Question

What is the influence of the allusions to American Indian life in this excerpt?

They provide cultural atmosphere.

They provide historical facts.

They make the subject obscure and elitist.

They give the poem a narrative quality.

The Song of Hiawatha

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (excerpt)

I should answer, I should tell you,
"From the forests and the prairies,
From the great lakes of the Northland,
From the land of the Ojibways,
From the land of the Dacotahs,
From the mountains, moors, and fen-lands
Where the heron, the Shuh-shuh-gah,
Feeds among the reds and rushes.
I repeat them as I heard them
From the lips of Nawadaha,
The musician, the sweet singer."