The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians

Part 1

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THE MYTH OF HIAWATHA,

AND

OTHER ORAL LEGENDS, MYTHOLOGIC AND ALLEGORIC,

OF THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS.

HENRY R. SCHOOLCRAFT, LL.D.

PHILADELPHIA: J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO.

LONDON: TRUeBNER & CO.

1856.

Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1856, by

HENRY R. SCHOOLCRAFT,

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States in and for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

TO PROF. HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW.

SIR:--

Permit me to dedicate to you, this volume of Indian myths and legends, derived from the story-telling circle of the native wigwams. That they indicate the possession, by the Vesperic tribes, of mental resources of a very characteristic kind--furnishing, in fact, a new point from which to judge the race, and to excite intellectual sympathies, you have most felicitously shown in your poem of Hiawatha. Not only so, but you have demonstrated, by this pleasing series of pictures of Indian life, sentiment, and invention, that the theme of the native lore reveals one of the true sources of our literary independence. Greece and Rome, England and Italy, have so long furnished, if they have not exhausted, the field of poetic culture, that it is, at least, refreshing to find both in theme and metre, something new.

Very truly yours,

HENRY R. SCHOOLCRAFT.

PREFACE.

There is but one consideration of much moment necessary to be premised respecting these legends and myths. It is this: they are versions of oral relations from the lips of the Indians, and are transcripts of the thought and invention of the aboriginal mind. As such, they furnish illustrations of Indian character and opinions on subjects which the ever-cautious and suspicious minds of this people have, heretofore, concealed. They place the man altogether in a new phasis. They reflect him as he is. They show us what he believes, hopes, fears, wishes, expects, worships, lives for, dies for. They are always true to the Indian manners and customs, opinions and theories. They never rise above them; they never sink below them. Placing him in almost every possible position, as a hunter, a warrior, a magician, a pow-wow, a medicine man, a meda, a husband, a father, a friend, a foe, a stranger, a wild singer of songs to monedos or fetishes, a trembler in terror of demons and wood genii, and of ghosts, witches, and sorcerers--now in the enjoyment of plenty in feasts--now pale and weak with abstinence in fasts; now transforming beasts and birds, or plants and trees into men, or men into beasts by necromancy; it is impossible not to perceive what he perpetually thinks, believes, and feels. The very language of the man is employed, and his vocabulary is not enlarged by words and phrases foreign to it. Other sources of information depict his exterior habits and outer garb and deportment; but in these legends and myths, we perceive the interior man, and are made cognizant of the secret workings of his mind, and heart, and soul.

To make these collections, of which the portions now submitted are but a part, the leisure hours of many seasons, passed in an official capacity in the solitude of the wilderness far away from society, have been employed, with the study of the languages, and with the very best interpreters. They have been carefully translated, written, and rewritten, to obtain their true spirit and meaning, expunging passages, where it was necessary to avoid tediousness of narration, triviality of circumstance, tautologies, gross incongruities, and vulgarities; but adding no incident and drawing no conclusion, which the verbal narration did not imperatively require or sanction. It was impossible to mistake the import of terms and phrases where the means of their analysis were ample. If the style is sometimes found to be bald, and of jejune simplicity, the original is characteristically so. Few adjectives are employed, because there are few in the original. The Indian effects his purposes, almost entirely, by changes of the verb and demonstrative pronoun, or by adjective inflections of the substantive. Good and bad, high and low, black and white, are in all cases employed in a transitive sense, and with strict relation to the objects characterized. The Indian compound terms are so descriptive, so graphic, so local, so characterizing, yet so flexible and transpositive, that the legends derive no little of their characteristic features as well as melody of utterance from these traits. Sometimes these terms cannot be literally translated, and they cannot, in these cases, be left out without damaging the stories.

With regard to the thought-work of the legends, those who have deemed the Indians exclusively a cruel and blood-thirsty race, always seeking revenge, always invoking evil powers, will not be disappointed that giants, enchanters, demons, and dark supernatural agencies, should form so large a part of the dramatis personae. Surprise has been expressed, that the kindlier affections come in for notice at all, and particularly at the occurrence of such refined and terse allegories as the origin of Indian Corn, Winter and Spring, and the poetic conception of the Celestial Sisters, &c. I can only add, that my own surprise was as great when these traits were first revealed. And the trait may be quoted to show how deeply the tribes have wandered away from the type of the human race in which love and affection absorb the heart; and how little, indeed, we know of their mental character.

These legends have been out of print several years. They are now reproduced, with additional legendary lore of this description from the portfolios of the author, in a revised, and, it is believed, a more terse, condensed, and acceptable form, both in a literary and business garb.

HENRY R. SCHOOLCRAFT.

Washington, D.C., April 28, 1856.

If Edwards the younger, to whom the Mohican was familiar from his childhood, could say, that he doubted whether there were any true adjectives in that language, it can easily be imagined that the subtlety of the transitive principle had not been sufficiently analyzed; but the remark is here quoted in relation to the paucity of adjectives.

Vide Criterion.

When the volumes of Algic Researches, in 1839, were published, the book-trade had hardly awakened to that wide and diffusive impulse which it has since received. No attention had been given to topics so obscure as inquiries into the character of the Indian mind--if, indeed, it was thought the Indian had any mind at all. It was still supposed that the Indian was, at all times and in all places, "a stoic of the woods," always statuesque, always formal, always passionless, always on stilts, always speaking in metaphors, a cold embodiment of bravery, endurance, and savage heroism. Writers depicted him as a man who uttered nothing but high principles of natural right, who always harangued eloquently, and was ready, with unmoved philosophy on all occasions, to sing his death song at the stake to show the world how a warrior should die.

The songs and chants which form so striking a part of the original legends, and also the poetic use of aboriginal ideas, are transferred to the end of the volume, and will thus, it is apprehended, relieve and simplify the text.

Part 2

CONTENTS.

Page

Hiawatha; or, Manabozho 13

Paup-puk-keewiss 52

Osseo; or, the Son of the Evening Star 71

Kwasind; or, the fearfully Strong Man 77

The Jeebi; or, Two Ghosts 81

Iagoo 85

Shawondasee 88

Puck Wudj Ininees; or, the Vanishing Little Men 90

Pezhiu and Wabose; or, the Lynx and Hare 95

Peboan and Seegwun. An Allegory of Winter and Spring 96

Mon-daw-min; or, the Origin of Indian Corn 99

Nezhik-e-wa-wa-sun; or, the Lone Lightning 105

The Ak Uk O Jeesh; or, the Groundhog Family 107

Opeechee; or, the Origin of the Robin 109

Shingebiss. An Allegory of Self-reliance 113

The Star Family; or, the Celestial Sisters 116

Ojeeg Annung; or, the Summer-Maker 121

Chileeli; or, the Red Lover 129

Sheem, the forsaken Boy, or Wolf Brother 136

Mishemokwa; or, the War with the Gigantic Bear wearing the precious prize of the Necklace of Wampum, or the Origin of the Small Black Bear 142

The Red Swan 161

Tau-wau-chee-hezkaw; or, the White Feather 180

Pauguk, and the mythological interpretation of Hiawatha 188

Iena, the Wanderer; or, Magic Bundle 194

Mishosha; or, the Magician of Lake Superior 202

Peeta Kway, the Foam-Woman 213

Part 3

Pah-hah-undootah, the Red Head 216

The White Stone Canoe 223

Onaiazo, the Sky-Walker. A Legend of a Visit to the Sun 228

Bosh-kwa-dosh; or, the Mastodon 233

The Sun-Catcher; or, the Boy who set a Snare for the Sun. A Myth of the Origin of the Dormouse 239

Wa-wa-be-zo-win; or, the Swing on the Pictured Rocks of Lake Superior 243

Mukakee Mindemoea; or, the Toad-Woman 246

Eroneniera; or, an Indian Visit to the Great Spirit 251

The Six Hawks; or, Broken Wing 258

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