Hiawatha is an unproduced Disney animated feature film that would have been released in 1949.
Plot[]
In Lake Superior, a Native American scout sees the water and tells a chieftain he saw something on the water. This chieftain was no other than Hiawatha, who greets a visitor and his guides on a boat. He then tells the visitor a vision that when he arrives with him, it will be his final journey. Paddling into the sunset, the strange man is curious that he wants to know more about Hiawatha, to which his people begin telling the story of Hiawatha to the strange man.
Before Hiawatha is born, there was a time of war between tribes to which a mysterious deity known as the Great Manito appears, to which he is unhappy with all the fighting. As different tribes, the Great Manito tells them to stop fighting and live in peace, or their villages will be in trouble if they don't listen to him. Meanwhile, on Gitchegumee, a Native American woman named Nokomis tends a newborn Hiawatha. As a young boy, he makes peace with all the animals he mingles with. Hiawatha grows up where he is skilled in not just archery but also with fishing. Nokomis tells him that he must meet the Great Chief in his home and that there is trouble in their community. It is then known that Hiawatha's tribe is in danger due to the low food supply, to which the only way to get the food is by doing a war against the other tribe. Instead of preparing for war, Hiawatha suggests doing a peace treaty with the other tribe where they see them harvesting rice. One of the harvesters is a beautiful woman named Minnehaha who looks into Hiawatha. The chief of Minnehaha's tribe tells them to share the rice crop. Hiawatha's chief, however, did not agree.
Meanwhile, Hiawatha plans to find the Great Manito, and upon walking for days, he discovers a vision of Mondamin, the spirit of maize. Mondamin tells Hiawatha to follow him to take him to the Lost Valley to fix the problem. Following a strange glow across environments, Hiawatha ends up in the Lost Valley, an area full of golden maize (corn). The maize can provide Hiawatha's tribe enough food for the winter. Back at the village, Hiawatha stops the plan for war by bringing in the maize, to which the Great Chief of his tribe refuses at first. However, the Great Chief says that the maize helps make peace as the two tribes go in peace. The peace treaty was successful as Hiawatha listens to Minnehaha, happy that there is peace between the tribes. A glimpse then shows Hiawatha and Minnehaha exploring the landscapes around them as both of them fall in love.
Sometime in the winter, everyone is inside enjoying their corn. Hiawatha proposes to Minnehaha as she accepts his offer in a wedding sequence of the happy news. Later on one misty morning, Hiawatha encounters a girl whose brother is sick with plague only to find out that the girl's brother died of the plague while the medicine men perform a dance to drive away the evil spirits, but the spirit of plague continues to spread across the village. Arriving in Nokomis, she points to Hiawatha that over the great horizon lives Pearl-Feather, the mightiest of the magicians guarded by fiery serpents over black pitch water to which it is then known that Pearl-Feather is responsible for spreading the plague. Meanwhile, Hiawatha arrives at Minnehaha, affected by the plague to which there is no cure for the plague. Hiawatha then plans on defeating Pearl-Feather to stop the plague.
Planning to face Pearl-Feather, Hiawatha defeats his fiery serpents using archery skill and then arrives at Pearl-Feather's lair in a swamp. He then challenges Pearl-Feather into battle, to which none of them can defeat each other. During the battle, a woodpecker arrives and tells Hiawatha that to defeat Pearl-Feather is to aim for his weakness, to which Hiawatha manages to do by following the woodpecker's advice. Upon defeating Pearl-Feather, the plague stops spreading across Hiawatha's village as Hiawatha saves his village from the plague. The story then fades back to the strange man and Nokomis seeing Hiawatha in a sea of golden sun, ending the story.
Development[]
Hiawatha was a follower of The Great Peacemaker, a prophet and spiritual leader, who proposed the unification of the Iroquois people. This proposed feature was considered to be taken in a similar direction as Fantasia: artistic but contradictory. It would feature a single storyline.
Artwork produced for Hiawatha would serve as inspirational material for Pocahontas in terms of color direction, character design and scene composition.
Gallery[]
