"The shadow of a cross": Odawa Catholicism in Waganakising, 1765-1829

My dissertation examines Odawa Catholicism in the Waganakising region of northern Michigan as it was practiced in the absence of a priestly presence between 1765 and 1829. This study shows how, why, and in what form Catholicism was sustained and transformed by Odawa practitioners without Jesuit influence. My argument is that Odawa Catholicism developed as a blend of Odawa understandings of French Catholicism and traditional Odawa beliefs and practices to create a distinct form of culturally relevant Catholicism that met the needs of Odawa people. My study of an indigenous form of Catholic transformation shows how the Odawa sustained a self-understanding of Catholicism in the absence of a continuous priestly presence, in other words, a priestless Catholicism that lacked church institutional structures.

This study of an indigenous Catholicism emphasizes Odawa perspectives, Odawa-centered interpretations of religious experience, cultural continuity, and hybridity by showing how Catholicism added to an existing identity. Catholicism was not a replacement, but a merging of religious ideas and practices. For the Odawa, the maintenance of their identity, memory, and community was a strategic goal during all of their encounters and exchanges with Europeans and European religion. This approach shifts the focus away from dominant Euro-American narratives and avoids emphasizing European Catholic interpretations by embracing an ethnohistorical approach to Native religious history. By portraying the lived religious experiences of Odawa Catholics this dissertation pushes back against Euro-American perspectives, focusing on everyday people and their culturally informed and flexible understandings of Catholicism.