In the introduction, the author recalls the musician Navadagu, who once sang a song about Hiawatha in ancient times:
About his wonderful birth
About his great life:
How fasted and prayed
How did Hiawatha work
So that his people would be happy
So that he goes to goodness and truth.
The supreme deity of the Indians, Gitchi Manito - the Lord of Life - “created all the nations”, drawing a riverbed through the valleys with his finger, made a pipe from clay and lit it. Seeing the smoke of the Tube of Peace rising to heaven, the leaders of all the tribes gathered:
Choktos and Comanches walked
There were Shoshone and Omogi,
Hurons and Mandeans walked
Delaware and Mogoki,
Blackfoot and Pony,
Ojibwei and Dakota.
Gitchi Manito urges the warring tribes to reconcile and live “like brothers”, and predicts the appearance of a prophet who will show them the way to salvation. Obeying the Lord of Life, the Indians plunge into the waters of the river, wash off the paint of war, light pipes and set off on the return trip.
Having defeated the huge bear Misha Mokwu, Majekivis becomes Lord of the West Wind, while he gives other winds to the children: East - to Webon, South - to Chavondazi, North - to the evil Kabibonokka.
“In time immemorial, / In time immemorial”, beautiful Nokomis, the daughter of night lights, fell right on the blooming valley right from the month. There, in the valley, Nokomis gave birth to a daughter and named her Venona. When her daughter grew up, Nokomis repeatedly warned her against the spells of Majekivis, but Venona did not obey her mother.
And the son of sorrow was born
Tender passions and sorrows
Wondrous mystery - Hiawatha.
The cunning Madjekivis soon left Venona, and she died of grief. Hiawatha was raised and raised by a grandmother. As an adult, Hiawatha puts on magic loafers, takes magic gloves, sets off in search of his father, eager to avenge his mother’s death. Hiawatha begins the battle with Majekivis and forces him to retreat. After a three-day battle, the father asks Hiawatha to stop the fight. Madjekivis is immortal; he cannot be defeated. He calls on his son to return to his people, clear the rivers, make the land fruitful, kill the monsters, and promises to make him, after his death, sovereign of the Northwest wind.
In the wilderness of Hiawatha fasts for seven nights and days. He turns to Gitchi Manito with prayers for the good and happiness of all tribes and peoples, and as if in response to his wigwam, a young man Mondamin appears, with golden curls and green and yellow robes. For three days, Hiawatha fights with the messenger of the Lord of Life. On the third day, he defeats Mondamin, buries him and then does not stop visiting his grave. Above the grave, green stems grow one after another, this is another embodiment of Mondamin - corn, food sent to the people of Gitchi Manito.
Hiawatha builds a pie from the birch bark, fastening it with the roots of temrak - larch, making a frame from the branches of cedar, decorates it with hedgehog needles, and stains it with juice of berries. Then, together with his friend, the strongman Quasindom, Hiawatha sailed along the Takvamino River and cleaned it of snags and shallows. In the Gitchi-Gumi Gulf, Hiawatha throws a fishing rod three times to catch the Great Sturgeon - Mishe-Namu. Misha-Nama swallows the pie with Hiawatha, and he, being in the womb of the fish, squeezes the heart of the huge king of fish with all his might until he dies. Then Hiawatha defeats the evil wizard Majisogwon - the Pearl Feather, who is guarded by scary snakes.
Hiawatha finds his wife, the beautiful Minnehaga of the Dakota tribe. At the wedding feast in honor of the bride and groom, the handsome and mocker Po-Pok-Kivis dances, the musician Chaybayabos sings a tender song, and old Yagu tells an amazing legend about the wizard Osseo, who descended from the Evening Star.
To protect the crops from spoilage, Hiawatha tells Minnehage to go around naked fields in the darkness of the night, and she obeys obediently, “without embarrassment and without fear”. Hiawatha catches the Raven King, Kagagi, who dared to bring a flock of birds to the crops, and tied him on the roof of his wigwam for caution.
Hiawatha comes up with letters, "so that future generations / It was possible to distinguish between them."
Fearing the noble aspirations of Hiawatha, evil spirits make an alliance against him and stoke his closest friend musician Chaybayabos in the waters of the Gitai-Gumi. Hiawatha gets sick from grief, and he is healed with the help of spells and magic dances.
The impudent handsome Po-Pok-Kivis teaches men of his tribe to play dice and beat them mercilessly. Then, getting excited and knowing moreover that Hiawatha is absent, Po-Pok-Kivis ruins his wigwam. Upon returning home, Hiawatha sets off in pursuit of Pok Pok Kivis, and he, fleeing, finds himself on a beaver dam and asks the beavers to turn him into one of them, only bigger and higher than everyone else. Beavers agree and even elect him as their leader. Then Hiawatha appears on the dam. Water breaks through the dam, and the beavers hastily hide. Po-Pok-Kivis, however, cannot follow them because of its size. But Hiawatha only succeeds in catching him, but not in killing him. The Po-Pok-Kivis spirit escapes and takes on the form of man again. Running away from Hiawatha, Po-Pok-Kivis turns into a geese, only bigger and stronger than everyone else. This destroys him - he cannot cope with the wind and falls to the ground, but again runs, and Hiawatha manages to cope with his enemy only by calling lightning and thunder to help.
Hiawatha loses another of his friends - the strongman Quasinda, who was killed by the pygmies who hit him in the crown with a “blue spruce cone”, while he was floating in a pie along the river.
A harsh winter comes, and ghosts appear in the Hiawatha wigwam - two women. They sit gloomily in the corner of the wigwam, without saying a word, just grabbing the best pieces of food. So many days pass, and then one day Hiawatha wakes up in the middle of the night from their sighs and crying. Women say that they are the souls of the dead and came from the islands of the Afterlife to instruct the living: you do not need to torture the dead with fruitless sorrow and calls to return back, you do not need to put either furs, jewelry, or clay cups in the graves - just a little food and fire on the road. Four days, while the soul reaches the country of the Afterlife, it is necessary to burn bonfires, illuminating her path. Then the ghosts say goodbye to Hiawatha and disappear.
In the villages of the Indians, famine begins. Hiawatha goes hunting, but to no avail, and the Minnehaga weakens day by day and dies. Hiawatha, full of sorrow, buries his wife and burns a funeral pyre for four nights. Saying goodbye to the Minnehaga, Hiawatha promises to meet her soon "in the realm of the bright Understanding, / Infinite, eternal life."
Yagu returns to the village from a long hike and tells that he saw the Big Sea and the winged cake "more than a whole grove of pines." In this boat, Yagu saw a hundred warriors whose faces were painted white and their chins were covered with hair. The Indians laugh, considering the story of Yagu another fiction. Only Hiawatha does not laugh. He reports that he had a vision - a winged shuttle and bearded pale-faced strangers. They should be greeted with affection and greetings, as Gitchi Manito ordered.
Hiawatha says that the Lord of Life has revealed the future to him: he saw the “thick rati” of peoples moving to the West.
Their dialects were different,
But one heart beat in them,
And boiled relentlessly
Their fun job:
The axes in the woods rang
Cities in the meadows smoked
On rivers and lakes
Sailed with lightning and thunder
Inspired Pies.
But the future opened by Hiawatha is not always radiant: he also sees Indian tribes dying in the struggle with each other.
Hiawatha, followed by the rest of the Indians, warmly greeted the pale-faced people who arrived on the boat and shared the truths proclaimed by the mentor of the pale-faced, “their prophet is dressed in black,” the principles of the Christian religion, and the stories “about St. Mary the Virgin, / About her the eternal Son. "
The guests of Hiawatha fall asleep in his wigwam, tormented by heat, and he, having said goodbye to Nokomis and his people and bequeathing to heed the wise instructions of the guests sent from the kingdom of light, floats away in his pie at Sunset, to the Land of Understanding, "to the Blessed Islands - to the kingdom / Infinite, eternal life! ”
