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For the borough, see Wampum, Pennsylvania.
Quahog and whelk wampum made by Elizabeth James Perry (Aquinnah Wampanoag/Eastern Band Cherokee), circa 2009
A representation of the original Two Row Wampum treaty belt.


Wampum were used by the northeastern Native Americans as a form of gift exchange. Early historians and colonists mistook[1] wampum as a form of money.[2] The colonists then adopted wampum as their own currency; however, the Europeans' more efficient production of wampum caused inflation and ultimately the obsolescence of wampum as currency.

Wampum was often kept on strings like Chinese cash. Before European contact, strings of wampum were used for storytelling, ceremonial gifts, and the recording of important treaties and historical events,[1] such as the Two Row Wampum Treaty.

Description and manufacture[edit]

This term initially referred to only the white beads, which are made of the inner spiral, or columella, of the Channeled whelk shell, Busycotypus canaliculatus or Busycotypus carica.[3] 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.[4] Common terms for the dark and white beads, often confused, are wampi (white and yellowish) and saki (dark).[5]



Typically wampum beads are tubular in shape, often a quarter of an inch long and an eighth inch wide. One 17th-century Seneca wampum belt featured beads almost 2.5 inches (65 mm) long.[3] Women artisans traditionally made wampum beads by rounding small pieces of the shells of whelks, then piercing them with a hole before stringing them.


Care must be taken while crafting or incising wampum. If one does not keep the shell wet while drilling or scratching, the shell will crack, split, or break. The same trouble occurs if one tries to remove too much material at once.


The term "wampum" is a shortening of the earlier word "wampumpeag", which is derived from the Massachusett or Narragansett word meaning "white strings [of shell beads]".[6][7] The Proto-Algonquian reconstructed form is *wa·p-a·py-aki, "white-string-plural."[8]

In New York, wampum beads have been discovered from before 1510.[3] The Haudenosaunee Great Law of Peace, the founding constitution of the Iroquois Confederacy, was codified in a series of wampum belts, now held by the Onondaga Nation. The oral history of the Haudenosaunee says that Ayenwatha, a cannibal who was reformed by the Great Peacemaker, invented wampum to comfort himself. The Peacemaker used wampum to record and relay messages.[9] The League of the Iroquois was founded, according to some estimates, in 1142.[10] Others place its origin as likely in the 15th or 16th centuries.

The introduction of European metal tools revolutionized the production of wampum; by the mid-seventeenth century production numbered in the tens of millions of beads.[11] Upon discovering the importance of wampum as money for exchange between tribes, Dutch colonists mass-produced wampum in workshops. John Campbell established such a factory in Passaic, New Jersey, which manufactured wampum into the early 20th century.[3]



The use of wampum beads has been much debated throughout the years with many claiming that Aboriginal people used the beads as currency. For the Haudenosaunee, wampum held a more sacred use. Wampum served as a person’s credentials or a certificate of authority. It was used for official purposes and religious ceremonies and in the case of the joining of the League of Nations was used as a way to bind peace. Every Chief of the Confederacy and every Clan Mother has a certain string or strings 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 would not be taken seriously without first presenting the wampum showing that they had the authority to carry the message.[12]

As a method of recording and an aid in narrating, Haudenosaunee 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. To this day wampum is still used in the ceremony of raising up a new chief and in the Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving ceremonies. True wampum is scarce today and only wampum strings are used. Many belts have been lost or are in museums to this day.[13]

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 1637-1661. Meanwhile it continued as currency in New York at the rate of eight white or four black wampum equalling one stuiver—meaning the white had the same value as the copper duit coin—until 1673. The colonial government issued a proclamation setting the rate at six white or three black to one penny. This proclamation also applied in New Jersey and Delaware.[14] The black shells were rarer than the white shells, and so were worth more, which led people to dye the latter, and diluted the value of black shells.


With stone tools, the process to make wampum was labor-intensive. Only the coastal nations had sufficient access to the basic shells to make wampum. These factors increased its scarcity and consequent value among the European traders. Dutch colonists began to manufacture wampum and eventually the primary source of wampum was that manufactured by colonists, a market the Dutch glutted.

Wampum briefly became legal tender in North Carolina in 1710, but their use as common currency was died out in New York by the early 18th century.



The American William James Sidis wrote in his 1935 history;


Perhaps because of its origin as a memory aid, loose beads that were within a common size, shape, and color spectrum were usually not considered to be high in value. Conversely, large ornate, storytelling belts were valued much more highly. Belts of wampum were not mass-produced until after European contact. A typically large belt of six feet (2 m) in length might contain 6000 beads or more. Wampum belts were used as a memory aid in Oral tradition, where writing could be encoded in wampum strings. Belts were also sometimes used as badges of office or as ceremonial devices of indigenous culture, such as the Iroquois. They were traded widely to tribes in Canada, the Great Lakes region, and the mid-Atlantic.

The mark of authority one had when one carried wampum is an important thing. Carriers often earned wampum for saying hard things, instead of taking the easy path.[citation needed] The 1820 New Monthly Magazine reports on a fiery speech given by the chief Tecumseh, in which he vehemently gesticulated to a belt, pointing out treaties made 20 years earlier and battles fought since then.[17]

It is also important to note that wampum belts are read right to left, not the left to right direction common to most written languages used by Europeans in the early post-Columbian period.


Recent developments[edit]



Symbolic use[edit]


See also[edit]


  1. ^ a b http://web.grinnell.edu/courses/edu/f01/edu315-01/liberato/wampum.html
  2. ^ http://szabo.best.vwh.net/shell.html
  10. ^ Johansen, Bruce E. "Dating the Iroquois Confederacy", Akwesasne Notes, Fall 1995, Volume 1, 3 & 4, pp. 62-63. (retrieved through Ratical.com, 14 March 2009)
  12. ^ http://www.haudenosauneeconfederacy.com/hiawatha.html
  13. ^ http://www.haudenosauneeconfederacy.com/wampum.html
  15. ^ Robert Beverley, The History and Present State of Virginia
  17. ^ New Monthly Magazine Vol. 14 p.522 http://books.google.com/books?id=uDoaAQAAIAAJ

External links[edit]