It can’t even be that they’re trying to hide this short’s existence; it’s been released on Blu-Ray. But this has been one of the hardest shorts to track down that I’d arrange to write about. It isn’t on Disney+. Versions are available on YouTube in Spanish or Portuguese, or with no soundtrack or a different soundtrack. You can get the opening or closing frames. And that’s pretty much it. I remember seeing it a fair amount as a kid; I have a theory as to why it isn’t shown much anymore, and I think you’ll be surprised.

We begin with the mellifluous strains of William Wadsworth Longfellow’s classic poem “The Song of Hiawatha.” Only what we have here is not the great, noble hero of the poem—itself barely touching on the actual historical figure of Hiawatha. What we have here is a small child, who is paddling his canoe down a wild river. He then lands the canoe and stalks game through the forest. The game finds the whole thing hilarious. He attempts to kill a grasshopper and is defeated by it. He attempts to kill a bunny and can’t bring himself to do it. Then, he is attacked by a bear.

I do not believe this cartoon is hidden because it is racist. Genuinely, I can see this cartoon’s being done with Little Davy Crockett just as easily. The point is not the child’s ethnicity; the point is the contrast between the Mighty Hunter of the poem and the adorable-but-hapless child of the cartoon. That’s fine. No, I think it’s hidden because there’s a running gag where his pants fall down. We only see it from the back, but we do see this small animated child’s butt an awful lot. Because his is a culture that does not wear undergarments, clearly.

It’s all cute enough. The pants thing gets weird, but whatever. I have to admit I suspect another part of the reason we don’t see it much these days, though, is that kids today aren’t forced to learn “The Song of Hiawtha.” Not that I’ve ever read it myself, you understand, though I do know some of it. Part of it is recited in Desk Set, leaving Bunny stuck in its rhythm scheme longer than she’d like. My son’s been taught about poetry, but I’m not sure he has yet read any classic poetry that I didn’t give him. That’s not reason enough to wipe the short from YouTube the way it has been, but between that and the naked child butt, I think we’re there.

No, if it’s racism around the whole thing, let’s go with the New York Times review of the original poem, which is just a lot. Longfellow apparently knew no few Native Americans, though he managed to screw up a figure of legend and a historical figure regardless, and that’s why he wrote the poem. About which the Times said, “[the poem] is entitled to commendation” for “embalming pleasantly enough the monstrous traditions of an uninteresting, and, one may almost say, a justly exterminated race. As a poem, it deserves no place,” adding there “is no romance about the Indian.” It kind of goes on in that vein, and a little child who can’t kill a bear unarmed has nothing on that.

So on that cheerful note, consider supporting my Patreon or Ko-fi?