Should you ask me, whence these stories? 
Whence these legends and traditions, 
With the odors of the forest 
With the dew and damp of meadows, 
With the curling smoke of wigwams, 
With the rushing of great rivers, 
With their frequent repetitions, 
And their wild reverberations 
As of thunder in the mountains? 

Downward through the evening twilight, 
In the days that are forgotten, 
In the unremembered ages, 
From the full moon fell Nokomis, 
Fell the beautiful Nokomis, 
She a wife, but not a mother. 
She was sporting with her women, 
Swinging in a swing of grape-vines,
When her rival the rejected, 
Full of jealousy and hatred, 
Cut the leafy swing asunder, 
Cut in twain the twisted grape-vines, 
And Nokomis fell affrighted 
Downward through the evening twilight, 
On the Muskoday, the meadow, 
On the prairie full of blossoms…

By the shores of Gitche Gumee, 
By the shining Big-Sea-Water, 
Stood the wigwam of Nokomis, 
Daughter of the Moon, Nokomis. 
Dark behind it rose the forest, 
Rose the black and gloomy pine-trees, 
Rose the firs with cones upon them; 
Bright before it beat the water, 
Beat the clear and sunny water, 
Beat the shining Big-Sea-Water. 
There the wrinkled old Nokomis 
Nursed the little Hiawatha, 
Rocked him in his linden cradle, 
Bedded soft in moss and rushes, 
Safely bound with reindeer sinews; 
Stilled his fretful wail by saying, 
“Hush! the Naked Bear will hear thee!” 
Lulled him into slumber, singing…

– Henry Wadsworth Longfellow