Песнь о Гайавате. Поэмы. Стихотворения

"The Song of Hiawatha" is a poetic exposition of the myths of the North American Indians of the pre-Columbian era, mainly from the Ojibwe tribe living near the Great Lakes in the states of Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin. Hiawatha, the legendary Ojibwe demigod chief, probably lived in the 16th century.

Not all of the legends set out in the Song of... are associated with Hiawatha; some of them exist in the form of independent tales, for example, the Story of the Four Winds, the Duel of Spring and Winter, or the Tale of the Son of the Evening Star.

The historical Hiawatha also could hardly have met with the Jesuit missionaries described in the epilogue; the first contact of this kind took place about a hundred years later. The poem is interesting not so much for its ethnographic and historical accuracy, but because it reproduces the picture of the world of the American Indians.