Photographs (left to right): Lake Missoula varves, Montana; Sunset Olympic Peninsula, Washington; Landslide, Missoula, Montana

Wampum Belt Archive

 

Emigration Belt

From Tehanetorens (1999)

 

 

Original Size:
Reproduction:
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Description:

Tehanetorens (quote):

"When a person or family belonging to the Five Nations desires to abandon their nation and the territory of the Five nations, they shall inform the chiefs of their nation and the Council of the LEague of Five Nations shall take notice of it. When any person or any of the people of the Five Nations emigrate and reside in a distant region away from the territory of the League of Five Nations, the Chiefs of the Five Nations at will may send a messenger carrying a broad belt of black wampum. When the messenger arrives, he shall call the people together or address them personally, displaying the belt of black wampum, and they shall know that this is an order for them to return to their original homes and to their council fire."

Quote Bardeau (2011)
This belt is used by a family or person of any one of the Five Nations to officially inform their Chiefs of their intention to emigrate from the Nation and the territory.

Reference:

Bardeau, Phyllis Eileen Wms. 2011. Definitive Seneca: It's In The Word. Jaré Cardinal, editor. Seneca-Iroquois Museum Publisher, Salamanca, New York, 443pp.

Tehanetorens. 1999. Wampum Belts of the Iroquois. Book Publishing Company, Summertown, TN.