Seneca Iroquois National Museum (8/14/2023)

Monday, August 14, 2023

Taking the long way home, first to Salamanca, NY, located in Allegheny Reservation of the Onödowa'ga:'/Seneca Nation, built on land leased from the tribe, currently until 2030. Seneca is one of the six indigenous nations of the Iroquois Confederacy or Six Nations, a democratic government that pre-dates the United States Constitution. Sovereignty was first confirmed in a treaty under George Washington in 1794.

Onöhsagwë:de’ Cultural Center (2018) housed the
Seneca-Iroquois National Museum (est 1977)

A stop sign in the Iroquoian language (KSS)

Exhibit: Distinct Community:

We were welcomed under a large Gustoweh/headdress

Gustoweh/headdress of the Seneca

Caroline Parker Didn't Ask for This
(2022-2023, by Jodi Lynn Maracle)
illustrates that artist Caroline Parker has
become the example of Hodinöhsö:ni'/
Six Nations material culture
through the Celestial Tree pattern

Exhibit: When It Began (Creation Stories)

Descent of Sky Woman (2019, by
Ronni-leigh Goeman and Stonehorse Goeman)
depicts part of the Creation story where a
woman falls from the sky and is gently lowered
by three heron onto the back of a tortoise
swimming in the ocean 

Descent of Sky Woman detail

Exhibit: Milestone - What We Measure By:

Telling time is based on lunar cycles,
with 13 moons in a year that
correspond to the sections of the
Creation tortoise shell

Exhibit: On the Mother's Side:

Clan Mothers (2018, by Debbie Doxtator) are
cornhusk dolls that traditionally do not have faces,
representing the eight clans of the Seneca Nation:
namely the turtle, snipe, hawk, bear,
beaver, wolf, deer and heron clans

Diorama with a longhouse, the traditional lodging of the
Seneca people, which housed several families

Deyäwë:nye:h/[Four] Winds (by Jacky Snyder)
illustrates the four categories of wind
represented by a bear, fawn, panther, and moose

It Has to Be Told (by Fay Lone) honors
the women of the Hodinöhsö:ni'/Six Nations,
who pass along their DNA as seen in the
twisted fabric at bottom center of the quilt

Exhibit: All the Medicines:

Traditional crops of the Seneca Nation
included sunflowers and tobacco (created
with beads by the students in Rachel Wolfe's
Salamanca High School Seneca Language Class)

Wahda'/Maple leaves signify the importance of the 
maple tree for providing sap for maple syrup

Passenger Pigeons

Dehhewänis/Mary Jemison was captured
at age 12 (c 1755) and was fully
assimilated into the Seneca Nation; later
she told her story to an American 
minister who had it published

In the above photo, Mary Jemison is
demonstrating one way to grind dried corn,
and this photo shows the dried corn and
the stone and bowl used for grinding

A sign indicated that a box holding pieces of Mary
Jemison's original log cabin was in this rebuilt cabin,
but where was this box? ... outside of the cabin was
a sort of giant periscope to look into a mirror towards
the roofline, and this photo shows what you see ...

Indigenous people across North America played variations
of the game of lacrosse, but it was the Hodinöhsö:ni'
version that evolved into modern lacrosse; the traditional
lacrosse stick is a reproduction of the type used 1800-1900

The legend is that the Creator gave the people the game of lacrosse for healing, and for his (the Creator's) enjoyment.

Uniform shirt of the Iroquois Nationals 

Iroquois Nationals helmet

The 2010 Iroquois Nationals qualified to go to the World Lacrosse Championships, to be held in Manchester, England. However, England would not recognize their Hodinöhsö:ni' passports. The team brought out the Washington Belt that commemorated the 1794 Canandaigua Treaty, which recognized each of the Hodinöhsö:ni' nations as independent and sovereign. A passport issued by the Hodinöhsö:ni' should be as valid as one issued by any other sovereign nation. The United States offered to issue temporary US passports, but the team refused on principle that their national identity was being challenged. They had traveled for 20 prior years on their own passports, but had to forfeit the 2010 Championship. There have been many instances when Hodinöhsö:ni' sovereignty was challenged and ignored.

When negotiating to become allies with
the United States, representatives from five
of the Six Nations went to Philadelphia,
where the leader received a Peace Medal
from George Washington in 1792

The fledgling United States of America may have borrowed iconic symbols from the Hodinöhsö:ni'/Six Nations, including 1) the motto "e pluribus unum/out of many, one" may be based on the Hodinöhsö:ni'

Thanksgiving Address that states "our minds as one;" 2) the eagle as a symbol for maintaining peace and keeping an eye on the horizon to ensure peace; and 3) a cluster of [13] arrows signifying strength in unity as stated by the Peacemaker who convinced the warring Nations (Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga and Seneca, later joined by Tuscarora) to band together.

A section of the Gyantwaka Treaty Belt (a record of the
formation of Cornplanter Tract/Reservation in 1796), which
was divided among the heirs of Cornplanter after his death

A political cartoon has the indigenous women stating:
"We whom you pity as drudges, reached centuries ago
the goal that you are now nearing" (KSS)

At the Women's Rights National Historical Park in Seneca Falls, NY, we had learned that the leaders of the women's rights movement based their Declaration of Sentiments on Haudenosaunee or Hodinöhsö:ni'/Six Nations principles. To this day, their society is based on female authority that empowers women to maintain their own identities as well as rights to their bodies, property, political voices, and children.
Exhibit: Kinzua Dam:

The building of the Kinzua Dam was another matter that
ignored Hodinöhsö:ni' sovereignty, by building a dam
that flooded Six Nations' communities (KSS)

Exhibit: The Art of Carson R Waterman:

Six Nations Gustoweh/headdresses
(2012, by Carson R Waterman)

The Hunter (1976, by Carson R Waterman) (KSS)

Entering the Sovereign Territory of the Seneca Nation
of Indians (c 1990s, by Carson R Waterman) (KSS)

Haudenosaunee in Vietnam (1995, by
Carson R Waterman) illustrates that although an
independent and sovereign nation, the people
volunteered with the US military forces; the
purple flag is that of the Hodinöhsö:ni'/Six Nations

Exhibit: Faces Keep Appearing:

Four Messengers (2018, by Debbie Doxtator) are
cornhusk dolls representing four beings sent by the Creator
to protect the people who were moving all about the Earth

A reproduction Ganöhse:s/Longhouse partially
surrounded by a palisade, which when completed with a gate
would protect from enemies, animals, and weather (KSS)

Longhouse interior (KSS)

Hodinöhsö:ni' means "people of the longhouse" and the Six Nations  share a territory they consider a large longhouse. The Senecas were the "Keepers of the Western Door" and the Mohawks were the "Keepers of the Eastern Door." The Onondagas were the "Keepers of the Council Fire," being situated between the other two Nations.

Families would sleep on the lower level, and
store their belongings on the upper level,
reached by a notched log ladder (KSS)

We were impressed by the bark cladding on the longhouse,
until closer inspection revealed it was synthetic (KSS)

Longhouses had either peaked or rounded roofs

Ëgate’dö:g/grinding stone used with corn, nuts, and berries

The Senecas were predominately agricultural, 
focusing on soil health and the technique of the
Three Sisters: planting corn, beans and squash
together to provide nutrients and support for each other;
here I see only corn and squash

Next: Kinzua Dam and Kinzua Viaduct.