Kateri Tekakwitha: First Catholic Native American saint

On Sunday, the Catholic Church will canonize its first ever Native American saint, Kateri Tekakwitha. Sometimes known as Lily of the Mohawks, she died more than 300 years ago, but is thought by some to have performed a miracle as recently as 2006.

"It's a third-class relic," says gift shop manager Joanne Wiesner, wide-eyed as she holds a small Kateri Tekakwitha prayer card in her hand.

Embedded within the card is a little piece of cloth which has touched a fragment of bone, a first-class relic, from the soon-to-be saint.

"I get goose bumps every time I think about it," says Wiesner.

The prayer cards are selling like hot cakes at the Shrine of Our Lady of Martyrs in Auriesville, set amid the beautiful wooded hills of what was once Mohawk land.

It was in a village here, then called  that Kateri Tekakwitha - a Native American Mohawk woman - was born in 1656.

This was a time of huge upheaval, violence and disease, says Allan Greer, a professor at McGill University in Montreal who has written a history of her life, Mohawk Saint: Catherine Tekakwitha and the Jesuits.

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