330 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 
Mr Tooker makes some interesting remarks on the mucksuck, or 
awl blades of Roger Williams. That writer said: “ Before they had 
awl blades from Europe they made shift to bore this their shell 
money with stones.” Mr Tooker comments on this. “Among the 
articles given for East Hampton town in April 1648, to the Mon- 
tauk Indians were ‘one hundred muxes.’ In the Indian deed for 
Huntington, L. I., dated 1653, are mentioned ‘ 30 muxes, 30 needles.’ 
In the Indian deed for Mastic Neck, Brookhaven, L. I., dated 1657, 
among the items paid to Wyandance, sachem of Montauk, were 
‘forty needles and forty muxes.’ So it will be seen that they were 
articles highly desired by the natives.” 
It is quite probable that these awls were made with a view to 
the Indian trade, and thus acquired a name common among them. 
If specially adapted for this work, their value would be proportion- 
ally increased in making and selling, and the name would distin- 
guish them. Still the work would be slow and laborious, and not 
adapted to the small cylinders of the council wampum, making it 
probable that the Dutch soon produced all of this variéty, leaving 
to the Indians the larger and more showy kinds. 
Thompson says, in his History of Long Island, p. 61, that “ Haz- 
ard, in his collection of state papers, mentions that the Narragan- 
setts procured many shells from Long Island, out of which they 
manufactured Indian money, and that they likewise frequently 
compelled the natives of the'island to pay them large tribute in 
money.” In John Winthrop’s Journal, 1:112, is mentioned the re- 
turn of his bark, Blessing, Oct. 2, 1633, from Long Island. ‘“ There 
they had store of the best wampum peak, both white and blue.” 
It seems probable that not only was the material unusually fine 
there, but the Indian makers obtained iron tools at a very early day. 
A quotation from Van der Donck, in 1653, will show how much 
faster work the Indians themselves did when furnished with these 
tools. ‘They “ drill a hole through every.piece, and string the same 
on strings, and afterwards ‘sell their strings in that manner. 
Many thousand strings are exchanged every year near the seashore, 
where the wampum is only made, and where the peltries are brought 
for sale.” Though the number of beads and strings is indefinite, 
