512 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1921. 



mixture of misconception and fallacies. Hiawatha was undoubtedly 

 a historical figure, but in Longfellow's mind was not only identical 

 with Manabozho (Nanabozho, Michabo), but also with Teharonhia- 

 wagon. These names, however, do not designate historical or even 

 mythico-historical figures, but anthropomorphic deities. Manabozho, 

 with his many synonyms, belongs to the Algonkin pantheon and in 

 particular to that of the Ojibwa, and Chibiabos (Chipiapoos) is one 

 of his brothers, while Longfellow makes him a kind of bard and a 

 friend of Hiawatha. Teharonhiawagon resembles in the main Mana- 

 bozho but belongs to the mythico-religious cycles of the Iroquois. 

 Longfellow makes Hiawatha an Ojibwa of Lake Superior, while it 

 is beyond doubt that he was either a Mohawk or an Onondaga of 

 central New York, while Hiawatha's mother bears in the Song a 

 Dakota name, Wenonah. Mudjekeewis, the West Wind, is not only 

 Hiawatha's father, but also his grandfather. The confusion is made 

 still worse because the place of action of the Song is put on the 

 southern shore of Lake Superior. It would be very easy to give 

 more instances of the manj^ ethnologic errors which the poem con- 

 tains. Nevertheless, the spirit of the Song is on the whole decidedly 

 Indian. Its well known literary charms need not be recalled here. 

 To my mind, Hiawatha's Wooing, The Ghosts, and The Famine are 

 among the best parts. 



Two other minor poems of Longfellow dealing with Indians may 

 be mentioned here: The Burial of Minnisink and To the Driving 

 Cloud. The latter relates to an Omaha chieftain visiting an Ameri- 

 can city. 



Fenimore Cooper was hardly 2 years old when the young French 

 viscount Francois Rene de Chateaubriand visited North America 

 in quest of adventures and subjects for his pen. Chateaubriand's 

 stay covered only six or seven months of 1791, and his travels prob- 

 ably did not extend much farther than the Ohio River. Although 

 he undoubtedly went up the Hudson, crossed the country of the Iro- 

 quois, and visited Niagara Falls, we are in doubt as to his further 

 wanderings. Even his Voyage en Amerique is very vague in this 

 respect, and although he casually remarks that he traveled along 

 the banks of the Mississippi, nothing is less proven. The only 

 authentic, though very superficial, description of Indians in the 

 Voyage refers to the Onondaga. As for the chapters on the man- 

 ners and customs, languages, religion, etc., of Indians in general, 

 and on the geography and natural history of what he calls "les 

 Florides," they consist of a curious, confused mixture, obviously 

 copied from various writers, among whom he acknowledges that he 

 owes much to Bartram. 



The principal Indian hero of Chateaubriand is Chactas, a Natchez. 

 First he appears in Atala ; next, though incidentally, in Rene ; and 



