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» » The Heart of an Indian Maid (1911)

Short summary

A party of trappers is attacked by Indians and all escape but one, who is badly wounded. The Indians, however, start in pursuit of the fleeing trappers and the wounded man is found by Winonah and taken to camp, where she nurses him back to health, saving his life by pleading with the chief. Upon his recovery he becomes a blood brother of the tribe by the intermingling of blood from his wrist with that of the chief. This ceremony over, Winonah is given to him as his wife. Some time later, however, our hero makes his escape and returns to his real wife and child. He is seen and followed, however, by an Indian who was in love with Winonah, and this Indian reports his whereabouts to the chief, who determined to kill him. Winonah, however, overhearing the conversation, begs the privilege of taking her own revenge, and armed with a long knife, she starts on the tiresome journey to the white man's house. Footsore and weary she finally reaches a house in the clearing and sinks down exhausted....

User reviews


  • comment
    • Author: from earth
    A married trapper wins the heart of an Indian maid and is married to her. After the wedding night he returns to his other wife and family. The Indian discovers this bigamy and determines to kill him, but seeing the love he has for his daughter, she jumps off a cliff instead, hoping to meet again in the "Happy Hunting Ground."

    That silly plot sums up the basic problem of this movie, which survives in an excellent tinted print. The exteriors, shot in Fort Lee New Jersey, are fine. The interiors are clearly flats. Besides the problems with the plot, the acting, while clearly Griffith-influenced -- by this stage, what American film was not? -- is broad to just shy of comedy; and the direction has a fairly long sequence in which the trapper comes home and cuddles his his daughter and neither of them mention the Indian in the room, even though the daughter fully knows she is there.
  • comment
    • Author: Jorius
    Here is told the story of a trapper adopted into an Indian tribe by the ceremony of the intermingling of blood, and is given the chief's daughter, Winonah, for a wife. Later he escapes and goes back to his own wife and child. Winonah follows to get revenge, but is befriended by the wife of the man she sought to kill, and when she sees him playing with his daughter, love triumphs and she leaves them in peace. The feature of the picture is the conflict between jealousy and hatred and love in the Indian woman's mind. The ceremony of adoption is accurately reproduced and gives an interesting glimpse of Indian customs. - The Moving Picture World, June 10, 1911
  • Credited cast:
    Pearl White Pearl White - Indian Maid
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