“Wampum,” sometimes also called “peak” or “peag” from the Algonquin “wampumpeag,” is the term for strings, or woven belts of white and purple tubular beads three‐eighths of an inch long and one‐eighth of an inch in diameter. The term referred originally to strings of white and purple shell cut into discs of various sizes and perforated in the center with stone drills. By the 17th and 18th centuries, the colonists had introduced slim steel drills and revolving grindstones which made it possible to shape the tubular beads with holes drilled lengthwise.

The purple beads were made from the dark area of the heavy shell of the hard clam or quahog (Mercenaria mercenaria) which derives its Latin name from the mercenary use wampum was put to by the early colonists from Europe. The white bead were made from a variety of shells, a favorite being the whelk (Buccinum undatum), which has a central column already in tubular shape. Though the value fluctuated with the market, the purple beads, being scarcer, were worth twice as much as the white ones, say three pence and six pence, in the days when a penny was real money.

Wampum was highly valued by the Indians for a variety of ceremonial purposes. When the colonists began using it for money as well, many of the Indians in coastal areas where quahogs could be found began producing the beads in quantity. Such tribes as the Corchaugs, Shinecocks, Pequots, Narragansxetts and Mohegans manufactured beads that were quickly traded far into the interior of the northeast. The shells were scored and cracked into blanks which were then held in wooden clamps against a grindstone. After the tubular shape was achived the hole was drilled with a bow and then the bead was polished and ready for use.

There were well defined trade routes from the coast into the interior, and one of these was the Hudson river, controlled by the Mohicans. They supplied wampum to the Iroquois and received breaver skins in return.

The colonists, themselves, engaged in the lucrative manufacture of wampum. Several “factories” were established, among them on eon Long Island and another at Pas ack, now Park ridge, new Jersey, which operated from 1770 to 1889. Though these were more like sweatshops than automated industries, they produced so much wampum, including ceramic imitations, that the market was glutted and the value dropped to almost nothing. Today there are supply houses selling still cheaper plastic imitations to Boy Scouts and Indians for making costumes. But Indian

ceremonial usage still requires the old style shell beads which are now antique, scarce, and valuable once again.

David P. McAllester (1916‐2006), a one‐sixty‐fourth Narragansett, was a Navaho scholar and professor of anthropology and music at Wesleyan University. Living in Monterey, Mass., he wrote Indian Notes for the monthly Monterey News from 1981 to 1994. This essay originally appeared in the newsletter July 1984.