SKINNER, INDIANS OF MANHATTAN ISLAND 33 



easily be counted upon the fingers. Potsherds taken from pits or shell 

 heaps, where they have not been exposed to the action of the weather, are 

 often as thickly covered with grease as when they were broken and cast aside. 



Articles of Metal. 



Bead*. Beads of native metal, consisting simply of pieces of hammered 

 sheet copper rolled into small tubes, have been found, but they are very 

 rare. Copper salts, but no objects, were found upon the bones, especially 

 on those of the head and neck, of a child's skeleton at Burial Ridge, Totten- 

 ville, Staten Island, which seemed to predicate the use of copper beads. A 

 great many beads of olivella shell, some of them discolored by copper salts, 

 were found about the neck of the skeleton. A single celt of copper is said 

 to have been found in Westchester County, probably on Croton Neck, 

 slightly above the limit of the territory treated in this paper. 1 



Articles of Shell. 



Wampum. Objects of shell are not at all common, and notwithstanding 

 the coast region of New York was one of the best known localities for wam- 

 pum manufacture on the continent, wampum beads are almost unknown 

 from local sites. "With the exception of completed beads, most of which may 

 have been shipped into the interior, wampum may be found in all stages of 

 manufacture. We refer to the white Avampum, for traces of the "black" 

 (blue) wampum made from the hard clam or quahog are so far not reported. 

 The process of manufacture may be shown by shells with the outer whorls 

 broken away in steps until the innermost solid column is reached, ground 

 and polished at the end, and needing only cutting off into sections and per- 

 forations to make the finished white wampum bead. These do not occur on 

 all sites, though they have been found here and there throughout the region. 

 Ninety-six conch shells with the outer whorls broken entirely away were 

 found in a grave at Burial Ridge, Tottenville, Staten Island, about the head 

 and neck of a skeleton. 



Pendants. Occasionally oyster and clam shells, found unworked save 

 for perforations in them, may have been pendants or ornaments, but cer- 

 tainly have little aesthetic value. 



Scrapers. Clam shells seem to have been used as scrapers and some are 



1 Native copper occurs in the New Jersey trap ridges, within a few miles of New York 

 City, an important source in Colonial times being near Boundbrook 30 miles from the lower 

 end of Manhattan Island. Bowlders of native copper occur in the glacial drift. Editor. 



