Hiawatha, the Messiah of the Ojibway of America" and was largely a photographed stage play with Longfellow's words spoken in a natural surrounding. Hiawatha, the Messiah of the Ojibway Hiawatha, the Messiah of the Ojibway is a 1903 dramatic short film shot in Canada directed by the American pioneering cinematographer and director Joe Rosenthal, based on the Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's famous poem, "The Song of Hiawatha", made in Desbarats, Ontario, with a cast of Ojibway First Nations people. According to the "Canadian Journal of Film Studies", it was the first dramatic narrative film to be shot in Canada. At 15 minutes, "Hiawatha" was considerably longer than
The Song of Hiawatha Al Bowlly's "Hiawatha’s Lullaby" (1933). Modern composers have written works with the Hiawatha theme for young performers. They include the English musician Stanley Wilson's "Hiawatha, 12 Scenes" (1928) for first-grade solo piano, based on Longfellow's lines, and Soon Hee Newbold's rhythmic composition for strings in Dorian mode (2003), which is frequently performed by youth orchestras. British rock band The Sweet reference Hiawatha and Minnehaha in their 1972 hit "Wig Wam Bam". Some performers have incorporated excerpts from the poem into their musical work. Johnny Cash used a modified version of "Hiawatha's Vision“ as the opening piece on "Johnny Cash Sings