Minnehaha

This article is about the mythical Native American character. For other uses, see Minnehaha (disambiguation).
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.