Page:Architectural Review and American Builders' Journal, Volume 1, 1869.djvu/145

 1808.] TJie Penn Treat y-G round and a Monument to William Penn. 117 N THE WAMPUM BELT OF THE GREAT TREATY. [On account of the smallness of the scale, the separate beads are not expressed. The figures, however, are reliable. — Ed. J in the " peace league" accepted from the Iroquois. Evidently the Five Nations claimed an effectual word in the disposal of the lands and friendship desired by Penn. It crops out in the latter's subsequent purchase of the Pennsylvania lands from them, through Colonel Dongan, as before stated. It appears from the minutes of the Treaty of Governor Gordon with the Iroquois, held at Philadelphia, in 1727, when the Indian speaker, Tanne- whannegah, said : " The first Governor of this place, Onas, when he first came, sent to desire the Five Nations to sell lands to him. They answered, ' We will not sell now: we may in time to come.' Albany he spoke to our head men in effect, 'Well, my brethren, you have conquered these people : we shall buy the lands of you.' This was reported to the Confederacy, whose Council di- rects us to say : ' We are now ready to sell the lands.'" PENN'S COSTUME. Penn was very modest with respect to the great Treaty. None of his letters extant mention it, although some em- browned and faded sheet, now hying perdu, may be bristling with the sub- ject. To him, however, as to many great men in their greatest actions, it was a matter, of course, which he could not dream would become famous. We know that he wore, on the occasion, to distinguish him, in Indian eyes, from the other whites, a shoulder-sash of light blue silk, which Clarkson speaks of, as in the possession of Thomas Kett, Esq., of Seething Hall, near Norwich, Norfolkshire, England. He is tradi- tionally reported as pronouncing, dis- tinctly, the Christian sense of the com- pact, and then giving a roll of parch- ment, containing it, to the principal Sachem, the one who wore the horn in the chaplet.* He is known to have re- ceived, to bind the convention on the Indian side, a broad Belt of Wampum, latterly brought over by Granville John Penn, Esq., expressly for presentation to the Historical Society of Pennsyl- vania, as the representative of the whole people of Peniisjdvania. THE WAMPUM BELT. Of this, on the formal occasion, Mr. Penn spoke: "I brought out with me " the belt of loampum given to the " Founder of Pennsylvania by the In- " dian chiefs, at the Great Treaty, held " in 1 632. That such is the case there "can bono doubt, though it has come " down to us without documentary evi- " dence. But the same is the case with " the chain and the medal presented by " Parliament to the Admiral, father of "the Founder. Their authenticity de- " pends, for the one, upon the history of " Pennsylvania, and the universal tradi- " tion of both Indians and whites ; the " other upon the journals of the House " of Commons. Both bear intrinsic " marks of their genuineness." * * * " It [the belt] plainly tells its own tinguishing the principal war-chief, the most influential man of the tribe. The Delawares, as explained else- where, could have at that time no war-chief, but still the most active man in public affairs would hold the same rank, a rank superior to that of merely hereditary king or head chief of the tribe, although it might inhere in the same person. Catlin refers this to the Old Testament phrase, "May their horns be exalted," as a possible link between the dispersed "Ten Tribes" aud the Indians.
 * * * When the Governor was at
 * Catlin speaks of the horn in the head-dress, as dis-