356 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



Poor wampum would naturally sometimes be found, and allusion 

 has been made to this. This was mostly in New England, where 

 the material was inferior to that of Long Island. In the Winthrop 

 papers, (1644) oijie writer complains of this. "As for the blew wam- 

 pom there is 18^. of it, at 3 a peny, but I will not take such as 

 this vnder 6 a peny. I had rather haue white wampam, then bad 

 blew at 6 a peny. I will kepe it, because you may redeeme it for 

 white." — Winthrops. Letter, p. 377 



Though the Iroquois quite recently used wampum as money, 

 our latest trace of it in this way among ourselves may be in 1693, 

 when "the ferriage for each single person from New York to Brook- 

 lyn was eight sty vers in wampum, or a silver two-pence." — O'Calla- 

 ghan. New Netherland, 1:61 



Poor wampum was refused in New Amsterdam in 1650, and the 

 authorities then ordered "that badly strung wampum shall be cur- 

 rent money, and be accepted as such by everybody without distinc- 

 tion or exception, for small and necessary commodities used in the 

 house, and that it shall be current up to the sum of 12 fl. and less 

 in badly strung wampum, in sums between 12 and 24 fl. in half bad, 

 half well strung beads, from 25 to 50 fi. one third bad, two thirds 

 good wampum. . ." — Fernow, 1:17 



Ornament 



Wampum was often used for personal decoration. The Jesuits 

 said that the Hurons (1638) wore "around their necks and arms 

 necklaces and bracelets of porcelain. They also suspend them 

 from their ears and around their locks of hair." In Sagard*s Grand 

 voyage (1632) he speaks of shell beads among the Hurons which 

 were apparently large. "These shell beads (pourceleines) are the 

 bones of those great seashells which one calls vignols, similar to 

 snails, which they cut in a thousand pieces, and polish them upon a 

 piece of fat. They pierce these, and make collars and bracelets of 

 them with great toil and labor." These were very unlike the small 

 council wampum made from the Venus mercenaria. They 

 called them onocoirota, and they were valuable. For ornamental use 

 "the beads are differently threaded. Some colored ones, three or 



