Minnehaha Minnehaha Minnehaha is a fictional Native American woman documented in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's 1855 epic poem "The Song of Hiawatha". She is the lover of the titular protagonist Hiawatha and comes to a tragic end. The name, often said to mean "laughing water", literally translates to "waterfall" or "rapid water" in Dakota. The figure of Minnehaha inspired later art works such as paintings, sculpture and music. "The Death of Minnehaha" is a frequent subject for paintings. Minnehaha Falls and her death scene inspired themes in the 'New World' symphony by Antonín Dvořák. Longfellow's poem was set in a cantata trilogy,
The Song of Hiawatha of Hiawatha)". During World War I, Owen Rutter, a British officer of the Army of the Orient, wrote "Tiadatha", describing the city of Salonica, where several hundred thousand soldiers were stationed on the Macedonian Front in 1916–1918: Another parody was "Hakawatha" (1989), by British computer scientist Mike Shields, writing under the pen name F. X. Reid, about a frustrated computer programmer. The poem was also parodied in three cartoon shorts, all of which featured inept protagonists who are beset by comic calamities while hunting. The connection is made plain by the scenes being introduced by a mock-solemn intonation of lines