Jamie Jacobs: Preserving Seneca Language and Culture

Jamie Jacobs is from the Tonawanda Seneca Reservation located in western New York. He is of the Turtle clan. Currently, he works at the Rochester Museum and Science Center as managing curator of the Rock Foundation collections. He is also a ceremonial custodian in the ceremonial longhouse of the Tonawanda Seneca, which includes officiating traditional funerals, weddings, and ceremonies. Jacobs is very knowledgeable in the Seneca language and helped to establish the adult cohort language program on the Tonawanda Reservation, where there are no surviving first-language speakers. Among the three Seneca communities, the Seneca language is in a critical state. He also practices the traditional art of porcupine quillwork, and travels extensively to museums to research ancestral made pieces and study construction techniques and design. Jacobs works to ensure Seneca language will survive into the future, along with the traditional art of porcupine quillwork.

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