382 ANCIENT ABORIGINAL TRADE IN NORTH AMERICA. 



passed tbrough New York City on tlieir way to Washiugton, where they 

 intended to negotiate with the Government concerning former treaties 

 relative to their lands. They had brought with them their old wampam- 

 belts, as documents to prove the justness of their claims. One of these 

 belts, if I am not mistaken, had been given them by General Washing- 

 ton on some important occasion ; for even the whites of that period were 

 under the necessity of conforming to the established rule in their trans- 

 actions with the natives. The New York Historical Society honored 

 these delegates with a public reception, which ceremony took place in 

 the large hall of the Society. The president delivered the speech of wel- 

 come, which an old chief, unable to express himself in English, answered 

 in the Seneca dialect. A younger chief. Dr. Peter Wilson, called by 

 the people of his tribe Be-jih-non-da-weh-hoh, or the "Pacificator," served 

 as interpreter, being well versed in both languages. He afterward ex- . 

 hibited the belts, and explained their significance. They were, as far 

 as I can recollect, about two feet long and of a hand's breadth. The 

 ground consisted of white beads, while blue ones formed the figures or 

 marks. The latter resembled ornamental designs, and I could not dis- 

 cover in them the form of any known object. I compared them at the 

 time to somewhat roughly executed embroideries of simple patterns. I 

 asked the " Pacificator " whether these belts were the work of Indians 

 or of whites ; but he was unable to give me any definite information on 



that point.* 



I possess a number of white and blue wampum-beads from an Indian 

 grave, opened in 1861, near Charlestown, in the State of Rhode Island. 

 The late Dr. Usher Parsons, of Providence, Rhode Island, to whom I 

 am indebted for these beads, has described the grave,t and thinks it 

 enclosed the remains of a daughter of Ninigret, Sachem of the Niantic 

 or Nahantic tribe of Indians. The interment is supposed to have taken 

 place about the year 1000. These beads are regularly worked cylinders, 

 drilled lengthwise, and from five to nine millimetres in length, by four 

 or five in diameter. Of course, it cannot now be decided whether Indi- 

 ans or whites were their manufacturers. The grave contained many 

 other objects, but almost without exception derived from the colonists 

 of that period. I may also state, in this place, that thus far I have not 

 found in the oldest English works on North America a perfectly satis- 

 factory account of the method originally employed bj^ the Indians in 

 the manufacture, and especially in the drilling, of the wampum-beads.f 



Among the tribes of the northwestern coast of North America, from 



* This is the same chief who delivered, in 1847, before the New York Historical 

 Society, a powerful speech, quoted by Morgan, (League of the Iroquois, p. 440). The 

 cliief s name was then Wii-o-ivo-ica-no-onk. 



t New York Historical Magazine, February, 1863. 



X " Before ever they had awle blades from Europe, they made shift to bore this their 

 ehell money, with stones, and to fell their trees with stone set in a wooden staff, and 

 used wooden towes ; which some old and poore women (fearful! to leave the old tradi- 

 tion) use to this day." — Roger Williams, Key, p. 130. 



