Talk:Wampum

message: : "Musician Tori Amos composed a short Prayer on her Scarlet's Walk album, which is thematically very Native-oriented. The song briefly addresses the Trail of Tears, as well as the importance of prayer to the Aboriginal American peoples"
What does this have to do with Wampum? --babbage 19:37, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Oh, it's Wampum Prayer. Fair enough, and fixed. --babbage 19:40, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tori... huh? 

message: Can anyone explain exactly how wampum is related to these vague mystical energies? Is this a historical fact, or a modern use of wampum? What groups or individuals use or view it that way?
Wampum represents something, a memory, an agreement, etc. Perhaps it was more like a contract than money, since it was more specific.  —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.191.8.192 (talk) 05:56:47, August 19, 2007 (UTC) 
William Sidis said that these were traditionally used as documentation, going so far as saying they used a language where beads represented definite ideas which was known among all the tribal nations so treaties could be formed between people who could not communicate otherwise. He heavily researched this leading to his 10000 year history of America "The Tribes and the States", available online.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.135.244.44 (talk) 18:28, 17 May 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Energies? 

message: The article says "... it is the belts in total that are wampum. Belts of wampum were not produced until after European contact," but it also says "When Europeans came to the Americas, they realized the importance of wampum to Native people." Those two statements seem contradictory to me. If wampum was important before the Europeans arrived, then it must have been produced before the Europeans arrived. I'm not seeing a citation for the "not produced until" sentence, which seems oddly out of place in its section, and the rest of the article seems to me to imply in various ways that wampum was part of a long-established tradition before the Europeans arrived. So I kinda suspect that the "not produced until" sentence isn't true. I've marked it as "citation needed," but figured I'd also post here to see if anyone had sources or info. --Elysdir (talk) 18:03, 12 May 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Before or after European contact? 

message: I have had to remove the existing 'origin' section, as it was a blatant copyright violation of material from the Smithsonian's website  (dated 2009 - there is no possibility that it was copied from here). For the moment, I've restored the section as it was in August 2014, prior to the copy-pasting of material by IP 67.246.181.163. Clearly we can cite the Smithsonian source, and update the section accordingly, but the copy-pasted material must not be restored - Wikipedia takes copyright violations very seriously. AndyTheGrump (talk) 01:31, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Copyright violation in 'origin' section 

message: I removed the uncited claim "The slang phrases "clams" and "shelling out" come from wampum."  The Historical Dictionary of American Slang shows the first citation of "clam" in this sense from 1886.  It seem highly dubious that this was derived from wampum, which had not been used for money for nearly two hundred years at that time. This can be reinstated if a citation is found. Mnudelman (talk) 20:57, 16 October 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removed "clams" claim 

message: Substituted at 10:12, 30 April 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: Assessment comment

message: I just added several paragraphs and quotations from Toward an Anthropological Theory of Value by David Graeber. It is a wonderful source, and includes an entire chapter on the Wampum. To fully utilize the source, however, the section "Among the Iroquois" should be split apart to include his sections on the Wampum and dreams, etc. could be included.
EverydayEditor (talk) 16:50, 25 May 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  David Graeber Source 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: As it currently stands, this article describes cultural uses of Wampum among natives and economic uses among Europeans, but not economic uses among natives. A hasty glance indicates that David Graeber basically seems to say that native uses weren't economic, but Economy of the Iroquois seems to suggest otherwise. Additional material should be added to this article to clarify the issue, even if it is only to say that scholars disagree. (I haven't checked.) Whoever edits this should certainly be familiar with the notion of a gift economy. Daask (talk) 17:01, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Economic uses among Indians 

message: The article describes wampum as a system of beads, and of writing conveying social messages.  This is indeed accurate.  It helped delineate a formal system of friendship, treaties and other social customs and needs.  In most cases, it was In the context of how wampum was delivered or socially given that defined its purpose.  For example, wampum of long, black, ratty coarse hair from an old woman or tail hair from animals could be woven into a loose weave.  A warrior would approach the opposing sachem in his wigwam and thrown down such wampum, thus 'the war wampum was delivered' before storming out.  ```` ItsACityOfApes (talk) 03:28, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wampum not always beads