A three-quarter length polychrome figurehead of the First Nations leader Hiawatha (c1525-c1595) from the steel three-masted sailing ship Hiawatha (1891). The figurehead depicts him in North Amerian Indian dress, wearing blue feathers, a colourful edging and belt with long white feathers hanging down from it. His right shoulder is exposed and a tan coloured cloak over his left shoulder. Hiawatha wears an armband (gold, white feathers) on right arm, and gold bracelets on both wrists. The red drapery around his waist is gold-trimmed. A purse is on the left side of the belt. He holds a 'Pipe of Peace' in right hand (long brown pipe with feathers). On his head Hiawatha wears a white and red feather headdress and has his long black hair worn down at the back. His left arm is across chest. A small piece is missing from strap across the chest.

Hiawatha, together with the Prophet Deganawida (The Great Peacemaker), co-founded the Iroquois confederacy of Five Nations comprising the Mohawk, Onongade, Oneida, Cayuga and Senaca tribes. A skilled orator, Hiawatha’s teachings on peace and forgiveness were passed down through oral tradition and are still in use today. The character of Hiawatha is best known as the hero of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s epic poem The Song of Hiawatha (1855). A composite of various narratives and accounts by contemporary ethnographers, the poem tells the tragic, but fictional,story of the legendary peacemaker Hiawatha and his beautiful female lover, Minnehaha. It received international acclaim and helped solidify the concept of a pre-contact race whose fate was sealed by exposure to the supposedly civilising influence of the West. Since its publication, The Song of Hiawatha has been translated into more than 45 languages.