HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



175 



the acceptance of anything but fine polished string- 

 wampum, except at five for one stiver, while the 

 polished was worth four for a stiver. These were 

 echoed in Connecticut by enactments that no seawant 

 should be paid or received, except "strunge sutably 

 and not small and great, uncomely and disorderly 

 mixt as formerly it hath beene." In Massachusetts 

 " wampam-peag " was legal tender (Act of 1648) for 

 all debts less than forty shillings, except county notes 

 to the treasurer, the white at eight for a penny and 

 the black at four for a penny. This remained the 

 law till 1661, but wampum served as money there 

 much longer than that date, as it did everywhere 

 else. It would be impossible to get at the volume in 

 circulation, but values are accessible. These re- 

 mained substantially those I have mentioned, until 

 1673, when the true wampum had become very scarce, 

 owing to the hoarding of it by the Indians, and its 

 disposal to remote tribes. The Dutch council there- 

 fore issued an edict enhancing its value 25 per cent- 

 Such an action as this the red men could not in the 

 least comprehend. Adair says they had a fixed value 

 for every bead, and " bought and sold at the current 

 rate, without the least variation for circumstances, 

 either of time or place ; and now they will hear 

 nothing patiently of loss or gain, or allow us to 

 heighten the price of our goods, be our reasons ever so 

 strong." This was a sad case for an Indian trader ! 



Nearly a century passed, and still the shell-money 

 held a firm place in colonial trade all along the coast. 

 That observant traveller, Dr. Kalm, who visited and 

 wrote about the American settlements in 1784, has 

 much to say of the profits of trading through this 

 medium in Indian goods. " The Indians," he notes, 

 " formerly made their own wampum, though not 

 without a deal of trouble ; but at present the Euro- 

 peans employ themselves that way, especially the 

 inhabitants of Albany, who get a considerable profit 

 by it." This last fact is also mentioned by the Rev. — 

 Barnaby, who further saw it made by whites on Staten 

 Island. It is only a little later, indeed, that Jacob 

 Spicer, the most prominent man in Cape May 

 county, New Jersey,'advertised to barter goods "for all 

 kinds of produce and commodities, and particularly 

 for wampum," offering five dollars reward to the 

 person making the largest amount of it. He suc- 

 ceeded in procuring a quantity of the wampum, and 

 before sending it off to Albany [cf. auk] and a 

 market, weighed a shot bag full of silver coin and the 

 same shot bag full of wampum, and found the latter 

 most valuable by ten per cent." 



At this time and later, wampum was valued both 

 as ornament and money by the Canadian Indians. 

 Kalm saw it among the Hurons and also below 

 Quebec. So slow were the Indians to relinquish it 

 as currency, that wampum continued to be fabricated 

 until fifty years in-several towns in New York State 

 (chiefly Babylon, Long Island) to meet the demands 

 for it by the fur-traders. 



Glass beads were attempted to be substituted at a 

 very early day, but although they were acceptable to 

 the savages everywhere as a trimming, they never 

 acquired the significance and circulation as money 

 which the genuine shell-beads attained. 



Though with the tribes of the central region of 

 North America, commercial transactions were all a 

 matter of barter, and the standard of value, if any 

 existed, varied with the especial local commodity, 

 like buffalo robes on the plains, blankets among the 

 Navajos and Pueblos, or otter skins in Alaska ; yet 

 the coast tribes of the Pacific had a true money when 

 the whites first became acquainted with them. This 

 currency seems to have been confined nearly, or quite 

 within the present boundaries of the United States 

 and British Columbia, and it comprised a variety of 

 forms, one of which in the northern, and another sort 

 in the southern part of this area, approached in solid 

 and widely-recognised value the substantial wampum. 



The northern and most celebrated of these varieties 

 was the Hiqua, Hikwa, or Hi 'aqua, for all these 

 spellings of the Chinoak -jargon words are found. 

 Hiqua consisted of strings of the shell of a mollusk 

 (Dentalium) spiral, quill-shaped, and called by 

 conchologists "tusk-shells." These were gathered 

 off the shores of Vancouver's and the Queen Char- 

 lotte Islands, by prodding down into the sea-water 

 long poles with a spiked board at the end, upon the 

 points of which the slender shells were caught. None 

 were quite two inches in length, many much smaller ; 

 and among all the Indians north of the Columbia 

 river the unit of measurement was a string of about a 

 fathom's length, or as much as could be stretched 

 between the extended hands of the owner. The 

 larger the size, the greater the value ; forty to the 

 fathom was the standard, fifty to the fathom being 

 worth scarcely half so much. Early in the present 

 century a fathom was worth ten beaver skins in 

 dealing with the whites in Oregon. With the advent 

 of the Hudson's Bay Company's traders, however, 

 the hiqua disappeared to a great extent, and values 

 were reckoned in blankets, as is now the case in 

 many parts of Alaska and Arctic America. 



South of the fur-trading posts, however, this money 

 survived to a much later date, and is even yet to be 

 seen in certain remote districts. " Those aboriginal 

 pedlars, the Klikitates " and other Columbians, 

 carried it to southern Oregon, and to the Klamath 

 region year after year, whence it spread through all 

 northern California, receiving then the new name, 

 Alli-cochick, and an alteration of estimate. The 

 northern measure between the extended finger-tips 

 was discarded on the Klamath river for a string 

 scarcely half that length. Among the Hupas, still 

 farther southward, the standard was a string of fine 

 shells. Nearly every man had ten lines tattooed 

 across the inside of his left arm, about half-way 

 between the wrist and the elbow ; in measuring shell- 

 money he drew one end over his left thumb-nail, and 



