WAMPUM AND SHELL ARTICLES 357 



four fingers broad, are like the saddle girths of a horse which would 

 have the pack threads all covered and threaded with them. These 

 collars are about three and a half feet in circumference or more, 

 which they put in quantities on their necks according to their abil- 

 ity and wealth. Then others are threaded like our paternosters and 

 fastened to and hanging from their ears. There are some chains 

 of beads of the same porcelain, large as nuts, which the women 

 fasten upon the two hips and which come in front, arranged in order 

 perpendicularly above the thighs or trusses which they wear." 

 These were ornaments fit for their divinities. They told the Jes- 

 uits (1636) that Atamtsic sometimes took the form of a beautiful 

 girl, "adorned with a fair collar and bracelets of porcelain." 



Tlie Hurons told a curious story of some of these shells which 

 seems to belong to the Gulf states, being connected with another in 

 which alligators appear. The Jesuits said (1641): 



Some old people used to tell our fathers that they had knowledge 

 of a certain western nation against whom they were going to make 

 war, which was not far from the sea. That the inhabitants of the 

 place fished there for periwinkles, which are a kind of oysters, the 

 shell of which serves to make the porcelain which are the pearls of 

 the country. This is the manner in which they describe their fish- 

 ing. They notice when the sea rises to the places where these 

 periwinkles abound; and when the violence of the waves pushes 

 them towards the shore, they dive into the waters and seize those 

 which they can catch. Sometimes they find those so large that it 

 is all they can do to hold them. 



The Jesuits took advantage of this fondness for ornament. At 

 Oneida (1670) Bruyas gave a string of glass beads, two long bugle 

 beads, or two bronze rings as rewards. He recorded /many Mo- 

 hawk words relating to wampum and its uses. A set phrase was 

 used when wampum was cast on a corpse, to comfort the mourners. 

 The Mohawk name of this ceremony was gannonton. The same 

 writer (before 1700) called wampum ondegorha; a string of wampiim 

 onnongwira, and a belt gaionni. Garensa was a string of glass beads. 

 Arent Van Curler (1635) ga-ve the name of onekoera to wampum, 

 and eytroghe to glass beads. To Bruyas we owe the mention of 

 " gannisterohon, dance of the Agoianders, where they give wampum 

 to the spectators." This was a dance of the nobility which has 



