Life Works: Myth and Archetype in Everyday Life: September 2012

Monday, 24 September 2012

Longfellow: Father of Historical Fiction

This post was written for Past Times Books (http://www.pasttimesbooks.com/?page_id=8)

By the shores of Gitche Gumee,

By the shining Big-Sea-Water,

Stood the wigwam of Nokomis,

Daughter of the Moon, Nokomis....

In 1854, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote in his diary, “I have at length hit upon a plan for a poem on the American Indians... It is to weave together their beautiful traditions as whole.” What he produced next year was 'The Song of Hiawatha,' a long narrative poem about a legendary Iroquois chief. Longfellow’s epic work is a composite of myth and legend, folklore and ethnography. It is written in unrhymed alliterative verse, with heavy emphasis on alternating syllables: considered by some to be clumsy, it nonetheless suits his meandering style.

Longfellow’s work was based partly on the writings of Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, a government agent who married a Native wife and took a personal interest in local customs and stories. In particular he took the name of his hero, who has very little else in common with the sixteenth-century Mohawk chief who co-founded the Iroquois League. In his notes to the poem, Longfellow cites Schoolcraft as his source for “a tradition prevalent among the North American Indians, of a personage of miraculous birth, who was sent among them to clear their rivers, forests, and fishing-grounds, and to teach them the arts of peace. He was known among different tribes by several names (including) Hiawatha.”

Hiawatha has many childhood adventures, aided by his ability to speak the language of birds and beasts. He falls in love with Minnehaha, slays the evil magician Pearl-Feather, invents written language, discovers corn and brings culture to his people. In the final episode a birch bark canoe approaches the village bearing ‘the Priest of Prayer, the Pale-face.’ Hiawatha welcomes him and having endorsed the message of the Christian missionaries, sets off alone for the West.

At a time when many white people regarded the natives as savages, Longfellow’s lyrical lines were a romantic revelation. He evoked a traditional way of life where mankind lived in close harmony with the natural environment. The idea of the ‘noble savage’ caught the popular imagination across Europe and America. The poem was reprinted in 1891 with pen-and-ink drawings by the artist Frederic Remington, and this is regarded as the classic edition. Longfellow’s writing presaged the birth of both the ecological and native civil rights movements. More relevantly for us, he was also arguably the father of modern historical fiction.

For full post with illustrations, visit Past Times Books http://www.pasttimesbooks.com/?page_id=8

Read about the real-life Hiawatha at http://janebaileybain.wordpress.com/2012/09/12/hiawatha/

Thursday, 13 September 2012

Hiawatha

In the old days, the braves were always fighting. Summertime, and the living was easy: what else was there for a boy to do?

Quite a lot, actually. The Iroquois tribes who controlled lands along the Atlantic coast were renowned as hunters and warriors. This constant warfare was getting in the way of growing food. Their women told them to stop, but the braves refused to listen. Tribe fought with tribe, villages fought with villages, and even between families there was fighting. Fear and hatred reigned in the land and nobody was safe. Something needed to be done, so the people would not go hungry.

Haio Hwa Tha (‘He Who Makes Rivers’) was a Mohawk chief. Amongst these warring tribes, he was held to be the best fighter in the land. But Haio Hwa Tha was also revered by his people as a shaman, a wise man. One day a Huron tracker named Deganawida arrived at his longhouse, seeking support. The tribe gathered together to hear him speak.
“Fighting must cease in this land,” Deganawida said. “The Great Sky Spirit never intended that blood should flow between human beings."
"But if we do not fight," one man objected, "we will be killed by the neighbouring tribes."
"They have already heard my message of peace," said Deganawida, and the Mohawk people then accepted his vision too.

Haio Hwa Tha proposed that the tribes should unite in a peaceful federation, with a council of delegates and regular meetings for shared ceremonies. The League of the Long House, Haudenonsaunee, was founded by five tribes: the Mohawk, Oneida, Senecca, Cayuga and Onondagas peoples. The Confederacy had been going strong for fifty years when the Pilgrim Fathers arrived in 1621. The newcomers were impressed with this democratic system of government: popular history credits it with influencing the American Constitution.

In 1854, Longfellow wrote in his diary, “I have at length hit upon a plan for a poem on the American Indians... It is to weave together their beautiful traditions as whole.” What he produced next year was 'The Song of Hiawatha,' a composite of folklore, myth and legend. Although many white people regarded the natives as savages, Longfellow’s lyrical lines were a smash hit. He evoked a traditional way of life where mankind lived in close harmony with the natural environment.