Background

Gregorio Mengarini was born on July 21, 1811 in Rome of a distinguished family.

Education

Mengarini entered the novitiate of the Society of Jesus, October 28, 1828; and on completion of his philosophical training, he taught in Jesuit colleges in Rome, Modena, and Reggio.

Career

In 1839, while in the Jesuit seminary in Rome, Mengarini was much affected by the public reading of a letter from Bishop Joseph Rosati of St. Louis, which appealed for missionaries to the Flathead Indians, who were petitioning for a "black robe. " Ordained a priest in March 1840, he volunteered for the Indian missions and sailed in July from Leghorn to Philadelphia. After spending a few months at Georgetown College, he went to St. Louis, from which he accompanied Fathers Pierre de Smet, Nicholas Point, and three Alsatian and Belgian lay brothers to Fort Hall, Idaho, on August 15, 1841. Escorted by a party of Flatheads, the missionaries went to St. Mary's Mission in the Bitter Root Valley. Here in a log-cabin with windows of thin beaten skin, Mengarini, despite suffering from bitter cold to which he was unacclimated, served the Indians, composed hymns in various dialects, trained a native choir, and compiled a Selish or Flat-head Grammar; Grammatica Linguae Selicae, which was published from his third manuscript, in 1861, as the second volume of J. G. Shea's Library of American Linguistics. It is said that he became so fluent in the Selish or Kalispel dialect that in speech he could pass for a tribesman. About this time he wrote a Kalispel Indian-English dictionary, which was ultimately published with an English-Indian supplement by the Indians and missionaries of the St. Ignatius Mission in Montana. In spite of Mengarini's entreaties to his superiors at St. Paul, Oregon, St. Mary's Mission was ordered closed because of trouble with the Blackfeet tribesmen in 1850. Two years later, the repentant Blackfeet appealed for his return. Their petition was not granted, but the Jesuits reëstablished the St. Ignatius Mission. In the meantime, Mengarini had been ordered to the Santa Clara mission in California, where he assisted in the foundation of the College of Santa Clara, the first collegiate institution on the Pacific slope. Here serving as director of studies, as professor of modern languages, as treasurer, or as vice-rector, he continued his work until stricken by apoplexy. He had not only a deep affection for the Indians but a scientific interest in their language and customs. He furnished vocabularies of the Colville, Coeur d'Alène, Flathead, and Santa Clara dialects in John Wesley Powell's Contributions to American Ethnology. Toward the end of his life, he dictated personal reminiscences which appeared in the Woodstock Letters (1888).

Achievements

• Mengarini was noted for his skills in both medicine and herbalism. A first rate scholar, he contributed articles to several ethnographical and anthropological journals in the United States. In addition to his knowledge of Latin and Greek, he was fluent in Italian, French and Spanish. His contributions to the Flathead (Kalispel) language provided a solid foundation for further studies by other missionaries, for the Indians claimed that he understood it as well as, if not better than, they.

Works

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  • Indian and White in the Northwest; a History of Catholicity in Montana, 1831-1891

    (Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We h...)

  • A Dictionary of the Kalispel Or Flat-Head Indian Language, Part 2

    (This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. T...)

  • A Selish Or Flat-head Grammar - Primary Source Edition (Italian Edition)

    ( This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923....)

  • Mengarini's Narrative of the Rockies: Memoirs of Old Oregon, 1841-1850, and St. Mary's Mission

    (Sources Of Northwest History, No. 25, Montana State Unive...)

  • Recollections of the Flathead mission: Containing brief observations, both ancient and contemporary, concerning this particular nation (Northwest historical series)

    (Book by Mengarini, Gregory)

Connections

There is no information about his family and personal life.