The New International Encyclopædia/Minnehaha

MINNEHAHA, mĭn′nē̇-hä′hȧ. The heroine of Longfellow's Indian poem, Hiawatha, who is represented as the daughter of an old arrow-maker. The name Minnehaha (Sioux Mini-haha, ‘laughing water’) is borne by a picturesque cascade, about 50 feet high, in the Minnehaha River, a small stream emptying into the Mississippi at Minneapolis, Minn. It may he mentioned that in Longfellow's work the hero has an Iroquois name, the heroine a Sioux name, while the poem itself is based upon the Ojibwa legends published in Schoolcraft's Algic Researches.