Hiawatha

Hiawatha (Haiowatha) (he makes rivers) (16th century?) In North American Indian history and legend (Iroquois), founder of the League of Five, later Six, Nations, called the “League of the Long House”: Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca, and Tuscarora, tribes occupying most of upstate New York.

According to Iroquois legend, Hiawatha was an Onondaga chieftain who sought the unity of various Indian tribes. At first he was violently opposed by the magician and war chief Atotarho, whose head was covered in snakes. Through his magic, Atotarho caused a gigantic white bird to kill Hiawatha’s daughter. Hiawatha persisted with his crusade and converted the chief, Dekanawida (two river currents flowing together), and together they converted other tribes. Hiawatha then returned and converted Atotarho to the plan. Hiawatha combed the snakes out of Atotarho’s hair, symbolizing his conversion. He then stepped into his white canoe and sailed away to the land of souls in the far west.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s narrative poem The Song of Hiawatha confused the historical Hiawatha with the god Manabozho, an Algonquian divinity, because his source, Algic Researches by H. R. Schoolcraft, was in error. Longfellow’s poem has inspired many works, including parodies, beginning with Lewis Carroll’s Hiawatha Photographing. A series of prints by Currier & Ives deals with the poem. The work has been set to music and has inspired orchestral tone poems by Coerne, Delius, and Jong, among others. Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s Scenes from the Song of Hiawatha for chorus and orchestra is the best known.

SEE ALSO:

  • Dekanawida
  • Manabozho

Encyclopedia of World Mythology and Legend, Third Edition – Written by Anthony S. Mercatante & James R. Dow
– Copyright © 2009 by Anthony S. Mercatante

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