Indian Biography; Vol. 2 (of 2): Or, An Historical Account of Those Individuals Who Have Been Distinguished among the North American Natives as Orators, Warriors, Statesmen, and Other Remarkable CharactersThatcher, B. B. (Benjamin Bussey)
History
Indian Biography; Vol. 2 (of 2): Or, An Historical Account of Those Individuals Who Have Been Distinguished among the North American Natives as Orators, Warriors, Statesmen, and Other Remarkable Characters
Thatcher, B. B. (Benjamin Bussey)
Indians of North America -- Biography; Indians of North America -- History
"We had already been for some time assembled in considerable numbers; much
agitation and terror had prevailed among us, and now famine began to be
felt. The faces of men wore an aspect of unusual gloominess; the active
became indolent, and the spirits of the bravest seemed to be subdued. I
started to hunt with my dogs, which I had constantly refused to kill, or
suffer to be killed. By their assistance, I found and killed a bear. On
returning home, I said to some of the Indians, 'Has not the Great Spirit
given us our dogs to aid us in procuring what is needful for the support
of our life, and can you believe he wishes now to deprive us of their
services? The prophet, we are told, has forbid us to suffer our fire to be
extinguished in our lodges, and when we travel or hunt, he will not allow
us to use a flint and steel, and we are told he requires that no man
should give fire to another. Can it please the Great Spirit that we should
lie in our hunting-camps without fire; or is it more agreeable to him that
we should make fire by rubbing together two sticks, than with a flint and
a piece of steel?' But they would not listen to me, and the serious
enthusiasm which prevailed among them so far affected me, that I threw
away my flint and steel, laid aside my medicine-bag, and, in many
particulars, complied with the new doctrines; but I would not kill my
dogs. I soon learned to kindle a fire by rubbing some dry cedar, which I
was careful always to carry about me; but the discontinuance of the use of
flint and steel subjected many of the Indians to much inconvenience and
suffering. The influence of the Shawnee prophet was very sensibly and
painfully felt by the remotest Ojibbeways of whom I had any knowledge; but
it was not the common impression among them, that his doctrines had any
tendency to unite them in the accomplishment of any human purpose. For two
or three years, drunkenness was much less frequent than formerly; war was
less thought of; and the entire aspect of affairs among them was somewhat
changed by the influence of one man. But gradually the impression was
obliterated; medicine-bags, flints and steels were resumed, dogs were
raised, and women and children were beaten as before."
The following passage occurs in a subsequent part of Tanner's volume,
referring to a date about two years later than the one just quoted. The
writer evidently had but little suspicion of a connection between the
second impostor and the first, and we have as little doubt of it. The
Prophet renewed his labors in another form, as fast as the former
impression, to use Tanner's words, was "obliterated." The unpopular
injunctions, only, were omitted in the second edition, while all the
substantial ones, it will be observed, were retained:--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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