Tenskwatawa's Dream

As the wave of white settlements pressed westward,the
Delawares' mantle passed to the Shawnee peoples, who pro-
duced a significant prophet of their own in Tenskwatawa, or
'Open  Door' the brother of the great political leader
Tucumseh.  Ror the first 37 years of his life Tenskwatawa lived
very much on his brother's shadow as a rather dissolute med-
cine man with a weakness for alcohol.  the path branched,
and he followed the broader track .  It led to a house called
Eternity . This was a place of punishment, where he could hear
souls in torment 'roaring like the falls of a river'.
Even though Tenskwatawa was no Christian, the
imagery would have been familiar to any missionary. Priest
could also have supported the message that he drew from
his vision, for he preached a strict moral code , banning
alcohol- which he now abandoned- along witn polygamy,
violence against women and children, fornication and
dishonesty.  Most startlingly of all, he urged his followers to
throw away their  traditional medicine bags-the bundles of
talismans that wer their most sacred possessions-as a
symbol of their desire to start a new life.

   Tenskwatawa's vision of the future,  though was firmly
in the native  tradition.   A time was coming, he claimed , when
the Great Spirit would sweep across the land, darkening it
for two days.  Afterward, the whites would be gone, buried
alongside the Native  American people who had failed to
change their lives,  Then the Spirit would release the lost
game animals from the place where they  had  been hidden
and the virtuous would reposes the land.  The promised
time was just a few years away.
   For almost seven years , Tenskwatawa attracted
thousands of followers from across the Midwest to his
village, known t  the whites as Prophetstown . then he met
disaster .  In 1811 US troops approached Prophetstown while
his brother was away, and Tenskwatawa  encouraged the
warriors gathered There launch a preemptive attack,
ppromising them invulnerability . TRhe white soldiers'
gunpowder , he said, would be turned to sand.

  The attack, which became know as the Battle of the
Tippecano river, was not a success, and relatives of the
fighters who were killed turned on Tenskwatawa,blaming
him for the defeat.  Although they subsequently released him
unharmed, his reputation had been damaged  beyond repair
and he never exerted much influence again.
(Prophecies 4,000 years  of prophets,visionaries and predictions/Tony Alan)