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

However, the sites with the most rings now also display the most increase from
Wood’s original totals. The Dann site was recorded to have 19 rings initially and now
the total comes to 79. Ganondagan was initially thought to have 15 rings; with the
updated count, the figure increases to 91. These increases are not coincidental; other
scholars have long associated both Ganondagan and Dann with the location of Jesuit
missions. The Dann site, also known as “Gandachioragou,” is thought to be associated
with the mission of La Conception (Hamell 1980:96; JR 55:75). Ganondagan, also
translated as Gandagaro (“big town”) was an eastern principal village and home to the
St. Jacques mission (Hamell 1980:3). Nonetheless, because no structural remains of
Jesuit missions that have been located at present, it is still difficult to correlate sites
with specific missions. The ring data and primary sources, while intriguing, should
rightfully incur our scrutiny.
The religious medals, crucifixes and other devotional objects at Seneca sites
occur less frequently in the archaeological record than the finger rings — the reason
for this is presently unknown. Since no one has previously published on the medals, I
consulted the Clark manuscript (housed at the Rochester Museum and Science Center)
to come up with the working typology presented in chapter two, but owing to the
complexity and stylistic variation of religious medals, I acknowledge that this may
need to be amended in the future. The religious medals recovered so far are exclusive
to Dann, Ganondagan, White Springs, Snyder-McClure, Huntoon and Townley-Read,
with a particularly rich assemblage of medals occurring at Snyder-McClure.
Crucifixes, crosses and other devotional materials are even more scantly distributed
65