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
Prehistoric beads in the Philippines in the site were that they were all whole beads and belonged to the following species of mollusks: "Cypraea annulus, Strombus canarium, Strombus luhuanus, Nassarius arcularius, Nassarius globosus, Nassarius albescens, Nassarius pullus, Pictocolumbella ocellata," and "Pyrene scripta". Together with these beads were other, larger decorative pieces. Other modified shell décor were the microperforated cut shell beads which were much more uniform than the previous two types. Of the beads in the Ille, these were of two main types, the organic and inorganic types. Of the organic beads, majority of them were whole, Neolithic-type beads. Formation of these beads were characteristically