A Voice from the Eastern Door
A Voice from the Eastern Door
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Reprinted from ‘Legends of the Iroquois’ by Tehanetorens (Ray Fadden) Continued from last week....
Reprinted from ‘Legends of the Iroquois’ by Tehanetorens (Ray Fadden) Continued from last week....
Reprinted from ‘Legends of the Iroquois’ by Tehanetorens (Ray Fadden) Continued from last week....
Reprinted from ‘Legends of the Iroquois’ by Tehanetorens (Ray Fadden) Continued from last week....
Reprinted from ‘Legends of the Iroquois’ by Tehanetorens (Ray Fadden) Continued from last week....
Reprinted from ‘Legends of the Iroquois’ by Tehanetorens (Ray Fadden) Picture writing is a means of expressing thoughts or recording events by marks or drawings. An understanding of Iroquois or Six Nations customs, dress, history, culture, language, and tradition is necessary for the understanding of these pictograph signs. The symbols and signs given in this pamphlet, in most cases, originated in both ancient and modern Six Nations culture. Some of the more ancient signs were found on wampum be...
Reprinted from ‘Legends of the Iroquois’ by Tehanetorens (Ray Fadden) Forward by Nadine N. Jennings Sometime in the centuries prior to the arrival of Europeans in North America, the Mohawk, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, and Seneca Nations formed an alliance to establish the Great Peace, Kaianerekowa. Named the Iroquois Confederacy by the French and the League of the Five Nations by the English, the people called themselves the Haudenosaunee, the people of the Longhouse. Their primary geographic region was present day New York State, but prior to...
There are many, many wampum belts that we know of whose meanings have been lost. Some were bought from individual Indians who, in many cases, had no right to sell them. Many were stolen out-right by trickery or force, sometimes by government officials who also had no right to seize them. Some were robbed from graves and placed in museums, and no one recalls their significance. The meaning of others has been lost as Indian communities have been disrupted by missionaries and government officials w...
This is a replica of a belt which was offered for sale in October 1972, by collectors through a Park Avenue auction gallery. The original was dug up from a grave together with the bones of the children who were buried with it, probably within the last century in New York State. White people who read this can rest fairly secure that when they die, their remains will not be disturbed. But Indian People find that the resting places of their grandmothers and grandfathers are fair play for...
Six strings of purple wampum united at one end stand for the Six Nations. When this was laid in a circle the council was open. When it was taken up it meant that the council was over. It is provided thus: A large bunch of wampum strings, in the making of which the Six Nations League Chiefs have equally contributed, shall symbolize the completeness of the Union and certify the pledge of the nations represented by the Chiefs of the League of the Mohawks, the Oneidas, the Onondagas, the Cayugas,...
This belt symbolizes the alliance of an adopted nation. This belt was made to record the time in 1885 when the Akwesasne (St. Regis) Mohawks were taken back into the Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy. The four lines represent rafters to strengthen the framework of a building (Long House). The Akwesasne Mohawks are as rafters to strengthen and act as a prop or brace to the Six Nations and by doing this, the Six Nations likewise act as rafters or a brace to prop up the Akwesasne...
The Iroquois were not the only Indian people who used wampum belts. This belt was sent by Chief Black Hawk, the famous Sauk leader and patriot of the Indian nations at Traverse Bay, Michigan, with a message that their people should remain neutral during the campaigns and Indian revolts at Michilimackinac. Black Hawk had served under the great Shawnee leader, Tecumseh. The story of the life of this great leader, Black Hawk, is a sad one. He tried in vain to hold on to the little territory that...
This wampum is ten strings, all white, all pure and sacred, held in the hands of the followers of the Prophet while confessing sins before the Creator, and pledging to try in the future to lead a better and more pure life. In 1735 at the Seneca town of Conawagus on the Genesee River, there was born an Indian boy who was later to become one of the greatest Indian prophets and teachers of recent times. This Seneca was later given the office of a Chief of the Turtle Clan with the title of...
This belt was exchanged at the signing of the Treaty between the Six Nations and the United States at Fort Stanwix (Rome, N .Y.) Oct. 22, 1784. At this treaty (as in all others) the Six Nations was guaranteed the right of occupancy forever in the immemorial domain of the Iroquois League. The United States further promised to prevent anyone, including any state, from taking Indian lands or from interfering in the internal affairs of the Six Nations. As usual, the Six Nations alone faithfully...
This belt, called the George Washington Belt, is a covenant belt with the thirteen original United States. The thirteen large figures of men represent the thirteen states, their hands joined in friendship with the two center figures which are standing at each side of a house. The two center men are the Mohawks (Keepers of the Eastern Door of the Long House or Iroquois Confederacy) and the Senecas (Keeper or Door-keeper of the western part of the League). This belt commemorates the Treaty of...
At the beginning of the Revolutionary War the Iroquois tried to remain neutral, but it did not take them long to realize that neither the English nor the Americans intended to leave their country out of the war. One Indian compared his people to a piece of cloth between a pair of scissors, the scissors being the contesting white people and the Indians being the cloth that was cut. Such was to be the case, and it was not the first or the twentieth time that the Indian found himself in that...
This belt was an Akwesasne or St. Regis Belt and once belonged to Chief Running Deer of the Akwesasne Mohawks. The center figures, two men, represent the French and Praying Indians (Caughnawaga, St. Regis, Oka and their allies) clasping their hands in friendship. The seven purple lines signify what is called the Seven Nations. The color between the seven black lines is white and means a peace path. This is guarded at each end, east and west, by the Wolf Clan, symbolized by the purple colored...
This belt is sometimes called the Seven Nations Belt. It is a record belt, that is, it records a happening. It means this: Their path is not straight. They have forsaken the Great Law and gone to the land of the cross, Canada. This belt represents the union of the Seven Nations, and the crooked line at the bottom represents that they were crooked (Roman Catholic). This particular belt embodies the pledge of the seven Canadian Christianized nations to abandon their crooked ways and to keep an...
We direct our attention to the Life Forces on Mother Earth; To the waters, which quench our thirst and provides for the well being and the strength of plant life; to animals, who provide us with food, clothing, shelter and beauty; to the trees of all shapes and sizes, who provide us with shelter and fruits of many varieties, the medicine plants, who are carrying on the Creator’s instructions to cure disease and sickness. We give our thanksgiving to all of these Life Forces who have continued to follow the Creator’s instructions. For this we...
Reprinted from WAMPUM BELTS of the IROQUOIS By Tehanetorens This wampum belt was sent by Governor Denny of the Pennsylvania Province to the Indians, especially the Delaware and Shawnee People of the Ohio Region, to attend a peace and alliance council at Philadelphia. The Governor was very anxious to secure the fighting ability of Indians to use against the French who, the same as the English, had their eyes on the rich Ohio Region. During the wars in Europe between the French and the English,...
Reprinted from WAMPUM BELTS of the IROQUOIS By Tehanetorens This is an Onondaga belt and was made as a record. A French priest who was stationed at Onondaga told a French boy captive of the Onondagas that a French army was to invade the Iroquois Country, starting with the Onondagas. He, the priest, was secretly storing gun power and other military supplies in a small house in back of the mission, supplies that he received from time to time from French traders who visited Onondaga. The boy who...
Reprinted from WAMPUM BELTS of the IROQUOIS By Tehanetorens This belt is called the Sir William Johnson Dish Belt by its owner. It was supposed to have been sent by Sir William Johnson, colonial Indian agent of England for northern Indians, to Indian allies of Canada. It was to notify the friendly nations of the English, who were fighting the French, of the existence of food and supplies at four points, Fort Stanwix, Niagara, Oswego, etc....
Reprinted from WAMPUM BELTS of the IROQUOIS By Tehanetorens This belt records the conditions under which the Lenni-Lenape or Delaware Nation ceded a certain tract of their territory to the white man, and that they retained the right to travel, hunt and fish on the lands parted with, the design representing their trail to and fro over the territory sold....
Reprinted from WAMPUM BELTS of the IROQUOIS By Tehanetorens It is provided thus: A bunch of wampum strings is to be the symbol of the Council Fire of the League of Six Nations. The chief whom the Council of Firekeepers (Onondaga) shall appoint to speak for them in opening the Council shall hold the strings of shells in his hands when speaking. When he finishes speaking, he shall place the strings on an elevated place or pole so that all the assembled Chiefs and the people may see it and know...
This belt was long in the possession of Chief Skenando of the Oneidas, the friend and ally of George Washington during the Revolutionary War period. The belt was known as the Tribal Belt of the Oneida Nation. The six squares represent the territories of the Six Nations: the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, Tuscaroras and Senecas, who are joined together as one people, one nation, and one country. The six diamonds are the council fires of each state of the six united brothers. One time...
