians "a noble band of pilgrims
+for religion's sake."</p>
+
+<p>Tekakwitha's adopted sister probably went either with
+this band or with those who accompanied Father Boniface
+to Canada a little later; for soon after this event
+we learn that she was living at St. François Xavier<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span>
+du Sault with her husband; that they were both Christians,
+and that Anastasia Tegonhatsihongo also dwelt
+there and in the same cabin with them. The health
+of Father Boniface was completely broken down by
+the hardships he had undergone among the Mohawks;
+so he too left Caughnawaga. He went to Canada in
+June, 1673, taking many of his neophytes with him as
+far as the Sault; he died at Quebec the next year, surrounded
+by his old comrades and friends.</p>
+
+<p>The people of Albany and Schenectady, at the time
+of these migrations, had too much to do at home to give
+more than a sidelong glance at what was occurring at
+the neighboring Indian castle; otherwise the Dutch and
+English settlers of the province would probably have
+shown some inclination to resent on the part of the
+French their efforts to attract the Mohawks to the
+vicinity of Montreal, as it was likely to interfere with
+their influence among the redmen, and above all with
+their highly prized rights in the fur-trade. Some time
+before this, the Albanians had succeeded in bringing
+about a treaty of peace between the Mohegans and the
+Mohawks. Thereupon these last had begun to indulge
+very freely in the purchase of liquor at Fort Orange;
+they even carried kegs of it with them to their fishing-villages.
+This filled the pockets of the Dutch settlers,
+but it also brought on a severe form of illness among
+the Mohawks,&mdash;a quick and fatal fever,&mdash;which
+gave much occupation to the blackgowns, especially
+as the services of the medicine men were at this time
+often rejected; thus the influence of the missionaries
+was still further increased. Next, there was a disturbance
+in the government. The Dutch, taking the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span>
+English by surprise, in 1673, regained possession of the
+province; that very year a large band of the Mohawks
+left for Canada. To make matters worse for the interests
+of the Albanians, a vessel with supplies for the
+Indian trade, which they were for a long while expecting
+from Holland, did not arrive; this caused them to put
+a higher price on the goods they were accustomed to sell
+to the Mohawks, many of whom on that account turned
+to Canada for their purchases.</p>
+
+<p class="bigfoot">In 1674, when Tekakwitha was in her eighteenth
+year, and when Boniface, after having resigned his
+charge at Caughnawaga, was slowly dying at Quebec,
+the English came once more into power at Albany, and
+governed the city thenceforth. During these various
+changes Tekakwitha's uncle kept up his connection
+with his Dutch neighbors, invariably trading at Albany.
+He was angered almost beyond endurance at the departure
+of Kryn and of Boniface with so many of his
+townspeople. He joined with those who bitterly accused
+Bruyas, their only remaining blackgown, of a
+plan to break up the nation. Bruyas protested that
+he had had nothing at all to do with the affair, and
+threw the responsibility of the migration mainly upon
+their own chief the "great Mohawk," whose example so
+many had followed. He took occasion at the same time
+to remind those who remained of their vices, which he
+said were driving away the noblest of their tribesmen.
+He succeeded in pacifying them for a time; but soon
+Assendasé, an aged and important chief at the capital
+of the Mohawk country, delighted the heart of the missionary,
+and at the same time rearoused the hostility of
+the unbelieving Indians, by becoming a Christian. In<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span>
+1675 Assendasé died at Tionnontogen, to the great grief
+of Father Bruyas. About the same time Father James
+de Lamberville arrived to take charge of St. Peter's
+chapel and the mission of Boniface; it included both
+the Turtle Castle of Caughnawaga on the Cayudutta and
+the adjacent Castle of the Bears called Andagoron. This
+castle was no longer on the south side of the river, but
+since De Tracy's expedition had been rebuilt on the
+north bank opposite to its old site. It was to Father
+de Lamberville that the niece of the Mohawk chief
+spoke out the words that had long lain nearest to her
+heart.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes center"><br />FOOTNOTES:
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_49_49" id="Footnote_49_49"></a><a href="#FNanchor_49_49"><span class="label">[49]</span></a> Shea's History of the Catholic Missions, chap. xiv. p. 267.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_50_50" id="Footnote_50_50"></a><a href="#FNanchor_50_50"><span class="label">[50]</span></a> Kryn became strongly attached to his Canadian friends. He sided
+with them in the war which broke out some years later between the
+French and the English colonies. The massacre at Lachine in 1689
+roused the old warrior who had conquered the Mohegans (in 1669) to
+aid in avenging his white allies. On Schenectady, in 1690, fell the
+bloody act of retribution. Kryn was there. Later that same year, on
+a war-party near Salmon River, he was killed.</p><br /></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XIII.</h2>
+
+<p class="centerc"><b>TEKAKWITHA MEETS DE LAMBERVILLE.&mdash;IMPOSING
+CEREMONY IN THE BARK CHAPEL.</b></p>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">T</span>EKAKWITHA was eighteen years old, and was
+still classed among the pagan or infidel Indians,
+as distinguished from the Christians. She had injured
+her foot severely; she could not now leave the cabin,
+and sat idle one bright sunny day while the other
+women were hard at work in the corn-fields down by
+the river. She was unable to walk as far as the spring
+in the cove just below the castle, and bring up the daily
+supply of water for the lodge; nor could she gather fagots
+enough to prepare the evening meal, though she
+knew that all would return at dusk hungry and weary
+from their work. A few women, with some old people
+burdened with ailments of various kinds, were also in
+the village. Two or three of these had strayed into the
+chief's cabin, and were sitting with Tekakwitha when
+Father de Lamberville, who had been only a short time
+in the Mohawk country, passed slowly along through
+the rows of long, low bark-covered houses forming the
+Turtle Village. Caughnawaga was well-nigh deserted by
+its people that day, and seemed fast asleep, so still were
+its streets. The missionary was taking advantage of
+this occasion to visit the old and the sick who chanced
+to be in their cabins, that he might instruct them at his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span>
+leisure. He had no thought of entering the lodge of
+Tekakwitha. He knew that the chief who lived there
+disliked the Frenchmen who came down from Montreal;
+and besides, he supposed the house would be empty as
+usual at such times. Its inhabitants were known to be
+busy and thrifty people; they were doubtless at work
+in the fields. He passed close to the doorway of the
+cabin with eyes downcast, intent on his own quiet
+thoughts. He wore the long black cassock of his order,
+and carried a crucifix in his girdle like those worn by
+the three who had lodged with the chief when he lived
+at Gandawague on Auries Creek. The shadow of De
+Lamberville falling across the open doorway caused
+Tekakwitha to look up, and she saw him moving calmly
+on outside in the sunlight. Darkness brooded over the
+Mohawk girl where she sat, far back in the depths of
+the dreary cabin. Her heart was weary with waiting.
+It may have been that her mother's spirit hovered about
+just then, and renewed its prayer; or, whatever may
+have caused it, the blackgown's train of thought was
+disturbed. He raised his eyes; he stood a moment at
+the doorway, and "il fut poussé a y entrer," says the old
+manuscript,&mdash;a sudden irresistible impulse caused him
+to enter. Lo! at the blackgown's approach the petals
+of this Lily of Caughnawaga opened wider than ever before.
+Those who were present on that eventful day saw
+for the first time to the innermost depths of Tekakwitha's
+soul, far down to its golden centre, enfolded so
+long in shadowy whiteness that no one suspected its
+hidden growth of beauty. Chauchetière says:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"There he found Tekakwitha. Never was an encounter
+more fortunate on the side of the girl, who wished to speak<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span>
+to the Father, and who dared not go to seek him; on the
+side of the Father, who found a treasure where he expected
+to find no one."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Charlevoix tells us that Tekakwitha&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"could not dissemble the joy which this visit caused her,
+and hastened to open her heart to the Father in the presence
+even of two or three women who were keeping her company,
+and to testify to him her earnest desire of embracing Christianity.
+She added that she would have great obstacles to
+overcome in order to succeed in her intention, but that
+nothing should deter her. The ardor with which she spoke,
+the courage she evinced, and a certain air, at once modest
+yet resolute, which appeared on her face, proved to the missionary
+that his new proselyte would be a Christian of no
+common order; therefore he instructed her in many things
+of which he did not speak to all whom he was preparing for
+baptism. God doubtless establishes between hearts, the possession
+of which he has specially reserved to himself, a sort
+of spiritual sympathy which forms, even in this life, the
+sacred bond which is to unite them eternally in glory.
+Father de Lamberville, whom I well knew," continues
+Charlevoix, "was one of the holiest missionaries of Canada,
+or New France, as it was then called, where he died at Sault
+St. Louis, as it were in the arms of Charity, worn out with
+toils, sufferings, and penance. He has often told me that
+from the first interview he had with Tegahkouita, he thought
+he perceived that God had great designs upon her soul;
+however, he would not hasten her baptism, but took all
+those precautions which experience had taught to be so
+necessary, in order to be certain of the savages before
+administering to them the sacrament of regeneration."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>As soon as Tekakwitha had recovered from the wound
+in her foot, which had occasioned her encounter with the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span>
+blackgown, she began to attend the morning and evening
+prayers at the chapel, in accordance with Father de
+Lamberville's advice. As often and as regularly as the
+sun rose and set, she was now to be seen on her way to
+St. Peter's. Chauchetière says:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"At first they did not give her any trouble; they let her
+go and come to say her prayers like the others; and some
+have believed that if this cabin was not opposed to prayer
+when Catherine was in it, it might have come from the good
+custom which the mother of Catherine, that good Algonquin
+of whom we have spoken, retained there up to the time
+of her death, and these infidels were accustomed to see
+praying."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>So far as Tekakwitha was concerned, the winter which
+followed these events passed quietly away in preparation
+for her baptism. She performed her usual duties in the
+cabin, and her aunts did not molest her on the subject
+of religion. According to one account, they had become
+Christians themselves, though this is contradicted elsewhere.
+The young girl was present at the instructions
+given to catechumens, and learned all the prayers with
+great facility and a marvellous avidity, in the hope that
+the Father would hasten her baptism.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"The missionaries before the baptism of adults took care to
+inform themselves, secretly, of their manners and conduct.
+Father de Lamberville questioned all who knew Tegahkouita,
+and was greatly surprised to find that none, even among
+those who ill-treated her, could say anything to her discredit.
+This was the more flattering to her, since the savages are
+much addicted to slander, and naturally inclined to give a
+malicious turn to the most innocent actions."</p></blockquote><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The missionary found no one who did not give a high
+encomium to the young catechumen. He hesitated no
+longer to grant what she so ardently asked. Easter
+Sunday, 1676, was appointed for the day of her baptism.
+The Christians of Caughnawaga Castle were
+pleased to learn that at last the blackgown had resolved
+to baptize Tekakwitha. Nearly a year had passed since
+she first asked to be made a Christian. All knew her
+worth. When the glad news of Father de Lamberville's
+decision was made known to Tekakwitha, her countenance
+became radiant with joy. Her aunts gave their
+consent to the step their niece was about to take. We
+are not told what her uncle said or did at the time.
+Perhaps he was intent on other important affairs just
+then, or he would probably have put some obstacle in
+her way. He certainly dreaded, above all things, the
+possibility of seeing his niece enticed away to Canada
+in the footsteps of her adopted sister. Perhaps he felt
+quite sure of keeping Tekakwitha with him, as she showed
+no desire to join a band of Kryn's followers who set out
+from the Mohawk Valley shortly before the appointed
+Easter day arrived. Like those who had gone with the
+"great Mohawk" on a former occasion, these pilgrims
+were bound for the Praying Castle on the St. Lawrence
+River. In the band were many friends and neighbors of
+Tekakwitha, so that in part at least her heart must have
+gone with them to Canada. The Praying Castle of St.
+François Xavier was no longer at La Prairie, as when
+Kryn first visited it, but had been moved this very year
+a few miles up the river close to the great Lachine Rapid
+or Sault St. Louis, and was henceforth called Caughnawaga.
+The older village of the same name in the Mohawk<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span>
+Valley was astir with expectation when Easter Sunday arrived,
+in the year 1676.<a name="FNanchor_51_51" id="FNanchor_51_51"></a><a href="#Footnote_51_51" class="fnanchor">[51]</a> The young catechumen whom
+the blackgown De Lamberville esteemed so highly, the
+one of whom no word had been said in disparagement,
+every act of whose life was as clear and fair as the day,
+was eagerly awaiting the hour of her baptism.</p>
+
+<p>The Indian girls on that Easter morning, ready, as
+always, for a pageant or ceremonial of any kind, crowded
+about the door of the rustic chapel, inside and out.
+Some of them carried their little brothers or sisters tied
+to their backs on cradle-boards. Some were gorgeous
+with bright-colored blankets and beads. Proudly they
+tossed their heads, these Mohawk girls, sure at least of
+their share of admiration from the young braves, notwithstanding
+that the old chief's niece was for the moment
+attracting more attention in the town than usual. What
+did her wonderful reputation for virtue amount to, after
+all? Much hard work, some of them thought, and a
+scant allowance of fun or excitement. But for once all
+eyes were centred on the quiet maiden, as she issued
+from her uncle's lodge, and with two companions, also
+ready for baptism, neared the door of the chapel. It
+was easy to see that most of the people of Caughnawaga
+respected and honored her on account of her virtue.
+There was a time when the Iroquois had vaunted the
+chastity of their women, and on that account held their
+heads higher than any other race of Indians. On this
+glorious Easter day the Mohawks seemed to realize, at
+least in a general way, that the maiden Tekakwitha,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span>
+whom they knew to be as strong in will as their own
+flint rock and as pure at heart as their crystal spring,
+had caught up the beautiful crown that was fast falling
+from them. They felt that she at least, while she lived,
+could be trusted to hold it securely above the mire into
+which they were sinking faster and faster.</p>
+
+<p>On the day of Tekakwitha's baptism, the light which
+the blackgown brought with him to the Mohawk country
+beamed with unquenchable brightness from her quiet but
+joyful face, and glimmered in scattered reflections on
+the faces of the crowd through which she passed. There
+men and women, warriors, hunters, jugglers, boys and
+girls of every age,&mdash;in a word, all who were in the village
+had gathered into groups to watch what was taking
+place at the chapel of St. Peter. The blackgown took
+care to render the baptism of an adult, and especially of
+such a noteworthy one as the niece of the chief, as
+impressive as possible; it was conducted with all due
+solemnity.</p>
+
+<p>Never before had the Christians of Caughnawaga been
+more generous with their gifts. They had offered their
+richest furs<a name="FNanchor_52_52" id="FNanchor_52_52"></a><a href="#Footnote_52_52" class="fnanchor">[52]</a> to adorn the chapel in honor both of Easter
+day and of Tekakwitha's baptism. The walls were hung
+with beaver and elk skins. There were bear-skin rugs
+and buffalo hides, embroidered in many colors, both
+under foot and on every side. Belts of wampum
+festooned the rafters. Blossoming branches of shrubs
+and clusters of frail little wild-flowers that grew in the
+ravines near by, decorated the altar. The entrance door<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span>
+was embowered in green. The approach to the chapel was
+through an avenue of budding trees, which had been
+planted there by the missionaries, to give an air of
+seclusion and dignity to the sacred portal. In them the
+birds were building their nests, and kept up a continual
+fluttering, chirping, and trilling. The blackgown's well-trained
+choir of Indian boys and girls, already within
+the chapel, were watching for Tekakwitha to enter.
+When the three catechumens appeared at the door,
+Father de Lamberville, in surplice and violet stole,
+advanced to meet them. Sturdy Mohawk boys who had
+learned to serve at the altar, attended him. The ceremony
+began at the chapel door. Katherine was the Christian
+name to be given to Tekakwitha. Clear and distinct
+were the words of the priest, as he asked the following
+questions: "Katherine, what dost thou ask of the Church
+of God?" Then came the short sweet answer, "Faith."
+"What doth faith lead thee to?" "Life everlasting,"
+was the response. The blackgown, still using the words
+of the time-honored ceremonial, continued: "If then
+thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments. Thou
+shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all
+thy soul, and with all thy mind, and thy neighbor as
+thyself." This exhortation sank deep into the soul of
+Tekakwitha. Fervent and recollected in spirit, she
+strove to catch the meaning of each word and sign.
+Father de Lamberville went on with the sacred rite.
+Breathing on her thrice, as she stood with head bowed
+down, he exorcised the Evil One, saying: "Go out of
+her, thou unclean spirit! give place to the Holy Spirit,
+the Paraclete!" She raised her head at these words, and
+he signed her forehead and breast with the cross. Then<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span>
+he blessed the salt, the symbol of wisdom, and laid it
+on her tongue. Again he bade Satan begone. They
+now entered the little church. They stood close by the
+font. He touched her ear with spittle, saying the
+mystic word of Christ: <i>Ephpheta</i>, that is, "Be opened!"
+Then she renounced the devil with all his works and
+pomps, and was anointed with the oil of the catechumens.
+She made her profession of faith in the words
+of the Apostles' Creed. After that the priest changed
+his violet stole for a white one, and poured the water
+of baptism on her head, saying at the same time the
+brief, essential words of the sacrament: "Katherine, I
+baptize thee in the name of the Father, and of the Son,
+and of the Holy Ghost. Amen."</p>
+
+<p>The people watched each of these ceremonies with
+rapt interest. When it was all over, Katherine Tekakwitha
+turned from the font with a white cloth on her
+head, which the priest placed there in token of innocence,
+bidding her carry it unsullied before the judgment-seat
+of God; and she bore in her hand a lighted
+taper, the symbol of faith. She seemed quite unconscious
+of earth, and bright with angelic joy. The
+Mohawks could almost believe they were looking at a
+blessed spirit rather than at one of themselves. The
+choir of Indian children, silently waiting their turn, now
+filled the chapel with joyous melody, and made it resound
+with the sweet words of an Iroquois hymn, prepared for
+them by their missionaries. The birds outside, stirred
+to blither singing by the sound of voices within, warbled
+their richest notes. The great forest that sheltered the
+bark-covered shrine was alive with music, strange and
+rapturous, like the strains heard by Saint Cecilia in her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span>
+vision. De Lamberville, entranced, stood at the altar
+and listened, like one in a dream. Each breath he drew
+was a fervent prayer for his Indian flock. He was quite
+alone among them,&mdash;the only pale-face at Caughnawaga
+Castle,&mdash;but he felt no isolation. He had given his
+life to these people, and his heart vibrated in perfect
+accord with the Iroquois music. If he thought of his
+home in France and the glorious Easter anthems he had
+heard at St. Eustache and Notre Dame, it was not with
+vain regret, but only with the calm assurance that if his
+friends across the sea could hear these Indians singing
+in their forest chapel and could see the face of this
+Mohawk girl lit up with the joy of her baptism, they
+would not feel that he was throwing away his life and
+talents among barbarian tribes. The path of his duty
+lay clearly before him.</p>
+
+<p>"Go teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of
+the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost."
+These words were ever ringing in the missionary's ears.
+It was in fulfilling this command that he had found
+the Lily of the Mohawks ripe for Christianity. He felt
+that he had gathered rich fruit with but little effort,
+and his next thought was how to keep it safe and bring
+it to its highest perfection for the Master of the Vineyard,
+whom he served.</p>
+
+<p>From the time of her baptism Katherine Tekakwitha's
+life resembled in many respects the lives of the early
+Christians. Chauchetière thus speaks of her baptismal
+name:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p class="bigfoot">"Several Indians bore this name before and after her, but
+not one of them so worthily as the Blessed Catherine Tegakouita.
+La Prairie de la Magdeleine possesses the precious<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span>
+remains of one named Catherine Ganneaktena, from Oneida,
+who was the foundation stone of the mission.... Another
+Catherine died at the Sault at the age of thirteen, having
+lived innocent as an angel, and died as a victim of virginity.
+These two Catherines would have served as models for all
+the Christian Indian women at the mission of the Sault,
+had not Catherine Tegakouita arisen to shine like a sun
+among the stars."</p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="footnotes center"><br />FOOTNOTES:
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_51_51" id="Footnote_51_51"></a><a href="#FNanchor_51_51"><span class="label">[51]</span></a> Chauchetière mentions Easter Sunday, 1675, as the date of Kateri
+Tekakwitha's baptism. Cholenec and others give the date as above,
+1676.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_52_52" id="Footnote_52_52"></a><a href="#FNanchor_52_52"><span class="label">[52]</span></a> This description of the chapel at the time of Tekakwitha's baptism
+is taken principally from a manuscript of Rev. Felix Martin, entitled
+"Une Vierge Iroquoise."</p><br /></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XIV.</h2>
+
+<p class="centerc"><b>PERSECUTIONS.&mdash;HEROIC CALMNESS IN A MOMENT OF
+PERIL.&mdash;MALICE OF TEKAKWITHA'S AUNT.</b></p>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">A</span>FTER her baptism, Katherine Tekakwitha was
+supremely happy. Her deft hands were as
+busy as before, providing for the general comfort in her
+uncle's lodge. Besides this she went back and forth
+twice each day to the chapel, where the blackgown
+assembled his dusky flock for morning and evening
+prayers. On Sundays she heard Mass at the same bark-covered
+shrine of St. Peter, and later on in the day she
+joined in chanting the prayers of the chaplet with alternate
+choirs of the Christian Indians. This was a
+favorite religious exercise at all the Iroquois missions.
+These people were gifted by nature with sweet voices,
+and sang well together. If at any time the Mohawk
+girl was beset with some difficulty or perplexity, she
+went at once to tell it with all simplicity to Father de
+Lamberville, who pointed out to her with great care
+the path which he believed would lead her most directly
+on to holiness of life. Once sure of her duty,
+Tekakwitha walked straight forward, with timid, downcast
+eyes, but joyous spirit, swerving neither to the
+right nor to the left. The rule of life that the Father
+prescribed for his other Christians to keep them from
+the superstitious, impure feasts and drunken debaucheries
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span>
+common among the Indians, was too general and
+not advanced enough for Tekakwitha. She had always
+avoided these excesses even in her heathen days, and
+now her craving for a higher and deeper knowledge of
+spiritual things was so great that the blackgown soon
+found himself called on to direct her in the way of
+special devotional exercises and unusual practices of
+virtue.</p>
+
+<p>In December, 1676, an event occurred of much interest
+to the Christian Indians. On the feast of the Immaculate
+Conception, the blessing of the statue of Notre
+Dame de Foye took place at Tionnontogen, or the Mission
+of St. Mary's. This statue was a fac-simile of a
+highly venerated one of the Blessed Virgin in Belgium.
+It was made of oak from the place where the first originated,
+and had been sent out from France to the Indians.
+Father Bruyas received it at Tionnontogen as
+a precious gift to his Christian Mohawks. All the
+neophytes of the neighboring villages assembled to see
+it unveiled and solemnly blessed. It was placed in the
+chapel in such a way that a bright ray of light falling
+through a small opening in the bark wall fell directly
+upon the Madonna. The Indians had not seen anything
+so beautiful and new to them since Boniface showed
+them on Christmas day at Caughnawaga the little
+statue of the Christ-child lying in a manger. Father
+Martin, speaking of the unveiling of this statue of the
+Madonna, says that Katherine Tekakwitha would not
+fail to be present at this pious rendezvous. She was
+baptized, it will be remembered, at Easter time; and the
+blessing of the statue of Notre Dame de Foye took
+place on the 8th day of the following December.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span>
+Charlevoix says, alluding to Tekakwitha's Christian
+life:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"From the first, her virtues gained admiration even
+from those who were the furthest from imitating them; and
+those to whom she was subject left her free to follow the
+promptings of her zeal for a short time. The innocence of
+her life, and the precautions she took to avoid all occasions
+of sin, and above all her extreme reserve with regard to all
+which might in the slightest degree wound modesty, appearing
+to the young people of the village a tacit reproach to
+the licentious life which they led, several endeavored to
+turn her astray, in the hope of tarnishing the splendor of
+a virtue which dazzled them.</p>
+
+<p>"On the other hand, although she neglected none of her
+domestic labors and was ever ready to assist others, her
+relatives murmured greatly at her spending all her free
+time in prayer; and as she would not work on Sundays
+and feast-days, when forbidden by the Church, they would
+deprive her of food the entire day. Seeing that they gained
+nothing by this means, they had recourse to more violent
+measures, often ill-treating her in the most shameful manner:
+when she went to the chapel they would send boys to
+throw stones at and calumniate her; while drunken men, or
+those pretending to be such, would pursue her and threaten
+her life; but fearless of their artifices, she continued her
+exercises as if in the enjoyment of the most perfect liberty
+and peace."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>She did not hesitate to say, when there was occasion
+for it, that she would die rather than give up the practice
+of the Christian religion. Her resolution was put
+to severe tests, but she never wavered. Chauchetière
+thus wrote concerning the persecutions she had to
+endure at this time:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span>
+"There are those who dare not declare themselves when
+they are the only Christians in their cabin; but Katherine
+showed an extraordinary firmness of spirit against human
+respect. When the children pointed their fingers at her,
+when they called her no longer by her Indian name, but
+called her by the name of <i>Christian</i> in derision, as though they
+meant <i>dog</i>,&mdash;which lasted so long that they forgot her name,
+giving her none other at all but that of the <i>Christian</i>, because
+she was the only one in the cabin who was baptized,&mdash;far
+from afflicting herself on account of this scorn of which
+she was the object, she was happy to have lost her name.</p>
+
+<p>"She had much to suffer from the mockeries of the sorcerers,
+of the drunkards, of all the enemies of 'The Prayer,'
+likewise of her uncle."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>He too, as time went on, seems to have taken an active
+part in persecuting the young girl who was entirely
+dependent on him for protection from insult. When her
+own uncle, the chief man of the castle, turned against
+her, what could she expect from others but ill-treatment
+of every sort? Her firmness, which nothing could
+shake, irritated her heathen relatives more and more.
+They called her a sorceress. Whenever she went to
+the chapel they caused her to be followed by showers
+of stones, so that to avoid those who lay in wait for
+her, she was often obliged to take the most circuitous
+routes. Was it not strange that one so shy by nature
+as Tekakwitha should have had the strength of will to
+undergo all this without flinching? She seemed to be
+utterly devoid of fear; though timid as a deer, she had
+the courage of a panther at bay, and was no less quick
+to act when the time for action came.</p>
+
+<p>One day when she was employed as usual in her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span>
+uncle's lodge, a young Indian suddenly rushed in upon
+her, his features distorted with rage, his eyes flashing
+fire, his tomahawk raised above his head as if to strike
+her dead at the least opposition. Tekakwitha did not
+cry out, or make an appeal for mercy, or promise to
+abandon the course she was taking in the midst of this
+ever increasing torrent of threats and abuse. With
+perfect composure, without the tremor or twitch of a
+muscle, she simply bowed her head on her breast, and
+stood before the wild and desperate young savage as
+immovable as a rock. Words were not needed on
+either side. With all the eloquent silence of the Indian
+sign language, her gesture and attitude spoke to the
+youth and said: "I am here, I am ready. My life you
+can take; my faith is my own in life or in death. I
+fear you not!" The rage in the Indian's eye died out,
+and gave place to wonder, then awe. He gazed as if
+spellbound. The uplifted tomahawk dropped to his
+side. Her firmness unnerved him. Admiration, then
+a strange fear, overmastered the young brave, whose
+brain perhaps had been somewhat clouded with liquor
+when he thus undertook to rid the old chief's niece of
+her Christian whims. Be that as it may, he could not
+have been more astonished at what he beheld if a
+spirit had appeared before him and ordered him out of
+the lodge. Cowed and abashed, he slunk away, as if
+from a superior being; or rather, in the words of
+Charlevoix, "he turned and fled with as much precipitation
+as if pursued by a band of warriors."</p>
+
+<p>Thinking Tekakwitha meant to join the Mohawks on
+the St. Lawrence, they had sought by threatening her
+life in this way to prevent her from carrying out her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span>
+purpose. They now let her live in peace for a time.
+No stone had been left unturned to weary her out and
+break her spirit; it had all proved to be of no avail.
+They might as well have tried to frighten the stars from
+their accustomed course through the heavens as to turn
+this quiet Mohawk girl from the path her conscience
+marked out. Her hold on faith and virtue was stronger
+than torture or death. These first caprices of her tormentors
+were followed a little later by a more dangerous
+persecution, and to one possessed of Tekakwitha's sensibilities,
+the most cruel of all.</p>
+
+<p>It was the last trial she was called upon to endure in
+the land of her birth. It was the only one, perhaps,
+that could have estranged her from her nearest kindred
+and her beloved Mohawk Valley; for we are told that
+she was particularly sensitive to the reproach they
+made to her of having no natural affection for her relations
+and of hating her nation. Had this been true,
+she would never have remained in her uncle's lodge as
+she did, till its inmates hardened their hearts against her
+to the exclusion even of the commonest sentiments of
+humanity. This was particularly the case with one of
+her aunts, who succeeded only too well in making the
+life of her niece a torture. She was the direct cause
+of Tekakwitha's last and severest trial in the Mohawk
+country.</p>
+
+<p>In 1677 the Lily of the Mohawks accompanied her
+relatives on the usual spring hunt. They went in the
+direction of the Dutch, we are told, or in other words,
+towards the settlement at Schenectady. Had their object
+been to fish, they would most likely have gone on
+from there to the fishing village at the mouth of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span>
+Norman's Kill, near Albany, passing down through the
+"vale of Tawasentha." As these Indians went to hunt
+and not to fish, they probably took instead one of the
+many trails leading through the pine-forest of Saratoga,
+any one of which would quickly bring them to a region
+frequented by deer and game from the Adirondacks.
+There, at a certain spot known to the Mohawks from
+time immemorial, a strange medicine-spring bubbled
+over the top of a round, high rock, and scattered its
+health-giving waters at random over the ground. Then,
+and for a hundred years to come, its existence was known
+only to the Indians. No white man had ever been permitted
+to lift its pungent water to his lips.</p>
+
+<p>To this place, called "Serachtague" in his report of the
+colony, Governor Dongan tried in vain to recall the
+Iroquois Christians of Canada, by promising them English
+blackgowns,<a name="FNanchor_53_53" id="FNanchor_53_53"></a><a href="#Footnote_53_53" class="fnanchor">[53]</a> and undisturbed possession of their
+favorite hunting-ground. With this interesting fact of
+early Saratoga history, however, we are not now concerned.
+As for the one involving Tekakwitha, here is
+Chauchetière's account of what occurred at the Mohawk
+hunting-camp, and of the report that was carried back
+from there to the village:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"In the spring or during the time of the chase she had
+gone with her relations towards the Dutch, with her uncle.
+The wife of this hunter did not like Catherine, perhaps because<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span>
+the good life of Catherine was a reproach to the contrary
+life led by this infidel; this woman examined all the
+actions and all the words of Catherine, that she might discover
+something with which to find fault. It is a common
+thing among the Indians to treat an uncle like a father, and
+to call him by the very name of father. Catherine chanced
+one day, in speaking of this old man in company with
+others, to let slip his name without using the name of
+'father' or 'my father;' this woman noticed that, and judged
+rashly of Catherine, and said that Catherine had sinned
+with her husband. She did not fail to seek out Father Lamberville,
+and tell him that she whom he esteemed so much
+had sinned. The Father wished to examine the reasons
+which this woman had for treating in such a way this good
+Christian, and having found out that the strongest was that
+which I have just related, he sharply reproved this evil-speaking
+tongue; but he did not neglect to speak to Catherine
+and to instruct her on the sin, and the pains of hell that
+God has prepared for punishing it, and then he questioned
+Catherine, who replied with firmness and modesty that never
+had she fallen into this sin either on this occasion or on any
+other, and that she did not fear to be damned [for it]; but
+much sooner, for not having courage enough to let them
+break her head rather than to go to work in the fields on
+Sunday. She believed she had not done enough by remaining
+whole days without eating, for when she did not go to
+work in the fields on Sundays, they would hide everything
+there was to eat in the cabin, and they left her nothing of
+what had been prepared for that day. This was in order
+that hunger might oblige her to go to the fields, where they
+would have forced her to work."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>They declared that Christianity was making her lazy
+and worthless. Had she been accustomed to idle away<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span>
+as much of her time in amusement as the other young
+squaws, she would not have been so treated; but her
+ill-natured aunts, for whom she had worked industriously
+all her life, now begrudged her the one day of rest
+out of seven which she took for conscience' sake. Thus
+Sunday generally proved not a feast, but a fast-day to
+Tekakwitha. Her life was becoming intolerable. Her
+cruel and morose aunt, whom Martin rightly calls <i>un
+esprit bizarre</i>, had received from Father de Lamberville
+a reprimand which covered her with confusion. She
+visited her chagrin upon the head of her innocent victim.
+"Well!" she had said to the blackgown, "so Katherine,
+whom you esteem so virtuous, is notwithstanding a
+hypocrite who deceives you." As such her aunt now
+treated her. This evil-minded old squaw, who looked
+through the murky cloud of her own sins at the brightness
+and holiness of the young life so close to hers, disliked
+its radiance. It caused her to blink uncomfortably,
+and she refused to believe in its truth. She shrank
+back into the dark, which suited her better. In her
+fruitless efforts to hide from her wicked eyes the bright
+light that shone about the pathway of Tekakwitha, she
+tried by every means in her power to brand the virtue
+of her niece as a mere pretence, assumed to cover worse
+deeds than her own.</p>
+
+<p>There was no longer for the Lily of the Mohawks
+even a shadow of protection in her home at Caughnawaga
+Castle. Her uncle had beset her path with
+drunken men and taunting children; she had been deprived
+of food, she had been threatened with death, and
+last of all, her aunt had done what she could to defame
+her to the blackgown. He, however, was now her only<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span>
+friend; and his advice to her was to leave the country
+as soon as possible, and take refuge at the Praying Castle.
+What wonder, then, that Tekakwitha, after having thus
+spent a year and a half in her home as a Christian, began
+to look with longing eyes towards the new Caughnawaga
+on the St. Lawrence, whither her adopted sister
+and Anastasia Tegonhatsihongo had already gone. She
+turned to the mission settlement in her thoughts as
+to a land of promise and peace, an asylum where her
+religion and her innocence would be respected.</p>
+
+<p class="bigfoot">Travelling Indians from the Sault came and went
+among their tribesmen in the Mohawk Valley. Sometimes
+they were joined by new recruits, who returned
+with them to Canada. Tekakwitha now greeted the
+arrival of each band of these Christian Indians with a
+hopeful smile; but again and again she saw them depart
+with a weary sigh, for when they were gone, she felt that
+her only chance of release from her trials had vanished
+with them. Thus far none of them had offered to take
+her to the Praying Castle, and indeed, she knew of no
+one with whom she would have cared to go had she
+been asked. She saw no way out of her troubles. Her
+uncle, grown harsh and unkind to her, was displeased
+with all that she did in the lodge, and yet he would not
+consent to her going away. The old chief was moody
+and sullen at sight of his half-untenanted castle. Who
+then would dare to tamper with his niece, or assist her
+in any way to escape? Who would ever be found willing
+to undertake so dangerous a venture? Tekakwitha
+sadly realized her position, and felt that she could
+only gather together the powers of her soul for patient
+and persistent endurance even unto death. She knew<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span>
+that if her relatives could once force her by long-continued
+persecution to yield to them, their old kindness
+would return; they would then be only too glad to
+choose a husband for her, and to give her a place among
+the oyanders, or noble matrons of the nation. But the
+national life of the Mohawks was still thoroughly heathen,
+and her part was already taken with the Christians.
+She would not retreat one step, nor entertain
+for a moment the thought of surrender, though she was
+cut off almost entirely from communication with those
+of her own faith. She stood apart from them all, and
+suffered and made no moan. During this time Tekakwitha
+was learning the bitterest lesson of life; she
+was daily sounding the depths and unlocking the secrets
+of unshared sorrow. In this the heart of the Lily was
+waxing strong; but alas! her very soul was athirst for
+the "living water" that was so cruelly denied her. She
+had scarcely as yet been allowed to taste of its sweetness.
+She knew that those who lived at the Sault were
+permitted to drink deep of the precious draught, and
+revelled in wealth of spiritual food. Thus checked and
+deprived of instruction, how could she ever hope to obtain
+the "bread of life" that was given out so freely at
+the mission village? Was she alone, of all the Iroquois
+Christians, to hunger and thirst for these things without
+relief till she died? Was she to be all her life "the
+only one in the lodge baptized"? And would she be
+always treated as now? She felt that she could not
+endure it much longer and live; for the Lily was left
+quite alone among thorns, and the thorns were pricking
+her almost to death.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes center"><br />FOOTNOTES:
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_53_53" id="Footnote_53_53"></a><a href="#FNanchor_53_53"><span class="label">[53]</span></a> These promises were of no great account. Kryn, the great Mohawk
+warrior, said in 1687, "If a priest would settle at Saragtoga,
+many [Indians] would return; for they had longed and waited a long
+time for it." Colonial History, vol. iii. p. 436. As this hope failed, and
+neutrality was not possible, we find Kryn thenceforth in close alliance
+with the French.</p><br /></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XV.</h2>
+
+<p class="centerc"><b>HOT ASHES PLANS TEKAKWITHA'S ESCAPE.</b></p>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">T</span>HE Indian chief Louis Garonhiagué, known to the
+English as Hot Ashes, and called by the French
+La Poudre Chaude or La Cendre Chaude, was, as his
+name implies, a quick-tempered, impulsive, and fiery
+man. He was an Oneida by birth, and was known to
+have been one of the executioners of the heroic missionary
+Brebeuf, who, with his companion Lalemant,
+was tortured and slain in the Huron country by Iroquois
+warriors. Since that time Hot Ashes had become
+a Christian. His career and character are interesting
+and characteristic of the times. As this impetuous
+chief, <i>dogique</i>, and apostle was bold enough to come
+forward and assist the Lily of the Mohawks to escape
+from her uncle's lodge to the Sault St. Louis, some
+further account of him may well be given.</p>
+
+<p>Hot Ashes had been betrothed to his wife in childhood.
+They had lived together from the time he was
+eight years old. The violence of his nature was held in
+check to a certain extent by the unalterable patience,
+the gentleness, and the yielding disposition of his worthy
+squaw. Their union was what Chauchetière calls one
+of the good marriages that are sometimes made among
+the savages. Hot Ashes was chief or captain of his
+village in the Oneida country, and was held in high<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span>
+esteem by his tribesmen. His own quick temper was the
+cause of his leaving them. At one time the question of
+moving the village to a new site&mdash;an event of frequent
+occurrence among the Indians&mdash;gave rise to a quarrel
+between the leading chiefs. While still angry on this
+account, Hot Ashes went off to the hunt. Thereupon a
+second event occurred, of so irritating a nature that he
+was enraged beyond all bounds. News came to him
+that his favorite brother had been killed. The bearer
+of the news did not tell him who had committed the
+fatal deed. The furious and excitable chief immediately
+persuaded himself that it had been done by the French.
+Without waiting to learn the particulars, he hurried off
+toward Montreal to wreak his vengeance on the Canadian
+settlers. On his way, however, he learned that his
+brother had been killed in an entirely different quarter,
+and not by these people at all. Hot Ashes was now
+in a quandary. What should he do next? He was
+near the Praying Castle on the St. Lawrence, whose
+hospitable doors were always open to travellers, and
+he paused there for a time to consider the situation.
+The Indians of that place liked him from the first; he
+soon made friends among them, and his wife was
+charmed with the quiet, orderly, and peaceful life of the
+Christian Indians who dwelt there. Hot Ashes thus
+had ample time to cool down and think matters over.
+Should he now decide to return to his own country, he
+would feel bound to avenge his brother's death, according
+to custom, on the people by whom he had been
+slain. He knew that this would involve his whole
+nation in a bloody war. This he disliked to do; for
+when not in a tempest of anger, Hot Ashes was a generous,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span>
+good-hearted man. Then, too, the longer he remained
+at the Sault the more contented and calm he
+became. Won over by his wife Garhoit, he consented to
+be instructed and to be baptized with his whole family.
+The baptism of so important a chief was a great event
+for the mission. All his own people who were in the
+vicinity, and many even from the distant Oneida country,
+assembled at the Praying Castle for the occasion. A
+number of these remained and became Christians. There
+were soon so many Oneidas dwelling at the Sault that
+they needed a ruler of their own nation, and Hot Ashes
+was chosen to preside over them. He thus became the
+fourth <i>dogique</i>, or captain of the Praying Castle. He
+soon ranked first of all in importance, notwithstanding
+the ability of his stanch friend Kryn, the "great Mohawk."
+Still his unruly temper would break forth at
+times, as it did on the occasion of his reception as
+captain. The men of the Sault assembled in due form,
+lighted the fire for him, gave him the calumet to smoke,
+and went through all the ceremonies save one, which
+most unfortunately was forgotten. Hot Ashes, indignant
+at the oversight, went to Father Fremin, the missionary,
+and gave vent to his ire. He said that they had mocked
+him, that they had treated him like a child, that he was
+a chief without a mat, that he would be obliged to hold
+his council out of doors. In short, he could not be
+pacified till the old men reassembled, and the whole
+ceremony from beginning to end was gone over.</p>
+
+<p>Once duly installed, Hot Ashes ruled the village with
+ability and vigor up to the time of his death. He outlived
+Tekakwitha, and was finally killed in battle.
+Many incidents are told of his courage, piety, and zeal,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span>
+his devotion to his religion and the good of the settlement,
+and also of his tenderness to his wife while suffering
+from grievous ailments which afflicted the later
+years of her life. He had a natural talent for exhorting
+and teaching. He won many of his own people to
+Christianity, and when war was threatened he did what
+he could to maintain peace between the Oneidas and
+the French. While thus engaged he was suspected of
+double dealing; but taking no notice of the evil things
+that were said of him, Hot Ashes held to his own
+disinterested course with head erect, confiding in his
+good wife, who alone remained true to him, till at last
+he succeeded in living down all suspicion of treachery
+on either side. He it was, more than all others, who
+opposed and prevented the introduction of the liquor
+traffic into the settlement at the Sault. A lively incident
+is given by Chauchetière to show his love of temperance.
+Soon after his baptism he chanced to be hunting at the
+end of the island of Montreal, when he fell in with a
+band of Oneidas. They were being supplied with liquor
+by an unscrupulous Canadian trader. They sat around
+a great bowl of fire water, from which they drank freely,
+and which was constantly replenished by the crafty
+Frenchman. Hot Ashes was asked to join them. He
+did so, through courtesy, and drank with the rest. Finding
+that he was expected and urged to take more than
+he ought, an expedient came into his ready brain for
+preventing further mischief. As there were older men
+than himself in the band, it would not have been considered
+proper for him to reprove them openly. This,
+then, is what he did. He stood up and began to sing
+like a drunken man, and to dance. Suddenly he pretended
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span>
+to take a false step, and at the same time gave
+the bowl a great kick with his foot. This scattered its
+contents over the ground. The Indians, not suspecting
+his intention, looked upon the accident as a good joke.
+They began to laugh uproariously and to make fun of
+Hot Ashes, who went on with his mimicry. In the
+mean time night came on, and they thought no more of
+drinking, but all fell asleep. Hot Ashes then retired,
+well pleased with having put a stop to the debauch.</p>
+
+<p>Other anecdotes might be given to show the character
+and spirit of this Indian; but it is enough to know that
+he was just the one to assist the Lily of the Mohawks
+in the accomplishment of her now well-defined purpose,&mdash;to
+escape at all hazards, and turn from her uncle's
+lodge to the Praying Castle.</p>
+
+<p>Tekakwitha's adopted sister, already in Canada, knew
+well the condition of affairs in the Mohawk country, and
+above all, in the lodge of the chief, with whom she had
+formerly lived at Caughnawaga. She was fully aware that
+Tekakwitha's life there as a Christian would necessarily
+be a thorny one. She and her husband often spoke of
+the unhappy condition in which the young Mohawk
+was placed, and of the desirability of having her with
+them. When it became known that Hot Ashes was
+about to visit the Long House of the Five Nations on
+an errand of zeal, they realized at once that the wished-for
+opportunity had come. They would now be able to
+assist Tekakwitha. The Oneida chief intended to speak
+to his people concerning the faith that was in him, and
+to persuade as many of them as possible to return with
+him to the Sault. Tekakwitha's brother-in-law, urged
+by his wife, resolved to accompany Hot Ashes on his
+proposed journey, and in order to make sure of carrying
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span>
+out his own immediate purpose,&mdash;which was to bring
+his sister-in-law back with him,&mdash;he took into his confidence
+a good friend of his from Lorette, a mission village
+of the Hurons, near Quebec. This Indian of
+Lorette and the brother-in-law of Tekakwitha consulted
+with Hot Ashes, and the three together planned their
+journey as best they could beforehand. Then they
+stepped lightly into a canoe, just large enough to hold
+them, and soon were speeding southward over Lake
+Champlain, and thence through Lake George on their
+way to the Mohawk Valley.</p>
+
+<p>Ah, Tekakwitha, why is your step so weary there
+in the village street? Why do you pause at the cabin
+door as though you did not care to enter? Why are
+you sad and faint? Have they hidden the food away
+from you again, lest you should find a morsel to eat, and
+will you be greeted with angry words if you enter
+your uncle's lodge? Is it no easier for you to bear it
+now than it was at first? Poor child! you are both
+hungry and hungry-hearted; human nature is strong
+within you to-day. The craving for peace and comfort
+and human love will not be hushed and trampled under
+by faith, and the hope of a far-away heaven. Has
+Rawenniio forgotten the Mohawk girl? She seems to
+be drifting away from the sound of his voice. The
+strength of her spirit is gone. She is sad unto death.
+Why not give up the struggle at once, go into the lodge,
+and consent to do like the rest? For one who has
+grown too weary to swim, it can scarcely be wrong to
+drift with the current. Are these your thoughts, Tekakwitha?
+See! They have startled her out of her weariness!<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span>
+With a sudden return of energy and a quick
+determination, as if afraid to trust herself in the lodge,
+she turns and takes the path to the chapel. She will
+find the blackgown, if it is possible to do so; she will tell
+him her wicked thoughts, and be guided by what he
+says. He is wise and good. He can tell her how to
+chase such thoughts away, and perhaps she can keep
+them from coming back. At all events, he will speak
+to her the comforting words of forgiveness and tell her
+to go in peace. Then she will be sure that Rawenniio
+loves her and is not angry. She knows the path so well
+that she quickly comes within sight of the chapel. As
+it is not her usual hour for prayer, no one is around to
+waylay or disturb her.</p>
+
+<p>Close at hand is De Lamberville's cabin. Tekakwitha
+does not find him at once, for the blackgown has guests.
+They are Christian Indians, who have come from the
+Sault, and there are three of them. Father de Lamberville
+is well pleased to have such visitors; he welcomes
+the Christians from the Sault who come to the Mohawk
+as if they were angels come from heaven. He gladly
+receives them into his cabin, and leaves them free to
+come and go as they please. "One could see the spirit
+of Christianity and the mortification of the passions
+depicted on the faces of these new apostles." The
+novelty of seeing and hearing them on this occasion
+has already attracted a crowd of Indians to the spot.
+One of the blackgown's guests has risen to make a
+speech.</p>
+
+<p>Tekakwitha finds herself in the midst of the old men
+and the chiefs of Caughnawaga who are assembled there,
+and she listens with eager interest to all that is said.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span>
+Her uncle is away on a visit to the Dutch, which happens
+well for her. It is no less a personage than Hot Ashes
+who is addressing the people. In his impetuous, headlong
+way he tells them that "as they all know, he was
+formerly captain at Oneida, that he was a warrior, and
+that he acted like them in those days, but that after all
+he was only a dog; that he had begun to be a man a
+few months back and he said many touching things,"
+continues Chauchetière, "but nobody profited by them
+at all except Catherine. The old men withdrew,
+one after another, and left the speaker almost entirely
+alone. Catherine could not separate herself from these
+new-comers. She declared to the Father that she must
+indeed go away, even at the cost of her life." She was
+too unhappy and distrustful of herself and her own
+powers of endurance to remain longer in the country
+where she was exposed to so many and such constant
+trials of her strength and her faith. Father de Lamberville,
+moved by her earnest words, spoke to Hot Ashes
+and his companions about her. He asked if it would
+be possible for them to take her back with them to
+Canada. "Certainly," they said. It was in the hope
+of assisting her to escape that they had come to
+Caughnawaga. Hot Ashes at once offered Tekakwitha
+his own place in the canoe. He said that he intended
+to go on to Oneida and to pass through all the Iroquois
+nations, preaching the faith. Her brother-in-law, therefore,
+and the Indian from Lorette, could take the canoe
+and return with Tekakwitha to the Praying Castle. God
+had provided a means of escape for her most unexpectedly.
+It was the very best opportunity she could have
+to go; her uncle was away, and her aunts, either through
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span>
+indifference or ignorance of the plan, put no obstacle in
+her path.</p>
+
+<p>Tekakwitha was never known to falter when the
+moment came for prompt decision and instant action.
+Chauchetière says: "The resolution was no sooner taken
+than it was carried into execution."</p>
+
+<p class="bigfoot">The two companions of Hot Ashes put Tekakwitha
+secretly into the canoe with them, and immediately
+took the route leading towards the Dutch;<a name="FNanchor_54_54" id="FNanchor_54_54"></a><a href="#Footnote_54_54" class="fnanchor">[54]</a> that is to
+say, they embarked on the Mohawk River and followed
+its course for some distance, before taking any one of
+the different woodland trails leading to Lake George.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes center"><br />FOOTNOTES:
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_54_54" id="Footnote_54_54"></a><a href="#FNanchor_54_54"><span class="label">[54]</span></a> According to Cholenec's account of Tekakwitha's escape, her
+brother-in-law went on a hurried visit to the Dutch and back again to
+Caughnawaga, before he started with her at all. This he did in order
+to mislead her uncle, who would think he had come to that vicinity
+for no other purpose than to trade in beaver-skins. The minor details
+of her journey are somewhat confused in the two accounts of Cholenec
+and Chauchetière, but the main facts are the same in both.</p><br /></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><br /><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XVI.</h2>
+
+<p class="centerc"><b>FROM THE OLD TO THE NEW CAUGHNAWAGA.</b></p>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">A</span>S they left Caughnawaga Castle, and paddled
+around the sharp bends of the Mohawk River,
+the two Indians who were conducting this stirring adventure
+used the utmost caution to prevent an encounter
+between Tekakwitha and her uncle, who might
+be at that very time returning from Schenectady. This
+they dreaded above all things. If the old chief should
+meet her in company with them, he would suspect their
+purpose at once, and the lives of the three would be in
+danger. They followed the course of the river current,
+however, as it carried them in the general direction
+of their journey more swiftly than they could otherwise
+travel. They wished to make the most of their time
+before the uncle could be warned of their departure from
+the castle. It was probably not far from the spot where
+the Chuctanunda Creek at Amsterdam<a name="FNanchor_55_55" id="FNanchor_55_55"></a><a href="#Footnote_55_55" class="fnanchor">[55]</a> comes tumbling
+down the hill into the Mohawk, or in that vicinity, that
+she and her two companions left the canoe by the river-side
+and took to the woods; as in the thickets along<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span>
+the less frequented trail by land, it would be easier for
+Tekakwitha to conceal herself quickly in case of alarm,
+than if they were to continue the journey further by
+way of the river. Had they followed the latter course,
+they would have been obliged to take a more easterly
+trail across Saratoga County.<a name="FNanchor_56_56" id="FNanchor_56_56"></a><a href="#Footnote_56_56" class="fnanchor">[56]</a></p>
+
+<p>As they feared, the uncle was soon on their trail; for
+shortly after the three mission Indians had disappeared
+from Caughnawaga Castle Tekakwitha's absence was
+noticed. It was quickly inferred that she had gone to
+Canada. She was not in the lodge, not in the chapel,
+nor with the girls at the spring. Instantly a runner
+was despatched to the Dutch settlement to warn the
+Turtle Chief of what had occurred. The news filled
+him with rage. Leaving his Dutch friends abruptly, he
+started homeward to learn if it were indeed true that
+his niece had vanished, and if so, speedily to follow her.
+On his way to the castle he passed an Indian travelling
+rapidly in the opposite direction from himself, whom he
+scarcely noticed and did not recognize. Nevertheless
+this Indian was no other than Tekakwitha's brother-in-law,&mdash;the
+very man he wanted to capture. The unrecognized
+relative knew the chief as soon as he saw him,
+but he was too near to avoid passing him without exciting
+suspicion. So, feigning an unconcern which he
+was far from feeling, he kept straight on, and passed
+the old man safely. He then continued his journey to
+Schenectady. The chief, on the other hand, was in
+quite as great a hurry to reach the Mohawk village.
+Perhaps he had doubts as to the truthfulness of what
+he had heard. At all events, when he arrived at Caughnawaga<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span>
+he went directly to his own lodge, and found
+that Tekakwitha was indeed not there, and had not been
+since the departure of Hot Ashes. Immediately he gathered
+what information he could at the castle, "loaded
+his gun with three balls, declaring that he would kill
+somebody," and started in pursuit of the fugitives.
+Once thoroughly roused, his unaided sagacity put him
+on the trail by which he might overtake them before
+they could reach Lake George.</p>
+
+<p>In the mean time what had become of Tekakwitha?
+Why was her brother-in-law travelling alone? Ah!
+she and the good Indian of Lorette were concealed in
+the bushes, either near the river-bank at Amsterdam
+or on the high ground to the northeast of that town.
+Her brother-in-law had left them there, while he made
+a brief trip to Schenectady and back in order to buy
+bread. They had started from Caughnawaga Castle in
+haste, without provision for the journey. He soon returned
+to the secluded spot where his companions were
+waiting for him. Tekakwitha was greatly relieved to
+see him. When he gave them a graphic account of his
+narrow escape from discovery, she looked upon it as a
+certain proof that God was watching over them. She
+resolved that on reaching the Sault, as she now hoped
+to do, she would endeavor in every way to show her
+gratitude to Him. Up to this time she had lived in
+great seclusion and subjection, and of late had suffered
+constant persecution and torture of spirit. This sudden
+freedom, then, from all the bonds that bound her to her
+lodge and tribe; the intense excitement attending her
+sudden departure; these days of concealment in the
+weird and gloomy forest; this unforeseen companionship<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span>
+with strangers, who proved to be as gentle and as
+solicitous for her safety as if she were indeed a beloved
+sister; and more than all the wonderful way in which
+everything seemed to concur in aiding her escape,&mdash;could
+not fail to make a deep and lasting impression
+on her sensitive soul. Every spiritual and religious
+tendency of her nature was intensified by this new and
+strange experience. In leaving her home and undertaking
+so perilous a journey she had thrown herself
+without reserve into the arms of Providence, and now
+resting there, she was carried almost without an effort
+through hair-breadth escapes from dangers that no
+earthly consideration would ever have nerved her to face.
+She felt that she could not henceforth do otherwise than
+devote her all to Rawenniio,&mdash;<i>the true God</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Their probable route to Lake George was through
+what is now the township of Galway in Saratoga County,
+and thence up the valley of the Kayaderosseras Creek,
+skirting the eastern side of the long mountain-ridge that
+carries Lake Desolation high on its back. Through this
+region one can travel almost in a straight line of open
+country from Amsterdam on the Mohawk to Jessup's
+Landing on the Hudson. There the river is fordable,
+just above Palmer's Falls and below the old scow-ferry.
+A well-worn trail followed the eastern bank of the river
+from there to Luzerne, and then turned northeast,
+through a beautiful valley, to the mountainous shores
+of Lake George. Somewhere on this direct route across
+the country, Tekakwitha's uncle overtook one of the
+two Indians who were escorting her to Canada. Apparently
+this Indian was engaged in hunting. Just as
+the chief approached, the hunter took aim as if at a bird
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span>
+and fired his gun. This was a preconcerted signal to
+his companion, who was some distance in advance, to
+conceal the Indian girl. It was so understood. In an
+instant Tekakwitha was hidden in a clump of thick
+undergrowth. Her ready-witted companion threw himself
+on the ground near her, took out his pipe, lit it,
+and lazily watched the curling smoke as he puffed it
+from his mouth. Tekakwitha's uncle, coming upon the
+second Indian in this attitude, was completely disconcerted.
+Where then was his niece? Assuredly not in
+company with these men. They were fully absorbed
+in their own affairs, and scarcely noticed his approach.
+She might be even then at work in the corn-fields down
+by the Mohawk, or saying her prayers in the woods behind
+the castle. In either case he would not have found
+her in the lodge. He had acted foolishly, and followed
+an idle rumor without sufficient thought. He would not
+expose his folly further by questioning these men about
+her. Having reached this determination, he turned
+without a word as to what was uppermost in his mind,
+and silently retraced his steps to the Mohawk Valley.</p>
+
+<p>As for Tekakwitha, she felt as sure just then of
+Rawenniio's direct protection and care, as if she had
+seen the Great Spirit himself standing in front of her
+hiding-place and concealing her from the suspicious
+eyes of her uncle. How else could the wise old chief
+have been so easily misled by such simple means?
+With a light heart she resumed her journey. Their
+worst danger was passed. When they reached the shore
+of Lake George, a little search among the bushes brought
+to light the canoe which her companions had left there
+on their journey southward with Hot Ashes. Once
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span>
+fairly launched, they felt secure; and as they paddled
+up the lake, hugging the westward or leeward side,
+where canoes find the smoothest water, they woke its
+echoes with the chanting of Iroquois hymns. Thus did
+the daughter, a voluntary exile from her home in the
+Mohawk Valley, retrace the path over land and water
+travelled years before by her captive Algonquin mother.
+In her ears had sounded not sacred hymns, but only the
+wild music of the war-song and the plaintive strains of
+the Indian love-song. In those days of war and bloodshed
+the Christian hymn of the Iroquois had not yet
+been sung. The Mohawk mission had been but recently
+founded. The blood of the martyred Jogues still lay
+fresh on the ground, and the soul of the Lily had not
+yet come into existence.</p>
+
+<p>During this long journey the many thoughts of Tekakwitha
+must have gone back to the dreary lodge on
+the banks of the Cayudutta, where her usual daily
+tasks were neglected, and where her baffled, deserted
+uncle now sat disconsolate by the hearth-fire. If these
+thoughts brought a pang to her warm heart, she could
+console herself with the remembrance that the blessing
+of her dead mother would not fail to follow her on
+the journey. As the three Christians left behind them
+"the tail of the lake" (Andiatorocte), and paddled past
+Ticonderoga, they did not pay the customary tribute to
+<i>the little people under the water</i>. Their heathen tribesmen
+might, if they chose, cast their tobacco into the
+lake to gain the good-will of the sprites who were said
+to prepare the well-shaped arrow-flints with which the
+shore just there is strewn;<a name="FNanchor_57_57" id="FNanchor_57_57"></a><a href="#Footnote_57_57" class="fnanchor">[57]</a> for when the surface of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span>
+lake was rough they thought the little people were angry.
+But Tekakwitha and her companions had renounced
+these superstitions of their race. They knew that God
+alone was ruler of wind and wave. On no account
+could they be induced to pay homage to any such mischievous
+sprites of the lake. They asked Rawenniio instead
+to forgive the people, and to turn their thoughts
+away from all such foolish worship. "Her journey,"
+says Chauchetière, "was a continual prayer, and the joy
+that she felt in approaching Montreal could not be expressed.
+Behold then our young savage, twenty-one
+years of age, who escapes holy and pure, and who triumphs
+over the impurity, the infidelity, and the vice
+which have corrupted all the Iroquois! Behold the
+Genevieve of Canada, behold the treasure of the Sault,
+who is at hand, and who has sanctified the path from
+Montreal to the Mohawk, by which other predestined
+souls have passed after her!" When she found herself
+far from her own country, and realized that she had
+nothing more to fear on the part of her uncle, she gave
+herself entirely to God, to do in the future whatever
+would please him best. She arrived in the autumn of
+the year 1677,<a name="FNanchor_58_58" id="FNanchor_58_58"></a><a href="#Footnote_58_58" class="fnanchor">[58]</a> the desire that she had to get there
+as soon as possible was the reason for not stopping on
+the way. On her arrival, she put the letters that Father
+de Lamberville had written into the hands of the Fathers,
+who, having read them, were delighted to have acquired
+a treasure; for these were the words of the letter: "I
+send you a treasure; guard it well." Her face told more
+than the letters. Her joy was unspeakable on finding
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span>
+herself in the land of light, freed from the sorrows of
+spirit which she had endured from not being able to
+serve God as she wished to serve him, freed too from
+the persecutions which were inflicted upon her in her
+country and in her cabin.</p>
+
+<p>She was received at once into the lodge of Anastasia
+Tegonhatsihongo, her mother's old friend, with whom
+her sister and her sister's husband already dwelt.</p>
+
+<p>From the time of her arrival at the new Caughnawaga,
+Chauchetière and Cholenec, the two biographers of
+Kateri Tekakwitha, were both close and observant witnesses
+of her life. They were also present at her death.
+Henceforth, then, we will let them speak often and
+at length, telling in their own way of the rapid unfolding
+of spiritual life which took place in this untaught
+child of Nature. Transplanted from the heart of a
+heathen wilderness into a settlement of fervent souls,&mdash;for
+such from all accounts was the mission village at
+the Sault,&mdash;the Lily of the Mohawks caught up with
+keenest relish the inspiration in the air about her. She
+was lifted with marvellous rapidity to a height of holiness
+that drew all eyes in Canada towards her. It was
+there in the land of her adoption that she won the title
+of "La Bonne Catherine." Those who have patience to
+read on to the end of her biography will see how the
+brief life of this Indian girl was indeed radiant with
+love of the true God.</p>
+
+<p>The letter which she bore with her from the Mohawk
+Valley, written by Father de Lamberville, who had baptized
+her, and which was addressed to Father Cholenec,
+to whose flock she was henceforth to belong, is given in
+full by Martin, as follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p class="bigfoot">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span>
+"Catherine Tegakouita va demeurer au Sault. Veuillez-vous
+charger, je vous en prie, de sa direction. Vous connaîtrez
+bientôt le trésor que nous vous donnons. Gardez le
+donc bien! Qu'entre vos mains il profite à la gloire de Dieu,
+et au salut d'une âme qui lui est assurément bien chère."
+<a name="FNanchor_59_59" id="FNanchor_59_59"></a>
+<a href="#Footnote_59_59" class="fnanchor">[59]</a></p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="footnotes center"><br />FOOTNOTES:
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_55_55" id="Footnote_55_55"></a><a href="#FNanchor_55_55"><span class="label">[55]</span></a> 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_56_56" id="Footnote_56_56"></a>
+<a href="#FNanchor_56_56"><span class="label">[56]</span></a>
+See "Indian Trails in Saratoga County," <a href="#APPENDIX_D">Appendix, Note D</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_57_57" id="Footnote_57_57"></a><a href="#FNanchor_57_57"><span class="label">[57]</span></a> This custom is mentioned in the Jesuit "Relations."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_58_58" id="Footnote_58_58"></a><a href="#FNanchor_58_58"><span class="label">[58]</span></a> Chauchetière says 1678, but this is evidently a mistake. The date
+given by Cholenec is 1677.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_59_59" id="Footnote_59_59"></a><a href="#FNanchor_59_59"><span class="label">[59]</span></a> "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."</p><br /></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XVII.</h2>
+
+<p class="centerc"><b>AT THE SAULT ST. LOUIS.</b></p>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">F</span>ROM 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.</p>
+
+<p class="bigfoot">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 moving
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span>
+waters, 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,<a name="FNanchor_60_60" id="FNanchor_60_60"></a><a href="#Footnote_60_60" class="fnanchor">[60]</a> 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, as
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span>
+fine 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!</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"><a name="Migrations" id="Migrations"></a>
+<img src="images/p194-illus.png" width="500" height="312" alt="" title="" />
+<span class="caption">Map showing the Migrations of the Mission Village
+of the Sault</span></div>
+
+<p><br /><br />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 of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span>
+these 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 other
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span>
+young 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.</p>
+
+<p>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?"</p>
+
+<p>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,&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"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 other
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span>
+way. 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."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>When Anastasia spoke to Kateri of the necessity of
+avoiding slander,&mdash;a vice to which the squaws were
+much addicted,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>The method of the Jesuit missionaries when devoting
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span>
+themselves to the redmen, was to begin their instruction
+in religion at once. To use the words of Shea,&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"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."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 well
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span>
+pleased 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,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Again in 1685 they were visited by the newly
+appointed bishop Monseigneur de Saint-Valier.</p>
+
+<p>While Kateri lived among them, however, no episcopal
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span>
+visitation 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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!</p>
+
+<p>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 in
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span>
+her 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,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>After commenting on her attendance at the daily
+Masses and her morning devotions, Cholenec speaks of
+her as follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"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,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>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 were
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span>
+expected 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,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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,&mdash;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,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>With sympathetic insight, Kateri felt the gathering
+storm. She foresaw it more or less clearly from the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span>
+first. 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.</p>
+
+<p class="bigfoot">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!</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes center"><br />FOOTNOTES:
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_60_60" id="Footnote_60_60"></a><a href="#FNanchor_60_60"><span class="label">[60]</span></a> <a href="#Migrations">See map</a>, Les Cinq Stations du Village, etc. The circle enclosing
+a figure 2, and surmounted by a cross, marks the site here described.</p><br /></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XVIII.</h2>
+
+<p class="centerc"><b>THE HUNTING-CAMP.</b></p>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">K</span>ATERI 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,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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 winter<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span>
+months. 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span>
+friends 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 of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span>
+poverty, 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 cut<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span>
+on 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&mdash;the one
+on which she has marked the cross&mdash;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 began<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span>
+her 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span>
+saints. 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 herself<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span>
+at 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:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"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 suffer<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span>
+so 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,&mdash;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."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>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 the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span>
+life of the village for that of the hunting-camp, even
+at the cost of starvation.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XIX.</h2>
+
+<p class="centerc"><b>KATERI'S FRIEND,&mdash;THÉRÈSE TEGAIAGUENTA.</b></p>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">A</span> joy 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span>
+passionate 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Thérèse sees Kateri, and wonders what she is thinking
+about. Thérèse has the dress and the look of an Oneida.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span>
+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, miserable
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span>
+creature 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?"</p>
+
+<p>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,&mdash;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&mdash;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 heart
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span>
+to 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 to
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span>
+listen 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:&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"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,&mdash;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 company
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span>
+then 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."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_61_61" id="FNanchor_61_61"></a><a href="#Footnote_61_61" class="fnanchor">[61]</a></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"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 good
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span>
+reason 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."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>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, if
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span>
+they 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.</p>
+
+<p class="bigfoot">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.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes center"><br />FOOTNOTES:
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_61_61" id="Footnote_61_61"></a><a href="#FNanchor_61_61"><span class="label">[61]</span></a>
+See Chauchetière, livre ii. chapitre 2.</p><br /></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XX.</h2>
+
+<p class="centerc"><b>MONTREAL AND THE ISLE-AUX-HÉRONS, 1678.</b></p>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">I</span>T is certain that Kateri Tekakwitha visited the
+French settlement on the north side of the river;
+for Cholenec thus writes:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"While passing some days at Montreal, where for the
+first time she saw the nuns, she was so charmed with their
+modesty and devotion that she informed herself most thoroughly
+with regard to the manner in which these holy sisters
+lived, and the virtues which they practised."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Kateri and Thérèse&mdash;for the two were inseparable&mdash;with
+other Indians from the Sault, probably laden with
+goods to barter, must have crossed over to Montreal in
+canoes. They paddled out into the broad smooth waters
+of the St. Lawrence below the great rapid, where the river
+widens out like a lake. They left far behind them their
+village, with its tall wooden cross on the river-bank, and
+the wild Isle-aux-Hérons, bearing up its sturdy clump
+of foliage in the midst of the splashing foam. They
+passed at a distance the Jesuit chapel at La Prairie,
+where a few Frenchmen had built houses and formed
+the nucleus of a settlement, and then moved quietly
+and rapidly on in their light canoes until they neared
+the Isle St. Paul. The southern shore of the river swept
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span>
+away in a great curve as they left the Sault, and the
+prairie lands stretched away towards Lake Champlain,
+while Mount Royal blocked the northern horizon.
+Finally, after rounding the Isle St. Paul, they approached
+near enough to the northern bank to see where the first
+French fort had been built by the Sieur de Maisonneuve
+on level land at the mouth of a little stream. The
+spot is now called Custom-House Square; and the wild
+Ilot Normandin has been transformed into Island Wharf.
+This fort had fallen into disuse, and a second one was
+built on higher ground. The great French guns that
+were pointed toward the river meant no harm to the
+Christian Indians, who passed safely by, and landed
+on vacant ground in the rear of a cluster of fortified
+buildings fronting on the Rue St. Paul. This was the
+principal thoroughfare of the infant city of Ville-Marie.
+Every house on the island of Montreal was strongly
+built for defence. Each farm in the vicinity was connected
+with the town by a chain of redoubts. Not only
+the fort and the governor's mansion, but the mills, the
+brewery, the Hospital or Hôtel Dieu, and the chief residences
+had high walls and outlying defences. These
+buildings were so placed along the Rue St. Paul that a
+cross-fire from them and from the bastioned fort across
+the little stream (which has since disappeared in the
+maze of modern streets) could be maintained in a way to
+render the position of the colonists impregnable against
+an Indian assault. This had all been done under the
+leadership of the first governor. At the time of Kateri's
+visit, the chivalric De Maisonneuve had been recalled
+to France, and De Courselles was Governor-General.
+The Sulpicians, whose seminary was centrally located
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span>
+on the principal street, were lords of the <i>seigneurie</i> of
+Montreal and could give grants of land, though the
+recently arrived officers of the King disputed their
+right to dispense justice, and to appoint the governor
+of Ville-Marie.</p>
+
+<p>Marguerite Bourgeois was still a leading spirit in the
+colony, and was actively engaged in founding and conducting
+her schools for the Indian and Canadian children.
+Her convent of Sisters of the Congregation of
+Notre Dame, after much delay and many trials, was at
+last successfully established opposite the Hôtel Dieu
+on the Rue St. Paul. Monseigneur de Laval, Bishop of
+Quebec, on his visit to Ville-Marie in 1676, had formally
+recognized and approved her new order. There
+were at this time ten nuns in all associated with her in
+the work of teaching. They taught day-scholars free of
+charge, and worked diligently out of school-hours to
+support themselves. In 1657 the Sieur de Maisonneuve
+had given Marguerite Bourgeois a tract of land near the
+Hôtel Dieu, on which was a well-built stable, which she
+used for her first school-house. The classes were assembled
+in the lower part of the building, while this
+indefatigable schoolmistress and her first assistants slept
+in the loft, to which they ascended by an outside staircase.
+As her school and community increased, she built
+a house that would shelter twelve persons. This also
+had proved insufficient, and she was now established
+in a fine large stone building, where a number of girls
+were safely housed, and taught to read, write, and sew.
+The King of France allowed her a certain amount each
+year for the support of her Indian pupils. These were
+mostly at the school of the newly founded Sulpician
+mission on the mountain-side. There the number of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span>
+Indians was daily increasing. M. Belmont, a Sulpician,
+taught the boys, and two of the Congregation sisters had
+charge of the girls. Their favorite pupil, Marie Thérèse
+Gannensagwas (meaning, "She takes the arm"), was in a
+few years to become herself a successful teacher in the
+Indian school, and a gentle, lovable nun. At this time
+she was about eleven years old. When still younger,
+she had come with her aged grandfather from the Seneca
+country. He was a Christian, having been baptized in
+the Huron country by the great missionary Brebeuf. The
+little Gannensagwas was adopted by Governor de Courselles,
+and placed under the care of Marguerite Bourgeois
+in the convent on the Rue St. Paul. When the school
+at the Mountain was opened, in 1676, she was sent
+there. In one or other of these two places she spent
+the remainder of her life, as pupil, novice, and then
+schoolmistress. Her memory has sometimes been confused
+with that of Kateri Tekakwitha, though she was
+ten years younger than the Mohawk, and led a very
+different sort of life. Gannensagwas grew up, lived and
+died in a convent, and was the first real Indian nun.
+A tablet to her memory is preserved in one of the towers
+of the old fort at the mission on Mount Royal. This
+stone tower stands in the same enclosure with the costly
+modern buildings of the Sulpicians in a beautiful part
+of the present city of Montreal. At the time of Kateri's
+visit, however, this same tower and fort was in the
+woods; for the buildings of the old town extended no
+farther from the river than the Rue St. Jacques. From
+there to the Indian schools of the Mountain was a lonely
+road leading past a solitary fortified farm belonging to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span>
+Sulpicians,&mdash;La ferme St. Gabriel. It was there that a
+priest, M. Le Maistre, had been tomahawked, in August
+1661. He was on guard while the laborers gathered in
+the harvest. His tragic death warned them to withdraw
+at once from the fields, and defend themselves within
+the farm-house. Such incidents as this were then fresh
+in the minds of the people, and gave pathetic interest
+to many a spot near Ville-Marie.</p>
+
+<p>In 1678 Rue Notre Dame was a new street, not yet
+built up, and the foundations of the parish church were
+uncompleted; but already the Hôtel Dieu had a long
+history. Just five years had passed since Mademoiselle
+Manse, the former friend of Marguerite Bourgeois, and
+the one who founded the Hôtel Dieu and brought the
+hospital nuns from France to conduct it, had been laid
+to rest. She died in 1673. Her last request was that
+her body might be buried at the Hôtel Dieu, and her
+heart be placed under the sanctuary lamp in the new
+church of the parish.<a name="FNanchor_62_62" id="FNanchor_62_62"></a><a href="#Footnote_62_62" class="fnanchor">[62]</a> It was but right that this should
+be done, for she had given her whole life to founding
+not only the hospital but the city and colony at Mount
+Royal. Till the new church of Notre Dame should be
+finished, the heart of the brave lady, encased in a metal
+vase, was hung in the chapel of the Hôtel Dieu. It was
+there for many years; but the building of the church
+was delayed so long that the transfer of the precious
+deposit never took place. The relic was lost at the
+time of a fire that destroyed the old chapel and hospital<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span>
+in 1695. Kateri may have seen the metal vase in the
+chapel of the hospital, but could scarcely have had time
+to learn its significance. Mademoiselle Manse had fulfilled
+a twofold task. She had distributed guns and ammunition
+to the colonists, and had nursed the wounded
+soldiers and Indians. Her life was often in danger. At
+times she was quite alone in the hospital. Her courage,
+enthusiasm, and womanly care for the sick and suffering
+were a mainstay of the colony, all through what has well
+been called its heroic age. Founded in a spirit of religious
+zeal for the conversion of the savages, its struggle
+for existence in a wild country of warring races fills up
+a strange and interesting chapter in early American history.
+Quebec, Three Rivers, and Montreal were for a long
+time the only settlements of any consequence in Canada.
+Quebec was the great stronghold and starting-point of
+French trade and colonization. There too the Jesuit
+missionaries had their headquarters, and sent their reports,
+which were combined into the famous "Relations,"
+so valuable now as history. Three Rivers, the next important
+trading-post, was a long stride up the St. Lawrence
+and into the wilderness. There, as elsewhere, the
+French sought to share their faith with the Indians.
+Kateri's Algonquin mother, it will be remembered, had
+been baptized at Three Rivers before her capture by the
+Iroquois. Beyond that point no permanent settlers had
+ventured until Montreal, the strange, solitary island city,
+was established for no other purpose than to convert the
+redmen to Christianity. The whole plan was made in
+France by a company of devout and wealthy persons.
+Two of the leading spirits, not yet mentioned, were M.
+Olier, an ecclesiastic, and M. de la Dauversière, a pious<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span>
+layman. The site for the city was chosen, and the
+island bought, by men who had no practical knowledge
+of the country. It was far inland, and dependent entirely
+on its own resources when the Indians were at
+war. The people of Quebec did not always know whether
+Montreal existed or not, so beset were its inhabitants at
+times by the unconverted, warlike kindred of Kateri.
+The raids of the Mohawks were checked by De Tracy,
+in 1666; but after all, they were only one of five unfriendly
+nations who were liable to brandish the tomahawk
+at any time against the French. In 1678 there
+was a general peace along the whole line, except for
+local and religious persecutions, such as Kateri had
+endured before coming to the Sault.</p>
+
+<p>The worst days for Montreal had been about twenty
+years before, when their allies the Hurons were annihilated
+as a nation by the terrible Iroquois. At that time
+the French lived in a whirlwind of war and havoc. The
+remnant of Hurons that remained with them after the
+war, were gathered together in the mission village of
+Lorette near Quebec. Sillery, in the same vicinity,
+was a settlement of the Christian Algonquins. In
+Kateri's time these two missions nestled under the
+protecting guns of Quebec; just as the Indians of the
+Praying Castle where Kateri lived, and the Iroquois of
+the Sulpician mission on the slope of Mount Royal,
+felt bound to maintain a close friendship for defence, as
+well as through inclination, with their French neighbors
+at Montreal. The people of the Sault and the people
+of the Mountain were always welcomed and graciously
+received by the colonists of Ville-Marie. There were
+many things for them to see and learn there; but if the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span>
+Hôtel Dieu and the convent were at one end of the
+town, the brewery and the fort were at the other, and
+on the whole the Jesuit Fathers at the Sault liked it
+better when their Indians stayed at the mission. The
+trader of Montreal was much the same sort of man as
+the trader of Fort Orange. The early colonial town of
+the Frenchman, however, differed in many respects
+from the town of the Dutchman. It will be interesting,
+therefore, to follow Kateri as she leaves her canoe on
+the pebbly shore, and wander with her through the
+strange, new streets of the Canadian town, just as we
+followed her uncle long ago on his journey to Albany
+on the shore of the Hudson. His pack of beaver-skins
+was examined and handled by the well-to-do traders
+of Handelaer Street. So do the companions of Kateri
+dispose of their Indian wares with equal ease in the
+long and important Rue St. Paul. Like the Dutch
+thoroughfare, it runs parallel with the river; all the
+dwellings on one side have their backs turned to the
+water, but their gardens do not extend all the way to
+the water's edge, as at Albany; there are vacant building
+lots in the rear on the river-bank.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"The houses built of wood, <i>pièce sur pièce</i>, or of rounded
+pebbles stuck together with cement, are all in the same
+style,&mdash;a rectangle covered with a steep roof slightly overtopped
+by the stone chimney; two skylights to admit light
+into the garret on the long sides; a door set between two
+windows, and the walls pierced with loop-holes for defence
+against the Iroquois. The interior is not less simple,&mdash;one
+large hall where all the family live, as in Bretagne; a bed or
+lounge, a sort of long coffer or chest with a cover that is
+opened out in the evening, into which a mattress is spread,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span>
+and where the children sleep; some chairs or small benches;
+the extra clothing and the gun, hung up on the wall."<a name="FNanchor_63_63" id="FNanchor_63_63"></a><a href="#Footnote_63_63" class="fnanchor">[63]</a></p></blockquote>
+
+<p>This extra clothing was as unpretentious in style as
+the dwelling. A plain woollen garment, with capot, girdle,
+and <i>tuque</i>, was the uniform of the Canadian colonist.
+Even the first governor, Sieur de Maisonneuve, wore it
+the greater part of the year, except on state occasions.
+Of course, in the hottest weather this warm outer garment
+was exchanged for a cooler shirt and a broad-brimmed
+hat; then the woollen coats with snow-shoes
+and other winter belongings of the settler were hung on
+pegs against the wall.</p>
+
+<p>The home-trained garrison of Montreal felt proud
+to hear the Viceroy de Tracy call them his "capots
+bleus," for they knew right well he could scarcely have
+triumphed over the Mohawks without their assistance.
+His veterans, scarred in the Turkish wars, were indeed
+a sorry sight to behold on the expedition of 1666, when
+they stumbled about in the snow, and lost their way in
+the forest of northern New York. Kateri remembered
+these soldiers well. She saw them in her childhood,
+when they were enemies and invaders of her home, and
+so she did not care to see them again. A glance at the
+fort and the fortified houses, the mills, the governor's
+house, and the <i>seminaire</i> was enough for her. Already
+she stood at the corner of the Rue St. Paul and the
+Rue St. Joseph. If she chose to follow up the latter
+street, it would take her to the great square where the
+foundations of the new church of Notre Dame had been<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span>
+laid. But the chapel of the Hôtel Dieu was right before
+her, and she entered there. The hospital Sisters
+were chanting their office behind a wooden grating.
+Why were they out of sight? What did it all mean?
+She questioned her comrades, and they told her what
+little they themselves knew about the nuns. Not content
+with visiting the chapel, they gained permission
+to enter the hospital. What Kateri saw at the entrance
+on the Rue St. Paul was a great, heavy wooden door,
+opening into a small building. Behind this was a large
+enclosure or yard surrounded by a high stockade wall
+for defence, and containing several buildings, mostly of
+wood and somewhat out of repair. The hospital Sisters,
+though chiefly of noble rank, were poorly lodged and
+suffered many privations. The hospital was endowed
+by a lady of fortune in Paris, but it had been built and
+equipped under the eyes of Mademoiselle Manse, who
+cared for the sick herself till the Sisters came from
+France. After that she had dwelt close by them, and
+continued in charge of their financial affairs until her
+death. The nuns possessed some cows and other
+domestic animals. There was also a little bakery in
+one part of the enclosure. In another place S&oelig;ur de
+Brésoles had a garden marked off, where she cultivated
+medicinal drugs. It was all very simple and primitive,
+but strange and marvellous to the eyes of Kateri. She
+saw how good the Sisters were to the sick, and how
+simply and poorly they lived themselves. Their own
+beds were in a rough attic above the wards for the sick.
+Their linen was spotless, but the observant Kateri could
+not fail to see that their dresses were patched in many
+places. Though each of these ladies brought a <i>dot</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span>
+with her to the convent when she entered the order in
+France, they were often left with no resources save
+what their own industry brought them in the wilds of
+Canada, and even the hospital fund was lost to them
+through bad management over the sea; but no misfortune
+could daunt them in their work of curing and
+converting the Indians, and caring for the disabled
+colonists. They refused every overture to return to
+Europe, and shared in all the vicissitudes of the
+struggling colony, rich at least in the good-will of its
+people.</p>
+
+<p>In the convent across the street from the Hôtel Dieu,
+Kateri and her friend were warmly welcomed by Marguerite
+Bourgeois and the Sisters of the Congregation.
+It is probable that the two young Indian girls stayed
+over night at the convent, for S&oelig;ur Bourgeois delighted
+in entertaining just such guests, to shield them from all
+harm while in the city, and to win them to the practice
+of virtue and piety. There is every reason to believe
+that Kateri was much influenced and stimulated in her
+spiritual aspirations by what she saw there, and above
+all by coming in contact with the strong and saintly
+character of the woman who had founded so useful an
+order. Marguerite Bourgeois and her companions were
+successful in doing good from the very first; and to-day
+the great Villa-Maria, which is the outgrowth of her
+humble but earnest efforts, is set like a queenly diadem
+on the brow of Mount Royal. There the young girls of
+America are still attracted, sheltered, taught, and incited
+by the nuns of her order to a life of virtue and
+good deeds, in much the same spirit that the early
+colonial belles and Indian maidens were gathered together<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span>
+long ago by Marguerite Bourgeois herself, the
+very first schoolmistress of the town. She was accustomed
+to wear a plain black dress, with a deep pointed
+linen collar, almost a little cape; besides this, something
+that might be called either a short veil worn like
+a hood or a large black kerchief was drawn over her head
+and knotted loosely under her chin. In her later days
+the edges of a white cap which she wore under this
+sombre head-dress, showed about her face. Her nuns
+still wear a costume which she prescribed for them.
+There is nothing peculiar about their black dress or the
+usual nun's veil which falls in loose folds from the head
+and shoulders, but they wear an odd linen head-dress
+with three points, which is drawn together under the
+chin and projects downward in a stiff fold. Some of
+the sweetest of faces may be seen framed in this ungainly
+gear. The hooded kerchief of Marguerite Bourgeois
+was more pleasing, but she did not choose that it
+should be very comfortable. A sister of hers discovered
+one day that the cap she wore under this kerchief was all
+bristling with bent pins. She was, perhaps, allowing
+them to prick her into a remembrance of her sins at the
+very time she received Kateri and her friend with a gracious
+smile and led them into the convent. Several of the
+nuns were teaching their classes. Most of the children at
+the school were Canadians, but there were also Indian
+girls under her care, younger than Kateri, who could
+read and write and spin. Several of these were boarding
+pupils, supported by pensions from the King, Louis
+XIV. These became, under the care of the Sisters, like
+demure little convent girls, scarcely to be distinguished
+from the Canadian children, except by their Indian<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span>
+features. The studious and modest little Gannensagwas,
+though now sent to the new school at the Mountain
+for a time, felt more at home in the Rue St. Paul,
+where she had spent four or five years. An Onondaga
+girl, Attontinon, called Mary Barbara at her baptism,
+was nearer Kateri's age. She also aspired to join the
+sisterhood, but was as yet too recently converted from
+heathenism to be admitted.</p>
+
+<p>Kateri felt shy and out of place, no doubt, among the
+little scholars whom she saw at Ville-Marie, even
+though some of them were Indians. She felt, perhaps,
+as a wild deer of the forest might who chanced to stray
+into a park where petted fawns looked knowingly up at
+the half-frightened intruder, as they quietly nibbled
+grass from the hands of the keepers. If the young
+Mohawk girl did not turn suddenly about and take the
+nearest path to the woods and thickets, it was only because
+her timidity was held in check by a great eagerness
+to learn all she could about the life of those
+beautiful, quiet nuns. She knew they had come far
+away from their own country to teach the Iroquois and
+the Algonquins as well as the Canadian children to live
+like Christians. Kateri did not ask all the questions
+that came into her mind; but this much she certainly
+learned,&mdash;that the sisters lived unmarried, apart from the
+rest of the people, and spent much time in prayer. She
+had an opportunity also to observe some of their daily
+exercises and little practices of piety. It is more than
+likely that she went with them on a visit of devotion to
+the stone chapel of Bon Secours, a little way out of the
+town. It was just finished at that time; and a small
+statue of Our Lady, brought from France by S&oelig;ur
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span>
+Bourgeois, had been placed there. The officials of the
+town secured the garret of the church for a temporary
+arsenal to store their ammunition. There was no other
+place as yet in Ville-Marie that was fireproof. The
+Church of Bon Secours has always been a favorite
+shrine. Kateri's devotion to the Blessed Virgin would
+naturally lead her there before she left the city. She
+was both interested and attracted during her stay in
+Montreal by everything she saw at the Convent of
+Notre Dame and at the Hôtel Dieu. But she gave no
+intimation of a wish to remain with the nuns at either
+of these establishments. Her whole life had been the
+life of an untamed Indian. She had accepted Christianity
+in the only way in which under the circumstances
+it could possibly have been offered to her,&mdash;that
+is to say, Christianity pure and simple, with few
+of the trappings of European civilization. She was
+a living proof that an Indian could be thoroughly
+Christianized without being civilized at all in the ordinary
+sense of the word. She was still a child of the
+woods, and out of her element elsewhere. It was with
+scarce a regret, then, that she returned with her friend
+to the Sault, and resumed her usual life there. But
+her visit to Montreal had given her an intimation of
+something well known to the Christians of Europe,
+which had not been taught at the mission. The married
+state was frequently praised there, and always recommended
+to the Indians. The blackgowns did not venture
+to give the counsel of Saint Paul concerning virginity,
+to a people that were but just learning to walk in the
+way of the commandments. But Kateri had been struck
+by the example of the Jesuit Fathers themselves, and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span>
+her penetrating mind had already guessed that something
+was withheld from her on this point; after her
+visit to the nuns at Montreal she was confirmed more
+than ever in her resolve to remain unmarried.</p>
+
+<p>Kateri and Thérèse talked the matter over when she
+returned to the Sault; and together they formed a plan
+for carrying out their idea of living a perfect life. It
+was a romantic rather than a practical project, but so
+quaint and beautiful that it is well worth telling. In
+the first place Thérèse was discreet enough to recommend
+that they should have an older woman with them
+who would know all about the affair from the first.
+She said she knew just the right sort of a person,&mdash;a
+good Christian, advanced in years, who had lived for
+some time at Quebec and also at Lorette, the older
+Huron mission which was conducted on the same plan
+as the Iroquois mission at the Sault. The name of this
+woman was Marie Skarichions. Kateri agreed to what
+her friend suggested, and on a certain day they all three
+assembled at the foot of the tall cross on the river-bank,
+that they might consult together without interruption.
+It was a quiet, dreamy spot, and always the favorite
+resort of Kateri for prayer and meditation, or confidential
+interviews with her friend. No sooner were they
+seated there, than the old woman began to talk, and to
+tell them that she also would gladly live as they wished
+to live; that she had been taken care of once by the
+Sisters at Quebec when she was sick; that she knew
+just how they lived, for she had noticed them particularly.
+She went on to say that she and Thérèse and
+Kateri must never separate, that they must all dress
+just alike, and live together in one lodge. Kateri listened
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span>
+eagerly to all this talk, hoping to gather some
+profit from it, and begging the woman not to conceal
+from her anything she knew that would make her soul
+more pleasing to God. As their imaginations grew more
+and more excited in picturing to one another the ideal
+life they would lead in their little community, shut off
+from everything that might distract them from prayer
+and holy thoughts, their eyes fell naturally enough upon
+the solitary unfrequented Isle-aux-Hérons which lay off
+in the midst of the rapids. "There!" they said, with
+sudden enthusiasm, as they pointed to the island,&mdash;"there
+is the place for our lodge of prayer!" and they
+began to portion it off in their thoughts, and to plan an
+oratory with a cross under the trees; they also tried to
+make out a rule of life for themselves. But all at once
+they remembered Father Fremin, the head of the mission,
+and wondered what he would think of their project.
+Kateri had great respect for authority, and a true
+spirit of obedience. They agreed to do nothing without
+the consent of the blackgown. One of them went at
+once to find him and told him why they were assembled,
+asking him at the same time if he did not approve of
+their plan. But alas! the unfortunate messenger came
+back to the other two covered with confusion. The
+blackgown, she said, had only laughed heartily at all
+their beautiful projects, and made light of them, saying
+that they were too young in the faith to think of such
+a thing as founding a convent. It was too much out of
+the ordinary way, and quite unsuitable. The Isle-aux-Hérons
+was altogether too far from the village. The
+young men going back and forth from Montreal would
+be always in their cabin. Upon further consideration,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span>
+they concluded that, after all, what the Father said was
+reasonable, and <i>they thought no more of their convent of
+the</i> "<i>Isle-aux-Hérons</i>."</p>
+
+<p class="bigfoot">But Kateri, for her part, was determined to see the
+Father herself a little later, and get from him, if possible,
+some further information about the life she wished to
+lead. Unforeseen circumstances obliged her much sooner
+than she expected to seek the counsel and advice of
+Father Cholenec on this very subject, for the adopted
+sister of Kateri was even then forming plans of her
+own for the disposal of her young relative.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes center"><br />FOOTNOTES:
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_62_62" id="Footnote_62_62"></a><a href="#FNanchor_62_62"><span class="label">[62]</span></a> The parish church of Notre Dame, with its two square towers, is
+often called by mistake the Cathedral. This title belongs to St. Peter's,&mdash;a
+more modern structure, with a great dome shaped like that of St.
+Peter's at Rome.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_63_63" id="Footnote_63_63"></a><a href="#FNanchor_63_63"><span class="label">[63]</span></a> Histoire et Vie de M. Paul de Chomedey, Sieur de Maisonneuve,
+1640-1672, par P. Rousseau.</p><br /></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XXI.</h2>
+
+<p class="centerc"><b>"I AM NOT ANY LONGER MY OWN."</b></p>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">K</span>ATERI Tekakwitha had already refused to
+be united to a heathen brave. "But a Christian
+marriage," said her sister to Anastasia, "is a very different
+affair." The matchmakers were again lying in wait
+for her. It is Father Cholenec who gives us the best account
+of this final contest with Tekakwitha on the matrimonial
+question. He was her spiritual director at the
+time, and was consulted by the parties on both sides.
+While Fremin was absent in France, he had charge of
+the Mission, with Chauchetière as assistant. The following
+version of what occurred to disturb Kateri in the
+fall of 1678 is taken entire from Cholenec's letter (dated
+the 27th of August, 1715):&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"Interested views inspired her sister with the design of
+marrying her. She supposed there was not a young man in
+the Mission du Sault who would not be ambitious of the
+honor of being united to so virtuous a female; and that
+thus having the whole village from which to make her
+choice, she would be able to select for her brother-in-law
+some able hunter who would bring abundance to the cabin.
+She expected indeed to meet with difficulties on the part of
+Catherine, for she was not ignorant of the persecutions this
+generous girl had already suffered, and the constancy with
+which she had sustained them, but she persuaded herself
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span>
+that the force of reason would finally vanquish her opposition.
+She selected, therefore, a particular day, and after
+having shown Catherine even more affection than ordinary,
+she addressed her with that eloquence which is so natural to
+these Indians when they are engaged in anything which
+concerns their interests.</p>
+
+<p>'I must confess, my dear sister,' said she, with a manner
+full of sweetness and affability, 'you are under great obligations
+to the Lord for having brought you, as well as ourselves,
+from our unhappy country, and for having conducted
+you to the Mission du Sault, where everything is favorable
+to your piety. If you are rejoiced to be here, I have no less
+satisfaction at having you with me. You, every day, indeed,
+increase our pleasure by the wisdom of your conduct, which
+draws upon you general esteem and approbation. There
+only remains one thing for you to do to complete our happiness,
+which is to think seriously of establishing yourself
+by a good and judicious marriage. All the young girls
+among us take this course; you are of an age to act as they
+do, and you are bound to do so even more particularly than
+others, either to shun the occasions of sin, or to supply the
+necessities of life. It is true that it is a source of great
+pleasure to us, both to your brother-in-law and myself, to
+furnish these things for you, but you know that he is in the
+decline of life, and that we are charged with the care of a
+large family. If you were to be deprived of us, to whom
+could you have recourse? Think of these things, Catherine;
+provide for yourself a refuge from the evils which accompany
+poverty; and determine as soon as possible to prepare
+to avoid them, while you can do it so easily, and in a way
+so advantageous both to yourself and to our family.'</p>
+
+<p>There was nothing which Catherine less expected than
+a proposition of this kind; but the kindness and respect she
+felt for her sister induced her to conceal her pain, and she
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span>
+contented herself with merely answering that she thanked
+her for this advice, but the step was of great consequence,
+and she would think of it seriously. It was thus that she
+warded off the first attack. She immediately came to seek
+me, to complain bitterly of these importunate solicitations
+of her sister. As I did not appear to accede entirely to her
+reasoning, and for the purpose of proving her, dwelt on
+those considerations which ought to incline her to marriage,
+'Ah, my Father,' said she, '<i>I am not any longer my own.</i>
+I have given myself entirely to Jesus Christ, and it is not
+possible for me to change masters. The poverty with which
+I am threatened gives me no uneasiness. So little is requisite
+to supply the necessities of this wretched life, that my
+labor can furnish this, and I can always find something to
+cover me.' I sent her away, saying that she should think
+well on the subject, for it was one which merited the most
+serious attention.</p>
+
+<p>Scarcely had she returned to the cabin, when her sister,
+impatient to bring her over to her views, pressed her anew
+to end her wavering by forming an advantageous settlement.
+But finding from the reply of Catherine, that it was useless
+to attempt to change her mind, she determined to enlist
+Anastasia in her interests, since they both regarded her as
+their mother. In this she was successful. Anastasia was
+readily induced to believe that Catherine had too hastily
+formed her resolution, and therefore employed all that influence
+which age and virtue gave her over the mind of the
+young girl, to persuade her that marriage was the only part
+she ought to take.</p>
+
+<p>This measure, however, had no greater success than the
+other; and Anastasia, who had always until that time found
+so much docility in Catherine, was extremely surprised at the
+little deference she paid to her counsels. She even bitterly
+reproached her, and threatened to bring her complaints to
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span>
+me. Catherine anticipated her in this, and after having
+related the pains they forced her to suffer to induce her to
+adopt a course so little to her taste,<a name="FNanchor_64_64" id="FNanchor_64_64"></a><a href="#Footnote_64_64" class="fnanchor">[64]</a> she prayed me to aid
+her in consummating the sacrifice she wished to make of
+herself to Jesus Christ, and to provide her a refuge from
+the opposition she had to undergo from Anastasia and her
+sister. I praised her design, but at the same time advised
+her to take yet three days to deliberate on an affair of such
+importance, and during that time to offer up extraordinary
+prayers that she might be better taught the will of God;
+after which, if she still persisted in her resolution, I promised
+her to put an end to the importunities of her relatives.
+She at first acquiesced in what I proposed, but in less than
+a quarter of an hour, came back to seek me. 'It is settled,'
+said she, as she came near me; 'it is not a question for deliberation;
+my part has long since been taken. No, my
+father, I can have no other spouse but Jesus Christ.' I
+thought that it would be wrong for me any longer to oppose
+a resolution which seemed to me inspired by the Holy
+Spirit, and therefore exhorted her to perseverance, assuring
+her that I would undertake her defence against those who
+wished henceforth to disturb her on that subject. This answer
+restored her former tranquillity of mind, and re-established
+in her soul that inward peace which she preserved
+even to the end of her life.</p></blockquote>
+
+<blockquote><p>Scarcely had she gone, when Anastasia came to complain,
+in her turn, that Catherine would not listen to any advice,
+but followed only her own whims. She was running on in
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span>
+this strain, when I interrupted her by saying that I was
+acquainted with the cause of her dissatisfaction, but was astonished
+that a Christian as old as she was could disapprove
+of an action which merited the highest praise, and that if she
+had faith, she ought to know the value of a state so sublime
+as that of celibacy, which rendered feeble men like to the
+angels themselves. At these words Anastasia seemed to be
+in a perfect dream; and as she possessed a deeply seated
+devotion of spirit, she almost immediately began to turn the
+blame upon herself; she admired the courage of this virtuous
+girl, and at length became the foremost to fortify her in
+the holy resolution she had taken.... [As for Catherine],
+feeble as she was, she redoubled her diligence in labor, her
+watchings, fastings, and other austerities. It was then the
+end of autumn, when the Indians are accustomed to form
+their parties to go out to hunt during the winter in the
+forests. The sojourn which Catherine had already made
+there, and the pain she had suffered at being deprived of
+the religious privileges she possessed in the village, had induced
+her to form the resolution, as I have already mentioned,
+that she would never during her life return there.
+I thought, however, that the change of air and the diet,
+which is so much better in the forest, would be able to restore
+her health, which was now very much impaired. It
+was for this reason that I advised her to follow the family
+and others, who went to the hunting-grounds.<a name="FNanchor_65_65" id="FNanchor_65_65"></a><a href="#Footnote_65_65" class="fnanchor">[65]</a></p></blockquote>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span></p>
+<blockquote><p>"She remained, therefore, during the winter in the village,
+where she lived only on Indian corn, and was subjected indeed
+to much suffering. But not content with allowing her
+body only this insipid food, which could scarcely sustain it,
+she subjected it also to austerities and excessive penances,
+without taking counsel of any one, persuading herself that
+while the object was self-mortification, she was right in
+giving herself up to everything which could increase her
+fervor. She was incited to these holy exercises by the noble
+examples of self-mortification which she always had before
+her eyes. The spirit of penance reigned among the Christians
+at the Sault. Fastings, discipline carried even unto
+blood, belts lined with points of iron,&mdash;these were their
+most common austerities. And some of them, by these
+voluntary macerations, prepared themselves when the time
+came, to suffer the most fearful torments.... One in particular
+among them, named Etienne, signalized his constancy
+and faith. When environed by the burning flames [at
+Onondaga], he did not cease to encourage his wife, who was
+suffering the same torture, to invoke with him the holy
+name of Jesus. Being on the point of expiring, he rallied
+all his strength, and in imitation of his Master, prayed the
+Lord with a loud voice for the conversion of those who had
+treated him with such inhumanity. Many of the savages,
+touched by a spectacle so new to them, abandoned their
+country and came to the Mission du Sault, to ask for baptism,
+and live there in accordance with the laws of the Gospel.</p>
+
+<p>"The women were not behind their husbands in the
+ardor they showed for a life of penance. They even went
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span>
+to such extremes that when it came to our knowledge we
+were obliged to moderate their zeal. Besides the ordinary
+instruments of mortification which they employed, they had
+a thousand new inventions to inflict suffering upon themselves.
+Some placed themselves in the snow when the cold
+was most severe; others stripped themselves to the waist in
+retired places, and remained a long time exposed to the
+rigor of the season, on the banks of a frozen river, and
+where the wind was blowing with violence. There were
+even those who, after having broken the ice in the ponds,
+plunged themselves in up to the neck, and remained there
+as long as it was necessary for them to recite many times
+the ten beads of their rosary. One of them did this three
+nights in succession, and it was the cause of so violent a
+fever that it was thought she would have died of it. Another
+one surprised me extremely by her simplicity. I
+learned that, not content with having herself used this mortification,
+she had also plunged her daughter, but three
+years old, into the frozen river, from which she drew her
+out half dead. When I sharply reproached her indiscretion,
+she answered me with a surprising naiveté, that she did not
+think she was doing anything wrong, but that knowing her
+daughter would one day certainly offend the Lord, she had
+wished to impose on her in advance the pain which her sin
+merited.</p>
+
+<p>"Although those who inflicted these mortifications on
+themselves were particular to conceal them from the knowledge
+of the public, yet Catherine, who had a mind quick
+and penetrating, did not fail from various appearances to
+conjecture that which they held so secret; and as she studied
+every means to testify more and more her love to Jesus
+Christ, she applied herself to examine everything that was
+done pleasing to the Lord, that she might herself immediately
+put it in practice."</p></blockquote><p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Chauchetière, alluding to the events of this same fall
+and winter (1678 and 1679), gives some details of her
+life not mentioned by Cholenec. He says:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"As soon as she learned from Father Fremin that God
+left every Christian free to marry or not to marry, she lost
+no time in choosing a state of life for herself, and furthermore,
+if the fear that she had of appearing virtuous had
+not restrained her, she would have cut off her hair; she
+contented herself with dressing like those who were the
+most modest in the village. Father Fremin gave her
+some rules of life more special than those he gave to the
+others; he directed her to keep herself in retirement, above
+all during the summer time, when the canoes of the Ottawas
+came down, to remain in her cabin, and not go to the
+water's edge to see them arrive, like the rest. She also
+regarded what he said about not going to Montreal. In a
+word, it was only necessary to tell her a thing once, and
+she put it in practice. It was a common saying in the
+village that Catherine was never elsewhere than in her
+cabin or in the church; that she knew but two paths,&mdash;one
+to her field, and the other to her cabin. But to come in
+particular to the rules that she prescribed for herself, here
+are a few of them.</p>
+
+<p>"Being a young Indian, twenty-two or twenty-three
+years old, she must naturally have liked to be well and
+properly dressed like the others, which consists in having
+the hair well oiled, well tied, and well parted, in having a
+long braid [queue] behind, and in adorning the neck with
+wampum. They like to have beautiful blankets and beautiful
+chemises, to have the leggings or mittens well made,
+and above all to have just the right kind of a moccasin; in
+a word, vanity possesses them.</p>
+
+<p>"Catherine thought she could do away with all that, without
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span>
+eccentricity. But one could see by her dress what her
+thought was. She was not looking for a husband; she gave
+up all bright red blankets and all the ornaments that the
+Indian girls wear. She had a blue blanket, new and simple,
+for the days when she went to communion; but more than
+that, she had an interior, very perfect, which was known only
+to God; but which she could not hide so well but that her
+companion knew of it at the times of their greatest fervor....
+Marie Thérèse Tegaiaguenta once told Catherine of certain
+movements of indignation that she had against herself and her
+sins; and that when she was going one day into the woods feeling
+herself oppressed with grief at the thought of her sins, she
+had taken a handful of switches and had given herself heavy
+strokes with them on her hands; and that another time
+having climbed a tall tree to get birch-bark for a piece of
+work, when she was at the top she was seized with fear.
+Casting her eyes to the foot of the tree where there were
+many stones, she believed with reason, that if she fell she
+would break her head. But a good thought came to her
+then, which confirmed her more than ever in all the good
+resolutions she had already made to serve God; for reflecting
+on her fear, she blamed herself for fearing to die and not
+fearing even more than that to fall into hell. Tears came
+into her eyes as she descended; and when she reached the
+ground, she sat down at the foot of the tree, throwing her
+bark aside, and giving way to the good feeling that had
+taken possession of her."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Kateri did not forget what her companion told her
+about the switches, and resolved to make a daily practice
+for herself which she could keep up during the
+time of the chase.</p>
+
+<p>While her sister with her family were off at the
+hunting-camp, Kateri had as much time as she could
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span>
+wish to satisfy her devotion at the village chapel. She
+remained there so many hours on her knees in the
+coldest winter weather, that more than once some one
+or other of the blackgowns, moved with compassion at
+sight of her half-frozen condition, obliged her to leave
+the chapel and go warm herself. Kateri had at last
+learned, by repeated inquiries, all she wanted to know
+about the nuns whom she had seen at Montreal. She
+was now aware that they were Christian virgins consecrated
+to God by a vow of perpetual continence.</p>
+
+<p>Cholenec says:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p class="bigfoot">"She gave me no peace till I had granted her permission
+to make the same sacrifice of herself, not by a simple resolution
+to guard her virginity, such as she had already made,
+but by an irrevocable engagement which obliged her to
+belong to God without any recall. I would not, however,
+give my consent to this step until I had well proved her,
+and been anew convinced that it was the Spirit of God acting
+in this excellent girl, which had thus inspired her with
+a design of which there had never been an example among
+the Indians."</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<div class="footnotes center"><br />FOOTNOTES:
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_64_64" id="Footnote_64_64"></a><a href="#FNanchor_64_64"><span class="label">[64]</span></a> In another account of this interview given by Cholenec in his
+manuscript life of Kateri, which has never been published, but is still
+preserved by the Jesuits at Montreal, are the following words: "Ah,
+mon père, me répondit-elle sur le champ, et sans hésiter, 'Je ne l'aurois
+m'y rendre. Je haïs les hommes, j'ai la dernière aversion pour le
+mariage,&mdash;la chose m'est impossible!'"</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_65_65" id="Footnote_65_65"></a><a href="#FNanchor_65_65"><span class="label">[65]</span></a> Cholenec, in an older manuscript, gives further particulars concerning
+the life of this "Première Vierge Irokoise." In that account
+of the interview, after giving the above recommendation to Kateri
+about her health, her director goes on to describe the way in which his
+advice was received. "At these words she only laughed, and a moment
+after, taking that air so devout which was usual with her when
+she came to speak to me of her spiritual affairs, she made this beautiful
+reply, worthy of Catherine Tegakouita: 'Ah, my father, it is true
+that the body has good cheer in the woods, but the soul languishes
+there and dies of hunger; whereas in the village, if the body suffers a
+little from not being so well nourished, the soul finds its full satisfaction,
+being nearer to Our Lord. Therefore I abandon this miserable
+body to hunger, and to all that might happen to it afterwards, in order
+that my soul may be content, and may have its ordinary nourishment."</p><br /></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XXII.</h2>
+
+<p class="centerc"><b>KATERI'S VOW ON LADY DAY, AND THE SUMMER OF
+1679.</b></p>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">K</span>ATERI'S soul was indeed of rarest and costliest
+mould. Of this Father Cholenec was now fully
+aware. He also knew her quiet determination of spirit,
+and he no longer resisted her pleadings to be allowed
+to consecrate herself to God by a vow of perpetual virginity.
+This she did, with all due solemnity, on the
+Feast of the Blessed Virgin, the 25th of March, 1679.</p>
+
+<p>However others might look upon her act, this solemn
+engagement with God gave her a feeling of freedom
+rather than of thraldom. At last she had an acknowledged
+right to live her own life in her own way. She
+was Rawenniio's bride. The blackgown had approved
+of her vow, and no relative of hers at the Sault ventured
+afterwards to question or disturb her. "From
+that time," says Cholenec, "she aspired continually to
+heaven, where she had fixed all her desires; ... but
+her body was not sufficiently strong to sustain the
+weight of her austerities and the constant effort of her
+spirit to maintain itself in the presence of God." She
+tested her powers of endurance to the utmost. Her
+constant companion, Thérèse, afterwards told of her that
+on one occasion, as they were coming from the field
+into the village, carrying each of them a heavy load of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span>
+wood, Kateri slipped on the frozen ground and fell,
+causing the points of an iron belt which she was accustomed
+to wear to penetrate far into her flesh. When
+Thérèse advised her on account of this accident to leave
+her bundle of wood until another time, Kateri only
+laughed, and lifting it quickly, carried it to the cabin,
+where she made no mention of her hurt. When summer
+came and the others laid aside their blankets for
+a time, she continued to wear hers over her head even
+in the hottest weather. Anastasia said that she did
+this, not so much to shield her eyes from the light, as
+from modesty and a spirit of mortification.</p>
+
+<p>Kateri and Thérèse found a deserted cabin near the
+village, where they were now in the habit of going
+every Saturday afternoon to prepare themselves in a
+suitable manner, as they supposed, for receiving the
+sacrament of penance.</p>
+
+<p>Chauchetière relates how this custom of theirs originated,
+and how they employed themselves while in this
+retreat. It was only by questioning Thérèse after the
+death of Kateri that the full extent of their austerities
+became known, for they were careful to conceal them
+from the knowledge of all. Father Fremin was away
+at this time, having gone on a voyage to France, and
+Father Cholenec had full charge of the mission during
+his absence. As his time was filled with new cares
+and responsibilities, he had but little opportunity to
+notice or discover that Kateri Tekakwitha, the treasure
+confided to his keeping by Father de Lamberville, was
+in all simplicity and earnestness wrecking her health
+and strength by undergoing fearful penances. Suggested
+to her either by the remorseful and penitent mind of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span>
+Thérèse, or the stern instructions of Anastasia, they
+were carried out with the utmost severity by Kateri
+on her frail and innocent self, as though she bore
+on her own shoulders the sins of the whole Iroquois
+nation.</p>
+
+<p>It may be well to give a full account of how she was
+accustomed to make her preparation for confession,
+and where the plan originated. One Saturday afternoon
+while waiting for the bell to ring for Benediction, she
+sat in the cabin of Thérèse, talking confidentially with
+her friend on matters of conscience. Thérèse happened
+to mention the bundle of switches with which she had
+scourged herself on a certain occasion; and Kateri, quick
+to put a pious thought into practice, hastened at once
+to the cemetery, which was near at hand, and returned
+with a handful of stinging little rods. These she hid
+adroitly under the mat on which she was sitting, and
+waited eagerly for the first stroke of the bell. Then
+hurrying the people of the cabin as fast as possible to
+the church, the two were no sooner alone than they
+fastened the lodge securely on the inside, and gave full
+vent to their devotion. Kateri was the first to fall
+upon her knees, and handing her companion the
+switches, begged her not to spare her in the least.
+When she had been well scourged, she in turn took the
+switches, and Thérèse knelt down to receive the blows.
+With bleeding shoulders, they said a short prayer together,
+and then hastened to the chapel, joyous and
+happy at heart. Never before had the prayers seemed
+shorter or sweeter to them than on that evening. Their
+next thought was to choose a place where they might
+continue this exercise. The unfrequented cabin already
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span>
+mentioned seemed to them a most favorable spot. It
+belonged to a French trader, who only came at long
+intervals to the village. It stood always open, and had
+become gradually surrounded by graves, so that it was
+now within the cemetery. There the two friends went
+every Saturday. After making an act of contrition,
+they proceeded as follows: They recited the Act of
+Faith, which they were accustomed to say at the
+church; then Kateri, who wished always to be the
+first in penitence, would kneel and receive the scourging,
+begging her companion all the while to strike
+harder, even though blood appeared at the third stroke.
+When they came to a pause, they recited the chaplet
+of the Holy Family, which they divided into several
+parts, at each of which a stroke was given with the
+switches. But towards the end of the exercise, their
+devotion knew no bounds. It was then that Kateri
+laid bare the sentiments of her heart in such words as
+these: "My Jesus, I must risk everything with you.
+I love you, but I have offended you. It is to satisfy
+your justice that I am here. Discharge upon me, O my
+God, discharge upon me your wrath." Sometimes tears
+and sobs choked her voice so she could not finish what
+she was saying. At these times she would speak of
+the three nails which fastened our Saviour to the cross
+as a figure of her sins. When Kateri was thus touched,
+she did not fail to move her companion, who with equal
+fervor underwent the same voluntary punishment.</p>
+
+<p>Thérèse assures us that the worst fault that Kateri
+could ever find to accuse herself of on these occasions
+when she opened her heart most freely, was the carelessness
+in which she had lived after her baptism. This consisted
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span>
+in not having resisted those who had forced her to
+go to work in the fields on Sundays and feast days; that
+is, in not having rather suffered martyrdom at their
+hands. She reproached herself with having feared death
+more than sin. That this saintly girl suffered everything
+short of absolute martyrdom in her efforts to keep holy
+the Lord's Day, we already know from the record of her
+life in the Mohawk Valley. It must be remembered,
+too, that at that time she had not made her first communion
+or been fully instructed.</p>
+
+<p>It would be a long and harrowing task to give a full
+account of all the austere fasts and penances that Kateri
+Tekakwitha underwent during the course of the year
+1679. Many of them belong to the age and the place
+in which she lived, and were in common practice then
+and there. Others go to prove the rude, Spartan spirit
+of her race, which gloried in exhibitions of fortitude
+under torture. But the tortures that her people knew
+how to endure so well through pride, Kateri endured in
+a spirit of penance and atonement. Her greatest excesses
+of self-inflicted pain came like sparks of fire from
+her intense love of the crucified Redeemer. She wished
+to prove herself the slave of His love. She had seen the
+Iroquois warriors brand their slaves with coals of fire;
+so she could not resist the impulse which came to her
+one night to seize a red-hot brand from the hearthfire,
+and to place it between her toes. She held it there
+while she recited an Ave Maria. When the prayer was
+over, she was indeed branded. Such inflictions as these,
+by their incessant expenditure of energy, soon wore out
+her frail body, and brought of their own accord a speedy
+answer to her never-flagging prayer,&mdash;that Rawenniio,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span>
+the beautiful God of the Christians, whom she had
+learned to love so well, would take her to His lodge!</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"Kateri had great and special devotion both for the
+Passion of our Saviour and for the Holy Eucharist. These
+two mysteries of the love of the same God, concealed under
+the veil of the Eucharist and His dying on the cross, ceaselessly
+occupied her spirit, and kindled in her heart the
+purest flames of love. One day, after having received the
+Holy Communion, she made a perpetual oblation or solemn
+offering of her body to Jesus attached to the cross, and of
+her soul to Jesus in the most Holy Sacrament of the
+Altar."<a name="FNanchor_66_66" id="FNanchor_66_66"></a><a href="#Footnote_66_66" class="fnanchor">[66]</a></p></blockquote>
+
+<p>As Kateri knew but two paths while she lived at the
+Sault,&mdash;one leading from her cabin to the field where
+she worked, and the other to the chapel where she
+prayed,&mdash;her friends could easily find her. There, at
+the church day after day, and many times a day, any
+one who chanced to stray in might see a muffled figure
+kneeling near the altar-rail, facing the tabernacle. At
+such times she saw nothing, heard nothing, of what was
+taking place around her or behind her. In front of her
+was the sacred Presence she could not leave unless for
+some urgent call of duty or charity.</p>
+
+<p>A touch on the shoulder, a whispered word, "You are
+wanted, Kateri," and no hand or heart was more willing
+than hers to assist or relieve, as the case might be.
+Often she did not wait for this. A sudden inspiration,
+an impulse of sympathy, carried her where she was
+needed. When the good deed was done, the love within
+her heart drew her again to the foot of the tabernacle.
+"When she entered the church in taking the blessed
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span>
+water she recalled her baptism, and renewed the resolution
+she had taken to live as a good Christian; when
+she knelt down in some corner near the balustrade for
+fear of being distracted by those who passed in and
+out, she would cover her face with her blanket, and
+make an act of faith concerning the real presence in
+the Blessed Sacrament. She made also several other
+interior acts of contrition, of resignation, or of humility,
+according to the inspiration which moved her, asking of
+God light and strength to practise virtue well. In the
+fourth place," continues Chauchetière, "she prayed for
+unbelievers, and above all for her Iroquois relatives.
+She finished her devotion by saying her beads. She
+confided this exercise to her companion, who made it
+known. Except for her habit of hiding the beautiful
+practices taught her by the Holy Spirit, we might have
+occasion to admire still more the rapid progress which
+faith made in her soul. She had regulated the visits
+which she made to our Lord to five times a day without
+fail; but it can be said that the church was the place
+where she was ordinarily found."</p>
+
+<p class="bigfoot">Spiritual writers are accustomed to divide the Christian
+life into three progressive grades; namely, the purgative,
+the illuminative, and the unitive. Chauchetière
+declares that Kateri's life at the Sault might well serve
+as an example to the most fervent Christians of Europe,
+and compares her spirit with that of Saint Catherine of
+Sienna; then he sums up in a few words her exalted
+spiritual attainments by saying that she was already
+in the "unitive way" before having well known the
+other two.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes center"><br />FOOTNOTES:
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_66_66" id="Footnote_66_66"></a><a href="#FNanchor_66_66"><span class="label">[66]</span></a> Cholenec's letter.</p>
+</div><br />
+</div>
+
+
+<hr />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XXIII.</h2>
+
+<p class="centerc"><b>KATERI ILL.&mdash;THÉRÈSE CONSULTS THE BLACKGOWN.&mdash;FEAST
+OF THE PURIFICATION.&mdash;THE BED OF THORNS.</b></p>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">K</span>ATERI'S health was fast failing; and those with
+whom she lived, perceiving this, watched her
+more closely and sought to check her in her fasts and
+penances. They saw that on Wednesdays and Saturdays
+she ate nothing. At these times she would spend
+the whole day in the woods gathering fuel. They were
+careful after this to have the soup ready before she
+started out in the morning; but even then she would
+occasionally find an excuse to slip away without her
+breakfast. When it was the turn of one of the other
+women of the same lodge-fire to go for wood, Kateri
+sometimes interfered, saying that the woman in question
+had a baby to nurse and ought to stay in the cabin;
+as for herself, there was nothing to keep her, she could
+just as well go as not. Before they noticed that she
+had not yet taken a mouthful, she would be off to the
+woods and at work. When she could no longer fast
+without attracting notice, she still kept up the practice
+of mingling ashes with her food, or denying herself in
+some other way.</p>
+
+<p>About this time a child of her adopted sister died.
+As Kateri was assisting the other women to make a
+grave for her little nephew, one of them said to her,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span>
+laughing, "Where is yours, Kateri?" "It is there,"
+she answered, pointing to a certain spot.<a name="FNanchor_67_67" id="FNanchor_67_67"></a><a href="#Footnote_67_67" class="fnanchor">[67]</a> The incident
+was soon forgotten; but Kateri was not mistaken,
+as was proved later. The place she indicated was near
+the tall cross by the river, where she was accustomed
+to pray, and where she had her first long talk with
+Thérèse Tegaiaguenta.</p>
+
+<p>Her only pleasure now was in prayer or in spiritual
+conversations with her friend Thérèse or with Anastasia;
+for both of them spoke often of God. All other
+companionship had become distasteful to her. Her
+natural gift of ready and witty conversation, as well as
+her helpful disposition, won her many friends without
+effort. She was beloved as well as reverenced by the
+whole population, while careful to shun more and more
+all intercourse that did not help her heavenward. In
+her humility it did not occur to her that she on her
+part could perhaps do something towards lifting others
+to the high plane of her own thoughts. Chauchetière
+relates the following incident of how she was once
+called on for advice, much to her own surprise. Two
+young married people&mdash;François, the Seneca, and his
+wife Marguerite&mdash;had watched Kateri's way of life with
+much interest and admiration. They knew she had
+made a vow of virginity, and one day they called her
+into their cabin with the idea of learning from her how
+a good Christian ought to live in this world. In order
+that she might be less embarrassed and speak freely,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span>
+they sent at the same time for her companion, Thérèse.
+When both were seated, the door was closed as a token
+that what they were about to ask Kateri was a great
+secret, and that they were ready to keep it sacred.
+François the Seneca (called by the French La Grosse
+Buche) began the conversation. He addressed himself
+both to Kateri and to Thérèse, saying first that he
+knew what they had done and the state of life they
+had embraced. This he said, that they might speak out.
+As for himself he wished to be a good Christian and to
+give himself entirely to God. His wife was of the
+same mind. He spoke for both. Kateri was much
+surprised at this discourse. She was silent for some
+time, and then asked her companion to speak. It
+would take too long to tell all that was said on both
+sides concerning the state of life that was most pleasing
+to God. It is enough to say that they gave no
+advice to the young married couple other than that
+they should go to the blackgown and propose their plan
+to him. The woman was not more than twenty, and
+the man scarcely older. This good François, it seems,
+wished to live with his wife as with his sister. He did
+so for some years, and would have continued to do so
+had he not been advised to the contrary. His wish was
+to repair as far as possible the evil he had done before
+his baptism. He was an excellent hunter and a good
+warrior. He was afflicted later in life with a painful
+disease, from which he suffered severely for fourteen
+years. Kateri was at all times his model. He endeavored
+to imitate her patience and resignation, as well as
+her other virtues. After death he wore about his neck
+a little chaplet, which he called Kateri's beads. Strung
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span>
+next to the cross on which the <i>Credo</i> was to be said
+were two beads, one for a <i>Pater</i> and one for an <i>Ave</i>;
+then there were three other little beads on which he
+was accustomed to say the <i>Gloria Patri</i> three times, to
+thank the Blessed Trinity for the graces bestowed upon
+Kateri. Always cheerful and contented himself, he
+consoled and encouraged his wife, who, although a great
+devotee, was apt to complain of her poverty. When
+his health no longer permitted him to go to the chase,
+he mended kettles, made pipes, and did what work he
+could about the village. He brought up his children
+strictly, taught them the catechism with care, and was
+always on hand to sing in the church. He had a book
+or scroll of pictures in which all the chief events recorded
+in the Old and New Testaments were depicted.
+Copies of this ingenious form of Indian Bible are still
+to be seen at Caughnawaga and elsewhere. François,
+the Seneca, by these means won many converts to Christianity.
+He was accustomed, however, to give Kateri
+the credit for his success. He besought her intercession
+with God in all his undertakings, and endeavored
+to imitate her as far as possible in his life and in his
+death, which occurred in 1695.</p>
+
+<p>As Kateri had a great love for virginity,&mdash;a fact of
+which her whole life is a proof,&mdash;she did not fail to
+cultivate a deep and tender devotion to the Virgin
+Mother of Christ, whom she regarded in a special manner
+as her queen and mistress. Each day in reciting
+the litany she had occasion to call upon her as the
+"Queen of Virgins." To Kateri this was one of the
+sweetest and dearest of her many beautiful titles. To
+prove herself a devoted follower of this virgin of all
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span>
+virgins, she would gladly have cut off her hair, as the
+nuns do; but the fear of appearing singular and eccentric
+deterred her. Though she thus tried as much as
+possible to hide from observation by accommodating
+herself to the ways and dress of those with whom she
+lived, there grew to be a something about her,&mdash;a "je
+ne scay quoy," says Chauchetière,&mdash;an atmosphere of
+purity and sanctity that almost amounted to a visible
+halo. Even her directors sometimes wondered at the
+impression of personal sanctity which she made upon
+the people. If we consider her lonely, long, and frequent
+prayers, not only in the chapel but at the foot of
+the tall cross by the river-bank, there is nothing to be
+wondered at. Even the roughest and giddiest of the
+young people of Caughnawaga were awed to a respectful
+demeanor as she passed near them. Not only Indians,
+but occasionally the French from La Prairie
+hovered about and watched for her as she came or
+went from her cabin or field, in order to get a look at
+the young Mohawk girl who, as they said, lived like
+"a religious." Of this reverential admiration, however,
+Kateri was quite unconscious. Unquestioned and undisturbed
+she followed her own course, the details of
+which were known only to her bosom friend, Thérèse.</p>
+
+<p>At last Kateri was seized with a dangerous illness.
+A violent fever came on, and she lay at the point of
+death. Thérèse, pale and trembling with alarm, now
+thought of their weekly scourgings in the deserted
+cabin; she feared to have her friend die without letting
+the blackgown know what they had been doing, and
+besought Kateri to allow her to go to Father Cholenec
+and tell him all. To this Kateri willingly assented.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span>
+The blackgown concealed his astonishment at what he
+heard from Thérèse, and blamed both her and her friend
+for their want of discretion. Kateri, however, recovered
+from this attack. As soon as she was well she
+began at once and did not cease to importune her confessor
+to have pity on her and allow her at least some
+of her accustomed austerities, in order, as she said, that
+her body might not have the victory over her. Whether
+undergoing self-inflicted pains or those that come directly
+from the hand of God, her fortitude was extraordinary,
+even for an Indian. Though subject to many
+and frequent bodily infirmities, she never for a moment
+lost her patience, or uttered the least complaint. On
+the contrary, she seemed always desirous of increasing
+her sufferings rather than of alleviating them, but only
+from this one motive,&mdash;that she might bear a closer resemblance
+to the crucified Saviour. When she was ill,
+and her confessor had forbidden her to fast, she would
+put herself in a painful position. Anastasia, whom she
+called mother, perceiving this, reproached her, saying
+that she would kill herself. Kateri only reminded her,
+with a smile, that our Lord was much more ill at ease
+on the cross,&mdash;that she was not suffering at all in
+comparison with him!</p>
+
+<p>During the last winter of her life Kateri had frequent
+attacks of illness severe enough to keep her in the
+cabin. No sooner was she on her feet, however, than
+she was again at work. She did not spare herself or
+shorten her devotions. When she was too weak to
+kneel, she could still be seen at her prayers in the
+church, supporting herself against a bench. On one
+occasion when her health was restored for a time, she
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span>
+accompanied Thérèse to La Prairie, whither she was
+sent to carry certain articles from the village at the
+Sault. On the way there or back, Kateri, falling a
+little behind the others, took off her moccasins and
+walked barefooted on the ice. She was noticed and
+hastily put on her shoes again. She soon overtook the
+others, and would willingly have let them suppose she
+had been delayed by a little accident of some sort.
+Thérèse, who knew her best, thought otherwise.</p>
+
+<p>On the Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin
+most of the villagers were away at the hunting-camp.
+Kateri chose to walk through her field on that day with
+bare feet, as if in a sort of procession, while she recited
+her beads several times over, the snow being more than
+knee-deep.</p>
+
+<p>As Lent approached, she increased her austerities till
+at last she reached the climax of all. Thinking that
+she had not much longer to live, and must hasten to do
+penance while on earth, she looked about for some new
+instrument of pain. It was then the beginning of Lent,
+and she had been meditating on the Passion of our
+Lord. She was gathering wood. Near at hand, she saw
+a great thorny brier. In a transport of fervor she seized
+it. The thorns were sharp and cutting. Had she looked
+far and near, she could not have found anything better
+suited to her purpose. She eagerly and hurriedly conceals
+it in her bundle of fagots, then lifts the scraggy
+mass to her back, adjusts the burden strap on her forehead,
+and starts at once for the lodge of Anastasia.
+Finding her own lodge-seat, she loosens the thorny
+brier from the fagots, covers it quickly with a large
+mat, and then proceeds to stow the wood in its proper
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span>
+place. The evening drags, but at length the inmates
+all come in for the night, and soon the evening meal is
+over. The prayers have been said. The lodge-fires
+flicker and die out. The Indians fall asleep,&mdash;all but
+Kateri. She has no thought of rest. She prays far
+into the night. Her bed is made, and a cruel bed it is.
+At last she looks towards it. She lifts the rug that
+covers it, clasps tightly in her hand a little crucifix
+she always wears about her neck, and with a fervent
+aspiration of love to God, throws herself upon the
+thorns. As she rolls from side to side, she grows faint,
+and her lips are parched with thirst, but still she has no
+desire to leave her thorny couch. She murmurs prayer
+after prayer, and waits for the daylight to come before
+rising from her bed to hide the brambles, now flecked
+with blood. Kateri is as busy as usual the next day,
+and her blithe smile comes and goes as freely as ever.
+Still, when night settles down on the village, she does
+not sleep, but tosses again on her bed of thorns. On
+the following day Thérèse observes that Kateri is tired
+and weak. She draws her breath quickly, as they walk
+over the rough ground together, and her head droops low
+at her prayers. Her friend tries to coax her to take more
+rest, to leave this or that task for another day. But all in
+vain. To Kateri every moment is precious now, and not
+one daily duty is left undone when she retires for the
+third time to her bed of thorns. When day dawns, she
+is up as usual, and Thérèse comes early to see her.
+Gladly would she escape the searching eye of her friend,
+but it is of no use. Kateri is ghastly pale, and Thérèse,
+suspecting the truth, will not be put off. She espies
+the thorns, and Kateri confesses all. A pang went to
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span>
+the heart of Thérèse, when she thought of Kateri's innocence
+and of her own sins. How could she have
+slept while this pure-hearted one whom she loved so
+well was rolling upon thorns! The next thought of the
+impulsive, warm-hearted Thérèse was one of concern
+for the life of her friend. She spoke quickly and vehemently
+to Kateri, declaring that she would certainly
+offend God if she inflicted such sufferings on herself
+without the permission of her confessor. This aroused
+the scruples of Tekakwitha. "Catherine, who trembled
+at the very appearance of sin," says Cholenec, "came
+immediately to find me, to confess her fault and ask
+pardon of God. I blamed her indiscretion, and directed
+her to throw the thorns into the fire." This she did at
+once. When it was simply a question of obedience to
+one who held rightful authority over her, Kateri did not
+hesitate. Her confessor testifies that she never showed
+the least attachment to her own will, but was always
+submissive to his direction. "She found herself very
+ill," he continues, "towards the time that the men are
+accustomed to go out to the hunting-grounds in the
+forest, and when the females are occupied from morning
+until evening in the fields. Those who are ill are
+therefore obliged to remain alone through the whole
+day in their cabins, a plate of Indian corn and a little
+water having in the morning been placed near the
+mat." It was thus that Kateri Tekakwitha passed
+through her last illness, during the Lent of 1680. She
+lay helpless in the lodge of Anastasia, while the corn
+was being planted in the fields, and the birds were flying
+northward across the Mohawk River. These little
+friends of hers brought back to her many a thought of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span>
+her native valley, as they stopped to dip their bills in
+the St. Lawrence, and to sing awhile to Kateri in her
+pain.</p>
+
+<p class="bigfoot">The children, too, came in to see her now and then.
+The blackgown whose task it was to teach them,
+gathered them close to her mat one day. She was too
+ill to move; but when he unrolled the pictures of the
+Old and New Testaments which he had with him, and
+began to explain them to the eager, bright-eyed little
+ones, a glow of interest came into the weary eyes that
+were dull with suffering a moment before. Forgetting
+all else but her insatiable desire for true knowledge,
+Kateri with great effort raised herself on her elbow, that
+she might see and understand better what was going on.
+A question now and then from her drew out a fuller
+explanation from the blackgown. The children themselves,
+with quick sympathy, caught from her low,
+earnest tones, a keener relish for the truth, and listened
+with rapt attention to the lesson drawn from the sacred
+story. At the stroke of the Angelus the instruction
+was over, and also the children's visit. How quickly
+the time had passed! Kateri thanked the blackgown,
+and begged him to come again with his class to the
+lodge, that he might teach both her and them. "Farewell,
+Kateri," the children cry, as they hasten out to
+their sports. Quickly they forget her, and she too has
+forgotten them; she has clasped her crucifix in her
+hands, and is still buried in prayer when the women
+begin to come in from the field.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes center"><br />FOOTNOTES:
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_67_67" id="Footnote_67_67"></a><a href="#FNanchor_67_67"><span class="label">[67]</span></a> This incident is given by Cholenec in his manuscript entitled "La
+Vie de Catherine Tegakouita, Première Vierge Irokoise." He adds:
+"Père Chauchetière wanted her put in the church; but I put her in
+the place she had indicated, without knowing it till long afterwards."</p><br /></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XXIV.</h2>
+
+<p class="centerc"><b>KATERI'S DEATH.&mdash;"I WILL LOVE THEE IN HEAVEN."&mdash;THE
+BURIAL.&mdash;HER GRAVE AND MONUMENT.</b></p>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">F</span>OR nearly a year Kateri had been slowly losing
+strength. She had a continuous low fever; but
+during the last two months of her life her sufferings
+were very acute, and she could not change her position
+without severe pain. It was in Passion Week that the
+children were instructed by the blackgown at her bedside
+for the last time. Anastasia and the other women
+of the lodge continued to attend to her few wants
+morning and evening, before and after their work in the
+fields. They knew, however, by this time, that the
+young girl could not recover. Anastasia drearily watched
+her sinking day by day. She had never fully understood
+Kateri, but she loved her very much, and did all
+that would have been expected of an Indian mother
+under the circumstances. The dish of Indian corn and
+a pot of fresh water were left beside her each day; and
+towards the last, women were appointed to watch with
+the sufferer at night. These watchers belonged to the
+Association of the Holy Family. Kateri was not more
+neglected than others who were ill at these busy times.
+She, however, was perfectly content, and even glad to
+be left alone with God. This relish for solitude did
+not prevent her from greeting with a smile or a gay,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span>
+bright word any or all who came to her side. There
+was one in the village at whose coming her heart
+bounded. It is needless to say that this was Thérèse
+Tegaiaguenta. Of all hearts at the Sault St. Louis,
+hers was the saddest through the days that Kateri lay
+dying. It was hard to work in the corn-field; it was
+hard not to be with her in the lodge. On Palm Sunday,
+at least, they could have a few hours together between
+Mass and Benediction. Whenever Thérèse knelt at
+prayer in the chapel, she felt that Kateri, lying on her
+mat, joined her in spirit. But when she prayed for
+her friend's recovery, she knew that Kateri's lips were
+unresponsive. They murmured no amen. The only
+prayer they could form at such times was like unto
+this: "God pity Thérèse, and give her the strength she
+needs!"</p>
+
+<p>On Monday in Holy Week, she asked for permission
+to fast, in honor of our Saviour's passion. She wished
+to pass the whole day without food. They told her
+that this she could not do,&mdash;that she had not long to
+live, and that she ought to be thinking of other things.
+Not long to live? Was this in truth what they said?
+She could not conceal her happiness at the thought of
+death. The angel with shadowy wings was close at
+hand, waiting to show her the face of Rawenniio.</p>
+
+<p>On Tuesday she failed rapidly in strength. They
+feared she would die, and prepared to give her the last
+sacraments. Father Cholenec did not intend for a moment
+that she should be deprived of the Viaticum,&mdash;that
+strength of the wayfarer, and bread of angels, so needful
+to the dying. But just how it should be administered
+was a question. Thus far the Blessed Sacrament had
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span>
+never been carried to an Indian's cabin. The sick were
+put on a bark litter and borne to the door of the church,
+where they received Holy Communion. Kateri was too
+weak for this. The two Fathers at the mission consulted
+together, and quickly resolved to make an exception in
+her case. No one either then or afterwards murmured
+at this distinction accorded to the Lily of the Mohawks.
+Father Cholenec at once entered the sanctuary, took
+the sacred particle from the tabernacle, and passed out
+of the church, following the shortest road to Anastasia's
+cabin. All who were then in the village assembled to
+accompany him, and knelt about the door of the lodge,
+leaving a passage for the blackgown to enter. In the
+mean time Kateri heard of the honored Guest whom she
+was to receive; whose sacramental presence had been
+so long denied her, on account of her inability to drag
+herself to the chapel. This had not been possible since
+the first weeks of Lent. She was now overjoyed at the
+good news they brought her. Her face lighted up with
+happiness. Then all at once she remembered the miserable
+condition and great poverty to which long-continued
+sickness had reduced her. So she held fast to
+the hand of Thérèse, who was then at her side, and
+begged her earnestly not to leave her. As soon as they
+were left alone for a moment, she confided to her friend
+that she owned no decent garment in which to receive
+her Lord, who was about to visit her, having only those
+she now wore. Thérèse, touched at this avowal from
+one who knew so well how to care for herself and
+others when she had been able to work, quickly brought
+a chemise of her own for Kateri, and dressed her
+properly for the great event so near at hand. Kateri
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span>
+had hidden her poverty even from Anastasia. All is at
+last in readiness, both within the lodge and without; her
+heart's desire is at hand. "Behold He cometh, leaping
+over the mountains."</p>
+
+<p>The blackgown, with the sacred Viaticum, entered
+the rude bark cabin, which was crowded with kneeling
+Indians. The <i>Confiteor</i> was recited. Kateri Tekakwitha
+renewed her baptismal vows and the solemn offering
+she had made of her body to Almighty God. She recalled
+the graces bestowed upon her, and especially
+such as had enabled her to preserve her chastity
+through life. She then received the Body and Blood
+of Christ, and after a few moments of silent adoration,
+all present joined with her in prayer. Throughout the
+afternoon other Indians of the village, as they came in
+from the hunt or the field, were constantly going back
+and forth to the lodge where she lay. All wished to
+see her and to hear her dying words. Not one was indifferent
+to the passing of her soul. Many were the
+signs of love and of reverence shown for her on that
+day. It would seem as if she had been to each one of
+them like a favorite sister. All were eager to gain a
+remembrance in her prayers.</p>
+
+<p>"The Father profited by this occasion," says Chauchetière,
+"and obliged Catherine to exhort some persons
+who needed to be encouraged in virtue." He adds that
+the words of the dying always had great effect at the
+mission in converting those who could not be brought
+otherwise to be baptized or to confess their sins. If
+this were the case ordinarily, how doubly effective must
+have been the words thus wrung from Kateri, despite
+her humility, by the command of her director! But
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span>
+after all, it was her example, in life and in death, that
+preached most forcibly to them. The effort she made
+to speak&mdash;for, indeed, it was more natural for her to
+be silent&mdash;exhausted her very much. Thinking she
+was about to expire, Father Cholenec wished to anoint
+her at once, and ran in haste as far as the church; but
+her calm assurance to Thérèse, to the Father, and to
+others that there was no occasion for hurry, caused
+them to believe afterwards that the hour of her death,
+as well as the place of her burial, had been privately
+revealed to her by God.</p>
+
+<p>During the evening of Tuesday Thérèse left her friend
+for a time. In the night she was again watching by
+Kateri's side with another woman.<a name="FNanchor_68_68" id="FNanchor_68_68"></a><a href="#Footnote_68_68" class="fnanchor">[68]</a> The sufferer asked
+them to take turns in order to get more rest, or they
+would be too weary the next day. When Thérèse remained
+alone with her, Kateri, who had looked forward
+to this moment, said: "I know very well, my sister,
+what I am saying. I know the place from which you
+came, and I know what you were doing there. Take
+courage!" she continued with great tenderness; "you
+may be sure that you are pleasing in the eyes of God,
+and I will help you more when I am with Him." The
+eyes of Thérèse opened wide at these words, and then
+filled with tears. How could Kateri have known what
+she had done? She had stolen off to the woods without
+saying a word to any one, and had cruelly scourged herself
+as she prayed from her heart for her dying friend.
+But Kateri, it seems, did know about it; and in the
+morning early, when Thérèse wished to stay by her
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span>
+lest she should not be there at the last, she said in a
+decided tone: "You may go to the field, Thérèse; do
+not fear. You will be back in time." In this, too,
+she was not mistaken.</p>
+
+<p>Father Martin, in describing these last hours of Kateri,
+gives the following conversation which took place
+that same morning, and which shows the touching
+simplicity of her Indian friends. "If we must go,"
+they said to her, "ask God not to let you die while
+we are away." Kateri again assured them that there
+was time enough. "On your return you will find me
+still living," she said. They went away satisfied, and
+God blessed their confidence.</p>
+
+<p>It will be remembered that this was the morning of
+Wednesday in Holy Week. What follows is from
+Chauchetière, who says that the companion of the dying
+girl was sent for about ten o'clock that day.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"Marie Thérèse Tegaiaguenta arrived in the cabin shortly
+before Extreme Unction was given. After she [Kateri] had
+received all the sacraments, she conversed with her companion.
+She was failing, however, all the time, and at last,
+speaking with difficulty and unable to raise her voice, seeing
+her comrade weeping bitterly, she bade her this last
+farewell: 'I leave you,' said Catherine; 'I am going to die.
+Remember always what we have done together since we knew
+one another. If you change, I will accuse you before the
+judgment-seat of God. Take courage; despise the discourse
+of those who have no faith. When they would persuade
+you to marry, listen only to the Fathers. If you cannot
+serve God here, go away to the mission of Lorette. Never
+give up mortification. I will love you in heaven,&mdash;I will
+pray for you,&mdash;I will help you&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span>
+"The Father who was near by on his knees to say the
+prayers for the dying, heard a little of what Catherine was
+saying. He kept his eyes fixed upon the face of Catherine
+to notice what was passing, and at the same time he encouraged
+them both. Catherine had her face turned towards
+Heaven, and her companion embraced her with one hand,
+having the other resting on the cheek of Catherine, and
+listening with attention to the last words of the dying one.</p>
+
+<p>"This blessed girl in saying to her companion, 'I will
+love thee in Heaven,' lost the power of speech. It had
+been a long time since she closed her eyes to created things.
+Her hearing, however, still remained, and was good to the
+last breath. It was noticed several times that when some
+acts were suggested to her she seemed to revive. When she
+was excited to the love of God, her whole face seemed to
+change.<a name="FNanchor_69_69" id="FNanchor_69_69"></a><a href="#Footnote_69_69" class="fnanchor">[69]</a> Every one wished to share in the devotion inspired
+by her dying countenance. It seemed more like the
+face of a person contemplating than like the face of one
+dying. In this state she remained until the last breath.
+Her breathing had been decreasing since nine or ten o'clock
+in the morning, and became gradually imperceptible. But
+her face did not change. One of the Fathers who was on
+his knees at her right side noticed a little trembling of the
+nerve on that side of her mouth, and she died as if she had
+gone to sleep. Those beside her were for a time in doubt of
+her death.</p>
+
+<p>"When they felt certain that all was over, her eulogy
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span>
+was spoken in the cabin, to encourage others to imitate her.
+What her father confessor said, together with what they had
+seen, made them look upon her body as a precious relic.
+The simplicity of the Indians caused them to do more than
+there was need for on this occasion, as, for instance, to kiss
+her hands; to keep as a relic whatever had belonged to her;
+to pass the evening and the rest of the night near her; to
+watch her face, which changed little by little in less than a
+quarter of an hour. It inspired devotion, although her
+soul was separated from it. It appeared more beautiful
+than it had ever done when she was living. It gave joy,
+and fortified each one of them in the faith he had embraced.
+It was a new argument for belief with which God favored
+the Indians to give them a relish for the faith!"</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Thus died Kateri Tekakwitha, on Wednesday, April
+17, 1680. She was twenty-four years of age.</p>
+
+<p>The change in her countenance after death, mentioned
+by Chauchetière, is described at some length by
+Cholenec. He recalls the fact that when Kateri was
+four years old she was attacked by the small-pox, and
+that some marks of it were left on her face. It had
+been much more disfigured, however, by her austerities
+and by her last illness. "But this face," says Cholenec,
+"thus emaciated and marked, changed all at once, about
+a quarter of an hour after her death; and it became in
+an instant so beautiful and so fair that, having perceived
+it at once (for I was in prayer near her), I gave
+a great cry, so much was I seized with astonishment,
+and I had the Father called, who was working on the
+repository for Thursday morning. He ran to see it at
+once, and with him all the Indians, at the news of this
+prodigy, which we had leisure to contemplate until her
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span>
+burial. I must admit frankly," her confessor continues,
+"that the first thought which came to me was that
+Catherine might have indeed entered at that moment
+into heaven, and that on her virginal body was reflected
+in advance a small ray of the glory which was dawning
+on her soul!"</p>
+
+<p>The spirit of Kateri Tekakwitha rejoiced in leaving
+its casket of clay; but the friend who had known her
+best still lingered disconsolate by her mat, till at last
+the crowd was scattered and none remained but those
+who belonged to the cabin wherein she died. Then
+the body was cared for in the usual manner. Thérèse,
+whose loving task it was to bring the necessary garments,
+now assisted Kateri's adopted sister and the
+good matron, Anastasia, in their last sad duties to the
+gentle inmate of their lodge. Her hair was oiled and
+braided. New moccasins were put on her feet. She
+was tenderly laid out on a mat, and the entrances of
+the lodge were again left open for visitors. A moving
+throng passed in and out. Many lingered for a long,
+long time, unable to withdraw their eyes from the face
+of the Iroquois maiden so long hidden by her blanket,
+and now so wondrous fair to behold. It was aglow
+with a miraculous beauty that gave deep joy to those
+who looked upon it; with the joy came also a longing
+to be pure and holy, and to possess the happiness reflected
+on those noble features. As she lay thus motionless
+on her mat, two Frenchmen from La Prairie,
+who had come to the Indian village to be present at the
+services there on Holy Thursday, wandered idly into
+the cabin. They passed close to the body of Kateri.
+"How peacefully that young woman sleeps!" said one
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span>
+of them. It did not occur to them that she was dead,
+and they were about to pass on. "But they were
+very much surprised," writes Cholenec, "when they
+learned a moment after that it was the body of Catherine,
+who had just expired. They immediately retraced
+their steps, and casting themselves on their knees at
+her feet, recommended themselves to her prayers. They
+even wished to give a public evidence of the veneration
+they had for the deceased, by immediately assisting to
+make the coffin which was to enclose those holy relics."</p>
+
+<p>Thus it happened that Kateri's body, instead of being
+borne to the grave, according to the Indian custom, on
+an open bier of bark, covered only with a blanket, was
+enclosed in a wooden coffin after the custom of the
+white men. This made it easier to identify her remains
+later when they were carried to the new village site
+farther up the river, to which the Indians of the Sault
+moved some years later. They took Kateri's bones
+with them as their most precious treasure, and have
+kept them at the church ever since.<a name="FNanchor_70_70" id="FNanchor_70_70"></a><a href="#Footnote_70_70" class="fnanchor">[70]</a></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 461px;"><br /><br />
+<img src="images/p279-illus.png" width="461" height="281" alt="" title="" />
+<span class="caption"><br />STREET SCENE AT CAUGHNAWAGA IN CANADA<br/>
+
+<i>(St. Lawrence River) &nbsp;&nbsp;1889 &nbsp;&nbsp;(Church of St. François Xavier)</i></span><br /><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>When the two Frenchmen who had come to Caughnawaga
+for Holy Thursday had finished their self-imposed
+task, the body of Kateri was lifted from her mat
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span>
+into the coffin, but the lid was not adjusted at once over
+the face. The Indians continued to gaze upon it, and
+would not consent to have it covered until she had been
+lowered into the grave which they had prepared for her.
+This was on the side of the cemetery nearest to the
+river, at the foot of the tall cross, where she had loved
+to pray. There, on the afternoon of Thursday in Holy
+Week, the Lily of the Mohawks and the "Geneviève
+of New France" was laid to rest. So great was the fame
+of her sanctity that her grave soon became a much-frequented
+spot. Pilgrim after pilgrim has directed
+his footsteps to that cross and mound. In the long list
+of these we find the names of governors, bishops, military
+commanders, and well-known authors.<a name="FNanchor_71_71" id="FNanchor_71_71"></a><a href="#Footnote_71_71" class="fnanchor">[71]</a> Even after
+her bones were removed, the place where Kateri had
+prayed, and where her body rested for a time, was
+looked upon as sacred ground. From the day of her
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span>
+burial in 1680 to the present time, it has been distinctly
+and unmistakably marked with a tall wooden
+cross. Whenever the old one crumbled away, a new
+one was erected to replace it. John Gilmary Shea gives
+the following graphic account of what occurred at her
+grave in 1843:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"The old cross was mouldering; and a new one, twenty-five
+feet high, was prepared, in which were encased some
+relics of the holy virgin of Caughnawaga. On Sunday, the
+23d of July, 1843, the Caughnawagas, headed by their
+missionary and chiefs, repaired to the little river Portage,
+near which their former church and village had stood, on
+a bluff between that little stream and the lordly St. Lawrence.
+The space on the left was soon filled by whites,
+drawn thither by interest or curiosity, both of French and
+English origin. The banner of La Prairie and the pennons
+of the Sault floated above the crowd on either side of the
+highly adorned cross, at the foot of which was a painting
+of the Christian heroine. At the signal given by the discharge
+of artillery on the right and left, the clergy in procession
+advanced into the centre, chanting the "Vexilla
+Regis." At another discharge Father Felix Martin, one of
+the first Jesuits to whom it was given to return to the land
+enriched by the sweat and blood of his Society, rose to
+address the assembled throng in French. Then, after a
+hymn in Iroquois, the Rev. Joseph Marcoux,<a name="FNanchor_72_72" id="FNanchor_72_72"></a><a href="#Footnote_72_72" class="fnanchor">[72]</a> the pastor of
+the tribe, pronounced a discourse in the guttural language
+of his flock, and gave place to the Rev. Hyacinth Hudon,
+Vicar-General of Montreal, who delivered a third address in
+English, and then performed the ceremony of blessing the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span>
+cross. That sign of faith was then slowly raised, amid the
+chants of the Church, the thunder of the cannon, and the mingled
+shouts of men of many climes and races who, differing in
+language, bowed to the symbol of a common faith."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>In September, 1884, the author of this volume visited
+her grave, and found that the cross described above had
+been blown down in a recent storm. It was lying in
+broken fragments on the river-bank, near the little enclosure
+of wooden pickets surrounding the grave. Pious
+hands were soon at work there, however, and on Sunday,
+Oct. 5, 1884, another cross was raised. Again a
+large gathering of Canadians and Indians assembled to
+assist at the ceremony. Rev. Father Burtin, Oblate
+missionary, and successor to Father Marcoux, preached
+both in French and Iroquois. The following words of
+the preacher (which were translated into English and
+published in an Albany journal) must have made a
+profound impression upon his hearers, the Iroquois
+people of Caughnawaga. "There have been," he said,
+"in this village, chiefs renowned in war, who had dealings
+with governors of Canada, and were widely spoken
+of during their lives. Now that they are dead, their
+names are mostly forgotten, while the name of Catherine
+Tekakwitha is well known not only here, but
+throughout Canada and beyond the ocean."</p>
+
+<p>In the month of June, 1888, the author, having travelled
+by the ferry-boat from Montreal to La Prairie,
+and thence driven a few miles westward along the
+river-bank, was fortunate enough to stand once again
+by the grave of Tekakwitha.<a name="FNanchor_73_73" id="FNanchor_73_73"></a><a href="#Footnote_73_73" class="fnanchor">[73]</a>
+There, in addition to the
+new cross, which stood firm and erect within the little
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span>
+enclosure, a large granite monument was to be seen
+lying close beside it, partially unboxed and ready to be
+placed upon the grave. It had been sent to Canada
+from the land of Tekakwitha's birth. It has since been
+set in place, and protected by a strong canopy and enclosure
+of wood. The initials of the two donors of this
+substantial token are carved on a lower corner of the
+monumental stone. It is a solid piece of Barre granite,
+in the shape of a sarcophagus,&mdash;six feet six inches
+long, two feet ten inches wide, two feet six inches high.
+On the top a cross is carved, and the following inscription
+in the Iroquois language:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+KATERI TEKAKWITHA.</p>
+<p class="center">Apr. 17, 1680.</p>
+<p class="center"><i>Onkwe Onwe-ke Katsitsiio Teiotsitsianekaron.</i><a name="FNanchor_74_74" id="FNanchor_74_74"></a><a href="#Footnote_74_74" class="fnanchor">[74]</a><br />
+</p>
+
+<p class="bigfoot">The French translation is the exact interpretation given
+by M. Cuoq, who composed the Iroquois inscription. He
+says that <i>Onkwe Onwe</i> means literally, "The true men;"
+thus the Indians designate all who belong to their own
+race. <i>Katsitsiio</i> means "beautiful flower," and is here
+applied to Tekakwitha, the Lily of the Mohawks. This
+title, given to her by the English, is altogether foreign to
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span>
+the Iroquois language, as they have no distinctive word
+for <i>Lily</i> (nothing more definite than "white flower");
+and <i>Mohawks</i> is a name they dislike, because it was first
+given to them by their enemies; they prefer, therefore,
+their own term, <i>Caniengas</i>. Tekakwitha was a Canienga
+and an Iroquois, but she was also, on her mother's side,
+an Algonquin. Hence it is that the general name
+which applies to the whole red race is used in the
+inscription,&mdash;<i>Onkwe Onwe</i>! All "true men" are indeed
+akin to this beautiful flower that bloomed in our
+Mohawk Valley.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footnotes center"><br />FOOTNOTES:
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_68_68" id="Footnote_68_68"></a><a href="#FNanchor_68_68"><span class="label">[68]</span></a> For this incident see Cholenec, in "La Vie de Catherine Tegakouita,"
+Carton O, Jesuit College Library, Montreal.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_69_69" id="Footnote_69_69"></a><a href="#FNanchor_69_69"><span class="label">[69]</span></a> Father Martin, in his account of this scene, says that Kateri,
+after her last words to Thérèse, covered her crucifix with kisses and
+tears, and finally cried out three times, "Jesus, I love thee!"
+Chauchetière himself, in another place, mentions these as her last
+words. He and Cholenec were both eyewitnesses of her death. Cholenec
+says, "At three hours after midday, after having pronounced
+the holy names of Jesus and Mary, a slight spasm came on, when she
+entirely lost the power of speech."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_70_70" id="Footnote_70_70"></a><a href="#FNanchor_70_70"><span class="label">[70]</span></a> They are now (1889) in a carefully secured chest of polished wood
+in the sacristy of the church of St François Xavier du Sault at the
+present village of Caughnawaga, about five miles up the river from their
+first resting-place. The old wall and priest's house connected with the
+above-named church date back to 1720, but the church itself is more
+modern. It was rebuilt in 1845. The desk at which Charlevoix and
+Lafitau wrote is still used by the missionary who occupies the <i>presbytère</i>.
+The exact site of this mission of St François Xavier du Sault at the
+present time and its four previous sites, also the position of Tekakwitha's
+grave, with her cross and monument, and its direction from
+the city of Montreal, are shown on the map in chapter xvii.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_71_71" id="Footnote_71_71"></a><a href="#FNanchor_71_71"><span class="label">[71]</span></a> Among those who have shown special honor to the memory of
+Kateri Tekakwitha by visiting her grave and spreading her fame by
+means of their writings, and who have not been already quoted in this
+work, we find the following persons of note: the Marquis Denonville,
+Governor of Canada; Monseigneur de Saint-Valier, second Bishop of
+Quebec; Capt. J. du Luth, commander of Fort Frontenac in 1696;
+De la Potherie, Commissioner of the King, and author of the "Histoire
+de l'Amérique Septentrionale," and of verses in honor of Tekakwitha,
+written in 1722; Chateaubriand,&mdash;see "Les Natchez," livre iv., as
+follows: "Les vertus de Catherine (dit-il) resplendirait après sa
+mort. Dieu couvrit son tombeau de miracles riches et éclatants en
+proportion de la pauvreté et de l'obscurité de la Sainte ici-bas, et cette
+vierge ne cesse de veiller du salut de la Nouvelle France, et de s'intéresser
+aux habitants du désert." Poems on Kateri Tekakwitha have
+been written by the Abbé Rouquette, of New Orleans, and by Rev. C. A.
+Walworth, of Albany; and to crown all these efforts to do her honor,
+the touch of a gifted artist of New York State, Mr. Charles M. Lang,
+has been brought to bear on this ever-growing theme.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_72_72" id="Footnote_72_72"></a><a href="#FNanchor_72_72"><span class="label">[72]</span></a> Author of a very complete Iroquois-French dictionary, preserved
+and still in use in manuscript form at the <i>presbytère</i>, or priest's house,
+at Caughnawaga in Canada.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_73_73" id="Footnote_73_73"></a><a href="#FNanchor_73_73"><span class="label">[73]</span></a> Tekakwitha's cross and grave may also be reached by a drive of
+about five miles across the reservation from Caughnawaga, which is now
+a railroad station on the new Canadian Pacific road, and is connected
+by a steam-ferry with Lachme, where the steamers touch before going
+over the Great Rapid, and where trains arrive many times a day from
+Montreal.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_74_74" id="Footnote_74_74"></a><a href="#FNanchor_74_74"><span class="label">[74]</span></a> English translation,&mdash;"<i>The fairest flower that ever bloomed
+among the redmen.</i>" French translation,&mdash;"<i>C'est une belle fleur
+qui s'est épanouie parmi les Indiens.</i>"</p><br /></div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XXV.</h2>
+
+<p class="centerc"><b>THE MEMORY AND INFLUENCE OF KATERI TEKAKWITHA
+AFTER HER DEATH.&mdash;MODERN CAUGHNAWAGA.</b></p>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">I</span>T has been seen how the waning yet ever-brightening
+spark of a saintly life went out among the Indians
+of the Sault, and the reader has learned where Kateri
+Tekakwitha was laid to rest; but her memory is still
+alive at the places where she lived and died, and even
+far away among the Indians of the North and West; and
+wherever she is known her influence is still a power for
+good. The Rev. P. Fouquet, a missionary who labors
+among the aborigines of British Columbia, in a letter
+addressed to the Rev. V. Burtin, Curé of Caughnawaga,
+P. Q., under date of July 22, 1888, says:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"I have spoken to hundreds of Indian villages of your
+admirable <i>Sauvagesse</i> [thus he calls Tekakwitha].... Nothing
+is so useful to our Indians; her example is a great encouragement
+to them in the practice of Christian virtues."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The Flathead (Kalispel) Mission in Montana, with
+its large Indian school and thriving settlement of industrious
+Christians, owes its origin in great part to the
+zeal of a few adventurous Iroquois who migrated to that
+region from Caughnawaga in Canada. Among these was
+a certain chief called Ignatius <i>the Iroquois</i>. He had
+grown up under the shadow of Tekakwitha's cross, and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span>
+after living for a time among his new friends the Kalispel
+people, who gained from him and his comrades a
+favorable opinion of Christianity, he did not hesitate to
+undertake a dangerous journey across the great plains of
+the United States in order to obtain for them a missionary.
+It was in paving the way for Father De Smet, the
+Apostle of the Rocky Mountains, that the brave Iroquois
+lost his life. When that Father succeeded after
+many difficulties in accomplishing the long journey
+from St. Louis in the Mississippi Valley, to the Kalispels
+in Montana, he reaped a most unexpected harvest
+of Indian converts. This was because they still cherished
+the memory of Ignatius the Iroquois, who from
+his youth had reverenced that of Kateri Tekakwitha.
+May we not then justly claim for her a share in the
+success of that Kalispel mission? Was it not her
+strong, sweet influence for good that had spanned the
+continent at last, and raised the cross aloft among the
+redmen of the Rocky Mountains?</p>
+
+<p>Not alone among the Indians of the West, but far
+away to the East, and beyond the Atlantic Ocean, the
+name of Kateri Tekakwitha is often spoken. In April,
+1888, the people of Caughnawaga joined with their
+missionary, Père V. Burtin, in celebrating the diamond
+wedding of his aged parents, who live at Metz, in Lorraine.
+The name the Caughnawagas have given to their
+beloved pastor is Takaronhianckon, which means "Two
+Skies Together," because he belongs to two countries,&mdash;the
+land of his adoption, and his fatherland over the
+sea. Père Burtin delights in praising the virtues of
+Kateri Tekakwitha, and often mentions her in his letters.
+Her name has become a household word in the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span>
+missionary's old home on the banks of the Moselle,
+which he has not seen for more than thirty years. This
+double celebration of a diamond wedding on both sides
+of the Atlantic proves not only the strength of true domestic
+affection that neither time nor distance has been
+able to obliterate, but also the love and gratitude of the
+Indians to the man who forsook house and kindred so
+many years ago for their sake.</p>
+
+<p>Pictures of Kateri were painted by Chauchetière
+shortly after her death, and were distributed in many
+directions. They were first engraved and sent to Europe
+by order of Madame de Champigny in the year
+1695. One or more of these reached the French Court,
+which was then at its most brilliant period under Louis
+XIV. The powdered and befrilled ladies of that time
+looked with wonder on the rough cut sent to them of a
+little squaw in blanket and moccasins, holding in her
+hand a cross, and worthy, they were told, to be held
+up as a model for the Christians of Europe. She had
+indeed lived as a light in the wilderness, and was
+looked upon by all who knew her as a lily of purity
+and star of faith.</p>
+
+<p>There is a very old, full-length portrait of Kateri
+Tekakwitha still hanging in the sacristy at Caughnawaga,
+P. Q. Others are to be seen at St. Mary's Church,
+Albany, and in the possession of the Jesuits at Troy,
+New York. An ideal portrait of her by Mr. Lang, completed
+in the early part of the year 1889, is by far the
+best representation of her now in existence. The same
+artist has also painted her, in a landscape of great
+beauty, as just moving away from her favorite place of
+prayer near the mission cross on the St. Lawrence. A
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span>
+Sister in the Hôtel Dieu at Montreal has a quaint colored
+print, representing her very much as she appears
+in the rude, uncolored engraving which accompanies the
+account given of her in "L'Amérique Septentrionale"
+by De la Potherie. The illustration in Chauchetière's
+life of her, published in quaint style by John Gilmary
+Shea, in 1887, is not unlike these two.</p>
+
+<p>What served far more than any pictorial representation
+ever made, to keep her saintly memory before the
+people of her own village, was the formation of Kateri's
+Band, or Les S&oelig;urs de Catherine, as they were called.
+These were young Indian girls whom Thérèse Tegaiaguenta
+banded together after Kateri's death, and incited
+to imitate the virtues of her friend, who, as she firmly
+believed, was still loving her and helping her in heaven,
+according to her promise. It has already been said that
+Thérèse received by common consent the name of the
+one who while on earth had been her inseparable companion.
+Hence it is easy to account for the fact that in
+a "Life of Marguerite Bourgeois," published in 1852, the
+author should have confused the identity of these two
+young Indians of the Sault, and given an account of the
+Lily of the Mohawks under the name of <i>Thérèse Tegakouita</i>.
+Their souls were locked together in life; their
+names in death.</p>
+
+<p>While Thérèse lived, the Caughnawagas gave her the
+name and a part of the love and reverence they had
+shown to Kateri herself. When once she had formed
+the band known as Kateri's Sisters, and had passed
+from among men, then indeed there was nothing left on
+earth of the Lily of the Mohawks save lifeless relics
+and what the old writers are pleased to call "an odor of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span>
+sanctity." <i>Onkwe Onwe-ke Katsitsiio Teiotsitsianekaron.</i>
+These words, as we have already seen, may be read on
+the monument at the foot of Tekakwitha's Cross, but
+her bones do not rest there. They were carried to the
+modern village of Caughnawaga, and some fragments
+of them even still farther from her grave;<a name="FNanchor_75_75" id="FNanchor_75_75"></a><a href="#Footnote_75_75" class="fnanchor">[75]</a> for at
+the time of the French and Indian War the Jesuits resolved
+to divide the Caughnawaga mission, and remove
+some of their flock farther away from the dangers of
+Montreal. The Tarbells&mdash;who as children had been
+captured at Groton, Connecticut, in Queen Anne's War,
+and afterwards became too thoroughly identified with
+the Caughnawagas to return to their Puritan relatives
+when the opportunity offered&mdash;headed this party sent
+westward from the Sault to form a new settlement.
+Choosing Aquasasne,&mdash;"the place where the partridge
+drums,"&mdash;a plain east of a slight hill, at one of the
+few spots where the rapid-vexed river glides calmly by,
+&mdash;they began the mission of St. Francis Regis, and threw
+up a log-cabin for the Jesuit Father Mark Anthony
+Gordon, who accompanied them, <i>bearing as a precious
+treasure part of the remains of Catherine Tehgahkwitha</i>.<a name="FNanchor_76_76" id="FNanchor_76_76"></a><a href="#Footnote_76_76" class="fnanchor">[76]</a></p>
+
+<p>This portion of her remains was lost in a fire which
+destroyed the log chapel and its contents shortly before
+the treaty of peace was signed between England and
+France, in 1763. A new wooden church soon replaced
+the rude chapel, and in 1791 this in turn gave way to
+the present massive stone church of that mission. The
+St. Regis settlement was found to be on the New York
+boundary line; so the village is now part British and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span>
+part American. Methodist and Episcopal missions have
+been started there at different times, but most of the
+Indians of the place still adhere to the faith of Jogues
+and Tekakwitha.</p>
+
+<p>The Catholic Iroquois,&mdash;many of them famous as
+warriors,&mdash;naturally enough, sided with the French
+during the long period of our intercolonial wars;<a name="FNanchor_77_77" id="FNanchor_77_77"></a><a href="#Footnote_77_77" class="fnanchor">[77]</a> but
+when the Revolution broke out they refused to take up
+arms against the people of the English Colonies at the
+instigation of their British oppressors, as did the Mohawk
+followers of Brant. Though urged and threatened
+by Sir Guy Carleton to do so, they maintained their
+neutrality. Some actually joined the American army of
+patriots. One of these, Atiatonharonkwen, or Louis Cook,
+rose to the rank of captain. During the stirring times of
+1812 the settlement at Aquasasne was disturbed by incursions
+of both American and British troops; but since
+that war came to an end the missions of Caughnawaga
+and St. Regis have enjoyed peace and quiet. Their
+people have shared in the general prosperity and progress
+of this country and Canada. They support themselves
+by means of agriculture and the manufacture of
+baskets, sleds, moccasins, snow-shoes, and other articles
+ornamented with beads in the Indian fashion. The
+Caughnawagas, moreover, are noted for being especially
+brave and skilful in the use of every kind of river-craft.
+As raftsmen and pilots they are unequalled. The patriarchal
+figure of the famous Caughnawaga Indian, Jean
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span>
+Baptiste, with his swarthy face and bright-red shirt,
+seen year after year at the pilot-wheel of nearly every
+excursion-steamer that shot the Great Rapid of the
+St. Lawrence on its way to Montreal, will not soon be
+forgotten by the many travellers whom he steered safely
+to their destination. Others as skilful still dwell at the
+same Indian village, ready at any time to board the
+steamers as they pass along.</p>
+
+<p>When the Gordon expedition was being fitted out for
+Egypt in 1884, an urgent invitation was extended to the
+Caughnawaga raftsmen to join it. About one hundred
+of them did so, and dexterously carried the British troops
+through the rapids of the Upper Nile. On their return
+they were received in England with marked consideration,
+and were thanked by Queen Victoria in person
+for their services to the realm. They then recrossed
+the ocean to Caughnawaga, well pleased with their venture
+into foreign lands.</p>
+
+<p>Among these same people of the Sault are lineal descendants
+of those proud Mohawks with whom the
+fathers of Albany maintained so long the close alliance
+formed at Tawasentha, when the foundations of the city
+were first laid on land belonging to the most warlike of
+the Five Nations. Accordingly, when the Albanians,
+in 1886, prepared to celebrate the bi-centennial of their
+charter, a deputation of these Mohawks was formally
+invited from Caughnawaga by the Mayor of Albany.
+On their arrival they were publicly received at the City
+Hall as honored guests, the freedom of the city was extended
+to them, and they took a prominent part in the
+ceremonies accompanying the celebration. They were
+present in full Indian costume, both at the opening of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span>
+the city gates, and at the grand military high mass celebrated
+on bi-centennial Sunday at St. Mary's, the oldest
+Catholic Church of the city. Their presence on that
+occasion recalled with touching interest the memory of
+their first apostle of Christianity, Isaac Jogues, who was
+sheltered from the cruelty of his captors by the kind-hearted
+burghers of Albany. The sacrifice of his life,
+which he offered for them when he returned to the Mohawk
+Valley, had brought these Indians to the Christian
+faith; and the example of Kateri&mdash;their "Little
+Sister," as they still call her&mdash;had helped to hold them
+to it through the vicissitudes of two centuries.</p>
+
+<p class="bigfoot">The fervor of these Indian people of the Great Rapid,
+whose ancestors were converted from paganism in the
+valleys of New York State, has not abated since the days
+of Kateri, nor has the work of the Jesuit missionaries
+among them been fruitless in lasting results, notwithstanding
+the assertion of Kip to the contrary, in his
+introduction to "Early Jesuit Missions." The large
+congregation of Christian Iroquois still dwelling at the
+Sault is in itself a living proof of the success and continuance
+of the old mission work. No one could attend
+the religious observances there without being impressed
+by their sincere and heartfelt devotion to the Christian
+faith. The Corpus Christi procession, as witnessed by
+the author, in 1888, at the village of Caughnawaga, was
+picturesque and edifying beyond description.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes center"><br />FOOTNOTES:
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_75_75" id="Footnote_75_75"></a><a href="#FNanchor_75_75"><span class="label">[75]</span></a> See Hough's History of St. Lawrence County.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_76_76" id="Footnote_76_76"></a><a href="#FNanchor_76_76"><span class="label">[76]</span></a> Shea's History of the Missions, p. 339.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_77_77" id="Footnote_77_77"></a><a href="#FNanchor_77_77"><span class="label">[77]</span></a> To this period belong the curious details concerning the traditional
+story of the Iroquois mission bell, and its connection with the
+raid on Deerfield in the winter of 1703-4, which have been collected by
+Judge N. B. Sylvester, in his "History of the Connecticut Valley."</p><br /></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CONCLUSION" id="CONCLUSION"></a>CONCLUSION.</h2>
+
+
+<p>It is for the people of the United States, where many
+nationalities and many creeds are brought into daily
+contact, that this book has been written; and therefore
+certain occurrences which took place after the death of
+Kateri Tekakwitha, and which have been given at
+length in some memoirs and sketches of her life otherwise
+comparatively meagre, are here purposely omitted.
+Thus we pass by much that might be said of the devotion
+of people in various parts of Canada and elsewhere
+to her memory; as also the accounts of visits made from
+long distances to her grave, and to her early home in the
+Mohawk Valley. Steps have been taken towards public
+honors in the church, and even to her canonization as
+a saint.<a name="FNanchor_78_78" id="FNanchor_78_78"></a><a href="#Footnote_78_78" class="fnanchor">[78]</a> Into these matters it has not been thought
+necessary to enter. One exception, however, should be
+made. Some things occurred soon after her death
+which are so closely connected with the personality of
+Kateri herself, and with those who were nearest to her
+on earth, that they seem properly to belong to a complete
+record of her life and times. These are given in
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span>
+an account of certain remarkable visions in which
+Kateri Tekakwitha appeared to Father Chauchetière
+and two of her friends in 1680, and twice afterwards to
+the same reverend father. The account of these apparitions
+is to be found in "Book Third" of the manuscript
+entitled, "La Vie de Catherine Tegakouita, Première
+Vièrge Irokoise," written by Father Cholenec. It forms
+a part of the materials in Carton O,<a name="FNanchor_79_79" id="FNanchor_79_79"></a><a href="#Footnote_79_79" class="fnanchor">[79]</a> at the Jesuit College
+Library, in Montreal. A translation of it is here
+given. Nothing is added, and nothing taken from the
+good father's account; nor is there any call to make an
+apology for the simple faith which glows in his language.
+It was his faith and that of many others who knew
+Tekakwitha, and thus makes a part, of her history.</p>
+
+<p>Cholenec's words are as follows:</p>
+
+<p>"The sixth day after the death of Catherine, this
+was Easter Monday, a virtuous person worthy of belief,<a name="FNanchor_80_80" id="FNanchor_80_80"></a><a href="#Footnote_80_80" class="fnanchor">[80]</a>
+being in prayer at four o'clock in the morning, she
+appeared to him surrounded with glory, bearing a pot
+full of maize, her radiant face lifted towards heaven as
+if in ecstasy. This vision of joy so marvellous was
+accompanied by three circumstances which rendered it
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span>
+still more admirable. For in the first place it lasted two
+whole hours, during which this person had leisure to
+contemplate her at his ease. He did so with a joy and
+a pleasure that cannot be expressed, Catherine having
+wished by so signal a favor to acknowledge the great
+services she had received from him during her life.
+Furthermore, this same apparition was accompanied
+with several prophecies by as many symbols which were
+to be seen on each side of Catherine in her ecstasy; of
+which prophecies some have been already verified, others
+have not as yet. For example, at the right appeared a
+church overturned, and opposite at the left an Indian
+attached to a stake and burned alive. This happened
+in the month of April of the year 1680; and in 1683,
+the night of the 20th of August, a storm, so terrible and
+with so much thunder and lightning that it could only
+have been caused by the evil spirit, took up the church
+of the Sault,&mdash;60 feet long, of stone masonry,&mdash;took it
+up, I say, at one corner with such violence that, contrary
+to all likelihood, it turned it over on to the opposite
+angle and dashed it to pieces. Two of our fathers who
+were at the church were carried off into the air. A
+third, who had run to the house to ring the bell, felt the
+cord suddenly wrenched from his hands, and was carried
+off like the other two. All three next found themselves
+on the ground under the <i>débris</i>, from which they were
+drawn forth with much difficulty; and instead of having
+their bodies all mangled by so violent a concussion, they
+came out of it with some slight hurts; this they attributed
+to the prayers of Catherine, when they all three
+came together again. As for me, said one, I said mass
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span>
+to-day in honor of Catherine. And for me, replied the
+other, I was this morning at her tomb, to recommend
+myself to her in a special manner. And as for me, added
+the third, having for a year past a strong idea that some
+misfortune was to befall the mission, I have been every
+day since then, and to-day again, to pray to Catherine at
+her tomb to deliver us, and I have not ceased during all
+that time to importune the superior of the mission to
+have Catherine's bones transported into our church,
+without knowing why I did it. Behold what has reference
+to the overturned church. As for the Indian seen
+in this apparition, attached to the stake and burned
+alive, that was sufficiently verified some years after,
+when an Indian of this mission was burned at Onondaga,
+and two women the two following years; and as we do
+not doubt at all that Catherine, who had made it known
+so long beforehand, obtained for these Indians the
+invincible constancy that they showed in their torments,
+we will speak of it at the end of this third book as a
+marvellous effect of the power she has in heaven.<a name="FNanchor_81_81" id="FNanchor_81_81"></a><a href="#Footnote_81_81" class="fnanchor">[81]</a></p>
+
+
+<p>"Finally, the third circumstance of this apparition, so
+remarkable, is that in the following year, 1681, on September
+1st, and in the year 1682, on April 21st, the same
+person had the same vision and under the same circumstances;
+with this only difference, that in the first
+apparition Catherine was shown to him as a rising sun,
+with these words which were audible to him: '<i>Adhuc
+visio in dies</i>;'
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span>
+instead of which, in the two following
+ones, she was shown to him as a sun at mid-day, with
+these other words: '<i>Inspice et fac secundum exemplar</i>,'
+God giving him to understand by this, that he
+wished pictures of Catherine to be painted, which have
+been worked upon for a long time, and which having
+been painted, have contributed wonderfully towards
+making her known; because, having been put on the
+heads of the sick, they have worked miraculous cures.</p>
+
+<p>"Two days after the first of these three apparitions,
+and eight days after the death of Catherine, she showed
+herself to her good mother Anastasia in this way. This
+fervent christian, after everybody had gone to bed in
+her cabin, remained alone in prayer on that evening;
+and feeling herself finally overcome by sleep she laid
+down on her mat to rest. But scarcely had she closed
+her eyes when she was awakened by a voice calling her
+with these words: 'Mother, arise.' She recognized the
+voice of Catherine, and at once without the least fear,
+she raised herself to a sitting posture and turning
+towards the side from which this voice came, she saw
+Catherine standing near her all brilliant with light.
+She had half of her body hidden to the waist in this
+brightness, and the other half, said this woman, was
+shining like a sun. She carried in her hand a cross,
+more brilliant yet than all the rest. So much light came
+from it that I do not believe one could see anything in
+the world more beautiful. I saw her, she continued,
+distinctly in this posture, awake as I was, and she spoke
+these words to me quite as distinctly: 'Mother, look at
+this cross; oh! how beautiful it is! It has been my
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span>
+whole happiness during my life, and I advise you also
+to make it yours.' After these few words she disappeared,
+leaving her mother full of joy, and her spirit so
+filled with this vision that after many years she had still
+the memory of it as fresh as on the first day. It seems
+that Catherine, in gratitude for the assistance she had
+received from Anastasia, wished by the sight of that
+cross so beautiful and so ravishing, and by the words she
+added, to dispose her to bear generously the one that
+God was preparing for her; because she has lost since
+then three of her children killed in war, the eldest of
+whom was one of the captains of the village; a disaster
+which she bore with heroic constancy, so much had she
+been fortified within by this apparition of her dear
+daughter.</p>
+
+<p>"Catherine was seen also by her companion, one day
+when she was alone in her cabin. She sat down beside
+her on her mat, recalled to her something she had done,
+and after giving her some advice for her conduct, she withdrew.
+As for the rest, the great affection Catherine had
+for the cross, and the manner in which she appeared to
+her mother Anastasia, gave the idea of painting her
+with the cross in her hand as the posture most suitable
+to her.</p>
+
+<p>"But God has spoken still more clearly as to the sanctity
+and merit of Catherine, his spouse, by authentic
+testimony. I mean those prodigious graces, and so
+numerous, that he has already bestowed and continues
+to bestow through her intercession, on every sort of
+people."</p>
+
+<p>The record is ended; and yet one thought lingers.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span>
+The moccasin trail of our "Little Sister" leads ever
+onward to the lodge of the true God. There, if we
+follow, though with steps not half so swift as hers,
+Kateri will not fail to greet us with her low, sweet,
+friendly Caughnawaga greeting: "Sago!"</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"><br /><br /><br />
+<img src="images/p299-illus.png" width="500" height="296" alt="" title="" />
+<span class="caption">MODERN CAUGHNAWAGA, P. Q.<br />
+<i>(From the Landing.)</i></span><br /><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnotes center"><br />FOOTNOTES:
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_78_78" id="Footnote_78_78"></a>
+<a href="#FNanchor_78_78"><span class="label">[78]</span></a>
+See <a href="#APPENDIX_F">Appendix&mdash;Note F</a>, Indian Petition to Rome.&mdash;As recently
+as July 30, 1890, there was a large and enthusiastic gathering of
+Americans, Canadians and Indians at Tekakwitha's grave, presided
+over by the Bishops of Montreal, Albany and Nicolet, for
+the purpose of assisting at the solemn dedication and blessing of
+her newly placed monument.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_79_79" id="Footnote_79_79"></a><a href="#FNanchor_79_79"><span class="label">[79]</span></a> Another manuscript contained in this same <i>Carton O</i>, which
+will doubtless be carefully examined by those who are interested
+in promoting the cause of canonization of Kateri Tekakwitha, is
+that of M. Rémy Curé of La Chine, dated March 12, 1696, and
+testifying to miracles worked through her intercession in his own
+parish.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_80_80" id="Footnote_80_80"></a><a href="#FNanchor_80_80"><span class="label">[80]</span></a> This person was Father Chauchetière. He says in the Preface
+to his life of Catherine Tegakouita: "Catherine me porta dans
+une vision à faire des peintures pour l'instruction des sauvages,
+etc."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_81_81" id="Footnote_81_81"></a><a href="#FNanchor_81_81"><span class="label">[81]</span></a> Some account of the Iroquois martyr, Etienne, who fulfilled
+this prophecy of the vision, has been already given in Chapter
+XXI. For further details see Kip's "Early Jesuit Missions,"
+Pages 119-123.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="APPENDIX" id="APPENDIX"></a>APPENDIX.</h2>
+
+<h3>NOTES.</h3>
+
+
+<p class="centerc"><b>A. LOCATION OF MOHAWK VILLAGES.</b></p>
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">T</span>HERE is much confusion and apparent discrepancy in
+the various accounts given of Mohawk villages in the
+seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, as may be seen by consulting
+the works of O'Callaghan, Parkman, Martin, Schoolcraft,
+Morgan, and others. A few prominent and unmistakable
+facts, however, are accepted by all. There were certainly three
+principal fortified towns in the Mohawk Valley all through
+the early colonial days, built and occupied by the <i>Caniengas</i>
+(<i>Kanienkehaka</i>), or "People of the Flint," as they chose to call
+themselves, but who were known to the Dutch as <i>Maquaas</i>,
+to the French as <i>Agniés</i>, and to the English as <i>Mohawks</i>.
+These people were divided into three clans or <i>gentes</i>, each
+named for a certain animal, and each governing a town or
+castle of its own. Their three towns varied in name and
+location, but seem always to have borne the same relation
+to one another. As General Clark briefly expresses it:
+"The castles <i>first</i>, <i>second</i>, and <i>third</i> (from the east) correspond
+to <i>Lower</i>, <i>Middle</i>, and <i>Upper</i>, and also to the <i>Turtle</i>,
+<i>Bear</i>, and <i>Wolf</i>." Kateri Tekakwitha dwelt at the first, or
+Turtle Castle, which was nearest to the Dutch settlers.
+These last worked their way up the Mohawk Valley from
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span>
+the Hudson; while the Indians on their part were also moving
+gradually westward, rebuilding their villages after short
+intervals, sometimes on the northern and sometimes on the
+southern bank of the Mohawk, but always in the same relative
+order,&mdash;that is, Turtles to the east, Bears in the centre,
+and Wolves to the west.</p>
+
+<p>The following extracts from letters of Gen. John S. Clark
+to the author of this volume will be of interest to all who
+wish to know what sort of proofs and arguments have been
+used in locating the sites of the Mohawk villages which were
+in existence during the times of Isaac Jogues and Kateri
+Tekakwitha:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="right">
+<span class="smcap">February 10, 1885.</span>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>The determination of the exact position of all the so-called
+Mohawk Castles at definite dates can never be ascertained. This
+you can readily understand by reading Father Pierron's account
+in 1668 (Relation, 1669), where he speaks of seven large villages
+extending over a space of seven and a half leagues (nearly nineteen
+miles), and that from many causes they often changed to new
+locations, where, according to circumstances, they might remain
+five, ten, and in rare instances fifteen years. I have identified in
+the neighborhood of forty different sites occupied at some time
+between 1620 and 1750. Fortunately the very particular account
+of Father Jogues' captivity and the death of Goupil furnished a
+sufficient number of references to the topography of the locality,
+to enable me, after many years' study, to identify with almost absolute
+certainty the exact site of this one castle, <span class="smcap">Ossernenon</span>.
+This gave the key to the second and third. These determined,
+Father Pierron, in 1667 (the next year after the three castles were
+burned by the French), speaks of visiting the third castle, which
+had been <i>rebuilt a quarter of a league above</i>. This gave me a test
+fact. In company with some friends living near there, and who
+were well acquainted with all sites, as they supposed, where Indian
+relics had ever been found, I pointed out the precise point
+on the map, and said we must find a site here, or my theory must
+fall to the ground. They answered that then my theory must<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span>
+fail, for certainly if any Indian village had ever existed at that
+point they would have heard something of it. My answer was,
+"I have more confidence in Father Pierron than I have in your
+opinion." We visited the spot, and on inquiring of the farmer
+who owned the land, if any evidences existed, at the particular
+point in question, of Indian occupation, he answered: "We have
+found great quantities of relics, and you can find plenty of them
+to-day,"&mdash;as we did. Since that they have never questioned
+facts mentioned in the "Relations."</p>
+
+<p>Greenhalgh visited all the castles in 1677, and found them on
+the <i>north side</i>. His description gives sufficient facts to warrant
+a <i>reasonable probability</i> as to the locations of the four principal
+castles at that date, but not absolutely certain. Apparently at
+this date the lower castle, Kaghnawaga, was on the west bank of
+the Cayudutta, near Fonda; and here my conclusions must end
+for the present, until I collect all the facts possible to be obtained
+having a bearing on the question. These are references to topography,
+distances from other known points, and anything
+that by hint or direct evidence can be used in the solution
+of the problem.... My present opinion is that your mission
+chapel of 1676 was northwest of Fonda, on the west side of
+Cayudutta Creek....</p>
+
+<p>You mention the fact of small-pox prevailing in her town in
+1660, and ask, Would they be likely to move the site of the village
+for that reason? Most certainly. I have evidence that they did
+remove in 1659, but have never been able to ascertain the cause.
+Quite possibly this may have been the reason. This removal, as I
+suppose, was made to the west bank of Auries Creek, on top of a
+high hill and about a mile west of Ossernenon.</p>
+
+<p>About 1649 the Iroquois entered on their policy of conquering
+their neighbors and making of them one family and one
+people, as they expressed it. From that date to 1675, great numbers
+were added,&mdash;many more than could be provided for in the
+way of adoption into families; consequently they were permitted
+to settle in villages by themselves in the near vicinity of the
+large ones. In this way was the number increased from three in
+1640 to seven in 1668, and this also accounts for an apparent discrepancy
+as to numbers in accounts of different writers. One<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span>
+party finding a village in two parts near each other would describe
+it as <i>two</i>; another would consider it as one.</p>
+
+<p>I suspect your <i>petit village</i>, Gandawague, was one of this character;
+that is, a small village near the greater one. One other fact
+occurs to me, that may be of use to you. Gandawague was a
+district along the river,&mdash;ordinarily meaning "at the rapids."
+A slight variation may make it mean <i>above</i> or <i>below</i> or the <i>other
+side</i>; and so on in numerous relations of localities to the rapids.
+It will be found exceedingly difficult to determine the precise
+meaning of these words.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>In the early part of June, 1885, General Clark, in company
+with Rev. C. A. Walworth, of Albany, and the author
+of this biography, revisited all the castle-sites in the Mohawk
+Valley which were supposed to be in any way connected
+with the lifetime of Kateri Tekakwitha. What
+follows was written soon after this expedition.</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="right">
+<span class="smcap">Auburn</span>, N. Y., <a name="APPENDIX1" id="APPENDIX1"></a>June 29, 1885.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>Since my return home I have given my time to a review of
+all the evidence relating to sites of first and second castles from
+1640 to 1680, and have framed a theory that apparently harmonizes
+<i>all the facts</i>, and shall be much obliged for any argument or
+presentation of facts that will be inconsistent with it.</p>
+
+<p>First, I assume that in all the changes of the Bear clan during
+this time, they did not remove more than a mile and a half from
+their original position on the high hill;<a name="FNanchor_82_82" id="FNanchor_82_82"></a><a href="#Footnote_82_82" class="fnanchor">[82]</a> second, that soon after
+1666 they removed to the opposite side of the river, on the Fox
+farm, where Greenhalgh found them in 1677, "<i>on a flat a stone's-throw
+from the river</i>." You will remember that this site was on
+an elevated plain, unlike any other site visited.</p>
+
+<p>Now after Ossernenon was abandoned, say about 1650 or 1655,
+all subsequent descriptions place Gandawague <i>two leagues</i> from
+Andagoron until 1668, when the people of Gandawague removed
+to the Cayudutta (Kaghnawaga), and when the accounts all place<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span>
+the two castles near each other,&mdash;in Dr. Shea's translation <i>two
+miles</i>. Theoretically, this makes a change of three miles for the
+lower castle,&mdash;a distance exactly corresponding to that between
+the high hill at Auries Creek and Kaghnawaga on the Cayudutta,&mdash;the
+village Andagoron having remained substantially stationary.
+I firmly believe that the site on the Fox farm was the one
+visited by Greenhalgh. If this be correct, it determines approximately
+the other; for they were near each other, one chapel answering
+for both villages.</p>
+
+<p>On applying the test of distance to the battle-ground,<a name="FNanchor_83_83" id="FNanchor_83_83"></a><a href="#Footnote_83_83" class="fnanchor">[83]</a> this is
+found correct; and measuring the four leagues as we did to
+Teonnontogen, it also corresponds.</p>
+
+<p>Now the removal from the west bank of Auries Creek was not
+made bodily, but gradually. The villages were destroyed in October,
+1666. They could do nothing in the way of establishing themselves
+in a new position that year, having to make themselves
+shelter for the winter. The next year, <i>after the bark would peel</i>,
+they could commence building their new houses on a new site,
+and during the spring clear new fields for corn, and in the course
+of the year a partial removal could take place. The palisading
+could be completed during the year, and in 1668 the village could
+be said to have changed. The new chapel was built in 1669,
+and in this year also they were attacked by the Mohegans. When
+Gandawague was visited in 1667 no mention is made of a removal;
+but the fact is mentioned of the removal of Teonnontogen a quarter
+of a league higher up. I conclude that if Gandawague or
+Andagoron had either of them been removed, the fact would have
+been mentioned, and that indeed they returned temporarily to the
+old sites, which may not have been so completely destroyed as
+was Teonnontogen. This will reconcile all the facts, and I am
+unable to see any material antagonism at any point. The name
+Gandawague must not, however, be confounded with Caughnawaga,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span>
+although for a time it may have been transferred to the new
+site.</p>
+
+<p>I have been unable to find any data from which to determine
+when or about when Ossernenon was transferred to Auries Creek.
+The asking of the Dutch for men and horses in 1659 to draw palisades,
+<i>according to the translators</i>, was to repair their castles, and in
+one case for the "castles which you are building." They don't agree.
+The name on the Vanderdonck map, 1656, and that on Vischer's,
+1659, of "Canagero," give a hint that the transfer had been made
+as early as 1655; and the very remarkable language of the Jesuit
+Fathers Fremin, Pierron, and Bruyas, which describes Gandawague
+as "<i>the very place watered by the blood of Jogues</i>," etc., almost
+leads one to think the removal may have been made as early as
+1646; but I conclude that Ossernenon and Gandawague being
+only a mile apart, the description "<i>this is the place</i>" would be
+sufficiently specific as to locality, the village (people) being the
+same. A critical study of the original Dutch may enable us to
+determine whether in 1659 they were building a <i>new</i> or repairing
+an <i>old castle</i>.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>In a letter to Rev. C. A. Walworth, March 3, 1885,
+General Clark wrote as follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p class="bigfoot">"Gandawague was in 1677 unquestionably on the hill northwest
+of Fonda, about a mile back from the river. A fine spring
+on the west bank of the Cayudutta marks the central point of the
+village, and the pits some distance to the north were their granary
+where they stored their corn. A smaller village was probably
+near Mr. Veeder's house."</p></blockquote>
+
+<hr class="third" />
+
+<p class="centerb"><b><a name="APPENDIX_B" id="APPENDIX_B"></a>B. THE WORDS "GANDAWAGUE" AND
+"TEKAKWITHA."</b></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Gandawague</span> may possibly mean, as General Clark has
+suggested, neither more nor less than "At the Turtle Village."
+In compound words the Indians frequently drop
+syllables, and certain letters are interchangeable as follows:</p>
+
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 161px;">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span>
+<img src="images/writing1.png" alt="" title="" height="73" width="161" longdesc="#diagram" />
+</div>
+
+<p>The name of this first, or Turtle, Castle of the Mohawks
+has been written in many different ways, as may be seen by
+a glance at the list here given:&mdash;</p>
+
+<table class="shrink">
+<tr><td><span class="smcap">Ossernenon</span></td><td>Kachnuge</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Asserue</td><td>Kaghnuwagé</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Oneougoure</td><td>Kaghenewage</td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="smcap">Gandawague</span></td><td>Kahnawake</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Gannaouagé</td><td>Caghnawagah</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Gandahouague</td><td>Cahaniaga</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Andaraque</td><td><span class="smcap">Caughnawaga</span></td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>With all this variety of spelling, only three or four distinct
+names are represented. An Indian word had no
+written form of its own. Consequently an Englishman,
+a Dutchman, and a Frenchman, each putting it down in
+black and white for the first time, would naturally represent
+the sound of the word by very different letters. The three
+forms thus arising could not be identified at once as the
+same in meaning and sound without a knowledge of several
+languages. Since such scholars as Dr. O'Callaghan and
+M. Cuoq, however, have taken up the task, new light has
+been thrown on the subject, and much that at first sight
+seemed hopelessly confused in the early colonial accounts
+has been made clear and intelligible.</p>
+
+<p>There is quite as much variety in the different ways of
+spelling Tekakwitha's own name as in the case of her birthplace
+and early home. Here are some of the forms used:&mdash;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span></p>
+
+<table class="shrink">
+<tr><td><span class="smcap">Tegakouita</span></td><td>Tehgakwita</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Tegahkouita</td><td><span class="smcap">Tegakwita</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td>Tehgahkwita</td><td>Tekakoüita</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Tégahcouita</td><td>Takwita</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Tekahkouitha</td><td><span class="smcap">Tekakwitha</span></td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>
+A grammatical explanation of this name is given in a note
+to the "Lexique de la Langue Iroquoise," by J. A. Cuoq,
+<i>prêtre de Saint-Sulpice</i>, as follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p class="bigfoot"><span class="smcap">Tekakwitha</span> est la 3 p. fem. sing, de prés. de l'ind. du v. <i>tekkwitha</i>,
+cis-locatif de <span class="smcap">Kkwitha</span>,<a name="FNanchor_84_84" id="FNanchor_84_84"></a><a href="#Footnote_84_84" class="fnanchor">[84]</a> et conséquemment ce mot signifie;
+<i>elle approche,&mdash;elle meut qq. ch. en avant.</i></p></blockquote>
+
+<hr class="third" />
+
+<p class="centerb"><b><a name="APPENDIX_C" id="APPENDIX_C"></a>C. TAWASENTHA</b></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Tawasentha</span>, or "The Place of Many Dead," is near the
+mouth of the Norman's Kill, just south of Albany. Many
+Indians were buried there, as numerous bones and skulls
+brought to light from time to time bear witness. Schoolcraft
+once visited the spot, and examined these relics. It
+was there, too, that the Song of Hiawatha was sung, as
+Longfellow tells us:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"In the vale of Tawasentha,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In the green and silent valley,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By the pleasant water-courses<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Dwelt the singer Nawadaha.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">There he sang of Hiawatha,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sang the Song of Hiawatha."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Another couplet might be added to the above, with less
+of poetry in it, to be sure, but quite as much or more of
+Indian history,&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">There the Mohawks went a-fishing<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In the days of Tekakwitha.</span>
+</div></div>
+
+<hr class="third" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span></p>
+<p class="centerb"><a name="APPENDIX_D" id="APPENDIX_D"></a>
+<b>D. MOHAWK TRAILS.</b></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">In</span> the summer of 1885 the Rev. C. A. Walworth, in
+company with the author, drove from Amsterdam on the
+Mohawk River to Jessup's Landing on the Hudson, following
+as closely as possible the route (described in Chapter
+XVI.) over which the Lily of the Mohawks probably
+passed in escaping from Caughnawaga to Lake George,
+and thence to Canada. An account of this drive was sent
+to General Clark, after which the following information
+was received from him:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"The account of your journey is very interesting, especially
+that part relating to the fords above and below Jessup's Landing.
+I had rewritten my note relating to the trails from head of Lake
+George, and enclose the same.... On the Upper Susquehanna
+and Alleghany the present fords almost invariably mark the
+crossing-places of the aboriginal trails; and without doubt the
+two fords described above and below Jessup's Landing were
+the places of crossing the Upper Hudson in that vicinity. The
+same facts will apply also at Glenn's and Baker's Falls as now
+known."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>A copy of the note on trails above mentioned as enclosed
+in the letter, is here given:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"<span class="smcap">Trails from Lake George.</span>&mdash;From the head of Lake George
+two trails led to the Hudson. The first led southwest through a
+valley about eleven miles to the <i>ford below</i> the month of Sacondaga,
+at present <i>Luzerne</i>, thence along the Sacondaga to Northampton,
+striking the Mohawk at the lower castle in the vicinity of Schoharie
+River. The dotted line from the head of Lac du Saint-Sacrement
+on the map in 'Jesuit Relations,' 1665, apparently was
+intended to represent this route. The curves correspond to those
+of the Sacondaga in number and location. From Luzerne a branch
+continued down the Hudson about five miles to the vicinity of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span>
+Jessup's Landing, where a crossing was made <i>at the ford</i> above
+the falls. This appears to have been the route of Jogues at this
+time, as indicated by the distance given of six leagues equal to
+fifteen miles.</p>
+
+<p>"The second led southeasterly about nine miles, nearly on the
+line of the present railway to Glenn's Falls, from whence were
+several diverging lines. One led south along the west bank of
+the Hudson. Another took almost an air-line for Schenectady
+on the Mohawk, passing between Owl Pond and Saratoga Lake,
+and west of Ballston Lake, at the north end of which a branch
+diverged to the westward leading direct to the Mohawk Castles.
+The French expedition in the winter of 1665 to 1666, in taking
+this route, failed to follow the branch leading to the castles, and
+consequently found themselves, much to their surprise, in the
+near vicinity of the new Dutch settlement at Schenectady.
+Southier's maps show this trail, and several others diverging at
+different points. It is believed that from Glenn's Falls a trail led
+nearly in a southwest direction, passing along the base of Mt.
+McGregor, and somewhere in the Kayaderosseras Valley united
+with the branch from Jessup's Landing, and from thence struck
+the Mohawk at present Amsterdam."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>A year later the correspondence on Indian trails in Saratoga
+County at the time of Kateri Tekakwitha was resumed
+as follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"Since my return from Saratoga, I have given all my leisure to
+the study of Indian trails in your vicinity.... I have a manuscript
+map, copied from the original in the Paris Archives, relating
+to the two expeditions of Courselles and Tracy, 1666. This
+map shows that the first, or winter expedition, after leaving Lake
+George descended the valley of the Hudson to Fish Creek, thence
+passed up that stream, over Saratoga Lake, and over Ballston Lake
+to the vicinity of Schenectady. This is the precise route taken
+(according to Mr. Sylvester) by Lieutenant Le Moyne in his
+winter expedition of 1690 (Northern Wilderness, p. 288), in which
+I agree with him.</p>
+
+<p>"The second Courselles-Tracy Expedition, according to the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span>
+map, crossed the Hudson at Glenn's Falls, thence passing near and
+south of a <i>small lake</i> east of Mt. McGregor (now known as Moreau
+Pond), through Doe's Corners, near Stiles' Hill, and near
+Glen Mitchell to present Saratoga. This is my understanding of
+the map; and as you will see they followed near the base of Mt.
+McGregor, and hugging the bases of the Greenfield (or Palmerstown)
+hills, followed substantially the present highway all the
+way from Glenn's Falls. The fragment of a trail mentioned by
+you was probably a portion of this original Indian pathway.</p>
+
+<p>"From Saratoga, if we take the map as our guide, the expedition
+passed near Ballston, and thence slightly curving, proceeded on its
+way in a very direct course to the Mohawk Castles. They may
+have taken this route, but probably crossed the Kayaderosseras
+about half-way between Ballston and Lake Saratoga, on a trail leading
+direct to Schenectady. When a little north of Ballston Lake,
+it crossed a path leading from Schuylerville along Fish Creek
+and Saratoga Lake to the Mohawk at Kinaquariones (Hoffman's
+Ferry). The map, however, makes the two distinct, and without
+any connection.</p>
+
+<p>"Three trails led southward from Jessup's Landing,&mdash;one in
+almost an air-line to Kinaquariones. I suppose that Tegakwita
+followed this.</p>
+
+<p>A second branched off from South Corinth, and leading in almost
+an air-line to Orange, passed near the western edge of
+Round Lake. A third, taking a southeasterly course, curved
+around Mt. McGregor, and led very direct to the great fishing-station,
+at present Schuylerville, the ancient <span class="smcap">Ossarague</span>. Your
+Indian samp-bowl [hollowed in the rock] was probably not far
+from the crossing-place of the two trails."<br /></p></blockquote>
+
+<hr class="third" />
+
+<p class="centerb">
+<a name="APPENDIX_E" id="APPENDIX_E">
+<b>E. INDIAN DEFENSIVE WORKS.</b></a></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">General Clark</span>, in describing to the writer the defensive
+works of the Iroquois, mentioned one locality in New York
+State where he actually found the series of hollows in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span>
+ground left by the palisadoes of an Indian fortified village.
+They showed the exact arrangement of a triple wall. He
+also gave, in connection with this subject, several references
+to quaint and interesting works in the State Library at
+Albany, which were duly examined. Some of these are
+given below:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"You will find in <span class="smcap">Ramusio</span>, G. B., Venice, 1606, 'Navigatione
+et Viaggi, volume Terzo, etc.,' relating to America, at p. 381, a
+fine two-page illustration of Hochelaga and its surrounding palisade.
+This, as I understand it, was a Huron village. <span class="smcap">Arnoldus
+Montanus</span>, America, Amsterdam, 1671, p. 136, gives a Susquehanna
+fortified village, with the long houses somewhat irregularly
+arranged, and enclosed by a single-line palisade work. Documentary
+History of New York, vol. iii. p. 9, will show you an Iroquois
+village surrounded by triple or quadruple lines of palisades, with
+the elevated scaffolds. You will see numerous streams of water
+descending to put out the fire, etc. It will require a vivid imagination
+to make out all that was intended to be shown by
+Champlain."<br /></p></blockquote>
+
+<hr class="third" />
+
+<p class="centerb"><a name="APPENDIX_F" id="APPENDIX_F"></a>
+<b>F. INDIAN PETITION TO ROME.</b></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Among</span> the most interesting papers forwarded to Rome
+during the last few years for the purpose of forwarding the
+cause of canonization of Kateri Tekakwitha, is the following
+petition. Copies of it were circulated among the
+Catholic mission Indians of the United States, who affixed
+to it their own peculiar signatures and marks. It is here
+given in the Latin, English and Flathead languages:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>Noster Pater noster Papa:</p>
+
+<p>Gentis Indicae nostrae, quamvis pauperrima sit et miserabilis, valde
+tamen misertus est Conditor noster, nobisque dedit religionem Catholicam.
+Nobis quoque iterata misericordia dedit CATHARINAM
+TEGAKWITAM. Sancta haec virgo quae ut nos sumus gentis Indicae<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span>
+fuit, cum multa fuerit gratia a JESU CHRISTO donata, adolescentula
+facta est optima, magno erga Conditorem nostrum amore tenebatur, et
+mortua est bona et sancta: nunc autem gloriosa deget in coelis, ut
+credimus, et pro nobis omnibus orat. Virgo haec, credimus, data nobis
+fuit magno Dei favore; est enim soror nostra parvula. Nunc vero
+speramus fore ut et tu quoque, noster Pater, qui Vicarius es JESU
+CHRISTI, favorem nobis largiaris: te toto corde imploramus ut
+loquaris dicens: "Vos Indi, filii mei, sumite vobis CATHARINAM
+in ecclesia venerandam, quia sancta est et in coelis."</p>
+
+<p>Sunt etiam alii duo, qui licet Galli fuerint, nobis tamen sunt quasi
+Indi fuissent, eo quod Indos signum crucis edocuere et viam coeli;
+ideoque a perversis Indis fuerunt occisi. Eorum nomina sunt
+SACERDOS ISAAC JOGUES et FRATER RENATUS GOUPIL.
+Hos quoque duos vellemus habere venerandos, ut protectores, ut
+advocatos.</p>
+
+<p>Quos tres si nobis indulgeas PATRONOS, futurum est ut corda
+nostra sint laeta, conversatio nostra bona, et filii nostri perfecti evadant;
+multique Indicae gentis nondum baptizati in ecclesiam Catholicam
+ingrediantur, coeli visuri gloriam.</p></blockquote>
+
+<hr class="quarter" />
+
+<blockquote><p>Our Father the Pope:</p>
+
+<p>Though we Indians are very poor and miserable, yet Our Maker had
+great pity on us and gave us the Catholic religion. Moreover He had
+pity on us again and gave us CATHERINE TEGAKWITA. This
+holy virgin, an Indian like ourselves, being favoured by JESUS
+CHRIST with a great grace, grew up very good, had a great love for
+Our Maker, and died good and holy, and is now glorious in heaven, as
+we believe, and prays for us all. This virgin, we believe, was given to
+us from God as a great favour, for she is our little sister. But now we
+hope that thou, our Father, who art the Vicar of JESUS CHRIST,
+wilt grant us a favour likewise; we beg thee with the whole of our
+hearts to speak and say: "You Indians, my children, take
+CATHERINE as an object of your veneration in the church, because
+she is holy and is in heaven."</p>
+
+<p>There are also two others who, though Frenchmen, yet are as if they
+were Indians, because they taught the Indians the sign of the Cross and
+the way to heaven; and for this they were killed by bad Indians.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span>
+Their names are BLACKGOWN ISAAC JOGUES and BROTHER
+RENÉ GOUPIL. We wish to have these two also as objects of our
+veneration, as our protectors and our advocates.</p>
+
+<p>If thou givest us these three as our PATRONS, our hearts will be
+glad, our behaviour will be good, and our children will become perfect,
+also a great many unbaptized Indians will enter into the Catholic
+Church and will see the glory of heaven.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p class="center">
+Lingua <i>Kalispel</i> (Anglice, <i>Flathead</i>.)<br />
+</p>
+
+
+<blockquote><p><i>L</i>u ku Pogot <i>l</i>u ku Lepape.</p>
+
+<p>Ue mi<i>l</i> kaekonkoint kaeskeligu, u kaeteie, u pen kutunt kaenkonnemi<i>l</i>ils
+lu KaeKohnzuten <i>l</i>u kaeguize<i>l</i>ils <i>l</i>u Sinchaumen Catholique.
+Negu kae<i>l</i>nkonnemi<i>l</i>ils <i>l</i>u kaeguize<i>l</i>ils CATHERINE
+TEGAKWITA. Ye stuchemish pagpagt chikuilze ezageil t kaempile
+<i>l</i>u kueis <i>l</i>u kutunt sinkonns tel JESUS CHRIST, mi<i>l</i> gest u pogtilsh,
+mi<i>l</i> gamenchis Kolinzuten, u <i>l</i>u Sinchaumis, gest u pagpagt u t<i>l</i>elil, u
+yet<i>l</i>goa csimpiels 'ls chichemaskat, u kaesia kaes chaushi<i>l</i>ils. Shei
+Stuchemish kaentels kutunt kaesinkonm tel Kolmzuten ne<i>l</i>i kaempile
+<i>l</i>u kaep sinkusigu.</p>
+
+<p>U pen yet<i>l</i>goa kaenmuselsi t-anui, <i>l</i>u ku Pogot, kaeksnkonnemi<i>l</i>ils,
+<i>l</i>u ku Ni<i>l</i>kalshelpenzutis JESUS CHRIST, t-esemilko t-kaepuus
+kaesgalitem kuks kolkoelt, u kuks zuti "Igu kuisigusigult kuskeligu,
+akaespoteem <i>l</i>u CATHERINE 'lsinchaumen, ne<i>l</i>i pagpagt, u
+'ls'chichemaskat u e<i>l</i>zi."</p>
+
+<p>Negu telzi chesel ue Seme, u pen ezageil t-skeligu, ne<i>l</i>i meyie<i>l</i>tem
+<i>l</i>u skeligu <i>l</i>u staktakenzut l'eseimeus, u <i>l</i>u shushuel ch's'chichemaskat,
+gol shei u polstem t-kuaukot skeligu shei <i>l</i>u eszustem KUAILKS
+ISAAC JOGUES, u SINSE RENE GOUPIL. Komi ye chesel
+negu kaek<i>l</i>s'chitenzuten, kaek<i>l</i>chaushizuten. <i>L</i>u ne kaeguize<i>l</i>ilt ye
+cheche<i>l</i>es kaek<i>l</i>s'chitenzuten, nem lemt <i>l</i>u kaespuus, nem gestilsh <i>l</i>u
+kaezuut, nem yopietilsh <i>l</i>u kaesigusigult, u nem chgoegoeit skeligu lu
+estemskoli m kueis <i>l</i>u Sinchaumen Catholique, u nem uichis
+<i>l</i>u'ls'chichemaskat <i>l</i>u simpielsten.<br /><br /></p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="footnotes center"><br />FOOTNOTES:
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_82_82" id="Footnote_82_82"></a>
+<a href="#FNanchor_82_82"><span class="label">[82]</span></a>
+See <a href="#Page_38">map</a> in chap. iv. p. 38, showing the position of Andagoron,
+the Castle of the Bears, in 1642.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_83_83" id="Footnote_83_83"></a><a href="#FNanchor_83_83"><span class="label">[83]</span></a> This was at Kinaquariones, or Hoffman's Ferry. See Pierron's
+account of that battle, translated into English by Dr. Hawley, of the
+Cayuga County Historical Society, in his "Early Chapters of Mohawk
+History." See also a topographical note to the same by Gen. J. S.
+Clark, referring to Dutch deeds which give the distance of that battle-ground
+from Schenectady.<br /><br /><br /></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_84_84" id="Footnote_84_84"></a><a href="#FNanchor_84_84"><span class="label">[84]</span></a> <span class="smcap">Kkwitha</span>,&mdash;eloigner, ou avancer qq. ch.; changer qq. ch. de
+place.</p><br /></div>
+
+</div>
+<p class="centerc"><b>THE END</b></p>
+
+<hr />
+<h2>TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES</h2>
+
+<p>Page reference for the illustration "Tekakwitha's Spring" has been
+corrected from xvi to xiv.</p>
+
+<p>Numerous missing periods have been silently restored.</p>
+
+<p>Inconsistent hyphenation and use of quotation marks at beginning of paragraphs have been retained as in the original.</p>
+
+<p>The following typos have been corrected:</p>
+
+<p>p. vi &mdash; "Hotel" twice amended to "Hôtel".<br />
+
+p. viii &mdash;  "cotemporary" amended to "contemporary".<br />
+
+p. 59 &mdash; "Renssalaer" amended to "Rensselaer".<br />
+
+p. 191 &mdash; "Saut" amended to "Sault".<br />
+
+p. 264 &mdash; "Cholence" amended to "Cholenec".<br />
+
+p. 294 footnote &mdash; "une vision a" amended to "une vision à".</p>
+
+<p><a name="diagram" id="diagram"></a>Textual representation of the diagram on p. 307:</p>
+
+<div class="diagram">
+KAN<del>A</del>DA-<del>ANA</del>WA<del>RA</del>KE<br />
+GAN-DA----WA--GE<br />
+<small><i>Village</i>-<i>Turtle</i>--<i>At</i></small>
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Life and Times of Kateri Tekakwitha, by
+Ellen H. Walworth
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+</body>
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Life and Times of Kateri Tekakwitha, by
+Ellen H. Walworth
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Life and Times of Kateri Tekakwitha
+       The Lily of the Mohawks
+
+Author: Ellen H. Walworth
+
+Release Date: September 14, 2011 [EBook #37421]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LIFE AND TIMES OF KATERI ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Margo Romberg, Curtis Weyant and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+NOTES:
+
+1. On pp. 72-73 a passage from a document with many superscripts is
+quoted. These are indicated, for example, as "y^e" for "the", or
+"w^{th}" for "with".
+
+2. On p. 307 some letters have a diagonal strike-through to indicate
+letters omitted. These are indicated, for example, as [/A].
+
+
+
+    THE LIFE AND TIMES
+
+    OF
+
+    KATERI TEKAKWITHA,
+
+    The Lily of the Mohawks.
+
+    1656-1680.
+
+    BY
+
+    ELLEN H. WALWORTH,
+    AUTHOR OF "AN OLD WORLD, AS SEEN THROUGH YOUNG EYES"
+
+    BUFFALO:
+    PETER PAUL & BROTHER.
+
+    1891.
+
+
+
+
+    _Copyright, 1890_,
+    BY ELLEN H. WALWORTH.
+
+    PETER PAUL & BRO.,
+    PRINTERS AND BINDERS,
+    BUFFALO, N. Y.
+
+
+
+    To my Uncle,
+
+    THE REV. CLARENCE A. WALWORTH,
+
+    RECTOR OF ST. MARY'S CHURCH,
+    ALBANY, N. Y.,
+
+    THIS VOLUME IS MOST AFFECTIONATELY
+    DEDICATED.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+The life and surroundings of "The Lily of the Mohawks," as an
+undeveloped theme in literature, was first suggested to me by my uncle,
+the Rev. Clarence A. Walworth. My interest and enthusiasm were at once
+aroused. The thought of a mere Indian girl reared in the forest among
+barbarians, yet winning for herself such titles as "The Lily of the
+Mohawks" and "The Genevieve of New France," recurred to my mind again
+and again, until it led me to a fixed determination to explore so
+tempting a field of romance and archaeology. The fact that it lay amongst
+the hills and valleys of my native State, and was little known except to
+solitary scholars and laborious historians, incited me still more to the
+task. I became ambitious to gather from the records of two centuries ago
+every detail relating in any way to my Indian heroine. While engaged in
+this work unexpected opportunities opened to gather exact information
+about her, and more especially concerning the localities connected with
+her early childhood, and her conversion and baptism in the Mohawk
+Valley.
+
+If this book, embodying the result of my researches, should fail to
+interest the reader, it will not be for any lack of enthusiasm on my
+part, or of kind encouragement and competent assistance from others.
+
+When beginning the work my first call for advice was upon Dr. John
+Gilmary Shea, so well versed in Indian annals, as also in the general
+history of this country. I found him full of interest in my subject.
+Guided by the information received from him, and also by the directions
+of the Rev. R. S. Dewey, S. J., who has long been familiar with the
+missionary and Indian traditions of the Mohawk Valley, I went to
+Montreal and secured from the courteous kindness of Father Turgeon, S.
+J., rector of the Jesuit College there, the use of all the manuscripts I
+desired. The Sisters of the Hotel Dieu furnished me with a room in their
+hospital, to which the good Rector allowed me to transport the entire
+CARTON O. This contained all the unprinted materials relating to my
+subject that belonged to the college library.
+
+There, at the Hotel Dieu, delightfully located with the sisters of an
+order whose history is closely bound up with that of Montreal, I copied
+at my leisure the manuscripts most valuable to me.
+
+In Montreal, also, my good fortune gave me interviews with M. Cuoq, the
+distinguished philologist of St. Sulpice, whose Indian dictionaries and
+grammars I had already seen in my uncle's library. Much I owe besides to
+Soeur St. Henriette, librarian and keeper of the archives at the Villa
+Maria. It was on the boat which shoots the Lachine Rapids that I met Mr.
+Hale of Philadelphia, the learned author of the "Iroquois Book of
+Rites," and enjoyed a long conversation with him on matters of deep
+interest to us both and to my work. My first visit to the Iroquois
+Village at Caughnawaga, P. Q., occurred at this time. Here my uncle and
+I found hospitable entertainment for several days at the Presbytery of
+the church, presided over by the Rev. Pere Burtin, O. M. I. Besides the
+valuable information acquired from the library of books and manuscripts
+in his possession, I gathered much from the acquaintance then
+established with the Iroquois of the "Sault" and in particular with
+their grand chief, Joseph Williams.
+
+La Prairie was only nine miles distant, with its scholarly cure, Pere
+Bourgeault, and his valuable collection of ancient maps; and about half
+way between Caughnawaga and La Prairie lay the grave of Tekakwitha, with
+its tall cross looking over the rapids of the St. Lawrence. An author
+with a theme like mine in such localities and with such guides was,
+indeed, in an enchanted land.
+
+In Albany I received valuable assistance and advice from Mr. Holmes and
+Mr. Howell, of the State Library, also from Mr. Melius, of the City
+Clerk's Office, and others.
+
+I have reserved for a most especial and grateful acknowledgment the name
+of Gen. John S. Clark, of Auburn, N. Y. My work is indebted to him for a
+treasure of information which he alone could give. In the knowledge of
+Iroquois localities in New York State, particularly those of two
+centuries ago, and the trails over which missionaries from Canada
+travelled so painfully to villages where they labored so hard and yet
+successfully,--he is the undoubted pioneer. Almost all we know in this
+branch of archaeology is owing to him. It was my privilege in company
+with my uncle, and with Gen. Clark for pilot, to spend a memorable week
+in search of Indian localities along the Mohawk, from the mouth of
+Schoharie Creek to the farthest castle of the wolf clan opposite Fort
+Plain. We visited and verified, under the General's direction, no less
+than eleven sites in this one week. An account of the most important of
+these sites can be found in the contributions of Gen. Clark, as
+explanatory footnotes, to "Early Chapters of Mohawk History." This work
+consists of translations into English of selected letters from the
+_Relations Jesuites_. For these translations we are indebted to the
+lamented Dr. Hawley, late pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in
+Auburn. Guided by the wise advice of General Clark, I was able
+afterwards to make other independent journeys, and familiarize myself
+with Indian trails passing near my native town, above all those followed
+by Tekakwitha in her escape to the "Sault." I owe to Gen. Clark's
+kindness the valuable map of Mohawk Castle Sites, to be found in this
+book and drawn expressly for it by his hand.
+
+Lastly, I recall with pleasure a conversation with the Rev. Felix
+Martin, S. J., a well known authority in Canadian and Indian archaeology.
+To this venerable author, the editor of the famous "Jesuit Relations,"
+the biographer of Isaac Jogues, of Chomonot and of Tekakwitha, I owe a
+large debt of gratitude. His biography of her, entitled "Une Vierge
+Iroquoise," is still in manuscript, never having been published. He was
+the first to gather and keep together all the manuscripts extant giving
+contemporary accounts of the Iroquois maiden. He laid a foundation of
+accumulated facts for others to build upon. I sought him out in Paris in
+1885, and found him with some difficulty. The hiding place of this
+learned old man was in an obscure corner of the city. The schools of his
+order all broken up, separated from his companions, his books and his
+manuscripts, and from his old beloved home in the New France, which he
+would never see again,--how his eyes glistened when I came to him from
+the western world, a child of the Hudson and Mohawk, to speak to him of
+Tekakwitha, bringing him even the latest news of archaeological
+discoveries in those valleys! His face beamed with delight at every new
+detail. It pleased him much to know that Dr. Shea was, at that very
+time, translating into English his (Martin's) French Life of Jogues, and
+to learn that I was writing, and hoped soon to have published a full
+account of Kateri Tekakwitha for my own countrymen of the United States.
+He gave his blessing to me and to my work, a blessing which I prize most
+highly. His hearty approval is especially gratifying, since I have had
+occasion to use much of the material he had gathered for publication in
+French under his own name. Alas! scarcely had I recrossed the Atlantic,
+when the news of his death reached me.
+
+In conclusion, let me say: I am conscious of many defects in this work.
+Others may yet be found better able than I to do justice to my theme,
+but not any one, I think, who will come to the task more anxious to make
+known to all the whole truth of history concerning the rare and
+beautiful character of this lily of our forest.
+
+    ALBANY, N. Y., January 2, 1891.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+CHAPTER                                                           PAGE
+
+    I. TEKAKWITHA'S SPRING                                          1
+
+   II. THE MOHAWK VALLEY AND THE MOHAWKS AT THE TIME OF
+        TEKAKWITHA'S BIRTH                                         12
+
+  III. A CRADLE-SONG.--CAPTIVES TORTURED.--FLIGHT OF THE FRENCH
+        FROM ONONDAGA.--DEATH IN THE MOHAWK LODGES                 26
+
+   IV. TEKAKWITHA WITH HER AUNTS AT GANDAWAGUE                     36
+
+    V. TEKAKWITHA'S UNCLE AND FORT ORANGE, OR THE BEGINNINGS OF
+        ALBANY                                                     44
+
+   VI. AN ARMY ON SNOW-SHOES                                       62
+
+  VII. DE TRACY BURNS THE MOHAWK CASTLES.--FALL OF TIONNONTOGEN    75
+
+ VIII. TEKAKWITHA'S CHRISTIAN GUESTS.--RAWENNIIO                   85
+
+   IX. CAUGHNAWAGA ON THE MOHAWK.--FATHERS FREMIN AND PIERRON      96
+
+    X. THE MOHEGANS ATTACK THE NEW CASTLE.--BATTLE OF
+        KINAQUARIONES.--THE FEAST OF THE DEAD                     110
+
+   XI. WILL TEKAKWITHA MARRY?                                     128
+
+  XII. THE NEW COLONY OF CHRISTIAN INDIANS ON THE ST. LAWRENCE.
+        -- THE "GREAT MOHAWK" GOES TO CANADA                      142
+
+ XIII. TEKAKWITHA MEETS DE LAMBERVILLE.--IMPOSING CEREMONY IN THE
+        BARK CHAPEL                                               152
+
+  XIV. PERSECUTIONS.--HEROIC CALMNESS IN A MOMENT OF PERIL.
+        --MALICE OF TEKAKWITHA'S AUNT                             163
+
+   XV. HOT ASHES PLANS TEKAKWITHA'S ESCAPE                        174
+
+  XVI. FROM THE OLD TO THE NEW CAUGHNAWAGA                        183
+
+ XVII. AT THE SAULT ST. LOUIS                                     192
+
+XVIII. THE HUNTING-CAMP                                           206
+
+  XIX. KATERI'S FRIEND,--THERESE TEGAIAGUENTA                     216
+
+   XX. MONTREAL AND THE ISLE-AUX-HERONS, 1678                     226
+
+  XXI. "I AM NOT ANY LONGER MY OWN"                               243
+
+ XXII. KATERI'S VOW ON LADY DAY, AND THE SUMMER OF 1679           253
+
+XXIII. KATERI ILL.--THERESE CONSULTS THE BLACKGOWN.--FEAST OF
+        THE PURIFICATION.--THE BED OF THORNS                      260
+
+ XXIV. KATERI'S DEATH.--"I WILL LOVE THEE IN HEAVEN!"--THE
+        BURIAL.--HER GRAVE AND MONUMENT                           270
+
+  XXV. THE MEMORY AND INFLUENCE OF KATERI TEKAKWITHA AFTER HER
+        DEATH.--MODERN CAUGHNAWAGA                                285
+
+CONCLUSION                                                        293
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+APPENDIX.
+
+NOTES, TOPOGRAPHICAL AND HISTORICAL                               301
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
+
+                                                                 PAGE
+
+TEKAKWITHA'S SPRING                                               xiv
+
+THE MOHAWK VALLEY FROM FONDA, N. Y.                                 6
+
+MAP OF MOHAWK CASTLE-SITES, BY GENERAL CLARK                       38
+
+OLD ALBANY--DOMINIE SCHAATS' HOUSE                                 52
+
+SITE OF CAUGHNAWAGA CASTLE, FONDA, N. Y.                          103
+
+MAP SHOWING THE MIGRATIONS OF THE MISSION VILLAGE OF THE SAULT    194
+
+STREET SCENE AT CAUGHNAWAGA, IN CANADA                            279
+
+MODERN CAUGHNAWAGA, P. Q. (_from the Landing_)                    299
+
+
+[Illustration: TEKAKWITHA'S SPRING.]
+
+
+
+
+THE LIFE AND TIMES
+
+OF
+
+KATERI TEKAKWITHA.[1]
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] Pronounced _Kat'-e-ree' Tek-a-quee'-ta_. _Kateri_ is the Iroquois
+form of the Christian name _Katherine_. The meaning of _Tekakwitha_ is
+given in Chapter IV. For various ways of spelling the name, see
+Appendix, Note B.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+TEKAKWITHA'S SPRING.
+
+
+In the valley of the Mohawk, near the present great highways of the
+State of New York, is a quiet forest nook, where a clear, cold spring
+gurgles out from the tangled roots of a tree. Connected with this spring
+is the story of a short girl-life, pure, vigorous, sorrow-taught. It is
+written out in authentic documents; while Nature, also, has kept a
+record of an Indian maiden's lodge beside the spring. There on the banks
+of the Mohawk River, at Caughnawaga, now called Fonda, in Montgomery
+County, dwelt the Lily of the Mohawks two centuries ago, when the State
+had neither shape nor name. She saw her people build a strong, new
+palisaded village there. She saw, though at rare intervals, the peaceful
+but adventurous traders of Fort Orange, and the blackgowns of New
+France pass in and out on friendly errands. Mohegans came there also in
+her day to lay siege to the village, but only to be met with fierce
+defiance and to be driven back. Marks of that very Indian fort can still
+be found at Fonda, where the Johnstown Railway now branches from the New
+York Central, and turns northward along the margin of the Cayudutta
+Creek. The smoke of the engine, as it leaves the town of Fonda, mounts
+to the level of a plateau on which the Mohawk Castle[2] stood. The
+elevated land, or river terrace, at that point is singularly called the
+"Sand Flats."
+
+A rude fort of palisades, well equipped for defence, was completed about
+the year 1668 on a narrow tongue of this high terrace, between the
+Mohawk River and the creek. The approach to it is very steep; but in one
+place a wagon-road winds up the hill to what is now a field on Veeder's
+farm. Here unmistakable signs of Indian occupation are to be found. A
+spring is close at hand in a clump of trees. The castle at that spot was
+known as "Caughnawaga," meaning "At the Rapids,"--a name still applied
+to the eastern part of the present town of Fonda. The Mohawk River runs
+swiftly as it passes this spot, and large stones obstruct its course.
+The spring at the castle site on the west side of the creek is
+Tekakwitha's spring; for there beside it she grew to maidenhood, behind
+the shelter of the palisades, and beneath the shadow of the overarching
+forest. Tekakwitha was the Lily of the Mohawks, and afterwards known as
+"La Bonne Catherine."
+
+In the Mohawk Valley, the great artery of our nation's life, the tide of
+human travel now ebbs and flows with ever-swelling force; here the New
+York Central Railway levels out its course of four broad tracks; here
+the great canal bears heavy burdens east and west; here the West Shore
+Railway skirts the southern terrace; here the Mohawk River winds and
+ripples, smiling in an old-time, quiet way at these hurrying, crowded
+highways. They have wellnigh filled the generous roadway, cut through
+high plateaus and mountain spurs in ages past by this same placid river.
+That was in its younger, busier days. Now it idles on its way from side
+to side, among the flats or bottoms, with here and there a rapid, till
+at last it gathers force at far Cohoes for one great plunge before it
+joins the Hudson. Then the mingled waters of the two rivers sweep on
+past the stately Capitol, where once the Indian trading-post, Fort
+Orange, stood. From Albany, the broad-bosomed Hudson bears floating
+palaces and long lines of canal-boats strung together like great beads
+of wampum. Let its current move them southward, while we turn back to
+the valley whence these strings of wampum came. Let us follow up the
+windings of the Mohawk River westward. At Schenectady it lingers among
+islands in pretty, narrow ways, where college boys can take their
+sweethearts rowing. Right playfully it kisses the feet of the old Dutch
+town in summer, and in winter its frozen bosom sounds with the merry
+thud of the skater's steel. Farther west the valley narrows, and on a
+height near Hoffman's Ferry, Mohawk and Mohegan fought their last
+fierce battle. Tekakwitha heard their war-whoop at the castle of
+Caughnawaga, just before the final conflict came; but she never saw Fort
+Johnson, which is higher up the river. Old Fort Johnson is too modern
+for our story. Amsterdam now looms up an important factor in the valley.
+Two centuries ago a joyous stream cascading down to meet the Mohawk was
+its only landmark. Tekakwitha knew the spot, however, and had good
+reason to remember it, as we shall see. Westward still, and up the
+valley from Fort Johnson, a broader gleam of water comes in sight. It is
+where the Schoharie River creeps in from the south between the dripping
+archways of a bridge, over which canal-boats pass. Here the Mohawk shows
+its teeth in a ridge of angry rapids; and here we enter what was once
+the home country of its people, the fierce Mohawks. We are near the spot
+where brave Father Isaac Jogues, the discoverer of Lake George, was
+killed, in 1646. In the southwest angle of the Mohawk and Schoharie
+Rivers, on the upper terrace, higher than the modern hamlet of
+Auriesville, was the eastern castle of the Mohawks, known to Jogues as
+Ossernenon.[3] Here three times the hero-hearted blackgown came; first,
+a mangled, tortured captive, dragging out the weary months in slavery
+until the Dutchmen at Fort Orange ransomed him; next, as an ambassador
+of peace, bearing presents, making treaties; and lastly, as envoy of
+the Prince of Peace, and wedded to his "spouse of blood,"--for so
+Jogues styled his Mohawk mission. Never was a truer bridegroom, never
+stranger wedding rites. Bits of his flesh were cut off and devoured,
+while the savage high-priest cried, "Let us see if this white flesh is
+the flesh of an _otkon_ [spirit or devil.]" "I am but a man like
+yourselves," said Jogues, "though I fear not death nor your tortures."
+His head was placed on the northern palisade, looking toward the French
+frontier, and his body thrown into the stream; but his blood and his
+earnest words sank deep into the land and the hearts of its people. From
+Jogues' mystic union with the Mohawk nation, trooping from the "Mission
+of the Martyrs," came the Christian Iroquois. One of these--a bright
+soul in a dusky setting, and a flower that sprang from martyr's
+blood--was Tekakwitha. She grew up, says one who knew her, "like a lily
+among thorns." Ten years after Ondessonk[4] had shed the last drop of
+his blood to make these Mohawks Christians, she was born among the
+people who had seen the blackgown die, in the Village of the
+Turtles,--some say in the "cabin at the door of which the tomahawked
+priest had fallen."
+
+This same stronghold of the Turtles was rebuilt higher up the river
+during Tekakwitha's lifetime. Near Ossernenon, the earliest known site
+of the Turtle Castle, there is a great bend or loop in the Mohawk River
+and Valley. It extends from the mouth of the Schoharie River on the east
+to the "Nose" near Yost's and Spraker's Basin on the west. The Nose is
+at a point where river, railways, and canal are crowded in a narrow pass
+between two overlapping ridges of high land. "Two Mountains
+approaching," or Tionnontogen, the Indians called it; and there behind
+the shelter of the hills, they built their largest and best fortified
+town, the Mohawk capital or Castle of the Wolves. Other villages and
+their central Castle of the Bears, called Andagoron, they also built and
+rebuilt within the great bend. At its northern point, where the river
+now flows between the high-perched Starin residence and the town of
+Fonda, the next important railway-station west of Amsterdam, are the
+rapids and the large stones in the water which gave rise to the name of
+Caughnawaga. From the hills at Fonda one can see for miles both up and
+down the river.
+
+Here, as has already been said, just west of Fonda, on the north side of
+the Mohawk is the Indian village site where Tekakwitha lived. Here is
+the beautiful hill that was once crowned by the palisaded castle of
+Caughnawaga. It is a spot that any one who lived there must have loved.
+To-day the plough turns up the rich soil where long Indian cabins stood,
+and what we see are only darkened patches left to tell us where the
+hearthfires of the Mohawks burned two hundred years ago. These patches
+of dark soil still glisten with the pearly mussel-shells brought up by
+the Mohawks to their village from the river that still bears their name.
+The pipe-stems sold to them by the Dutch are strewn in fragments through
+the field. From graves near by, thrown out on the roadside by the spades
+of workmen loading their carts with sand, the author has seen Indian
+bones, more crumbled than the silly beads and rusty scissors buried with
+them, which they bought so dearly. In a wood near by, on the brow of a
+ravine, there is a row of hollow corn-pits where the Caughnawaga people
+stored their charred corn. Low down in the fertile river-flats,
+southward from the ancient village site, a sunburned farmer, owner of
+both hill and valley, still works with horses and with iron implements
+the very corn-fields that the squaws hoed with clumsy bone-tools. This
+once castled height breaks abruptly on its eastern side to let the
+Cayudutta Creek wind through. It hurries by on its way to meet the
+Mohawk, and then lags through the flat, lost to sight just long enough
+to pass round the skirts of the Ta-berg, or Tea Mountain. This in a
+grassy cone topped with pines, and so named by Dutch settlers who there
+in wartimes made a tea from a wild plant. It partly blocks the entrance
+to the pretty Cayudutta valley, and separates it from the modern town of
+Fonda; but the farmers' daughters and the village people who now live in
+sight of Fonda Court House know well the little valley of the Cayudutta.
+Any one of them can point out its brightest gem, the never failing
+spring that issues from a set-back in the hill and so regular in shape
+as to suggest an amphitheatre. This spring wells out from under an old
+stump hidden in a clump of trees, whose topmost branches are below the
+level of the castle site. Its waters rest a moment in a little shady
+pool, a round forest mirror; then brimming over, break away and wander
+down the steep descent to the creek. The path to the spring leads
+downward from the higher ground above it, known as the Sand Flats. The
+field where the castle stood is now often planted thick with grain; but
+when this has been cut and the ground again ploughed, the Indian relics
+are readily found. At any season of the year, however, the limpid spring
+that has not ceased to flow for centuries will serve to indicate the
+spot.
+
+[Illustration: THE MOHAWK VALLEY FROM FONDA, N. Y.
+
+(_Tekakwitha's Birthplace in the Distance._)]
+
+Standing then, at the brink of this spring in the Mohawk Valley, let the
+reader cast a look backward, and over the intervening space of two
+hundred years, to the days of Tekakwitha. Let it be understood, however,
+that while the imaginative faculty is thus to be called into play, it is
+not for the contemplation of an imaginative but of a real character. For
+whatever side lights may color the narrative, they are used to bring
+out, not to impair, the picture. Many details of time and place, of
+manners and customs, of dress and the arts of industry, will be woven
+into an actual scene, rather than given in a tedious enumeration.
+
+The scene about to be described and others which follow depicting the
+early life of Tekakwitha are not to be found actually recorded in so
+many words in the history of her life and times, yet they must have
+occurred; for they are based on the known facts of her life as related
+in various official and private documents, together with such inferences
+only as may fairly and reasonably be drawn from those facts when brought
+under the strong light of contemporaneous records.
+
+Above the spring at Fonda, on the high plateau where is now the
+well-tilled farm, stood, two centuries ago, the log-built palisades of
+ancient Caughnawaga. In tall and close-set ranks they serve to hide from
+view and shield from ambush the long, low Indian houses, twenty-four in
+number. "Double stockadoed round, with four ports," as when the
+traveller Greenhalgh saw the place in 1677, "and a bow-shot from the
+river," stands the strong Mohawk castle. The blackened stumps that now
+dot the sunny hillside of the Cayudutta change into the old-time, mighty
+forest, and present a scene that is full of life; for down a well-worn
+footpath come the Indian girls to fill their jugs at the
+spring,--afterwards to be known as Tekakwitha's Spring.
+
+These dusky Caughnawaga maidens have the well-known Indian features
+strongly marked,--the high cheek bones, the dull red skin, and soft dark
+eyes; but Tekakwitha shields hers with her blanket from the light.
+Unlike the rest, there is an air of thoughtfulness about her and a touch
+of mystery. Excessive shyness in the Lily of the Mohawks is strangely
+blended with a sympathetic nature; and with a quiet force of character
+she leads their chatter, half unconsciously, to channels of her own
+choosing.
+
+"A manuscript of the time," says Shea, "describes the Indian maiden with
+her well-oiled and neatly parted hair descending in a long plait behind,
+while a fine chemise was met at the waist by a neat and well-trimmed
+petticoat reaching to the knee; below this was the rich legging and then
+the well-fitted moccasin, the glory of an Iroquois belle. The neck was
+loaded with beads, while the crimson blanket enveloped the whole form."
+
+This, in general, is the costume of the merry group with Tekakwitha at
+the spring. The upper garment, however, is a kind of tunic or simple
+overdress; nor can it be said that all are equally neat in their
+appearance. Some have their dark, straight hair tied loosely back and
+hanging down, or else with wampum braided in it. A few are clothed in
+foreign stuff, bought from the Dutch for beaver-skins and worn in
+shapeless pieces hung about them with savage carelessness. On their dark
+arms the sunlight flashes back from heavily beaded wrist and arm bands,
+begged or borrowed from their more industrious companions. Not like
+theirs is Tekakwitha's costume. It is made of deer and moose skins,--all
+of native make, and stitched together by a practised hand, as every one
+of the pretty squaws well knew. Her needle was a small bone from the
+ankle of the deer, her thread the sinews of the same light-footed
+animal, whose brain she mixed with moss and used to tan the skins and
+make the soft brown leather which she shaped so deftly into tunic,
+moccasins, and leggings. Her own skirt was scarce so richly worked with
+quills of the porcupine as that of her adopted sister there beside her,
+though both were made by Tekakwitha's hands.
+
+The Indian girls about her like her for her generous nature and her
+merry, witty speeches. She makes them laugh right heartily while she
+stands waiting for her jug to fill up at the trickling spring.
+
+These daughters of the Iroquois are bubbling over with good spirits, and
+their pottery jugs with water, when all at once they spy a band of
+hunters coming homeward down the Cayudutta valley from the Sacondaga
+country. Knowing there is one among them who but waits his chance to lay
+his wealth of beaver-skins at Tekakwitha's feet and take her for his
+wife, they turn girl-like to tease her; but the quick and timid orphan,
+dreading the license of their tongues, has bounded up the hill, and
+hastens to her uncle's cabin with her jug, leaving her companions to
+bandy words with the young hunters as they stop beside the little pool
+for a draught of refreshing water.
+
+Of all the people in the ancient Caughnawaga village, the only story
+that has been written out in full and handed down in precious
+manuscript, brown with age, is the story of her who bounded up the hill
+and left her comrades at the spring. In a double sense she left them.
+She was far above them. She stands to-day upon a mystic height; and
+many, both of her race and our own in these our days, do homage to her
+memory.
+
+May her home at Caughnawaga, high above the stones that lie imbedded in
+the Mohawk River, and close beside the spring that trickles downward to
+the Cayudutta,[5] soon become familiar ground to all who honor
+Tekakwitha!
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[2] The Indian forts or palisaded villages, called "castles" by the
+early Dutch settlers of New York State, were stoutly built of logs and
+bark, and were effectual barriers of defence until the artillery of the
+white men was brought to bear upon them.
+
+[3] Megapolensis, the Dutch dominie at Fort Orange, who befriended
+Jogues, the French Jesuit, in his captivity, writes the name of this
+Mohawk town or castle, Asserue or Asserne. It was just at the spot where
+a shrine has been recently elected to honor the memory of Isaac Jogues
+and of his companion Rene Goupil, both of whom were tomahawked in that
+vicinity by the Mohawks.
+
+[4] Jogues' Indian name.
+
+[5] See Appendix, Note A, where in a letter dated March 3, 1885, Gen.
+John S. Clark, of Auburn, N. Y., the well-known archaeologist, mentions
+this spring as marking the site of Gandawague (or Caughnawaga) on the
+Cayudutta Creek, northwest of Fonda, N. Y. For date of the removal from
+Auriesville to that site, see his letter of June 29, 1885, also given in
+Note A, with other proofs as to the location of Mohawk villages at the
+time of Jogues and Tekakwitha.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE MOHAWK VALLEY AND THE MOHAWKS AT THE TIME OF TEKAKWITHA'S BIRTH
+
+
+Father Jogues was put to death in the year 1646, on the south side of
+the Mohawk River, a few miles to the eastward of Fonda, and not far from
+the mouth of the Schoharie River. Close to the shrine which has been
+erected at Auriesville in his memory, is the very ravine in which,
+during his captivity there, he buried his friend and only companion,
+Rene Goupil.
+
+Rene, it will be remembered, was cruelly murdered for signing an Indian
+child with the sign of the cross. The description of the place where
+this occurred is very explicit in Father Jogues' published letters, and
+there is no other spot in the whole Mohawk Valley to which it can well
+be applied. He mentions a certain river which was a quarter of a league
+distant from the Indian town of Ossernenon, where he was held captive;
+this was undoubtedly the Schoharie. There in that same vicinity, after
+he had escaped from captivity and returned to the Mohawks as a
+missionary, he met his own tragic fate, or rather the glorious reward of
+his zeal. There, too, or very near there, ten years after his death,
+Tekakwitha was born. The exact location of her birthplace has not been
+determined. It was either at the Turtle Castle of Ossernenon described
+by Jogues, the name of which was afterwards changed, or at a later
+village site near Auries Creek, to which the people of that castle
+moved, and to which they gave the name of Gandawague.[6] In either case
+her birthplace was less than a mile from the present hamlet of
+Auriesville.
+
+There Kateri Tekakwitha was born in the year 1656. Her father was a
+Mohawk warrior, and her mother a Christian Algonquin captive, who had
+been brought up and baptized among the French settlers at Three Rivers
+in Canada. The Iroquois, or People of the Long House, including the
+Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas, were enemies of the
+Algonquin tribes and hostile to the French.
+
+The Mohawks especially were accustomed to make frequent raids on the
+settlements in Canada, leaving desolation behind them on the St.
+Lawrence, and bearing with them to their own valley rich booty, and also
+captives to be tortured and burned, or else adopted into the Five
+Nations of Iroquois to swell their numbers. If Frenchmen, these captives
+were often held as prisoners of war, and haughty terms made for their
+ransom. It happened on one of these raids into Canada that Tekakwitha's
+mother, the Algonquin, was thus captured. Torn suddenly from a peaceful
+home and the French friends who were teaching her "the prayer," she was
+hurried through the lakes and woods of a strange country, along the
+great war-trail that leads from the St. Lawrence to the Mohawk through
+northeastern New York. Fast following in the path of Jogues, the light
+canoe that bore her came southward with the braves, and their trophies
+of war, through Lake Champlain and then Lake George, the newly
+christened Lake St. Sacrament. Little did the captive dream that ever a
+child of hers would take that same long journey back again, an exile
+from the home that she was then approaching, all unconscious of her
+fate. A home, indeed, awaited her coming in the land of the Mohawks. She
+was saved from the torture and the fire by a fierce, pagan Mohawk
+warrior, who took the young Algonquin for his wife. The gentle girl had
+captured the heart of her conqueror.
+
+Their family consisted of one son and an infant daughter, known later as
+Kateri Tekakwitha. Pere Claude Chauchetiere, who wrote in 1695,[7] tells
+us that they dwelt at "Gandawague, a little village of the Mohawks."
+There they must have occupied one section of an Iroquois long-house,
+other kindred families filling up its entire length on both sides of an
+open space and passage-way through the centre. The occupants of every
+four sections or alcoves in these houses, two families being on each
+side of the passage, shared a common hearthfire,[8] with a hole above it
+in the roof to let in the daylight and let out the smoke. There were
+usually five of these fires and twenty families in a house about a
+hundred feet in length. These united households gave name and meaning to
+the Iroquois League of Kanonsionni, or People of the Long House.
+
+There is reason to believe that Tekakwitha's father took an active part
+in the affairs both of the Mohawk nation and the Iroquois League. We are
+told, indeed, that after his death her uncle, who seems to have taken
+her father's place and responsibilities, was one of the chief men of the
+Turtle Castle, whose deputies ranked higher in council than those of the
+Bear and Wolf Castles, Andagoron and Tionnontogen. This was because the
+turtle was created first, according to their genesis of things. These
+three palisaded strongholds and their outlying hamlets made up the
+Mohawk (or Canienga) nation. It was likened, in the beautiful figurative
+language of the Iroquois, to a group of families gathered round a hearth
+or council fire, and filling up one end of the Long House or Great
+League of the Five Nations, founded by Hiawatha and his friends. The
+duty of the Caniengas of the Mohawk Valley was to guard the eastern
+entrance of the Long House, or the door which looked out on the Hudson.
+Their privilege was to furnish the great war-chief that should lead the
+people of the League to battle.
+
+The proud Senecas, whose portion of the house extended from Seneca Lake
+to Niagara, were the western doorkeepers of this household of nations,
+waging fierce war on their neighbors near Lake Erie. The wily Onondagas,
+wise old politicians, in the middle of the Long House, at Onondaga Lake,
+led in council. Their leading chief, the elected president of this first
+American republic, lit the central council-fire and sat in state among
+the fifty oyanders (sachems) who formed the Iroquois senate. Ten of
+these were always Caniengas (or Mohawks), and fourteen were Onondagas.
+These two nations and the Senecas were called brothers; while the
+intermediate Oneidas and Cayugas were always spoken of as nephews,
+because they were younger and less important nations, with fewer
+oyanders.
+
+Tekakwitha's father may have been one of the ten Mohawk oyanders, but
+there is more reason to believe that he belonged to a class of
+war-chiefs who took part only in councils of war. In 1656 these
+war-chiefs were very influential, for the Iroquois had set out on a wild
+career of conquest, the warlike Mohawks as usual taking the lead. The
+very same year that the little Mohawk-Algonquin was born in their land,
+they swept like a tornado over Isle Orleans, near Quebec. They carried
+off to their castles the last remnant of the Huron people, who, far from
+their own land, had gathered near the French guns for protection. These
+Hurons from the shores of Lake Huron belonged to the Iroquois stock, as
+distinguished from the Algonquin races. In very early times they had
+come down to the settlements on the St. Lawrence to trade with the
+French, and zealous Jesuit missionaries had accompanied them on their
+return to their own country. After great hardships these missionaries
+had succeeded in making them Christians, when, as the final result of an
+old feud, these Huron-Iroquois, as they are often called, were driven
+from their homes in the Northwest by the Iroquois of the League, and
+wiped completely out of existence as a nation. Six of the Jesuits who
+dwelt among them, and whose strange isolated lives have furnished the
+theme for Parkman's glowing pages, were massacred, while others were
+cruelly tortured by the ubiquitous Mohawks during the period of ten
+short years that elapsed between Jogues' last captivity and Tekakwitha's
+birth. Could the father of the Mohawk Lily have reddened his hands in
+their blood? It is more than likely; for though Ondessonk or Jogues was
+the only one of these martyrs who had reached the Mohawk Valley, they
+were all slain by Mohawk braves,--Jogues, Daniel, Brebeuf, Lalemant,
+Garnier, and Garreau; nor is this a complete list of the victims. To use
+once more the words of John Gilmary Shea, historian of these and their
+fellow pioneers,--
+
+     "Fain would we pause to follow each in his labors, his trials,
+     and his toils; recount their dangers from the heathen Huron,
+     the skulking Iroquois, the frozen river, hunger, cold, and
+     accident; to show Garnier wrestling with the floating ice,
+     through which he sank on an errand of mercy; Chabanel
+     struggling on for years on a mission from which every fibre of
+     his nature shrunk with loathing; Chaumonot compiling his
+     grammar on the frozen earth; or the heroic Brebeuf, paralyzed
+     by a fall, with his collar-bone broken, creeping on his hands
+     and feet along the road and sleeping unsheltered on the snow
+     when the very trees were splitting with cold," and later, "as a
+     martyr, one of the most glorious in our annals for the variety
+     and atrocity of his torments."
+
+This last-mentioned blackgown, John de Brebeuf, called Echon by the
+Hurons, was a writer of valuable works on the Indian language and
+customs. He belonged to a noble family of Normandy; and on account of
+his great natural courage and soldierly bearing, his agony was prolonged
+by the savages with fiendish ingenuity, till finally, failing to wring a
+sigh of pain from his lips, they "clove open his chest, took out his
+noble heart, and devoured it," as a medicine to make them
+fearless-hearted.
+
+The fortitude of a brave man under torture was a spectacle as keenly
+appreciated by the Iroquois as were the gladiator fights and martyrdoms
+of old by the Romans. The women in this case, however, instead of
+decreeing death by turning down their own thumbs, were granted the less
+fatal and less dainty privilege of sawing off the thumb of the victim,
+as in the case of Jogues at Ossernenon. The human torches of Nero, who
+had the early Christians wrapped in straw and placed in his garden on
+the Palatine Hill, then set on fire to illuminate his evening revels,
+are vividly recalled by the death of Brebeuf's companion, the delicate
+and gentle Gabriel Lalemant. He was wrapped in pieces of bark which were
+put in a blaze. His writhing frame and quivering flesh contrasted finely
+with the stoic endurance of Brebeuf, and the Iroquois kept him alive
+till morning, leaving his body at last a black and shapeless mass.
+
+These gifted men living and dying in the wilderness were not without
+devoted followers, as can well be imagined; and many of their converts,
+the Christian Hurons, a now conquered race, dwelt with their old foes in
+the Long House. With the capture of those of the Hurons who had taken
+refuge at Isle Orleans the long struggle ended between two branches of a
+great Indian family or stock,--the Huron-Iroquois and the Iroquois of
+the League. Once victorious, it was the policy of the Five Nations of
+the League to quit all enmity, and to give the vanquished a home in
+their midst. Though the Hurons lost their national existence when thus
+adopted into the League, they did not lose their Christian faith. They
+clung to it in the midst of all the wild superstitions of their
+conquerors. They explained it to others as well as they could, and they
+welcomed with glad hearts any blackgown who was brave enough to tread in
+the footsteps of Jogues.
+
+Such an one was Father Lemoyne, who came and went five times among the
+Onondagas and the Mohawks between the years 1653 and 1658, even while
+they were at war with his countrymen on the St. Lawrence. On a hurried
+visit to Fort Orange, the nearest colony of Europeans, he told the
+people there of the salt springs which are now a source of wealth at
+Syracuse; but the worthy burghers were incredulous and put it down in
+their records as "a Jesuit lie." These early settlers of our State, in
+spite of such occasional indications of prejudice, were a kind-hearted
+and a peace-loving people, always ready to do friendly offices for men
+who, unlike their rivals the Canadian traders, seemed to value the souls
+of the Indians more than their beaver-skins. They had already rescued
+two Jesuits, Jogues and Bressani, from captivity; and they afterwards
+sent Father Lemoyne a bottle of wine with which to say Mass at Onondaga.
+This last missionary the Indians now called Ondessonk, in memory of
+Jogues. He visited the Mohawks in 1656 to console the Huron exiles from
+Isle Orleans, and at the same time he reproached the Mohawk warriors for
+their cruelty.
+
+This, of course, was little to the taste of Tekakwitha's pagan father,
+who took care, no doubt, that the blackgown should have no intercourse
+with his Algonquin wife, for in his opinion she was already too fond of
+the French Christians. He did not wish her to have his tiny, new-born
+daughter signed with the ill-omened cross, and to have the water of
+baptism poured on her head. So Ondessonk came and went, passing near,
+but not finding Tekakwitha's mother, who still cherished the Christian
+faith in her heart. When she knew that he was gone, it must have been
+with many a sigh and many a thought of her northern home, that she tied
+her baby to its cradle-board, all carved and curtained after the Indian
+fashion, and then loaded with the precious burden, went off as usual to
+her work in the corn-fields. From time to time she would pause for a
+moment to smile at her little breathing bundle as it swung from the
+branch of a tree near by, and we may be sure, too, that as she gathered
+in the harvest for the winter, she whispered many a prayer for peace and
+for the coming of the blackgown to dwell in the land, that her child
+might grow up a Christian. Let us hope some distant echo reached her in
+the Mohawk corn-field from the shores of Onondaga Lake. For there, where
+the city of Syracuse now sits among the hills, a crowd of Iroquois were
+gathered at that very time into the rough bark chapel of St. Mary's of
+Ganentaha, listening to the Christian law of marriage preached then for
+the first time in their land. Quick to understand the new dignity it
+gave them, the Onondaga women silently made up their minds to learn "the
+prayer," by which they meant Christianity. All the while that the
+blackgown was speaking, the captive Hurons who were in the throng gazed
+with pent-up joy at the face of their beloved Echon (Chaumonot, the
+namesake of Brebeuf), whose voice they had often heard at the mission
+forts in their own country. Soon after Echon's visit other fathers came
+among the Iroquois nations with a colony of Frenchmen; these last had
+been cordially invited to Onondaga. The reason for this invitation was
+that its people, hard pressed by their savage enemies, wanted peace with
+Onnontio, the French governor, and thought to secure it in this way; the
+Mohawks, however, took no part in this temporary peace. They were angry
+with the Onondagas for claiming their captives from the Isle Orleans,
+and they continued their raids on the French frontier regardless of a
+treaty made by their brother nation. It must be remembered, though, that
+these Indians, while warring with the French were then and always at
+peace with the Dutch of Fort Orange. From them they obtained the
+fire-arms that were used so effectively in their warfare in Canada.
+
+The wife of the Mohawk warrior at Gandawague may have heard rumors of
+the treaty made with Onnontio; but she saw the great kettle prepared as
+usual in the Turtle village for the annual war-dance, and all hope of a
+peace with the French died out once more from her heart.
+
+It was the custom of the Mohawks to set this kettle to boil in the early
+winter; and from time to time each warrior dropped something in to keep
+it going and thus to signify his intention of joining the next
+expedition. By February all was in readiness for the great dance of the
+nation. A war-dance among the Indians is conducted in some such way as
+this: Stripped of all but the breech-cloth, gay with war-paint and
+feathers, the dried head of a bear, if that be the totem of his clan,
+fastened on head or shoulder, and with rattling deer-hoofs strapped to
+his knees, each warrior springs to his place, and the wild dance begins,
+accompanied by the beating of a drum. Wilder and wilder grow their
+antics, and more boastful the words of their chant, as they catch the
+spirit of the dance, till at last they seem the very incarnation of war.
+With all the vividness of Indian pantomime, they act out the scenes of
+battle before the eyes of the crouching women and children gathered in
+silent awe to witness this great savage drama. At first the warriors
+seem to be creeping along the forest trail with every faculty alert; and
+then with fearful whoops they whirl their tomahawks through the air at a
+senseless post, springing back as if in self-defence, falling again upon
+the imaginary foe, hacking with violence, and mingling shrieks with
+their victorious shouts, till in the flickering light of the fire and
+the weird shadows of surrounding objects, the assembled crowd,
+completely carried away by the vividness of the pantomime, see human
+victims falling beneath their strokes.
+
+During the progress of the annual war-dance at Gandawague a group of
+Indian boys stand gazing with wide-open eyes at the heroes of the
+Kanienke-ha-ka whose past and future deeds are thus pictured before
+them. With swelling hearts they listen to the wild refrain, "Wah-hee!
+Ho-ha!" that comes at intervals. Among the smallest of the group we have
+in view is Tekakwitha's little brother, and her father is taking part in
+the dance. His voice, as it leads a louder swell of the war-song,
+startles her from her baby dreams, and she nestles close in her
+mother's arms. Later she hears the same voice in the lodge,--a few brief
+words rolling from the tongue[9] of the warrior in the low musical tones
+of the Mohawk language; and it only lulls her into sounder sleep. The
+dance is over, and the crowd scattered; but still we linger about to see
+what will happen next. A death-like silence reigns in the village. There
+is not one sentinel on watch. It would be well if they were more
+vigilant, but for the present they are safe. Their foes are far away,
+and the high palisade keeps off the prowling beasts. The darkness of
+night has closed over them. It is the hour for dreams, and dreams are
+the religion of the red-man. They are treasured up and told to the
+medicine-man or sorcerer, the influential being who is both priest and
+doctor in the village. When the excitement of the war-dance has subsided
+and the people are all sleeping soundly, this mysterious personage with
+stealthy tread may be seen to issue from the silent cluster of houses,
+and by the light of the moon he gathers his herbs and catches the
+uncanny creatures of the night with which to weave his spells. He knows
+that the young warriors will be coming to him for some inkling of their
+fate on the war-path, and besides he must supply a certain cure for
+their wounds. When he has found it for them he will gather them all in
+the public square at Gandawague, and after other exhibitions of his
+skill will perhaps cut his own lip, and when the blood is flowing
+freely, will stanch it and cure it in a moment by applying his magic
+drug. It will be well for his fame if there be not the keen eye of a
+French Jesuit in the crowd to watch him as he quickly sucks the blood
+into his mouth. He knows that the warriors are easily duped by his
+cunning, and will probably buy his mixture. Happy in its possession,
+they will fear no evil effects from their wounds. Their sweethearts too
+seek the sorcerer to have their fortunes told, and the old men and women
+come to him with their ailments. Even the orators are glad of a hint
+from his fertile brain; and the oyander or matron of rank who is about
+to nominate a new chief may perhaps consult him. If her choice has been
+already made, however, it is no easy task to persuade her to change her
+mind.
+
+With the month of March comes the Dream-Feast, and then the medicine-man
+is in his glory. For three days the town is in a hubbub, given up to
+every freak of the imagination. All the dreams of its people, no matter
+how foolish and unreasonable, must be fulfilled in some way to the
+dreamer's satisfaction. The wiser heads among them have to tax their
+ingenuity to the utmost to prevent the worst excesses of this crazy
+celebration. The Christian Indians, above all, dreaded its coming for if
+the sorcerer's interpretation pointed in their direction, they were sure
+to suffer. During the celebration of the Dream-Feast the Algonquin
+captive would not fail to hide herself and her children in the darkest
+corner she could find. She had a better chance to pass unnoticed,
+however, than the more numerous Huron Christians, who, like herself, had
+been captured by the Iroquois. Against these there was a growing enmity
+encouraged no doubt by the sorcerers, who profited least of all by their
+presence among the people. Some months after the time of the
+Dream-Feast the gathering storm burst over their heads. On the 3d of
+August, 1657, the Hurons, who dwelt at Onondaga, were suddenly
+massacred. The party that had been advocating friendship with the
+French, and which had taken the lead in establishing the French colony
+at Onondaga, headed by Garacontie ("The Sun that advances"), were fast
+losing ground. The situation, even of the French colonists who were
+there, was becoming critical; and in April, 1658, when Tekakwitha was in
+her second year, strange things happened in the Long House of the Five
+Nations.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[6] See Appendix, Note B,--the words "Gandawague" and "Tekakwitha."
+
+[7] Chauchetiere's manuscript, "La Vie de la B. Catherine Tegakouita,
+dite a present La Saincte Sauuagesse," is still extant. It was copied by
+the author of this volume at Montreal in 1884, and was first printed in
+1887: "Manate, De la Presse Cramoisy de Jean-Marie Shea."
+
+[8] See Vol. IV., Contributions to American Ethnology, by Lewis H.
+Morgan, LL.D., giving description and ground plan of an Iroquois
+long-house.
+
+[9] "The Mohawk language is on the tongue; the Wyandot is in the
+throat."--SCHOOLCRAFT'S _Red Race_.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+     A CRADLE-SONG.--CAPTIVES TORTURED.--FLIGHT OF THE FRENCH FROM
+     ONONDAGA.--DEATH IN THE MOHAWK LODGES.
+
+
+Let the reader, in imagination, look into Tekakwitha's home at
+Gandawague on the Mohawk, as it appeared in the month of April, 1658,
+and learn if the news that is spreading from nation to nation has yet
+reached there. To find the lodge he wishes to enter, he will follow a
+woman who is passing along the principal street of the village with an
+energetic step. The corners of a long blanket, that envelops her head
+and whole form, flap as if in a breeze from her own quick motion, for
+the air is quite still. It is early spring-time. There are pools of
+frozen water here and there; but the dogs of the village have chosen a
+sunny spot to gnaw at the bones they have found near the cabin of a
+fortunate hunter, who gave a feast the night before to his more needy
+neighbors. All shared in his good cheer. So long as there is food in the
+village, no one is allowed to go hungry. Such is the Indian law of
+hospitality.
+
+Tegonhatsihongo, who will be better known by and by under the name of
+Anastasia, gathers her blanket about her, and with the usual greeting,
+"Sago!" she passes a matron at a neighboring doorway, who withdraws the
+heavy bear-skin curtain she has placed there for keeping out the cold,
+in order that she may see where to put away the snow-shoes, now no
+longer needed. She stores them high above her head among the poles that
+support the snug bark roof. The keen eye of Tegonhatsihongo notes at a
+glance what the matron is about; and as she turns her head for a second
+look, one can see by the lines in her face that she is already on the
+downward slope of middle age. She passes on through an open space where
+a scaffold is prepared for the exhibition of any captives the warriors
+may chance to bring back from their raid on Montreal. Tegonhatsihongo
+scarcely notices these familiar preparations for the torture, but
+directs her steps to the lodge of a chief opening on the square. She is
+about to visit her friend the Algonquin, whose brave is away on the
+war-path. The quiet ways of this younger woman have attracted her and
+won her friendship. As she lifts the hanging skin to enter, she pauses a
+moment. Surprised, perhaps, and well pleased too to find the Algonquin
+in a merry mood, romping with her baby, now more than a year old, she
+stands and watches her. Catching the child from the clean-swept earthen
+floor, the mother holds it laughing and struggling in her lap, while she
+sings the Algonquin "Song of the Little Owl."[10] A pretty picture she
+makes, seated by the nearest fire of faggots, in the dim, smoky light of
+the long-house; and these are the words of her cradle-song and their
+literal translation:--
+
+    Ah wa nain?       Who is this?
+    Ah wa nain?       Who is this?
+    Wa you was sa     Giving eye-light
+    Ko pwasod.        On the top of my lodge.
+
+Here the young mother looks up, as if she really saw the eyes of the
+little white owl glaring from among the rustic rafters or through the
+hole in the roof. The dark eyes of the dark little baby, which follow
+the direction of hers, are opening wide with wonder at this sudden break
+from song to pantomime; and now the Algonquin answers her own questions,
+assuming all at once the tone of the little screech-owl:--
+
+    Kob kob kob,      It is I, the little owl,
+    Nim be e zhau.    Coming, coming.
+    Kob kob kob,      It is I, the little owl,
+    Nim be e zhau.    Coming.
+    Kitche! kitche!   Down! down!
+
+With the last words, meaning "Dodge, baby, dodge!" she springs towards
+the child, and down goes the little head. This is repeated with the
+utmost merriment on both sides, till their laughter is interrupted by
+the entrance of Tegonhatsihongo, who seats herself near her friend,
+their talk soon taking a serious turn. Now for the first time the
+Algonquin notices that others in the same cabin are putting their heads
+together and talking in low voices. The very air seems full of mystery.
+The busy ones have dropped their accustomed occupations, and the idle
+ones have ceased their noisy talk and their games. All are wondering at
+the strange news from the Indian capital, telling of the unaccountable
+disappearance of the Frenchmen who formed the little colony at Onondaga.
+Mohawks who were there on a visit have returned with marvellous tales.
+The few facts of the history are soon known, but there is no end to the
+surmises that are afloat among the Iroquois. This is what they are all
+talking about. This is what happened. The French colonists whom we have
+already mentioned, fifty-three in number, had given a great feast at
+their small block fort on the east bank of Onondaga Lake.[11] All the
+Onondagas and their guests from other nations who chanced to be there at
+the time, were invited. Some of Tegonhatsihongo's friends from the
+Mohawk Valley were present among the rest, and knew all about it. They
+were completely carried away with admiration for their French hosts, who
+gave them a right royal feast. When it was over they fell into slumber
+and dreamed strange dreams. Then, awaking when the sun was high, the
+bewildered guests went about half dazed. Some of them, straggling near
+the French enclosure, heard the dogs bark and a cock crow within. As the
+day wore on, they gathered into groups and wondered why the foreign
+inmates slept so long. None of them were to be seen going to work; no
+voices were heard. Could they be at prayer or in secret council? No one
+answered when they knocked at the door. By afternoon there were strange
+whisperings and much misgiving among the Onondagas, till at last their
+curiosity outgrew their dread, and nerved a few to scale the palisade.
+With cautious step they entered, fearing some treacherous snare. The
+Frenchmen could not be asleep, they thought, for the noisy barking of
+the dog would almost wake the dead. Could they have slain one another
+in the night? No; all was peaceful as they entered,--no signs of a
+struggle, and the sunlight danced playfully in through utter vacancy.
+Every corner of the house and fort was searched; no human being, dead or
+living, was found, yet noisy and more noisy grew the barking of the
+fastened dog, and frightened chickens fluttered about. The Indians
+looked at one another, shuddering. What had happened? With guilty
+consciences they thought of their deep-laid treachery here brought to
+naught; for as the Algonquin now learned from the talk in the
+long-house, they had planned to massacre the colony invited to their
+land from policy. Having subjugated their savage foes of the Cat nation,
+they were ready to turn their arms once more against the French. They
+had felt quite sure of their prey; for even if warned, the colonists and
+missionaries could not have escaped, they thought, as the rivers were
+still frozen. Besides, it was out of the question to suppose they had
+gone by water, as no boat was missing. Had they taken to the woods, they
+would soon have perished in the cold, having no guides, or else they
+would have fallen again into the hands of their enemies, who could
+easily track and overtake them in the forest. No trace of them, however,
+was anywhere to be found. Never were the red men more completely
+baffled. Tegonhatsihongo and the others who talked it all over had two
+favorite explanations of the mystery,--either the Frenchmen had a magic
+power of walking on the lakes, or else strange creatures, seen by
+Onondagas in their dreams, had flown through the air bearing the
+pale-faces with them.
+
+While Tekakwitha's mother was still wondering at this unaccountable
+story, the Mohawk braves returned from their raid on Montreal, and the
+people of the village were soon hurrying out with little iron rods, to
+take their stand on either side of the path that led up the hill to the
+principal opening in the palisade. There they were, ready to beat the
+prisoners as they approached, "running the gauntlet." Then the crowd
+eagerly watched the progress of the tortures on the scaffold, after
+which the prisoners were handed over, bound hand and foot, to the tender
+mercies of the children. These juvenile savages amused themselves by
+putting red-hot coals on the naked flesh of the captives, and tormented
+them in every way their mischief-loving brains could devise. Thus early
+did the warrior's son begin his education.
+
+But this side of the Indian nature is too horrible to dwell on; let it
+pass. At times the Iroquois were like incarnate devils; and yet each
+tale of frightful cruelty that history preserves for us brings with it
+some redeeming trait, some act of kindness or humanity done in the face
+of savage enmity. There were always a few among them ready like
+Pocahontas to avert the threatened blow or to relieve the sufferers
+whenever it was possible. One of these in days gone by had administered
+to Jogues; and one of these in days now soon to come will prove to be
+our Tekakwitha.
+
+There is little more to say about her parents. Her mother may have
+learned from some of the captives brought to Gandawague from Canada the
+true ending of the French colony at Onondaga. At all events, the
+following explanation of their sudden disappearance has been given by
+Ragueneau, who shared the fate of the adventurous little band. He says
+in one of his letters:--
+
+     "To supply the want of canoes, we had built in secret two
+     batteaux of a novel and excellent structure to pass the rapids;
+     these batteaux drew but very little water and carried
+     considerable freight, fourteen or fifteen men each, amounting
+     to fifteen or sixteen hundred weight. We had moreover four
+     Algonquin and four Iroquois canoes, which were to compose our
+     little fleet of fifty-three Frenchmen. But the difficulty was
+     to embark unperceived by the Iroquois, who constantly beset us.
+     The batteaux, canoes, and all the equipage could not be
+     conveyed without great noise, and yet without secrecy there was
+     nothing to be expected, save a general massacre of all of us
+     the moment it would be discovered that we entertained the least
+     thought of withdrawing.
+
+     On that account we invited all the savages in our neighborhood
+     to a solemn feast, at which we employed all our industry, and
+     spared neither the noise of drums nor instruments of music, to
+     deceive them by harmless device. He who presided at this
+     ceremony played his part with so much address and success that
+     all were desirous to contribute to the public joy. Every one
+     vied in uttering the most piercing cries, now of war, anon of
+     rejoicing. The savages, through complaisance, sung and danced
+     after the French fashion, and the French in the Indian style.
+     To encourage them the more in this fine play, presents were
+     distributed among those who acted best their parts and who made
+     the greatest noise to drown that caused by about forty of our
+     people outside who were engaged in removing all our equipage.
+     The embarkation being completed, the feast was concluded at a
+     fixed time; the guests retired, and sleep having soon
+     overwhelmed them, we withdrew from our house by a back door and
+     embarked with very little noise, without bidding adieu to the
+     savages, who were acting cunning parts and were thinking to
+     amuse us to the hour of our massacre with fair appearances and
+     evidences of good will.
+
+     "Our little lake,[12] on which we silently sailed in the
+     darkness of the night, froze according as we advanced, and
+     caused us to fear being stopt by the ice after having evaded
+     the fires of the Iroquois. God, however, delivered us, and
+     after having advanced all night and all the following day
+     through frightful precipices and waterfalls, we arrived finally
+     in the evening at the great Lake Ontario, twenty leagues from
+     the place of our departure. This first day was the most
+     dangerous; for had the Iroquois observed our departure, they
+     would have intercepted us, and had they been ten or twelve it
+     would have been easy for them to have thrown us into disorder,
+     the river being very narrow, and terminating after travelling
+     ten leagues in a frightful precipice where we were obliged to
+     land and carry our baggage and canoes during four hours,
+     through unknown roads covered with a thick forest which could
+     have served the enemy for a fort, whence at each step he could
+     have struck and fired on us without being perceived. God's
+     protection visibly accompanied us during the remainder of the
+     road, in which we walked through perils which made us shudder
+     after we escaped them, having at night no other bed except the
+     snow after having passed entire days in the water and amid the
+     ice.
+
+     Ten days after our departure we found Lake Ontario, on which we
+     floated, still frozen at its mouth. We were obliged to break
+     the ice, axe in hand, to make an opening, to enter two days
+     afterwards a rapid where our little fleet had well-nigh
+     foundered. For having entered a great _sault_ without knowing
+     it, we found ourselves in the midst of breakers which, meeting
+     a quantity of big rocks, threw up mountains of water and cast
+     us on as many precipices as we gave strokes of paddles. Our
+     batteaux, which drew scarcely half a foot, were soon filled
+     with water, and all our people in such confusion that their
+     cries mingled with the roar of the torrent presented to us the
+     spectacle of a dreadful wreck. It became imperative, however,
+     to extricate ourselves, the violence of the current dragging us
+     despite ourselves into the large rapids and through passes in
+     which we had never been. Terror redoubled at the sight of one
+     of our canoes being engulfed in a breaker which barred the
+     entire rapid, and which, notwithstanding, was the course that
+     all the others must keep. Three Frenchmen were drowned there; a
+     fourth fortunately escaped, having held on to the canoe and
+     being saved at the foot of the _sault_ when at the point of
+     letting go his hold, his strength being exhausted....
+
+     "The 3d of April we landed at Montreal in the beginning of the
+     night."
+
+This escape, so wonderful to the Indian mind and so successful, made a
+profound impression at Gandawague as among all the Mohawks, and produced
+most important results in the neighborhood of Tekakwitha's home,
+interrupting the work of the missionary there.
+
+Ondessonk or Lemoyne, the namesake of Jogues, who made a third visit to
+the Mohawk Valley in the fall of 1657, was no longer even tolerated by
+its people. He was held half a hostage, half a prisoner, at
+Tionnontogen, during the time that the French colony were in peril at
+Onondaga, and was finally sent back to Canada. He left the Mohawk
+country for the last time, just after Onondaga was abandoned by the
+French. He reached his countrymen on the St. Lawrence in May, 1658, to
+be greeted there with a glad welcome and many inquiries from the newly
+arrived refugees from Onondaga, concerning his experiences among the
+Mohawks; they were anxious to hear whether he had fared any better than
+themselves.
+
+Not one blackgown was now left among the Five Nations of Iroquois. The
+Algonquin mother at Gandawague had been unable to profit by their brief
+stay in the land, and her life grew ever sadder towards its close. She
+was finally laid low by a terrible disease, the small-pox, which spread
+like wild fire through the Mohawk nation in 1659 and 1660. Her brave, an
+early victim to this redman's plague, soon lay cold in death, and with
+aching heart she too bade good-by to the world, leaving her helpless
+children alone and struggling with the disease in a desolate lodge in a
+desolate land.
+
+Chauchetiere relates what he learned long afterwards from Anastasia
+Tegonhatsihongo,--that in leaving her two little children the mother
+grieved at having to abandon them without baptism; that she was a
+fervent Christian to the last, and that she met death with a prayer on
+her lips.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[10] Schoolcraft's Red Race.
+
+[11] The site of this fort is still pointed out between Salina and
+Liverpool, near the "Jesuit's Spring," or "Well," as it is called. For a
+plan of the fort made by Judge Geddes in 1797, from remains of it then
+in existence, see Clark's "Onondaga," p. 147. See also "Relations des
+Jesuites," and translations of the same in the "Documentary History of
+New York," vol. i., for a full account of the Onondaga Colony in 1658.
+
+[12] Onondaga Lake.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+TEKAKWITHA WITH HER AUNTS AT GANDAWAGUE.
+
+
+Tekakwitha's brother shared the fate of her parents. All three died
+within the space of a few days. Overshadowed by death and disease when
+she was only four years old, the little Indian child alone remained of
+the family. How she won her name is not known, though Indian names have
+always a meaning. They are never arbitrarily given. The word
+"Tekakwitha," as M. Cuoq, the philologist, translates it, means "One who
+approaches moving something before her." Marcoux, the author of a
+complete Iroquois dictionary, renders it, "One who puts things in
+order."[13]
+
+It has been suggested in reference to M. Cuoq's interpretation, that the
+name may have been given to her on account of a peculiar manner of
+walking caused by her imperfect sight; for it is related that the
+small-pox so injured her eyes that for a long time she was obliged to
+shade them from a strong light. It is possible that in groping or
+feeling her way while a child, she may have held out her hands in a way
+that suggested the pushing of something in front of her, and thus have
+received her name. On the other hand, the interpretation of M. Marcoux,
+as given by Shea, is thoroughly in keeping with her character. She
+indeed spent a great part of her life, as the record shows, in _putting
+things in order_.
+
+On the death of Tekakwitha's father, her uncle, according to the Indian
+laws of descent, would fall heir to the title of chief, after having
+been chosen by the matron or _stirps_ of the family,[14] and then duly
+elected by the men of the Turtle clan. Tekakwitha then became an inmate
+of her uncle's lodge,--which was quite natural, for indeed she was
+likely to prove a valuable acquisition to the household. This uncle was
+impoverished, no doubt, by the plague and also by the custom of making
+presents. A chief is expected to dispense freely, and is generally poor
+in spite of his honors. But daughters were always highly prized by the
+Iroquois; as they grew up they were expected to do a large part of the
+household work; and later, when wedded to some sturdy hunter, the lodge
+to which a young woman belonged, claimed and received whatever her
+husband brought from the chase. So the aunts and the uncle of Tekakwitha
+acted quite as much from worldly wisdom as from humanity when they
+decided to give the young orphan a home. Forethought was mixed with
+their kindness, and perhaps also a bit of selfishness. They had no
+children of their own, but they adopted another young girl besides
+Tekakwitha, thus giving to their niece a sister somewhat older than
+herself. The home of this family, after the small-pox had spent its
+force and when the distress it caused had forced the Mohawks to make a
+treaty of peace with the French, was at Gandawague,[15] on a high point
+of land in the angle between Auries Creek and the Mohawk River.
+
+[ILLUSTRATION]
+
+Here on the crest of the hill, in a wheat-field west of the creek, there
+still are signs of an Indian village, and just outside of the fence in a
+patch of woods Indian graves and corn-pits are to be seen. Well does the
+writer remember a bright summer day when that village site where
+Tekakwitha must have spent her early childhood was visited and examined
+for traces of Iroquois occupation. Three of us had driven over from the
+spring and castle-site of Caughnawaga at Fonda to the west side of
+Auries Creek. Leaving our carriage, we mounted the steep bank of the
+stream, eager to find the exact site of Gandawague, to which the people
+of Ossernenon moved before they crossed the river to Caughnawaga. We
+stood at last on the hard-won summit, and there lay the landscape in its
+tranquil beauty,--the Mohawk Valley, the river, a wheat-field against a
+dark wood, and off in the distance the court-house of Fonda, and dim
+Caughnawaga, all bathed in a glory of sunshine. Nearer at hand and
+toward the east, a little white steeple gleamed through the trees,
+marking the site of the modern village of Auriesville. We stood high
+above it, on the upper river terrace, where old Gandawague had once
+been; and though the rude Indian castle at that spot had long ago
+been trampled out of existence, we seemed to see it rise again from the
+ashes of its ancient hearthfires. Then, looking off toward the
+Schoharie, in our mind's eye we plainly saw on the broad, grassy plateau
+the still older village of Ossernenon, with its high palisade, that once
+upheld the ghastly head of the martyred Jogues. The scene was before us
+in all its details. The past had become like the present that day, and
+what was then present, all blended with sunshine that blotted out the
+tragic and left the heroic parts of the picture, has since become past.
+Those glorious hours at the castle-sites near Auriesville, so rich in
+awakened thought, contagious enthusiasm, and newly acquired information,
+are only a memory now; and mention is made of them here in the hope that
+others may feel a stir of interest in their hearts, and be roused to
+visit the Mohawk Valley, and the places so closely linked to the names
+of Jogues and Tekakwitha,--Ossernenon, where the shrine is built;
+Gandawague, on the bank of Auries Creek; and Caughnawaga,[16] five miles
+farther up the river.
+
+[Illustration: SITES OF MOHAWK CASTLES 1642 TO 1700, _as located by JOHN
+S CLARK, AUBURN NY_]
+
+Tekakwitha was only a little girl when she lived at Gandawague. It could
+hardly have been a large castle, on such a small bit of high land. They
+had little need at this time of a large castle, for many had died of the
+small-pox. The old Dutch records of the time relate that the Turtles, or
+people of the lower castle, were building a new palisade, in the latter
+part of the year 1659,--a task which would necessarily accompany a
+removal from Ossernenon; and they asked the Dutchmen, their neighbors,
+to help them. The friendship of these settlers for the Mohawks was put
+to rather a queer test when they proposed that the Dutch should not only
+furnish them with horses, but should drive them themselves, and drag the
+heavy logs up the hill for the palisade.[17] They were not used to such
+work; and it better became the settlers to do it, they thought, than
+Mohawk warriors!
+
+Some Dutchmen of Fort Orange were at the Turtle Castle on an embassy
+when this unpleasant proposal was made to them, and they thus shirked
+it. "Do you not see we are tired?" they said. "We have travelled far
+through the forest. Our men are few and weary; besides you have no
+roads. Our horses could never get up there. You must excuse us, our
+friends, and manage to do it without us. See, as a token of friendship,
+we have brought you fifty new hatchets." Then, giving the Indians
+knick-knacks and weapons, they bade them farewell and departed,
+journeying back in haste to their homes on the Hudson.
+
+Thus the Indians were left to finish their own palisade, or stockade,
+whichever one may choose to call it; and the uncle of Tekakwitha
+doubtless worked with the rest. When it was finished, it stood and
+protected them well for six uneventful years; that is to say, they were
+uneventful for Indians, though during the whole of that period they were
+making and breaking treaties of peace with the French, and were warring
+with other tribes. During this time, while the fighting was all carried
+on at a distance from the Mohawk castles, Tekakwitha lived in the
+greatest seclusion. She was cared for and taught by her aunts, in one of
+the cabins closed in by the palisade. She was learning the arts of the
+Indians, doing the daily work, and shrinking from all observation. This
+unsociable habit of hers (for so it must have seemed to her neighbors)
+was due in part to her own disposition,--modest, shy, and reserved,--but
+more than all, perhaps, to the fact that the small-pox had injured her
+eyesight. As she could not endure much light, she remained indoors, and
+when forced to go out, her eyes were shaded by her blanket. Little by
+little she grew to love a life of quiet and silence. Besides, she showed
+a wonderful aptness for learning to make all the curious bark utensils
+and wooden things that were used in the village. Much to her aunts'
+satisfaction, she had an industrious spirit. This they took care to
+encourage, as it made her very useful. These aunts were exceedingly
+vain; and a child of less sense than the young Tekakwitha would soon
+have been spoiled by their foolishness.
+
+Chauchetiere has told us quaintly, in old-fashioned French, "what she
+did during the first years of her age." We cannot do better here than to
+follow his account, translating it almost word for word:---
+
+     "The natural inclination which girls have to appear well, makes
+     them esteem very much whatever adorns the body; and that is why
+     the young savages from seven to eight years of age are silly,
+     and have a great love for _porcelaine_ (wampum). The mothers
+     are even more foolish, for they sometimes spend a great deal of
+     time in combing and dressing the hair of their daughters; they
+     take care that their ears shall be pierced, and commence to
+     pierce them from the cradle; they put paint on their faces, and
+     fairly cover them with beads when they have occasion to go to
+     the dance.
+
+     "Those into whose hands Tegakoueita fell when her mother died,
+     resolved to have her marry very soon, and with this object they
+     brought her up in all these little vanities; but the little
+     Tegakoueita, who was not yet a Christian, in truth, nor
+     baptized, had a natural indifference for all these things. She
+     was like a tree without flowers and without fruit; but this
+     little wild olive was budding so well into leaf that it
+     promised some day to bear beautiful fruit; or a heaven covered
+     with the darkness of paganism, but a heaven indeed, for she was
+     far removed from the corruption of the savages,--she was sweet,
+     patient, chaste, and innocent. _Sage comme une fille francaise
+     bien elevee_,--As good as a French girl well brought up,--this
+     is the testimony that has been given by those who knew her from
+     a very young age, and who in using this expression gave in a
+     few words a beautiful panegyric of Catherine Tegakoueita.
+     Anastasia Tegonhatsihongo said of her that 'she had no faults.'
+
+     "Her occupation was to carry little bundles of wood with her
+     mother, that is to say, her aunt, the matron of the lodge, to
+     put wood on the fire when the mother told her, to go for water
+     when those in the cabin had need of it; and when they gave her
+     no further commands she amused herself with her little
+     jewels,--I mean she dressed herself up in the fashion of the
+     other young girls of her age, just to pass the time. She would
+     put a necklace about her throat; she would put bracelets of
+     beads on her arms, rings on her fingers, and ear-rings in her
+     ears. She made the ribbons and bands which the savages make
+     with the skins of eels, which they redden, and render suitable
+     for binding up their hair. She wore large and beautiful
+     girdles, which they call wampum belts."
+
+     [These decorations not only adorn the person, but they also
+     show the rank of the maiden who wears them.[18]]
+
+     "There was a sort of child-marriage in vogue among the
+     Iroquois. Certain agreements of theirs were called marriage,
+     which amounted to nothing more than a bond of friendship
+     between the parents, rendered more firm by giving away a child,
+     who was often still in the cradle; thus they married a girl to
+     a little boy. This was done at a time when Tegakoueita was still
+     very small; she was given to a child. The little girl was only
+     about eight years old; the boy was hardly older than herself.
+     They were both of the same humor, both very good children; and
+     the little boy troubled himself no more about the marriage than
+     did the girl."
+
+It was a mere formality; but it shows how early Tekakwitha's relatives
+began to think of establishing her in life.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[13] So cited by Shea in his translation of Charlevoix's "History of New
+France," vol. iv. For different ways of spelling Tekakwitha's name, see
+Appendix, Note B, where the grammatical explanation of it by M. Cuoq is
+also given.
+
+[14] Among the Iroquois descent was never reckoned through the male
+line, the _stirps_ being always a woman. A chief, therefore, derived his
+title from his mother. To her family, not his father's, he belonged; and
+back to her or to her mother at his death the title was referred, to be
+transmitted through her to some other descendant.
+
+[15] See General Clark's map herewith printed.
+
+[16] The castle of Caughnawaga at Fonda was also called Gandawague, long
+after its removal from Auries Creek. But it prevents confusion to give
+it always its more distinctive name of Caughnawaga.
+
+[17] See Appendix, Note A, Letter of June 29, 1885.
+
+[18] See Cholenec, who mentions this fact in the "Lettres Edifiantes,"
+translated by Kip in his work entitled "Early Jesuit Missions." What is
+said concerning child-marriage is from Chauchetiere's manuscript.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+TEKAKWITHA'S UNCLE AND FORT ORANGE; OR THE BEGINNINGS OF ALBANY.
+
+
+Cholenec, the more concise of the two contemporary biographers of Kateri
+Tekakwitha, in speaking of her early life says: "She found herself an
+orphan under the care of her aunts, and _in the power of an uncle who
+was the leading man in the settlement_." This brief expression gives us
+an intimation both of the character and the rank of Tekakwitha's
+formidable Mohawk uncle. He was stern, unbending, fierce; and like many
+another chief reared in the Long House, was proudly tenacious of the
+customs of his race. He was often on the worst of terms with the French
+blackgowns because they interfered with the beliefs and manners of his
+people; but always on the best of terms with the Dutch traders, who, in
+exchange for the rich furs brought in so plentifully to Fort Orange,
+supplied the Mohawks of Gandawague (or, as the Dutch wrote it,
+Kaghnuwage) with muskets, iron tomahawks, pipes, tobacco, copper
+kettles, scissors, duffels, strouds for blankets, and more than all, the
+keenly relished, comforting "fire water."
+
+The influx of liquor to the Iroquois castles led to reckless debauches,
+fast following in the track of the small-pox, which stalked with
+unchecked violence through the Long House in 1660. During the course of
+the following year an important transaction took place between the
+white settlers on the Hudson and the Indians along the Mohawk, or
+Maquaas Kill. "A certain parcel of land," to use the words of the old
+deed, "called in Dutch the Groote Vlachte (Great Flatt), lying behind
+Fort Orange, between the same and the Mohawk country," was sold by
+Mohawk chiefs--Cantuquo (whose mark was a Bear); Aiadane, a Turtle;
+Sonareetsie, a Wolf; and Sodachdrasse--to Sieur Arent van Corlaer, July
+27, 1661. "A grant under the provincial seal was issued in the following
+year, but the land was not surveyed or divided until 1664." The Indian
+name of the Great Flatt was Schonowe, and the new village of white
+settlers which soon sprang up on the south bank of the Mohawk was called
+Schenectady by the Dutch and English; though the French, who did not for
+some time learn of its existence, first knew this little outpost of Fort
+Orange by the name of Corlaer,[19] the earliest settler.
+
+This founding of Schenectady was an event of deep interest to the
+Mohawks of Gandawague. It brought the dwellings of the white race closer
+than ever before to their own stronghold, almost in fact to the very
+door of the Kanonsionni, or People of the Long House. The settlers began
+at once to rear their wonderful wooden palaces, for such they must have
+seemed to the simple children of the forest. The wild banks of the
+Maquaas Kill had hitherto shown no prouder architecture than the long
+bark houses of the Mohawks, which nevertheless were much in advance of
+the wigwams or tents of the roving Algonquin tribes. The Indians of
+Gandawague must have hastened down in their canoes to watch the building
+of Schenectady, and listened with interest and curiosity to the strange
+buzz of the newly erected sawmill. These were already familiar sights
+and sounds, however, to Tekakwitha's uncle, for he had long been in the
+habit of trading with the Dutch and knew their ways. He often journeyed
+as far as their trading-house at Fort Orange. Let us follow in the
+footsteps of this Mohawk chief as he starts once again on the trail that
+leads eastward from Gandawague with furs he has been hoarding for some
+new purchase. Let us pass hurriedly on beyond the new abode of his
+friend Corlaer, and we shall then see the sights that greet him as he
+approaches the homes of the traders who dwell beside the Hudson,--or
+Cahotatea, as the chief of the Turtle Castle would call the great North
+River in his own language. He has other Indians of his nation with him.
+These Mohawks, says the first Dutch dominie, in the account he gives of
+them, have good features, with black hair and eyes, and they are well
+proportioned; they go naked in summer, and in winter they hang loosely
+about them a deer's, bear's, or panther's skin, or else they sew small
+skins together into a square piece, or buy two and a half ells of
+duffels from the Dutchmen. Some of them wear shoes and stockings of
+deer's skins; others of plaited corn-leaves. Their hair is left growing
+on one side of the head only, or else worn like a cock's comb or hog's
+bristles standing up in a streak from forehead to neck; some of them
+leave queer little locks growing here and there. Their faces are painted
+red and blue, so that they "look like the devil himself," continues the
+worthy Megapolensis. They carry a basket of bear's grease with which
+they smear their heads, and in travelling they take with them a
+maize-kettle and a wooden spoon and bowl. When it is meal-time they get
+fire very quickly by rubbing pieces of wood together; and they cook and
+devour their fish and venison without the preliminary cleaning and
+preparing considered necessary among civilized folks. When they feel
+pain they say, "Ugh! the devil bites," and when they wish to compliment
+their own nation they say, "Really the Mohawks are very cunning devils."
+They make no offerings to their good genius or national god,
+Tharonyawagon; but they worship the demon Otkon or Aireskoi, praying in
+this way, "Forgive us for not eating our enemies!" and in hot weather,
+"I thank thee, Devil, I thank thee, Oomke, for the cool breeze." They
+laugh at the Dutch prayers, the dominie tells us, and also at the
+sermon. They call the Christians of Fort Orange cloth-makers
+(_assyreoni_) and iron-workers (_charistooni_).
+
+These uncouth travellers from Gandawague, among whom is the uncle of
+Tekakwitha, are fast nearing the homes of these same cloth-makers and
+iron-workers. Let us hasten to overtake them, and find our way with them
+into the settlement of Rensselaerwyck. You who dwell in New York State
+and you who travel through it, come with us now to visit old Fort Orange
+and the little town of Beverwyck! You above all who love to trace your
+lineage to the staid old Dutchmen of New Netherlands, come! Let us see
+the homes of these grandsires whose names appear so often in the record
+and ancient annals of our oldest chartered city. Come, too, you sons of
+English colonists, and see the flag of England float strangely in the
+Hudson River breezes while they are still loaded with the cumbrous
+sounds of the Low Dutch language! We will stay and see the laws of
+England put an end to queer old wordy wars between the stately Dutch
+patroon Van Rensselaer and Peter Stuyvesant, the doughty old
+Director-general, last and greatest of the four Dutch governors,--the
+one called "Wooden Leg" by Indians, and "Hard-headed Pete" by Dutchmen;
+though the poets say he had a _silver leg_, and the artists love to
+paint him with a gallant flourish as he stumped it down the street
+beside some pretty, quaintly dressed colonial belle. His were the days
+of knee-breeches and gigantic silver buckles, of ruffles and queues, of
+broad, short petticoats bedecked with mighty pockets, and of scissors
+and keys that hung from the belt,--the days of demure tea-parties and
+hilarious coasting-parties, of negro slaves and of sugar-loaf hats. As
+for weapons of war, the muskets they carried were strange and clumsy
+arms, with long, portable rests and "two fathoms of match," which the
+soldier must needs have with him, besides the heavy armor and the queer
+tackle for ammunition. No wonder that the wearers of such gear dreaded
+wars with the nimble savages!
+
+Rip Van Winkle, after sleeping twenty years, awoke to painful changes;
+he was sadly out of date. It would surely then be cruel, even if we had
+the power, to wake old Peter Stuyvesant and the people of his day from
+full two hundred years of slumber in our graveyards just to criticise
+their dress and talk. Let us rather go to sleep ourselves and dream
+about them. Take a good strong dose of unassorted, crude, colonial
+history interspersed with annals, and the necessary drowsiness will
+surely follow. Have you tried it? Are you sure the spell is not upon you
+now, having stopped to look at Stuyvesant, and heard the dominie
+describe the Mohawks? The smoke of pipes and chimneys is at hand, for
+here we are at old Fort Orange in the times of Tekakwitha. Let us look
+about, before the power to do it fails us out of very sleepiness. We
+find ourselves within a wall of stockadoes. The chief and his friends
+from Kaghnuwage are undoing their packs of furs near the northern gate
+of the town. We stand in Albany, at the corner of Broadway and State
+Street,--but no! those names are not yet in vogue. We are in Beverwyck,
+at the point where the long, rambling Handelaer Street, running parallel
+with Hudson's River, crosses the broad, short Joncaer Street, which
+climbs some little distance up the hill. Before us is the old Dutch
+church. It stands by itself, at the intersection of the two streets,
+fronting south. It is a low, square, plain stone building, with a
+four-sided roof rising to a central summit surmounted by a small cupola
+or belfry containing the famous little bell just sent over from Holland
+by the Dutch West India Company; on this belfry is upreared a saucy
+little weathercock. The south porch or vestibule is approached by a
+large stone step before the principal door. If the church were not
+locked, we might take a look inside at the carved oaken pulpit with its
+queer little bracket for the dominie's hourglass. The burghers
+subscribed twenty-five beaver-skins to buy that pulpit, and a splendid
+one it was. It soon came sailing over the sea in a plump Dutch ship.
+The patrons of the colony finding the beaver-skins much damaged when the
+package was opened at Amsterdam had added seventy-five guilders
+themselves towards the purchase, besides presenting the bell outright.
+When Dominie Megapolensis first arrived in the colony, "nine benches"
+were enough to seat the whole congregation; but that was a generation
+ago. Now it has increased; and the church, which was then a wooden
+structure near the old fort by the river, has been rebuilt. The Van
+Rensselaers, the Wendels, the Schuylers and the Van der Blaas have the
+leading pews; they have already sent to Europe for stained glass windows
+blazoned with their family arms. Having seen the church, let us walk up
+Joncaer (State) Street to the dominie's. We pass through the
+market-place, which is out in the middle of the open, grassy space, on a
+line with the church. We stop a moment to look at the house of Anneke
+Janse, the heiress, and then move on to Parrell (Pearl) Street. There,
+on the northeast corner of Parrell and Joncaer Streets, gable end
+foremost, stands the comfortable abode of Dominie Schaats, which is the
+pride and envy of the town. Every part of this, the first brick house in
+the New World, is said to have been imported from Holland,--bricks,
+woodwork, tiles, and also the ornamental irons with which it is
+profusely adorned,--all expressly for the use of the Rev. Gideon Schaets
+(or Schaats), who came over in 1652. The materials of the house arrived
+simultaneously with the bell and pulpit in 1657.[20]
+
+From Schaats' house we see, instead of a solitary "old elm-tree" on the
+opposite corner, many trees of different kinds, one in front of each of
+the straggling houses on either side of Joncaer Street; and by the age
+of the tree one can tell pretty well the order in which the different
+settlers arrived and began to domesticate themselves. This was no sooner
+done than the inevitable shade-tree was planted to overshadow the
+dwelling, and beneath this tree they bring the cow each evening to be
+milked. Around every house is a garden with a well; and the stoop at the
+front door is supplied with wooden seats or benches. There old and young
+gather in the evening when the day's work is over.
+
+The upper half of the front door remains open all day in summer, while
+the lower half bars out the stray chickens and dogs. It is opened now
+and then, however, to let the children in and out, and once in a while a
+buxom _vrouw_ leans out to chat with a passer-by, or perhaps to scold
+the little ones or to bid them beware of straying near the trading-house
+for fear of encountering a tipsy Indian. This trading-house is outside
+the wall of stockadoes, or upright posts, encircling the town. The
+traders of Beverwyck are all obliged "to ride their stockadoes,"--that
+is to say, to furnish the pine posts, thirteen feet long and one foot in
+diameter, for repairing the wooden wall. This duty falls alike on every
+inhabitant, at the command of the burgomasters and schepens. They are
+furthermore bound to take turns in drawing firewood to the trading-house
+for the use of the Indians when they come there from the Maquaas country
+loaded with packs of furs.
+
+Above Dominie Schaats' house and on the same side of Joncaer Street is
+the Corps de Garde, a small block fort where a few soldiers are
+stationed. There the progress of our walk is checked by the stout wall
+of stockadoes. One of the six gates or openings, however, is near at
+hand, leading out on to the road to Schenectady. We wish to see more of
+the place, and are at a loss to find our way; so we accept the kindly
+offered guidance of a little Schuyler lad, named Pieter, who stands
+talking to one of the soldiers. Already in his boyish days this
+public-spirited Albanian takes an active interest in the military
+defence of the place. He knows where all the cannon are placed, and can
+tell us how they propose to improve the fort and barracks on Joncaer
+Street. He takes us out by the Parrell Street gate to a road leading
+southward toward the hamlet of Bethlehem. After the boy has shown us the
+mills on the Bever Kill (Buttermilk Creek) from which the village of
+Beverwyck was named, he takes us down to old Fort Orange by the
+river-side.[21] It has been a snug little fort in its day, built of
+logs with four bastions, each mounted by two guns for throwing stones,
+while in the enclosure stands a large cannon on wheels close to the old
+trading-house of the West India Company. Since the new one has been
+built, this is used as the vice-director's house. It is twenty-six feet
+long, two stories high, constructed of boards one inch thick, with a
+roof in the form of a pavilion covered with old shingles. The space on
+the second floor is one undivided room directly under the roof without a
+chimney, to which access can be had by a straight ladder through a
+trap-door.[22] Here the magistrates administer justice. This is for the
+time being the court-house of Beverwyck.
+
+[Illustration: OLD ALBANY.--DOMINIE SCHAATS' HOUSE.
+
+(_Corner of Joncaer and Parrell Streets._)]
+
+Fort Orange at the time of our visit is falling to decay; Fort
+Willemstadt, on the contrary, the military post at the head of Joncaer
+Street, is increasing in importance. Near Fort Orange is the great
+pasture or common where the cows of the burghers are grazing, and there,
+a short distance below the fort, we see the ferry-boat travelling slowly
+across the river to Greenbosch. We have caught sight of several deer and
+wild turkeys on the outskirts of the town, and we have passed several
+patriarchal "negers" (as the magistrates of Fort Orange spell the word):
+and here comes the special property of Pete Schuyler in the shape of a
+black boy of his own age, who is followed by a troop of sturdy children,
+some of whom are the brothers and sisters of our young guide. There, to
+be sure, are Guysbert, and Gertrude (who is destined to wed Stephanus
+van Cort) Alida (who will add to her own name of Schuyler the name of
+Van Rensselaer and afterwards Livingston);[23] while toddling after
+these juvenile belles of Fort Orange come Brant and Arent, their
+brothers, and still there are others to come. These are the numerous
+children of Philip Pietersen Schuyler, who came over in 1650, and of his
+fair _vrouw_ Margritta van Slichtenhorst. This good couple were married
+with great formality before Dominie Schaats arrived, by Antoni de
+Hooges, the secretary of the colony, whose nose has been immortalized in
+the Highlands of the Hudson. Their son Pieter, our little guide, is to
+be the first mayor of the city of Albany; while the distinguished Philip
+of a later date will carry the name of Schuyler to a height of glory
+that will linger round the shaft of the Saratoga monument at
+Schuylerville for ages to come, and make it glow with an added beauty!
+
+But while our thoughts are thus running away with us from Fort Orange, a
+farmer, Teunis van Vechten, coming from Greenbosch with supplies for the
+Beverwyck market, offers the children a ride into the town, which they
+accept with a shout. This rouses us from our reverie, and we follow the
+merry load as they jog along the country road from Fort Orange to the
+nearest gate in the stockade (about where the street now called Hudson
+Avenue crosses Handelaer Street, or Broadway). With a crack of the
+farmer's whip they drive rapidly down into a sort of ravine, cross the
+Rutten Kill[24] on a bridge, and ascend the opposite slope. The farmer
+soon passes the door of the Dutch Reformed Church, where our ramble
+began, and turning into Joncaer Street pulls up his horses at the
+market-place. The children scamper back across the Rutten Kill to the
+Schuyler store on Handelaer Street, opposite Beaver Street, and pass on
+down to the grassy river-side behind it, where a sloop is moored. Their
+father is there overseeing the men who are loading it with beaver-skins
+and other goods. The day's work is nearly over. The sunlight is fading
+from the hill-tops across the river. All will soon go in to supper. If
+we were not too tired we might in a few moments walk the whole length of
+Handelaer Street towards the north gate. In that case we would have a
+peep now and then through the half-open curtains of the scattered
+houses; for see! they are beginning to light up for the evening meal. In
+passing along we would probably startle the dogs from their kennels in
+the gardens, and hasten the farewells of the lovers who linger on the
+front stoops in the gathering dusk. Then issuing by the north gate
+(where Steuben Street comes into Broadway), we might go by moonlight to
+the Patroon's house, between which and Beverwyck are corn-fields where
+the burghers grow corn for their slaves and also for their horses, pigs,
+and poultry. We would then be not far from the Patroon's mills, where
+all the settlers are in duty bound to go, and not elsewhere, to have
+their sawing and grinding done. These mills are on the Fifth, or
+Patroon's Kill, counting from the Norman's Kill near Kenwood.
+
+We must not leave the neighborhood of Fort Orange and Beverwyck until we
+have been to a trading-house just outside of the stockade (Pemberton's
+was used for such a purpose at one time, and also the Glenn House).
+There we shall have an opportunity to listen to some such conversation
+as the following between a Dutch trader and an Indian.[25] Let us
+suppose that the trader on this occasion is one of the enterprising
+burghers whom we encountered during our walk on Joncaer Street, and the
+Indian a Mohawk warrior in the company of Tekakwitha's uncle, who, as we
+have seen, travelled from Gandawague for the purpose of bartering his
+furs at Beverwyck.
+
+     "_Indian._ Brother, I am come to trade with you; but I forewarn
+     you to be more moderate in your demands than formerly.
+
+     "_Trader._ Why, brother, are not my goods of equal value with
+     those you had last year?
+
+     "_Indian._ Perhaps they are; but mine are more valuable because
+     more scarce. The Great Spirit, who has withheld from you
+     strength and ability to provide food and clothing for
+     yourselves, has given you cunning and art to make guns and
+     provide scaura (rum), and by speaking smooth words to simple
+     men, when they have swallowed madness, you have by little and
+     little purchased their hunting-grounds and made them
+     corn-lands. Thus the beavers grow more scarce, and deer fly
+     farther back; yet after I have reserved skins for my mantle and
+     the clothing of my wife, I will exchange the rest.
+
+     "_Trader._ Be it so, brother; I came not to wrong you, or take
+     your furs against your will. It is true that the beavers are
+     fewer and you go farther for them. Come, brother, let us deal
+     fair first and smoke friendly afterwards. Your last gun cost
+     fifty beaver-skins; you shall have this for forty; and you
+     shall give marten and raccoon skins in the same proportion for
+     powder and shot.
+
+     "_Indian._ Well, brother, that is equal. Now, for two silver
+     bracelets, with long pendent ear-rings of the same, such as you
+     sold to Cardarani in the sturgeon month last year,--how much
+     will you demand?
+
+     "_Trader._ The skins of two deer for the bracelets and those of
+     two fawns for the ear-rings.
+
+     "_Indian._ That is a great deal; but wampum grows scarce, and
+     silver never rusts. Here are the skins.
+
+     "_Trader._ Do you buy any more? Here are knives, hatchets, and
+     beads of all colors.
+
+     "_Indian._ I will have a knife and a hatchet, but must not take
+     more. The rest of the skins will be little enough to clothe the
+     women and children, and buy wampum. Your beads are of no value;
+     no warrior who has slain a wolf will wear them.[26]
+
+     "_Trader._ Here are many things good for you which you have not
+     skins to buy; here is a looking-glass, and here is a
+     brass-kettle in which your woman may boil her maize, her beans,
+     and above all her maple sugar. Here are silver brooches, and
+     here are pistols for your youths.
+
+     "_Indian._ The skins I can spare will not purchase them.
+
+     "_Trader._ Your will determines, brother; but next year you
+     will want nothing but powder and shot, having already purchased
+     your gun and ornaments. If you will purchase from me a blanket
+     to wrap around you, a shirt and blue stroud for under-garments
+     for yourself and your woman, and the same for leggings, this
+     will pass the time, and save you the great trouble of dressing
+     the skins, making the thread, etc., for your clothing, which
+     will give you more fishing and hunting time in the sturgeon and
+     bear months.
+
+     "_Indian._ But the custom of my fathers!
+
+     "_Trader._ You will not break the custom of your fathers by
+     being thus clad for a single year. They did not refuse those
+     things which were never offered to them.
+
+     "_Indian._ For this year, brother, I will exchange my skins; in
+     the next I shall provide apparel more befitting a warrior. One
+     pack alone I will reserve to dress for a future occasion. The
+     summer must not find a warrior idle.
+
+     "The terms being adjusted and the bargain concluded, the trader
+     thus shows his gratitude for liberal dealing.
+
+     "_Trader._ Corlaer has forbid bringing scaura to steal away the
+     wisdom of the warrior, but we white men are weak and cold; we
+     bring kegs for ourselves, lest death arise from the swamps. We
+     will not sell scaura; but you shall taste some of ours in
+     return for the venison with which you have feasted us.
+
+     "_Indian._ Brother, we will drink moderately.
+
+     "A bottle was then given to the warrior by way of a present,
+     which he was advised to keep long, but found it irresistible.
+     He soon returned with the reserved pack of skins, earnestly
+     urging the trader to give him beads, silver brooches, and above
+     all scaura, to their full amount. This, with affected
+     reluctance at parting with the private stock, was at last
+     yielded. The warriors now, after giving loose for a while to
+     frantic mirth, began the war-whoop, and made the woods resound
+     with infuriate howlings.... A long and deep sleep succeeded,
+     from which they awoke in a state of dejection and chagrin such
+     as no Indian had felt under any other circumstances. They felt
+     as Milton describes Adam and Eve to have done after their
+     transgression."
+
+The news of a massacre of white settlers at Esopus (Kingston), by the
+River Indians or Mohegans, June 7, 1663, when Tekakwitha was seven years
+old, caused great excitement both at Gandawague and at Beverwyck. Fort
+Orange was put in a thorough state of defence, the treaty with the
+Mohawks was renewed, and three pieces of artillery, loaned by Van
+Rensselaer for the protection of Beverwyck, "were placed on the church."
+"Nevertheless so great was the alarm that the out-settlers fled for
+protection to the fort called Cralo, erected on the Patroon's farm at
+Greenbush, where they held night and day regular watch."
+
+A year later, in 1664, at the time when the juvenile betrothal of
+Tekakwitha, already mentioned, took place at Gandawague,--that having
+occurred, as we are told, when she was eight years old,--an entirely new
+order of things was brought about in the Dutch colony. The new
+settlement of Arent van Corlaer at Schenectady, the house where her
+uncle traded at Fort Orange, and the hamlet of Beverwyck, together with
+the whole of the New Netherlands, passed over into the hands of the
+English. Henceforth, instead of appealing to their High Mightinesses the
+Lords States General of Holland for redress of grievances, the settlers
+of the State of New York were to bow to the decisions of his Majesty
+King Charles II., who then sat securely on the throne of England, four
+years having elapsed since the downfall of the Commonwealth.
+
+This change in the colony from Dutch to English rule was accomplished
+quietly and peaceably, to the great disgust and indignation of the
+warlike governor, Peter Stuyvesant, who was ready to buckle on his heavy
+armor, take up his sword, and fight the "malignant English," were they
+as ten to one. But the settlers were matter-of-fact farmers and traders,
+lovers of peace, caring little for glory and not overmuch for their
+far-away fatherland. So long as their commercial, domestic, and
+religious rights were respected, they were willing enough to do homage
+to King Charles. So in 1664, New Amsterdam, into whose harbor, said a
+boastful inhabitant, as many as fifteen vessels were known to have
+anchored in the course of one year, became New York, taking its name
+from the title of the king's brother, afterward James II. Beverwyck,
+which had grown up under the guns of Fort Orange, was henceforth to be
+called Albany; and an English governor took the reins of colonial
+government from the hands of Peter Stuyvesant. The British flag floated
+gayly over fort and vessel, and before many years had passed it was
+found necessary to employ an English schoolmaster in Albany, and later
+to build an English church[27] on Joncaer Street.
+
+When young Pieter Schuyler was still learning his lessons in Dutch at
+Fort Orange, and the little Tekakwitha was stringing her wampum beads at
+Gandawague,--while her uncle journeyed frequently back and forth from
+the Mohawk castle to the trading-post on the Hudson, stopping sometimes
+at Schenectady to see his friend Corlaer, and taking his family with him
+now and then to fish at the mouth of the Norman's Kill (near the place
+called Tawasentha[28]),--unsuspected preparations for a surprise were
+going forward in Canada. A war-cloud was gathering in the north, soon to
+break with terrible effect on the three Mohawk castles, and to startle
+the Governor of the Province of New York into a protest against the
+advance of armed troops of King Louis XIV. of France into the colonial
+dominions of his Majesty Charles II. of England. These dominions had
+been so recently acquired by the English King that the French at Quebec
+thought they still belonged to the States General of Holland.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[19] Corlaer, or Van Curler, a brave and worthy man, was the most
+influential settler at Schenectady, and on excellent terms with the
+Mohawk Indians. He had visited them in 1642, on purpose to secure, if
+possible, the ransom of Father Jogues, and had manifested great sympathy
+for him in his captivity.
+
+[20] See Annals of Albany, vol. i. p. 288. The dominie's house here
+mentioned has since given place to the shop which is on the north-east
+corner of Pearl and State Streets. The house used by Megapolensis, who
+was at Beverwyck from 1642 to 1649, and who concealed Father Jogues from
+the Indians, was where Shield's tobacco-factory now stands, close to the
+site of old Fort Orange, and a little south of it. It was built entirely
+of oak, and was purchased on the arrival of Megapolensis for a hundred
+and twenty dollars.
+
+The patroon's first dominie wearied of his frontier work at Fort Orange,
+and went to live at New Amsterdam in 1649. Dominie Schaats was appointed
+to succeed him in the ministry of the church at Beverwyck, where he
+officiated from 1652 to 1683.
+
+[21] Fort Orange stood on Broadway, close to the modern steamboat
+landing of the "People's Line." A bi-centennial tablet, surrounded with
+iron pickets, marks its northeast bastion. It extended back (across the
+freight-tracks that now mar its site) to Church Street.
+
+[22] See O'Callaghan's History of New Netherland, vol. ii.
+
+[23] Alida married Robert Livingston, who was "secretary of Albany"
+under Pieter Schuyler, the first mayor; she was the great-grandmother of
+Robert R. Livingston, the first Chancellor of New York State.
+
+[24] This creek, with its ravine, has entirely disappeared in the
+grading of the modern street.
+
+[25] The dialogue here given is from Mrs. Grant's "Memoirs of American
+Lady." Mrs. Grant describes a later period of Albany history; but the
+way of trading with the Indians was about the same her day as at the
+time of Tekakwitha.
+
+[26] "The Indians have a great contempt, comparatively, for the beads we
+send them, which they consider as only fit for those plebeians who
+cannot by their exertions win anything better. They estimate them,
+compared with their own wampum, as we do pearls compared with paste."
+
+[27] This first English church was not far from the spot where St.
+Peter's Episcopal Church, on State Street, now uprears its beautiful
+square tower with projecting gargoyles. The original structure, however,
+stood out in the centre of the street, while the site of the present
+church was occupied by the earthworks and buildings of the second fort.
+
+[28] See Appendix, Note C.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+AN ARMY ON SNOW-SHOES.
+
+
+The year 1666 was, indeed, an eventful one. It opened with a heavy
+snow-storm, and others followed until the whole Mohawk Valley was
+covered with a depth of feathery whiteness. At its eastern end a dark
+pool lay at the foot of Cohoes Falls, where the frosty spray of the
+roaring cataract glistened on every tiny bush, and the black cliffs on
+either side frowned from under their snowy caps at the silent meeting of
+two frozen rivers; off to the west, at the distant Mohawk castle of
+Tionnontogen, the "Nose" lay frost-bitten at a sudden turn of the
+valley, its long, stiff point thrust down into the ice, and fastened
+there as if held in a vice. Throughout the length of the glittering,
+smooth depression between these two points, the Mohawk seemed to be fast
+asleep beneath its thick mantle of snow.
+
+In the whole valley there was only one hamlet of quiet Dutchmen, who had
+settled themselves at Corlaer (or Schenectady), while in the great bend
+were nestled the snug bark huts of the Indians with their surrounding
+palisades. A chain of Mohawk castles lay on the south side of the river,
+linked together by a single trail,--a narrow footpath through the snow
+along the lower terrace, which is now occupied by the West Shore
+Railway. This trail connected the lodges of the three great Mohawk
+clans,--the Bears of Andagoron in the centre, with the Turtles of
+Gandawague and the Wolves of Tionnontogen on either side. Then it
+extended eastward through dreary solitudes to Schenectady and, on the
+other hand, far westward through lonely passes to the castles of the
+Oneidas; thence on to the Onondagas, the Cayugas, and, last of all, to
+the Senecas. How cold and yet how secure those Iroquois Indians of the
+Five Nations felt in their fastnesses! For hundreds of miles to the
+north and to the south of them lay the all-covering snow, unmarked by
+other human footprints than their own in search of game. The lands of
+their Algonquin foes, though bordering their own domain, were long
+journeys off. The Dutch settlers at Schenectady and Albany were right
+within their grasp, should they choose to distress them; but they had
+solemnly pledged their friendship to them in the Tawasentha Valley ("At
+the Place of many Dead"), and they meant to keep their word. The French,
+however, they delighted to torment. The settlements at Quebec, Three
+Rivers, and Montreal were separated from the Five Nations by the great
+pathless Adirondack wilderness of mountains and forest, and yet two ways
+were open by which they might reach the French. One of their war-paths
+led from Onondaga Lake along the Oswego River and Lake Ontario; then
+through the Thousand Islands and down the rapids of the St. Lawrence
+River. The reverse of this route was taken by the venturesome French
+colonists who, as we have seen, endeavored to make a settlement in the
+heart of the Iroquois country about the time of Tekakwitha's birth.
+Their hairbreadth escape from Onondaga soon after by the same route put
+an end to all thought of settling what the French considered a part of
+New France. This was the region now known as Onondaga County, which the
+Onondaga Indians themselves have claimed from prehistoric times as their
+birthright, and hold yet under the name of the Onondaga Reservation; and
+here, now, in the heart of this great State, in spite of the
+encroachments of two hundred years of civilization, in spite of the
+teachings of Christianity all about them, in spite of the covetous
+longings of many a white man, they still keep a foothold, and maintain
+the practice of their old pagan rites and customs.
+
+The great western route through the Oswego and St. Lawrence rivers to
+Canada, belonging by first right to these Onondagas, was travelled many
+times during Tekakwitha's childhood by the Onondaga statesman
+Garacontie. He frequently restored captives to the French at Quebec, and
+tried often but in vain to keep peace between them and his own race.
+
+The second and more direct of the two great war-paths to Canada was the
+route of the Mohawks. No wonder the Caniengas tormented the French
+settlements on the St. Lawrence. Starting from their castles in the
+Mohawk Valley, and taking any one of three or more trails that crossed
+or skirted our present Saratoga County, they had but to strike Lake
+George, follow the lake to its outlet, traverse the length of Lake
+Champlain, and thence pass through the Richelieu, Sorel, or Iroquois
+River (it was known by all these names), and they were ready to destroy
+the grain, and tomahawk or take captive the wives and children of the
+Canadian settlers. The French had built three forts on this Richelieu
+(or Iroquois) River to check their inroads,--Fort Richelieu, Fort St.
+Louis, and Fort St. Therese,--and were now only waiting till spring
+opened to erect a fourth, to be called Fort St. Anne, on an island at
+the northern end of Lake Champlain.
+
+Samuel de Champlain, the first Frenchman who set foot on New York soil,
+was chiefly responsible for the long-continued wars between his
+countrymen and the Iroquois, he having fired without provocation on a
+band of Iroquois warriors, probably Mohawks, when he first sailed into
+the lake which bears his name. By repeated outrages on the Canadian
+frontier the Mohawks had amply revenged themselves for that first
+affront; and by the end of the year 1665 they had goaded the French into
+a determination to brave unheard of risks and frightful sufferings, that
+they might punish their savage enemies in a manner that would for once
+and all humiliate and subdue them. Thus it was that on the 9th of
+January, 1666, a heroic army composed of three hundred regular French
+troops of the regiment Carignan-Salieres, veterans who had seen service
+in Turkey in the wars of Louis XIV., together with two hundred
+_habitans_, or hardy volunteers from the Canadian colony, all under the
+command of M. de Courselle, Governor of Canada, were fairly started on a
+march from Quebec to the Mohawk castles. They intended to push on
+without delay to their destination through snow and ice, over rivers and
+lakes, by the great Mohawk route. It had been travelled hitherto only by
+Indians, captives, and a few missionaries, with now and then perhaps a
+solitary adventurer; rarely, indeed, by any even of these in the depth
+of winter. This army of De Courselle's was the very first of a great
+succession of pale-face armies that have come tramping over the same
+route during the last two centuries. If Burgoyne's march to the Saratoga
+battle-field was the most famous of all these, De Courselle's march to
+the Mohawk was certainly the first and the most heroic in its struggle
+with unparalleled difficulties.
+
+"This march could not but be tedious, every one having snow-shoes on his
+feet, to the use of which none were accustomed; and all, not excepting
+the officers or even M. de Courselle himself, being loaded each with
+from twenty-five to thirty pounds of biscuit, clothing, and other
+necessaries."[29] It did, indeed, require a _French courage_ to
+undertake such an expedition. "Many had, as early as the third day,
+parts of the body frozen, and were so benumbed by the cold that they had
+to be carried to the place where they were to pass the night." The 25th
+of January was especially severe, and many soldiers were obliged to be
+taken back to the settlements, "of whom some had the legs cut by the
+ice, and others the hands or the arms or other parts of the body
+altogether frozen." The ranks were filled up again at Forts St. Louis
+and St. Therese, on the Richelieu River, where the troops assembled on
+the 30th of the same month; and being still five hundred strong, they
+pushed bravely on over the snow that lay so level and smooth on the
+frozen bosom of Lake Champlain. Here the route lay plainly before them,
+and they were counting on Algonquin guides to show them the way to the
+Mohawk castles after they got to the southern end of Lake St. Sacrament
+(Lake George). The snow was "hard frozen, though in most places four
+foote deep; and besides using Indian snow-shoes, which hath the very
+form of a Rackett tyed to each foote, whereby the body and feet are kept
+from sinking into the snow, ... the Governor caused slight sledges to be
+made in good number, and laying provisions upon them drew them over the
+snow with mastive doggs."
+
+The shivering troops wrapped their blankets tightly round them as they
+lay down to sleep on the snow at the foot of Mount Defiance, or threaded
+the narrow valley leading to Lake George. The awkward soldier striding
+over the snow fumbles with frost-bitten fingers in his knapsack for the
+last of his biscuits. As one might have foretold, he has stepped on the
+snow-shoe of his comrade, and both go plunging head-foremost into the
+snow. The dogs jogging on beside them, unchecked for a moment, run
+wildly on, barking aloud and scattering the load of the toboggan to
+which they are attached. The articles are rescued piecemeal by the
+soldiers all along the line. There is no time to stop, however,--they
+must march on or starve; so, giving their fallen comrades momentary help
+to set them on their feet again, they are left to fall into line as best
+they may and just in time to bring up the rear.
+
+As the army passes over Lake George, in the shadow of Black Mountain,
+how eagerly De Courselle looks back at his staggering column of men!
+Were he in a less serious mood, he might be inclined to smile at the
+efforts of the gallant troops of the regiment Carignan-Salieres to
+maintain an orderly march on the unaccustomed snow-shoes; but the
+anxious commander has other thoughts than these. Where are his
+Algonquin guides? Have the rascals failed him? Calling the Jesuit
+chaplain, Father Raffeix, to his side, a consultation ensues. They are
+already nearing the future site of Fort William Henry, and there the
+trails divide. They scan the shores of the lake and search the islands,
+but neither Algonquin friend nor Iroquois foe is in sight. They know
+that if they march on until they reach the Hudson and follow it down,
+they will find the Dutch at Fort Orange, but that is not their object.
+They long for a chance to strike a decisive blow at the Mohawk castles.
+If they can once convince the Mohawks that they are not secure in their
+forest homes from the armies of France nor the strong revengeful arm of
+Onnontio,[30] a treaty will afterwards be of some value. The Jesuit
+Father who talks with De Courselle dreams already of a mission
+established among them as the result of that future treaty. With ardent
+enthusiasm he sees in anticipation an army of Jesuits march to a
+spiritual attack on the citadel of Satan upreared in the Iroquois
+country. His heart thrills at the thought of reaching the spot where
+Isaac Jogues was martyred. Father Lemoyne, the second Ondessonk, has
+died since then. The Onondagas that very year sent presents to Quebec to
+wipe away the tears shed for his death, thus expressing their sorrow and
+their admiration for his character. Father Raffeix cheers with zealous
+words the drooping spirits of the soldiers, then kneels amid the snows
+of Lake St. Sacrament, and in the true spirit of his order, prays in his
+heart for a share in the glorious work of continuing Ondessonk's
+mission.
+
+The army of De Courselle at the southern end of Lake George was
+uncertain which trail to follow. At the Turtle Castle on the Mohawk the
+Indians had no knowledge of the march of their enemies, else there would
+have been great alarm at Gandawague; for all the ablest warriors of the
+three castles, in company with the Oneidas, were making war on the tribe
+called Wampum-makers. Only boys and helpless old men were left in the
+lodges with the women. They knew nothing of De Courselle and his army so
+near at hand, but, like their Dutch neighbors at Schenectady, were
+earnestly fighting their nearer and more pitiless foe the bitter winter.
+All the fuel near their lodges had been burned long ago; and now they
+are searching the snow-drifts for fagots and branches fallen from the
+trees. The cold is intense. The wind that whistles through the palisades
+of the Turtle village is the same sharp blast that is pinching De
+Courselle's army.
+
+At Gandawague, outside of the palisade is a little girl on snow-shoes,
+only nine years old, who with imperfect sight is groping her way through
+the blinding storm. The snow is drifting wildly about. The one whom she
+calls mother is only an aunt, and the aunt is cold and cross to-day. She
+sits by the dying embers there in the lodge of the absent chief, and by
+turns she shivers and scolds. The other women beside her are equally
+cheerless. The little niece, who has missed the kindly look she knows
+well how to win from her Mohawk uncle by welcome services when he is
+there in the lodge, has taken it into her head this comfortless day to
+surprise her cross old aunts and her adopted sister. So she has quietly
+tied on her snow-shoes and ventured out. She is in the forest, alone,
+searching for fagots. On her forehead is a burden-strap, made from
+filaments of bass-wood bark, the ends twisted into a kind of Indian
+rope. With it she fastens the fagots together, bearing them on her back.
+Her hands are tingling with cold; but she plunges them deep into the
+snow in an effort to break the larger twigs, while she hurries on to
+increase her load. She is happier now in the howling storm than she was
+in the pent lodge, and smiles as she thinks of the blazing fire she will
+make to warm the feet and thaw the heart of her morose old aunt. Ah!
+Tekakwitha, that grim old squaw is training you, without knowing it, for
+heroic things. But after all, the aunt is not a neglectful guardian.
+After a while she misses the child, and questions all in the lodge; then
+peers out into the storm and shrinks back, shuddering. Has she indeed
+allowed Tekakwitha to wander out and perish in the cold? In that case
+what will she be able to say to the uncle when he returns; what will
+become of her own plans for the girl? As time goes on, there comes a
+faint scuffling at the door; the heavy curtain is lifted a little and
+falls again. No one has entered. Hurrying to the door, the old squaw
+thrusts the curtain aside, and there she beholds the child staggering
+under her load of wood, stiff and helpless from the cold. Leaving the
+fagots at the door, she lifts her gently in her arms and takes her to
+the fire, which is soon blazing brightly, fed by the new supply of wood
+quickly thrown upon it. But the glow of the fire, round which they all
+gather, is not half so cheering to the heart of the frostbitten child as
+the glow of love she has awakened in the lodge by her sweet unselfish
+care for their comfort. This once, at least, they give her the warmest
+seat, and fill her bowl brimful with the freshly made sagamite; then
+they question her about her walk, and wonder how she escaped being
+buried in the snow. Tekakwitha smiles with happy content, and answers
+their questions with a ready wit. She makes them laugh as she tells them
+a merry story of how the north-wind slapped her in the face and bound
+her fast to the hickory-tree against which she stumbled in the storm. In
+her heart she is saying all the time, as she watches the cheery light of
+the fire, "I will do it again."
+
+But where is De Courselle now and his army on snow-shoes? We left them
+at the southern end of Lake George. There they took the trail that met
+the Hudson at its great bend to the southward near Glenn's Falls. Then
+after crossing the river they followed a straight trail leading a little
+west of south, and passed between Saratoga Lake and Owl Pond or Lake
+Lonely. Next they followed up the valleys of Kayaderosseras Creek and
+the Mourning Kill to Ballston Lake; but there, happily for Tekakwitha's
+people, they made a mistake.[31] Instead of taking the trail that
+branched off to the west at the northern end of Ballston Lake, and led
+directly to the Mohawk castles, they followed the straight trail
+southward; so instead of surprising the Mohawks, they themselves were
+indeed surprised to find that it brought them to a hamlet, not of
+Indians, but of Dutchmen,--not subjects of Holland at all, but colonists
+subject to England. They were greatly bewildered. We are told in an old
+London document[32] at M. de Courselle encamped--
+
+     "upon the 9th of February within 2 myles of a small village
+     called Schonectade, lying in the woods beyond fort Albany in ye
+     territoryes of his Royall highness, and 3 dayes march from the
+     first castle of the Mohaukes.
+
+     "The French suposed they were then come to their designed
+     place, and the rather because y^t evening they did rancounter
+     w^{th} a party of the Mohaukes who made appearance of
+     retreating from the French, whereupon a party of 60 of their
+     best Fuzileers after them, but that small party drew the French
+     into an ambuscade of neare 200 Mohaukes planted behind trees,
+     (who taking their advantage as it fell into their hands) at one
+     volley slew eleuen French men whereof one was a Lieuten^t
+     wounded divers others, the french party made an honorable
+     retreit to their body, w^{ch} was marching after them close at
+     hand, w^{ch} gave the Mohawkes tyme and opportunity to march
+     off w^{th} the loss of only 3 slaine upon the plaice and 6
+     wounded, the report whereof was soone brought to Schonecktade
+     by those Indians, with the heads of 4 of the ffrench to the
+     Commissary of the Village who immediately despatched the newes
+     to Fort Albany, from whence the next day 3 of the principle
+     inhabitants were sent to Monsier Coursell the Governo^r of
+     Canada to inquire of his intention to bring such a body of
+     armed men into the dominions of his Ma^{tie} of Great
+     Brittaine, w^{th}out acquainting the Governo^r of these parts
+     w^{th} his designes. The Governo^r reply^d that he came to
+     seeke out and destroy his ennemyes the Mohaukes without
+     intention of visiting their plantations, or else to molest any
+     of his Ma^{ties} subjects, and that [he] had not heard of the
+     reducing those parts to his Ma^{ties} obedience, but desired
+     that hee and his soldiers might bee supplied with provisions
+     for their money, and that his wounded men might be sucoured,
+     and taken care for in Albany; To all which the Emissaryes
+     freely consented and made a small but acceptable present of
+     wine and provisions to him, further offering the best
+     accommodations y^e poore village afforded, w^{ch} was civilly
+     refus'd, in regard there was not accommodacon for his soldyers,
+     with whom he had marcht and campt under the blew canopye of the
+     heavens full six weekes, but hee prudently foresaw a greater
+     inconvenience if hee brought his weary and half starv'd people
+     within the smell of a chimney corner, whom hee now could keepe
+     from stragling or running away, not knowing whither to runn for
+     feare of y^e Indians; The next day Monsieur Corsell sent his
+     men to the village where they were carefully drest and sent to
+     Albany, being seaven in number, the Dutch bores carryed to the
+     camp such provisions as they had, and were too well payd for
+     it; Especially peaz and bread, of w^{ch} a good quantity was
+     bought; y^e Mohaukes were all gone to their Castles, with
+     resolution to fight it out against the ffrench, who being
+     refresht and supplyed w^{th} the aforesaid provisions made a
+     shew of marching towards the Mohaukes Castles, but with faces
+     about and great sylence and dilligence return'd towards
+     Cannada.... Those who observed the words and countenance of
+     Monsieur Coursell, saw him disturbed in minde that the king was
+     Master of these parts of the Country, saying that the king of
+     England did graspe at all America.... Two prisoners taken by
+     the Mohaukes in the retreate tell them y^t this summer another
+     attempt will be made upon their country, with a greater force
+     and supplyes of men, the truth or success of which I shall not
+     now discourse upon, having given the trew relation of what past
+     from ye 29^{th} December to the 12^{th} of February."
+
+Another and larger force did attack the Mohawk castles in the year 1666,
+as hinted at in the lines just quoted, but not until late in the autumn;
+and at that time Tekakwitha was disturbed and distressed far more than
+she had been by the misdirected march of the "army on snow-shoes."
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[29] See O'Callaghan's "Documentary History of New York," vol. i. for
+papers relating to this expedition of Governor de Courselle to the
+Mohawk River.
+
+[30] A name which the Indians gave to the Governor of Canada.
+
+[31] These facts are to be found in a note by Gen. J. S. Clark, given in
+the Appendix, Note D, "Mohawk Trails."
+
+[32] See O'Callaghan's "Documentary History," vol. i., from which are
+quoted all the passages here given referring to De Courselles and De
+Tracy's expeditions.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+DE TRACY BURNS THE MOHAWK CASTLES.--FALL OF TIONNONTOGEN.
+
+
+In the summer following De Courselle's expedition, ten deputies from the
+nations of the Iroquois League met at Quebec, and signed a treaty of
+peace. In addition to strange pictures which were the marks of the
+Indian chiefs, the document bears the signature of Daniel de Courselle,
+Governor of Canada, and that of "Lord de Tracy, member of his Majesty's
+councils and Lieutenant-General of his armies both in the Islands and
+mainland of South and North America." The treaty is also signed by the
+Jesuits, Le Mercier and Chaumonot, as interpreters of the Iroquois and
+Huron languages. It states that the orator and chief, called Soenres,
+announced "the object of the Embassy by ten talks expressed by as many
+presents," and also that he brought letters from the officers of New
+Netherland. The substance of his harangue was that the Indians wanted
+peace, and they asked that blackgowns might be sent to teach them. They
+promised to listen to their preaching and to adore the God of the
+French. They also offered to trade with the Canadians by way of Lake St.
+Sacrament, and assured them of a welcome in their lodges. What more
+could be desired? But, alas! scarcely were the ambassadors two or three
+days' journey from Quebec, when news came of the surprisal by the
+Mohawks of some Frenchmen belonging to Fort St. Anne who had gone to the
+chase, and of the murder of a captain in the Carignan regiment.
+
+The time for peace had not yet come. The Mohawks had not been fairly
+represented in the embassy; they were far from being awed by the
+fruitless march of De Courselle to the Mohawk Valley. The French had yet
+to strike the decisive blow. M. de Tracy resolved, "despite his advanced
+age, to lead in person against these Barbarians an army composed of six
+hundred soldiers drafted from all the companies, and of six hundred
+_habitans_ of the country," to which were added one hundred Huron and
+Algonquin savages. This was more than twice the number of the original
+army of De Courselle, who, still bent on victory, determined to
+accompany this second expedition. The general rendezvous was at Fort St.
+Anne, newly built, as had been planned, on an island in Lake Champlain.
+On the 3d of October, 1666, all were ready to start. Three hundred
+vessels were there to bear them over the placid bosom of the lake, whose
+wooded shores were now aglow with October coloring. The vessels were
+light batteaux and bark canoes, which could be carried from lake to lake
+and from stream to stream. There was great difficulty at the carries,
+however, with two small cannon which they took with them for the purpose
+of forcing the Iroquois fortifications. Grown wiser by experience, they
+also made sure of their guides.
+
+The expedition moved forward as secretly and noiselessly as possible
+through Lake Champlain and then Lake George; but the quick eye of an
+Iroquois hunter, high on a mountain, espied the fleet of batteaux on
+the lake, and bounding through the forest to the first, or Turtle,
+castle on the Mohawk, his cry of alarm startled the people of
+Gandawague, and Tekakwitha among the rest, from their accustomed
+occupations. Hastily gathering together their treasures, they fled at
+once to Andagoron, the Castle of the Bears. Thence, after spreading the
+alarm through the outlying hamlets and holding a hurried consultation,
+they all retired to Tionnontogen, the third, or Castle of the Wolves,
+hidden behind the Nose. There they stored an abundant supply of grain,
+and prepared to defend themselves. This castle of Tionnontogen was the
+strongest of their fortifications. It had a triple palisade. The spot
+where it stood can easily be found at the present day. One has but to
+leave the West Shore Railway at Spraker's Basin,--a small station on the
+south side of the Mohawk River, just east of Canajoharie and Palatine
+Bridge,--then follow a road which winds up the hill to a farm a few rods
+distant, which was owned in 1885 by Mitchell. Like the other
+village-sites, already described, it is on high ground, or the
+upper-river terrace. Near the farm-house is a large spring, surrounded
+by shade-trees, in the centre of a meadow. It is now frequented
+principally by thirsty cows; but it was once the chief water-supply of
+the Mohawk castle. Behind the house is a perfectly level plateau; from
+it the land descends on its northern side by steep terraces to the
+Mohawk, and to the west it sinks rapidly into a picturesque ravine,
+where strawberries, wintergreen berries, rare ferns, and little pink
+flowers grow in abundance. Flat Creek flows through the ravine. On this
+plateau many iron hatchets and wagon-loads of Indian relics of various
+kinds have been found.[33]
+
+There the castle of Tionnontogen stood at the time of De Tracy's
+expedition. The view up the river at that point is extensive
+and beautiful; but in the opposite direction, or down the river, a
+sharp turn of the valley shuts out from sight the narrow opening or
+pass between the Nose and the other similar mountain on the south
+side of the river, which, as one travels round the bend, seems to
+approach and finally to overlap it. The name of the castle was
+significant,--Tionnontogen, or "Two Mountains approaching." Where else
+could it possibly have been in the whole valley but right there by the
+Nose? Their friends, the Oneidas, lay to the westward of them, and their
+enemies mostly to the eastward; it was but natural, then, that they
+should build their principal fort far enough up the river to bring it
+behind the overlapping mountains. In order to reach Tionnontogen the
+army of De Tracy had to come through that narrow pass. The people who
+were lying in wait at the castle, though on high ground, would not
+therefore be able to see their enemies approaching till they had rounded
+the Nose, and were close upon them.
+
+After disembarking at the head of the lake, De Tracy led his army, by
+way of an Indian trail, southeasterly about nine miles to Glenn's
+Falls,[34] where he crossed the Hudson, thence passing south of Moreau
+Pond and east of Mount McGregor, through Doe's Corners, near Stiles
+Hill, and then near Glen Mitchell to Saratoga Springs, following
+substantially the present highway along the base of the ridge of hills
+south of Mount McGregor. From Saratoga the expedition passed near
+Ballston, and thence slightly curving seems to have proceeded in a very
+direct course to the Mohawk castles, which lay off to the westward. One
+of the trails leading in that direction struck the Mohawk River at
+Kinaquariones, or Hoffman's Ferry, and another at Amsterdam. From this
+latter point, a short march up the Mohawk Valley brought De Tracy to
+Gandawague. One after another, he captured the deserted towns of the
+Mohawks without striking a single blow. First Gandawague, then
+Andagoron,--both on the south side of the river,--with possibly one or
+more smaller towns, fell into his hands; and on he went to Tionnontogen,
+marching proudly up the valley with his two cannon, brought with such
+difficulty from Canada, and his Algonquin allies, who had faithfully
+guided him into the very heart of the Mohawk country, and his brave army
+of twelve hundred picked men, armed _cap-a-pie_ in all the panoply of
+civilized warfare. Never before was anything like it seen in that wild
+region. Only three or four hundred Mohawk warriors, all told, were
+gathered behind the palisades of Tionnontogen to oppose him. There was
+no time to summon their allies, the Oneidas, to their assistance. The
+movements of the French had been too rapid. They had only time to crowd
+together the women and children into their strongest fortress of
+defence, and there await the result, whatever it might be.
+
+Could the Mohawks soon forget the ruin that the French soldiers wrought
+on their way from Gandawague? Even the child Tekakwitha must have been
+stirred with a feeling of indignation and a cruel sense of wrong, as
+that foreign army came nearer and nearer to her place of refuge, moving
+steadily on through her own fair valley, with a march like the march of
+fate,--destroying all that came in its way, wreaking its vengeance on
+corn-field and cabin, in baffled fury at finding no foe to slay. With
+ever increasing horror and anxious bewilderment, she watched and waited
+with her people in the castle of Tionnontogen. Her uncle and all the
+Canienga warriors had staked everything they possessed on its defence.
+They had stored their provisions for the winter carefully away inside of
+its stout palisade. It was, as already mentioned, a triple palisade,
+twenty feet in height, and flanked by four bastions; that is to say,
+there were three distinct rows of upright posts encircling the town.[35]
+The main or central wall of thick-set overlapping palisadoes had an
+inner and an outer platform, or scaffolding, near the top, running all
+the way round. These platforms, being nineteen or twenty feet above the
+ground, extended horizontally from the central to the inner and outer
+walls of palisadoes. The latter were higher, and not so compact as the
+central wall. These outside palisadoes, reaching almost to a man's
+height above the platform, were set short spaces apart, and covered near
+the top with a solid surface of thick bark. This protected the warriors
+when they stood high on the outer platform to fire their guns and aim
+their arrows at the enemy over the top of this bark breastwork. Just
+behind them, on the inner and adjoining platform, were numerous bark
+tanks containing an abundant supply of water to be used in extinguishing
+any fire that might be started at the base of the palisade. This was the
+form of attack they most dreaded. To make the approach more difficult,
+they also dug trenches between the walls of palisadoes, and especially
+on the outer side, heaping up the earth at the base of the
+fortifications. Then, too, before the enemy could get at the palisade at
+all, they had to break through a low bark fence which stood some
+distance outside of the triple wall, built there for the purpose of
+breaking the force of an attack. If the foe succeeded in starting a fire
+at the base of the main wall, a flood of water was poured down at once
+through holes in the high platform by the warriors who were defending
+the castle. In cases of this kind the women assisted by keeping up the
+supply of water. Such were the methods of defence in use at Tionnontogen
+in 1666. They had proved effectual against all the efforts of savage
+foes. But let us see if they prove equally so against the skilful
+manoeuvres of De Tracy's civilized army, now close at hand? Tekakwitha's
+uncle may have had his doubts as to this; but nevertheless the bark
+tanks were well filled, and all was made ready to give the foe a defiant
+reception. The warriors were in fighting gear, and hourly waiting the
+attack.
+
+It was just at this time that several Indian captives of other tribes
+held by these Mohawks were brought out to be tortured and burned with
+solemn rites in the public square of Tionnontogen; thus they hoped to
+propitiate their war-god, Aireskoi. Tekakwitha would not on any account
+show herself during this ceremony, as she never had the cruel spirit
+which the savage women often showed. Chauchetiere tells us that she
+could not endure to see harm done to any one, and that she thought it a
+sin to go to see a man burned.
+
+This heathen rite was scarcely over, when the women and children were
+suddenly withdrawn from Tionnontogen Castle; a council of war, it seems,
+had changed the plans of the braves. Those who could not fight were
+hurried off to the higher hills behind the fortified plateau, and
+concealed in the woods; the warriors alone remained in the town. As the
+advancing army of De Tracy came within reach of their bullets and
+arrows, they kept up a sharp fire from the palisade; but they no sooner
+saw the French soldiers deliberately pause, plant their cannon, and
+prepare to attack their wooden castle in regular form, than the utter
+hopelessness of the contest dawned fully upon them. Without waiting to
+receive the opening fire of the French cannon, they quickly deserted
+their primitive fortifications, leaving behind them a few helpless old
+men who did not wish to move and the half-roasted victims of the demon's
+sacrifice. De Tracy lost no time in taking possession of this last
+stronghold of the Canienga nation; without loss of life he and his army
+entered Tionnontogen Castle in triumph.
+
+The child Tekakwitha, concealed in the forest near at hand, must have
+heard the solemn swell of the _Te Deum_ as it rose with one accord,
+full, rich, and clear, from the ranks of the conquering army. Never
+before had she heard that strange, sweet chorus of sound. The Mohawk
+Valley had often echoed with the war-whoop and the shriek of the
+tortured captive; it had rung at times with the harvest-song, and had
+caught up the wailing chant of the League over many a dead chief's body.
+But the solemn music of the _Te Deum_ which now reached her ears was
+unlike any of these, and the tall cross that the soldiers of France
+raised over the ashes of Aireskoi's fire in the public square of
+Tionnontogen cast unfamiliar shadows on the long Mohawk cabins clustered
+silent and empty within the triple wall. Father Raffeix, the chaplain,
+said Mass there, thinking perhaps of Isaac Jogues, and praying for the
+heathen Indians who were hiding in the forest. He did not then know how
+soon the rustic chapel of St. Mary of the Mohawks would be standing
+there with open door to welcome them to prayer. While this first Mass
+was being said at Tionnontogen, the Mohawk warriors, moody and sullen,
+were gathered near their families. A low and mournful wail from the
+women called the attention of all to the blazing palisades of
+Tionnontogen. The crackling fire kindled by their enemies lit up with a
+lurid glare the now retiring army of De Tracy, for he speedily retraced
+his steps, and was soon hidden from view behind the mountains at the
+Nose. As he moved on down the valley whence he came, the armor of his
+twelve hundred men flashed back again and again the blaze of a ruined
+Mohawk town; all their castles were burned. At the "Fort of
+Andaraque,"--to use the words of an old document (probably meaning
+Gandawague),--De Tracy paused on the 17th of October to take solemn
+possession of the conquered country in the name of the King of France.
+In token thereof, he planted another cross, and near it a post, to which
+he affixed the arms of Louis XIV. Tekakwitha, with her aunts and her
+mother's friend Tegonhatsihongo, must have seen these emblems at the
+door of the smoking palisade when they went back to find what was left
+of their blackened lodges on the bank of Auries Creek.
+
+De Tracy, the gray-haired conqueror, now returned to Canada; and the
+unhappy Mohawks, in straggling bands, sought out their desolated
+homes,--secure in life and limb, to be sure, but bereft of all
+provisions for the winter. No golden ears of corn hung, as usual, from
+their lodge-poles. They had no furs, no beans, no nut-oil. They were
+forced to live in temporary huts, and to wait in hunger and cold for the
+coming of the spring-time. Thus, in sorrow and destitution, Tekakwitha
+passed a dreary winter among the ruins of Gandawague, doing her best as
+usual to put things in order. During this time she lived on what roots
+and berries could be found, and a scant allowance of the game her uncle
+caught. Spring came at last; and a busy one it was for the houseless
+Mohawks. With the genial warmth that quickly followed, there came also a
+strange, new gleam of light to the young Tekakwitha.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[33] The most interesting of these are in the collection of Mr. Frey, of
+Palatine Bridge.
+
+[34] The march of De Tracy as here given was traced out by General Clark
+from a copy which he has of a map relating to the expeditions of De
+Tracy and De Courselle. The original map is preserved in the Paris
+archives.
+
+[35] See Appendix, Note E, "Indian Defensive Works."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+TEKAKWITHA'S CHRISTIAN GUESTS.--RAWENNIIO.
+
+
+The year 1667 found Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas at
+peace with the Canadian settlers. This blessed peace crowned with
+success the persevering efforts of Garacontie, and brought the
+long-deferred answer to the prayer of Tekakwitha's mother. Onnontio was
+appeased; Frenchmen and Iroquois could now clasp hands, and the lovers
+of peace on either side--an ever increasing party--came boldly forward,
+asserting their claim to be heard, and holding all turbulent spirits in
+check. There was nothing to be lost, and much to be gained on both sides
+by peace. The French could now increase their trade, and the Iroquois
+were glad once more to turn their arms against aggressive Indian
+neighbors. The Mohegans, or Loups, on the Hudson, uniting with those of
+New England, were growing haughty and insolent to the Mohawk people,
+making raids on their hunting-grounds, and taking advantage of their
+temporary distress to settle old scores; this trouble, however, was
+still a side issue. It caused just uneasiness enough to make the Mohawks
+anxious for the speedy return of their deputies from Quebec, with full
+assurance of a permanent peace with the French. All through the spring
+of 1667, Tekakwitha's people were clearing new corn-fields on the north
+side of the Mohawk, and choosing new sites for their castles.
+Tionnontogen, the capital, claiming their first share of attention, was
+hastily rebuilt higher up the river and still on the south side, being
+now a quarter of a league from its old site. The populations of
+Gandawague and Andagoron were divided; some remained at the old
+half-ruined castles, and others moved across the river as rapidly as
+they could build cabins for themselves. This they began to do "after the
+bark would peel;"[36] that is, as soon as the season was far enough
+advanced for them to make use of that all-important material, in the use
+of which they were so expert. The task of building a palisaded Indian
+castle was slow and tedious,--the work of many long months, with their
+primitive methods. While they were in this transition state, the Mohawk
+deputies, having agreed on the terms of peace, returned from Quebec.
+They left that city in July, 1667, accompanied by three Jesuit Fathers.
+
+The story of the Jesuit Father and his work crowds the pages of our
+early history. Wherever the red man plays an important part, there close
+at hand is the blackgown with his crucifix and his works on the Indian
+language,--becoming a linguist that he may make known to the Indian,
+whatever his tribe, the "good tidings of great joy;" using the artist's
+brush that he may in some way represent to his neophytes the Christ;
+even taxing his ingenuity in the invention of games by means of which to
+hold the attention of the savages and teach them the simplest laws of
+morality; striving always to lead them step by step to a better
+understanding of the duties of a Christian life. Such were the men now
+on their way to the Mohawk from Quebec.
+
+Earnest, zealous, with a firm determination to overcome all the
+obstacles before them in their spiritual combat with the demons of
+paganism, came the three Fathers, Fremin, Bruyas, and Pierron, with the
+Mohawk deputies. They had been chosen by the French authorities from the
+ever ready ranks of Jesuit volunteers, who never lost an opportunity to
+gain the ear of the red man. Already they had acquired some knowledge of
+the language; Father Fremin, of the three, understood it best. Then,
+too, it was well known by all that the presence of French blackgowns in
+the Iroquois country, sent by the Governor of Canada, would be in itself
+a guarantee of peace. They were made the bearers of presents to insure
+them a welcome in the Mohawk lodges. On their journey to the castles
+they were delayed for a time by reports that the forest was alive with
+Mohegan war-parties; but when, in course of time, they did fall in with
+a band of warriors, it turned out to be a scouting-party of Mohawks,
+who, alarmed by the long absence of their deputies, began to suspect
+another French invasion. They were therefore well pleased to see the
+missionaries, and willingly led them from the vicinity of Lake George to
+the northern bank of the Mohawk. There they crossed the river in canoes,
+probably from the place now occupied by the De Graff house. Above them,
+on the crest of a hill, stood all that was left of Gandawague, the
+Turtle Castle, where Tekakwitha and her uncle the chief still dwelt.
+They had not yet moved to the new site "at the Rapids," near Fonda. The
+three French guests of the nation were conducted up the steep ascent to
+the town with great formality and many ceremonies of welcome, not with
+the strokes of iron rods and the bitter taunts with which some of these
+same old men and women when in their prime had received Father Jogues at
+their former castle of Ossernenon, a little more than twenty years
+before. But why were not Fathers Fremin, Bruyas, and Pierron at once
+conducted up the valley to be welcomed by the Bears, and thence on to
+the westward to be lodged in state by the Wolves at Tionnontogen, the
+capital, as had invariably been the custom of the Caniengas in receiving
+distinguished guests, or even important captives? The answer that
+history gives is simple enough. The Fathers "happened to arrive at a
+time when these people are accustomed to plunge into all kinds of
+debauchery, and found no one, therefore, in a fit state to receive
+them." A drunken riot of several days' duration was going on within the
+newly built palisades of Tionnontogen. The Mohawks had chosen to
+celebrate in that way their returning prosperity.
+
+So the Fathers were detained three days in the lodge of Tekakwitha's
+uncle at the Turtle Castle. Chauchetiere and Cholenec, and all who have
+written of Tekakwitha find in this seemingly simple incident only one of
+many mystic links that make up the chain of her Christian life,--a sure
+effect of a potent cause,--the all-conquering love of the Spirit of God
+reaching toward its spirit-child, though clothed in the humble form of
+an Indian girl. Unknown, and therefore as yet unloved by her, the Great
+Father and Source of our spirit natures saw "His own image and likeness"
+expanding pure and fair in the untaught soul of Tekakwitha. All-knowing,
+all-powerful, planning the course of events without effort, He chose
+the surest way and the aptest time to make Himself known, thus securing
+at once the answer of love that was destined to lift and shield from all
+blemish this wondrous opening "Lily." He sent His messengers into the
+Mohawk Valley when Tekakwitha alone of her nation was ready and fit to
+receive them. Hers, then, was the privilege of lodging and entertaining
+them.
+
+At that time the Iroquois were thorough pagans, and practised a species
+of devil-worship. They believed in Tharonyawagon, the "Holder of the
+Heavens," a good genius of the Kanonsionni, who bestowed on them their
+hunting-grounds and fisheries,--a harmless deity, to whom they were
+grateful in a vague way for past favors; but they do not seem to have
+worshipped him with any formality. They reserved their sacrifices and
+solemn rites for Aireskoi, a demon of war, whom they greatly feared.
+Hiawatha, the "Wampum-Seeker,"[37] though sometimes confused with
+Tharonyawagon, was undoubtedly a real personage. He was one of the
+founders of the Iroquois League of Nations, which is called to this day
+the "Great Peace." He is said to have lived about fifty years, as nearly
+as can be reckoned, before the earliest white settlers came to America.
+His aspirations and his teachings prepared the Iroquois to some extent
+for the reception of Christian ideas, but the original teachings of
+Hiawatha seem to have been very soon distorted and strangely mingled
+with myths. The League of Nations which he labored to establish, with
+the grand idea of eventually uniting all men in a common bond of
+brotherhood and peace, became on the contrary, in the hands of the
+Iroquois chiefs who followed him, a great engine of war, crushing all
+tribes that refused to come under its laws. Just enough of its original
+spirit remained to cause the Iroquois thoroughly to incorporate and make
+one with themselves the captives of all those peoples whose separate
+existence they destroyed. Tharonyawagon, Aireskoi, and Hiawatha were all
+familiar words in the ears of the Mohawk girl. But Rawenniio, the true
+God[38] was still unknown to her.
+
+Charlevoix, the learned author of the "History of New France," who wrote
+an account of Kateri Tekakwitha about the year 1732, after mentioning
+the fact that "as soon as she was able to work she undertook the entire
+charge of the household," continues thus:--
+
+     "The first knowledge she received of Christianity was given her
+     by the Jesuit missionaries who were sent to the Iroquois
+     nations by M. de Tracy. They passed on their way through the
+     town where she lived, and lodged in her cabin. She was charged
+     with their entertainment, of which she acquitted herself in a
+     manner which surprised them. She had herself been struck at the
+     sight of them, and felt in her heart strange sentiments.... The
+     fervor and recollectedness of these Jesuit Fathers at their
+     prayers inspired her with the desire to pray with them; this
+     desire she expressed to them; indeed they quickly divined it
+     from her actions, and instructed her in the great truths of
+     Christianity as well as their short stay in the town permitted,
+     and quitted her with a regret fully reciprocated on her part."
+
+There are those, as we have said, who believe that the prayer of
+Tekakwitha's dying mother had guided the steps of these missionaries
+straight to the lodge of her child, and left them there three days to be
+waited on and cared for by the shy but capable little Mohawk
+housekeeper, the niece of the chief at Gandawague. His people, as we
+already know, were away on a debauch at Tionnontogen,--a revel too
+disgraceful for the admission of guests whom they wished to honor. The
+Mohawks must have been hard pushed indeed when they handed over the
+envoys of the Canadian Governor whom they were anxious just then to
+conciliate, to the care of a mere child, even though she were high in
+rank; but Tekakwitha's uncle knew she could be trusted to do her part
+well. How well she did it Cholenec tells us in the following words:--
+
+     "She was charged with the task of lodging the missionaries and
+     attending to their wants. The modesty and sweetness with which
+     she acquitted herself of this duty touched her new guests;
+     while she on her part was struck with their affable manners,
+     their regularity in prayer, and the other exercises into which
+     they divided the day."
+
+Had they remained longer in the village, she would probably have asked
+for baptism.
+
+As it was, she stole silently out of the lodge in the dusk of evening to
+bring water for the simple Indian repast she was preparing for her
+guests, and all the while her thought was alive with God,--the God she
+had never known, the God of the pale-face and of the Mohawk as well (for
+this much they had told her in their broken utterance of her own
+language); he was the God, too, of their Mohegan enemies. Here, indeed,
+was a new idea to the Mohawk girl. She had heard her people mention the
+God of the French, no doubt, and had wondered if he were kind like
+Tharonyawagon or cruel like Aireskoi; but this God whom the blackgowns
+told her of, was not _their_ Lord and "Master of Life" any more than
+_hers_. He was the God of all men, whether they worshipped him or
+not,--of pale-face and redskin, of Mohawk and Mohegan. He loved them all
+with a father's love,--alas! Tekakwitha knew what that meant, if only
+from observation and from the very lack of it in her own life. This
+Rawenniio, this true God, was everywhere; he could hear the whispered
+prayer of the blackgown there in the lodge, and he could speak to her
+inmost heart even if she were quite alone in the forest. How she was
+stirred at the thought! "Will he speak to me now?" she said. "Does he
+know I am thinking of him?" She stopped at the foot of a great tree,
+poising her jug on her shoulder, and listened with innocent simplicity.
+"God of the blackgown! God of my mother! Rawenniio!" was the cry of her
+heart,--"speak to me, here in the forest,--speak to me, if it is true
+what the blackgown says!" Lifting her hand and her eyes, she looked up
+through the branches of the giant tree, far beyond what her dim eyes
+saw, far as her simple thought could reach; and though Tekakwitha heard
+no audible voice in the forest answering to her new-found cry, there
+was a dim but rapturous hope in her heart, cheering with happy omen her
+budding faith and her growing love for something more than the world of
+Tharonyawagon could give her,--something more than fruitful corn-fields,
+sunshine on the running water of the Mohawks, a strong, true brave to
+love her, and the Happy Hunting-Grounds beyond. They could not be much
+fairer, after all, than were the hunting-grounds of her nation at
+Saratoga, where Father Jogues had cut a cross deep into the bark of a
+tree, and had almost perished with hunger because he would not eat the
+meat that was offered to Aireskoi. Tekakwitha was not long in choosing
+between Aireskoi and Rawenniio.
+
+While her mind was dwelling on such thoughts as these, she must have
+sought out the ravine near the Turtle Village where Isaac Jogues had
+buried his friend Rene Goupil. This young martyr was killed, as we have
+said, for making the sign of the cross on an Indian child. She may have
+knelt to pray on the very spot where Jogues himself was tomahawked at
+the door of the Bear Chief's deserted lodge. There she could ask
+Rawenniio most fervently for strength of will to follow the gleam of
+light that beckoned to her. The Mohawks of Gandawague had not forgotten
+these places so near at hand, nor how it had all happened. The Fathers
+Fremin, Bruyas, and Pierron, during their stay in the lodge with
+Tekakwitha, thought often of Jogues, and must have mentioned his name in
+her presence, as they afterwards did in their journal;[39] then, to be
+sure, Tegonhatsihongo would know of the murdered blackgown, so
+Tekakwitha could not fail to learn his story. She probably knew it
+already, but she thought of it now as she never had done before. Surely
+that first of the blackgowns who came to their village had something
+important to tell them. Why else had he laid down his life by coming
+among them a second and even a third time after his cruel captivity? Why
+else had he exerted himself to learn their language? The voice of
+Ondessonk's blood cried out to her from the ground, and besought her to
+hear what these others said who came to her now with his name on their
+lips, and the name of a greater than he,--of the One who was nailed to a
+cross, whose image they carried. A host of questions rose to her lips
+when she saw them again, but she had neither time nor courage to utter
+them. Only three days, and the blackgowns were gone. Tekakwitha was left
+alone once more with her aunts and her uncle, who had received these
+guests not from love, but policy.
+
+During their short visit an alarming incident had occurred. A band of
+Mohegans, dashing down upon the village, had scalped a wretched squaw at
+the very gates. "Fremin was one of the first to hasten to her, eager to
+save a soul where life was in so great peril; but she spurned his
+offers. Four times she turned away in scorn;" but the patient zeal of
+the missionary won her at last, and she died a Christian.
+
+There was another squaw in the town who had asked for baptism, an
+Iroquois woman of rank. We are not told whether this was
+Tegonhatsihongo, or some other, though we know that she did in time
+become a Christian. To test this woman's sincerity, Father Fremin gave
+her the thankless, unpopular task of calling to prayer, with a little
+bell, the Huron and Algonquin captives at Gandawague, who were already
+Christians. She did not shrink from this ordeal, but still her baptism
+was deferred till the missionaries should finish their embassy and
+return again to the town. In the mean time she wearied of their
+prolonged delay, and followed them to Tionnontogen, gaining from them
+there the necessary instruction for receiving the sacrament. The young
+Tekakwitha, on the contrary, either through natural timidity or by the
+express command of her uncle (we know not which, most likely both),
+waited with sealed lips for eight long years. During all that time she
+gave no sign or token, that has ever been recorded, of a wish to become
+a Christian; and yet the missionaries thenceforth were at work
+continuously in one or another of the Mohawk villages. Let us, then,
+follow the hurrying course of events in which the life of Tekakwitha was
+involved during these eight years of dim but dawning light, not
+forgetting that the seed which the Fathers had scattered in passing lay
+hidden yet treasured deep in the innermost heart of the Mohawk maiden.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[36] See Appendix, Note A, Letter of June 29, 1885.
+
+[37] Or "Peace-Maker," as wampum was the emblem and token of peace. For
+an interesting account of Hiawatha, or Hayenwatha, as founder of the
+League, and for other rare and valuable information concerning the
+people of the Five Nations, see Hale's Iroquois Book of Rites.
+
+[38] See M. Cuoq's Lexique de la Langue Iroquoise. This word
+"Rawenniio," also written "Hawennyiu," came into use when Christianity
+was first preached among the Iroquois. It is still used by them to
+designate the "Great Spirit," or "Father of all Men." The last part of
+the word, "niio" or "nyiu" (God), is said to be derived from the French
+word "Dieu."
+
+[39] See "Early Chapters of Mohawk History," no. xv., by Dr. Hawley, of
+the Cayuga County Historical Society, printed in the "Auburn
+Advertiser," and also to be issued in book form. These "Early Chapters"
+consist chiefly of translations from the Jesuit "Relations," with
+valuable notes and comments.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+CAUGHNAWAGA ON THE MOHAWK.--FATHERS FREMIN AND PIERRON.
+
+
+After Tekakwitha had lodged Fathers Fremin, Bruyas, and Pierron for
+three days at Gandawague, on the bank of Auries Creek, they went to the
+castle of Tionnontogen, which it must be remembered had been hastily
+rebuilt some little distance west of its former site near the Nose,
+though still on the south side of the river. There, when the pagan
+festival and debauchery was over, a grand public reception of these
+ambassadors took place. The people of all the Mohawk villages were
+assembled for the occasion, Tekakwitha probably among them. In due time,
+after a most ceremonious welcome, Fremin rose to address them. To render
+his speech to the nation more impressive, he set up in their midst a
+great pole forty or fifty feet in height, from the top of which a wampum
+belt was suspended. He then declared, on the part of Onnontio, that in
+like manner would hang the first Iroquois who should come to kill a
+Frenchman or any one of their allies. At this all the Mohawks--men,
+women, and children--bowed their heads in silent awe, not venturing to
+look at such an extraordinary gift, nor to speak, until the most
+accomplished of their orators, having recovered his senses, rose and
+went through all imaginable mimicries to show his astonishment. As if
+ignorant of its meaning, he gesticulated and declaimed in the liveliest
+manner, though a man of more than sixty years of age. Then discovering
+its true significance, he seized his throat "with both hands in a
+frightful way, grasping it tightly to represent and at the same time
+impress upon the multitude about him the horror of this kind of death.
+After he had spoken, and at length, with a surprising eloquence,
+exhibiting flashes of wit by no means common, he finished," as the
+leading ambassador-priest tells us, "by delivering up the captives we
+demanded, and giving us the choice of the place where we would build our
+chapel, in the erection of which they proposed to go to work with all
+despatch. They, moreover, delivered up to us a Frenchman whom they had
+held captive for some time, and promised us the liberty of twelve
+Algonquins, partly of the nation of the Nez Perces, partly of that of
+the Outaouacs [Ottawas]."
+
+Thus at Tionnontogen the labors of Father Fremin began. He was left
+quite alone among the Mohawks for nearly a year, at the mission of St.
+Mary's as it was henceforth called. He struggled earnestly during that
+time to maintain peace and establish Christianity. His companion, Bruyas
+(whose Mohawk dictionary is exceedingly valuable to students of the
+Indian language), soon went west to the Oneidas, among whom, little by
+little, he learned the Oneida dialect. Pierron, on the other hand, after
+a short stay with Fremin, bent his steps eastward to Schenectady. He
+visited the English and Dutch at Albany to renew the friendly
+intercourse of former days; and then this messenger of peace in the
+early part of the year 1668, travelled back over the great Mohawk
+war-trail, leading northward. He returned to Quebec to report to
+Governor de Courselle the progress of the embassy.
+
+Fremin, left entirely to his own devices in the Mohawk Valley, gathered
+together the captive Christian Hurons, and then went steadily on,
+preaching, teaching, and baptizing. Once when the young warriors were
+torturing an Ottawa captive and preparing to burn him, contrary to the
+articles of peace, the Father by frantic efforts succeeded in saving
+him; but it was only by dint of rushing through the streets of the
+village with cries, threats, and entreaties. They could not withstand
+his zeal. He scattered the assembled crowd. He called down the vengeance
+of Rawenniio and Onnontio upon their castle of Tionnontogen, if they
+persisted in thus breaking the peace. The older men, roused at last by
+his words and actions, put a stop to the outrage. The unhappy victim was
+rescued from a fiery death, but he fell into a lingering fever brought
+on by the fright and the sufferings he had endured. In course of time he
+died, but it was not till he had been fully instructed and baptized by
+the courageous Father, who thus had the gratification of saving both
+body and soul.
+
+On the 7th of October, 1668, Pierron returned from his journey to
+Quebec, and again passed through the lower Mohawk villages on his way to
+the bark chapel of St. Mary's, which had been erected at Tionnontogen
+during his absence. If Tekakwitha saw her former guest at that time, it
+was only as one among a group of Mohawk villagers who watched the
+missionary as he passed through the streets of the Turtle Castle. He was
+hurrying on to meet and to replace Father Fremin. This spirited and
+eloquent founder of the mission now went westward beyond Bruyas at
+Oneida, in order to make a missionary opening among the Senecas, who
+also desired a blackgown. This left Father Pierron alone in his turn in
+charge of the Mohawk mission. His graphic letters to his superiors in
+Canada during the next few years give many a vivid picture of what was
+transpiring at that time in the valley.
+
+He was something of an artist. Before he succeeded in mastering the
+language, he spent much of his time in painting. He found that his
+pictures stimulated the curiosity of the Mohawks. In their efforts to
+get at the meaning of them and to explain them to one another, they
+learned, without realizing it, the very things he wanted to teach them;
+while he, by listening to their explanations, quickly acquired their
+language. As the blackgown's pictures were much talked about in the
+Mohawk villages at this time, and must have influenced the minds of
+Tekakwitha and her relatives, it will be worth while to give Pierron's
+description of one of his own productions. "Among these representations
+I have made," he says, "there is one contrasting a good with a miserable
+death. What led me to make this was that I saw the old men and the old
+women would stop their ears with their fingers the moment I began to
+speak to them of God, and would say to me, 'I do not hear.' I have
+therefore represented on one side of my picture a Christian who dies a
+saintly death, with the hands joined as of one holding the cross and his
+rosary; then his soul is carried by an angel to heaven and the blessed
+spirits appear awaiting it. On the other side, I have put, lower down, a
+woman broken with age, who is dying, and unwilling to listen to a
+missionary Father who points her to paradise; she holds both ears closed
+with her fingers; but a demon from hell seizes her arms and hands, and
+himself puts his fingers in the ears of the dying woman. Her soul is
+carried by three demons; and an angel who comes out of a cloud, sword in
+hand, hurls them into the bottomless pit. This representation," he
+continues, "has furnished me an occasion to speak of the immortality of
+our souls, and of the good and the bad of the other life; and when they
+once catch the import of my picture, no one presumes to say any more, 'I
+do not hear.'"
+
+The "Relation" of the same year[40] tells us that Father Pierron
+accompanied this saintly skill with severe labors making regularly each
+month a visitation of the _seven large villages_, over a space of seven
+and a half leagues in extent, in order that no infant or adult sick
+person should die without receiving baptism.
+
+Father Boniface now arrived at Quebec from France, and was immediately
+selected to go to the Mohawk Valley to second Pierron's zeal. We learn
+further, from the "Relation," that a bitter strife was then in progress:
+"The war [between the Iroquois and the nine nations of the Loups]
+humbles them by the loss of their people; but by preventing their
+permanent stay in one place, it also multiplies obstacles to the
+conversion of the warriors, who divide up into numerous bands to go
+singly against the enemy. The Agniers [Mohawks] and the Loups [Mohegans]
+have brought the war even close to New Orange; and when taken captive
+they burn and eat one another." The Mohegans and their allies had
+certain advantages over the Mohawks. They were more numerous; then, too,
+they were a roving people, difficult to attack, whereas the Mohawks
+lived in villages and had permanent homes. These last, in order to
+defend themselves, took care thoroughly to fortify the castles they were
+then building on the north side of the Mohawk River. As they seem to
+have had seven villages at this time, which is an unusual number, it is
+probable that they either had not entirely abandoned their old sites, or
+else had recently added several villages of captives.
+
+It was while affairs were still in this unsettled condition that
+Tekakwitha went to live on the north bank of the Mohawk River, near the
+Cayudutta Creek at Caughnawaga, or Fonda, a few miles west of her
+earlier home. The French writers continued for some time after this to
+call the new castle of the Turtles on the north bank by its old name of
+Gandawague;[41] to prevent confusion, however, we will henceforth call
+it Caughnawaga, meaning "At the Rapids." That name still clings to a
+part of the present town of Fonda. The rapids of the Mohawk still ripple
+there as of old under the sharp-cut hill where, as proved by relics and
+historic references, the once famous castle stood. The Indians who went
+forth later from this Caughnawaga in the Mohawk Valley to Canada,
+carried with them the familiar word. Settling down beside the great
+rapids of the St. Lawrence River, the sound of rushing water boomed
+louder than before in their ears, and the name Caughnawaga grew into
+history there, as well as here. But there it is still a living name,
+and is passed from mouth to mouth as the well-known home of half the
+Canienga race; for Caughnawaga in Canada holds to-day that part of the
+Mohawk nation which in the wranglings of the white men--that is to say,
+the old French and Indian wars--sided with the French. Brantford, also
+in Canada, contains the other half of the same nation,--the descendants
+of Sir William Johnson's Mohawk followers, who were stanch friends of
+the English. To us Americans, falling heir to their lands, these Mohawks
+have left no living trace of themselves, though some of their brothers,
+the Onondagas and Senecas, still dwell in our midst. The Mohawks have
+gone from us, indeed, leaving us only a memory, all inwrought in a thick
+array of Indian names. Let us try at least to understand and to preserve
+these names, in honor of the brave race that once peopled our hills and
+valleys, our forests and streams.
+
+In the Mohawk Valley, side by side with the name of Fonda, which comes
+to us from the days of the early white settlers, there lingers the still
+older name of Caughnawaga, which is dusky with the shadows of two
+hundred years, and even more. The mere name in partial use there at the
+present day has served to throw some light on the hill and the spring
+near the Cayudutta,--enough, at least, to have called to our minds a
+vision of Mohawk girls with their water-jugs, and to point in a misty
+way to the almost forgotten home of the Lily of the Mohawks. It is
+owing, however, to long, careful, critical research, and not to surmise,
+that the haze of many years has been cleared away at last from the
+actual site of Caughnawaga Castle. The map of Gen. John S. Clark (page
+38) gives its position relative to other Mohawk villages. The plan here
+given, which was drawn by Rev. C. A. Walworth, shows more especially
+where this Indian fortress stood in reference to Fonda, on what are now
+called the "Sand Flats," west of the Cayudutta Creek. The spring which
+supplied the Mohawks with water is seen, distinctly marked in its cove,
+half-way down the hill from the castle, towards the Cayudutta. With this
+plan before us it is needless here to repeat the details of this
+locality already given in the chapter entitled "Tekakwitha's Spring." In
+our opening pages we journeyed all the way up the Mohawk Valley from
+Albany, with here and there a passing glimpse at the scenery, till we
+reached the castle site at Fonda, which was then fully described. Since
+that time we have travelled together through the highways and in the
+byways of history over about thirteen years of Tekakwitha's life. Here
+we are again at Caughnawaga; and now that we are following up the course
+of events in regular order from the birth of Tekakwitha, we find that
+she also has but recently arrived here, having just come to her new home
+from Gandawague. She can scarcely be called a child any longer, since
+she takes upon herself so much of the household care, and yet she is
+quite young. Her life is a busy one. She has taken an active part with
+the women of her family and their neighbors in building the new bark
+house which they occupy within the enclosure of palisades at
+Caughnawaga. Now, at last, they are quite comfortable.
+
+[Illustration: SITE OF CAUGHNAWAGA CASTLE.
+
+(_Also called the "Mission of St. Peter's" of the Mohawks, where
+Tekakwitha was baptized in 1676._)]
+
+This is the way the Mohawks were accustomed to build their permanent
+lodges. They first took saplings, and planted two rows of them firmly in
+the ground. Then they bent the tops of them over across the
+intervening space, and tied them together. The shape of the house
+when finished was not unlike the top of an ambulance wagon. These arched
+ribs were supported and held in place by poles put in horizontally
+across the house, near the top. The whole was then neatly covered with
+square, overlapping pieces of bark, held in place by poles that were
+tied down over them. The holes in the roof for chimneys and windows were
+not forgotten, nor the loose pieces of bark to pull over them in case of
+rain. The Jesuits often found these cabins smoky and dark,--a severe
+test of their patience when engaged in literary pursuits, or even in
+reading their breviaries; but for the Mohawks, who had no such tastes,
+they were good enough.
+
+When the house was finished on which Tekakwitha worked with her aunts
+and her neighbors, it made a secure shelter for a score of families, all
+lodged under the same roof and all on one floor. That floor was the bare
+ground. When the dwelling was fitted up into compartments on either
+side, with spaces down the centre for fires alternating with spaces for
+family gatherings at meal-time; when the matrons had assigned to each
+and every member of the household certain lodge-seats; when mats of
+rushes had been prepared, and robes of skins were in their places for
+bed-clothes on bunks along the sides of the house; when plenty of dried
+corn and smoked meat hung from the ridge-poles of the roof for instant
+use; when the heavy wooden mortar and pestle were made and stood ready
+for pounding the corn; when nice little dishes of bark and wooden bowls
+were at hand, while tucked away in corners were baskets of wampum beads
+all ready to be strung into belts at the proper time,--when all these
+things were in order, then at last, after the move from Gandawague on
+Auries Creek, Tekakwitha felt free to rest and breathe easily. Then she
+might glance leisurely at the patch of sunlight falling on the floor of
+the lodge through the doorway at the far end, and decide in her own mind
+how much time she had before the next meal was to be prepared. Perhaps
+she would go out to take a look at the strong new palisade that her
+uncle and the warriors had planned so carefully for defence against the
+dreaded Mohegans; or she may have preferred to sit quietly by the spring
+for a while in the beautiful little cove. Being so near the castle, it
+was comparatively safe from the lurking enemy, who might attack them at
+any time.
+
+Wentworth Greenhalgh, an Englishman, who went from Albany to Caughnawaga
+in 1677, thus describes the castle: "Cahaniaga is double stockadoed
+round; has four forts [ports?] about four foot wide apiece; conteyns
+about twenty-four houses, and is situated upon the edge of an hill,
+about a bow shott from the river side." He then gives the situation and
+size of the other Mohawk towns at that time, and closes his remarks by
+stating that their corn grew close by the river. The Mohawks chose the
+flats or river-bottoms for corn-fields because they were fertile, and
+besides, they were natural openings, with no trees to be cut down and
+cleared away.
+
+Much of Tekakwitha's time at certain seasons of the year was spent in
+these corn-fields; and she must have witnessed, if not taken part in,
+some of the exciting scenes described by Pierron, who was then making
+his periodical rounds through the Mohawk villages. He frequently gives
+incidents of Mohawk women who were waylaid and scalped or captured by
+desultory bands of Mohegans and other tribes with whom they were at war.
+The constant fear of death that overhung them gave to the minds of these
+Mohawk squaws a serious turn, and made them more willing than they would
+otherwise have been to listen to the warning words of the blackgown.
+More than one of them, haunted perhaps by the remembrance of his
+pictures and his morality games, which were no less ingenious for
+gaining their attention, came and asked for baptism. Pierron succeeded
+also in rousing the chiefs to a sense of the degradation into which the
+constant purchase of brandy and rum at Albany was sinking them. He
+reminded them that when once under its influence they were in no
+condition to repel the attacks either of Satan or the Mohegans. Both he
+and Fremin had themselves been sufferers during the drunken riots of the
+Indians. While the two Fathers were together at Tionnontogen, they
+wrote:--
+
+     "It seems sometimes as if the whole village had run mad, so
+     great is the license they take when they give up to drinking.
+     They have hurled firebrands at our heads; they have thrown our
+     papers into the fire; they have broken open our chapel; they
+     have often threatened us with death; and during the three or
+     four days that these debaucheries last, and which recur with
+     frequency, we must suffer a thousand insults without complaint,
+     without food or sleep. In their fury they upset everything that
+     comes in their way, and even butcher one another, not sparing
+     relative, friend, countryman, nor stranger. These things are
+     carried to such excess that the place seems to us no longer
+     tenable; but we shall leave it only with life.... When the
+     storm is over, we are left to go on with our duties quite
+     peaceably."
+
+This state of things continued for some time, as did also the raids of
+their enemies. It was in the midst of such bristling savage thorns as
+these that the Lily of the Mohawks grew up from childhood into
+womanhood. In her new home at Caughnawaga, during these stormy times she
+lived a sweet, pure life, all uncontaminated. At last the Mohawk chiefs,
+won by Pierron's reiterated arguments, began to realize that they had
+among them, in intoxicating drink, "a foreign demon more to be dreaded
+than those they worship in their dreams." They were induced to take
+measures against this excess in public council, "and, advised by Father
+Pierron that the most effectual means would be themselves to make their
+appeal to the Governor-General of Manhattan, the more prominent among
+them presented a petition which they had drawn for the purpose." This is
+the answer which the Governor gave to the request of the Mohawks and the
+letter of the Father which accompanied it:--
+
+     FATHER,--By your last, I am informed of your complaint, which
+     is seconded by that of the Iroquois chiefs, the Sachems, the
+     Indians, as appears more openly by their petition enclosed in
+     yours, respecting the large quantity of liquors that certain
+     ones of Albany have taken the liberty to sell to the Indians;
+     as a consequence, that great excesses are committed by them,
+     and the worst is feared unless we prevent it. In response, know
+     that I have taken, and will continue to take, all possible
+     care, under the severest penalties, to restrain and oppose the
+     furnishing any excess to the Indians. And I am delighted to see
+     such virtuous thoughts proceed from heathens, to the shame of
+     many Christians; but this must be attributed to your pious
+     instructions, for, well versed in strict discipline, you have
+     shown them the way of mortification both by your precepts and
+     practice.
+
+    Your very humble and affectionate servant,
+    FRANCIS LOVELACE.
+
+     At FORT JAMES, 18th of Nov. 1668.
+
+Fremin and Pierron, during the two years 1668 and 1669, baptized one
+hundred and fifty-one Indians, of which more than half were children or
+aged persons who died shortly after baptism. Says the "Relation":--
+
+     "This should be considered a sufficiently abundant harvest in a
+     waste land, and we may hope for much from such beginnings. We
+     owe, under God, the birth of this flourishing church to the
+     death and blood of the Reverend Father Jogues. He shed it at
+     the very region where the new Christian church begins to arise;
+     and it seems as though we are to see verified in our days, in
+     his person, the beautiful words of Tertullian: 'The blood of
+     martyrs is the seed of Christians.'"
+
+That Pierron was fired with the spirit of Jogues, who founded this
+Mohawk mission in his blood, is proved by the following words, which he
+wrote in a moment of discouragement:--
+
+     "I have attacked drunkenness and lewdness, which are divinities
+     of the country, so madly are these people devoted to them. I
+     have combated these vices.... I have employed gentleness and
+     vigor, threats and entreaties, labors and tears, to build up
+     this new church and to convert these poor savages. There
+     remains nothing more than to shed my blood for their salvation,
+     that which I long for with all the desires of my heart. But
+     after all, I have not yet observed in them those marked
+     amendments which the Holy Spirit effects in those of the
+     heathen whom he would put in the number of the faithful."
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[40] An English translation of this "Relation" is given in the "Early
+Chapters of Mohawk History," by Dr. Hawley.
+
+[41] See Appendix, Note B.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+THE MOHEGANS ATTACK THE NEW CASTLE.--BATTLE OF KINAQUARIONES.--THE FEAST
+OF THE DEAD.
+
+
+In the year 1669, in one of the long bark-houses at Caughnawaga on a
+summer morning before the dawn, Tekakwitha is turning uneasily in her
+sleep. Suddenly her aunt springs up beside her and speaks in a startled
+voice. In an instant all in the lodge are on the alert. Sharp, wild
+cries are heard; bullets pierce the stout palisade, and come whizzing
+through the bark sides of the new house. The warriors, roused from
+sleep, seize their nearest weapons, be they guns, war-clubs, tomahawks,
+or arrows. A hurried word to the women, a loud whoop, a few bounding
+steps, and they are on the platform of the palisade hurling defiance at
+an assaulting army of Mohegans. Before them are hundreds of the foe in
+war-paint and feathers, led by a stout man of middle age,--the wise and
+gallant Chickatabutt, the great sachem of the Massachusetts. His bearing
+makes him conspicuous among a score of famous sagamores who are leading
+the assault. In the motley ranks that follow are Hudson River Indians,
+mingled with the red-skin neighbors of the Puritans, grim old warriors
+of the Massachusetts tribe. There are also Narragansett braves and other
+New England Indians,--all united in a desperate attempt to crush the
+Mohawks, and thus break in through the eastern door of the Long House
+of the Five Nations. The assailants seek, now by open attack and now by
+strategy, to dislodge the defenders of Caughnawaga from their lofty
+scaffolds, and to fire the palisade. Four Mohawks drop from their places
+dead, and two are wounded; but the Mohegans make no perceptible headway
+against the defensive works of the Castle. The struggle continues with
+unabated fury. Among those who fall on the side of the enemy are pupils
+of the English missionary Eliot, who know something of the Bible which
+he has translated for them. Five of these converts to Puritanism are
+engaged in this expedition, of whom but one escapes with his life. They
+too, like the ever increasing neophytes of Pierron, are called "praying
+Indians." Their chief Chickatabutt--or Josiah, as he is often
+called--was himself a "praying Indian" once. That was when he lived with
+his pious uncle Kuchamakin, one of Eliot's favorite pupils. "He kept the
+Sabbath several years," says Gookin; "but after turned apostate, and for
+several years last past separated from the praying Indians, and was but
+a back friend to religion." Indeed the English, who had a good opinion
+of him in his early days, now thought him "a very vitious person,"
+though all acknowledged he was as brave as brave could be.
+
+The Puritans had tried in vain to dissuade their Indian neighbors from
+accompanying this chief on his adventurous march to the Mohawk Valley.
+In spite of every drawback, however, Chickatabutt, whose name means
+"A-house-afire," had succeeded in bringing his army all the way from the
+vicinity of Boston to the castle of Caughnawaga. After they were joined
+by their allies, they numbered six or seven hundred men.[42] True, they
+had spent much of their ammunition on the march,--"shooting away their
+powder in the air, ... boasting, vapouring, and prating of their
+valour," at the Indian villages where they had stopped for foraging
+purposes. It was their consequent lack of ammunition which determined
+them to carry the Mohawk Castle, if possible, by assault. But the brave
+Caniengas, or "People of the Flint," though taken by surprise in their
+sleep, were quick to grapple with the daring Mohegans, and fought like
+panthers. They were not to be easily overcome, by any roving Indian foe,
+in defence of their women and their homes. The squaws of Caughnawaga,
+with the well-known courage of their race, realized their perilous
+situation at the first alarm, and were "arming themselves with knives
+and defensive weapons in case a breach should be made." The youths of
+the village were, many of them, fighting their first important battle on
+this occasion. The sight of the Mohawk women and young girls, arming
+themselves as best they could to resist the Mohegan attack, was in
+itself an irresistible appeal to their tribesmen to exert themselves to
+the utmost in defending them against the well-known horrors of
+captivity, which would undoubtedly come upon them if the castle fell
+into the hands of the enemy. Many a young brave was nerved to desperate
+feats of valor on that morning and during the days that followed.
+Beginning with the sudden attack at dawn, the struggle continued for a
+long time with uncertain issue. News was carried to Tionnontogen that
+the whole country was lost; that Caughnawaga was besieged by an army of
+Mohegans; that all the youth had already fallen, and perhaps Gandagaro,
+the adjacent fort, was in extremity. These reports, though exaggerated,
+caused the Mohawk warriors of the other castles to gather as fast as
+possible at Caughnawaga. Even had they been all there at the very first,
+they would still have been fewer in numbers than the enemy; but before
+the sun was high, enough of them had assembled to warrant a sally on the
+foe. Father Pierron was now at the castle, and a witness of the stirring
+events taking place there. Tekakwitha, too, was taking her part among
+the young girls, whose fate now hung in the balance. The missionary thus
+describes what followed:--
+
+     "By eight o'clock in the morning our warriors without confusion
+     promptly arrayed themselves with all they have of greatest
+     value, as is their custom in such encounters, and with no other
+     leader than their own courage went out in full force against
+     the enemy. I was with the first to go to see if, amid the
+     carnage about the palisades of the village, where so many
+     unbelieving souls would perish, I might not be able to save
+     some one. On our arrival, we heard only cries of lamentation
+     over the death of the bravest of the village. The enemy had
+     retired after two hours of most obstinate fighting on both
+     sides. There was but a single warrior of the Loups [Mohegans]
+     left on the ground; and I saw that a Barbarian, after cutting
+     off his hands and feet, had flayed him, and was stripping the
+     flesh from the bones for a hateful repast."
+
+This was to honor Aireskoi! Tekakwitha, ever helpful and ready to assist
+others, would probably be where she was most needed at that time,--with
+the bereaved women who were seeking their dead, and with those who
+ministered to the wounded. No heart so quick as hers to turn with
+loathing from the hideous human sacrifice that was being prepared
+outside the castle walls. With the good deeds of the blackgown Pierron
+hourly before her, and the sound of his voice often in her ears,--for
+this missionary could doctor as well as preach,[43]--she must have had
+constantly in her mind the thought of Rawenniio during this time of
+peril and anxiety, and would not fail to call in spirit on the God of
+the Christians for assistance against the foe.
+
+The Mohegan army sat down before the castle, besieging it for some days
+without effect, though there was much firing back and forth. The
+provisions they had brought with them were about exhausted and their
+munition well spent. Some of their people were sick, and they saw the
+impossibility of getting the stronghold by assault. So they broke up the
+siege, to the great relief of the imprisoned Mohawks, and retreated
+twenty miles in the direction of the Dutch settlements. This brought
+them to Kinaquariones,[44] now called Towereune, a steep rocky hill on
+the north side of the Mohawk River. It is just above Hoffman's Ferry,
+nine English or three Dutch miles west of Schenectady; there they
+temporarily entrenched themselves. The Mohawks, who did not know of this
+camp, though secure for the time being in their castle, felt that in
+any case no time should be lost in following up the enemy as soon as
+they could make the necessary preparation. The women of Caughnawaga,
+having laid aside their weapons, began at once to assist the warriors in
+making ready the supply of meal which according to custom was to be
+carried on the war-path. This was soon done, as they had but to add a
+little maple-sugar or other seasoning to the pounded corn, which they
+had already twice charred or dried for use on just such expeditions. The
+warriors of the Mohawk nation were now all assembled to go in pursuit of
+the Mohegans. Every man was fully armed and equipped, and their deerskin
+pockets were well filled with the crushed corn. They put themselves
+under the leadership of the brave warrior Kryn, surnamed the "Great
+Mohawk." His home was at Caughnawaga, and his valor and good management
+on this expedition won for him a new title, that of "Conqueror of the
+Mohegans." He and his fellow tribesmen now hastily bade adieu to their
+families, who, together with the blackgown Pierron, were to remain at
+the castle; then they embarked in canoes on the Mohawk, and aided by the
+force of the current soon disappeared around the great bend of the river
+in the direction of old Ossernenon on the route to the pale-face
+settlements. Anxious eyes and thoughts followed them. The bravest of two
+warlike races were now likely at any moment to meet in a decisive
+conflict, and who dare foretell the result? Not Tekakwitha, who waited
+in silence and concern; nor her more voluble companions, whose anxiety
+took the form of restlessness. Having all done their share in defending
+the castle, they could now only watch and wait, looking often in the
+direction of the vanished braves, and hoping for news of the expedition
+from chance stragglers. In the mean-time the women were free to go back
+and forth to the spring, to care for the wounded, and to prepare the
+bodies of the dead for burial.
+
+The day after the departure of the warriors there were rumors of a
+desperate battle in progress about twenty miles away; and on the
+following day at three o'clock in the afternoon, came certain news of
+victory. It was a great triumph for the Mohawks or Caniengas, bravest of
+the bold Kanonsionni. Chickatabutt, the sachem of the Massachusetts, was
+slain. The noblest of the Mohegan warriors fell at his side. Those who
+escaped fled away to their distant kindred humbled and ashamed, with
+lamentations and mourning for the loss of most of their chief men. The
+Mohawks were greatly elated. The gloom that hung over Caughnawaga was
+changed to glad excitement. All prepared to welcome home the heroes of
+the battle of Kinaquariones. Father Pierron started at once and alone in
+the direction of the battle-field to visit the wounded. He wished also to
+manifest to the warriors his interest in their victory. He arrived on
+the spot before nightfall. The warriors were glad to see him, and eager
+to relate all the particulars of the fight. This proved to be the last
+great battle between the Mohawks and the Mohegans. Its deeds of valor
+were told and retold for many a day at the Turtle Village and in
+Tekakwitha's hearing with all the usual boastfulness of the Indian.
+Pierron wrote a full account of all that happened from the time the
+Mohawk war-party set out from the castle in their canoes till they
+returned to their homes in triumph. It is here given in his own
+words:--
+
+     "Night overtaking them [the Mohawks] in their pursuit, they
+     sent in advance certain of their number in quest of the enemy,
+     and quietly to discover the place where he was encamped. As the
+     scouts came within sight of the spot, desiring a better view of
+     the situation, they drew still nearer. But notwithstanding
+     their great caution, one of the Loups on guard close by,
+     hearing a noise, gave the customary challenge, _Koue, koue_
+     (this is the 'Who comes there?' of the savages); as there was
+     no response and he saw nothing, he did not deem it necessary to
+     give the alarm.
+
+     From the report given by the spies on their return of the
+     condition of the enemy, it was determined not to attack him in
+     his lodging-place, where he appeared too well entrenched, but
+     to prepare an ambush on the route it was believed he would
+     take. In the execution of this plan, the Iroquois made a wide
+     detour to lay their ambuscade in a cragged and most
+     advantageous pass which commanded the only route in the
+     direction of the Hollanders. In the morning the Loups decamped;
+     and as they marched in single file, after the Indian custom,
+     twelve of them fell unexpectedly into the ambuscade. A shower
+     of balls of which they were all at once made aware, immediately
+     put to flight those that the casualty had spared. Frightful
+     cries at once rang through the forest, and the Loups rallied at
+     the same place where they had encamped. The Iroquois pursued
+     them with vigor. On overtaking them, they made a fierce
+     assault. The Loups at first made a stout resistance; but the
+     cowardice of some among them forcing the main body to recede
+     before the fury of the Iroquois, ten of the whole band made a
+     stand within their works to defend themselves unto death. This
+     new entrenchment greatly harassed our _Agnies_ [Mohawks] but as
+     they are an indefatigable and brave people, they did not lose
+     courage nor the hope of driving out the enemy; and to succeed
+     in this with the least peril, they made use of an old tree,
+     which they found there, and which they carried in front of them
+     for protection. This they were able to do, instead of going up
+     one by one to the place where the enemy was fortified. Their
+     skill however did not avail them; for notwithstanding this
+     device, the Loups did not omit to open a heavy fire from all
+     sides, killing and wounding a number of our people; and the
+     fight without doubt would have been still more disastrous if
+     night had not terminated it. Our Indians captured at the outset
+     four women of the twenty-four who accompanied the expedition,
+     and six men subsequently in the heat of the combat.
+
+     The next morning as they were ready to renew the attack, they
+     found that the enemy had made their escape during the night,
+     and that they were left masters of the battle-field. The
+     victors, following the custom of the savages, tomahawked and
+     scalped the Loups left on the place, and then took care to bury
+     those of their own people who had been slain in the fight."
+
+The Mohawks declared that nearly a hundred warriors on the side of the
+enemy had perished, either by the sword in the fray or by water in
+flight. "This was probably an exaggeration," continues Pierron, "as only
+nineteen scalps were secured."[45] According to the story of the Mohegan
+captives, they lost fifty men on their side, thirteen falling on the
+field of battle; while they killed altogether nearly forty of the
+Mohawks.
+
+Pierron thus describes the triumphal march back to Caughnawaga from the
+field of action:--
+
+     "We left two days after the combat, in company with a large
+     number, both those who had taken part in the fight and those
+     who had come to look on. The victors bore the scalps well
+     painted, at the end of long batons made to support their
+     trophies. The captives, divided into several bands, marched
+     with singing; and as I perceived that one of the women had a
+     sick infant which she carried at the breast, I thought I would
+     do well to baptize it, seeing it was about to die."
+
+The blackgown accordingly took occasion to approach the mother as they
+were crossing a stream, caught up a handful of water, and saying the
+short baptismal words, poured it on the little head, which soon drooped
+in death. He had already instructed some of the captives, and in the
+course of a few days all of them asked for baptism. On first reaching
+the castle, the Mohegan prisoners of war were received and tortured in
+the usual manner. Pierron could do nothing for them while the heat of
+passion and enmity toward the victims lasted; but watching his chance he
+saw that they were left alone for a time on the torture scaffold, before
+being killed, surrounded still by the ghastly scalps of their
+companions. He at once led them down from the hateful platform, and took
+them into a cabin near by, to prepare them, if possible, for a Christian
+death. While he was speaking to them earnestly of their salvation, some
+of the Iroquois came and stood near, saying to one another, "Do you see
+how he loves our enemies?" Some among them added, "He ought to leave
+them to burn in hell,--people who have done us so much evil." Pierron,
+overhearing this, turned about, and seeing that a crowd of the villagers
+had assembled, caught up the words of the discontented Mohawks, and
+taking them for his text, explained so well and so forcibly the teaching
+of Christ on the Mount, that in a little while the Indians who had
+gathered about him were all of one mind, and declared that he did well
+to teach the captives. They no longer interfered with his self-imposed
+task, but gave him ample time to instruct them. Before the doomed
+Mohegans were finally put to death, they all received baptism; among
+them, we are told, was "one of the bravest and most celebrated warriors
+of that nation, who in the combat had slain with his own hand several
+Iroquois." Submitting to Pierron's influence, the fierce Mohawks did not
+grudge even to this warrior whatever happiness he might be able to
+secure, through the blackgown's ministrations, in another world. Little
+by little these Mohawks were veering round in the direction of
+Christianity, under the firm and steady but gentle guidance of their
+devoted missionary. Whether or not they were willing to listen, his
+stirring voice still rang in their ears; and whether or not they
+realized the fact, it was certainly true that he was treated every day
+with more and more of respect and trust.
+
+The next important event that took place at Caughnawaga was the Feast of
+the Dead. Here again, though Tekakwitha was certainly present and must
+have known all that was going on, her biographers have given no account
+of it. Pierron, however, has taken care to write out a full description
+of this great feast; it occurred only once in ten years. He, of course,
+in his important position as the representative among them both of
+Christianity and of his French countrymen, deals only with what
+concerned the whole Mohawk nation. He had little or no time to note the
+changes that were taking place in the young Tekakwitha; no word had
+passed between the two since his return from Quebec. If she had aught to
+say to him, she was forbidden to say it. Likely enough he did not even
+recognize her when he saw her, though he may have remembered the
+appearance of a little maiden who some years before had lodged him at
+Gandawague.
+
+We who have followed the course of her life more closely, can easily
+single out Tekakwitha from the crowd that has gathered to witness the
+strange ceremonies that are taking place in the woods not far from the
+castle. The bones of all the friends and relations of these people who
+have died within the last ten years have been carefully and reverently
+cleaned, scraped, and collected together to be deposited in a common pit
+prepared for their reception. The best and richest of beaver-skins and
+other furs are freely brought forward, that the pit may be lined with
+their beautiful warm surfaces. It is at night, amid the wailing chants
+of the women and the flaming of torches, that the relics of the dead,
+with many a last caressing touch, are deposited in the great pit; they
+are encased in separate robes with precious gifts. There are many tragic
+demonstrations of grief. A weird, pathetic scene it is; and it makes a
+strange and lasting impression on the minds of the young people who
+witness it for the first time. After the pit has been filled and covered
+over, the women are to be seen trudging back and forth to the village
+with hampers of food, to be deposited on the gigantic grave for the use
+of their departed friends. It is only after the Feast of the Dead is
+over that the soul is supposed to take its final journey to the
+spirit-land. Previous to this celebration they believe that it hovers
+near the body, which they expose on a bark scaffold, or else put in a
+sitting posture in a temporary grave covered lightly with bark or twigs.
+
+During the progress of this feast quite a dispute arises among the
+assembled chiefs concerning the treatment received by Pierron. He has
+been cordially invited to be present, and now stands among the
+dignitaries of the Mohawk nation in company with Tekakwitha's uncle and
+other chiefs. The blackgown lets no part of the ceremony escape his
+notice. Distinguished guests from Oneida and Onondaga have placed
+themselves in separate groups, according to custom. An Onondaga chief
+has risen to make a speech. Near enough to see and hear what is going on
+are the women of Caughnawaga, who so lately took part in the defence of
+the castle. Tekakwitha's blanket partly conceals her face, but she is
+quite as richly dressed as the other young squaws. What she does not see
+or hear directly she can quickly gather from the talk of those about
+her. When the Onondaga has finished speaking, the Mohawk chiefs recount
+in turn the leading superstitions and fables of the nation; they are
+well known already to most of the people, who only half listen to what
+is being said. Presently there is a stir among the Mohawk dignitaries,
+which centres the attention of all within earshot on the group. Pierron,
+it seems, has ceased to be a silent listener to what passes. He begins
+in his turn to tell fables, giving them here and there an extremely
+ridiculous turn. In the midst of it he is abruptly ordered by one of the
+chiefs to be silent. All are now eager to get at the truth of what has
+occurred. Some loudly upbraid the chief for his discourtesy; others
+bitterly accuse Pierron of an untimely interference with their customs.
+They say that he has been openly ridiculing their beliefs; his mouth
+must be stopped at once. But Pierron, knowing full well his influence
+with the people, and judiciously appealing to their love of fair play,
+boldly addresses the offending chief in these words, now distinctly
+heard by the listening throng: "Dost thou know, indeed, that thou hast
+given me the keenest affront I could have received? But who art thou to
+order me to be silent, and am I here to obey thee? If I had treated thee
+after this sort at Quebec, wouldst thou not have had cause to complain;
+but in what have I spoken evil, that my mouth should be closed? And if I
+speak the truth, why art thou not willing to hear?" The chief replied
+that it was their custom on these occasions to keep up their fables.
+Pierron stoutly rejoined: "It is your custom to get intoxicated;
+honestly, is it a good custom, and ought I to approve it? It is your
+custom to violate every law of reason, and to live as the beasts; think
+you it is not my duty to reprove you for all these vices? And yet you
+impose silence upon me when I would speak to you. Is this reasonable?"
+As Pierron and the chief could come to no agreement, the blackgown
+withdrew from among the Mohawks when the singing began, and took his
+place in the group of Onondaga guests, who received him with marked
+respect.
+
+The ceremony lasted five hours. When it was over Pierron returned at
+once to Caughnawaga village, leaving the Mohawks still in the forest on
+the spot where the solemnity was conducted. A rumor was circulated there
+to the effect that the blackgown meant to return to Quebec. It was not
+long before the brusque Mohawk chief who had given offence came to him
+in the village to offer an apology for his conduct, saying: "My brother,
+up to this hour we have acted toward each other as the two best friends
+in the world." Then placing his hand on his heart, he added: "Tell me
+then, frankly, in what humor is thy soul? They say that thou goest to
+Quebec, and will no more come to live with us. If this be so, I implore
+thee not to get us into difficulty with Onnontio; for this would bring
+trouble upon thyself, if so many, both old and young, who greatly love
+and honor thee, should for this reason receive ill-treatment. Tell me,
+then, what is in thy heart, and what are thy sentiments?"
+
+Pierron, in a grave and serious manner seldom assumed by him, replied:
+"It has been told thee that I have an irritated mind and a heart full of
+grief. This is true, and thou knowest well that thou art the cause; thou
+hast treated me with the greatest indignity. Thou hast even presumed to
+impose silence when I would speak of the faith, which is the thing of
+all else, as thou art not ignorant, I have most at heart. Did it not
+confuse thee to see me so well received by the Onondagas, whom I did not
+know, driven out by those who professed to be our friends?"
+
+After listening patiently till he was through, the chief said with
+earnestness: "My brother, I see what is at the bottom of this quarrel;
+it is that we are not yet Christians. But if thou wilt leave this
+important affair to me, I promise thee success. This is what thou must
+do: First convoke a council, and then having given three belts to our
+three families, at each present speak out thy mind. After this, leave me
+to act, and I trust all will go well."
+
+All did go well, to the great delight of Father Pierron. The old chief,
+who was high in authority, went to work so energetically, sending his
+nephews out in every direction, that he soon assembled all the grandees
+of the Mohawk nation in the cabin of Pierron. The blackgown did indeed
+speak out his mind with such decided effect that his words were received
+with loud cries of applause. He threw down a fathom of wampum, saying:
+"Agnie, my brother, if it is true that thou art willing to hear me,
+there is my voice, which warns thee and entreats thee wholly to renounce
+Agreskoue, and never speak to him, but to adore the true God and follow
+His law."
+
+He threw down a second fathom of wampum, to oblige the medicine men no
+more to invoke demons for the cure of diseases, but to use natural
+remedies. Again and again the speaker was applauded; even the medicine
+men who were present in the assembly showed their good will on this
+occasion. The last present to destroy the superstition of the dances was
+received with no less acclamation than the other two. It was Pierron's
+moment of triumph, the reward of his unceasing efforts in their behalf!
+The whole Mohawk nation seemed ready to do his will. The council which
+met some days after, included the delegation from Onondaga. These
+distinguished strangers had just returned from the visit they made to
+the Dutch after taking part in the Feast of the Dead.
+
+Garacontie, the chief of the Onondagas, himself soon to become a
+Christian, now raised his powerful voice in support of Pierron, saying
+to the people, "Take his word, for he has sacrificed all for you." The
+blackgown triumphed at last. The sorcerers of the village cast their
+turtle-shell rattles into the fire, the women no longer called in the
+medicine men to cure their diseases, no dances were allowed which were
+not approved by Pierron, and the oyanders (or nobles) brought their
+youth in crowds to the chapel to be instructed. What more could the
+blackgown wish? Alas! he knew the Indians too well; and he adds in the
+moment of his success, "Their natural inconstancy still divides my heart
+between fear and joy."
+
+So far as Tekakwitha was concerned, no fear as yet disturbed the calm
+content of her spirit. The Lily of the Mohawks, quite unnoticed in the
+retirement of her lodge, was taking note of all these things, and was
+waxing fairer every day in the sunny light of Rawenniio's presence in
+the land. The true God, the Great Spirit, they tell her, is now to be
+worshipped by all the people. She hears them cry out through the
+village, "Hail to Rawenniio! Down with sorcery! Down with Aireskoi!"
+These words are like sweet music in the ears of Tekakwitha. She is in a
+dream of happiness, a day-dream of the spirit. Her busy fingers drop
+their work, unconscious of this unaccustomed idleness; her thoughts are
+all of God. Tekakwitha's first and last and only love is Rawenniio. She
+hears his voice, she feels his presence in the purer air she breathes,
+for Aireskoi has fallen from his throne. In the quiet and seclusion of
+the long-house, all alone, she hears the noises of the crowd outside,
+like distant murmurs; but the name of "the true God" echoes in her ears,
+and she is happy. Why not leave her so? Let us not disturb her. Why
+should she be roused to suffer? Must the Lily droop her head and thirst
+and die, like the rest of Rawenniio's flowers? Alas! it must be so. But
+let us not forget that this Lily of the Mohawks has a soul, though it is
+still like a little bird that breathes and just begins to move, but has
+not tried its strength. In sorrow the wings of the soul are developed.
+When once they have grown strong, it will be easy for Tekakwitha to fly
+away through the door of death to Rawenniio.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[42] This is the number given by Gookin, who was an Indian agent and
+magistrate of the Massachusetts Colony at the time of this expedition.
+Pierron in his account mentions only three hundred.
+
+[43] Pierron had ridiculed the practices of the sorcerers and medicine
+men so effectually that they no longer attempted to use their charms and
+spells in his presence.
+
+[44] See note of J. S. Clark in "Early Chapters of Mohawk History," by
+Dr. Hawley (no. xx., as printed in the "Auburn Advertiser").
+
+[45] Gookin says of the Mohegans: "About fifty of their chief men, they
+confess, were slain in this fight; but I suppose more."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+WILL TEKAKWITHA MARRY?
+
+
+"It is time for Tekakwitha to marry," said her aunts. Her uncle was of
+the same opinion. "She will make a desirable wife," they thought, "a
+docile and a useful one. It will be easy to find a brave young hunter
+for her, who will be glad to live in the lodge of the leading chief at
+Caughnawaga. Then there will always be plenty of game brought to the
+lodge for food, and a good supply of furs to exchange at Albany for the
+goods of the _cloth-workers_." Thus the adopted parents of the young
+girl put their wise old heads together, and soon Tekakwitha's peace of
+mind was sadly disturbed by their new-laid plans. Until now she had been
+happy in her own way. Her uncommon skill and natural ingenuity developed
+and found vent in her daily tasks, though sometimes, to be sure, they
+must have become wearisome and monotonous. It was she who pounded the
+Indian corn and made the soup or sagamite, day after day. This sagamite
+took the place of bread with the Indians. She also distributed the food
+when prepared to the members of the family, and saw that each person's
+dish was properly filled at the right time. Like all generous natures,
+she was accustomed to take more than her share of the burden, and likely
+enough, less than her share of the sagamite. Chauchetiere speaks more
+than once of her _esprit_, her ready wit, and also of her skill. He
+says:--
+
+     "Judging from the work which I have seen her do, it will be
+     easy for me to affirm that she worked delicately in porcupine
+     and in elk-skin. She made the belts (or burden-straps) with
+     which the Indian women and girls carry wood; she made those
+     which the old men use in conducting the affairs of the nation,
+     which are composed of beads of _porcelaine_ (wampum); and one
+     of the occupations of the squaws is also to sew, since they
+     have learned how to do it, either from those who have been
+     slaves among them or from the wives of Christians from Europe.
+     She knew well how to make certain ribbons which the savages
+     make with the skins of eels or strong bark. She prepared these
+     skins or this bark, and she reddened them, applying the color
+     with sturgeon paste, which is used very skilfully among the
+     Iroquois. She knew more than other Iroquois girls, for she
+     could make nets very well indeed and _quaisses_ (buckets which
+     the savages use to draw water); thus her dexterity furnished
+     her with plenty of occupation. Sometimes she was making a
+     pestle or pounder for crushing Indian corn, sometimes she was
+     forming a mat out of bark, and again she was preparing poles on
+     which to hang the ears of corn."
+
+Although she was the youngest in her uncle's family, and was delicate
+from the time her mother died, she was always the first one at work and
+the last to take a holiday. It was quite a trial to her, then, when she
+found--the first symptom of trouble to come--that she would no longer be
+allowed to spend her time as best pleased herself. Her aunts now
+insisted that she should wear her prettiest moccasins and all her
+ornaments, and that she should go with them to dances and feasts, for
+which she had a distaste and some features of which were loathsome to
+her. She was so accustomed, from an inborn sense of duty, to obey those
+who stood to her in the place of father and mother, that she went as far
+toward fulfilling their wishes in regard to her costume and her
+attendance at popular amusements as her extreme timidity and acute sense
+of modesty would allow. These last-mentioned qualities were among her
+most marked characteristics. Her aunts, whose natures were of a very
+different fibre from her own, could have had little or no thought how
+this compliance on her part out of respect for them distressed her.
+Although it could scarcely have cast the faintest shadow of a mist
+across the whiteness of her soul, she was known long afterwards to
+regret and to grieve bitterly for this indulgence in little vanities.
+
+Her aunts could not and did not try to understand her. They thought she
+was queer. It seemed strange to them that Tekakwitha took so little
+pleasure in the festive customs of the Mohawks. They decided that it was
+due to her Algonquin origin. In other words, she was like her mother. So
+much the worse for her. It would have pleased them better to have had
+her resemble her father's family. But after all, the Algonquins were a
+gentle, yielding race, and they thought they would soon bend her to
+their will. When they stated plainly the object they had in view in thus
+bringing her forward,--which was that she should marry,--Tekakwitha's
+whole nature was roused to resistance at the mere mention of such a
+thing, and every power of her soul was brought into action to thwart
+their plan. Though long accustomed to be docile and obey, she showed at
+this time a sudden development of will, with inherent force to mould
+its own fate, and a strength of character that had not before asserted
+itself. This must have proved to her aunts that after all there was
+something of the Mohawk in her nature. Sure of her own natural and
+inalienable right to decide for herself in this important question, she
+was unconquerable. This is clearly shown in the struggle of will against
+will, in which she was now enlisted and in which the odds were decidedly
+against her. But though her whole nature was roused at the well-meant,
+though in this case unwelcome and premature proposition of her aunts,
+Tekakwitha was too wise and too self-poised to break at once into open
+rebellion. She did not announce her secret determination to go through
+fire and water, if necessary, rather than submit to the plan of her
+relatives. Why she did not wish to marry was perhaps at that time as
+much a mystery to herself as to others; but the fact remained. She could
+not and would not think of it for a moment. "When, therefore, they
+proposed to establish her in life," says Cholenec, "she excused herself
+under different pretexts, alleging, above all, her extreme youth and the
+little inclination she had to enter into marriage. The relatives seemed
+to approve of these reasons;" but the matter was not allowed to rest for
+any length of time. Charlevoix tells us that she made an energetic
+resistance to all offers. For the moment it was not insisted upon; but
+soon they returned to the charge, and to spare themselves the trouble of
+listening to her remonstrances, engaged her without her knowledge to a
+young man. As his alliance appeared desirable to the family of the
+chief, the proposition was made, according to custom, both to him and
+to the members of his family; while Tekakwitha alone, the very one to
+whom it was of the utmost consequence, was kept in entire ignorance of
+the proceeding. This was easily done, owing to her habitual seclusion
+and the peculiar custom of the country.
+
+"Whenever marriage is in agitation," to use once more the words of
+Cholenec, "the business is to be settled by the parents, and the parties
+most interested are not even permitted to meet. It is sufficient that
+they are talking of the marriage of a young Indian with a young female
+to induce them with care to shun seeing and speaking with each other.
+When the parents on both sides have agreed, the young man comes by night
+to the wigwam of his future spouse and seats himself near her; which is
+the same as declaring that he takes her for his wife and she takes him
+for her husband." The bride then presents the young man with sagamite or
+corn-cakes and sometimes with wood, in token of what is to be her duty
+in the lodge. He, on his part, sends presents of beaver-skins to the
+family of the bride. Thus marriages were made among the Iroquois
+Indians.
+
+Tekakwitha's relations, not knowing the force of the young girl's will,
+decided among themselves that the shortest and easiest way to overcome
+her unaccountable opposition would be to take her by surprise. They did
+not even allow her to choose the person to whom she was to be united.
+They desired to entrap her unaware into the simple and silent ceremony
+of an Iroquois marriage. Thus her fate would be sealed and she forced to
+submit. Would she be able to thwart this wicked plan? And what effect
+would it be likely to have on her future conduct? Her aunts acted
+coldly and harshly in this momentous matter, quite disregarding her
+rights and her feelings. They felt too confident of success to look
+beyond the present moment, or else they presumed very far indeed on her
+well-known sweet temper and kindly disposition.
+
+Chauchetiere, who received his information chiefly from Tegonhatsihongo,
+says of her character and reputation at this time:--
+
+     "She was neither vicious, nor a gad-about, nor a great
+     chatterer, nor idle, nor proud, which is a common vice among
+     the young savages. She was not attached to visions nor to
+     dreams, neither had she ever cared much to assist at dances or
+     games; and she had shown on several occasions that she was
+     prudent; but she was naturally timid, not daring to show
+     herself when there was need that she should."
+
+Tekakwitha sat one evening on a low seat by the fire,--her own
+lodge-seat, which had been assigned to her by the chief matron in her
+uncle's household. The light of the blazing fagots before her played on
+her beaded moccasins and showed off to advantage her richly embroidered
+skirt. In her sitting posture it hung far over and half concealed her
+pretty leggings. Strings of wampum beads in curious devices were about
+her neck, and the end of a long rich scarf or girdle which she wore lay
+on the ground beside her. Her work for the day was done, and she had
+donned these things in obedience to her aunt's desire. Why, she did not
+know, and little cared. They often had company; then why not to-night?
+One of her aunts had given the finishing touch to her costume, and
+dressed her hair with her own hands. It was not by any means the first
+time she had done so. The guests, whoever they might prove to be, seemed
+to have changed their minds and gone elsewhere, for she was now left
+quite to herself. She was just weary enough to enjoy fully the rest and
+quiet, and was thinking perhaps of a pattern which she intended to work
+into a wampum belt for her uncle to be used in making a treaty,--likely
+enough it would be for the treaty of peace between the Mohawks and
+Mohegans which was brought about after the battle of Kinaquariones, by
+the people of Albany. Or she may have had in mind, as she sat there
+musing by the fireside, one of the blackgown's pictures which she had
+lately seen. If she had noticed at all the rich gift of furs that had
+been brought to the lodge and carefully put away, she never suspected
+that it was meant for a wedding present from the family of a young man
+for whom her aunts had expressed great esteem. But now, while her
+thoughts are far from any such idea, the young man who desires her for
+his wife, and who has been kept by the laws of Indian decorum from
+approaching her for some time past or addressing her himself on the
+subject, enters the wigwam in holiday attire. He is accompanied by some
+of his relatives, whilst those of Tekakwitha step forward to receive
+them. The eye of the young Indian kindles with pleasure at sight of his
+bride so gayly bedecked with all the insignia of her rank. Her apparent
+unconcern at what is passing he easily attributes either to maiden
+coyness or Indian stoicism. Besides, all know that she is extremely shy.
+So, with ready assurance of a welcome, he walks quickly toward her, and
+seats himself in silence by her side. Tekakwitha, utterly taken by
+surprise, is for a moment bewildered, disconcerted. Her aunts now bid
+her present the young man with some sagamite.[46] In a moment she
+realizes what they are doing,--that in spite of herself she is taking
+part in her own wedding. The hot blood rushes to her face. She blushes,
+but gives no other sign of what is in her mind. What can she do? For an
+instant she is in an agony of suspense. Then, with quick determination,
+she rises abruptly, and all aflame with indignation, passes, quick as
+thought, out of the long-house. Could her relatives have fancied she had
+risen to do their bidding? Her aunts knew better. Unflinchingly she had
+met their scowling looks, and felt the keen, fierce eye of her uncle
+upon her as she moved toward the door. Had her path been over red-hot
+coals, it would have made no difference then to Tekakwitha. Her only and
+overmastering impulse was to escape at all hazards,--no matter how nor
+where. Once out of the stifling air of the cabin, she hurried on and on,
+taking an accustomed path, out of mere force of habit, till it brought
+her to the familiar corn-fields. There, breathless and trembling, she
+hid herself away, with a prayer to Rawenniio to save her from the young
+hunter whom she did not want, and also from the angry eyes of her
+relatives, which like burning irons pierced her heart. Soon they came to
+seek her, and urged her with threats and with entreaty to go back to the
+cabin. They had made excuses for her absence; and if she would but
+return with them now, all would yet be well. Tekakwitha, who was by
+this time calm and collected, replied quietly but firmly that she would
+not enter the lodge at all while the young man was there. Finding it
+impossible to move her, they returned and explained the affair as best
+they could to the relatives of the now indignant young hunter. He had
+been no less surprised at her strange conduct than she had been at his
+unexpected errand to the lodge. There was no course left for him but to
+withdraw. She then returned to the lodge, and having borne the brunt of
+angry words with which she was received, retired wearily to rest in the
+angry silence which followed.
+
+It was many and many a long day to Tekakwitha before the storm which she
+thus raised about her own head had spent its fury in a series of
+domestic persecutions, till at last it was lulled to rest by the calm
+endurance of her firm but gentle spirit. Several times after this her
+relatives tried to force her into marriage. On one occasion she adroitly
+hid behind a case of Indian corn. "In everything else," says
+Chauchetiere, "she was good, industrious, peaceable, and agreeable. When
+she chose to give the word for a laugh, none ever had aught to complain
+of, and they liked her company. She never resented the raillery which
+was constantly aimed at her on account of her desire to remain
+unmarried. Her good-nature exempted her at this time from several
+difficulties into which she would have fallen if she had not been
+possessed of natural patience, and if she had not liked better to suffer
+everything herself rather than to make others suffer." Cholenec further
+says that the firmness of Tekakwitha rendered her relatives outrageous,
+for they felt as though they had received an insult.
+
+     "Artifice not having proved successful, they had recourse to
+     violence. They now treated her as a slave, obliging her to do
+     everything which was most painful and repulsive, and
+     malignantly interpreting all her actions, even when most
+     innocent. They reproached her without ceasing for the want of
+     attachment to her relations, her uncouth manners, and her
+     stupidity, for it was thus that they termed the dislike she
+     felt to marriage. They attributed it to a secret hatred of the
+     Iroquois nation, because she was herself of the Algonquin race.
+     In short, they omitted no means of shaking her constancy. The
+     young girl suffered all this ill treatment with unwearied
+     patience, and without ever losing anything of her equanimity of
+     mind or her natural sweetness; she rendered them all the
+     services they required with an attention and docility beyond
+     her years and strength. By degrees her relatives were softened,
+     restored to her their kind feelings, and did not further molest
+     her in regard to the course she had adopted."
+
+A custom of the Indians in which Tekakwitha must have taken part about
+this time, with the other Mohawk girls of her age, was the
+Corn-Feast.[47] On this supposition a brief description is here given of
+what was ever one of the merriest of their celebrations. The redmen,
+with the true poetic spirit of Nature's children, distinguished the
+various times of the year as the sturgeon month or moon, the
+beaver-month, the bear-month, and so on, according to the kind of
+hunting or fishing then in progress; while the different seasons were
+known as the time when strawberries or chestnuts blossom, or as the
+time of corn-planting and when it is ripe.
+
+It was when the corn was ripe that the Corn-Feast began. The plentiful
+crop of Indian maize was gathered together in one place, and the Mohawk
+girls assembled with laugh and song to celebrate the harvest. The
+festival took place in a field in the open air. The warriors and old
+men, not deigning to take part in this woman's frolic, sat at one side,
+though not far away, and lazily smoked their pipes. They only betrayed
+now and then, and by the merest twinkle of an eye, that they took any
+notice of what was going on. The aged squaws hung on the outskirts of
+the group of girls, urging them on with jests and shrill screams of
+laughter. The young squaws were busily employed husking the ears of
+corn, and throwing them together into heaps, after which they braided
+them into bunches of twenty[48] to be hung up and dried. This is
+preparatory to shelling, pounding, and making the corn into cakes of
+fine flour for future use. But the part of the whole process which
+pleases the young squaws best is the husking. They sing together
+snatches of song, and toss the ears of corn gayly from one to another.
+All the while they keep a keen eye on each separate ear as the soft husk
+is torn from it, and the silky tassels fall loosely away from the thick
+set rows of juicy kernels. But what has happened to Tekakwitha there in
+the midst of them? How they shout with laughter! Why is she blushing
+so? In her hand she holds a bright red ear of corn instead of a white
+one, and a saucy girl calls out the name of a young hunter,--most likely
+of the one from whom Tekakwitha so recently hid away. A red ear of corn
+is always the sign of a brave admirer. That is why it is watched for so
+eagerly. "Here he is," they say to the bashful girl; "see, he has come
+to woo you again!" She, who is easiest teased of them all on a subject
+like this, feels like running away once more to escape their jests, or
+throwing the ear of corn at the saucy girl. But she is brave though shy,
+and a maker of fun herself; so she does not move, but keeps her eyes
+well open and awaits her chance. As good fortune would have it, she soon
+spies her mischievous companion unsheathing a crooked ear of corn,
+tapering to a point and quite bent over, like a queer little man.
+"Wagemin! wagemin!" she calls out to the unlucky girl, "Wagemin!
+Paimosaid!" Although they have often plagued Tekakwitha in the lodge
+with being Algonquin rather than Mohawk, she does not hesitate on this
+occasion to recall the song of her mother's race, "Wagemin! wagemin!
+Paimosaid!"--which are the words sung in the North and West when a
+crooked ear of corn is found. Enough of Algonquin tradition, learned
+from their captives, lingered among the Mohawks for them to understand
+these words, which mean, "The little old corn-thief,--walker at night!"
+
+The laugh is now on the saucy girl who called attention to Tekakwitha.
+Then catching at the suggestion conveyed by the word "Wagemin!" they
+break forth gayly into the cereal chorus of the Algonquin Corn-Song.
+Playfully and with many gestures words like those which follow are
+recited by one of the girls, alternating again and again with the
+chorus.
+
+Schoolcraft's version of the merry Indian Corn-Song is as follows:--
+
+    _Cereal Chorus._ Wagemin! wagemin!
+                     Thief in the blade,
+                   Blight of the corn-field,
+                     Paimosaid!
+
+    _Recitative._ See you not traces while pulling the leaf,
+                Plainly depicting the taker and thief?
+                See you not signs by the ring and the spot,
+                How the man crouched as he crept in the lot?
+                Is it not plain, by this mark on the stalk,
+                That he was heavily bent in his walk?
+                Old man, be nimble! The old should be good,
+                But thou art a cowardly thief of the wood.
+
+                _Chorus._ Wagemin! wagemin! etc.
+
+                Where, little taker of things not your own,--
+                Where is your rattle, your drum, and your bone?
+                Surely a walker so nimble of speed,--
+                Surely he must be a juggler indeed.
+                See how he stoops as he breaks off the ear!
+                Nushka! he seems for a moment to fear.
+                Walker, be nimble,--oh, walker, be brief!
+                Hooh! it is plain the old man is the thief.
+
+                _Chorus._ Wagemin! wagemin! etc.
+
+                Wabuma! corn-taker, why do you lag?
+                None but the stars see you,--fill up your bag.
+                Why do you linger to gaze as you pull?
+                Tell me, my little man, is it most full?
+                A--tia! see, a red spot on the leaf,
+                Surely a warrior can't be a thief!
+                Ah, little night-thief, be deer your pursuit,
+                And leave here no print of your dastardly foot.
+
+                _Chorus_ Wagemin! wagemin!
+                         Thief in the blade,
+                       Blight of the corn-field,
+                              Paimosaid!
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[46] For marriage ceremonies see Lafitau,--"Moeurs des Sauvages," vol.
+i. p. 566; "De la Potherie," vol. iii. p. 14.
+
+[47] For an account of the Corn-Feast and its attendant merry-making,
+see Schoolcraft's "Red Race."
+
+[48] See Lewis H. Morgan on the Indian Collection in the State Cabinet
+of Natural History, etc. His Report for 1850 gives many details
+concerning the domestic customs and industries of the Iroquois. He
+mentions three varieties of corn,--white, red, and white flint,--and
+tells how they prepared it for use.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+THE NEW COLONY OF CHRISTIAN INDIANS ON THE ST. LAWRENCE.--THE
+"GREAT MOHAWK" GOES TO CANADA.
+
+
+Tekakwitha was quite old enough to have decided opinions of her own on
+whatever concerned her individual life. She had also proved in her
+recent struggle that she possessed sufficient strength of will to act
+upon her convictions. Some of these convictions she had never yet
+mentioned to any one, but she had for some time fully made up her mind
+to take a decided step. She was only waiting a favorable opportunity to
+declare her determination to become a Christian. She felt that this
+would not be an easy thing to do; for besides her strong propensity to
+shrink as much as possible from all observation, she saw that her uncle
+was becoming every day more bitter in his opposition to the teachings of
+the blackgowns.
+
+The Feast of the Dead in 1669 was closely followed by a public
+renunciation, in the Mohawk country, of Aireskoi, or demon-worship. This
+was accompanied by the burning of charms, turtle-shell rattles, and
+other badges used by the medicine-men. Similar ceremonies took place
+about the same time, among the Onondagas and in other parts of the Long
+House of the Five Nations. "Paganism had fallen. Aireskoi was disowned,
+and his name is not even known in our days among the Iroquois. The next
+step of the missionaries was to implant Christian truth and Christian
+feeling in their hearts."[49] This was another and more difficult task.
+Though the Iroquois Indians of the Five Nations have not since
+worshipped any other than the Great Spirit or true God, known in the
+Mohawk language as Rawenniio; and though the sacrifices to Aireskoi
+ceased in the Mohawk Valley after the great Feast of the Dead, in
+1669,--practically the life of the Mohawks was still pagan in almost
+every other respect. Father Pierron, at Tionnontogen, or Saint Mary's,
+and his assistant Father Boniface, who took charge of a small bark
+chapel called St. Peter's, which the Indians themselves built at
+Caughnawaga Castle, both continued their missionary labors with unabated
+zeal, but for some time they had only partial success. In 1670
+eighty-four baptisms were recorded. That same year, in June, the great
+Onondaga chief, Garacontie, was solemnly baptized at Quebec. It was
+hoped that other chiefs of the Iroquois would soon follow his example.
+
+Father Bruyas, who on first coming among the People of the Long House
+had been lodged three days in the cabin of Tekakwitha's uncle, came back
+from the Oneida country in 1671. He was made superior of the Mohawk
+mission in place of Pierron. This missionary, the painter of pictures
+and the inventor of games, received orders to return to Canada to take
+charge of a new village of Christian Indians which was then being formed
+on the south bank of the St. Lawrence. As the latter part of
+Tekakwitha's life was closely connected with the growth and development
+of this new Christian colony of Indians in Canada, and as we shall have
+occasion frequently to allude to it, some further account of it will not
+be out of place here. The site first chosen was at La Prairie de la
+Madeleine just across a broad swell of the river from Montreal on a
+tract of land belonging to the Jesuits and hitherto untenanted. The
+Canadians called this Indian settlement St. Francois Xavier _des Pres_;
+and a little later, when that same mission was moved up close to the
+great Lachine Rapids in the St. Lawrence River, it was known as St.
+Francois Xavier _du Sault_, which last is in reality nothing more than
+the Indian name of Caughnawaga put into French and still meaning "At the
+Rapids." This Christian settlement was started by the temporary sojourn
+at La Prairie of several Oneidas and Mohawks, who had been on a visit to
+Quebec and Montreal. They were attracted to the spot by Father Raffeix,
+who built a little chapel there. It grew by accessions from among the
+Five Nations, and was encouraged by the French government, in the hope
+of thus gaining useful allies. Indians who came first from curiosity or
+for temporary shelter and hospitality afterwards settled there, with
+their families and friends. The Jesuit Fathers on their part were much
+pleased with the growth of this village, and took occasion to make of it
+a distinct settlement of Christian Indians. It soon became a general
+rendezvous for their converts from among the different nations and
+tribes of Indians, many of whom by residing there were quite withdrawn
+from the contagious pagan influences which surrounded them in their own
+country. All who went to live at St. Francois Xavier _du Sault_ were
+obliged to renounce, with solemn promises, these three things,--first,
+the idolatry of dreams; second, the changing of wives, a practice in
+vogue at Iroquois feasts; and third, drunkenness. Any one among them
+known to have relapsed into any of these practices was expelled at once
+from the settlement by the ruling chiefs. These were chosen by the
+Indians themselves from among the more fervent Christians. They were
+generally men who had ranked high in their own country, and who were
+attracted to the Praying Castle, as it was called, either from motives
+purely religious or on account of some bereavement or disappointment
+experienced in their old homes. Several of these Christian chiefs were
+famous characters in the history of the time. Two of them, Kryn and Hot
+Ashes, are closely connected with the life of Tekakwitha.
+
+Kryn, the "great Mohawk," has already been mentioned in connection with
+the battle of Kinaquariones. His Christian name was Joseph, and his
+Indian name Togouiroui. He was also called the conqueror of the
+Mohegans. He dwelt with his wife at Caughnawaga on the Mohawk, and they
+had "an only daughter whose bright disposition made all in the town love
+her." After some difficulty with his wife on account of this child, he
+deserted her and went off for a long journey. The mother, it seems, had
+been converted by Father Boniface, and had declared herself a Christian
+just six months before she was thus deserted. Soon after the departure
+of her husband she was severely tried by the death of her daughter. This
+little girl had been her only consolation and hope after she was
+forsaken by Kryn. Her friends now blamed her for adopting strange
+customs, saying it was that which had made her husband leave her and
+which had caused the death of her child. In spite of all this, Kryn's
+wife became more devoted than ever to her new faith. She was seen going
+to the little bark chapel of St. Peter's every night and morning, and
+often received the sacraments from the hands of Father Boniface. First
+as assistant to Pierron, and now under Bruyas, he still carried on the
+mission at Caughnawaga. In course of time he became very successful in
+winning the Mohawks of that place to Christianity. Thirty adults were
+baptized within a short time. After the morning and evening prayers at
+the chapel, a choir of children sang hymns in the Iroquois language; and
+every Sunday the primitive Christian love-feast, or ceremony of blessed
+bread, took place in the cabin of a pious Mohawk woman.
+
+At Christmas time the little bark chapel at Caughnawaga was aglow with
+lights and bedecked with evergreens. All day long the people of the
+Turtle village, much changed in mind since the torture and murder of
+Isaac Jogues, stole silently in and out of St. Peter's rustic shrine.
+The cross, considered uncanny and strange in the days of Goupil, had at
+last become a familiar sign among the Turtles in the Mohawk Valley. The
+crowd that gathered at the chapel door on Christmas day looked up at it
+again and again as they stood out in the snow and the cold December
+blast, waiting patiently for an opportunity to enter. There in the
+chapel Father Boniface had placed a fair little statue of the infant
+Jesus lying in his wretched manger on the straw. This Christmas crib was
+a strange and wonderful sight to the simple Indians. Those who had
+become Christians told and retold the Bethlehem story in all its details
+to the curious people who gathered about the image of the little Christ
+child to gaze and wonder. Tekakwitha saw and heard all that was going on
+at the chapel, but said nothing; her aunts were there also, and her
+adopted sister. Tegonhatsihongo, whose Christian name was Anastasia,
+would of course be present on such an occasion, and also the family of
+Kryn. The wife of the "great Mohawk," having chosen her part and
+received baptism, now maintained her ground with courage. Deserted and
+childless, she held firmly to her new-found faith, notwithstanding the
+abuse she received from friends and neighbors. "Soon after this storm,"
+says good Father Boniface, "God rewarded her fidelity; for in place of
+the little girl whom he had taken from her, He gave her back her husband
+a Christian."
+
+Kryn, in his wanderings, had by chance strayed into the new village at
+La Prairie; there he met Father Fremin, who with Pierron and Bruyas had
+formerly been Tekakwitha's guests. Kryn listened to all that Fremin had
+to say to him, having known and respected him during his brief stay in
+the Mohawk country, when the mission was first begun after De Tracy's
+expedition. The "great Mohawk" resolved to become a Christian;
+furthermore, he decided that the best way for him to remain a Christian,
+and to become a good one, would be to join the new Indian settlement in
+the land of the French.[50] He was a natural leader of men, bold and
+uncompromising; he had a large following among his own people on the
+Mohawk. His next move, therefore, after becoming a Christian, was to
+return to his old home to find his forsaken wife, and to announce
+publicly the views he had embraced during his absence. The people
+gathered with interest and amazement to hear what their old leader had
+to say. None dared oppose him when he proclaimed his determination to
+leave everything that could draw him back to his old manner of life, and
+offered to lead all who would follow him to La Prairie, on the bank of
+the St. Lawrence. He gave his friends but brief time to consider his
+words and to make hurried preparations for a journey; then, at break of
+day, the wild gathering-cry of the "great Mohawk" resounded once more,
+as of old, through the streets of Caughnawaga Castle. All knew it well,
+for time and time again it had called them out to battle. With a strange
+thrill and start of alarm they heard it once more; but only those in the
+village who were baptized, both men and women, or who meant soon to
+become Christians, rallied about him now; nor even all of these, for in
+that case Tekakwitha would have been of the number. A band of thirty or
+forty gathered at his call, and with a sad, hurried farewell to their
+friends, their homes, and the valley, they turned and followed in the
+footsteps of Kryn, who thus led them away into exile. Shea well calls
+these Indians "a noble band of pilgrims for religion's sake."
+
+Tekakwitha's adopted sister probably went either with this band or with
+those who accompanied Father Boniface to Canada a little later; for soon
+after this event we learn that she was living at St. Francois Xavier du
+Sault with her husband; that they were both Christians, and that
+Anastasia Tegonhatsihongo also dwelt there and in the same cabin with
+them. The health of Father Boniface was completely broken down by the
+hardships he had undergone among the Mohawks; so he too left
+Caughnawaga. He went to Canada in June, 1673, taking many of his
+neophytes with him as far as the Sault; he died at Quebec the next year,
+surrounded by his old comrades and friends.
+
+The people of Albany and Schenectady, at the time of these migrations,
+had too much to do at home to give more than a sidelong glance at what
+was occurring at the neighboring Indian castle; otherwise the Dutch and
+English settlers of the province would probably have shown some
+inclination to resent on the part of the French their efforts to attract
+the Mohawks to the vicinity of Montreal, as it was likely to interfere
+with their influence among the redmen, and above all with their highly
+prized rights in the fur-trade. Some time before this, the Albanians had
+succeeded in bringing about a treaty of peace between the Mohegans and
+the Mohawks. Thereupon these last had begun to indulge very freely in
+the purchase of liquor at Fort Orange; they even carried kegs of it with
+them to their fishing-villages. This filled the pockets of the Dutch
+settlers, but it also brought on a severe form of illness among the
+Mohawks,--a quick and fatal fever,--which gave much occupation to the
+blackgowns, especially as the services of the medicine men were at this
+time often rejected; thus the influence of the missionaries was still
+further increased. Next, there was a disturbance in the government. The
+Dutch, taking the English by surprise, in 1673, regained possession of
+the province; that very year a large band of the Mohawks left for
+Canada. To make matters worse for the interests of the Albanians, a
+vessel with supplies for the Indian trade, which they were for a long
+while expecting from Holland, did not arrive; this caused them to put a
+higher price on the goods they were accustomed to sell to the Mohawks,
+many of whom on that account turned to Canada for their purchases.
+
+In 1674, when Tekakwitha was in her eighteenth year, and when Boniface,
+after having resigned his charge at Caughnawaga, was slowly dying at
+Quebec, the English came once more into power at Albany, and governed
+the city thenceforth. During these various changes Tekakwitha's uncle
+kept up his connection with his Dutch neighbors, invariably trading at
+Albany. He was angered almost beyond endurance at the departure of Kryn
+and of Boniface with so many of his townspeople. He joined with those
+who bitterly accused Bruyas, their only remaining blackgown, of a plan
+to break up the nation. Bruyas protested that he had had nothing at all
+to do with the affair, and threw the responsibility of the migration
+mainly upon their own chief the "great Mohawk," whose example so many
+had followed. He took occasion at the same time to remind those who
+remained of their vices, which he said were driving away the noblest of
+their tribesmen. He succeeded in pacifying them for a time; but soon
+Assendase, an aged and important chief at the capital of the Mohawk
+country, delighted the heart of the missionary, and at the same time
+rearoused the hostility of the unbelieving Indians, by becoming a
+Christian. In 1675 Assendase died at Tionnontogen, to the great grief
+of Father Bruyas. About the same time Father James de Lamberville
+arrived to take charge of St. Peter's chapel and the mission of
+Boniface; it included both the Turtle Castle of Caughnawaga on the
+Cayudutta and the adjacent Castle of the Bears called Andagoron. This
+castle was no longer on the south side of the river, but since De
+Tracy's expedition had been rebuilt on the north bank opposite to its
+old site. It was to Father de Lamberville that the niece of the Mohawk
+chief spoke out the words that had long lain nearest to her heart.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[49] Shea's History of the Catholic Missions, chap. xiv. p. 267.
+
+[50] Kryn became strongly attached to his Canadian friends. He sided
+with them in the war which broke out some years later between the French
+and the English colonies. The massacre at Lachine in 1689 roused the old
+warrior who had conquered the Mohegans (in 1669) to aid in avenging his
+white allies. On Schenectady, in 1690, fell the bloody act of
+retribution. Kryn was there. Later that same year, on a war-party near
+Salmon River, he was killed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+TEKAKWITHA MEETS DE LAMBERVILLE.--IMPOSING CEREMONY IN THE BARK CHAPEL.
+
+
+Tekakwitha was eighteen years old, and was still classed among the pagan
+or infidel Indians, as distinguished from the Christians. She had
+injured her foot severely; she could not now leave the cabin, and sat
+idle one bright sunny day while the other women were hard at work in the
+corn-fields down by the river. She was unable to walk as far as the
+spring in the cove just below the castle, and bring up the daily supply
+of water for the lodge; nor could she gather fagots enough to prepare
+the evening meal, though she knew that all would return at dusk hungry
+and weary from their work. A few women, with some old people burdened
+with ailments of various kinds, were also in the village. Two or three
+of these had strayed into the chief's cabin, and were sitting with
+Tekakwitha when Father de Lamberville, who had been only a short time in
+the Mohawk country, passed slowly along through the rows of long, low
+bark-covered houses forming the Turtle Village. Caughnawaga was
+well-nigh deserted by its people that day, and seemed fast asleep, so
+still were its streets. The missionary was taking advantage of this
+occasion to visit the old and the sick who chanced to be in their
+cabins, that he might instruct them at his leisure. He had no thought
+of entering the lodge of Tekakwitha. He knew that the chief who lived
+there disliked the Frenchmen who came down from Montreal; and besides,
+he supposed the house would be empty as usual at such times. Its
+inhabitants were known to be busy and thrifty people; they were
+doubtless at work in the fields. He passed close to the doorway of the
+cabin with eyes downcast, intent on his own quiet thoughts. He wore the
+long black cassock of his order, and carried a crucifix in his girdle
+like those worn by the three who had lodged with the chief when he lived
+at Gandawague on Auries Creek. The shadow of De Lamberville falling
+across the open doorway caused Tekakwitha to look up, and she saw him
+moving calmly on outside in the sunlight. Darkness brooded over the
+Mohawk girl where she sat, far back in the depths of the dreary cabin.
+Her heart was weary with waiting. It may have been that her mother's
+spirit hovered about just then, and renewed its prayer; or, whatever may
+have caused it, the blackgown's train of thought was disturbed. He
+raised his eyes; he stood a moment at the doorway, and "il fut pousse a
+y entrer," says the old manuscript,--a sudden irresistible impulse
+caused him to enter. Lo! at the blackgown's approach the petals of this
+Lily of Caughnawaga opened wider than ever before. Those who were
+present on that eventful day saw for the first time to the innermost
+depths of Tekakwitha's soul, far down to its golden centre, enfolded so
+long in shadowy whiteness that no one suspected its hidden growth of
+beauty. Chauchetiere says:--
+
+     "There he found Tekakwitha. Never was an encounter more
+     fortunate on the side of the girl, who wished to speak to the
+     Father, and who dared not go to seek him; on the side of the
+     Father, who found a treasure where he expected to find no one."
+
+Charlevoix tells us that Tekakwitha--
+
+     "could not dissemble the joy which this visit caused her, and
+     hastened to open her heart to the Father in the presence even
+     of two or three women who were keeping her company, and to
+     testify to him her earnest desire of embracing Christianity.
+     She added that she would have great obstacles to overcome in
+     order to succeed in her intention, but that nothing should
+     deter her. The ardor with which she spoke, the courage she
+     evinced, and a certain air, at once modest yet resolute, which
+     appeared on her face, proved to the missionary that his new
+     proselyte would be a Christian of no common order; therefore he
+     instructed her in many things of which he did not speak to all
+     whom he was preparing for baptism. God doubtless establishes
+     between hearts, the possession of which he has specially
+     reserved to himself, a sort of spiritual sympathy which forms,
+     even in this life, the sacred bond which is to unite them
+     eternally in glory. Father de Lamberville, whom I well knew,"
+     continues Charlevoix, "was one of the holiest missionaries of
+     Canada, or New France, as it was then called, where he died at
+     Sault St. Louis, as it were in the arms of Charity, worn out
+     with toils, sufferings, and penance. He has often told me that
+     from the first interview he had with Tegahkouita, he thought he
+     perceived that God had great designs upon her soul; however, he
+     would not hasten her baptism, but took all those precautions
+     which experience had taught to be so necessary, in order to be
+     certain of the savages before administering to them the
+     sacrament of regeneration."
+
+As soon as Tekakwitha had recovered from the wound in her foot, which
+had occasioned her encounter with the blackgown, she began to attend
+the morning and evening prayers at the chapel, in accordance with Father
+de Lamberville's advice. As often and as regularly as the sun rose and
+set, she was now to be seen on her way to St. Peter's. Chauchetiere
+says:--
+
+     "At first they did not give her any trouble; they let her go
+     and come to say her prayers like the others; and some have
+     believed that if this cabin was not opposed to prayer when
+     Catherine was in it, it might have come from the good custom
+     which the mother of Catherine, that good Algonquin of whom we
+     have spoken, retained there up to the time of her death, and
+     these infidels were accustomed to see praying."
+
+So far as Tekakwitha was concerned, the winter which followed these
+events passed quietly away in preparation for her baptism. She performed
+her usual duties in the cabin, and her aunts did not molest her on the
+subject of religion. According to one account, they had become
+Christians themselves, though this is contradicted elsewhere. The young
+girl was present at the instructions given to catechumens, and learned
+all the prayers with great facility and a marvellous avidity, in the
+hope that the Father would hasten her baptism.
+
+     "The missionaries before the baptism of adults took care to
+     inform themselves, secretly, of their manners and conduct.
+     Father de Lamberville questioned all who knew Tegahkouita, and
+     was greatly surprised to find that none, even among those who
+     ill-treated her, could say anything to her discredit. This was
+     the more flattering to her, since the savages are much addicted
+     to slander, and naturally inclined to give a malicious turn to
+     the most innocent actions."
+
+The missionary found no one who did not give a high encomium to the
+young catechumen. He hesitated no longer to grant what she so ardently
+asked. Easter Sunday, 1676, was appointed for the day of her baptism.
+The Christians of Caughnawaga Castle were pleased to learn that at last
+the blackgown had resolved to baptize Tekakwitha. Nearly a year had
+passed since she first asked to be made a Christian. All knew her worth.
+When the glad news of Father de Lamberville's decision was made known to
+Tekakwitha, her countenance became radiant with joy. Her aunts gave
+their consent to the step their niece was about to take. We are not told
+what her uncle said or did at the time. Perhaps he was intent on other
+important affairs just then, or he would probably have put some obstacle
+in her way. He certainly dreaded, above all things, the possibility of
+seeing his niece enticed away to Canada in the footsteps of her adopted
+sister. Perhaps he felt quite sure of keeping Tekakwitha with him, as
+she showed no desire to join a band of Kryn's followers who set out from
+the Mohawk Valley shortly before the appointed Easter day arrived. Like
+those who had gone with the "great Mohawk" on a former occasion, these
+pilgrims were bound for the Praying Castle on the St. Lawrence River. In
+the band were many friends and neighbors of Tekakwitha, so that in part
+at least her heart must have gone with them to Canada. The Praying
+Castle of St. Francois Xavier was no longer at La Prairie, as when Kryn
+first visited it, but had been moved this very year a few miles up the
+river close to the great Lachine Rapid or Sault St. Louis, and was
+henceforth called Caughnawaga. The older village of the same name in the
+Mohawk Valley was astir with expectation when Easter Sunday arrived, in
+the year 1676.[51] The young catechumen whom the blackgown De
+Lamberville esteemed so highly, the one of whom no word had been said in
+disparagement, every act of whose life was as clear and fair as the day,
+was eagerly awaiting the hour of her baptism.
+
+The Indian girls on that Easter morning, ready, as always, for a pageant
+or ceremonial of any kind, crowded about the door of the rustic chapel,
+inside and out. Some of them carried their little brothers or sisters
+tied to their backs on cradle-boards. Some were gorgeous with
+bright-colored blankets and beads. Proudly they tossed their heads,
+these Mohawk girls, sure at least of their share of admiration from the
+young braves, notwithstanding that the old chief's niece was for the
+moment attracting more attention in the town than usual. What did her
+wonderful reputation for virtue amount to, after all? Much hard work,
+some of them thought, and a scant allowance of fun or excitement. But
+for once all eyes were centred on the quiet maiden, as she issued from
+her uncle's lodge, and with two companions, also ready for baptism,
+neared the door of the chapel. It was easy to see that most of the
+people of Caughnawaga respected and honored her on account of her
+virtue. There was a time when the Iroquois had vaunted the chastity of
+their women, and on that account held their heads higher than any other
+race of Indians. On this glorious Easter day the Mohawks seemed to
+realize, at least in a general way, that the maiden Tekakwitha, whom
+they knew to be as strong in will as their own flint rock and as pure at
+heart as their crystal spring, had caught up the beautiful crown that
+was fast falling from them. They felt that she at least, while she
+lived, could be trusted to hold it securely above the mire into which
+they were sinking faster and faster.
+
+On the day of Tekakwitha's baptism, the light which the blackgown
+brought with him to the Mohawk country beamed with unquenchable
+brightness from her quiet but joyful face, and glimmered in scattered
+reflections on the faces of the crowd through which she passed. There
+men and women, warriors, hunters, jugglers, boys and girls of every
+age,--in a word, all who were in the village had gathered into groups to
+watch what was taking place at the chapel of St. Peter. The blackgown
+took care to render the baptism of an adult, and especially of such a
+noteworthy one as the niece of the chief, as impressive as possible; it
+was conducted with all due solemnity.
+
+Never before had the Christians of Caughnawaga been more generous with
+their gifts. They had offered their richest furs[52] to adorn the chapel
+in honor both of Easter day and of Tekakwitha's baptism. The walls were
+hung with beaver and elk skins. There were bear-skin rugs and buffalo
+hides, embroidered in many colors, both under foot and on every side.
+Belts of wampum festooned the rafters. Blossoming branches of shrubs and
+clusters of frail little wild-flowers that grew in the ravines near by,
+decorated the altar. The entrance door was embowered in green. The
+approach to the chapel was through an avenue of budding trees, which had
+been planted there by the missionaries, to give an air of seclusion and
+dignity to the sacred portal. In them the birds were building their
+nests, and kept up a continual fluttering, chirping, and trilling. The
+blackgown's well-trained choir of Indian boys and girls, already within
+the chapel, were watching for Tekakwitha to enter. When the three
+catechumens appeared at the door, Father de Lamberville, in surplice and
+violet stole, advanced to meet them. Sturdy Mohawk boys who had learned
+to serve at the altar, attended him. The ceremony began at the chapel
+door. Katherine was the Christian name to be given to Tekakwitha. Clear
+and distinct were the words of the priest, as he asked the following
+questions: "Katherine, what dost thou ask of the Church of God?" Then
+came the short sweet answer, "Faith." "What doth faith lead thee to?"
+"Life everlasting," was the response. The blackgown, still using the
+words of the time-honored ceremonial, continued: "If then thou wilt
+enter into life, keep the commandments. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God
+with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and thy
+neighbor as thyself." This exhortation sank deep into the soul of
+Tekakwitha. Fervent and recollected in spirit, she strove to catch the
+meaning of each word and sign. Father de Lamberville went on with the
+sacred rite. Breathing on her thrice, as she stood with head bowed down,
+he exorcised the Evil One, saying: "Go out of her, thou unclean spirit!
+give place to the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete!" She raised her head at
+these words, and he signed her forehead and breast with the cross. Then
+he blessed the salt, the symbol of wisdom, and laid it on her tongue.
+Again he bade Satan begone. They now entered the little church. They
+stood close by the font. He touched her ear with spittle, saying the
+mystic word of Christ: _Ephpheta_, that is, "Be opened!" Then she
+renounced the devil with all his works and pomps, and was anointed with
+the oil of the catechumens. She made her profession of faith in the
+words of the Apostles' Creed. After that the priest changed his violet
+stole for a white one, and poured the water of baptism on her head,
+saying at the same time the brief, essential words of the sacrament:
+"Katherine, I baptize thee in the name of the Father, and of the Son,
+and of the Holy Ghost. Amen."
+
+The people watched each of these ceremonies with rapt interest. When it
+was all over, Katherine Tekakwitha turned from the font with a white
+cloth on her head, which the priest placed there in token of innocence,
+bidding her carry it unsullied before the judgment-seat of God; and she
+bore in her hand a lighted taper, the symbol of faith. She seemed quite
+unconscious of earth, and bright with angelic joy. The Mohawks could
+almost believe they were looking at a blessed spirit rather than at one
+of themselves. The choir of Indian children, silently waiting their
+turn, now filled the chapel with joyous melody, and made it resound with
+the sweet words of an Iroquois hymn, prepared for them by their
+missionaries. The birds outside, stirred to blither singing by the sound
+of voices within, warbled their richest notes. The great forest that
+sheltered the bark-covered shrine was alive with music, strange and
+rapturous, like the strains heard by Saint Cecilia in her vision. De
+Lamberville, entranced, stood at the altar and listened, like one in a
+dream. Each breath he drew was a fervent prayer for his Indian flock. He
+was quite alone among them,--the only pale-face at Caughnawaga
+Castle,--but he felt no isolation. He had given his life to these
+people, and his heart vibrated in perfect accord with the Iroquois
+music. If he thought of his home in France and the glorious Easter
+anthems he had heard at St. Eustache and Notre Dame, it was not with
+vain regret, but only with the calm assurance that if his friends across
+the sea could hear these Indians singing in their forest chapel and
+could see the face of this Mohawk girl lit up with the joy of her
+baptism, they would not feel that he was throwing away his life and
+talents among barbarian tribes. The path of his duty lay clearly before
+him.
+
+"Go teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of
+the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." These words were ever ringing in the
+missionary's ears. It was in fulfilling this command that he had found
+the Lily of the Mohawks ripe for Christianity. He felt that he had
+gathered rich fruit with but little effort, and his next thought was how
+to keep it safe and bring it to its highest perfection for the Master of
+the Vineyard, whom he served.
+
+From the time of her baptism Katherine Tekakwitha's life resembled in
+many respects the lives of the early Christians. Chauchetiere thus
+speaks of her baptismal name:--
+
+     "Several Indians bore this name before and after her, but not
+     one of them so worthily as the Blessed Catherine Tegakouita. La
+     Prairie de la Magdeleine possesses the precious remains of one
+     named Catherine Ganneaktena, from Oneida, who was the
+     foundation stone of the mission.... Another Catherine died at
+     the Sault at the age of thirteen, having lived innocent as an
+     angel, and died as a victim of virginity. These two Catherines
+     would have served as models for all the Christian Indian women
+     at the mission of the Sault, had not Catherine Tegakouita
+     arisen to shine like a sun among the stars."
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[51] Chauchetiere mentions Easter Sunday, 1675, as the date of Kateri
+Tekakwitha's baptism. Cholenec and others give the date as above, 1676.
+
+[52] This description of the chapel at the time of Tekakwitha's baptism
+is taken principally from a manuscript of Rev. Felix Martin, entitled
+"Une Vierge Iroquoise."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+PERSECUTIONS.--HEROIC CALMNESS IN A MOMENT OF PERIL.--MALICE OF
+TEKAKWITHA'S AUNT.
+
+
+After her baptism, Katherine Tekakwitha was supremely happy. Her deft
+hands were as busy as before, providing for the general comfort in her
+uncle's lodge. Besides this she went back and forth twice each day to
+the chapel, where the blackgown assembled his dusky flock for morning
+and evening prayers. On Sundays she heard Mass at the same bark-covered
+shrine of St. Peter, and later on in the day she joined in chanting the
+prayers of the chaplet with alternate choirs of the Christian Indians.
+This was a favorite religious exercise at all the Iroquois missions.
+These people were gifted by nature with sweet voices, and sang well
+together. If at any time the Mohawk girl was beset with some difficulty
+or perplexity, she went at once to tell it with all simplicity to Father
+de Lamberville, who pointed out to her with great care the path which he
+believed would lead her most directly on to holiness of life. Once sure
+of her duty, Tekakwitha walked straight forward, with timid, downcast
+eyes, but joyous spirit, swerving neither to the right nor to the left.
+The rule of life that the Father prescribed for his other Christians to
+keep them from the superstitious, impure feasts and drunken
+debaucheries common among the Indians, was too general and not advanced
+enough for Tekakwitha. She had always avoided these excesses even in her
+heathen days, and now her craving for a higher and deeper knowledge of
+spiritual things was so great that the blackgown soon found himself
+called on to direct her in the way of special devotional exercises and
+unusual practices of virtue.
+
+In December, 1676, an event occurred of much interest to the Christian
+Indians. On the feast of the Immaculate Conception, the blessing of the
+statue of Notre Dame de Foye took place at Tionnontogen, or the Mission
+of St. Mary's. This statue was a fac-simile of a highly venerated one of
+the Blessed Virgin in Belgium. It was made of oak from the place where
+the first originated, and had been sent out from France to the Indians.
+Father Bruyas received it at Tionnontogen as a precious gift to his
+Christian Mohawks. All the neophytes of the neighboring villages
+assembled to see it unveiled and solemnly blessed. It was placed in the
+chapel in such a way that a bright ray of light falling through a small
+opening in the bark wall fell directly upon the Madonna. The Indians had
+not seen anything so beautiful and new to them since Boniface showed
+them on Christmas day at Caughnawaga the little statue of the
+Christ-child lying in a manger. Father Martin, speaking of the unveiling
+of this statue of the Madonna, says that Katherine Tekakwitha would not
+fail to be present at this pious rendezvous. She was baptized, it will
+be remembered, at Easter time; and the blessing of the statue of Notre
+Dame de Foye took place on the 8th day of the following December.
+
+Charlevoix says, alluding to Tekakwitha's Christian life:--
+
+     "From the first, her virtues gained admiration even from those
+     who were the furthest from imitating them; and those to whom
+     she was subject left her free to follow the promptings of her
+     zeal for a short time. The innocence of her life, and the
+     precautions she took to avoid all occasions of sin, and above
+     all her extreme reserve with regard to all which might in the
+     slightest degree wound modesty, appearing to the young people
+     of the village a tacit reproach to the licentious life which
+     they led, several endeavored to turn her astray, in the hope of
+     tarnishing the splendor of a virtue which dazzled them.
+
+     "On the other hand, although she neglected none of her domestic
+     labors and was ever ready to assist others, her relatives
+     murmured greatly at her spending all her free time in prayer;
+     and as she would not work on Sundays and feast-days, when
+     forbidden by the Church, they would deprive her of food the
+     entire day. Seeing that they gained nothing by this means, they
+     had recourse to more violent measures, often ill-treating her
+     in the most shameful manner: when she went to the chapel they
+     would send boys to throw stones at and calumniate her; while
+     drunken men, or those pretending to be such, would pursue her
+     and threaten her life; but fearless of their artifices, she
+     continued her exercises as if in the enjoyment of the most
+     perfect liberty and peace."
+
+She did not hesitate to say, when there was occasion for it, that she
+would die rather than give up the practice of the Christian religion.
+Her resolution was put to severe tests, but she never wavered.
+Chauchetiere thus wrote concerning the persecutions she had to endure at
+this time:--
+
+     "There are those who dare not declare themselves when they are
+     the only Christians in their cabin; but Katherine showed an
+     extraordinary firmness of spirit against human respect. When
+     the children pointed their fingers at her, when they called her
+     no longer by her Indian name, but called her by the name of
+     _Christian_ in derision, as though they meant _dog_,--which
+     lasted so long that they forgot her name, giving her none other
+     at all but that of the _Christian_, because she was the only
+     one in the cabin who was baptized,--far from afflicting herself
+     on account of this scorn of which she was the object, she was
+     happy to have lost her name.
+
+     "She had much to suffer from the mockeries of the sorcerers, of
+     the drunkards, of all the enemies of 'The Prayer,' likewise of
+     her uncle."
+
+He too, as time went on, seems to have taken an active part in
+persecuting the young girl who was entirely dependent on him for
+protection from insult. When her own uncle, the chief man of the castle,
+turned against her, what could she expect from others but ill-treatment
+of every sort? Her firmness, which nothing could shake, irritated her
+heathen relatives more and more. They called her a sorceress. Whenever
+she went to the chapel they caused her to be followed by showers of
+stones, so that to avoid those who lay in wait for her, she was often
+obliged to take the most circuitous routes. Was it not strange that one
+so shy by nature as Tekakwitha should have had the strength of will to
+undergo all this without flinching? She seemed to be utterly devoid of
+fear; though timid as a deer, she had the courage of a panther at bay,
+and was no less quick to act when the time for action came.
+
+One day when she was employed as usual in her uncle's lodge, a young
+Indian suddenly rushed in upon her, his features distorted with rage,
+his eyes flashing fire, his tomahawk raised above his head as if to
+strike her dead at the least opposition. Tekakwitha did not cry out, or
+make an appeal for mercy, or promise to abandon the course she was
+taking in the midst of this ever increasing torrent of threats and
+abuse. With perfect composure, without the tremor or twitch of a muscle,
+she simply bowed her head on her breast, and stood before the wild and
+desperate young savage as immovable as a rock. Words were not needed on
+either side. With all the eloquent silence of the Indian sign language,
+her gesture and attitude spoke to the youth and said: "I am here, I am
+ready. My life you can take; my faith is my own in life or in death. I
+fear you not!" The rage in the Indian's eye died out, and gave place to
+wonder, then awe. He gazed as if spellbound. The uplifted tomahawk
+dropped to his side. Her firmness unnerved him. Admiration, then a
+strange fear, overmastered the young brave, whose brain perhaps had been
+somewhat clouded with liquor when he thus undertook to rid the old
+chief's niece of her Christian whims. Be that as it may, he could not
+have been more astonished at what he beheld if a spirit had appeared
+before him and ordered him out of the lodge. Cowed and abashed, he slunk
+away, as if from a superior being; or rather, in the words of
+Charlevoix, "he turned and fled with as much precipitation as if pursued
+by a band of warriors."
+
+Thinking Tekakwitha meant to join the Mohawks on the St. Lawrence, they
+had sought by threatening her life in this way to prevent her from
+carrying out her purpose. They now let her live in peace for a time. No
+stone had been left unturned to weary her out and break her spirit; it
+had all proved to be of no avail. They might as well have tried to
+frighten the stars from their accustomed course through the heavens as
+to turn this quiet Mohawk girl from the path her conscience marked out.
+Her hold on faith and virtue was stronger than torture or death. These
+first caprices of her tormentors were followed a little later by a more
+dangerous persecution, and to one possessed of Tekakwitha's
+sensibilities, the most cruel of all.
+
+It was the last trial she was called upon to endure in the land of her
+birth. It was the only one, perhaps, that could have estranged her from
+her nearest kindred and her beloved Mohawk Valley; for we are told that
+she was particularly sensitive to the reproach they made to her of
+having no natural affection for her relations and of hating her nation.
+Had this been true, she would never have remained in her uncle's lodge
+as she did, till its inmates hardened their hearts against her to the
+exclusion even of the commonest sentiments of humanity. This was
+particularly the case with one of her aunts, who succeeded only too well
+in making the life of her niece a torture. She was the direct cause of
+Tekakwitha's last and severest trial in the Mohawk country.
+
+In 1677 the Lily of the Mohawks accompanied her relatives on the usual
+spring hunt. They went in the direction of the Dutch, we are told, or in
+other words, towards the settlement at Schenectady. Had their object
+been to fish, they would most likely have gone on from there to the
+fishing village at the mouth of the Norman's Kill, near Albany, passing
+down through the "vale of Tawasentha." As these Indians went to hunt and
+not to fish, they probably took instead one of the many trails leading
+through the pine-forest of Saratoga, any one of which would quickly
+bring them to a region frequented by deer and game from the Adirondacks.
+There, at a certain spot known to the Mohawks from time immemorial, a
+strange medicine-spring bubbled over the top of a round, high rock, and
+scattered its health-giving waters at random over the ground. Then, and
+for a hundred years to come, its existence was known only to the
+Indians. No white man had ever been permitted to lift its pungent water
+to his lips.
+
+To this place, called "Serachtague" in his report of the colony,
+Governor Dongan tried in vain to recall the Iroquois Christians of
+Canada, by promising them English blackgowns,[53] and undisturbed
+possession of their favorite hunting-ground. With this interesting fact
+of early Saratoga history, however, we are not now concerned. As for the
+one involving Tekakwitha, here is Chauchetiere's account of what
+occurred at the Mohawk hunting-camp, and of the report that was carried
+back from there to the village:--
+
+     "In the spring or during the time of the chase she had gone
+     with her relations towards the Dutch, with her uncle. The wife
+     of this hunter did not like Catherine, perhaps because the
+     good life of Catherine was a reproach to the contrary life led
+     by this infidel; this woman examined all the actions and all
+     the words of Catherine, that she might discover something with
+     which to find fault. It is a common thing among the Indians to
+     treat an uncle like a father, and to call him by the very name
+     of father. Catherine chanced one day, in speaking of this old
+     man in company with others, to let slip his name without using
+     the name of 'father' or 'my father;' this woman noticed that,
+     and judged rashly of Catherine, and said that Catherine had
+     sinned with her husband. She did not fail to seek out Father
+     Lamberville, and tell him that she whom he esteemed so much had
+     sinned. The Father wished to examine the reasons which this
+     woman had for treating in such a way this good Christian, and
+     having found out that the strongest was that which I have just
+     related, he sharply reproved this evil-speaking tongue; but he
+     did not neglect to speak to Catherine and to instruct her on
+     the sin, and the pains of hell that God has prepared for
+     punishing it, and then he questioned Catherine, who replied
+     with firmness and modesty that never had she fallen into this
+     sin either on this occasion or on any other, and that she did
+     not fear to be damned [for it]; but much sooner, for not having
+     courage enough to let them break her head rather than to go to
+     work in the fields on Sunday. She believed she had not done
+     enough by remaining whole days without eating, for when she did
+     not go to work in the fields on Sundays, they would hide
+     everything there was to eat in the cabin, and they left her
+     nothing of what had been prepared for that day. This was in
+     order that hunger might oblige her to go to the fields, where
+     they would have forced her to work."
+
+They declared that Christianity was making her lazy and worthless. Had
+she been accustomed to idle away as much of her time in amusement as
+the other young squaws, she would not have been so treated; but her
+ill-natured aunts, for whom she had worked industriously all her life,
+now begrudged her the one day of rest out of seven which she took for
+conscience' sake. Thus Sunday generally proved not a feast, but a
+fast-day to Tekakwitha. Her life was becoming intolerable. Her cruel and
+morose aunt, whom Martin rightly calls _un esprit bizarre_, had received
+from Father de Lamberville a reprimand which covered her with confusion.
+She visited her chagrin upon the head of her innocent victim. "Well!"
+she had said to the blackgown, "so Katherine, whom you esteem so
+virtuous, is notwithstanding a hypocrite who deceives you." As such her
+aunt now treated her. This evil-minded old squaw, who looked through the
+murky cloud of her own sins at the brightness and holiness of the young
+life so close to hers, disliked its radiance. It caused her to blink
+uncomfortably, and she refused to believe in its truth. She shrank back
+into the dark, which suited her better. In her fruitless efforts to hide
+from her wicked eyes the bright light that shone about the pathway of
+Tekakwitha, she tried by every means in her power to brand the virtue of
+her niece as a mere pretence, assumed to cover worse deeds than her own.
+
+There was no longer for the Lily of the Mohawks even a shadow of
+protection in her home at Caughnawaga Castle. Her uncle had beset her
+path with drunken men and taunting children; she had been deprived of
+food, she had been threatened with death, and last of all, her aunt had
+done what she could to defame her to the blackgown. He, however, was now
+her only friend; and his advice to her was to leave the country as soon
+as possible, and take refuge at the Praying Castle. What wonder, then,
+that Tekakwitha, after having thus spent a year and a half in her home
+as a Christian, began to look with longing eyes towards the new
+Caughnawaga on the St. Lawrence, whither her adopted sister and
+Anastasia Tegonhatsihongo had already gone. She turned to the mission
+settlement in her thoughts as to a land of promise and peace, an asylum
+where her religion and her innocence would be respected.
+
+Travelling Indians from the Sault came and went among their tribesmen in
+the Mohawk Valley. Sometimes they were joined by new recruits, who
+returned with them to Canada. Tekakwitha now greeted the arrival of each
+band of these Christian Indians with a hopeful smile; but again and
+again she saw them depart with a weary sigh, for when they were gone,
+she felt that her only chance of release from her trials had vanished
+with them. Thus far none of them had offered to take her to the Praying
+Castle, and indeed, she knew of no one with whom she would have cared to
+go had she been asked. She saw no way out of her troubles. Her uncle,
+grown harsh and unkind to her, was displeased with all that she did in
+the lodge, and yet he would not consent to her going away. The old chief
+was moody and sullen at sight of his half-untenanted castle. Who then
+would dare to tamper with his niece, or assist her in any way to escape?
+Who would ever be found willing to undertake so dangerous a venture?
+Tekakwitha sadly realized her position, and felt that she could only
+gather together the powers of her soul for patient and persistent
+endurance even unto death. She knew that if her relatives could once
+force her by long-continued persecution to yield to them, their old
+kindness would return; they would then be only too glad to choose a
+husband for her, and to give her a place among the oyanders, or noble
+matrons of the nation. But the national life of the Mohawks was still
+thoroughly heathen, and her part was already taken with the Christians.
+She would not retreat one step, nor entertain for a moment the thought
+of surrender, though she was cut off almost entirely from communication
+with those of her own faith. She stood apart from them all, and suffered
+and made no moan. During this time Tekakwitha was learning the bitterest
+lesson of life; she was daily sounding the depths and unlocking the
+secrets of unshared sorrow. In this the heart of the Lily was waxing
+strong; but alas! her very soul was athirst for the "living water" that
+was so cruelly denied her. She had scarcely as yet been allowed to taste
+of its sweetness. She knew that those who lived at the Sault were
+permitted to drink deep of the precious draught, and revelled in wealth
+of spiritual food. Thus checked and deprived of instruction, how could
+she ever hope to obtain the "bread of life" that was given out so freely
+at the mission village? Was she alone, of all the Iroquois Christians,
+to hunger and thirst for these things without relief till she died? Was
+she to be all her life "the only one in the lodge baptized"? And would
+she be always treated as now? She felt that she could not endure it much
+longer and live; for the Lily was left quite alone among thorns, and the
+thorns were pricking her almost to death.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[53] These promises were of no great account. Kryn, the great Mohawk
+warrior, said in 1687, "If a priest would settle at Saragtoga, many
+[Indians] would return; for they had longed and waited a long time for
+it." Colonial History, vol. iii. p. 436. As this hope failed, and
+neutrality was not possible, we find Kryn thenceforth in close alliance
+with the French.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+HOT ASHES PLANS TEKAKWITHA'S ESCAPE.
+
+
+The Indian chief Louis Garonhiague, known to the English as Hot Ashes,
+and called by the French La Poudre Chaude or La Cendre Chaude, was, as
+his name implies, a quick-tempered, impulsive, and fiery man. He was an
+Oneida by birth, and was known to have been one of the executioners of
+the heroic missionary Brebeuf, who, with his companion Lalemant, was
+tortured and slain in the Huron country by Iroquois warriors. Since that
+time Hot Ashes had become a Christian. His career and character are
+interesting and characteristic of the times. As this impetuous chief,
+_dogique_, and apostle was bold enough to come forward and assist the
+Lily of the Mohawks to escape from her uncle's lodge to the Sault St.
+Louis, some further account of him may well be given.
+
+Hot Ashes had been betrothed to his wife in childhood. They had lived
+together from the time he was eight years old. The violence of his
+nature was held in check to a certain extent by the unalterable
+patience, the gentleness, and the yielding disposition of his worthy
+squaw. Their union was what Chauchetiere calls one of the good marriages
+that are sometimes made among the savages. Hot Ashes was chief or
+captain of his village in the Oneida country, and was held in high
+esteem by his tribesmen. His own quick temper was the cause of his
+leaving them. At one time the question of moving the village to a new
+site--an event of frequent occurrence among the Indians--gave rise to a
+quarrel between the leading chiefs. While still angry on this account,
+Hot Ashes went off to the hunt. Thereupon a second event occurred, of so
+irritating a nature that he was enraged beyond all bounds. News came to
+him that his favorite brother had been killed. The bearer of the news
+did not tell him who had committed the fatal deed. The furious and
+excitable chief immediately persuaded himself that it had been done by
+the French. Without waiting to learn the particulars, he hurried off
+toward Montreal to wreak his vengeance on the Canadian settlers. On his
+way, however, he learned that his brother had been killed in an entirely
+different quarter, and not by these people at all. Hot Ashes was now in
+a quandary. What should he do next? He was near the Praying Castle on
+the St. Lawrence, whose hospitable doors were always open to travellers,
+and he paused there for a time to consider the situation. The Indians of
+that place liked him from the first; he soon made friends among them,
+and his wife was charmed with the quiet, orderly, and peaceful life of
+the Christian Indians who dwelt there. Hot Ashes thus had ample time to
+cool down and think matters over. Should he now decide to return to his
+own country, he would feel bound to avenge his brother's death,
+according to custom, on the people by whom he had been slain. He knew
+that this would involve his whole nation in a bloody war. This he
+disliked to do; for when not in a tempest of anger, Hot Ashes was a
+generous, good-hearted man. Then, too, the longer he remained at the
+Sault the more contented and calm he became. Won over by his wife
+Garhoit, he consented to be instructed and to be baptized with his whole
+family. The baptism of so important a chief was a great event for the
+mission. All his own people who were in the vicinity, and many even from
+the distant Oneida country, assembled at the Praying Castle for the
+occasion. A number of these remained and became Christians. There were
+soon so many Oneidas dwelling at the Sault that they needed a ruler of
+their own nation, and Hot Ashes was chosen to preside over them. He thus
+became the fourth _dogique_, or captain of the Praying Castle. He soon
+ranked first of all in importance, notwithstanding the ability of his
+stanch friend Kryn, the "great Mohawk." Still his unruly temper would
+break forth at times, as it did on the occasion of his reception as
+captain. The men of the Sault assembled in due form, lighted the fire
+for him, gave him the calumet to smoke, and went through all the
+ceremonies save one, which most unfortunately was forgotten. Hot Ashes,
+indignant at the oversight, went to Father Fremin, the missionary, and
+gave vent to his ire. He said that they had mocked him, that they had
+treated him like a child, that he was a chief without a mat, that he
+would be obliged to hold his council out of doors. In short, he could
+not be pacified till the old men reassembled, and the whole ceremony
+from beginning to end was gone over.
+
+Once duly installed, Hot Ashes ruled the village with ability and vigor
+up to the time of his death. He outlived Tekakwitha, and was finally
+killed in battle. Many incidents are told of his courage, piety, and
+zeal, his devotion to his religion and the good of the settlement, and
+also of his tenderness to his wife while suffering from grievous
+ailments which afflicted the later years of her life. He had a natural
+talent for exhorting and teaching. He won many of his own people to
+Christianity, and when war was threatened he did what he could to
+maintain peace between the Oneidas and the French. While thus engaged he
+was suspected of double dealing; but taking no notice of the evil things
+that were said of him, Hot Ashes held to his own disinterested course
+with head erect, confiding in his good wife, who alone remained true to
+him, till at last he succeeded in living down all suspicion of treachery
+on either side. He it was, more than all others, who opposed and
+prevented the introduction of the liquor traffic into the settlement at
+the Sault. A lively incident is given by Chauchetiere to show his love
+of temperance. Soon after his baptism he chanced to be hunting at the
+end of the island of Montreal, when he fell in with a band of Oneidas.
+They were being supplied with liquor by an unscrupulous Canadian trader.
+They sat around a great bowl of fire water, from which they drank
+freely, and which was constantly replenished by the crafty Frenchman.
+Hot Ashes was asked to join them. He did so, through courtesy, and drank
+with the rest. Finding that he was expected and urged to take more than
+he ought, an expedient came into his ready brain for preventing further
+mischief. As there were older men than himself in the band, it would not
+have been considered proper for him to reprove them openly. This, then,
+is what he did. He stood up and began to sing like a drunken man, and to
+dance. Suddenly he pretended to take a false step, and at the same time
+gave the bowl a great kick with his foot. This scattered its contents
+over the ground. The Indians, not suspecting his intention, looked upon
+the accident as a good joke. They began to laugh uproariously and to
+make fun of Hot Ashes, who went on with his mimicry. In the mean time
+night came on, and they thought no more of drinking, but all fell
+asleep. Hot Ashes then retired, well pleased with having put a stop to
+the debauch.
+
+Other anecdotes might be given to show the character and spirit of this
+Indian; but it is enough to know that he was just the one to assist the
+Lily of the Mohawks in the accomplishment of her now well-defined
+purpose,--to escape at all hazards, and turn from her uncle's lodge to
+the Praying Castle.
+
+Tekakwitha's adopted sister, already in Canada, knew well the condition
+of affairs in the Mohawk country, and above all, in the lodge of the
+chief, with whom she had formerly lived at Caughnawaga. She was fully
+aware that Tekakwitha's life there as a Christian would necessarily be a
+thorny one. She and her husband often spoke of the unhappy condition in
+which the young Mohawk was placed, and of the desirability of having her
+with them. When it became known that Hot Ashes was about to visit the
+Long House of the Five Nations on an errand of zeal, they realized at
+once that the wished-for opportunity had come. They would now be able to
+assist Tekakwitha. The Oneida chief intended to speak to his people
+concerning the faith that was in him, and to persuade as many of them as
+possible to return with him to the Sault. Tekakwitha's brother-in-law,
+urged by his wife, resolved to accompany Hot Ashes on his proposed
+journey, and in order to make sure of carrying out his own immediate
+purpose,--which was to bring his sister-in-law back with him,--he took
+into his confidence a good friend of his from Lorette, a mission village
+of the Hurons, near Quebec. This Indian of Lorette and the
+brother-in-law of Tekakwitha consulted with Hot Ashes, and the three
+together planned their journey as best they could beforehand. Then they
+stepped lightly into a canoe, just large enough to hold them, and soon
+were speeding southward over Lake Champlain, and thence through Lake
+George on their way to the Mohawk Valley.
+
+Ah, Tekakwitha, why is your step so weary there in the village street?
+Why do you pause at the cabin door as though you did not care to enter?
+Why are you sad and faint? Have they hidden the food away from you
+again, lest you should find a morsel to eat, and will you be greeted
+with angry words if you enter your uncle's lodge? Is it no easier for
+you to bear it now than it was at first? Poor child! you are both hungry
+and hungry-hearted; human nature is strong within you to-day. The
+craving for peace and comfort and human love will not be hushed and
+trampled under by faith, and the hope of a far-away heaven. Has
+Rawenniio forgotten the Mohawk girl? She seems to be drifting away from
+the sound of his voice. The strength of her spirit is gone. She is sad
+unto death. Why not give up the struggle at once, go into the lodge, and
+consent to do like the rest? For one who has grown too weary to swim, it
+can scarcely be wrong to drift with the current. Are these your
+thoughts, Tekakwitha? See! They have startled her out of her weariness!
+With a sudden return of energy and a quick determination, as if afraid
+to trust herself in the lodge, she turns and takes the path to the
+chapel. She will find the blackgown, if it is possible to do so; she
+will tell him her wicked thoughts, and be guided by what he says. He is
+wise and good. He can tell her how to chase such thoughts away, and
+perhaps she can keep them from coming back. At all events, he will speak
+to her the comforting words of forgiveness and tell her to go in peace.
+Then she will be sure that Rawenniio loves her and is not angry. She
+knows the path so well that she quickly comes within sight of the
+chapel. As it is not her usual hour for prayer, no one is around to
+waylay or disturb her.
+
+Close at hand is De Lamberville's cabin. Tekakwitha does not find him at
+once, for the blackgown has guests. They are Christian Indians, who have
+come from the Sault, and there are three of them. Father de Lamberville
+is well pleased to have such visitors; he welcomes the Christians from
+the Sault who come to the Mohawk as if they were angels come from
+heaven. He gladly receives them into his cabin, and leaves them free to
+come and go as they please. "One could see the spirit of Christianity
+and the mortification of the passions depicted on the faces of these new
+apostles." The novelty of seeing and hearing them on this occasion has
+already attracted a crowd of Indians to the spot. One of the blackgown's
+guests has risen to make a speech.
+
+Tekakwitha finds herself in the midst of the old men and the chiefs of
+Caughnawaga who are assembled there, and she listens with eager interest
+to all that is said. Her uncle is away on a visit to the Dutch, which
+happens well for her. It is no less a personage than Hot Ashes who is
+addressing the people. In his impetuous, headlong way he tells them that
+"as they all know, he was formerly captain at Oneida, that he was a
+warrior, and that he acted like them in those days, but that after all
+he was only a dog; that he had begun to be a man a few months back and
+he said many touching things," continues Chauchetiere, "but nobody
+profited by them at all except Catherine. The old men withdrew, one
+after another, and left the speaker almost entirely alone. Catherine
+could not separate herself from these new-comers. She declared to the
+Father that she must indeed go away, even at the cost of her life." She
+was too unhappy and distrustful of herself and her own powers of
+endurance to remain longer in the country where she was exposed to so
+many and such constant trials of her strength and her faith. Father de
+Lamberville, moved by her earnest words, spoke to Hot Ashes and his
+companions about her. He asked if it would be possible for them to take
+her back with them to Canada. "Certainly," they said. It was in the hope
+of assisting her to escape that they had come to Caughnawaga. Hot Ashes
+at once offered Tekakwitha his own place in the canoe. He said that he
+intended to go on to Oneida and to pass through all the Iroquois
+nations, preaching the faith. Her brother-in-law, therefore, and the
+Indian from Lorette, could take the canoe and return with Tekakwitha to
+the Praying Castle. God had provided a means of escape for her most
+unexpectedly. It was the very best opportunity she could have to go; her
+uncle was away, and her aunts, either through indifference or ignorance
+of the plan, put no obstacle in her path.
+
+Tekakwitha was never known to falter when the moment came for prompt
+decision and instant action. Chauchetiere says: "The resolution was no
+sooner taken than it was carried into execution."
+
+The two companions of Hot Ashes put Tekakwitha secretly into the canoe
+with them, and immediately took the route leading towards the Dutch;[54]
+that is to say, they embarked on the Mohawk River and followed its
+course for some distance, before taking any one of the different
+woodland trails leading to Lake George.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[54] According to Cholenec's account of Tekakwitha's escape, her
+brother-in-law went on a hurried visit to the Dutch and back again to
+Caughnawaga, before he started with her at all. This he did in order to
+mislead her uncle, who would think he had come to that vicinity for no
+other purpose than to trade in beaver-skins. The minor details of her
+journey are somewhat confused in the two accounts of Cholenec and
+Chauchetiere, but the main facts are the same in both.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+FROM THE OLD TO THE NEW CAUGHNAWAGA.
+
+
+As they left Caughnawaga Castle, and paddled around the sharp bends of
+the Mohawk River, the two Indians who were conducting this stirring
+adventure used the utmost caution to prevent an encounter between
+Tekakwitha and her uncle, who might be at that very time returning from
+Schenectady. This they dreaded above all things. If the old chief should
+meet her in company with them, he would suspect their purpose at once,
+and the lives of the three would be in danger. They followed the course
+of the river current, however, as it carried them in the general
+direction of their journey more swiftly than they could otherwise
+travel. They wished to make the most of their time before the uncle
+could be warned of their departure from the castle. It was probably not
+far from the spot where the Chuctanunda Creek at Amsterdam[55] comes
+tumbling down the hill into the Mohawk, or in that vicinity, that she
+and her two companions left the canoe by the river-side and took to the
+woods; as in the thickets along the less frequented trail by land, it
+would be easier for Tekakwitha to conceal herself quickly in case of
+alarm, than if they were to continue the journey further by way of the
+river. Had they followed the latter course, they would have been obliged
+to take a more easterly trail across Saratoga County.[56]
+
+As they feared, the uncle was soon on their trail; for shortly after the
+three mission Indians had disappeared from Caughnawaga Castle
+Tekakwitha's absence was noticed. It was quickly inferred that she had
+gone to Canada. She was not in the lodge, not in the chapel, nor with
+the girls at the spring. Instantly a runner was despatched to the Dutch
+settlement to warn the Turtle Chief of what had occurred. The news
+filled him with rage. Leaving his Dutch friends abruptly, he started
+homeward to learn if it were indeed true that his niece had vanished,
+and if so, speedily to follow her. On his way to the castle he passed an
+Indian travelling rapidly in the opposite direction from himself, whom
+he scarcely noticed and did not recognize. Nevertheless this Indian was
+no other than Tekakwitha's brother-in-law,--the very man he wanted to
+capture. The unrecognized relative knew the chief as soon as he saw him,
+but he was too near to avoid passing him without exciting suspicion. So,
+feigning an unconcern which he was far from feeling, he kept straight
+on, and passed the old man safely. He then continued his journey to
+Schenectady. The chief, on the other hand, was in quite as great a hurry
+to reach the Mohawk village. Perhaps he had doubts as to the
+truthfulness of what he had heard. At all events, when he arrived at
+Caughnawaga he went directly to his own lodge, and found that
+Tekakwitha was indeed not there, and had not been since the departure of
+Hot Ashes. Immediately he gathered what information he could at the
+castle, "loaded his gun with three balls, declaring that he would kill
+somebody," and started in pursuit of the fugitives. Once thoroughly
+roused, his unaided sagacity put him on the trail by which he might
+overtake them before they could reach Lake George.
+
+In the mean time what had become of Tekakwitha? Why was her
+brother-in-law travelling alone? Ah! she and the good Indian of Lorette
+were concealed in the bushes, either near the river-bank at Amsterdam or
+on the high ground to the northeast of that town. Her brother-in-law had
+left them there, while he made a brief trip to Schenectady and back in
+order to buy bread. They had started from Caughnawaga Castle in haste,
+without provision for the journey. He soon returned to the secluded spot
+where his companions were waiting for him. Tekakwitha was greatly
+relieved to see him. When he gave them a graphic account of his narrow
+escape from discovery, she looked upon it as a certain proof that God
+was watching over them. She resolved that on reaching the Sault, as she
+now hoped to do, she would endeavor in every way to show her gratitude
+to Him. Up to this time she had lived in great seclusion and subjection,
+and of late had suffered constant persecution and torture of spirit.
+This sudden freedom, then, from all the bonds that bound her to her
+lodge and tribe; the intense excitement attending her sudden departure;
+these days of concealment in the weird and gloomy forest; this
+unforeseen companionship with strangers, who proved to be as gentle and
+as solicitous for her safety as if she were indeed a beloved sister; and
+more than all the wonderful way in which everything seemed to concur in
+aiding her escape,--could not fail to make a deep and lasting impression
+on her sensitive soul. Every spiritual and religious tendency of her
+nature was intensified by this new and strange experience. In leaving
+her home and undertaking so perilous a journey she had thrown herself
+without reserve into the arms of Providence, and now resting there, she
+was carried almost without an effort through hair-breadth escapes from
+dangers that no earthly consideration would ever have nerved her to
+face. She felt that she could not henceforth do otherwise than devote
+her all to Rawenniio,--_the true God_.
+
+Their probable route to Lake George was through what is now the township
+of Galway in Saratoga County, and thence up the valley of the
+Kayaderosseras Creek, skirting the eastern side of the long
+mountain-ridge that carries Lake Desolation high on its back. Through
+this region one can travel almost in a straight line of open country
+from Amsterdam on the Mohawk to Jessup's Landing on the Hudson. There
+the river is fordable, just above Palmer's Falls and below the old
+scow-ferry. A well-worn trail followed the eastern bank of the river
+from there to Luzerne, and then turned northeast, through a beautiful
+valley, to the mountainous shores of Lake George. Somewhere on this
+direct route across the country, Tekakwitha's uncle overtook one of the
+two Indians who were escorting her to Canada. Apparently this Indian was
+engaged in hunting. Just as the chief approached, the hunter took aim as
+if at a bird and fired his gun. This was a preconcerted signal to his
+companion, who was some distance in advance, to conceal the Indian girl.
+It was so understood. In an instant Tekakwitha was hidden in a clump of
+thick undergrowth. Her ready-witted companion threw himself on the
+ground near her, took out his pipe, lit it, and lazily watched the
+curling smoke as he puffed it from his mouth. Tekakwitha's uncle, coming
+upon the second Indian in this attitude, was completely disconcerted.
+Where then was his niece? Assuredly not in company with these men. They
+were fully absorbed in their own affairs, and scarcely noticed his
+approach. She might be even then at work in the corn-fields down by the
+Mohawk, or saying her prayers in the woods behind the castle. In either
+case he would not have found her in the lodge. He had acted foolishly,
+and followed an idle rumor without sufficient thought. He would not
+expose his folly further by questioning these men about her. Having
+reached this determination, he turned without a word as to what was
+uppermost in his mind, and silently retraced his steps to the Mohawk
+Valley.
+
+As for Tekakwitha, she felt as sure just then of Rawenniio's direct
+protection and care, as if she had seen the Great Spirit himself
+standing in front of her hiding-place and concealing her from the
+suspicious eyes of her uncle. How else could the wise old chief have
+been so easily misled by such simple means? With a light heart she
+resumed her journey. Their worst danger was passed. When they reached
+the shore of Lake George, a little search among the bushes brought to
+light the canoe which her companions had left there on their journey
+southward with Hot Ashes. Once fairly launched, they felt secure; and
+as they paddled up the lake, hugging the westward or leeward side, where
+canoes find the smoothest water, they woke its echoes with the chanting
+of Iroquois hymns. Thus did the daughter, a voluntary exile from her
+home in the Mohawk Valley, retrace the path over land and water
+travelled years before by her captive Algonquin mother. In her ears had
+sounded not sacred hymns, but only the wild music of the war-song and
+the plaintive strains of the Indian love-song. In those days of war and
+bloodshed the Christian hymn of the Iroquois had not yet been sung. The
+Mohawk mission had been but recently founded. The blood of the martyred
+Jogues still lay fresh on the ground, and the soul of the Lily had not
+yet come into existence.
+
+During this long journey the many thoughts of Tekakwitha must have gone
+back to the dreary lodge on the banks of the Cayudutta, where her usual
+daily tasks were neglected, and where her baffled, deserted uncle now
+sat disconsolate by the hearth-fire. If these thoughts brought a pang to
+her warm heart, she could console herself with the remembrance that the
+blessing of her dead mother would not fail to follow her on the journey.
+As the three Christians left behind them "the tail of the lake"
+(Andiatorocte), and paddled past Ticonderoga, they did not pay the
+customary tribute to _the little people under the water_. Their heathen
+tribesmen might, if they chose, cast their tobacco into the lake to gain
+the good-will of the sprites who were said to prepare the well-shaped
+arrow-flints with which the shore just there is strewn;[57] for when the
+surface of the lake was rough they thought the little people were
+angry. But Tekakwitha and her companions had renounced these
+superstitions of their race. They knew that God alone was ruler of wind
+and wave. On no account could they be induced to pay homage to any such
+mischievous sprites of the lake. They asked Rawenniio instead to forgive
+the people, and to turn their thoughts away from all such foolish
+worship. "Her journey," says Chauchetiere, "was a continual prayer, and
+the joy that she felt in approaching Montreal could not be expressed.
+Behold then our young savage, twenty-one years of age, who escapes holy
+and pure, and who triumphs over the impurity, the infidelity, and the
+vice which have corrupted all the Iroquois! Behold the Genevieve of
+Canada, behold the treasure of the Sault, who is at hand, and who has
+sanctified the path from Montreal to the Mohawk, by which other
+predestined souls have passed after her!" When she found herself far
+from her own country, and realized that she had nothing more to fear on
+the part of her uncle, she gave herself entirely to God, to do in the
+future whatever would please him best. She arrived in the autumn of the
+year 1677,[58] the desire that she had to get there as soon as possible
+was the reason for not stopping on the way. On her arrival, she put the
+letters that Father de Lamberville had written into the hands of the
+Fathers, who, having read them, were delighted to have acquired a
+treasure; for these were the words of the letter: "I send you a
+treasure; guard it well." Her face told more than the letters. Her joy
+was unspeakable on finding herself in the land of light, freed from the
+sorrows of spirit which she had endured from not being able to serve God
+as she wished to serve him, freed too from the persecutions which were
+inflicted upon her in her country and in her cabin.
+
+She was received at once into the lodge of Anastasia Tegonhatsihongo,
+her mother's old friend, with whom her sister and her sister's husband
+already dwelt.
+
+From the time of her arrival at the new Caughnawaga, Chauchetiere and
+Cholenec, the two biographers of Kateri Tekakwitha, were both close and
+observant witnesses of her life. They were also present at her death.
+Henceforth, then, we will let them speak often and at length, telling in
+their own way of the rapid unfolding of spiritual life which took place
+in this untaught child of Nature. Transplanted from the heart of a
+heathen wilderness into a settlement of fervent souls,--for such from
+all accounts was the mission village at the Sault,--the Lily of the
+Mohawks caught up with keenest relish the inspiration in the air about
+her. She was lifted with marvellous rapidity to a height of holiness
+that drew all eyes in Canada towards her. It was there in the land of
+her adoption that she won the title of "La Bonne Catherine." Those who
+have patience to read on to the end of her biography will see how the
+brief life of this Indian girl was indeed radiant with love of the true
+God.
+
+The letter which she bore with her from the Mohawk Valley, written by
+Father de Lamberville, who had baptized her, and which was addressed to
+Father Cholenec, to whose flock she was henceforth to belong, is given
+in full by Martin, as follows:--
+
+     "Catherine Tegakouita va demeurer au Sault. Veuillez-vous
+     charger, je vous en prie, de sa direction. Vous connaitrez
+     bientot le tresor que nous vous donnons. Gardez le donc bien!
+     Qu'entre vos mains il profite a la gloire de Dieu, et au salut
+     d'une ame qui lui est assurement bien chere."[59]
+
+
+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] Chauchetiere 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."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+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 moving
+waters, 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. Francois 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, as fine 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 Hotel 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!
+
+[Illustration]
+
+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 of these 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 other young 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 Chauchetiere,--
+
+     "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 other way. 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 devoting themselves 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."
+
+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 well pleased 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. Francois 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 episcopal visitation 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 in her 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."
+
+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 were expected 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 the first. 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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+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. Francois Xavier du Sault, and the village is almost deserted. The
+Fathers are indeed there,--Fremin, Cholenec, and Chauchetiere; 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 winter months. 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 and friends 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 of poverty, 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 cut on 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 began her 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 the saints. 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
+herself at 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 "Voila qui
+donna encore a penser!" says Chauchetiere. 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
+     suffer so 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 the life 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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+KATERI'S FRIEND,--THERESE TEGAIAGUENTA.
+
+
+A joy 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 and passionate 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 Therese 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.
+
+Therese sees Kateri, and wonders what she is thinking about. Therese 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 Therese, 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
+Therese if she knows which portion of the church will be set apart for
+the women. Therese 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, miserable creature 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. Therese 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 Therese. 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
+heart to 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, Therese told Kateri the story of her life;
+and there their souls were knit together in a friendship that would
+outlast death and time. Therese became a part of Kateri, and Kateri of
+Therese. 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 Therese 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.
+
+Therese 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.
+
+Therese, 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 Therese 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 to listen 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 Therese 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. Therese 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 Therese fell dangerously ill,
+     and the hunters were obliged to halt. Two among them, an Agnie
+     [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 Agnie,
+     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 Therese died,
+     experiencing in his last moments deep regret that he had not
+     received baptism. The remainder of the company then 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 Therese 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 Therese 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 Therese, for she had good
+     reason 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, if
+they had not stopped her and bade her rest. She told Therese 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.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[61] See Chauchetiere, livre ii. chapitre 2.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+MONTREAL AND THE ISLE-AUX-HERONS, 1678.
+
+
+It is certain that Kateri Tekakwitha visited the French settlement on
+the north side of the river; for Cholenec thus writes:--
+
+     "While passing some days at Montreal, where for the first time
+     she saw the nuns, she was so charmed with their modesty and
+     devotion that she informed herself most thoroughly with regard
+     to the manner in which these holy sisters lived, and the
+     virtues which they practised."
+
+Kateri and Therese--for the two were inseparable--with other Indians
+from the Sault, probably laden with goods to barter, must have crossed
+over to Montreal in canoes. They paddled out into the broad smooth
+waters of the St. Lawrence below the great rapid, where the river widens
+out like a lake. They left far behind them their village, with its tall
+wooden cross on the river-bank, and the wild Isle-aux-Herons, bearing up
+its sturdy clump of foliage in the midst of the splashing foam. They
+passed at a distance the Jesuit chapel at La Prairie, where a few
+Frenchmen had built houses and formed the nucleus of a settlement, and
+then moved quietly and rapidly on in their light canoes until they
+neared the Isle St. Paul. The southern shore of the river swept away in
+a great curve as they left the Sault, and the prairie lands stretched
+away towards Lake Champlain, while Mount Royal blocked the northern
+horizon. Finally, after rounding the Isle St. Paul, they approached near
+enough to the northern bank to see where the first French fort had been
+built by the Sieur de Maisonneuve on level land at the mouth of a little
+stream. The spot is now called Custom-House Square; and the wild Ilot
+Normandin has been transformed into Island Wharf. This fort had fallen
+into disuse, and a second one was built on higher ground. The great
+French guns that were pointed toward the river meant no harm to the
+Christian Indians, who passed safely by, and landed on vacant ground in
+the rear of a cluster of fortified buildings fronting on the Rue St.
+Paul. This was the principal thoroughfare of the infant city of
+Ville-Marie. Every house on the island of Montreal was strongly built
+for defence. Each farm in the vicinity was connected with the town by a
+chain of redoubts. Not only the fort and the governor's mansion, but the
+mills, the brewery, the Hospital or Hotel Dieu, and the chief residences
+had high walls and outlying defences. These buildings were so placed
+along the Rue St. Paul that a cross-fire from them and from the
+bastioned fort across the little stream (which has since disappeared in
+the maze of modern streets) could be maintained in a way to render the
+position of the colonists impregnable against an Indian assault. This
+had all been done under the leadership of the first governor. At the
+time of Kateri's visit, the chivalric De Maisonneuve had been recalled
+to France, and De Courselles was Governor-General. The Sulpicians, whose
+seminary was centrally located on the principal street, were lords of
+the _seigneurie_ of Montreal and could give grants of land, though the
+recently arrived officers of the King disputed their right to dispense
+justice, and to appoint the governor of Ville-Marie.
+
+Marguerite Bourgeois was still a leading spirit in the colony, and was
+actively engaged in founding and conducting her schools for the Indian
+and Canadian children. Her convent of Sisters of the Congregation of
+Notre Dame, after much delay and many trials, was at last successfully
+established opposite the Hotel Dieu on the Rue St. Paul. Monseigneur de
+Laval, Bishop of Quebec, on his visit to Ville-Marie in 1676, had
+formally recognized and approved her new order. There were at this time
+ten nuns in all associated with her in the work of teaching. They taught
+day-scholars free of charge, and worked diligently out of school-hours
+to support themselves. In 1657 the Sieur de Maisonneuve had given
+Marguerite Bourgeois a tract of land near the Hotel Dieu, on which was a
+well-built stable, which she used for her first school-house. The
+classes were assembled in the lower part of the building, while this
+indefatigable schoolmistress and her first assistants slept in the loft,
+to which they ascended by an outside staircase. As her school and
+community increased, she built a house that would shelter twelve
+persons. This also had proved insufficient, and she was now established
+in a fine large stone building, where a number of girls were safely
+housed, and taught to read, write, and sew. The King of France allowed
+her a certain amount each year for the support of her Indian pupils.
+These were mostly at the school of the newly founded Sulpician mission
+on the mountain-side. There the number of Indians was daily increasing.
+M. Belmont, a Sulpician, taught the boys, and two of the Congregation
+sisters had charge of the girls. Their favorite pupil, Marie Therese
+Gannensagwas (meaning, "She takes the arm"), was in a few years to
+become herself a successful teacher in the Indian school, and a gentle,
+lovable nun. At this time she was about eleven years old. When still
+younger, she had come with her aged grandfather from the Seneca country.
+He was a Christian, having been baptized in the Huron country by the
+great missionary Brebeuf. The little Gannensagwas was adopted by
+Governor de Courselles, and placed under the care of Marguerite
+Bourgeois in the convent on the Rue St. Paul. When the school at the
+Mountain was opened, in 1676, she was sent there. In one or other of
+these two places she spent the remainder of her life, as pupil, novice,
+and then schoolmistress. Her memory has sometimes been confused with
+that of Kateri Tekakwitha, though she was ten years younger than the
+Mohawk, and led a very different sort of life. Gannensagwas grew up,
+lived and died in a convent, and was the first real Indian nun. A tablet
+to her memory is preserved in one of the towers of the old fort at the
+mission on Mount Royal. This stone tower stands in the same enclosure
+with the costly modern buildings of the Sulpicians in a beautiful part
+of the present city of Montreal. At the time of Kateri's visit, however,
+this same tower and fort was in the woods; for the buildings of the old
+town extended no farther from the river than the Rue St. Jacques. From
+there to the Indian schools of the Mountain was a lonely road leading
+past a solitary fortified farm belonging to the Sulpicians,--La ferme
+St. Gabriel. It was there that a priest, M. Le Maistre, had been
+tomahawked, in August 1661. He was on guard while the laborers gathered
+in the harvest. His tragic death warned them to withdraw at once from
+the fields, and defend themselves within the farm-house. Such incidents
+as this were then fresh in the minds of the people, and gave pathetic
+interest to many a spot near Ville-Marie.
+
+In 1678 Rue Notre Dame was a new street, not yet built up, and the
+foundations of the parish church were uncompleted; but already the Hotel
+Dieu had a long history. Just five years had passed since Mademoiselle
+Manse, the former friend of Marguerite Bourgeois, and the one who
+founded the Hotel Dieu and brought the hospital nuns from France to
+conduct it, had been laid to rest. She died in 1673. Her last request
+was that her body might be buried at the Hotel Dieu, and her heart be
+placed under the sanctuary lamp in the new church of the parish.[62] It
+was but right that this should be done, for she had given her whole life
+to founding not only the hospital but the city and colony at Mount
+Royal. Till the new church of Notre Dame should be finished, the heart
+of the brave lady, encased in a metal vase, was hung in the chapel of
+the Hotel Dieu. It was there for many years; but the building of the
+church was delayed so long that the transfer of the precious deposit
+never took place. The relic was lost at the time of a fire that
+destroyed the old chapel and hospital in 1695. Kateri may have seen the
+metal vase in the chapel of the hospital, but could scarcely have had
+time to learn its significance. Mademoiselle Manse had fulfilled a
+twofold task. She had distributed guns and ammunition to the colonists,
+and had nursed the wounded soldiers and Indians. Her life was often in
+danger. At times she was quite alone in the hospital. Her courage,
+enthusiasm, and womanly care for the sick and suffering were a mainstay
+of the colony, all through what has well been called its heroic age.
+Founded in a spirit of religious zeal for the conversion of the savages,
+its struggle for existence in a wild country of warring races fills up a
+strange and interesting chapter in early American history. Quebec, Three
+Rivers, and Montreal were for a long time the only settlements of any
+consequence in Canada. Quebec was the great stronghold and
+starting-point of French trade and colonization. There too the Jesuit
+missionaries had their headquarters, and sent their reports, which were
+combined into the famous "Relations," so valuable now as history. Three
+Rivers, the next important trading-post, was a long stride up the St.
+Lawrence and into the wilderness. There, as elsewhere, the French sought
+to share their faith with the Indians. Kateri's Algonquin mother, it
+will be remembered, had been baptized at Three Rivers before her capture
+by the Iroquois. Beyond that point no permanent settlers had ventured
+until Montreal, the strange, solitary island city, was established for
+no other purpose than to convert the redmen to Christianity. The whole
+plan was made in France by a company of devout and wealthy persons. Two
+of the leading spirits, not yet mentioned, were M. Olier, an
+ecclesiastic, and M. de la Dauversiere, a pious layman. The site for
+the city was chosen, and the island bought, by men who had no practical
+knowledge of the country. It was far inland, and dependent entirely on
+its own resources when the Indians were at war. The people of Quebec did
+not always know whether Montreal existed or not, so beset were its
+inhabitants at times by the unconverted, warlike kindred of Kateri. The
+raids of the Mohawks were checked by De Tracy, in 1666; but after all,
+they were only one of five unfriendly nations who were liable to
+brandish the tomahawk at any time against the French. In 1678 there was
+a general peace along the whole line, except for local and religious
+persecutions, such as Kateri had endured before coming to the Sault.
+
+The worst days for Montreal had been about twenty years before, when
+their allies the Hurons were annihilated as a nation by the terrible
+Iroquois. At that time the French lived in a whirlwind of war and havoc.
+The remnant of Hurons that remained with them after the war, were
+gathered together in the mission village of Lorette near Quebec.
+Sillery, in the same vicinity, was a settlement of the Christian
+Algonquins. In Kateri's time these two missions nestled under the
+protecting guns of Quebec; just as the Indians of the Praying Castle
+where Kateri lived, and the Iroquois of the Sulpician mission on the
+slope of Mount Royal, felt bound to maintain a close friendship for
+defence, as well as through inclination, with their French neighbors at
+Montreal. The people of the Sault and the people of the Mountain were
+always welcomed and graciously received by the colonists of Ville-Marie.
+There were many things for them to see and learn there; but if the
+Hotel Dieu and the convent were at one end of the town, the brewery and
+the fort were at the other, and on the whole the Jesuit Fathers at the
+Sault liked it better when their Indians stayed at the mission. The
+trader of Montreal was much the same sort of man as the trader of Fort
+Orange. The early colonial town of the Frenchman, however, differed in
+many respects from the town of the Dutchman. It will be interesting,
+therefore, to follow Kateri as she leaves her canoe on the pebbly shore,
+and wander with her through the strange, new streets of the Canadian
+town, just as we followed her uncle long ago on his journey to Albany on
+the shore of the Hudson. His pack of beaver-skins was examined and
+handled by the well-to-do traders of Handelaer Street. So do the
+companions of Kateri dispose of their Indian wares with equal ease in
+the long and important Rue St. Paul. Like the Dutch thoroughfare, it
+runs parallel with the river; all the dwellings on one side have their
+backs turned to the water, but their gardens do not extend all the way
+to the water's edge, as at Albany; there are vacant building lots in the
+rear on the river-bank.
+
+     "The houses built of wood, _piece sur piece_, or of rounded
+     pebbles stuck together with cement, are all in the same
+     style,--a rectangle covered with a steep roof slightly
+     overtopped by the stone chimney; two skylights to admit light
+     into the garret on the long sides; a door set between two
+     windows, and the walls pierced with loop-holes for defence
+     against the Iroquois. The interior is not less simple,--one
+     large hall where all the family live, as in Bretagne; a bed or
+     lounge, a sort of long coffer or chest with a cover that is
+     opened out in the evening, into which a mattress is spread,
+     and where the children sleep; some chairs or small benches; the
+     extra clothing and the gun, hung up on the wall."[63]
+
+This extra clothing was as unpretentious in style as the dwelling. A
+plain woollen garment, with capot, girdle, and _tuque_, was the uniform
+of the Canadian colonist. Even the first governor, Sieur de Maisonneuve,
+wore it the greater part of the year, except on state occasions. Of
+course, in the hottest weather this warm outer garment was exchanged for
+a cooler shirt and a broad-brimmed hat; then the woollen coats with
+snow-shoes and other winter belongings of the settler were hung on pegs
+against the wall.
+
+The home-trained garrison of Montreal felt proud to hear the Viceroy de
+Tracy call them his "capots bleus," for they knew right well he could
+scarcely have triumphed over the Mohawks without their assistance. His
+veterans, scarred in the Turkish wars, were indeed a sorry sight to
+behold on the expedition of 1666, when they stumbled about in the snow,
+and lost their way in the forest of northern New York. Kateri remembered
+these soldiers well. She saw them in her childhood, when they were
+enemies and invaders of her home, and so she did not care to see them
+again. A glance at the fort and the fortified houses, the mills, the
+governor's house, and the _seminaire_ was enough for her. Already she
+stood at the corner of the Rue St. Paul and the Rue St. Joseph. If she
+chose to follow up the latter street, it would take her to the great
+square where the foundations of the new church of Notre Dame had been
+laid. But the chapel of the Hotel Dieu was right before her, and she
+entered there. The hospital Sisters were chanting their office behind a
+wooden grating. Why were they out of sight? What did it all mean? She
+questioned her comrades, and they told her what little they themselves
+knew about the nuns. Not content with visiting the chapel, they gained
+permission to enter the hospital. What Kateri saw at the entrance on the
+Rue St. Paul was a great, heavy wooden door, opening into a small
+building. Behind this was a large enclosure or yard surrounded by a high
+stockade wall for defence, and containing several buildings, mostly of
+wood and somewhat out of repair. The hospital Sisters, though chiefly of
+noble rank, were poorly lodged and suffered many privations. The
+hospital was endowed by a lady of fortune in Paris, but it had been
+built and equipped under the eyes of Mademoiselle Manse, who cared for
+the sick herself till the Sisters came from France. After that she had
+dwelt close by them, and continued in charge of their financial affairs
+until her death. The nuns possessed some cows and other domestic
+animals. There was also a little bakery in one part of the enclosure. In
+another place Soeur de Bresoles had a garden marked off, where she
+cultivated medicinal drugs. It was all very simple and primitive, but
+strange and marvellous to the eyes of Kateri. She saw how good the
+Sisters were to the sick, and how simply and poorly they lived
+themselves. Their own beds were in a rough attic above the wards for the
+sick. Their linen was spotless, but the observant Kateri could not fail
+to see that their dresses were patched in many places. Though each of
+these ladies brought a _dot_ with her to the convent when she entered
+the order in France, they were often left with no resources save what
+their own industry brought them in the wilds of Canada, and even the
+hospital fund was lost to them through bad management over the sea; but
+no misfortune could daunt them in their work of curing and converting
+the Indians, and caring for the disabled colonists. They refused every
+overture to return to Europe, and shared in all the vicissitudes of the
+struggling colony, rich at least in the good-will of its people.
+
+In the convent across the street from the Hotel Dieu, Kateri and her
+friend were warmly welcomed by Marguerite Bourgeois and the Sisters of
+the Congregation. It is probable that the two young Indian girls stayed
+over night at the convent, for Soeur Bourgeois delighted in entertaining
+just such guests, to shield them from all harm while in the city, and to
+win them to the practice of virtue and piety. There is every reason to
+believe that Kateri was much influenced and stimulated in her spiritual
+aspirations by what she saw there, and above all by coming in contact
+with the strong and saintly character of the woman who had founded so
+useful an order. Marguerite Bourgeois and her companions were successful
+in doing good from the very first; and to-day the great Villa-Maria,
+which is the outgrowth of her humble but earnest efforts, is set like a
+queenly diadem on the brow of Mount Royal. There the young girls of
+America are still attracted, sheltered, taught, and incited by the nuns
+of her order to a life of virtue and good deeds, in much the same spirit
+that the early colonial belles and Indian maidens were gathered
+together long ago by Marguerite Bourgeois herself, the very first
+schoolmistress of the town. She was accustomed to wear a plain black
+dress, with a deep pointed linen collar, almost a little cape; besides
+this, something that might be called either a short veil worn like a
+hood or a large black kerchief was drawn over her head and knotted
+loosely under her chin. In her later days the edges of a white cap which
+she wore under this sombre head-dress, showed about her face. Her nuns
+still wear a costume which she prescribed for them. There is nothing
+peculiar about their black dress or the usual nun's veil which falls in
+loose folds from the head and shoulders, but they wear an odd linen
+head-dress with three points, which is drawn together under the chin and
+projects downward in a stiff fold. Some of the sweetest of faces may be
+seen framed in this ungainly gear. The hooded kerchief of Marguerite
+Bourgeois was more pleasing, but she did not choose that it should be
+very comfortable. A sister of hers discovered one day that the cap she
+wore under this kerchief was all bristling with bent pins. She was,
+perhaps, allowing them to prick her into a remembrance of her sins at
+the very time she received Kateri and her friend with a gracious smile
+and led them into the convent. Several of the nuns were teaching their
+classes. Most of the children at the school were Canadians, but there
+were also Indian girls under her care, younger than Kateri, who could
+read and write and spin. Several of these were boarding pupils,
+supported by pensions from the King, Louis XIV. These became, under the
+care of the Sisters, like demure little convent girls, scarcely to be
+distinguished from the Canadian children, except by their Indian
+features. The studious and modest little Gannensagwas, though now sent
+to the new school at the Mountain for a time, felt more at home in the
+Rue St. Paul, where she had spent four or five years. An Onondaga girl,
+Attontinon, called Mary Barbara at her baptism, was nearer Kateri's age.
+She also aspired to join the sisterhood, but was as yet too recently
+converted from heathenism to be admitted.
+
+Kateri felt shy and out of place, no doubt, among the little scholars
+whom she saw at Ville-Marie, even though some of them were Indians. She
+felt, perhaps, as a wild deer of the forest might who chanced to stray
+into a park where petted fawns looked knowingly up at the
+half-frightened intruder, as they quietly nibbled grass from the hands
+of the keepers. If the young Mohawk girl did not turn suddenly about and
+take the nearest path to the woods and thickets, it was only because her
+timidity was held in check by a great eagerness to learn all she could
+about the life of those beautiful, quiet nuns. She knew they had come
+far away from their own country to teach the Iroquois and the Algonquins
+as well as the Canadian children to live like Christians. Kateri did not
+ask all the questions that came into her mind; but this much she
+certainly learned,--that the sisters lived unmarried, apart from the
+rest of the people, and spent much time in prayer. She had an
+opportunity also to observe some of their daily exercises and little
+practices of piety. It is more than likely that she went with them on a
+visit of devotion to the stone chapel of Bon Secours, a little way out
+of the town. It was just finished at that time; and a small statue of
+Our Lady, brought from France by Soeur Bourgeois, had been placed
+there. The officials of the town secured the garret of the church for a
+temporary arsenal to store their ammunition. There was no other place as
+yet in Ville-Marie that was fireproof. The Church of Bon Secours has
+always been a favorite shrine. Kateri's devotion to the Blessed Virgin
+would naturally lead her there before she left the city. She was both
+interested and attracted during her stay in Montreal by everything she
+saw at the Convent of Notre Dame and at the Hotel Dieu. But she gave no
+intimation of a wish to remain with the nuns at either of these
+establishments. Her whole life had been the life of an untamed Indian.
+She had accepted Christianity in the only way in which under the
+circumstances it could possibly have been offered to her,--that is to
+say, Christianity pure and simple, with few of the trappings of European
+civilization. She was a living proof that an Indian could be thoroughly
+Christianized without being civilized at all in the ordinary sense of
+the word. She was still a child of the woods, and out of her element
+elsewhere. It was with scarce a regret, then, that she returned with her
+friend to the Sault, and resumed her usual life there. But her visit to
+Montreal had given her an intimation of something well known to the
+Christians of Europe, which had not been taught at the mission. The
+married state was frequently praised there, and always recommended to
+the Indians. The blackgowns did not venture to give the counsel of Saint
+Paul concerning virginity, to a people that were but just learning to
+walk in the way of the commandments. But Kateri had been struck by the
+example of the Jesuit Fathers themselves, and her penetrating mind had
+already guessed that something was withheld from her on this point;
+after her visit to the nuns at Montreal she was confirmed more than ever
+in her resolve to remain unmarried.
+
+Kateri and Therese talked the matter over when she returned to the
+Sault; and together they formed a plan for carrying out their idea of
+living a perfect life. It was a romantic rather than a practical
+project, but so quaint and beautiful that it is well worth telling. In
+the first place Therese was discreet enough to recommend that they
+should have an older woman with them who would know all about the affair
+from the first. She said she knew just the right sort of a person,--a
+good Christian, advanced in years, who had lived for some time at Quebec
+and also at Lorette, the older Huron mission which was conducted on the
+same plan as the Iroquois mission at the Sault. The name of this woman
+was Marie Skarichions. Kateri agreed to what her friend suggested, and
+on a certain day they all three assembled at the foot of the tall cross
+on the river-bank, that they might consult together without
+interruption. It was a quiet, dreamy spot, and always the favorite
+resort of Kateri for prayer and meditation, or confidential interviews
+with her friend. No sooner were they seated there, than the old woman
+began to talk, and to tell them that she also would gladly live as they
+wished to live; that she had been taken care of once by the Sisters at
+Quebec when she was sick; that she knew just how they lived, for she had
+noticed them particularly. She went on to say that she and Therese and
+Kateri must never separate, that they must all dress just alike, and
+live together in one lodge. Kateri listened eagerly to all this talk,
+hoping to gather some profit from it, and begging the woman not to
+conceal from her anything she knew that would make her soul more
+pleasing to God. As their imaginations grew more and more excited in
+picturing to one another the ideal life they would lead in their little
+community, shut off from everything that might distract them from prayer
+and holy thoughts, their eyes fell naturally enough upon the solitary
+unfrequented Isle-aux-Herons which lay off in the midst of the rapids.
+"There!" they said, with sudden enthusiasm, as they pointed to the
+island,--"there is the place for our lodge of prayer!" and they began to
+portion it off in their thoughts, and to plan an oratory with a cross
+under the trees; they also tried to make out a rule of life for
+themselves. But all at once they remembered Father Fremin, the head of
+the mission, and wondered what he would think of their project. Kateri
+had great respect for authority, and a true spirit of obedience. They
+agreed to do nothing without the consent of the blackgown. One of them
+went at once to find him and told him why they were assembled, asking
+him at the same time if he did not approve of their plan. But alas! the
+unfortunate messenger came back to the other two covered with confusion.
+The blackgown, she said, had only laughed heartily at all their
+beautiful projects, and made light of them, saying that they were too
+young in the faith to think of such a thing as founding a convent. It
+was too much out of the ordinary way, and quite unsuitable. The
+Isle-aux-Herons was altogether too far from the village. The young men
+going back and forth from Montreal would be always in their cabin. Upon
+further consideration, they concluded that, after all, what the Father
+said was reasonable, and _they thought no more of their convent of the_
+"_Isle-aux-Herons_."
+
+But Kateri, for her part, was determined to see the Father herself a
+little later, and get from him, if possible, some further information
+about the life she wished to lead. Unforeseen circumstances obliged her
+much sooner than she expected to seek the counsel and advice of Father
+Cholenec on this very subject, for the adopted sister of Kateri was even
+then forming plans of her own for the disposal of her young relative.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[62] The parish church of Notre Dame, with its two square towers, is
+often called by mistake the Cathedral. This title belongs to St.
+Peter's,--a more modern structure, with a great dome shaped like that of
+St. Peter's at Rome.
+
+[63] Histoire et Vie de M. Paul de Chomedey, Sieur de Maisonneuve,
+1640-1672, par P. Rousseau.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+"I AM NOT ANY LONGER MY OWN."
+
+
+Kateri Tekakwitha had already refused to be united to a heathen brave.
+"But a Christian marriage," said her sister to Anastasia, "is a very
+different affair." The matchmakers were again lying in wait for her. It
+is Father Cholenec who gives us the best account of this final contest
+with Tekakwitha on the matrimonial question. He was her spiritual
+director at the time, and was consulted by the parties on both sides.
+While Fremin was absent in France, he had charge of the Mission, with
+Chauchetiere as assistant. The following version of what occurred to
+disturb Kateri in the fall of 1678 is taken entire from Cholenec's
+letter (dated the 27th of August, 1715):--
+
+     "Interested views inspired her sister with the design of
+     marrying her. She supposed there was not a young man in the
+     Mission du Sault who would not be ambitious of the honor of
+     being united to so virtuous a female; and that thus having the
+     whole village from which to make her choice, she would be able
+     to select for her brother-in-law some able hunter who would
+     bring abundance to the cabin. She expected indeed to meet with
+     difficulties on the part of Catherine, for she was not ignorant
+     of the persecutions this generous girl had already suffered,
+     and the constancy with which she had sustained them, but she
+     persuaded herself that the force of reason would finally
+     vanquish her opposition. She selected, therefore, a particular
+     day, and after having shown Catherine even more affection than
+     ordinary, she addressed her with that eloquence which is so
+     natural to these Indians when they are engaged in anything
+     which concerns their interests.
+
+     'I must confess, my dear sister,' said she, with a manner full
+     of sweetness and affability, 'you are under great obligations
+     to the Lord for having brought you, as well as ourselves, from
+     our unhappy country, and for having conducted you to the
+     Mission du Sault, where everything is favorable to your piety.
+     If you are rejoiced to be here, I have no less satisfaction at
+     having you with me. You, every day, indeed, increase our
+     pleasure by the wisdom of your conduct, which draws upon you
+     general esteem and approbation. There only remains one thing
+     for you to do to complete our happiness, which is to think
+     seriously of establishing yourself by a good and judicious
+     marriage. All the young girls among us take this course; you
+     are of an age to act as they do, and you are bound to do so
+     even more particularly than others, either to shun the
+     occasions of sin, or to supply the necessities of life. It is
+     true that it is a source of great pleasure to us, both to your
+     brother-in-law and myself, to furnish these things for you, but
+     you know that he is in the decline of life, and that we are
+     charged with the care of a large family. If you were to be
+     deprived of us, to whom could you have recourse? Think of these
+     things, Catherine; provide for yourself a refuge from the evils
+     which accompany poverty; and determine as soon as possible to
+     prepare to avoid them, while you can do it so easily, and in a
+     way so advantageous both to yourself and to our family.'
+
+     There was nothing which Catherine less expected than a
+     proposition of this kind; but the kindness and respect she felt
+     for her sister induced her to conceal her pain, and she
+     contented herself with merely answering that she thanked her
+     for this advice, but the step was of great consequence, and she
+     would think of it seriously. It was thus that she warded off
+     the first attack. She immediately came to seek me, to complain
+     bitterly of these importunate solicitations of her sister. As I
+     did not appear to accede entirely to her reasoning, and for the
+     purpose of proving her, dwelt on those considerations which
+     ought to incline her to marriage, 'Ah, my Father,' said she,
+     '_I am not any longer my own._ I have given myself entirely to
+     Jesus Christ, and it is not possible for me to change masters.
+     The poverty with which I am threatened gives me no uneasiness.
+     So little is requisite to supply the necessities of this
+     wretched life, that my labor can furnish this, and I can always
+     find something to cover me.' I sent her away, saying that she
+     should think well on the subject, for it was one which merited
+     the most serious attention.
+
+     Scarcely had she returned to the cabin, when her sister,
+     impatient to bring her over to her views, pressed her anew to
+     end her wavering by forming an advantageous settlement. But
+     finding from the reply of Catherine, that it was useless to
+     attempt to change her mind, she determined to enlist Anastasia
+     in her interests, since they both regarded her as their mother.
+     In this she was successful. Anastasia was readily induced to
+     believe that Catherine had too hastily formed her resolution,
+     and therefore employed all that influence which age and virtue
+     gave her over the mind of the young girl, to persuade her that
+     marriage was the only part she ought to take.
+
+     This measure, however, had no greater success than the other;
+     and Anastasia, who had always until that time found so much
+     docility in Catherine, was extremely surprised at the little
+     deference she paid to her counsels. She even bitterly
+     reproached her, and threatened to bring her complaints to me.
+     Catherine anticipated her in this, and after having related the
+     pains they forced her to suffer to induce her to adopt a course
+     so little to her taste,[64] she prayed me to aid her in
+     consummating the sacrifice she wished to make of herself to
+     Jesus Christ, and to provide her a refuge from the opposition
+     she had to undergo from Anastasia and her sister. I praised her
+     design, but at the same time advised her to take yet three days
+     to deliberate on an affair of such importance, and during that
+     time to offer up extraordinary prayers that she might be better
+     taught the will of God; after which, if she still persisted in
+     her resolution, I promised her to put an end to the
+     importunities of her relatives. She at first acquiesced in what
+     I proposed, but in less than a quarter of an hour, came back to
+     seek me. 'It is settled,' said she, as she came near me; 'it is
+     not a question for deliberation; my part has long since been
+     taken. No, my father, I can have no other spouse but Jesus
+     Christ.' I thought that it would be wrong for me any longer to
+     oppose a resolution which seemed to me inspired by the Holy
+     Spirit, and therefore exhorted her to perseverance, assuring
+     her that I would undertake her defence against those who wished
+     henceforth to disturb her on that subject. This answer restored
+     her former tranquillity of mind, and re-established in her soul
+     that inward peace which she preserved even to the end of her
+     life.
+
+     Scarcely had she gone, when Anastasia came to complain, in her
+     turn, that Catherine would not listen to any advice, but
+     followed only her own whims. She was running on in this
+     strain, when I interrupted her by saying that I was acquainted
+     with the cause of her dissatisfaction, but was astonished that
+     a Christian as old as she was could disapprove of an action
+     which merited the highest praise, and that if she had faith,
+     she ought to know the value of a state so sublime as that of
+     celibacy, which rendered feeble men like to the angels
+     themselves. At these words Anastasia seemed to be in a perfect
+     dream; and as she possessed a deeply seated devotion of spirit,
+     she almost immediately began to turn the blame upon herself;
+     she admired the courage of this virtuous girl, and at length
+     became the foremost to fortify her in the holy resolution she
+     had taken.... [As for Catherine], feeble as she was, she
+     redoubled her diligence in labor, her watchings, fastings, and
+     other austerities. It was then the end of autumn, when the
+     Indians are accustomed to form their parties to go out to hunt
+     during the winter in the forests. The sojourn which Catherine
+     had already made there, and the pain she had suffered at being
+     deprived of the religious privileges she possessed in the
+     village, had induced her to form the resolution, as I have
+     already mentioned, that she would never during her life return
+     there. I thought, however, that the change of air and the diet,
+     which is so much better in the forest, would be able to restore
+     her health, which was now very much impaired. It was for this
+     reason that I advised her to follow the family and others, who
+     went to the hunting-grounds.[65]
+
+     "She remained, therefore, during the winter in the village,
+     where she lived only on Indian corn, and was subjected indeed
+     to much suffering. But not content with allowing her body only
+     this insipid food, which could scarcely sustain it, she
+     subjected it also to austerities and excessive penances,
+     without taking counsel of any one, persuading herself that
+     while the object was self-mortification, she was right in
+     giving herself up to everything which could increase her
+     fervor. She was incited to these holy exercises by the noble
+     examples of self-mortification which she always had before her
+     eyes. The spirit of penance reigned among the Christians at the
+     Sault. Fastings, discipline carried even unto blood, belts
+     lined with points of iron,--these were their most common
+     austerities. And some of them, by these voluntary macerations,
+     prepared themselves when the time came, to suffer the most
+     fearful torments.... One in particular among them, named
+     Etienne, signalized his constancy and faith. When environed by
+     the burning flames [at Onondaga], he did not cease to encourage
+     his wife, who was suffering the same torture, to invoke with
+     him the holy name of Jesus. Being on the point of expiring, he
+     rallied all his strength, and in imitation of his Master,
+     prayed the Lord with a loud voice for the conversion of those
+     who had treated him with such inhumanity. Many of the savages,
+     touched by a spectacle so new to them, abandoned their country
+     and came to the Mission du Sault, to ask for baptism, and live
+     there in accordance with the laws of the Gospel.
+
+     "The women were not behind their husbands in the ardor they
+     showed for a life of penance. They even went to such extremes
+     that when it came to our knowledge we were obliged to moderate
+     their zeal. Besides the ordinary instruments of mortification
+     which they employed, they had a thousand new inventions to
+     inflict suffering upon themselves. Some placed themselves in
+     the snow when the cold was most severe; others stripped
+     themselves to the waist in retired places, and remained a long
+     time exposed to the rigor of the season, on the banks of a
+     frozen river, and where the wind was blowing with violence.
+     There were even those who, after having broken the ice in the
+     ponds, plunged themselves in up to the neck, and remained there
+     as long as it was necessary for them to recite many times the
+     ten beads of their rosary. One of them did this three nights in
+     succession, and it was the cause of so violent a fever that it
+     was thought she would have died of it. Another one surprised me
+     extremely by her simplicity. I learned that, not content with
+     having herself used this mortification, she had also plunged
+     her daughter, but three years old, into the frozen river, from
+     which she drew her out half dead. When I sharply reproached her
+     indiscretion, she answered me with a surprising naivete, that
+     she did not think she was doing anything wrong, but that
+     knowing her daughter would one day certainly offend the Lord,
+     she had wished to impose on her in advance the pain which her
+     sin merited.
+
+     "Although those who inflicted these mortifications on
+     themselves were particular to conceal them from the knowledge
+     of the public, yet Catherine, who had a mind quick and
+     penetrating, did not fail from various appearances to
+     conjecture that which they held so secret; and as she studied
+     every means to testify more and more her love to Jesus Christ,
+     she applied herself to examine everything that was done
+     pleasing to the Lord, that she might herself immediately put it
+     in practice."
+
+Chauchetiere, alluding to the events of this same fall and winter (1678
+and 1679), gives some details of her life not mentioned by Cholenec. He
+says:--
+
+     "As soon as she learned from Father Fremin that God left every
+     Christian free to marry or not to marry, she lost no time in
+     choosing a state of life for herself, and furthermore, if the
+     fear that she had of appearing virtuous had not restrained her,
+     she would have cut off her hair; she contented herself with
+     dressing like those who were the most modest in the village.
+     Father Fremin gave her some rules of life more special than
+     those he gave to the others; he directed her to keep herself in
+     retirement, above all during the summer time, when the canoes
+     of the Ottawas came down, to remain in her cabin, and not go to
+     the water's edge to see them arrive, like the rest. She also
+     regarded what he said about not going to Montreal. In a word,
+     it was only necessary to tell her a thing once, and she put it
+     in practice. It was a common saying in the village that
+     Catherine was never elsewhere than in her cabin or in the
+     church; that she knew but two paths,--one to her field, and the
+     other to her cabin. But to come in particular to the rules that
+     she prescribed for herself, here are a few of them.
+
+     "Being a young Indian, twenty-two or twenty-three years old,
+     she must naturally have liked to be well and properly dressed
+     like the others, which consists in having the hair well oiled,
+     well tied, and well parted, in having a long braid [queue]
+     behind, and in adorning the neck with wampum. They like to have
+     beautiful blankets and beautiful chemises, to have the leggings
+     or mittens well made, and above all to have just the right kind
+     of a moccasin; in a word, vanity possesses them.
+
+     "Catherine thought she could do away with all that, without
+     eccentricity. But one could see by her dress what her thought
+     was. She was not looking for a husband; she gave up all bright
+     red blankets and all the ornaments that the Indian girls wear.
+     She had a blue blanket, new and simple, for the days when she
+     went to communion; but more than that, she had an interior,
+     very perfect, which was known only to God; but which she could
+     not hide so well but that her companion knew of it at the times
+     of their greatest fervor.... Marie Therese Tegaiaguenta once
+     told Catherine of certain movements of indignation that she had
+     against herself and her sins; and that when she was going one
+     day into the woods feeling herself oppressed with grief at the
+     thought of her sins, she had taken a handful of switches and
+     had given herself heavy strokes with them on her hands; and
+     that another time having climbed a tall tree to get birch-bark
+     for a piece of work, when she was at the top she was seized
+     with fear. Casting her eyes to the foot of the tree where there
+     were many stones, she believed with reason, that if she fell
+     she would break her head. But a good thought came to her then,
+     which confirmed her more than ever in all the good resolutions
+     she had already made to serve God; for reflecting on her fear,
+     she blamed herself for fearing to die and not fearing even more
+     than that to fall into hell. Tears came into her eyes as she
+     descended; and when she reached the ground, she sat down at the
+     foot of the tree, throwing her bark aside, and giving way to
+     the good feeling that had taken possession of her."
+
+Kateri did not forget what her companion told her about the switches,
+and resolved to make a daily practice for herself which she could keep
+up during the time of the chase.
+
+While her sister with her family were off at the hunting-camp, Kateri
+had as much time as she could wish to satisfy her devotion at the
+village chapel. She remained there so many hours on her knees in the
+coldest winter weather, that more than once some one or other of the
+blackgowns, moved with compassion at sight of her half-frozen condition,
+obliged her to leave the chapel and go warm herself. Kateri had at last
+learned, by repeated inquiries, all she wanted to know about the nuns
+whom she had seen at Montreal. She was now aware that they were
+Christian virgins consecrated to God by a vow of perpetual continence.
+
+Cholenec says:--
+
+     "She gave me no peace till I had granted her permission to make
+     the same sacrifice of herself, not by a simple resolution to
+     guard her virginity, such as she had already made, but by an
+     irrevocable engagement which obliged her to belong to God
+     without any recall. I would not, however, give my consent to
+     this step until I had well proved her, and been anew convinced
+     that it was the Spirit of God acting in this excellent girl,
+     which had thus inspired her with a design of which there had
+     never been an example among the Indians."
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[64] In another account of this interview given by Cholenec in his
+manuscript life of Kateri, which has never been published, but is still
+preserved by the Jesuits at Montreal, are the following words: "Ah, mon
+pere, me repondit-elle sur le champ, et sans hesiter, 'Je ne l'aurois
+m'y rendre. Je hais les hommes, j'ai la derniere aversion pour le
+mariage,--la chose m'est impossible!'"
+
+[65] Cholenec, in an older manuscript, gives further particulars
+concerning the life of this "Premiere Vierge Irokoise." In that account
+of the interview, after giving the above recommendation to Kateri about
+her health, her director goes on to describe the way in which his advice
+was received. "At these words she only laughed, and a moment after,
+taking that air so devout which was usual with her when she came to
+speak to me of her spiritual affairs, she made this beautiful reply,
+worthy of Catherine Tegakouita: 'Ah, my father, it is true that the body
+has good cheer in the woods, but the soul languishes there and dies of
+hunger; whereas in the village, if the body suffers a little from not
+being so well nourished, the soul finds its full satisfaction, being
+nearer to Our Lord. Therefore I abandon this miserable body to hunger,
+and to all that might happen to it afterwards, in order that my soul may
+be content, and may have its ordinary nourishment."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+KATERI'S VOW ON LADY DAY, AND THE SUMMER OF 1679.
+
+
+Kateri's soul was indeed of rarest and costliest mould. Of this Father
+Cholenec was now fully aware. He also knew her quiet determination of
+spirit, and he no longer resisted her pleadings to be allowed to
+consecrate herself to God by a vow of perpetual virginity. This she did,
+with all due solemnity, on the Feast of the Blessed Virgin, the 25th of
+March, 1679.
+
+However others might look upon her act, this solemn engagement with God
+gave her a feeling of freedom rather than of thraldom. At last she had
+an acknowledged right to live her own life in her own way. She was
+Rawenniio's bride. The blackgown had approved of her vow, and no
+relative of hers at the Sault ventured afterwards to question or disturb
+her. "From that time," says Cholenec, "she aspired continually to
+heaven, where she had fixed all her desires; ... but her body was not
+sufficiently strong to sustain the weight of her austerities and the
+constant effort of her spirit to maintain itself in the presence of
+God." She tested her powers of endurance to the utmost. Her constant
+companion, Therese, afterwards told of her that on one occasion, as they
+were coming from the field into the village, carrying each of them a
+heavy load of wood, Kateri slipped on the frozen ground and fell,
+causing the points of an iron belt which she was accustomed to wear to
+penetrate far into her flesh. When Therese advised her on account of
+this accident to leave her bundle of wood until another time, Kateri
+only laughed, and lifting it quickly, carried it to the cabin, where she
+made no mention of her hurt. When summer came and the others laid aside
+their blankets for a time, she continued to wear hers over her head even
+in the hottest weather. Anastasia said that she did this, not so much to
+shield her eyes from the light, as from modesty and a spirit of
+mortification.
+
+Kateri and Therese found a deserted cabin near the village, where they
+were now in the habit of going every Saturday afternoon to prepare
+themselves in a suitable manner, as they supposed, for receiving the
+sacrament of penance.
+
+Chauchetiere relates how this custom of theirs originated, and how they
+employed themselves while in this retreat. It was only by questioning
+Therese after the death of Kateri that the full extent of their
+austerities became known, for they were careful to conceal them from the
+knowledge of all. Father Fremin was away at this time, having gone on a
+voyage to France, and Father Cholenec had full charge of the mission
+during his absence. As his time was filled with new cares and
+responsibilities, he had but little opportunity to notice or discover
+that Kateri Tekakwitha, the treasure confided to his keeping by Father
+de Lamberville, was in all simplicity and earnestness wrecking her
+health and strength by undergoing fearful penances. Suggested to her
+either by the remorseful and penitent mind of Therese, or the stern
+instructions of Anastasia, they were carried out with the utmost
+severity by Kateri on her frail and innocent self, as though she bore on
+her own shoulders the sins of the whole Iroquois nation.
+
+It may be well to give a full account of how she was accustomed to make
+her preparation for confession, and where the plan originated. One
+Saturday afternoon while waiting for the bell to ring for Benediction,
+she sat in the cabin of Therese, talking confidentially with her friend
+on matters of conscience. Therese happened to mention the bundle of
+switches with which she had scourged herself on a certain occasion; and
+Kateri, quick to put a pious thought into practice, hastened at once to
+the cemetery, which was near at hand, and returned with a handful of
+stinging little rods. These she hid adroitly under the mat on which she
+was sitting, and waited eagerly for the first stroke of the bell. Then
+hurrying the people of the cabin as fast as possible to the church, the
+two were no sooner alone than they fastened the lodge securely on the
+inside, and gave full vent to their devotion. Kateri was the first to
+fall upon her knees, and handing her companion the switches, begged her
+not to spare her in the least. When she had been well scourged, she in
+turn took the switches, and Therese knelt down to receive the blows.
+With bleeding shoulders, they said a short prayer together, and then
+hastened to the chapel, joyous and happy at heart. Never before had the
+prayers seemed shorter or sweeter to them than on that evening. Their
+next thought was to choose a place where they might continue this
+exercise. The unfrequented cabin already mentioned seemed to them a
+most favorable spot. It belonged to a French trader, who only came at
+long intervals to the village. It stood always open, and had become
+gradually surrounded by graves, so that it was now within the cemetery.
+There the two friends went every Saturday. After making an act of
+contrition, they proceeded as follows: They recited the Act of Faith,
+which they were accustomed to say at the church; then Kateri, who wished
+always to be the first in penitence, would kneel and receive the
+scourging, begging her companion all the while to strike harder, even
+though blood appeared at the third stroke. When they came to a pause,
+they recited the chaplet of the Holy Family, which they divided into
+several parts, at each of which a stroke was given with the switches.
+But towards the end of the exercise, their devotion knew no bounds. It
+was then that Kateri laid bare the sentiments of her heart in such words
+as these: "My Jesus, I must risk everything with you. I love you, but I
+have offended you. It is to satisfy your justice that I am here.
+Discharge upon me, O my God, discharge upon me your wrath." Sometimes
+tears and sobs choked her voice so she could not finish what she was
+saying. At these times she would speak of the three nails which fastened
+our Saviour to the cross as a figure of her sins. When Kateri was thus
+touched, she did not fail to move her companion, who with equal fervor
+underwent the same voluntary punishment.
+
+Therese assures us that the worst fault that Kateri could ever find to
+accuse herself of on these occasions when she opened her heart most
+freely, was the carelessness in which she had lived after her baptism.
+This consisted in not having resisted those who had forced her to go to
+work in the fields on Sundays and feast days; that is, in not having
+rather suffered martyrdom at their hands. She reproached herself with
+having feared death more than sin. That this saintly girl suffered
+everything short of absolute martyrdom in her efforts to keep holy the
+Lord's Day, we already know from the record of her life in the Mohawk
+Valley. It must be remembered, too, that at that time she had not made
+her first communion or been fully instructed.
+
+It would be a long and harrowing task to give a full account of all the
+austere fasts and penances that Kateri Tekakwitha underwent during the
+course of the year 1679. Many of them belong to the age and the place in
+which she lived, and were in common practice then and there. Others go
+to prove the rude, Spartan spirit of her race, which gloried in
+exhibitions of fortitude under torture. But the tortures that her people
+knew how to endure so well through pride, Kateri endured in a spirit of
+penance and atonement. Her greatest excesses of self-inflicted pain came
+like sparks of fire from her intense love of the crucified Redeemer. She
+wished to prove herself the slave of His love. She had seen the Iroquois
+warriors brand their slaves with coals of fire; so she could not resist
+the impulse which came to her one night to seize a red-hot brand from
+the hearthfire, and to place it between her toes. She held it there
+while she recited an Ave Maria. When the prayer was over, she was indeed
+branded. Such inflictions as these, by their incessant expenditure of
+energy, soon wore out her frail body, and brought of their own accord a
+speedy answer to her never-flagging prayer,--that Rawenniio, the
+beautiful God of the Christians, whom she had learned to love so well,
+would take her to His lodge!
+
+     "Kateri had great and special devotion both for the Passion of
+     our Saviour and for the Holy Eucharist. These two mysteries of
+     the love of the same God, concealed under the veil of the
+     Eucharist and His dying on the cross, ceaselessly occupied her
+     spirit, and kindled in her heart the purest flames of love. One
+     day, after having received the Holy Communion, she made a
+     perpetual oblation or solemn offering of her body to Jesus
+     attached to the cross, and of her soul to Jesus in the most
+     Holy Sacrament of the Altar."[66]
+
+As Kateri knew but two paths while she lived at the Sault,--one leading
+from her cabin to the field where she worked, and the other to the
+chapel where she prayed,--her friends could easily find her. There, at
+the church day after day, and many times a day, any one who chanced to
+stray in might see a muffled figure kneeling near the altar-rail, facing
+the tabernacle. At such times she saw nothing, heard nothing, of what
+was taking place around her or behind her. In front of her was the
+sacred Presence she could not leave unless for some urgent call of duty
+or charity.
+
+A touch on the shoulder, a whispered word, "You are wanted, Kateri," and
+no hand or heart was more willing than hers to assist or relieve, as the
+case might be. Often she did not wait for this. A sudden inspiration, an
+impulse of sympathy, carried her where she was needed. When the good
+deed was done, the love within her heart drew her again to the foot of
+the tabernacle. "When she entered the church in taking the blessed
+water she recalled her baptism, and renewed the resolution she had taken
+to live as a good Christian; when she knelt down in some corner near the
+balustrade for fear of being distracted by those who passed in and out,
+she would cover her face with her blanket, and make an act of faith
+concerning the real presence in the Blessed Sacrament. She made also
+several other interior acts of contrition, of resignation, or of
+humility, according to the inspiration which moved her, asking of God
+light and strength to practise virtue well. In the fourth place,"
+continues Chauchetiere, "she prayed for unbelievers, and above all for
+her Iroquois relatives. She finished her devotion by saying her beads.
+She confided this exercise to her companion, who made it known. Except
+for her habit of hiding the beautiful practices taught her by the Holy
+Spirit, we might have occasion to admire still more the rapid progress
+which faith made in her soul. She had regulated the visits which she
+made to our Lord to five times a day without fail; but it can be said
+that the church was the place where she was ordinarily found."
+
+Spiritual writers are accustomed to divide the Christian life into three
+progressive grades; namely, the purgative, the illuminative, and the
+unitive. Chauchetiere declares that Kateri's life at the Sault might
+well serve as an example to the most fervent Christians of Europe, and
+compares her spirit with that of Saint Catherine of Sienna; then he sums
+up in a few words her exalted spiritual attainments by saying that she
+was already in the "unitive way" before having well known the other
+two.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[66] Cholenec's letter.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+KATERI ILL.--THERESE CONSULTS THE BLACKGOWN.--FEAST OF THE
+PURIFICATION.--THE BED OF THORNS.
+
+
+Kateri's health was fast failing; and those with whom she lived,
+perceiving this, watched her more closely and sought to check her in her
+fasts and penances. They saw that on Wednesdays and Saturdays she ate
+nothing. At these times she would spend the whole day in the woods
+gathering fuel. They were careful after this to have the soup ready
+before she started out in the morning; but even then she would
+occasionally find an excuse to slip away without her breakfast. When it
+was the turn of one of the other women of the same lodge-fire to go for
+wood, Kateri sometimes interfered, saying that the woman in question had
+a baby to nurse and ought to stay in the cabin; as for herself, there
+was nothing to keep her, she could just as well go as not. Before they
+noticed that she had not yet taken a mouthful, she would be off to the
+woods and at work. When she could no longer fast without attracting
+notice, she still kept up the practice of mingling ashes with her food,
+or denying herself in some other way.
+
+About this time a child of her adopted sister died. As Kateri was
+assisting the other women to make a grave for her little nephew, one of
+them said to her, laughing, "Where is yours, Kateri?" "It is there,"
+she answered, pointing to a certain spot.[67] The incident was soon
+forgotten; but Kateri was not mistaken, as was proved later. The place
+she indicated was near the tall cross by the river, where she was
+accustomed to pray, and where she had her first long talk with Therese
+Tegaiaguenta.
+
+Her only pleasure now was in prayer or in spiritual conversations with
+her friend Therese or with Anastasia; for both of them spoke often of
+God. All other companionship had become distasteful to her. Her natural
+gift of ready and witty conversation, as well as her helpful
+disposition, won her many friends without effort. She was beloved as
+well as reverenced by the whole population, while careful to shun more
+and more all intercourse that did not help her heavenward. In her
+humility it did not occur to her that she on her part could perhaps do
+something towards lifting others to the high plane of her own thoughts.
+Chauchetiere relates the following incident of how she was once called
+on for advice, much to her own surprise. Two young married
+people--Francois, the Seneca, and his wife Marguerite--had watched
+Kateri's way of life with much interest and admiration. They knew she
+had made a vow of virginity, and one day they called her into their
+cabin with the idea of learning from her how a good Christian ought to
+live in this world. In order that she might be less embarrassed and
+speak freely, they sent at the same time for her companion, Therese.
+When both were seated, the door was closed as a token that what they
+were about to ask Kateri was a great secret, and that they were ready to
+keep it sacred. Francois the Seneca (called by the French La Grosse
+Buche) began the conversation. He addressed himself both to Kateri and
+to Therese, saying first that he knew what they had done and the state
+of life they had embraced. This he said, that they might speak out. As
+for himself he wished to be a good Christian and to give himself
+entirely to God. His wife was of the same mind. He spoke for both.
+Kateri was much surprised at this discourse. She was silent for some
+time, and then asked her companion to speak. It would take too long to
+tell all that was said on both sides concerning the state of life that
+was most pleasing to God. It is enough to say that they gave no advice
+to the young married couple other than that they should go to the
+blackgown and propose their plan to him. The woman was not more than
+twenty, and the man scarcely older. This good Francois, it seems, wished
+to live with his wife as with his sister. He did so for some years, and
+would have continued to do so had he not been advised to the contrary.
+His wish was to repair as far as possible the evil he had done before
+his baptism. He was an excellent hunter and a good warrior. He was
+afflicted later in life with a painful disease, from which he suffered
+severely for fourteen years. Kateri was at all times his model. He
+endeavored to imitate her patience and resignation, as well as her other
+virtues. After death he wore about his neck a little chaplet, which he
+called Kateri's beads. Strung next to the cross on which the _Credo_
+was to be said were two beads, one for a _Pater_ and one for an _Ave_;
+then there were three other little beads on which he was accustomed to
+say the _Gloria Patri_ three times, to thank the Blessed Trinity for the
+graces bestowed upon Kateri. Always cheerful and contented himself, he
+consoled and encouraged his wife, who, although a great devotee, was apt
+to complain of her poverty. When his health no longer permitted him to
+go to the chase, he mended kettles, made pipes, and did what work he
+could about the village. He brought up his children strictly, taught
+them the catechism with care, and was always on hand to sing in the
+church. He had a book or scroll of pictures in which all the chief
+events recorded in the Old and New Testaments were depicted. Copies of
+this ingenious form of Indian Bible are still to be seen at Caughnawaga
+and elsewhere. Francois, the Seneca, by these means won many converts to
+Christianity. He was accustomed, however, to give Kateri the credit for
+his success. He besought her intercession with God in all his
+undertakings, and endeavored to imitate her as far as possible in his
+life and in his death, which occurred in 1695.
+
+As Kateri had a great love for virginity,--a fact of which her whole
+life is a proof,--she did not fail to cultivate a deep and tender
+devotion to the Virgin Mother of Christ, whom she regarded in a special
+manner as her queen and mistress. Each day in reciting the litany she
+had occasion to call upon her as the "Queen of Virgins." To Kateri this
+was one of the sweetest and dearest of her many beautiful titles. To
+prove herself a devoted follower of this virgin of all virgins, she
+would gladly have cut off her hair, as the nuns do; but the fear of
+appearing singular and eccentric deterred her. Though she thus tried as
+much as possible to hide from observation by accommodating herself to
+the ways and dress of those with whom she lived, there grew to be a
+something about her,--a "je ne scay quoy," says Chauchetiere,--an
+atmosphere of purity and sanctity that almost amounted to a visible
+halo. Even her directors sometimes wondered at the impression of
+personal sanctity which she made upon the people. If we consider her
+lonely, long, and frequent prayers, not only in the chapel but at the
+foot of the tall cross by the river-bank, there is nothing to be
+wondered at. Even the roughest and giddiest of the young people of
+Caughnawaga were awed to a respectful demeanor as she passed near them.
+Not only Indians, but occasionally the French from La Prairie hovered
+about and watched for her as she came or went from her cabin or field,
+in order to get a look at the young Mohawk girl who, as they said, lived
+like "a religious." Of this reverential admiration, however, Kateri was
+quite unconscious. Unquestioned and undisturbed she followed her own
+course, the details of which were known only to her bosom friend,
+Therese.
+
+At last Kateri was seized with a dangerous illness. A violent fever came
+on, and she lay at the point of death. Therese, pale and trembling with
+alarm, now thought of their weekly scourgings in the deserted cabin; she
+feared to have her friend die without letting the blackgown know what
+they had been doing, and besought Kateri to allow her to go to Father
+Cholenec and tell him all. To this Kateri willingly assented. The
+blackgown concealed his astonishment at what he heard from Therese, and
+blamed both her and her friend for their want of discretion. Kateri,
+however, recovered from this attack. As soon as she was well she began
+at once and did not cease to importune her confessor to have pity on her
+and allow her at least some of her accustomed austerities, in order, as
+she said, that her body might not have the victory over her. Whether
+undergoing self-inflicted pains or those that come directly from the
+hand of God, her fortitude was extraordinary, even for an Indian. Though
+subject to many and frequent bodily infirmities, she never for a moment
+lost her patience, or uttered the least complaint. On the contrary, she
+seemed always desirous of increasing her sufferings rather than of
+alleviating them, but only from this one motive,--that she might bear a
+closer resemblance to the crucified Saviour. When she was ill, and her
+confessor had forbidden her to fast, she would put herself in a painful
+position. Anastasia, whom she called mother, perceiving this, reproached
+her, saying that she would kill herself. Kateri only reminded her, with
+a smile, that our Lord was much more ill at ease on the cross,--that she
+was not suffering at all in comparison with him!
+
+During the last winter of her life Kateri had frequent attacks of
+illness severe enough to keep her in the cabin. No sooner was she on her
+feet, however, than she was again at work. She did not spare herself or
+shorten her devotions. When she was too weak to kneel, she could still
+be seen at her prayers in the church, supporting herself against a
+bench. On one occasion when her health was restored for a time, she
+accompanied Therese to La Prairie, whither she was sent to carry certain
+articles from the village at the Sault. On the way there or back,
+Kateri, falling a little behind the others, took off her moccasins and
+walked barefooted on the ice. She was noticed and hastily put on her
+shoes again. She soon overtook the others, and would willingly have let
+them suppose she had been delayed by a little accident of some sort.
+Therese, who knew her best, thought otherwise.
+
+On the Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin most of the
+villagers were away at the hunting-camp. Kateri chose to walk through
+her field on that day with bare feet, as if in a sort of procession,
+while she recited her beads several times over, the snow being more than
+knee-deep.
+
+As Lent approached, she increased her austerities till at last she
+reached the climax of all. Thinking that she had not much longer to
+live, and must hasten to do penance while on earth, she looked about for
+some new instrument of pain. It was then the beginning of Lent, and she
+had been meditating on the Passion of our Lord. She was gathering wood.
+Near at hand, she saw a great thorny brier. In a transport of fervor she
+seized it. The thorns were sharp and cutting. Had she looked far and
+near, she could not have found anything better suited to her purpose.
+She eagerly and hurriedly conceals it in her bundle of fagots, then
+lifts the scraggy mass to her back, adjusts the burden strap on her
+forehead, and starts at once for the lodge of Anastasia. Finding her own
+lodge-seat, she loosens the thorny brier from the fagots, covers it
+quickly with a large mat, and then proceeds to stow the wood in its
+proper place. The evening drags, but at length the inmates all come in
+for the night, and soon the evening meal is over. The prayers have been
+said. The lodge-fires flicker and die out. The Indians fall asleep,--all
+but Kateri. She has no thought of rest. She prays far into the night.
+Her bed is made, and a cruel bed it is. At last she looks towards it.
+She lifts the rug that covers it, clasps tightly in her hand a little
+crucifix she always wears about her neck, and with a fervent aspiration
+of love to God, throws herself upon the thorns. As she rolls from side
+to side, she grows faint, and her lips are parched with thirst, but
+still she has no desire to leave her thorny couch. She murmurs prayer
+after prayer, and waits for the daylight to come before rising from her
+bed to hide the brambles, now flecked with blood. Kateri is as busy as
+usual the next day, and her blithe smile comes and goes as freely as
+ever. Still, when night settles down on the village, she does not sleep,
+but tosses again on her bed of thorns. On the following day Therese
+observes that Kateri is tired and weak. She draws her breath quickly, as
+they walk over the rough ground together, and her head droops low at her
+prayers. Her friend tries to coax her to take more rest, to leave this
+or that task for another day. But all in vain. To Kateri every moment is
+precious now, and not one daily duty is left undone when she retires for
+the third time to her bed of thorns. When day dawns, she is up as usual,
+and Therese comes early to see her. Gladly would she escape the
+searching eye of her friend, but it is of no use. Kateri is ghastly
+pale, and Therese, suspecting the truth, will not be put off. She espies
+the thorns, and Kateri confesses all. A pang went to the heart of
+Therese, when she thought of Kateri's innocence and of her own sins. How
+could she have slept while this pure-hearted one whom she loved so well
+was rolling upon thorns! The next thought of the impulsive, warm-hearted
+Therese was one of concern for the life of her friend. She spoke quickly
+and vehemently to Kateri, declaring that she would certainly offend God
+if she inflicted such sufferings on herself without the permission of
+her confessor. This aroused the scruples of Tekakwitha. "Catherine, who
+trembled at the very appearance of sin," says Cholenec, "came
+immediately to find me, to confess her fault and ask pardon of God. I
+blamed her indiscretion, and directed her to throw the thorns into the
+fire." This she did at once. When it was simply a question of obedience
+to one who held rightful authority over her, Kateri did not hesitate.
+Her confessor testifies that she never showed the least attachment to
+her own will, but was always submissive to his direction. "She found
+herself very ill," he continues, "towards the time that the men are
+accustomed to go out to the hunting-grounds in the forest, and when the
+females are occupied from morning until evening in the fields. Those who
+are ill are therefore obliged to remain alone through the whole day in
+their cabins, a plate of Indian corn and a little water having in the
+morning been placed near the mat." It was thus that Kateri Tekakwitha
+passed through her last illness, during the Lent of 1680. She lay
+helpless in the lodge of Anastasia, while the corn was being planted in
+the fields, and the birds were flying northward across the Mohawk River.
+These little friends of hers brought back to her many a thought of her
+native valley, as they stopped to dip their bills in the St. Lawrence,
+and to sing awhile to Kateri in her pain.
+
+The children, too, came in to see her now and then. The blackgown whose
+task it was to teach them, gathered them close to her mat one day. She
+was too ill to move; but when he unrolled the pictures of the Old and
+New Testaments which he had with him, and began to explain them to the
+eager, bright-eyed little ones, a glow of interest came into the weary
+eyes that were dull with suffering a moment before. Forgetting all else
+but her insatiable desire for true knowledge, Kateri with great effort
+raised herself on her elbow, that she might see and understand better
+what was going on. A question now and then from her drew out a fuller
+explanation from the blackgown. The children themselves, with quick
+sympathy, caught from her low, earnest tones, a keener relish for the
+truth, and listened with rapt attention to the lesson drawn from the
+sacred story. At the stroke of the Angelus the instruction was over, and
+also the children's visit. How quickly the time had passed! Kateri
+thanked the blackgown, and begged him to come again with his class to
+the lodge, that he might teach both her and them. "Farewell, Kateri,"
+the children cry, as they hasten out to their sports. Quickly they
+forget her, and she too has forgotten them; she has clasped her crucifix
+in her hands, and is still buried in prayer when the women begin to come
+in from the field.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[67] This incident is given by Cholenec in his manuscript entitled "La
+Vie de Catherine Tegakouita, Premiere Vierge Irokoise." He adds: "Pere
+Chauchetiere wanted her put in the church; but I put her in the place
+she had indicated, without knowing it till long afterwards."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+KATERI'S DEATH.--"I WILL LOVE THEE IN HEAVEN."--THE BURIAL.--HER GRAVE
+AND MONUMENT.
+
+
+For nearly a year Kateri had been slowly losing strength. She had a
+continuous low fever; but during the last two months of her life her
+sufferings were very acute, and she could not change her position
+without severe pain. It was in Passion Week that the children were
+instructed by the blackgown at her bedside for the last time. Anastasia
+and the other women of the lodge continued to attend to her few wants
+morning and evening, before and after their work in the fields. They
+knew, however, by this time, that the young girl could not recover.
+Anastasia drearily watched her sinking day by day. She had never fully
+understood Kateri, but she loved her very much, and did all that would
+have been expected of an Indian mother under the circumstances. The dish
+of Indian corn and a pot of fresh water were left beside her each day;
+and towards the last, women were appointed to watch with the sufferer at
+night. These watchers belonged to the Association of the Holy Family.
+Kateri was not more neglected than others who were ill at these busy
+times. She, however, was perfectly content, and even glad to be left
+alone with God. This relish for solitude did not prevent her from
+greeting with a smile or a gay, bright word any or all who came to her
+side. There was one in the village at whose coming her heart bounded. It
+is needless to say that this was Therese Tegaiaguenta. Of all hearts at
+the Sault St. Louis, hers was the saddest through the days that Kateri
+lay dying. It was hard to work in the corn-field; it was hard not to be
+with her in the lodge. On Palm Sunday, at least, they could have a few
+hours together between Mass and Benediction. Whenever Therese knelt at
+prayer in the chapel, she felt that Kateri, lying on her mat, joined her
+in spirit. But when she prayed for her friend's recovery, she knew that
+Kateri's lips were unresponsive. They murmured no amen. The only prayer
+they could form at such times was like unto this: "God pity Therese, and
+give her the strength she needs!"
+
+On Monday in Holy Week, she asked for permission to fast, in honor of
+our Saviour's passion. She wished to pass the whole day without food.
+They told her that this she could not do,--that she had not long to
+live, and that she ought to be thinking of other things. Not long to
+live? Was this in truth what they said? She could not conceal her
+happiness at the thought of death. The angel with shadowy wings was
+close at hand, waiting to show her the face of Rawenniio.
+
+On Tuesday she failed rapidly in strength. They feared she would die,
+and prepared to give her the last sacraments. Father Cholenec did not
+intend for a moment that she should be deprived of the Viaticum,--that
+strength of the wayfarer, and bread of angels, so needful to the dying.
+But just how it should be administered was a question. Thus far the
+Blessed Sacrament had never been carried to an Indian's cabin. The sick
+were put on a bark litter and borne to the door of the church, where
+they received Holy Communion. Kateri was too weak for this. The two
+Fathers at the mission consulted together, and quickly resolved to make
+an exception in her case. No one either then or afterwards murmured at
+this distinction accorded to the Lily of the Mohawks. Father Cholenec at
+once entered the sanctuary, took the sacred particle from the
+tabernacle, and passed out of the church, following the shortest road to
+Anastasia's cabin. All who were then in the village assembled to
+accompany him, and knelt about the door of the lodge, leaving a passage
+for the blackgown to enter. In the mean time Kateri heard of the honored
+Guest whom she was to receive; whose sacramental presence had been so
+long denied her, on account of her inability to drag herself to the
+chapel. This had not been possible since the first weeks of Lent. She
+was now overjoyed at the good news they brought her. Her face lighted up
+with happiness. Then all at once she remembered the miserable condition
+and great poverty to which long-continued sickness had reduced her. So
+she held fast to the hand of Therese, who was then at her side, and
+begged her earnestly not to leave her. As soon as they were left alone
+for a moment, she confided to her friend that she owned no decent
+garment in which to receive her Lord, who was about to visit her, having
+only those she now wore. Therese, touched at this avowal from one who
+knew so well how to care for herself and others when she had been able
+to work, quickly brought a chemise of her own for Kateri, and dressed
+her properly for the great event so near at hand. Kateri had hidden her
+poverty even from Anastasia. All is at last in readiness, both within
+the lodge and without; her heart's desire is at hand. "Behold He cometh,
+leaping over the mountains."
+
+The blackgown, with the sacred Viaticum, entered the rude bark cabin,
+which was crowded with kneeling Indians. The _Confiteor_ was recited.
+Kateri Tekakwitha renewed her baptismal vows and the solemn offering she
+had made of her body to Almighty God. She recalled the graces bestowed
+upon her, and especially such as had enabled her to preserve her
+chastity through life. She then received the Body and Blood of Christ,
+and after a few moments of silent adoration, all present joined with her
+in prayer. Throughout the afternoon other Indians of the village, as
+they came in from the hunt or the field, were constantly going back and
+forth to the lodge where she lay. All wished to see her and to hear her
+dying words. Not one was indifferent to the passing of her soul. Many
+were the signs of love and of reverence shown for her on that day. It
+would seem as if she had been to each one of them like a favorite
+sister. All were eager to gain a remembrance in her prayers.
+
+"The Father profited by this occasion," says Chauchetiere, "and obliged
+Catherine to exhort some persons who needed to be encouraged in virtue."
+He adds that the words of the dying always had great effect at the
+mission in converting those who could not be brought otherwise to be
+baptized or to confess their sins. If this were the case ordinarily, how
+doubly effective must have been the words thus wrung from Kateri,
+despite her humility, by the command of her director! But after all, it
+was her example, in life and in death, that preached most forcibly to
+them. The effort she made to speak--for, indeed, it was more natural for
+her to be silent--exhausted her very much. Thinking she was about to
+expire, Father Cholenec wished to anoint her at once, and ran in haste
+as far as the church; but her calm assurance to Therese, to the Father,
+and to others that there was no occasion for hurry, caused them to
+believe afterwards that the hour of her death, as well as the place of
+her burial, had been privately revealed to her by God.
+
+During the evening of Tuesday Therese left her friend for a time. In the
+night she was again watching by Kateri's side with another woman.[68]
+The sufferer asked them to take turns in order to get more rest, or they
+would be too weary the next day. When Therese remained alone with her,
+Kateri, who had looked forward to this moment, said: "I know very well,
+my sister, what I am saying. I know the place from which you came, and I
+know what you were doing there. Take courage!" she continued with great
+tenderness; "you may be sure that you are pleasing in the eyes of God,
+and I will help you more when I am with Him." The eyes of Therese opened
+wide at these words, and then filled with tears. How could Kateri have
+known what she had done? She had stolen off to the woods without saying
+a word to any one, and had cruelly scourged herself as she prayed from
+her heart for her dying friend. But Kateri, it seems, did know about it;
+and in the morning early, when Therese wished to stay by her lest she
+should not be there at the last, she said in a decided tone: "You may go
+to the field, Therese; do not fear. You will be back in time." In this,
+too, she was not mistaken.
+
+Father Martin, in describing these last hours of Kateri, gives the
+following conversation which took place that same morning, and which
+shows the touching simplicity of her Indian friends. "If we must go,"
+they said to her, "ask God not to let you die while we are away." Kateri
+again assured them that there was time enough. "On your return you will
+find me still living," she said. They went away satisfied, and God
+blessed their confidence.
+
+It will be remembered that this was the morning of Wednesday in Holy
+Week. What follows is from Chauchetiere, who says that the companion of
+the dying girl was sent for about ten o'clock that day.
+
+     "Marie Therese Tegaiaguenta arrived in the cabin shortly before
+     Extreme Unction was given. After she [Kateri] had received all
+     the sacraments, she conversed with her companion. She was
+     failing, however, all the time, and at last, speaking with
+     difficulty and unable to raise her voice, seeing her comrade
+     weeping bitterly, she bade her this last farewell: 'I leave
+     you,' said Catherine; 'I am going to die. Remember always what
+     we have done together since we knew one another. If you change,
+     I will accuse you before the judgment-seat of God. Take
+     courage; despise the discourse of those who have no faith. When
+     they would persuade you to marry, listen only to the Fathers.
+     If you cannot serve God here, go away to the mission of
+     Lorette. Never give up mortification. I will love you in
+     heaven,--I will pray for you,--I will help you--'
+
+     "The Father who was near by on his knees to say the prayers for
+     the dying, heard a little of what Catherine was saying. He kept
+     his eyes fixed upon the face of Catherine to notice what was
+     passing, and at the same time he encouraged them both.
+     Catherine had her face turned towards Heaven, and her companion
+     embraced her with one hand, having the other resting on the
+     cheek of Catherine, and listening with attention to the last
+     words of the dying one.
+
+     "This blessed girl in saying to her companion, 'I will love
+     thee in Heaven,' lost the power of speech. It had been a long
+     time since she closed her eyes to created things. Her hearing,
+     however, still remained, and was good to the last breath. It
+     was noticed several times that when some acts were suggested to
+     her she seemed to revive. When she was excited to the love of
+     God, her whole face seemed to change.[69] Every one wished to
+     share in the devotion inspired by her dying countenance. It
+     seemed more like the face of a person contemplating than like
+     the face of one dying. In this state she remained until the
+     last breath. Her breathing had been decreasing since nine or
+     ten o'clock in the morning, and became gradually imperceptible.
+     But her face did not change. One of the Fathers who was on his
+     knees at her right side noticed a little trembling of the nerve
+     on that side of her mouth, and she died as if she had gone to
+     sleep. Those beside her were for a time in doubt of her death.
+
+     "When they felt certain that all was over, her eulogy was
+     spoken in the cabin, to encourage others to imitate her. What
+     her father confessor said, together with what they had seen,
+     made them look upon her body as a precious relic. The
+     simplicity of the Indians caused them to do more than there was
+     need for on this occasion, as, for instance, to kiss her hands;
+     to keep as a relic whatever had belonged to her; to pass the
+     evening and the rest of the night near her; to watch her face,
+     which changed little by little in less than a quarter of an
+     hour. It inspired devotion, although her soul was separated
+     from it. It appeared more beautiful than it had ever done when
+     she was living. It gave joy, and fortified each one of them in
+     the faith he had embraced. It was a new argument for belief
+     with which God favored the Indians to give them a relish for
+     the faith!"
+
+Thus died Kateri Tekakwitha, on Wednesday, April 17, 1680. She was
+twenty-four years of age.
+
+The change in her countenance after death, mentioned by Chauchetiere, is
+described at some length by Cholenec. He recalls the fact that when
+Kateri was four years old she was attacked by the small-pox, and that
+some marks of it were left on her face. It had been much more
+disfigured, however, by her austerities and by her last illness. "But
+this face," says Cholenec, "thus emaciated and marked, changed all at
+once, about a quarter of an hour after her death; and it became in an
+instant so beautiful and so fair that, having perceived it at once (for
+I was in prayer near her), I gave a great cry, so much was I seized with
+astonishment, and I had the Father called, who was working on the
+repository for Thursday morning. He ran to see it at once, and with him
+all the Indians, at the news of this prodigy, which we had leisure to
+contemplate until her burial. I must admit frankly," her confessor
+continues, "that the first thought which came to me was that Catherine
+might have indeed entered at that moment into heaven, and that on her
+virginal body was reflected in advance a small ray of the glory which
+was dawning on her soul!"
+
+The spirit of Kateri Tekakwitha rejoiced in leaving its casket of clay;
+but the friend who had known her best still lingered disconsolate by her
+mat, till at last the crowd was scattered and none remained but those
+who belonged to the cabin wherein she died. Then the body was cared for
+in the usual manner. Therese, whose loving task it was to bring the
+necessary garments, now assisted Kateri's adopted sister and the good
+matron, Anastasia, in their last sad duties to the gentle inmate of
+their lodge. Her hair was oiled and braided. New moccasins were put on
+her feet. She was tenderly laid out on a mat, and the entrances of the
+lodge were again left open for visitors. A moving throng passed in and
+out. Many lingered for a long, long time, unable to withdraw their eyes
+from the face of the Iroquois maiden so long hidden by her blanket, and
+now so wondrous fair to behold. It was aglow with a miraculous beauty
+that gave deep joy to those who looked upon it; with the joy came also a
+longing to be pure and holy, and to possess the happiness reflected on
+those noble features. As she lay thus motionless on her mat, two
+Frenchmen from La Prairie, who had come to the Indian village to be
+present at the services there on Holy Thursday, wandered idly into the
+cabin. They passed close to the body of Kateri. "How peacefully that
+young woman sleeps!" said one of them. It did not occur to them that
+she was dead, and they were about to pass on. "But they were very much
+surprised," writes Cholenec, "when they learned a moment after that it
+was the body of Catherine, who had just expired. They immediately
+retraced their steps, and casting themselves on their knees at her feet,
+recommended themselves to her prayers. They even wished to give a public
+evidence of the veneration they had for the deceased, by immediately
+assisting to make the coffin which was to enclose those holy relics."
+
+Thus it happened that Kateri's body, instead of being borne to the
+grave, according to the Indian custom, on an open bier of bark, covered
+only with a blanket, was enclosed in a wooden coffin after the custom of
+the white men. This made it easier to identify her remains later when
+they were carried to the new village site farther up the river, to which
+the Indians of the Sault moved some years later. They took Kateri's
+bones with them as their most precious treasure, and have kept them at
+the church ever since.[70]
+
+[Illustration: STREET SCENE AT CAUGHNAWAGA IN CANADA
+
+(_St. Lawrence River_) 1889 (_Church of St. Francois Xavier_)]
+
+When the two Frenchmen who had come to Caughnawaga for Holy Thursday had
+finished their self-imposed task, the body of Kateri was lifted from her
+mat into the coffin, but the lid was not adjusted at once over the
+face. The Indians continued to gaze upon it, and would not consent to
+have it covered until she had been lowered into the grave which they had
+prepared for her. This was on the side of the cemetery nearest to the
+river, at the foot of the tall cross, where she had loved to pray.
+There, on the afternoon of Thursday in Holy Week, the Lily of the
+Mohawks and the "Genevieve of New France" was laid to rest. So great was
+the fame of her sanctity that her grave soon became a much-frequented
+spot. Pilgrim after pilgrim has directed his footsteps to that cross and
+mound. In the long list of these we find the names of governors,
+bishops, military commanders, and well-known authors.[71] Even after her
+bones were removed, the place where Kateri had prayed, and where her
+body rested for a time, was looked upon as sacred ground. From the day
+of her burial in 1680 to the present time, it has been distinctly and
+unmistakably marked with a tall wooden cross. Whenever the old one
+crumbled away, a new one was erected to replace it. John Gilmary Shea
+gives the following graphic account of what occurred at her grave in
+1843:--
+
+     "The old cross was mouldering; and a new one, twenty-five feet
+     high, was prepared, in which were encased some relics of the
+     holy virgin of Caughnawaga. On Sunday, the 23d of July, 1843,
+     the Caughnawagas, headed by their missionary and chiefs,
+     repaired to the little river Portage, near which their former
+     church and village had stood, on a bluff between that little
+     stream and the lordly St. Lawrence. The space on the left was
+     soon filled by whites, drawn thither by interest or curiosity,
+     both of French and English origin. The banner of La Prairie and
+     the pennons of the Sault floated above the crowd on either side
+     of the highly adorned cross, at the foot of which was a
+     painting of the Christian heroine. At the signal given by the
+     discharge of artillery on the right and left, the clergy in
+     procession advanced into the centre, chanting the "Vexilla
+     Regis." At another discharge Father Felix Martin, one of the
+     first Jesuits to whom it was given to return to the land
+     enriched by the sweat and blood of his Society, rose to address
+     the assembled throng in French. Then, after a hymn in Iroquois,
+     the Rev. Joseph Marcoux,[72] the pastor of the tribe,
+     pronounced a discourse in the guttural language of his flock,
+     and gave place to the Rev. Hyacinth Hudon, Vicar-General of
+     Montreal, who delivered a third address in English, and then
+     performed the ceremony of blessing the cross. That sign of
+     faith was then slowly raised, amid the chants of the Church,
+     the thunder of the cannon, and the mingled shouts of men of
+     many climes and races who, differing in language, bowed to the
+     symbol of a common faith."
+
+In September, 1884, the author of this volume visited her grave, and
+found that the cross described above had been blown down in a recent
+storm. It was lying in broken fragments on the river-bank, near the
+little enclosure of wooden pickets surrounding the grave. Pious hands
+were soon at work there, however, and on Sunday, Oct. 5, 1884, another
+cross was raised. Again a large gathering of Canadians and Indians
+assembled to assist at the ceremony. Rev. Father Burtin, Oblate
+missionary, and successor to Father Marcoux, preached both in French and
+Iroquois. The following words of the preacher (which were translated
+into English and published in an Albany journal) must have made a
+profound impression upon his hearers, the Iroquois people of
+Caughnawaga. "There have been," he said, "in this village, chiefs
+renowned in war, who had dealings with governors of Canada, and were
+widely spoken of during their lives. Now that they are dead, their names
+are mostly forgotten, while the name of Catherine Tekakwitha is well
+known not only here, but throughout Canada and beyond the ocean."
+
+In the month of June, 1888, the author, having travelled by the
+ferry-boat from Montreal to La Prairie, and thence driven a few miles
+westward along the river-bank, was fortunate enough to stand once again
+by the grave of Tekakwitha.[73] There, in addition to the new cross,
+which stood firm and erect within the little enclosure, a large granite
+monument was to be seen lying close beside it, partially unboxed and
+ready to be placed upon the grave. It had been sent to Canada from the
+land of Tekakwitha's birth. It has since been set in place, and
+protected by a strong canopy and enclosure of wood. The initials of the
+two donors of this substantial token are carved on a lower corner of the
+monumental stone. It is a solid piece of Barre granite, in the shape of
+a sarcophagus,--six feet six inches long, two feet ten inches wide, two
+feet six inches high. On the top a cross is carved, and the following
+inscription in the Iroquois language:--
+
+    KATERI TEKAKWITHA.
+
+    Apr. 17, 1680.
+
+    _Onkwe Onwe-ke Katsitsiio Teiotsitsianekaron._[74]
+
+The French translation is the exact interpretation given by M. Cuoq, who
+composed the Iroquois inscription. He says that _Onkwe Onwe_ means
+literally, "The true men;" thus the Indians designate all who belong to
+their own race. _Katsitsiio_ means "beautiful flower," and is here
+applied to Tekakwitha, the Lily of the Mohawks. This title, given to her
+by the English, is altogether foreign to the Iroquois language, as they
+have no distinctive word for _Lily_ (nothing more definite than "white
+flower"); and _Mohawks_ is a name they dislike, because it was first
+given to them by their enemies; they prefer, therefore, their own term,
+_Caniengas_. Tekakwitha was a Canienga and an Iroquois, but she was
+also, on her mother's side, an Algonquin. Hence it is that the general
+name which applies to the whole red race is used in the
+inscription,--_Onkwe Onwe_! All "true men" are indeed akin to this
+beautiful flower that bloomed in our Mohawk Valley.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[68] For this incident see Cholenec, in "La Vie de Catherine
+Tegakouita," Carton O, Jesuit College Library, Montreal.
+
+[69] Father Martin, in his account of this scene, says that Kateri,
+after her last words to Therese, covered her crucifix with kisses and
+tears, and finally cried out three times, "Jesus, I love thee!"
+Chauchetiere himself, in another place, mentions these as her last
+words. He and Cholenec were both eyewitnesses of her death. Cholenec
+says, "At three hours after midday, after having pronounced the holy
+names of Jesus and Mary, a slight spasm came on, when she entirely lost
+the power of speech."
+
+[70] They are now (1889) in a carefully secured chest of polished wood
+in the sacristy of the church of St Francois Xavier du Sault at the
+present village of Caughnawaga, about five miles up the river from their
+first resting-place. The old wall and priest's house connected with the
+above-named church date back to 1720, but the church itself is more
+modern. It was rebuilt in 1845. The desk at which Charlevoix and Lafitau
+wrote is still used by the missionary who occupies the _presbytere_. The
+exact site of this mission of St Francois Xavier du Sault at the present
+time and its four previous sites, also the position of Tekakwitha's
+grave, with her cross and monument, and its direction from the city of
+Montreal, are shown on the map in chapter xvii.
+
+[71] Among those who have shown special honor to the memory of Kateri
+Tekakwitha by visiting her grave and spreading her fame by means of
+their writings, and who have not been already quoted in this work, we
+find the following persons of note: the Marquis Denonville, Governor of
+Canada; Monseigneur de Saint-Valier, second Bishop of Quebec; Capt. J.
+du Luth, commander of Fort Frontenac in 1696; De la Potherie,
+Commissioner of the King, and author of the "Histoire de l'Amerique
+Septentrionale," and of verses in honor of Tekakwitha, written in 1722;
+Chateaubriand,--see "Les Natchez," livre iv., as follows: "Les vertus de
+Catherine (dit-il) resplendirait apres sa mort. Dieu couvrit son tombeau
+de miracles riches et eclatants en proportion de la pauvrete et de
+l'obscurite de la Sainte ici-bas, et cette vierge ne cesse de veiller du
+salut de la Nouvelle France, et de s'interesser aux habitants du
+desert." Poems on Kateri Tekakwitha have been written by the Abbe
+Rouquette, of New Orleans, and by Rev. C. A. Walworth, of Albany; and to
+crown all these efforts to do her honor, the touch of a gifted artist of
+New York State, Mr. Charles M. Lang, has been brought to bear on this
+ever-growing theme.
+
+[72] Author of a very complete Iroquois-French dictionary, preserved and
+still in use in manuscript form at the _presbytere_, or priest's house,
+at Caughnawaga in Canada.
+
+[73] Tekakwitha's cross and grave may also be reached by a drive of
+about five miles across the reservation from Caughnawaga, which is now a
+railroad station on the new Canadian Pacific road, and is connected by a
+steam-ferry with Lachme, where the steamers touch before going over the
+Great Rapid, and where trains arrive many times a day from Montreal.
+
+[74] English translation,--"_The fairest flower that ever bloomed among
+the redmen._" French translation,--"_C'est une belle fleur qui s'est
+epanouie parmi les Indiens._"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+THE MEMORY AND INFLUENCE OF KATERI TEKAKWITHA AFTER HER DEATH.--MODERN
+CAUGHNAWAGA.
+
+
+It has been seen how the waning yet ever-brightening spark of a saintly
+life went out among the Indians of the Sault, and the reader has learned
+where Kateri Tekakwitha was laid to rest; but her memory is still alive
+at the places where she lived and died, and even far away among the
+Indians of the North and West; and wherever she is known her influence
+is still a power for good. The Rev. P. Fouquet, a missionary who labors
+among the aborigines of British Columbia, in a letter addressed to the
+Rev. V. Burtin, Cure of Caughnawaga, P. Q., under date of July 22, 1888,
+says:--
+
+     "I have spoken to hundreds of Indian villages of your admirable
+     _Sauvagesse_ [thus he calls Tekakwitha].... Nothing is so
+     useful to our Indians; her example is a great encouragement to
+     them in the practice of Christian virtues."
+
+The Flathead (Kalispel) Mission in Montana, with its large Indian school
+and thriving settlement of industrious Christians, owes its origin in
+great part to the zeal of a few adventurous Iroquois who migrated to
+that region from Caughnawaga in Canada. Among these was a certain chief
+called Ignatius _the Iroquois_. He had grown up under the shadow of
+Tekakwitha's cross, and after living for a time among his new friends
+the Kalispel people, who gained from him and his comrades a favorable
+opinion of Christianity, he did not hesitate to undertake a dangerous
+journey across the great plains of the United States in order to obtain
+for them a missionary. It was in paving the way for Father De Smet, the
+Apostle of the Rocky Mountains, that the brave Iroquois lost his life.
+When that Father succeeded after many difficulties in accomplishing the
+long journey from St. Louis in the Mississippi Valley, to the Kalispels
+in Montana, he reaped a most unexpected harvest of Indian converts. This
+was because they still cherished the memory of Ignatius the Iroquois,
+who from his youth had reverenced that of Kateri Tekakwitha. May we not
+then justly claim for her a share in the success of that Kalispel
+mission? Was it not her strong, sweet influence for good that had
+spanned the continent at last, and raised the cross aloft among the
+redmen of the Rocky Mountains?
+
+Not alone among the Indians of the West, but far away to the East, and
+beyond the Atlantic Ocean, the name of Kateri Tekakwitha is often
+spoken. In April, 1888, the people of Caughnawaga joined with their
+missionary, Pere V. Burtin, in celebrating the diamond wedding of his
+aged parents, who live at Metz, in Lorraine. The name the Caughnawagas
+have given to their beloved pastor is Takaronhianckon, which means "Two
+Skies Together," because he belongs to two countries,--the land of his
+adoption, and his fatherland over the sea. Pere Burtin delights in
+praising the virtues of Kateri Tekakwitha, and often mentions her in his
+letters. Her name has become a household word in the missionary's old
+home on the banks of the Moselle, which he has not seen for more than
+thirty years. This double celebration of a diamond wedding on both sides
+of the Atlantic proves not only the strength of true domestic affection
+that neither time nor distance has been able to obliterate, but also the
+love and gratitude of the Indians to the man who forsook house and
+kindred so many years ago for their sake.
+
+Pictures of Kateri were painted by Chauchetiere shortly after her death,
+and were distributed in many directions. They were first engraved and
+sent to Europe by order of Madame de Champigny in the year 1695. One or
+more of these reached the French Court, which was then at its most
+brilliant period under Louis XIV. The powdered and befrilled ladies of
+that time looked with wonder on the rough cut sent to them of a little
+squaw in blanket and moccasins, holding in her hand a cross, and worthy,
+they were told, to be held up as a model for the Christians of Europe.
+She had indeed lived as a light in the wilderness, and was looked upon
+by all who knew her as a lily of purity and star of faith.
+
+There is a very old, full-length portrait of Kateri Tekakwitha still
+hanging in the sacristy at Caughnawaga, P. Q. Others are to be seen at
+St. Mary's Church, Albany, and in the possession of the Jesuits at Troy,
+New York. An ideal portrait of her by Mr. Lang, completed in the early
+part of the year 1889, is by far the best representation of her now in
+existence. The same artist has also painted her, in a landscape of great
+beauty, as just moving away from her favorite place of prayer near the
+mission cross on the St. Lawrence. A Sister in the Hotel Dieu at
+Montreal has a quaint colored print, representing her very much as she
+appears in the rude, uncolored engraving which accompanies the account
+given of her in "L'Amerique Septentrionale" by De la Potherie. The
+illustration in Chauchetiere's life of her, published in quaint style by
+John Gilmary Shea, in 1887, is not unlike these two.
+
+What served far more than any pictorial representation ever made, to
+keep her saintly memory before the people of her own village, was the
+formation of Kateri's Band, or Les Soeurs de Catherine, as they were
+called. These were young Indian girls whom Therese Tegaiaguenta banded
+together after Kateri's death, and incited to imitate the virtues of her
+friend, who, as she firmly believed, was still loving her and helping
+her in heaven, according to her promise. It has already been said that
+Therese received by common consent the name of the one who while on
+earth had been her inseparable companion. Hence it is easy to account
+for the fact that in a "Life of Marguerite Bourgeois," published in
+1852, the author should have confused the identity of these two young
+Indians of the Sault, and given an account of the Lily of the Mohawks
+under the name of _Therese Tegakouita_. Their souls were locked together
+in life; their names in death.
+
+While Therese lived, the Caughnawagas gave her the name and a part
+of the love and reverence they had shown to Kateri herself. When
+once she had formed the band known as Kateri's Sisters, and had passed
+from among men, then indeed there was nothing left on earth of the
+Lily of the Mohawks save lifeless relics and what the old writers are
+pleased to call "an odor of sanctity." _Onkwe Onwe-ke Katsitsiio
+Teiotsitsianekaron._ These words, as we have already seen, may be read
+on the monument at the foot of Tekakwitha's Cross, but her bones do not
+rest there. They were carried to the modern village of Caughnawaga, and
+some fragments of them even still farther from her grave;[75] for at the
+time of the French and Indian War the Jesuits resolved to divide the
+Caughnawaga mission, and remove some of their flock farther away from
+the dangers of Montreal. The Tarbells--who as children had been captured
+at Groton, Connecticut, in Queen Anne's War, and afterwards became too
+thoroughly identified with the Caughnawagas to return to their Puritan
+relatives when the opportunity offered--headed this party sent westward
+from the Sault to form a new settlement. Choosing Aquasasne,--"the place
+where the partridge drums,"--a plain east of a slight hill, at one of
+the few spots where the rapid-vexed river glides calmly by, --they began
+the mission of St. Francis Regis, and threw up a log-cabin for the
+Jesuit Father Mark Anthony Gordon, who accompanied them, _bearing as a
+precious treasure part of the remains of Catherine Tehgahkwitha_.[76]
+
+This portion of her remains was lost in a fire which destroyed the log
+chapel and its contents shortly before the treaty of peace was signed
+between England and France, in 1763. A new wooden church soon replaced
+the rude chapel, and in 1791 this in turn gave way to the present
+massive stone church of that mission. The St. Regis settlement was found
+to be on the New York boundary line; so the village is now part British
+and part American. Methodist and Episcopal missions have been started
+there at different times, but most of the Indians of the place still
+adhere to the faith of Jogues and Tekakwitha.
+
+The Catholic Iroquois,--many of them famous as warriors,--naturally
+enough, sided with the French during the long period of our
+intercolonial wars;[77] but when the Revolution broke out they refused
+to take up arms against the people of the English Colonies at the
+instigation of their British oppressors, as did the Mohawk followers of
+Brant. Though urged and threatened by Sir Guy Carleton to do so, they
+maintained their neutrality. Some actually joined the American army of
+patriots. One of these, Atiatonharonkwen, or Louis Cook, rose to the
+rank of captain. During the stirring times of 1812 the settlement at
+Aquasasne was disturbed by incursions of both American and British
+troops; but since that war came to an end the missions of Caughnawaga
+and St. Regis have enjoyed peace and quiet. Their people have shared in
+the general prosperity and progress of this country and Canada. They
+support themselves by means of agriculture and the manufacture of
+baskets, sleds, moccasins, snow-shoes, and other articles ornamented
+with beads in the Indian fashion. The Caughnawagas, moreover, are noted
+for being especially brave and skilful in the use of every kind of
+river-craft. As raftsmen and pilots they are unequalled. The patriarchal
+figure of the famous Caughnawaga Indian, Jean Baptiste, with his
+swarthy face and bright-red shirt, seen year after year at the
+pilot-wheel of nearly every excursion-steamer that shot the Great Rapid
+of the St. Lawrence on its way to Montreal, will not soon be forgotten
+by the many travellers whom he steered safely to their destination.
+Others as skilful still dwell at the same Indian village, ready at any
+time to board the steamers as they pass along.
+
+When the Gordon expedition was being fitted out for Egypt in 1884, an
+urgent invitation was extended to the Caughnawaga raftsmen to join it.
+About one hundred of them did so, and dexterously carried the British
+troops through the rapids of the Upper Nile. On their return they were
+received in England with marked consideration, and were thanked by Queen
+Victoria in person for their services to the realm. They then recrossed
+the ocean to Caughnawaga, well pleased with their venture into foreign
+lands.
+
+Among these same people of the Sault are lineal descendants of those
+proud Mohawks with whom the fathers of Albany maintained so long the
+close alliance formed at Tawasentha, when the foundations of the city
+were first laid on land belonging to the most warlike of the Five
+Nations. Accordingly, when the Albanians, in 1886, prepared to celebrate
+the bi-centennial of their charter, a deputation of these Mohawks was
+formally invited from Caughnawaga by the Mayor of Albany. On their
+arrival they were publicly received at the City Hall as honored guests,
+the freedom of the city was extended to them, and they took a prominent
+part in the ceremonies accompanying the celebration. They were present
+in full Indian costume, both at the opening of the city gates, and at
+the grand military high mass celebrated on bi-centennial Sunday at St.
+Mary's, the oldest Catholic Church of the city. Their presence on that
+occasion recalled with touching interest the memory of their first
+apostle of Christianity, Isaac Jogues, who was sheltered from the
+cruelty of his captors by the kind-hearted burghers of Albany. The
+sacrifice of his life, which he offered for them when he returned to the
+Mohawk Valley, had brought these Indians to the Christian faith; and the
+example of Kateri--their "Little Sister," as they still call her--had
+helped to hold them to it through the vicissitudes of two centuries.
+
+The fervor of these Indian people of the Great Rapid, whose ancestors
+were converted from paganism in the valleys of New York State, has not
+abated since the days of Kateri, nor has the work of the Jesuit
+missionaries among them been fruitless in lasting results,
+notwithstanding the assertion of Kip to the contrary, in his
+introduction to "Early Jesuit Missions." The large congregation of
+Christian Iroquois still dwelling at the Sault is in itself a living
+proof of the success and continuance of the old mission work. No one
+could attend the religious observances there without being impressed by
+their sincere and heartfelt devotion to the Christian faith. The Corpus
+Christi procession, as witnessed by the author, in 1888, at the village
+of Caughnawaga, was picturesque and edifying beyond description.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[75] See Hough's History of St. Lawrence County.
+
+[76] Shea's History of the Missions, p. 339.
+
+[77] To this period belong the curious details concerning the
+traditional story of the Iroquois mission bell, and its connection with
+the raid on Deerfield in the winter of 1703-4, which have been collected
+by Judge N. B. Sylvester, in his "History of the Connecticut Valley."
+
+
+
+
+CONCLUSION.
+
+
+It is for the people of the United States, where many nationalities and
+many creeds are brought into daily contact, that this book has been
+written; and therefore certain occurrences which took place after the
+death of Kateri Tekakwitha, and which have been given at length in some
+memoirs and sketches of her life otherwise comparatively meagre, are
+here purposely omitted. Thus we pass by much that might be said of the
+devotion of people in various parts of Canada and elsewhere to her
+memory; as also the accounts of visits made from long distances to her
+grave, and to her early home in the Mohawk Valley. Steps have been taken
+towards public honors in the church, and even to her canonization as a
+saint.[78] Into these matters it has not been thought necessary to
+enter. One exception, however, should be made. Some things occurred soon
+after her death which are so closely connected with the personality of
+Kateri herself, and with those who were nearest to her on earth, that
+they seem properly to belong to a complete record of her life and times.
+These are given in an account of certain remarkable visions in which
+Kateri Tekakwitha appeared to Father Chauchetiere and two of her friends
+in 1680, and twice afterwards to the same reverend father. The account
+of these apparitions is to be found in "Book Third" of the manuscript
+entitled, "La Vie de Catherine Tegakouita, Premiere Vierge Irokoise,"
+written by Father Cholenec. It forms a part of the materials in Carton
+O,[79] at the Jesuit College Library, in Montreal. A translation of it
+is here given. Nothing is added, and nothing taken from the good
+father's account; nor is there any call to make an apology for the
+simple faith which glows in his language. It was his faith and that of
+many others who knew Tekakwitha, and thus makes a part, of her history.
+
+Cholenec's words are as follows:
+
+"The sixth day after the death of Catherine, this was Easter Monday, a
+virtuous person worthy of belief,[80] being in prayer at four o'clock in
+the morning, she appeared to him surrounded with glory, bearing a pot
+full of maize, her radiant face lifted towards heaven as if in ecstasy.
+This vision of joy so marvellous was accompanied by three circumstances
+which rendered it still more admirable. For in the first place it
+lasted two whole hours, during which this person had leisure to
+contemplate her at his ease. He did so with a joy and a pleasure that
+cannot be expressed, Catherine having wished by so signal a favor to
+acknowledge the great services she had received from him during her
+life. Furthermore, this same apparition was accompanied with several
+prophecies by as many symbols which were to be seen on each side of
+Catherine in her ecstasy; of which prophecies some have been already
+verified, others have not as yet. For example, at the right appeared a
+church overturned, and opposite at the left an Indian attached to a
+stake and burned alive. This happened in the month of April of the year
+1680; and in 1683, the night of the 20th of August, a storm, so terrible
+and with so much thunder and lightning that it could only have been
+caused by the evil spirit, took up the church of the Sault,--60 feet
+long, of stone masonry,--took it up, I say, at one corner with such
+violence that, contrary to all likelihood, it turned it over on to the
+opposite angle and dashed it to pieces. Two of our fathers who were at
+the church were carried off into the air. A third, who had run to the
+house to ring the bell, felt the cord suddenly wrenched from his hands,
+and was carried off like the other two. All three next found themselves
+on the ground under the _debris_, from which they were drawn forth with
+much difficulty; and instead of having their bodies all mangled by so
+violent a concussion, they came out of it with some slight hurts; this
+they attributed to the prayers of Catherine, when they all three came
+together again. As for me, said one, I said mass to-day in honor of
+Catherine. And for me, replied the other, I was this morning at her
+tomb, to recommend myself to her in a special manner. And as for me,
+added the third, having for a year past a strong idea that some
+misfortune was to befall the mission, I have been every day since then,
+and to-day again, to pray to Catherine at her tomb to deliver us, and I
+have not ceased during all that time to importune the superior of the
+mission to have Catherine's bones transported into our church, without
+knowing why I did it. Behold what has reference to the overturned
+church. As for the Indian seen in this apparition, attached to the stake
+and burned alive, that was sufficiently verified some years after, when
+an Indian of this mission was burned at Onondaga, and two women the two
+following years; and as we do not doubt at all that Catherine, who had
+made it known so long beforehand, obtained for these Indians the
+invincible constancy that they showed in their torments, we will speak
+of it at the end of this third book as a marvellous effect of the power
+she has in heaven.[81]
+
+"Finally, the third circumstance of this apparition, so remarkable, is
+that in the following year, 1681, on September 1st, and in the year
+1682, on April 21st, the same person had the same vision and under the
+same circumstances; with this only difference, that in the first
+apparition Catherine was shown to him as a rising sun, with these words
+which were audible to him: '_Adhuc visio in dies_;' instead of which,
+in the two following ones, she was shown to him as a sun at mid-day,
+with these other words: '_Inspice et fac secundum exemplar_,' God giving
+him to understand by this, that he wished pictures of Catherine to be
+painted, which have been worked upon for a long time, and which having
+been painted, have contributed wonderfully towards making her known;
+because, having been put on the heads of the sick, they have worked
+miraculous cures.
+
+"Two days after the first of these three apparitions, and eight days
+after the death of Catherine, she showed herself to her good mother
+Anastasia in this way. This fervent christian, after everybody had gone
+to bed in her cabin, remained alone in prayer on that evening; and
+feeling herself finally overcome by sleep she laid down on her mat to
+rest. But scarcely had she closed her eyes when she was awakened by a
+voice calling her with these words: 'Mother, arise.' She recognized the
+voice of Catherine, and at once without the least fear, she raised
+herself to a sitting posture and turning towards the side from which
+this voice came, she saw Catherine standing near her all brilliant with
+light. She had half of her body hidden to the waist in this brightness,
+and the other half, said this woman, was shining like a sun. She carried
+in her hand a cross, more brilliant yet than all the rest. So much light
+came from it that I do not believe one could see anything in the world
+more beautiful. I saw her, she continued, distinctly in this posture,
+awake as I was, and she spoke these words to me quite as distinctly:
+'Mother, look at this cross; oh! how beautiful it is! It has been my
+whole happiness during my life, and I advise you also to make it yours.'
+After these few words she disappeared, leaving her mother full of joy,
+and her spirit so filled with this vision that after many years she had
+still the memory of it as fresh as on the first day. It seems that
+Catherine, in gratitude for the assistance she had received from
+Anastasia, wished by the sight of that cross so beautiful and so
+ravishing, and by the words she added, to dispose her to bear generously
+the one that God was preparing for her; because she has lost since then
+three of her children killed in war, the eldest of whom was one of the
+captains of the village; a disaster which she bore with heroic
+constancy, so much had she been fortified within by this apparition of
+her dear daughter.
+
+"Catherine was seen also by her companion, one day when she was alone in
+her cabin. She sat down beside her on her mat, recalled to her something
+she had done, and after giving her some advice for her conduct, she
+withdrew. As for the rest, the great affection Catherine had for the
+cross, and the manner in which she appeared to her mother Anastasia,
+gave the idea of painting her with the cross in her hand as the posture
+most suitable to her.
+
+"But God has spoken still more clearly as to the sanctity and merit of
+Catherine, his spouse, by authentic testimony. I mean those prodigious
+graces, and so numerous, that he has already bestowed and continues to
+bestow through her intercession, on every sort of people."
+
+The record is ended; and yet one thought lingers. The moccasin trail of
+our "Little Sister" leads ever onward to the lodge of the true God.
+There, if we follow, though with steps not half so swift as hers, Kateri
+will not fail to greet us with her low, sweet, friendly Caughnawaga
+greeting: "Sago!"
+
+[Illustration: MODERN CAUGHNAWAGA, P. Q.
+
+(_From the Landing._)]
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[78] See Appendix--Note =F=, Indian Petition to Rome.--As recently as
+July 30, 1890, there was a large and enthusiastic gathering of
+Americans, Canadians and Indians at Tekakwitha's grave, presided over by
+the Bishops of Montreal, Albany and Nicolet, for the purpose of
+assisting at the solemn dedication and blessing of her newly placed
+monument.
+
+[79] Another manuscript contained in this same _Carton O_, which will
+doubtless be carefully examined by those who are interested in promoting
+the cause of canonization of Kateri Tekakwitha, is that of M. Remy Cure
+of La Chine, dated March 12, 1696, and testifying to miracles worked
+through her intercession in his own parish.
+
+[80] This person was Father Chauchetiere. He says in the Preface to his
+life of Catherine Tegakouita: "Catherine me porta dans une vision a
+faire des peintures pour l'instruction des sauvages, etc."
+
+[81] Some account of the Iroquois martyr, Etienne, who fulfilled this
+prophecy of the vision, has been already given in Chapter XXI. For
+further details see Kip's "Early Jesuit Missions," Pages 119-123.
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX.
+
+NOTES.
+
+
+A. LOCATION OF MOHAWK VILLAGES.
+
+There is much confusion and apparent discrepancy in the various accounts
+given of Mohawk villages in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, as
+may be seen by consulting the works of O'Callaghan, Parkman, Martin,
+Schoolcraft, Morgan, and others. A few prominent and unmistakable facts,
+however, are accepted by all. There were certainly three principal
+fortified towns in the Mohawk Valley all through the early colonial
+days, built and occupied by the _Caniengas_ (_Kanienkehaka_), or "People
+of the Flint," as they chose to call themselves, but who were known to
+the Dutch as _Maquaas_, to the French as _Agnies_, and to the English as
+_Mohawks_. These people were divided into three clans or _gentes_, each
+named for a certain animal, and each governing a town or castle of its
+own. Their three towns varied in name and location, but seem always to
+have borne the same relation to one another. As General Clark briefly
+expresses it: "The castles _first_, _second_, and _third_ (from the
+east) correspond to _Lower_, _Middle_, and _Upper_, and also to the
+_Turtle_, _Bear_, and _Wolf_." Kateri Tekakwitha dwelt at the first, or
+Turtle Castle, which was nearest to the Dutch settlers. These last
+worked their way up the Mohawk Valley from the Hudson; while the
+Indians on their part were also moving gradually westward, rebuilding
+their villages after short intervals, sometimes on the northern and
+sometimes on the southern bank of the Mohawk, but always in the same
+relative order,--that is, Turtles to the east, Bears in the centre, and
+Wolves to the west.
+
+The following extracts from letters of Gen. John S. Clark to the author
+of this volume will be of interest to all who wish to know what sort of
+proofs and arguments have been used in locating the sites of the Mohawk
+villages which were in existence during the times of Isaac Jogues and
+Kateri Tekakwitha:--
+
+    FEBRUARY 10, 1885.
+
+     The determination of the exact position of all the so-called
+     Mohawk Castles at definite dates can never be ascertained. This
+     you can readily understand by reading Father Pierron's account
+     in 1668 (Relation, 1669), where he speaks of seven large
+     villages extending over a space of seven and a half leagues
+     (nearly nineteen miles), and that from many causes they often
+     changed to new locations, where, according to circumstances,
+     they might remain five, ten, and in rare instances fifteen
+     years. I have identified in the neighborhood of forty different
+     sites occupied at some time between 1620 and 1750. Fortunately
+     the very particular account of Father Jogues' captivity and the
+     death of Goupil furnished a sufficient number of references to
+     the topography of the locality, to enable me, after many years'
+     study, to identify with almost absolute certainty the exact
+     site of this one castle, OSSERNENON. This gave the key to the
+     second and third. These determined, Father Pierron, in 1667
+     (the next year after the three castles were burned by the
+     French), speaks of visiting the third castle, which had been
+     _rebuilt a quarter of a league above_. This gave me a test
+     fact. In company with some friends living near there, and who
+     were well acquainted with all sites, as they supposed, where
+     Indian relics had ever been found, I pointed out the precise
+     point on the map, and said we must find a site here, or my
+     theory must fall to the ground. They answered that then my
+     theory must fail, for certainly if any Indian village had ever
+     existed at that point they would have heard something of it. My
+     answer was, "I have more confidence in Father Pierron than I
+     have in your opinion." We visited the spot, and on inquiring of
+     the farmer who owned the land, if any evidences existed, at the
+     particular point in question, of Indian occupation, he
+     answered: "We have found great quantities of relics, and you
+     can find plenty of them to-day,"--as we did. Since that they
+     have never questioned facts mentioned in the "Relations."
+
+     Greenhalgh visited all the castles in 1677, and found them on
+     the _north side_. His description gives sufficient facts to
+     warrant a _reasonable probability_ as to the locations of the
+     four principal castles at that date, but not absolutely
+     certain. Apparently at this date the lower castle, Kaghnawaga,
+     was on the west bank of the Cayudutta, near Fonda; and here my
+     conclusions must end for the present, until I collect all the
+     facts possible to be obtained having a bearing on the question.
+     These are references to topography, distances from other known
+     points, and anything that by hint or direct evidence can be
+     used in the solution of the problem.... My present opinion is
+     that your mission chapel of 1676 was northwest of Fonda, on the
+     west side of Cayudutta Creek....
+
+     You mention the fact of small-pox prevailing in her town in
+     1660, and ask, Would they be likely to move the site of the
+     village for that reason? Most certainly. I have evidence that
+     they did remove in 1659, but have never been able to ascertain
+     the cause. Quite possibly this may have been the reason. This
+     removal, as I suppose, was made to the west bank of Auries
+     Creek, on top of a high hill and about a mile west of
+     Ossernenon.
+
+     About 1649 the Iroquois entered on their policy of conquering
+     their neighbors and making of them one family and one people,
+     as they expressed it. From that date to 1675, great numbers
+     were added,--many more than could be provided for in the way of
+     adoption into families; consequently they were permitted to
+     settle in villages by themselves in the near vicinity of the
+     large ones. In this way was the number increased from three in
+     1640 to seven in 1668, and this also accounts for an apparent
+     discrepancy as to numbers in accounts of different writers.
+     One party finding a village in two parts near each other would
+     describe it as _two_; another would consider it as one.
+
+     I suspect your _petit village_, Gandawague, was one of this
+     character; that is, a small village near the greater one. One
+     other fact occurs to me, that may be of use to you. Gandawague
+     was a district along the river,--ordinarily meaning "at the
+     rapids." A slight variation may make it mean _above_ or _below_
+     or the _other side_; and so on in numerous relations of
+     localities to the rapids. It will be found exceedingly
+     difficult to determine the precise meaning of these words.
+
+In the early part of June, 1885, General Clark, in company with Rev. C.
+A. Walworth, of Albany, and the author of this biography, revisited all
+the castle-sites in the Mohawk Valley which were supposed to be in any
+way connected with the lifetime of Kateri Tekakwitha. What follows was
+written soon after this expedition.
+
+     AUBURN, N. Y., June 29, 1885.
+
+     Since my return home I have given my time to a review of all
+     the evidence relating to sites of first and second castles from
+     1640 to 1680, and have framed a theory that apparently
+     harmonizes _all the facts_, and shall be much obliged for any
+     argument or presentation of facts that will be inconsistent
+     with it.
+
+     First, I assume that in all the changes of the Bear clan during
+     this time, they did not remove more than a mile and a half from
+     their original position on the high hill;[82] second, that soon
+     after 1666 they removed to the opposite side of the river, on
+     the Fox farm, where Greenhalgh found them in 1677, "_on a flat
+     a stone's-throw from the river_." You will remember that this
+     site was on an elevated plain, unlike any other site visited.
+
+     Now after Ossernenon was abandoned, say about 1650 or 1655, all
+     subsequent descriptions place Gandawague _two leagues_ from
+     Andagoron until 1668, when the people of Gandawague removed to
+     the Cayudutta (Kaghnawaga), and when the accounts all place
+     the two castles near each other,--in Dr. Shea's translation
+     _two miles_. Theoretically, this makes a change of three miles
+     for the lower castle,--a distance exactly corresponding to that
+     between the high hill at Auries Creek and Kaghnawaga on the
+     Cayudutta,--the village Andagoron having remained substantially
+     stationary. I firmly believe that the site on the Fox farm was
+     the one visited by Greenhalgh. If this be correct, it
+     determines approximately the other; for they were near each
+     other, one chapel answering for both villages.
+
+     On applying the test of distance to the battle-ground,[83] this
+     is found correct; and measuring the four leagues as we did to
+     Teonnontogen, it also corresponds.
+
+     Now the removal from the west bank of Auries Creek was not made
+     bodily, but gradually. The villages were destroyed in October,
+     1666. They could do nothing in the way of establishing
+     themselves in a new position that year, having to make
+     themselves shelter for the winter. The next year, _after the
+     bark would peel_, they could commence building their new houses
+     on a new site, and during the spring clear new fields for corn,
+     and in the course of the year a partial removal could take
+     place. The palisading could be completed during the year, and
+     in 1668 the village could be said to have changed. The new
+     chapel was built in 1669, and in this year also they were
+     attacked by the Mohegans. When Gandawague was visited in 1667
+     no mention is made of a removal; but the fact is mentioned of
+     the removal of Teonnontogen a quarter of a league higher up. I
+     conclude that if Gandawague or Andagoron had either of them
+     been removed, the fact would have been mentioned, and that
+     indeed they returned temporarily to the old sites, which may
+     not have been so completely destroyed as was Teonnontogen. This
+     will reconcile all the facts, and I am unable to see any
+     material antagonism at any point. The name Gandawague must not,
+     however, be confounded with Caughnawaga, although for a time
+     it may have been transferred to the new site.
+
+     I have been unable to find any data from which to determine
+     when or about when Ossernenon was transferred to Auries Creek.
+     The asking of the Dutch for men and horses in 1659 to draw
+     palisades, _according to the translators_, was to repair their
+     castles, and in one case for the "castles which you are
+     building." They don't agree. The name on the Vanderdonck map,
+     1656, and that on Vischer's, 1659, of "Canagero," give a hint
+     that the transfer had been made as early as 1655; and the very
+     remarkable language of the Jesuit Fathers Fremin, Pierron, and
+     Bruyas, which describes Gandawague as "_the very place watered
+     by the blood of Jogues_," etc., almost leads one to think the
+     removal may have been made as early as 1646; but I conclude
+     that Ossernenon and Gandawague being only a mile apart, the
+     description "_this is the place_" would be sufficiently
+     specific as to locality, the village (people) being the same. A
+     critical study of the original Dutch may enable us to determine
+     whether in 1659 they were building a _new_ or repairing an _old
+     castle_.
+
+In a letter to Rev. C. A. Walworth, March 3, 1885, General Clark wrote
+as follows:--
+
+     "Gandawague was in 1677 unquestionably on the hill northwest of
+     Fonda, about a mile back from the river. A fine spring on the
+     west bank of the Cayudutta marks the central point of the
+     village, and the pits some distance to the north were their
+     granary where they stored their corn. A smaller village was
+     probably near Mr. Veeder's house."
+
+
+B. THE WORDS "GANDAWAGUE" AND "TEKAKWITHA."
+
+Gandawague may possibly mean, as General Clark has suggested, neither
+more nor less than "At the Turtle Village." In compound words the
+Indians frequently drop syllables, and certain letters are
+interchangeable as follows:
+
+    { KAN[/A]DA--[/A][/N][/A]WA[/R][/A]--KE }
+    { GAN----DA--------------WA----------GE }
+    { _Village_-----------_Turtle_------_At_}
+
+The name of this first, or Turtle, Castle of the Mohawks has been
+written in many different ways, as may be seen by a glance at the list
+here given:--
+
+    OSSERNENON
+    Asserue
+    Oneougoure
+    GANDAWAGUE
+    Gannaouage
+    Gandahouague
+    Andaraque
+    Kachnuge
+    Kaghnuwage
+    Kaghenewage
+    Kahnawake
+    Caghnawagah
+    Cahaniaga
+    CAUGHNAWAGA
+
+With all this variety of spelling, only three or four distinct names are
+represented. An Indian word had no written form of its own. Consequently
+an Englishman, a Dutchman, and a Frenchman, each putting it down in
+black and white for the first time, would naturally represent the sound
+of the word by very different letters. The three forms thus arising
+could not be identified at once as the same in meaning and sound without
+a knowledge of several languages. Since such scholars as Dr. O'Callaghan
+and M. Cuoq, however, have taken up the task, new light has been thrown
+on the subject, and much that at first sight seemed hopelessly confused
+in the early colonial accounts has been made clear and intelligible.
+
+There is quite as much variety in the different ways of spelling
+Tekakwitha's own name as in the case of her birthplace and early home.
+Here are some of the forms used:--
+
+    TEGAKOUITA
+    Tegahkouita
+    Tehgahkwita
+    Tehgakwita
+    TEGAKWITA
+    Tekakoueita
+    Tegahcouita
+    Tekahkouitha
+    Takwita
+    TEKAKWITHA
+
+A grammatical explanation of this name is given in a note to the
+"Lexique de la Langue Iroquoise," by J. A. Cuoq, _pretre de
+Saint-Sulpice_, as follows:--
+
+     TEKAKWITHA est la 3 p. fem. sing, de pres. de l'ind. du v.
+     _tekkwitha_, cis-locatif de KKWITHA,[84] et consequemment ce
+     mot signifie; _elle approche,--elle meut qq. ch. en avant._
+
+
+C. TAWASENTHA.
+
+Tawasentha, or "The Place of Many Dead," is near the mouth of the
+Norman's Kill, just south of Albany. Many Indians were buried there, as
+numerous bones and skulls brought to light from time to time bear
+witness. Schoolcraft once visited the spot, and examined these relics.
+It was there, too, that the Song of Hiawatha was sung, as Longfellow
+tells us:--
+
+    "In the vale of Tawasentha,
+    In the green and silent valley,
+    By the pleasant water-courses
+    Dwelt the singer Nawadaha.
+    There he sang of Hiawatha,
+    Sang the Song of Hiawatha."
+
+Another couplet might be added to the above, with less of poetry in it,
+to be sure, but quite as much or more of Indian history,--
+
+    There the Mohawks went a-fishing
+    In the days of Tekakwitha.
+
+
+D. MOHAWK TRAILS.
+
+In the summer of 1885 the Rev. C. A. Walworth, in company with the
+author, drove from Amsterdam on the Mohawk River to Jessup's Landing on
+the Hudson, following as closely as possible the route (described in
+Chapter XVI.) over which the Lily of the Mohawks probably passed in
+escaping from Caughnawaga to Lake George, and thence to Canada. An
+account of this drive was sent to General Clark, after which the
+following information was received from him:--
+
+     "The account of your journey is very interesting, especially
+     that part relating to the fords above and below Jessup's
+     Landing. I had rewritten my note relating to the trails from
+     head of Lake George, and enclose the same.... On the Upper
+     Susquehanna and Alleghany the present fords almost invariably
+     mark the crossing-places of the aboriginal trails; and without
+     doubt the two fords described above and below Jessup's Landing
+     were the places of crossing the Upper Hudson in that vicinity.
+     The same facts will apply also at Glenn's and Baker's Falls as
+     now known."
+
+A copy of the note on trails above mentioned as enclosed in the letter,
+is here given:--
+
+     "TRAILS FROM LAKE GEORGE--From the head of Lake George two
+     trails led to the Hudson. The first led southwest through a
+     valley about eleven miles to the _ford below_ the month of
+     Sacondaga, at present _Luzerne_, thence along the Sacondaga to
+     Northampton, striking the Mohawk at the lower castle in the
+     vicinity of Schoharie River. The dotted line from the head of
+     Lac du Saint-Sacrement on the map in 'Jesuit Relations,' 1665,
+     apparently was intended to represent this route. The curves
+     correspond to those of the Sacondaga in number and location.
+     From Luzerne a branch continued down the Hudson about five
+     miles to the vicinity of Jessup's Landing, where a crossing
+     was made _at the ford_ above the falls. This appears to have
+     been the route of Jogues at this time, as indicated by the
+     distance given of six leagues equal to fifteen miles.
+
+     "The second led southeasterly about nine miles, nearly on the
+     line of the present railway to Glenn's Falls, from whence were
+     several diverging lines. One led south along the west bank of
+     the Hudson. Another took almost an air-line for Schenectady on
+     the Mohawk, passing between Owl Pond and Saratoga Lake, and
+     west of Ballston Lake, at the north end of which a branch
+     diverged to the westward leading direct to the Mohawk Castles.
+     The French expedition in the winter of 1665 to 1666, in taking
+     this route, failed to follow the branch leading to the castles,
+     and consequently found themselves, much to their surprise, in
+     the near vicinity of the new Dutch settlement at Schenectady.
+     Southier's maps show this trail, and several others diverging
+     at different points. It is believed that from Glenn's Falls a
+     trail led nearly in a southwest direction, passing along the
+     base of Mt. McGregor, and somewhere in the Kayaderosseras
+     Valley united with the branch from Jessup's Landing, and from
+     thence struck the Mohawk at present Amsterdam."
+
+A year later the correspondence on Indian trails in Saratoga County at
+the time of Kateri Tekakwitha was resumed as follows:--
+
+     "Since my return from Saratoga, I have given all my leisure to
+     the study of Indian trails in your vicinity.... I have a
+     manuscript map, copied from the original in the Paris Archives,
+     relating to the two expeditions of Courselles and Tracy, 1666.
+     This map shows that the first, or winter expedition, after
+     leaving Lake George descended the valley of the Hudson to Fish
+     Creek, thence passed up that stream, over Saratoga Lake, and
+     over Ballston Lake to the vicinity of Schenectady. This is the
+     precise route taken (according to Mr. Sylvester) by Lieutenant
+     Le Moyne in his winter expedition of 1690 (Northern Wilderness,
+     p. 288), in which I agree with him.
+
+     "The second Courselles-Tracy Expedition, according to the map,
+     crossed the Hudson at Glenn's Falls, thence passing near and
+     south of a _small lake_ east of Mt. McGregor (now known as
+     Moreau Pond), through Doe's Corners, near Stiles' Hill, and
+     near Glen Mitchell to present Saratoga. This is my
+     understanding of the map; and as you will see they followed
+     near the base of Mt. McGregor, and hugging the bases of the
+     Greenfield (or Palmerstown) hills, followed substantially the
+     present highway all the way from Glenn's Falls. The fragment of
+     a trail mentioned by you was probably a portion of this
+     original Indian pathway.
+
+     "From Saratoga, if we take the map as our guide, the expedition
+     passed near Ballston, and thence slightly curving, proceeded on
+     its way in a very direct course to the Mohawk Castles. They may
+     have taken this route, but probably crossed the Kayaderosseras
+     about half-way between Ballston and Lake Saratoga, on a trail
+     leading direct to Schenectady. When a little north of Ballston
+     Lake, it crossed a path leading from Schuylerville along Fish
+     Creek and Saratoga Lake to the Mohawk at Kinaquariones
+     (Hoffman's Ferry). The map, however, makes the two distinct,
+     and without any connection.
+
+     "Three trails led southward from Jessup's Landing,--one in
+     almost an air-line to Kinaquariones. I suppose that Tegakwita
+     followed this.
+
+     A second branched off from South Corinth, and leading in almost
+     an air-line to Orange, passed near the western edge of Round
+     Lake. A third, taking a southeasterly course, curved around Mt.
+     McGregor, and led very direct to the great fishing-station, at
+     present Schuylerville, the ancient OSSARAGUE. Your Indian
+     samp-bowl [hollowed in the rock] was probably not far from the
+     crossing-place of the two trails."
+
+
+E. INDIAN DEFENSIVE WORKS.
+
+General Clark, in describing to the writer the defensive works of the
+Iroquois, mentioned one locality in New York State where he actually
+found the series of hollows in the ground left by the palisadoes of an
+Indian fortified village. They showed the exact arrangement of a triple
+wall. He also gave, in connection with this subject, several references
+to quaint and interesting works in the State Library at Albany, which
+were duly examined. Some of these are given below:--
+
+     "You will find in RAMUSIO, G. B., Venice, 1606, 'Navigatione et
+     Viaggi, volume Terzo, etc.,' relating to America, at p. 381, a
+     fine two-page illustration of Hochelaga and its surrounding
+     palisade. This, as I understand it, was a Huron village.
+     ARNOLDUS MONTANUS, America, Amsterdam, 1671, p. 136, gives a
+     Susquehanna fortified village, with the long houses somewhat
+     irregularly arranged, and enclosed by a single-line palisade
+     work. Documentary History of New York, vol. iii. p. 9, will
+     show you an Iroquois village surrounded by triple or quadruple
+     lines of palisades, with the elevated scaffolds. You will see
+     numerous streams of water descending to put out the fire, etc.
+     It will require a vivid imagination to make out all that was
+     intended to be shown by Champlain."
+
+
+F. INDIAN PETITION TO ROME.
+
+Among the most interesting papers forwarded to Rome during the last few
+years for the purpose of forwarding the cause of canonization of Kateri
+Tekakwitha, is the following petition. Copies of it were circulated
+among the Catholic mission Indians of the United States, who affixed to
+it their own peculiar signatures and marks. It is here given in the
+Latin, English and Flathead languages:
+
+     Noster Pater noster Papa:
+
+     Gentis Indicae nostrae, quamvis pauperrima sit et miserabilis,
+     valde tamen misertus est Conditor noster, nobisque dedit
+     religionem Catholicam. Nobis quoque iterata misericordia dedit
+     CATHARINAM TEGAKWITAM. Sancta haec virgo quae ut nos sumus
+     gentis Indicae fuit, cum multa fuerit gratia a JESU CHRISTO
+     donata, adolescentula facta est optima, magno erga Conditorem
+     nostrum amore tenebatur, et mortua est bona et sancta: nunc
+     autem gloriosa deget in coelis, ut credimus, et pro nobis
+     omnibus orat. Virgo haec, credimus, data nobis fuit magno Dei
+     favore; est enim soror nostra parvula. Nunc vero speramus fore
+     ut et tu quoque, noster Pater, qui Vicarius es JESU CHRISTI,
+     favorem nobis largiaris: te toto corde imploramus ut loquaris
+     dicens: "Vos Indi, filii mei, sumite vobis CATHARINAM in
+     ecclesia venerandam, quia sancta est et in coelis."
+
+     Sunt etiam alii duo, qui licet Galli fuerint, nobis tamen sunt
+     quasi Indi fuissent, eo quod Indos signum crucis edocuere et
+     viam coeli; ideoque a perversis Indis fuerunt occisi. Eorum
+     nomina sunt SACERDOS ISAAC JOGUES et FRATER RENATUS GOUPIL. Hos
+     quoque duos vellemus habere venerandos, ut protectores, ut
+     advocatos.
+
+     Quos tres si nobis indulgeas PATRONOS, futurum est ut corda
+     nostra sint laeta, conversatio nostra bona, et filii nostri
+     perfecti evadant; multique Indicae gentis nondum baptizati in
+     ecclesiam Catholicam ingrediantur, coeli visuri gloriam.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     Our Father the Pope:
+
+     Though we Indians are very poor and miserable, yet Our Maker
+     had great pity on us and gave us the Catholic religion.
+     Moreover He had pity on us again and gave us CATHERINE
+     TEGAKWITA. This holy virgin, an Indian like ourselves, being
+     favoured by JESUS CHRIST with a great grace, grew up very good,
+     had a great love for Our Maker, and died good and holy, and is
+     now glorious in heaven, as we believe, and prays for us all.
+     This virgin, we believe, was given to us from God as a great
+     favour, for she is our little sister. But now we hope that
+     thou, our Father, who art the Vicar of JESUS CHRIST, wilt grant
+     us a favour likewise; we beg thee with the whole of our hearts
+     to speak and say: "You Indians, my children, take CATHERINE as
+     an object of your veneration in the church, because she is holy
+     and is in heaven."
+
+     There are also two others who, though Frenchmen, yet are as if
+     they were Indians, because they taught the Indians the sign of
+     the Cross and the way to heaven; and for this they were killed
+     by bad Indians. Their names are BLACKGOWN ISAAC JOGUES and
+     BROTHER RENE GOUPIL. We wish to have these two also as objects
+     of our veneration, as our protectors and our advocates.
+
+     If thou givest us these three as our PATRONS, our hearts will
+     be glad, our behaviour will be good, and our children will
+     become perfect, also a great many unbaptized Indians will enter
+     into the Catholic Church and will see the glory of heaven.
+
+
+     Lingua _Kalispel_ (Anglice, _Flathead_.)
+
+     _L_u ku Pogot _l_u ku Lepape.
+
+     Ue mi_l_ kaekonkoint kaeskeligu, u kaeteie, u pen kutunt
+     kaenkonnemi_l_ils lu KaeKohnzuten _l_u kaeguize_l_ils _l_u
+     Sinchaumen Catholique. Negu kae_l_nkonnemi_l_ils _l_u
+     kaeguize_l_ils CATHERINE TEGAKWITA. Ye stuchemish pagpagt
+     chikuilze ezageil t kaempile _l_u kueis _l_u kutunt sinkonns
+     tel JESUS CHRIST, mi_l_ gest u pogtilsh, mi_l_ gamenchis
+     Kolinzuten, u _l_u Sinchaumis, gest u pagpagt u t_l_elil, u
+     yet_l_goa csimpiels 'ls chichemaskat, u kaesia kaes
+     chaushi_l_ils. Shei Stuchemish kaentels kutunt kaesinkonm tel
+     Kolmzuten ne_l_i kaempile _l_u kaep sinkusigu.
+
+     U pen yet_l_goa kaenmuselsi t-anui, _l_u ku Pogot,
+     kaeksnkonnemi_l_ils, _l_u ku Ni_l_kalshelpenzutis JESUS CHRIST,
+     t-esemilko t-kaepuus kaesgalitem kuks kolkoelt, u kuks zuti
+     "Igu kuisigusigult kuskeligu, akaespoteem _l_u CATHERINE
+     'lsinchaumen, ne_l_i pagpagt, u 'ls'chichemaskat u e_l_zi."
+
+     Negu telzi chesel ue Seme, u pen ezageil t-skeligu, ne_l_i
+     meyie_l_tem _l_u skeligu _l_u staktakenzut l'eseimeus, u _l_u
+     shushuel ch's'chichemaskat, gol shei u polstem t-kuaukot
+     skeligu shei _l_u eszustem KUAILKS ISAAC JOGUES, u SINSE RENE
+     GOUPIL. Komi ye chesel negu kaek_l_s'chitenzuten,
+     kaek_l_chaushizuten. _L_u ne kaeguize_l_ilt ye cheche_l_es
+     kaek_l_s'chitenzuten, nem lemt _l_u kaespuus, nem gestilsh _l_u
+     kaezuut, nem yopietilsh _l_u kaesigusigult, u nem chgoegoeit
+     skeligu lu estemskoli m kueis _l_u Sinchaumen Catholique, u nem
+     uichis _l_u'ls'chichemaskat _l_u simpielsten.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[82] See map in chap. iv. p. 38, showing the position of Andagoron, the
+Castle of the Bears, in 1642.
+
+[83] This was at Kinaquariones, or Hoffman's Ferry. See Pierron's
+account of that battle, translated into English by Dr. Hawley, of the
+Cayuga County Historical Society, in his "Early Chapters of Mohawk
+History." See also a topographical note to the same by Gen. J. S. Clark,
+referring to Dutch deeds which give the distance of that battle-ground
+from Schenectady.
+
+[84] KKWITHA,--eloigner, ou avancer qq. ch.; changer qq. ch. de place.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES
+
+Page reference for the illustration "Tekakwitha's Spring" has been
+corrected from xvi to xiv.
+
+Numerous missing periods have been silently restored.
+
+Inconsistent hyphenation and use of quotation marks at beginning of
+paragraphs have been retained as in the original.
+
+Six examples of [oe] ligature have been changed to "oe".
+
+The following typos have been corrected:
+
+p. vi -- "Hotel" twice amended to "Hotel"
+
+p. viii -- "cotemporary" amended to "contemporary".
+
+p. 59 -- "Renssalaer" amended to "Rensselaer".
+
+p. 191 -- "Saut" amended to "Sault".
+
+p. 264 -- "Cholence" amended to "Cholenec".
+
+p. 294 footnote -- "une vision a" amended to "une vision a".
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Life and Times of Kateri Tekakwitha, by
+Ellen H. Walworth
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