Photographs (left to right): Sunset, Albuquerque, New Mexico; Silver Pennies, Rush, New York; Tent Rocks National Monument, New Mexico

Wampum Belt Archive

Stockbridge-Munsee Belt

Original

R. Hamell

Fort Johnson, Amsterdam, New York

 

 

Original Size:	Rows: 140. Length: ?
Reproduction:	Beaded Length: 21.0 inches. Width: 3.5 inches. Length w/fringe: 38.0 inches.
Beads:	Columns: 140. Rows: 7. Beads: 966.
Materials:	Warp: Deer leather. Weft: Artificial sinew. Beads: Polymer.

Description:

Old Fort Johnson, Montgomery Historical Society Museum. MPM 30127 Fort Johnson on the Mohawk River, Sir William Johnson's first home which served as the site of many councils during the French and Indian War. The meaning of this particular belt is now lost but usually purple beads had a meaning of war or mourning.

 

Stole (2016) stated the belt was owned by Chief Austin E. Quinney, a Mahican, collected in 1849 (Skinner 1925: 114, Plate XXVI, Fig. 7; Brasser 1978b: 206; cf.: Becker 2004: 110) and the belt (partial) was constructed with 7 rows as shown in Skinner 1925: Plate XXVI, Figure 7). Hasler's reproduction erred in having 5 rows omitted the outer rows.

 

The Federal Register (2007) published notice the belt and two other items are Stockbridge-Munsee cultural items and subjected to repatronation (rematriation) .

Reference:

Federal Registry. 2007. Objects of Cultural Patrimony. NAGPRA, 25 U.S.C. 3003 (d)(3). Federal Registry, Vol. 72, No. 210 , October 31. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2007-10-31/pdf/E7-21378.pdf

Skinner, Alanson. 1925 Notes on the Mahican Ethnology. Bulletin of the Public Museum of the City of Milwaukee 2(3): 89-117: Plate XXVI, Figure 7.

Stolle, Nickolaus. 2016. Talking Beads. Hamburg, Germany.