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!
Map showing the Migrations of the Mission Village of the Sault
Father Cholenec writes (1677) that there are four captains or chiefs, two Iroquois and two Huron, who govern the village at the Sault. He has "reason to hope, though," he says, "that they will soon have four Iroquois captains." Of one of these, Hot Ashes, we already know something. This friend of Kateri Tekakwitha is not only a governing chief, but famous also as a dogique, or catechist. The dogique Paul is another 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.