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Kateri Tekakwitha (pronounced [ˈgaderi degaˈgwita] in Mohawk), baptised as Catherine Tekakwitha and informally known as Lily of the Mohawks (1656 – April 17, 1680), was an Algonquin-Mohawk Catholic virgin and religious laywoman. Born in present-day New York, she survived smallpox and was orphaned as a child, then baptized as a Roman Catholic and settled for the last years of her life at the Jesuit mission village of Kahnawake, south of Montreal in New France.
Tekakwitha professed a vow of virginity until her death at the age of 24. Known for her virtue of chastity and corporal mortification of the flesh, as well as being shunned by her tribe for her religious conversion to Catholicism, she is the first Native American woman to be venerated in the Roman Catholic Church. She was beatified by Blessed Pope John Paul II in 1980. On February 18, 2012, Pope Benedict XVI announced at Saint Peter's Basilica that Tekakwitha is scheduled to be formally canonized on October 21, 2012. Various miracles and supernatural events are attributed to her name after her death.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kateri_Tekakwitha