oA 
- Poin Delawares in fact had a tribal treasury of wampum, out of 
: jou paa the expenses of public affairs. At certain feasts 
ikd ` quantity of it was thrown upon the ground to be scram- 
FE Se i el aR eae NR ie O eae aa a ne Pomel YU ae te ae eh y aie Si oe ate 
( E: FESR ee See aoe Se ate 
Od for by. 
1883.] Wampum and its History. 471 
“shell,” and the Indian names for the Venus show their close 
affinity with the group. “ Porcelan ” was a Dutch appellation. 
Some of the methods of making this finer sort of bead-coin are 
interesting. “ Before ever they had aw/e-blades from Europe they 
made shift to bore their shell-money with stone.” This was 
around Narragansett, and in the shell-heaps along the New Eng- 
land coast are hidden these old flint awls of prehistoric design, 
which may have been spun in some cases by a small bow such as 
jewelers employ at present. In Virginia Beverly found that 
both sorts of peak were “in size and figure alike and resembling 
the English Buglas, but not so transparent nor so brittle. They 
are wrought as smooth as glass, being one-third of an inch long 
and about a quarter in diameter, strung by a hole drilled through 
the center.” Lawson describes the drilling, “ which tl.e Indians 
Manage with a nail stuck in 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 
t, which is very tedious work, but especially in making their 
tonoak.” Brickell (1737) is worth reading on this point also. 
The Coinage, so to speak, of this shell-money was, therefore, a 
Werk of patient labor, and there was no fear of increasing the 
ne wd beyond the demands of trade by the worth of one deer- 
Since a savage would rarely make a single bead more than 
Siiced for his immediate necessities. It was a true medium of 
exchange—real currency, All the early accounts speak of it as 
n © and “ money ” and “current specie.” “ This,” says Law- 
‘on, “is the money with which you may buy skins, furs, slaves, 
œ anything the Indians have ; it being the mammon (as our 
i Peet 1S to us) that entices and persuades them to do anything 
and part with everything they possess except their children for 
ae Slaves, As for their wives, they are often sold and their daughters 
_ «for it. With this they buy off murders; and whatsoever 
Man can 
do that is ill, this wampum will quit him of, and make’ 
eir Opinion, good and virtuous, though never so black 
in th 
y the youngsters—carnival fashion. Hired servants at 
o Or anywhere else were paid in wampum. 
