The man behind the myth—the real Hiawatha—is skillfully depicted by Alida Sims Malkus, who, carefully sorting fact from legend, recreates the life of the sixteenth century American Indian whose humane and democratic ideals influenced the United States Constitution and earned him semi-deification among his Indian brethren.
Hiawatha was not the fanciful figure presented to America by the well-loved poet, Longfellow, nor the imaginary demigod folk hero of the Algonquian legends but a human Indian leader, who, in conquering his own savage murder lust, was able to teach his people how to live in peace.
An Iroquois of the Onondaga Nation, Hiawatha grew to manhood strong, splendid, a magnificent specimen of his time. But it was his intellectual, spiritual, and psychic development which marked him as different and enabled him to transmute his own private sorrow into a new and better pattern of life for all his people.
Together with the legendary law-giver, Degandawida, Hiawatha is credited with founding the Iroquois League of the Five Nations, a free native government which endured for over two hundred years and which played a vital role in the history of the American colonies.
In telling the story of this great Indian sachem, the author provides a fascinating glimpse into a primitive culture and gives the reader a valuable introduction to anthropology.
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