View One: Religious Text

This is a Christian prayer book with Catechisms at the end. Catechisms are structured questions and answers intended to help convert people to Christianity. It was brought to Kutenai territory— now what is parts of Idaho, Montana, and British Columbia, CA— in the 1840s by Jesuit missionaries. The Kutenai largely converted to Christianity, though likely through interactions with other Natives who had converted or partially syncretized Christian beliefs into their Native beliefs rather than their interactions with missionaries. Throughout the process to preserve the endangered Kutenai language, many religious texts— specifically Christian— are being preserved online, whereas there are far fewer texts preserving Kutenai culture and traditional folklore.