TRADING BY BARTER IN THE INTERIOR. 243 



or purple, as some part of that shell is, then it is twice the value. This 

 the Indians grind on stones and other things till they make it current; 

 but the drilling is the most difficult to the Englishman, which the Indians 

 manage with a nail stuck iu a cane or reed. Thus they roll it continually 

 on their thighs with their right hand, holding the bit of shell with their 

 left ; so, in time, they drill a hole quite through it, which is a very tedious 

 work — but especially in making their ronoak, four of which will scarce 

 make one length of wampum. The Indians are a people that never value 

 their time, so that they can afford to make them, and never need to fear 

 the English will take the trade out of their hands. This is the money 

 with which you may buy skins, furs, slaves, or anything the Indians have ; 

 it being the mammon (as our money is to us) that entices and persuades 

 them to do anything, and part with everything they possess except their 

 children for slaves. As for their wives, they are often sold and their 

 daughters violated for it. With this they buy off murders ; and whatso- 

 ever a man can do that is ill, this wampum will quit him of, and make 

 him, in their opinion, good and virtuous, though never so black before."* 

 "When Cabeza de Yaca," says Jones, "set out upon his trading expe- 

 dition, he carried with him from the Gulf coast cones and other pieces, of 

 sea-snail, conches used for cutting, and ' sea-beads.' These lie traded away 

 to the Indians inhabiting the interior. . . - On various occasions shell-beads 

 were offered as presents by the Southern Indians to the Spaniards. . . . 

 Among the articles regarded as ' great riches ' by the inhabitants of Pacaha, 

 Bedma enumerates 'beads made of sea-snails.'" 



Let us now transfer our inquiries to the western half of the continent. 



Though with the tribes of the central region of North America com- 

 mercial transactions were all a matter of barter, and the standard of value 

 (if any existed) varied with the especial local commodity, like buffalo- 

 robes on the plains, blankets among the Navajoes and Puebloans, or otter- 

 skins in. Alaska, yet the coast tribes of the Pacific had a true money when 

 white men first became acquainted with them. 



This currency seems to have been confined nearly or quite within the 

 present boundaries of the United States and British Columbia, and it 

 comprised a variety of forms, one of which in the northern and another 

 sort in the southern part of this area, approached in solid and widely 

 recognized value the substantial wampum of the East. 



The northern and most celebrated of these varieties was the Mqua, 



* Compare Dr, BrickelFa "Natural History of North Carolina" (1737), p. 337, el seq. 



