While smoking his pipe in his cabin he fell backward in a pretended trance, and lay as if dead. But before he was buried, he recovered. He said that he had been to the spirit world. He called all the nation to meet him at Wapakoneta, the ancient principal village of the Shawnees, fifty miles northeast, and listen to a message from the Master of Life.
The message was a very good one. It was a great deal like the message of the Delaware prophet, as used by Pontiac. The Indians were to cease white-man habits. They must quit fire-water poison, must cherish the old and sick, must not marry with the white people, must cease bad medicine-making (witch-craft) and tortures; and must live happily and peacefully, sharing their lands in common.
As for him, he had been given power to cure all diseases, and to ward off death on the battle-field.
He changed his name to Ten-skwa-ta-wa—the "Open Door," but is generally styled the Prophet. His words created intense excitement. Shawnees, Delawares and other Indians came from near and far to visit him. Tecumseh was very willing. It was a great thing to have a prophet for a brother—and whether this was a put-up job between them, is to this day a mystery. But they were smart men.
The Prophet enlarged his rant. To the whites he proclaimed that he, the Open Door, Tecumseh, the Shooting Star, and the other twin brother all had come at one birth. He asserted that their father had been the son of a Shawnee chief and a princess, daughter of a great English governor in the South.
Anybody whom he accused of witch-craft was put to death. They usually were persons that he did not like. The Delawares and Shawnees killed old chiefs who were harmless, and friends of the settlers.
Although the Open Door's teachings seemed to be for peace and prosperity among the Indians, they brought many Indians together, and aroused much alarm among the settlers of Ohio and Indiana Territory. Moreover, the gatherings at Greenville were upon ground that had been sold to the United States, under the treaty after the battle of the Fallen Timbers.
Governor Harrison sent a message to the Delawares, in the name of the Seventeen Fires—the United States.
"Who is this pretended prophet who dares to speak for the great Creator? 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!"
And—