Hiawatha (1913 film) Hiawatha (1913 film) Hiawatha is a 1913 American silent drama film directed by Edgar Lewis and based upon Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's epic poem "The Song of Hiawatha" (1855). The film stars Jesse Cornplanter of the Seneca people and Soon-goot, a 17-year-old unknown actress. The movie is the first feature film to use a cast of American Indians. The story begins along the Lake Superior Michigan shoreline with the appearance of a mighty spirit that tells the Indians a peacekeeper will bring wisdom and unite the warring tribes. Hiawatha is born to Wenonah and after her death her mother Nokomis raises
The Song of Hiawatha "Vision of Columbus" (1787) (rewritten and entitled "The Columbiad" in 1807), were considered derivative. Longfellow provided something entirely new, a vision of the continent's pre-European civilisation in a metre adapted from a Finnish, non-Indo-European source. Soon after the poem's publication, composers competed to set it to music. One of the first to tackle the poem was Emile Karst, whose cantata "Hiawatha" (1858) freely adapted and arranged texts of the poem. It was followed by Robert Stoepel's "Hiawatha: An Indian Symphony", a work in 14 movements that combined narration, solo arias, descriptive choruses and programmatic orchestral interludes. The composer consulted with