archaeological and textual records - eCommons@Cornell - Cornell ...

have been particularly austere in their worship practices and would not have toted
around religious materials depicting iconography, since Protestants regarded “making
any graven image” as idolatry.
Did the Seneca Catholic minority quietly slip across the Canadian border and
possibly out of the historical record? And regarding the majority who remained in
New York state, did the remnants of Catholicism erode, only to be replaced by a
mingling of Anglo-Protestant and indigenous beliefs heralded by the Handsome Lake
movement of the next generation? Only time and additional archaeological and
archival research will tell the tale either way. For now, the occurrence of Christian-
themed items at sites dating to after the Jesuit’s departure certainly complicates what
may be—or may not be—believed from the archaeological and historical records.
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