Artist: Anna Wright
Title: Tekahwítha Among the Sky People
Media: Coal pencil, acrylic paint, and pastels on wood panel
Size: 6"x6" (7"x7" framed)
Artist Statment:
In my research for this piece, I found fascinating accounts both from Jesuit missionaries and indigenous scholars on the life of Káteri Tekahwítha. She lived in the 1600s but was canonized as the first Native American saint in 2012. As young as eight she was reported by her tribe to have declared her desire to dedicate her life only to Jesus, and she spurned several marriage arrangements. At 19 she officially became a nun. She was known for her gentleness, kindness and good humor. She had scars from the smallpox that had killed her entire family, and was half-blinded, hence her Mohawk name Tekahwítha—“she who bumps into things.” Indigenous scholars highlight a harsher detail many accounts leave out; her Puritanical fervor to inflict pain on herself in the pursuit of holiness. She slept on a bed of thorns for six months, which hastened her death (as she was already in poor health.) One scholar described it as the crown of thorns she chose to share when she consecrated herself to Jesus Christ. Upon her death, Mohawk and Jesuit accounts abound of the miraculous healings and visions that suddenly occurred in both communities. Here is perhaps my favorite conclusion on her ministry that I’ve found (source - wampumchronicles.com): “The Jesuits had to learn Mohawk. They didn’t force us to learn French. They borrowed names and concepts from our creation story to teach us their story. Karonhià:ke, the Mohawk name for Sky World, became the Mohawk word for heaven in the Lord’s Prayer. This was not just a linguistic shortcut, but a conceptual bridge from one cosmology to another. We had something else in common: the belief that it was possible for a human female to unite with a powerful, unseen spirit, and to produce children with mystical powers from this union. This is found not only in our creation epic, but in the story of the Peacemaker and the legend of Thunder Boy. Hearing the story in Mohawk, Mary and her “fatherless boy” must have sounded like one of our own tales. Did Káteri Tekahkwítha see herself in that light, as an earthly woman uniting with a Sky Dweller? Or had she been a Sky Dweller all along?”