Joseph Marcoux


Joseph Marcoux was a Canadian Catholic missionary among the Iroquois. Fluent in Mohawk, Marcoux was also known as Tharoniakanere, "the one who looks up to the sky".

Life

He was ordained 12 January 1813, and spent the remaining forty-two years of his life evangelizing the Iroquois, first at St. Regis and later at Kahnawake. He died of typhoid fever, at that time epidemic among the Iroquois.

Works

He wrote Iroquois grammar and a French–Iroquois dictionary. For his church and schools, he translated into Iroquois François de Ligny's Histoire de la vie de Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ, and published in their language a collection of prayers, hymns, and canticles, a catechism, a calendar of Catholic ritual, and a number of sermons.