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547 Appendix D Petun Wampum Belts Overview William H. Holmes observed that: “The name Wampum is often applied to shell beads indiscriminately, but frequently has a more restricted significance, referring to small cylindrical varieties used in strings and belts” (Holmes 1883: 238-239).The term is used here in its narrower definition, limited to a wampum belt, a framework of threads, originally “native hemp, bark filaments, deerskin, and sinew” (Hale 1897b: 235) replaced in historic times by manufactured twine,of the desired length and breadth,on which are strung tubular beads made of various marine shells in several contrasting colours, predominantly white and purple, to make meaningful patterns. Peter D. Clarke (1870: 50fn) described the beads as “from a species of sea-shell… Perforated [lengthwise] tubes, about one eighth of an inch in diameter, and half an inch in length, and of a mixed light and dark-purple color.The tubes are fastened together with strong thread or ligament into belts” (Clarke 1870: 50, fn).Another description states that “The belts are large bands, in which little white and purple cylinders are disposed in rows, and tied down with small thongs of leather, which makes a very neat fabric.The length and size and color are proportioned to the importance of the affair” (Lafitau 1974: 310). A wampum bead is inherently tubular and intended to be strung, characteristics that differentiate it from other perforated beads made from marine shell (later of glass).A wampum belt has characteristics which differentiate it from other sorts of belts, primarily the mnemonic function of recording as symbols “history, laws, treaties and speeches”. By these definitions,“disc-shaped beads” are not wampum even if made of marine shell, and neither are tubular beads made of other shells, wood or other materials (Wintemberg 1908: 78, 82, 83, 84). Sometime before 1897, during one of the several visits he made to the Anderdon Wyandot Reserve south ofWindsor,Horatio Hale was shown four wampum belts by Chief Joseph White (Mandorong, Mondoron). He related that Chief White “did not clearly remember...what precise event each was intended to commemorate” (Hale 1897b: 233) but thought they “related to the title of Indian lands in Canada, to the adoption of the Christian religion, and others” (ibid.). Hale purchased the belts and after they were studied by himself and his colleague Edward B.Tylor, placed them in the Pitt-Rivers Ethnological Museum at Oxford, England, where they remain today (Hale 1897a, 1897b;Tylor 1897). Hale believed he sorted the four belts into temporal sequence and proposed that three “date back to the era of Champlain and the Jesuit Missions,” and were related to precise events in 1637, 1647 and 1648.The fourth belt he believed to have belonged to the later Western Wyandot “settlement near DetroitValley under the protection of the French,” ca. 548 APPENDIX D 1720.This date coincides well with the statement by Peter D. Clarke (1870: 17, 18) that “from that period might be dated the first introduction of the wampum belt system.” The three belts “are entirely of Native make; the later one is formed of similar materials ...procured from white men. In the older belts there is no uniformity in the size of the beads, some of them being twice as large as others. It is evident that they were made by hand...while the later beads of nearly uniform size, were as evidently wrought by a lathe” (Hale 1897b: 232-233). Hale named, described, dated, interpreted and illustrated the four belts (Hale 1897b: 236-242, 257 Plate XI: 1-4, 258 Plate XII). If Hale’s proposed dating and interpretation are correct,the three earliest belts were contemporary with the Pre-Dispersal Petun and associated with them, and the fourth with the Post-Dispersal Petun-Wyandot.The four belts as named by Hale, and in Hale’s sequence are: Double Calumet Treaty Belt “[O]ne of the oldest...and certainly the most important…probably more than two and a half centuries old” (i.e.A.D. 1647).The existing remnant shows a series of double-headed pipes,“an impossible article,” separated by a diamond (possibly representing a council fire) in white shell beads on a purple bead background,“a peace-belt,representing an important treaty or alliance of ancient times.” Hale related the belt to the renewal of the alliance between the Petun and Huron reported by Father Lalemant in 1640 as having recently occurred (1638?) (JR 20: 43), and the probably originally eight pipes to...

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