Tenskwatawa and His Acolytes

I. Religious Innovations

A. The Creation of Ritual--Shawnees, like many native peoples, used ritual to create a sense of sacredness in places. Tenskwatawa created several new rituals, which both enhanced his message and his status as a "holy man."

1. The Establishment of Patriarchy--although in many ways the Prophet called for a return to traditional Native ways of living, at the same time he sought to limit the political influence of woman in Native society. He did away with the women's council at Greenville, which had in the past been a way of dampening war enthusiasm. This shifted greater power to warriors, which in turn undermined the power of traditional leaders.

2. Public Confession of Sin--one of the first things Tenskwatawa demanded of his followers was that they make a public confession of their sins, or wrong-doing, and to beg for forgiveness from the Great Spirit

3. Offering Regular Prayers to the Great Spirit--Tenskwatawa also demanded that his followers offer daily prayers t the Great Spirit--and only to him. Before the Prophet's movement, most Natives would have asked for intercession from their guardian spirit, which they first perceived on their dream quest.

a. The emphasis on the powers of the Great Spirit were also quite new; traditional Shawnee beliefs held that the Great Spirit (or Master of Life) needed the assistance of other spirits in order to maintain the earth in balance. Traditional beliefs had emphasized the Great Spirit's fallibility--for instance, the Great Spirit needed three tries to locate the genitalia of human beings.

4. Keep an eternal flame--another return to traditional practice. Eternal flames were kept for both ritualistic practice, and because it was easier to start a fire in a new place to live from the glowing embers of an old fire than starting from scratch. It was also a means of bring along something of a former residence that had a spiritual resonance to the new settlement.

5. The Use of Prayer Beads--missionaries were sent to other villages with prayer beads that these missionaries claimed were made from the flesh of the Prophet, and therefore were they next best thing to actually having the Prophet come visit the village. These prayer beads were another appropriation from European religion, since they resembled the rosary of the Roman Catholic faith tradition.

6. Ritual as a Means of Accessing Sacred Power--Tenskwatawa's proscriptions against contact with whites resonated with traditional native practices of avoiding acts that displeased certain spirits. This is another reason why Tenskwatawa's call to break-off contact with whites struck such a strong chord with a number of Native American groups.

7. Tenskwatawa's appearance--when the Prophet appeared in Greenville, he looked very much like a traditional shaman, and regularly preached for extended periods of time with no rest, nourishment, nor drink--that certainly made it seem to followers that he was a true believer in what he was preaching, which was probably the case. This appearance also reinforced the belief that he was a powerful shaman in other Native Americans, as well.

II. The Prophet's Acolytes

A. Beata--Although she rose to prominence among her people the Delaware (o Lenai Lenape) just before the white awareness of Tenskwatawa, Beata was probably actually an early convert to the doctrines that the Prophet was teaching; in fact, it may have been through her recommendation that the Prophet was sent for.

B. Le Maigouis (the Trout)--Recently, historians have compared Le Maigouis favorably to the Christian St. Paul, the disciple of Jesus who worked very hard to convert Gentiles to the religion of the Jewish messiah. It is through his travels that we've come to know the doctrines of the Prophet:


C. Tecumseh?--this argument has not yet emerged, but Tecumseh acts very much like one of the above mentioned missionaries on his trip south to attempt to persuade Native Americans there to join the new Native confederacy.