Wampum

Wampum belt in 1682 to William Penn , founder of the colony of Pennsylvania , the Great Treaty was presented

Wampum ( Massachusett and Narragansett wampumpe , wanpanpi , plural: wampumpeag , wanpanpiak "White [Pearl] chain" of wa [m] p "knows" and OMPs "chain") is in the Eastern Algonquian languages the name for beads from Sea snails and mussels , such as those used by the Indians east of the Rocky Mountains up to Saskatchewan, are generally used as a medium of exchangewere used and so also came to the tribes west of the Rocky Mountains. Here, however, they were only used as decorative items. But even in the East, in addition to their monetary character, they always retained properties of the individually valuable or even sacred . The handing over of a wampum underlined promises, contracts or marriages.

The wampum colors varied from white to purple to brown-black. The white specimens were mostly made from the 12 to 15 cm long snail clam Venus buccinum , the darker ones from the shell of the quahog clam ( Venus mercenaria , a subspecies of clams ). They were lined up on animal tendons or cords, which were then looped into a hand-wide mesh called the wampum belt.

Wampum belts with a special pattern, which belong to the so-called object font, were used to transmit messages and were exchanged for the transmission of important events (such as peace treaties or friendship alliances).

Wampum was made by the Indians of Long Islands , the Connecticut and Rhode Islands , especially Shinnecock , Pequot and Narraganset , while snail clams were no longer found in large quantities north of Cape Cod . These pearls came northeast along the trade route to Nova Scotia (Nova Scotia), their value grew disproportionately to the distance from the place of production.

The wampum trade seems to have existed before European contact. Around 1606, the manufacture and sale of pearls was observed by Marc Lescarbot , who also described this well. Before metal tools existed, the shells were ground into the correct shape on stone disks and drilled through with stone drills. Soon after contact with Europeans, the Indians used iron drills and began to produce large quantities of this item for trade with the Dutch and English, who in turn used it as a means of exchange or payment for pelts among the native and northern Indians. Tools, scraps of manufacture, and half-finished beads were found in abundance at Corchaug , Mohegan, and Narraganset sites from the 17th century . Wampum became a real barter and was probably an important means of getting the Indians of South New England into the European money economy.

See also

• Kula ritual (shell and gift exchange system in the Pacific Trobriand Islands)
• Shell money

literature

• Bruce G. Trigger (Ed.): Handbook of North American Indians . Volume 15: Northeast. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington 1978, ISBN 0-16-004575-4 .
• Ernst Doblhofer : Signs and wonders: The deciphering of lost scripts and languages. Dtv, Munich 1964.
• Harald Haarmann : Universal history of writing. Campus, Frankfurt / New York 1990, ISBN 3-593-34346-0 , page 38 ff .: Chapter Wampum and Kekinowin of the Indians of North America .
• Mario Schmidt: Wampum and beaver: fetish money in colonial North America. A Maussian critique of the gift paradigm. transcript, Bielefeld 2014, ISBN 978-3-8376-2526-4 .

Web links

Commons : Wampum  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Wiktionary: Wampum  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Elizabeth James Perry: About the Art of Wampum. In ElizabethJamesPerry.com. Private homepage, 2008, accessed on January 6, 2020 (English).
2. ^ Douglas Harper: Wampum. In: Etymonline.com. 2020, accessed on January 6, 2020.
3. ↑ comparisons Marcus P. Meuwese: "For the Peace and Well-Being of the Country": Intercultural Meditors and Dutch-Indian Relations in New Netherland and Dutch Brazil. 1600-1664. Doctoral thesis University of Notre Dame, Indiana 2003, pp. 45/46 (English; PDF: 3.8 MB, 517 pages on nd.edu ).