Ojibwe of the key trade languages of the Great Lakes and the northern Great Plains. The popularity of the epic poem "The Song of Hiawatha", written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in 1855, publicized the Ojibwe culture. The epic contains many toponyms that originate from Ojibwe words. According to Ojibwe oral history and from recordings in birch bark scrolls, the Ojibwe originated from the mouth of the St. Lawrence River on the Atlantic coast of what is now Quebec. They traded widely across the continent for thousands of years as they migrated, and knew of the canoe routes to move north, west
The Poem of the Soul The Poem of the Soul The Poem of the Soul is a series of oil on canvas paintings by Louis Janmot, produced between 1835 and 1881 and totalling eighteen paintings and sixteen charcoal drawings, all inspired by a 2800 verse poem by Janmot himself. The first works in the series were exhibited at the 1855 Exposition Universelle. The series tells of a soul's life on earth, incarnated in a young man, accompanied by his female double. His companion then disappears and he spends the rest of his life alone, as did the artist. The series is now in the Museum