PRATT ON SHELL MONEY. 41 



agate, jasper, native gold, silver, copper, lead and iron, which were fash- 

 ioned into forms evincing a skill and art to which the descendants of the 

 aborigines, now surviving, are strangers.'' 



Two of these statements I think we should now be inclined to call in 

 question, namely : First, the finding of iron relics in the ancient mounds, 

 or, at least, in the ancient portion of any mound, and the work of any 

 ancient people in this country, and also its use as a currency here ; and 

 second, that their form evinces greater skill than is now possessed by the 

 descendants of those "• aborigines." 



Their descendants, if any are still living in North America, are proba- 

 bly those tribes which certainly do possess a skill quite equal to that 

 shown by the workmanship of the ancient relics found in and about the 

 Mississippi Valley. 



It is there further stated that " wampum, as is Avell known, was used by 

 the. Indians as a currency, and consisted originally of strings of small 

 spiral fresh- water shells." 



This is the only mention I can find of the use of small, spiral univalves 

 as a currency, and these are said to have been fresh-water shells". 



It is stated by early New England writers that one of the most com- 

 mon shells of that coast — Venus Mercenaria or " quahog" — was much 

 used for this purpose by the Indians of those times, and from the dark- 

 colored portion they made their purple money or "black money," and 

 from the axis of a species of Fyrula, and from other shells, the "• white 

 money," which was rated at one-half the value of the black money or 

 purple shell.* 



It seems usually to have been made in the form of beads or buttons, as 

 in any other form it would be liable to rapid wear and breakage, and 

 would be ill-suited for ornaments, and more likely to be lost. 



In a very interesting article on this subject, by Mr. Robert E. C. 

 Stearns, of San Francisco, published in the Overland Monthly^ and also 

 in the Proceedings of the California Academy of Sciences, he says : 



'' As to whether the interior tribes of the continent made use of money, 

 and whether it was diiferent from, or the same as that of the coastwise 

 tribes, we can only conjecture, as we have been unable to obtain satis- 

 factory data on this point. It is, however, highly probable that the 

 money used by them was received from the maritime or coast tiibes in 

 return for such articles as are peculiar to interior positions, for it it rea- 

 sonable to suppose that the matter of habitat would naturally affect and 

 cause certain differences, as between each other, in the manners and cus- 

 toms of tribes occupying exterior and interior stations. The proximity 

 of the coast tribes to the sources whence the material was procured from 



*In those days when business was not very lively, and money doubtless rather scai-ce, and in- 

 flation not much dreaded, some of the perhaps rather dreary winter hours might no doubt be 

 profitably employed by the colonists in the manufacture, which was free to ^11, of this kind of 

 money, and I observe that Mi*. Chas. Rau, in a recently published description of the archieologi- 

 ical collection of the United States National Museum, mentions that the early settlers did adopt 

 the Indian practice of making the warapuiu for circulation. 



" In the intercourse of the colonists among themselves," he says, " wampum served at certain 

 periods instead of the common currency, and the court issued, from time to time, regulations for 

 fixing the value of this shell money." 



In large amounts it was counted by the " fathom," a string of six feet in length. 



[Proc. D. A. N. S. Vol. II.] 7 [March 1877.] 



