Hiawatha
(redirected from Ayonwentah)Also found in: Dictionary.
Hiawatha
(hī`əwä`thə), fl. c.1550, legendary chief of the Onondaga of North America. He is credited with founding the Iroquois ConfederacyIroquois Confederacyor Iroquois League
, North American confederation of indigenous peoples, initially comprising the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca; the native name for the confederated peoples is the Haudenosaunee.
..... Click the link for more information. . He is the hero of the well-known poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
Bibliography
See T. R. Henry, Wilderness Messiah (1955).
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia™ Copyright © 2013, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/
Hiawatha
adventurous avenger of his father’s wickedness to his mother. [Am. Lit.: Longfellow The Song of Hiawatha in Magill I, 905]
See: Vengeance
Hiawatha
“wise man”; legendary founder of Iroquois Confederacy. [Am. Hist.: Jameson, 229; Am. Lit.: “Hiawatha” in Benét, 466]
See: Wisdom
Allusions—Cultural, Literary, Biblical, and Historical: A Thematic Dictionary. Copyright 2008 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
Hiawatha
a 16th-century Onondaga Indian chief: credited with the organization of the Five Nations
Collins Discovery Encyclopedia, 1st edition © HarperCollins Publishers 2005