| Show CHIEF OF SIX NATIONS Harriet Mniwoll Converse roiienel Honor Hon-or of n Jllgh Character There are very few people even in New York who know that ono woman who moves prominently among them in society is a chief of six nations of Indians Indi-ans This woman is Mrs Harriet Maxwell Max-well Converse daughter of Thomai Maxwell of Elmira She id i prominent in art circles a shining light among literary lit-erary people and an active club woman In 1804 Mrs Maxwells father for some act of bravery was admitted into tho Deer clan of the Soiieas and later his daughter was invited to attend the death council held in Buffalo at the re interment of the remains of Red Jacket and five chiefs of the Iroquois This 1 nAMUET MASWSLL CONVEB8B ceremony was under tho auspices of the Buffalo Historical society In token of the Indian friendship for her She was Immediately thereafter adopted into the family of the chief Thonosewa a descendant of Red Jacket From the time I was adopted until the present day said Mrs Converse to a reporter recently I have zealously watched over their rights and interests and when summoned not long ago to appear before them at their government council house in Allegheny as a reward re-ward I was taken into the Soncia na tion and given the name of Yaiewa noh Our Watcher I was then assigned as-signed to a rightful place in the councils coun-cils of the Seneca Indians The Sene cas you know are subject to the authority of the Onondagas becauro the Onondngos have been the lawmakers law-makers of the Iroquois from the traditional tradi-tional beginning of the league Lately I was called before the Onondagas at their reservation near Syracuse und there received the distinguished title of honorary member of the six nations The apartment that Mrs Converse calls her den in her handsome New York house is a most interesting museum muse-um The walls are covered with Indian Indi-an relics and the cases are filled with all kinds of curios Of the two hundred brooches owned by her ono ia a badge of the secret medicine society and Is the only one of Its kind now in existence It contains sixteen svmhnls nil Irnnmw to the members of this I society ia hammered ham-mered out of the native silver and sup posed to be very ancient On one end of her desk hangs a tobacco pouch and knife scabbard that once belonged to Red Jacket They are made of buck akin and sewed with deerskin sinew |
