'^^0 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. 1., 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 variety, 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 

 iTjanufactured Indian money, and that they likewise frequently 

 compelled the natives of the. island to pay them large tribute in 

 iTiOney." In John Winthrop's Journal, 1:112, is mentioned the re- 

 turn of his bark. Blessing, Oct. 2, 1633, fi"orn 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 kole through every piece, and string the same 

 en 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, 



