The original belt illustrated is a postdoctoral by De Lancey W. Gill of an Iroquois money belt taken in the 1890's. De Lancey Gill was in charge of the Smithsonian's Bureau of American Indian Ethnology's illustration department and the original negatives are in the Smithsonian. De Lancey W. Gill was one of about a dozen photographers who worked with Indians for the Smithsonian's Bureau of American Ethnology (BAE) between the 1850s and the 1930s. For an extensive biography on Gill and his work, see the magazine article in the History of Photography, Volume 7, Number 1, January 1983.

Why did Gill refer this wampum belt as a Money belt? Perhaps it was a common but errorenous concept that wampum was used as money by the indigenous population, but the colonists did in bartering. Unfortunately, this belief persists to today.