Smithsonian American Art Museum
Old Arrow Maker
Edmonia Lewis, born Greenbush (now Rensselaer), NY 1844-died London, England 1907 · modeled 1866
Old Arrow Maker depicts a scene from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's epic poem The Song of Hiawatha (1855). This poem relies on romanticized tropes about Native peoples' lifeways as incompatible with modern life. Edmonia Lewis, an Afro-Indigenous artist who was raised by her Mississauga maternal aunts, capitalized on the broad appeal of Longfellow's poem. Longfellow was an abolitionist, and his work was popular among the same people who were Lewis's primary patrons.
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