The collection consists of a copy of a studio portrait of Onondaga, Mohawk, and Seneca Chiefs with wampum belts, made on September 14, 1871, for Horatio Hale. Includes Joseph Snow (Hahriron), Onondaga Chief; George H. M. Johnson (Deyonhehgon), Mohawk chief, government interpreter and son of John Smoke Johnson; John Buck (Skanawatih), Onondaga chief and hereditary keeper of the wampum; John Smoke Johnson (Sakayenkwaraton), Mohawk chief and speaker of the council; Isaac Hill (Kawenenseronton), Onondaga chief and fire keeper; John Seneca Johnson (Kanonkeredawih), Seneca chief.
Biographical/Historical note:
Horatio Emmons Hale (1817-1896) was an American-Canadian philologist, ethnologist, author, and businessman who studied Native American languages. He published the Iroquois Book of Rites in 1883, which documented the history and rituals of the Iroquois Confederacy based on interpretations of the group's wampum belts. In September 1871, he requested that six Iroquois chiefs, with whom he had worked on the wampum belts, come to the Brantford, Ontario, studio of James N. Edy, where this photograph was made.
Hale later sent the photograph to his colleagues with variations on the following inscription: "The wampum belts were explained to me on the reserve, at the residence of Chief G. H. M. Johnson; and at my request the chiefs afterwards came with me to Brantford, where the original photograph . . . was taken.--H. Hale, Clinton, Ont." The photograph from which this copy print was made originally belonged to J. N. B. Hewitt.
Local Call Number(s):
NAA Photo Lot 86-58
Location of Other Archival Materials:
Additional James N. Edy photographs can be found in the National Anthropological Archives in MS 4751 and the BAE historical negatives.
Vocabularies and correspondence by Horatio Hale can be found in the National Anthropological Archives in MS 7235, MS 7236, MS 4558, MS 772-c, MS 4797, MS 4800, MS 7439, MS 7440, MS 7441, MS 3436, MS 1072, the Bureau of American Ethnology Letters Received, and the J.C. Pilling Papers.
Restrictions:
The collection is open for research.
Access to the collection requires an appointment.
Photo Lot 86-58, Copy of James N. Edy photograph of Chiefs of the Six Nations explaining their wampum belts, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
