Wampum at the Onondaga Longhouse Six Nations Reserve in New York. These belts dated to the late 18th century and are sacred to the Longhouse religion. They had been away from their tribes for over a century. The Seneca Nation commissioned replicas of five historic wampum belts completed in 2008. Artists continue to weave belts of a historical nature, as well as designing new belts based on their own concepts. Wampum Wampum is a traditional shell bead of the Eastern Woodlands tribes of American Indians. It includes the white shell beads fashioned from the North Atlantic channeled whelk shell and the
Puka shell and hand-picking these rather uncommon shell fragments from the beach drift. In modern times, beads cut from other types of shell, or even beads of plastic, are used to make imitation puka jewellery. Cone snail shells are sometimes harvested so that they can be chipped and ground down to make more authentic-looking puka jewellery, which is however still not genuine by the standards of the originals. A very glossy patina indicates that the shells in a necklace have been tumble polished. If the edges of the shell beads are chipped, the shells were harvested and manually broken into shape. If