The daily morning journal and courier., 1903-02-28

of wampum, says Frederic Austin Ogg, in ''The New England Magazine" It meant all to the Indian that money does to us, and infinitely more. Not merely did it serve him as medium of exchange and a standard of values, but worn as an ornament 1t was his badge of wealth and position. in the hands of the chiefs his record book and ledger, and through the favor of the Great Spirit it's possession became In no small degree the passport to the happy hunting grounds of the future world. The use of wampum constituted a bond of union among the Indians such as was scarcely supplied by language. re- ligion or racial customs.
 Wampum was made from shells usu- ally clam or oyster, and it is therefore not surprising that the coast dwellers were the most prolific producers of it.. The black beads were made from the dark "eye" of the shell, the scar indi- eating the point of muscular attach ment, while the white ones were taken from the outer parts. Black beads were known as sacki, white ones as wompi, and the black were usually con- sidered twice as valuable as the white.
 The beads themselves were simply little shell cylinders about one-eighth of an inch in diameter and one-fourth of an inch in length. They were pol ished smooth by being rubbed against stones, and were bored by means of a flint awl, many of which are still to be found in the. shell heaps along the New England coast. In boring the beads the workman used a cane or reed, tipped with this stone awl, which he rolled continually on his thigh with his right hand. holding the bit of shell in his left. After the coming of the English iron awls were substituted, but even then the process of manufacture must have been extremely tedious. It is said that by a days hard labor it was bare ly possible for man to produce fifteen cents worth of wampum. Whether the work was done by the men or by the women cannot be known, but it may we'll have been shared by both. It re- quired not only vast amount of pa tience-such as only the Indian possess es-but also considerable degree of skill. for the shells must be perfect in shape, free from cracks, irregularities or flaw. The Indian trader demanded that his wampum be as sound and per- feet as the present day merchant ex- poets Uncle Sam's new minted coins to be. It was the labor involved in their making that gave the beads a purchas- ing power so much in excess of that of the unwrought fresh water shells which archaeologists believe were used as currency in the remoter inland regions.
 Although any one was entirely free to manufacture for himself as much wam- pum as he pleased. the difficulties of the rocess seem to have prevented men from thus becoming rich by their own handiwork. The rich men were those who accumulated wan1pum through trade and war. so that generally the possession of an unusual quantity of it metokened some real ability or bravery.
 Tn 1927 De Rasieres. in command of a Dutch trading vessel brought fifty pounds worth of wampunl from New Amsterdam to Plymouth. This was the first Indian money acquired by the English settlers. It was used in trade among the Indians of the Kennebec re- gion, and was found so profitable a