33^ NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



nor could they even pronounce it. At first, too, it referred to the 

 color of the shell beads, all varieties of which it at last embraced. 

 Roger Williams said, in speaking of the aboriginal New England 

 money: "Their white they call Wompam (which signifies white); 

 their black Siickauhock (Sdcki, signifying blacke)." Again he said 

 that^ after eating the clam called the hen, " they breake out of the 

 shell, about halfe an inch of a blacke part of it, of which they make 

 their Suckaiihock, or black money.'' Of the Meteaiihock, or peri- 

 winkle, " they make their Wompam or white money, of halfe the 

 value of their Suckdwhock, or blacke money." Wood says in his 

 New England's prospect^ of the industrious Narragansetts, " These 

 men are the most curious minters of their Wampompeage and Mow^ 

 hakes, which they forme out of the inmost wreaths of Periwinkle- 

 shels. The Northerne, Easterne, and Westerne Indians fetch all 

 their Coyne from these Southerne Mintmasters. From hence they 

 have most of their curious Pendants & Bracelets." The New York 

 colonists called it both sewant and peag. Holmes applies this 

 latter name to the wampum of Virginia, but it is frequent in the 

 colonial records of New York. Long Island has often been termed 

 Sewanhacky, or the Sewant country. Its other aboriginal name of 

 Mattauwack, variously spelled, according to W. W. Tooker comes 

 from Meht-anaw-ack, or Land of periwinkles. 



While shell beads were probably of early manufacture along the 

 seashore, being made and used by the Algonquins, they were 

 very little known in the interior and west of the Hudson before the 

 17th century. Accordingly we find few traditions of their origin 

 among the river and shore Indians, while their use among the Iro- 

 quois was so sudden and conspicuous an event as to make a great 

 and lasting impression. According to them the origin of wampum 

 was coeval with that of their league. Hiawatha decreed and regu- 

 lated its use. As far as they were concerned this is nearly the 

 truth. The most earnest antiquarians have failed to find more than 

 the merest trace of shell beads on any Iroquois site which can be 

 dated before the year 1600, and have found none which are like 

 the beads used in belts. It may be of interest to know what some 

 of the Iroquois legends are, and some use may be made of them 



