Hiawatha and Minnehaha Hiawatha and Minnehaha Hiawatha and Minnehaha is a sculpture by Jacob Fjelde that has stood in Minnehaha Park in Minneapolis since the early twentieth century. Now a popular fixture of the park, its placement there was originally controversial. In 1855, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow published a book-length poem entitled "The Song of Hiawatha". Longfellow never visited Minnesota, but he set his poem among the Ojibwe and Dakota of the region. The poem's story line was based on traditional Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) tales, as recorded, sometimes incorrectly, by Henry Rowe Schoolcraft. "The Song of Hiawatha" was widely read and had significant cultural influence
The Song of Hiawatha absurd, and savage as the groundwork is, Mr. LONGFELLOW has woven over it a profuse wreath of his own poetic elegancies." But, he concludes, "Hiawatha" "will never add to Mr. LONGFELLOW's reputation as a poet." Thomas Conrad Porter, a professor at Franklin and Marshall College, believed that Longfellow had been inspired by more than the metrics of the "Kalevala." He claimed "The Song of Hiawatha" was "Plagiarism" in the "Washington National Intelligencer" of November 27, 1855. Longfellow wrote to his friend Charles Sumner a few days later: "As to having 'taken many of the most striking incidents of the Finnish