"SONG OF HIAWATHA"

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 31, 5 August 1930, Page 4

"SONG OF HIAWATHA"

CHORAL PRODUCTION

STORY OF LONGFELLOW'S

POEM

(Written for "The Post" by T, Lindsay Buick, F.R.Hist.S.)

To-morrow evening there will be snug at the Town Hall, by the Royal Wellington Choral Society, as their contribution to our Music Festival, two sections of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor's setting of "The Song of Hiawatha." This will bo by no means the initial rendering of the work in Wellington, but the story is so full of charm, the music so full of beauty that repetition serves to reveal to us new excellences, rather than to weary us with the burden of an oft told tale.

As the title suggests, the "Song" is founded upon the widely known North American Indian legend which Henry Wadsworth Longfellow found recorded in that ponderous work of SehooleralVs, "The History, Conditions, and Prospects of tho Indian Tribes of tho United States." Longfellow at this time was Professor of Modern Languages at Harvard University, and was enjoying a life of peculiar felicity and serenity for one who was engaging in literary pursuits. He was American born,;but of most pronounced Yorkshire stock. From his father, Stephen Longfellow, he inherited a rare physique, and from his mother, Zilpah Wadsworth, a rarer mentality. By every account and standard she was'a beautiful woman, who found in the Bible her literary treasure, and in tho Psalms her greatest joy. From her Henry, tho second son of the family, received that gift of "divine.hunger" which finds its food in tho deep imagining of the mind, and in the deeper searchings of the soul, longfellow was not a prodigy in poetry, but early he drifted into the stringing together of words, the fitting together of phrases which were so unusual that everyone but his father thought them remarkable. He obtained his "chair" at the University because of the striking merit with which he translated an Horatian ode, and from that day he never looked back. His early poetical output was tuneful in measure, graphic in description, and much of it was marked by an admirable philosophy, but his critics were constantly harping upon the fact that as yet he had done nothing "national." His poems might be tho poems of any poet; his lyrics those of any land. What America wanted at that moment was a national poet; one who could sing a song rich in American theme; redolent of American soil.

This criticism did not fall on listless ears, for Longfellow was ever conscious of the beauty and greatness of his country. In these circumstances he went in search of a "national" subject, and on 22nd June, 1554, we find him making this entry in his diary:

"I have at length hit upon a plan for a poem on the American Indians which seems to me the right one. It is to weave together their beautiful traditions into a narrative. I have hit upon a measure, too, which I think tho right and only one for such a theme."

This was the inspiration he received from a perusal of what he described as "Schoolcraft's great book on the Indians; three huge quartos, ill-digested, and without an index." This work revealed to the poet that, although the traditional view of thc»Eed Man was that of a cruel and crafty savage, he was none the less a person of ideals, of imagination, and of poetic fancy. His wild life on. the prairies, ■in tho primeval forests, and by tho shores of the great lakes had linked him close to Nature, and in "the intimacy of his nature studies he had built up a world of imagery, peopled with mystic beings. Of these, Hiawatha was one. A person of miraculous birth, child of tho West Wind and of the beautiful Wenonah, he had been sent by the Great Spirit, the Master of Life, Gitehe Manito, as an apostle of peaco to tho people; to bring to them the green loaves and golden grain of the maize; to surge like a great water-plough through their rivers and free them from obstructions; to preside over their forest life, and their fisheries. Hiawatha was in all things a teacher, and in nothing so much as in the arts of peace. He was blessed because his prayers were never lifted ivp for his own aggrandisement, but always "for the profit of the people, for advantage of the nation." But Hiawatha was not alone in this world of make-believe. He had friends who helped, and some who hindered. Thus the melody of laughter and music was the Work of Chibiabos, the spirit ruler of the land of mirth. The story teller was lagoo, whose yarns were both long and tough. Zanadizze was the gambler of the period, the man who taught them to rig the thimble, and pursue the! elusive pea. Pau-puk-keewis was .the storm-fool, the imp behind the wind, whose frolics, were responsible for the tree leaves dancing, for the breaking of branches, the building of sand dunes, and for chasing fleecy clouds across the sky.

Hiawatha and his friends were "not local possessions. No one had a monopoly of them, for they were known alike in Delaware camps, in Mohawk wigwams, by .Huron lakes, and on far Sioux prairies. Like Maui aud the demi-gods of the Polynesians, they were national characters, known to every tribe, but often under different names. Longfellow's first impulse was to call his poem "Manabozho," but after a few days' reflection he decided to follow the simpler and more musical form of the Ojibway tribe,; and call it "Hiawatha." With the legitimate legends of-this priest and prophet he blended, some stories drawn from the lore of other tribes, but equally poetic and picturesque in character.

It will not be possible to follow the poem in detail here. It can be found in any volume of the poet's works, and as poetry its reading is pleasant as the air of an Indian summer, limpjd as the water of an Indian stream. Upon its publication in November, 1855, "Hiawatha" made an immediate and permanent success. It bocame the most popular literary triumph of the century, and fully' one hundred thousand copies were sold within two years. "Scholars and simple, old and young, found it fresh and good." It was the poet's answer to his critics, for "Hiawatha" was rich in all that was most romantic in America!) life, and Longfellow, who was, according to his conceptions, a devout man, couJd with the Psalmist of old say: "The Lord hath put a new song into my mouth." Only three sections of this poem have beon set to music, and of these only two will be sung to-morrow night, "The Wedding Feast sof Hiawatha" and "The Death of Minnehalia." The setting is thq work of Samuel Coleridge Taylor, a London-born musical genius of West African lineage, whose parents, with some prescience of his talents, found for him a name by reversing that of the English poet. "The Wedding Feast" music, now regarded as a British classic, was first unobtrusively played at a students' concert, given at the Boyal College of Music on 11th November, 1898. The second portion followed as the result of a request by the committee of the North Staffordshire Musical Festival, that tho young composer should contribute a choral work for their 18D9 festival, and it was produced at Hnnlcy in 0-cl.obrr of (hat yfnr.

The Jufjcndary Hiawatha, although :i person of superhuman uu'.vurs, was still tamw ®M*y.gii is, desiw a maire ß

"Thus the youthful Hiawatha said within himself and pondered": .As uu,to tlio bow the cord is, Ko unto the man the woman is, Though she Lends him, she obeys him. Though she draws him, yet she follows, Useless each without the other. This philosophy of life was inspired by a fleeting vision he once obtained of the lovely Minnehaha, "Laughing Water," daughter of the old arrowmaker, as she sat at the door of her father's wigwam, near the edge of the Little Falls, "in the land of the Daco- ■ talis." Thither Hiawatha went in his magic moccasins, and in the hope that their union might typify the union of ' the warring tribes, he wooed and won ■ the dark-eyed maiden. To his own wig- ; warn, noar to the Pictured Rocks, he i brought his bride, who was to be "the sunlight, the moonlight, and the firelight" to his people. Then was given the wedding feast of which the soloists and the choristers will sing. There was food, the choicest that forest, field, river, and lake could provide; there was clear water from the streams, and the red-stone pipes of peace filled with tobacco from'the South-land, "mixed ■ with herbs and leaves of fragrance." The feasting done, for the entertainment of the guests, Pau-Puk-Keewis is invited to dance the "Beggar's Dance"; Chibiabos to sing his favourI itc song, "Onaway Awake"; and lagoo to tell his tallest tale, that of "Osseo the Magician," who descended from the Evening Star. Thus the wedding banquet ended, And the Y.'eddinß guests departed. Leaving 'Hiawatha happy With the night and Minncliaha. The second portion of the poemwhieh has been enshrined in music, is the antithesis of that just described. Hitherto Hiawatha may have had his anxious moments, due to the waywardness of the tribes, but by and largo his days had been pleasant. He had tasted to the full the joys of life, and in none had ho been happier than in the hours spent with Minnchahn. Now he was to suffer the pangs of a frost—"a killing frost.". 0 tho long and dreary winter! 0 tho cold and cruel winter! Ever thicker, thicker, thicker Froze the ice.on lake and river, Ever deeper, deeper, deeper, Fell the snow o'er all the landscape. In these circumstances the huntsman could scarce force his way through tho door of his wigwam, the forest life had departed, there were no deer to be shot; no birds to be snared, no Jish to be caught. Grim scarcity stalked through the land, and although Hiawatha hunted diligently, the earth was desolate, and every night he returned '' empty handed,, heavy hearted." Then in his absence there stole into his lodge two spectres, Bukadawin (Famine) and Ahkosewin (Fever), who laid hold of Minnehaha. ' In that bitter hour he, with his face uplifted, cried to the Great Spirit, Gitche Manito: Give your children i'o.od 0 Father! Give ,'us food or we must perish! Give me food for Minnehaha, For my dying Minnohaha. These supplications to the Master of Life were of no avail,' and in her delirium Minnehaha fauciod she heard her native waters calling her, fancied she saw her father beckoning to her; fancied she felt the icy fingers of Pauguk (Death) clasping hers in the darkness, and, uttering a piercing cry, Minnehaha was dead. "Far away amid the forest, miles away among the mountains," Hiawatha heard that cry, and hastened homo, only to find old Nokomis rocking to and fro and moaning as women do. "Then he saw his lovely.Minnehaha lying dead and cold before him, and his bursting heart within him, uttered such a cry of anguish that the forest moaned and shuddered, tho stars in Heaven shook ami trembled with his anguish." For seven days and nights the tribal obsequies continued. "Then they buried Minnehaha. In the snow a grave they made her. In the forest deep and darksome —underneath the moaning hemlocks—clothed her in her richest garments, wrapped her m her robes of ermine; thus they buried Minnehaha." The final ceremony was the malting of the watchfires to light her soul "to the i Islands of the Blest," and then Hiawatha, realising that his own destiny was soon to be fulfilled, took of Minnehaha a touching farewell, promising soon to be with her in the realms ot Indian immortality. Farewell, 0 my Liiughinc Water! All my heart is burled with yon! All my thoughts go onward with you! , j Come not back again to labour, Tome not back again to suffer Where the Famine and the Fever Wear the heart and waste the body. Soon my task will bo completed, Soon your footsteps I shall follow To the Islands of the Blessed, To the Kingdom ot Ponemah ! To the Land of the Hereafter!