31 belts, set out as records. Each plate stands as wide as the belt is long; ink stands for the purple beads and bare ground for the white. A belt is a record: it is set where its record is meant, never as decoration.
As marks 31
The belts are also drawn small, as marks in the icon library — a short length of each, showing the thing it is known by. These are signs for the belt; the records are below.
Read from the belt itself 9
The Pledge of the Crown
Fort George, 1815 · the Claus belt · NMAI 8386
12 rows · 298 beads · 6.72 : 1
Drawn from
Read bead by bead off a flat photograph; 35 of 3,576 beads contradicted.
What it says
The Crown’s own act: made for the Crown and given by it. Read at Grand River as a pledge never to force a change of customs.
Still open
Seven beads of the left motif; the total within two beads; at which council it was given, and the Crown’s words with it, from the full minutes.
The Hiawatha belt
The union of the Five Nations
38 rows · 2.05 : 1
Drawn from
Measured off a photograph, then corrected by the Secretary-General. Proportion from the recorded original, the photograph being foreshortened.
What it says
Four nations and the pine at the centre, joined by the road to the heart of the fire. The road runs unbroken and steps down to meet the tree.
Still open
None recorded.
The Friendship belt
Two parties, one agreement
13 rows · 5.91 : 1
Drawn from
Measured off a photograph for its proportion, its line and its two hearts. The figures are drawn in the form of the figure on the Canandaigua belt.
What it says
Two figures at the ends, joined by one line. The same form inverted: one filled with a white heart, one open with a purple heart. Each outer arm goes down and the forearm comes up.
Still open
None recorded.
The Dish With One Spoon
The shared hunting ground
7 rows · 9.77 : 1
Drawn from
Measured off a photograph; the dish stands at the exact centre.
What it says
One dish from which all eat: what belongs to one belongs to all.
Still open
None recorded.
The Two Dog belt
Kanehsatake · made c. 1721, delivered 1787 · McCord M1904
27 rows · 484 columns · 8.07 : 1
Drawn from
The chiefs’ own reading of 1787, a photograph, and the Secretary-General’s reading of the belt.
What it says
A dog at each end facing out to guard the boundary; eight men hand in hand, chests alternating; the cross; the land beneath. The 1787 speech asks for the same tenure as the Mohawks at Grand River.
Still open
What “the body” is in the chiefs’ words. The dogs are close, not exact.
The Jay Treaty belt
1794 · free passage across the border
9 rows · 122 columns · 5.30 : 1
Drawn from
Chief Clinton Rickard’s description and two photographs.
What it says
A purple field, one white line the whole length, four short white lines at each end running the same way.
Still open
Some hold no belt was made, the treaty being between the United States and Great Britain.
The Six Nations Language Belt
R. D. Hamell, 2016
10 rows · 228 columns · 7.24 : 1
Drawn from
Measured off a photograph.
What it says
Six diamonds evenly spaced; the dark passage is the time the languages were suppressed, and the diamonds go on through it reversed.
Still open
Which way the edges of the dark passage lean.
The Twenty-Four Nations belt
Niagara, 1764 · Annual Presents
12 rows · 590 columns · 18.1 : 1
Drawn from
Measured off Hallen’s drawing of 1852; the belt itself is reported lost. The people are drawn in the form of the figure on the Canandaigua belt.
What it says
Twenty-four figures hand in hand between a rock and a ship. If the Crown forgot its promise, the nations would pull the ship. The chain is never drawn broken.
Still open
None recorded.
The Dust Fan
The Wing of the council · Onondaga · NYSM E-37420 · the widest belt known
50 rows · 202 columns · 2.14 : 1 · shown deeper than the others, so it can be read
Drawn from
A photograph of the belt, read as a grid of beads. The lower half is the vote of eight repeats, which agree at 87 per cent; the upper half is taken as the lower flipped top to bottom, which the photograph bears out by eye and the grid at 72 per cent, the belt being warped there.
What it says
A purple field. Along each edge, a row of white wedges, each with an upright and a slanting line beside it, repeating every 22 beads: the feathers of a wing. The purple left between them is the chain of joined figures the record calls hexagons. It is the Ever-growing Tree, shown when the Great Law is recited.
Still open
The exact beads of the upper half. The edge rows, taken by eye from the photograph as a purple row outermost and a white row within. How the pattern ends at the two ends of the belt, where the photograph shows a boxed white line that is not drawn.
Drawn from the record 8
The Two Row
Kaswentha · thirteen rows
13 rows · 233 columns · 6.47 : 1
Drawn from
The recorded belt of 13 rows by 233, 38.8 by 6.0 inches, and the Secretary-General’s reading of the rows: three white, two purple, three white, two purple, three white. No photograph has been measured.
What it says
Two paths side by side that do not interfere. The two purple rows are drawn exactly alike.
Still open
Whether the purple rows are two beads deep, and whether the belt is bordered across its ends. This is the middle of the three lengths: the shorter (156 columns, 3.83 : 1) and the long Grand River belt of 8 rows (15.2 : 1) are kept on their own sheets.
The Entanglement Wampum
Made by the Secretary-General · thirteen rows
Read from the left: out of the chaos we are in, toward the two rows.
The same belt turned about, read from the left: how it could be if the lines are not maintained.
13 rows · 233 columns · 6.47 : 1
Drawn from
A belt of the Secretary-General’s own making, seen in one slanted photograph. Measured across, the photograph gives three white, two purple, three white, two purple, three white: thirteen rows, the Two Row’s own, and the belt is set out at the Two Row’s 233 columns on his word. It is drawn as the other belts here are, and by his direction not bead for bead: the two rows run clear at one end, and from there each bead is put out of its row by chance, a little at first and further and oftener the further along, until the rows are lost; the top row and the bottom row are white from end to end. It carries the Two Row’s own 932 purple beads.
What it says
In his words, “the period before the Two Row is adhered to”; and it is read both ways, as a warning: of where we are, in chaos, and of “how it could be if we don’t maintain the lines.” So it is shown twice here, the one drawing and its turning.
Still open
The belt’s true number of columns; his own reading of it at length. The place of each bead is not claimed. The small mark is turned the same way with the kit’s own ff-flip.
The GR Covenant Chain belt
Albany, 1754
21 rows · 488 columns · 8.95 : 1
Drawn from
Sir William Johnson’s description. The original is lost; the counts are the reproduction’s. The people are drawn in the form of the figure on the Canandaigua belt.
What it says
Six figures and nine, a heart between them, GR above, and a white line the whole length: a board for both heads to rest on.
Still open
The spacing, which nothing attests and no photograph can settle.
The Canandaigua Treaty belt
1794 · the Washington belt
15 rows · 609 columns · 13.8 : 1
Drawn from
The recorded description, and the forms in a photograph of the belt laid out. Not read bead for bead.
What it says
Thirteen figures joined by a chain of arms that steps down and up; a house at the centre whose roof line runs out over two smaller figures, the doorkeepers. The chain is brightened each 11 November.
Still open
How the thirteen divide either side of the house: six are counted on one side, seven taken on the other.
The Fort Niagara Treaty belt
1764 · the Covenant Chain
22 rows · 458 columns · 8.0 : 1
Drawn from
The 1901 report. The original was lost in a fire; the known image is a reconstruction. The people are drawn in the form of the figure on the Canandaigua belt.
What it says
Hexagonal council fires and figures with clasped hands. The belt carries the date 1764 woven in two halves.
Still open
The arrangement, and where the date sits; it is not placed on the drawing.
The Cabins of the Confederacy belt
Beauchamp 1901, fig. 268
14 rows · 238 columns · 10.25 : 1
Drawn from
Beauchamp’s reading, element by element. The people are drawn in the form of the figure on the Canandaigua belt.
What it says
Two houses not united, three men apart, two joined holding a flag, six cabins on one line: a sentence about who is joined and who is not.
Still open
The reading is disputed: Corbiere holds the pointed structures are forts.
The Ohsweken belt
Beauchamp 1901, fig. 176 · photographed at Ohsweken, 1899
7 rows · 133 columns · 8.14 : 1
Drawn from
The recorded count: ten black diagonals of seven beads, ten white of eight.
What it says
In the Nation’s own council in 1899. “After John Buck’s death most of the fine collection of Canadian belts quickly disappeared.”
Still open
Its meaning is not recorded.
The Joseph Brant belt
Council fires of the Six Nations and Great Britain
11 rows · about 346 columns · 10 : 1
Drawn from
The counts, and one line of description: a square at each end for the council fire of each government.
What it says
Friendship between the Six Nations and Great Britain after the War of 1812.
Still open
Everything between the two fires. It is drawn as a road that stops at the edge of each fire, and is unverified.
Drawn from a description alone 14
The Circle Wampum
The fifty, and the string added in 1869
Not a belt: a ring of two strands, with its strings hanging within
Drawn from
Its description alone. No photograph has been measured, and the drawing is provisional.
What it says
The ring is two strands laid together. Within it hang fifty strings for the fifty titles, set here in their five companies: nine Mohawk, nine Oneida, fourteen Onondaga, ten Cayuga, eight Seneca. In the Nation’s account a fifty-first was added in 1869 for Prince Arthur; it is drawn longer, marked at its end, and set beside the Mohawk nine.
Still open
Its measure: the ring, and the lengths of the strings. Where the fifty-first hangs. And one thing to be checked against the object: some published accounts speak of a longer string for the firekeepers among the fifty, which is not drawn here.
The Great White Belt
Said to be given by the Peacemaker at the founding · NMAI 175206
17 rows · 198 columns · 4.69 : 1
Drawn from
The record: a white belt with a row of purple along each edge. Its length is what survives; it was cut in half after the Revolution and a figure removed.
What it says
The white of the Great Peace. One half went to Grand River; where the other went is not known.
Still open
An all-white belt drawn in one weight is an empty frame. It is set here as a record, and cannot serve as a mark.
The Hospitality belt
The Welcome belt · Mohawk, Canada
6 rows · 150 columns · 11.4 : 1
Drawn from
The record: three purple diagonal bars set at equal distances on white. The middle of the belt is damaged.
What it says
The bars are braces, the supports of the Longhouse: friendship held out by the one presiding to those who come.
Still open
The width and the lean of the bars, which the record does not give.
The Fort Stanwix Treaty belt
22 October 1784
7 rows · 104 columns · 7.75 : 1
Drawn from
The record: six purple diagonal bars in pairs on white. One account adds two upright bars; where they stand is not said, and they are not drawn.
What it says
Peace between the Six Nations and the United States. The bars are the supports of the Longhouse.
Still open
The two upright bars, and the spacing of the pairs.
The First Sighting belt
The coming of the people with white faces
13 rows · 228 columns · 8.0 : 1
Drawn from
The record: a purple ground with four groups of three white diagonal lines. One reading gives each group as two wide lines with a thin one between.
What it says
John Buck of Grand River read diagonal lines as props to the Longhouse. Here the thin line is the newcomers, weak and hungry, and the wide lines the nations either side, holding them up.
Still open
The widths of the lines; which newcomers are meant.
The Donehogawah belt
The Keeper of the Western Door · Seneca · its mate held by the Mohawk at the Eastern Door
7 rows · 18.9 : 1
Drawn from
The record: a purple ground with five open white hexagons at equal intervals and three short white rows at each end.
What it says
The five council fires. The three white rows are the three warnings given before war. Painted red, it was sent from the Western Door to the Eastern, and its return was the word to begin.
Still open
Its bead count, which the accounts give differently.
The Caughnawaga belt
The St Regis belt · seven crosses
7 rows · 174 columns · 15.05 : 1
Drawn from
The record: a white belt with seven purple crosses along it and a purple zigzag at one end.
What it says
Read two ways. One: the pledge of seven Christian nations of Canada to leave their crooked ways and keep an honest peace. The other: the parting of St Regis and Caughnawaga from the League, their path not straight, gone to the land of the cross.
Still open
The size of the crosses, the turns of the zigzag, and which end it stands at.
The Council Summons belt
To call the Five Nations to hear the laws
7 rows · 170 columns · 12.75 : 1
Drawn from
The record: four pairs of purple diamonds on white; near one end a purple patch 22 beads long with a small white cross on it; at the other end, damaged, a purple diamond holding a white cross.
What it says
Read at Onondaga in 1898 as the belt that called a meeting of the Five Nations at which all the laws were read, made when the nations were set out in their clans.
Still open
Whether the diamonds are open or filled, and how the pairs are spaced. Beauchamp held there should be five pairs for an alliance belt.
The Chief Condolence belt
Blacksnake’s condolence belt · Seneca
7 rows · 246 columns · 18.2 : 1
Drawn from
The record: a dark purple belt with two white diamonds and a V lying on its side, in white, at one end.
What it says
A belt of mourning, used when a new holder is raised up to a title. The two diamonds are the two sides, the one that mourns and the one that condoles; the V is the antlers, the sign of office.
Still open
Where the two diamonds stand along the belt, and whether they are filled.
The Five Nations Alliance belt
Once of five diamonds; three remain
7 rows · 8.15 : 1 as it survives
Drawn from
The record: a dark purple belt with three open white diamonds. It had five and was about 24 inches long before it was divided.
What it says
The voice of the Confederacy. It was said to have been in the keeping of Mary Jemison. The two diamonds may have been taken when two nations did not agree, or to ransom a captive.
Still open
It is drawn as it survives, with three. Why and when it was divided is not known.
The Champlain belt
The near-twin of the Donehogawah belt
7 rows · 287 columns · 19.75 : 1
Drawn from
The record: a purple ground with five white hexagons equally spaced and, for an inch at each end, alternating rows of white and purple. It carries four white rows at each end where its twin carries three.
What it says
Read at Onondaga in 1898 as a belt for a sorrow meeting of the Five Nations, to consider what should be done when a wrong had been suffered. A label on it ties it to Champlain’s coming in 1609.
Still open
Whether the hexagons are open or filled.
The Antlers of the Chiefs belt
Seneca
10 rows · 158 columns · 7.1 : 1
Drawn from
One line of description: a V on a white ground.
What it says
The V is the antlers of the chiefs. The white ground is the peaceful mind they must keep when they deliberate and decide.
Still open
Nearly everything: how large the V is, which way it lies, and whether there is more than one.
The Cornplanter Condolence belt
The personal belt of Cornplanter, Seneca
7 rows · 225 columns · 18.25 : 1
Drawn from
The record: a long narrow belt, all of purple, damaged, with five gaps at regular distances where white designs may once have stood.
What it says
A belt of mourning. Following a dream, Cornplanter destroyed everything he owned but this belt and a tomahawk, and passed them on with his title.
Still open
What stood in the five gaps. They are drawn empty.
The Wolf belt
Akwesasne · returned there in 2010
14 rows · 252 columns · 7.39 : 1
Drawn from
The archive’s counts, and the description in the notice of its return: two human figures with joined hands, a wolf-like figure either side facing outward, and short horizontal stripes at each end. No photograph has been measured.
What it says
Friendship between the king and the people, the two men clasping hands. The white ground is peace, and the wolves guard it. The keepers of both doors of the Longhouse were of the Wolf clan.
Still open
How many stripes stand at each end, and how the wolves are formed; both are drawn by choice. This is Akwesasne’s belt, not Grand River’s.
Held back: the Nation’s own, in no grant. A belt is a record and is set only where its record is meant.