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
Prayer beads beads and have no religious purpose) has an odd number of beads—usually one more than a multiple of four, e.g. (4x4)+1, (5x4)+1. Since the beads are fingered in an automatic manner, they allow the user to keep track of how many prayers have been said with a minimal amount of conscious effort, which in turn allows greater attention to be paid to the prayers themselves. A fresco picture dating from 1600 B.C., recently discovered in Akrotiri of Santorini (ancient Thira), shows women handling a prayer rope of beads. The Desert Fathers of the 3rd to 5th centuries, used pebbles or