Wampum belts carry our power and traditions

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The words come easily to Ken Maracle now, whether he speaks in the Cayuga language or in English, reciting a ceremonial Haudenosaunee speech, or discussing world affairs. As an artist, Maracle specializes in crafting objects used to record events and serve as memory aids, to hand ideas down from generation to generation.

As proprietor of the Wampum Shop located at Six Nations of the Grand River, Maracle creates many traditional Haudenosaunee objects and crafts. He offers them for sale through the shop and through his Web site, and he devotes a lot of time displaying these objects and sharing teachings with students and teachers about their historical and continued significance to the Haudenosaunee people.

Items available at the Wampum Shop include turtle rattles, used in the Great Feather Dance; horn rattles and water drums, used in several ceremonies and dances; condolence canes, used during the elevation of new chiefs; and many varieties of wampum belts.

Already a hobbyist, Maracle found the wampum belts occupying his thoughts after the repatriation of several belts in 1988. After the Heye Foundation in New York returned the belts to the Six Nations reserve, a friend at Akwesasne asked Maracle to replicate 16 wampum belts, and he obliged.

"I laid them all out. I looked at those belts all together, and I thought 'man, that's powerful,'" Maracle recalls. "Then I made a set for myself. I tried to fathom the significance of those belts." The repatriation event itself, Maracle said, should have been commemorated. "When those belts came back in 1988, I thought more belts should have been made. But we don't make them any more."

He has been studying and making wampum belts ever since. As a faith keeper of the Lower Cayuga Longhouse, he travels across Turtle Island talking about the origins and cultural and historical significance of wampum belts. Maracle finds students and teachers alike are "overjoyed to hear the knowledge."

One of the best-known belts is the Two Row Wampum, which depicts the agreement between the Haudenosaunee and the European newcomers that each nation should travel its own path in harmony with, and separate from, the other. "That must be one of the greatest things that can happen between people," Maracle said. "To come together and make those agreements.

"It should have been that way," he added, referring to the agreement recorded in the Two Row itself. "This country could have been so much greater."

There is no malice in Maracle's voice as he speaks of the time the belts spent in various museums after "the white people took them away from us." Racism, he acknowledged, "exists on both sides of the fence. Racism is a great sickness." Now, he said, the challenge is to go onward with mutual respect. "The power of peace is when everyone has it." In addition, he pointed out that although the belts should not have been removed from Haudenosaunee territory, they were well preserved in museums for decades.

Given their size (some are several feet long) as well as their beauty, the wampum belts dominate the shop. But also striking are Maracle's variations on the condolence cane, used during the elevation of a new chief. The pegs and corresponding pictographs on the sides of the cane are mnemonics used in a ceremonial recitation of the 50 hereditary chief titles of the original five nations. This roll call is recited when a chief dies and a new chief is elevated to take his place.

These ceremonies continue to be practiced to this day.

"The most important part of our existence is our ceremonies," said Maracle. "This is not history, not something written in books. We live it. I can feel my ancestors speaking to me through the belts."

While granting that modern life differs greatly from the life of his ancestors, Maracle ultimately shrugs off the distinction.

"In the old days they walked everywhere. It took time, and on the way you had time to think and discuss. 'What are e going to talk about tonight? What are we going to do?' You prepared yourself. Today I get to the longhouse in two minutes.

"But to me, the important thing is that you're doing it. You may be busy. You may do a shortened version of the ceremony. But you're doing it. It's alive."

Maracle is convinced that Haudenosaunee life will continue to grow richer with the passage of time, and that traditions like the recording of events in wampum belts will continue to be an important part of that life.

"I can feel it," he said with conviction. "Our people are going to start making belts again."