OF THE HAMILTON ASSOCIATION. 1 29 



Among the Chinook and other Indians on the Northern Pacific 

 the dentahum forms not only an article of ornament, but consider- 

 able trade is carried on between the various tribes on Vancouver 

 Island through the medium of these shells. The earlier writers on 

 American currency give tabulated statements of the currency values 

 of the white and blue wampum which were long used as current 

 money in the transactions between the Indian and white races. 



The Indian tribes, however, had other purposes to which they 

 put the use of the wampum than that of either currency or orna- 

 ment. It was used to record the history of all great operations of 

 the tribe ; indeed Penn's title deed to the land purchased by him 

 consisted solely of a string of wampum. Among the North Ameri- 

 can tribes this wampum was much prized and held sacred. It 

 corresponded in its use to the ancient quipu of the Peruvian and 

 Mexican. 



Wampum consists of beads of different colours strung together, 

 generally in the form of a belt. It is of two kinds, the white and 

 the purple. The white is worked out of the great concho into the 

 form of a bead, and perforated to be strung on leather. The purple 

 is worked out of thejnside of the mussel shell. They are woven 

 as broad as one's hand, and about two feet long. At the close of 

 the war between the English and King Philip in 1675, when Philip 

 was killed, an old chief handed to Captain Church two broad belts 

 elaborately worked in wampum. One of them reached from the 

 shoulder to near the ground. This was the Magna Charta of the 

 New England tribes. 



The laws of the celebrated Iroquois league were recorded in 

 wampum made of spiral fresh water shells strung on deer skin 

 thongs or sinews, and these strands braided into belts or simply 

 united into strings. These strings were the only visible records of 

 the Iroquois, and were kept and interpreted by a specially consti- 

 tuted keeper of the wampum. 



In the mounds of the Mississippi Valley beads and shells have 

 been found in great quantities. In Grave Creek mound shell beads 

 such as constitute wampum were found to the number of between 

 three and four thousand. 



