McKenney and Hall, 1836-1844 - TENS-KWAU-TA-WAW. THE PROPHET., from History of the Indian Tribes of North - ca. 1837-1844 - T-Shirt

This hand-coloured lithograph gives a solemn, bust-length portrait of Tens-Kwau-Ta-Waw, known as The Prophet, set within a rectangular sheet with the name printed beneath his likeness.

Visual Elements & Composition

The vignette portrait sits at the centre of a cream sheet, and the warm paper tone dominates the design. Steel blue and brick red carry the figure's clothing and headwear, with warm brown in the skin and shadows. The subject wears a red turban topped with a pink feather plume, a silver gorget with a round pendant, and a blue fur-trimmed jacket with a silver armband. A red sash is tied at the chest. The printed captions read TENS-KWAU-TA-WAW and THE PROPHET., giving the image its title in plain capitals.

Meaning & Symbolism

Tens-Kwau-Ta-Waw was a Shawnee religious and political leader and the brother of Tecumseh. His early visions called for a return to traditional Shawnee ways and a rejection of European-American goods and customs. That spiritual movement grew into a political and military alliance centred at Prophetstown, a stand against settler expansion and government pressure on Native lands in the early nineteenth century. The portrait comes from Thomas McKenney and James Hall's multi-volume History of the Indian Tribes of North America, published in the 1830s and 1840s, which recorded the likenesses and biographies of Native delegates who visited Washington, D.C.

Carried on the Tee

A portrait like this rewards a close look, and a tee puts it in front of you at chest height, where the turban, gorget and sash can be read at a glance. The cream paper and the printed name frame the figure the way the original sheet did. Wearing it puts a piece of nineteenth-century documentation of Shawnee leadership in view for the day.