METALLIC ORNAMENTS OF NEW YORK INDIANS 5! 



to be given to y e Chief Warriors, to be worn about their necks as a 

 token that they shall allwaies be in a readinesse to fight under her 

 Banner against the common enemy. O'Callaghan. Col. Hist. 5 1222 



Very proud, doubtless, were these hundred warriors, but the cus- 

 tom begun by the English two centuries ago, and by the French 

 still earlier, has come down to our own day. 



In July 1721 the governor of Pennsylvania presented the Seneca 

 chief Ghesont with a gold coronation medal of the king, charging 

 him " to deliver this piece into the hands of the first man or greatest 

 chief of the Five Nations, whom you call Kannygoodk, to be laid up 

 and kept " as a token of friendship between them. Hazard. 

 Minutes, 3:130 



Possibly the plate mentioned in Penhallow's Indian Wars was 

 silver medals or badges. The Six Nations and Scaghticoke Indians 

 were well received in Boston in 1723, and the lieutenant governor 

 " gave each of them a piece of plate, with figures engraven 

 thereon, as a turtle, a bear, a hatchet, a wolf, etc., which are the 

 escutcheons of their several tribes. And the more to oblige them 

 to our interest, they had a promise made of one hundred pounds a 

 scalp, for every Indian that they killed or took." Penhallow, I :ioi 



In the Canadian Antiquarian and Numismatic Journal for January 

 1899, Mr R. W. McLachlan gave an account of medals awarded to 

 Canadian Indians. In this are many interesting particulars, the 

 author being a specialist in these, and putting many early notices 

 in an accessible form. The following observation is of general in- 

 terest : 



Size was of great importance to the red man, who was no admirer 

 of miniature medals. Some were struck exceeding three inches in 

 diameter. These were for the great chiefs, for there were smaller 

 medals for lesser lights. . . While we may be inclined to believe 

 that more minor than great medals were distributed, as there 

 could not help but be more lesser than " Great Chiefs," this fact is 

 not borne out by the number of existing medals; the larger medals 

 are by far the more abundant. This may, in a measure, be accounted 

 for by the fact that the minor chiefs more readily parted with their 

 medals; and that, too, at a time when there were few collectors in 

 the country to secure and hand them down to posterity, while the 

 great chiefs' medals passed from father to son as an insignia of 

 office. . . Old silversmiths relate that, as late as 60 years ago, 



