You have not been recognized as a subscriber to the AHR online. About 243 words from this article are provided below; about 551 words remain.
 
If you are a individual member of the American Historical Association, you may:
• login here if you have already registered for online access.
• Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.
• Set up your online account for the first time. AHA members can go to the AHA individual membership section to locate their member numbers.

If you are not a member of the American Historical Association, you can:
• Join the AHA and receive many member benefits including print and electronic issues of the American Historical Review.
• Purchase a research pass to gain two hour access to the entire History Cooperative web site. You will have full access to current issues of the American Historical Review (104.3-present). Note: the Research Pass does not provide access to JSTOR's holdings of the American Historical Review.

Instititutions can:
• Subscribe to this journal and receive print and electronic issues.
• Activate your existing subscription so that we recognize your IP number ranges.
| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 112.4 | The History Cooperative
112.4  
Journals link Search link Partners link Information link
October, 2007
Previous
Next
The American Historical Review

Table of Contents
List journal issues
Home
Get a printer-friendly version of this page
 


Book Review

Canada and the United States



Alfred A. Cave. Prophets of the Great Spirit: Native American Revitalization Movements in Eastern North America. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. 2006. Pp. xiii, 328. $27.95.

In late eighteenth and early nineteenth-century North America, certain Indian "nativist prophets" (p. xi) "sought to counter Euro-American cultural imperialism by borrowing Euro-American religious ideas and employing them as weapons in ideological struggles against the invaders" (pp. x–xi). Responding to the "crises" of "epidemics," "alcohol," "warfare," "disappearance of game," "loss of land" (p. xi), and "acculturation" (p. 245), these "religious innovators" were both "restorationists and revolutionaries" (p. xiii); they and their cohorts mounted dramatic resistance to the hegemony of the expansive West. 1
      Neolin (Delaware), Handsome Lake (Seneca), Tenskwatawa (Shawnee), and Kenekuk (Kickapoo) are the main subjects of Alfred A. Cave's study. Inspired by revelations received in visions, repulsed by Western economic individualism, and tormented by terrors of dispossession, factionalism, hell, and the Devil, they appealed to their Indian compatriots—in different ways—to get right with the Great Spirit, the God of "creation," "history," and "eternity" (p. 2), "derived from stories they heard about the Judeo-Christian Creator" (p. 3). They exhorted their adherents to practice a native way of life designed by the divine especially for them; to reject selective aspects of Christian evangelism and white culture; to eschew the evils of sorcery; and to regard their fellow Indians as relatives and allies in war and peace. . . .

There are about 551 more words in this article. Please log in (or, if you are not yet an authorized user, please go to the User Setup page) to gain full access rights. Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.