Minnehaha

This bust was one of the first works Edmonia Lewis created after moving from the United States to Rome in the 1860s to further her sculpting career. Minnehaha is a character from U.S. poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s The Song of Hiawatha, based on an older Ojibwe legend. The tragic story centers around Hiawatha and Minnehaha, lovers from different Native American tribes. Lewis’s mother was likely of Ojibwe ancestry, and Lewis recalled selling souvenir art with her mother in upstate New York as a child. Nineteenth century reviewers often equated Lewis’s identity with Minnehaha, with one critic commenting, “No happier illustrations of Longfellow’s most original poem were ever made than these by the Indian sculptor.”