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.
Chauchetiere 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 Chauchetiere'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.