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Hiawatha ( / ˌhaɪəˈwɒθə / HY-ə-WOTH-ə, also US: /- ˈwɔːθə / -WAW-thə: Haiëñ'wa'tha [hajẽʔwaʔtha] [1] ), also known as Ayenwatha or Aiionwatha, was a precolonial Native American leader and cofounder of the Iroquois Confederacy. He was a leader of the Onondaga people, the Mohawk people, or both.
Hiawatha, (Ojibwa: “He Makes Rivers”), a legendary chief (c. 1450) of the Onondaga tribe of North American Indians, to whom Indian tradition attributes the formation of what became known as the Iroquois Confederacy.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
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. All the air was full of freshness, All the earth was bright and joyous, And before him, through the sunshine, Westward toward the neighboring forest.
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.
Feb 16, 2016 · The Story of Hiawatha. Legendary Figures. Three figures appear prominently in the story of Hiawatha, each representing a different aspect of the precolonial violence that plagued the Five Nations.
Hiawatha is a legendary peace chief of the Iroquois tribes, and one of the founders of the Iroquois Confederacy who negotiated the first peace between the tribes. He helped to establish the Great Law that governed the Iroquois, and according to many, forbade violent previous practices such as cannibalism, human sacrifice, and black magic.
In 'The Song of Hiawatha,' he ventured into a realm that was novel for many of his readers: the legends and lore of Native American cultures. Although Longfellow's interpretation was romanticized and not entirely accurate in its representation of any single tribe, his endeavor was groundbreaking for its time.
