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The Song of Hiawatha is based on the legends and stories of
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many North American Indian tribes, but especially those of the
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Ojibway Indians of northern Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota.
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They were collected by Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, the reknowned
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Schoolcraft married Jane, O-bah-bahm-wawa-ge-zhe-go-qua (The
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fur trader, and O-shau-gus-coday-way-qua (The Woman of the Green
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Prairie), who was a daughter of Waub-o-jeeg (The White Fisher),
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who was Chief of the Ojibway tribe at La Pointe, Wisconsin.
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Jane and her mother are credited with having researched,
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authenticated, and compiled much of the material Schoolcraft
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included in his Algic Researches (1839) and a revision published
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in 1856 as The Myth of Hiawatha. It was this latter revision
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that Longfellow used as the basis for The Song of Hiawatha.
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Longfellow began Hiawatha on June 25, 1854, he completed it
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soon as the poem was published its popularity was assured.
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However, it also was severely criticized as a plagiary of the
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Finnish epic poem Kalevala. Longfellow made no secret of the
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fact that he had used the meter of the Kalevala; but as for the
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legends, he openly gave credit to Schoolcraft in his notes to the
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I would add a personal note here. My father's roots include
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Ojibway Indians: his mother, Margaret Caroline Davenport, was a
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daughter of Susan des Carreaux, O-gee-em-a-qua (The Chief Woman),
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Finally, my mother used to rock me to sleep reading portions of
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Hiawatha to me, especially:
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"Wah-wah-taysee, little fire-fly,
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Little, flitting, white-fire insect
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Little, dancing, white-fire creature,
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Light me with your little candle,
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Ere upon my bed I lay me,
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Ere in sleep I close my eyelids!"
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Should you ask me, whence these stories?
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Whence these legends and traditions,
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With the odors of the forest
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With the dew and damp of meadows,
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With the curling smoke of wigwams,
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With the rushing of great rivers,
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With their frequent repetitions,
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And their wild reverberations
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As of thunder in the mountains?
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I should answer, I should tell you,
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"From the forests and the prairies,
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From the great lakes of the Northland,
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From the land of the Ojibways,
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From the land of the Dacotahs,
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From the mountains, moors, and fen-lands
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Where the heron, the Shuh-shuh-gah,
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Feeds among the reeds and rushes.
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I repeat them as I heard them
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From the lips of Nawadaha,
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The musician, the sweet singer."
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Should you ask where Nawadaha
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Found these songs so wild and wayward,
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Found these legends and traditions,
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I should answer, I should tell you,
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"In the bird's-nests of the forest,
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In the lodges of the beaver,
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In the hoofprint of the bison,
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In the eyry of the eagle!
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"All the wild-fowl sang them to him,
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In the moorlands and the fen-lands,
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In the melancholy marshes;
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Chetowaik, the plover, sang them,
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Mahng, the loon, the wild-goose, Wawa,
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The blue heron, the Shuh-shuh-gah,
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And the grouse, the Mushkodasa!"
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If still further you should ask me,
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Tell us of this Nawadaha,"
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I should answer your inquiries
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Straightway in such words as follow.
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"In the vale of Tawasentha,
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In the green and silent valley,
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By the pleasant water-courses,
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Dwelt the singer Nawadaha.
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Round about the Indian village
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Spread the meadows and the corn-fields,
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And beyond them stood the forest,
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Stood the groves of singing pine-trees,
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Green in Summer, white in Winter,
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Ever sighing, ever singing.
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"And the pleasant water-courses,
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You could trace them through the valley,
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By the rushing in the Spring-time,
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By the alders in the Summer,
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By the white fog in the Autumn,
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By the black line in the Winter;
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And beside them dwelt the singer,
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In the vale of Tawasentha,
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In the green and silent valley.
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"There he sang of Hiawatha,
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Sang his wondrous birth and being,
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How he prayed and how be fasted,
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How he lived, and toiled, and suffered,
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That the tribes of men might prosper,
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That he might advance his people!"
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Ye who love the haunts of Nature,
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Love the sunshine of the meadow,
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Love the shadow of the forest,
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Love the wind among the branches,
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And the rain-shower and the snow-storm,
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And the rushing of great rivers
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