Picture-Writing

Quiz — "Picture-Writing" (Canto XV of The Song of Hiawatha) by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

1. Recall – Form & Meter: What distinctive metrical pattern does Longfellow use throughout The Song of Hiawatha, and from which European epic tradition did he adapt it?

1. Recall – Speaker & Setting: Who is the speaker at the center of this canto, and what is the cultural identity attributed to him in Longfellow's epic?

1. Recall – Key Image: How is the Great Spirit (Gitche Manito) visually represented in Hiawatha's picture-writing system, and what quality of the divine does this image emphasize?

1. Recall – Key Image: What does an inverted clan totem painted on a grave-post communicate, and why is the act of inversion symbolically significant?

1. Comprehension – Problem & Solution: What central problem motivates Hiawatha to invent picture-writing? Identify at least two specific consequences of the absence of a recording system that the canto describes.

1. Comprehension – Symbolism: The canto pairs a white circle with a darkened circle to represent two opposing concepts. What are those concepts, and what idea does their shared shape suggest about the relationship between them?

1. Comprehension – Tonal Shift: How does the tone of the canto change when it moves into the love-song sequence, and how does Longfellow signal that love is treated as uniquely powerful within the new writing system?

1. Analysis – Historical Context: Longfellow drew heavily on the ethnographic work of Henry Rowe Schoolcraft when composing The Song of Hiawatha. How does this source material shape the content of Canto XV specifically, and what broader cultural ambition did Longfellow's epic serve for American readers in 1855?

1. Analysis – Theme: Explain how "Picture-Writing" connects the themes of memory and mortality. In your answer, refer to at least two specific images or moments from the canto as discussed in the analysis.

1. Analysis – Symbols & Meaning: The serpent representing the Evil Spirit is described as perpetually gazing upward toward heaven. What does this detail add to the symbol beyond a simple equation of serpent with evil?

Answer Key

1. Longfellow uses trochaic tetrameter, adapted from the Finnish epic Kalevala. The steady, drum-like rhythm gives the poem a ritualistic, ceremonial quality.

1. The speaker and protagonist is Hiawatha, portrayed as an Ojibwe (Chippewa) leader and cultural hero.

1. The Great Spirit is represented by an egg with four projecting points radiating outward in all directions, emphasizing divine omnipresence — the idea that the sacred exists everywhere simultaneously.

1. An inverted totem signals that the clan member associated with that symbol has died. The inversion is significant because it takes the same image used to represent a living identity and, simply by reversing it, transforms it into a marker of death — the same sign carrying opposite meaning through orientation alone.

1. The central problem is that great deeds, wise words, and cultural knowledge are disappearing because there is no system to record them. Specific consequences include: the wisdom of prophets (Jossakeeds) and shamans (Wabenos) dying with the speaker and failing to reach future generations, and grave-posts bearing no markings so the dead cannot be identified beyond basic recognition — their clan, totem, and name are lost.

1. The white circle represents Life and the darkened circle represents Death. Their shared shape implies that death is not the absence of life but its counterpart — the two states mirror each other, differing only in light rather than in fundamental form.

1. The tone shifts from ceremonial and reverent to softer, tender, and playfully witty. Longfellow signals love's unique power by describing it as more dangerous than war or hunting, placing it at the climactic end of the symbol-sequence and giving the lover a vivid scarlet figure — marking intense passion and visibility.

1. Schoolcraft's ethnographic research documented Ojibwe mnemonic symbols used in songs and ceremonies, directly informing the specific symbols Hiawatha invents in Canto XV. More broadly, Longfellow's epic was conceived to provide the young United States with a national mythology comparable to the great European epics, satisfying a cultural appetite for an indigenous American heroic tradition.

1. Memory and mortality are intertwined throughout the canto. The unmarked grave-posts show that without writing, the dead are forgotten — their identities erased. The inverted totem on the grave-post reclaims memory for the deceased by preserving clan identity in death. Together, these images argue that picture-writing is a victory over oblivion: to record is to resist death.

1. The detail of the serpent gazing upward toward heaven adds a sense of active malice and ambition to the symbol — the Evil Spirit is not merely present but scheming, perpetually oriented against the divine. This makes evil dynamic and threatening rather than passive, giving the symbol narrative tension beyond a simple visual shorthand.