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Wampum   /wˈɑmpəm/   Listen
Wampum

noun
1.
Informal terms for money.  Synonyms: boodle, bread, cabbage, clams, dinero, dough, gelt, kale, lettuce, lolly, loot, lucre, moolah, pelf, scratch, shekels, simoleons, sugar.
2.
Small cylindrical beads made from polished shells and fashioned into strings or belts; used by certain Native American peoples as jewelry or currency.  Synonyms: peag, wampumpeag.






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"Wampum" Quotes from Famous Books



... found, outside of a rusty pistol, two rusty hunting knives, a bullet mold, a string of wampum, and a few earthen dishes, and an hour later the searchers ...
— On the Trail of Pontiac • Edward Stratemeyer

... oriole's nest with the four eggs neatly blown, The rattle of a rattlesnake, and three large brown Butternuts uncracked, six butterflies impaled With a green luna moth, a snake-skin freshly scaled, Some sunflower seeds, wampum, and a bloody-tooth shell, A blue jay feather, all together piled pell-mell The stand will hold no more. The Boy with humming head Looks once again, blows out the ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell

... much: the warriors who made him prisoner walked slowly till the next morning; they took another path to their lodges; on the road they met some strange Indians, and they sold our brother to them for two blankets, some wampum, a knife and three strings ...
— Footprints in the Forest • Edward Sylvester Ellis

... series of recitals having that scope, with the object of enabling her to go to England to arrange for the publication of her poems. Within two years this aim was accomplished, her book of poems, "The White Wampum," being published by John Lane, of the Bodley Head. She took with her numerous letters of introduction, including one from the Governor-General, the Earl of Aberdeen, and she soon gained both social and literary standing. Her book was received with much favor, both by reviewers ...
— Legends of Vancouver • E. Pauline Johnson

... more and more closely around the heart of her Indian brother. Nothing could exceed the consideration and affection with which she was treated, not only by himself, but by his mother, the Old Queen. All their stock of brooches and wampum was employed in the decoration of her person. The principal seat and the most delicate viands were invariably reserved for her, and no efforts were spared to promote her happiness, and to render her forgetful of her former ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie

... and handsomely moulded features, with a countenance of a grave and thoughtful cast, but now and then enlivened by the keenly-glancing black eyes by which it was particularly distinguished. With the exception of moccasins and wampum belt, he was garbed in a good English dress; and, so far as his exterior was in question, might have easily been mistaken, at a little distance, for some amateur hunter from the cities; while, from the vigor of his movements, and other general appearance, ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson

... make "monoodah," or Indian bags, birch dishes and moccasins, to lace snowshoes, string wampum belts, sew birch canoes and boil the kettle, was esteemed a lady of fine accomplishments. The women, however, endured many hardships. They were called upon to prepare and erect the cabins, supply them with fire, wood and water, prepare the food, go to bring ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond

... half dollar, dollar, silver dollar, Eisenhower dollar, Susan B. Anthony dollar^. precious metals, gold, silver, copper, bullion, ingot, nugget. petty cash, pocket money, change, small change, small coin, doit^, stiver^, rap, mite, farthing, sou, penny, shilling, tester, groat, guinea; rouleau^; wampum; good sum, round sum, lump sum; power of money, plum, lac of rupees. major coin, crown; minor coin. monetarist, monetary theory. [Science of coins] numismatics, chrysology^. [coin scholar or collector] numismatist. paper money, greenback; major denomination, minor denomination; money order, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... Pluck not our enterprise while it is green, And breed no quarrel here till I return. Avoid it as you would the rattling snake; And, when you hear the sound of danger, shrink, And face it not, unless with belts of peace. White wampum, not the dark, till we can strike With certain aim. Can I ...
— Tecumseh: A Drama • Charles Mair

... made a point of visiting the celebrated and immense nitre caverns or catacombs of the limestone region. Here I found the mummies of the pigmy race that once inhabited the gigantic valley of the Mississippi, adorned with strings of shell-wampum and turkeys' feathers—seated in death like the ancient Naso-menes, grinning at me with their long inhuman fore-teeth—and came out as ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19. No. 538 - 17 Mar 1832 • Various

... claim that there were formerly specific shells, each being characteristic and pertaining specially to each individual grade. The objects claimed by Sikas-sig[)e] as referring to the third degree are, in addition to the Cypra monata, L., a piece of purple wampum, and one shell of elongated form, both shown on Pl. XI, Nos. ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various

... was not afraid. He showed Master Beaver his bow and arrows and his wampum belt, saying, "These gifts were bestowed upon me by the Great Spirit. I am ruler over the animals of field and forest, over the ...
— Story Hour Readers Book Three • Ida Coe and Alice J. Christie

... spoons with bone bowls and handles carved from the horns of the mountain goat or musk-ox; even the big horn-spoon itself was no doubt made by these ingenious people; Indian masks of wood, inlaid with abalone shells, bears' teeth, or lucky stones from the head of the catfish; Indian wampum; deer-skin sacks filled with the smooth, pencil-shaped sticks with which the native sport passes the merry hours away in games of chance; bangles without end, and rings of the clumsiest description hammered out of silver coin; bows and arrows; doll ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska • Charles Warren Stoddard

... upright or upon its haunches, after which it was covered with timber, to support the earth which they lay over, and thereby kept the body from being pressed. They then raised the earth in a round hill over it. They always dressed the corpse in all its finery, and put wampum and other things into the grave with it; and the relations suffered not grass nor any wood to grow upon the grave, and frequently visited it ...
— A Further Contribution to the Study of the Mortuary Customs of the North American Indians • H.C. Yarrow

... of his office; of course, there was only one way of doing it, and that was by stealing the body under cover of night, as the Indians are very superstitious and careful about the graves of their dead. You know they place all the trappings of the dead—his bow and arrows, tomahawk and wampum—in the grave, as they think he will need them to hunt and supply his wants with on his journey to the happy hunting-grounds. They place food and tobacco, with other ...
— Three Years on the Plains - Observations of Indians, 1867-1870 • Edmund B. Tuttle

... or two that I tucked into my pocket as I was turning over my traps to see if I had any thing that would amuse Dan," and Uncle Teddy produced a fine arrow-head and a string of wampum. ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott

... jovial features, an aquiline nose, and a mouth shaped like a mastiff's. His face was half thrown in shade by a broad hat, with a buck's-tail in it. His gray hair hung short in his neck. He wore a hunting-frock, with Indian leggings, and moccasons, and a tomahawk in the broad wampum belt round his waist. As Dolph caught a distinct view of his person and features, he was struck with something that reminded him of the old man of the haunted house. The man before him, however, was different ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving

... exterior or heavy clothing, he stood resembling a dark and fierce looking statue, in the attitude, and nearly in the garb, of nature. Mahtoree assured himself of the right position of his tomahawk, felt that his knife was secure in its sheath of skin, tightened his girdle of wampum and saw that the lacing of his fringed and ornamental leggings was secure, and likely to offer no impediment to his exertions. Thus prepared at all points, and ready for his desperate undertaking, the Teton gave the signal ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper

... his arrival joy sincere was felt By those who had the Gospel's sound regarded. These in full council passed the Wampum Belt, And by their confidence his zeal rewarded. None had the influence of Truth discarded Who first professed by it to be made free, And 'twas their wish, since nothing now retarded, To be baptized with due solemnity, That those who disbelieved ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd

... left us. He made my mamma cry. Aunt Lucy says he's a shape.' 'A what?' somebody asks him. 'A shape,' says the kid; 'some kind of a shape—lemme see—oh, yes, a feendenuman shape. I don't know what it means.' John Tom was for putting our brand on him, and dressing him up like a little chief, with wampum and beads, but I vetoes it. 'Somebody's lost that kid, is my view of it, and they may want him. You let me try him with a few stratagems, and see if I can't get a ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry

... at length, "Pontiac will come to the fort with sixty of his chiefs. Each will be armed with a gun, which will be cut short and hidden under his blanket. The chief will ask to hold a council. He will then make a speech, and offer a belt of wampum as ...
— New National Fourth Reader • Charles J. Barnes and J. Marshall Hawkes

... heavy burdens On the graves of those you bury, Not such weight of furs and wampum, Not such weight of pots and kettles; For the spirits faint beneath them. Only give them food to carry, Only give them fire to light them. Four days is the spirit's journey To the land of ghosts and shadows, Four its lonely night encampments. ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... where the cordial intercourse with the natives was renewed. Here he received an embassy from the chief of the district, Guacanagari, inviting him to visit the cacique's residence, further along the coast, and bringing him as presents a wampum belt artistically worked and a wooden mask with eyes, tongue ...
— Santo Domingo - A Country With A Future • Otto Schoenrich

... spring, in order to propitiate the Manitou of the strange fountain, and insure a fortunate issue to their path of war. As late as twenty-five years ago, the visitor to the place could always find the basin of the spring filled with beads and wampum, pieces of red cloth and knives, while the surrounding trees were hung with strips of deerskin, cloth, and moccasins. Signs were frequently observed in the vicinity of the waters unmistakably indicating that a war-dance had been executed ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman

... because he remained lord and governor of the country by the death of the said Donnacona.' Agouhanna certainly made a great show of friendliness. He took from his own head the ornament of hide and wampum that he wore and bound it round the brows of the French leader. At the same time he put his arms about his neck ...
— The Mariner of St. Malo: A Chronicle of the Voyages of Jacques Cartier • Stephen Leacock

... continued all day. Hiawatha's arrows had no effect, for his antagonist was clothed with pure wampum. He was now reduced to three arrows, and it was only by extraordinary agility that he could escape the blows which the Manito kept making at him. At that moment a large woodpecker (the ma-ma) flew past, and lit on a tree. "Hiawatha" ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various

... Muskingum. Tribes were present from a considerable distance beyond the Mississippi. The object of this council seems to have been to unite all the tribes and oppose the American advance. "Two large belts of wampum were sent from the council to the different nations, holding that they should unite and be at peace with each other." This looked like a threat of war. Matthew Elliott, an Indian agent of the British, said in the Shawnee town in the presence of forty warriors, "that the Indians had better ...
— The Land of the Miamis • Elmore Barce

... stone fireplace, in which pine logs, half as large as I am, were burning; a boarded floor, a round table, two rocking chairs, a carpet-covered backwoods couch; and skins, Indian bows and arrows, wampum belts, and antlers, fitly decorated the rough walls, and equally fitly, rifles were stuck up in the corners. Seven men, smoking, were lying about on the floor, a sick man lay on the couch, and a middle-aged lady sat at the table writing. I went out again and asked ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird

... of the raven is her heavy silken hair, Which she binds with scarlet blossoms—with strings of wampum rare; And the crimson hue that flushes her soft though dusky cheek Is like the sunbeam's parting blush upon the mountain peak. O, never since Niagara first thundered down in pride Had the Spirit of its waters ...
— The Poetical Works of Mrs. Leprohon (Mrs. R.E. Mullins) • Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon

... Brant in any appeal he might make in the interests of the British to the loyalty of the Six Nations. For over a hundred years they had taken from the colonial agents who represented the crown wampum belts as a sign of treaty obligations. Treaties had been made with the king; the word of the red man had been given to the king. Promises made to them by the king's agents had always been performed. Why, therefore, should ...
— The War Chief of the Six Nations - A Chronicle of Joseph Brant - Volume 16 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • Louis Aubrey Wood

... no white-skins ; there are none to be seen but just and brave Indians. Farewell, Hawk-eyeyou shall go with the Fire-eater and the Young Eagle to the white mans heaven; but I go after my fathers. Let the bow, and tomahawk, and pipe, and the wampum of Mohegan he laid in his grave; for when he starts 'twil be in the night, like a warrior on a war-party, and he can not stop to ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper

... leaving them thus for two or three months; then the cobs would be removed and the rotted grain eaten with meat and fish, though it was all muddy and smelt horribly. Cartier also noticed that these Huron Indians had melons and pumpkins, and described their wampum or shell money.[7] ...
— Pioneers in Canada • Sir Harry Johnston

... contained the royal treasures of the Wampanoags. There was a large wampum belt of black and white beads woven into figures of persons and animals and flowers. Hung upon Captain Church, it reached from his shoulders to his ankles, before and behind. There was another wampum ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin

... of his people, and that after wandering too and fro for the space of 40 Years,[kk] they at length came to Delaware River, where they settled 370 Years ago. The Way, he says, they keep an account of this, is by putting on a Black Bead of Wampum every Year since, on a Belt they have ...
— An Enquiry into the Truth of the Tradition, Concerning the - Discovery of America, by Prince Madog ab Owen Gwynedd, about the Year, 1170 • John Williams

... Indians are of cotton khaki, cut on simple Indian lines. (See description of Indian costumes of "Princess Pocahontas.") Gay painting at neck. Beads. Shells. Wampum. The Indian maidens and some of the braves have blankets. They should be striped in gay colors—red and green, orange and blue—the stripes very wide. A few blankets of solid color. Long pipes for the Indians to smoke. Headdresses of brown and gray feathers. Dark Cloud wears a black feather ...
— Patriotic Plays and Pageants for Young People • Constance D'Arcy Mackay

... Gheezis, chief of the golden wampum, lay And watched the west-wind blow adrift the clouds, With breath all flowery, that from his calumet Curl'd like to smoke about the mountain tops. Gheezis look'd from his wigwam, blue as little pools Drained from the restless ...
— Old Spookses' Pass • Isabella Valancy Crawford

... as well as his sacred doctrine, touched the hearts of the forest children, and they renounced their guile and their revenge. The presents which Penn offered were received in sincerity, and with hearty friendship they gave the belt of wampum. ...
— The Witch of Salem - or Credulity Run Mad • John R. Musick

... back the captive and tumbled him into the boat, with the hand of his comrade dangling at the end of the chain. The incident had excited the soldiers, and they kicked and pounded the prisoners. A crowd gathered about the body on the wharf, the bolder ones snatching at his beads and wampum belt. ...
— The Road to Frontenac • Samuel Merwin

... pierced and when they are dressed they have a long tapered piece of white shell or wampum put through the nose, Those Shells are about 2 inches in length. I observed in maney of the villeages which I have passed, the heads of the female children in the press for the purpose of compressing their heads in their infancy into a certain form, ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al

... "Wampum beads and birchen strands Dropping from her careless hands, Listening ever for the fleet Patter of a dead ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various

... Lake the bison were gathered in great herds. The unmistakable signs of the sky had warned them of approaching bad weather. The moon's robe was girdled with the rainbow wampum of heaven. The very music of the snow under their feet had given them warning. On the north side of Shell Lake there were several deep gulches, which were the homes of every wanderer of the plains at such a time at this. When there was a ...
— Old Indian Days • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman

... Quebec, habited in the costume of his country, as when presented to his Majesty George IV. on the 7th of April, 1826, with three other chiefs of his nation, by Generals Brock and Carpenter; the chief bears in his hand the wampum or collar, on which is marked the tomahawk given by his late Majesty George III. The gold medal on his neck was the gift of ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine

... the slogan of all sorts and conditions of men. Tidewater officials held solemn powwows with the chiefs, gave wampum strings, and forthwith incorporated. * Chiefs blessed their white brothers who had "forever brightened the chain of friendship," departed home, and proceeded to brighten the blades of their tomahawks ...
— Pioneers of the Old Southwest - A Chronicle of the Dark and Bloody Ground • Constance Lindsay Skinner

... A large number of letters and other papers were selected from the miscellaneous lot, and these, with the others obtained from her, are now deposited also with the Bureau of Ethnology. Among other things found at this house were several beads of the old shell wampum, of whose use the Cherokees have now lost even the recollection. She knew only that they were very old and different from the common beads, but she prized them as talismans, and firmly refused to part ...
— The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees • James Mooney

... the human race seem to be ineradicable. It is but a step from the painted savage, gorgeous in his beads and wampum, to my lady of fashion, who wears a tiara upon her stately head, chains and collars of precious stones at her throat, bracelets on her white arms, and innumerable rings upon her dainty fingers. Wise men may decry the baleful fascination ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed

... a makeshift of the race. God is the only real appraiser, and we never get back a money-value for our soul's toil. Whether we pass wampum, or nickels, or taels, or bank-checks, we are not yet paid ...
— The Warriors • Lindsay, Anna Robertson Brown

... leaning against trees, or seated on the fallen leaves, were a number of men, women, and children, dressed in all sorts of mats and blankets, some with tufts of feathers in their hair, others with bands and tassels of gaudy-colored wampum. One or two had a regal air, and might have stood for pictures of Arab chiefs or Carthaginian generals; but most of them looked squalid and dejected. None of them manifested any surprise at the entrance of the stranger. All were as grave as owls. They had, in fact, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various

... attempt to fraternize with them, and only one. I came upon a camp of them gathered in the shade of a great tree, making wampum and moccasins, and addressed them in the language ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... nomads like the races of Scripture, whose ceremony was one of song and dance. The warriors preceding the chief carried what the English thought "a sceptre," but what we moderns would call a peace-pipe. The chains in their hands were probably strings of bears' claws, or something like wampum; the "crowns of feathers," plumed head-dresses; the gifts in the rush baskets borne by the women to the rear, maize ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut

... of wampum and a twist of tobacco," says Washington in his journal, "and desired him to send for the half-king, which he promised to do by a 'runner' in the morning, and for other sachems. I invited him and the other great men present to my tent, where they stayed ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer

... encampment were searched now, no stained feathers would be found; no beads or belts of wampum; no breech-clouts, bows, or quivers; no tomahawks or spears. All have been "cached" in a cave among the rocks; there to remain till needed for some ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid

... this time undertook the collection of fuel himself, and a bright fire was presently burning. Two hours later Hunting Dog came back. He talked for some time earnestly with the chief, and taking out two leaves from his wampum bag opened them and showed him two tiny heaps of black dust. Jerry asked no questions until the conversation was done, and then while Hunting Dog cut off a large chunk of deer's flesh, and placing it in the hot ashes sat himself quietly down ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty

... was within the double fortification and its windows were securely barred. The walls were of heavy timbers stained just enough to bring out the beautiful grain. But some of the dressed deerskins were still hanging and there were festoons of wampum, curiously made bead and shell curtains interspersed with gun racks, great moose horns and deer heads, and antlers. Tables and chairs curiously made and a great couch big enough ...
— A Little Girl in Old Quebec • Amanda Millie Douglas

... strange feeling that came over Myrtle, as they dressed her for the part she was to take. Had she never worn that painted robe before? Was it the first time that these strings of wampum had ever rattled upon her neck and arms? And could it be that the plume of eagle's feathers with which they crowned her dark, fast-lengthening locks had never shadowed her forehead until now? She felt herself carried back into the dim ages when the wilderness was ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... saw near Point Reyes had fur coats, or cloaks, but no other clothes. They brought him presents of shell money or wampum, and of feather head-dresses and baskets. With their bows and arrows they killed fish or deer or squirrels, and being very strong ran swiftly after game. They seemed gentle and peaceable with the white men and each other, and were sorry ...
— Stories of California • Ella M. Sexton

... was the more natural and proper, as he was armed and painted as if for war, his grim-countenance hideously bedaubed on one side with vermillion, and the other with black; a long scalping-knife, without sheath or cover, swinging from his wampum belt; while a hatchet, the blade and handle both of steel, was grasped in his hand. In this guise, and with a wild and demoniacal glitter of eye, that seemed the result of mingled drunkenness and insanity, the old chief stalked ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird

... was in perfect condition, the handle of his hunting-knife was neatly carved, his powder-horn was ornamented with suitable devices lightly cut into the material, and his shot-pouch was decorated with wampum. ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper

... cigar while we finished up what there was left to eat, and told us about tiger shooting and about elephants. We asked him about wigwams, and wampum, and mocassins, and beavers, but he did not seem to know, or else he was shy about talking of the wonders ...
— The Story of the Treasure Seekers • E. Nesbit

... told that "when a mere boy the Indian lad would be permitted to sit in the village councilhouse, and hear the assembled wisdom of the village or his tribe discuss the affairs of state and expound the meaning of the keekg' (beads composing the wampum belts).... In this way he early acquired maturity of thought, and was taught the traditions of his people, and the course of conduct calculated to win him the praise of his fellows" (516. 43). This reminds us of the Roman senator who had his child ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain

... a delegation to New Amsterdam declaring that for ten years, since 1645, they had been the friends of the Dutch, and had done them no harm, "not even to the value of a dog." They sent, as a present, a bundle of wampum in token of the friendship of the chiefs of the Eastern tribes. But the up-river Indians continued sullen. With their customary cunning or sagacity they retained quite a number of captives, holding ...
— Peter Stuyvesant, the Last Dutch Governor of New Amsterdam • John S. C. Abbott

... were not always quite honest in their church contributions, and had to be publicly warned, as the records show, that they must deposit "wampum without break or deforming spots," or "passable peage without breaches." The New Haven church was particularly tormented by canny Puritans who thus managed to dispose of their broken and worthless currency with apparent ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle

... dollar[obs3]. precious metals, gold, silver, copper, bullion, ingot, nugget. petty cash, pocket money, change, small change, small coin, doit[obs3], stiver[obs3], rap, mite, farthing, sou, penny, shilling, tester, groat, guinea; rouleau[obs3]; wampum; good sum, round sum, lump sum; power of money, plum, lac of rupees. major coin, crown; minor coin. monetarist, monetary theory. [Science of coins] numismatics, chrysology[obs3]. [coin scholar or collector] numismatist. paper money, greenback; major denomination, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... and symbolizings, this same hue is made the emblem of many touching, noble things —the innocence of brides, the benignity of age; though among the Red Men of America the giving of the white belt of wampum was the deepest pledge of honor; though in many climes, whiteness typifies the majesty of Justice in the ermine of the Judge, and contributes to the daily state of kings and queens drawn by milk-white steeds; though ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville

... young Albon, the chief Of the warriors, drew near, With an eye like an eagle And a step like a deer. "Forbear," cried he, "Your torture forbear; This maiden shall live. By my wampum I swear. ...
— Cowboy Songs - and Other Frontier Ballads • Various

... not possible that the fertile and inviting territory to the southwest should long escape their notice. In 1629, De Rasieres, an envoy from New Amsterdam, was at Plymouth. He found the Plymouth people building a shallop for the purpose of obtaining a share in the wampum trade of Narragansett Bay; and he very shrewdly sold them at a bargain enough wampum to supply their needs, for fear they should discover at Narragansett the more profitable peltry trade beyond. This artifice only put off ...
— Great Epochs in American History, Vol. II - The Planting Of The First Colonies: 1562—1733 • Various

... who were trading became the standard for fixing prices in exchange. Thus, in early Anglo-Saxon times the cow was the unit of the measure of value. Sometimes a shell, as a cowrie of India or the wampum of the American Indian, was used for this purpose. Wheat has been at one time in America, and tobacco in another, a measure of exchange because ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar

... lower cartilage of his aquiline nose; and a large silver medallion of George the Third, which I believe his ancestor had received from Lord Dorchester, when governor-general of Canada, was attached to a mixed coloured wampum string, and hung round his neck. His dress consisted of a plain, neat uniform, tanned deer skin jacket, with long trousers of the same material, the seams of both being covered with neatly cut fringe; and he had on his feet leather ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper

... great common burial, explains the occurrence, in various parts of the country once occupied by the Hurons, of pits {155} containing the remains of many hundreds of persons all mixed together promiscuously, together with belts of wampum, copper ornaments, glass beads, and other articles. One of these deposits is said to have contained the remains ...
— French Pathfinders in North America • William Henry Johnson

... and his thirty-six chiefs, with a train of warriors, came into the fort to their pretended council, and were received with great politeness. Pontiac made his speech, and when he came forward to present the wampum belt, the receipt of which by the Major was, as the Indian woman had informed them, to be the signal for the chiefs and warriors to commence the assault, the Major and his officers drew their swords half out of their scabbards, and the troops, with their muskets loaded ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat

... but in their hearts there was hatred. Braves of the tribe were these, and brothers, gigantic in stature, Huge as Goliath of Gath, or the terrible Og, king of Bashan;[45] 755 One was Pecksuot named, and the other was called Wattawamat. Round their necks were suspended their knives in scabbards of wampum,[46] Two-edged, trenchant knives, with points as sharp as a needle. Other arms had they none, for they were running and crafty. "Welcome, English!" they said,—these words they had learned from the traders 760 Touching at times on the coast, to ...
— Narrative and Lyric Poems (first series) for use in the Lower School • O. J. Stevenson

... speaks in jest, For has she not seen me gaily dressed? Bright beads and rich wampum belts are mine, Which by far these paltry stones outshine, Whilst heron plumes, fresh flowers and leaves, Are fairer than scentless ...
— The Poetical Works of Mrs. Leprohon (Mrs. R.E. Mullins) • Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon

... were mounted two small pieces of brass cannon. Beside Henry, there were four English merchants at the fort. After the Indians were introduced to Henry and his English brethren, their chief presented him with a few strings of wampum ...
— Old Mackinaw - The Fortress of the Lakes and its Surroundings • W. P. Strickland

... both sides of the Rockies telling an old story in a picturesque, heroic way. These old hymns were written in Chinook, that strange language,—French, English, Spanish, Indian, arranged by the Hudson's Bay Company, which is, like the wampum-belt, a common tongue for tribes and peoples not speaking any language but their own. They were set to old airs—lullabies, chansons, barcarolles, serenades, taken out of the folk-lore of many lands. Time and again had these simple arcadian airs ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... settlements which lay between them and Albany. They actually made ready, and were about setting out on an expedition to that effect, when Allen (who by this time understood their customs of war) took a belt of wampum, which he had fraudulently procured, and carried it as a token of peace from the Indians to the commander of ...
— A Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Mary Jemison • James E. Seaver

... undertake the management of a series of recitals for her throughout Canada, with the object of enabling her to go to England to submit her poems to a London publisher. Within two years this end was accomplished, and she spent the season of 1894 in London, and had her book of poems, "The White Wampum," accepted by John Lane, of the "Bodley Head." She carried with her letters of introduction from His Excellency the Earl of Aberdeen and Rev. Professor Clark, of Toronto University, which gave her a social and literary standing in London which ...
— Flint and Feather • E. Pauline Johnson

... Next to your own precious health, pray, my dear excellency, take care of the Five Nations — Our good friends the Five Nations. The Toryrories, the Maccolmacks, the Out-o'the-ways, the Crickets, and the Kickshaws — Let 'em have plenty of blankets, and stinkubus, and wampum; and your excellency won't fail to scour the kettle, and boil the chain, and bury the tree, and plant the hatchet — Ha, ha, ha!' When he had uttered this rhapsody, with his usual precipitation, Mr Barton gave him to understand, that I was neither Sir Francis, nor St ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett

... volumes of this series of books have been very kindly received by the public, and none of them more generously than the last volume, The Wampum Belt. For this the writer is very grateful, for he is a thorough believer in story-telling education, on the Pestalozzi and Froebel principle that "life must be taught from life," or from the highest ...
— True to His Home - A Tale of the Boyhood of Franklin • Hezekiah Butterworth

... others; they flow from her very veins, and are stamped with the seal of heredity. This strikes one at every reading, and not less their truth to fact, however idealized. Indeed the wildest of them, "Ojistoh" (The White Wampum), is based upon an actual occurrence, though the incident took place on the Western plains, and the heroine was not a Mohawk. The same intensity marks "The Cattle Thief," and "A Cry From an Indian Wife." Begot of her knowledge of the ...
— The Moccasin Maker • E. Pauline Johnson

... Dutch on the coast, and invited Rasieres to a conference. He accepted the invitation, and in 1628 visited the Puritan settlement. A profitable exchange of merchandise succeeded, and the Dutch taught the Plymouth men the value of wampum in trading for furs, and sold them L50 worth of it. It was found useful both as a currency and commodity, and afterwards the settlers learned to make it from the shells on the sea-shore.[19] It was not till ...
— England in America, 1580-1652 • Lyon Gardiner Tyler

... a man wanted to buy a coat, he perhaps exchanged a bear-skin for it. If he wished for a barrel of molasses, he might purchase it with a pile of pine boards. Musket-bullets were used instead of farthings. The Indians had a sort of money, called wampum, which was made of clam-shells; and this strange sort of specie was likewise taken in payment of debts by the English settlers. Bank-bills had never been heard of. There was not money enough of any kind, in many parts of the country, to pay the salaries of the ministers; so that ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker

... value ascribed to dentals throughout the archipelago of Mardi, and also from their convenient size, they are circulated as money; strings of teeth being regarded by these people very much as belts of wampum among the Winnebagoes of the North; or cowries, among the Bengalese. So, that in Valapee the very beggars are born with a snug investment in their mouths; too soon, however, to be appropriated by their lords; leaving them toothless for the rest of their days, ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville

... the time of the Civil War. The settlers "mined" the valuable white cedar from the swamps for shingles and boards, leaving great "pool holes" in the swamps which even today sometimes trap the unwary sportsman. The women knitted innumerable mittens and also made wampum or Indian money from the clam and oyster shells, an important means of exchange in the Indian trade all over the colonies, and even to some extent among the colonists themselves. The Cape May people built sloops for carrying the white cedar, ...
— The Quaker Colonies - A Chronicle of the Proprietors of the Delaware, Volume 8 - in The Chronicles Of America Series • Sydney G. Fisher

... Ottawas. For this Frontenac commended him, but added: "The Illinois also are children of Onontio, and hence brethren of the Iroquois. Therefore they, too, should be left in peace; for Onontio wishes that all his family should live together in union." He confirmed his words with a huge belt of wampum. Then, addressing the flattered deputy as a great chief, he desired him to use his influence in behalf of peace, and gave him a jacket and a silk cravat, both trimmed with gold, a hat, a scarlet ribbon, and a gun, with beads for his ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman

... dear. And this amazing and arithmetical young woman makes us feel as if we were giving her wampum instead of money—mere primitive barter of ancient days in return for her twentieth century services! How does she do her work—that's ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman

... the living room were lamps, shabby chairs, an air-tight stove, shells, empty birds' nests, specimens of ore, blown eggs, snakeskins, moccasins, wampum, spongy dry bees' nests, Indian baskets and rugs, ropes and pottery, an enormous Spanish hat of yellow straw with a gaudy band, and everywhere, in disorderly cascades and tumbled heaps, were books and pamphlets ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris

... a mockingbird singing like mad from a china tree, and the woods all level before us like a floor,—no brush at all, just fine grass, with flowers in it like pinks in a garden. So we smoked the peace pipe with the Chickasaws, and I hung a wampum belt with fine words, and we went on, the next day, walking over strawberries so thick that our moccasins were stained red. At noon we overtook a party of boatmen from the Ohio,—tall men they were, with beards, and dark and dirty as Indians,—and we kept company with them through the ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston

... plumy pampas grass, strings of wampum, and pretty work in beads, bark, and feathers, pleased the girls. Minerals, arrow-heads, and crude sketches interested the Professor; and when the box was empty, Dan gave Mr Laurie, as his gift, several plaintive ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott

... intelligence thus imparted of the fates of their companions. "But peace," he pursued with dignity, "can only be made in the council room, and under the sacred pledge of the calumet. The great chief has a wampum belt on his shoulder, and a calumet in his hand. His aged warriors, too, are at his side. What says the Ottawa? Will he enter? If so, the gate of the Saganaw shall ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson

... Kieft could not pretend to vie with him as to the precious metals, but he determined, as an equivalent, to flood the streets of New Amsterdam with Indian money. This was nothing more nor less than strings of beads wrought out of clams, periwinkles, and other shell-fish, and called seawant or wampum. These had formed a native currency among the simple savages, who were content to take them of the Dutchmen in exchange for peltries. In an unlucky moment, William the Testy, seeing this money of easy production, conceived the project of making it the current ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving

... curiously stained splints with much ornamental Indian work. A dresser in the living room displayed not only Queen's ware, but such silver and pewter as the early colonists possessed, and there were pictures curiously framed, ornaments of wampum and shells and fine bead work. The family usually gathered here, and the large table standing in the middle of the floor had a hospitable look heightened by the savory smells which at that day seemed to ...
— A Little Girl in Old Detroit • Amanda Minnie Douglas

... and that he was likely enough ere long to envy the guide his light and roomy moccasins, to say nothing of his loose leggings and the well-worn frock of grey homespun that had evidently seen service in the woods. Even the gay wampum belt spoke of an ease and comfort to which the young French soldier's stiff sword-belt could not pretend. In fact Jean Baptiste Boulanger, or "J'n B'tiste" as he was familiarly called, with his leathern game-bag slung over one shoulder, his long rifle over the other, and his Indian knife, with ...
— The King's Warrant - A Story of Old and New France • Alfred H. Engelbach

... Peruvians. The number and arrangements of the knots and the color of the cords made possible a considerable range of expression. Closely associated with these were tallies, or notched sticks, and wampum, or strings of colored shells or beads arranged in various designs. Here perhaps may also be classed the so-called Ogham inscriptions, made by arrangements of short lines in groups about a long central line. The short lines may be either perpendicular ...
— Books Before Typography - Typographic Technical Series for Apprentices #49 • Frederick W. Hamilton

... political aggregate. Murder without the tribe was meritorious unless it entailed risk of war at an obvious disadvantage; murder within the tribe was either revenged by blood-feud or compounded by a present given to the victim's kinsmen. Such rudimentary wergild was often reckoned in wampum, or strings of beads made of a kind of mussel shell, and put to divers uses, as personal ornament, mnemonic record, and finally money. Religious thought was in the fetishistic or animistic stage,[56] while many tribes had risen to ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske



Words linked to "Wampum" :   beads, string of beads, money



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