BULL. 30] 



WAMPUM 



905 



biplicata); and a number of other sea- 

 shells. 



In the manufacture of these shell beads 

 much patient labor and a marked degree of 

 skill and careful manipulation were re- 

 quired. Their manufacture was appar- 

 ently not confined to any class of persons 

 among the natives, for Roger Williams 

 (Key, 128, 1827) remarks that in general 

 those who live along the seashore manu- 

 facture the beads, and that "as many 

 make as will." In New England and 

 along the Atlantic seaboard wampum was 

 chiefly of two colors: the white, and the 

 violet or purple, which latter varied in 

 shade from pale or pink violet to dark 

 rich purple. The value of these shell 

 beads was determined by their color and 

 degree of finish. In form they were cy- 

 lindrical, being from about J^ to ^ in. in 

 diameter, and from I to yw 'ri. in length. 

 Notwithstanding the abundant literature 

 concerning the multifarious uses of these 

 shell beads in trade, in 

 the embroidering of ar- 

 ticles of dress, the mak- 

 ing of objects for per- 

 sonal adornment and 

 badges of rank and offi- 

 cial dignity, and in the 

 fiducial transactions of 

 private and public life, 

 no technical statement 

 of the exact methods 

 employed by the na- 

 tives in their manufac- 

 ture is available. 



According to Barber 

 and Howe (Hist. Coll. 

 N. J., 1844) the method 

 of manufacture after 

 contact with the whites 

 was as follows: The 

 wampum was wrought, 

 largely by the women, 

 from the thick blue portions of the 

 shell, and the process, though simple, 

 required a skill acquired only by long 

 practice. The intense hardness and brit- 

 tleness of the materials made it impos- 

 sible to wear, grind, and bore the shell 

 by machinery alone. First the thin por- 

 tions were removed with a light sharp 

 hammer, and the remainder was clamped 

 in a scissure sawed in a slender stick, and 

 was then ground into an octagonal figure, 

 an inch in length and half an inch in di- 

 ameter. This piece being ready for bor- 

 ing was inserted into another piece of 

 wood, sawed like the first stick, w'hich 

 was firmly fastened to a bench, a weight 

 being so adjusted that it caused the scis- 

 sure to grip the shell and to hold it se- 

 curely. The drill was made from an 

 untempered handsaw, ground into proper 

 shape and tempered in the fiame of a can- 

 dle. Braced against a steel plate on the 



iiNGS OF Wampum 



oi)erator's chest and nicely adjusted to the 

 center of the shell, the drill was rotated 

 by means of the common hand-bow. 

 To clean the aperture, the drill was dex- 

 trously withdrawn while in motion, and 

 was cleared by the thumb and finger of 

 the particles of shell. From a vessel 

 hanging over the closely clamped shell 

 drops of water fell on the drill to cool it, 

 for particular care was exercised lest the 

 shell break from the heat caused by fric- 

 tion. When the drilling reached halfway 

 through the shell, the sliell was reversed 

 and the boring was completed from the 

 opposite side. To finish the surface and 

 to shape the edges were the next proc- 

 esses. A wire about a foot long was fas- 

 tened at one end to a bench; beneath and 

 parallel with the wire was a grindstone 

 with a grooved face, which was worked 

 by a foot-treadle. The beads were strung 

 on the wire and the free end grasped in 

 the left hand and the wire of beads was 

 drawn into the groove of the fast-revolv- 

 ing grindstone. By means of a flat piece 

 of wood, held in the right hand, the beads 

 were continually turned. By this process 

 the beads soon became round, smooth, 

 and polished, and were then strung on 

 hempen strings about a foot in length. 

 Five to ten such strings could be made in 

 a day, and were sold to country mer- 

 chants at the rate of 12J cents apiece. 



Wampum very early in the intercourse 

 between the whites and the Indians, as it 

 already was among themselves, became a 

 medium of exchange at fixed values, not 

 only in merchandise but also in dollars 

 and cents. So important was this use of 

 it that Weeden (Johns Hopkins Univ. 

 Stud., 2d s., viii-ix, 1884) wrote a mono- 

 graph on wampum with the suggestive 

 title, "Indian Money as a Factor in New 

 England Civilization," in which this 

 phase of the subject is fully discussed. 

 Powers, Stearns, Goddard, and others 

 mention facts showing that shell money 

 at an early time on the Pacific coast be- 

 came a medium of exchange, not only 

 among the Indians but also among the 

 whites. Goddard (Life and Culture of 

 the Hupa, 48-49, 1903) says that a single 

 shell of the decorated dentalium is meas- 

 ured and its value determined by the 

 creases on the left hand ; that strings of 

 these shells reaching from the thumb- 

 nail to the point of the shoulder con- 

 tain 11 of the largest and 14 of the 

 smallest of these shells; that some of the 

 natives have a set of lines tattooed on the 

 inner side of the left forearm, which indi- 

 cate the length of 5 shells of the several 

 standards of length. Rosendale (Wam- 

 pum Currency, 1896) shows by ample ci' 

 tations from the ordinances of New Neth- 

 erland that the period from 1641 to 1662 

 "marked the decadence of wampum as 



