March 2024 – Sakoianonhá:wi Curotte is a second year Liberal Arts student at Marianopolis. Sakoianonhá:wi interned at the McCord Stewart Museum, where he worked on the Wampum Beads of Diplomacy exhibition. Wampum served as powerful cultural and political symbols during diplomatic meetings in the early 17th to 19th century between Indigenous and European nations. The exhibition offered an unprecedented look at the origins of these stunning shell bead belts and explored their fundamental role in relations between nations.

Liberal Arts professor and program coordinator Dolores Chew introduced you to archeologist Jennifer Bracewell, a Liberal Arts graduate who helped find this opportunity at the McCord Stewart Museum. Can you tell us about some of the projects you worked on for the Wampum Exhibition and what they entailed?

I was assigned to create an educational booklet that visitors would be able to consult to as they explored the exhibition. I spent two months preparing, writing and editing. The booklet was titled, Wampum : Beads of Respect and Agreement, and contained historical information and several facts about Wampum itself, including the origins, the significance of strings, belts, colors, and how they were used in political and diplomatic settings. I also worked on another educational tool, a poster about the historical background of a specific wampum belt known as The Hatchet Wampum belt, which originates from the Huron-Wendat nation.

How would you explain the importance of Wampum to someone who wasn’t familiar with it?

To the average person, these Wampum belts are merely beads but it’s important to understand their significance and how something so small could have such a big impact on uniting people and bringing them together to speak about peace rather than war and violence. Just like paper and pen to the Europeans, the Aztec/Mayan codex in South America to Inca quipu strings, Wampum in the North was used as a form of documentation that tells a story through symbolization. The bright purple and white colors also have significant meaning depending on the intent of the message. From the power of oral tradition, Wampum is still often regarded as one of the most powerful cultural items to Haudenosaunee and Iroquoian people to this day.

Which aspects of working at a museum were most interesting to you?

I really enjoyed meeting most of the people that worked at the museum and learning from their knowledge and experience. I also found spending some time in the laboratory with the Wampum belts themselves a very important and memorable experience, considering the belts have great spiritual and cultural importance to Kanien’keha:ka people and the rest of the Haudenosuanee nations. They also have been in storage for quite a while, so seeing them for the first time in person was a very emotional experience to say the least, especially as the biggest belt in the collection originating from my own nation.

What did your day-to-day look like as an intern?

A majority of my time was spent finding sources at my desk, while occasionally venturing to the laboratory to collect data or going to Kanesatake to meet the chief of their community regarding specific wampum belts.

I also spent a considerable amount of time walking around the museum trying to figure out how to adapt the educational booklet to the format of the Wampum exhibition and visually analyzing some of the cultural items from the permanent exhibition Indigenous Voices of Today to better grasp how I could make my booklet engaging and memorable for visitors. While all of the projects were very engaging and interesting, I found working in the laboratory a very memorable experience since I was working beside the wampum belts themselves. I also had the chance to visit the McGill medical archives and museum with the laboratory crew during my last few weeks at the museum.

Has your experience as an intern influenced the field of study or professional opportunities you would like to pursue in the future?

Yes. Ultimately, prior to going into the McCord I was always fascinated and interested in museums but I found that by working alongside cultural items and spending time in the laboratory really inspired me to think about going into anthropology and archaeology.

What are your plans after graduation?

I plan on either studying my language: Kanien’keha in my community or venturing to the United States to study Anthropology at the University of Syracuse or University of Hawaii at Hilo, where I would aim my research towards the Kanien’keha:ka Haudenosuanee people.

How did the internship benefit you and how do you think similar opportunities might benefit other students going forward?

The McCord Stewart Museum internship very much gave me the opportunity to gain a feel of what it is like to work in a museum setting. It really showed me what kinds of responsibilities go into managing the cultural items themselves, while understanding some of the ways museum exhibitions can be stylized and formed into an art in itself, which I found fascinating. I think these type of activities can benefit other students by allowing them to experience things first-hand and ultimately build-up the knowledge and experience needed for future a careers like museology or history.