SS ne SS, ee hee pe a 
‘Ce 
WAMPUM AND SHELL ARTICLES 373 
center, and dividing the area into four equal parts. Its circumfer- 
ence is marked with an inner circle, corresponding in width to the 
cardinal parallels. Each division of the circle thus quartered has five 
circles with a central dot. The latitudinal and longitudinal bands or 
fillets have each four similar circles or dots, and one in its center 
making 37. The number of these circles varies, however, on 
various specimens. In the one figured there are 52.” 
The form described by Schoolcraft is usually indented at the 
edge, where each perforation begins, and the cross lines are some- 
times omitted. The small circles and dots have no meaning, the 
number being regulated by the space to be occupied. They were 
apparently made by a small circular steel drill, having a central 
point. The cross lines seem merely ornamental. As compasses 
were used in other forms, it is probable that these ornaments were 
made by white men for the Indian trade, and they may be the round 
shells used as presents in one New York council. The parallel 
holes from edge to edge served to keep the necklace flat when 
strung, and this feature is frequent in pipestone ornaments. ‘These 
disks have been found in New England, New York, Ohio, New 
Mexico and many intermediate points, having been first used late 
in the 17th century. In New York they disappeared when silver 
ornaments came into fashion; and Mr Schoolcraft said that the In- 
dians had no traditions concerning them. We are not in the dark, 
for their occurrence in graves shows their precise use and age. 
They had a later use westward. Lieut. Whipple procured a neck- 
lace in New Mexico in which were three of these ornaments. 
Beverley, in his History of Virgima, p. 145, calls these runtees, 
and says “they are made of the conch shell, as the peak is, only 
the shape is flat and like a cheese, and drilled edgeways.” Beverley 
wrote in 1722, when the Iroquois had generally abandoned these 
for silver ornaments, but they might be used longer near the sea- 
shore. While American in, origin, the New York specimens were 
not aboriginal, nor can we assign them any early date in the matter 
of double drilling, which was continued in many of the recent orna- 
ments of red slate and pipestone that succeeded them, or were con- 
temporaneous, 
