Wampum, tubular beads, are a Native art form for decoration, community building, and story-telling. For a relatively short time, wampum was used as a form of currency when Native tribes wanted to trade with colonial settlers.
throughout the ancestral territory of the Wampanoag, Narragansett, and Mashantucket-Pequot tribes, among others. In 2020, over 100 people of the Mashpee-Wampanoag tribe, led by Paula Peters and Linda Coombs, created an ornate wampum belt to tell a story and revive the tradition of creating wampum within their community, and to serve as the leading object of a traveling exhibit in the UK that was interpreting the 400th anniversary of the Mayflower’s arrival to Cape Cod. This wampum belt,
made with nearly 5,000 quahog beads, was also created to raise awareness for their search for an exceptionally significant belt, worn by their ancestor Chief Metacom (King Philip), which was stolen after he was murdered in battle. It is possible the belt, made of quahog shell, is still somewhere in England. Thank you to Paula Peters for help with this story. For more Animals in Sea History see www.seahistory.org or educators.mysticseaport.org.
One of the most meaningful and earliestdescribed wampum belts, of the treaty type, is known today as the “Two Row Wampum,” explained in the oral history and transcribed speeches of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois). Their leadership had achieved remarkable peace among themselves, uniting multiple tribes. In 1613 they then negotiated a treaty with the Dutch, presenting these new settlers on the Hudson River with the Two Row Wampum to commemorate the agreement. On the belt, two bands of purple beads ran parallel on a white-beaded river, one band representing the Dutch ship’s path and the other a Native canoe’s path, each riding parallel but on their own as equal, autonomous, and peaceful nations. Today, quahog remains a prized food, fishery, and medium of artistic expression Danielle Greendeer holds the recent Mashpee-Wampanoag wampum belt, crafted by over 100 community members.
“Sea History for Kids” is sponsored by the Henry L. & Grace Doherty Charitable Foundation
courtesy smoke sygnals
courtesy smoke sygnals
Only a couple of beads can be made from a single shell, so hundreds, sometimes thousands of quahogs need to be harvested and crafted to make a large wampum adornment for the wrist or neck, or for a long sash or belt. Although people have worn wampum jewelry or adornments informally, wampum garments have traditionally been created for sacred reasons and for storytelling. Some of these individual works of Native art have lives of their own for particular communities, similar to the life of a document like the Declaration of Independence or the passing down of a family Bible or Torah. Wampum belts are often too large or beautiful to be worn on a regular basis. They have been used as invitations to formal events, to document and signify treaties, to declare alliances, and to commemorate family and community connections.
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