Photographs (left to right): Suwannee River Park Live Oaks, Florida; Burgess Falls, Tennessee; Suwannee River Park Live Oaks, Florida

Wampum Belt Archive

Huron Alliance Belt

Iroquois Wampum Belts Rufus Alexander Grider (1817-1900)

Courtesy Newberry Library, Chicago

Original Size:	Length: 31.5 inches. Width: 3.5 inches. Rows wide: 10. 110 rows
Reproduction:	Beaded length: 38.5 inches. Width 4.5 inches. Total length with fringe: 62.5 inches.
Beads:	Rows: 263 by 10 beads wide. Total 2,630 beads
Materials:	Warp: leather. Weave: artificial sinew.

Description (Clarke):

A perfect white belt woven on buckskin thongs. There are three diagonal purple bars distributed along the length. Each bar consists of three hollow purple squares placed corner to corner.

Chief John Buck, Skan-a-wah-ti, who was wampum keeper of the Grand River Reservation (Ontar10, Canada ) when Mrs.. Converse purchased this belt for the Museum, related that it had originally belonged to the Seneca Nation and since the American Revolution it had been removed to Canada. Mrs.. Converse believed "this belt may have been an affiliation between the Huron and some of their neighbors, the Wyandots, Quatoghies, Neuters, Ka-kwas or others." In 1650 the Hurons were overthrown by the Iroquois, and on this account it was at one time thought that these diagonal bars or "braces" may have referred to some such alliance previous to that date, but Doctor 'Beauchamp points to the fact that the Hurons seldom employed treaty belts at that time, and says "the belt, if Huron, may be assigned to their later days."

Stolle, Nickolaus: Purchased by the institution in 1903, collected by Harriet M. Converse from Chief John Buck, Grand River Reserve in 1898.

Reference:

Clarke, Noah T. 1931 New York State Museum Bulletin No. 288, Fig. 31.