Photographs (left to right): Rio Grande, New Mexico; Niagara Falls, New York; Snowy Ridge, Wyoming

Wampum Belt Archive

 

Photograph Courtesy of the British Museum

Possibly Mailseet from New Brunswick, Canada

17th Century

Description:

Wampum consists of small cylindrical beads, often about 5-7 mm long and 1.5 mm wide. Historically these were made from purple and white shells, the purple coming from the edge of the quahog clam (Mercenaria mercenaria), and the white from the columns of univalve whelks (Busycon).

Wampum beads were manufactured by Algonquian-speaking peoples along the coast of New England, by Iroquois, and by white manufacturers (Dutch and British soldiers, for instance). Later they were made in specific factories in New Jersey and elsewhere, until the nineteenth century. In the early seventeenth century, the Dutch realized that wampum could be used as a currency in the inland fur trade with the Iroquois; they introduced the idea to the Pilgrims in Massachusetts in the 1620s.

The Iroquoian- and Algonquian-speaking peoples used wampum for decoration and adornment. It was also used to make woven belts, with the two colors acting as mnemonic devices commemorating agreements and events important in politics, history and religion. This example has a design of three rectangles, suggesting an alliance of three groups in war, suggested by the use of purple.

Before European contact, when metal tools became available, flat disc shaped beads were made. Metal drills enabled the creation of cylindrical beads. From the late eighteenth century these were replace by imitation glass wampum, probably made in Venice.

British Museum described the belt: the design consists of three rectangles, the one in the middle being 19 beads longs and 18 wide. with a second rectangle inside, 8 long by 6 wide. The two end rectangles are 31 beads long, by 16 beads high at one end, and 33 beads long for the rectangle at the other end: the internal rectangles of are both 10 beads long, and 6 beads high. The ground is of purple beads, with the design in white. The uprights of the rectangles are two white beads wide, and the horizontal bars only one bead high. The bottoms and tops of the rectangles run along the edges of the belt. Since the middle rectangle has two more rows, this necessitates a reduction by two warps of the belt, between 7 and 27 wefts from the white rectangle in the center. Whether this occurred pre- or post-collection is uncertain. The peculiar shape of the belt is visible in the registration drawing. At both ends, three purple beads in, are white stripes, 5 rows wide at one end, and 6 rows wide at the other. The belt is 370 beads long.

Described as a belt of the five nations of the Iroquois Confederacy by McWard at Dundee University, UK.

Kovak: BML Cat No Thno 1949 AM 22.119. Associated with eighteenth century Mailseet costume from Maine or New Brunswick.

References:

British Museum: http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlight_objects/aoa/p/purple_wampum_belt.aspx

British Museum: http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/search_the_collection_database/search_object_details.aspx?objectId=526681&partId=1

King, J.C.H. 1999. First peoples, first contacts. London, The British Museum Press

McWard. http://www.personal.dundee.ac.uk/~mcward/sourcesm/atefacts.htm