WAMPUM AND SHELL ARTICLES 359 



tanus said in 1671, *' The clothing of the New Netherlanders is 

 most sumptuous. . . All wear around the waist a girdle made 

 of the fin of the whale or of seawant. . . The women wear a 

 petticoat down midway the leg, very richly ornamented with 

 seawant, so that the garment sometimes costs 300 guilders. . . 

 The women bind their hair behind in a plait, over which they draw 

 a square cap thickly interwoven with seawant. They decorate the 

 ornaments for the forehead with the same stufif. Around the neck 

 and arms they wear bracelets pf seawant, and some around the 

 waist." — O'Cdllaghan, 4:125-28 



Prisoners were sometimes treated with the greatest kindness and 

 distinction before being tortured, and this was done at times by 

 both Hurons and Iroquois. Some Andastes were brought in tri- 

 umph to Onondaga in 1670, and had this honor. For a while 

 before their torture '' they crowned these poor victims^ according 

 to custom, with the rarest feathers and the most beautiful porce- 

 lain that could be found." In the curious account of the kind 

 treament of an Iroquois prisoner by the Hurons, preliminary to 

 his torture, Relation of 1637, p. no, we are told that "he cwas 

 clothed in a beautiful beaver robe, he had a collar of porcelain about 

 his neck, and another in the form of a crown about his head." 

 Thus clad, Brebeuf added, " Even to the hour of his torture^ we 

 saw exercised on his part nothing but traits of humanity." 



Such observations on mere adornment might be indefinitely ex- 

 tended, but it will suffice to refer to the wampum pipes and small 

 round shells included in the presents of 1702. The pipes were the 

 long tubular shell beads so often found, and the round shells prob- 

 ably the ornamented and perforated disks, or runtees. They were 

 tasteful as well as showy, and both were then in use. 



In 1605 Champlain found the Indians on the New England coast 

 wearing shell beads. He observed, 10 years later, that the Hurons 

 wore bands of porcupine quills dyed scarlet. Beside these, shell 

 beads were also much worn, but apparently of a large size. The 

 French always called these porcelain. When Jacques Cartier 

 visited Hochelaga, now Montreal, in 1535^ he told a strange story 

 of the esurgny, which was white and their most precious possession. 



