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
The Song of Hiawatha absurd, and savage as the groundwork is, Mr. LONGFELLOW has woven over it a profuse wreath of his own poetic elegancies." But, he concludes, "Hiawatha" "will never add to Mr. LONGFELLOW's reputation as a poet." Thomas Conrad Porter, a professor at Franklin and Marshall College, believed that Longfellow had been inspired by more than the metrics of the "Kalevala." He claimed "The Song of Hiawatha" was "Plagiarism" in the "Washington National Intelligencer" of November 27, 1855. Longfellow wrote to his friend Charles Sumner a few days later: "As to having 'taken many of the most striking incidents of the Finnish