“Tribes of the Eagle, the Panther, and Wolf”: Nineteenth‐Century Ethnographic Verse in the United States and Beyond

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Notes

[1] Street’s indigenous sources for the Iroquois totems and coat of arms were Dr. Wilson and Ely Parker (Donehogawa), an Iroquois who later served as a general in the Civil War and as the first Indian Commissioner of Indian Affairs.

[2] Dozens of ethnographic poems were published in the United States in the first half of the nineteenth century. They include Yamoyden (1820), The Land of Powhatan (1821), Escalala (1824), Sannillac (1831), Pocahontas (1841), Powhatan (1841), Tecumseh (1842), Alhalla (1843), Yonnondio (1844), Ma‐ka‐tai‐me‐she‐kia‐kiak, or Black Hawk (1848), Frontenac (1849) and—most famously—the Song of Hiawatha (1855). This list does not include the many shorter poems on “Indian” themes which appeared in verse collections and/or newspapers and magazines, nor unpublished material in libraries, e.g. by Henry Schoolcraft.

[3] For a discussion of Southey’s “Songs of the American Indians,” see Fulford 147–152.

[4] For a discussion of Australian and New Zealand examples of ethnographic verse, see O’Leary.

[5] Eastburn’s and Sands’ main source for Yamoyden was William Hubbard’s Narrative of the Indian Wars in New England, first published in 1677. Other sources were Carver’s Travels through the Interior Parts of North America, Charlevoix’s History and Description of New France, Colden’s History of the Five Nations of Canada, Gookin’s Historical Collections of the Indians in New England, Heckewelder’s History, Manners and Customs of the Indian Nations, Jefferson’s Notes on the State of Virginia, Mather’s Magnalia and Trumbull’s Complete History of Connecticut.

[6] The main written sources used by Street for Frontenac were Colden’s History of the Five Nations of Canada and Schoolcraft’s Notes on the Iroquois. Others were Charlevoix’s Histoire et Description de la Nouvelle France and various publications by Bouchette, Hennepin and La Hontan. Oral/indigenous sources included Col. Silversmith (Ho‐no‐we‐na‐to), Dr. Wilson and Ely Parker (see above).

[7] For a discussion of the controversy surrounding the authorship of The Ojibway Conquest, see Fulford 283.

[8] For a discussion of Copway and his relation to the period’s Romantic literary discourse, see Fulford 289–90.

[9] Longfellow’s sources included Schoolcraft’s Algic Researches, Oneota, Notes on the Iroquois, and vol. III of Historical and Statistical Information concerning the History, Condition and Prospects of the Indian Tribes of the United States. Longfellow also made use of George Catlin’s Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs and Condition of the North American Indian, John Heckewelder’s History, Manners and Customs of the Indian Nations, John Tanner’s Narrative of the Captivity and Adventures of John Tanner, and George Copway’s Traditional History and Characteristic Sketches of the Ojibway Nation.

[10] Longfellow’s debt to Schoolcraft is extensively detailed by Osborn 101–293. For a discussion of the complex process of translation and adaptation of Native American source material carried out by Schoolcraft (or more accurately, Mrs Schoolcraft), see Bremer 248–252.

[11] For discussion of the inventions, omissions and distortions in Hiawatha, see Pronechen 152–158, Carr 126–138 and Bellin 181–182.

[12] For an extended discussion of the performance of Hiawatha as passion play, see McNally.

[13] See Frontenac 36–7, where Jiskoko is described as having a “soft, elk‐like eye” and a smile that is “bright”; and Balladeadro 30, where the eponymous heroine is said to have “tiny feet” and to sing “love notes sweet.” Like Melville’s European‐looking Fayaway in Typee, Jiskoko and Balladeadro are in fact stereotypical Victorian belles rather than realistic portrayals of Amerindian and Aboriginal women.

[14] For a useful discussion of the limitations of postcolonial criticism when applied to nineteenth‐century texts, see O’Connor.