Excerpt from Hiawatha the Story of the Iroquois Sage in Prose and Verse At a time like the present, it may appear a somewhat unprom ising task to present Hiawatha as anything like a historic person, or seek to preserve the' name from the atmosphere of grotesque fable. Yet this, perhaps, is a task that might be undertaken; for when we remember how easily, with the lapse of time, an individual, even in civilized society, becomes invested with an air of romance, we shall hardly feel inclined to question the ex istence of the tendency among rude and uncivilized tribes. It has already been remarked that Mr. Longfellow was per fectly justified in presenting that View of the Indian Sage which he has given in his poem; still'it will perhaps prove interesting to employ our liberty in making a brief comparison of the Indian who appears on his page with the Indian found among the better class of Algic traditions; that is, a comparison of Hiawatha as his character is popularly conceived, and Hiawatha as he possibly was. How, then, does the character of Hiawatha appear in the poem of Mr. Longfellow? First, however, let us hear what Mr. Schoolcraft says of the sources of the poet's information. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.