Opening of the book
THE MYTH OF HIAWATHA,
AND
OTHER ORAL LEGENDS,
MYTHOLOGIC AND ALLEGORIC, OF
THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS.
By
HENRY R. SCHOOLCRAFT, LL.D.
PHILADELPHIA:
J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO.
LONDON:
TRÜBNER & CO.
1856.
Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year
1856, by
HENRY R. SCHOOLCRAFT,
in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United
States in and for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
TO
PROF. HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW.
SIR:—
Permit me to dedicate to you, this volume of
Indian myths and legends, derived from the storytelling circle of the native wigwams. That they indicate the possession, by the Vesperic tribes, of mental resources of a very characteristic kind
—furnishing, in fact, a new point from which to
judge the race, and to excite intellectual
sympathies, you have most felicitously shown in
your poem of Hiawatha. Not only so, but you have
demonstrated, by this pleasing series of pictures
of Indian life, sentiment, and invention, that
the theme of the native lore reveals one of the
true sources of our literary independence. Greece
and Rome, England and Italy, have so long
furnished, if they have not exhausted, the field
of poetic culture, that it is, at least,
refreshing to find both in theme and metre,
something new.
Very truly yours,
HENRY R. SCHOOLCRAFT.
PREFACE.
There is but one consideration of much moment necessary to be premised respecting these legends and myths. It is this: they are versions of oral relations from the lips of the Indians, and are transcripts of the thought and invention of the aboriginal mind. As such, they furnish illustrations of Indian character and opinions on subjects which the ever-cautious and suspicious minds of this people have, heretofore, concealed. They place the man altogether in a new phasis. They reflect him as he is.
They show us what he believes, hopes, fears, wishes, expects, worships, lives for, dies for. They are always
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