WAMPUM, wi'on'pina ( from Algonquian icompi, white). A name adopted from the New England tribes to designate the aboriginal shell beads (see SHELL MONEY) used everywhere east of the Mississippi for dress ornamentation, for weaving into symbolic belts. and as a currency medium. The beads were of two colors, white and purple, the latter being the more valuable. They were drilled, shaped. and polished with great care, and were sewn upon shirts, mocca sins, belts, and other garments in various orna mental designs. Having a fixed value and being of convenient carriage and in constant de mand, they came to be recognized as a regular aboriginal currency among all the Eastern tribes as well as by the early colonists, who by various governmental enactments gave them a legal value in comparison with the English and Dutch coins then in circulation.
Perhaps the most important use of \vamp= was in the symbolic record belts and strings which gave the stamp of authority to every in tertribal transaction. No message from one tribe or council to another was considered official with out the delivery at the same time of a string or belt of wampum. which was thenceforth preserved by the recipients as the proof and reminder of the negotiation, the belt being handed over to the keeping of the hereditary or chosen custodian of the records. Such belts usually had the beads
arranged in symbolic figures more or less sug gestive of the transaction thus ratified. Wam pum belts were used in the ratification of every important treaty negotiated with the Eastern tribes from the early colonial period down to the great intertribal treaty of Prairie du Chien in 1825. In 1843, at the intertribal council at Tahlequah. the Cherokee produced the belts which attested the peace made with the Iroquois before the Revolutionary War. The Iroquois themselves still preserve several of their ancient record belts; and others of historic importance are pre served among the archives of New York State at Alba ny and elsewhere.
Wampum, as commonly understood, seems to have been unknown among the tribes of the plains and mountains, but shell ornaments of various kinds were made and used on the Pacific coast for decoration and as a currency medium.