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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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