SHELL.
The various univalve and bivalve shells of the rivers and ocean fur nishcd a material of high value to primitive man, and one that he applied to a variety of uses.
How its natural condition a shell served him admi rably as a drinking-cup, spoon, and dish; its sharp edge was a ready-made chisel, scraper, or knife; the women used it as a hoc to scratch their corn-patches; and the medicine-men employed it as a rattle in their exorcisms.
TT as a most important use of shell, however, was as a medium of exchange, as mono. For this purpose wampum was manufactured with great industry all along the Atlantic coast, and circu lated far into the interior. The shell most commonly employed was that of the clam, the white portion of which furnished the white, and the darker the black or blue wampum. With incredible labor these shells were filed into segments about half an inch in length, which were perforated with flint awls and then strung on a cord, thus forming the so-called strings of wampum. A number of these woven together made the belt. (See Vol. I. pl. 36.) As a circulating medium it had a recognized value, and it was also extensively sought as a valued gift wherewith to ratify important transactions. (See Vol. I. pp. 79, 116, 124.) West of the Rocky Mountains the shell known as the Dental/um, which has an aperture at both ends and can be strung without prepara tion, formed the currency. Specimens of it have been discovered as far east as the Ohio mounds. The Oregon tribes of to-day make use of various colored shells ground to an oval or nearly round shape.
Pearls obtained from the fresh-water mussel were eagerly collected by the Southern Indians. They were bored and strung like the wampum. These were also great favorites with the Mound-builders. From one mound in Ohio, Professor Putnam obtained the enormous number of sixty thousand such pearls.
Beads of Shells were arranged to form necklaces and to encircle the wrists and ankles. Some of these were perforated longitudinally, while
others were disc-shaped, with the aperture in the centre. It is evident that at the period of their manufacture they were all highly polished, though many of them have been converted by the lapse of years into a soft, white, chalk-like substance. The column and walls of the Strombus gigas were frequently used in their preparation, and some of them still bear the trace of the natural canal of that univalve. Surprising numbers of these beads are found in the mounds of the Gulf States.
Shell most interesting of the uses to which shell was applied was in manufacturing gorgets. As we have seen (p. 73), these were generally of stone, but a certain number have been unearthed con structed of shell, and especially noticeable for the engravings which they bear. These represent the human face or figure, birds, heads of rattle snakes, crosses, involuted lines, and arbitrary figures. They have been studied along with the whole topic of ancient American art in shell by Mr. William H. Holmes, the result of whose investigations is given in an instructive essay published by the U. S. Bureau of Ethnology. From this work we take several illustrations (1V. 6, figs. 28-3o) representing the shell-products of the area of the United States. The most remark able feature of some of the shell gorgets obtained from the Mississippi Valley is the unmistakable likeness the engravings upon them bear to designs from Yucatan. This is one of the few indications upon which we can rely in tracing the migrations and accounting for the disappear ance of some of the tribes who dwelt in the Mississippi Valley at a time earlier than that of the Indians resident there at the period of its first exploration.