WAMPUM AND SHELL ARTICLES 379 



which they had." These were picked up anywhere, and were 

 naturally sharp enough for most purposes, but occasionally some 

 alteration may be detected. A few such examples are in the 

 Toronto collection, which seem to be scrapers. 



But one article directly suggesting a shell knife has come to the 

 writer's notice in New York, and this is in Mr Hildburgh's collec- 

 tion. Fig. 87 represents this. The perforated Unio rosaceus 

 from the Waterburg fort, shown in fig. ii, may have been either 

 knife or ornament. The same may be said of the perforated 

 Unio complanatus, fig. 13, from a site near the Mohawk 

 river. Bivalves were also used as tweezers, in extracting hair; and 

 large shells were employed as hoes. 



Gorgets. After speaking of the runtees or small disks, Beverley 

 (p. 196) describes a larger article, saying: "Of this shell they also 

 make round tablets, of about 4 inches in diameter, which they polish 

 as smooth as the other, and sometimes they etch or grave thereon- 

 circles, stars^ a half moon, or any other figure suitable to their 

 fancy. These they wear instead of medals before and behind their 

 neck." About the beginning of the i8th century the English began 

 giving silver medals to the Indians of New York, and the shell 

 gorgets almost disappeared. The southern Indians, being of less 

 account, got no medals for a long time. 



Lafitau, in his Moeurs des sauvages Ameriquains, p. 61, said: " The 

 collars which the savages sometimes wear around the neck are 

 about a foot in diameter^ and are not different from those which one 

 now sees on some antiques, or the necks of statues of barbarians. 

 The northen savages wear on the breast a plate of hollow shell, 

 as long as the hand, which has the same effect as that which was 

 called hulla among the Romans." Kalm, in his Travels into North 

 America, 1772, 2:320, after describing the shell beads of the Hurons 

 near Quebec, adds that some "have a large shell on the breast, of a 

 fine white color, which they value very high and is very dear." It 

 is possible that the shells, mentioned with the wampum pipes and 

 round small shells as English presents for the Dionondadies in 1702, 

 may have been something of this kind, as shell gorgets were then 

 used in New York, and a few survive. 



