Should you ask me, whence these stories?
Whence these legends and traditions,
With the odors of the forest
With the dew and damp of meadows,
With the curling smoke of wigwams,
With the rushing of great rivers,
With their frequent repetitions,
And their wild reverberations
As of thunder in the mountains?
I should answer, I should tell you,
"From the forests and the prairies,
From the great lakes of the Northland,
From the land of the Ojibways,
From the land of the Dacotahs,
From the mountains, moors, and fen-lands
Where the heron, the Shuh-shuh-gah,
Feeds among the reeds and rushes.
I repeat them as I heard them
From the lips of Nawadaha,
The musician, the sweet singer."
An edition of The song of Hiawatha
(1855)
Hiawatha's Childhood
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Jeff Ulmer, and Alex A. Blum
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From the book:The Song of Hiawatha is based on the legends and stories of many North American Indian tribes, but especially those of the Ojibway Indians of northern Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. They were collected by Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, the reknowned historian, pioneer explorer, and geologist. He was superintendent of Indian affairs for Michigan from 1836 to 1841. Schoolcraft married Jane, O-bah-bahm-wawa-ge-zhe-go-qua (The Woman of the Sound Which the Stars Make Rushing Through the Sky), Johnston. Jane was a daughter of John Johnston, an early Irish fur trader, and O-shau-gus-coday-way-qua (The Woman of the Green Prairie), who was a daughter of Waub-o-jeeg (The White Fisher), who was Chief of the Ojibway tribe at La Pointe, Wisconsin. Jane and her mother are credited with having researched, authenticated, and compiled much of the material Schoolcraft included in his Algic Researches (1839) and a revision published in 1856 as The Myth of Hiawatha. It was this latter revision that Longfellow used as the basis for The Song of Hiawatha.
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American poetry, American poetry ., Children's poetry, American, Children's stories, English, Classic Literature, Fiction, Folklore, Indians of North America, Iroquois Indians, Iroquoise Indians, Juvenile literature, Juvenile poetry, Kings and rulers, Legends, Narrative poetry, Poetry, Spanish language materials, Specimens, Toy and movable books, Translations into French, Translations into Spanish, Directories, Amusement parks, Drama, Hiawatha, 15th cent, Hiawatha, active 15th century, Indians of north america, folklore, Folklore, juvenile literature, Poetry (poetic works by one author), Native Americans, Animals, Human-animal relationships, Grandmothers, Leadership, Nature, Natural history, Stars, Cosmology, Seasons, English drama, Indians of north america, poetry, Children's poetry, Légendes, Indiens, Poésie, Ojibwa IndiansPlaces
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Excerpts
added by Kate.
Introduction
By the shores of Gitche Gumee,
By the shining Big-Sea-Water,
Stood the wigwam of Nokomis,
Daughter of the Moon, Nokomis.
Dark behind it rose the forest,
Rose the black and gloomy pine-trees,
Rose the firs with cones upon them;
Bright before it beat the water,
Beat the clear and sunny water,
Beat the shining Big-Sea-Water.
By the shining Big-Sea-Water,
Stood the wigwam of Nokomis,
Daughter of the Moon, Nokomis.
Dark behind it rose the forest,
Rose the black and gloomy pine-trees,
Rose the firs with cones upon them;
Bright before it beat the water,
Beat the clear and sunny water,
Beat the shining Big-Sea-Water.
added by Kate.
The most famous lines of the poem, from "Hiawatha's Childhood"
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- Created April 29, 2008
- 8 revisions
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| April 17, 2024 | Edited by ImportBot | import existing book |
| August 5, 2010 | Edited by IdentifierBot | added LibraryThing ID |
| April 24, 2010 | Edited by Open Library Bot | Fixed duplicate goodreads IDs. |
| April 16, 2010 | Edited by bgimpertBot | Added goodreads ID. |
| April 29, 2008 | Created by an anonymous user | Imported from amazon.com record |