TRACY Neal Leavelle. The Catholic Calumet

In this book, Tracey Neal Leavelle examines Jesuit-Algonquian interaction in the western Great Lakes during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. He primarily focuses on Claude-John Allouez and Jacques Gravier, whose extensive writings demonstrate the syncretism of Catholicism with indigenous beliefs and ritual practices. Leavelle reveals how the Jesuits communicated the tenets of Christianity through their devotion to the reconstruction of Native languages, which allowed them to develop Christian images that resonated with Native culture. Allouez, Jacques Marquette, and the other Jesuits who ministered to the Illinois, especially Gravier, contributed to a language project that spanned ninety years. They produced a dictionary, which remains in use among present-day scholars, and translated a number of important Catholic documents into Indian languages. Allouez probably produced the first manuscript in the Miami-Illinois language, which contained such prayers as the Pater Noster, a Mass liturgy, and a basic catechism. He later produced a prayer book that included the Apostles' Creed. These documents became the cornerstone of Jesuit teaching in the Great Lakes. Jesuits encountered difficulty in the translation process when they attempted to identify Native words that were equivalent to the concepts of Christian doctrine. One especially insightful section of this book is chapter five, “Linguistic Exchange and Cultural Mediation,” in which Leavelle provides a comparative framework for understanding how different priests attempted to translate the concept of a three-part divinity. For instance, in rendering the beginning of the Apostle's Creed, “I believe in God, the Father Almighty,” they relied on words that resonated with indigenous values, such as “I believe in him who invokes fear” or “I believe in God, the honored one.” When they explained Jesus Christ, the son of God, to the Indians, he was referred to as “our Chief” rather than the son. The Holy Ghost, or third person of God, which proved the most difficult to explain, was envisioned as “the good spirit of light.” For those Native people who converted, the priests used language to foster indigenous ownership of Christianity. Leavelle observes that the Illinois shared a Gregorian chant with Ursuline nuns in New Orleans, and then presented a calumet to the French governor. Christian Indians continued to draw on long-established Indian practices and behaviors, especially that of reciprocity.

Apostle · Archaeology · Art · Catechism · Colonialism · Creed · Divinity · Indigenous · Linguistics · Literature · Liturgy · Syncretism (linguistics) · Theology · Vernacular · American Constitutional Law and Politics · Classics · History · Philosophy · Religious studies