Photographs (left to right): All Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, Canada

Wampum Belt Archive

 

Red Painted Wampum Belt

(Also called The Five Nations War Belt)

From Tehanetorens (1999)

Beauchamp 1901- NMAI 031906.000

Reproduction (R. D. Hamell)

 

Original Size:	Length: 40.6 inches. Width: 4.5 inches.
Reproduction:	Beaded Length: 59.0 inches. Width: 7.0 inches. Total Length with Fringe: 83.0
Beads:	Rows Wide: 15. Rows Long: 339. Total Beads: 5,085
Materials:	Warp: Leather. Weave: Artificial sinew.

Description:

Five Nations War Belt made by Black Hawk (NMAI). Rick Hill (1989) recorded this belt with "Red Pigment" represented the Nations at war.

Tehanetorens reproduction is short of one pair of diamonds. The difficulty in reproducing this belt was the symmetry of the paired diamonds which is not very clear in the photograph. This could be due to lighting on the original belt giving a 'false' color interpretation of beads. The author selected to make the paired diamonds symmetrical, as did Tehanetorens, and complete the missing end with the same pattern that is on the left with the exception that the 4 sets of paired white bars were inverted.

Purchased by George G. Heye in 1907, bought by Thomas R. Roddy from James Jamieson, son of Cayuga Chief in 1899.

Reference:

Beauchamp, 1901. Wampum and Shell Articles Used by the New York Indians. NYS Mus. Bull. 41, pp. 321-480.

HIll, Rick. 1989. Council Fire. Woodland Cultural Centre, Brantford, Ontario, 51pp.

Stolle, Nickolaus. 2016. Talking Beads: The history of wampum as a value and knowledge bearer, from its very first beginnings until today. Hamburg, Germany. ISSN 1437-7837

Tehanetorens. 1999. Wampum Belts of the Iroquois. Book Publishing Company, Summertown, TN.

Tooker, Elisabeth. 1998. A Note on the Return of Eleven Wampum Belts to the Six Nations Iroquois Confederacy on Grand River, Canada. Ethnohistory, Vol. 45, No. 2 (Spring), pp. 219-236.