Photographs (left to right): Rattlesnake Weed, Mohave, California; Little River Canyon, Fort Payne, Alabama; Little River Canyon, Fort Payne, Alabama

 

Wampum Belt Archive

 

Wampum Message Stick

Photo courtesy Peabody Museum

 

Photo courtesy Michael Galban 2018

Original Size:	9.1cm x 0.7cm. Wampum 20.5 inches
Reproduction:
Beads:	27 white wampum
Materials:

Description:

Peabody Number: 05-19-10/64717

Display Title: Message stick Descriptions: Inventory Description:

Message stick, small carved wood stick, notched, white wampum beads attached Indigenous Term: gy-no-scah (gai-no-scah)

Object Description:

Message stick with a string of white wampum beads attached. Sent as invitation to Six Nation dance. Notches indicate number of days before dance. Each day a notch is cut off. The stick itself measures 9 long and tapers from a maximum width of 0.9 cm at the place where the wampum is attached to 0.3 cm at its base. A series of 13 notches can be seen on the side of the stick and faint grooves below these show that 8 more have been whittled off.

This treatment would seem to indicate that the stick was used to send messages in the manner Harrington (1958:31) described where the stick is originally notched to show how many days there were before an important event and a notch was cut off each day by the messenger so that the tribe being invited to the event would arrive on time.

Object Description text entry for extended description:

Classification: Special Department:

Ethnographic Date: 18th century

Culture/Period: Seneca

Geography/Provenience: North America/United States/New York/Erie County Geo-Locale:

Cattaraugus Reservation Materials: Wood Shell Fiber Cotton Wampum Silk

Dimensions: L: 9.1 cm, W: 0.7 cm. Wampum attachment: 20.5 cm Quantity: 1 Provenance: Donor: Dr. Mark Raymond Harrington (01/01/1905) Owner: Delos Kittle (01/01/1905) Collector: Dr. Mark Raymond Harrington (01/01/1905-03/27/1905)

Reference:

Galban, Michael. 2018. Personal Communications.

Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology. Harvard University, 11 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138

https://pmem.unix.fas.harvard.edu:8443/peabody/view/objects/asitem/7476/28/invno-desc;jsessionid=E25C39A826F217E2E813DBE69F89F0B2?t:state:flow=6c52a6cf-122c-4588-8048-601bceb418ac