Lord Holderness, * Wampum is made of the thick and blue part of sea clam-shells.
Here, as elsewhere, the cylindrical wampum was the standard, and the dearest to the Indian of all his treasures.
Here for a while absolutely no coin was in circulation, and wampum being the feasible substitute was universally adopted.
Nay it was even whispered in the early time, that little children gaily adorned with wampum were led into the midst and thrust into the fiery embrace of the hissing god.
It was the wampum which recorded their words and gave their pledge of sincerity.
The glass beads now current as wampum and the original wampum are not less unlike, than the squalid Blackfoot of our western plains, and the proud and imperious Mohawk, beside his native stream.
Wampum was as yet comparatively unknown in Massachusetts Bay, and the colonists were ignorant of its uses.
Being of a trading turn, he carried with him in his vessel among other merchandise about £50 in wampum which he managed to dispose of there.
Treaties and compacts between the different tribes and the states, and later the general government, continued to be ratified by the interchange of wampum belts.
Other species besides the wampum and suckáuhock crept into local use among the different tribes.
Among the Indians of the present day wampum is unknown.
Talk of the hatchet, and the faces pale, Wampum and calumets and forests dreary, Once so attractive, now begins to weary.
My chief has ordered me to place in your hands this pipe and these strings of wampum as a testimony of the pleasure we have felt in being admitted this day into the presence of your Majesty.
These strings and belts of wampum are also documents by which the Indians remember the chief articles of the treaties made between themselves, or with the white people.
The Indian women are very dexterous in weaving the strings of wampum into belts, and marking them with different figures, perfectly agreeing with the different subjects contained in the speech.
Whenever the speaker has pronounced some important sentence, he delivers a string of wampum, adding, "I give this string of wampum as a confirmation of what I have spoken.
These figures are marked with white wampum on the black, and with black upon the white belts.
Thus, if a string or belt of wampum is intended to confirm a warning against evil, or an earnest reproof, it is delivered in black.
Before the English came to North America, the Indians used to make their strings of wampum chiefly of small pieces of wood of equal size, stained either black or white.
If they are obliged to use black wampum instead of white, they daub it over with white clay, and, though the black may shine through, yet in value and import it is considered as equal to white.
For example, upon a belt of peace, they very dexterously represent in black wampum two hands joined.
Upon the border of his mantle were strange figures; and his belt of wampum glittered like the girdle of the heavens.
Then, a hole being bored lengthways through each, large enough to admit a wire, whipcord or large thong, they are strung like beads, and the string of wampum is completed.
Neither the colour nor the quality of the wampum is matter of indifference, but both have an immediate reference to those things which they are meant to confirm.
The Indians by their spokesman explained that they had brought a Belt ofWampum that friendship and brotherhood might be restored.
This was freely promised and while the Colonel was still chained to the Indians they gave him the Belt of Wampum to be sent to the Governor.
Naturalist (May, 1883); and the cuts of wampum belts in the Second Rept.
Each specification of these treaties was to be emphasized by the exchange of a wampum belt.
The wife who made that shell-decked wampum belt, Thy rugged heart must think of her, and melt.
Here he produced the strings of wampum he had received from the different towns, denoting their earnest desire of peace; and then added, "As to what has happened, I believe it has been ordered by our Father above.
All of you know the reason of this belt of wampumbeing left at this place.
Under her neck was discovered the first manufactured object found, a single rude bead of white wampum of the prehistoric form, and which is now deposited in the Chateau de Ramezay.
As white wampum was the gift of a lover, this sole ornament tells the pathetic story of early love and death.
Did we not make our peace and smoke our pipe and give our belts of white wampum and sign names to the treaty we made with the white English?
A belt of wampum was braced round his loin-cloth, and a dozen scalp-locks fluttered out as he moved from the fringe of his leggings.
But I shall also have this wampum belt marked with the totem of the Bear.
Wampum means more to the Indian than money to the white man.
Would the relatives of the dead Mohawks consider the wampum belts full compensation?
Illustration: A Cree brave, with thewampum string.
Casting one belt of wampum at the Onondaga chief's feet, the priest demanded pledges that the massacre cease.
To this banquet Radisson was led, decked out in colored blankets with garnished leggings and such a wealth of wampum strings hanging from wrists, neck, hair, and waist that he could scarcely walk.
To remonstrate against this, Ma Mongazida visited Sir William Johnson, the superintendant general of Indian affairs, by whom he was well received, and presented with a broad wampum belt and gorget.
His war parties consisted either of volunteers who had joined his standard at the war dance, or of auxiliaries, who had accepted his messages of wampum and tobacco, and come forward in a body, to the appointed place of rendezvous.
On examining the fingers in the morning, what was his surprise to find them long wampum beads, which are held in such high estimation by all the Indian tribes.
But on looking round, she saw pieces of the wampum of her child's cradle bit off by the dog, who strove to retain the child and prevent his being carried off by an old woman called Mukakee Mindemoea, or the Toad-Woman.
And when Wabojeeg came to the chieftainship, he took from it the wampum employed by him to muster his war parties.
Perhaps it was a species ofwampum similar to that in use as currency during the earlier days, when men like Daniel Boone were trying to settle along the Ohio River.
Then he gave her a belt of purple wampum to show that he spoke the truth.
In 1650 the New Haven "deacons informed the Court that the wampum which is putt into the Church Treasury is generally so bad that the Elders to whom they pay it cannot pay it away.
In 1651, as the badwampum was still paid in by the pious New Haven Puritans, it was ordered that "no money save silver or bills" be accepted by the deacons.
Wampum belts served in New England and the middle region as money and as symbols in the ratification of treaties.
Wampum was used for ornament and in treaty-making, but not as currency.
Smith procured a number of articles of shell, illustrating the modern manufacture of wampum in New Jersey; a small collection of fragmentary pottery from the eastern shore of Maryland was presented by Mr. Joseph D.
He had a mantle of blue broad cloth, lined with crimson, made long and full, hanging over one shoulder, and confined at the waist by a wampum belt.
It was greatly prized in Europe, and constituted the wealth of the savages of northern New England, who were wholly unacquainted with wampum until it was introduced among them by the Plymouth trading-posts on the Penobscot and Kennebec.
