• Embed Doc
  • Copy Link
  • Readcast
  • Collections
  • CommentGo Back
Download
 
The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oralby Henry R. Schoolcraft
The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other OralLegends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians, by Henry R. Schoolcraft This eBook isfor the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give itaway or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online atwww.gutenberg.orgTitle: The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North AmericanIndiansAuthor: Henry R. SchoolcraftRelease Date: May 27, 2007 [EBook #21620]Language: EnglishCharacter set encoding: ISO-8859-1*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MYTH OF HIAWATHA ***Produced by Julia Miller and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file wasproduced from scans of public domain material produced by Microsoft for their Live Search Books site.)THE MYTH OF HIAWATHA,
The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral by Henry R. Schoolcraft1
 
ANDOTHER ORAL LEGENDS, MYTHOLOGIC AND ALLEGORIC,OF THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS.BYHENRY R. SCHOOLCRAFT, LL.D.PHILADELPHIA: J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO.LONDON: TRÜBNER & CO.1856.Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1856, byHENRY 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 verycharacteristic kind--furnishing, in fact, a new point from which to judge the race, and to excite intellectualsympathies, you have most felicitously shown in your poem of Hiawatha. Not only so, but you havedemonstrated, by this pleasing series of pictures of Indian life, sentiment, and invention, that the theme of thenative 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 tofind 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 andinvention of the aboriginal mind. As such, they furnish illustrations of Indian character and opinions onsubjects which the ever-cautious and suspicious minds of this people have, heretofore, concealed. They placethe 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 everypossible 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 andwood genii, and of ghosts, witches, and sorcerers--now in the enjoyment of plenty in feasts--now pale andweak with abstinence in fasts; now transforming beasts and birds, or plants and trees into men, or men into
The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral by Henry R. Schoolcraft2
 
beasts by necromancy; it is impossible not to perceive what he perpetually thinks, believes, and feels. Thevery 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 legendsand myths, we perceive the interior man, and are made cognizant of the secret workings of his mind, andheart, and soul.To make these collections, of which the portions now submitted are but a part, the leisure hours of manyseasons, passed in an official capacity in the solitude of the wilderness far away from society, have beenemployed, with the study of the languages, and with the very best interpreters. They have been carefullytranslated, written, and rewritten, to obtain their true spirit and meaning, expunging passages, where it wasnecessary to avoid tediousness of narration, triviality of circumstance, tautologies, gross incongruities, andvulgarities; but adding no incident and drawing no conclusion, which the verbal narration did not imperativelyrequire or sanction. It was impossible to mistake the import of terms and phrases where the means of theiranalysis were ample. If the style is sometimes found to be bald, and of jejune simplicity, the original ischaracteristically so. Few adjectives are employed, because there are few in the original.[1] The Indian effectshis 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 theircharacteristic features as well as melody of utterance from these traits. Sometimes these terms cannot beliterally 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 andblood-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 personæ.Surprise has been expressed,[2] that the kindlier affections come in for notice at all, and particularly at theoccurrence of such refined and terse allegories as the origin of Indian Corn, Winter and Spring, and the poeticconception of the Celestial Sisters, &c. I can only add, that my own surprise was as great when these traitswere first revealed. And the trait may be quoted to show how deeply the tribes have wandered away from thetype of the human race in which love and affection absorb the heart;[3] 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 loreof 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.[4]HENRY R. SCHOOLCRAFT.Washington, D.C.,
April 28, 1856 
.[1] If Edwards the younger, to whom the Mohican was familiar from his childhood, could say, that he doubtedwhether there were any true adjectives in that language, it can easily be imagined that the subtlety of thetransitive principle had not been sufficiently analyzed; but the remark is here quoted in relation to the paucityof adjectives.[2]
Vide
Criterion.[3] When the volumes of Algic Researches, in 1839, were published, the book-trade had hardly awakened tothat wide and diffusive impulse which it has since received. No attention had been given to topics so obscureas inquiries into the character of the Indian mind--if, indeed, it was thought the Indian had any mind at all. Itwas 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 
The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral by Henry R. Schoolcraft3
of 00

Leave a Comment

You must be to leave a comment.
Submit
Characters: ...
You must be to leave a comment.
Submit
Characters: ...