Wampum the spoken language is. Records and treaties are kept in this manner, and individuals could write letters to one another in this way. Wampum belts were used as a memory aid in oral tradition, and were sometimes used as badges of office or as ceremonial devices in Indian culture such as the Iroquois. The 1820 New Monthly Magazine reports on a speech given by chief Tecumseh in which he vehemently gesticulated to a belt, pointing out treaties made 20 years earlier and battles fought since then. The National Museum of the American Indian repatriated eleven wampum belts to "Iroquois" chiefs
Shell money central California used the marine bivalve "Saxidomus" sp. to make shell money. On the east coast of North America, the members of the Iroquois Confederacy and Algonquian tribes, such as the Shinnecock tribe, ground beads called wampum, which were cut from the purple part of the shell of the marine bivalve "Mercenaria mercenaria", more commonly known as the hard clam or quahog. White beads were cut from the white part of the quahog or whelk shells. Iroquois peoples wove these shells in belts. In parts of West Asia, "Cypraea annulus", the ring cowry, so-called because of the bright orange-colored ring