Post Script: By the Shores of Gitchie Gumee on Michigan's Upper Peninsula

The Song of Hiawatha and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan

 One of the things we noted as we were traveling the Upper Peninsula of Michigan was numerous references to Gitchie Gumie  and Hiawatha.

This upper Michigan peninsula, and in particular, the Pictured Rocks on Lake superior near  Munsing, was the site of the poem.   We never got to see these rocks, but have definitely put the Upper Peninsula on the list of places we would like to visit and stay longer.  These pictures come from other sources…

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow  published his poem, The Song of Hiawatha  in 1855.  It is credited with being  the first American epic poem composed completely with North American materials and no European influence.  The meter he chose, however, was a rhythm familiar to those of Finnish descent who made up a great portion of the Upper Peninsula. And still do! 

Longfellow mixed a lot of different Indian traditions to create his poem.  He relied heavily on a man named Henry Schoolcraft who was an Indian agent, and whose name we also ran across frequently.   The Ojibwe Indian’s oral traditions greatly influenced the poem, and 50 years after its publication, one of Longfellows daughters made a pilgrimage to the Pictured Rocks area at the invitation of the Ojibwe Indians, who considered her father to have preserved their history. The poem gave them a great deal of solace in the loss of their culture.   Ironically, Longfellow himself never saw the area!  Here’s the invitation that daughter  Alice Longfellow received written on a piece of birch bark. 

“Ladies: We loved your father. The memory of our people will never die as long as your father’s song lives, and that will live forever. Will you and your husbands and Miss Longfellow come and see us and stay in our royal wigwams on an island in Hiawatha’s playground, in the land of the Objibways? We want you to see us live over again the life of Hiawatha in his own country.” 

You can read her story here: http://www.mynorth.com/My-North/December-2008/The-Trip-to-Hiawatha/index.php?cparticle=1&siarticle=0#artanc

The Song of Hiawatha was an immediate success.  It has been recited by countless school children, and has been the subject of plays, movies, symphonies,  paintings, etc.  and it endures to this day. 

By the shores of Gitche Gumee,

By the shining Big-Sea-Water,

Stood the wigwam of Nokomis,

Daughter of the Moon, Nokomis.

Dark behind it rose the forest,

Rose the black and gloomy pine-trees,

Rose the firs with cones upon them;

Bright before it beat the water,

Beat the clear and sunny water,

Beat the shining Big-Sea-Water.