Abstract
MR. HORATIO HALE read an interesting paper On the Origin of Wampum. He said that amongst the Indians it represented mammon, or money, and was equally valued. It had once been actually accepted in Massachusetts and New York as legal currency, owing to lack of silver, and was largely used in the Indian trade. Wampum consisted of a kind of bead or shell, but must not be confounded with the cowries of the East. Indians on the sea-coast drove a large trade in this article, and Long Island was a mine of wealth. The word wampum was of Algonquin origin, and meant white. The speaker explained the various vises to which this material was put. It was generally used in strings and belts, and at the great Iroquois ceremonies it was considered indispensable. Black wampum was more valuable than white. Of the many thousands of belts that had been known to exist during the last three centuries, scarcely fifty remained, and Mr. Hale regretted the dull indifference that had been displayed by the Americans with regard to this interesting and valuable material, valuable as forming a chronicle of the tribes who manufactured the belts. Mr. Hale exhibited an his torical belt of wampum, composed of white beads, with four black squares, which, he said, represented four towns. This belt, he said, was one hundred and sixty years old. Another and still more remarkable belt was also shown by the speaker, who explained the emblems upon it, which, he said, were intended to represent the signs of the Christian religion. There were three crosses representing the Trinity, a lamb, executed in a primitive manner, and a dove. These objects, Mr. Hale said, had been evidently suggested to the Indian artist, who had done his best to represent them, but he said that his artistic powers should not be judged by this specimen. The speaker also displayed some strings of beads, and said that these were used in the Indian chants, the beads recalling certain verses to the singers. Mr. Hale showed to the Section a photograph of some Indian chiefs of the six nations who had met at Brantford and explained to him the meaning of their wampum belts. Shell beads, he said, were used in large quantities by the mound-builders, and he argued that it was probable that the art of manufacturing this medium had descended to the modern tribes from their more advanced ancestors. Some beads, which had been found in an enormous burial-place in Orillia county by Mr. Hirschfelder, were shown by Mr. Hale, who said that these were undoubtedly used by the Hurons. Crossing the Rocky Mountains, he said that wampum would be found in actual use, the material itself and the labour devoted to its ornamentation making it extremely valuable. Being susceptible of a high polish, it forms very handsome ornaments, and is better adapted for this purpose than for cur rency, for which it is cumbersome. Speaking of the amount of shell money possessed by the primitive Indians, Mr. Hale said that the average man owned about one hundred dollars' worth, that being, he said, about the value of two women, two grizzly bear skins, twenty-five cinnamon bear skins, or three ponies. Mr. Hale remarked on the districts in which wampum was found, and quoted some sentences from a work of his own with regard to the discovery of wampum in the Kingsmill Islands of Micro nesia in the Pacific Ocean. There, he said, he saw strings of alternate wooden and shell beads. He exhibited to the Section specimens of beads from the Kingsmill Islands and from California, some of these having lost their lustre from the long time which they had been buried in a grave. Mr. Hale made some interesting remarks upon the history of Chinese money or “cash,” tracing its origin to the tortoise-shell disks used in earlier times. Mock money, he said, was sometimes burnt at sacrifices, as the Californian Indians burnt their shell money at funerals. He traced the passage of this currency between Asia and America, showing how it could have been brought from one district to another. It was used, he said, by Indians in Eastern North America, those in California, the in habitants of Micronesia, and the Chinese. He thought that the monetary system was indigenous to China, and that by early intercourse it had been conveyed to this continent. He noticed the fact that Chinese junks and Micronesian prows may have been wrecked on the western shores of America, and that their crews may have introduced the system of shell money amongst the Indians.
Article PDF
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
The British Association: Section H—Anthropology. Nature 30, 577–579 (1884). https://doi.org/10.1038/030577a0
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/030577a0