THE ECONOMIC MOLLUSCA OF ACADIA. 91 



'Of, it is sometimes sold by itself. Some persons consider it 

 poor food, but its great use in the United States proves 

 beyond question that it must be on the whole an exceedingly 

 good food-mollusc. 



This species has an interest for us also, from the fact that 

 the purple part of its shell furnished the material for the purple 

 wampum of the eastern Indians. White wampum, as has been 

 mentioned (p. 12), was made chiefly from the columellae or 

 central columns of the two species of Bu^ycon (also known as 

 Fulgur and Stjcofypus, and sometimes Pyr^da). The purple 

 was worth twice as much as the white, and both were made 

 in the form of tube-shaped beads, perforated and polished ; 

 their value depended upon their polish and general perfection. 

 It was a real currency among the Indians, true money, and, 

 as one old writer says, — "their mammon." It was the chief 

 medium of trade between the whites and Indians along the 

 southern New England coast. The former, however, took to 

 manufacturing it themselves, and this naturally led to depre- 

 ciation of value and many abuses. Laws were passed 

 regulating its use in trade, and it continued to be manufactured 

 until within about fifty years, for use in the west. A very 

 •full and interesting discussion of this whole subject may be 

 found in the first of the works mentioned below. 



Among the Canadian Indians it was very extensively used. 

 Early explorers (including Cartier) refer to it, and Kalm, the 

 Swedish botanist and traveller, saw it in the middle of the 

 last century among the Hurons and below Quebec. Charlevoix, 

 in his letters (London, 1763), refers to " Wampum from the 

 Venus shell," (p. 132) and gives a most interesting description 

 of it. It was very highly valued by the Indians of Acadia, 

 as Lescarbot tells us,* but was used by them for ornament 

 rather than for money. It was also used by the Acadian 

 Indians as well as by those of the south and west, as a sort 

 of record of events, treaties, etc. Gesner tells that the 

 Mic-macs had wampum records, and Charles Leland, in his 

 '* Algonquin Legends," mentions that the Passamaquoddys 

 have wampum records at Pleasant Point, Maine, which 



* See introductory part of this paper, p. 13. 



