THE ORIGIN OF PRIMITIVE MONEY. 299 



bols are remembered, but a far greater number have been forgotten. 

 Of the many hundreds, and indeed thousands, of belts which are known 

 to have been fashioned during the last three centuries, each bearing its 

 own device, less than fifty whose meaning can be explained are now 

 known to exist. 



Wampum Belt, commemorating the formation of the League of the " Five Nations ' (Iroquois). 

 The lozenge-shaped figure represents a native hearth, and indicates the Onondagas, the cen- 

 tral nation who liept the council-fire of the confederacy. The square inclosures represent the 

 other nations, the Mohawks and Oneidas on the right (or east), and the Cayugas and Senecas 

 on the left. The connecting lines denote the '• peace-path " opened between the nations by the 

 League. The belt is about two feet long and ten inches wide. 



Shell-beads exactly resembling the wampum are found in great 

 abundance in the graves of the mound-builders, and sometimes, along 

 with them, the large conch-shells from which such beads were made. 

 Messrs. Squier and Davis, in their well-known work on the " Ancient 

 Monuments of the Mississippi Valley," remark that " the number of 

 beads found in the mounds is truly surprising ; they may be counted 

 in some instances by hundreds and thousands." They are described 

 as resembling " sections cut from the ends of rods, or small cylinders, 

 and subsequently more or less rounded upon the edge. Some are quite 

 flat, and resemble the bone buttons of commerce ; others are perfectly 

 round. Their diameter varies from one fourth to three fourths of an 

 inch. The size of the perforation is also variable, usually, however, 

 about one tenth of an inch." No one doubts that these beads were 

 used for the same purposes among this vanished people as among their 

 successors. Dr. Daniel Wilson, in his admirable woi'k on " Prehistoric 

 Man," after referring to the fact that in the great Grave Creek Mound, 

 evidently reared over the tomb of some notable personage, the shell- 

 beads, such as constitute the warapura of the forest tribes, amounted 

 to between three and four thousand, finds it " singularly consistent 

 with the partial civilization of the ancient mound-builders that in such 

 deposits we have the relics of sepulchral records, which constituted 

 the scroll of fame of the illustrious dead, or copies of the national 

 archives deposited with the great sachem, to whose wisdom or prowess 

 the safety of his people had been due." 



Indeed, when we consider that the tribes among whom the wam- 

 pum currency and records were afterward used, in the particular form 

 thus far described, were those which at first surrounded and after- 



