WAMPUM AND SHELL ARTICLES 423 



Fig. 238 Braces to buttress up a house so that it would not 

 fall. Made when the St Regis were taken in — so that the St Regis 

 were a brace to the Five Nations, and the Five Nations to the St 

 Regis. 



Fig. 249 A record of the first coming of the people with white 

 faces. 



Fig. 250 shows what remained of an Onondaga belt in 1878. 

 This fragment has long disappeared. This steady waste of the belts 

 caused an effort for their preservation. By council action at Onon- 

 daga the regents of the Universit}^ were made keepers of the wam- 

 pum, and at a council in the capitol at Albany, June 29, 1898, the 

 Iroquois chiefs of New York placed in their hands all the belts that 

 remained. The meeting was held in the senate chamber, and the 

 proceedings were impressive. 



Figures are given of 11 belts belonging to Thomas W. Roddy, 

 of Chicago. They are mostly fine and in good preservation, but 

 erroneous dates have been given to some. In fact a good authority 

 reports them as having recently belonged to the Canadian Six Na- 

 tions. Fig. 185 is called a " French peace belt, 200 years old," but 

 without particular reason. It may be a covenant belt of half a cen- 

 tury later, or a proposal for an alliance. The single line seems the 

 path of peace, and the five long open figures are probably the Five 

 Nations, while the four uniform white diamonds may be four of 

 the colonies of the white settlers. This is the largest belt in this 

 collection, but does not equal many others in size, being 14 rows 

 deep and 500 beads long, an unusual length now. The material 

 and symbols make its recent date probable. Fig. 184 is called a 

 French mission belt by the owner, apparently because of the 

 crosses. This is a plausible but not certain test, and it may be 

 considered about the age of the last. Fig. 180 is called the Red 

 Jacket belt, and the owner says that " it contains pictorial represen- 

 tations of the nine council fires in which he took part during his 

 life." It might bear this interpretation, as the diamonds may 

 mean fires, villages or nations, biit the Seneca orator can hardly be 

 limited to so few councils. The usual interpretation would be an 

 alliance between nine towns or nations. The belt is 15 rows, with 

 a line and diamonds of dark wampum on a white ground. 



