230 UNIVEKSAL USE OF SHELL-MONEY. 



the tribes of that region ; it is very probable, bnt there seems to be little 

 or no positive evidence otherwise that such was the case. Perforated 

 pearls also occur in great quantities, and probably answered a similar 

 purpose to beads in the South and West. 



That the bead-money was an evolution directly from the use of single 

 separate shells seems evident from these and various other considerations 

 and matters of evidence. The only opposing circumstance is the state- 

 ment of the missionarj', Loskiel, who asserts that the natives of southern 

 New Jersey "used to make their strings of wompom chiefly of small pieces 

 of wood of equal size, stained either black or white. Few were made of 

 muscles, which were esteemed very valuable and difficult to make ; for, not 

 having proper tools, they spent much time in finishing them, and yet their 

 work had a clumsy appearance." This is the only hint of such a custom 

 I have ever seen ; and no such thing is mentioned by Lindstrom, who 

 surveyed New Jersey (where Loskiel wrote) as early as 1640, or in Smith's 

 history of that State, written long previous to Loskiel's account. If the 

 latter was right, his words probably applied to the belts of wampum- 

 beads by the aid of which messages were carried and ceremonials con- 

 ducted among all the eastern Indians — an interesting phase of the subject 

 outside of my present inquiry. 



However the custom began, the very earliest accounts of North Amer- 

 ica show that this money was in common and widespread service among 

 the natives as far north as the Saskatchewan, and westward to the Rocky 

 Mountains. Among the far western tribes, who obtained it after a succes- 

 sion of barterings through races living between them and the coast, the 

 beads came to be considered rare and precious, and were devoted almost 

 wholly to ornament ; but everywhere east of the Mississippi their prehis- 

 toric circulation, commonly, as a buying and selling medium, seems well 

 assured. The evidences of this are derived not only from the accounts 

 of early visitors to the tribes of the interior, but from relics abounding at 

 their village sites and in their graves. The Pacific coast had a shell-money 

 of entirely different character from that of the Atlantic side of the conti- 

 nent, but I defer reference to it until later, further than to say that in 

 the interior of the continent it divided the honors of trade with the east- 

 ern beads. 



The shell-money of the eastern coast of the United States, then, con- 

 sisted of elongated beads of two kinds and values, represented by differ- 

 ent colors. One kind was white, the other purplish or brownish black.* 



* Later a blue kind was added, but this was an innovation of white traders. 



