Iroquois Museum, part 3 (crafts and projects)

There were just so many tie-ins with what we've been working on at home for crafts and projects that I wanted to write a post just highlighting those. There were many images and representations of the Three Sisters Garden, like the one above, throughout the museum. Of course, we were still in the midst of planting our own garden (we've since finished, which I'll be blogging about as well).

Here's a 1/12 model of a Longhouse. We started work on our Longhouse (more of a 1/3 model) this week.

Moccasins, we are closing in on the completion of our own moccasins.

They called this the "dice game", but it's the Peach Pit game. All the kids groaned when they saw it (none of them are too fond of playing the Peach Pit game), but Laurel and I had a good laugh.

Earrings made with beads and porcupine quills. Ok, well, we're not making earrings with our quills, but this was the only example of quillwork we could find in the museum. We asked about it, and the older man told me that there really isn't anybody who works with the quills anymore. He said he has a big box of them at home, as do most folks he knows, but there's really nobody to teach the tradition of quillwork anymore. He was pretty interested in our intended craft project with them, and found us a book to look at that showed some examples (unfortunately in black and white). Amusingly, he told us our best bet for information would be an Internet search.

Turtle shell rattle. The ones we make are going to look a bit different from this one (first of all, this is a snapping turtle shell, ours will be red-eared slider shells), but it was cool to see a "real one" before starting work on ours.

These hats were cool, there was a display with one hat for each of the 6 tribes of the Iroquois Confederacy. Each had the replica of Aionwahta's wampum belt beaded on the front, about the size of the replica we're going to make this summer.

Braided corn, something we'll do when we harvest our Three Sisters Garden this fall, and certainly something we read about in our epic.

Cornhusk doll of a woman making a cornhusk doll (pretty clever!). I liked the traditional dress and beading on this one's costume. There were many examples of dolls -- we'll probably make some late in the summer/early in the fall when we start learning about our local tribes.


Ok, that's enough about the museum. I'm glad we went, it was a great experience for the kids. Next I'll post more about the rest of our trip, then we can get into some of the great stuff we've been working on this week -- it's been a busy, busy week!!