Inside Shako:wi Cultural Center, Oneida, NY

The Shako:wi Cultural Center, south of the village of Oneida on Route 46, is a museum devoted to the history of the Oneida Indian nation, one of the original Five Nations of the Iroquois League of Nations. The Oneidas were the only Iroquois tribe to side with the Americans during the American Revolution (and they paid heavily for it, too). Because of their sacrificial service to our cause, the United States of America reserved land for and to the Oneidas, and through it we pledge to live side by side with them in peace.

I have written extensively about the Oneida Indian Nation and the American Revolution. You can look at my Travel Archives for articles relating to this topic, or do a search for “Oneida” in my sidebar. The history is indeed fascinating.

The Oneidas have constructed a beautiful museum of their history. We have visited Shako:wi several times; the most recent visit was to meet with a few representatives of the Nation regarding my curiosity about the history (and location) of the Oneida Stone. You can also read more about the history of the Oneida Stone here.

I was honored with permission to snap a few photos of artifacts and displays in Shako:wi when I visited. Here are some of my favorites!

Firstly, this is a display showing the Treaty of Canandaigua, the treaty that reserves the lands for the Oneidas and pledges peace between us. Notice how the Indians signed it in their blood.

There are several displays devoted to Chief Bill Honyoust Rockwell, of the Bear Clan. He died in 1960. He was a leader of the Oneidas; his old property is behind the Cultural Center. Tradition has it that his great-great-great grandmother, Polly Cooper, helped George Washington that bitter winter at Valley Forge, by traveling all the way to Pennsylvania from Oneida, NY, to bring his army corn. Mrs. Washington is said to have given Polly a beautiful shawl for her service.

I love this. This is a display of the kastowa- the headdresses of the Iroquois tribes. Eagle feathers were positioned on leather caps to distinguish one tribe from another.

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Oneida Lake

Yuk, November is so gloomy in New York State. November and February are the worst months– everything is brown and gray, cloudy and muddy. Our brilliant fall foliage that clothed our October is gone now. I miss the sunshine.

So I rifled through some of my photo archives. I realized that I never wrote anything much about our visit to see Oneida Lake, in September. It was a chilly day, but the sun was shining and the blue water was very cheery.

Oneida Lake is New York’s largest inland lake, and it sits in a shallow pit in the center of the state. The lake is about 20 miles long or so, and only about 20 feet deep. In the winter, the lake freezes and people enjoy all sorts of recreation on the thick ice.

Many small and large parks dot the rim of the lake. Some have some docks where you can walk out to the lake somewhat and get a good view of the area. Read more

Playing Detective for the Oneida Stone

I just got the book, Oneida Iroquois, Folklore, Myth, and History, by Anthony Wonderley, and it is amazing! I blogged about our journey to Oneida Castle to see the mysterious Skenandoah Boulder. I’ve decided to dig a little deeper about the Oneida Stone, apparently a huge stone that mysteriously moved to central New York State eons ago; the Oneidas followed it until it stopped. Some say it was a chunk of rock that was pushed along by a glacier.

The stone was taken from the Oneidas in the 1850s or so, by non-natives who believed the tribe to be ruined. It was like taking a nation’s marker or banner as a sign of conquering them. Really strange. New Yorkers placed the Oneida Stone in one of their cemeteries– Forest Hill in Utica, NY. Some say the stone is no longer there, but there is plaque about the stone.

Doesn’t this all sound so mysterious?? Where did the stone go? Who took it? Who put it in the cemetery, and why? What was the significance of the stone, besides the Oneida calling themselves “the people of the standing stone”? And how could New Yorkers be so cruel as to take away their national emblem, dump it in a cemetery, and then take the Indians land… and get away with it all thee years??

I hope this book explains some of these questions. The history of the Iroquois is steeped in vagueness and puzzlement. I’m planning on taking a trip to Forest Hill cemetery (only about 5 minutes from my home) and looking for this stone plaque. It’s a very historical cemetery– a New York governor is buried there, so I figure I’ll come back with loads of history! Stay tuned!

P.S. If you have a hankering for learning more about the Oneida Indian Nation directly, check out our trip to the Shako:wi Cultural Center in Oneida, NY. A great museum!

New York’s Mohawk Valley

We actually saw SUNSHINE yesterday (the Mohawk Valley of Upstate New York sees sunshine about 1/3 of the year). Almost all our surface snow had melted, although the big dirty clumps of snow remain. It was actually rather pleasant, despite the mud! Today, the temperatures are back down below freezing and misty snow is falling. A few inches are expected today.

Can I whine? Waaaaaaaaah!

The Mohawk Valley is a unique area of Upstate. It is the lowest geographic area of the state. Therefore, it is the cloudiest area of the state. We aren’t hit as hard with lake effect snow (snowstorms that travel from Lake Ontario to our west), but we do experience flooding.

The Mohawk Valley used to be called the Gateway to the West because it was the only navigable route to the western frontier of the United States, until the railroads were built in the late 1800s. If you look at a map of the Eastern seaboard, we’ve got the Appalachian Mountains from the Carolinas up to the Pennsylvania/New York State border, and we’ve got the Adirondacks and “Northern Appalachians” northward up to Canada.

The only area where people could transport their goods and their families west was up the Hudson River and westward through the Mohawk Valley. It is the reason why New York State is such the “melting pot” state that it is. The centuries of transmigration through our state has formed its character. We are an impatient, transient, restless people. There’s a terrific online book by the late Paul Keesler, called Valley of the Crystals; if you want to learn more about New York, that’s a great place to start.

It is believed that the first inhabitants of what is now New York were the Algonquin Indians and the Iroquois Indians (these are the European names given them). The Iroquois Indians consisted of numerous tribes; the groups that populated the Mohawk Valley were, as expected, the Mohawks. They were a very fierce and territorial tribe, so this part of New York was considered the “wild frontier” and remained largely unsettled because of the fierce clashes between the Europeans and the Mohawks.

The Revolutionary War (in which the Mohawks sided with the British– the losers) ended the Mohawk’s land claims. (During the Revolutionary War, Upstate New York was a hot bed of civil clashes between patriots and loyalists. Besides the 100+ battles fought here, there were terrorist raids by British, Loyalists, and their Indian allies. So much of the Mohawk Valley was destroyed by fire that this period is called “The Burning of the Valleys” to this day). After the war, the “wild frontier” was rapidly settled.

The construction of the Erie Canal sealed New York as the Empire State, leading an entirely new era of entrepreneurship, and spawned the Industrial Revolution in the country. And in the 1820s, a religious revival that began in Adams, NY, led by Charles Grandison Finney, spread across the state and across the nation. This eventually spawned religious revivals across the world in Wales, Scotland, and the Scandinavian countries. The Mohawk Valley became known as the “Burned Over District” because of the zeal and fervent devotion of Christians. From this revival sprang movements for women’s rights and the abolition of slavery. New York State– and especially the Mohawk Valley– led the nation once again.

I did not grow up in the Mohawk Valley. I am a relatively new import, although I am a New York native. I’m actually a descendant of the Algonquin Indians, so I don’t suppose I can get any more New York native than if I sprang out of the soil. Living in the Mohawk Valley is a interesting experience. The area is very self-absorbed. I don’t mean that in a necessarily negative way. This area is very cloistered and not as cosmopolitan as, say, Syracuse or Binghamton. And there is no desire for the Mohawk Valley to become cosmopolitan; the people of the Valley seem to like their traditional ways. I suppose this is what attracts young families, as the Mohawk Valley touts itself as a wonderful place to raise a family.

In June 2006, Upstate New York was hit massively hard with flooding catastrophies. The rain just never seemed to stop. My own property has been flooded a dozen times in the past decade. I dug up this old YouTube video of a restaurant in a nearby town that was washed away in the floods. The second video is an aerial video of the flooded Mohawk River. The pictures are stunning.

New York has been experiencing another series of battles over the years, this time for the heart and soul of the state. Horrible economic and legislative policies tailored to benefit New York City at the expense of rural Upstate has caused New York to spin into a nosedive. New York is expecting to lose at least two congressional seats after the next census, due to severely declining population; New York is losing its political clout and seems to have forgotten its roots. It was actually Upstate’s Erie Canal and Finney’s Great Awakening that made New York City the hub that it is and the success that it found, but I think those facts have been forgotten. Time will tell if New York will see another awakening.

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