308 TRANSACTIONS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. [VoL. VI. 
which the deep imagination of the Iroquois might fitly engender. The 
Algonguins held a simpler faith and maintained that the thunder was a 
bird who built its nest on the pinnacle of towering mountains.(y) Mrs. 
Schoolcraft carried her store of poetic lore with her to Macinac, and her 
accomplished husband states that the legends he gave to the world 
were related to him by the Chippewas of Lake Superior(z) Mr, 
Schoolcraft’s industry was undoubted and he had an extensive personal 
knowledge of Indian life and character. His large illustrated work on 
American Indian tribes was published by the U.S. Government. Mr. 
Parkman, Dr. O’Meara and others criticized his mode of handling the 
subject, and charge him with grammatical errors. In his volume “ The 
Hiawatha Legends,” many fanciful stories of Manabozu occur, but not 
a fact or fiction about Hiawatha. 
“Shooting the Thunder Bird,” is practised by the Chippewas and 
Crees. At Broken Head River, Lake Winnipeg, a Saulteau Indian, 
with his daughter and nephew, were recently in their tent during a 
violent storm. “I will shoot the Thunder-Bird,” said the man, directing 
his gun towards a dark cloud. But Jupiter Pluvius quickly resented 
the intrusion. As the gun flashed a bolt from the cloud followed its course, 
the Indian and his nephew fell dead. Compare the Iroquois description 
with Shelley’s lines in “ The Cloud :” 
** Sublime on the towers of my skiey bowers, 
Lightning, my pilot, sits, 
In a cavern under is fettered the Thunder, 
It struggles and howls at fits.” 
Mr. Longfellow follows in the wake of Schoolcraft, deriving the nomen- 
clature and much of the substance of his Indian Edda from this source. 
Mr. Schoolcraft’s two volumes of Aleve Researches were published in 1839. 
Let us shortly consider how and why it is that, through the offices of the 
famous New England poet, and his striking versification, the Canadian 
and Algic character of these poetic legends is to some extent lost sight 
of. Horatio Hale writes : “ Hiawatha was originally an Onondaga chief, 
noted for his magnanimous and peace loving disposition. Being driven 
from his nation and the home of the Onondagas in New York State, by 
the wiles and threats of a rival Atatorho, he fled eastward to the 
powerful tribe of the Caniengas or Mohawks. After various adventures 
he reached the headwaters of the Mohawk River. He was adopted by 
Mohawks and was made a high chief of the nation.” “When by 
joint efforts the confederacy known as the League of the Iroquois 
(y) “Conspiracy of Pontiac,’’ Chap. 1. 
(z) ‘Introduction to Hiawatha Legends.” 
