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336 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM . 



At that very time true wampum was largely made on Long Island 

 and in New Jersey for the western trade. It was counterfeited at 

 a very early day. His statement about fresh-water shell beads has 

 little foundation. 



A very early account of North American shell beads will be found 



in Lescarbot's Hisfoire de la Noitvclle-Francc, 1609, v. 6, ch. 12, in 



which he speaks of the Micmacs. He says: 



The Brazilians, Floridians and Armouchiquois make carcanets and 

 bracelets (called bou-re in Brazil and matachiaz by our Indians), 

 from the shells of those great seashells which are called vignols and 

 are like unto snails, which they break in a thousand pieces and gather 

 up, then polish them upon a grindstone, so that they make them 

 very small, and when they have pierced them they make beads, like 

 those which we call porcelain. Among these beads mingle alter- 

 nately other beads, as black as the others I have spoken of are 

 white, made of jet or of certain hard or black woods which resemble 

 it, which they poHsh and make as small as they wish, and this has 

 a good grace. . . These collars, scarfs and bracelets of vignols, 

 or porcelain, are more valuable than pearls (notwithstanding no one 

 will believe me in this), for they esteem them more than pearl, gold 

 or silver. As with us, so in this land do the women deck themselves 

 with such things, and will make a dozen turns of it around the 

 neck, hanging upon the breast, and around the wrists and below 

 the elbow. They also hang long chains in their ears, which hang 

 down even as low as their shoulders. 



Large shells were not found so far north, and they prized those 



of the Armouchiquois, or Kennebec Indians, but on account of the 



war the French supplied " little tubes of glass mixed with tin or 



lead, which are traded to them by the fathom measure for want of 



an ell measure." 



Early shell beads 



In S. L. Frey's article entitled "Were they mound-builders?" 

 'American naturalist, 1879, P- ^37-44> ^^e good descriptions of the 

 shell articles he found in the stone graves at Palatine Bridge. In 

 the first examined he found " a seashell, somewhat modified for a 

 drinking vessel, its longest diameter being 4 inches." Fig. 43 is 

 from his drawing of this cup. This grave had a stone tube. In 

 another, containing two tubes, he found a necklace of shell and cop- 

 per beads. " Many of the shell beads were also stained by copper; 



