November is Native American Heritage Month. The national theme for this year's heritage month is "Pride in Our Heritage. Honor to Our Ancestors ." The Office of Diversity offers these interesting facts you may not know about the contributions and history of our Native American ancestors.

Here are this week's fascinating facts about some of the influences of the Native American culture on our country:


1. Did you know that Broadway street in New York was originally a trail called the “Wickquasgeck Trail carved out by American Indians?


2. Did you know that there are over 500 federally recognized American Indian Tribes in the US but there are also many regional and state recognized tribes?


3. During WWII, the Marines used Navajo “secret code” talkers to relay messages back and forth, a code that the Japanese never broke?


4. Did you know that the eagle was a national symbol to American Indians long before the arrival of Europeans?


                  
      Planting of the Peace Tree                              Jacob Swamp and Bob Wheelersburg

On Wednesday, November 4th, the campus received a distinguished guest, Jacob Swamp, former chief of the Mohawk Nation and representative to the Grand Council of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy. Swamp spoke about Iroquois traditional peace beliefs and rituals. Made famous by the Hiawatha myth and the phrase “bury the hatchet,” the peace tradition allowed six constantly warring nations to form the Iroquois Confederacy based upon peaceful coexistence during the 17th century.  According to historical accounts, Native American tribes like the Iroquois buried their weapons under a white pine as a truce symbol.  Burying the hatchet also symbolized peaceful relations between Indians and Europeans. The new United States of America negotiated peace treaties using the ceremony. 

Students enrolled in Elizabethtown College’s archaeology field school recently found evidence of this practice. They located four European-made ax (hatchet) heads along with the remains of large fires and ceremonial cooking vessels. These artifacts were buried six feet deep at the Washington Boro Susquehannock Indian Village, which was connected to the Iroquois (c. 1600 – 1630).  Although native in origin, the phrase “bury the hatchet” is now an English expression for ending conflicts.  It also has modern applications; in fact, in 1990 the Mohawk Nation buried the hatchet with officials in the Canadian Province of Quebec after settling a land dispute.

Jacob Swamp founded the Tree of Peace Society in 1984 as a non-profit organization to build cross-cultural understanding between Native and non-Native peoples. Both the Mohawk Nation Council and the Grand Council of the Haudenosaunee sanction the organization. 

The lecture was followed by the planting of a white pine tree on the Elizabethtown campus. This event, to celebrate American Indian Heritage month, was sponsored by the Office of Diversity, the Dean of Faculty and the Department of Sociology and Anthropology.

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