Natty Bumppo

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Natty Bumppo
Leatherstocking Tales character
1989 CPA 6128 Picture.png
Natty Bumppo (left) from a 1989 Soviet stamp on themes from Leatherstocking Tales
First appearance The Pioneers
Last appearance The Deerslayer
Created by James Fenimore Cooper
In-universe information
Full nameNathaniel Bumppo
AliasHawkeye among many others
GenderMale
Occupation Scout, huntsman, explorer
ChildrenJess Bumppo

Nathaniel "Natty" Bumppo is a fictional character and the protagonist of James Fenimore Cooper's pentalogy of novels known as the Leatherstocking Tales . He appears throughout the series as an archetypal American ranger, and has been portrayed many times in a variety of media in popular culture.

Contents

Fictional biography

Natty Bumppo, the child of white parents, grew up among Delaware Indians and was educated by Moravian Christians. [1] [2] In adulthood, he is a near-fearless warrior skilled in many weapons, chiefly the long rifle. He is most often shown alongside his Mohican foster brother Chingachgook and nephew Uncas.

Novels

Bumppo is featured in a series of novels by James Fenimore Cooper collectively called the Leatherstocking Tales . The novels in the collection are as follows:

Publication
Date
Story
Dates
TitleSubtitle
1841
1740–1755
The Deerslayer The First War Path
1826
1757
The Last of the Mohicans A Narrative of 1757
1840
1758–1759
The Pathfinder The Inland Sea
1823
1793
The Pioneers The Sources of the Susquehanna; A Descriptive Tale
1827
1804
The Prairie A Tale

The tales recount significant events in Natty Bumppo's life from 1740 to 1806. [3]

Aliases

Before his appearance in The Deerslayer, Bumppo went by the aliases "Straight-Tongue", "The Pigeon", and the "Lap-Ear". After obtaining his first rifle, he gained the sobriquet "Deerslayer". He is subsequently known as "Hawkeye" and "La Longue Carabine" in The Last of the Mohicans , as "Pathfinder" in The Pathfinder, or The Inland Sea , as "Leatherstocking" (from which the series' title is drawn) in The Pioneers , and as "the trapper" in The Prairie .

Portrayal

Bumppo has been portrayed most often in adaptations of The Last of the Mohicans. He was portrayed by Harry Lorraine in the 1920 film version, by Harry Carey in the 1932 film serial version, by Randolph Scott in the 1936 film version, by Kenneth Ives in the 1971 BBC serial, by Steve Forrest in the 1977 TV movie and by Daniel Day-Lewis in the 1992 film version.

Day-Lewis received a BAFTA Film Award nomination for Best Actor in 1993, won an Evening Standard British Film Award for Best Actor in 1993, and won an ALFS Award for British Actor of the Year in 1993 for his interpretation of the character. For the 1992 film, director Michael Mann changed the character's name to Nathaniel Poe, fearing audiences would laugh at "Natty Bumppo". [4] The character is also portrayed as the adopted son of Chingachgook and brother of Uncas.

Adaptations of The Deerslayer have seen Bumppo played by Emil Mamelok in the 1920 film The Deerslayer and Chingachgook , by Bruce Kellogg in the 1943 film, by Lex Barker in the 1957 film, and by Steve Forrest in the 1978 TV movie.

Adaptions of The Pathfinder have seen Bumppo played by Paul Massie in the 1973 5-part BBC mini-series and Kevin Dillon in the 1996 TV movie.

Additionally, he was portrayed by Michael O'Shea in the 1947 film Last of the Redskins , George Montgomery in the 1950 film The Iroquois Trail , by John Hart in the 1957 TV series Hawkeye and the Last of the Mohicans , by Hellmut Lange in the 1969 German TV series Die Lederstrumpferzählungen, by Cliff DeYoung in the 1984 PBS mini-series The Leatherstocking Tales (which compressed The Deerslayer, The Last of the Mohicans, and The Pathfinder into four episodes), and by Lee Horsley in the 1994 TV series Hawkeye .

Fiction

Mascots

University of Iowa's mascot, the Hawkeye was taken from The Last of the Mohicans novel. [5]

Music

Natty Bumppo was the name of several pop music bands in the 1970s, including bands from Dayton, Ohio, and central Utah.

People

Natty Bumppo is the name of the author of The Columbus Book Of Euchre and House Of Evil.

Postage stamps

In 1989, the Soviet Union issued a series of postage stamps depicting themes of Cooper's The Leatherstocking Tales.

1989 Soviet postage stamp series depicting The Leatherstocking Tales 1989 CPA 6128-6132 Strip.jpg
1989 Soviet postage stamp series depicting The Leatherstocking Tales

Sculptures and memorials

Natty Bumppo sculpture in Edenkoben, Germany Lederstrumpfbrunnen Edenkoben 6.jpg
Natty Bumppo sculpture in Edenkoben, Germany

Media

Related Research Articles

<i>The Last of the Mohicans</i> (1920 American film) 1920 film by Maurice Tourneur, Clarence Brown

The Last of the Mohicans is a 1920 American silent adventure drama film written by Robert A. Dillon, adapted from James Fenimore Cooper's 1826 novel of the same name. Clarence Brown and Maurice Tourneur co-directed the film. It is a story of two English sisters meeting danger on the frontier of the American colonies, in and around the fort commanded by their father. The adventure film stars Wallace Beery, Barbara Bedford, Lillian Hall, Alan Roscoe and Boris Karloff in one of his earliest silent film roles. Barbara Bedford later married her co-star in the film, Alan Roscoe in real life. The production was shot near Big Bear Lake and in Yosemite Valley.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James Fenimore Cooper</span> American writer (1789–1851)

James Fenimore Cooper was an American writer of the first half of the 19th century, whose historical romances depicting colonial and indigenous characters from the 17th to the 19th centuries brought him fame and fortune. He lived much of his boyhood and his last fifteen years in Cooperstown, New York, which was founded by his father William Cooper on property that he owned. Cooper became a member of the Episcopal Church shortly before his death and contributed generously to it. He attended Yale University for three years, where he was a member of the Linonian Society.

<i>The Last of the Mohicans</i> 1826 historical novel by James Fenimore Cooper

The Last of the Mohicans: A Narrative of 1757 is a historical romance novel written by James Fenimore Cooper in 1826. It is the second book of the Leatherstocking Tales pentalogy and the best known to contemporary audiences. The Pathfinder, published 14 years later in 1840, is its sequel; its prequel, The Deerslayer, was published a year after The Pathfinder. The Last of the Mohicans is set in 1757, during the French and Indian War, when France and Great Britain battled for control of North America. During this war, both the French and the British used Native American allies, but the French were particularly dependent, as they were outnumbered in the Northeast frontier areas by the British. Specifically, the events of the novel are set immediately before, during, and after the Siege of Fort William Henry.

Hawkeye may refer to:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Magua</span> Fictional character

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<i>Leatherstocking Tales</i> 1823–1841 series of five books by James Fenimore Cooper

The Leatherstocking Tales is a series of five novels by American writer James Fenimore Cooper, set in the eighteenth-century era of development in the primarily former Iroquois areas in central New York. Each novel features Natty Bumppo, a frontiersman known to European-American settlers as "Leatherstocking", "The Pathfinder", and "the trapper". Native Americans call him "Deerslayer", "La Longue Carabine", and "Hawkeye".

<i>The Pioneers</i> (novel) 1823 historical novel by James Fenimore Cooper

The Pioneers, or The Sources of the Susquehanna; a Descriptive Tale is a historical novel by American writer James Fenimore Cooper. It was the first of five novels published which became known as the Leatherstocking Tales. Published in 1823, The Pioneers is the fourth novel in terms of the chronology of the novels' plots.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chingachgook</span> Fictional character

Chingachgook is a fictional character in four of James Fenimore Cooper's five Leatherstocking Tales, including his 1826 novel The Last of the Mohicans. Chingachgook was a lone Mohican chief and companion of the series' hero, Natty Bumppo. In The Deerslayer, Chingachgook married Wah-ta-Wah, who had a son with him named Uncas, but died while she was still young. Uncas, who was at his birth "last of the Mohicans", grew to manhood but was killed in a battle with the Huron warrior Magua. Chingachgook died as an old man in the novel The Pioneers, which makes him the actual "last of the Mohicans," having outlived his son.

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<i>The Deerslayer</i> 1841 Book by James Fenimore Cooper

The Deerslayer, or The First War-Path (1841) was James Fenimore Cooper's last novel in his Leatherstocking Tales. Its 1740–1745 time period makes it the first installment chronologically and in the lifetime of the hero of the Leatherstocking tales, Natty Bumppo. The novel's setting on Otsego Lake in central, upstate New York, is the same as that of The Pioneers, the first of the Leatherstocking Tales to be published (1823). The Deerslayer is considered to be the prequel to the rest of the series. Fenimore Cooper begins his work by relating the astonishing advance of civilization in New York State, which is the setting of four of his five Leatherstocking Tales.

<i>The Last of the Mohicans</i> (1932 serial) 1932 film

The Last of the Mohicans is a 1932 American pre-Code Mascot movie serial based on the 1826 novel The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper.

<i>The Pathfinder, or The Inland Sea</i> 1840 historical novel by James Fenimore Cooper

The Pathfinder, or The Inland Sea is a historical novel by American author James Fenimore Cooper, first published in 1840. It is the fourth novel Cooper wrote featuring Natty Bumppo, his fictitious frontier hero, and the third chronological episode of the Leatherstocking Tales. The inland sea of the title is Lake Ontario.

<i>The Prairie</i> 1827 novel by James Fenimore Cooper

The Prairie: A Tale (1827) is a novel by James Fenimore Cooper, the third novel written by him featuring Natty Bumppo. His fictitious frontier hero Bumppo is never called by his name, but is instead referred to as "the trapper" or "the old man". Chronologically The Prairie is the fifth and final installment of the Leatherstocking Tales, though it was published before The Pathfinder (1840) and The Deerslayer (1841). It depicts Natty in the final year of his life, still proving helpful to people in distress on the American frontier. The book frequently references characters and events from the two books previously published in the Leatherstocking Tales as well as the two which Cooper would not write for more than ten years. Continuity with The Last of the Mohicans is indicated by the appearance of the grandson of Duncan and Alice Heyward, as well as the noble Pawnee chief Hard Heart, whose name is English for the French nickname for the Delaware, le Coeur-dur.

<i>The Last of the Mohicans</i> (1936 film) 1936 film

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The Deerslayer and Chingachgook is the feature-length first part of the two-part 1920 German silent Western film Lederstrumpf (Leatherstocking), directed by Arthur Wellin and featuring Bela Lugosi. It is based on the 1841 novel The Deerslayer by James Fenimore Cooper. The second part is called The Last of the Mohicans.

<i>The Last of the Mohicans</i> (1920 German film) 1920 film

The Last of the Mohicans is the feature-length second part of the 1920 German silent Western film Lederstrumpf (Leatherstocking) directed by Arthur Wellin and featuring Bela Lugosi and Emil Mamalock. Bela Lugosi played the Indian Chingachgook, one of his most unusual roles, and Emil Mamalock played Hawkeye, the Deerslayer. It is based on James Fenimore Cooper's 1826 novel of the same name. The first part is The Deerslayer and Chingachgook.

The Last of the Mohicans is a 1971 BBC serial, based on the 1826 novel of the same name by James Fenimore Cooper, directed by David Maloney.

<i>Hawkeye</i> (TV series) Television series

Hawkeye is a television series, airing in syndication for one season during 1994–1995, and produced by Stephen J. Cannell. The series was filmed in North Vancouver and Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

The Last of the Mohicans is a 1968 internationally co-produced Western film, co-directed by Jean Dréville, Pierre Gaspard-Huit and Sergiu Nicolaescu. It was the second episode of the European TV miniseries Leatherstocking Tales.

References

  1. "The Deerslayer: Critical Essays: Cooper's Indians". Cliffsnotes.
  2. "Natty Bumppo (fictional character)". Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
  3. James Fenimore Cooper Society's online plot summaries of the chronologically first (The Deerslayer) and last (The Prairie) novels, indicating the initial and final years of the Leatherstocking saga.
  4. Belue, Ted Franklin (July 20, 2011). The Hunters of Kentucky: A Narrative History of America's First Far West, 1750-1792 (Reprint ed.). Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, United States: Stackpole Books. p. 141. ISBN   978-1461751908 . Retrieved January 10, 2022.
  5. "University of Iowa Official Athletic Site Traditions". Hawkeyesports.com. Archived from the original on 2012-10-19. Retrieved 2012-09-07.
  6. ""Natty Bumppo (Hawkeye)" by Thomas Nicholls". victorianweb.org.

Further reading