Talk:Skenandoa

Requested move 24 August 2015

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: moved. Unopposed for over two weeks. Jenks24 (talk) 01:38, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

Oskanondonha → Skenandoa – The form "Oskanondonha" is a tentative modern reconstruction not recorded in contemporary sources; see the #Name section for some details. Of the other significant spellings, "Skenandoa" is by far the most common on Google Books (with about 806 results) apart from "Shenandoah", which is impossible to disambiguate from all the other uses of "Shenandoah" (particularly the Shenandoah Valley); and anyway there seems to be some agreement that "Skenandoa" more accurately represents the original pronunciation of his name than "Shenandoah". As an example of some other spellings: Skenandoah returns about 344 results; Schenandoah about 317 results; Skenando about 311 results; and Schenando about 249 results.

In addition, "Oskanondonha" has only 34 results on Google Books, and its acceptance on Wikipedia is an example of hypercorrection. Use of the spelling "Oskanondonha" on Wikipedia seems to derive entirely from the book Oskanondonha: The Life of a Great Oneida Leader (1999), and many of the "Oskanondonha" Google Books results may in fact take their spelling from the Wikipedia page itself, since the majority were written on or after 2008, when this page was first created and named "Oskanondonha".

Finally, "Skenandoa" clearly fulfills the guidelines of "recognizability" and "naturalness" better than Oskanondonha. — the Man in Question (in question)  21:56, 24 August 2015 (UTC) --Relisted. sovereign°sentinel (contribs) 10:08, 1 September 2015 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Date of birth
This is given as c. 1706 in the intro then as 1710 in the Life section. The article needs to be more consistent. Peteinterpol (talk) 09:28, 18 March 2016 (UTC)

Research notes
I've become interested in this person and think there is room for more in the entry, and also less; already spotted at least one error. The subject has not been well researched by anybody in recent decades it seems, and it it doesn't help that there are many variant spellings of his name. As an initial step forward, I'm going to gather together a bunch of citations here; often pointers into books I don't have, or only have on Kindle so no page numbers, and so on. This might be helpful to others whose local libraries are better supplied with Iroquois-related stuff than mine are. Tim Bray (talk) 19:18, 9 September 2018 (UTC)


 * "We entered a miserable hut where we found we found the chiefs, about twenty-five of them, assembled and seated according to their rank. Among the first ones, we noticed Skannandòo who had received us in his house with the greatest hospitality. - Note: This book is an assemblage of reports from others, this part is labeled "Travels of a Gentleman from Milan / 1790 / Paolo Andreani / translated by Elisabeth Ruthman
 * Web site with the usual narrative and a picture of S's gravestone
 * Oneida Indian Nation site, with short pieces on key leaders
 * "Franklin Listens when I speak" - an odd book, which claims that S got nine pages in Henry R. Schoolcraft's History of the Indian Tribes of the United States
 * Underwood says that Schoolcraft's portrait of S is at pages 509-518 in Vol VI. A footnote on page 280 of Vol VI agrees, but says Vol V. - update: I found the book and uploaded photos of the nine pages into Commons. They don't add much value though, but they do provide a direct citation on his height, as observed by Schoolcraft in 1810.
 * Alleged to be by S: Skenandoah, "Letters on the Iroquois," The American Whig Review, vol. 5, issue 2 (Feb 1847), pg. 183. Copy at Cornell University Library.
 * Loads of details in Glathaar nad Martin: - have it on Kindle.
 * S met George Washington: G&M p. 95.
 * Brant's wife was Old Isaac's daughter: G&M p. 65
 * Barbara Graymont has lots of material, including the assertion that two of S's daughters did marry Joseph Brant. Her sources for this: "Annecdotes of the Mohawk Chief Captn Joseph Brant alias Tayendanegea" Claus Papers, II, 46, Public Archives of Canada, (hereafter, Anecdotes of Brant); Joseph Priest, The Captivity and suffering of Gen. Freegift Patchin of Blenheim, Schoharie County, among the Indians, under Brant (Albany, N.Y.: Packard, Hoffman, and White, 1833), p. 6; William L. Stone, Life of Joseph Brant (Albany, N.Y: Munsell, 1865; originally published in 1838), I, 27; "Notes of a Conversation with Elijah Skenando," Draper MSS 11U237, HSW; Kirkland to Schuyler, January 25, 1777, Papers of the Continental Congress, Item 153, III, 21; Kirkland to Schuyler, January 25, 1777, Kirkland Papers, Hamilton College.
 * Isabel Kelsay says that Brant married Old Isaac's daughters, but then refers to Skenando as Brant's "former in-law":