The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral
Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians, by Henry R. Schoolcraft

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Title: The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians

Author: Henry R. Schoolcraft

Release Date: May 27, 2007 [EBook #21620]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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THE MYTH OF HIAWATHA,

AND

OTHER ORAL LEGENDS, MYTHOLOGIC AND ALLEGORIC,

OF THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS.

BY

HENRY R. SCHOOLCRAFT, LL.D.

PHILADELPHIA:
J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO.

LONDON:
TRUeBNER & CO.

1856.

Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1856, by

HENRY 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 very characteristic kind--furnishing, in
fact, a new point from which to judge the race, and to excite
intellectual sympathies, you have most felicitously shown in your
poem of Hiawatha. Not only so, but you have demonstrated, by this
pleasing series of pictures of Indian life, sentiment, and
invention, that the theme of the native 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 to find
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