Wampum the spoken language is. Records and treaties are kept in this manner, and individuals could write letters to one another in this way. Wampum belts were used as a memory aid in oral tradition, and were sometimes used as badges of office or as ceremonial devices in Indian culture such as the Iroquois. The 1820 New Monthly Magazine reports on a speech given by chief Tecumseh in which he vehemently gesticulated to a belt, pointing out treaties made 20 years earlier and battles fought since then. The National Museum of the American Indian repatriated eleven wampum belts to "Iroquois" chiefs
Puka shell a natural bead, and is known in Hawaii as a "puka". Real puka shells are not flat: one side of the bead is slightly convex; the other is concave. The concave side of the bead clearly shows the spiral form of the interior of the spire of the cone shell. Naturally-formed rounded cone shell fragments suitable to be used as beads are hard to find in large quantities, so true puka jewelry, formed entirely naturally, is now uncommon. Shell jewellery made from naturally occurring puka shells is also now more expensive because of the labor and time involved in locating