"The initials and date on the OHA wampum belt are not later additions.  They are original to the wampum belt.  They were woven into the wampum belt at William Claus' direction, since the belt was made to be presented by him - or his representative - in 1800 to some presently unidentified American Indian nation, probably in the upper Great Lakes.  There is a second initialed "W. C." and dated - "1807" - wampum belt in the collections of the National Museum of the American Indian made at his direction for presentation to another American Indian nation to commemorate some other agreement between the British Crown and that Indian nation in  1807.  See the following link for photographs of this belt and its collection history.

Claus 1807 Belt

William Claus (1765-1826) was the son of Christian Daniel Claus (1727-1787), the son-in-law of Sir William Johnson ( 1715-1774).   Four years after Johnson's death [Christian] Daniel Claus was appointed in August 1778 as a deputy agent for the Six Nations in Canada, subordinate to Guy Johnson, another son-in-law of Sir William Johnson.  Until his death in 1787 [Christian] Daniel Claus supervised, along with John Butler, the establishment of various groups of Six Nations Indians on British soil, particularly at the Bay of Quinte and the Grand River, Ontario, Canada.

Upon the death of John Butler in 1796 his son, William Claus, was named deputy superintendent of the Six Nations at Fort George (Niagara-on-the-Lake), a position which gave him responsibility for the Indians of the Grand River, among others.  On September 30, 1800 William Claus took another step up in the Canadian-British Indian Department when he was appointed to succeed Alexander McKee as deputy superintendent general for all of Upper Canada, a post he would hold until his death in 1787.


While both "W.C." wampum belts had been made at William Claus' direction for presentation on behalf of the British Crown possibly to one or more of the Six Nation communities of Ontario, Canada, it is also possible that the belts had been made for presentation to upper Great Lakes Indian nations in 1800 and 1807, and from whom they were collected and passed into the possession of the Onondaga Historical Association and the National Museum of the American Indian, respectively.

Because of the attached so-called Chinese glass trade beads - those of the sky blue color - I suspect that the OHA's William Claus wampum belt had been originally made at Claus's order for presentation to perhaps an Ojibwa community or a Wyandot community among whom wampum belts and wampum strings presented by them were frequently painted with a sky blue-green clay paint to reiterate and reinforce a belt's or a string's peaceful intention and message.  Such belts and strings are mentioned in the papers of Sir William Johnson and at least one Wyandot wampum belt is extant that bears traces of its former covering of sky-blue-green clay paint; this is a former black wampum bead fielded war belt which had been transformed into a peace belt by painting it with sky blue-green clay before its presentation to the Wyandots.

The Moravian missionaries, George Henry Loskiel and John G. Heckewelder, mention the practice during the later 18th century in the upper Great Lakes of painting wampum belts to change their meaning and contexts of use: a white wampum bead-fielded belt could be painted black to serve as a war belt and conversely, a former black wampum bead-fielded war belt could be painted with white clay or sky blue-green clay to serve as a peace belt.  When it came to war belts, it was common practice throughout the Great Lakes and Eastern Woodlands region to paint a wampum belt red to identify it as such. The red paint was often in addition to the white pictograph of an axe, hatchet, or tomahawk woven into the black wampum bead-fielded war belt. Sometimes only the white pictograph of the "war hatchet" was painted red. Occasionally an actual "war hatchet," painted red, was tied to a black wampum bead-fielded war belt, and all covered with red paint, less there be any doubts about its meaning and function.

Initialed and dated wampum belts made by Euroamerican colonies or their representatives, such as the two "W.C." wampum belts, have precedents that extend back at least into the early 17th century.  Many wampum belts were made during the 18th century by English colonial representatives for presentation to American Indian communities which bear the pintails of either
one of the two King Georges - "GR" - and also include other standard commonly-shared pictographs of the time, such as human figures linked hand-to-hand, and/or holding a representation of a  wampum belt between them, symbolizing a chain of friendship.  A few of these continue to be preserved in contemporary Haudenosaunee communities as cultural patrimony. Wampum belts into which words were woven are recorded as early as the second quarter of the 17th century: for example Huron-made wampum belts, and later Abenaki-made wampum belts now preserved in Europe.  These of course demonstrate that wampum was not only assimilated into Euroamerican political diplomacy, but also into mission Catholicism.

So if initials and dates woven into wampum belts made by Euroamericans are indicative of the debasing of wampum belts and their cross-cultural functions as both the medium and the message of communication, then the evidence of written records and extant wampum belts argues that it began almost as early as did the practice of making wampum belts and passing of them across the fire to authenticate and to guarantee the messages with which they were passed and which they communicated.

If initials and dates woven into a wampum belt are considered to be untraditional and consequently undermine the authenticity of a wampum belt's function and meaning, what are we to think about wampum belts that symbolize and represent silver chains of friendship, acknowledging that the concept of the  chain and that iron, brass, and silver chains themselves were
introduced by Euroamericans?  Or of the weaving into a war belt of a pictograph of an iron trade axe, hatchet, or tomahawk - all Euroamerican introductions?  What about all of the wampum beads found in extant wampum belts and strings that were made using introduced Euroamerican steel tools rather than traditional stone tools?  What about all of the wampum beads found in extant wampum belts and wampum strings that were made not by American Indians but by Euroamerican colonists as a cottage industry along the southern New England coast, the western end of Long Island, or in northern New Jersey? Or latter in "wampum factories," such that New York City wampum merchants could offer at any one time lots of 10,000, 50,000, or even 300,000  wampum beads of the very best quality?  Or of extant wampum belts and mats, comprising American Indian national cultural patrimony, that include one or more European glass trade beads, or extant "wampum belts" that are made completely of Euroamerican imitation glass wampum when actual shell wampum was unavailable or too expensive to purchase?

I recommend caution in asserting that the presence of Euroamerican initials and/or dates woven into wampum belts somehow debases the traditional significance and functions of them.  Rather, I recommend seeing it as a natural evolution over two centuries in the cross-culturally understood, not to mention cross-culturally shared mnemonic pictographs, that served to reinforce the traditional communicative functions of wampum belts, as both the medium and the message.

The appearance of William Claus' initials, and the date, on the OHA wampum belt serve as prima facie evidence that the wampum belt was presented by him to some now unidentified American Indian nation or community where it had been preserved in their wampum archives.

A careful study of the OHA wampum belt - specifically the wampum beads themselves, including their x-ray - could potentially further corroborate this.  Wampum belts made by Euroamericans for presentation to American Indian communities tend to be homogenous in their dimensions, especially their widths as measured along their lengths, and also homogeneous in the dimensions, colors, and drilling techniques of the beads comprising the belts, since Euroamericans tended to buy newly-made beads from one source for the purpose
of constructing the belts.  The George Washington Covenant Belt is an example.  Also see, the journals of the expenses of Sir William Johnson for his entries for the purchase from Albany and New York City wampum brokers of lots of thousands of wampum beads at a time and the related expenses "for the making of belts" to be presented by him on behalf of the British
government at an upcoming Indian conference.

Conversely, American Indian communities most frequently lacked the physical access to and fiscal means to acquire large quantities of newly-made wampum beads for the making of wampum belts.  American Indian communities typically recycled older wampum beads available to them within their communities; possibly supplementing these with newer beads.  Records can be found to a call within the community for wampum bead donations.  More frequently, non-archival wampum belts, such as war belts, were dismantled and the beads reused.  When the latter was done, the beads were washed to remove the red paint.  This tenancy for American Indian communities to recycle very old, old,  not-so-old, and perhaps, "new" wampum beads within their communities for the making of wampum belts for presentation to some Euroamerican entity or to some other American Indian community is revealed by the usual heterogeneous wampum bead composition - in size, color, and condition - of such wampum belts, and in the frequent variations in the widths of such wampum belts down their lengths because of the variations in the lengths of the beads forming each column of beads.  Additionally, traces of red paint may be seen on some of the beads indicating their origins as beads from a recycled war belt.

There is no question that the initials and the date on the OHA are original to the wampum belt, or that the wampum belt had been made at the direction of William Claus for official Crown presentation to some American Indian community in Ontario, Upper Canada, and perhaps in the upper Great Lakes region."