Oneida Tribal Belt

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 Skenando was on an official trip to Albany. While there, his so—called “friends” fed him liquor until he passed out unconscious. When he awoke, he found himself with his face in the gutter, all of his ceremonial clothing and possessions gone. He vowed never to drink the white man’s firewater again. When he returned home, he said to his people, “Drink no firewater of the white man. It makes you mice for the white men who are cats. Many a meal they have eaten of you.” The old Oneida who held this fine belt died at Oneida Village at the age of 110 years. Just before his death, he said these words to his people, “I am like an aged hemlock. The winds of a hundred winters have whistled through my branches. I am dead at the top. The generation to which I belong have gone away and left me. Why I live, the Great Spirit only knows.”