Photographs (left to right): Orchid Niagara Falls Butterfly Museum, Ontario, Canada; Red Dragonfly, Mendon Ponds, New York; Unknown plant, Niagara Falls Butterfly Museum, Ontario, Canada

Wampum Belt Archive

 

Partial Wampum Belt

Iroquois or Algonquian

1600-1860

BM AN1064510001

Am186?C1.2768 (old CDMS no,)

Bushnell 1905

Original Size:	12 rows Length: 5.0 inches. Width: 3.5 inches. 7.5cm by 9cm wide. Total length: 26 cm. (10 inches)
Reproduction:
Beads:
Materials:

Description:

Section of a wampum belt, roughly rectangular in shape, woven on a bow-loom, with 13 warp threads of skin thong, the beads strung on vegetal twine, probably native in origin. The section is 20 rows in length, by 12 rows in breadth. One end row is missing 3 beads, making a theoretical total of 237 beads. The beads are cylindrical, centrally drilled, and of varied lengths and diameters. The design consists of 35 purple beads which make a diagonal stepped line across the white ground; a white line runs through the purple stepped design, one bead in width. [One purple bead is missing ? warps in from one side, 5 from the other]. Acquired 1860-1869.

British Museum Description:

Original accession information: 'N America. Indian Wampum. Flat piece of Bead Work 3 1/2 in by 3 in consisting of narrow strips of leather tied behind the front string with rows of cylindrical white shell beads with a diagonal triangular pattern of purplish beads. [further later notes unreadable in xerographic copy]' 'Like 2767 (see Wilson's Prehistoric Man p 387)' 'Similar from N America Paris 1867 [presumably at the Universal Exposition that year]'.

Section of a wampum belt, roughly rectangular in shape, woven on a bow-loom, with 13 warp threads of skin thong, the beads strung on vegetal twine, probably native in origin. The section is 20 rows in length, by 12 rows in breadth. One end row is missing 3 beads, making a theoretical total of 237 beads. The beads are cylindrical, centrally drilled, and of varied lengths and diameters. The design consists of 35 purple beads which make a diagonal stepped line across the white ground; a white line runs through the purple stepped design, one bead in width. [One purple bead is missing ? warps in from one side, 5 from the other].
Additional description etc., JCK 26/9/1995

The pattern is very similar to what is woven on the Greenville Treaty Belt of 1795. see W_ Greenville Treaty 1795.html

Reference:

British Museum. For more details see - http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/search_the_collection_database/search_object_details.aspx