Panther in the Sky

by JAMES ALEXANDER Thom

  “Any red woman who is living with a white man must return to her people, and must leave her children with the husband, so that all nations will be pure in their blood.

  “Our Creator told me there are too many doing witchcraft, and using their medicine bags for false beliefs. All the People must gather together to destroy their personal medicine bags, in the presence of all, for all our medicine now is in the shining power I have been given!”

  A murmur of astonishment swept through the crowd, because in their medicine bags the People kept the sacred things that protected them and healed them. “I tell you what I was told!” Open Door’s voice carried over this hubbub. “We cannot save ourselves from corruption by doing only little, easy things! Listen! And when you destroy your medicine bags you will make an open confession of all the bad deeds you have done, and beg forgiveness. You heard me confess all my sins, which were much worse than yours, and I did so because it is required by the Great Good Spirit! Only light will cure moldiness; only light will purify your spirits. Soon I will call us all together for this cleansing, and anyone who wants to follow me through the open door to goodness will have to do this, or else be doomed!”

  When these words had cowed the crowd back into silence, Open Door resumed. “Now hear what I was told about dealing with white men! These things we must do, to cleanse ourselves of their corruption!” Many of the listeners seemed relieved that he was directing himself away toward that race. Few of the men or women really had any direct association with whites.

  “Our foods are sacred. Our Grandmother taught us how to hunt and raise these foods, to select seeds and continue the best strains. These foods are for us only. Never sell any of our food to a white person. If a white man comes to you hungry, give him a little, only to give him strength to go away!

  “Do not eat any food that is raised or cooked by a white person. It is not good for us. Eat not their bread made of wheat, for Our Creator gave us corn for our bread. Eat not the meat of their filthy swine, nor of their chicken fowls, nor the beef of their cattle, which are tame and thus have no spirit in them. Their foods will seem to fill your empty belly, but this deceives you, for food without spirit does not nourish you.”

  Tecumseh remembered the food he had eaten with Ga-lo-weh and his family in his visits over the years. Sometimes it had been game and corn, but often beef and wheat. The things Open Door was saying pointed at everybody in some way.

  “There are two kinds of white men,” Open Door went on. “There are the Americans, and there are the others. You may give your hand in friendship to the French, or the Spaniards, or the British. But the Americans are not like those. The Americans come from the slime of the sea, with mud and weeds in their claws, and they are a kind of crayfish serpent whose claws grab in our earth and take it from us.”

  Tecumseh recognized that as one of his own figures of speech that he had used in anger once long ago. This was good. Tenskwatawa, the Open Door, could not have said anything more in harmony with Tecumseh’s purposes than this.

  Open Door, who had been talking for almost three hours, went on with his commandments.

  “Wear only clothing that you have made from skins and sewn with sinew. I see here wool garments and hats made by white men. Give those back to the first white person you see.

  “In our towns there are dogs of the white men’s kind, those whose ears hang down. I saw such a dog watching me from behind a tree with white men’s eyes, and I knew: these are prowling our towns with the white man’s spirit in them. And there are cats that you got from the white men. These are bad animals. Often a witch takes the shape of a cat. You must kill these cats and dogs, or else take them to a white man’s town and leave them there.”

  This commandment was heard with almost as much dismay as that of the medicine bags. The white man’s kinds of dogs were more trusting and amiable than the wolflike Indian dogs, and many people had grown attached to the ones they had. Some red men had learned how to use the long-eared dogs to help them hunt and thus found them useful. Some of the big dogs could pull almost as much baggage on a travois as a pony could. And the cats were liked by children and helped keep rodents out of the grain. “Yes! I told you! Some of these steps to purification will be hard!”

  The next was hard indeed:

  “The fire struck by white man’s steel is not sacred fire. You must put out such fire in your lodges and kindle a new fire using the old way, and this will be a sacred fire.” Most of the women groaned and gasped. Making fire without flint and steel was very hard and tedious. “You must never let this sacred fire go out, for it is your reborn spirit, beginning now, and if it goes out, so will your life go out. When you move from place to place you must bear sacred coals with you, as we did in the ancient times, and rekindle the fire when you arrive.

  “And now listen:

  “The Great Good Spirit wants our men to hunt and kill game as in the ancient days, with the silent arrow and the lance and the snare, and no longer with guns.”

  Here again was more of Tecumseh’s practical thinking that he had absorbed sometime; with game growing more scarce every year, gunshots drove animals away from a hunting ground. But another practical reason for this was as Open Door now said: “If we hunt in the old ways, we will not have to depend upon white men, for new guns and powder and lead, or go to them to have broken guns repaired. Remember it is the wish of the Great Good Spirit that we have no more commerce with white men!”

  It was evident from the expressions in the men’s faces, though, that this would be a hardship. So many had lost, or never even had, the skill needed for stalking and killing game with a bow. But these were commandments brought to the People from heaven, and they must be obeyed. Many of the men sat in humility, almost in despair, wondering if they would even be able to feed their families. As if seeing their thoughts, Open Door told them: “It will take us a while to become such hunters again. We may keep our guns, and if we need to defend ourselves against American white men, the guns will kill them because they are a white man’s weapon. But arrows will kill American intruders, too! You must go to the grandfathers and have them teach you to make good bows and shape arrowheads, and you must recover the old hunting skills. That is what the Creator instructed me to tell you.

  “And now listen, for here is the most important message I bring you:

  “The Great Good Spirit will call me from time to time and teach me more to help you. Our Creator told me that all red men who refuse to obey these laws are bad people, or witches, and must be put to death. Anyone who does not wish to live in a way that pleases Weshemoneto must want instead to please Matchemoneto, and such a person must be a witch. Witches should be killed, for they divide the People and weaken their spirit.” This was a chilling announcement, but the people were quick to nod agreement to it, because many did believe that witchcraft was a cause of much of their anxiety. To live in the midst of a witch-hunt was a frightful ordeal, as anyone could be accused and tried. But it had been done before in the People’s past, and after the hunts had come light and freedom from fear.

  “Hear me, my People,” Open Door intoned, raising his stick and staff and holding them as he had in the beginning of this long and disturbing oration. “All red men will soon know these messages I have brought. They are hungry for guidance from heaven. I will tell the people I see, and you will tell those you see. But I warn you: Our Creator thundered and said that anyone who reveals these laws to any white men will die at once, and never be shown the right road!

  “The Great Good Spirit will appoint a place to be our holy town, and at that place I will call all red men to come and share this shining power. For the People in all tribes are corrupt and miserable! In that holy town we will pray every morning and every night for the earth to be fruitful, and the game and fish to be plentiful again. We will no longer do the frolic dances that excite lust and make us silly. Instead, the Great Good Spirit will teach me the old dances we did before the corruption, and from these dances we wi
ll receive strength and happiness!”

  All red men! Tecumseh shivered at the sound of that. Open Door with his appeal to the yearnings of all the miserable red men must be the way to bring the tribes together despite their many-headedness! Open Door truly must be, then, an instrument of Weshemoneto’s design! All red men!

  “Now I, Tenskwatawa, He-Opens-the-Door, will go and be alone for a while, to learn more of what we must do. I have told you everything I know, but soon I will know more. You will go and tell what you have learned here, but tell it to no white man, or to anyone who would tell it to a white man. Get rid of cats and long-eared dogs! Make good bows! Put out your fires made with steel, and kindle an everlasting fire by wood on wood. Turn your backs on the whiskey sellers and the traders, and do not listen to the Jesus missionaries!

  “Look among yourselves for witches, and note who they are, and they will be judged soon. How will you know witches? I will tell you: They will be doing commerce with Americans, and going to their treaty councils, against the warnings of Our Creator.

  “And they will start whispering to you that Open Door is not a true holy man or prophet! That is how you will know witches!”

  Tecumseh, who had been absorbed in his brother’s declarations, suddenly felt eyes upon him. He turned his head and saw, among the hundreds staring at Open Door, one pair of eyes again turned his way. Star Watcher’s eyes met his. They stared at each other across the crowd, their faces full of questions.

  They, above all others in the nation, knew the strange powers of their brother’s mind, and each could see that the other was impressed by the cunning in those last words.

  26

  VINCENNES, INDIANA TERRITORY

  April 1806

  GOVERNOR WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON PUT HIS HANDS ON the edge of the table and rose, leaving most of his breakfast on his plate. “Please excuse me, my dear. I must finish a letter. The messenger is waiting.”

  Anna’s morning smile faded. She pointed with her pert little nose at his plate. “You’ve eaten hardly a thing!” She was annoyed. He never had time to sit through a breakfast with her. He was always in his office, meeting with Indian agents or Indian chiefs, or with traders or politicians, or with Mr. Stout, editor of the Indiana Gazette. Or, if he was alone, he was always writing, writing, writing his countless and interminable letters. In the eleven years of their marriage, she estimated, he must have written as many words as there were in the Bible. It was hard for her to understand why a man who was always succeeding at everything he undertook should waste so much time and ink explaining. She had always thought that unsuccessful men were the ones who needed to explain. He wrote long letters explaining his doings even where no explanations were asked for and often would send the same explanations to various government officials who could not possibly have any interest in them whatever.

  In these last few months, she knew, he had been fretting terribly over some so-called Shawnee prophet and his mumby-jumby, which, in her secret opinion, was not even any of his business, being outside the Indiana Territory, back in Ohio. He was so preoccupied with it that he lost sleep as well as his appetite.

  Anna Symmes Harrison sighed and excused him. She would just have to stroll in the garden alone. Again. He had built this handsome mansion and estate, called Grouseland, the most impressive place north of Louisville, but never allowed himself time to enjoy it. The only time he used the lawn and veranda was when he held councils out there with Indian chiefs. He would drop everything to spend a few hours with any bushloper or trader or missionary or half-breed who could confirm his fears with more distressing tales of that faraway Shawnee prophet and his cult. And he was always muttering that the British must be behind it. British indeed!

  She almost snorted into her teacup at the silliness of her husband’s concern. After all, the whole frontier was in the throes of revivalism, wild, trembling, screaming revivalism, with shrill-voiced evangelists whipping hundreds at a time into a frenzy; why shouldn’t the poor savages do the same? But of course she never expressed these opinions to him.

  Governor Harrison shut his office door, sat down at his desk, and pulled out from a pigeonhole a rolled sheet upon which he had begun writing before dawn. He had been thinking about writing such a letter for a long time, but this latest horrible news had made it an urgent necessity. The influence of the Shawnee named Tenskwatawa had grown to alarming proportions in just a year, but now, with the news of the burning of witches, it was time to undermine that charlatan before he became too great a danger.

  For months the rumors and reports of strange happenings had been trickling in. Along every Indian trace there were hundreds of warriors, women, and children traveling. And as all roads once had led to Rome, they all seemed now to lead to the Shawnee prophet’s new village near Greenville in Ohio. There, near the ruins of the fort where Harrison had assisted in Wayne’s great treaty, this mysterious Shawnee had built a town of some fifty or sixty cabins, many wigewas, and an enormous meetinghouse reported to be 150 feet long. The man called Tenskwatawa had proclaimed himself successor to the old shaman of the Shawnees. Moravian missionaries among the Delawares in eastern Indiana last summer had reported that their large congregations of hard-won Christian converts had suddenly shrunk to a handful. A few months later, large numbers of Ottawas, Wyandots, and Senecas had been seen on the trails, despite the harsh weather of early winter, and Harrison’s informants had told him that these people were going to hear the Shawnee preach. Traders along the way had reported the surprising news that they could not sell their liquor to very many members of those tribes anymore. Indeed, their sales of many items—ammunition, clothes, and tools—had mysteriously declined.

  Then, two months ago, according to Governor Tiffin of Ohio, three Ohio militia officers had discovered a large council in progress on the headwaters of the Great Miami River and had been turned away when they went to investigate it. The Shawnees there had shaken hands with them in a very cool manner—and with their left hands only. Eventually Governor Tiffin had been assured that the gathering was only a ceremony of worship, but the officers had remained suspicious because of the many painted feathers being displayed and a war post visible in the camp.

  These distant activities, even though in another governor’s domain, had haunted Harrison’s sleep, for he did not like any secretive Indian activity that might somehow hinder his grand progression of land acquisitions.

  But only now had he been shocked into action, by some very chilling news: a witch-hunt among the Delawares.

  The details of it were so grisly that he had not even mentioned them to Anna. A group of Delaware warriors, who were disciples of this mysterious Shawnee prophet, had rounded up and confined a dozen Christian Delawares and old people in the town of Wah-pi-kah-me-kunk, charging them with being witches, then had summoned the Prophet himself to come from his town and judge them. After looking each in the face and allegedly seeing into his heart, he had named three as true witches.

  The first was a Christian convert called Ann Charity, a favorite of the Moravian missionaries because she was, in every respect but the color of her skin, like a clean, devout, industrious old white woman. The witch-hunters had tied her to a pole over a bonfire, burning her feet and legs for four days until she had screamed her confession. Then they had lowered her into the blaze and burned her to death.

  Next condemned had been Twisting Vines. This aged Delaware chief had been a leader in the treaty ceremonies with General Wayne at Greenville and in the decade since had been a model government Indian. Twisting Vines had been a Christian convert, though lately he had drifted away from it. Accused and tortured, the chief had confessed to poisoning people’s minds. Then he was tomahawked and burned while the missionaries were forced to watch.

  The third condemned one had been a Christianized Mohawk called Joshua, whom Twisting Vines had implicated during his own confession. Joshua had been the missionaries’ carpenter and organist. The Moravians had pleaded desperately that this beloved
and useful man be spared, but of course their pleas had only strengthened the witch-hunters’ suspicions, and Joshua had been sentenced to burn at the stake. The witch-hunts, according to reports Harrison received, continued to this day in the Delaware towns, though the Shawnee prophet had returned to his own village. Even in his horror, Harrison could perceive quite clearly what these three victims had had in common: they all had been special favorites of the whites. In this lay the true basis for Governor Harrison’s alarm. And so he was writing a letter to the chiefs of the Delawares.

  My Children:

  My heart is filled with grief, and my eyes are dissolved in tears at the news that has reached me. You have been celebrated for your wisdom above all the tribes of the red men who inhabit this great island….

  From what cause, then, does it proceed that you have departed from the wise counsels of your fathers and covered yourselves with guilt? My children, tread back the steps you have taken, and endeavor to regain the straight road which you have abandoned. The dark, crooked, and thorny one which you are now pursuing will certainly lead you to endless woe and misery.…

  Who is this pretended prophet who dares to speak in the name of the great Creator? Examine him. Is he more wise and virtuous than you are yourselves, that he should be selected to convey to you the orders of your God? Demand of him some proofs at least of his being the messenger of the Deity. If God has really empowered him, He has doubtless authorized him to perform miracles that he may be known and received as a prophet. If he is really a prophet, ask of 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. He tells you that the Great Spirit commands you to punish with death those who deal in magic, and that he is authorized to point them out. Wretched delusion! My children, do not believe that the great and good Creator of Mankind has directed you to destroy your own flesh.…