country meeting him upon the
shore offered him a string of beads made of the hard parts of shells as
an assurance of welcome. Similar gifts were often made to the great
discoverer, whenever the natives sought to win his favor or wished to
assure him of their own good will. These shell beads were afterwards
found to be in general use among the tribes of the Atlantic coast. At
the close of the sixteenth century the English colonists found them in
Virginia, as did the Dutch at the commencement of the following century
in New York, the English in New England and the French in Canada. The
pre-historic inhabitants of the Mississippi valley were also evidently
acquainted with their manufacture, as remains of shell beads have been
found in many of the mounds which survive as the only memorials of that
mysterious people.

These Indian beads were known under a variety of names among the early
colonists, and were called, _wampum_, _wampom-peage_, or _wampeage_,
frequently _peage_ or _peake_ only, and in some localities _sewan_ or
_zewand_. But generally sewan prevailed among the Dutch, and wampum
among the English. These names were applied without distinction to all
varieties of beads. This confusion arose naturally enough from the
scanty acquaintance of the whites with the Indian language. The word
wampum [wompam],[1] which has since become a general term, was
restricted by the Indians to the white beads. It was derived from
_wompi_, "white." The other or dark beads were called _suckauhock_, a
name compounded of _sucki_, "dark colored," and _hock_, "shell." The
name _Mowhakes_, compounded of _mowi_, "black," and _hock_, "shell," was
also sometimes applied to the dark beads. It thus appears that the
Indians divided their beads into two general classes, the _wompam_, or
white beads, and _suckauhock_, or dark beads. Both white and black
consisted of highly polished, testaceous cylinders, about one-eighth of
an inch in diameter and a quarter of an inch long, drilled length-wise
and strung upon fibres of hemp or the tendons of wild beasts.
_Suckauhock_ was made from the stem of the _Venus mercenaria_, or common
round clam, popularly known as the quauhaug; _wampum_ from the column
and inner whorls of the _Pyrula carica_ and _Pyrula caniculata_[2]
[Lam.], species known as Winkles or Periwinkles among fishermen, and the
largest convoluted shells of our New England coast.[3] These shells
were found in great abundance along the sea shore,