Of the early life of the Prophet not much is known. "According to one account he was noted in his earlier years for stupidity and intoxication; but one day, while lighting his pipe in his cabin, he fell back apparently lifeless and remained in that condition until his friends had assembled for the funeral, when he revived from his trance, quieted their alarm, and announced that he had been conducted to the spirit world." As an orator, he is said to have been even more powerful than Tecumseh himself, and his great influence in after years among the various tribes would seem to bear that statement out. However, he was boastful, arrogant, at times cruel, and never enjoyed the reputation for honesty and integrity that his more distinguished brother did. In personal appearance he was not prepossessing. He had lost one eye, "which defect he concealed by wearing a dark veil or handkerchief over the disfigured organ." It has been related that he was dominated to some extent by his wife, who was regarded by the squaws at the Prophet's Town as a queen. Whole nations are at times moved with a sort of religious fervor or frenzy which extends to all ranks and stations. During these periods strange mental phenomena are at times apparent, great social and political movements are inaugurated, and the whole complexion of affairs seems to undergo a rapid and sometimes radical change. Such a movement occurred among the Indian tribes of Ohio and those along the Wabash about the beginning of the year 1806. At this time a part of the scattered and broken remnants of the Shawnee tribe had been gathered together under the Prophet and Tecumseh at Greenville, Ohio. In November of the year before the Prophet had "assembled a considerable number of Shawnees, Wyandots, Ottawas and Senecas, at Wapakoneta, on the Auglaize river, when he unfolded to them the new character with which he was clothed, and made his first public effort in that career of religious imposition, which in a few years was felt by the remote tribes of the upper lakes, and on the broad plains which stretched beyond the Mississippi." The appearance of the Prophet was not only highly dramatic but extremely well-timed. The savage mind was filled with gloomy forebodings. The ravages of "fire-water," the intermixture of the races, the trespassing of the white settlers on the Indian domain, and the rapid disappearance of many of the old hunting grounds, all betokened a sad destiny for the red man. Naturally superstitious, he was prepared for the advent of some divine agency to help him in his distress. No one understood this better than the Prophet. He may have been the dupe of his own imposture, but impostors are generally formidable. He was no longer Laulewasikaw, but Tenskwatawa, "The Open Door." "He affected great sanctity; did not engage in the secular duties of war or hunting; was seldom in public; devoted most of his time to fasting, the