Shinnecock Indian Nation western Connecticut, the lower Hudson River Valley, through present-day New Jersey, Delaware and Pennsylvania. Like the other Native peoples of Long Island, the Shinnecock made "wampumpeag" (wampum), shell beads strung onto threads that were used as currency, for record-keeping, for aesthetic purposes, and to symbolize a family. These shell beads have been found at Native American-inhabited sites as far west as the Rocky Mountains, showing their value in a trade. Although other New England tribes produced "wampumpeag", the Indians of Long Island are reputed to have made the best. Paumanac, one of the many names given to Long Island, means
Two Row Wampum Treaty tradition records not only the existence of a treaty, but its specific meaning, in the form of a Haudenosaunee reply to the initial Dutch treaty proposal: The treaty is considered by Haudenosaunee people to still be in effect. The Haudenosaunee tradition states: Wampum belts of the two-row style are merely one of many methods of representing in physical form the diplomatic and economic agreements implicit in the "kaswentha" relationship. There is clear evidence of Haudenosaunee use of wampum for diplomatic functions during the pre-contact period, while the post-contact period saw "increasing significance of wampum as a material form to facilitate