WAMPUM.

The use of wampum as a currency, or subject of barter and exchange, among the aborigines upon the northern portion of this continent, extends back to a very remote period, the antiquity of which we shall not attempt to determine. It was, probably, the first idea of an arbitrary standard of values suggested to the mind of the Indian in the portion of country now occupied by the middle and Eastern States of this Union and the Canadas. In another part of this work, frequent allusion is made to the wampum; and we there find that the first settlers in this part of the continent, for want of something better- which could hardly have been suggested at that time, if we decide from the results-soon accommodated themselves to the currency of the Indian. It soon found its way into the colonial exchequers, those of private institutions, and private hands—its arbitrary value being admitted and sustained for many years. The primitive wampum consisted of strings of small spiral fresh-water shells. As soon as the Dutch became fairly located in "Manhadoes"-New York- they caught the idea of wampum, and set about improving its manufacture by rendering it more convenient and beautiful. The beads, or constituents of wampum, were purple and white, about a quarter of an inch in length, and an eighth of an inch in diameter, and perforated lengthwise, so as to be conveniently strung. The white bead was manufactured from the sea-conch, and the purple from the muscle-shell, though not confined to those shells.

In the history of that portion of the Indians to which we have alluded, wampum became an "institution," being the medium of love, trade, religious ceremonies, diplomacy, and war. They were woven into belts, used in strings, and singly, and were arranged, by the disposition of colors, into figures, symbolizing objects, events, and acts. In fact, they were the chronicles of the Indian.

So far as they were a currency, they enabled the Dutch settlers to pile up fortunes of peltry; and, could we look into the past, we should, undoubtedly, see the foundation of many a Knickerbocker fortune which has been handed down to our own times. What the Dutch did at "Manhadoes," the English and others did farther east; and their examples were not lost upon their descendants, for gew-gaws have followed the Indian in his retreat before civilization, thus giving him shadows of value in exchange for his substance- the result of the battle and the chase.

"Alas! the poor Indian." He is still the prey of the white man's cupidity; and it is, in all human probability, his destiny so to continue till the last of his race — a wanderer amidst the splendors of civilization-shall have paid the debt to nature. For wampum and its components, see Plate V.