The Life and Times of Kateri Tekakwitha, the Lily of the Mohawks

by Ellen H. Walworth

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.

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.