Photographs (left to right): All Letchworth State Park, New York

Wampum Belt Archive

 

Mohawk Oka Wampum Belt

Graphic design: R. D. Hamell Nov. 11, 2021

 

Original Size:	Rows: 7. Length: not given
Reproduction:	Beaded Length: 11.0 inches. Width: 3.5 inches. Length w/fringe: 33.0 inches.
Beads:	Columns: 70. Rows: 7. Beads: 490.
Materials:	Warp: Deer leather. Weft: Artificial sinew. Beads: Polymer.

Description:

Black shell belt with single white row and two white vertical rows at one end,

Present location not known (Stolle, 2016).

McCord Museum (Canada): MCM Cat. No. I-48877.1.

Belt held by a Chief of the Six Nations and photographed in 1870. The belt was also illustrated by Samuel Douglas Smith Hughes as part of Huron-Wendat wampum archive, Lorette, present Wendake, in 1848, (see: Harrison et al. (eds.) 1987, p. 84; Fenton and Tooker 1978: 477; Lainey 2004: 108f.)

Reference:

Fenton, William N. and Elisabeth Tooker. 1978. Mohawk. In: Bruce G. Trigger (ed.) Northeast. Handbook of North American Indians 15. Washington, DC Smithsonian Institution, 466-480.

Harrison, Julia D. et al., (eds.). 1987. The Spirit Sings. Artistic Traditions of Canada’s First Peoples. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart.

Lainey, Jonathan C. 2004. La “Monnaie des Sauvages”. Les colliers de wampum d’hier à aujourd’hui. Sillery, Quebec: Septentrion.

Stolle, Nickolaus. 2016. Talking Beads. Hamburg, Germany. ISSN 1437-7837