“Captain’s Logs” tracked down an interview Penn gave with Starlog magazine, and quoted him as saying:
“Within certain aspects of American Indian culture, they surmise that evil possesses more energy than good, and Indians believe if they could get to the evil one and comb the snakes out of his hair, he would be cleansed and be able to use that energy for good. One is constantly interested in the struggle between good and evil … In every human being there’s good and bad. Hopefully the good is reachable. There are some leaders who bring out the best in people, and Captain Kirk was certainly such a person.”
Penn’s comment is an allusion to the myth of Hiawatha. Hiawatha was a real person, credited for co-founding the Iroquois nation, and said to be the leader of the Onondaga nation or perhaps the Mohawk nation, but he is also the hero of many legendary epic tales. The mythic version of Hiawatha was said to have been discovered living in a remote hut by Dekanawidah, the founder of the Iroquois Confederacy. This was a wild Hiawatha who viciously ate human flesh. The story goes that Dekanawidah was so wise and peaceful that Hiawatha was humbled in his presence, received a new peaceful philosophy, and immediately abandoned his early, cannibalistic ways. Hiawatha was thereafter a wise sage and a spreader of peace.
Dekanawidah then sent the now-reformed Hiawatha to the Onondaga people to confront their chief, a wicked tyrant named Tadodaho. This Tadodaho was so evil that he had turned into a literal monster; his hair and his fingers were made of snakes. Hiawatha then combed the snakes out of his hair, a symbol of his redemption. “Hiawatha,” literally translated, means “he who combs.”
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