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

Wampum Belt Archive

 

NMAI 17 5422

CMH III

Plate 6 Figure 70 (Stolle, 2016)

 

R. D. Hamell December 11 2024

(After Stolle, 2016)

Original Size:	Rows: 12. Beads: Shell.
Reproduction:	Beaded length: 35.0 inches. Width: 6.0 inches. Length w/ fringe 59.0 inches.
Beads:	Rows: 12. Columns: 212. Beads: 2,544
Materials:	Warp: Deer Hide. Weft: Artificial Sinew. Beads: Polymer.

Description:

White shell bead belt with three black, diagonal, doubled shell bead lines in differing size, 12 rows, unknown dimensions, prob. NMAI Cat. No. 17/5422, unknown history (Stolle 2016) .

The National Museum of American Indian (NMAI) "accession records, clearly identifies three wampum belts that Dockstader sold to Economos (who then flipped these objects to Ewing): one Haudenosaunee stepped rafter belt (MAI #17/5422), one Abenaki belt (MAI #11/123), and one Kanesatake Mohawk belt (MAI #16/3827). Ewing subsequently sold the Haudenosaunee stepped rafter belt to the Canadian Museum of Man (now the Canadian Museum of History, where it remains in collections today (Bruchac 2018; James Economos 1973).

Bruchac ( ) stated this "wampum belt accessioned as MAI #17/5422 was acquired c. 1930 by an unknown collector. In the spring of 1974, Dockstader sold this belt to Economos, who sold it to Ewing. On April 3, 1974, Ewing sold the belt to the Canadian Museum of Man (now the Canadian Museum of History), where it now resides under a new catalog number (III-I-1458)."

Reference:

Bruchac, Margaret. 2018. Broken Chain of Custody: Possessing, Dispossessing, and Repossessing Lost Wampum Belts. Proceedongs of the American Philosphical Society 162 (1).

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

Tooker. E. 1998. A note on the Return of Eleven Wampum Belts to the Six Nations. Ethnohistory 45, 2, pp. 219-236.