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
Wampum eight white or four black wampum equalling one "stuiver", meaning that the white had the same value as the copper duit coin. The colonial government in New Jersey issued a proclamation setting the rate at six white or three black to one penny; this proclamation also applied in Delaware. The black shells were rarer than the white shells and so were worth more, which led people to dye the white and dilute the value of black shells. Robert Beverley, Jr. of Virginia Colony wrote about tribes in Virginia in 1705. He describes "peak" as referring to the white shell bead,