Minnehaha

Hiawatha and Minnehaha, 1912 sculpture by Jacob Fjelde near Minnehaha Falls in Minneapolis, Minnesota

Minnehaha is a Native American woman documented in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's 1855 epic poem The Song of Hiawatha. She is the lover of the titular protagonist Hiawatha and comes to a tragic end. The name, often said to mean "laughing water", literally translates to "waterfall" or "rapid water" in Dakota.[1]

The figure of Minnehaha inspired later art works such as paintings, sculpture and music. The Death of Minnehaha is a frequent subject for paintings. Minnehaha Falls and her death scene inspired themes in the New World Symphony by Antonín Dvořák.[2] Longfellow's poem was set in a cantata trilogy, The Song of Hiawatha in 1898–1900 by the African-English composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor. Longfellow's poem also inspired Hugo Kaun's symphonic poems "Minnehaha" and "Hiawatha" composed in 1901.[3]

Minnehaha Feeding Birds, Frances Anne Hopkins, ca. 1880
Death of Minnehaha by William de Leftwich Dodge, 1885
John Henry Bufford's cover for The Death of Minnehaha, 1856
  1. ^ Dakota Dictionary Online Archived October 25, 2016, at the Wayback Machine
  2. ^ Elena See (24 July 2014). "The music of Minnehaha Falls". Retrieved 7 May 2016.
  3. ^ "KaunEngl". romana-hamburg.de.