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
Wampum contact, strings of wampum were used for storytelling, ceremonial gifts, and recording important treaties and historical events, such as the Two Row Wampum Treaty or The Hiawatha Belt. The term "wampum" (or "wampumpeag") initially referred only to the white beads which are made of the inner spiral or columella of the Channeled whelk shell "Busycotypus canaliculatus" or "Busycotypus carica". "Sewant" or "suckauhock" beads are the black or purple shell beads made from the quahog or poquahock clamshell "Mercenaria mercenaria". "Sewant" or "Zeewant" was the term used for this currency by the New Netherland colonists. Common terms for the dark and