n
like manner, the Indian had never learned that use of his golden wampum
which was the first to suggest itself to the white man. He made and
valued it for other purposes.

A fondness for personal display and decoration are characteristic of
uncivilized life, and wampum was well adapted to satisfy this weakness
of the Indian. It was every where used for adornment of the person. The
humblest proudly wore his trifle, while the more favored ones were wont
to decorate themselves in countless gay and fantastic ways. It was
oftenest worn about the neck in strings of the length of a rosary, the
number of strings being determined by the means or social position of
the wearer.[11] Bracelets and necklaces were other forms in which it was
frequently displayed. With the females, head-dresses, consisting of
bands of wampum twined about the head and gathering up their abundant
tresses, were an especial delight. A border of beads greatly enhanced
the value of any garment, and outer clothing was usually thus
ornamented. Indeed the wealthy and powerful wore cloaks, as also aprons
and caps, thickly studded with wampum wrought into various fantastic
forms and figures. Says that old voyager, John Josselyn, "Prince
Phillip, a little before I came to England [1671], coming to Boston, had
on a coat and buskins thick set with these beads in pleasant wild
works." The moccasin was also, as at the present day, the recipient of
much taste and skill.

More of a luxury and confined mostly to sachems and sagamores was the
wampum belt, alternate white and purple strings attached in rows to a
deerskin base, and worn as a belt about the waist, or thrown over the
shoulders like a scarf. Ordinary belts consisted of twelve rows of one
hundred and eighty beads each, but they increased in length and breadth
with the social importance of the wearer. As many as ten thousand beads
are known to have been wrought into a single war belt four inches wide.
The regular alternation of white and purple rows was not always adopted,
but birds and beasts and such other rustic fantasies as suited the
owner's taste, were often interwoven with the different colors. One of
King Philip's belts surrendered by the Sagamore Annawon to Capt. Church,
was nine inches wide, of sufficient length when placed about Capt.
Church's shoulders to reach to his ancles, and curiously inwrought with
figures of birds, beasts and flowers. From another belt of no less
exquisite workmanship and d