THE ECONOMIC MOLLUSC A OF ACADIA. 
91 
■ of, it is sometimes sold by itself. Some persons consider it 
poor food, but its great use in the United States proves 
beyond question that it must be on the whole an exceedingly 
good food-mollusc. 
This species has an interest for us also, from the fact that 
the purple part of its shell furnished the material for the purple 
wampum of the eastern Indians. White wampum, as has been 
mentioned (p, 12), was made chiefly from the columellae or 
central columns of the two species of Busycon (also known as 
Fulgur and Sycotypus, and sometimes Pyrula). The purple 
was worth twice as much as the white, and both were made 
in the form of tube-shaped beads, perforated and polished ; 
their value depended upon their polish and general perfection. 
It was a real currency among the Indians, true money, and, 
as one old writer says, — “their mammon.” It was the chief 
medium of trade between the whites and Indians along the 
southern New England coast. The former, however, took to 
manufacturing it themselves, and this naturally led to depre- 
ciation of value and many abuses. Laws were passed 
regulating its use in trade, and it continued to be manufactured 
until within about fifty years, for use in the west. A very 
full and interesting discussion of this whole subject may be 
found in the first of the works mentioned below. 
Among the Canadian Indians it was very extensively used. 
Early explorers (including Cartier) refer to it, and Kalm, the 
Swedish botanist and traveller, saw it in the middle of the 
last century among the Hurons and below Quebec. Charlevoix, 
in his letters (London, 1763), refers to “ Wampum from the 
Venus shell,” (p. 132) and gives a most interesting description 
of it. It was very highly valued by the Indians of Acadia, 
as Lescarbot tells us,* but was used by them for ornament 
rather than for money. It was also used by the Acadian 
Indians as well as by those of the south and west, as a sort 
of record of events, treaties, etc. Gesner tells that the 
Mic-macs had wampum records, and Charles Leland, in his 
“ Algonquin Legends,” mentions that the Passamaquoddys 
have wampum records at Pleasant Point, Maine, which 
* See introductory part cf this paper, p. 13. 
