Some traditional Mohawks are treating the naming of the nation's
first Native American saint with skepticism and fear that the Roman
Catholic Church is using it to shore up its image and marginalize
traditional spiritual practices.
They see the story of Kateri Tekakwitha as yet another reminder of colonial atrocities and religious oppression.
"I was a recipient of these historical profanities and want to ensure
this does not happen again," said Doug George-Kanentiio, a Mohawk
writer who left Catholicism to follow traditional longhouse spiritual
practices.
The daughter of a Mohawk chief and a Catholic Algonquin woman, Kateri
was born in 1656 about 40 miles northwest of Albany and in the heart of
the Iroquois Confederacy to which the Mohawks belong. She was orphaned
at age 4 when smallpox wiped out her family and much of her village and
left her blinded and disfigured.
A Catholic convert at 20, she settled in Kahnawake, a Mohawk
settlement south of Montreal where Jesuits had a mission and where she
and other women performed mortification rituals such as self-flogging as
part of their faith.
At her death at the age of 24, Kateri's smallpox
scars reportedly vanished and later she was reported to appear before
several people. She is buried at a shrine on Kahnawake.
Speaking in English and French at her canonization last Sunday week, Pope
Benedict XVI noted how unusual it was in Kateri's culture for her to
choose to devote herself to her Catholic faith.
"She's seen very much as a bridge" between native culture and
Christianity, said the Rev. Jim Martin, a Jesuit priest. He said the
Jesuit missionaries "took great pains to learn the native languages and
tried their best to present the Christian faith using words, phrases and
ideas from the native cultures."
Traditional Mohawks recognize the reverence their Catholic relatives
and friends have for Kateri, said Chaz Kader, a Mohawk journalist who
was raised Catholic but follows ancient longhouse traditions now.
But
many remain troubled by how the church portrays her life.
The story of Kateri told in various church writings describes her as
maintaining her faith despite torment by her people, suffering ostracism
and persecution at the hands of her own tribe and eventually fleeing to
Canada.
"I disagree with the characterizations of the `other Mohawks' in the
Jesuit accounts of Kateri," Kader said. "The contrast of good Mohawks
and bad Mohawks still is affecting our people."
Traditional Mohawks have struggled to keep their spiritual traditions
and ancient language alive despite pressure from non-Indians to adopt
European religion, culture and language.
These traditionalists have established Mohawk language-immersion
schools and follow a clan-based government separate from the elected
tribal government recognized by the U.S., Canada and New York state.
To
outsiders, they are associated with an image of "bad Mohawks" who
smuggle goods across the border and refuse to collect state taxes on
cigarette sales, Kader said, and the "good Mohawks" are the ones who
"went to Rome to celebrate Kateri," he added.
It's difficult to gauge just how widespread the feelings are given
the factionalism that pervades the nation and the circumspection they
favor when dealing with the media.
But many Mohawks interviewed
downplayed any controversy and joined Catholics who see Kateri as a
uniting figure and hope her elevation to sainthood will help heal old
wounds.
"It's so nice to see God showing all the flavors of the world," said
Gene Caldwell, a Native American member of the Menominee reservation in
Neopit, Wis., who attended Kateri's canonization with his wife, Linda.
"The Native Americans are enthralled" to have Kateri attain sainthood,
he said.
Russell Roundpoint, director of the Mohawk history and cultural
center at Akwesasne, said her sainthood is "not a contentious issue by
any stretch of the imagination.
"The Mohawk people are very proud of the fact that she has attained such a high level," he said.
Sister Jennifer Votraw is director of communications for the
Ogdensburg Diocese in northern New York, where the Mohawk reservation is
located.
While the diocese doesn't provide direct pastoral care to the
Mohawks, Votraw belongs to the order the Sisters of St. Joseph, nuns who
regularly aid the priests who minister to the tribe.
She said years of
successful interactions between the church and the tribe demonstrate a
mutual respect for each other.
Still, she knows there are traditional Mohawks who will never be
swayed in their view of the church and may resent Kateri's canonization
as a ploy to improve the church's image among Native Americans.
"They believe very firmly in their religion, which is Mohawk," she said. "You just have to respect that."
Orenda Boucher, a Mohawk humanities professor at Kiana Institution, a
Native American college near Montreal, said there are "mixed feelings"
and no easy answer to the question of what Kateri represents to Mohawks
or the rest of the world.
"A lot of my friends who are traditionalists see Kateri as tied into
the story of colonization that has deeply affected Kahnawake, and to the
atrocities of the church," she said.
Boucher said to understand the complexities of Kateri's life, it's
important for people to look beyond the biographies written by clergymen
who focus on what they consider her Christian virtues.
George-Kanentiio said traditional Iroquois worry that Kateri's
sainthood could be used as way to encourage Native Americans to eschew
their ancestral values for Catholic dogma.
"It should never obscure the best elements of our aboriginal
spirituality, nor should Kateri's personal behaviors, given their
extremities, be endorsed as a model for women anywhere," he said,
referring to her self-mutilation with whips, thorns and hot coals.
"Women in particular need not kneel in supplication to any man or any
god but to rise to dance and sing in true joy," he said. "We can never
accept any institution which actively suppresses women or qualifies
their potential."