The Song of Hiawatha

The Song of Hiawatha is an 1855 epic poem in trochaic tetrameter by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow which features Native American characters. The epic relates the fictional adventures of an Ojibwe warrior named Hiawatha and the tragedy of his love for Minnehaha, a Dakota woman. Events in the story are set in the Pictured Rocks area of Michigan on the south shore of Lake Superior. Longfellow's poem is based on oral traditions surrounding the figure of Manabozho, but it also contains his own innovations.

All your strength is in your union,
All your danger is in discord;
Therefore be at peace henceforward,
And as brothers live together.

As unto the bow the cord is,
So unto the man is woman...

Quotes

Introduction

• 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?
  • Stanza 1

• 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."
  • Stanza 2

Part I: The Peace-Pipe

• On the Mountains of the Prairie,
  On the great Red Pipe-stone Quarry,
  Gitche Manito, the mighty,
  He the Master of Life, descending,
  On the red crags of the quarry
  Stood erect, and called the nations,
  Called the tribes of men together.
  • Stanza 1

• And erect upon the mountains,
  Gitche Manito, the mighty,
  Smoked the calumet, the Peace-Pipe,
  As a signal to the nations.
  • Stanza 3

• And the smoke rose slowly, slowly,
  Through the tranquil air of morning,
  First a single line of darkness,
  Then a denser, bluer vapor,
  Then a snow-white cloud unfolding,
  Like the tree-tops of the forest,
  Ever rising, rising, rising,
  Till it touched the top of heaven,
  Till it broke against the heaven,
  And rolled outward all around it.
  • Stanza 4

• I am weary of your quarrels,
  Weary of your wars and bloodshed,
  Weary of your prayers for vengeance,
  Of your wranglings and dissensions;
  All your strength is in your union,
  All your danger is in discord;
  Therefore be at peace henceforward,
  And as brothers live together.
  • Stanza 13

Part II: The Four Winds

• Lonely in the sky was Wabun;
  Though the birds sang gayly to him,
  Though the wild-flowers of the meadow
  Filled the air with odors for him;
  Though the forests and the rivers
  Sang and shouted at his coming,
  Still his heart was sad within him,
  For he was alone in heaven.
  • Stanza 11

• Poor, deluded Shawondasee!
  ’Twas no woman that you gazed at,
  ’Twas no maiden that you sighed for,
  ’Twas the prairie dandelion
  That through all the dreamy Summer
  You had gazed at with such longing,
  You had sighed for with such passion,
  And had puffed away forever,
  Blown into the air with sighing.
  Ah! deluded Shawondasee!
  • Stanza 30

Part III: Hiawatha’s Childhood

• 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.
  • Stanza 8

• "Ewa-yea! my little owlet!
  Who is this, that lights the wigwam?
  With his great eyes lights the wigwam?"
  • Stanza 9

• Then the little Hiawatha
  Learned of every bird its language,
  Learned their names and all their secrets,
  How they built their nests in Summer,
  Where they hid themselves in Winter,
  Talked with them whene'er he met them,
  Called them "Hiawatha's Chickens."
  • Stanza 16

Part IV: Hiawatha and Mudjekeewis

• And his heart was hot within him,
  Like a living coal his heart was.
  • Stanza 4

• From the water-fall he named her,
  Minnehaha, Laughing Water.
  • Stanza 33

Part V: Hiawatha's Fasting

• “All your prayers are heard in heaven,
  For you pray not like the others;
  Not for greater skill in hunting,
  Not for greater craft in fishing,
  Not for triumph in the battle,
  Nor renown among the warriors,
  But for profit of the people,
  For advantage of the nations.”
  • Stanza 8

• “From the Master of Life descending,
  I, the friend of man, Mondamin,
  Come to warn you and instruct you,
  How by struggle and by labor
  You shall gain what you have prayed for.
  Rise up from your bed of branches,
  Rise, O youth, and wrestle with me!”
  • Stanza 9

Part VI: Hiawatha's Friends

• Straight between them ran the pathway,
  Never grew the grass upon it;
  Singing birds, that utter falsehoods,
  Story-tellers, mischief-makers,
  Found no eager ear to listen,
  Could not breed ill-will between them,
  For they kept each other’s counsel,
  Spake with naked hearts together,
  Pondering much and much contriving
  How the tribes of men might prosper.
  • Stanza 2

Part VII: Hiawatha's Sailing

• I a light canoe will build me,
  Build a swift Cheemaun for sailing,
  That shall float on the river,
  Like a yellow leaf in Autumn,
  Like a yellow water-lily!
  • Stanza 1

• Thus the Birch Canoe was builded
  In the valley, by the river,
  In the bosom of the forest;
  And the forest's life was in it,
  All its mystery and its magic,
  All the lightness of the birch-tree,
  All the toughness of the cedar,
  All the larch's supple sinews;
  And it floated on the river
  Like a yellow leaf in Autumn,
  Like a yellow water-lily.
  • Stanza 18

• Paddles none had Hiawatha,
  Paddles none he had or needed,
  For his thoughts as paddles served him,
  And his wishes served to guide him.
  • Stanza 19

• Straight into the river Kwasind
  Plunged as if he were an otter,
  Dived as if he were a beaver,
  Stood up to his waist in water,
  To his arm-pits in the river,
  Swam and scouted in the river,
  Tugged at sunken logs and branches,
  With his hands he scooped the sand-bars,
  With his feet the ooze and tangle.
  • Stanza 21

Part VIII: Hiawatha's Fishing

• "You are not the fish I wanted,
  You are not the King of Fishes!"
  • Stanza 8

• "O ye sea-gulls! O my brothers!
  I have slain the sturgeon, Nahma."
  • Stanza 20

• Three whole days and nights alternate
  Old Nokomis and the sea-gulls
  Stripped the oily flesh of Nahma,
  Till the waves washed through the rib-bones,
  Till the sea-gulls came no longer,
  And upon the sands lay nothing
  But the skeleton of Nahma.
  • Stanza 26

Part IX: Hiawatha and the Pearl-Feather

• Big words do not smite like war-clubs,
  Boastful breath is not a bow-string,
  Taunts are not so sharp as arrows,
  Deeds are better things than words are,
  Actions mightier than boastings.
  • Stanza 20

Part X: Hiawatha's Wooing

• As unto the bow the cord is,
  So unto the man is woman;
  Though she bends him, she obeys him,
  Though she draws him, yet she follows,
  Useless each without the other!
  • Stanza 1

• “Thus it is our daughters leave us,
  Those we love, and those who love us!
  Just when they have learned to help us,
  When we are old and lean upon them,
  Comes a youth with flaunting feathers,
  With his flute of reeds, a stranger
  Wanders piping through the village,
  Beckons to the fairest maiden,
  And she follows where he leads her,
  Leaving all things for the stranger!”
  • Stanza 26

Part XI: Hiawatha's Wedding-Feast

• "Onaway! Awake, beloved!"
  • Stanza 15

• “When thou art not pleased, beloved,
  Then my heart is sad and darkened,
  As the shining river darkens
  When the clouds drop shadows on it!
  When thou smilest, my beloved,
  Then my troubled heart is brightened,
  As in sunshine gleam the ripples
  That the cold wind makes in rivers.”
  • Stanzas 22, 23

• Very boastful was Iagoo;
  Never heard he an adventure
  But himself had met a greater;
  Never any deed of daring
  But himself had done a bolder;
  Never any marvellous story
  But himself could tell a stranger.
  • Stanza 27

Part XII: The Son of the Evening Star

• Star of Evening, Star of Woman,
  Star of tenderness and passion!
  • Stanza 7

• Only Oweenee, the faithful,
  Saw your naked heart and loved you.
  • Stanza 13

• 'Twas no bird he saw before him,
  'Twas a beautiful young woman,
  With the arrow in her bosom!
  • Stanza 31

• Thus the wedding banquet ended,
  And the wedding guests departed,
  Leaving Hiawatha happy
  With the night and Minnehaha.
  • Stanza 44

Part XIII: Blessing the Corn-Fields

• Buried was the bloody hatchet,
  Buried was the dreadful war-club,
  Buried were all warlike weapons,
  And the war-cry was forgotten.
  • Stanza 2

• Cawed and croaked the black marauders.
  • Stanza 26

Part XV: Hiawatha's Lamentation

• "He is dead, the sweet musician!
  He the sweetest of all singers!
  He has gone from us for ever,
  He has moved a little nearer
  To the Master of all music,
  To the Master of all singing!
  O my brother, Chibiabos!"
  • Stanza 8

Part XIX: The Ghosts

• Never stoops the soaring vulture
  On his quarry in the desert, ...
  But another vulture, watching ...
  Sees the downward plunge, and follows;
  And a third pursues the second, ...
  Till the air is dark with pinions.
  So disasters come not singly;
  But as if they watched and waited,
  Scanning one another’s motions,
  When the first descends, the others
  Follow, follow, gathering flock-wise
  Round their victim, sick and wounded,
  First a shadow, then a sorrow,
  Till the air is dark with anguish.
  • Stanzas 1, 2

Part XX: The Famine

• Oh the long and dreary Winter!
  Oh the cold and cruel Winter!
  • Stanza 1

Part XXII: Hiawatha's Departure

• By the shore of Gitche Gumee,
  By the shining Big-Sea-Water,
  At the doorway of his wigwam,
  In the pleasant Summer morning,
  Hiawatha stood and waited.
  • Stanza 1

• Thus departed Hiawatha,
  Hiawatha the Beloved,
  In the glory of the sunset,
  In the purple mists of evening,
  To the regions of the home-wind,
  Of the Northwest-Wind, Keewaydin,
  To the Islands of the Blessed,
  To the Kingdom of Ponemah,
  To the Land of the Hereafter!
  • Stanza 29

Notes

• This Indian Edda—if I may so call it—is founded on a tradition prevalent among the North American Indians, of a personage of miraculous birth, who was sent among them to clear their rivers, forests, and fishing-grounds, and to teach them the arts of peace. He was known among different tribes by the several names of Michabou, Chiabo, Manabozo, Tarenyawagon, and Hiawatha. ... The scene of the poem is among the Ojibways on the southern shore of Lake Superior, in the region between the Pictured Rocks and the Grand Sable.

About

Parodies

• Whence this song of Pocahontas,
  With its flavor of tobacco,
  And the stincweed Old Mundungus,
  With the ocho of the Breakdown,
  With its smack of Bourbonwhiskey,
  With the twangle of the Banjo,
  Of the Banjo—the Goatskinner,
  And the Fiddle—the Catgutto...
  • John Brougham, Po-ca-hon-tas; or, The Gentle Savage, reviewed in The New York Times (24 December 1855)

• When he killed the Mudjokivis,
  Of the skin he made him mittens,
  Made them with the fur side inside,
  Made them with the skin side outside.
  He, to get the warm side inside,
  Put the inside skin side outside;
  He, to get the cold side outside,
  Put the warm side fur side inside.
  That's why he put the fur side inside,
  Why he put the skin side outside,
  Why he turned them inside outside.
  • George A. Strong, The Song of Milkanwatha, included in Franklin P. Adams, Innocent Merriment (1942)

• From his shoulder Hiawatha
  Took the camera of rosewood,
  Made of sliding, folding rosewood;
  Neatly put it all together.
  In its case it lay compactly,
  Folded into nearly nothing;
  But he opened out the hinges
  Till it looked all squares and oblongs,
  Like a complicated figure
  In the Second Book of Euclid.
  • Lewis Carroll, Hiawatha's Photographing (1857), reprinted in Phantasmagoria and Other Poems (London, 1911): "In an age of imitation, I can claim no special merit for this slight attempt at doing what is known to be so easy. Any fairly practised writer, with the slightest ear for rhythm, could compose, for hours together, in the easy running metre of The Song of Hiawatha. Having then distinctly stated that I challenge no attention in the following little poem to its merely verbal jingle, I must beg the candid reader to confine his criticism to its treatment of the subject."

• Anent oak-wooded Contra Costa,
  Built on hills, stands San Francisco;
  Built on tall piles Oregonian,
  Deeply sunk in mud terraqueous,
  Where the crabs, fat and stupendous,
  Once in all their glory revelled;
  And where other tribes testaceous
  Felt secure in Neptune's kingdom;
  Where sea-sharks, with jaws terrific,
  Fled from land-sharks of the Orient;
  Not far from the great Pacific,
  Snug within the Gate called Golden,
  By the Hill called Telegraph,
  Near the Mission of Dolores,
  Close by the Valley of St. Ann's,
  San Francisco rears its mansions,
  Rears its palaces and churches;
  Built of timber, bricks, and mortar,
  Built on hills and built in valleys,
  Built in Beelzebubbian splendor,
  Stands the city San Francisco.
  • James Linen, San Francisco (In Imitation of Hiawatha), in Poetical and Prose Writings (W. J. Widdleton, 1865), p. 205

• Tiadatha thought of Kipling,
  Wondered if he's ever been there
  Thought: "At least in Rue Egnatia
  East and West are met together."
  There were trams and Turkish beggars,
  Mosques and minarets and churches,
  Turkish baths and dirty cafés,
  Picture palaces and kan-kans:
  Daimler cars and Leyland lorries
  Barging into buffalo wagons,
  French and English private soldiers
  Jostling seedy Eastern brigands.
  • Owen Rutter, Tiadatha, written whilst the author, a British officer of the Army of the Orient, was stationed at Salonica on the Macedonian Front (1916–1918); quoted by M. Mazower, Salonica, City of Ghosts (2004), p. 313

• On de shurrs from Geetchy Goony,
  Stoot a tipee witt a weegwom
  Frontage feefty fitt it mashered
  Hopen fireplaze—izzy payments.
  • Milt Gross, Hiawatta witt No Odder Poems (1926), a Yiddish-English parody with comic illustrations

• First, he sat and faced the console / Faced the glowing, humming console
  Typed his login at the keyboard / Typed his password (fourteen letters)
  Waited till the system answered / Waited long and cursed its slowness.
  • Mike Shields (alias F. X. Reid), The Song of Hakawatha (1989)