Beaded grass mat
Shoulder necklace.
Gä-te-äs-häor Gä-a-o-tä-ges
This decorative shoulder ornament was draped around the yoke of an overdress.
The wicker-plaited grass medallions are covered with bead embroidery; the
medallions are connected with plaited grass cordage. Lewis Henry Morgan
collected this piece for the State Cabinet of New York in 1850 and it is shown as
Plate 8 in the Fifth Regents Report.
Grass mat shoulder necklace.
RMSC Collection.
This grass mat necklace is similar to the picture in Lewis Henry Morgan’s Fifth
Report to the Regents of the University. It is now in the Rochester Museum &
Science Center’s Morgan collection.
In describing the shoulder ornament in his book, League of the Iroquois (1851),
Morgan states that it was made of “a fragrant marsh grass, called by the Senecas
Gä-a-o’-tä-ges….”
“Several strands or cords are braided from this grass, of the requisite
length, and tied into one string. At intervals of three or four inches, small
round discs, made of the same material, sometimes covered upon the
upper face with bead-work, are attached. It thus makes a conspicuous
ornament, and emits an agreeable odor, furnishing a substitute for
perfumery” (p. 387).
[click to see similar object in IAP Exhibit]
Beaded pin cushion.
Ya-wa-o-dä-gua.
Lewis Henry Morgan collected this pincushion in the 1840s for the Iroquois
collection at the State Cabinet in Albany, NY. It is listed as Plate 13 in his Third
Report to the Regents of the University (1849) as an example of “the patient
industry of the Indian female” (p. 94). It was one of 3 varieties of Ya-wa-o-däqua (with the “ä” pronounced like the “a” in arm) he sent to the state that year.
[click to see similar object in IAP Exhibit]
Beaded pocketbook.
Got-gwen-dä.
This pocketbook was collected by Morgan in the 1840s. It is listed as Plate 14 in
the Third Report to the Regents of the University (1849) as one of 6 varieties of
pocketbooks he presented to the New York Historical and Antiquarian collection
in that year.
[click to see similar object in IAP Exhibit]
Beaded workbag.
Gä-yä-ah.
This beautifully beaded piece was one of 5 varieties of workbags LH Morgan gave
to the New York State Museum in 1849. It is shown as Plate 11 in the Third
Report to the Regents of the University (1849), as well as the plate listed opposite
p. 390 in his League of the Iroquois (1851). He stated in the state report that the
Seneca word for the object was Gä-yä-ah (with the “ä” pronounced like the “a” in
arm). These and the other beadwork pieces he collected that year showed, he
said, “the application of Indian ingenuity to fabrics of foreign manufacture”. The
Senecas and other Haudenosaunee people had been making clothing and
accessories of broadcloth and beads for at least a century prior to Morgan’s visits
to Tonawanda.
[click to see similar object in IAP Exhibit]
Child’s outfit made by
Caroline Parker, 1840s.
RMSC Collection.
Caroline Parker, the only daughter of William and Elizabeth Parker, was a skilled
beadworker. From Morgan’s notes in his loan to the 1881 Rochester Art
Exchange charity exhibition, we know that she bead-embroidered these child’s
leggings and overdress in the 1840s. Among the objects from his personal
collection included in the exhibition were: “Indian Leggings and Kilt [overdress]
for young Girl,made by Caroline Parker, the Daughter of the Sachem of the
Senecas.”
[photo]
Detail of beaded table
Coverlet. RMSC Collection.
Caroline Parker may have made this exquisitely beaded coverlet from the
Rochester Museum & Science Center’s Lewis henry Morgan collection. Caroline,
a Tonawanda Seneca of the Wolf Clan, was the sister of Ely Parker, Morgan’s
informant. The whole Parker family helped Morgan in his study of the
Haudenosaunee, which resulted in his publication of the League of the Iroquois
in 1851.
Detail of Skirt. Pl 20
Fifth Regents Report.
The flowering tree branch motif, seen at the lower corner of a Seneca woman’s
wrap skirt, is a common design in Iroquois beadwork. It symbolizes the tree of
life (and light) in the Sky World. The elaborate beadwork on the skirt resembles
that on the coverlet as well as that on the child’s leggings in the Rochester
Museum & Science Center’s Lewis Henry Morgan collection.
[click here for connect to story about Sky Woman in IAP exhibit]
[photo]
Caroline Parker, c1840.
Daguerreotype.
Caroline Parker (c1830-1892) made and bead-embroidered this outfit shown in
the photograph from a daguerreotype of her taken about 1840. Morgan donated
a similar outfit to the State in 1849. Caroline is shown wearing that clothing in
the lithograph published in Morgan’s League of the Iroquois (1851).
Lacrosse Stick. From Morgan’s
3rd Annual Regents Report.
The game of lacrosse is an Indian invention. French missionaries named the
ball bat for its resemblance to a bishop’s crosier or stick. This drawing was first
published on p. 81 in LH Morgan's Third Report to the Regents of the University
(1849). The Senecas at Tonawanda called this a Gä-ne-ä; it is 5.5 feet long. In
his notes accompanying the piece, Morgan stated:
This is a great game of the Indians. It is also of the highest antiquity, …
and played with a zeal and enthusiasm which would scarcely be credited.
In playing it they denude themselves entirely, with the exception of the Gäkä, or waist cloth, each one holding a bat, of the species represented in the
figure. Gates are erected about sixty rods apart, upon opposite sides of a
field, and the point in the game is, for each party to carry the ball through
their own gate. Usually they have from six to eight on a side to play the
game, who are surrounded by a concourse of spectators…. Oftentimes the
play is contested with so much animation, that the ball is recovered at the
edge of the gate; and finally, after many shifts in the tide of success, is
carried to the opposite side (p. 82).
Morgan also observed that the contests would last from “noon until evening to
determine it, each trial is conducted with so much ardor and diversity of
success” (p. 82).
[need photo]
Lacrosse Stick.
Gä-ne-ä
RMSC Collection.
Morgan collected this Gä-ne-ä, or lacrosse stock, during the 1840s from the
Senecas at Tonawanda. It is now in the Rochester Museum & Science Center’s
Lewis Henry Morgan Collection.
[click here to see painting of a Lacrosse game in the IAP exhibit]
Levi Parker, Lithograph.
League of the Iroquois.
Levi Parker (1820-1895), Wolf Clan, was the second of 7 children born to William
and Elizabeth Parker. He is pictured in Lewis Henry Morgan’s League of the
Iroquois (1851) holding a spiked war club. Morgan collected the club for the
State Museum in 1849.
[click here to view copy of this war club in the Indian Arts Project exhibit]