Nov 20, 2024 · For thousands of years, Indigenous people of America’s northeast region have crafted small, cylindrical beads called wampum from purple and white whelk and clam shells. Often woven into...

Wampum is a traditional shell bead of the Eastern Woodlands tribes of Native Americans. It includes white shell beads hand-fashioned from the North Atlantic channeled whelk shell and white and purple beads made from the quahog or Western North Atlantic hard-shelled clam.

Oct 5, 2017 · Wampum was white or purple beads and discs fashioned from two shells: the white beads from the whelk, a sea snail with a spiral shape, and the quahog, a clam with purple and white coloring. Quahogs are found in the waters from Cape Cod south to New York, with a great abundance in Long Island Sound.

Exchanges in what the Dutch West India Company called ‘New Netherland’ were fuelled by two categories of Indigenous materials derived from Haudenosaunee and Algonkian ecosystems: furs (particularly beaver skins), and wampum (a symbolically powerful shell bead, also used as substitute currency).

Wampum was and still is a cylindrical shell bead approximately 5.5 millimeters in length and 4.0 millimeters in diameter made mostly from the shells of whelk and clam. Before contact with Europeans, this small bead was made using stone drills.

Wampum is a bead made from the rim (purple part) of quahog clam shells and the inner, spiraled part of whelk shells. The shells were collected by the Native people, including the Unkechaug and Shinnecock, who lived along the coasts of Long Island. …

Jan 25, 2024 · Through study of the fur and wampum trade between the Lenape and Dutch in the 1600s, fourth-year history Ph.D. candidate Molly Leech is aiming to recenter Indigenous contributions to global trade.

“Wampum was white or purple beads and discs fashioned from two shells: the white beads from the whelk, a sea snail with a spiral shape, and the quahog, a clam with purple and white coloring. Quahogs are found in the waters from Cape Cod south to New York, with a great abundance in Long Island Sound.

Sep 18, 2020 · Wampum, which were small beads made from white and purple seashells found on the beaches of Long Island, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. Associated with spiritual power, wampum served several key functions in indigenous communities throughout eastern North America long before European contact.

In 1636, Pynchon built a warehouse at what is now Springfield, Massachusetts, and proceeded to gain a monopoly over the fur trade of the entire region. He had been so prudent as to acquire, from sources unknown, bushels of loose wampum shells.