Santa Fe new Mexican. [volume] (Santa Fe, N.M.) 1898-1951, 1907-05-02
"H|AWATHA"
IN PANTOM|ME
Depicted True to
Life By Real In
dians
At n q TnAIMlMn nnunnI
At U. S. TRAINING SCHOOL
Large Audience Packed Au.
ditorium- Every Member
of Cast Was Clever.

THE Song of Hiawatha," America s
great epic by Henry Wadsworth Long
fellow, was illustrated with living pic.
lures, or in pantomme, last evening
by the children of the people whose
legends and traditions this beautiful
edda gorifies. Imagine yourself in a
rose garden of Verona spectator at
a performance of Romeo and Juliet by
the descendants of the Capulets and
Montagus, with the partisans of the
rival houses as spectators, and the
sensation would be akin to that of see.
ing Hiawatha rendered by Indians in
country SO rich in it's Indian tradi
tions and before such an audience as
packed the spacious aula at the U. S
Indian Industrial School near this city
last evening.
1t was as if the imagination had
playfully taken one by the hand and
led the way into the forest primeval OF
a century ago, among the nomadic
tribes of the North, with their joys
sorrows and sufferngs idealized by
the imagery of great poet. No mat
ter, that critics say that LongfelloW
knew not the Indians, he at least
knew the Indian heart, that icono-
clasts declare that the poet owed to
Schoolcraft and Heckewelder the ma
terial and the Morse Kalevala the form
of the poem, suffice it that Longfellow
lovingly immortalized the popular
ideal of the Red Skin and that Hia.
watha possesses dramatic possibilities
as tragedy that are lacking in many
celebrated play His picturesque
delineations of the simple emotions
and passions of primeval people
bring them nearer to the heart OF the
present day than could any scientific
or scholarly description of their ways
and manners. Especially to those
"Whose hearts are fresh and simple,
Who have faith in God and Nature,
Who believe, that in all ages
Every heart is human,
That in even savage bOsoms
There are longings, yearnings, striv-
ings
For the good they comprehend not,
That the feeble hands and helpless,
Cropping blindly in the darkness
Touching Gods right hand in that
darkness
And are lifted up and strengthened
Hiawatha as interpreted by the In
dian children last evening made a
deep impression.
The Gathering Of the Tribes.
It is with the words of the poem
quoted above that Principal John ),
Hammitt, after the splendid fondl
ton upon the piano of the we'll known
selection "Hiawatha," announced the
rising of the curtain upon scene
"On the Mountains of the Prairie,
On the great Red Pipe-Stone Quarry,
which, by the wcy, is the early home
of Superintendent Clinton j. Crandall,
where he, in northern Minnesota, just
south of Lake Superior, first taught
the Indian the mysteries of the prac.
tical. as well as book learning of the
Whites.
The beating of a lone tom.tom fur.
nished the rythm for an Indian dance,
weird and characteristic into which
the boys in full paint and feathers, en-
tered with spirit. No wonder the aud.
ience applauded with vigor Then ap-
peared Gitche Manito, the Mighty
"And called the nations,
Called the tribes of men together"
A gathering of tribes it truly was,
both upon the roomy platform and in
the auditorium. They had come from
the Navajo reservation, the Jicarilla
and Mescalero Apaches, the Pueblos
of the south and the north with a
sprinkling of representatives from as
far west as California and as far north
as Idaho.
Hiawathas Childhood and Youth.
The second scene illustrated Hia.
watha's babyhood. Eta, a Navajo
maiden, seemed the incarnation OF the
faithful old Nokomis as she rocked
her papoose to sleep and sang the
quaint lullaby about the naked bear
and the little owlet.
The audience saw Hiawatha grow
into a sturdy boy who took readily to
the bow and flint-tipped arrows made
for him by Iagoo, the great boaster;
saw him stalk and bring down his first
red deer and carry it in triumph to
his mother; followed him into the land
of the Dakotah's where he wooed Min.