Kateri Tekakwitha in United States

Tekakwitha was born to a Mohawk father and Algonquin mother. She was orphaned in 1660 at the age of four when a smallpox epidemic wiped out most of her village, killing her parents and younger brother. The young Tekakwitha survived but was badly scarred and her eyesight was impaired. But when Kateri was young, a peace deal was struck with the French, and part of the deal was that missionaries would be allowed to work within the communities.

It is a short walk through the woods to the echoey well and the water where Kateri Tekakwitha was baptised into the Catholic Church at the age of 20, on Easter Day 1676.

She took a lifetime vow of chastity, and subjected herself to a harsh regime of self-punishment, which included walking barefoot in the ice and snow, placing hot coals from the fire between her toes until they cooled, and lying on a bed of thorns.

Jesuit missionary Pierre Cholenec, who lived in the Kahnawake community at the time, wrote: "She tortured her body in every way she could think of: by toil, by sleepless vigils, by fasting, by cold, by fire, by irons, by belts studded with sharp points, and by harsh disciplines with which she tore her shoulders open several times a week."

The first ever Native American saint has been canonised by the Roman Catholic Church in a ceremony at the Vatican. Kateri Tekakwitha - sometimes known as Lily of the Mohawks - died more than 300 years ago, but is thought by some to have performed a miracle as recently as 2006.