Premium-grade maple syrup produced by the Oneida Indian Nation’s Wáhta’ Maple Farm is now available for purchase at the Shako:wi Cultural Center. This new product allows the Nation to share the rich heritage of maple sap and syrup in Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) culture with its guests and the community and continues its commitment to sustainability across its business enterprises.

Maple sap is considered by the Haudenosaunee to be a medicinal gift from the Creator that provides a sweet reward after the challenges of a long winter. However, to ensure gratitude for this gift, transforming sap into maple syrup requires a great deal of hard work and determined collaboration.

For more information about Wáhta’ Maple Farm, please visit: WahtaMaple.com.

Ká:lahse’ – a Haudenosaunee Tradition

Lacrosse has been called the quickest game on two feet and the fastest growing sport in the world – to the Oneidas, the game has long been known in their ancient tradition as ká:lahse’. The Creator’s game was played for fun by the Oneidas and other Haudenosaunee, but the game was also a spiritual celebration with deep meaning.

Learn how the game developed through time during a documentary in the Native perspective, as well as see the shaping of cured hickory wood into a lacrosse stick. “It’s more than just a stick,” Turtle Clan Council Member Dale Rood explained. “We believe that it has a life of its own. It’s the Nation’s goal to teach people, to show them that lacrosse is not only a game we play, but it’s significant to our culture.”

The Oneida Art of Basketry

Once the Oneidas lost their land base, making and selling baskets became a source of survival. View one of the best-documented basket collections, including nearly 90 baskets dating from the 1800s and early 1900s. Over time, the baskets became more elaborately decorated, reflecting market changes and artistic innovation.

Wampum: validating the spoken message

Wampum attests to the truth, importance and significance of a message. To our forefathers, wampum was a symbolic material linked, in ancient tradition, to the Peacemaker’s founding of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. When beads were collected into strands or woven together as belts, the wampum stood for the authority of a spoken message.

Today, it contains the best thinking of our people from the Peacemaker to the present. It represents who we are and reminds us where we have been. Wampum means an agreement to hold onto our traditions because our history and laws are wrapped up in it. To us, it is sacred substance with powerful healing presence.

Oneida Industries

Oneida Industries is one of six panoramic displays created by renowned anthropologist Arthur Parker to depict Haudenosaunee life in Central New York. One display was devoted to each of the Six Nations in the Haudenosaunee Confederacy.

Oneida Industries is the most elaborate of these displays, comprised of six life-sized plaster figures (cast from living Haudenosaunee models) in a leafy forest setting.

Each figure is engaged in a different traditional craft: making a basket, shaping a stone arrowhead, carving a wooden bowl, making a moccasin, making a ceramic pot and weaving a tumpline (a broad strap passed across the forehead and over the shoulders for carrying a load on the back).

Outreach Program

In addition to tours and lectures, Oneidas preserve and pass on their heritage by connecting with students through storytelling and activities as part of the Oneida Indian Nation Cultural Outreach program.

Students explore the Shako:wi Cultural Center, where they will learn what The Great Law of Peace means. They also get the opportunity to hold a war club and to visit the Oneida Indian Nation’s Cookhouse. There, students make a cornhusk doll, and learn the Oneida words for turtle, wolf, and bear, and how to count to five.

To schedule a visit call (315) 829-8801.