Hiawatha

Timeline

1. c. 1400Onondaga · Great Lakes regionIn traditions recounted by Mohawk Seth Newhouse and others, Deganawida first converted a cannibal, gave him the name Hiawatha ('He Who Combines Things'), and charged him with persuading the cruel Onondaga chief Tadodaho. Hiawatha was repeatedly obstructed in council; after his wife and daughters were said to have died of sorcery he departed with a wampum belt, later received mourning rites in Mohawk country, and jointly established the Great Law of Peace with Deganawida. Through his oratory he compensated for Deganawida's stutter and persuaded the Five Nations to join.
2. c. 1400Haudenosaunee nations · Great Lakes regionTradition holds that Hiawatha and Deganawida successively persuaded the Mohawk, Oneida, and Cayuga, and used omens such as an eclipse to persuade the Seneca, finally winning Tadodaho's acceptance of the chief place in council. The Tuscarora only became the sixth nation in 1722 and have nothing to do with Hiawatha himself. Franco-Indian contact in the St. Lawrence Valley in the late 16th century is later history of the Confederacy and cannot be taken as evidence of Hiawatha's activity in the 1580s. Longfellow's 1855 poem borrowed his name to tell the Manabozho myth, which is not the same narrative as Haudenosaunee tradition.