[From the Proceedings of the Cal. Academy of Sciences, July Tth, 1873. J 



Aboriginal Shell Money. 



BY ROBERT E. C. STKARNS. 



Of the numerous objects ov substances which exist in a natural state, and 

 which require little or no mechanical preparation for adaption for use as money, 

 the shells of many of the marine mollusca — or shell-fish, so called — furnish at 

 once an excellent and appropriate material. Where the metals do not exist, or 

 the knowledge of manipulating them is wanting, no substance or form can be 

 named which is at once so available and convenient. Thus we find that certain 

 forms of shells have been used by the aborigines of both shores of our own con- 

 tinent ; and, though the Ibrms used by the Indians of the Atlantic Coast were 

 quite dififerent, according to the authors whom we have consulted, from that 

 of the money of the West American tribes, yet this can not be accounted for on 

 the supposition that a similar form is not found on the Atlantic Coast, for such 

 is not the fact. It is not unreasonable to suppose that they had but little, if 

 any, knowledge of each other, and more likely none at all. Being separated by 

 the breadth of a continent, with many wide and rapid rivers and several lofty 

 mountain ranges intervening, and the intermediate country occupied by numer- 

 ous and distinct tribes quite as jealous of any invasion of their territory as are 

 the civilized nations of to-day, the use or tlie knowledge of the use of any substance 

 or particular form for money by the tribes of either coast, was probably unknown 

 to those of the opposite trans-continental shore. 



The Pilgrim settlers of the Massachusetts Colony at Plymouth found a form 

 of money in use among the Indians of New England ; and in the Historical 

 Collections of Massachusetts, and from other sources as recorded by Governor 

 Winthrop and Roger Williams, we are informed as to its character and sub- 

 stance. One of the most common bivalve mollusks (clams) of that coast is the 

 Venus me)xenarla,ov Mercenaria vlolacea, (Plate VI, fig. 1,) as it is now called 

 by naturalists ; it is the " hard-shell clam" of the New York market, and in the 

 markets of Boston is known as the " quahog." The valves or shells of this 

 species frequently display an interior purple edge — varying in this respect, it is 

 said, in different localities — the rest of the shell being of a clear white. From 

 the darker colored portion the Indians made their purple money, or wampum, as 

 it was called ; while from the axis of a species of Pyrula or conch, and from 



* See also Overland Monthly for October, 1873. 



