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WAMPUM AND SHELL ARTICLES 433 
after which the belt was unfolded and another message was added. 
-In one case the river Indians presented Gov. Fletcher with half a 
belt of wampum in 1693. Arratio spoke for the upper Iroquois to 
Frontenac in 1697. His second belt was divided between two mes- 
sages. By one half he expelled sorrow from Onnontio’s heart; by 
the other he arrested the hatchets of the young Onondagas. To 
three strings of wampum, each bearing a message, Count Frontenac 
_ joined a belt to the Onondagas in 1697. Each half of this carried 
a message. “The belt was folded double. The one halfe was a 
token of the affection he had for Odatsigiha, and the other halfe 
was to show the Five Nations the inclination he had to make peace 
with them.” The Onondagas resolved to send two chiefs to 
Canada “ with a belt of wampum folded double.” 
Colden gives the only account of the great council held at Onon- 
daga in January 1690. The principal Iroquois chief held one of 
the belts sent by Frontenac, by the middle, and gave one message. 
Then he said, “ What I have said relates only to one Half of the 
Belt, the other Half is to let us know, that he intends to kindle 
again his Fire at Cadaraqui next Spring.” A captive Cayuga chief 
sent a number of belts at this time, one of which was folded. His 
address appears without date in the Documents relative to the colonial 
history of the state of New York. The greater prominence of belts 
of this kind in Canada was probably due to the scarcity of 
wampum there, all of this coming from New York. Indeed 
Frontenac according to his enemies did not approve the use of 
wampum. In 1679 they wrote to France of what he did when 
the Ottawas brought beavers to trade. “The Indians having 
included in their presents to the governor some old moose 
hides and a belt of wampum, which they appreciate highly 
and which the French do not value as much as they do beaver, he 
caused his interpreter to tell them, according to their mode of speak- 
ing, that such did not open his ears, and that he did not hear them 
except when they spoke with beaver. This the Indians were 
obliged to do in order to have liberty to trade.” The same writer 
said that a coureur de bois, whom Frontenac favored, took beaver 
skins to Albany in order to get wampum to trade with the Ottawas. 
