INDIAN WAMPUM RECORDS. 483 



more likely or more acceptable than strings of the valued wam- 

 pum. To weave a number of these strings together in a belt, 

 inscribed with a mark indicative of its purpose, would be a nat- 

 ural idea. But the custom resulting from this idea had in it, as 

 Mr. Holmes well observes, " a germ of great promise, one which 

 must in time have become a powerful agent in the evolution of 

 art and learning. It was a nucleus about which all the elements 

 of culture could arrange themselves." Unfortunately, the advent 

 of the white settlers, bringing with them the seeds of inevitable 

 war and disease, blighted these prospects. It is interesting to 

 consider what might have been the fruits of the principles of peace 

 and progress planted by the Iroquois reformer and his coadjutors 

 if time had been allowed for their display. There is no good rea- 

 son for doubting that the figures on the wampum records, which 

 had already, when the whites arrived, passed beyond the stage of 

 mere picture writing, might have developed into a phonetic sys- 

 tem, as we know had been the case with the Mexican script at the 

 time of the conquest ; and we have reason to believe that the 

 Mayan script was undergoing the same evolution. The Mexican 

 civilization, such as it was, had shocking features, which do not 

 allow us to regret its destruction. The Mayan, however, was 

 much less offensive ; and as for the Kechuas, or Peruvians, the 

 striking facts set forth by Sir Clement Markham in his recent 

 history of Peru, showing that the oppressive exactions of the 

 Spanish conquerors had in a little over three centuries reduced 

 the native population from eleven millions to less than one mil- 

 lion, would seem to establish the truth of the assertion which has 

 been made by Carli, Draper, and other writers, that the Sj^anish 

 conquest destroyed a superior civilization, to replace it by a form 

 decidedly inferior. 



It is a well-known fact that the tradition of the Iroquois 

 people ascribes the invention, not of wampum itself, but of the 

 wampum "belt" or record, to Hiawatha. His name, Hayim- 

 watha, means "The Maker of the Wampum Belt," being derived 

 from ayuniva (wampum belt) and an old verb, hatha now, 

 according to Father Cuoq, rarely used signifying "to make." 

 When I first heard the tradition being then of opinion that the 

 wampum belt was an ancient Indian construction, dating back 

 to the times of the mound builders I formed and expressed the 

 conclusion that the tradition had, like many such legends, grown 

 out of the name. Later inquiries, however, have led me to believe 

 that this conclusion was too hastily formed, and that the name, 

 which may be briefly rendered " the wampum-belt maker," was 

 one of those titles which were not infrequently given by the 

 Iroquois to a member of the tribe to commemorate some notable 

 achievement which he had effected. Its date would then, as has 



