WAMPUM AND SHELL ARTICLES 357 
four fingers broad, are like the saddle girths of a horse which would 
have the pack threads all covered and threaded with them. These 
collars are about three and a half feet in circumference or more, 
which they put in quantities on their necks according to their abil- 
ity and wealth. Then others are threaded like our paternosters and 
fastened to and hanging from their ears. There are some chains 
of beads of the same porcelain, large as nuts, which the women 
fasten upon the two hips and which come in front, arranged in order 
perpendicularly above the thighs or trusses which they wear.” 
These. were ornaments fit for their divinities. They told the Jes- 
uits (1636) that Ataentsic sometimes took the form of a beautiful 
girl, “adorned with a fair collar and bracelets of porcelain.” 
The Hurons told a curious story of some of these shells which 
seems to belong to the Gulf states, being connected with another in 
which alligators appear. The Jesuits said (1641): 
Some old people used to tell our fathers that they had knowledge 
of a certain western nation against whom they were going to make 
war, which was not far from the sea. That the inhabitants of the 
place fished there for periwinkles, which are a kind of oysters, the 
shell of which serves to make the porcelain which are the pearls of 
the country. This is the manner in which they describe their fish- 
ing. They notice when the sea rises to the places where these 
periwinkles abound; and when ,the violence of the waves pushes 
them towards the shore, they dive into the waters and seize those 
which they can catch. Sometimes they find those so large that it 
is all they can do to hold them. 
The Jesuits took advantage of this fondness for ornament. At 
Oneida (1670) Bruyas gave a string of glass beads, two long bugle 
beads, or two bronze rings as rewards. He recorded;many Mo- 
hawk words relating to wampum and its uses. A set phrase was 
used when wampum was cast on a corpse, to comfort the mourners. 
The Mohawk name of this ceremony was gannonton. The same 
writer (before 1700) called wampum ondegorha; a string of wampum 
onnongwira, and a belt gaionni. Garensa was a string of glass beads. 
Arent Van Curler (1635) gave the name of onekoera to wampum, 
and eytroghe to glass beads. To Bruyas we owe the mention of 
“ gannisterohon, dance of the Agoianders, where they give wampum 
to the 'spectators.” This was a dance of the nobility which has 
