Dirt, Water, and the Search for Healing: The Contested Histories of Indigenous-Catholic Holy Sites in the North American West, 1810-2022

This dissertation focuses on religion, harm, and healing among Indigenous and Catholic Peoples in the North American West since 1810 through a comparative study of el Santuario de Chimayó, a shrine famous for healing dirt in contemporary New Mexico, United States, and Lac Ste. Anne, a shrine renowned for healing water in contemporary Alberta, Canada. The project analyzes how pilgrims and pilgrimage organizers reimagined the history of Indigenous-Catholic relations at these shrines. It suggests that twentieth-century organizers at el Santuario de Chimayó and Lac Ste. Anne decided to racially segment pilgrimage practices in very different ways, and it shows how by the early twenty-first century, both of these holy places, which are acclaimed for personal healing, became sites where devotees also began to seek communal and environmental renewal.