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

Wampum Belt Archive

Nipissing? Belt

After Versailles Natural History Cabinet

R. D. Hamell December 14 2021

 

Original Size:	Rows: 14. Length: ?
Reproduction:	Beaded Length: 36.0 inches. Width: 3.50 inches. Length w/fringe: 60.0 inches
Beads:	Columns: 73. Rows: 14. Beads: 1,022.
Materials:	Warp: Deer Leather. Weft: Artificial Sinew. Beads 1/4" polymer.

Description:

This belt is a drawn image replicated from the, c. 1800, no publisher  (in Regueiro and Stolle 2022). Culture affiliation was given.

 The Sainte-Geneviève Abbey library catalog by Father Claude du Molinet contains the oldest illustration of a wampum belt in France: one plate depicting the cabinet of curiosities at the end of the 17th century shows a grand specimen whose whereabouts are currently unknown (Zehnacker and Petit 1989: 78), decorated with six male figures holding hands; in dark color against a white background (their illustration does not have the human holding hands: see illustration above).

Reference

Regueiro, Paz Núñez and Nikolaus Stolle. 2022. Wampum: the pearls of diplomacy. Gradhiva, vol. 33.

Zehnacker, Françoise and Nicolas Petit. 1989. Le Cabinet de curiosités de la bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève, catalogue d’exposition. Paris, bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève.