BEVERLY DOXTATER (MILLER), Mohawk Cornhusk Figure Cornhusks, cloth, leather, feathers, glass beads, wood, yarn, metal
Hands-on, in person
Cornhusk dolls were once traditional toys for children and ceremonial objects, but have now reached the level of art. According to tradition, the dolls are faceless because a child and the Creator would determine the individuality of the doll. Doxtater’s figures are more detailed than play dolls and are mounted on wooden bases. This male figure is posed as if playing lacrosse, which is the Creator’s Game and has a ceremonial aspect for men and boys. He wears a gustoweh cap with one feather pointing up, indicating that he is Seneca. He also wears a circular silver brooch that has been a typical Iroquois ornament since the 16th century. — Bennett King ’15
Archaeology is not just about digging up priceless statues and ancient tools. Sometimes, you have to pay attention to the refuse. Professor Jordan Kerber’s students have been learning that lesson since 1991, while excavating sites in the homelands of the Oneidas for his Field Methods and Interpretation in Archaeology course. “We aren’t making earth-shattering discoveries,” said Kerber. “This course is all about giving students an opportunity to do archaeology at an authentic site, and to get a realistic sense of what it’s like to do archaeology. They start by formulating questions and doing background research, and continue right through lab work, analysis, interpretation, and results. They end up writing a paper that becomes a permanent record about the research.” Many of his classes’ finds — stone chip debris, projectile points, scrapers and knives, fish and animal bone, pipe stems, pottery sherds, and more — have ended up in Colgate’s archaeology lab collection. Other students get to handle those artifacts in courses like Amy Groleau’s Intro to Archaeology. “When I say, ‘These are 4,000 years old and they’re from right down the road,’ their eyes get big and they see the landscape in a little bit different way,”
No-face dolls also serve as a caution against vanity.
“The Longyear has, I would say, the best and most comprehensive collection of Iroquois materials, especially Oneida, in the region. It has been a tremendous resource not just for the community, but also for Colgate students. Every course I teach includes some aspect of that collection.” — Jordan Kerber, professor of anthropology and Native
In recent years, excavation by Kerber’s field methods classes has taken place at the Brunk site, an ancient Oneida village in northern Madison County. The site was occupied by Native Americans for 15 to 20 years between the late 1400s and mid-1500s. The landowners run a farm/agritourism destination with an educational bent called Wolf Oak Acres; they plan to add an exhibit of the artifacts unearthed by Kerber’s students to their programming.
American studies
In keeping with the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, institutions receiving federal funding must publish an inventory of its Native American holdings so that federally recognized tribes with an affiliation to specific objects — for example, funerary and sacred objects — may request repatriation. Colgate has repatriated several objects to their affiliated tribes, and in other cases, the tribes have allowed the university to retain the objects, as long as they are not displayed.
Vessel ONEIDA, Vaillancourt site
“‘A new, human-like figure is first visible in Oneida ceramic art,’ making Vaillancourt one of the more widely studied sites in Oneida country as well as extremely culturally significant.” — Jeanie Arnold ’13, quoting historian Anthony Wonderley in her SOAN 353: Field Methods in Archaeology final paper
Courtesy New York State Museum, Albany, N.Y.
This 16th-century Oneida vessel has a large collar, rounded bottom, and two castellations or points on the rim. Hatched areas on the collar were associated with fields of corn, and the faces on the castellations represent a personified corn plant. — Holland Reynolds ’16