WAMPUM AND SHELL ARTICLES • 365 



a vertical perforation. Fig. 86 is a small flat pendant from Indian 

 hill, Pompey. 



Discoid beads 



Early flat or discoid shell beads are somewhat rare in New York. 

 The writer has found but one antedating the year 1600; and some 

 other collectors have been no more fortunate. Some occur on an 

 Onondaga site of that period, and on another occupied by that 

 nation about 1640, nearly all the shell beads are small disks. Later 

 than that there are few in that county. They are not so rare on 

 more recent Seneca town sites, and have been found on several 

 in large numbers. From a recent Oneida town site has also come 

 a fine lot of very small ones, mostly quite thin^ and both purple 

 and white. These belong to the writer, and are shown in fig. 38, 

 with a tooth and two other beads. These soon gave place to the 

 more showy council wampum. 



Mrs Converse obtained a string of small and irregular disk beads, 

 for the state museum, about 46 inches in length, which she called 

 " Canadian Algonquin wampum." The ends of the string are 

 united by a large, red ribbon, and at intervals are brownish red, 

 orange yellow, and light and dark blue ribbons. She says: "This 

 string belonged to the old bunch which was sent by the Algon- 

 quins to the Mohawks, long before Brant's time, as a ransom 

 for an Algonquin captive. The Mohawks carried it with them when 

 they ruptured the league of the Iroquois, and departed with Sir 

 John Johnson and Brant. The original bunch was strung on sinew. 

 In the various divisions thread has been substituted. Originally 

 the bunch was decorated with various colored feathers, which have 

 been replaced with the more modern ribbon. Red signifies w^ar, 

 light blue the morning sky, yellow the sun, dark blue the noon 

 sun, maroon or very dark red the approaching of the night shadows. 

 Each decoration signifies the division of the story of this wam- 

 pum, which was recited at the ancient councils. This string has 

 been preserved as a record and not used in modern times. I be- 

 lieve this to have been constructed before the pictograph wampum 

 hQ\ts,^-Grand Kmr reserve, Qamda, Jiane 7, 1899.'' Fig. 233 sliows 



