70 SHELL ORNAMENTS AND UTENSILS. 



mercenaries) . This bivalve, occurring, as every one knows, in great abundance 

 on the North American coasts, formed an important article of food of the 

 Indians living near the sea, a fact demonstrated by the enormous quantities 

 of castaway clam-shells, which form a considerable part of North American 

 shell-heaps. The natives used to string the mollusks and to dry them for 

 consumption during winter. The blue or violet portion of the clam-shells 

 furnished the material for the dark wampum, which was held in much higher 

 estimation than that made of the white parts of the shells, or of the spines of 

 certain univalves. Roger &quot;Williams states that the Indians of New England 

 manufactured white and dark wampum-beads, and that six of the former and 

 three of the latter were equivalent to an English penny. 5 Yet, it appears that 

 even at his time the colonists imitated the wampum, a practice which assumed 

 the proportions of a regular business in later times, porcelain, glass, and 

 enamel being the materials employed in facsimilizing them. Much wampum, 

 however, was made by whites from clam-shells, and hence arises the difficulty 

 of singling out the genuine Indian manufactures. In the intercourse of the 

 New England colonists among themselves, wampum served at certain periods 

 instead of the common currency, and the courts issued, from time to time, 

 regulations for fixing the value of this shell-money. In transactions of some 

 importance it was measured by the fathom, the dark or blue kind generally 

 being double the value of the white. 



There are many beads and strings of wampum in the collection ; yet owing 

 to the circumstances just mentioned, it is no easy matter to recognize the real 

 Indian productions (Fig. 269, Upper Missouri; doubtless brought there by 

 way of trade) . The peculiar kind of wampum here treated was chiefly in use 

 east of the Mississippi River, though shells, either entire or cut into beads, 

 assumed the character of money in parts far beyond that river. Among the 

 tribes of the northwestern coast of North America, from the northern border 

 of California far upward into Alaska, the shells of the Dentalium represented, 

 until within the latest time, the wampum of the eastern regions, being used, like 

 the latter, both as ornament and money. These shells, which occur in certain 

 places of the Pacific coast, may be likened to small, tapering, and somewhat 

 curved tubes, and, being open at both ends, they could be strung without 

 further preparation. Among the Southern Californians the circulating medium 

 consisted, according to H. H. Bancroft, of small round pieces of the white 

 muscle-shell. These were perforated and arranged on strings, the value of 

 which depended on their length. There is a quantity of small perforated shell 

 discs in the collection, which were obtained from Southern California, and 

 may have constituted the money of the aborigines. These small discs, how 

 ever, are concavo-convex, and evidently were not cut from the muscle-shell. 6 



6 A Key, etc , p. 128. 



6 It appears probable that among the natives of that region the Olivclla liplicatn and the land-shell Helix 

 strigosa served as substitutes for money. Mr. Paul Schumacher discovered on San Nicolas Island deposits 

 of these shells, which had been stored in the sandy ground, and formed diminutive hillocks, having been 

 uncovered by the action of the winds. 



