Catherine
Tekakwitha:
Her Life
Translation of a
Document entitled
La Vie de Catherine Tegakoüita
ascribed to
Fr. Pierre Cholenec, S.J.
©Translated
by William Lonc, S.J.
ISBN 0-9730161-2-4
All rights reserved
First Printing: 60 copies, June, 2002
Legal deposit: National Library of Canada, 2002
Published
by William Lonc; william.lonc@stmarys.ca
Produced and Distributed by Steve Catlin, Hamilton, Ont.,
Archivist at the Martyrs Shrine, Midland, Ont.;
scatlin@pathcom.com.
Kateri
Tekakwitha
Table of Contents
| Translator's
Preface |
i
|
| The Life
of Catherine Tekakwitha |
|
| Preface |
1
|
| Book One |
3
|
| Book Two |
10
|
| Events at Her
Death |
63
|
| Book Three |
73
|
| Appendices
|
98
|
| Index of Personal
Names |
101
|
| Appendix: La
Vie de Catherine Tegakoüita |
|
| Préface
|
1
|
| Livre Premier |
1
|
| Livre Second |
7
|
| Sa mort avec
des circonstances |
43
|
| Livre Troisième |
50
|
| Appendices |
66
|
| Index
|
69
|
Kaateri:
Translator's Preface
Catherine Tekakwitha's story is surely one of the gems of the early
Jesuit mission efforts in New France in the late 1600's. The story told
in this book is based on a xerographic photocopy of a type-written transcript
of a Document -- presumably based on Fr. Cholenec's original Autograph.
Thus, the story is told by an eye-witness -- who was also her spiritual
director -- of the events in her life from the time she arrived at the
Jesuit mission just outside of Montreal, known at that time as the Sault
Saint-Louis or Saint-Louis Rapids.
Our Document is found in the Vanier Library, Loyola Campus of Concordia
University in Montreal. A similar document was inspected at the Woodstock
Theological Center Library at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.
It consists of single-sided xerographic photocopies, 21.6x27.9 cm (8.5x11
inches) of a type-written version apparently typed on stencil sheets
(notorious for corrupting letters such as "e") of the same
size, and is bound between buckram covers. There is no clear indication
of when this Document was made, nor by whom. Since the Document in hand
appears to be little known, we attach a transcribed copy in the Appendix.
This transcribed copy was compared with a xerographic copy of Fr. Cholenec's
Autograph as found at the Hôtel-Dieu archives in Quebec Autograph
and a few typographical errors were thus corrected.
The numbers appearing in square brackets in the Translation and Document
correspond to the pagination in the Autograph. The copyist is presumed
to have used the Autograph in the Hôtel-Dieu Archives in Quebec.
Further research on the history of the Document was outside the scope
of this translation.
In general, the translation is meant to follow the French rather closely,
but with an ear to producing an easily readable story in English. In
particular, we note that the 17th Century word sauvage is based on the
Latin word silva, denoting forest. In current English, we have words
such as sylvan, Sylvester, Sylvia, sylvaculture, Pennsylvania, and so
on. Hence, the word primarily meant something like forest-dweller and
did not primarily carry the modern strongly pejorative "spin",
although there appear to have been contexts at that time in which the
word did have a pejorative sense . Taking all of these considerations
into account, we translate it by native. It could be significant that
the word Indien does not appear in the French document.
There is sometimes a discrepancy between dates in this version and in
some of the published material on Catherine, particularly in Book Three.
In addition, the spelling of names is variable in the French text --
some of it probably due to the typist -- but we retain it "as is"
in the translation. Resolution of these discrepancies is beyond the
scope of the translation. Finally, all dates are in the context of the
Gregorian calendar, rather than Julian.
Acknowledgement: Many thanks to the Jesuits of Halifax for continued
support, to Mr. Steve Catlin for a close reading of the penultimate
version, to Fr. J. Tylenda, S.J. of the Woodstock Library at Georgetown
University, Fr. John Paret, S.J. of the Kateri Center in Auriesville,
N.Y., to Fr. Bruyère, S.J. of the Kateri Centre at Kahnawake,
Que., and to Sisters Claire Gagnon and Marie-Paule Cauchon, at the Hôtel-Dieu
in Quebec City for access to the Autograph.
William Lonc, S.J.,
Emeritus Professor of Physics
Saint Mary's University
Halifax, Nova Scotia, Spring, 2002
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