Wampum

Wampum is a traditional shell bead of the Eastern Woodlands tribes of Native Americans. It includes white shell beads hand-fashioned from the North Atlantic channeled whelk shell and white and purple beads made from the quahog or Western North Atlantic hard-shelled clam.
In New York, wampum beads have been discovered dating before 1510. Before European contact, strings of wampum were used for storytelling, ceremonial gifts, and recording important treaties and historical events, such as the Two Row Wampum Treaty and the Hiawatha Belt.
Wampum was also used by the northeastern Indigenous tribes as a means of exchange, strung together in lengths for convenience. The process to make wampum was labor-intensive with stone tools. Only the coastal tribes had sufficient access to the basic shells to make wampum. These factors increased its scarcity and consequent value among the early European traders, who understood it as a currency and adopted it as such in trading with them.
Wampum artists continue to weave belts of a historical nature, as well as designing new belts or jewelry based on their own concepts.
The term wampum is a shortening of wampumpeag, which is derived from the Massachusett or Narragansett word meaning "white strings of shell beads". The Proto-Algonquian reconstructed form is thought to be (wa·p-a·py-aki), "white strings".
The term wampum (or wampumpeag) initially referred only to the white beads which are made of the inner spiral or columella of the channeled whelk shell Busycotypus canaliculatus or Busycotypus carica. Sewant or suckauhock beads are the black or purple shell beads made from the quahog or poquahock clamshell Mercenaria mercenaria. Sewant or zeewant was the term used for this currency by the New Netherland colonists. Common terms for the dark and white beads are wampi (white and yellowish) and saki (dark). The Lenape name for Long Island is Sewanacky, reflecting its connection to the dark wampum.
Wampum beads are typically tubular in shape, often a quarter of an inch long and an eighth of an inch wide. One 17th-century Seneca wampum belt featured beads almost 2.5 inches (65 mm) long. Women artisans traditionally made wampum beads by rounding small pieces of whelk shells, then piercing them with a hole before stringing them. Wooden pump drills with quartz drill bits and steatite weights were used to drill the shells. The unfinished beads would be strung together and rolled on a grinding stone with water and sand until they were smooth. The beads would be strung or woven on deer hide thongs, sinew, milkweed bast, or basswood fibers.
The introduction of European metal tools revolutionized the production of wampum, and by the mid-seventeenth century, production numbered in the tens of millions of beads. Dutch colonists discovered the importance of wampum as a means of exchange between tribes, and they began mass-producing it in workshops. John Campbell established such a factory in Passaic, New Jersey, which manufactured wampum into the early 20th century. Eventually the primary source of wampum was that manufactured by colonists, a market glutted by the Dutch.
As William James Sidis wrote in his 1935 history:
Wampum belts were used as a memory aid in oral tradition, and were sometimes used as badges of office or as ceremonial devices in Indigenous cultures, such as the Iroquois. For example, the 1820 New Monthly Magazine reports on a speech given by the late chief Tecumseh in which he vehemently gesticulated to a belt as he pointed out treaties made 20 years earlier and battles fought since then.
Wampum strings may be presented as a formal affirmation of cooperation or friendship between groups, or as an invitation to a meeting. In his study on the origins of money, anthropologist David Graeber placed wampum as it was used by indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands before European colonization in a category of things with symbolic cultural value that were "mainly used to rearrange relations between people" rather than being used in exchanges of everyday items.
The Iroquois used wampum as a person's credentials or a certificate of authority. It was also used for official purposes and religious ceremonies, and as a way to bind peace between tribes. Among the Iroquois, every chief and every clan mother has a certain string of wampum that serves as their certificate of office. When they pass on or are removed from their station, the string will then pass on to the new leader. Runners carrying messages during colonial times would present the wampum showing that they had the authority to carry the message.
As a method of recording and an aid in narrating, Iroquois warriors with exceptional skills were provided training in interpreting the wampum belts. As the Keepers of the Central Fire, the Onondaga Nation was also trusted with the task of keeping all wampum records. Wampum is still used in the ceremony of raising up a new chief and in the Iroquois Thanksgiving ceremonies.
Wampum was central to the giving of names, in which the names and titles of deceased persons were passed on to others. Deceased individuals of high office are quickly replaced, and a wampum inscribed with the name of the deceased is laid on the shoulders of the successor, who may shake it off and reject the transfer of name. The reception of a name may also transfer personal history and previous obligations of the deceased (e.g., the successor of a person killed in war may be obligated to avenge the death of the name's previous holder, or care for the deceased person's family as their own).
Just as the wampum enabled the continuation of names and the histories of persons, the wampum was central to establishing and renewing peace between clans and families. When a man representing his respective social unit met another, he would offer one wampum inscribed with mnemonic symbols representing the purpose of the meeting or message. The wampum, thus, facilitated the most essential practices in holding the Iroquois society together.
When Europeans came to the Americas, they adopted wampum as money to trade with the native peoples of New England and New York. Wampum was legal tender in New England from 1637 to 1661. It continued as currency in New York until 1673 at the rate of eight white or four black wampum equalling one stuiver, meaning that the white had the same value as the copper duit coin. The colonial government in New Jersey issued a proclamation setting the rate at six white or three black to one penny; this proclamation also applied in Delaware. The black shells were rarer than the white shells and so were worth more, which led people to dye the white and dilute the value of black shells.
In the writings of Robert Beverley Jr. of Virginia Colony about tribes in Virginia in 1705, he described peak as referring to the white shell bead, valued at 9 pence a yard, and wampom peak as denoting the more expensive dark purple shell bead, at the rate of 1 shilling and 6 pence (18 pence) per yard. He added that these polished shells with drilled holes were made from the cunk (conch), while another currency of lesser value called roenoke was fashioned from the cockleshell.
Wampum briefly became legal tender in North Carolina in 1710, but its use as common currency died out in New York by the early 18th century.
The use of wampum as currency spans back to 1622, when the Dutch implemented it into their trade. After the introduction of wampum into European currency, the European colonists quickly began trying to amass large quantities of this currency, and shifting control of this currency determined which power would have control of the European-Indigenous trade. The wampum's significance to the tribes that collected it meant that no one individual wanted to amass too much of it, however, European colonists did not care about its cultural significance, but it would always hold value to the indigenous populations. In this way, colonists could trade wampum for goods and sell those goods to Europeans for European currencies, therefore amassing wealth. This is one of the few examples of settler adaptation of indigenous practices for trade with indigenous people and also amongst themselves. However, the conversion of wampum to European currencies and the introduction of a monetary system was not something that the indigenous people had a desire to take part in, thus increasing tensions as trades held different economic value to each contributing party. However, when wampum was legal tender, it was one of the most important forms of currency in the region amongst settlers as well as between settlers and indigenous groups.