Wampum 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 white and purple beads made from the quahog or Western North Atlantic hard-shelled clam. It was used by the northeastern Indian tribes as a form of gift exchange, and the colonists adopted it as currency in trading with them. Eventually, the colonists developed more efficient methods of producing wampum, which caused inflation and ultimately its obsolescence as currency. Wampum was often kept on strings like Chinese cash. Before European
Puka shell some strings of beads are currently sold that are made from cone shells, but the beads in these necklaces were not formed by natural processes. They were instead worked by hand from whole shells using pliers to break the shell down to the needed part, and then subjecting the rough results to tumble finishing, in order to give each bead more or less smooth edges in imitation of the natural wear and tear a shell receives when tumbled in the surf over long periods of time. The original all-natural puka shells were very easily made into necklaces, bracelets and anklets