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 (Coleridge-Taylor) was published as The Song of Hiawatha and had its first complete performance in 1900, at the Royal Albert Hall. The later parts of the overall work were not nearly as successful as the first part, "Hiawatha's Wedding Feast", which continued to be regarded as a work in its own right and received many hundreds of performances in the UK and overseas countries such as the USA, Canada, South Africa and New Zealand. It became so famous in Britain that for many years it rivalled Handel's "Messiah" and Mendelssohn's "Elijah" in the public's affections. Nothing else he ever wrote equalled