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
Kalevala dogs, wolves and cats. The story deviates from the full "Kalevala", presumably, to make the story more appropriate for children. The "Kalevala" also inspired the American Disney cartoonist Don Rosa to draw a Donald Duck story based on "The Kalevala", called "The Quest for Kalevala". The comic was released in the year of the 150th anniversary of "The Kalevala"'s publication. Franz Anton Schiefner's translation of the "Kalevala" was one inspiration for Longfellow's 1855 poem The Song of Hiawatha, which is written in a similar trochaic tetrameter. Friedrich Reinhold Kreutzwald's Estonian national epic "Kalevipoeg" was inspired by "The Kalevala". Both Väinämöinen