I picked this up last month when I was vacationing in upstrate New York. It wasn’t on any of my reading lists in grammar school or in high school (or incollege), so I never read it before (unlike Pepper Mill, who did read it in grade school). I did grow up in its penumbra,. though, so I’d heard the meter and the opening lines (“By the shores of Gitchee-gummee, by the shing Big-sea-Water…”) and the names.
Having read the whole thing, I’m very surprised. This is one weird work. Both it and its legacy are extremely complex. I’ve got a lot of questions about it.
1.) Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was already successful and famous when he wrote this, a professor at Harvard (I’ve been by his house near Harvard Square often enough). He set out to create an American Epic, and chose the myths and legends of the Ojibway/Chippewa tribe as his basis. He got the myths from the “Algic Researches” of Schoolcraft, who had married an Ojibway and was familiar with the myths.
2.) He used the rhythm of the Finnish epic “The Kalevala” as the meter for the poem. It was already in use for epic poetry. It’s been suggested that its stresses suggested primitive storytelling.
3.) He caught a lot of flack when it firs came out for basing an epic on “siolly Indian legendfs”, but he championed the material, and seems to have been faithful to it.
4.) Later editions were illustrated by famed (and accurate) illustrator Frederick Remington.
5.) Nevertheless, although he set out to faithfully reproduce Native American Life, Myth, and Legend, it looks to me as if he actually started a lot of the stereotypes we have about indians. He mixes material from widely separated tribes and uses knowledge, or at least ways of expressing knowledge that derives from later, white experience. The name of a historical Iroquois chief, Hiawatha, is substituted for the legendary Ojibway figure Nanibozho/Manibozho/Wanibojo/(a zillion other spellings). Plains Indian and Eastern Indian words, items, clothing, and customs are mixed with those of the Ojibway. He has Indians saying “Ugh!” (possibly the first time this appears). That trochaic meter suggests the stereotyped “Indian speech” pattern – and it’s from a Finnish source! Most jarring of all, to modern eyes, is the way the last section has Hiawatha welcoming the coming white man and his priests, telling his people to “listen to them”, then sailing off literally into the sunset.
6.) Search as I might, on the web or in my bookcase of mythology, I can’t find any of the myths retold in this poem. I can find an updated version of Longfellow’s glossary, but nothing about the myyths themselves. My collection admittedly isn’t huge, but the Ojibway/Chippewa is supposed to be one of the largest Native American groups, by no means obscure, and amany of these legends seem to be pretty basic and essential. But none of my books have the legends given here. Even where they concern Nanibozho, they don’t seem to overlap with any of Hiawatha’s doing. You’d think that the existence of this poem would tend to make books on Indian myths comment on this, to point out its accuracy or lack of it, but they seem to ignore it, only pointing out the substitution of names.
7.) I have found plenty of books devoted to Ojibway myth, which I’ll have to get my hands on.
8.) Some websites are very critical of Longfellow, accusing him of hiding the Finnish roots of the meter (which he doesn’t seem to have done from what else I’ve read), or selecting Ojibway myths that paralle events in the Kalevala, thus making the poem even more closely allied to the Finnish than to its nominal India roots. Some accuse him of trivializing Indian myth, which seems off the mark to me.
9.) There is a Song of Hiawatha pageant in Minnesota every year. It was disripted in the 1970s by still seems to be going on, and the site claims it has local Native American support. The site observes a decline in participation in recent years, which it blames in part on “the decline in American education” (which it takes as a given). Nobody has to read “The Song of Hiawatha” anymore.
10.) The poem doesn’t open with “By the shores of Gitchee-Goomi”. That doesn’t appear until the third “chapter”, and it doesn’t even open that. But it is the start of an excerpt from the poem that was widely reprinted.
11.) Parodies of the poem and its ubnusual meter appeared early on. Lewis Carroll wrote “Hiawatha’s Camera” in the same style, and it’s widely available on the Internet.
I could easily be wrong aboput “Hiawatha” originating stereotypes such as Indian meter, the use of “Ugh”, the mixing-up of different Indian groups, etc. But it certainly promoted them. Being widespread in readers and anthologies, that “opening” got pretty well established in the national consciousness.
Anybody know about any of this? I’m really curious about how the poem is curently viewed by those of Native American descent (especially Ojibways), and how accurately the poem adheres to the traditional myths and stories.
(Sorry not to respond sooner, I forgot about this one.)