CONFUSION OF TERMS FOE SHELL-MONEY. 233 



is the true one, distinguishing the Venus mercenaria from the more 

 common Mya, or gaping clam. Strachey's Virginia vocabulary (about 

 1612) gives cawaih for 'oysters,' which is, I have no doubt, another 

 form of the same name = p' cawaih.' The vocabularies mentioned are 

 the only ones I now remember in which the name is found." 



Towards the anterior end of the otherwise white interior of each of 

 the valves of this mollusk's shell is a deep purple or brownish-black scar, 

 indicating the point of muscular attachment — fishermen call it the "eye." 

 This dark spot was broken out of the shell by the Indians, and formed 

 the material of their more valuable coins. In descriptions of it we meet 

 with a new list of terms and additional confusion. It was worth, on the 

 average, twice as much as the white variety, and the latter was frequent- 

 ly dyed to counterfeit it. 



In New England Roger Williams describes this superior money as 

 follows : " The second is black, inclining to blue, which is made of the 

 shell of a fish which some English call Hens, Poquauhock." This money, 

 he says, was called " SucMubock* {Sucki signifying blacke)." Josselyn 

 gives mohaicks as the Connecticut word. Among the Dutch on the 

 Hudson River (and frequently elsewhere) seawan was the usual term— and 

 they spoke of it as black or white — the various shades of blue, purple, 

 and dull black receiving separate names, but regarded as of equal value. 

 In notices of it among the early writers, whose carelessness is apparent, 

 the words wampum, wompam, wompom, wampampeege, wampumpeage, 

 wampeage, peage, peag, wampum peak, mohaicks, suckauhock, seawan, 

 seawant, roenoke, ronoak, and others occur. Seawant appears to have been 

 properly a generic term indicating any and all kinds of shell-money ; 

 wampum was often used thus, and now is so used altogether; but origi- 

 nally it seems to have meant the white beads alone, while the words peag 

 (in its various forms), suckauhock and mohaicks represented the black. 

 In Beverly's "Virginia," however, this is precisely reversed, which leads 

 us to believe that the author made a mistake. Southern writers unite in 

 making peak generic, while roenokef is a word unknown at the North. 

 All of these terms are misspelled derivatives from roots meaning "shell," 

 and the Indian names for Venus mercenaria show their close affinity with 

 the group. Porcelan was a Dutch appellation, heard only among the 

 traders at New York. 



* Misprint for suckauhock. 



f " Roanolce (a small kind of beades) made of oyster shells, which they use and pass one 

 to another, as we doe money (a cubites length valuing six pence)." — Hakiot (1614), p. 41. 

 For "a bushel" of these Powhatan sold his daughter. 



