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Saint Kateri Tekakwitha ( in Mohawk), given the name Tekakwitha, baptized as Catherine and informally known as Lily of the Mohawks (1656 – April 17, 1680), is a Roman Catholic saint who was an Algonquin–Mohawk laywoman. Born in the Mohawk village of Ossernenon, on the south side of the Mohawk River, she contracted smallpox in an epidemic; her family died and her face was scarred. She converted to Roman Catholicism at age nineteen, when she was renamed Kateri, baptized in honor of Saint Catherine of Siena. Refusing to marry, she left her village and moved for the remaining 5 years of her life to the Jesuit mission village of Kahnawake, south of Montreal in New France, now Canada. Tekakwitha took a devout vow of perpetual virginity. Upon her death at the age of 24, minutes later witnesses said her scars vanished and her face appeared radiant and beautiful. Known for her virtue of chastity and mortification of the flesh, as well as being shunned by her tribe for her religious conversion to Catholicism, she is the fourth Native American to be venerated in the Roman Catholic Church and the first to be canonized.〔Saint Juan Diego and two other Oaxacan Indians were first accorded the honor of veneration.〕 Under the pontificate of Pope John Paul II, she was beatified in 1980 and canonized by Pope Benedict XVI at Saint Peter's Basilica on 21 October 2012.〔(Pope Canonizes 7 Saints, Including 2 With New York Ties ), ''The New York Times'', 22 October 2012.〕〔EWTN Televised Broadcast: "Public Consistory for the Creation of New Cardinals", Rome, February 18, 2012. Saint Peter's Basilica. Closing remarks before recession preceded by Cardinal Agostino Vallini.〕 Various miracles and supernatural events are attributed to her intercession. ==Early life and education== ''Tekakwitha'' is the name the girl was given by her Mohawk people. It translates to "She who bumps into things."〔()〕 She was born around 1656 in the Mohawk village of Ossernenon considerably west of present-day Auriesville, New York. (A nineteenth-century tradition that Auriesville developed at the site of Ossernenon has been disproved by archeological findings, according to Dean R. Snow and other specialists in Native American history in New York.〔("Introduction" ), ''In Mohawk Country: Early Narratives about a Native People''], ed. Dean R. Snow, Charles T. Gehring, William A. Starna, Syracuse University Press, 1996〕) She was the daughter of Kenneronkwa, a Mohawk chief, and Tagaskouita, an Algonquin woman, who had been adopted and assimilated into the tribe after capture. Tagaskouita had been baptized Roman Catholic and educated by French missionaries in Trois-Rivières, east of Montreal. Mohawk warriors captured her and took her to their homeland.〔Juliette Lavergne, ''La Vie gracieuse de Catherine Tekakwitha,'' Editions A.C.F., Montreal, 1934, pp. 13–43〕 Tagaskouita eventually married Kenneronkwa. Tekakwitha was the first of their two children. A brother followed. Tekakwitha's original village was highly diverse, as the Mohawk were absorbing many captured natives of other tribes, particularly their competitors the Huron, to replace people who died from European diseases or warfare. While from different backgrounds, such captives were adopted into the tribe to become full members and were expected to fully assimilate as Mohawk. The Mohawk suffered a severe smallpox epidemic from 1661 to 1663, causing high fatalities. When Tekakwitha was around four years old, her baby brother and both her parents died of smallpox. She survived, but was left with facial scars and impaired eyesight.〔 She was adopted by her father's sister and her husband, a chief of the Turtle Clan. Before the epidemic, in 1659 some Mohawk had founded a new village on the north side of the river, which they called Caughnawaga〔 ("at the wild water" in the Mohawk language).〔Francis X. Weiser, S.J. ''Kateri Tekakwitha'', Kateri Center, Caughnawaga, Canada, 1972, p. 34.〕 Survivors of Ossernenon moved to that village. The Jesuits’ account of Tekakwitha said that she was a modest girl who avoided social gatherings; she covered much of her head with a blanket because of the smallpox scars. They said that, as an orphan, the girl was under the care of uninterested relatives. But, according to Mohawk practices, she was probably well taken care of by her clan, her mother and uncle's extended family, with whom she lived in the longhouse. She became skilled at traditional women’s arts, which included making clothing and belts from animal skins; weaving mats, baskets and boxes from reeds and grasses; and preparing food from game, crops and gathered produce. She took part in the women's seasonal planting and intermittent weeding. As was the custom, she was pressured to consider marriage around age thirteen, but she refused.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Kateri Tekakwitha」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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