Two angels, one of Life and one of Death, Passed o'er our village as the morning broke; 1 In a letter of April 25, 1855, Longfellow speaks of this poem as 'written on the birth of my younger daughter, and the death of the young and beautiful wife of my neighbor and friend, the poet Lowell. It will serve as an answer to one of your questions about life and its many mysteries. To these dark problems there is no other solution possible, except the one word Providence.' (Life, vol. ii, p. 285.) SHOULD you ask me, whence these stories? 1 Those to whom Hiawatha' is familiar from their childhood, but who feel it to be hardly fit food for mature intellects, and those who are wearied by its repetitions, its simplicity, and the monotony of its rhythm, should reread at least the Introduction, and Cantos iii (Hiawatha's Childhood), vii (His Sailing), x (His Wooing), xx (The Famine), and xxii (Hiawatha's Departure). The whole poem, however, without omissions, is necessary to any real knowledge of Longfellow's work or of American poetry. The simplicity of his own character enabled him to reproduce the effects of primitive poetry and legend better than other modern poets have done, and to create what is at least our nearest approach to an American epic. It is greatly superior to all other attempts at epic treatment of the Indian legends. Bayard Taylor said of it: It will be parodied, perhaps ridiculed, in many quarters, but it will live after the Indian race has vanished from our Continent, and there will be no parodies then.' Emerson called it 'sweet and wholesome as maize.' Longfellow wrote Hiawatha' with more enthusiasm than any other of his poems. Cf. the Journal, October 19, 1854: "Hiawatha" occupies and delights me. Have I no misgivings about it? Yes, sometimes. Then the theme seizes me and hurries me away, and they vanish.' (Life, vol. ii, p. 277.) The hero,' he wrote to Freiligrath (who afterward translated "Hiawatha" into German), is a kind of American Prometheus.' From the first he felt sure of his subject and his metre: I have at length hit upon a plan for a poem on the American Indians, which seems to me the right one, and the only. It is to weave together their beautiful traditions into a whole. I have hit upon a measure, too, which I think the right and only one for such a theme.' (Journal, June 22, 1854.) The metre was avowedly taken from that of the Finnish epic Kalevala, which he had read with Freiligrath twelve years before. See Freiligrath's letter in the London Athenæum, December 22, 1855. On the sources from which Longfellow drew his material, see his own notes given below. Further, on Hiawatha,' see: Life, vol. ii, pp. 272-311. Longfellow (Alice M.), A Visit to Hiawatha's People. Schoolcraft (Henry R.), The Myth of Hiawatha and With the rushing of great rivers, From the mountains, moors, and fenlands other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians. Broili (Otto), Die Hauptquellen Longfellows Song of Hiawatha. Wurzburg, 1898. Lang (Andrew), Letters on Literature. Cracroft, Essays, vol. ii (on the translation of parts of 'Hiawatha' into Latin, for school use, by F. W. Newmen). Hale (E. E.), in the North American Review, January, 1856. Chasles (Philarète), in the Journal des Débats, April 20, 1856. Montégut (Emile), in the Revue des Deux Mondes, June, 1857. Hale (Henry), ' Hiawatha played by real Indians,' in the Critic, July, 1905. 2 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, Tarenya-wagon and Hiawatha. Mr. Schoolcraft gives an account of him in his Algic Researches, vol. i, p. 134, and in his History, Condition, and Prospects of the Indian Tribes of the United States, part iii, p. 314, may be found the Iroquois form of the tradition, derived from the verbal narrations of an Onondaga chief. Into this old tradition I have woven other curious Indian legends, drawn chiefly from the various and valuable writings of Mr. Schoolcraft, to whom the literary world is greatly indebted for his indefatigable zeal in rescuing from oblivion so much of the legendary lore of the Indians. The scene of the poem is among the Ojibways on the southern shore of Lake Superior, in the region betweer. the Pictured Rocks and the Grand Sable. (LONGFELLOW.) I repeat them as I heard them Should you ask where Nawadaha All the wild-fowl sang them to him, If still further you should ask me, In the vale of Tawasentha,1 'And the pleasant water-courses, There he sang of Hiawatha, Ye who love the haunts of Nature, Love the wind among the branches, 20 30 40 50 60 70 1 This valley, now called Norman's Kill, is in Albany County, New York. (LONGFELLOW.) And the rain-shower and the snow-storm, And the rushing of great rivers Through their palisades of pine-trees, Ye who love a nation's legends, To this Song of Hiawatha ! Ye whose hearts are fresh and simple, Who have faith in God and Nature, Who believe that in all ages Every human heart is human, That in even savage bosoms There are longings, yearnings, strivings For the good they comprehend not, That the feeble hands and helpless, Groping blindly in the darkness, Touch God's right hand in that darkness And are lifted up and strengthened; Listen to this simple story, To this Song of Hiawatha ! Ye, who sometimes, in your rambles Through the green lanes of the country, Where the tangled barberry-bushes Hang their tufts of crimson berries Over stone walls gray with mosses, Pause by some neglected graveyard, For a while to muse, and ponder On a half-effaced inscription, Written with little skill of song-craft, Homely phrases, but each letter Full of hope and yet of heart-break, Full of all the tender pathos Of the Here and the Hereafter; Stay and read this rude inscription, Read this Song of Hiawatha ! I THE PEACE-PIPE 2 ON the Mountains of the Prairie, 80 IIG 2 Mr. Catlin, in his Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs, and Condition of the North American Indians, vol. ii, p. 160, gives an interesting account of the Gitche Manito, the mighty, From his footprints flowed a river, Leaped into the light of morning, O'er the precipice plunging downward Gleamed like Ishkoodah, the comet. And the Spirit, stooping earthward, With his finger on the meadow Traced a winding pathway for it, Saying to it, 'Run in this way !' From the red stone of the quarry With his hand he broke a fragment, Moulded it into a pipe-head, Shaped and fashioned it with figures; From the margin of the river Took a long reed for a pipe-stem, With its dark green leaves upon it; Filled the pipe with bark of willow, With the bark of the red willow; Breathed upon the neighboring forest, Made its great boughs chafe together, Till in flame they burst and kindled; And erect upon the mountains, Gitche Manito, the mighty, Smoked the calumet, the Peace-Pipe, As a signal to the nations. And the smoke rose slowly, slowly, Through the tranquil air of morning, First a single line of darkness, Then a denser, bluer vapor, Côteau des Prairies, and the Red Pipestone Quarry. He says: 'Here (according to their traditions) happened the mysterious birth of the red pipe, which has blown its fumes of peace and war to the remotest corners of the continent; which has visited every warrior, and passed through its reddened stem the irrevocable oath of war and desolation. And here, also, the peace-breathing calumet was born, and fringed with the eagle's quills, which has shed its thrilling fumes over the land, and soothed the fury of the relentless savage. 'The Great Spirit at an ancient period here called the Indian nations together, and, standing on the precipice of the red pipe-stone rock, broke from its wall a piece, and made a huge pipe by turning it in his hand, which he smoked over them, and to the North, the South, the East, and the West, and told them that this stone was red, that it was their flesh, -that they must use it for their pipes of peace, that it belonged to them all, and that the war-club and scalping-knife must not be raised on its ground. At the last whiff of his pipe his head went into a great cloud, and the whole surface of the rock for several miles was melted and glazed; two great ovens were opened beneath, and two women (guardian spirits of the place) entered them in a blaze of fire; and they are heard there yet (Tso-mec-cos-tee and Tso-mecos-te-won-dee), answering to the invocations of the high-priests or acdicine-men, who consult them when they are visitors to this sacred place.' (LONGFELLOW.) Then a snow-white cloud unfolding, And the Prophets of the nations Down the rivers, o'er the prairies, 40 60 And they stood there on the meadow, 7 With their weapons and their war-gear, Painted like the leaves of Autumn, Painted like the sky of morning, Wildly glaring at each other; In their faces stern defiance, In their hearts the feuds of ages, The hereditary hatred, The ancestral thirst of vengeance. Gitche Manito, the mighty, The creator of the nations, Looked upon them with compassion, With paternal love and pity; Looked upon their wrath and wrangling But as quarrels among children, But as feuds and fights of children! Over them he stretched his right hand, To subdue their stubborn natures, To allay their thirst and fever, By the shadow of his right hand; Spake to them with voice majestic δε 90 As the sound of far-off waters, · 100 O my children! my poor children! Listen to the words of wisdom, Listen to the words of warning, From the lips of the Great Spirit, From the Master of Life, who made you! 'I have given you lands to hunt in, I have given you streams to fish in, I have given you bear and bison, I have given you roe and reindeer, I have given you brant and beaver, Filled the marshes full of wild-fowl, Filled the rivers full of fishes; Why then are you not contented? Why then will you hunt each other? 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. 'I will send a Prophet to you, A Deliverer of the nations, Who shall guide you and shall teach you, Who shall toil and suffer with you. If you listen to his counsels, You will multiply and prosper; If his warnings pass unheeded, You will fade away and perish! 'Bathe now in the stream before you, Wash the war-paint from your faces, Wash the blood-stains from your fingers, Bury your war-clubs and your weapons, Break the red stone from this quarry, Mould and make it into Peace-Pipes, Take the reeds that grow beside you, Deck them with your brightest feathers, Smoke the calumet together, And as brothers live henceforward!' 110 120 130 Then upon the ground the warriors Threw their cloaks and shirts of deer-skin, Threw their weapons and their war-gear, Leaped into the rushing river, Washed the war-paint from their faces. Clear above them flowed the water, Clear and limpid from the footprints Of the Master of Life descending; Dark below them flowed the water, Soiled and stained with streaks of crimson, As if blood were mingled with it! From the river came the warriors, 140 'HONOR be to Mudjekeewis!' He had stolen the Belt of Wampum From the neck of Mishe-Mokwa, 160 From the Great Bear of the mountains, 10 As he lay asleep and cumbrous Till the red nails of the monster 20 30 |