Number of Images: 2; Color: Color; Size: 5w x 8h; Type of Image: Postcard; Medium: Paper
Historic Images of the Smithsonian
The photo used for the postcard has the following credit line information: "Joe Regis (Mohawk), Chase Manhattan Bank, New York City, late 1960's. Courtesy of Bethlehem Steel."
The National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) was created on November 18, 1989, when President George H.W. Bush signed an act allowing the transfer of the Museum of the American Indian into the Smithsonian to create NMAI.
Color postcard advertising the "Booming Out: Mohawk Ironworkers Build New York" exhibit at the National Museum of the American Indian. Two Mohawk men are on an iron structure high up in the city. The postcard is unused, but the message side has printed information about the exhibit.
Also three carbon copies. Number 3504- Text in Mohawk by Seth Newhouse. 12 pages. First sheet marked Chapter IV- "Seh-ha-wih Ska-naa-wah-tih, pages 58-ff. These were translated, revised and typed in 1936-7. Number 3491- "Newhouse translation of Mohawk Biography of Deganawida" (Original Number 1328), 1898- 3 pages (3 typed copies of revision in Number 3524) Newhouse 1937- This has been typewritten (copies in 3524) Manuscript note on Hiawatha, the cannibal.
Manuscript 3524, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
From card: "Caughnawaga Indians. Woven of wool, in four strips sewn together, red ground on all, design of arrowheads - two center ones in khaki color, the outer ones each side of a different color grey and dark blue, the long edges of the designs outlined in white beads. Presented to the donor as part of a chief's costume, with which he was presented when installed with that office in return for services as a lawyer in a treason case 1837. Illus. Hndbk. of N. Amer. Indians, Vol. 15, Northeast, Fig. 13, pg. 308." Handbook caption identifies as "Mohawk finger-woven belt (ceinture aux fleches) from Caughnawaga. Wool, red ground, center arrows khaki, outer arrows gray and dark blue, outlined with white seed beads. Width about 19 cm."
United States (not certain) / Canada (not certain), North America
OBJECT HAS OLD TAG ATTACHED TO IT WHICH SAYS: "CAUGHNAWAGA MOHAWK IROQUOIS" [i.e. Mohawk of the Kahnawake Reserve, Quebec, Canada] . - F. PICKERING 6-27-2000 Anthropology Conservation Lab records identify this as a sandal-shaped object with predominantly yellow beadwork, some rose, blue and green. It appears to be a Niagara Falls-style souvenir beadwork object, and may be a wall hanging/wall holder of some kind, perhaps a whisk broom holder? See pp. 18-19 in Elliott, Dolores N. 2002. Flights of fancy: an introduction to Iroquois beadwork. Johnson City, NY: Iroquois Studies Association. These types of objects are sometimes called "whimsies." This object may be from the Romeyn B. Hough collection, Accession No. 4245? - F. Pickering 4-13-2009