The Song of Hiawatha is based on the legends and stories of many North American Indian tribes but especially those of the Ojibway Indians of northern Michigan Wisconsin and Minnesota.

In the summer of 1854, Longfellow wrote in his diary "I have at length hit upon a plan for a poem on the American Indians, which seems to me the right one and the only. It is to weave together their beautiful traditions as whole." What emerged the next year was "The Song of Hiawatha," a composite of legends, folklore, myth, and characters that presents, in short, lilting lines ...(展开全部)