Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
>> NARRATOR: The Legacy of Saint Kateri (Ga-de-REE) Tekakwitha (De-ga-GWEE-ta).
>> NARRATOR: Dear viewers: In "The Legacy of Saint Kateri (Ga-de-REE) Tekakwitha (De-ga-GWEE-ta)",
please note that we are pronouncing her name, the names of others, and the names of communities
as spoken by the people themselves. For example, Saint Kateri (Ga-de-REE) Tekakwitha (De-ga-GWEE-ta)'s
name, and that of her community, Kahnawaké (Gah-na-WA-ge) have Mohawk pronunciations
with French spellings. So for English speakers, the important thing to remember is that the
letter "K" get a "G" sound.
>> NARRATOR: Throughout this past century, and especially since her 1980 beatification,
thousands of Native North Americans have overcome their personal challenges and followed the
path of Saint Kateri (Ga-de-REE) Tekakwitha (De-ga-GWEE-ta). Yes -- you and me, we can
do this! With Kateri (Ga-de-REE)'s help, we can overcome our personal struggles and love
Jesus and use the many gifts the Creator gives us to help each other.
>> NARRATOR: By baptism, we're all called to Heaven, and someday, a few of us will be
canonized or recognized formally. Canonized saints are those selected by the Church as
models for us all. They are holy people who lived virtuous and generally well-documented
lives confirmed by martyrdom or God's miracles while helping us through prayer. Easter eggs
are symbols of the tomb from which Christ arose and the hope that we too will experience
eternal life. Shown here are Easter eggs by Native artists and pictures of ten Native
Catholics who were in good standing when they passed, and who we believe, have joined Jesus
in heaven.
>> NARRATOR: From the 16th and 17th centuries are Saint Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin (Koh-wow-tlaa-toe-OT-zeen),
the Aztec holy man in Mexico to whom Our Lady of Guadalupe appeared as an Aztec woman, and
Saint Kateri (Ga-de-REE) Tekakwitha (De-ga-GWEE-ta), an Algonquin (Al-GON-quin)-Mohawk holy woman
from New York-Quebec.
>> NARRATOR: From the 17th and 18th centuries are Joseph Chihoatenhwa (Shee-ho-AH-ten-hwa), a
Huron martyr from Ontario and several Apalache (A-pa-LA-chee) martyrs from Florida.
>> NARRATOR: From the 19th century is Geronimo, an Apache leader from Arizona; and American
Sister Mother Mary Catherine Sacred White Buffalo, a Hunkpapa (HUNK-pa-pa) religious
holy woman from North Dakota.
>> NARRATOR: From the mid-19th through mid-20th centuries is Nicholas Black Elk, an Oglala
holy man and catechist from South Dakota; and Sister of St. Francis Mary Olivia Taylor,
a Choctaw-Chickasaw educator and religious from Oklahoma.
>> NARRATOR: From the mid to late 20th century is Louis Sam, a Coeur d'Alene (COOR-dah-lane)
a lay church leader from Idaho; and Rose Prince, a Carrier holy woman from British Columbia.
10. And from today, the 21st century, this Easter egg represents you and me in the hope
we will be joining them.
>> NARRATOR: Saint Kateri (Ga-de-REE) grew up facing many challenges and hardships. She
was born in present-day upstate New York within a Mohawk community to a traditional Mohawk
father and a Christian Algonquin (Al-GON-quin) mother. At age four, a small pox bacterial
infection raged through and devastated her and the community. It killed many people,
including her parents and her brother, and it left her face scarred and eyesight damaged.
>> NARRATOR: Relatives in her Mohawk Turtle Clan then raised Kateri (Ga-de-REE) in the
Mohawk Valley near present-day Albany. In so doing, she learned about the Creator and
the turtle's foundational role in supporting all of what the Creator has made.
>> NARRATOR: Kateri (Ga-de-REE) learned about the Creator's Great Law of Peace, which bound
her Mohawk people in a covenant with their nearby relatives -- the Cayuga (Kai-YOU-gah),
Oneida, Onondaga (O-non-DAH-ga), and Seneca. Together they became known as the Iroquois
(Ear-oh-QUAH), and their traditional dwelling, the Long House, symbolized their way of life.
Because the Mohawk people lived farthest to the East, they became known as the Keepers
of the Eastern Door in a metaphorical Long House aligned with the pathway of the sun
stretching over all of the Iroquois (Ear-oh-QUAH) peoples from east to west.
>> NARRATOR: Kateri (Ga-de-REE) learned about the "three sisters" of corn, beans, and squash.
Throughout upstate New York, all of the Iroquois Nations cultivated our Grandmother Earth with
care and grew these crops for food, which continues today.
>> NARRATOR: At age 18, visiting Jesuits instructed Kateri (Ga-de-REE) in her mother's Christian
faith, and they baptized her the next year in 1676. They gave her the name Catherine,
after Saint Catherine of Siena, because like her namesake, she too was a mystical and prayerful
person. The following year, like other Mohawk Christians at that time, Kateri (Ga-de-REE)
moved north into Québec Canada, near Montreal, where their Jesuit teachers lived. There she
became known for her sanctity and love of Jesus. There she became known for her sanctity
and love of Jesus. Then her health failed and she died at age 24 in 1680. On her deathbed,
she spoke her final words, "Jesus I love you", and moments later after she passed, her facial
scars miraculously disappeared.
>> NARRATOR: Fellow Mohawk Christians honored Kateri (Ga-de-REE)'s memory and cared for
her remains, and in so doing, they founded the St. Francis Xavier Church and Kahnawaké
(Gah-na-WA-ge) by Montreal on the St. Lawrence River in 1719. The town's original bark houses
gave way to brick ones, and because of the river's many rapids, its men became expert
canoeists who ventured west as voyageurs in the fur trade long before Lewis and Clark.
For generations without clergy, some men intermarried among tribes in present-day Montana, Alberta,
and elsewhere. As lay missionaries, they spread their faith in Jesus as their savior and their
Western descendants did likewise. However at this time, Kateri (Ga-de-REE)'s story was
not passed on because learning about Jesus must come first.
>> NARRATOR: Meanwhile, Jesuits began to spread Kateri (Ga-de-REE)'s story, and in Mexico,
where evangelization had begun earlier, Jesuit-educated Native women religious began to honor and
pray to her. But by 1773, trouble stalled her cause in Europe and North America. Under
pressure from the colonizing European powers, Rome dismantled or "suppressed" the Jesuits
worldwide, and two wars followed between British-controlled Canada and the emerging United States. Thousands
of Mohawk and Iroquois (Ear-oh-QUAH) people died supporting both sides, and the Great
Law of Peace was shaken. In 1814, Rome permitted the Jesuits to reorganize, and beginning in
1839, the pioneering Jesuit Father Pierre-Jean de Smet, led the founding of Jesuit communities
and schools in the Midwest and Western United States.
>> NARRATOR: By the 1880s, Jesuits were again promoting Kateri (Ga-de-REE)'s story, and
they promoted petitions from North American Native Catholics and Bishops' councils to
urge the Holy Father to allow Kateri (Ga-de-REE)'s canonization cause to begin. One such Native
petition is this translated excerpt from the Flathead people, a tribe in Montana with considerable
Mohawk intermarriage and a long history of seeking Jesuit missionaries. It reads in part,
This ***, we believe, was given to us from God as a great favour, for she is our little
sister. But now we hope that thou, our Father, who art the Vicar of JESUS CHRIST, wilt grant
us a favour likewise; we beg thee with the whole of our hearts to speak and say: "You
Indians, my children, take CATHERINE as an object of your veneration in the church, because
she is holy and is in heaven."
>> NARRATOR: Meanwhile in the future North and South Dakota, Father Francis Craft, a
Mixed-blood Mohawk and wounded survivor of the 1890 Wounded Knee massacre, collaborated
with several Lakota Catholic women to organize the American Sisters as a community of women
religious. They followed Kateri (Ga-de-REE)'s vision to form a Native women's religious
community in conjunction with their Lakota tradition of the Sacred White Buffalo Woman
who gifted them the sacred pipe as a mediating instrument for praying to God. This was reflected
in the professed name of Josephine Crowfeather, the community's first superior, who became
Mother Mary Catherine Sacred White Buffalo.
>> NARRATOR: The community grew to at least 12 members based on the Fort Berthold Indian
Reservation in North Dakota. There they ministered to the Three Affiliated Tribes of Arikara
(Ah-RICK-ah-rah), Hidatsa (Hee-DAHD-sah), and Mandan by providing home health care and
Christian religious instructions. However, skeptical government and church officials
doubted their abilities and opposed their ministry, which led to their community's decline.
>> NARRATOR: Mother Catherine died in 1893 and the Spanish American War ensued five years
later. Only four sisters remained, who with their chaplain Father Craft, enlisted in the
United States Armed Forces. The sisters became the first American Indian women to serve officially,
and in so doing, they successfully administered a hospital in Havana. After the war, all returned
to the United States except Mother Mary Anthony Cloud Robe, on the far left; she died in Cuba
and remains buried there today. 22. After 1900, new picture technologies became
available for promoting ideas, and Catholic authors, missionaries, and other friends of
Kateri (Ga-de-REE) added them to the promotion of her cause. Printed illustrations, shows
with illuminated slides, and posters became common, as shown by these Choctaw girls at
Holy Rosary Mission in Tucker, Mississippi.
>> NARRATOR: In 1931, the Bishop of Albany formally opened Kateri (Ga-de-REE)'s canonization
cause. More documentation was compiled, authenticated, and studied; and more petitions were gathered,
which would total over 600 with nearly 100,000 signatures; all of which generated more awareness
of her cause. As the momentum grew, students at Catholic schools began to present plays
about her life. Among them were plays at St. Anthony's Mission in Zuni Pueblo, New Mexico,
and at Holy Rosary Mission on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota.
>> NARRATOR: Native women promoted Kateri (Ga-de-REE)'s cause through church clubs or
sodalities. These Coeur d'Alene (COOR-dah-lane) women gathered for prayer at Sacred Heart
Mission on the Coeur d'Alene (COOR-dah-lane) Indian Reservation, De Smet, Idaho, in 1940.
>> NARRATOR: In January 1943, during World War II, Pope Pius XII declared Kateri (Ga-de-REE)
a venerable "Servant of God", the first official step in the canonization process. Meanwhile
some Native soldiers and solders-to-be sought and found her guidance and protection. Among
them were Henry George shown above, a Mohawk in the U.S. Army in India, the Persian Gulf,
and Europe, and Samuel Tso (SO), a Navajo "Code Talker" in the U.S. Marines in the Pacific
and Japan. Private Tso was scared-to-death at Iwo Jima, but he had a vision of a beautiful
lady in a buckskin dress he later identified as Kateri (Ga-de-REE). She promised to protect
him if he wore a necklace she showed him, which arrived in the mail the next day. As
soon as he put it on, his fear left him. Then he went back to the vision site in hopes that
she would return, but she did not.
>> NARRATOR: After the fur trade's decline in the late 19th century, the Mohawk men of
Kahnawaké (Gah-na-WA-ge) had discovered new jobs in ironwork. They began by working in
local structural steel bridge projects and then moved on to high-rise building projects
in New York City and elsewhere. In 1954, some workers returned to Kahnawaké (Gah-na-WA-ge)
to remember and honor Kateri (Ga-de-REE) with the gift of a miniature bridge at the dedication
of her statue at St. Francis Xavier Church.
>> NARRATOR: Among the Mohawk people, much of the momentum for Kateri (Ga-de-REE)'s cause
comes from the ladies as shown in this 1990 pilgrimage to her birthplace at the Shrine
of Our Lady of Martyrs, near Auriesville (OAR-ees-ville), New York.
>> NARRATOR: Similarly, Mohawk ladies have contributed to the momentum for her cause
within the Tekakwitha (De-ga-GWEE-ta) Conference. Sister Kateri (Ga-de-REE) Mitchell, also a
Turtle Clan member like her namesake, sings praises to Kateri (Ga-de-REE) in 1985 at LeMoyne
College in Syracuse, New York.
>> NARRATOR: Mohawk ladies from the Akwesasne (AHG-we-sas-nee) Mohawk Nation, in New York
and Québec, participate in the grand entry in 1989 in Fargo, North Dakota, and re-enactor
Julie Degonzack (De-GON-zak) -Daniels performs her monologue about Kateri (Ga-de-REE)'s life
in 1993 in Seattle, Washington.
>> NARRATOR: How did the Tekakwitha (De-ga-GWEE-ta) Conference begin? Early in 1939, Benedictine
Father Sylvester Eisenman, a life-time missionary among the Yankton Dakota Sioux at Marty, South
Dakota, met in Fargo, North Dakota, with Bishop Aloysius Muench, a former seminary educator
from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. They discussed how best to provide mutual support and problem-solving
tools for priests and men religious ministering to Native Catholics, and they agreed to launch
a gathering that summer in Fargo. 27 non-Native clergy and three Native laymen attended from
three states. They agreed to meet annually to discuss pastoral concerns and the following
year, they gave the conference its name, the Tekakwitha (De-ga-GWEE-ta) Conference. To
host its meetings, they began to rotate the site among their Catholic missions and schools,
first in North and South Dakota and later Montana, Minnesota, and Manitoba as well.
Although named in Kateri (Ga-de-REE)'s honor, they never invited women. [Pause] But they
invited Native laymen as observers and guest speakers and Native clergy and men religious
as members. In 1964, the attendees posed for this picture while meeting at St. Joseph's
Indian School in Chamberlain, South Dakota, which includes Jesuit Father John Brown of
the Blackfeet Nation in the third row at the far left. In 1977 under the spirit of Vatican
II, the Conference reorganized with Native Catholic leaders who soon invited to membership
all persons dedicated to Native Catholic ministry everywhere.
>> NARRATOR: Meanwhile, Native Catholic women began to promote Kateri (Ga-de-REE)'s cause
elsewhere. Here elders Juana and Joe Pecos lead a 1989 procession to enshrine Blessed
Kateri (Ga-de-REE) in San Diego Mission in Jemez Pueblo, New Mexico, which was the first
such enshrinement in a church among the Southwest Pueblo tribes.
>> NARRATOR: By the 1990s, Kateri (Ga-de-REE)'s Native devotees were everywhere across North
America -- from Eskimo in Alaska; Pima in Mexico; Akwesasne (AHG-we-sas-nee) Mohawk
in New York-Quebec; to Cherokee in North Carolina.
>> NARRATOR: During the late 1970s, Native Catholic clergy, religious, and laity had
thoughtful discussions about inculturation, which led to various forms of inculturated
Mass and Catholic ceremonies in meetings at the national, regional, and local levels.
As more Native Catholics joined, they brought their Native cultures with them, and from
their hearts, they shared their languages, symbols and practices. A Nez Perce woman from
Idaho signs the Lord's Prayer in Plains Indian Sign Language in 1984 in Phoenix, Arizona,
and Tohono O'odham (Toe-HOE-no OWED-ham) ladies honored Kateri (Ga-de-REE) with their basket
dance in Mass in 1990 in Tucson, Arizona.
>> NARRATOR: A Kateri (Ga-de-REE) Circle powwow princess wears a beaded crown with the cross
in 2000 in Lincoln, Nebraska, and a Crow Nation pipe carrier prays with his pipe in Mass in
1991 in Norman, Oklahoma...
>> NARRATOR: And Laguna Pueblo eagle dancers from New Mexico honor Kateri (Ga-de-REE) in
Mass in 1992 in Orono, Maine, and a shrine honors her before a Lakota Sioux star quilt
in 2003 in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
>> NARRATOR: The Conference also runs under Native leadership, which includes bishops
as well as religious, clergy, and laity...
>> NARRATOR: And youth are involved as well.
>> NARRATOR: After further review, Pope John Paul II declared Kateri (Ga-de-REE) blessed
in 1980, the second of three steps towards canonization, which was followed by his visit
to Phoenix in 1987.
>> NARRATOR: Since Kateri (Ga-de-REE)'s beatification, the Canadian vice-postulator has given first-class
relics from Kateri (Ga-de-REE) to Native Catholic leaders, who in turn, began to involve them
in processions and Mass at the Conference by 1990. The center close ups show the reliquary
and the tiny relic in the small case with the red backing.
>> NARRATOR: In following the pathway of the sun across North America from the Mohawks
-- the People of the Eastern Door -- to where the sun sets in the far west, stands this
sculpture next to St. Joachim (JOE-ah-keem)'s Mission in the Lummi (LUM-mi) Nation on Puget
Sound's western shore within Washington State. It depicts the origins of their Christian
faith as paddlers in a dugout canoe bring the first missionary to tell the people about
Jesus. Before 2006, Lummi (LUM-mi) Catholics and Sister Kateri (Ga-de-REE) Mitchell began
planning the conference for that summer, which was to be based in Seattle. Meanwhile, in
February and March that year, six year old Jake Finkbonner (FINK-bon-ner), a Lummi (LUM-mi)
Nation boy, was fighting an aggressive strep-A bacterial infection on his face. Family and
friends prayed to Saint Kateri (Ga-de-REE) to save his life. During the conference planning,
Sister Kateri (Ga-de-REE) visited him at Seattle Children's Hospital and she and his parents
prayed briefly with Kateri (Ga-de-REE)'s first class relic. Immediately after Sister Kateri
(Ga-de-REE) left, hospital staff removed Jake's bandages during surgery and discovered that
his disease was gone. But like Saint Kateri (Ga-de-REE) after her disease, Jake's scars
remained.
>> NARRATOR: That summer the Tekakwitha (De-ga-GWEE-ta) Conference visited the Lummi (LUM-mi) Nation,
and at that time, Seattle Archbishop Alexander Brunett announced the Vatican's investigation
of Jake's instantaneous cure with Jake, his family and pastor at his side.
>> NARRATOR: Before 2012, the Mohawk Nation had already planned to host the Conference
for that next summer. Then in December 2011, the Vatican announced that it authenticated
Jake's cure as a miracle due to Kateri (Ga-de-REE)'s intercession with God, and that Pope Benedict
XVI would declare Kateri (Ga-de-REE) a saint in heaven next October. Consequently, that
year's conference had the atmosphere of a religious pep rally. It concluded with Jake
transferring St. Kateri (Ga-de-REE)'s reliquary to a representative of the next year's host
committee while Sister Kateri (Ga-de-REE) looks on.
>> NARRATOR: Kateri (Ga-de-REE)'s canonization ceremony was held in St. Peter's Plaza, Vatican
City, on Sunday, October 21, 2012. It was a joint ceremony and Mass involving a total
of seven canonizations amid 80,000 pilgrims from Asia, Europe, and North America. At least
2,000 pilgrims were Native North Americans, many of whom displayed distinctive native
symbols such as beadwork, buckskin, and feathers...
>> NARRATOR: ...as well as a purple and white Iroquois (Ear-oh-QUAH) flag depicting the
historic unity between the Mohawk, Cayuga (Kai-YOU-gah), Onondaga (O-non-DAH-ga), Oneida,
and Seneca Nations.
>> NARRATOR: One pilgrim was George Looks Twice from the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation
in South Dakota, and a grandson of Black Elk. Mr. Looks Twice hopes that someday the Church
will canonize his grandfather as well. Black Elk taught traditional and Christian ways
and values and baptized over 400 Indians from several Northern Plains tribes. On the left
after 1910, Black Elk is teaching his mother Lucy to pray the rosary, and on the right
in 1937, he is dressed in his regalia at a tourist pageant.
>> NARRATOR: We hope you enjoyed this presentation, which includes pictures from the Marquette
University Archives, the Archdiocese of Milwaukee Archives, the Minnesota Historical Society,
the Native News Network, the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin, and the U.S. National Archives.
>> NARRATOR: For more information, we suggest reading the book, Native Footsteps along the
Path of Saint Kateri (Ga-de-REE) Tekakwitha (De-ga-GWEE-ta), edited by Mark G. Thiel and
Christopher Vecsey, and published by Marquette University Press with the Bureau of Catholic
Indian Missions. 11