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HARD WICKE ' S S CIE JVC E- GO SSI P. 



describing New York, says of it : " They (the 

 Indians) make their White Wampum or Silver of a 

 kind of Horn, which is beyond Oyster-bay," a phrase 

 that certainly would not apply to a bivalve. 



It appears certain, then, that the coiled, univalve, 

 periwinkle shells (they are from six to ten inches in 

 length) are of entirely different character from that of 

 the Atlantic side of the continent, but I defer reference 

 to it until later. The Eastern money consisted of 

 elongated beads of two colours — white, or purplish 

 or brownish-black. 



The white variety was most plentiful, and of 

 inferior value. It was commonly made from the 

 large univalves Sycotyphus canaliculatus and Fulgar 

 carica, whose pear-shaped, coiled shells are suffi- 

 ciently alike to be easily confounded under the 

 vernacular terms "periwinkle," "winkle," or 

 "conch." But sometimes other material was used. 

 Thus, probably, the very earliest mention of it by a 

 European writer — that in the " New England 

 Rarities " of John Josselyn, Gent. (1672) — reads : " a 

 kind of coccle, of whose shell the Indians make their 

 beads called wampumpeage and mohaicks. The 

 first are white," &c, were largely, if not exclusively, 

 used for this inferior grade of currency. It was only 

 necessary to take out one or two small sections of the 

 central column of the spire, and smooth the edges ; 

 the hollow cave made them natural beads. Smith's 

 " History of New Jersey " (1767) informs us that this 

 was precisely the plan followed, for it relates that 

 "the white wampum was worked out of the inside 

 of the great conques into the form of a bead, and 

 perforated to string on leather." Still earlier testi- 

 mony comes from the southern coast. Thus Beverly, 

 in his "History and Present State of Virginia" 

 (1705), records that the riches of the Indians there 

 consisted of " Peak, Roenoke, and such-like trifles 

 made out of the Cunk shell. Peak is of two sorts, or 

 rather, of two colours ; both are made of one shell, 

 though of different parts ; one is a dark Purple 

 Cylinder, and the other a white ; they are both made 

 in size and figure alike." The same author also 

 mentions a poorer kind of money yet, " made of the 

 Cockle shell, broke into small bits with rough edges, 

 drilled through in the same manner as Beads, and 

 this they call Roenoke." Other authorities corrobo- 

 rate this, and prove what I have been led to enlarge 

 upon — the fact that the conchs were used mainly for 

 the white currency — because the popular idea has 

 been that all the shell-money was made from the 

 valves of the Quahang. 



This last-mentioned bivalve is one of the com- 

 monest mollusks on the shore of Eastern America, 

 south of Cape Cod. It is a thick, somewhat globose 

 shell, which buries itself in the sand under pretty 

 deep salt water. The Indians gathered it alive, by 

 wading and feeling with their toes, or by diving, and 

 ate the animal with great gusto ; it remains, indeed, 

 an article of extensive sale in all our present markets 



under the name of round clam, hard clam, or quahang^ 

 the scientific term being Venus mercenaria. 



Toward the anterior end of the otherwise white 

 interior of each of the valves of this mollusk's shell, 

 is a deep purple or brownish-black scar, indicating 

 the point of muscular attachment, which fishermen 

 call the " eye." This dark spot was broken out of 

 the shell by the Indians and formed the material of 

 their more valuable coins. In descriptions of it, we 

 meet with a new list of terms and additional confusion. 

 It was worth, on the average, twice as much as the 

 white variety ; and the latter was frequently dyed to 

 counterfeit it. Moreover, Laskiel is authority for 

 the statement, that the natives of the New Jersey 

 coast " used to make their strings of wampum chiefly 

 of small pieces of wood of equal size, stained either 

 black or white. These were held far inferior to 

 shell-beads of either colour." I know of no other 

 example of this species of counterfeiting or substi- 

 tution. 



In New England, Roger Williams describes this 

 superior money as follows: "The second is black, 

 inclining to blue, which is made of the shell of a 

 fish which some English call Hens, Po-quauhock." 

 This money, he says, was called " Suckaubock (Siicki* 

 signifying blacke.)" Josselyn gives Mohaicks as the 

 Connecticut word. Among the Dutch on the Hudson 

 river (and frequently elsewhere), Seawant was the 

 usual term, and they spoke of it as black or white. 

 There the various shades of blue, purple and dull 

 black found separate names, but made no change in 

 value. In notices of it among the early writers, where 

 carelessness is apparent, the words Wampum, Wom- 

 pam, W T ornpom, Wampampeege, Wumpumpeage, 

 Wampeage, Peage, Peag, Wampum, Peak, Mo- 

 haicks, Suckantiock, Seawan, Seawant, Roenake, 

 Ronoak, and others occur. Seawant appears to have 

 been properly a generic term, indicating any and all 

 kinds of shell-money ; Wampum was often used thus, 

 and is now so used altogether, but originally it seems 

 to have meant the white beads alone ; while the 

 words Peag (in its various forms), Suckauhock and 

 Mohaicks, represented the black. In Beverly's 

 " Virginia," nevertheless, this is precisely reversed, 

 which leads us to believe that the author made a 

 mistake. Southern writers, however, make Peak 

 generic, while Roenoke is a word unknown at the 

 North. All of these terms are ill-spelled derivatives 

 from roots meaning "shell," and the Indian names 

 for the Venus shows their close affinity with the 

 group. Porcelan was a Dutch appellation, coming, of 

 course, from Europe, and not often heard. 



Some of the methods of making this finer sort of 

 bead-coin are interesting. " Before ever they had 

 awle-blades from Europe, they made shift to bore 

 their shell-money with stone." This was around 

 Narragansett, and in the shell-heaps along the New 



* Misprint for Suckaubock. 



