The Master of Life. By W. D. Lighthall. (Hodder and
Stoughton. 3s. 6d.) — Mr. Lighthall tells us the story of Hiawatha in a new guise, in which he bears no resemblance to the hero of Longfellow's poem, but is depicted as a Mohawk warrior living at the time of the Iroquois Confederacy. The scene is laid in prehistoric Montreal. The Mohawks, or Hochelagans, are driven out of the Montreal country by the Hurons and others, and Hiawatha goes to live in Onondaga. Before long the League of the Five Nations is formed, and the once peaceable Iroquois become dreaded warriors. Hiawatha, who has been adopted by the Onondagas, himself invites his old tribe to join the league, and so begins that formidable combination which the white invaders of North America found holding the balance of power. The French, as Mr. Lighthall points out, took up the quarrel of the Hurons and the Algonkins, the foes of the Iroquois, and so sealed the ultimate fate of New France, for the Confederacy of the Five Nations practically crippled the French power. The story is told with Indian imagery, it presents the red man in his noblest and most picturesque aspect, and is well worth reading. One may really catch something of the undoubted beauty of the Indian's ideas and his outlook on the world of nature.
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