Evening star., 1934-07-15

ltical organizations bound together securely, yet
without sacrificing their independence
And If Mr. Hewitt is right in this specula-
tion then Hawatha and Dekanawida deserve
high pedestals in an American hall of fame, II
not in the annals Of history
OF all this sixteenth century Indian history,
the poet Longfellow knew nothing Longfel-
low never visited an Indian reservation in his
life SO Alice Longfellow once stated plainly,
to settle an argument.
Tor his story of Hiawatha and for local
] color, Longfellow turned to writings of
ethnologist named Henry Schoolcraft This
man Schoolcraft was one of the first to do SCI
entifc research among the Iroquoian tribes and
while he eager Investigator. he was like
a man wandering in a tremendous maze Of
strange languages and customs.
Frequently Schoolcraft got muddled, espe-
cially over the subtleties of Indian names and
languages Sometimes he put two and two to-
gether and made five six of it without much
doubt or hesitation.
So Mr.. Hewitt explains, when Iroquois In
dians told Schoolcraft about their heroes De-
kanawida and Hayenwatha, the latter name
was the only one that stuck in Schoolcraft's
memory. He caught and wrote down the name
Hiawatha because it sounded to him vaguely
like the name he had heard for Indian god
BY the time he got his notes shaped up for pub
hcation, Schoolcraft had mixed together not
merely two characters, but three, to make one.
He had In the meantime gone among the
Chippewa Indians of the Great Lakes country
and heard all about their God of Life So
he added this Chippewa deity to his mixture of
Hiawatha and Dekanawida. The result of
mixing up the three characters was as fantastic
as if he had scrambled together everything he
could find about Alexander the Great, Aris-
totle and the Greek god Zeus.
In the composite Indian put together by
Schoolcraft, very little Hiawatha except the
name survived. The Song of Hiawatha," as it
turned out would better have been called the
Song of Dekanawida" Mr. Hewitt points out.
And, what's more disillusioning, there was no
such girl as Minnehaha!
Hiawatha married twice but not to any love-
ly maid Of the Dacotahs by the name Of
Laughing Water. Dekanawida devoted his
life to his mission of bringing peace to the
tribes and nothing is said about his marrying.
1t is believed that Longfellow got the sing
ing name for Hiawatha's bride out of a book
on life and legends of the Sioux. In this book
he read the legend about the beautiful water
fall in Minnesota known as the Minnehaha, or
Laughing Waters.
School children learn about Indians from
Hiawatha, and that means life as it was among
Chippewa Indians, on the forest shores of
Lake Superior.
When Schoolcraft mixed a Chippewa god
WIN Ills AoQuols 1nolaIlS 70 MAKE hlaNatIlas
he gave his hero a Chippewa background.
Schoolcra:t found the Chippewas more inter-
esting than the Iroquois In fact, he became
so intensely interested in one Chippewa that he
married her.
When LongfeIlow studied the Schoolcraft
legends, therefore, and picked up his pen TO
write the lines begiuning, GIVE me of your
bark, o birch tree he was describing
Chippewa canoe. An Iroquois would have
made his canoe Of slppery elm bark. for no
canoe hirch grew in NeDE York State