Winnebagos Go to See the Prophet, Version 1
by Mark J. Green (Wą́nihegá)
translated by Bill Hall (Hų̄ka)
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| William Hall, ca. 1895 |
What sort of man is he that is telling about these things? In appearance, just what sort of man could he be? They came to the place, very anxious to see him. Some who came said, "Where is he?" Someone said, "You Winnebago, this is where you belong." Then they saw him, there were two men there. The man who was telling things, was a man with one eye.
Then he said, this Prophet-Orator said, "Ha, my brothers, you came far to see me. You heard about me. This is what you may have heard when you were coming. What kind of man? How does he look? How big a man is saying these things? Perhaps this is what you thought, 'Sometime I will see him. I will see him again,' you thought. Many of you finally came here to see me. Even if you came early, it's all the same. As you can see, my appearance is not like the other Indians. There is not much to say for my appearance, so this is [how it] all looks. So, I am here and happy to see you all, brothers. All I do is talk. Perhaps some are bored, because I am saying so much. If I tell about something great, they may think I am jesting. I am going to make a sign for you, after which I will be going home."1
Commentary to Version 1
"two men there" — one of these was Tenskwatawa, the Shawnee Prophet, and the other was his older brother, Tecumseh.
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| Charles Bird King | Unknpwn Artist | |
| The Prophet | Tecumseh |
"one eye" — in his earlier life, Tenskwatawa was a ne'er-do-well who, probably while drunk, shot his own right eye out with an arrow.
"Prophet-Orator" — this is Tenskwatawa, the Shawnee Prophet (1775-1836) whose portrait is shown above. Throughout the stories told by Mark Green, he is referred to as the "Prophet-Orator." His initial name was Lalawethika ("He Makes a Loud Noise" or "The Noise Maker"), but later in life was called Tenskwatawa ("Open Door" or "One With Open Mouth"). Some accept as factual that he was born as one of triplets, another of whom died in infancy.8 His older brother was the famous warleader Tecumseh. Unlike Tecumseh, Tenskwatawa seemed introverted and unaccomplished as a hunter or warrior.9 He soon turned to alcoholism for which he became notorious.10 While presumably drunk, he managed to strike out his right eye with his own arrow.11 During this period, the Shawnee and other tribes of the Northwest Territory were experiencing both a physical invasion of their territory by white settlers, as well as a cultural invasion, which was accompanied by alcohol and disease. At this time much of Ohio was ceded by compliant chiefs for U. S. government annuities. This led to considerable disaffection by the native tribes, including Hōcągara. This led to heightened resentment among the tribes of the region.12 In 1805, Tenskwatawa had a number of intense visions in which he learned of two possible worlds that the tribes could enter: one in which they adopted white ways, a world in which complete disaster would overcome them, and another world in which the Indians embraced and revived their own culture, creating a life full of blessings. It was then that he found himself, and became a prophet. More visions ensued, and he declared that the white invaders were the children of the Bad Spirit.13 By 1805 he had become so influential that he and his cult followers founded their own settlement on the White River near Greenville.14 After being challenged by William Henry Harrison to perform a miracle to prove his prophetic powers, Tenskwatawa learned of an upcoming solar eclipse, and prophesied its occurrence. When it occurred as predicted, he gain complete credence. In 1808, he and his brother Tecumseh founded a large multi-tribal town known as "Prophetstown." It was the center of the Prophet's purification movement as well as Tecumseh's grand military alliance. However, Gov. Harrison attacked the town on 7 Nov. 1811, precipitating the Battle of Tippecanoe. This largely destroyed the Indian alliance, and the Prophet and his brother Tecumseh fled to Canada where they supported the British cause in the War of 1812. Long afterwards, the government asked Tenskwatawa to return to lead the Shawnee exodus to their reservation in Kansas.15 He died there in relative obscurity in 1836.
"you came far" — it's about 250 miles from the southern shore of Lake Winnebago via Milwaukee, Chicago, and to the destination of Prophetstown.
"a sign for you" — this may refer to the solar eclipse that the Prophet successfully predicted:
During the spring of 1806 Harrison wrote to the Delawares denouncing the Prophet and asking, "If he is really a prophet, ask him to cause the sun to stand still-the moon to alter its course-the rivers to cease to flow-or the dead to rise from their graves. If he does these things, you may believe that he has been sent from God." Ironically, Harrison's challenge played into Tenskwatawa's hands. In the spring of 1806 several astronomers had traveled through Indian and Illinois locating observation stations to study an eclipse of the sun scheduled to occur on June 16. Although Harrison either ignored or forgot about the event, the Prophet remembered. Among the Shawnee such an eclipse was known as a "Black Sun," an event surrounded with dread and portending future warfare. Accepting Harrison's challenge, in early June Tenskwatawa surprised even his closest followers by promising to darken the sun. On June 16, while his disciples and skeptic both assembled in his village, the Prophet remained secluded in his lodge throughout most of the morning, but as the noon sun faded into a eerie twilight he stepped forth exclaiming, "Did I not speak the truth? See the sun is dark!" He then assured his audience that he would restore the sun's former radiance, and as the eclipse ended even those tribesmen who still remembered him as Lalawethika, the drunken loudmouth, now were convinced of his medicine." Following the eclipse, the Prophet's influence spread rapidly.16
If it is true that this is the sign that the Prophet had in mind, then it dates this encounter to sometime before 16 June 1806. At this time the Prophet was living in Greenville, not Prophetstown, the latter having been founded in 1808.
"I will be going home" — ordinarily, such an expression means that the speaker expects to die and ascend to Heaven. There is a weak possibility that it refers to his founding Prophetstown, but that did not occur for two years after the eclipse.
Winnebagos Go to See the Prophet, Version 2
by Stella Stacey
Arrows (⬅︎) link to the corresponding interlinear text.
⬅︎They also say that wherever Žawanų the Prophet was, there, they say, the Hōcąks would see him. ⬅︎It is said that a man, a Hōcąk man, went there. ⬅︎Wherever Žawanų the Prophet lived, they would go there. ⬅︎When they were to go to him, well, it was in order, I think, to see the man and how exactly he might be, that's also what they were thinking. ⬅︎So as they were going to see him, they were nervous, that's how they went. ⬅︎So it seems. It seems that this one was sitting there, and it was two men, apparently, Žawanų the Prophet and a different man was also there, it seems. ⬅︎Well, there Žawanų the Prophet said, "'Hagágásgéižąxjį, this one is someone there who is «telling stories,» as they say. I must go see, to see for us, to see what sort he might be, I must see.' ⬅︎[This is] also what they think, as you have come this far. ⬅︎Truly, you have come, you have seen us. 'He is not a person whose appearance is equal to mine. ⬅︎He is one who has half a face.' ⬅︎Like that [they say], but I must do this because they have told me to, so that's why I’m doing it. ⬅︎Whatever my appearance is, well, I should do this job this way as was told me, and he said, to be one telling stories like this. ⬅︎Whatever I am going to say, he said that I must return [to earth]. ⬅︎He told me whatever is to be in the future. ⬅︎He tells me something, he himself tells me, and for this reason I am telling it. ⬅︎So it is good that you are coming to see me," he said.17
Commentary to Version 2
"Žawanų the Prophet" — Žáwánu Wórágᵉnąka, which is literally, "Shawnee, the one who tells stories." The word Žáwánu, whose original and literal meaning is "Shawnee," later came to mean "prophet," purely on the account of Tenskatawa being the famed Shawnee Prophet, the brother of Tecumseh. However, here the word Žáwánu is being used as a name in place of Tenskatawa, and "teller of tales" is meant to express the idea that he is a prophet. We see in this story, which dates from the era of the War of 1812, something of the evolution of the language in which the name given the prophet was the source of the word žawánu being transformed into the standard Hōcąk word meaning "prophet."
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| Charles Bird King | |
| Žawanu (Tenskatawa), the Shawnee Prophet |
"half a face" — in Hōcąk, oddly, the word for "eye" and "face" is the same: hišjá. What the Prophet is missing is his right eye, which he lost when he shot it with his own arrow during the drunken, profane period of his life. The detail from the Charles Bird King painting at the left shows the missing right eye of the Prophet.
"they" — a reference to the Spirits who conducted him to heaven where he met the Great Spirit himself.
"he" — the Great Spirit.
"I must return" — this shows conclusively that he has been talking about how he was given this mission by the Great Spirit in collaboration with the other Spirits.
"he himself tells me" — this story maintains that the Prophet is in ongoing contact with the Great Spirit who feeds him information over a long period of time. It's not merely that the Prophet received the news and inspiration required for his prophesies on a single visit to the heavens, but that it's an ongoing process: when he makes a new pronouncement it is the product of a new inspiriation from the Great Spirit himself.
Comparative Material. ...
Links: ...
Stories: 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, 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 Warns of the Consequences of Indian Fratricide, Some Remarks by the Shawnee Prophet, The Prophet is Accused of Untrue Predictions, The Old Man and His Medicine Bag; 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, 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 Prophet Warns of the Consequences of Indian Fratricide, Some Remarks by the Shawnee Prophet, What the Whites Will Do to the Indians, The Claw Shooter, Waruką́ną, The Tap the Head Medicine, The Old Man and His Medicine Bag, The Diving Contest.
Themes: ...
Notes
1 "The Winnebagos visit Shawanooworak, the Prophet," Archives of Traditional Music (ATM), Indiana University, translation by William Hall, Original Typescript (Black River Falls: ca. 1960-1970) D8-9, recording by Milford G. Chandler of Mark J. Green - vocals, bef. 1922, Black River Falls, Jackson County, Wisconsin. ATL no. 526.9 8742.10, tr. 2, Recording 45.SCY 18100153, Collection number (collection identifier): 54-196-F, p. 48 of 87; OT 7695; APS accession number 7245.
8 R. David Edmunds, The Shawnee Prophet (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1985) 29.
9 James H. Madison and Lee Ann Sandweiss, Hoosiers and the American Story (Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Society Press, 2014) 13.
10 Andrew R. L. Cayton, Frontier Indiana (Bloomington: Indiana University Press., 1996) 206.
11 Madison and Sandweiss, Hoosiers and the American Story, 13.
12 Gregory Evans Dowd, A Spirited Resistance: The North American Indian Struggle for Unity, 1745–1815 (Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press,1991) 116–140.
13 Edmunds, The Shawnee Prophet, 38. Richard White, The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650–1815 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991) 507.
14 Linda C. Gugin and James E. St. Clair, edd., Indiana's 200: The People Who Shaped the Hoosier State (Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Society Press, 2015) 346. Edmunds, The Shawnee Prophet, 34.
15 "Shawnee Indians - Wapakoneta Ohio - Vincennes Indiana". Boston Reporter and Telegraph, 15 December 1826, p. 3.
16 R. David Edmunds, "Tecumseh, The Shawnee Prophet, and American History: A Reassessment," Western Historical Quarterly, 14, #3 (1983): 261–276 [269].
17 Stella Stacy, "Winnebagos Go to See the Prophet" (current APS title: "Winnebagos go to see the prophet Shawanoworak"), reading by Sheila Shigley, from audio tapes in the American Philosophical Society. Fraenkel, Gerd. Mss.Rec. 29, recorded 12 July 1959, 1 .mp3; 00:00:14.9 - 00:02:13.4. Copy made by Gerd Fraenkel of an original tape held at the Archives of Languages of the World, Indiana University. This program comes from original tape 526.9. APS accession number 7245; APSdigrec_0950; Recording Number: 02; Program Number: 11.
