WAMPUM AND SHELL ARTICLES 431 
expressive of the sincerity of what they had declared.” Ifa propo- 
sition was not liked, the belt might lie for hours or days on the 
ground. To raise it was to accept the proposition. Loskiel said 
that, if peace proposals were rejected, ‘“ when the ambassadors re- 
turn home with the refusal, the Delawares throw the belt or string 
of wampum thus rejected into the council house, and there it lies 
till some old woman takes it away.” 
Sometimes the rejection was vigorous. In 1691 the Five Nations 
rejected a French belt while at Albany. “‘ We declare the belt of 
wampum given by the French venomous and detestable, and did 
spew it out and renounce it, and will not accept of the belt but 
prosecute the war as long as we live; and left the belt upon the 
ground in the court house yard.’ In 1693 imperious Count 
Frontenac kicked away three belts sent him by the Five Nations, 
and five years later flung a belt in the faces of Io Onondaga mes- 
sengers. They retorted in kind when he sent them five belts in 
1699. A sachem asked for them in the council at Onondaga, “ and 
one of the sachems got them and threw them towards him, but 
not so far as that sachem sat, and another Indian very scornfully 
kicked them at him.” Quite as vigorous was the reception of the 
war belt which Johnson gave in 1756. “A Seneca chief laid hold 
of it, sung the war song and danced,” and it passed on to others. 
Attachments. Belts often had something attached. After the 
treacherous seizure of the Iroquois by De Nonville a Cayuga chief 
addressed Gov. Andros in 1688. “Hee presented a Belt of Wam- 
pum, with twentyeight sticks tyed to itt, to shew the number of 
the Indians taken by the French.” At an earlier day, when Chau- 
monot came to Onondaga in 1655, for his second present he * made 
a crown of a collar, which he presented them and placed it on the 
head of one after another. They were at first surprised at this 
novelty.” He made over 30 presents at one council, but the 
present of the faith was “the most beautiful of all which the father 
showed.” His ninth present was a tree appropriately prepared, 
lopped branches showing dead chiefs and growing boughs their 
children. “They regarded more attentively this piece of wood 
than the porcelain which was attached to this present.” 
