Hiawatha ( , also : ), also known as Ayenwathaaa or Aiionwatha, was a precolonial Native American leader and co-founder of the

Iroquois The Iroquois ( or ), officially the Haudenosaunee ( meaning "people of the longhouse"), are an Iroquoian-speaking confederacy of First Nations peoples in northeast North America/ Turtle Island. They were known during the colonial years to ...

Confederacy. He was a leader of the

Onondaga people The Onondaga people (Onondaga: , ''Hill Place people'') are one of the original five constituent nations of the Iroquois (''Haudenosaunee'') Confederacy in northeast North America. Their traditional homeland is in and around present-day Onondaga ...

, the

Mohawk people The Mohawk people ( moh, Kanienʼkehá꞉ka) are the most easterly section of the Haudenosaunee, or Iroquois Confederacy. They are an Iroquoian-speaking Indigenous people of North America, with communities in southeastern Canada and northern Ne ...

, or both. According to some accounts, he was born an Onondaga but adopted into the Mohawks.

Legend

Although Hiawatha was actually a real person, he was mostly known through his legend. The events in the legend have been dated to the middle 1100s through the occurrence of an eclipse coincident with the founding of the Iroquois Confederacy.Dates of 1390–1630 have also been proposed. This material and quotations are taken from the Mohawk version of the legend, as related by the prominent chief Seth Newhouse (Dayodekane). For an Onondaga version of the legend, see Parker: "The Hiawatha Tradition". When the founder of the Confederacy,

Dekanawidah The Great Peacemaker (''Skén:nen rahá:wi'' kʌ̃.nːʌ̃.ɾahaːwiin Mohawk), sometimes referred to as Deganawida or Tekanawí:ta (as a mark of respect, some Iroquois avoid using his personal name except in special circumstances) was by tradit ...

, known as ''The Great Peacemaker'', first came to Iroquoia, one of the first people he met was Hiawatha, not yet called by that name.His original name seems to be not recorded At that time Hiawatha was a wild man and a

cannibal Cannibalism is the act of consuming another individual of the same species as food. Cannibalism is a common ecological interaction in the animal kingdom and has been recorded in more than 1,500 species. Human cannibalism is well documented, bo ...

, known as "the man who eats humans." When Dekanawidah came to his cabin he climbed onto the roof, looked down through the

smoke hole Smoke Hole may refer to: * Smoke hole, a hole in a roof for the smoke from a fire to vent * Smoke Hole Canyon, or Smoke Hole, a gorge in the Allegheny Mountains of West Virginia, U.S. ** Smoke Hole, West Virginia, a former unincorporated community ...

, where there was a large kettle of water for cooking a meal of human flesh. When Hiawatha came home he looked into the water and saw Dekanawidah's face reflected back to him, which he thought was his own. "In that face he was aware of a beauty, a wisdom and strength, which at first filled him with astonishment and then with shame, for it was not the face of one who killed and ate his fellow men." Dekanawidah came down, sat across the fire from him, and passed on to him the Great Law of Peace. Hiawatha accepted the message, and agreed to stay and work with his own people while Dekanawidah went on to pass the message to other nations. The principal chief of the Onondaga at that time was a cruel tyrant called

Tadodaho Tadodaho was a Native American Hoyenah (sachem) of the Onondaga nation before the Deganawidah and Hiawatha formed the Iroquois League. According to oral tradition, he had extraordinary characteristics and was widely feared, but he was persuaded ...

, or Atotarho. Tadodaho is described as twisted in both body and mind. "His hair was filled with living snakes. Snakes' eyes looked out from his finger ends." Dekanawidah charged Hiawatha with converting Tadodaho—to "comb the snakes out of adodaho'shair." He gave him the name Hiawatha, which means "he who combs." After Dekanawidah left, Hiawatha presented his proposals to the Onondaga in councils, but Tadodaho kept frustrating all his efforts and disrupting the councils. He caused the death of Hiawatha's three daughters and his wife by magic. Grief-stricken, Hiawatha left his village and wandered, "stringing wampum and seeking someone who should understand the thirteen-string ceremony of condolence and take away his grief by the spell of the wampum." Finally he came to the territory of the Mohawk, where Dekanawidah had converted the entire nation. Dekanawidah chanted the words that have since been part of the Iroquois ''Requickening Ceremony'': "I wipe away tears from thy face." "using the white fawn-skin of pity…I make it daylight for thee… I beautify the sky. Now shall thou do thy thinking in peace…" Afterwards, Hiawatha joined Dekanawidah in composing the laws of the Great Peace, and the Peace Hymn. Then Hiawatha and Dekanawidah, together with the Mohawk chiefs, visited each of the other four Nations. They had no trouble with the Oneidas and the Cayugas, but the Senecas were divided against themselves and the Onondagas were afraid of the power of Tadodaho. A solar eclipse helped convince the Senecas, and the Onondagas were brought in by the power of the other four Nations and by the offer to Tadodaho that he become principal chief. "In the end the mind of adodahowas made straight, the crooks were taken out of his body, and Hiawatha combed the snakes out of his hair." Hiawatha was noted for his speaking skills and message of peace. Dekanawidah, a

Huron Huron may refer to: People * Wyandot people (or Wendat), indigenous to North America * Wyandot language, spoken by them * Huron-Wendat Nation, a Huron-Wendat First Nation with a community in Wendake, Quebec * Nottawaseppi Huron Band of Potawatomi ...

prophet and spiritual leader, proposed the unification of the Iroquois peoples who shared common ancestry and similar languages, but he suffered from a severe speech impediment which hindered him from spreading his proposal. Hiawatha was a skilled orator, and he was instrumental in persuading the Five Nations to accept the Great Peacemaker's vision and band together to become members of the Iroquois confederacy. The

Tuscarora Tuscarora may refer to the following: First nations and Native American people and culture * Tuscarora people **''Federal Power Commission v. Tuscarora Indian Nation'' (1960) * Tuscarora language, an Iroquoian language of the Tuscarora people * ...

joined the Confederacy in 1722 to become the Sixth Nation. Little else is known of Hiawatha. The reason and time of his death is unknown. However his legacy is still passed on from generation to generation through oral stories, songs, and books. The 1855 epic poem ''

The Song of Hiawatha ''The Song of Hiawatha'' is an 1855 epic poem in trochaic tetrameter by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow which features Native American characters. The epic relates the fictional adventures of an Ojibwe warrior named Hiawatha and the tragedy of his l ...

'' by

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (February 27, 1807 – March 24, 1882) was an American poet and educator. His original works include "Paul Revere's Ride", ''The Song of Hiawatha'', and ''Evangeline''. He was the first American to completely transl ...

tells the story of a hero of the same name but has no relationship to the historical Hiawatha.

The Iroquois Confederacy

Within the

Iroquois Confederacy The Iroquois ( or ), officially the Haudenosaunee ( meaning "people of the longhouse"), are an Iroquoian-speaking confederacy of First Nations peoples in northeast North America/ Turtle Island. They were known during the colonial years to ...

, which originally included five tribes (Mohawk, Onondaga, Oneida, Cayuga, and Seneca), Hiawatha was a leader from the

Mohawk Mohawk may refer to: Related to Native Americans * Mohawk people, an indigenous people of North America (Canada and New York) *Mohawk language, the language spoken by the Mohawk people * Mohawk hairstyle, from a hairstyle once thought to have been ...

tribe. There he was well-known, and highly thought of by all of the tribes. He was a great speaker, and would eventually become the representative for the Great Peacemaker. The Great Peacemaker was a man who hoped to spread peace throughout all of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Territory. Due to the fact that he had a severe speech impediment, the Great Peacemaker needed a spokesperson. Hiawatha was willing to speak on behalf of Dekanawidah because violence had been developing throughout the Iroquois Territory. During these times of chaos, a leader named Tadodaho, who had despised the idea of peace, targeted and killed Hiawatha's wife and daughters. Thereafter, Hiawatha became the Peacemaker's speaker, so he could stop the violence. Dewanawidah and Hiawatha eventually obtained peace throughout the Iroquois by promising Tadodaho that Onondaga would become the capital of the Grand Council, the main governing body of the Iroquois. Hiawatha and Dekanawidah created the Great Law of Peace, recorded in wampum belts, to solidify the bond between the original five nations of the Iroquois. Among the names of the fifty traditional Hoyenah (

sachems Sachems and sagamores are paramount chiefs among the Algonquians or other Native American tribes of northeastern North America, including the Iroquois. The two words are anglicizations of cognate terms (c. 1622) from different Eastern Algon ...

) of the Haudenosaunee, Hiawatha (among others) is a representative of the Mohawk, and Tadodaho of the Onondaga.

Hiawatha Belt

The Hiawatha Belt is a

wampum belt Wampum is a traditional shell bead of the Eastern Woodlands tribes of Native Americans. It includes white shell beads hand-fashioned from the North Atlantic channeled whelk shell and white and purple beads made from the quahog or Western Nor ...

that symbolizes peace between the original five nations of the Iroquois. The belt depicts the nations in a specific order from left to right. The Seneca are furthest to the left, representing their position as Keepers of the Western Door. Next is the Cayuga, and in the center of the belt, depicted with a different symbol, is the Onondaga, also known as the Keepers of the Central Fire. Next is the Oneida. Finally, shown farthest to the right is the Mohawk, the Keepers of the Eastern Door. The white line connecting all of the symbols for each tribe together represents the unity of the Iroquois. It also represents the gathering from the Great Law of Peace and the Iroquois Confederacy as a whole. The wampum belt consists of black or purple-like and white beads that are made up of shells. Found in the Northeast of America, there are

quahog The hard clam (''Mercenaria mercenaria''), also known as the round clam, hard-shell (or hard-shelled) clam, or the quahog, is an edible marine bivalve mollusk that is native to the eastern shores of North America and Central America from Prince E ...

clam shells that are often time used for the black and sometimes the white beads of these belts. Most often the Iroquois used various types of

whelk Whelk (also known as scungilli) is a common name applied to various kinds of sea snail. Although a number of whelks are relatively large and are in the family Buccinidae (the true whelks), the word ''whelk'' is also applied to some other marin ...

spiral shells for the white beads. Wampum figures in the story of Hiawatha. When Hiawatha was full of grief because his daughters were murdered, the Great Peacemaker gifted Hiawatha with the whelk shells and told him to put them on his eyes and ears and throat. These shells were a sign of healing and purity. Hiawatha used these shells to create unity. The Iroquois Nation believes that the Peacemaker was the one who gifted them the first wampum belt, which later was titled the Hiawatha Belt. Today the image of the Hiawatha Belt is used on the

Flag of the Iroquois Confederacy The flag of the Iroquois Confederacy or Haudenosaunee flag is the flag used to represent the six nations of the Haudenosaunee. It is a purple flag with four connected white squares and an eastern white pine tree in the center. History In the ...

''The Song of Hiawatha''

Written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, the 1855 epic poem

tells of the adventures of "Hiawatha" and his heroic deeds. This poem however has little to do with the actual Hiawatha. Longfellow most likely took the name of Hiawatha and applied it to the

Ojibway The Ojibwe, Ojibwa, Chippewa, or Saulteaux are an Anishinaabe people in what is currently southern Canada, the northern Midwestern United States, and Northern Plains. According to the U.S. census, in the United States Ojibwe people are one of ...

demigod ''Manabozho'', and nothing more. This poem tells the story of a legendary heroic Native manHe is nowhere identified as Iroquois. starting from his birth and ending on his ascension to the clouds. It talks of many battles, losses, and moral lessons. Longfellow along with another writer Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, hoped to combine stories of Native Americans and create a sense of pride and remembrance for the Native Americans during the 1820s and later. Longfellow’s fictional Hiawatha has eclipsed the Hiawatha of legend in popular culture.

Explanatory notes

References

External links

Historica's Heritage Minute ''Peacemaker''
a mini-docudrama about the co founders of the Iroquois Confederacy.

Schenectady Digital History Archive
Google Books overview of ''Ancient Society''

''The Great Peacemaker Deganawidah and his follower Hiawatha''
theater play by Living Wisdom School * {{Authority control Iroquois mythology Iroquois people Legendary American people Native American leaders Year of birth unknown Year of death unknown 1525 births 1595 deaths