Photographs (left to right): Sunset, Albuquerque, New Mexico; Silver Pennies, Rush, New York; Tent Rocks National Monument, New Mexico

Wampum Belt Archive

 

Tarhe 10 Diamond Belt

Hypothetical Reconstruction of belt given at the Greenville Treaty 1814

 

Original Size:

Length: ?

Reproduction:

Beaded length: 28.0 inches by 3.2 inches. With fringe: 52 inches

Beads:

174 beaded columns; Width: 7 Beads. 1,218 beads

Materials:

Warp: deer leather. Weft: artificial sinew.

Description:

According to Daniel Harrison (2018) the presentation of this belt by Anthony Wayne to chief Tarhe as leader of "your uncles the Wyandot" indicates their pivotal position, politically and socially as well as geographically, as intermediaries and cultural conduits between the Haudenosaunee and the Western Confederacy. Even though some of the belts passed over the fire at Fort Niagara (1764) were more properly "Huron" than "Wyandot(te)," the Wyandot of Brownstown and Upper Sandusky became the inheritors of that intermediary position after the destruction of Wendake. There was awareness of this at the time of the Greenville negotiations, in the form of protocol, deference and fictive kinship relations, with the Wyandot assuming the role of "uncles" and mentors.  Following the signing, the belt would have been kept with the wampum archives at Brownstown. Faithful to his word, Tarhe remained a U.S. ally, and as such was present at the 1813 Battle of the Thames where Tecumseh was defeated by General William Henry Harrison. As chief delegate at the second Treaty of Greenville in 1814, Tarhe, now 72, surely presented the treaty belt, in an effort to maintain its terms.
 
References:

Harrison, Daniel. 2018. Personal Communications. Henry Ford College, Dearborn, Michigan
William Johnson Papers. 
Ohio History Central, "Tarhe:"  http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/w/Tarhe
Treaty of Greenville (1814):  http://legisworks.org/sal/7/stats/STATUTE-7-Pg118.pdf