The Song of Hiawatha

The Song of Hiawatha, an epic poem written in 1855 by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, is a well-known work of literature by a major American author. And with its setting around Lake Superior, it has a strong connection to Sault Ste. Marie as well.

The inspiration behind Hiawatha came from various Indigenous stories. Longfellow was exposed to many of them through the writings of Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, an Indian Agent who worked out of Sault Michigan. According to Longfellow, he “pored over Mr. Schoolcraft’s writings [for] nearly three years,” and he considered himself indebted to Schoolcraft for his source material. Schoolcraft also introduced Longfellow to prominent Indigenous figures, including Chief Shingwauk.

Set at the Pictured Rocks in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and roughly following some of the stories of Nanabozho, Longfellow’s poem retells various folklore stories and follows Hiawatha, an Ojibway warrior. The poem spans Hiawatha’s childhood, his romance with the Dakota woman Minnehaha, and various other episodes – including one in which he creates “picture-writing,” or written language, and another in which he meets with white Christian missionaries.

While the work was first created as an epic poem, it has also been famously adapted for stage. The adaptation originated with George Kabaosa, Garden River Chief and grandson of Shingwaukonse, who recognized the story of Hiawatha upon hearing some of the verses recited. In 1900, he along with CPR Colonization Agent Louis Oliver Armstrong invited Longfellow’s three daughters to an island at Kensington Point, Desbarats. The Sault Star described how the invitation, extended by the Ojibway people in the area, encouraged the women to “stay in our royal wigwams” and “see us live over again the life of Hiawatha in his own country.”

It was during this visit that Armstrong had an idea: “I realized that something had to be done for entertainment… and then the thought struck me that an impromptu performance of a play based on Longfellow’s poem would be appropriate.”

What followed was a performance of Hiawatha, enacted by the Ojibway people, for the family of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, complete with authentic language and costumes.

In the early 1900s, Hiawatha was performed regularly – from 1901 to 1918. The people of Garden River put on an annual performance, and they still continued to stage it, albeit less often, into the 1960s. The pageant was used in Desbarats as a tourist attraction – perhaps not surprising given that Armstrong “had dreams of turning [Desbarats] into a summer resort.” An ad in the newspaper from 1904 boasts of the pageant, the “good fish dinners,” and the canoeing that guests would experience during their stay in the area; tourists would come in via the CPR or by the steam vessel the Minnie M.

In 1923, Hiawatha was performed not once but twice during Discovery Week, a massive celebration to honour 300 years of settlers in the area; the second rendition of the pageant was particularly notable, since it occurred in the evening “with the aid of a special lighting system.” It was also featured at the Soldiers’ Reunion and during Wolf Week.

It had become a tradition amongst the people of Garden River to perform the pageant – so much so that apparently, “some of the parts [were] taken… by the children or grandchildren of the original performers.”

Hiawatha became wildly popular, becoming known as “The Indian Passion Play.” Performances of it went international, with showings in such places as Boston, Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Detroit, London, Portsmouth, Amsterdam, and Antwerp. It was also featured at the Toronto  

Exhibition in 1937 – according to a retrospective on Hiawatha by the Sault Star, the pageant was performed “in front of nearly 20,000 spectators, every night for two weeks,” and the performers lived on the fairgrounds for the duration of the run. It returned to the Ex again in 1965.

Hiawatha was not without its controversy. In 1934, in an article entitled “Hands Off Hiawatha!” The Globe explored some claims coming out of the Smithsonian Institution: namely that the warrior Hiawatha was actually Iroquois, not Ojibway, and that he was not connected with the Algoma region at all.

Perhaps not surprisingly, these assertions did not go over well, particularly with Saultites.

The Globe article described the idea as “intolerable” and discussed James Curran’s distaste of the claims. He fired back with some strong words about the issue and was quoted as saying, “Longfellow’s Hiawatha was an Ojibway; the ‘fierce Pawauting’ was the St. Mary’s Rapids, and the district about this city is the ‘land of Hiawatha’ – Smithsonian Institution authorities to the contrary notwithstanding.”

The Smithsonian’s claim had some facts in their favour. There was a prominent Indigenous man named Hiawatha; in the 1400s, he co-founded the Iroquois Confederacy, uniting the Cayuga, Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, and Seneca into the Five Nations. However, his story is not that of the Song of Hiawatha, which draws more heavily from local folklore and history.

In the 1960s, the frequency of performances of Hiawatha slowed, which a 2008 Sault Star interview with university professor Dr. Karl Hele speculated may have been due to an increase in political activism and a focus on being more politically correct. It wouldn’t have been difficult to spot incongruities in Hiawatha, including the inclusion of totem poles which did not fit with the setting; Hele drew parallels with Hollywood, saying that the performance “had to appeal to what people were expecting to see.”

But Hele also discussed the historical accuracies: how Hiawatha would have introduced spectators to traditional foods, or how the pageant was performed by indigenous actors speaking their traditional language. And because it was performed in the Ojibwa language, it acted as a form of preservation, running “counter to what the government is up to, trying to get rid of the culture.”

It was felt that the Canadian government was actively trying to suppress Indigenous cultures – outlawing ceremonies, dancing, drumming, and other public displays. The residential school system worked to strip children of their language and culture, in an effort to assimilate them. In this context, Hiawatha became, according to professor Michael D. McNally, a “stealthy” opportunity to assert their “agency between the lines of the Longfellow script,” a way of preserving, engaging in, and even profiting off of their own culture when it was otherwise illegal to do so.

A renewed interest in Hiawatha and the role it has played in Garden River’s history has led to the pageant being performed again in the 2000s.

The Song of Hiawatha has become inextricably linked to the areas surrounding the two Sault Ste. Maries. With its many local performances and adaptations, the poem by Longfellow has become entrenched locally, in the area the poem describes as “by the shore of Gitche Gumee.”

Each week, the Sault Ste. Marie Public Library and its Archives provides SooToday readers with a glimpse of the city’s past.

Find out more of what the Public Library has to offer at www.ssmpl.ca and look for more Remember This? columns here