Browse Exhibits (3 total)

The photographs and text in this digital exhibit come from Gonzaga University's Foley Library in relation with Jesuits West Province of the Society of Jesus. All documents and pictures originated from the Edward Griva, S.J. Collection. These items all hail from Northeastern Washington. 

Father Edward Griva worked as a missionary in the Inland Northwest, teaching, converting and guiding Native Americans within the Plateau region. Born in Italy, in 1864, he eventually travelled to Washington for his Jesuit education and training. Until he died in 1948, Fr. Griva acted as a religious leader for the Kalispel reservation and the Confederate Tribe of the Colville reservation. One example of Griva’s extensive work in the area reveals itself in his diary where he reports having heard 2886 confessions in 1921.

This exhibit showcases Griva’s interactions with the tribes mentioned above. It will show questions used in the Sacrament of Confession, pictures of Fr. Griva interacting with Native Americans, and various pictures of successfully converted Native Americans, both young and old.

In this exibit are photographs documenting different aspects of the Feast of Corpus Christi, celebrated every year throughout the Catholic Church. These photographs come from the Archives of the Jesuits West Province and depict Corpus Christi Feasts at various Jesuit missions on the Colombian Plateau in the early 20th century. Once thought of by the Jesuits as a pristine Native paradise, the Plateau was one of the last regions in the United States to come into direct contact with White culture. 

The photographs in this exhibit are a conglomoration of various Corpus Christi Feasts at Jesuit missions across the Plateau in the mid-1920s. 

Much of the textual information provided in this exhibit comes from the first hand accounts of Edward Griva, a Jesuit missionary to the Plateau in the early 20th century. While on the Plateau, Griva diligently documented his expeirences in a journal, providing a window into the religious interactions between Natives and Whites. In a seperate account, Griva gives a detailed record of his involvement in, and observations of, multiple Corpus Christi Feasts in May and June of 1926.

In conjunction, the photographs and primary source documents demonstrate the ways in which Natives interacted with, and participated in, an important yearly Jesuit ritual, as seen through a White lens. 

The Feast of Corpus Christi was a highly ceremonial affair, including a great procession with multiple benedictions along the way. This exhibit showcases the various stages of the celebration: leaving the church, processing, stopping for benedicitons, and returning to the church. The photographs are ogranized into subpages based on the stages of the celebration they depict.