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Tuat Erroneous HiIawaTHa. 
By ALBERT B. REAGAN. 
Hiawatha. hero of Longfellow’s poem of the same name, is not recog- 
nized as a hero god by the Chippewa Indians. Neither the name nor the 
person designated occurs in the mythology of these people. Their god is 
Menibusha, and the only word approaching Hiawatha is Ket’-che-wah’-sah, 
which means “afar off.” Through the kindness of the Indian missionary 
and court-agency interpreter here, Rey. Frank H. Pequette, who is himself 
a Chippewa and has lived and preached in various parts of the Chippewa 
country, I quote his own summing up of this subject: 
‘When a white man asks an American who is the greatest man of his 
country he answers, ‘George Washington.’ But I am here to declare that 
Hiawatha is not the hero of my race. This personage is unknown to the 
Chippewa Indian. 
“The Indian lad sitting in the forest with his bow and arrow, obsery- 
ing the trees and the sky and the sand and the water of the Great Lakes 
and the animals and the fishes, asks himself, *\Who made these?” He cannot 
answer the question himself, so he asks the old medicine man of his tribe. 
‘Menibusha,’ answers the sage. ‘Menibusha made the earth, sky, the sun, 
moon and stars, and the wild things and the fishes, and he made you also, 
my son.’ So says the medicine man of the tribe. Menibusha also made 
the land, the island-continental surface on which we now live. He is the 
first brother of all mankind and now lives in the East. 
“All the Indians before they became Christians (that is, all Chippe- 
was) supposed that Menibusha was the Supreme, the greatest man and god 
of his nation. And when the first white man asked the Indian the ques- 
tion who was their greatest personage the Indian replied, ‘Menibusha.’ 
“Where does he live?’ of course asked the white man. ‘Ket’-che-wah’-sah,’ 
replied the Indian—meaning (that he was) afar off. The white man’s 
ears were not tuned to the Indian sounds used in pronunciation and he 
caught it Hiawatha, which did not mean god, but ‘afar off’; and one great 
white fellow, Longfellow by name, wrote our legends with this unknown 
Hiawatha. But this Hiawatha is not known to us Indians.” 
[11—23008] 
