HARD WICKE ' 6" 5 CIE NCE - G O SSIP. 



*45 



AMERICAN SHELL-MONEY. 



By ERNEST INGERSOLL. 



.HE use of a circu- 

 lating medium to 

 facilitate commerce 

 by simplifying the 

 awkward devices 

 of barter is sup- 

 posed to indicate a 

 considerable ad- 

 vance toward civi- 

 lisation in the 

 people employing 

 it. On this score, 

 the North Ameri- 

 can Indians ought 

 to stand high in 

 the list of bar- 

 barians, since they 

 possessed an abo- 

 riginal money of 

 recognized value, 

 although it had no sanction other than common custom. 

 This money was made from sea-shells, and was known 

 by various names, of which, one has survived, popu- 

 larly — wampum — to designate all varieties of shell 

 beads and money. Sea-shells, indeed, seem to have 

 commended themselves for this purpose to widely dif- 

 ferent peoples. The great circulation which the cow- 

 rie-shell {Cyprea moneta) attained in Tropical Africa, 

 India, and the South Sea Islands, will occur to the 

 reader. It was once the coin of those regions in 

 trading with the savages, to the exclusion of every- 

 thing else ; and ships going after cargoes of ivory, 

 palm-oil, sandal-wood, and similar products, were 

 obliged first to provide themselves with cargoes of 

 cowries at Zanzibar, or some other port where they 

 could be bought. All that was required to turn a 

 cowrie into coin, was to find it and punch a small 

 hole in it. But the American money was a distinct 

 advance upon this, since it was a manufactured 

 article. In addition to the exertion of securing this 

 mollusk's shell, there was a large expenditure of 

 labour in fashioning the bead which acted as a coin. 

 Lindstrom (in Smith's "History of New Jersey") 

 No. 271.— July 1887. 



says an Indian's utmost manufacture amounted only 

 to a few pence a day ; and all writers enlarge upon 

 the great labour and patience needed to make it, 

 especially at the South, where harder shells seem to 

 have been utilised. Hence the purchasing power of 

 a wampum bead was far in advance of that of a 

 cowrie, the dentalium of the Pacific coast, or any 

 other unwrought shell used as money. 



The bead-form was probably an evolution from the 

 use of single small shells, which still prevails to some 

 extent on the western shore of the continent. Many 

 small fresh-water shells, suited for stringing, but 

 unsuited for ornamental purposes, have been found in 

 mounds and graves in the Mississippi valley, and 

 archaeologists believe that these were employed as 

 the currency of the tribes of that region. This is 

 very probable, but there seems to be little, or no 

 positive evidence (of record) that such was the case. 



The very earliest account of North America shows 

 that this money was in common and widespread 

 service among the natives, as far north as the Saskat- 

 chewan, and westward to the Rocky Mountains. 

 Among the far western tribes, who obtained it after a 

 succession of barterings through races living between 

 them and the coast, the beads came to be considered 

 rare and precious, and were devoted almost wholly 

 to ornament ; but everywhere east of the Mississippi 

 their circulation commonly as a buying and selling 

 medium seems well assured. The evidences of this 

 are derived, not only from the accounts of early 

 visitors to the tribes of the interior, but by the relics 

 abounding at their village-sites, and in their graves. 



This is an exception. Roger Williams wrote in 

 his Key : " The New England Indians are ignorant 

 of Europe's coyne. . . . Their owne is of two sorts ; 

 one white, which they make of the stem or stock of 

 the Periwinkle, which they call Meteavihok, when all 

 the shell is broken off." Again, he says: "Their 

 white they call Wampum (which signifies white)." 

 Laskiel, however, tells us that wampom was an 

 Iroquois word, "meaning a muscle." The wampum 

 made from the periwinkle was distinguished in law 

 as- late as 1683, in Rhode Island, and in 1679, Wooley, 



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