Ganondagan State Historic Site

Ganondagan Archaeology

Ganondagan was once the site of a 17th Century Seneca town. Now declared a NYS historic site, the staff of Ganondagan, as well as the Native American community work to preserve the history and remains of the town, while educating visitors on contemporary Native culture. This short-documentary highlights the sites efforts to recreate the past through the replication of objects that were once found on the sites grounds.

Save Ganondagan!

Early in 2010 there a possibility that due to New York State Budget cuts, this unique treasure could shut its doors and vanish forever. Thankfully due to support for Ganondagan specifically as well as the New York State Park system in general, Ganondagan and many other NYS Park sites were able to keep their doors open. This video was in support of the Save Ganondagan campaign. Rather than remove it after the threat was past, we have kept it on our channel because it show cases so much of the diverse offerings of Ganondagan. See ganondagan.org for more info.

Ganondagan Seneca Longhouse 2016

Ganondagan Seneca Longhouse

Ganondagan Performance

A musical number from the Music and Dance Festival

Ganondagan State Historic Site - Episode 37 - In the Spotlight

Produced by Town of Penfield Television
penfieldTV.org
Eric Townell welcomes G. Peter Jemison, site manager, Ganondagan State Historic Site.

The Ground Beneath Your Feet is Sacred: Haudenosaunee Cultural Resource Protection

For centuries the cultural heritage of the Haudenosaunee has been under assault, including everything from excavation of burial grounds for development to the theft of human remains and important cultural artifacts which were stored in museums. Learn about the increasingly successful efforts to reverse this trend and preserve this crucial heritage for the Haudenosaunee and the wider community.

Presentations by Peter Jemison and Jack Rossen on June 14, 2010 at Syracuse Stage.

Peter Jemison (Seneca) is the manager of Ganondagan State Historic Site, a re-creation of a 17th-century Seneca village, located in Victor, New York. Jemison represents the Seneca Nation of Indians on repatriation issues; he served on the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation andon the board of directors of the American Association of Museums. He is also an artist whose work has been widely shown for more three decades. His paintings and drawings have shown in solo exhibitions at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo and at the Fenimore Art Museum in Cooperstown, New York. He was the founding director of the American Indian Community House Gallery in New York City. Jemison received a BS in art education and an honorary doctorate in fine arts from Buffalo State College in Buffalo, New York. He is the director of the film Hanondagonyes Town Destroyer (2005) and coeditor of Treaty of Canandaigua 1794: 200 Years of Treaty Relations Between the Iroquois Confederacy and the United States, Clear Light Publishers, 2000.

Jack Rossen is the Chair of the Anthropology Department at Ithaca College. An archaeologist, Jack's recent work has focussed on an early Cayuga village site near Cayuga Lake. He'll report on the preliminary findings of their work finding settlement from the 10th century. Jack was one of the founders of SHARE (Strengthening Haudenosaunee American Relations through Education). He is part of developing a new vision for archaeology, one that cooperates with and strives to be a positive force for Native people, studies issues that Native people are interested in, is oriented to site protection, and respects sacred areas and burial grounds. Jack has worked and taught throughout the US and South America as well as taking classes to study on the big island of Hawaii.

The program was part of the Onondaga Land Rights and our Common Future series held in Syracuse, NY, from February 2010 to February 2011 and coordinated by Neighbors of the Onondaga Nation.

Ganondagan Indigenous Music & Arts Festival

Ganondagan Indigenous Music & Arts Festival

Ganondagan's Native American Dance & Music Festival

A video introduction to the Friends of Ganondagan's annual Native American Dance & Music Festival held each July at Ganondagan. For more about the festival (including dates and performers) as well as the Friends of Ganondagan, please see

Friends of Ganondagan thanks filmmaker and friend Darryl Lauster, assistant professor of Intermedia/Sculpture at the University of Texas at Arlington, for making this video.