Hiawatha

Hiawatha (hī`əwä`thə), fl. c.1550, legendary chief of the Onondaga of North America. He is credited with founding the Iroquois Confederacy. He is the hero of the well-known poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

Bibliography

See T. R. Henry, Wilderness Messiah (1955).

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Hiawatha

(Ojibwa; “He Makes Rivers”)

Legendary chief (c. 1450) of the Onondaga people of the northwestern U.S. He is regarded by tradition as the founder of the Iroquois Confederacy. His story is told in Henry W. Longfellow's popular poem Song of Hiawatha (1855), though Longfellow perpetuated an error of Henry Rowe Schoolcraft's that placed Hiawatha in a Midwestern tribe.

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Hiawatha

adventurous avenger of his father’s wickedness to his mother. [Am. Lit.: Longfellow The Song of Hiawatha in Magill I, 905]

See : Vengeance

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Hiawatha

“wise man”; legendary founder of Iroquois Confederacy. [Am. Hist.: Jameson, 229; Am. Lit.: “Hiawatha” in Benét, 466]

See : Wisdom