An Art Reel: The Song of Hiawatha. The Song of Hiawatha is an 1855 epic poem in trochaic tetrameter by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow which features Native American characters. This classic work brgons with the lines: "By the shore of Gitche Gumee | By the shining Big-Sea-Water ... The epic relates the fictional adventures of an Ojibwe warrior named Hiawatha and the tragedy of his love for Minnehaha, a Dakota woman. Events in the story are set in the Pictured Rocks area of Michigan on the south shor