Explore the poem

The Iroquois people are indigenous Americans from five historic tribes: the Cayuga, Onondaga, Mohawk, Seneca, and Oneida. E. Pauline Johnson’s father was a Mohawk chief. A lullaby is a soothing piece of music or song for babies and children.

When you read this poem imagine you are reading it to a little child who wants to go to sleep but can’t. How can you use your voice to create an atmosphere of peace and calm?

Our ears always enjoy rhymes and this poem has lots! We often find rhymes at the ends of lines, but in this poem they occur within the lines too. How many sets of rhyming words can you find? What other patterns of repetition can you see in this poem?

Think about how the rhymes and repetitions knit the poem together, swaddling the baby in a “nest” of words. How can you rock the little child to sleep with the sounds of the words?

About E. Pauline Johnson

Emily Pauline Johnson was born in Six Nations in the region of Ontario, Canada. Six Nations is an area of land that is owned by indigenous people who lived on the land before European settlers arrived in what is now Canada. Johnson’s father was a member of the indigenous Mohawk community and her mother was an English settler. As a child she was taught to respect her dual heritage at a time when indigenous people often experienced racism. Johnson was home educated and loved to read poetry. She was also a talented stage performer, and began writing and acting in amateur theatrical productions in the 1880s. Johnson received praise for her ability to recite poems from memory, not just read from the page as many other performers of the time did. She also began publishing poetry in literary magazines, under the name ‘E. Pauline Johnson’ and her Mohawk name ‘Tekahionwake’.

Johnson often wrote about her mixed heritage in her poetry. She told stories and legends from her indigenous background, but using traditional forms of writing poetry that would have been familiar to English-speaking audiences. She is best-known for the poetry collections The White Wampum (1895), Canadian Born (1903), and Flint and Feather (1912), although she also had individual poems published in countless magazines. She is also famous for her short story collections. Johnson toured, giving stage performances for almost 20 years and becoming internationally famous. She died in Vancouver in 1913 and was given the honour of a public funeral. Johnson is remembered for being one of the early famous Canadian indigenous writers, teaching audiences about a culture that at the time was unknown to many people.