Tegaquitha, “Lily of the Mohawks,” as she was popularly
known, was the first recorded Native American Roman Catholic nun in
North America. She was born in 1656 at Gandawague Castle near
Fonda, New York, to a Mohawk father and a Christianized Algonquin mother
of the Turtle clan. During her childhood, her parents and a younger
brother died from smallpox, and she was left a badly scarred and pockmarked
orphan. Never a pretty child, she was adopted by her uncle, a
Mohawk chief, but left largely to herself. She was always a “loner” who
was apparently quite religiously inclined, and at the age of ten became
strongly influenced by Jesuit missionaries. Eventually on Easter
Sunday, in 1635, she was baptized despite the strong opposition of
her uncle and took the name Kateri (Catherine).
After this event, she was shunned by most of her tribe, especially when she refused
to work in the fields on Sundays. In 1677, she escaped from her village
and traveled the 200 miles by canoe to join a colony of Christian Native Americans
at Sault St. Louis, not far from Montreal. Here, her life was one of deep
asceticism and piety. She sought to establish a convent on Heron Island
on the St. Lawrence River, but her plans were rejected by Church authorities;
as a result she abandoned the project and became a nun.
It was a time of perfervid piety at Sault St. Louis, and in her zeal to obtain
complete penance, Kateri persuaded a friend to whip her, in the custom of the
day—a practice which she followed every Sunday for a year. Although
the savage whippings became too much for her body to withstand, she resolutely
continued the practice. Refusing any aid, she persevered in this mortification
until she died at the age of 24 on April 17, 1680 at the Ville Marie of St. Francis
Xavier. She was buried near La Prairie, Quebec. Her devotions and
self-denial were so remarkable that many miraculous visions and cures were claimed
in her name, and in 1884 she was proposed as a candidate for canonization, and
in 1932 her name was formally presented to the Vatican for consideration.
Source: “Great North American Indians” by Frederick J. Dockstader
NATIVE
AMERICAN RHYMES 
