The Song of Hiawatha

Longfellow borrowed the drumbeat meter of the Finnish Kalevala and used it to build an American myth. His hero grows up by the shore of Gitche Gumee, learns the speech of birds and animals, avenges his mother, wrestles the corn spirit Mondamin so his people can eat, invents picture writing, and marries Minnehaha of the Dakota. Famine and grief follow, and the poem closes with Hiawatha paddling west into the sunset as missionaries arrive. It was wildly popular, parodied nearly as often as it was quoted, and its handling of Ojibwe material owes more to Romantic invention than to ethnography, a fact that has kept it in argument ever since. The rhythm is impossible to shake once heard. Free PDF and EPUB editions are available here.