Claude Chauchetière, S.J. "The Life of the Good Catherine Tekakwitha, said now Saint Catherine Tekakwitha" (1695)

Chapter 3

The natural inclination for the girls to appear attractive would make them place great value on bodily ornaments. This is the reason that the Native girls of seven or eight years old are very attached for shell beads and the mothers spent some of the time combing their hair and also, braiding the hair of their daughters into a single plait to mean one who was not married. They see to it that their ears are well pierced and begin from the cradle to pierce them. Also, their faces are painted and they cover themselves with shell beads when they are going to dance.

The relatives, who cared for Tekakwitha when her mother died, had decided that she should marry early and encouraged all these small vanities, but she had a natural indifference to such things. Although the little Tekakwitha was still not a Christian, because she was not baptized. She was still a small tree without flowers or fruits, but this small wild olive tree was growing well that one day it would bring beautiful fruits. She was covered with the darkness of heathenism, but in truth that she was a Heaven, because she was very far removed from corruption.

She was gentle, patient, chaste, innocence and a child well behaved. This is the given testimony concerning her from those, who knew her from the time she was a small child. They gave in a few words a beautiful praise of Tekakwitha. When someone asked her how she lived among the Iroquois and during the time they had not seen her that is to say, from the age of seven or eight years old and until the time God guided her to the Mission, which Tekakwitha replied that she lived as before they had left. The person that had demanded her was her instructress from the time she arrived and during the two years at the Sault and also, knew Tekakwitha and her mother in their country. This good Christian was Anastasia Tegonhatsihongo, who said Tekakwitha had no faults from the time that she had known them.

The occupation of Tekakwitha was to bring and place the wood in the fire when her aunt ordered her, and to get water when those in the longhouse needed it. When she had nothing to do that she amused herself with small jewels, which I mean to say that she would dress herself as the other girls of her age and only to pass the time. She had placed shell bead necklaces around her neck, shell bead bracelets on her arms, rings on her fingers and ornaments in her ears. She wore large and beautiful shell bead belts that were called shell collars. She had made ribbons and strips that the Natives do from the skin of eels, which they would colour red and render them very clean for their hair ribbons. Twenty years later, she wept so much for these and did harsh penance to chastise her body, because then she had loved her body more than she should have done.

While Tekakwitha had lived such a life of innocence, which God was preparing to go get her. When peace was made between the Natives and the French that several Jesuit Missionaries, the Fathers Jacques Bruyas, Jacques Fremin and Jean Pierron, were sent among the Natives to preach the Faith. In July 1667, the Fathers arrived in the village of the Iroquois at a time of drinking debauch and the Natives were in no manner to receive the Fathers in the large village of Tionnontoguen, but they had to stay in the village of Gandaouague, where Tekakwitha lived. The uncle of Tekakwitha was one of the principal elders of the village and received the Jesuit Fathers in his longhouse. Tekakwitha was in the longhouse and ordered to render some small services to the Fathers. God arranged all these things, which had seemed to be acting for Tekakwitha and allowing her to see the Fathers, who they were later to confer the grace of Baptism to her.