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
Kiffa beads same, i.e. red-yellow-black (dark brown)-yellow-red-white-blue-white. Often the obverse is decorated as well, and it is believed that different bead making families had their own distinct styles. For their wearers, all these beads held amuletic properties. The colours, shapes and the many different intricate decorative patterns all having specific meanings, most of them forgotten today. Diamond-shaped Kiffa beads were traditionally worn on bracelets, sewn onto strips of leather, and arranged in traditional sets composed of a specific ratio of blue to red to polychromatic specimens. Their patterns are believed to protect and to increase the fertility of their wearers and it