The Homelands, Haudenosaunee Women’s Blanket

This hand-embroidered, hand-sewn Haudenosaunee Women’s Wearing Blanket features iconography and symbols interpreting the history and original territories of the Haudenosaunee peoples. Raised beadwork designs of figures and sky domes reflect Haudenosaunee oral histories, wampum, creation stories, and cosmologies. Muslin treaty, or annuity cloth, references the Canandaigua Treaty of 1794, whereby the US Treasury annually provided bolts of muslin cloth to the Six Nations, thereby asserting their sovereignty. This agreement is upheld to this day. At center, a map depicts the communities and villages destroyed during George Washington’s 1779 military campaign, known as the "Sullivan Expedition," named after General John Sullivan. The embroidery, at bottom, quotes Washington’s intentionally destructive military strategies against the Haudenosaunee.