The Prophet Warns of the Consequences of Indian Fratricide

by Mark J. Green (Wą́nihegá)
translated by Bill Hall (Hų̄ka)

William Hall, ca. 1895

He was going to go along. If he sang, this will be the sign he is going.

"Those who kill one another, whoever they may be, when they want to fight one another, they are getting more and more like this. And besides this, the day as we know it will not be as it used to be. The sun will shine, the stars will not be visible, the moon also cannot be seen. The winds will blow from all directions with great velocity. When this happens, what He has foretold is being fulfilled. Wherever He went, the lightening lit the way, from the East to the West. This is what they saw. These Indians have had a good life, in the mind as well as physically. A happy contented life. This is to be no more. If some remain contented, their spirits are the same as white men. This is why we send messages to different places, to the people of many languages."

When these people went home, they had heard everything. Here at one time or another they came to see and hear him. They had experienced all this, and so he prepared to go home. So he left to go home.¹

Commentary

	DeGolyer Library, SMU
	Tenskwatawa, the Shawnee Prophet

"he" — apparently a reference to the Tenskatawa, the Shawnee Prophet, as subsequent details make clear. However, the significance of these initial two sentences is obscure.

"to fight one another" — the Shawnee Prophet sent prophet-emissaries to the various tribes. These individuals had studied under the Prophet, and were able to quote him verbatim. One of these was an Odawa named Le Maigouis, "The Trout." At a village near the entrance to Lake Michigan, he quoted the Prophet's words from memory: "You are, however never to go to war against each other, but to cultivate peace between your different tribes that they may become one great people."²

"this" — Hall adds parenthetically, "This is the Prophet-Orator talking." The indexical "this" seems to refer to the prophesied state of affairs that he is about to describe as the future consequence of their failure to repent and change their ways.

"the day as we know it will not be as it used to be" — here the Prophet us speaking of the end times that are destined to overtake the world. He was quoted in 1807 as saying:

Children—I was aſleep, when the great ſpirit, addreſsing himſelf to another ſpirit, ſaid: I have cloſed my book of accounts with man, and am going to deſtroy the earth but firſt I will awaken from the ſleep, of the dead, the firſt man I created: he is wiſe and let us hear if he had ought to ſay. He then awoke me, and told me what he was about to do.

I looked round the world and ſaw my red children had greatly degenerated: that they had become ſcattered and miſerable.—When I ſaw this, I was grieved on their account, and aſked leave of the Great ſpirit to come and ſee if I could reclaim them.—I requeſted the great ſpirit, to grant, in caſe they ſhould liſten to my voice, that the world might yet ſubſiſt, for the period of three full lives. And my requeſt was granted.³

So what is being described is the end of the world, but the Great Spirit, through his Prophet, has allowed a brief period of reprieve, provided that people listen and act upon what His prophet has told them, who is a reborn Adam, as it were.

"the sun will shine" — that is, it will shine at night.

"He" — this refers not to the Prophet, but to the Master of Life (Great Spirit) who gave him these revelations.

"this is to be no more" — the circumstances have changed for the worse with the advent of the white man. Accommodating white people and adopting their way of life, is to cease. The Prophet is directly quoted as saying:

The great ſpirit bids me addreſs you, in his own words, which are theſe:

My children—you are to have very little intercourſe with the whites. They are not your father, as you call them; but your breathren. I AM YOUR FATHER. When you call me ſo, you do well, I am the father of the Engliſh of the Spaniards, and the Indians; I created the firſt man, who was the common father of all theſe people as well as yourſelves, and it is through him, whom I have awakened from his long ſleep, that I now addreſs you. But the Americans I did not make. They are not my children, but the children of the devil. They grew from the ſcum of the great waters, when it was troubled by the evil ſpirit, and the froth was driven into the woods by a ſtrong eaſt wind, they are numerous, but I hate them. They are unjuſt; they have taken away your lands, which were not made for them.

My Children.—The whites I placed on the other ſide of the great lake, that they might be a ſeparate people. To them I gave different manners, cuſtoms, animals, vegetables, &c. for their uſe. To them I have given cattle, ſheep, ſwine and poultry for theirſelves only. You are not to keep any of theſe animals, nor to eat of their meat. To you I have given the deer, the bear, and all wild animals, and the fiſh that ſwim in the rivers, and the corn that grows in the fields, for your own uſe; and you are not to give your meat or your corn to the whites to eat.

My Children—You may ſalute the whites when you meet them, but muſt not ſhake hands. You muſt not get drunk; it is a great ſin.—Your old men and chiefs may drink a little pure ſpirits, ſuch as comes from Montreal. But you muſt not drink one drop of Whiſkey. It is the drink of the evil ſpirit. It was not made by me but by the Americans. It is poiſon. It makes you ſick, it burns your inſides. Neither are you on any account to eat bread, it is the food of the whites.⁴

He reacts against calling the President of the United States the "Great Father," a title fit only for the Great Spirit; and he points out that whites had a homeland across the great lake (the Atlantic Ocean) and do not belong here. Indians should neither eat the food of the whites nor drink whiskey, which is a poison. This state of affairs is what is "to be no more."

	CC C J Lippert. Oklahoma Lands Removed
	Odawa Territory

Comparative Material. For what Trout told the Odawa, see the quotations from the Prophet above.

Links: ...

Stories: about seers: The Seer, The Shawnee Prophet and His Ascension, Witches, The Shawnee Prophet — What He Told the Hocągara, A Prophecy About the End Time, A Prophecy, Great Walker and the Ojibwe Witches, The Shawnee Prophet Predicts a Solar Eclipse, The Road to Tippecanoe, A Prophecy About the First School, Winnebagos Go to See the Prophet, The Prophet Visits the Hōcągara, The Journey of the Prophet’s Acolyte, The Woman Who Is Going to Stop the War (v. 1), Hōcągara and Other Tribes Camp with the Prophet, The Claw Shooter, Waruką́ną, The Tap the Head Medicine, The Old Man and His Medicine Bag, The Prophet is Accused of Untrue Predictions, The Diving Contest; about the Shawnee Prophet: The Shawnee Prophet — What He Told the Hocągara, The Shawnee Prophet Predicts a Solar Eclipse, The Shawnee Prophet and His Ascension, The Road to Tippecanoe, Winnebagos Go to See the Prophet, The Prophet Visits the Hōcągara, A Prophecy About the End Time, The Journey of the Prophet’s Acolyte, The Woman Who Is Going to Stop the War (v. 1), Hōcągara and Other Tribes Camp with the Prophet, The War of Indian Tribes against White Soldiers, The Prophet is Accused of Untrue Predictions, The Old Man and His Medicine Bag.

Themes: a human being receives a blessing directly from Earthmaker: Šųgepaga, The Wild Rose, Earthmaker Blesses Wagíšega (Wešgíšega).

¹ "Prophet speaks of the end of the war," Archives of Traditional Music (ATM), Indiana University, translation by William Hall, Original Typescript (Black River Falls: ca. 1960-1970) F10, recording by Milford G. Chandler of Mark J. Green - vocals, bef. 1922, Black River Falls, Jackson County, Wisconsin. ATL no. 528.11 8743.3, tr. 1, Recording 73.SCY 183901:48, Collection number (collection identifier): 54-196-F, p. 77 of 87; OT 7696; APS accession number 7251.

² Western Sun, vol. 1, #12 (Vincennes, Knox County, Indiana Territory: Saturday, September 19, 1807) 2c,d-3a [3a].

³ Western Sun, 2c.

⁴ Western Sun, 2c.