Hiawatha (/ˌhaɪəˈwɒθə/ HY-ə-WOTH-ə, also US: /-ˈwɔːθə/ -⁠WAW-thə: Haiëñ'wa'tha [hajẽʔwaʔtha][4]), also known as Ayenwatha or Aiionwatha, was a precolonial Native American leader and cofounder of the Iroquois Confederacy.

[5] The events in the legend have been dated to the middle 1100s through the occurrence of an eclipse coincident with the founding of the Iroquois Confederacy.

[Note 1][6] This material and quotations are taken from the Mohawk version of the legend, as related by the prominent chief Seth New house (Dayodekane).

[8] When the founder of the Confederacy, Dekanawidah, known as The Great Peacemaker, first came to Iroquoia, one of the first people he met was Hiawatha, not yet called by that name.

When Dekanawidah came to his cabin, he climbed onto the roof, looked down through the smoke hole, where there was a large kettle of water for cooking a meal of human flesh.

Dekanawidah chanted the words that have since been part of the Iroquois Requickening Ceremony: "I wipe away tears from thy face, using the white fawn-skin of pity ...

A solar eclipse helped convince the Senecas, and the Onondagas were brought in by the power of the other four Nations and by the offer to Tadodaho that he become principal chief.

"In the end the mind of [Tadodaho] was made straight, the crooks were taken out of his body, and Hiawatha combed the snakes out of his hair."

Hiawatha was a skilled orator, and he was instrumental in persuading the Five Nations to accept the Great Peacemaker's vision and band together to become members of the Iroquois confederacy.

During these times of chaos, a leader named Tadodaho, who had despised the idea of peace, targeted and killed Hiawatha's wife and daughters.

Hiawatha and Dekanawidah created the Great Law of Peace, recorded in wampum belts, to solidify the bond between the original five nations of the Iroquois.

Among the names of the fifty traditional Hoyenah (sachems) of the Haudenosaunee, Hiawatha (among others) is a representative of the Mohawk, and Tadodaho of the Onondaga.

Found in the Northeast of America, quahog clam shells are often used for the black and sometimes the white beads of these belts.

[7][12] Longfellow tells the story of a legendary heroic Native man[Note 4] starting from his birth and ending on his ascension to the clouds.