Mohawk Saint: Catherine Tekakwitha and the Jesuits.

Allan Greer. Mohawk Saint: Catherine Tekakwitha and the Jesuits.

Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. xvi + 250 pp. index. illus. map. $30. ISBN: 0-19-517487-9.

Although zeal for explicitly hagiographic works is quite rare in today's academia, interest in the saints and their worlds has in no way diminished. In fact, as Allan Greer's masterful work proves, the study of the lives of the saints, approached from a historical and sociological point of view, is perhaps more rewarding than ever. In his preface, Greer explains how he came to focus on "a Mohawk woman of the early colonial period whose short life happens to be more fully documented than that of any other indigenous person of North or South America in the colonial period" (vii). His approach seeks to transcend the commentaries by and about the men of the period, so as to give us an insight into several worlds: those of the French settlers, the French Jesuits, the Mohawk and Iroquois peoples, and the indigenous women.

What is especially intriguing about Greer's study, however, is his absolute fidelity to sources from the period, and his particular hermeneutical project to make them shed light on numerous aspects of the French and Mohawk experience in the New World. He quips that, "I found myself in the unaccustomed role of literary critic, attempting to analyze, critique, and decode enigmatic texts" (viii). Perhaps it is precisely this "unaccustomedness" that makes Greer's reading of the texts so powerful, so fresh, and so timely. Greer does indeed focus on individual "lives," and by addressing the specific concerns of each, gradually creates the mosaic that is the life of Catherine Tekakwitha (Kateri Tegakouita [1656-80]), "Saint of the Mohawks."

The end of Kateri's life sets the stage for Greer's narrative, as he recounts the Mohawk's "Beautiful Death" (chapter 1), and how it inspired Jesuit fathers Claude Chauchetiere and Pierre Cholenec to make her known to the world. As Greer shows, the Jesuits were of very different temperaments, and their decisions to open their consciences and reveal Catherine's story were only made after long and painful discernments. Both Jesuits had independently authored biographies of Catherine, and Greer uses them to reconstruct the principal events of the Mohawk's life. In particular, Greer focuses on the histories of the Jesuit missions in New France that Chauchetiere had written, as well as on the priest's autobiographical notes. Greer presents many of Chauchetiere's original drawings and uses them as the basis for much of the book's sociological commentary. He evinces how and why this narrative of the "beautiful death" of an "American savage" is so unique. Not only did it treat the life of a woman, but it also explored the spiritual and intellectual struggles of the French Jesuits who chronicled it. What is more, Chauchetiere's work is significant because of the general resistance of the continental French to the idea that an indigenous person might achieve spiritual greatness on his or her own.

Mohawk Saint is also a study of three seemingly unrelated places, one of them in the Old World and two in the New: Gandagouage, where Kateri was born (chapter 2), Poitiers, where Chauchetiere was born and raised (chapter 3), and Kahnawake, where the two met (chapter 4). In this section of the book Greer integrates his investigation of the biographies of the protagonists with extended analyses of the social, political, economic, and religious environments of the societies in which they grew, worked, and prayed. In his studies of Gandagouage and Poitiers, Greer seeks to identify similarities between the religious beliefs and practices of the Mohawks and the French. These chapters also supply us with abundant sociological data that humanizes the characters being portrayed and helps us to appreciate the rich interaction between the various native cultures and the French. Indeed, this is one of the central theses of the book: "My point is that it is much harder than we usually care to admit for scholars of the twentieth and twenty-first century to understand either Iroquois or European people of the seventeenth century" (x).

In chapter 5, "Body and Soul," Greer clarifies another important thrust of his research, that of showing that the Iroquois were not passive receptors of the Catholic faith, but, rather, actively questioned and assimilated it with similar beliefs from their own religious doctrines. Among those who most fully pursued their new Catholic faith were women, and Greer examines, throughout chapter 6 ("Catherine and Her Sisters"), how bands of Iroquois women supported Catherine and each other in their pious practices.

Although she was not known for her ability to cure the ill among her own people, soon after her death Catherine was associated with healing members of the white community. In, "Curing the Afflicted" (chapter 7) Greer chronicles the odd case of transference whereby New World French attributed healings to Catherine, which led to her being considered a saint before any written documentation had been produced. Greer thus brings us back to the original story of Chauchetiere and Cholenec, and of why they decided to narrate the story of Catherine's life. Chapter 8, "Virgins and Cannibals," takes up European views of the native "saint" as "exotic" and "erotic." Finally, in the epilogue ("Our Catherine"), Greer discusses the many ways in which Catherine has been adopted by groups ranging from the American bishops, who wished to consolidate American Catholicism at the end of the nineteenth century, to Native American groups that see her as a holy woman and a survivor of "the trauma of colonization" (205).

Not only is Mohawk Saint highly readable, scholarly, and interesting, it is also a fine example of microhistory at its best. Scholars and nonspecialists alike will find the book to be a refreshingly objective look at one of the great figures of the American spiritual pantheon.

MARK DESTEPHANO, S.J.

St. Peter's College