WAMPUM AND SHELL ARTICLES 335 



It will be observed that these beads are about four times the 

 length of the belt wampum, but the process is the same. The steel 

 drill made a nearly uniform hole; that of the early Indian tapered 

 to the center from each end, his tools being simpler. Other briefer 

 accounts might be quoted. In 183 1 several bushels were brought 

 from Babylon on Long Island for western traders, and in 1850 the 

 best for this purpose was still manufactured there. In his Pictorial 

 field-hook of the revolution, 1:302, B. J. Lossing said: "A considerable 

 quantity of wampum is manufactured at the present time in Bergen 

 county. New Jersey." This continued for a score of years longer. 

 The writer has observed that a great deal of the purple belt wam- 

 pum is quite angular. Its manufacture by the whites has been noted 

 by many, and several families in Albany long obtained a living by it. 



Catlin made some remarks on wampum which may not be en- 

 tirely correct. He said it was made " by the Indians from vari- 

 colored shells which they get on the shores of fresh-water streams, 

 and file or cut into bits of half an inch or an inch in length, and 

 perforate (giving to them the shape of pieces of broken pipestems), 

 which they string on deer's sinews, and wear on their necks in 

 profusion, or weave them ingeniously into warbelts for the waist." 

 His farther words are of interest: 



It is a remarkable fact, and worthy of observation in this place, 

 that after I passed the Mississippi I saw but very little wampum 

 used; and on ascending the Missouri (1832) I do not recollect to 

 have seen it worn at all by the upper Missouri Indians, although 

 the same materials for its manufacture are found in abundance 

 through those regions. I met with but very few strings of it 

 amongst the Missouri Sioux, and nothing of it amongst the tribes 

 north and west of them. Below the Sioux, and along the whole 

 of our western frontier, the different tribes are found loaded and 

 beautifully ornamented with it, which they can now afford to do, 

 for they consider it of little value, as the fur traders have ingeniously 

 introduced a spurious imitation of it, manufactured by steam or 

 otherwise, of porcelain or some composition closely resembling it, 

 with which they have flooded the whole Indian country, and sold 

 at so reduced a price as to cheapen and consequently destroy the 

 value and meaning of the original wampum, a string of which can 

 now but very rarely be found in any part of the country. — Catlin, 

 I : 222-23 



