The Life and Times of Kateri Tekakwitha, the Lily of the Mohawks

The narrative traces the life of a seventeenth-century Native woman who embraces Christianity and the social, religious, and geographic forces that shape her fate. It follows her childhood in Mohawk settlements, encounters with Jesuit missionaries, the growing tension and persecution from kin over her faith and vow of chastity, her flight to a Christian Native community on the St. Lawrence, and her final illness, death, and burial. Interwoven with the biography are regional descriptions, translations of contemporary missionary letters, topographical research, and an appendix of site notes and maps that document the places and memory surrounding her life.