tory of religions speaks to the ubiquitous presence of tears
over time and space.
SEE ALSO Aztec Religion; Blood; Eye; Gennep, Arnold van;
Head, article on Symbolism and Ritual Use; Human Body,
article on Myths and Symbolism; Liminality; Mauss, Mar-
cel; Rain; Rites of Passage; Water.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Christian, William A. “Provoked Religious Weeping in Early
Modern Spain.” In Religious Organization and Religious Ex-
perience, edited by John Davis, pp. 97–114. London, 1982.
Corrigan, John, ed. Religion and Emotion: Approaches and Interpre-
tations. New York, 2004.
Douglas, Mary. Purity and Danger: An Analysis of the Concepts of
Pollution and Taboo. London, 1966.
Durkheim, Emile. The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life. Lon-
don, 1912.
Ebersole, Gary L. “The Function of Ritual Weeping Revisited: Af-
fective Expression and Moral Discourse.” History of Religions
39 (2000): 211–246.
Mauss, Marcel. “Techniques of the Body.” In Marcel Mauss, Soci-
ology and Psychology, translated by Ben Brewster. London:
1979, originally published in 1935.
PhIlippi, Donald L., trans. Kojiki. Tokyo, 1968.
Radcliffe-Brown, A. R. The Andaman Islanders. London, 1922, re-
vised ed. 1933.
Urban, Greg. “Ritual Wailing in Amerindian Brazil.” American
Anthropologist 90 (1988): 385–400.
Van Gennep, Arnold. The Rites of Passage. Chicago, 1960, origi-
nally published 1909.
Wolfson, Eliot W. “Weeping, Death, and Spiritual Ascent in Six-
teenth-Century Jewish Mysticism.” In Death, Ecstasy, and
Other Worldly Journeys, edited by John J. Collins and Mi-
chael Fishbane, pp. 209–247. Albany, N.Y., 1995.
GARY L. EBERSOLE (2005)
TECUMSEH (1768–1813) or Tecumtha (“Shooting
Star,” the celestial panther), a Kispoko Shawnee born near
the Mad River in western Ohio, devoted his life to intertribal
movements resisting American expansionism and its devas-
tating effects on American Indian communities. Because he
and his compatriots fought during a period when power
shifted decisively toward the U.S. nation-state, historians
have asserted that theirs was a lost cause. Of course during
Tecumseh’s lifetime no one could have known this. For
many American Indians living in the interior, inter-tribal re-
sistance not only made sense, it was a well-established politi-
cal tradition energized by powerful spiritual and cultural val-
ues. This tradition influenced Tecumseh even as it enabled
him to influence Indians from the Great Lakes to the Gulf
Coast.
During the mid-eighteenth century, the Delaware
prophet Neolin had called for a radical break with things Eu-
ropean. Based on his visions, Neolin urged Native Americans
to regain their independence, to wean themselves from the
worst aspects of the fur trade, and to regain the old arts of
self-sufficiency. He influenced Pontiac, leader of a massive
anti-British uprising in 1762 that involved Anishinaabes,
Ottawas, Potawatomis, Menominees, Hurons, Delawares,
Shawnees, Senecas, Mesquakies, Kickapoos, Macoutens,
Weas, Sauk, and Miamis.
This movement, like many that followed, had emerged
in a context already strongly shaped by extensive contact and
trade with Europeans. In these contact-zones, diverse peoples
moved across and depended upon multi-dimensional net-
works of cross-cultural ties to engage in reciprocal forms of
exchange. New kinds of political figures, alliance chiefs,
helped mediate between non-hierarchical Native American
villages and imperial authorities. Over time, political, materi-
al, and cultural hybridity became the norm, not the anomaly.
Tensions and conflicts abounded, but Indians had an essen-
tial place in this dynamic world and, most important, could
compel non-Natives to come to terms with them.
When this balance shifted, as European settlement ex-
panded and the population of non-Natives soared, Native
Americans faced a serious crisis. In region after region, the
newcomers became less interested in Indian trade or showing
reciprocity within hybridized “middle grounds,” and far
more interested in acquiring Indian land, through any means
necessary. On the so-called frontier new forms of Indian-
hating spread along with calls for the extermination of Na-
tive Americans. Relations, always tense, became polarized
and racialized. Facing this new situation, American Indian
prophets like Neolin called for religiously motivated resis-
tance.
A few decades later and further into the interior, a Mo-
hawk prophetess named Coocoochee inspired Native Ameri-
cans of the Ohio and Great Lakes region to fight to rid their
lands of the intrusive American presence. Indeed, on No-
vember 4, 1791, in western Ohio, Miamis, Shawnees, Dela-
wares, Potawatomis, Ottawas, Chippewas, Wyandots, Min-
gos, and Cherokees defeated a large army led by General
Arthur St. Clair. Tecumseh certainly learned about this re-
markable Indian victory over the Americans.
During his twenties, Tecumseh participated actively in
the Chickamaugan revolt in the Southeast. Like many Shaw-
nees, Tecumseh had strong ties to the region. His mother
was Creek and he had children with a Cherokee woman. The
Chickamaugans comprised dissident Cherokees, Creeks,
Shawnees, and ex-Tories. Disgusted with established tribal
leaders and distressed by settler incursions onto Indian lands,
they built new intertribal towns near the Tennessee River.
In 1789, while fighting at their side in a Cumberland raid,
Tecumseh saw his beloved older brother Cheeseekau (Pep-
quannakek, “Shawnee Warrior”) killed. Subsequent setbacks
brought an end to the Chickamauga revolt a few years later.
The American opposition was simply too strong in the
Southeast. The same was true in the Ohio country. In 1795TECUMSEH 9027