Unearthed, digitized and soon to be repatriated, artifacts from two Native American towns are beginning to share their rich stories online thanks to a collaborative project by anthropologists, librarians and Indigenous community members.
The recently launched digital collection 鈥 On枚ndowa'ga:' (Seneca) Haudenosaunee Archaeological Materials, circa 1688-1754 鈥 features two historical locations 鈥 White Springs and Townley-Read, both near Geneva, New York 鈥 which were inhabited consecutively by members of the On枚ndowa鈥檊a:鈥 (Seneca) Haudenosaunee (Six Nations Iroquois) after they fled the French military destruction of the town of Ganondagan in 1687.
Various cultural artifacts and the changing layout of the towns show how the communities adapted and thrived in their new environments, according to , anthropology professor in the 麻豆视频 and 麻豆视频 and director of the American Indian and Indigenous Studies Program in the College of Agriculture and Life 麻豆视频. Jordan led archaeological work at the two locations.
鈥淭here鈥檚 a misconception common among scholars until recently that, as soon as Europeans arrived, Native people went on a long, slow slide into disappearing and irrelevance,鈥 he said. 鈥淏ut you can really see that there is a ton of Native technology and local plant and animal species that were being used alongside European imports.鈥
In 2017, Jordan partnered with graduate student Dusti Bridges to highlight these discoveries by starting an online collection, supported by the Grants Program for Digital Collections in Arts and 麻豆视频 at Cornell University Library and with earlier seed funding from the Great Lakes Research Alliance for the Study of Aboriginal Arts and Cultures (GRASAC).
The collection, which focused on domestic spaces and does not include sacred objects, is a vehicle for descendant communities to virtually connect with their cultural heritage, according to Bridges, who is completing a Ph.D. in anthropology.
The project will also physically reunite descendant communities with their heritage objects when the original physical artifacts are transferred from Cornell鈥檚 Department of Anthropology to the Seneca-Iroquois National Museum in Salamanca, New York. The transfer of materials is scheduled to start next summer.
鈥淏ringing the materials back empowers the Seneca community,鈥 said Joe Stahlman, director of the museum and a consultant on the project. 鈥淭his becomes an opportunity for the Seneca to contribute to the research but also to show themselves as knowledge holders.鈥
Community involvement has always been essential to the project. Jordan and Bridges gathered initial feedback from Seneca partners during a meeting at Ganondagan and through consultations with Indigenous colleagues from GRASAC. Questions about language emerged as a major consideration.
鈥淲e took out the specialist archaeological language, which could be alienating,鈥 said Bridges. 鈥淪o instead of using 鈥榮tructure鈥 we used 鈥榟ouse.鈥 We used 鈥榯own鈥 instead of 鈥榮ite.鈥欌
Bridges and Jordan are now inviting Indigenous community members to share On枚ndowa鈥檊a:鈥 language terms, and other information about the artifacts, via the feedback forms in the online collection.
To present and collect this abundance of information on the website, the project has depended on the expertise of library staff like Jasmine Burns, visual resources metadata librarian and a proponent of a movement known as critical cataloging practice.
鈥淚nstitutions are becoming more reflective about the way that they鈥檙e describing their collections,鈥 she said, 鈥減articularly collections that represent marginalized communities and a diverse audience.鈥
Burns customized the standard metadata template used for image collections in order to replace colonially tinged terms (such as 鈥渄iscovery site鈥 which was substituted with the neutral term 鈥渇ormer site鈥) while also adjusting the metadata vocabulary so that Indigenous-language terms can be further added, linked and easily searched.
The digitization and the transfer of the physical artifacts are steps toward healing a deep divide, according to Michael Galban, curator for the Seneca Art and Culture Center at Ganondagan State Historic Site and an expert on Native American material culture who also served as a project consultant.
鈥淭he unethical practices that took place in the earliest days of archaeological science 鈥 including the desecration of burials and the removal of ancestors鈥 remains 鈥 have so damaged the trust between Native peoples and archaeologists in universities and museums,鈥 Galban said. 鈥淜urt and Dusti have been very diligent in repairing that relationship. Every time that a successful project like this is responsibly brought into fruition, it not only helps Native people but also the science of archaeology.鈥
Jose Beduya is a staff writer, editor and social media coordinator for Cornell University Library.
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