In 1855 Henry W. Longfellow published his epic poem The Song of Hiawatha. Longfellow drew heavily on Ojibwe culture and traditions for inspiration. Forty-five years later in 1900 his daughter Alice Longfellow and other members of the family were invited to attend a dramatic performance of that work given by the Ojibwe in their homelands near the northern tip of Lake Huron in Ontario, Canada. The invitation was extended by George Kabaoosa, grandson of noted Ojibwe chief Shingwauk who died in 1854, only a year before The Song of Hiawatha's publication. The production was deemed a great success and began a tradition that lasted for over thirty years, and saw the pageant performed in the United States and Europe.
One element of that inaugural performance in 1900 attended by Alice Longfellow was a ceremony inducting her and other present family members into the Ojibwe tribe. Those who were accorded this honor received certificates made from birchbark that marked the occasion. Five birchbark documents relating to the 1900 Hiawatha pageant are in the Longfellow House collection, including the original invitation and the piece pictured above, given specifically to Alice Longfellow. The certificates were inscribed in the Ojibwe language with family members’ individual adoptive names, in Alice’s case this was “Ohdahnewasenoque”, translated as “First Flash of Lightning”.
The birchbark certificate, or scroll, is an example of a type of wiigwaasabak (plural: wiigwaasabakoon). They were used for a variety of purposes including ceremonial functions and to record historical information. Writing was done on the bark’s surface with a stylus of bone, wood or other material, and occasionally charcoal would be rubbed into the etched lines to provide greater definition to the markings. The pieces presented to the Longfellow family members were edged with tightly bound reeds stitched around the border. Alice’s own certificate includes a circular leather medallion, with an image of a long-legged bird stamped into it, attached with a short leather thong to the lower right corner of the piece, though the significance of this added feature is still unknown.