Wampum is a traditional shell of the East Woodlands Indian Indians. These include white shell beads made from the shells of North Atlantic shells and white and purple beads made of quahog or North North Atlantic hard shell shells. It was used by the northeastern Indian tribes as a form of gift exchange, and the colonists adopted it as a currency in trade with them. Finally, the invaders developed a more efficient method of producing wampum, which caused inflation and eventually its obsolescence as currency.
Wampum is often stored in strings like Chinese money. Prior to European contact, the wampum series was used for storytelling, ceremonial gifts, and record of important agreements and historical events, such as the Two-Line Wampum Agreement. According to Onondaga Nation, wampum is a living record and has many uses. This can include inviting someone to a meeting, showing a title, and indicating that the speaker is honest. At the Niagara Agreement in 1764, at least 84 wampum belts were exchanged.
Video Wampum
Description and creation
The term
The wampum beads are usually tubular, often a quarter inch long and eight inches wide. One 17th century Seneca wafum bracelet features nearly 2.5 inches (65 mm) long beads. Women craftsmen traditionally make wampum beads by rounding out small pieces of shell, then stabbing them with holes before scratching them. Drill wood pumps with quartz drill and steatite weights are used to drill the shell. Unfinished beads will be strung together and rolled on rocks that are ground with water and sand until they are smooth. The beads will be strung or woven on the deer hiding the rope, muscle, cow's milk, or wood fiber.
Maps Wampum
Origin
The term wampum is short for wampumpeag , which comes from the word Massachusett or Narragansett which means "white string beads." The Proto-Algonquian reconstructed shapes are considered * waÃ, Â · p-aÃ, Â · py-aki , "white strings."
In New York, wampum beads have been found dating before 1510. The founding Constitution of the Iroquois Confederate was codified in a series of wampum belts, now held by Onondaga Nation. According to Iroquois's oral history, Great Peacemaker uses wampum to record and convey messages.
The introduction of European metal tools revolutionized the production of wampum; in the mid-seventeenth century, production amounted to tens of millions of beads. The Dutch colonizers discovered the importance of wampum as money for inter-ethnic exchanges, and they began mass-producing in the workshops. John Campbell founded such a factory in Pascack, New Jersey that produced wampum into the early 20th century.
Usage
Among Iroquois
Iroquois uses wampum as a person's credential or authority certificate. It is also used for official purposes and religious ceremonies, and it is used as a way to tie tribal peace. Among the Iroquois, every head and every clan's mother had a certain wampum circuit that served as their title certificate. When they are forwarded or removed from their station, the string will then be forwarded to the new leader. Runners who carry messages during the colonial period will display wampum indicating that they have the authority to deliver the message.
As a method of recording and relief in telling, Iroquois fighters with extraordinary skills are trained in interpreting the wampum belt. As the Keeper of the Middle Fire, the Onondaga Nation is also entrusted with the task of storing all wampum records. Wampum is still used today in a new head-raising ceremony and in Thanksgiving Iroquois's celebration. Wampum is completely rare these days and uses only wampum strings.
The Wampum is the center for naming, where the names and titles of dead people are passed on to others. The man who died from the high office was quickly replaced, as the wampum written with the name of the deceased was placed on the shoulders of his successor, the successor could get rid of Wampum and refuse the name transfer. Interestingly, the receipt of the name may also transfer personal history, and the previous obligation of the deceased, for example, the successor of a person killed in war may be obliged to avenge the deaths of previous holder names, or care for the family of the deceased as their own.
... Iroquoians (Five Nations and Huron) share a very special constitution: they see their society not as a collection of living individuals but as a collection of eternal names, which over time pass from one individual holder to another..
Just as Wampum allows the continuation of the name and history of people, wampum is central to building and renewing peace between clans and families. When a man representing his social unit each meets with another, he will offer a Wampum that reads a mnemonic symbol that represents the purpose of the meeting or the message. The Wampum, thus, facilitates the most important practices in uniting the Iroquois community.
Currency
When Europeans came to America, they adopted wampum as money to trade with indigenous New England and New Yorkers. Wampum is a valid means of payment in New England from 1637-61; it continues as a currency in New York until 1673 at the level of eight white or four black wampas equal to one stuiver, meaning that white has the same value as a copper coin of money. The colonial government in New Jersey issued a proclamation setting a rate on six white or three blacks to a penny; This proclamation is also applied in Delaware. The black shell is rarer than a white shell and so precious, which makes people dip in white and melt the value of black shells.
Robert Beverley, Jr. Virginia Colony wrote about the tribes in Virginia in 1705. He described the peak as referring to a white shell, worth 9 pence yards, and wampom peak as a special shell shell dark purple is more expensive, with the rate of 1 shilling and 6 pence (18 pence) per yard. He says that these polished clams with drilled holes are made of
The process for making wampum is labor-intensive with stone tools. Only beach tribes have sufficient access to the basic shell to make wampum. These factors increase the scarcity and value of its consequences among European traders. The Dutch colonizers began producing wampum and eventually the main source of wampum was produced by the colonists, the Dutch-controlled market.
Wampum briefly became a legal tender in North Carolina in 1710, but its use as a common currency died in New York in the early 18th century.
Transcription
William James Sidis writes in his 1935 history;
The wampum belt weaves is a kind of writing with a belt of colored beads, where various beads designs represent different ideas according to the system that is definitely accepted, which can be read by anyone who is acquainted with the wampum language, regardless of what is spoken language. Notes and agreements are stored in this way, and individuals can write each other in this way.
The Wampum belt is used as a memory aid in oral tradition, where writing can be encoded in a wampum string. They are also sometimes used as office badges or as a tool of indigenous cultural ceremonies, such as Iroquois. They are traded extensively to the tribes of Canada, the Great Lakes region, and the Middle Atlantic. Loose beads that are in the general size, shape, and color spectrum are usually not considered to be of high value, perhaps because their origin as a memory aid. In contrast, large, ornate, belt stories are priced much higher. Wampum belt is not mass produced until after European contact. The length of the belt, usually six feet (2 m), may contain 6,000 beads or more.
The 1820 New Monthly Magazine reports on the fiery speech given by the head of Tecumseh, where he eagerly moves the belt, showing the agreements made 20 years earlier and the battle since then. Wampum is also used for storytelling. The symbol used tells the story in the oral tradition or spoken word. There is no written language, so wampum is a very important tool for storing notes and passing stories to the next generation. It's durable and can be carried away.
The Wampum belt is read right-to-left, rather than the left-to-right direction commonly used for the most widely used European languages ​​in the early post-Columbian period. & Lt; source? & Gt;
Recent developments
The American Indian National Museum repatriated eleven wampum belts to Iroquois heads at Onondaga Longhouse Six Nations Reserve in New York. These belts date back to the late 18th century and are sacred to the Longhouse religion. They have been far from their tribe for more than a century. Seneca commissioned a replica of five historic wampum belts completed in 2008. Artists continue to weave historical belts, as well as designing new belts based on their own concepts.
See also
- Great Law of Peace
- Hiawatha Belt
- Iroquois Economy
- Money money
- Quipu, Quechua recording devices are made of bound and dyed nodes
References
External links
- Wampum Articles, Iroquois Indian Museum
- History and Background of Wampum
- "Tribe and Country: History of 100,000 Years of North America" ​​
- X-ray showing inner spiral and whole skin Busycotypus Canaliculatus - Whelk Shell Channeled, Europa
- "Money Changers in New Netherland and Early New York", Coins , University of North Dakota
Onondaga Nation http://www.onondaganation.org/culture/wampum/
- http://www.chiefs-of-ontario.org/sites/default/files/files/Treaty_of_Fort_Niagara_Wampum_Belts.pdf
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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