Why an Iroquoian Saint is Not an Italian Saint: A Tale of Two Catherines
 

A Tough Writing Assignment:
  1. civilized/savage - male/female: negotiating two sets of stereotypes
  2. "savage saint": negotiating tension between universalism and ideas about fundamental difference
  3. Hagiography as an act of devotion: negotiating higher vs. historical truth

 

My Thesis:

 

Pierre Cholenec used the lives of European female saints to make sense of Catherine Tekakwitha's life. In particular, he tried to assimilate the story of the Iroquois woman with the story of the Italian saint Catherine of Siena.

Although powerful European models shaped Cholenec's account of Tekakwitha's life, his narrative does not completely erase her distinct experience as an Iroquoian Christian. The text contains hints that Catherine Tekakwitha refashioned European Catholicism within the framework of her own culture.

 

Tekakwitha as different from other "savages:"
 

 

  1. "[T]he First Iroquois Virgin" ( 390)-- "her natural abhorrence of anything that offended purity" (346)
  2. Village vs. Woods: Two very different stories about hunting (353-354; 364-365; 358-359)
Tekakwitha as similar to European saints:

 


  1. Power of office/evangelical actitivity vs. personal charisma/works of charity/mysticism
  2. Male saints: dramatic reversals; female saints: continuity
  3. Female saints: excessive dieting and asceticism

 

Catherine of Siena as Model:

 

  Italian Catherine Iroquoian Catherine
Marriage It is useless for you to huff and puff, a waste of time, and therefore I advise you to blow to the wind any idea of marriage because there is no way I intend to accommodate you. I must obey God not men. I don't want a man [French original : I hate men] - I have the utmost aversion to marriage - the thing is impossible (361)

I [Cholenec] was surprised to see her return, moments after she had left, to tell me -- with a fiery demeanor -- that she could no longer take all this wrangling, that she would tell me clearly that she had renounced marriage and to have no other spouse but Jesus Christ (363)
Fasting and Penance She weaned herself little by little from all meat, and sustained her body with bread only and a few raw herbs. After this, when she was of the age of twenty years, or there about, she gave up the eating of bread also, and held herself to raw herbs only. Last of all, she came to such a high state of life (...) that for a long time, she sustained her life without eating and drinking at all, and yet endured willingly and cheerfully both very painful sicknesses and also very hard labors of her body.

This holy virgin (...) used for a long time to beat herself three times every day with a chain of iron. The first time, for herself, the second for the living, and the third for the dead (...) every time she took an hour and half, and she beat herself so that blood trickled from her shoulders to her feet

She satisfied her desire for suffering by forcing her body to do long and painful work (...) by starving her body in the midst of plenty, by quietly leaving the cabin and going to the wood-house before the sagamite, and not returning until evening. Even then, she ate only a little (...) She made it a point to go there [the wood-house] from time to time to give her soul its own food while she made her body starve (...) and several times a week she finished her prayer with a rough discipline from branches that she applied to herself. (354)
She punished her body in every way she could think of, by work, by vigils, by fasts, by cold, by fire, by iron, by belts of sharp points, by the harsh whip with which she lacerated her shoulders several times a week. (370)

Death Excessive austerities Excessive austerities (375)

 

Catherine Tekakwitha, an Iroquois Christian:

 

Turning Iroquois Culture on French Catholicism

 


  1. Iroquois traditions of asceticism
  2. Iroquois traditions of torture and toughening oneself for torture
  3. Use of fire
Tekakwitha and her circle practice Iroquoian-style penance

 


  1. They work in groups -- remember the curing societies!
  2. "[W] hen everybody had gone to bed..." (370-371)
  3. At a time of heightened war scare
  4. Because of the "disorders in their homeland" (357-358); also story about child (365-366)
Tekakwitha and her circle challenge Cholenec's authority

 


  1. "[T]o keep her satisfied, I had to give her a discipline" (367)
  2. "I was the spiritual director (...) but all of these things took place in the woods" (366)
  3. "In my heart, I admired her, but I did not hesitate to show anger" ( 371)
Turning Christianity on Iroquoian Norms

 


  1. Avoiding marriage and work for the longhouse community
  2. Forming an all-female circle: nuns and Virgin Mary as role-models
  3. She is a hybrid creature...but what does it all mean? a. ____ b. ____ c. ____

Catherine Tekakwitha was able to spend years suffering hunger and pain. You only have to spend a few more minutes sitting in a comfortable lecture hall. It's not that hard. You can do it!