TEGAKOUITA, Catharine, Indian convert, born in Gandahouague, or Gandawague, in northern New York, in 1656; died in Caughnawaga, Canada, 17 April, 1680. The name Tegakouita means "who puts things in order," and is still in use at Caughnawaga. Her father was a heathen Iroquois, and her mother a Christian Algonquin. Her parents died when she was a child, and she was brought up by her uncle, who was a chief.   

Her first knowledge of Christianity appears to have been obtained from Jacques Fremin and two other missionaries, whom she entertained in her cabin. She embraced the new creed with fervor, resolved to remain single, and suffered much ill treatment from her relatives because of her refusal to marry; but she was not baptized until 1676. Her refusal to work on Sundays increased the hostility of her tribe toward her, and she had on one occasion a narrow escape from death.   

Calumnies were spread about her character, and she finally resolved to escape to the Christian village of La Prairie, which she reached in October, 1677, after many dangers. The rest of her life was spent in prayer, labor, and mortifications of the severest kind. She enrolled herself in the Confraternity of the Holy Family, and began to be regarded both by the French and Indians as a great saint.

After death her grave became a place of pilgrimage, and, although an effort was made by the priests of the neighboring parishes to check devotion to her, she was invoked as a saint throughout Canada. Numerous miracles are said to have been wrought at her tomb, or by her relics. The third plenary council of Baltimore petitioned the Holy See to take steps toward her canonization in 1884.

She was declared Venerable by Pope Pius XII in 1943 and was beatified in 1980 by Pope John Paul II. See "Life of Catharine Tegakouita," by Father Claude Chauchetière (New York, 1886); her life by Cholonek, in vol. xii of "Lettres edifiantes" (Paris, 1727); Kiplo's "Jesuit Missions" (New York, 1847); and ‘Tekakwitha, Bl., Kateri’ in “Dictionary of Saints” by John J. Delaney (Garden City, New York) 1980.

Notes:

The encyclopedia's spelling, "Tegakouita" is closer to the way the Iroquois say it ("Te-ga-twee-ta") today, and is probably the original transliteration of her name into French.

"Kateri," (pronounced 'Gah-da-lee' by the Iroquois) was bestowed on her by one Nelly Walworth, who published a biography in 1891. Miss Walworth surmised that that would have been the manner in which the Iroquois mispronounced the French "Catherine".

A new and fascinating book: "Mohawk Saint: Catherine Tekakwitha and the Jesuits" by Allan Greer; Oxford University Press explains why Fr. Chauchetiere wrote of Catherine as he did. He knew that Catherine exhibited the natural virtues of her Indian people even before she became a Christian, but he did not include that in his life of Catherine, for at that time, as reviewer Michale Walsh in The Tablet (London) of 14 May 2005 says: "He [Chauchetière] had come to admire the way of life, essentially unchanged from pre-Christian times, of the Iroquois, and appreciated their natural virtues. But all that had to be left out of the vita. She had to be seen in isolation, for to Europeans of the day it would have seemed incongruous that someone living the life of a "savage" should have been a Christian saint."