I40 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



structive mind a pictorial representation of his thought of con- 

 federating the divided nations by compact of mutual support and 

 protection. He filled his traveling pouches with a quantity of 

 these shells and, in the frequent rests of his journey, strung them 

 on threads shred from the sinews of the deer, and hanging them, 

 string by string, eventually completed 



The first wampum belt 



The foundation of this belt was of the white shells and the pic- 

 torial figures of the purple. Apportioned with exactness, as sign 

 of the tribal territories, he wove five symbols that represented the 

 cantons of the five nations, and with these he interwove five figures 

 representing men clasping hands as token of brotherly union. 

 Besides this significant delineation, he formed other belts each 

 representing some law, or fundamental principle, included in the 

 ceremonies of council, civil proceedings, war, death, peace, instal- 

 ment of chiefs, and all compacts necessary to the constitution of 

 a confederated government. The white shells were symbolic of 

 peace and the purple of mourning and war. Each belt was conse- 

 crated to its specific purpose and Da-ga-no-we-da neared the land 

 of the Mohawks strengthened by argument of these insignia of 

 ceremonies which eventually served with effect as visible laws in 

 the formation of that wondrous governmental structure, the 

 Ho-de-no-sau-ne, or the League of the Iroquois. 



This tradition of the origin of the first wampum belt has been 

 transmitted by the Iroquois from generation to generation and, 

 as history, is one of the most prominent among their " grandfather 

 stories." 



Belts of great age and inestimable value are preserved and are 

 yet in use among the Iroquois wherever the tribal government 

 continues. These are deposited as public records, 1 with the Onon- 

 dagas, who are the " law makers " of the Six Nations, and are held 

 in safe-keeping by the guarding sachem, Ho-no-we-na-to, the hered- 

 itary " keeper of the wampum " whose office as expounder of the 

 law, is to " read," or " talk " by the wampum at all the councils. 



These belts of wampum, or Ote-ko-a, the symbols of law, are 

 woven of purple and white cylindrical beads about three sixteenths 



1 The national belts of the Iroquois were passed into the keeping of the State Museum by 

 the chiefs and sachems of the Onondagas in June 1898. In January 1908 the chief of the 

 Onondagas, Sa-ha-whe (Baptist Thomas), signed an indenture making the Director of the 

 State Museum the wampum keeper of the Five Nations and conferring upon him and his 

 successors in office forever the title Ho-sa-na-ga-da (Ho-seh-na-geh-teh), Name Bearer, 

 the official name for the wampum keeper [See N. Y. State Mus. 4th An. Rep't Director]. 



