342 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 
It will be seen that the writer utterly disbelieves the reputed 
antiquity of some belts, as any intelligent antiquarian will do on 
examination. After inspecting many he has yet to see one whose 
beads were not made with the white man’s tools, or to find in New 
York an Iroquois site over 300 years old on which the peculiar. 
belt wampum appears. One or two beads of about that age he has 
from the fort west of Cazenovia. It is every way probable that 
there was an earlier use and manufacture of good wampum with 
European tools, but it was not made or found in the interior. Ves- 
sels passed along the coast at a very early day, and left iron im- 
plements here and there, whose value was at once appreciated. 
Shell beads were more easily made and became more plentiful. 
They were used for money and ornament, but the Iroquois seem to 
have first used them in councils when strung. The true wampum 
belts naturally come later. Not till the beaver trade began to 
flourish, not till the Iroquois became.strong, did they have many of 
those precious beads which for a long time were the gold and silver, 
even the pearls and diamonds of most of New York. 
While only beads which were generally of a certain size and form 
could be used in such belts as we are accustomed to see, it is 
evident that uniformity would not be necessary in strung wampum, 
or in that used for ornamental purposes. Another kind of belt 
might be made of beads varying much in size and form. This was 
an early and rude variety, in which parallel strings of beads were 
tied together at intervals, forming a broad surface, but not one 
adapted for any elaborate design. Strings were of less value and 
importance than belts, but were often as much used. The only 
rule seems that of supply. Belts were preferred when they could 
be had, but when lacking strings did just as well. Beaver skins 
often took their place, and even sticks were used, but the latter 
were to be replaced with wampum when procured. Fréquent in- 
stances will be found in our colonial records. 
In an official way wampum does not seem to have been used by 
the Indians on the Atlantic coast. They had vast quantities of it 
in the 17th century, and its general use as money and for mere 
