March 2003 Newsletter

OSAMA BIN LADEN AS PAU-PUK-KEEWIS

by Roland N. Stromberg

Professor Emeritus, Wisconsin-Milwaukee

"Full of wrath was Hiawatha" when he saw what carnage Pau-Puk-Keewis had wrought in the village; "found the people in confusion, heard of all the misdemeanors, all the malice and the mischief."

Hard his breath came through his nostrils,
Through his teeth he buzzed and muttered
Words of anger and resentment,
Hot and humming like a hornet.
" I will slay this Pau-Puk-Keewis
Slay this mischiefmaker!" said he.
"Not so long and wide the world is,
Not so rude and rough the way is,
That my wrath shall not attain him,
That my vengeance shall not reach him.

But, after swift pursuit through the forests and the headlands, Hiawatha and his hunters "found not Pau-Puk-Keewis." From the lowlands far beneath them he made gestures of defiance and derision. He went underground, hid in caves, and persuaded some beavers to take him in. Eventually, however, Hiawatha and his hunters ran him to earth, as a beaver, and beat him to death (they thought). But his spirit, his Jebbi, escaped and lived on.

After much travail the hunters described him as a giant cow (warplane?) and brought him down, but the cunning villain's soul still survived; he changed himself into a serpent, eluded Hiawatha's grasp, fled down the Gitche Gumee (I think the Red Sea) and took refuge with the Old Man of the Mountain (possibly Sadam Hussein). In the end despite his renewed vows of vengeance Hiawatha had to settle for changing Pau into an eagle, who is still seen in winter snowstorms. It would appear that he no longer harassed the village, but continued as something of a nuisance.

This lucid account of the September 11 incident and its aftermath appears in Chapter XVII of Longfellow's epic. The serious researcher will want to peruse the whole extensive document, which I have only summarized. The lesson seems to be that we won't kill the Taliban spirit, we can only hope somehow to deflect it or sublimate it.