Christmas at Kahnawake

With Christmas just around the corner, Katria challenged me to write about the holiday as St. Kateri would have know it.

Christmas in the 17th century was a controversial subject. To British and American protestants, the holiday was seen as mildly "papish" or at worst, a pagan holdover with echos of solstice bonfires and Asiatic tree worship. It wasn't really until Dickens popularized the holiday in A Christmas Carol and the Germanic Queen of the United Kingdom, Alexandrina Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, and her consort, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-und-Gotha, erected their own Christmas tree, that the Protestants warmed to the practice.

The Dutch, being accustomed to a multicultural (that is, composed of catholic and protestant elements) society, were known to celebrate the holiday in their colonies in the Americas. Although, for them, the festivities usually occurred around the feast of St. Nicholas--or Sinterklaus--in early December. Anyone who is familiar with the writings of David Sedaris will know that this is still the Dutch custom. Some aspects of their December festivities are generating controversy today.

Catholicism has a rich history in Canada and the French Catholics in Quebec were more inclined to celebrate the Nativity of the Lord on December 25th in greater splendor than the adjacent feast days. "Christmas" is a contraction of Christ's Mass in old and middle english. The OED first records it in 1038 as Crīstesmæsse. So you won't find that word in any of the non-english primary sources. In Quebec the holiday was referred to as Noël. While I don't have specific details about any Noël celebrations during the time St. Kateri was at Kahnawake, I have been able to dig up a record of Christmas celebrations involving Jesuit missionaries, French settlers, and the Plains tribes of present day Michigan.

Histoire des Canadiens du Michigan et du comté d'Essex, Ontario

For those of you who don't parler français, here is a paraphrase of the relevant passages:

In 1675 Father Pierre Bailloquet came to the mouth of the Saginaw River, where he built a chapel--the first built by Christians in lower Michigan--where he celebrated the feast of Noël in splendor. "Having a small crib next to our altar," he said, "our christians came at midnight and during the day. They caused these forests to resound with their hymns in honor of the newborn Jesus . What a joy for us, at the midnight mass and during the day, to see the child Jesus recognized by the Indians in this country" 

Being a dutch and german invention, Santa Claus was absent, as was the exchange of gifts. While their celebration was much simpler than what we know today, there are many similarities. We know that they celebrated with hymns and songs, and decorated the chapel with a rudimentary nativity scene. They even held a midnight vigil mass, although the lack of reliable clocks may have made timing less than exact.

Regarding the hymns they sang, I haven't had much luck in locating a Jesuit missionary hymnal from North America. They must exist, since the jesuits travelled with books of homilies and prayers in phonetic transcriptions of the languages of the Native Americans. Since I don't speak french, research is cumbersome as I translate terms back and form. I do have a one hymn to share with you, written circa 1641 by the missionary Jaques Brebeuf at Sainte-Marie-au-Pays-des-Hurons in Ontario. It is now known as 'Twas the Moon of Wintertime, but in the original Huron it was known as Jesous Ahatonhia (Jesus he is Risen). The song has the distinction of being the first North American Carol. Bruce Cockburn recorded a version of the song in Huron. List to it here

It is difficult to know what hymns they would have sang at Kahnawake, but since the community included Mohawk and Huron, this song will at least convey the sound of the language that may have been heard at their celebrations. Merry Christmas.