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."